One of my favourite pieces of non-fiction writing last year was Ian Frazier’s two-part series (only the abstracts are online for non-subscribers, but the linked piece gives a good précis) detailing a road trip he took across Siberia for The New Yorker*. I think everybody knows something about Siberia, at least in the abstract, but the details, the hugeness of the place, its strange geography and climate and history, were all new to me, and his first-person reporting was so vivid. Endlessly fascinating.

In the August 30 issue, Frazier returns to Siberia and visits an old Stalin-era prison camp, abandoned for 50 years but perfectly preserved by the cold. The story is haunting, overall, but one image stands out for me, one of the strangest and awfulest things I have ever read, a second-hand story that sort of perfectly crystallizes totalitarian terror, body horror, and something very ancient and weird. It is an image out of nightmares, almost Surrealist in its unexpected and horrifying juxtaposition. Frazier is talking about the extremes of hunger to which labour camp prisoners were driven: eating grass, motor grease. And then this:

In “The Gulag Archipelago,” Solzhenitsyn tells of a work crew in Kolyma who were doing excavations when they came across a frozen-solid, perfectly preserved ancient stream, complete with prehistoric fish and salamanders. He said that a magazine of the Soviet Academy of Sciences reported that unfortunately these interesting specimens could not be studied, because the workers who unearthed them ate them on the spot. The magazine did not identify these workers as convict laborers, he said, though from that detail an astute reader would understand that they were.

* I know I talk about the NYer a lot here, sometimes I feel like I should start newyorkerreviewsreviews.tumblr.com

9:19 am  •  3 September 2010  •  5 notes

“We’ve been attempting to reach him since 7 o’clock Tuesday evening and we have as yet had no confirmation,” Bruce Davis, the Academy’s executive director, said late Wednesday afternoon. “We have tried by telephone, by fax, by emails to various friends and associates. We have sent a formal letter by FedEx. But we have certainly not been told he will show up at this point.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can’t find Jean-Luc Godard.

3:11 pm  •  26 August 2010  •  1 note

I have never been a huge anime “guy,” but I was blown away by Satoshi Kon’s Paprika, a film that was somehow liquid in its continually shifting and metamorphosing imagery. It felt like he had found new and exciting ways to tell a story about dreaming, and to bring viewers into the world of his characters’ dreams. 

I interviewed him over email when the film came out in 2007. I don’t usually like to interview people that way but when there is a language barrier and the subject is in Japan there isn’t usually much choice. But somehow it turned out to be one of my favourite interviews ever; I sent him something like eight questions and got back a dense, somewhat irregularly-translated eight-page document full of answers and ideas. So generous, so cool.

I’ve just learned that Satoshi Kon has died at the too-young age of 46. I’m saddened, and stunned, by the loss of a true talent, and someone whose fascinating mind I am glad to have been able to tangentially intersect with once.

Here’s an except from the document he sent me.

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5:07 pm  •  24 August 2010  •  10 notes

In last week’s “Don’t buy it: Pokémon 2000 aims to inspire another spending spree,” the film reviewer Mark Slutsky makes some rather ridiculous remarks about Pokémon. Being a rare adult Pokémon fan, I was rather insulted by his asinine comments about the film being “consumer oriented.” 

I found that Mr. Slutsky did not watch the movie while paying more than a rudimentary amount of attention to the plot. To properly criticize a movie based on a TV show, you have to watch the show for a few episodes, starting from the beginning. 

While it is true that most Pokémon can only say their names, there are exceptions to the “speaking rule.” For example, see Team Rocket’s Meowth in every episode after the first; Ghastly in the episode entitled “The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak;” and Slowking in P2K. Also, the movie should be reviewed as a movie, not just a kids’ movie. Many of the plots in Pokémon are too complex for children to understand (e.g. “Pikachu’s Goodbye,” Pokémon: The Movie) 

Pokémon is about friendship, not selling video games, toys and other merchandise. If adults would give the show a chance with an open mind, they would probably understand this.

—Anonymous

10:32 am  •  20 August 2010  •  11 notes

realmsoftheunreal asked: How can I grow a forelock as luxurious as yours?

“The custom of shaving the beard and the hair of the head was avoided by the ancient Hebrews[1]; its continuous growth, as in the case of the nazir, was associated with a person’s vital spirit.”

“Hair is Like a Flock of Goats,” Jewish Heritage Online Magazine.

12:17 pm  •  19 August 2010

pterodactyls asked: If you were given a radio program, what would it be called and what would the format be? Where would it be broadcast? Be as detailed as you please.

