Claims Department

Claims Department: Down with the Sickness

Welcome to Claims Department!
I wanna say Hello to a few folks who are
getting this one who didn’t get the previous is-
sues. You’ll note that you’ll probably get Claims
Department now and again, but probably not
all the time. It’s a tiny, tiny circulation, which
won’t be going up anytime soon. It’s about 100
bucks for the 25 copies I’ve been getting out
there. It’s what I do.
How do I choose who gets it? Well, if
I have a left-over TAFF mailing list label, it’s
likely that you’ll get an issue. If I’ve found your
name in a zine’s LoColumn, you might get one.
The only three regulars who will get every is-
sue: Guy Lillian (for the Zine Dump), Mike Glyer
(‘cause he’s awesome) and Lloyd Penney (more
awesome!).
This issue, you’ll be reading the various
parts of a set of days when I was sick as a dog
who had seen better days himself. I’ve written
this issue once before, but scrapped it because I
thought it was too dull!

Art in this Claims Department Day 1- 101.3 Degrees

Cover and Page 4 are from Genevieve
Page 2 is from Lia
Page 5 is the photo of Judith that I think inspired
the dream. It was taken by M, I think.
Page 9- Kari Barone? I’ve had it for ages and I
think it was her.
Page 11 is a still from Themis.
Page 13- Mike Lark and Danielle Lewis
Page 15 is a photo I took on my TAFF trip
Page 17 is from Selena Phanara
Page 18 has art from Bill Rotsler and Katie Juti
It was 5:35 am on what I remember
as a Wednesday, but it may well have been a
Tuesday. These things get lost. The month was
March and I believe it was towards the end of
the month. I was home alone since it was vaca-
tion time. I haven’t had anyone around me for
almost a week, and no return expected until an-
other two weeks. I woke up at 5:35 like I often
do, but this time I felt like absolute Hell. I was
freezing even though I’d been under the heavy
covers all-night. It was funny, I seldom get sick,
but when I do, I know it instantly. I went to the
bathroom and discovered that the SpongeBob
SquarePants thermometre had been left after
Evelyn had been over and not feeling well about
a month before. I popped it into my mouth
and found that the read 101.3 degrees. I took
a couple of Aleve and sent an eMail to my boss
saying that I wasn’t coming in. I went back to
bed, noticing that things were starting to suck a
little bit more. I fell asleep almost instantly.
I got back to consciousness around 10.
I was rested, I was ready to get back to the
world...except for I felt like I was a cheesecurd
melting across the top of a piled plate of pou-
tine. I pushed myself up a little bit and looked
at my surroundings. All my DVDs were within
reach, though the TV would require me to get
up. That was not an option. I had a computer
at arm’s length, so I could put on some music
and there were more books on the tub next to
my bed. I grabbed one, a paperback I hand ’t
even started, and just dove into it. I love nov-
els with good openings, and sometimes good
openings will drive you forward. Other times, a
good set of words will set the mood and that’ll
be what takes you onwards like a good soldier.
And sometimes, there’s some more. The way a
book is set-up will often make it easier to dive
in. I had bought a book at LosCon that had been
written by a friend of mine from college. She
had eMailed me a week or so before to catch
up. She’d married Dry Humor Tom, one of the
funniest humans I ever met. He was brilliantly
wry in a way that few men can manage. I had
often wondered whatever happened to him, and
I discovered the truth through eMail.
Alisa Moscowitz was the girl across the
hall. She was a freshman when I was a Junior
at Emerson. She was a writing major, as was I,
but she at least had some talent. I, on the other
hand, got by with my grades from history-based
electives and simple bravado to turn in some
of the writing projects I did. That’s how I made
my way through all my schooling. Alisa and Tom
had some moments during college, my favourite
moment being Alisa calling Tom a jerk in the
bathroom after having a few drinks. One of the
funniest moments of my years in college. I had
completely lost touch with just about everybody
from Emersonl, but it was cool to hear from her,
and she mentioned that she had a novel coming
out.
This presents a problem that a lot of fans
probably have: writer friends. Sometimes you
might meet someone and you become friendly
and they mention they’ve got a book, you pick it
up and read it and it turns out to be crap. How
do you deal with that? I’m lucky, as my pals like
Jay Lake, Howard Hendrix and John Scalzi write
stuff that I really enjoy and I had read some
of their stuff before I got to know them. I had
read some of Alisa’ writing back in the day, and I
This issue was created between January 3rd and Janu-
ary 4th, 2008. It was the second written, though third
published of the current series of Claims Department
remembered it as very good stuff. I now had the
problem of reading a book from a friend with
little clue as to what she’d been writing.
the book is The Blood Confessions and
it’s not the perfect read, but it is an experi-
ence. This is one of those rare moments where
I have to give props to Heather Wood. She was
the book designer and I have to say, she did
an amazing job of it. The book, which is based
around the legend of Erzsebet Bathory, was
designed to look as if blood had stained the
bottom portion of the pages. The cover had
the feeling of a 16th Century portrait done on
woodpaneling. I liked it. The layout is magnifi-
cent and the words aren’t bad either. Alisa has
a way with playing with language that seems
authentic to my unknowing self. It told the story
of Erzsebet Bathory, one of my favourite his-
torical figures who is often pointed to as one of
the greatest murderers of all-time, and it gives
us structure and characters and motion. I was
sucked in and I have to say, I was never distract-
ed by the layout and I discovered that I really
felt as if I was reading a document from the
time. That’s how I got into it. The opening line I
mentioned was one of the ones that brought me
to the dance: ‘A small sharp blade is required
for the sharpening of a quill’.
For me, that takes me places.
I really enjoyed it. It kinda felt like a YA
novel, which is perfectly fine since I’ve read a
lot of YA over the years. At one point, I’d have
loved to have been a YA author. I would have
happily been a writer of stories of young people
making their way in the world against impossible
odds. Maybe with a zombie or something. Luck-
ily, I got out of the fiction writing world with a
bit of my mind left and not having polluted the
stream of the Young Adult section of bookstores.
I’m glad I did not keep at it because even a tal-
entless hack of a squirrel is right twice a day.
OK, I read the entire thing in one sitting.
Well, one laying. I never left the bed at all. I
was deep into the book, and riding some of the

fever, I guess. I hadn’t noticed that I’d been
through all the music on my laptop. It was on
the second pass for all of them. I finished the
last page while The Arcade Fire was giving me
No Cars Go. A great song. I got up, out of bed
for the first time in almost 8 hour, it turned out.
I had no water, hand ’t gotten up to use the
bathroom and hand ’t even found my mind wan-
dering at all. The book had sucked me in, had
captured my attention completely. I had had
that happen with various films over the years,
especially Magnolia and JFK, which I had made
it all the way through without needing to use
the restroom even though I’d had a large soda at
both shows. It was pretty amazing that it could
happen with a book. I really liked the way Alisa
wrote the thing. I could tell that she’d loved the
research she put into the thing. It showed that
she loved getting into the headspace of the era
she researched. I don’t know how she did it. I
must ask her to write something for the Drink-
Tank.
Out of the bed, I found that my legs
weren’t liking me at all. I made it to the bath-
room and rechecked my temp. 101.1 degrees.
At least it was lower. I did what I had to do and
then headed across the apartment to the fridge.
There were about 100 bottles of water in there.
