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RIP Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall, and also actress Arlene Martel, who I met at the Rod Serling Conference last year, still trying to keep herself out there in typical L.A.-style. This isn't one of those, "How dare they forget such-and-such?" notes. Just a nod to the one I had a brief connection with...
Etgar Keret says a lot of things perfectly. This bit from his interview in Granta is no exception...
Who wants to see where I spent my preteen mallrat years in a state of urban decay?
These photos break my fucking heart. The building is still walking distance from the house I grew up in. I haven't been inside it in at least 15 years. Those lounge pits you see are exactly as I remember from the '80s, except the vinyl covering the seat cushions was a red violet instead of blue, if memory serves. And there are a lot of memories. Buying 45s, then, as technology progressed, cassette singles at the record store. The Burger King that came, went, and came back where I got many a lunch after swimming lessons and learned the joys of the bacon double cheeseburger. The Waldenbooks where I'd buy the Target novelizations of classic Doctor Who episodes, and perusing other books that no 10 year old had any business going through, but I got away with it as long as I wasn't anywhere near the Playboy section of the magazine rack. I was never ever asked to stay away from the "personal massagers" section of the Spencer Gifts, for that matter. All the classic Star Wars action figures and other collectible toys that sell for hundreds of dollars now that my parents paid the '80s equivalent of hundreds of dollars to Kay Bee Toys back then... ah well, the past is past.
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Next up in my movie queue: Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain.
I once met this very good writer. She told me that sometimes she comes upon a metaphor or a description and she writes it down on a notecard and keeps it in a box. Then when she writes a story and her character is taking a walk, she thinks OK, I’ll take a walking image from my box of notes. And I said to her, ‘Why? The guy is already walking.’ I don’t think a text should be beautiful. We’re trying to say something, to help something. It’s like sticking a feather on a guy’s back. You know he either grows wings for evolutionary reasons or he doesn’t have feathers. That’s my attitude to writing – although there are writers whom I love who I can see obviously don’t write this way.3
Who wants to see where I spent my preteen mallrat years in a state of urban decay?
These photos break my fucking heart. The building is still walking distance from the house I grew up in. I haven't been inside it in at least 15 years. Those lounge pits you see are exactly as I remember from the '80s, except the vinyl covering the seat cushions was a red violet instead of blue, if memory serves. And there are a lot of memories. Buying 45s, then, as technology progressed, cassette singles at the record store. The Burger King that came, went, and came back where I got many a lunch after swimming lessons and learned the joys of the bacon double cheeseburger. The Waldenbooks where I'd buy the Target novelizations of classic Doctor Who episodes, and perusing other books that no 10 year old had any business going through, but I got away with it as long as I wasn't anywhere near the Playboy section of the magazine rack. I was never ever asked to stay away from the "personal massagers" section of the Spencer Gifts, for that matter. All the classic Star Wars action figures and other collectible toys that sell for hundreds of dollars now that my parents paid the '80s equivalent of hundreds of dollars to Kay Bee Toys back then... ah well, the past is past.
4
Next up in my movie queue: Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain.