The interests and occupations expressed by my two blogs have converged! Witness! The poster I drew for the Film Desk re-release of Truffaut's Small Change. Go to IFC Center to buy it, or check the Film Desk site soon. Or just let me know and I'll figure out how you can buy one. And if you're thinking "What other blog? Where can I see more of Nathan's drawings?" you can go here.
Michael Chaiken used to be the Program Director of Film at the International House of Philadelphia. Since coming to New York he’s contributed to Film Comment magazine and organized retrospectives of the work of Luc Moullet, Peter Whitehead and Norman Mailer. Tomorrow, Chaiken will screen a smattering of material from his personal collection at Anthology Film Archives. Earlier this week, he and I conversed via email about what’s important about programming and what he’s been watching lately.
The last thing I saw you do was show that movie based on a Norman Mailer book at BAM a few weeks ago. You'd never seen the film before. What did you think?
An American Dream. Awful. Before Bonnie and Clyde changed everything, Hollywood's idea of hip in 1966 was a movie based on a Norman Mailer novel by a guy who directed Slattery's People. Stuart Whitman as Rojack was all brawn and no nuance. George Takei was good.
Speaking of [Bonnie and Clyde director] Arthur Penn, I just caught Mickey One a few weeks ago at MoMA. I thought a lot of the current press about that run didn't appreciate that movie, just described it as a curiosity.
There isn't really anything like that film in American cinema. Despite Penn's feeling that it suffers from every kind of overindulgence, it still holds up. Beautiful and terrifyng. Beatty is God in that film. The screening I went to was packed and there were only a few walk-outs which for MoMA is rare. I just finished a book of interviews with Arthur with my friend Paul Cronin. Penn was so gracious and patient with us. We're just a couple of putzes and Penn humored us to no end.
When's the book due out?
November, as part of the University Press of Mississippi Conversations With Directors series.
Back to that American Dream screening at BAM—isn't it unusual to show something you've never seen before?
Sure. BAM programmer Jake Perlin wanted to show it and asked me to introduce it so I just stumbled my way through per usual. My fallback was that in his lifetime Norman Mailer never saw the film either. The psychology of the novel is totally New York--in the first ten pages Rojack throws his wife out of their penthouse window. To save money on the shoot, the producers moved the whole thing to L.A. There weren't that many high rises in L.A. in the mid-sixties. Mailer was dissuaded by friends from ever seeing it for fear that he'd become violent if he did. He made a mint selling the screenplay to Hollywood and from some of that money came his masterpiece of bottomless cinema. Wild 90.
Can we just say that you're the authority on Norman Mailer, filmmaker?
If you insist. For years, critics would write dismissively about Norman's films as if they were among the worst ever made, so it would certainly please me if [I was the authority] since I think they are deserving of serious reconsideration and I like the romantic notion of fighting against the vig. More recently, J. Hoberman in The Dream Life, A.O. Scott in the New York Times and Patricia Bosworth for Vanity Fair have written favorably and perceptively about the films. When Lincoln Center and Anthology hosted the tribute to Mailer the summer before he died, Norman was excited by how well the films had been received--particularly by Scott in the Times. Here he had the one good Maidstone review he was hoping for. Albeit, 40 years after the fact.
What is it about Mailer's films that makes you so committed to getting them seen? They are interesting films. Particularly Maidstone, which captures a certain apocalyptic spirit rampant in late sixties America better than other more celebrated films from the period. I think they have profound things to say about fiction, reality and the negligible difference between the two. If you are a cinephile or a film programmer or whatever, there's also this desire, I think, to go beyond the accepted canon of great works. Not to demote or forget about the canon--just an attempt to expand it and make new connections by retrieving what's been forgotten or lost.
