Ian Curtin

If he hears it, is he wearing a funny hat? And does a tree fall?

This sounds plausible to me. But if it’s true, it means that the age of social media might be over soon, with only the old and wrinkled (like myself) spending any actual time there.

A Few Small Beers with Pynchon: On One Battle After Another If you put Paul Thomas Anderson’s films alongside each other you’d have a shadow history of California.

A very good appreciation of OBAA, PTA, and Pynchon. From @davidhering.bsky.social

davidhering.substack.com/p/a-few-smal...

Granny: Well it's no harm, the guy had the personality of a dial tone
Me: GRANNY

Arrivals (2 - actually well-chosen gifts from last week. Thanks, teens!)

Arrivals (1)

😂

Really hope I can catch it while it's in cinemas.

What did you make of the movie itself?

Power lineup!

@kenearly.bsky.social Big Nick karma rolls on

I have the impression this rule has had a wider application in his life.

Well I think it has become less a film and more a cultural artefact of a kind that goes beyond its film-ness. I do like Pacino (selectively) but found watching him portray Tony quite alarming. Certainly I would agree it is far from his best performance - but it's kind of hard to ignore.

Review of Scarface (1983) from David Thomson book Have You Seen. Concludes with the line: "A masterpiece, and persuasive proof that so many movies lean toward trash."

Hmm

Ha! Nicely put.

Cover of Helen DeWitt's The English Understand Wool featuring a Wayne Thiebaud panorama of cake.

As featured on the cover of this mini marvel.

On balance... no!

Obviously it's lurid, and has a certain aesthetic sheen. But even Pacino's disconcerting performance can't really make the shallow, one-note Tony Montana interesting.

Randomly decided to rewatch Scarface (De Palma) last night - first time in ages. But a familiar thought quickly began to take shape as I watched - is this in fact a really bad movie?

Enjoyed this. I'm always impressed by the gap between Mendelsohn's iron-clad self-regard and the quality of the writing I find when I try his stuff. His Odyssey sounds like another bust.

These are presumably the people (or relatives of them) who I see peering in suspicious amazement at the magic sequence of numbers (16...17...18...) of seat rows on planes as they intrepidly seek 19A, 19B and 19C. "Must be just here!" Yes, you've cracked the code.

Can't really argue although I hate the idea of Certain Noisy Pundits feeling vindicated with Wirtz benched. Personally I'd have him in instead of Gakpo...

"Are these people in the shop with us now?"

"Apart from that, we're good!"

the shadows of reality, so to speak

Translated by Charlotte Whittle

Ah. I read that just last year, and yes, it is squarely of this company. Nice edition there, though.

I would add Nightwood to this mini-category.

Some absolute belters in here. An impossible choice.

Book cover: Notes From Childhood by Norah Lange, translated by Charlotte Whittle

"Since then, I have ofter thought that very few people deserve, even for one night, to dwell in the strange world brought on by fever, or in that other world of convalescence, full of siestas and brief dreams that come by surprise, when one is free of haste or useless anxiety to live as others do."