I’ve never had a program of my own, but I used to occasionally sit in with my friend Anthony, who had a show on college radio station CKUT every Wednesday night at midnight. Though I wouldn’t want to take on the responsibility of a weekly show, I really loved doing it (and I have been doing non-radio DJing for something like, good lord, almost 10 years now. Holy shit? 10 years? 10 years! That’s right, I first ever played records to a party full of people on my birthday in the year 2000. And I’m actually DJing a party pretty much on my birthday in a couple of weeks, which will make it sort of a 10-year-anniversary thing. I remember that first time really well—it was at a joint birthday party for me and a friend who shared the same birthday. I don’t hang out with her too much these days, but I’ve somehow replaced her with a couple of other friends who also were born on September 1. Weird, eh? It was one of those jerry-rigged “DJing on a home stereo” thing and I can remember how I was sort of instantly hooked on the idea that I could put on a song and make people dance, just like that. The memory is so vivid. 10 years, man. Holy shit! I’m so old! Wow, time just turns into a blur as you get older, doesn’t it? It’s terrifying.)

Sorry, what was the question again?

10:31 am  •  19 August 2010  •  2 notes

Just for funny, I put together a list of stuff, or “vault,” if you will (and you won’t), of older stuff I’ve written or shot or recorded and published here that you might find “neat” or “cool” or whatever. You can find it here.

4:19 pm  •  17 August 2010  •  1 note

I spent last weekend at my family’s cottage in Muskoka. My cousin was visiting with her two young sons and on Saturday afternoon and it was nice to hang around with them for a few days—we live in different cities and I don’t see them very much. They are hilarious little rascals. My cousin had apparently told them that they could ask me anything, ANYTHING, and I’d be able to answer their questions. I was game, but all they seemed interested in was asking math questions like “What’s a hundred million zillion times four hundred and thirty-two?” Not as fun as I had hoped. The point is, if you want to ask me a question—no math, please—you can do it here.

12:46 pm  •  17 August 2010

A few years ago I developed a fear of movies. I was working as a movie critic at the time (as I still am), so it posed a problem. I was then the Listings Editor at my paper, writing about films on my days off and at night. I was still making my bones in the film section, which meant I had to go to a lot of movies my higher-ups didn’t want to see themselves, often just for a “blurb,” the short, 75-word reviews that appeared in the movie listings. I would often have to see these after the films opened, with a general audience, as some companies wouldn’t screen films for us in advance. I always put these off until Monday or Tuesday night (the deadline was Wednesday), so I would end up having to go to the movies straight from work.

This doesn’t sound that bad, but in the dead of winter, when you’re tired from data-entry all day (which my job basically was), trudging up the steep, icy hills from Old Montreal to downtown, eating in a food court, and then going alone to see Angel Eyes or Pokémon 2000 or something else that the world has by now justifiably forgotten, felt like a grim labour. 

This was where the fear, which had emerged quietly out of the shadows, was at its height. As the lights would go down I would start to feel nervous, jumpy, irrational. I would feel panicky, like I was on the verge of being overwhelmed, being physically hurt, or drowned somehow, by what I was about to see.

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10:30 am  •  17 August 2010  •  29 notes

What movies have I liked so far this year? I used to keep a list on Facebook until Facebook stopped letting people list things they liked without linking to their promotional pages (so, so lame).  I liked The Ghost Writer a lot; I’m looking forward to seeing it again. Mother, by Bong Joon-ho, unquestionably one of the best of the year. It aims for something so specific and weird and sad and funny and hits it perfectly. Exit Through the Gift Shop was a great art prank. Inception, yeah, I don’t really want to add to the billions of words on the internet that have been written about Inception, but I liked it. And I’ll totally stand up for Shutter Island, for the opening scene, Max von Sydow by the fire and Mark Ruffalo saying “boss” alone.

Solitary Man was a real surprise; I had no idea I’d enjoy it as much and I’d forgotten how much fun Michael Douglas can be when he’s totally wired. I liked Greenberg at the time but it hasn’t really taken up residence in my consciousness. Marwencol was a really super documentary. I think about it a lot. I can’t say I loved Cyrus but it had some terrifically funny and awkward moments. I was down with Winter’s Bone’s feminine-fronted family noir vibe (it sort of shared that with Mother—one woman against an intimately hostile town). MacGruber—my god, MacGruber. Didn’t see that one coming; funniest film of the year. Liked not loved Vincere, but some scenes really stuck with me (Mussolini Jr.’s deranged impersonation of his father (both played by Filippo Timi). Un prophète had some great, really inspired stuff, but was 30 minutes too long. Fish Tank was like the badass version of An Education, a bit heavy-handed with the symbolism but I liked the actors so much. Revanche lived up to most of the hype.

Seeing Alamar again made me happy; I hope it gets a proper release somewhere, anywhere, in North America. Half-nature doc, half-something else, it might be the most purely pleasurable film I’ve seen all year. Finally getting to see La Mujer Sin Cabeza was also great, though I feel like I need at least one or two more viewings for it to seep in fully. Seeing Historias Extraordinarias again was as inspiring as ever; I’ll stand up for that movie until everyone finally catches on.

10:49 pm  •  11 August 2010  •  4 notes