I think they were in preparation for a trip to
Yosemite. I grabbed about 20 of them. I also saw
that the remainder of my latest date meal was
in there. I’d gone out with Jennifer on Saturday
night and we’d had a ton of food, and walked
out with a trio of take-out boxes. I saw that the
cooler was next to the fridge. I grabbed it, put
the bottles of water on the bottom, sat down at
the table for about five minutes when the room
started to spin, loaded up the cooler with some
ice from the ice box and the Chinese. I grabbed
a fork, a knife and a spoon, a few Sunny Delight
bottles (the next best thing to Orange Juice)
and I pulled the thing back to my room. It was
pretty cold, maybe 50 as the high for the day,
down into the high 30s at night. That happens
once in a while ‘round these parts. I put the
cooler as close to my bed as possible. I sat up,
picked out one of the cartons of Chinese, Duck
as I remember it, and ate it while I watched
The Simpsons. I love The Simpsons and getting
to watch both the episodes, which almost never
happened since I would normally be watching
Evelyn, but since I was sick, I didn’t. I drank the
Sunny Delight, drank a couple of bottles of wa-
ter and I felt a little bit better. I guess it was be-
cause I had been burning calories without doing
anything other than involuntarily shivering and
just maintaining an elevated body temperature.
I do love duck. A lot of Chinese place
serve duck with too many bones left in it, but
the place in Saratoga where we went didn’t
leave any bones in and that was a good thing.
Of course, it was also probably the last
date I’d be having with Jenn. The biggest prob-
lem was her view of Evelyn. She actually re-
ferred to Evelyn as ‘The Other Woman’, which
just isn’t right. I love watching Evelyn, the little
hellion, and she means the world to me. And,
probably more important, Evelyn loves having
me around. Even though Gen, Evelyn’s Mom,
and I weren’t in the best of places with one
another, we were both being there for hte Little
One and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Yeah,
it must be hell to start dating someone new
when you’ve got a kid, and I can’t imagine how
difficult it would be to start dating someone
who chose to be in the lives of not only their
ex-girlfriend, but also watch her daughter after-
school. I must ask The Lovely and Talented Linda
how she managed to make it past that.
I watched more television and then fell
asleep. I’d managed to finish off the duck and
found myself blinking in and out of sleep. I real-
ized at about 2 am that I needed to put myself
down for full sleep. I got up and took some
Nyquil. I grabbed some more ice, refilled the
ice trays and managed to make it back to bed,
where I hunkered down in bed under more blan-
kets than would be needed to wall a Yurt.
I was out within 20 minutes.
 There was a shadow passing along the
far wall of the room. I followed it to a window
I sat in a room, staring at my hands. which looked out on the outside. There was a
The room was hot. I was sweating. I could hear shape out there. It wasn’t human, but it was
music coming from some distant room. Some an animal, an animal spirit I’d say. I wanted
terrible music. It was blues guitar and singing. to open the window, but I woke up the exact
Whining. That’s what I always think of the blues. moment I felt a metal hand rest roughly on my
I was thiking in the dream that even though the shoulder.
blues is the base for all music that emerged
from America, it still sucks.
There was someone in the room with me. Surrealism was built around dream imagery, but
I couldn’t see her face. I know her. Not close.
We knew each other from sometime long ago. there was a segment of the Surrealists, led by
Maybe it was during the years when I wasn’t the
smartest kid in the world. She was wearing pink
Joseph Cornell, that turned again Jungian analysis
and her hair fell forward. Her blouse drew
together in the front with a thick string. I
couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was
there for me.
“Where are we going tonight?” She
asked. Her voice was that of a much young-
er woman than she obviously was. I could
see her hands, fumbling with a cigarette,
and they were thin, almost mechanical.
See lit her cigarette and handed it to me.
I stared at it. Even in the dream, I didn’t
smoke. I held it for a moment and I looked
back up to her, but she had stood up and
was moving across the room.
“I was thinking we’d go out for
Greek.” I said. I was looking out what I
thought was a window. It looked into an-
other room, rough-hewn, unfinished. I
knew the room, part of the Winchester
House. I’d been there many times, but
the room I was in wasn’t in the house. It
was my old room at Cortez Dr.. I stared at
the room on the other side of the window,
lookign at the lincrusta Wallpaper and the
floors that had only been half-sanded but
hand been worn down through decades of
visitor foot traffic.
And then the room changed, from
the room at Cortez Dr. to the one of my
apartment in Santa Clara, across from the
Safeway, on the land that used to be Agnew
Developmental Centre.
“I don’t think we need any more
Greek.” She said. “We should find someone
who can take us to the mountain.”
Day 2- 102.7 Degrees
This was way too high. I
checked the temperature again
and found that it was still 102.7.
Even when I was a kid and my
temps would fluctuate wildly. I
splashed some water on my face,
cold as I could get and then I
started a bath. I mixed cold and
hot water, because I knew even
though I felt freezing cold and
head to toe shivers, I had to bring
my body temp down. I also knew
that if I couldn’t manage to get
things under control, I’d have to
go to a...to the...hospital. I com-
pletely hate hospitals. It’s where
people go to die. I waited a few
minutes and got myself into the
tub. It did not feel good, but
after a few minutes, I felt happy.
Truly happy. I waited 20 minutes
or so in the tub and then got out
and dried off. I could tell that I
was slightly more comfortable. I
dropped eMails to Gen and to Work
saying that I wouldn’t be in again.
I took some Dayquil and got myself
into some Hef gear. I had a pair of
silk pajamas, and then a smoking
jacket. I looked good. I felt a bit
better. Yes, I do not costume at
conventions, but you get my body-
heat up and I might do it alone at
home. I needed good clothes since
I was moving my primary residence
for the day to the living room.
I dragged the cooler and a DVD
Box Set with me. I also grabbed
a couple of magazines with me. I
can tell you that they were both
talking about Britney going crazy
and Lindsey Lohan being in to the
rehab. Those two are great drama
headlines and now that Lindsey’s
gone to bat for the other team,
it’s possible that they could get
together and form DramaTron, the
ultimate Tabloid Monster.
Films I’ve seen on the
National Film Registry
2001: A Space Odyssey, 42nd
Street, The 7th Voyage of Sin-
bad, Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein, The Adventures
of Robin Hood, Alien, All About
Eve, All Quiet on the Western
Front, All That Jazz, American
Graffiti, Annie Hall, The Apart-
ment, Asphalt Jungle. Back to
the Future, The Bank Dick, The
Battle of San Pietro, Beauty and
the Beast, Ben-Hur (1925), Ben-
Hur (1959), The Big Parade, The
Big Sleep, The Birth of a Nation,
The Black Stallion, Blacksmith
Scene, Blade Runner, Blazing
Saddles, Bonnie and Clyde, Boyz
n the Hood, Bride of Franken-
stein, The Bridge on the River
Kwai, Bringing Up Baby, Broken
BlossomsBullitt, Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid, Cabaret
Casablanca, The Chechahcos
Chinatown, Citizen Kane, City
Lights, Close Encounters of the
Third Kind, Colonge: From the
Diary of Ray and Esther, The
Conversation, Cool Hand Luke,
Cops, The Court Jester, Dances
with Wolves, The Day The Earth
Stood Still, The Deer Hunter, De-
liverence, Disneyland Dream, Do
The Right Thing, Double Indem-
nity, Dr. Strangelove, Dracula,
Duck Amok, Duck and Cover,
Duck Soup, E.T., The Extrater-
restrial, Easy Rider, The Endless
Summer, Enter The Dragon,
Eraserhead, The Fall of the
House of Usher, Fantasia, Fargo
Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
Five Easy Pieces, Flash Gordon,
Flower Drum Song, Foolish
Wives, Frankenstein, Freaks, Free
Radicals, The French Connec-
tion, From Here to Eternity, The
General, George Stevens World
War II footage, Gertie the Di-
nosaur, Giant, Gigi, The Godfa-
ther, The Godfather Part II, The
Gold Rush, Gone with the Wind,
Goodfellas, The Graduate, The
The DVD box set I brought
with me was one of the best pur-
chases I’d ever made. It set me
back 1/4 a month’s rent, but ti
was an awesome buy. It was the
Treasures of American Film Ar-
chives disk set. Four disks and a
lovely booklet which carries the
details of the dozens of films on
the disks.
