Sam’s Place

We went w/ Mr Blank & Luce to see Matt Dillon as a Bukowski stand-in for Bukowski (Factotum). It’s some kind of semi-European, quasi-indie film, & it really makes you realize how good Hollywood is at what it does (would’ve been better off seeing the goshdarn snakes on the goshdarn plane, or the remake of The Wicker Man), when you’re sitting there through the whole movie aware that you’re sitting there watching a movie.

I tried to read a Bukowski book once — not sure which one — but failed. At Mr B’s recommendation I’m gonna try Post Office soon, which, if I’m not mistaken, is, ironically, the book that the terrible movie I just saw is based on. After the troll-next-seat movie-going experience, I noticed that the seats at the Embarcadero theater are also small, making me think: have my shoulders recently grown? Anyway, from now on I’ll be looking for aisle seats.

The Bukowski, or Bukowski-inspired, narration to Factotum was boring & pretentious (art about the artiste’s artistry), but I think I might be missing something. A writer I like, Michelle Tea, is Bukowski-inspired. Ms Tea grew up a few blocks from where I did, though always 7 years later. There’s so much overlap between her life & mine (other than the lesbianism & prostitution) that I actually recognized one of the people in her Chelsea Whistle, despite the nom de fiction she gave him. Like you’d expect from a good Proustian, Tea remembered things about my childhood that I’d forgotten — like the taste of free lunches in the summer.

So rent Drugstore Cowboy, read Chelsea Whistle, & give Factotum a pass.

—-

& implications of the demographic transition: http://www.progressdaily.com/2006/09/04/317/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 1:44 am and is filed under Books, DVDs & Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.