Jonathan Lethem is trying to tell me something, I am not listening.

You know what I like almost as much as movies? Books. Yeah super original, I know. I wish I had a cool hobby like rock-climbing or extreme body modification. Well I don't so I bought a bunch of books last night/this morning. I'm not gonna bore you with long descriptions of them but I feel the need to mention a couple of things. Okay I need to mention a couple of long boring descriptive things.

First: Jonathan Lethem. Jonathan Lethem fucking haunts my life. Jonathan Lethem is trying to brainwash me or some shit. He is a writer. He is a New York Jew person. He is everywhere. This is Jonathan Lethem, trying to force me to think about ducks:



I first came across a book of his in the Powerhouse Arena bookstore in brooklyn in the fall. I picked up a book thinking it was on color theory or disappointed people (I was kind of disappointed at the time) because it looks like this:



But then I read the back and found out it was actually a collection of Jonathan Lethem's essays on star wars, cassavetes, new york etc. So I bought it. And read it. And it was pretty good.

okay so I am in this book "club" (bookmooch, link on the right) where you can swap your books that you dont want for books you want. I have a list of maybe 30 books that i want if someone decides they wanna swap them, and what's the first book that I am offered? The only Jonathan Lethem book on my list: Motherless Brooklyn. Okay, fine, I wouldn't mind reading something else by him, but not for a while. So it's sitting on my nightstand. ok.

I go home to Iceland for christmas and ask my mom to get me some books in icelandic from the library because I haven't read any in a while. She sort of misunderstands and gets me all these originally english language books that have been translated into icelandic. She picks up, yeah you guessed it; Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of solitude and says "this one is supposed to be really good!"

I tell her yeah I wanna read it but maybe later in english, Give me something by Gyrðir Elíasson.

Last night I hung out at the St. Marks bookstore for a while because it was freezing outside and decided to buy a cool looking book of short stories about made up people mostly because Daniel Clowes is in it (and Charles Burns did the cover and I ALWAYS judge a book by its cover):



I totally DID NOT NOTICE until this morning in school when I was reading it that, guess who, YES Jonathan Lethem has a story in it. Okay wow. I can't really get rid of this guy.

So I pick up another few books at Strand after school, including Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings that I have been super excited about. As I was reading that this afternoon, Rachael London who's sitting next to me on the couch says "oh did you buy this because Jonathan Lethem loves it?" Surely enough, THERE HE IS AGAIN on the back cover of Tomines book praising it.

What the fuck. Did someone do a Jonathan Lethem voodoo curse on me? please let me read something that he is not involved in for ONE MINUTE.

Alright. Sorry about that. I just... if my life is to be taken over by one writer I would want it to be someone I really really love and not just pretty-good-Jonathan-fucking-Lethem.

The End.


As for Adrian Tomine, he happens to be one of the first people I was into when I got into my serious alt-comics stage at around 12. I remember reading this online and being like "yeah seems like a pretty cool guy." Then I read Optic Nerve and Summer Blonde, and always just thought of him as such a typical white american comic dude, maybe because he sort of did that on purpose as I learnt in a great radio interview with him (Fresh Air with Terry Gross). Turns out I've been pronouncing his name wrong for half of my life and his new book that's blowing everyone's mind these days, Shortcomings, is sort of intensely about NOT being the person I (and a lot of other people) assumed he was for a long time. I can't even comment on it further, I am too intensely intensed out after just having finished it. Well he's come a long long way since those teenage comic strips that I linked to earlier. If you like graphic novels you kind of need to read this. I just want to say this: in the beginning of the book there is a list of characters with pictures, names, occupation, birthplace and height. Every character in this book is shorter than me.

Thanks Tomine, thanks a lot for making me feel like a FREAK OF NATURE GIANT.


(this is the sad face that Adrian Tomine makes when giant scandinavian people get angry at him.)

Two people really thought I was so american for a long time recently. It makes me kind of sad, although being so terribly ambiguous can come in handy some times I guess.

Who's going to make a graphic novel about being really icelandic and confused in america? Me? I don't have time for that. I'm too busy being mistaken for an american person.

WATCH FILMS (WITH ME) IN NEW YORK

I just want to talk about films right now.

first of all, I went to see a really great one last night; Katsuhito Ishii's Funky Forest: The First Contact. A year ago I saw an earlier film of his; The Taste of Tea and fell in love instantly. It was kind of like an awesome Japanese version of the royal tenenbaums. Funky Forest was a bit more surreal and less traditional, but it was no less awesome. It had lots of great choreographed dance scenes and dream scenes, fun music and all around un-serious david-lynch-ish fun weird shit.

