home stretch

it's been a far-flung last couple days. charlotte and the
light factory a wonderful discovery. a place for contemporary
photography and film in facilities that were hosting charlie
rose the same night. i like the thought that my swing through
the south is parallel to martha stewart and charlie rose!
thanks to wendy for her hospitality and vision. again, a wonderful discussion
which touched on the visionary experience of the
mystical encounter. hoping to stay in contact with a
woman who teaches opera and hopes to explore this in
a film. last night's screening in louisville was also quite
wonderful with tamara lee fulkerson from the bluegrass
international film festival leading an engaged q&a. thanks
to tom for setting that up. the projection was beautiful! and
tamara's thorough engagement with my film's formal experiment-
setting out to chart the psychic space of weil's thought rather
than the events of her biography helped immensely to ground
the conversation. thanks to stephen and brannan for their
amusing company...the kentucky cinematography club! fantastic
how in so many pockets of this country people are devoted to
film as an art form. does my heart good. hoping the salt water
of the florida ocean does too! abientot. cathy

the otters, finally

great to present the film to an audience of students and professors.
always an engaging conversation. finally, a professor of philosophy
at milsapps asks about the otters, a found footage piece i bought on
ebay that finishes the film. up against weil's description of the "feeling
for beauty" as a trap from her marseilles notebooks, the "soul caught
up in a terrible adventure, quite against its will", the images of
otters in pursuit of a crab on shore left defending itself while weil
speaks "it belongs to death" is to me the perfect metaphor for her
understanding of playing hide and seek with god. to say nothing of
what a relief those animals are after all the mind twists wrought by
the films mise-en-scene of live rear screen and minimalist/theatrical
staging of actors...unlike other filmmakers, i don't leave the room when
my work plays...i still see so much in it. last night's revelation:
how precise the editing is, especially when tracked through
the frame (first cut), the vertical (frame within frame=second cut), then
to the actual horizontal/sequential cut. it's downright vertiginous at times.
and now off the highway and into the air. see you soon. cathy

new orleans morning

a great day off on the last day of the french quarter fest...free
music pouring out every pore of this town.
including the chance encounter with a new orleans jazz band
from sweden. canal creepers. they were fantastic. would be
great to have a presenter on the tour in this town! hats
off to the brave instigators in lake charles who are trying to
build an audience for independent cinema, including an up-
coming film festival. first person to notice that the archival
footage in my film can also be seen in marcel ophuls'
"the sorrow and the pity" and wants to steal my experimental
use of rear screen projection. i say, steal away. ideas are
best when they are free to circulate. i myself borrowed ideas
from cocteau and hitchcock. happy to be participating in the
discussion of cinematic form. cathy

through the bayou

lovely is how it's going.
now a solid fan base in charleston, south carolina.
a mutual adoration society actually.
thanks mark, brian and lindy at halsey!
we had a discussion last night that extended (by chance
meeting folks from the screening on the street) over
a beer and still had us writing notes on essays to read:
paul tillich on grace, for instance well past 11pm. i went so far at one
point to enact benjamin's angel of history. it's a good thing
i'm interested in absurdity. hopefully in my upcoming work, at least
present in life, that much is certain. the reliability of mapquest has always
be dubious and now i can say, it is useless. practically drove to
georgia on my way out of clemson which, by the way, was
fairly well-attended and my hosts (aga and amy and jonathan too)
were wonderful. brave to take me to a taco shop but when you
know good food, you know good food. flautas! but there's no
stopping now, i've driven through the bayou and after tonight's
screening finally get to see new orleans. cajun cooking. i'm ready.
more soon. cathy

humid black mountains

hello readers,
or strollers through internet ether...
get up and go outside. i should. it's 78 degrees here in clemson.
asheville was lovely. one audience member was there at the fine
arts theater after a migraine, hoping to see paranoid park and
for some bizarre reason, was not disappointed to watch my film instead.
though grateful, i hope we both get to see gus van's latest soon. i'm loving
that people come out of the woodwork for this piece, having read
(having been stung by, really) some simone weil. we get to talk about
christianity, the spanish civil war, resistance. somehow relevant
to have the public excuse to discuss historical precedents of fascism.
i am driven to step back into black mountain while downtown (not THE,
but the receptacle mini-museum) and be reminded of experiments of
all kinds; education, living, art-making. apparently they attempted to
revive the college in the early 80s but it didn't work...maybe pre-Reagan
it couldn't, but post-Bush? seems timely to me. alternatives in
all possible senses of that word. right, here i go again, that crazy idea
of vaclav havel's the "parallel polis". read his essay "the power of the powerless"
and let's get started. even strangers (who i meet) recognize one another.
i'm happy when warm air is just thick enough to get me to slow down. as
weil wrote (one of my favorite quotes from the film) "when there's no room for
reflection between the impulse and the act, neither is there room for justice."
more coming on down the road, see you soon. - cathy

driving through dogwood

hello circuit afficionados,
greensboro was a wonderful start to the tour. thanks to phyllis and
the high point theatre staff as well as filmmaker chris holmes who
made me feel right at home with a first meal at "pastabilities."
an intimate group assembled at the high point museum ground
floor having braved the downtown crowds for the furniture market
which brought martha stewart to the high point theatre instead
of my film about philosopher simone weil. but those
of us more interested in the latter radical had an in-depth discussion
about the film's form, how i came to weil and even a suggestion that
a sequel should be produced: "the impossible meaning of simone weil."
i'm afraid someone else will have to take that on but i'm happy to
make my film, the world's first inroad into the contradictory thought of
the 20th century's most interesting polemicist, available to that
brave soul. after all that, a local brew entitled "full moon ale" was a
fine finisher. today, a long npr-guided drive on I-40
that included the terri gross interview with rem and the ongoing
refusal before congress to pull-out of iraq. radio (my favorite
media) brought me to asheville on the billy graham freeway with guns
and roses doing "knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door." it's great
to be back down south! more to come...cathy