The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Warren Sonbert Day

 

‘Warren Sonbert’s last 16mm film, Short Fuse (1992), was finished just three years before his death, of AIDS, at forty-seven. Like his other titles—such as The Bad and the Beautiful, Rude Awakening, Noblesse Oblige—this one evokes Hollywood action, gangster, and noir pictures. But the exact image it conjures—a bomb’s wick shedding sparks—is an apt icon for Sonbert’s explosive style.

‘Sonbert’s films consist of relentless montage. Scenes burst forth and quickly give way to the next. They inhabit the fringe of narrative, almost telling a story but never conveying character, conflict, or plot. Sonbert drew inspiration from his favorite Hollywood directors (Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk) and translated their languages of suspense and melodrama into the grammar of avant-garde American cinema. Four of his films were presented on January 13 at the Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, in a program called “Hall of Mirrors.”

‘The afternoon began with Sonbert’s first film, also called Hall of Mirrors (1966). Made while Sonbert was still a teenager in New York City, the work is the result of his early preoccupation with editing. It begins with a meditative montage, using still photography from the set of Michael Gordon’s An Act of Murder (1948), in which the characters are trapped in a funhouse hall of mirrors. Sonbert’s ordering of the stills skips and repeats, expressing the carnival’s manufactured vertigo and the stuck state of the protagonists. The film suddenly segues to a sequence shot in Rene Ricard’s apartment, where the artist smokes cigarettes and makes maudlin gestures amid eclectic décor. The dreamy melody of The Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee” (a witty echo of Ricard’s first name) offers an aural counterpoint to the angst conveyed by the artist’s facial expressions. The film’s final movement shows Warhol star Gerard Malanga contemplating his handsome visage in a series of reflective surfaces.

Hall of Mirrors feels like a complete, mature work. But it was only the beginning of Sonbert’s lifelong study of montage. In program notes for his best-known film, Carriage Trade (1971), Sonbert describes his distinct theory of montage as one “not strictly involved with plot or morality, but rather the language of film as regards time, composition, cutting, light, distance, tension of backgrounds to foregrounds, what you see and what you don’t, a jig-saw puzzle of postcards to produce various displace effects.” Whereas in Hollywood movies montage is used to condense time and move the plot forward, Sonbert makes the montage the whole story. His films are typically constructed of hundreds of discrete shots.

‘Between the films, the organizers played short audio excerpts of a talk Sonbert gave at the PFA in 1986, in which he uses the word “propulsion” to characterize his work. Indeed, these films move at outrageous speed. Yet Sonbert’s precise approach to each shot’s singularity, and the meanings that emerge in transitions, effectively slows everything down by insisting that viewers vigilantly attend to every frame. This contradictory feeling of time moving quickly and slowly at once seemed especially pronounced in the silent films on the program: Divided Loyalties (1978) and The Cup and the Lip (1986)

‘In another excerpt from his 1986 talk, Sonbert describes his process of sequencing shots by referring to Sergei Eisenstein’s technique of making meaning by juxtaposition. But while Eisenstein often combined images to build narrative tension or make a point about a figure’s ideological allegiances, Sonbert’s approach to montage is rarely so straightforward. Divided Loyalties and The Cup and the Lip accumulate imagery along certain thematic lines, signifying by aggregation. His “meanings” in each film are revealed slowly. Sonbert was infamous among his friends for carrying his camera everywhere. Much of the footage in Divided Loyalties was shot at amusement parks, circuses, parades; The Cup and the Lip also shows crowds, but from a more sinister perspective, with riots instead of thrilled circusgoers. Cats, playful in much of Sonbert’s work, are seen in attack mode in The Cup and the Lip. The film ends with a brief but awesome shot of the Hoover Dam, followed by a cat attacking a rubber eraser on a windowsill. The works, however intuitively coherent, are finally open to interpretation. Both films produce an atmosphere of frenetic public activity, reflected by the pace of Sonbert’s galvanic editing. They gesture toward the drama of mass spectacle, the terror and violent potential of the mob. His montage can also be funny, liberated from the pressure to appear ideologically or narratively pure. A shot of shirtless men drinking beer at a gay pride parade in The Cup and the Lip cuts abruptly into a shot of ducks playfully milling about on a placid pond. But there is no narrative resolution, just breathless movement at story’s frayed edges.

