biking with Bukowski
Two quick links to stories of interest:
The Washington Post has a look at the new documentary about Charles Bukowski. Early on, the review refers to him as "literature's most prolific boozer." That seems like a hard one to judge, really, but he's definitely high on the list. (One wonders who literature's most prolific boozer is now?) The director quit his job at the Postal Service after his first encounter with Bukowski and started making the movie. (Or says he did. These Beat sympathizer kids are so dramatic.)
So Dullaghan quit, too. He spent eight years, and $200,000 of his own money, shooting interviews with Bukowski's old publishers, comrades, wives and girlfriends (and Tom Waits, Bono, Harry Dean Stanton and Sean Penn), and gathering more than 30 hours of obscure footage of Bukowski himself, which is the best stuff, in which he holds forth for Italian, Belgian and German journalists over the course of three decades -- a glass of wine always within reach, huffing on a nasty-looking Bidi cigarette (made in India and, as Bukowski joked, "rolled by lepers") -- scenes in which Bukowski is by turns is charming, obnoxious, insightful, slurred.
In one bit, deep in his cups, he is shown kicking his last wife, Linda Lee, off the couch, threatening divorce. In the film's opening sequence, just before he performs a reading at San Francisco's City Lights bookstore, Bukowski, already drunk on cheap wine, turns into a darkened hallway and pukes.
I can't wait.
Also, the NYTimes has a good piece on cycling for exercise (which makes it sound way less fun than it is) and how you choose a bike, etc. The writer talks about how she felt when she finally got a bike that fit her. The shop guy asked her to ride it around the parking lot, but she said said no:
"I wanted to see the expression on your face," he explained.
I scoffed. After all, this was just a bicycle, I thought. The difference is it will fit me. The pain in the back of my neck will no longer plague me and I will do better on hills.
When I got home, my son and I headed out for a quick ride. Before I had gone a quarter-mile, I knew what the man at the shop meant. The bicycle responded, it handled, it moved, it was like a living thing. I was flying. Now that was bicycling.
Somewhere in there, I bet all those guys in the Tour (186 now?) feel the same way.
worm "Bastards of Young," The Replacements
namecheck Al "Your Name is Like a Vonnegut Character's and Still I Hate You" Trautwig
The Washington Post has a look at the new documentary about Charles Bukowski. Early on, the review refers to him as "literature's most prolific boozer." That seems like a hard one to judge, really, but he's definitely high on the list. (One wonders who literature's most prolific boozer is now?) The director quit his job at the Postal Service after his first encounter with Bukowski and started making the movie. (Or says he did. These Beat sympathizer kids are so dramatic.)
So Dullaghan quit, too. He spent eight years, and $200,000 of his own money, shooting interviews with Bukowski's old publishers, comrades, wives and girlfriends (and Tom Waits, Bono, Harry Dean Stanton and Sean Penn), and gathering more than 30 hours of obscure footage of Bukowski himself, which is the best stuff, in which he holds forth for Italian, Belgian and German journalists over the course of three decades -- a glass of wine always within reach, huffing on a nasty-looking Bidi cigarette (made in India and, as Bukowski joked, "rolled by lepers") -- scenes in which Bukowski is by turns is charming, obnoxious, insightful, slurred.
In one bit, deep in his cups, he is shown kicking his last wife, Linda Lee, off the couch, threatening divorce. In the film's opening sequence, just before he performs a reading at San Francisco's City Lights bookstore, Bukowski, already drunk on cheap wine, turns into a darkened hallway and pukes.
I can't wait.
Also, the NYTimes has a good piece on cycling for exercise (which makes it sound way less fun than it is) and how you choose a bike, etc. The writer talks about how she felt when she finally got a bike that fit her. The shop guy asked her to ride it around the parking lot, but she said said no:
"I wanted to see the expression on your face," he explained.
I scoffed. After all, this was just a bicycle, I thought. The difference is it will fit me. The pain in the back of my neck will no longer plague me and I will do better on hills.
When I got home, my son and I headed out for a quick ride. Before I had gone a quarter-mile, I knew what the man at the shop meant. The bicycle responded, it handled, it moved, it was like a living thing. I was flying. Now that was bicycling.
Somewhere in there, I bet all those guys in the Tour (186 now?) feel the same way.
worm "Bastards of Young," The Replacements
namecheck Al "Your Name is Like a Vonnegut Character's and Still I Hate You" Trautwig
posted by Gwenda @ 7/06/2004 05:04:00 PM
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