The cast does a great job (it's partially the same in both movies), plus Funky Forest notably stars Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) and Ryo Kase (Letters from Iwo Jima, Scrap Heaven). So if you have ANY interest in asian cinema (or like the royal tenenbaums or eraserhead (but don't take yourself too seriously)) SEE THIS! both films are showing right now at the Imaginasian theater in NYC. here are trailers:

The Taste of Tea (2004)


Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)



Next up is stuff I want to see:


City of Men (Citade dos Homens, Paulo Morelli, 2007) now playing at the angelica. I really really liked City of God when that came out (and I've talked to some people who were peeing their pants over the City of Men miniseries) so seeing this makes sense.



Paranoid Park (2007). Watching Gus Van Sant fetishize little skater boys (like so many before him) and little Jenny from gossip girl be, well, someone other than little Jenny from gossip girl: sounds like a fun time. Now Playing at the angelica.



Funny Games U.S. remake coming soon. I really really like Michael Haneke. He is so wonderfully morbid and depressing. He makes the perfect films for me to watch when I don't want to watch happy shit. If you're into that and not familiar with him I recommend La Pianiste, Le Temps du Loup and the original Funny Games. Or hey, if your english is better than your french and you're too lazy to read subtitles you're in for a treat because Michael Haneke just remade his own movie in english! because he can do that! Because he's awesome! and Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet are in it! And Naomi Watts and some other people! But who really cares about them! Morbid + scary + Haneke = I'll see it.



Harmony Korine's Mr. Lonely. Yes! So exciting. coming soon to IFC center.



Frownland by some dude named Ronald Bronstein. This is some crazy shit. yes. now playing at IFC center.



...If you want to watch any of these with me, let me know soon. or if you want to tell me about good new films that I am not expressing excitement about. Or if you have questions. Or if you want to tell me I suck and that I'm wasting my life watching pretentious films while I could be doing my homework or eating more vegetables.

He has killed a lot of animals in his lifetime but mostly lizards

I need to tell you about one of my classes. It is one of my favorite classes; a writing and drawing class called picture-story workshop. One of the great things about this class is Ben Katchor. He is the teacher. Another great thing is this AMAZING little korean girl who has not failed to bring all the best stories so far. What makes them so good is that they're sort of unintentionally amazing. She just sort of hangs out in the corners all shy and polite and quiet and cute and then she opens her mouth and amazing things come out with her polite and quiet voice.

example 1:

we had to interview a subject of our choice and she interviewed her male friend. When she was a few seconds into her account of the interview I manically started writing down some excerpts from it (this girl does not actually look like the freak of nature child-humans that i like to draw during class)



I will elaborate for you:

"He was bragging about his digestive system and how it is so good. He has great control over his digestive system and can relieve himself whenever he likes or hold it in for days. He has killed a lot of animals in his lifetime but mostly lizards and other cold blooded animals. He fears lizards and other cold blooded animals. He was in the Korean army and there he killed many lizards and snakes. A dream he remembers is him dreaming of himself dreaming."

And then the dude drew a picture of A CRUCIFIED MACBOOK AIR WITH A MACBOOK PRO LOOKING AT IT SAYING "MACBOOK AIR SUCKS!"

I want nothing more now than for this young man to be my friend. he can brag about his digestive system all he wants and kill me some lizards.

example 2:

we had to write a story about our "life of crime." I wrote a really boring story about dairy products because I am too much of a wuss to write about anything interesting/ too innocent to have committed any serious crimes. failure.

but SHE starts talking and it goes something like "well I had a boyfriend here but then I went to Korea and had... an encounter with a very nice boy there..."

snap.

so that wasn't too outrageous. but next we had to draw pictures of the crime scene. and this girls picture was possibly the greatest crime scene picture I have ever seen. She didn't give it to me but I tried my best to reproduce her drawing for your viewing pleasure.



and it gets better with the explanations:

Ben Katchor: wait... your hair is completely straight. Why is there an afro in this picture?
awesome girl: oh, this is just to show all the confusion in my mind.
Ben Katchor: so there was striped wallpaper in his room?
awesome girl: no, this is to show how it was like a prison.

I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE... OH NO WHO DO I LOVE! OH NO I HAVE AN AFRO AND I'M GIVING A BLOWJOB IN PRISON.

I will try to be her friend as soon as possible.