Earlier
[a few bits of formatting changed, but otherwise identical to its July
2001 incarnation, including thoughts at the bottom I'd modify somewhat
if I were writing them now. i still haven't read the last book and a
half of the aeneid; Homer's a whole lot better.]
[fas.harvard.edu]
Login name: farris In real life: David Farris
Office: , Home phone: ph me for it
Directory: /home/f/a/farris Shell: /shells/_tcsh
David Farris (farris) is not presently logged in.
Last seen at is07 on Sun Jul 15 23:40:45 2001 from DEPARTMENT-OF-ALCHEMY.MIT.EDU
No mail.
Plan:
"They wanted in Hollywood to make the definitive spy picture. And they came to
me to supervise the project, you know, because I think that, if you know me at
all, you know that death is my bread and danger my butter - oh, no, danger's my
bread, and death is my butter. No, no, wait. Danger's my bread, death - no,
death is - no, I'm sorry. Death is my - death and danger are my various breads
and various butters."
-Woody Allen, "What's Up, Tiger Lily?"
-----------------------
"Do math, and you can do anything".
-the radio
-----------------------
Kirsten and I are going to Berkeley next fall. Yay! A forwarding address
for me will be d a v i d f a r r i s a t s i g n p o s t d o t h a r v
a r d d o t e d u .
-----------------------
Now reading:
The Aeneid (Vergil)
Started but may never get through:
Asimov on Astronomy (essay collection)
Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology (Bott and Tu)
The little I've read this school year:
Yours, Isaac (selected correspondence of Asimov)
Wampeters, Foma, and Grandfalloons (essays of Vonnegut)
oodles of articles about American Independent film (for VES 158br)
Jazz (Toni Morrison)
Another Fine Myth (Robert Asprin) (R a whole bunch of times long ago)
The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)
The Mezzanine (Nicholson Baker)
Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie)
The Wall and the Books; Tlon Uqbar, Orbis Tertius;
The Garden of the Forking Paths (Jorge Luis Borges)
Marvels of a Floating City (Xi Xi)
The Inspector-General (Nikolai Gogol)
Videos I've seen recently:
Undertone (Vito Acconci) Vertical Roll (Joan Jonas)
Electronic Opera #1 (Nam June Paik)
Movies I saw on bus and plane trips to/in Europe:
Miss Congeniality Shanghai Noon (R) (dubbed into Spanish)
Shanghai Noon (R) (Spanish)
Plays and Movies I saw during the 2000-1 academic year(some are shorts):
Love Story (Hiller, with Crimson Key banter) (R)
Fellini Satyricon (1969,Fellini) La Strada(Fellini)
The Freshman (1925,Lloyd (star/producer)Traffic (2000,Soderbergh)
Dogma (Smith) (R) Memento (2000, Chrisopher Nolan)
The Empire Strikes Back (R?) What's Up, Tiger Lily? (Allen)
Hair (musical,Wellesley coll student prod) Star Wars (Lucas) (R)
Faat-Kine (2000,Sembene) Guelwaar (1992,Sembene)
Borom Serret (1966,Sembene) Mandabi (Sembene)
The Book of Life (1997,Hartley) Black Girl (1966,Sembene)
Supermarket Sweep (Aronofsky) Jama Masjid Street Journal(Nair)
The Matrix (1999, Wachowski Bros.) (R) Slapshot
Swoon (1992, Kalin) Postcards (Rappaport)
Manos, the Hands of Fate (1966) Rambo: First Blood, Part II
Stranger than Paradise (Jarmusch) She's Gotta Have It (Lee,1985)
Mrs. Miniver (Wyler, 1942) Superstar (Haynes)
a movie about a woman who...(Rainer) Grand Illusion (Renoir)
The Manchurian Candidate (R) (Frankenheimer)
Duck Soup (R) (1933,McCarey) Sink or Swim (Sue Friedrich)
Tierra (1996,Medem) Spite Marriage (Keaton)
Illusions (Dash) Bonds (Chaplin)
Face/Off (2000,John Woo) Killer of Sheep (Burnett)
Men in Black Summer of Sam(1999,Lee)
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (Richie)
The Emperor of California (1936,Trenker) Romeo Must Die (2000, Bartkowiak)
Lost Lost Lost (Jonas Mekas) Live and Let Die (R) (1973,Hamilton)
David Holzman's Diary (McBride) Bottoms (Yoko Ono)
parts of Dog Star Man (Brakage) Vestibule in Three Episodes (Kobland)
Nostalgia (Frampton) 11x14 (Bening)
Bamboozled (2000,Lee) Legend of Bagger Vance(2000)
Hitler Youth Quex The Cool World (Clarke)
Mathematica Peepshow (Eames) Information Machine (Eames)
REPORT (Conner) BREAKAWAY (Conner)
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein,1925) Hold Me While I'm Naked (Kuchar)
Screen Tests (Warhol) Beauty No. Two (Warhol)
Blonde Cobra (Jacobs,Smith) Architecture of Doom
Mother Courage and Her Children (play) Shadows (1959, Cassavetes) (R)
Pull My Daisy Corpus Christi (play)
The Lady From Shanghai (1947, Welles) Shadows (1959, Cassavetes)
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993,Mu:ller)
Mothlight (1966, Brakhage) Geography of the Body (1943, Maas)
At Land,Meshes of the Afternoon (1943,Deren) The Doctor's Dilemma (play)
Within Our Gates (1920, Micheaux) Olympia Part I (1938,Riefenstahl)
Rabbit's Moon (1950,Anger) The Lead Shoes (1949, Peterson)
Fall of the House of Usher (1928, Watson and Webber)
Pie in the Sky (1934, Steiner) The Lonedale Operator (1911, Griffith)
The Life and Death of 9413--A Hollywood Extra (1928, Florey and Vorkapitch)
The Wedding Banquet (1993, Ang Lee) Triumph of the Will (1934,Riefenstahl)
Rose Hobart (1936,Cornell) Wayne's World (1992)
[semester break]
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(R)(2000,Lee) Dr. Jack (1922,Keaton)
Waiting for Guffman (1996,Guest) Shaft (2000,Singleton)
Fear of a Black Hat(R) (1993) All About My Mother (R) (1999)
A Hard Day's Night (1964) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Rumble in the Bronx(R) (1995) The Sting, Part II (1983)
Gorgeous (1999) Mysteries of Egypt (Imax) (1998)
A Night at the Opera(R) (1935) Best in Show (2000)
Requiem for a Dream (Arnofsky,2000) Legend of Drunken Master (1994)
The Heidi Chronicles (1995) Arcadia (R) (play)
Animal Crackers(R) (1930) Duck Soup (R) (McCarey,1933)
Bound (1996) Casablanca (Curtiz,1942)
The Coconuts(R) (1929) Airplane! (R) (1980)
The Big Store (1941)
(R)=I'd seen the play or movie before.
Duck Soup is my all-time favorite, and Animal Crackers is easily the next
best Marx Brothers movie. Of the other ones listed above, I think
Stranger than Paradise, Shadows, Grand Illusion, Memento, Fellini
Satyricon and Battleship Potemkin are the best (though not in that
order). Off the top of my head, my favorite directors, are (also not in
order): Keaton, Chaplin, Cassavetes, Sembene, Aronofsky, Woody Allen, Ang
Lee, and Fellini (though I'm not sure I understood either of the Fellini
movies I've seen). As thorougly as I enjoy Kevin Smith's first two
movies, I think he's a much better writer than director. I should see more
Renoir and Eisenstein before adding them.