Why did I buy it and why
do I love it so? Well, it all has to
do with the National Film Reg-
istry. It’s a list of films that are
deemed significant to the history
of film or that move forward the
aesthetic form of American film.
There’s more to it, but that’s the
basic form. I love the Registry,
my dashed dreams of being a film
historian help keep me focused on
the matter. Every year, they add
25 films, and by that point, there
were 450 films listed. I have seen
a great many of them, probably
about 60%, but I also think it’s
important that I get to know film
from across all times to know what
should be added. Every year I send
in my recs and once in a while,
they listen. Or at least I go along
with the folks who also nominate
and get respect from the Library
of Congress people. The Treasury
has tons of films that are on the
registry or that should end up on
the Registry. I have watched the
various disks over the years, but I
have never watched it all in a row.
Now I would make that
leap.
I took my temp again and it
was down to a mere 100.7, but I
was going to have some good rest
and more water and more time
in a lazy position. I put the first
disk into the DVD p layer, plopped
down on the couch and opened up
a bottle of water.
Classic film is a passion.
There is no way to fake a love
for it, and if you do love it, you
are consumed. I’ve shown some
of these old films to others, tried
to get them to understand, but it
doesn’t work like that. It’s impos-
sible to bend someone to this sort
of thing. It is merely possible to
show them what they may not
know they already love. Like eat-
ing natto.
The first disk opened with
an animation from 1922 called The
Original Movie. It’s a film about
filmmaking done during the pe-
riod of film history that is often
pointed to as the most significant.
It was a time of frolic, before the
Hayes Act that really took the
excesses of the first twenty years
of Hollywood stars into the deep
shadows. The film is done as a
series of shadow puppets. While
Balinese Shadow Puppets are the
best known kind, and shadow plays
were very popular street enter-
tainments in the Victorian era.
The Mysterios Geographic Voyage
of Jasper Morello, one of the best
short films of the last decade, was
done in a similar style. This story
features cutouts runnign around
trying to make their movie. And
there’s a goat. I love goats. No,
not like that, you freak! I think
they’re hilariously funny. The
Simpsons once created a film
called Shennanigoats, that sadly
they never showed on the series.
I’ve threatened to make it once or
twice myself. The Original Movie
is a lot of fun in 8 minutes. It’s not
on the Registry, but I’ve nominat-
ed once or twice.
Then there were three
Edison films, each running roughly
57 seconds. The first one is on the
Natiional Film Registry (class of
1995). Made in 1893, it is one of
the first films ever made, more
Great Dictator, The Great Train
Robbery, Greed, Groundhog Day,
Gunga Din, Hallelujah, Hallow-
een, Harold and Maude, Hellʼs
Hinges, High Noon, Hindenburg
Disaster Newsreel Footage, Hoop
Dreams, Hoosiers, How Green
Was My Valley, How The West
Was Won, In Cold Blood, In The
Heat of the Night, In the Land of
the Head Hunters, Intolerance, In-
vasion of the Body Snatchers, The
Invisible Man, It, It Happened
One Night, Itʼs a Wonderful Life
Jailhouse Rock, Jeffries vs. John-
son Worldʼs Championship Box-
ing Match, Jaws , The Jazz Singer
, Johnny Guitar, The Killers, King
Kong, The Kiss, Koyaanisqatsi,
Lassie Come Home, The Last of
the Mohicans, The Last Picture
Show, Laura, Lawrence of Arabia,
Letʼs All Go To The Lobby, The
Life and Death of 9413: A Hol-
lywood Extra, Little Caeser,
The Living Desert, The Lost
World, Love Finds Andy Hardy,
M*A*S*H*, The Magnificent
Ambersons, The Maltese Fal-
con, The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance, Manhattan, The March,
Marian Anderson: The Lincoln
Memorial Concert, Marty, Meet
Me In St. Louis, Memphis Belle,
Midnight Cowboy, Miracle on
34th Street, Modern Times, Mo-
rocco, Motion Painting No. 1
A Movie, The Music Man, My
Darling Clementine, The Naked
City, Nanook of the North
Nashville, National Lampoonʼs
Animal House, National Velvet
Network, A Night at the Opera
Night of the Living Dead, No
Lies, North by Northwest, Notori-
ous, The Nutty Professor, OffOn,
Oklahoma!, On the Bowery, One
Flew Over the Cuckooʼs Nest,
One Week, The Outlaw Josey
Wales, Patton, The Pawnbroker,
The Perils of Pauline, Peter Pan,
The Phantom of the Opera, The
Philadelphia Story, Pinocchio,
A Place in the Sun, Planet of the
than a year before The Lumiere
Brothers made their first films. It’s
a Blacksmith, working at his shop.
I’m fairly certain that this was
shot in the actual Smithy shop,
since it would have been very dif-
ficult to recreate the scene in the
Black Maria, the famous Edison
studion in New Jersey. It’s simple,
but these Actualities were all the
rage. The Gay Shoe Clerk and
Three American Beauties are also
there. Three American Beauties
is a good little film, and the Gay
Shoe Clerk is one of the funnier of
the Edison shorts. There’s actually
a story, and it’s all about a Shoe
Clerk taking advantage of his posi-
tion. It’s a theme that was very
popular in the early days of film.
I needed water. I needed
food. I grabbed a bottle from the
cooler and one of the cartons
of Chinese. I had an idea that I
should write down my dream. I
could probably use it someday.
I lifted up the table (it’s one of
those ones that the tabletop lifts
up on rails revealing a small stor-
age space underneath. I grabbed
the pad and pen and wrote it all
down, as best I remembered it.
The next film was one of my
faves. There was a popular form
called Trick Films. J. Stuart Black-
ton was one of the major figures
in the history of film. He founded
Vitagraph Motion Picture Com-
pany and is called the Father of
American Animation. OK, there are
a couple of people who get that
title, but Blackton makes a very
good case. He used to do a sort of
stage show where he’d do Light-
ning Drawings, quick sketches that
he would change on the fly. You
could do stuff like in Vaudeville.
He was invited to go to Edison’s
Jersey studio and there he did his
Lightning Drawings for the camera.
That was what got Blackton think-
ing about making films and how
they could be used to show off
illustration. Princess Nicotine, also
called The Smoke Fairies, is one
of the best trick films ever done.
It uses double exposures, in-cam-
era disolves, giant props to make
people look tiny, forced perspec-
tive and even stop motion anima-
tion, something which was not of-
ten done. He really was one of the
most innovative filmmakers of his
time. True, Melies had been doing
many of the same tricks in France
since he built his Cinematograph,
but Blackton was doing more and
telling fun stories. To prove how
far ahead of the curve Blackton
was, Princess Nicotine has the first
known paid product placement.
That’s a director who knew what
was coming. It was named to the
Registry in 2003.
I needed to get up. I
couldn’t explain it, but I had
to move. My head was trying to
bound out of my skull and dance
across the floor and the only way
to stop it, I reasoned, was to
make the first move. I got up and
walked around the apartment, not
shivering, I noticed. I picked up
a couple of books and some zines
from my room, another load of ice
for the cooler, the laptop, my cell
phone. I moved it all into the liv-
ing room. That and my blankets. I
had foolishly thought that the tar-
tan throw that lived on the couch
would be enough, but I was wrong.
A heavy comforter, a fuzzy blanket
and a flannel sheet were required.
