Caleb Stein's, Down By the Hudson, a series of b&w photos taken at a watering hole in Poughkeepsie, NY, explores the camaraderie and simplicity a gathering place engenders by simply being.
The full series, including gallery shots and accompanying text, is on Caleb's site.
Anecdote Alert
The image of the soaped-up boy reminds me of people I encountered on a weekend drive as a teenager. I was camping with some friends at a lake. There was a cliff with a rope tied to an overhanging tree. Locals would emerge from the water "clean," after soaping up, swinging, and letting go. One child, who couldn't yet have been 10, forgot to wipe his palms on his shorts before grabbing the rope. The excess Sunlight stymied his grip and he plunged into the shallowest part of the lake, just that side of the rocks. When I think of it, I see him strike stone and break — some times his head, some times his arm, most often his leg — complete with crack!, or blood, depending on what's been struck. It's an overwhelming "memory" that I have to remind myself didn't happen. He was fine, though a bit shook. I don't doubt that what he saw bursting through the water — the horrified looks on the observers' faces — is burnt into his brain the way the reverse has settled in mine.
That whole weekend was one of the strangest of my youth, and none of it in a good way.
I always find this kind of thing interesting as I have a bit of prosopagnosia myself — that's a general face blindness. You could ask me to describe people I've known for decades and I'd have trouble with the face and facial area. If I recognize you on the street — which I won't — it's actually due more to your gait and silhouette than your face. Bless you if you've got every day carry accessories: a cane, a satchel, a dog.
Anecdote Alert
I became aware of my issue when I was about ten. My mother didn't come home when expected. A couple hours later, I called the cops and when they came over, they asked me if I'd seen her that morning. I had. They asked me what she was wearing and I couldn't say. They asked me to describe her and all I could do was illustrate her height. I went and got a photo of her from the mantel and showed it to them. "Does she still look like this?"
"What do you mean? That's her. That's a picture of her."
"It looks like it was taken in the sixties."
I was very baffled as to why that mattered. "Is her hair still this color?" They turned the photo to show me.
"I'm not sure."
"What do you mean? You said you saw her this morning!"
I shrugged. I could not tell them if she had curly hair or straight hair, red hair or blonde hair, if she wore glasses, earrings, or a necklace, if she had any missing teeth, or what color her eyes were. That was 45 years ago and I still cannot tell you the answers to any of those questions. I'd have difficulty answering those questions about anybody, even people I've known decades.
Just then, my mother walked in the door. Before leaving, the cops chided her for raising a kid who played practical jokes on the police.
A few years ago a woman I fancied and knew quite well asked if she'd ever introduced me to her cousin. I said I wasn't sure. She pulled out her phone to show me a picture. As I watched, she flipped through her photos looking for one as I watched. She briefly paused to consider one. I took a good look at it and said, "I've never seen that person before in my life." She looked to see if I was joking. "Seriously. Never," I said.
In Appendix-B of his book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders asks us to write a 200-word story using only 50 unique words, constraints which Saunders suggests typically encourage an escalation of tension. Of course, someone's gone and coded a site to help you do just that, The George Saunders Escalation Exercise.
The GSEE reminds me of David Milch's process for defeating writer's block:
Write for no less than 20 minutes and no more than 50 minutes.
Write no description, only dialogue, using the descriptors Voice One and Voice Two.
Take what you wrote, put it in an envelope, and seal it. Never look at it again.
Do this every day at the same time until you're no longer blocked.
Believe it or not, this works.
(David Milch is a TV writer, which is why he's focusing on dialogue.)
Anecdote Alert
I believe Milch to be one of the greatest writers of all time. I've loved his work for many years. He's one of my heroes in art and heroes in life. I think Deadwood is as good as any Shakespeare, Picasso, or Dylan.
Years ago, after reading Mark Singer's terrific 2005 New Yorker profile, The Misfit, I reached out to Singer to ask if he still had the transcripts mentioned in the piece. He wrote back quickly to say he didn't.
