Saturday, October 13, 2012

Singing

Tonight I stumbled on Joseph Strick's strange and raw and beautiful and erratic film adaptation of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. It was kinda thrilling to hear the book's opening passages altered from "This is not a book..." to "This is not a film..."

“This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse...
To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.”

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