Comfort, thy name shall be living
My highest known body temp was when I was three and I spiked at 106.5. I thought it was higher, but Mom
corrected me. They instantly dumped me into an ice bath. That was no fun. Mom said I didn’t forgive her for
days and refused to hug her. That’s a big deal for a three year old...especially a huggy one like I was.
Apes, Popeye The Sailor Meets
Sinbad the Sailor, Porky in Wac-
kyland, Powers of Ten, President
McKinley Inauguration Footage
Princess Nicotine, The Producers
Psycho, Raiders of the Lost Ark, A
Raisin in the Sun, Rear Window,
Rebel Without a Cause, Republic
Steel Strike Riot Newsreel Foot-
age, Return of the Secaucus 7, Rip
Van Winkle, Road to Monocco,
Rocky The Rocky Horror Pic-
ture Show, Roman Holiday, Rose
Hobart, Sabrina, Safety Last, San
Francisco Earthquake and Fire
footage, Scarface, Schindlerʼs
List, Sergeant York, Seven Brides
for Seven Brothers, sex, lies and
videotape, Shadows, Shaft, Shane,
Sherlock, Jr., Shock Corridor
The Shop Around The Corner
Show Boat, Singinʼ in the Rain,
Snow White, Snow White and
the Seven Dwarves, Some Like
It Hot, The Son of the Sheik, The
Sound of Music, A Star is Born,
Star Theatre, Star Wars. Steamboat
Willie, The Sting, Stormy Weather,
Stranger than Paradise, The Strong
Man, Sunrise, Sunset Blvd., The
T.A.M.I Show, Tabu, The Tacoma
Narrows Bridge Collapse, The Ten
Commandments, The Terminator,
Tess of the Storm Country, Tevye,
The Theif of Bagdad, The Thin
Blue Line, The Thin Man, The
Thing from Another World, This
is Cinerama, Three Little Pigs,
Tin Toy, To Kill a Mockingbird,
Tolʼable David, Tootsie, Top Hat,
Topaz, Toy Storym Treasure of the
Sierra Madre, Vertigo, West Side
Story, Whatʼs Opera Doc?, White
Fawnʼs Devotion, Why We Fight,
The Wild Bunch, The Wizard
of Oz, Woogstock, Wuthering
Heights, Young Frankenstein, the
Zapruder Film
room.
The next film was The
Confederate Ironclad, which was
16 minutes and a prettywatchable
film for something made in 1912.
Storytelling has improved greatly
and the way they were going in
those days can be rough to watch.
I only half-paid attention. I was
feeling very funny, like I was still
moving and yet I was laying still.
I was starting to get a little wor-
ried, but I popped open another
water and went on to the next
flick, another Registry Film called
Hell’s Hinges. Arguably the great-
est film released in 1916, Hell’s
Hinges is a William S. Hart western
that’s nothing like any western
you’d see until the late 1970s.
This was likely Thomas Ince’s best
film, and his production choices
were legendary. The end features
a burning town and it’s magnifi-
cent. In my eyes, it’s one of the
greatest westerns ever, right up
there with The Man Who Shot
Liberty Valance. It was added to
the Registry in the thied or fourth
batch ever in 1994. It didn’t quite
hold my total attention, since I’d
seen it three or four times before,
and for some reason the room was
slowly sliding to the left. At more
than an hour, it was amazing I
managed to stay awake.
I took my temp again.
101.1. Not good.
That was followed by The
Fall of the House of Usher, the
1928 silent avant-garde version di-
rected by the heir to the Western
Union fortune, Dr. James Sibley
Watson. It’s weird and it led me to
the phrase that I love: once is realist, twice is
repetitive, thrice is avant-garde. That’ll come
back again, trust me.
The best 2 minutes of the DVD had to be
Groucho Marx Home movies. It’s just Groucho
and his family hangin’ out, but it’s awesome
to see Groucho as a person with family. It’s
fun stuff. It’s not on the Registry, but has some
support. That led to Running Around San Fran-
cisco For An Education, a film showing women
gettin’ learned in the late 1930s. It’s 2 minutes
and it shows SF in the old days. I think it’s fun.
That was followed by a clip from Tevye. It’s on
the Registry, I believe that it’s the first film in
Yiddish to be added to the Registry. It’s based
on the Sholem Aleichem story. It’s a good clip,
though it would have been nice to have the full
film. It’s another film from 1939, which is the
year with the most films on the NFR.
That was followed by yet another 1939
film on the Registry. Collonge: From the Diary of
Ray and Esther. It’s a short documentary about
a German-American community right before
WWII. It’s not my favourite, but it is certainly
culturally significant. In a similar vein, the first
Private Snafu short I’d ever seen, Spies, is one
of those things that is certainly wrong. It’s full
of legendary stereotypes of Japanese people
that were all the rage in the days of WWII. It’s
incredibl;e to consider the talent working on
this. There was Theodore Giessel, better known
as Dr. Suess, who was writing them, Chuck
Jones doing the animation with Mel Blanc doing
the voice of Private Snafu. There’s a full DVD
of them that’s been floating around the BASFA
scene. They’re offensive as hell, though still
nothing like the Bakshi films
of the early 1970s. None of
them are on the Registry, but
at least one will make it on in
the next few years.
The last one on the
first disk was a Registry film
called OffOn. It’s a good one
automatically because it has
an internal capital letter in
the title. Scott Bartlett made
OffOn in 1967 and it’s one
of the first combinations of
film and video. He made it in
Sacramento using TV equipment and manipulat-
ing the colour of the pieces. He even used food
coloring to give the film a very unique look. It’s
a very San Francisco kind of short avant-garde
film. It certainly follows the 3 times is experi-
mental rule. It’s weird and even though it’s only
9 minutes, sometimes folks who watch it have
their minds wander. I certainly did that morning.
I was staring slack-jawed at the screen, with my
mind being barraged with the images of flying
doves and faces in profile with weird video ef-
fects. It was put on the Registry in 2004. Sadly,
Bartlett passed away in the mid-1980s.
I had gone through the first DVD. It wasn’t
perfect. I was feeling weird, I wasn’t shivering,
I was feeling like I had been beaten with reeds.
I drank another bottle of water and then lay
looking up at the ceiling. I wanted to sleep. I re-
ally wanted to sleep. Sleeping would have been
good. It didn’t happen. My back was on fire. I
had to move. I had to. I squirmed a bit. A lot,
actually. I grabbed a copy of File 770, turned the
pages, finding my LoC right there, the first in
the column. I love File 770. Mike Glyer’s a good
dude and I love reading the reviews from John
Hertz. I started to get a cramping in my left
foot. This was a good thing as I don’t think I’d
felt anything below my knees for several hours.
It was good to feel pain there. It meant I hand
’t lost anything. This was what I was thinking
like at the moment. I got up and put the new
DVD into the player, putting the first disk in the
second disk’s holder. I wouldn’t fix that switch
for another two years.
There was no way to copyright moving
pictures so smart producers would go and make
a paper print of the film.
Photographs were able to
be copyrighted, so the pro-
ducers would put a series
of photographs 35mm wide
by how many ever feet
long. It was the way they
did things for a decade
or so. These were pretty
much forgotten about for
decades until an archivist
at the Library of Congress
rediscovered them and
made them a priority for
preservation. They set up a station for photo-
graphing them and getting them ready for per-
manent preservation. The three they chose, Star
Theatre (which is on the National Film Registry),
Move On, and Dog Factory, are very typical of
films from 1900 through 1910. Dog Factory,
which should be on the Registry in the next few
years, was a very popular film of real dogs being
put into a machine and linked sausages, or dogs,
being taken out of the machine. It’s a lot of fun.
