Interview and Reading List
by
, 08-30-2010 at 11:57 PM (3166 Views)
Hello out there. Just figured I would say hello to the blogging world out there as I have been absent for quite some time.
I finally got a call back from a store I applied to and I'm getting an interview tomorrow. I'm nervous but confident, and most of all, I am looking forward to the $$
As of late I've been listening to quite a lot of music. Classical mostly. I have come across a truly transcendent epiphany in discovering the great Reinissance composer Gesualdo, thanks to the delightful Classical Listening thread, whose works have has moved my very soul, something only a very few works of art and music have done.
Tormented by guilt with an almost uncontrollable yearning for atonement, Gesualdo's musical works are almost uncanny in how cannily human they are. (Please read his biography in the wiki page in order to get a really good sense of his music.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbgZbbQZG_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S395O1YJD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVW8GCnr9-I
On the cinematic side: I've been going on a "movies of epic length" binge and have recently watched two masterpieces, both seven hours, one a French silent from 1915 Les Vampires and the other a German experimental film called Hitler: A Film from Germany.
Both are major works of cinema whom I would recommend to hardened film-buffs, while I would only recommend the former to the common movie-going audience, as it is certainly the least boring seven hours you will ever spend at the movies.
I've also recently been going on with my almost religious love of Ozu's works. His films which are so humane and powerful feel truly like little bits of banal life in which we discover the profound. I love him more and more every time I see his films, and more and more I am convinced that he is the greatest cinematic master of all time. If there were ever a film I would recommend to all of humanity, it would be Tokyo Story. Minimalistic in every way (as with all of his works) this Japanese classic is an extremely simple tale about a parents visit to their now grown-up children. It is such a profound and yet simple film that it seems altogether universal (do not let the word "Japanese" scare you), and despite the mannerisms being uniquely Japanese, this is a film for all people. Please please please see it. (I contain my enthusiasm for Ozu's technique and withhold it, for I have more to say and I am certainly afraid of boring you with film jargon.)
In other news, I've been reading the first books of the Torah, which as always are mighty in their narrative and literary power. Yahweh is certainly one of the most uncanniest figures in Western literature.
As a way to provide myself some organization, I shall now include a reading and viewing list for the sake of my own peace of mind and schedule:
To Read:
1. As You Like It by Shakespeare
2. Measure for Measure by Shakespeare
3. Hadji Murat by Tolstoy
4. The Misanthrope by Moliere
5. Leaves of Grass by Whitman
6. Peer Gynt by Ibsen (translation recommendations anyone?)
7. The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy
8. The Bridge by Crane
9. Don Quioxte by Cervantes
10. The Four Zoas by Blake
11. The Book of Exodus
12 The Divine Comedy by Dante
etc.
To Watch:
1. Early Summer - Ozu
2. In Praise of Love - Godard
3. Les Vampires - Feuillade (again)
4. Platform - Zhangke
5. Shoah - Lanzmann
6. The Magnificent Ambersons - Welles
7. The Other Half - Li
8. The Dekalog - Kieslowski
9. Ti Xie Qu - Bing
10. Kind Hearts and Coronets - Hamer
11. Pickpocket - Bresson
12. Fengming, A Chinese Memoir - Bing
Plays/Operas to watch from youtube/netflix
1. Krapp's Last Tape - Beckett
2. Agamenmon - Aeschylus
3. The Libation Bearers - Aeschylus
4. The Eumendites - Aeschylus
5. Hedda Gabler - Ibsen
6. Parsifal - Wagner
7. Endgame - Beckett
8. Oedipus Triology - Sophocles
9. Aida - Verdi
10. The Marriage of Figaro - Mozart