Friday, January 19, 2007

Off Week

I'm having an off week--haven't felt like reading, haven't felt like blogging. I've been so off, in fact, that when I took the Myers-Briggs test linked at JenClair's, I manged for the first time in my life not to score as an INTP. Memo to self: don't take personality tests while migraining. I've been migraining a lot this week due to the weather, which probably has a lot to do with why I haven't felt like reading, haven't felt like blogging.

But I did want to mention that there's a stop-motion animation version of The Street of Crocodiles on The Brothers Quay Collection ($70 used at Amazon, but available at Netflix). It's

based on themes and images from Schulz's autobiographical oeuvre, rather than a
direct adaptation of the story itself. The film opens with an old man, a
caretaker of some kind, entering a decrepit room, a museum, perhaps. He
approaches a kinetoscope--one of the first motion picture devices and lets a gob
of spit fall into the machine. This brief introductory scene is filmed in a kind
of pixillated live-action: while an actor and an actual set are employed, there
is a jerkiness to the representation of motion that imparts a sense of unreality
to the scene. The camera then descends into the machine as it stirs to life.
Gears turn, string travels along a vast network of pulleys, and the main
"character" appears, a puppet with a face that is both frightened and sinister.
As this figure explores the surroundings, which resemble the cluttered old shops
and warehouses of Schulz's stories, other figures appear, objects move of their
own accord, and scenes are enacted that make more or less direct reference to
Schulz's writings.

I might watch it at some point after the Slaves of Golconda discussion on January 31. It sounds like just the thing to watch when you have a migraine and feel out of sorts anyway.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:21 PM

    Hope you feel better! Thanks for the heads up on the film. I don't have Netflix and I'm sure my crappy blockbuster won't have it. Oh well.

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  2. Anonymous3:55 PM

    I hate weeks like that!! I will have to get this from netflix after we have discussed it. I hope to start reading this weekend--I am still not even sure what the story is about. It seems like he wrote a lot of short stories...I guess I will find out soon enough!

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  3. Anonymous3:56 PM

    Sorry you haven't been feeling well. Hope the migraines disappear soon. I'm like Iliana and don't have netflix either so you'll have to give good detail about the film so we can see it vicariously :)

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  4. Won't it be funny when Netflix get inundated with requests for The Street of Crocodiles on Feb.1?!

    Hope you feel better soon. Is it freezing in your neck of the woods, too? Egads! I'm hoping it gets above zero tomorrow or at least soon.

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  5. Very much enjoyed the time I spent reading and looking around your site...as a poet and an avid reader, I found it a most rewarding look. Thank you...

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  6. Ouch! Feel better soon. I hate those times when I don't feel like reading or blogging.

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  7. Thanks, everyone. I'm feeling better today.

    We're finally having some winter weather this week--for most of the month I've been able to go outside barefoot even though it isn't supposed to be that warm here in January! We had a bit of ice early Thursday, but temps are up again so that I was able to go shopping sans jacket or sweater this afternoon, and I ran the air conditioning in the car!

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  8. My empathies...here I have this whole day free to write and guess what? A visitation from the migraine monster. A normal person would have collapsed beneath the drugs I've taken so far today....

    Hope you are out the other side of the pain. Your energy will return. I promise.

    BK

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