SolidAir

“You have no tristeza,” Michael Chabon was once informed by a friend who liked to get drunk and stoned and tell people their destinies. “And you never will.” Only the second part really rankled with Chabon, who was 19 or 20 and willing to admit he’d had few chances to store up deep-seated sadness. As he tells it in one of the essays in Manhood for Amateurs, his newest book, however, his later efforts to get hold of some were not a success. Driving through endless rain during the breakup of his first marriage, a sad song playing, his face wet with tears, he thought of his friend’s prediction (“If he could see me now … “). Then he stopped for an ice-cream sandwich, listened to a ball game, and realised, to his horror, that he was quite content. Asked if he still worries about his non-melancholic temperament, he says: “I’m tormented by it! That’s my only source of tristeza: my lack of tristeza”.

A life in writing: Michael Chabon

“Quand nous nous rappelons ces mots, nos yeux se remplissent de larmes.
Ces mots, nous devons les oublier, parce que, à présent, personne ne nous dit des mots semblables et parce que le souvenir que nous en avons est une charge trop lourde à porter.
Alors, nous recommençons notre exercice d’une autre façon.
Nous disons :
- Mes chéris! Mes amours! Je vous aime… Je ne vous quitterai jamais… Je n’aimerai que vous… Vous êtes toute ma vie… 
A force d’être répétés, les mots perdent peu à peu leur signification et la douleur qu’ils portent en eux s’atténue.”

[Le Grand Cahier, Agota Kristof]

Woody Allen is laying on a couch eating an apple while a woman stripper is taking her black dress and undergarments off in front of him. Meanwhile the end credits scroll up on the right side of the screen. The credits say:
The characters and
events depicted in this
photoplay are fictitious.
Any similarity to actual
persons living or dead is
purely coincidental.
And if you have been
reading this instead of
looking at the girl, then
see your psychiatrist, or
go to a good eye doctor
(the credits now scroll faster and give and eye test):
E 1
FP 2
TOZ 3
LPED 4
PECFD 5
EDFCZP 6
FELOPZD 7
DEFPOTEC 8
LEFODPCT 9
FSFPTFED 10
????????? 11
By this time, the stripper is about to remove her underwear.
Woody stops her and says,
”I promised I’d put her in the film somewhere.”
(only his voice is dubbed)
The End (appears in the lower left)

What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) - Crazy credits

Points In Space (1986)

This is the critically acclaimed collaboration for the screen by choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage, and filmmaker Elliot Caplan.
The first half features BBC’s documentary: interviews with Cunningham, Cage and members of the company, as well as scenes from rehearsals in New York and London take the viewer through the complexities and exhilaration of bringing new dance to television. The second half features Points in Space performed by Cunningham and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

Spend some time with social outcasts, and eventually, Python will come up. And when it does, the quoting begins, and once that starts, God help you. There’s nothing wrong with sharing funny lines with friends, but by frequenting conventions or comic-book stores, someone could have the entire screenplay of Monty Python And The Holy Grail memorized without ever seeing the movie. Becoming a fan means developing a personal connection with a work of art, and when that art has been regurgitated ad nauseam, the trick isn’t just finding a representative example of the troupe’s work, but finding one that hasn’t been exposed to death. 

Gateways To Geekery: Monty Python

Maiden’s thunderous, militaristic bombast is exactly what a spectacle of this kind requires. Without Maiden, it’s JLS pulling their shirts up while Clare Balding dances with Mr Blobby. If Maiden open the Olympics, the whole world will be united under a ragged Union Jack and Britain’s international reputation will be restored. All this while a giant zombie mascot shoots flames out of his eyes and lurches towards a terrified Sebastian Coe, who cries like a girl. Come on, let’s make it happen.

Why we need Iron Maiden for the Olympics