The Discipline of D.E.: Gus Van Sant Adapts a Story by William S. Burroughs

in Film, Literature | April 19th, 2011

Fans of film­mak­er Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunt­ing, My Own Pri­vate Ida­ho, Milk) will love this 1982 short film – The Dis­ci­pline of D.E. – based on a sto­ry by William S. Bur­roughs. And fans of Bur­roughs him­self will par­tic­u­lar­ly love its theme: The “D.E.” in the title stands for “Doing Easy,” a qua­si-Bud­dhist notion best explained by the short­’s koan-like clos­ing ques­tion, “How fast can you take your time, kid?”

But it is to fans of Bur­roughs’ brief per­for­mance in the 1989 Van Sant clas­sic Drug­store Cow­boy that we ded­i­cate this post. Play­ing the kind, ruined dope-fiend Father Mur­phy — i.e. him­self — Bur­roughs per­fect­ly embod­ied both the allure of his junky aes­thet­ic and its under­ly­ing despair. In the six years between The Dis­ci­pline of D.E. and Drug­store Cow­boy, Van Sant seemed to have trad­ed his youth­ful infat­u­a­tion with a cult hero for the mourn­ful appre­ci­a­tion of a wise but bro­ken man. We high­ly rec­om­mend view­ing both films togeth­er.

Final­ly, in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, you will also find Bur­roughs the Movie (a doc­u­men­tary by Howard Bruck­n­er) and The Junky’s Christ­mas, a short clay­ma­tion film writ­ten by William S. Bur­roughs and pro­duced by Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The Pale King: How the Book Came Together (and How to Download the Novel in Audio)

in Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | April 18th, 2011

When David Fos­ter Wal­lace com­mit­ted sui­cide in Sep­tem­ber 2008, he left behind the man­u­script for The Pale King, an unfin­ished nov­el he start­ed research­ing back in 1997, not long after the pub­li­ca­tion of Infi­nite Jest. The Pale King was final­ly pub­lished this past Fri­day (April 15), a date that was hard­ly arbi­trary. Offer­ing a lengthy med­i­ta­tion on bore­dom, The Pale King is set in a Mid­west­ern I.R.S. office. And what was April 15th? The day when Amer­i­cans tra­di­tion­al­ly file their tax­es (although they have until the 18th this year).

The posthu­mous nov­el came togeth­er with the help of Wal­lace’s long­time edi­tor, Michael Pietsch, who spent two years work­ing through heaps of pages left in bins, draw­ers and wire bas­kets, hop­ing to turn this mass of mate­r­i­al into the most com­plete nov­el pos­si­ble. The inter­view with Pietsch above, along with this short piece in The New York Times, brings you inside the editing/making of The Pale King, which has already received some favor­able reviews.

If you’re look­ing to get your hands on the book, give this some thought: If you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load pret­ty much any audio book in Audi­ble’s cat­a­logue for free. And that cat­a­logue now includes The Pale King. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion (as I did), or can­cel it, and still keep the free book. The choice is yours…

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Cormac McCarthy (RIP) and Werner Herzog Talk Science and Culture

in Film, Literature, Physics | April 14th, 2011

To kick off this won­der­ful episode of Sci­ence Fri­day (lis­ten below), physi­cist Lawrence M. Krauss sug­gests that sci­ence and art ask the same fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: Who are we, and what is our place in the uni­verse?

Over the next hour, Krauss is joined in his explo­ration of this ques­tion by the great film­mak­er Wern­er Her­zog (Griz­zly Man, Encoun­ters at the End of the World) and 2000 Pulitzer Prize win­ner Cor­mac McCarthy (The Cross­ing, The Road, No Coun­try For Old Men). Much of their dis­cus­sion revolves around Her­zog’s lat­est film, the 3‑D doc­u­men­tary The Cave of For­got­ten Dreams, but they also address bot­tle­neck the­o­ry, com­plex­i­ty sci­ence, the his­to­ry of paint­ing, and the upcom­ing rise of the machines.

High point: Her­zog reads a pas­sage from McCarthy’s All the Pret­ty Hors­es (38:00).

Low point: Her­zog asserts that Star Trek lied — human beings will nev­er learn to instant­ly trans­port from plan­et to plan­et. Krauss con­firms, and Trekkie hearts all over the world break into tiny unbeam­able pieces (17:00).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cor­mac McCarthy’s Three Punc­tu­a­tion Rules, and How They All Go Back to James Joyce

How Cor­mac McCarthy Became a Copy-Edi­tor for Sci­en­tif­ic Books and One of the Most Influ­en­tial Arti­cles in Eco­nom­ics

Nov­el­ist Cor­mac McCarthy Gives Writ­ing Advice to Sci­en­tists … and Any­one Who Wants to Write Clear, Com­pelling Prose

via Metafil­ter

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Photos of Famous Writers (and Rockers) with their Dogs

in Life, Literature, Music | April 12th, 2011

Cour­tesy of New York Social Diary, here is a love­ly series of pho­tographs fea­tur­ing famous authors and their dogs. If you’ve ever won­dered which breeds have served as muse to William Sty­ron, Stephen King, William F. Buck­ley, Kurt Von­negut, then this col­lec­tion is for you. But be warned: We’re still recov­er­ing from the sight of that Lhasa Apso flopped on Von­negut’s lap–we were hop­ing for a wolfhound.

