december 1–15, 2015

Books

  • Maurice Collis, The Land of the Great Image: Being Experiences of Friar Manrique in Arakan
  • Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend, translated by Ann Goldstein
  • Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name, trans. Ann Goldstein
  • Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, trans. Ann Goldstein
  • Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child, trans. Ann Goldstein

Films

  • Mediterraneo, directed by Gabriele Salvatores
  • The Immortal Story, dir. Orson Welles
  • Čovek nije tica (Man Is Not a Bird), dir. Dušan Makavejev
  • The Bad and the Beautiful, dir. Vicente Minnelli
  • Fallen Angel, dir. Otto Preminger
  • The End of the Tour, dir. James Ponsoldt

a kind of television with a keyboard

“We locked our­selves in her of­fice and sat at the com­puter, a kind of tele­vi­sion with a key­board, very dif­fer­ent from what she had showed me and the chil­dren some time be­fore. She pressed the power but­ton, she slid dark rec­tan­gles into gray blocks. I waited, be­wil­dered. On the screen lu­mi­nous tremors ap­peared. Lila began to type on the key­board, I was speech­less. It was in no way com­pa­ra­ble to a type­writer, even an elec­tric one. With her fin­ger­tips she ca­ressed gray keys, and the writ­ing ap­peared silently on the screen, green like newly sprouted grass. What was in her head, at­tached to who knows what cor­tex of the brain, seemed to pour out mirac­u­lously and fix it­self on the void of the screen. It was power that, al­though pass­ing for act, re­mained power, an elec­tro­chem­i­cal stim­u­lus that was in­stantly trans­formed into light. It seemed to me like the writ­ing of God as it must have been on Sinai at the time of the Com­mand­ments, im­pal­pa­ble and tremen­dous, but with a con­crete ef­fect of pu­rity. Mag­nif­i­cent, I said.”

(Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child, trans. Ann Goldstein, chapter 101, p. 289.)

november 16–30, 2015

Books

  • Chester Himes, The Big Gold Dream
  • Chester Himes, The Real Cool Killers
  • Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, translated by John Ciardi
  • Chester Himes, The Heat’s On
  • Henry James, The Awkward Age
  • Chester Himes, Blind Man with a Pistol

Films

  • Arabian Nights: Volume 3 – The Enchanted One, directed by Miguel Gomes
  • Vanishing Point,dir. Jakrawal Nilthamrong
  • Historias de Cronopios y de Famas, dir. Julio César Ludueña
  • Остров (Islands), dir. Ruben Gevorkyants
  • Pulp, dir. Mike Hodges
  • Hammett, dir. Wim Wenders
  • Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, dir. Sam Peckinpah