‘Sonbert’s resistance to plot structure dovetails with his interest in experimental writing, particularly that of the Bay Area Language poets, who concerned themselves with radical formalism, paratactic structures, and diffuse narratives. Lyn Hejinian, whose theoretical writings are key for the Language school, made a distinction between “closed” and “open” texts in her landmark essay “The Rejection of Closure,” and it seems particularly applicable to Sonbert’s output. The open method, Hejinian writes, is one in which “all the elements of the work are maximally excited,” resulting in a text that can never be limited to any one meaning. Bay Area poet Alan Bernheimer, also affiliated with the Language poets, introduced Sonbert’s films at PFA. Just as these Bay Area writers derived their language from a variety of sources—from overheard quotidian speech to formal Marxist theory and anything in between—Bernheimer emphasized Sonbert’s impressive range of formal sources.

‘As Short Fuse progresses, Sonbert’s imagery turns grim: burning trucks, armed soldiers racing out of buildings, hard-to-watch scenes of invasive medical procedures viewed from the bedside. There are a few shots of visitors at a Vietnam Veterans Memorial, followed by a gathering police force. We recognize them as San Francisco police, and the landscape as downtown San Francisco. The cops organize in a huge army, set up barricades, beat protestors. Finally, in a moment that feels more traditionally climactic than any other in these films, the protestors slough off their jackets to reveal ACT UP T-shirts and signs.

‘But such a scene, as devastating and unforgettable as it is, couldn’t be the culmination of Short Fuse or any other Sonbert film. Short Fuse shows the adjacency of the medical industry and state violence in a way that would have been clearly legible to AIDS activists in the 1990s—too pat for Sonbert, who railed against what he saw as the “simplicity” in Eisenstein’s montage. Instead, to the strains of Laura Branigan’s 1982 hit “Gloria,” we see a happy couple drinking champagne, among other delirious celebrations, as this painful film draws to its glorious, mortifying, ironic conclusion.

‘Waiting for the train home after the film, I ran into friends who had also attended the program. Each of us, I learned, had been brought to tears by the last minutes of Short Fuse. And yet it was difficult to really say what exactly prompted them. Sonbert’s cinema is witty, exhausting, sentimental, and full of rage. But it is never facile, and it never concedes to being any of these things all the time. To me, that seems to be its fundamental power.’ — Brandon Brown

 

____
Stills

































 

____
Further

‘The Tuxedo Theater: On filmmaker Warren Sonbert’, by David Ehrenstein
Warren Sonbert @ LIGHT CONE
WARREN SONBERT FILM COLLECTION
Warren Sonbert @ Canyon Cinema
WARREN SONBERT’S PROPULSIVE CINEMA
Charm Offensive: The Films of Warren Sonbert
Warren Sonbert @ MUBI
Warren Sonbert: A Remembrance
Book: ‘The Writings of Warren Sonbert’
WARREN SONBERT: TRUTH SERUM
The Worlds of Warren Sonbert
Warren Sonbert @ letterboxd
A Delicate Balance: Warren Sonbert’s Creative Legacy
Podcast: Howard Guttenplan and Warren Sonbert
WARREN SONBERT AND THE RELIEF OF ANTI-NARRATIVE
Brief Candles: The Films of Warren Sonbert
Filmmaker Warren Sonbert, 47
Postcards From Warren: The Cinematic Legacy of Warren Sonbert

 

___
Extras


The Warren Sonbert Collection Trailer


Warren Sonbert in a cafe in NYC writing in his schedule


postcards from Warren


Jonas Mekas on Jon Gartenberg’s preservation of Warren Sonbert’s estate

 

____
Brief Interview

 

How do you decide on the length of your films?

My new film’s length was locked in aco. to the duration of the music tracks (like a Balanchine ballet) (though the longest seq. – 20 mine. – combines 2 diii performances of the same piece of music: a concert version with a Quiet ending and an operatic intro to Gluok’s Iphpgenie in Aulis Cv.). In any case the new wk is 31 mine – somewhat longer than my usual (of late) 20 mine. 20 to 30 mine. for a film is long enough. All films even the good ones – are way too long at the standard 90420 mine.

Certain images recur in your films such as flowers, animals, landscapes,water, etc. Msinly very beautiful images. Do you choose your objects because they are beautiful?

Definitely net. There’s always a double edge to the beauty. Or I try to show stuff that is both attractive and sinister/deadly. Or really there’s both an appreciation of and yet a critical attitude towards the same image. If an Image Is merely beautiful then I try to have it enecreen for the ehorteet possible duration – the editing, the yanking away is the critical elant.

Do you like Bruce Conner’s work? Do you think that you’ve been influenced by him?

I love Bruce’s work and always show his films to my students but he’s no more big an influence than Markopoulee or Brakhage or Sirk or Keaton or Hitchcock or Ophule….

Do you think that advertising (such as tv commercial) Is/can be a kind of poetry?

Of couree – I’m no snob. Kubelka hae made commercials you know. I love poetcarde which are filled with poetry.

What do you think of MW?

I never watch it (save the work of my ex-students).

If you are commissionedto do an MTV music video for a group, what kind of video do you think you’ll make?

I’d love to do it though I’d make sure that the group is NEVER, NEVER shown so I don’t know how happy they’d be about ldmt. I hate it when you eee people mouthing the same words you’re hearing. In any case check out my new film, FRIENDLY WITNESS, which opens with the 4 greatest rook videos ever made (songs from the `50e/early `60e – pre egghead rock) – people should be faDing out of their seats.

 

________________
10 of Warren Sonbert’s 17 films

_______________
Where Did Our Love Go (1966)
‘Warhol Factory days… [Gerard] Malanga at work… girl rock groups and a disco opening… a romp through the Modern. My second film.’ — WS


the entirety

 

_______________
Hall of Mirrors (1966)
‘This film is an outgrowth of one of Sonbert’s film classes at NYU, in which he was given outtakes from a Hollywood film photographed by Hal Mohr to re-edit into a narrative sequence. Adding to this found footage, Sonbert filmed Warhol’s superstars Rene Ricard and Gerard Malanga in more private and reflective moments.’ — Jon Gartenberg


Excerpt

 

_______________
Amphetamine (1966)
‘In both provocative and playful fashion, AMPHETAMINE depicts young men shooting amphetamines and making love in the era of sex, drugs and rock and roll.’ — Jon Gartenberg

Watch an excerpt here

 

_______________
Carriage Trade (1972)
Carriage Trade was an evolving work-in-progress, and this 61-minute version is the definitive form in which Sonbert realized it, preserved intact from the camera original. With Carriage Trade, Sonbert began to challenge the theories espoused by the great Soviet filmmakers of the 1920’s; he particularly disliked the “knee-jerk’ reaction produced by Eisenstein’s montage. In both lectures and writings about his own style of editing, Sonbert described Carriage Trade as “a jig-saw puzzle of postcards to produce varied displaced effects.” This approach, according to Sonbert, ultimately affords the viewer multi-faceted readings of the connections between individual shots. This occurs through the spectator’s assimilation of “the changing relations of the movement of objects, the gestures of figures, familiar worldwide icons, rituals and reactions, rhythm, spacing and density of images.”’ — letterboxd

 

_______________
Divided Loyalties (1978)
‘Warren Sonbert described DIVIDED LOYALTIES as a film ‘about art vs. industry and their various crossovers.’ According to film critic Amy Taubin, ‘There is a clear analogy between the filmmaker and the dancers, acrobats and skilled workers who make up so much of his subject matter.’ — Jon Gartenberg

Watch the film VOD here

Listen to audio of Warren Sonbert introducing ‘Divided Loyalties’ here

 

______________
Noblesse Oblige (1981)
‘The style is relatively unchanged, but the images–press conferences, news events, disasters–convey his vision of the world in a new, direct, political fashion. Featuring startling footage of the City Hall riots after Councilman Dan White received a light prison sentence for slaying San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, Noblesse Oblige opens a new chapter on Sonbert’s career.’ — David Ehrenstein

Watch an excerpt here

 

_______________
A Woman’s Touch (1983)
‘What is a Sonbert movie like? ”A Woman’s Touch” exemplifies his current style. It begins with celebratory images of women, intercut with fireworks in some of the most dazzling sequences he has ever devised. Men enter the picture later, more threatening in appearance, often wearing uniforms and distanced from the camera. Depicting many people and activities, the shots pass quickly across the screen – relating to one another in multiple ways, suggesting notions and emotions that careen off one another in kaleidoscopic patterns. No ”messages” are thrown at the viewer, since Sonbert likes an indirect, even ambiguous approach. The bulk of the film explores various relationships between the sexes; the ending hints at a new male-female rapport.’ — David Sterritt