About a year later I received an email from David Milch's assistant. The email simply said, "I hear you're looking for these." PDFs of the transcripts were attached. Just over 100 pages.
I've owned davidmilch.com for years and one day will make a site about him. I'll be sure to put those PDFs on them.
I've been a fan of Lem Dobbs since around 1987 or '88, back when he was known throughout Hollywood for writing Edward Ford, which many consider to be the greatest unproduced screenplay of all time. That script is one of the first things I sought when I got on the internet in the early 90s.
Today, Dobbs is likely best known as the writer of The Limey. Steven Soderbergh directed the film and Terance Stamp starred in it. I believe it's not only a great "gangster picture," it's also Soderbergh's best and one of the most accurate film portrayals of memory.
If you have the chance to listen to Dobbs' commentary on The Limey DVD, I highly recommend it.
There's a notorious 90 second scene in The Limey, which you can watch here:
In the commentary, Dobbs uses this scene to highlight a problem with film critics — and perhaps the public's understanding of filmmaking in general.
Dobbs notes that the film's negative press often referred to it as "underwritten," while the positive press praised Soderbergh's "brilliant direction." Many of them cited this scene and how the camera waits outside, forcing the viewer to imagine what's happening inside while increasing the menace as Stamp's character approaches after exiting.
The irony is that the script was not underwritten. Soderbergh cut out much of what the critics wanted. Furthermore, in the screenplay, which Dobbs wrote years before Soderbergh was involved, Dobbs instructed the camera to remain outside:
Wilson is taken outside and dumped. After a moment, het gets to his feet. Dusting himself. Reaches for ANOTHER GUN tucked in his lower back. He re-enters the building.
A beat. We hear several SHOTS.
Seconds later, one of the Meat Puppets comes stumbling out of the door, terrified. He runs past us, fast.
A moment later, Wilson emerges, gun in hand.
WILSON: You tell him. You tell him I'm coming!
Dobbs took the blame for what Soderbergh changed and Soderbergh received credit for what Dobbs envisioned.
Such is the life of a Hollywood Screenwriter.
All this to alert you to this lengthy interview with Dobbs. Admittedly, not the prettiest website, but an interesting read nonetheless.
Anecdote Alert
For years, I used the name Dobbs as one of my heteronyms. Both Lem and I took the name from the same source: Humphrey Bogart's character in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. (Lem's birth name is Anton Kitaj. He is the son of painter, R. B. Kitaj.)
I have another very odd connection here. The scene in the clip above was filmed at the far end of this street in downtown Los Angeles:
To get to it (just prior to the clip), Wilson walks past the building on the left, which happens to be owned by a friend of mine. I've spent a great number of American Thanksgivings there over the years — the best dinner parties I've been to in my life have all been in that building.
On one of the first trips I took after my stroke, I ended up crashed here while my friend was out of town filming the devastation of the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. Another friend of his, filmmaker Noaz Deshe, was also staying there at the same time. I have fond memories of deep discussions of film history with Noaz. What was particularly delightful is that they were the first signs that my memory wasn't completely shorted-out from the stroke — something that had been deeply troubling me. In particular, we had a mutual fondness for Miklós Jancsó's films, The Red and the Black, and Round Up (posters below). Good times.
Footnotes
If you want to read the screenplay for The Limey, you can find a PDF here.
You can also get a PDF of Lem Dobbs' celebrated, unproduced script, Edward Ford.
If you're a fan of Terance Stamp, I recommend the audiobook for one of his memoirs: The Ocean Fell Into the Drop, which is unfortunately an Audible Exclusive.
I've been a fan of JSG Boggs since first hearing about him in the 90s. He passed in 2017, but I've been thinking about him lately as I'm about to launch A Tiny Bell.
Boggs did one thing and he did it very well: he drew money.
