I don't feel bad that I didn't go to see William Kentridge--who I'm told is a pretty great animator--talk and show his films today. I'd never heard of him before and I really wanted to eat lunch/take a nap. Also, and you may know this, I have a knee-jerk reaction to people saying "you HAVE to see/watch/listen to/read this ____" unless I really feel that the person telling me is on the same page as me. IN ADDITION, when the grad students in my class are saying it, I become particularly suspicious because, fuck they can talk shit sometimes (not always).

The other reason that I didn't want to go was that I felt pretty overwhelmed by all the stuff (other people call it "art") that I took in the day before:

1. Two films by Jean Vigo (who only made four films total*), Zero de Conduite and L'Atalante. The first about an anarchical boarding school where the kids stage a mini-revolt, the second a love story set on a French barge.

2. Episodes 9 and 10 of The Wire, 1st Season. At times in this show, things are a bit overwrought, but overall the whole thing-- the details, bureacracy, and strategy of police procedure--is just genius. And it never has to be melodramatic, the drama just comes so naturally. Episode 9 contains a chase sequence that had me cheering by the end.

3. Couldn't sleep so I read a bit of the new Best American Nonrequired Reading Anthology. Ryan Boudinot's "Free Burgers For Life" made me a) wish that I read more really cool literary journals that would contain such a story in the first place b) think that maybe just maybe I could have given creative writing a more serious go c) read the last paragraph so fast -- not just because I wanted to read the end, but because the tempo of the sentences seemed to accelerate somehow like everything was going to crash I just had to speed up like I had no control over it. Nothing crashed, but it left me feeling intensely crashed. Wow. I also read Beck's introduction to the anthology after 30 more minutes of sleeplessness. It's okay too.

So these are not recommendations (although you may take them as such if you trust me enough) but reasons why I did not go see William Kentridge's talk and films this afternoon -- I was still overwhelmed from the day before. How much ART can someone take?


*I actually love it when someone only puts out a tiny bit--or even manageable of amazing work. Then I can see/watch/listen to it/read it all and confidently say that I saw/watched/listened to/read it all. Cheers to: Jesus and Mary Chain, TIntin, Terence Malick. Fuck you, John Ford and Jacques Derrida.