That was followed by a 1911 film called
The Lonedale Operator. I never liked it much,
and when I was in the midst of a personal fire-
fight in my body, I was no more apt to enjoy
it. It’s not on the Registry, and neither was Her
Crowning Glory, a Bunnyfinch stariring Flora
Finch and John Bunny. It’s a fun little piece, but
it’s not overly entertaining. It was pretty good,
but at that moment, I wasn’t in the mood for
black and white. I was seeing a tinge of red with
everything around anyhow.
A pause was needed and I pulled a Sunny
Delight out of the cooler. I needed C. If I was go-
ing to beat this thing, I was going to beat it with
the power of vitamin C. I might have to leave
Vitamin C is a signer. Her big song was Graduation
from about 1997 or so. She was also Amber Van Tus-
sel in the original Hairspray!
the house to get more. It wouldn’t be anytime
soon. Once I sat down, I knew I wouldn’t be
walking anytime soon.
The next film is perfectly set as a coun-
ter-point for films like The Spirit: beautiful and
with a terrible story. In fact, it was a terrible
story, basically a retelling of Madame Butterfly
without the whimsy. Anna Mae Wong is great in
it, but the film is produced for one reason. Toll
of the Sea is the earliest two-strip Technocolor
film that still exists. And even though there is
no Blue spectrum, it’s beautiful. It’s amazing
to see. Watching films like The Toll of the Sea
or the later Ben Hur (starring Ramon Navarro)
is something special and it is so much easier to
connect with on a whole than the B+W...at least
when you’re not in your right mind. This isn’t on
the registry, and it shouldn’t be except for the
Technicolor process being a significant step for-
ward towards modern film. At 54 minutes, it was
hard to make it all the way through. I’ve never
been a fan.
I picked up a copy of Us Weekly. It’s
trash, but trash was what I needed. Britney had
just shown her babyplace while getting out of a
limo and Us milked it for all it was worth with-
out actually showing the significant portion of
the pictures. It was funny. I think I spent about
30 minutes reading it. I think I got through about
4 total pages. I wasn’t processing very quickly.
I went back to the DVD. Next was a sec-
tion from Accuracy First, a 1928 Western Union
corporate training film. Yes, they go back that
far. It’s a really interesting piece, but it’s not
the kind of thing you’d watch over and over. I
don’t think it has a chance at the Registry. Same
goes for the next two short documentaries, West
Virginia, The State Beautiful and One-Room
Schoolhouses. Both are fine documents of rural
life in the 1920s and 30s, but neigher are what
I’d call breakthroughs. They’re not on the Reg-
istry, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see either
make it on at some point. The following piece
was a series of three early sound home movies
from Archie Stewart, a guy who made hundreds
of home movies over more than 60 years. In-
teresting, and probably worthy of Registry con-
sideration, even if it’s just stuff like Christmas
morning around the house.
I needed a break. I needed to get my-
self into something that would make my mind
stronger, better able to take over from the body
and set me back onto the path of health. Yes,
I sound like some tree-hugging, dirt-munch-
ing hippy, but in reality, I’m merely grasping
at straws. With my body nearly boiling, I had
to try something. I wouldn’t call it meditating,
I don’t believe you can meditate in a smok-
ing jacket and silk pajamas, but I was deep in
thought. I closed my eyes and thought thoughts
of war, battle, victory. I had to fight whatever
it was that was making me feverish. Colors
climbed in through the edges of my closed-eye
field of vision, doing battle with the repeat-
ing black-and-white patterns I created when-
ever I closed my eyes tightly. Greens taking the
edges, yellow globs that would be surrounded
and pushed around the field, blues that became
their own patterns. I opened my eyes and the
room seemed dark, painful. I nothing in comparison. The
was feeling slightly better. At war metaphors I was pushing
least I thought I was feeling earlier played well with it, so
slightly better. I went back to that visualiza-
If you’re still read- tion. I had grittier imagery
ing this, I’m shocked. I’d to go along with it now. One
have given up a while ago. of the fever demons I envi-
Let me know that you’ve sioned this time was killed
come this far (5793 words) from flak from a thrown gre-
by sending me an eMail nade.
After that, there was a funny film about
(garcia@computerhistory.org) with the title
a few Negro League players. They were much
“Word Up” and the body message “I’ve got blis-
like the Harlem Globetrotters, a team called the
ters on me fingers!” I’ll make sure to give you a
Clowns that featured Reece Goose Tatum, one of
special plug. I love doing these little gimmicks!
the great entertainers in the history of baseball
OK, so I wasn’t doing well. I drank the
and one of the all-time great members of the
last Sunny Delight. I drank another water. I
Globetrotters. This was a very basic film, prob-
pulled up another film, Composition 1 (Themis)
ably raw material that was going ot be used for
by Dwinell Grant from 1941. This is one of my
a newreel meant for an African-American audi-
more favourites. It’s an important piece as it’s
ence.
a fine artist giving up on traditional painting
The last film on this DVD was Battery
because there’s only so much you can do, move-
Film by Richard Protovin and Franklin Backus.
ment can be hinted at, but never achieved. He
It’s a doc that includes line animation in the
used wood, glass and paper, along with amazing
background. It’s a good film, but I was not in
theatrical stage lighting, to make an awesome
the path of thought that would this kind of thing
abstract piece. The music that the disk pre-
would work for me. I drank three bottles of wa-
sented along with it wasn’t great, I don’t think
ter in the 9 minutes of Battery Film.
a strictly piano composition works with it, but I
I was sweating. I knew this was an OK
do have to say that it was a great film. It’s not
thing. I didn’t want to damage my silk pajamas,
on the Registry, but I’m hoping that the four he
so I headed into my bedroom and changed into
made (three flat and the third a 3D kind of film)
my Homer Simpson pajamas. It was time for
will end up on there someday.
sweaty comfort. I threw on my Trogdor shirt. It
I was now at 101.7, so I figured I was do-
was my victory outfit. I was getting better! I was
ing something wrong. I crawled, I kid you not,
being awesome above all measure!!!
crawled, across the floor to the kitchen, where
I still felt like I’d been battered, so I took
I managed to make it to my feet and grappled
my place on the couch and started disk three.
a fleet of paper towels, dampened them and
I’m not entirely sure what happened, but
walked rather shakily back to the couch. I was
I ended up switching the side of the couch, and
home again.
my head was kinda dangling off the edge. It was
The next film was a classic from one of
weird. I don’t know why, but I don’t think that
the truly great directors: John Huston. He di-
my neck was functioning any longer. The first
rected three films for the U.S. Army Pictorial
film was The Theiving Hand. It’s another sort of
Service, a part of the Signal Corps.. The piece
Trick film from the Vitagraph Company, but not
was called The Battle of San Pietro and it’s a
directed by Blackton. It’s a great film about a
hard one. One of the grittiest films you’ll ever
beggar without an arm who is given a new one
see, it’s a doc where you see dead people, ac-
and it turns out to be evil. In many ways, it’s
tual fighting, and it makes you think of the pain
the same idea as Idle Hands, the 1999 film with
of war by understanding what it’s really about.
Jessica Alba and a bunch of other folks. It’s a
Weigh this against any film that supposed shows
funny little film, lasts about five minutes. Not
the horror that is war and you’ll see that it is
on the Registry yet, but I’m betting in the next
three or four years.
I was swimming at this point. My head
was inverted, my eyes hurting, and I was sweat-
ing. Not the best mode for viewing movies, but
I pressed on. White Fawn’s Devotion was next,
most likely the first film directed by a Native
American, in this case James Young Deer. It
got on the Registry in 2008, though I thought it
had always been on. I like the film, despite it’s
rough edges. Pathe, the French film company,
had come across to America and this was one
of their first films. At the time, only four Young
Deer films were known to exist, but more than
a half-dozen more have been found since the
release of the DVD set.