Do you feel that film programming in New York has enough of that spirit of what you call going beyond the canon and chasing after movies that are personal for the programmer? Do you perceive any problems in the curating climate? When you are programming films for an institution, having to contend with a board of directors, limited budgets, and maintaining some semblance of an audience, it's difficult to remain completely tied to personal vision. You'd last two seconds if all you showed were films that made you cry. A film programmer, above all else, should be charitable--programming the well-known alongside the untried while working to cultivate an audience for both. In its scope, vision and longevity, I think the most successful articulation of this was Amos and Marcia Vogel's Cinema 16. But that was many years ago in New York and things are certainly much different today, culturally speaking. In the face of TV, internet, DVD, and the accessibility to virtually everything, I think programmers here do a great job and still take a lot of risks. The only problem I can see is the lack of cooperation and coordination among venues. They program things on top of one another, dividing audiences. It becomes a competition which I don't think is good for the long-term health of film culture in the city. You certainly seem freed from a lot of those restrictions for your show at Anthology. Talk a little about what you're screening and what we should get excited about. In keeping with the 'Personal Archives' tradition, the Anthology show is a random assemblage of stuff. Clips from films by Glauber Rocha and Carmelo Bene, tributes to John Derek, Uncle Floyd, Amos Vogel, Pussy Galore, Mailer. An evening of unalloyed self-indulgence that I hope might be somewhat entertaining if people show up. Perhaps the thing I’m most excited about is a film which Peter Whitehead sent called Mia and Her Mouse that was shot in London in 1972 right about the time he was making Daddy with Niki de St Phalle. If you've seen that film you'll know what to expect. “Pungent and worrying” is how Peter describes it. I have seen Daddy, but I can't say that it helps me anticipate what Mia and Her Mouse will be, but it totally peaks my interest. Taking a look at the list of stuff in this program, some of this has got to be protected by copyright. How are you getting away with this? I might not get away with it so let’s try to be discreet. Fortunately, I have no assets to speak of so suing me wouldn't get anyone very far. Suing Anthology on the other hand. . . I imagine some malevolent body could flip that place and convert it into eco-friendly condos. I think in the Colin McCabe book on Godard he talks about how some of Godard's work (like maybe Histoire du Cinema) is hard to see because of copyright issues, because he uses images from other films. McCabe suggests that everyone blatantly break copyright laws until the trespasses become too numerous to penalize. Hear, hear to that. The Anthology show is my humble contribution to the cause. What do we have to look forward to from Michael Chaiken? A couple of things in the fall--- a tribute to actor/filmmaker Pierre Clementi at Lincoln Center and Jean-Gabriel and Quinto Albicocco at The French Institute. Also, with the Harvard Film Archive, I'm working on a retrospective of the films of British documentarian Dick Fontaine which I hope will happen next year. Seen anything good lately? A Time to Stir (Paul Cronin), Dream Minimalist (Marie Losier), Der Fan (Eckhart Schmidt) Egg salad--yes or no? Never. What's your favorite novel from before the 20th century? The Confidence Man Anything else you want to talk about? I think we've covered all the bases, no? Thanks, Nathan. *** For details about tomorrow’s Anthology screening, go here. Chaiken’s “evening of unalloyed self-indulgence” will include: For Yon Teenagers: Glauber & Juliet Norman Mailer Survives Three Rounds with Jose Torres The Last Emperor: Dennis Hopper Virtual Sex: Klaus Kinski Amos Vogel & Jonas Mekas: Reunited! Pussy Galore Visits Uncle Floyd The Celestial Ecstasies of William F. Buckley D.A.F Tanz den Mussolini Godard Visits Dick Cavett 70s Stunt Men: Jerry Lewis and Robert Goulet Cinema Notre Temps: John Derek
Note: I will be posting an interview with French Institute film curator Marie Losier within a week.
The French Institute continues to provide some of the best retro programming in the city. Their Yves Montand series starts Tuesday, June 3. I've only seen one film in the series (Chris Marker's Loneliness of the Long Distance Singer), but they all look promising. Note that Loneliness is in the Tinker (same address, different room), which is not a proper movie theater exactly, but a perfectly fine way to see this rarely-screened, very likable portrait of Montand.
For those keeping count, there are are three films here that don't have readily available DVD's:
Screenings are in the French Institute's Florence Gould Hall at 55 East 59th Street. Go to www.fiaf.org to verify times.
by guest blogger Jon-Jon Burnett and Nathan Gelgud
Sorry we didn't tell you this sooner, but it turns out that Young Girls of Rochefort is amazing. We just found out at the French Institute last night.
It stars our main man Michel Piccoli (as Monsieur Dame--hilarious!) and Françoise Dorléac (above).
One of the others whom it stars is Gene Kelly. We're not sure how Demy did it, but the first shot of Kelly's face is religious. (Nate suggests that there may have been some resurrection energy involving Kelly's American in Paris role, Jon-Jon's of the mind that Kelly himself is possessed of the Holy Spirit.)
Oh yeah, it also stars Catherine Deneuve.
There is no director who I'd like to get more recognistion than Eugène Green. The Props Meter on this guy should be breaking glass, ringing bells, having people standing in doorways or squatting in bathtubs. Seriously, his movies are off the chart and shouldn't be so off the radar.
Here's the good news: his supreme masterpiece, 2004's Le Pont des Arts is playing at the French Institute next Tuesday, December 18 at 4:00. (It's in their French Musicals series, which is great. But if you cringe at the idea of musicals, don't worry. It's only a musical in that it involves a lot of musicians practicing their craft.)
While I find his films unlike anything I've seen, it's understandable that he routinely draws comparisons to Robert Bresson. (And I'd say there's a direct line from Bresson's The Devil, Probably to Le Pont des Arts that leaves everything in its wake left in tatters.) But seriously,there's nothing Le Pont des Arts. Characters talk to the camera when they talk to each other, it's hypnotic, it's bizarre, it's occasionally laugh-out-loud funny and if I remember correctly there's some homoerotic wrestling involving the Dardenne Brothers' favorite actor, Olivier Gourmet.
