jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Another herky-jerky time-lapse experiment, this time assembled from about 500 still photos I took on a walk through Astoria. Vimeo’s video compression adds an additional level of strangeness that makes this almost worth watching.

Yesterday, I escaped the puerile, disgusting, and (worst of all) staggeringly unfunny Poultrygeist to enjoy a banana in Central Park.

Today, unrelenting construction noise on our block makes me wish I could seek refuge at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, where the cherries are in full bloom. They’ve delighted us in the past — but alas, the Tribeca Film Festival begins today, and Cannes announced the linup.

A vaguely appropriate Ginsberg poem has been added to my muxtape.

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. Lloyd Kaufman, 2006. N/R

For a few days each spring and fall, while the increasingly volatile meteorological pendulum swings from frozen sewer to sweltering garbage heap, New York City enjoys perfect weather. September 11, 2001 was such a day, and so is today — 60 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and an unheard-of ratio of smiles to thrown elbows at the corner of Broadway & Steinway.

So why I am I still inside, blogging? To share a few linkworthy items, along with my ever-evolving muxtape and another lousy short film: whiplash and Mozart, together at last. If you’d like to join us for the season’s first open-air Jever, drop by the Astoria Beergarden later. I’ll be the guy pointing a camera at you.

Also of note:

• I heart Foggy.
• Jammys Lineup: Page will be there to accept Phish’s lifetime achievement award, but can Trey get out of rehab long enough for a reunion? At the official site, you can vote on the awards.
• Sturges Rules: “A chase is better than a chat.”
• Twitter to the Rescue
• Barackula! The most excited I’ve gotten about the elections yet.
• J.K. Rowling tries to make a book disappear. More.

None of the movies I saw this week thrilled as much as the conclusion to the first part of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King. After 200 pages of young Wart’s education, we finally get to the part about the sword in the stone. It’s Merlyn’s final lesson, presented in a hallucinatory passage that feels as if Walt Disney adapted Revelations and laced it with zen wisdom:

“Oh, Merlyn,” cried the Wart, “help me to get this weapon.”

There was a a kind of rushing noise, and a long chord played along with it. All round the churchyard there were hundreds of old friends. They rose over the church wall all together, like the Punch and Judy ghosts of remembered days, and there were badgers and nightingales and vulgar crows and hares and wild geese and falcons and fishes and dogs and dainty unicorns and solitary wasps and corkindrills and hedgehogs and griffins and the thousand other animals he had met. They loomed round the church wall, the lovers and helpers of the Wart, and they all spoke solemnly in turn. Some of them had come from the banners in the church, where they were painted in heraldry, some from the waters and the sky and the fields about–but all, down to the smallest shrew mouse, had come to help on account of love. Wart felt his power grow.

“Put your back into it,” said a Luce (or pike) off one of the heraldic banners, “as you once did when I was going to snap you up. Remember that power springs from the nape of the neck.”

“What about those forearms,” asked a Badger gravely, “that are held together by a chest? Come along, my dear embryo, and find your tool.”

A Merlin sitting at the top of the yew tree cried out, “Now then, Captain Wart, what is the first law of the foot? I thought I once heard something about never letting go?”

“Don’t work like a stalling woodpecker,” urged a Tawny Owl affectionately. “Keep up a steady effort, my duck, and you will have it yet.”

A white-front said, “Now, Wart, if you were once able to fly the great North Sea, surely you can co-ordinate a few little wing-muscles here and there? Fold your powers together, with the spirit of your mind, and it will come out like butter. Come along, Homo sapiens, for all we humble friends of yours are waiting here to cheer.”

The Wart walked up to the great sword for the third time. He put out his right hand softly and drew it out as gently as from a scabbard.

I also enjoyed a Greek feast at Zenon Taverna with Jordan and Ann, ramen at Menchanko-Tei, swung a cow in Rayman Raving Rabbids, and installed a brand new operating system. Saw a few movies, too:

Blind Mountain/Mang shan. Li Yang, 2007. ***
Funny Games. Michael Haneke, 1997. **
Funny Games U.S. Michael Haneke, 2007. **
Love Songs/ Les Chansons d’amour. Christophe Honoré ***
My Blueberry Nights. Wong Kar Wai, 2007. ***
Sleep Dealer. Alex Rivera, 2008. **
Water Lillies/Naissance des pieuvres. Céline Sciamma, 2007. **
plus The Wire. Season 2 **** and Prime Suspect 5 ****

[flickr set]

Seen Anything Good Lately?
Whenever this question gets asked, either the music’s too loud or I’m preoccupied with chasing down hors d’oeuvres, so here’s a more considered answer. For my money, the best current releases in New York are Once, Away from Her, and Day Night Day Night — and The Host is still playing, too. You might also like The Wendell Baker Story, Severance, and Hot Fuzz. (I haven’t seen Brand Upon the Brain!, 28 Weeks Later, or Rolling Like a Stone.) If you happen to find yourself in Germany, you must not miss INLAND EMPIRE. Also, Ray Pride informs us that Nicholas Geyrhalter’s Our Daily Bread premieres on TV next week.

This Week in Dead History
Much thanks to Daniel A. and Ace Cowboy for reminding me of the Taper’s Section, where Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux releases new mp3s every week. I’ve just barely scratched the surface but so far I’ve dug The Music Never Stopped (4/27/78), Dark Star (5/7/72), and Estimated Prophet>Uncle John’s Band (4/12/82.) Tons more where that came from.

Must Be A Good Cause If They Have a Button
You might have noticed the button on the sidebar enticing you to support the National Book Critics Circles’ efforts to save book reviewing. More from Lizzie Skurnick, AWFJ, and Salman Rushdie on The Colbert Report.

Rebel without a Pause
As you can see, the new camera appears to be well-suited for bones, skaters, and strange brides. It has also been indespensable in our ongoing attempts to solve the Mansion Mystery:

Speaking of the neighborhood: for those who like to order in, Joey in Astoria’s Floozgrl maintains a Flickr pool with handy Astoria menus.

Extreme Navelgazing
Google Book Search reveals that through the magic of MySpace, Lauren Cerand and myself have now become characters in Twins.

The Graphic Novel Was So Much Better
GalleyCat found the trailer for Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. The first comic book adaptation I can get behind since Ghost World.

Remember when I grandly announced I was dropping out of the megapixel arms race? No? Well, good–because it was all lies. You see, that sorry stretch of blurry camera phone shots made nobody happy, and when my St. Ebay-worshipping friend Kay turned me on to the fact that an ancient, unused Canon lens I kept in the back of the closet would fit onto the body of a shiny new digital SLR, there was no holding me back. I’m still figuring out all the buttons and doohickeys, but it’s never too early for a little compare and contrast.

Smudgy RAZR:

Crispy Rebel:

As always, you can subscribe to my photo stream on Flickr.