I’m 1/8 Ohlone Indian. It’s the tribe that inhabited
much of the Silicon Valley and the Santa Cruz area. I
beleive my Grandma is one of the last half-bloods.
Still seeing the world by hanging off what
I thought might be the edge of it, I pressed on
and watched myself The Chechahcos. It was an
independant film made in Alaska in 1922. Austin
Lathrop, one of the real big wigs in the history
of Alaska, decided to make a movie shot en-
tirely on location in Alaska. It was certainly the
right choice as far as beautiful scenery goes. It
was the first feature shot entirely on location.
The film’s pretty good, and at 88 minutes it’s
the longest thing on the disks. I enjoyed it, still
sorta melted across the couch with my head
hanging off. Somehow, I had managed to eat the
rest of the Chinese wihtout changing my position
much. I don’t know how I did it, but I imagine
a scene right out of JFK where some guy argues
that it was impossible using a series of easle
cards, repeating; ‘back, and to the left. Back,
and to the left.”
I didn’t move while I watched the Japa-
nese American Community films from Rev. Sen-
sho Sasaki. It features film shot prior to WWII.
There was footage from Stockton and from Se-
attle, but there was something wrong. Not with
the film, but within me. I was slowly contract-
ing. My entire body, which had been spread into
a position that might deserve a chalk outline,
was slowly drawing itself up, into a tightened
fetal position. I didn’t know what was going on,
but I could tell that I was about to lose con-
sciousness. Something was coming down on me
hard and I had no defence.
I kept looking out into that room, that
old, dusty, well-worn room, even as I felt the
driven, yet somehow brittle hand pulling me
from it.
“You should come to bed.” The voice
sounded frightened of what might happen if I
did not comply.
“What’s out there?” I asked.
“That’s a good question.” She said, pull-
ing on my shoulder harder. I blinked as I saw
something moving out, across the Winchester
room, outside the window. It looked like a Bison,
but there was something strange.
“I remember, I remember Buffalo.” she
said, releasing my shoulder. I could feel her
walking back to the bed I didn’t remember be-
ing in the room.
“That’s a Tragically Hip lyric, isn’t it?” I
said.
I turned from the window and looked at
the woman. Her head was turned away from
me, but her legs were pointed directly at me,
her torso torqued.
“Do you ever get the feeling that the
story’s too damn real and in the present tense?”
she said.
I looked at the cigarette in my hand.
It was giving off light blue smoke into the air
which was somewhat more red than transpar-
ent.
“Jethro Tull.” I said.
She turned from me more as I made my
way around to where she was seated.
“Tell me.” I asked her.
“Tell you what?” she asked.
“Tell me about the Bison.” I said.
And She started to turn towards me as I
slowly opened my eyes and could see the dark
outlines of the living room, the reflection of
surfaces from light bouncing off whatever was in
the parking lot.
Day 3- 104.1 Degrees
I made a list and checked it thrice. 104.1,
104.0, 104.1. That wasn’t good. I knew it wasn’t
good. I know that with that kind of tempera-
ture that you’re suposed to go to the hospital. I
had no chance. It was the middle of the night.
I think it was somewhere around 3am. I had no
idea when I fell asleep, but in the time that I’d
been asleep, whatever it was that had me in it’s
grasp had rubbed it’s hands together and raised
the temperature up in here.
I panicked a little. I turned on the cold
tap in the bathtub, took a few Tylenol and sunk
in. I was freezing and just putting my feet in
made me pull myself into a state of Otherness.
I’d heard of it, the space where men on Vi-
sion Quests would go when they put themselves
through many self-tortures, but I had never ex-
perienced it. I slid in slowly. I turned on a little
bit of warm water, but mostly it was freezing
water that I got into. I sat in there and waited.
No thoughts. None. I don’t remember anything
other than the cold. I remember the cold. I
remember the pain. It hurt like hell. Because it
was cold. It was physically painful to put my-
self into that water and I knew that I had to
stay there to keep myself cold. I was hurting all
over. I was hurting inside and out. It was awful. I
should have gotten on the phone, talked to Kai-
ser, told them what the last couple of days had
been like and then make my way down there.
But I didn’t. Because I’m stupid.
I stayed in there for an hour or so. I could
tell that it was going to be a rough couple of
hours. The bath had cooled me down, there was
no question, and the Tylenol must have been
getting to work. I took my temperature again
and it was down to 101.1, That was fine by me.
Less likely that I’d burst into flames all of a sud-
den at 101.1, but it still wasn’t good. I needed
supplies. It wasn’t going to be short before I
would need to get better. My head was pound-
ing, but Safeway was open around the clock
and I needed things. Stuff and things. I slowly
walked to the computer and sent some eMails.
I think I sent eMails to work and such, but hon-
estly, I have no idea. Everything was really weird
at the time. I put together an outfit. A warm
pair of flannel pajamas, a long t-shirt and socks
along with my shoes. I almost forgot shoes. I
started my way to the door without shoes. I
finally got them and put them on. I had to sit
down after that. It wasn’t going to be a fun trip.
Luckily, I parked in front of my house so
it was a short walk. I got in and paused for a
bit. I finally turned on the engine and it was the
music of Mark Mothersbaugh. The guy had been
the leader of DEVO for years, but he left and
had a lovely film scoring career. I’d purchased
the soundtrack to The Royal Tennenbaums after
having seen it in the theatre. I loved that movie.
It was a lot of fun and the highlight was the
music. He played with many forms, including a
lovely fugue and a strange new concerto that I
had to say went all over the place. It was weird.
The other music was good too, but I only heard
the one piece in the one minute drive across the
road to the Safeway. I found myself a parking
space and sat there for a minute to give myself
a bit of extra strength for the trip. The song
Needle in the Hay came on. It’s the most wrist-
slittingly awesome song ever. It’s an Elliot Smith
song that they used in the movie for the scene
where Luke Wilson tried to commit suicide. It’s
a long song, sad, just guitar and voice. I have
to say that it’s one of my faves.Eliot Smith had
committed suicide himself on my birthday in
2002, so it became even sadder. This was the
peak of Emo.
I walked in. At that time of night, it
wasn’t hard to get a close parking space. I
walked in and found the buzzing of the over-
head lights was making me queezy. Steady,
boy-o. I had to get things. I picked a cart so that
I could use it to hold myself up while I shopped.
I made my way to the fresh fruit aisle where I
bought bananas and pineapple. Potasium and C
with fibre. Then it was off to the Odwallah case.
C Monster and Mo-Beta to give me obxcene
amounts of C and other various nutrients. I then
made my way over to the case for regular Or-
ange Juice. I picked a gallon of Pulpy Florida’s
Choice. I love pulp. I then headed to the aisle
of easy-to-make meals. I picked up a whole
chicken, a thing of chicken strips and a tray of
pot stickers. I was ready for at least two days.
I headed to pay for things, remembering that I
needed a thing of Ice. I’d have to say it to the
checker.
I pushed the cart to the check-out lane.
The girl standing behind, probably 20 or so, was
actually out on her feet. She was staring ahead,
but not seeing anything. I stood there, far too
beat to draw her attention, and waited. And
waited. And waited.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you.” She said.
“And I need a thing of ice.” I said.
“OK.” she said, starting to slide the items
across the scanner. “You need some help with
that?”
“Yeah. I’m not myself of late.” I said.