JSG Boggs Bill featuring Harriet Tubman
Here's a scenario: Boggs goes out for lunch, and while sitting there having his sandwich and drinking his coffee, he finishes drawing a $20 bill he'd started days earlier — just one side of it — and signs his name as "Secretary Treasurer." He then offers it to the waiter as payment for his lunch. If the person declines, he pays with "real money" and goes on his way. But, if the person accepts his art as money, Boggs expects his proper change from the twenty along with a receipt.
Boggs then sells the receipt and the change to an art dealer and the art dealer goes to the address on the receipt and attempts to purchase the Boggs bill from the waiter. If successful, the change, receipt, and bill are then framed as a complete piece of art which is then again sold by the dealer to a collector.
If Boggs used the bill to purchase a non-consumable, that item is also part of the finished piece. For instance, he once drew five one thousand dollar bills and used them to purchase a $4999.00 Virago motorcycle:
Lawrence Weschler wrote a great book about Boggs, Boggs: A Comedy of Values, and there's a good, low-quality 15 minute short about him on Youtube with the same name:
Anecdote Alert!
I once tried to convince Boggs to let me design him a website and he could pay me with Boggs Bills. He didn't have a site at the time, but he didn't hesitate — the proposition broke his rules and he declined. Very disappointing, but completely understandable.
All this talk about money reminds me of my first trip to Los Angeles. May, 2010.
I was in a West Hollywood Target. In the checkout line, I got stuck behind behind a man who was taking an inordinate amount of time to pay for a 2L bottle of orange soda. The holdup was because he insisted on drawing on his bills before surrendering them to the cashier.
Wanting to leave the shop, I offered to pay for his drink to speed things along. The cashier checked his progress and turned to me and said, "He's almost done." Indeed, he was, and when he handed over the second bill and left with his purchase, I asked her what was up. She shrugged and said, "Dunno. He always does that. They're the same every time."
I asked if I could have his bills in my own change and she obliged. To to this day I carry them with me for luck when I travel. Here they are:
Front, Lucky L.A. Bill #1Front, Lucky L.A. Bill #2Rear, Lucky L.A. Bill #1Rear, Lucky L.A. Bill #2
For more info on this Boggs, visit the official site: The Estate of JSG Boggs — which I did not design.
There is also an interview with Toronto filmmaker Hugh Gibson, who I first met in 1993 when he was just 14 or 15 years old. His parents had sent him to Art & Trash Video, a shop I ran from '93 to '98. Because he was underage, his folks wrote him a letter saying that he could rent any film he wished, regardless of the film's rating. I put a note on his file and for the next five years we rented Hugh many of the world's greatest films. (A&T existed pre-DVD, so we were renting out VHS tapes and Laserdiscs.)
To my knowledge, we had the largest foreign film collection in Canada: 14,000 titles from 113 countries, all organized by Country > Director. Regular customers included Cinematheque Ontario, The Festival of Festivals (now called TIFF), and every filmmaker in the city worth their salt. It was a great place to work.
In 1994, we were also one of the first video stores in the world to have a website. I'd built it to help myself learn how to build websites. A few months earlier I'd also built [sic], which was one of the first-ever blogs. (The word blog would not be coined for another 3 years.) [sic] won Canadian Website of the Year, which got it some press, and that, along with the Art & Trash site, led to my phone ringing and me becoming one of the first professional web designers in the country. My clients included YTV, The Ontario Federation of Labour, Danko Jones, and General Motors. I would do this for a living for twelve years until returning to retail at Vortex.
The Art & Trash site contained a searchable database of our entire inventory and I distinctly remember having to repeatedly explain to people what a website was. It was these customer interactions that, in a circuitous way, would also lead to me being interrogated in my living room after midnight by CSIS a few years later, but that's another story altogether.
Years later I would run into Hugh at TIFF when he was introducing a film he hadn't directed. We caught up and met for dinner a few times — turns out he lived on Roncesvalles — but then I lost touch with him when he moved out of the neighborhood.
Here's the trailer for his stellar documentary, The Stairs:
