Some time back I decided to watch every movie (that I hadn't seen already) featured in David Thomson's book Have You Seen...? I got up into the B's before it became clear that following someone else's lead on my movie selections wasn't going to work for, say, ten frickin' years. I'm not 23 and living in a hut with tons of time on my hands any more. But I go back to the book now and again. A couple weeks ago it was a DVD of The Battle of Algiers that I got from Netflix sometime in summer of 2013 and carried with me all the way to KC. It's pretty current, still.
Today (Fourth of July) I watched The Battleship Potempkin. Art movies are a pretty good deep relaxation method, the slower the better. (Curt Kirkwood said once that he doesn't practice guitar, but plays a lot while he watches TV.) I played my Gretsch archtop and tried to figure out how Lou Reed fits the syllables in the lyrics to "Sweet Jane" against such a simple progression in such a complex way. The soundtrack to the film is Tchaikovsky, so that must have sounded pretty weird to the neighbors. Total A.D.D.
The next movie in the book is Beat The Devil but I had better get Pablo down to Loose Park for a walk before I turn into a total slug.