“Can I get a ten ound bag of ice to reg-
ister 8?” She said into the microphone. A few
seconds later, and I mean a few seconds, a
young guy came up with a bag. I have no idea
how they made it happen so quickly.
“That’ll be 21.12.” She said.
I stared at her.
And then I stared some more.
I had completely forgotten how the whole
paying for things thing worked. I finally got an
idea that it might have something to do with
that credit card I kept in my wallet. I took it
out and I handed it to the girl. Shr also seemed
to have some problem with the process, She
held on to the card for a while before she ran it
through. She handed it back.
I put the bags in the cart and then pushed
it back across the street to my house. I did this
on purpose. I figured that I could use the cart
to hold myself up because there was little way I
was going to be able to lift the ice bag and carry
it into the house. I had to stop twice along the
way. Once I was home, I pushed the cart into
my apartment, and started uploading, every-
thing one at a time, filling the cooler with stuff
and then putting the ice on top. It was perfect I
had purchased exactly the right amount of stuff
to fill that cooler exactly. It was as if I was so
deeply in touch with the cooler that I could do
nothing but buy the exact right amount. I then
noticed that I had left about 25 empty water
bottles around. Once I beat the bug, I would do
some serious cleaning.
The land beneath the apartment where I lived was
once Agnew Developmental Center, which I had
worked hard to keep from getting torn down!
I pushed the empty cart back, dropping it
in-between the metal rail thing before I finally
got into my car, turned it on and listened to Nico
singing some song that I didn’t recognise. She’s
always a good thing. The song was sonorous and
sad, but there’s always something about her
voice that makes me see joy in the lyrics. I can
never explain it.
I drove back home. Yes, I walked back
and forth and drove a round trip. I may be the
reason that the planet is in peril.
I slammed one of the Odwallahs. C Mon-
ster. This was step one in Beater. I’d used this
in college to get myself healthy in time for big
events. I then drank a bottle of water and then
put myself on the couch again. I was ready to
begin my work. I pressed play on the DVD again.
The thing had cycled through all the rest of the
DVD, so I had to fast forward to where I had left
off. A pair of rare aviation films from the Smith-
sonian’s Air & Space Museum. One was of the
Hindenburg on it’s flight across to the US from
Germany. It was strange to see the Swastika on
the Zeppelin, since they never focused on that
in the US Newsreels once it was over here. It
was a long segment, about 6 minutes, but it felt
much longer. The people on the thing were very
much the cruise set and they were well-treated.
I started drinking the orange juice. I got
up and grabbed a plastic cup, filled it once and
took that one down. After that, it was fill and
re-fill every fifteen minutes. It also meant more
time running back and forth to the bathroom.
This was acceptable.
The next film
on the disk should
be on the Regis-
try, but it is not.
We Work Again is a
1937 Works Prog-
ress Administration
film that covers the
WPA’s work add-
ing jobs to the African-American community in
and around New York City. They show all sorts
of footage, but the highlight is coverage of the
Voodoo MacBeth directed by Orson Welles as a
part of the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project. It was
an impressive bit of footage, long-thought lost,
but then it was found by someone at the Nation-
al Archives. That’s good stuff.
The Beater was making me feel better.
I was legitimately feeling far better, possibly
because after having woke up with a 104.1 temp
anything feels better.
I got back into the DVD, watching a sec-
tion of La Valse with George Balanchine’s chore-
ography. It’s amazing to me that so much dance
footage survives. There’s an entire section of
the New York Public Library’s research section
that holds more than 30,000 pieces of film and
video of dance from the last 100 years. I had
no idea, but it makes sense. Dance really is the
most ephemeral of artforms and the desire to
capture some of the that is great.
The next was a famous United States
Information Agency film about the Berlin Wall
called...wait for it...The Wall. There was no
Pink Floyd soundtrack. That made me happy.
What it was was a powerful doc about the peo-
ple who escpaed East Germany and then that
were killed trying to cross. It was about life and
it was about the ways in which politics often
forgets that families are stronger than any force
imposed upon them. It’s a masterpiece and I
think it’s going to end up on the Registry soon. It
is a wonderful document on not only The Wall,
but on how the US was creating films that would
change the world’s perspective on things.
The final film on the` disk was a piece
from a name that will be familiar to many Sci-
ence Fiction fans, or at least those who can
remember stuff that was done in the 1950s or
so. Ed Emshwiller was
the greatest of the
1950s science fiction
cover artists. Yes, I
know about a couple
of other names that’ll
pop up in that period,
but Emsh was by far
the most awesome.
He had done some time as an Abstract Expres-
sionist painter and was also a filmmaker. Here,
he takes long tracking shots of the land squat-
ted on by a guy named George Dumpson in a
film called George Dumpson’s Place. It’s Emsh’s
second most significat film (after Sunstone done
with Alvy Ray Smith). It’s a masterpiece of
simplicity and it shows Emsh’s understanding of
contrasting imagery. He was a great artist and a
great filmmaker. I understand that he enjoyed
shooting fellow artist’s spaces and that he con-
sidered George Dumpson something of an artist
in the mold of Joseph Cornell, putting together
an asemblage of items on his parcel of land and
letting nature do much of the creating around
it. It’s an interesting theory, and sadly George
Dumpson died before Emsh could finish the film.
More orange juice. I was going to beat
this thing and the Beater was going to work.
I might destroy my stomach with all the acid
I was piling into it, but I would damn well be
over t he fever. I took a half-hour pause from all The story is a guy who has insurance looking for
eating and drinking to see where my fever was a way to get hurt and collect on his insurance.
at. 99.7. Not only is it a good radio station, but It’s funny stuff, and from 1916, it was downright
it’s a much better tempature for a human body. amazing.
I made myself the kind of lunch only I seem to I drifted in and out during the 63 minute
make. I ate a chicken leg, three chicken strips Snow White that inspired Walt Disney as a kid
and a trio of potstickers. All were cold and all who saw it on a Paperboy’s screening. It’s on the
were delicious. I polished it off with a bit of Registry, and I’ve seen it a dozen times. Evelyn
orange juice. I was through half the gallon al- loved it. There was a thing about Hawaii, one
ready. The Beater would have to work. about Life in Maine and then there was the News
I put in the last disk, but I was sleepy. I Parade of 1934, which was a year in review done
knew that I’d likely fall asleep along the way, by Hearst Metrotone News. It was really fun to
but I also figured that I wouldn’t sleep much. I see America during the Depression. It just lets
would do some serious dozing. I hit repeat and me know what we’re in for over the next few
played all the movies. years.
I was awake for the first two, Edison
shorts about circus performers, one a contor-
tionist, the other a master of the slack wire.
I’ve come up with the phrase Grand Depression to
Both were originally Kinetoscope films, designed describe our current economic situation. I think it
to be shown in a single cabinet. I’ve only seen
a couple of films in an original Kinetoscope, but perfectly describes our times.
oddly one of them was the Contortionist short.
I was in and out over the next hour or so.