For more artist-canine com­bi­na­tions, Fla­vor­wire has round­ed up a col­lec­tion of musi­cians and their dogs. Unlike the authors, these own­ers real­ly do look like their pets. (See Robert Plant.)

via @brainpicker and The Mil­lions

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Updated Book Titles: Less Pretentious, More Accurate

in Comedy, Literature | April 11th, 2011

Over at OhNoThey­Did­n’t, you can find some alter­na­tive titles for some of the most famous books ever writ­ten — or, in ONDT’s own words, titles that are “more accu­rate and less pre­ten­tious” than the orig­i­nals.

Before click­ing over to the (slight­ly NFSW) whole col­lec­tion, test your high/low cul­tur­al agili­ty by try­ing to guess a few orig­i­nals from their updates:

1. My Dad is Cool­er Than Your Dad

2. Emo­tions Are For Poor Peo­ple

3. Shake­speare Minus the Good Writ­ing

4. Lik­able Rapists

5. White Peo­ple Ruin Every­thing

If you got all five right, nay, if you got any right, we’re count­ing on you for the Clue­less sequel.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Billy Collins Poetry Brought to Animated Life

in Art, Literature, Poetry | April 7th, 2011

Who does­n’t love Bil­ly Collins, the for­mer US Poet Lau­re­ate? The actor Bill Mur­ray reads his poet­ry at con­struc­tion sites. Adorable tod­dlers recite his poet­ry from mem­o­ry. And now artists have cre­at­ed ani­mat­ed videos that bring 11 Collins poems to life. You can find the ani­mat­ed ver­sion of “Budapest” above, and the remain­ing poems at Bil­ly Collins Action Poet­ry.

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Soviet Scifi Cinema: The Other Tolstoy in the Movies

in Film, Literature, Sci Fi | April 6th, 2011

Seen by over 20 mil­lion Rus­sians when it came out in 1965, The Hyper­boloid of Engi­neer Garin was a film based on a 1927 nov­el by Alek­sey Niko­layevich Tol­stoy, who is not to be con­fused with his famous rel­a­tive Leo Tol­stoy. This Tol­stoy is gen­er­al­ly thought of as the father of Russ­ian sci­ence fic­tion, and The Garin Death Ray was one of his most famous books (Vladimir Nabokov con­sid­ered it his best).

Hyper­boloid was writ­ten and direct­ed by Alek­san­dr Gintzburg, a high­ly gift­ed cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er who nev­er quite reached the career heights his tal­ent might have war­rant­ed, in part because of his Jew­ish ori­gins, and in part because of the nar­row range of artis­tic free­dom allowed direc­tors work­ing for the State-run cin­e­ma. Gintzburg stayed well with­in that range for this film, which leaves us with an odd­ly com­pelling mix of Sovi­et pro­pa­gan­da and 60’s pop-sci­fi.

As for the plot… we’d rather not give any­thing away. Just think of it as a beau­ti­ful­ly-lit pro­to-1984, with sub­ti­tles and laser beams, star­ring Big Broth­er as the good guy.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The Shape of A Story: Writing Tips from Kurt Vonnegut

in Books, Literature, Writing | April 4th, 2011

A few years ago, Open Cul­ture read­ers list­ed Slaugh­ter­house Five as one of your top life-chang­ing books. But Kurt Von­negut was not only a great author. He was also an inspi­ra­tion for any­one who aspires to write fic­tion – see for exam­ple his 8 rules for writ­ing fic­tion, which starts with the so-obvi­ous-it’s-often-for­got­ten reminder nev­er to waste your read­er’s time.

In this video, Von­negut fol­lows his own advice and sketch­es some bril­liant blue­prints for envi­sion­ing the “shape” of a sto­ry, all in less than 4 min­utes and 37 sec­onds.

FYI. Orig­i­nal works by Von­negut appear in Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ray Brad­bury Gives 12 Pieces of Writ­ing Advice to Young Authors (2001)

John Steinbeck’s Six Tips for the Aspir­ing Writer and His Nobel Prize Speech

Writ­ing Tips by Hen­ry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Mar­garet Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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