May, June, July 2024 Journal Entries

May 2. I have very little interest in the creative ideas of other people. I guess that’s what puts me on the artistic, rather than the money-grubbing, side of the fence. For all the good it’s done me.

Anyway, show me the execution of an idea or show me out. Life is short and I have my own ideas to work on.

May 6. The always quotable Daniel Barenboim gives us another great one in his assessment of Beethoven’s Ninth in today’s New York Times: “Music never just laughs or cries; it always laughs and cries at the same time.”

Chew on that for a minute!

May 10. Readers will be the judge of whether or not you write literary fiction, thank you very much.

May 12. I just learned that Roger Corman has died. He had an enormous impact on my interest in horror films. His Poe collaborations with Richard Matheson remain crucial viewing for any serious terror buff, and one can only imagine what an adaptation of the Clive Barker-penned “Haekel’s Tale” would have looked like with Corman at the helm, as was the original plan.

Rest easy, RC.

June 5. If I could travel back in time, much of my focus would be on meeting up with famous writers—but I probably wouldn’t engage with most of them, just watch from across the cafe or pub as they scribble on their paper or chat with a friend.

June 7. There’s something liberating about rejecting all metaphysical ideas, including your own.

July 21. I love an actor who can carry a flawed film across the finish line. Lee Marvin was definitely such an actor.

July 28. Hitchcock’s British films provide such great insight into his later American work, in addition to being beautifully crafted in their own right.

Some correlations are obvious and direct. The themes, settings, and plot of Frenzy, for instance, can be seen at work in Young and Innocent, almost as if that movie had been a dry run for what would be Hitchcock’s penultimate outing as a director. And of course North by Northwest is practically a remake of The 39 Steps, the way the British The Man Who Knew Too Much was actually remade by the great director during his American period.