That was followed by an American Mutoscope
Rose Hobart, a film by American Modern Art-
film called Interior New York Subway. That was
ist (who couldn’t paint!) Joseph Cornell, was
the ultimate Actuality as it was a five minute
weird enough with it’s Samba soundtrack that
film, almost a continuous short, of a train go-
completely mismatches the imagery from East
ing from one station to another. It was filmed
of Borneo. It’s a montage piece that you re-
with three trains, the one that was being filmed
ally have to try and dig into. I was sleeping off
in the front, the follower that had the camera,
and on, so it matched up well with what I was
and one on a parallel track that held the lights.
feeling. That was followed by a comedic docu-
It was less than a year after the opening of the
mentary The Autobiography of a Jeep. It’s funny
New York Subway that this was filmed. If you
stuff as the Jeep tells the story of the capabili-
ever have a fever and are just about over it but
ties it’s been installed with. It’s another film
can’t seem to shake the final stages, this is the
that was made by the US War Information Of-
perfect film. I could tell that as I watched it, I
fice. I missed large chunks of it, making it an-
was rocking back and forth along with the mov-
other sort of collage fiolm. Cornell would have
ie. It reminded me of the IMAX presentations
been proud. The disk ended with a piece from
they’d have to Great America like Speed where
Marian Anderson’s Lincoln Memorial Concert
you’d see the audience swaying with the roller-
footage from Hearst Metrotone News. You’ll see
coaster and race car perspective shots.
a lot of thei newsreel footage because UCLA
I think that rocked me to sleep a bit,
holds all the Hearst Metrotone collection, which
because I saw The Land Beyond the Sunset only
it frequently makes available to documnetary
as a series of images between my fluttering
makers and so on. It also has some wrestling
eyes. It was about an ragamuffin who went on
footage. I’ve searched that a lot.
a trip. I think. It was weird. I did wake up fully
I fell asleep. Hard. I didn’t even make
to see I’m Insured, a film that has a great open-
it to the middle of the first minute of Marian
ing. It’s an artist’s hand in fast motion drawing
Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial. It
the opening scene of the short. It was great fun.
was a historic moment, but really, her voice was
Then the short starts. That was used by Winsor
like a velvet pillow for me.
McCay and later the Fleishers in their cartoons.

I put my head into her lap and she
scratched my scalp with her talons.
“What’s the Bison?” I asked.
“It’s...” she said.
I hand ’t noticed that it was walking
into the room. A Bison, the largest native North
American Mammal, had walked into the room
and was licking the corner of the bed.
“His name is Cary. He was a movie star
once.” She said.
I looked over at it and instantly recog-
nised it. It had starred in many films of the
1930s, and I often confused it for the Water
Buffalo known as Jimmy. He was standing there,
looking at the two of us. I stood up.
“It’s a ploeasure to meet you, sir.” I said
to the Bison offering my hand forward to it.
“It will say nothing, Christopher.” She
said. “It’s only hear to carry us out.”
“Carry us out?” I asked.
“For Greek.” She said.
I stared at it, noticing the saddle that was
obviously designed to seat two. The Bison was
intent on licking the corner of the bed.
She stood up and I followed her to the
side of the massive animal and we climbed on,
took the reigns which I had not noticed. We
started out the window, into the Winchester
House. We climbed narrow stairs, went through
twisted passages, under strange over-hangs. It
was disorienting to hurdle through a house on
the back of a beast. We came to the bedroom
which I knew well from the tours, the magnifi-
cent parquay floor, hand-laid. And we crossed
it to the door that led to the twelve foot drop,
and we jumped out it, landing in the garden and
into wakefulness.
Day 4- 99.3 Degrees
I was exhausted on waking up. The couch
was not as comfortable as I’d have thought, but
it was my home for at least 12 hours. I woke up
at 7:15. I was starving. I’d had the full dream
at least three times throughout the night. I was
exhausted, I’d sweat it all out and the Beater
had worked. I stared at the thermometre and
was happy to see that it was almost normal (I’m
usually about 99.0) and I felt like I’d run a mara-
thon in my sleep. I didn’t move at all after I put
the thermometre down. I stayed wrapped in
blankets, glad to feel cold that was actually cold
and not me being overly hot. I enjoyed snug-
gling up with my eyes open and my head feeling
like it had just been let out of binding. This was
nice, but I was bored.
Even though I’d been indulging in Film
History, I needed more stimulation. I know this
was the weekend, I’m just not sure if it was
Saturday or Sunday. I remember it as a Satur-
day, but everyone else I ask seems to think that
it was a Sunday. With the baked consistency of
my brain at that moment, I may well have slept
through a full day. Who knows.
I grabbed my laptop and started up my
iTunes. Note: I hate iTunes. I really do. I actu-
ally prefer the old RealJukebox over anything
that’s come out in the last decade or so. Why?
It’ll play anything and let you burn anything to
disk without matters of copyright coming in.
That was the old version, the new versions are
the worst thing for a guy who uses his music like
I do.
I play a lot of strange music and I play a
lot of standard pop as well. Sometimes, the two
overlap, but not too often. One of the groups I
was most hopeful of finding when I went to the
UK was Maximo Park. They’re a great group,
almost straight ahead rock ‘n roll. It plays loud
and hard and is one of the best bands I’d discov-
ered in years. I found a CD of MySpace Music in
2004. It was full of British bands that I’d never
heard of, but the song that got me featured the
lyric “I’ll do graffiti if you sing to me in French.”
I love that line, and that led to me for searching
it on YouTube and finding some good stuff, but
nothing in the record stores that I frequent. I
was almost forced to make my way to Amazon to
buy it when I took a trip to Las Angeles’ Amoeba
Records, who had a huge import section where I
managed to get a copy of Apply Some Pressure,
Maximo Park’s fine album from 2004.
It’s a great album, especially if you’re a
fan of bands like the MC5, The Stooges or more
recent stuff from bands like Green Day and The
Offspring. It’s not quite punk, but it’s not quite
hard rock either. It’s in the middle and it’s great
stuff. I can think of a few American bands that
rock like this, but not other band that adds as
much balls-to-the-walls bravura. I love the lyr-
ics, though others I’ve read have called them
both simplistic and over-happy. They remind me
a bit of bands like The Inspiral Carpets and The
Happy Mondays from Manchester back in the
1980s and 90s.
The song that’s best in my eyes is the
title track, Apply Some Pressure. It’s rockin’, it’s
well-written and it’s got a catchy hook. I can
never argue with a catchy hook.
As I was listening, I was reading a book
from Isaac Asimov. Yes, I’ve often put Isaac
down over the years, often lumping him in with
a dude by the name of Heinlein who I really
don’t like, but this was different. This was his
mystery novel Murder at the ABA, where a de-
tective based on Harlan Ellison takes on a case
of several murders. I started reading, but it
wasn’t the kind of reading where you remember
anything or take anything out of it. I was liter-
ally just reading and reading to keep my mind
off of the world. I drank the other Odwallah and
a few bottles of water. I wasn’t about to go back
to acting normal so soon. I plowed through and
stopped reading after I came within a few pages
of the finish.
I needed more movies.
I popped in Roadhouse. If you like clas-
sic American Cinema, skip Roadhouse. It’s a
Patrick Swayze movie so you’ll know automati-
cally what’s what, but if you’re a fan of Cinema
de Awesome, you mustn’t miss it. The story is
dumb, the acting is both stiff and simplistic, and
the use of Ben Gazarra is almost criminal, but
there’s so much awesome. Swayze rips a guy’s
throat out, there are multiple bar fights and
there’s Terry Funk, former NWA World Heavy-
weight Champion, being a terribly bad man. It
was incredible.
I watched it while having to get up about
three times an hour to use the restroom. A fever
will make you an incredibly efficient user of wa-
ter, but once that’s gone, well it all comes back.
I was unhappy with that one fact.
I finished Roadhouse and put on Donnie
Darkko. I followed that with Teaching Miss Tingle
(which was originally called Killing Miss Tingle,
which was a much better title) and ended up
falling asleep again. I woke up feeling entirely
normal, which is a odd feeling for me. I remem-
ber waking up and swearing at myself for my
lack of sleep discipline: it was 2 in the morning
and I was antsy to get something done. I wrote
an issue of the Drink Tank and I remember think-
ing that it was something I should have been
doing all along.
This issue was written mostly over the Christmas
break of 2008, but I completed the layout while
watching Top Chef in early February 2009.