—we expect mumia to come home
a fine introduction to the fabricated case, the hostile city and the venal state, and to decades of courage and solidarity. i saw an online screening hosted by two california chapters of the black alliance for peace with johanna fernandez, the writer and producer, who shared some updates on the fight for a new trial. it's narrated by juan gonzález, who, i learned from fernandez, cofounded the new york city branch of the young lords. available on vimeo.
the first time since 2014 that i walked into a theater knowing i was too tired, and dozed. one change since eight years ago is that all the seats recline now at the place to see movies downtown so i was a goner. a good movie to drift in and out of. five other people were in the audience including an older couple who sat almost in the front row, and when it was over one of them stood up laughing and said to the other, well we can check that off our list.
"Mahler’s music is the individual’s dream of the irresistible collective. But at the same time it expresses objectively the impossibility of identification with it. Just as it knows of the nullity of the isolated ego that mistakenly believes itself absolute, so it also knows that this ego cannot aspire to being the collective subject directly. Mahler lacks all trace of the objectivist attitudes of the neo-Classicists who followed him; in those circles he was hated. His music neither speaks lyrically…
—pardon?
—nothin'— … no
—pardon?
X was the second movie i saw in a theater since the start of the pandemic, and—equally important benchmark—pearl was the first i went to see twice so i could sit longer with mixed appreciation and doubt. the last movie i saw twice in a theater was call me by your name in 2018. call me by your name and pearl both ask to be revisited among strangers with the knowledge of a particular…