Watch an excerpt here

 

_______________
The Cup and the Lip (1986)
‘THE CUP AND THE LIP is a complex and challenging picture that will stimulate adventurous filmmakers for years to come. … Although its imagery is too dense, varied and fast-moving to be thoroughly parsed after one viewing, the film appears to be a regretful and perhaps sardonic essay on human frailty – and on the effort to stave off chaos by means of political and religious institutions, which carry their own dangers of social control and mental manipulation.’ — David ‘Sterritt

Watch an excerpt here

 

______________
Friendly Witness (1989)
‘In FRIENDLY WITNESS, Sonbert returned, after 20 years, to sound. In the first section of the film, he deftly edits a swirling montage of images – suggestive of loves gained and love lost – to the tunes of four rock songs. “At times the words of the songs seem to relate directly to the images we see…; at other times words and images seem to be working almost at cross-purposes or relating only ironically. Similarly, at times the image rhythm and music rhythm appear to dance together, while at others they go their separate ways.” (Fred Camper)’ — Jon Gartenberg

Watch an excerpt here

 

______________
Short Fuse (1992)
‘Sonbert was also a noted opera critic, and he frequently theorized about the relationship of film to other art forms, in particular, music. He analogized the notes, chords, and tone clusters of music to the progression of shots in film. The shot was the building block upon which Sonbert created the musical rhythms of his films. Sonbert published excerpts from his feature-film screenplay adaptation of Strauss’ Capriccio, his favorite opera, in 1986. Short Fuse, completed six years later, can be seen as a return to Capriccio’s themes, including ‘Nazism and eroticism, beauty and force, detail and structure.’ (William Graves) Underscoring a question raised by Capriccio–whether in opera the music or the libretto takes priority–Short Fuse is replete with a soundtrack that counterpoints the film’s visuals, prompting the viewer to ask whether the music or the imagery predominates.’ — Jon Gartenberg


Excerpt


Excerpt


Excerpt

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. ‘Major’ might be pushing it, but we’ll never know. A cool thing about Caravaggio is that he can be whoever you want him to be. I interviewed Derek J. ages ago for the LA Weekly. I think it’s in ‘Smothered in Hugs’. At the Chateau Marmont. He was very nice. So there’s the Sonbert post I managed to cobble together with your kindly tips. ** Ian, Hey there, Ian! Oh, good, about your having found a trustworthy friend to show your story to. Let me know what he says, if you feel like it. My fingers are additionally crossed should they be needed. Homemade pho, nice. Slurp. And Russian doom gets a slurp too, of course. Happy, healthy onrushing Xmas to you! ** Jes, Hi, Jes. Welcome. And thank you for coming in here. Two very good questions right there. I hope his name compelled him, no? ** Jack Skelley, Hey, Jack! Yeah, I had a double take, ‘is that typo?’ kind of moment there. Hugs with jingling attached bells. ** Corey Heiferman, I never met Lucien Carr. It seems like Mr. Ehrenstein might have as he seems to have met almost everybody of note. Hang in there for the next week, man. Sounds very intense. I didn’t have those issues with the Kaufman film while I was watching it, but it’s possible that, on second viewing, and with you having raised them, I might. There’s so much pleasure for me in seeing an American filmmaker/writer making something so intelligent in the ‘mainstream’ context that my opinion might gave it a big loan. I’m amazed he’s getting the big opportunities he is considering how good he is. My guess is that the opportunities will lessen since his stuff is probably not paying his benefactors’ bills as it is. No writers spring to mind re: Pessoa’s tech, no, but I’ll have a think. Very interesting area of interest there, man. ** Bill, Hi, B. I like some of Andre’s early stuff. He’s one of the majority of artists who gets known for doing a certain thing and then makes that his brand whereupon the returns begin to greatly diminish. Xmas cards. I only got two, and I think I can get away with being an ingrate in those cases maybe. I’ve heard of ‘Precarious’. It might be on one of my illegal sites, I’ll check. The only film I’ve watched in the past days is that new Bee Gees documentary for some whim-based reason. It was okay, although it didn’t get into their great psychedelic late 60s stuff nearly enough by my reckoning. ** _Black_Acrylic, Me too, about the Fleury. And, yes, I looked far and wide, and there’s no trace of the video online anywhere, which I think probably speaks to his objections. ** Misanthrope, It’s definitely pretty shit. But I guess it’s amazing those people agreed on anything. Or that’s the silver lining overlay. But, yeah, fuck them with a truncheon. Doctors over here are nicer and more competent, I think. Or I’ve been really lucky. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. Well, no one really knows, but apparently bisexuality is a serious option on his part, and, based on his paintings, it wouldn’t shock. Yeah, calling Haneke’s films manipulative was lazy and simplistic of me. I was typing too fast. It’s much more complex than that, I agree. I agree with your assessment. That makes sense. It’s more that I’m surprised I like his films as much as I do given the very pointed turns they take or something. Did you actually read ‘Juliette’ all the way through? I’m a big Sade fan, obviously, but I’ve never read him without skimming a hell of a lot. ‘In a Glass Cage’, interesting. I haven’t seen it since it was originally released. I remember being impressed that it hit the erotic/shocking crux so strongly when it did. And that it did so within a fairly good aesthetic look. I don’t remember much else about it, though. I think David Foster Wallace is one of the very, very best fiction writers in English. And in non-fiction too. His sentence-making abilities drop my jaw in wonder. Yeah, I’m a huge fan of his writing. I didn’t read ‘The Pale King’ because I’m suspicious of it since it was hashed together after his death and without his control. But I love pretty much everything else he wrote. So I guess that’s a recommendation. Your week sounds pretty set. Mine’s kind of a total blank. No plans other than maybe scoring another Buche and maybe a friend Zoom session and trying to stop procrastinating on some work I need to do. It doesn’t look wildly different than any other week, at least from this angle on it. I wish for infinite niceness from your week. You deserve it, bud. ** Okay. I managed to put together a Day about the late and wonderful American filmmaker Warren Sonbert, and I hope you’ll explore it because he’s a very interesting maker of movies. See you tomorrow.

