Frustration... Being Sick and Unable to Sleep

I haven't visited this blog in quite some time, but a fairly severe chest/sinus cold has robbed me of my voice, left me with a rather nasty cough tonight and an inability to sleep. So in order not to be sucked into a book or a movie which will keep me up even longer, I thought I'd attempt a bit of old fashioned blogging tonight. This desire may be the side effect of being quieted by this cold. I spoke a fair amount today in this rasp of a whisper I now call a voice, but in comparison to how much I usually go on about in a day, I have hours of worth of conversation still pent up inside of me!

So what fascinations, infatuates, or distracts me these days... hmmm... well... let's see.

Christmas is a mere 21 days away now, so that's been on the mind a lot! I am quite proud to report I nearly have all of my shopping done and took sincere and full advantage of many recent holiday related sales and coupons and such!

As I was out searching on Black Friday for stuff for my family, I did make quite a deal for myself finding the new book, Audrey 100, which I was able to score for nearly 90% off thanks to a combination of a weekend sale price, extra discount, and a coupon! It's a beautiful book, of course, but the price allowed me the purchase!

Another such deal lured me into making my first film purchases from the Warner Archive! I took advantage of their "Build a Bundle" deal and got a movie for my dad for Christmas, and a few goodies for me! I am very excited to see what the quality of these "Made On Demand" DVDs are like and since they shipped today it shouldn't be long before I know firsthand. I ordered a variety of films: Green Mansions with Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins, None But the Lonely Hearts with Cary Grant and Ethel Barrymore, Golden Arrow with Bette Davis, and the silent classic, Love, with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. I've been on a huge silent film kick recently so I am extremely excited to watch that one!

My silent film mania was brought on in November thanks to the Moguls and Movie Stars series on TCM. Part six airs this coming Monday and I am sad that there's only one more episode left after that part. I have read a lot about the early days of the movie industry and covered that ground in a film history course on college, but I still find that looking back on those early pioneering days of the industry to be completely captivating and always fascinating. I think part of what I find very interesting about the movies is how the art form developes essentially alongside the industrial revolution and a whole host of industrial practices and values become a huge factor in the way in which films themselves were then made.

Gore Vidal has had a few spots throughout TCM's Moguls and Movie Stars lending his usual wit and wisdom to this look back at Hollywood's Golden Age, and seeing him got me looking at his work again. I picked up his books Hollywood and Empire and added them to my perpetual stack of reading material. On Tuesday, I finished reading Graham Greene's prose for screenplays of The Third Man and The Fallen Idol. It was an Orson Welles film kick that became a Carol Reed film kick that got me to reading Graham Greene again. I find that I have so many sincere interests in things that the cycle of my interests always leads me back to an artist, or author, or director, etc if my original interest was satisfied by their work and the work came to mean a lot to me on some artistic, emotional, or intellectual level. I am not one to boast or revel in one's self but I do like that I continue to stay curious as a person, that I wish to continue to learn and expand the base of knowledge which I possess in this life. I suppose it does no more than to entertain my mind and and keep me content, but that kind of personal joy cannot be taken lightly.

The other good read I finished this week was Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library Volume 20, which was an incredible edition, focused on the life story of one, Jordan Wellington Lint. I found Lint's life story to be heartbreaking, frustrating, pathetic and loathsome as he moves through his life beginning to end. I don't think I have ever read a character who had my heart go out to him so completely in the beginning but then completely earned my full sense of digust by the end on the book. As always Volume 20, "Lint", was presented in Ware's signature mode of brilliantly designed panels and plot, as he uses the unique manner in which one can tell a story with this particular medium to its fullest and most realised form. This is a unique work of comic art!
Well, off to bed I think. Much to do in the morning and then work until 7PM. I am looking forward to being off Sunday so that I may rest and possibly best this cold for good! Reading and watching movies will be the order of the day!