Sunday Morning! Paul Bowles’ “You Are Not I”

Rufus F.

Rufus is a likeable curmudgeon. He has a PhD in History, sang for a decade in a punk band, and recently moved to NYC after nearly two decades in Canada. He wrote the book "The Paris Bureau" from Dio Press (2021).

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10 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    Jarmusch is one of those who leaves me confused more often than not. “I’ve just spent 45 seconds looking at this guy stare off into space.”

    You see him purse his lips as if he’s about to say something then you see him let it go and exhale and go back to not saying something.

    “Detached” is a good term for it.

    When I consider “re-attach” movies, I come up with stuff like Amelie or God’s Not Dead 2 and I’m not sure I’m a huge fan. But being alienated is less interesting as I get older.Report

    • Rufus F. in reply to Jaybird says:

      Jarmusch is *really* hit or miss for me. I don’t like much of his early stuff, although I love Down by Law. And then I sporadically like or dislike his movies after that. I was not a fan of Broken Flowers. And I loved Paterson so much I have told multiple people to watch it. It’s perfect. It’s just about a guy who drives a bus and writes poems and loves his wife. Seriously, it’s perfect. And then his zombie movie was… well, pretty bad. But Paterson is totally beautiful and sincere and its languid spots are more Zen than detached. So, start there.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Rufus F. says:

        Dead Man is one of those flicks I’ve seen… three times? Four times?

        They all blur together.

        It’s like he takes amazing people and gives them amazing speeches and we float dream-like between them. “Do you know my poetry?” still haunts me.Report

  2. Aaron David says:

    Back in high school, because we grew up on the coast we would drive out there sometimes, to the less trampled parts. Mostly due to the feeling of restlessness you have at that age, but also a need to become… something. No one ever knows what. Anyway, we would stand on the low cliffs, looking out to sea and my friend would confess that he always had an urge to jump off. Running, walking, it didn’t matter. There was just this need to see what was on the other side of that door, that idea. I wonder if that idea of killing someone, of crossing that line so to speak, is in a similar vein.

    When you were describing the movie, I couldn’t help but think of Jarmusch’s first film, Strangers in Paradise.* Or the fascination with his second film we seemed to have in high school, Down by Law. We came to it by way of Tom Waits but left with John Lurie. Who was my into to the downtown NY scene. And you are right, so much creative output.

    Not reading anything too spectacular, but going back over some older stuff. Still reading dune, but adding to it some Conrad short stories about the Napoleonic era.

    *double checking my memory of the title, I am reminded it was his second film. I totally forgot about Permanent Vacation.Report

  3. “You Are Not I”

    But we are all together.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    Apparently, there is going to be a Space Jam 2.

    I hope they keep continuity with the first Space Jam.Report