12 Comments

  1. Ferdinand

    Hey Dennis, Enjoyed the xmass post the other day , specifically that council estate home made movie by that doc photographer from Scotland and also that black and white film Christmass USA 1950 , both were great time portals.

    Happy holiday season and here is a song for the xmass playlist for those on the spotify : Christmass is cancelled – the long blondes
    https://open.spotify.com/album/7fC1bclZSbg9nrHUWwxeYa?si=I6b-Vy-MSZqrOFzcZ9GKkQ

  2. Misanthrope

    Dennis, You have a count of how many original posts you’ve had for the blog over the years? I don’t know, just thought of that after seeing another new one today. Which, btw, is new to me (as usual).

    Yeah, just think of what they could’ve done with that $900 billion if they’d just used it for individuals and small businesses. Eek! If you read the details, yikes. Millions for horse racing? Wtf?

    Well, this latest doctor was very nice during the first appointment. Great bedside manner and seemed really competent. But then…bleh meh. Almost all the doctors I’ve dealt with have been pretty nice and I never thought they were incompetent. But I guess some have their priorities. And weirdly, the best doc I’ve ever had—aside from the ENT who saved my hearing at 9 years old—was a physician’s assistant years ago. Dude could just look at you or hear your symptoms and tell you what was wrong with you in the blink of an eye. My current doctor is kinda like that too.

    Oh, well. Onward and upward, you know?

  3. David Ehrenstein

    As you know,Dennis, Warren was a rahter importat person in my life. He put himself forth as a figue of overwhelming romantic fantasy and many were greatly attracted to him becausef that. He was the last Great Love of Jerome Robbins’ life. Across the brief span of his 47 years he also attrated the romantic/sexual attention of such diverse souls as James Leo Herlihy and Larry Kramer.

    Here’smy “Los Angeles Review of Books”piece about him

  4. David Ehrenstein

    There are some shots of the Silver Factory in “Where Did Our Love Go” Warren takes hi camera up in the old freight eevator and inside the place you can see a couple of the Flower paintings Back then everybody dropped bythe Factory at one point or another. Warren was a close friend o fGerard’s who is featured in “Hall of Mirrors”

  5. Bill

    Been meaning to check out Sonbert’s work for ages. This is very helpful, thanks!

    More seasonal pastry, a few good ones, but more conventional than your buche collection earlier:
    https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-christmas-cake

    Bill

  6. _Black_Acrylic

    Warren Sonbert is a new name to me and I enjoyed this Day. His 60s films may be considered minor works but they have a real charge. Friendly Witness too, so evocative.

