Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

10 October 2003

Everywhere Godard

Is it odd that two movies opening in multiplexes across the country this weekend have Jean-Luc Godard film titles prominently placed in their opening credits? Intolerable Cruelty is an Alphaville Films movie, and Kill Bill is of course from Tarantino's production company, A Band Apart (aka Band à part).

In A Decade Under The Influence, a recent documentary about the probably over-discussed period in the 70s when mavericks took over the American movie studios, half of those mavericks cite Godard as a huge influence. Scorsese added that they were impressed by the French New Wave... but were of course American, not French, which might as well be a summation of Mean Streets. Those bedroom scenes are straight from Breathless (or The Little Soldier, or Contempt, or...), but the characters are straight from the streets of New York.

My question, I guess, is why are Godard's fingerprints on celluloid everywhere, but he might as well be dead as far as anyone here can tell? He released a movie in the U.S. last year that was all-but-ignored, and it had wider distribution than any other movie he's made in years. Yes, he has made other movies. I know, he killed his own career by becoming increasingly uncommercial, but surely he's still worth paying attention to.

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