Happiness #3

Apichatpong asks: "Are we drunk on something?"

Yes.

The opening shot of Millenium Mambo.

The final shot of Chop Shop.

Just about every moment of Isaki Lacuesta's La Leyenda del Tiempo.

Any and every page of Barry Lopez' Desert Notes.

The final passages of the Raymond Carver short story Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes.

The opening chords of 'U-Mass' by Pixies.

The fact that a bigrecordcompany allowed me to use the opening chords to 'U-Mass' by Pixies in one of my little flicks.

The final resound of Skull by Sebadoh.

The Tim Rogers lyrics: 'you woke me up just to check that I'm alive, we talk to each other as if we're five'.

The sound of just about any g-funk track coming from a passing car.

The thought of my old '82 Urvan - the red curtains and brown vinyl seats, the dodgy wiring and switch ignition - wherever it has ended up in the world.

The madness, humanity and audacity of Danish screenwriters.

This scene.

This movie.

This fragment of Eduardo Galeano's writing:

The Function of Art / 1
Diego had never seen the sea. His father, Santiago Kovadloff, took him to discover it.
They went south.
The ocean lay beyond high sand dunes, waiting.
When the child and his father finally reached the dunes after much walking, the ocean exploded before their eyes. And so immense was the sea and its sparkle that the child was struck dumb by the beauty of it.
and when he finally managed to speak, trembling, stuttering, he asked his father: "Help me to see!"*

The mix tapes a friend of mine gives to me at my birthday, year after year.

The fact that only recently have his mix tapes become mix CDs.

The single annual email a long lost friend sends to me that arrives on the morning of my birthday every year without fail.

The handful of pubs and bars that surround my studio that are full of good folks and cheap booze.

The thought of all the unmade and unwatched films, unwritten and unread books and unrecorded and unheard records.

The memory of the mayhem that comes with shared listening sessions of The Shape of Punk to Come by Refused.

This fragment of writing from Walter Benjamin's 'One Way Street':

Ordinance
I had arrived in Riga to visit a woman friend. Her house, the town, the language were unfamiliar to me. Nobody was expecting me, nobody knew me. For two hours I walked the streets in solitude. Never again have I seen them so. From every gate a flame darted, each cornerstone sprayed sparks, and ever streetcar came towards me like a fire-engine. For she might have stepped out of the gateway, around the corner, been sitting in the streetcar. But of the two of us I had to be, at any price, the first to see the other. For had she touched me with the match of her eyes, I should have gone up like a magazine.**

This photo.

The absent-minded habit my 4 year old nephew has of running his hand across the stubble on my chin when he is talking to me.

The stretch of road from the Hume Highway through the rainforests of the Burrawang pass down to Jamberoo and on to the coast.

The view walking down Rucker's Hill at dusk.

The memory of an abandoned week long trek through the Alpujarras that came to a halt in a small village that was almost impossible to leave.

And this Buoy Archive I made when I first fell in love with T.

*From 'El Libro de Los Abrazos' - Eduardo Galeano
**From 'One Way Street' - Walter Benjamin