I'm in love with the modern world

Having A Coke With You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irun, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne

or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona

partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian

partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt

partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches

partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary

it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still

as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it

in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth

between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint

you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

                                                          I look

at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world

except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick

which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time

and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism

just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or

at rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me

and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them

when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank

or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't oick the rider as carefully

as the horse

                 it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience

which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I'm telling you about it

    

      Frank O'Hara

There are an awful lot of Marini's Riders out there, but this one's at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and this poem comes into my head every time I see him. You don't get so many echoes of Frank in Sydney.

like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing

No-one knows how to put people in a landscape like Antonioni. 

ought to make a few reputations in the cult of number one

So I was watching Mystery Train, admiring the way Joe Strummer expertly slouches over jukeboxes and Steve Buscemi and I got to thinking about other musical hearthrobs and their forays into film. It happens more often than you'd think, so this list is highly selective, arbitrary, and largely just counts cameos dear to my fickle heart.Perennial fave Richard Hell turns up a lot, a fact we all ought to be grateful for. Some kind of punk answer to the nouvelle vague, not so much acting as being. That's okay with me.
Chris Isaak arrives with Keifer Sutherland in tow to Twin Peaks in Fire Walk With Me (as does Bowie, but then he's in everything), and gets the John Waters treatment in A Dirty Shame. This guy is a lot cooler than he's been given credit for.
Mos Def knows where his towel is.
Cherie Currie with fellow Foxes (which I'm dying to see) Scott Baio and Jodie Foster

Marianne Faithfull in Made in U.S.A. giving Anna K a run for her money. 

You could probably have an entirely separate list comprised exclusively of Rolling Stones' exes.

and oh, Jarvis! Animated but unmistakable in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox.

Honorable mentions go to Richard Hawley lurking as a rockabilly DJ avoiding zombie teddy boys in Flick, M. Ward being um a musician alongside the luminous Lou Taylor Pucci in The Go-Getter, Tom Waits in everything from big budget horrors (Bram Stoker's Dracula) to small criminal masterpieces in black & white (Down By Law).

As for actual bands in movies, that's a whole other story. Because really, what self-respecting teen movie was without a live band for the big prom scene?

you know exactly what I mean

WATCHING:

old favourites

bureaucratic nightmares

WANTING:

saturday night dancing (holla, Jingle Jangle)

a Janelle Monae Sydney sideshow, please please please

he has very good hair

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. devour old films, new films, music, books, painting, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'it's not where you take things from - it's where you take things to'."

 - Jim Jarmusch

you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling

I’ll concede to the critics that there’s no character development to speak of, and it sure doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, but there’s still a lot to like about Inception. Chiefly: this guy, in a suit.

Oh Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it’s nice to know my early teen crushing out was entirely justified! (no really, I used to watch 3rd Rock From The Sun for him) Underage hustler, highschool gumshoe, co-conspirator in mindfuckery, not to mention metaphor laden stoner Jesus, is there anything he can’t do? JGL grew up dangerously cute and unfairly talented. Let’s just concentrate on the incredible singing and dancing and not mention (500) Days of (B)ummer - apart from this little wonder:

in between the sheets

things go better with Mayer Hawthorne