    I received this cool calendar in the post today from a mysterious Berlin address. Dunno, maybe a seller of second hand records had kept my name on file? Nice anyway.

  7. Brendan

    Hey Dennis,

    Considering my background, it’s shameful I’ve never seen a Sonbert film. But I am repairing that now (at least by seeing digital versions.) He’s right in my Bruce Conner/Peter Kubelka/Hollis Frampton Wheelhouse.

    I can vouch for The Pale King, which I just read last year. I felt the same way as you for years but finally broke down. It’s wonderful. Of course we can’t know for sure what the final version would have been had he lived, but there’s so much luscious wonderful DFW prose in there that it’s worth it. Love, B

  8. brendan

    Hey Dennis,

    Considering my background, it’s shameful I’ve never seen a Sonbert film. But I am repairing that now (at least by seeing digital versions.) He’s right in my Bruce Conner/Peter Kubelka/Hollis Frampton Wheelhouse.

    I can vouch for The Pale King, which I just read last year. I felt the same way about it for years but finally broke down. It’s wonderful. Of course we can’t know for sure what the final version would have been had he lived, but there’s so much luscious wonderful DFW prose in there that it’s worth it. Love, B

  9. David Ehrenstein

    My piece on Marty and Jean-Pierre Melville appares in LARB on Sunday Here’s a preview Hit “Page Not Found” and you can read it.

  10. Steve Erickson

    I got the computer back today, and to make a long story short it’s badly damaged and will need more than $1,000 worth of repairs. (The shop had to order two parts which will come in some time next week.) I’m dealing with it, but I have to do a lot of preparation for bringing it back to the shop, and I’m afraid I may lose the music I have in iTunes. (They will be wiping the hard drive and installing a new OS.) I feel exhausted now.

    Here’s my 2020 film top 10 list: https://www.gaycitynews.com/in-a-streaming-year-these-were-best/

    It feels like Sonbert’s work spanned a long period of time, and I guess American culture changed a great deal from the ’60s to the early ’90s, but I didn’t know he was only 47 when he died. Damn.

  11. Brian O’Connell

    Hey, Dennis,

    This stuff blows me away. The clips of “Hall of Mirrors” (wow!) and “Amphetamine” alone are just incredible. And I of course love a Sirk fan. Must investigate further.

    I didn’t read your comment on Haneke as lazy or simplistic; I thought it was an interesting observation. Yeah, sometimes I feel like I should find what I’ve seen from him more pretentious and didactic, but I never experience his films that way. At least, not of the ones I’ve watched.

    Yes, I did read “Juliette” in its entirety: all six volumes of the 1,216 page Grove Press edition, over the course of a very strictly regimented four week period. (I don’t usually like to read like that, but I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to get through it otherwise.) I don’t blame you for skimming. It was a real challenge, what with the endless, slightly variating repetition of scenes and rather tedious philosophizing (and this after having already read, in relatively quick succession, his other major libertine texts—also all in full). The most exhausting part was the Pope’s discourse on murder, some thirty pages long. Still, Sade could never really be boring—well, maybe sometimes, but I find the obsessiveness of the whole thing interesting in and of itself. I’m glad to have read it, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever read it in full again. Maybe…

    There are definitely merits to “In a Glass Cage”; I’m still thinking about it, which is a good sign. It definitely hits the erotic-shocking dichotomy pretty well, and it is incredibly refreshing to see a well-made gay horror film that’s serious about itself and not just a lazy, tongue-in-cheek attempt at “camp”. That’s a real rarity, unfortunately. The only issue for me was that none of its excellent craft seemed to be in service of any actual insight: it felt curiously hollow at its core, without any substantial exploration of any of the many themes it aspires to tackle, especially fascism. But now I’m rambling.

    Wow, very high praise for Foster Wallace. Well, now I’m excited. I have to get around to reading something by him. Anywhere that’s a particularly good place to start, or should I just dive in?

    I may have made my week sound more “set” than it actually is—it really still amounts to the same thing as every other week in the past few months, milling around in my house—but I’m happy to have time with my family that’s a little more structured and am, of course, looking forward to the giving and receiving of gifts. Well, it’s not filled in, as you say, but what you do have for your week doesn’t sound too bad. May you maximize whatever pleasure you might get out of it for all it’s worth.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

© 2025 DC's

Theme by Anders NorénUp ↑