Starring Xavier, a short film review, a July 8 conversation...and a bit of catching up!

Many good things are happening, but I keep falling further behind on those books from 30 years ago. When I catch my breath, I'll address that--I wish I could hire my youthfully energetic 30 year-old self to help me out even with typing the titles of all the books she read. But she's become me and time travel remains stubbornly fictional. So I'll just have to do my best. I'll put the Pearlsong Conversation info into a sidebar to make it a little less confusing.

Now the film review and a link to a longer Body Impolitic piece on Fat Men in Film:



Briony Kidd's short film about an Australian fat man on welfare playing Macbeth , Starring Xavier
had me searching the internet for "fat men on film." I did a guest blog for Body Impolitic on that subject, which you can read here.


Kidd's hero, Xavier, beautifully played by actor, Jason Seperic, finds himself an object of ridicule in an amateur theatrical for "unemployed losers." Gradually, he begins to understand Macbeth's dark ambitions and finds ways to dig himself out of his depression and fight for what he wants. By the end of the film, he discovers a voice he did not know he had..

Starring Xavier is a 15-minute film and, due to my elderly TV/DVD player, I had to watch on my computer, but it was an uplifting experience. In an email, Kidd mentioned that a small film like this can take years to put together. My admiration for independent filmmakers increases the more I learn about this kind of devotion.


From March 14, 1979 to May 1, 1979 I read:

I Am Blind and My Dog Is Dead (cartoons) by S. Gross
Line of Duty by earnest Tidyman
Freeway by Deanne Barkley
Jazz-Rock Fusion, the people, the music by Coryell & Friedman
The Japanese Corpse by Janwillem van de Wetering
Idi Amin, Death-Light of Africa by David Gwyn
Instant Beauty, the Complete Way 6to Perfect Makeup by Pablo of Elizabeth Arden
The Great movie Comedians by Leonard Maltin
One Man's Fancy by Saxon
The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery by John Chester Miller
The Wise Wound - Eve's curse and Everywoman. Menstruation as a powerful and positive resource by Shuttle & Redgrove
1979 note didn't finish but will check out again- quite good
2009 note: I LOVED this 2009 blogger response, at Period Piece, "wtf"!
Mood Control by Gene Bylinsky
True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne
Callahan's Cross time Saloon by Spider Robinson
Fat and Alive and Thinning in America by T. I. Rubin, MD
The Women We Wanted to Look Like by Brigade Keenan
Buried in so Sweet a Place by Stanton Forbes
Grave Humor by Fritz Spiegl, Ed.
Writing a Novel by John Braine
My note: A good book, but not a good time for me to read it. Made me impatient so I skipped around in it.
A good review of it
Jack's Book, an oral bio of Jack Keroac by Barry Gifford and Laurence Lee
Note from the future, interesting that Barry Gifford would speak to our Mystery Writers of America group about Black Lizard Press
Celluloid Rock by P. Jenkinson and A Warren
Our Kind of People, American Groups & Rituals by Bill Owens
link
He, an irreverent look at the American Male by Florence King
My note: very funny
2009 note I later read her Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, also funny link
Big Star Fallin' Mama, 5 Women in Black music by Hettie Jones
Hettie Jones website

From March 14, 2009 to May 1, 2009
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Great book. Sad that
Larsson Larsson died in 2004, but at least he finished the trilogy.

Carved in Bone by Jefferson Bass
website

Spyderwick Chronicles, book 1, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

I have to stop here. If my hands could hold out I'd type a wonderful Holly Near quote I copied by hand in 1979 that starts "Popular music has contributed more tothe misery of women in the United States than any other single thing except maybe film and television"
Later maybe.

I’m liking this year better already!

This past week I read Holly Lisle’s Tayln, which took me just where I needed to go—away, but with fascinating characters in a believable “other” world. It was good enough that I was up till 1:00 a.m. to read the end. I also discovered Holly Lisle's web page with some great stuff for readers and writers!

Then there's heaven on earth starting today for lovers of the works of Jane Austen. PBS is presenting dramatizations of all the Jane Austen novels, beginning tonight, January 13th, with the last, though certainly not the least heartfelt, Persuasion.

The URL above also offers is a great interview with the legendary Andrew Davies, whose 1996 dramatization of Pride and Prejudice is still the gold standard for Austen (and which PBS will air Feb 10, 17 and 24th).

I had to laugh at PBS's Online Dating Profiles for the men of Jane Austen’s books!

January 6 to 12, 1978 I read:

Working, I do It for the Money, Bill Owens, author of Suburbia.
Note from 1978: Actually a photo collection, (Suburbia was also an interesting book—I read it in a bookstore in SF)
Note 2008—what? It’s a photo book I looked at all the pictures, standing up in a bookstore. It’s not like I could have afforded to buy the book, good as it was.

The Far Side of Madness, Perry
Note from 1978: Didn’t finish

Close to Colette, Maurice Goudeket

The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank, Erma Bombeck

Healing Benefits of Acupressure, Acupuncture without Needles, F. M. Houston
1978 note: Quite useful, Keats Publishing, Inc., must get several copies

January 6 to January 12, 2008 I read:

Tayln, Holly Lisle