One of the stars of Pont is Natacha Régnier of Dreamlife of Angels fame. Here's an image of her from the movie that typifies how a lot of the dialogue is shot:
And here's a picture of Eugene Green. Come on ... how could you not see this guy's masterpiece?
While Time Out London will back me up on how rare an opportunity it is to se Green's work, from a quick search, it looks like there are some foreign-region DVDs of Green's work, and they'd certainly be worth your money, but why not do it the right way: take a half-day next Tuesday and hit Florence Gould Hall at the French Institute at 4:00 53 East 55th Street.
External links:
Cinemascope calls it luminous.
Here is an article than ran in the Times a few years ago.
And here is a piece from The Village Voice.
Film Comment ran an excellent piece on Green by Jonathan Romney last year (unfortunately unavailable on-line).
You can buy Fred Wiseman's movies now. My favorite is Belfast, Maine which you can get for a mere forty bucks. That's only a little more than the two-disc set of Superbad.
PS 1, the sizable Arts Center in Queens affiliated with MoMA, is screening Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz. Yes, Mama MoMA already did it. But no, it was not a conceptual spatial extension of the epic, 15-hour miniseries. PS 1 will devote 14 screening rooms simultaneously to showing the series, one room for each episode in order to allow viewers "to choose their own mode of approach to Berlin Alexanderplatz." If you're a MoMA member, you get in free, and even if you don't, one ticket entitles you to return as often as you'd like. Click here for details.
If this isn't your bag, and you missed it at MoMA, Criterion is releasing a box set soon. And if, after given all these opportunities, you still need an excuse to skip BA, click here, where some Friends of Fassbinder denounce the decision to brighten Berlin for "commercial reasons."
Brian De Palma will be at the Academy Theater at 111 East 59th Street for a screening of Carrie tonight at 7:30. Tickets are cheap ($5), but might be tough. Get there early, or try booking tickets over the phone. Details here.
Claire Denis and Isabelle Huppert are making a picture together. Why Not Productions has a page devoted to the new Denis film, White Material. From what I can gather, it stars Huppert as the matriarch of a coffee plantation in Africa, holding out against the rebels who ride buddy-style on mopeds.
Is Eastern Promises a masterpiece? You bet.
On Friday, the greatest Spanish film in thirty years begins a run at Anthology Film Archives. At least that's what Albert Serra would tell you.
Last winter Cinemascope ran an interview with director Serra (pictured) in issue #29. Unfortunately, the interview isn't available on-line, because it's the reason I'm so excited that Anthology is going to run Serra's Quixotic. Serra says his Quixotic is the greatest Spanish film of the last thirty years, and Cinemascope writer Mark Peranson doesn't find it too lofty a claim. Peranson says that Serra's movie is "one of those films that periodically appears in a hostile, conformist environment--like a UFO landing."
In the interview, director Serra says that Quixotic is "shot in Mini DV, not HD or any high-end bullshit," and that he will never use a video monitor because he can't imagine "Dreyer looking through one all the time." While the interview isn't available on Cinemascope's website, a review by Christoph Huber, who also compares Quixotic to a UFO, can be found here. Be at Anthology for the premiere, or landing, on Friday.
Today I'm kicking off a new feature here at NYFR: The Itinerary, where I'll try to 
keep important screenings from going under our readership's radar. The Itinerary's initial entry is a special IFC screening of NYFR's favorite comedy of 2007, Frownland. Director Ronald Bronstein (pictured) will be in attendance with his cast and crew for a Q & A, or--as he would have it--for a "public apology." To get the screening details, click here. For the website, clips, and the like, click here. For an old NYFR write-up on Frownland (that covers a different screening), visit the archives.
If you missed Klute at Film Forum last night, don' fret. It's playing at the Museum of the Moving Image. This Friday, get your giggles at Ruggles of Red Gap at MoMA. Charles Laughton is hilarious, playing a displaced British butler the way Rodney Dangerfield or Jerry Lewis might have decades later. This one's not available on DVD, folks.
Recently DVDBeaver.com published a Jonathan Rosenbaum piece called "Eighteen Thrillers You might have missed."
I'm sold immediately on any list that includes Miami Blues and Family Plot, but the nice thing about Rosenbaum is that after he tells you what's overlooked and rare, he doesn't want to keep it to himself. He writes a column for Cinemascope about where to find the stuff. JR isn't like that guy who hates it when you find out about that band he liked first.
I've been dying to see these two Chicago critics go at it for years. Jonathan Rosenbaum vs. Rogert Ebert. Topic? Bergman. (Click on the critics' names to read the articles.)
In his less-than-reverential piece, Rosenbaum says Bergman isn't all that relevant anymore. While the piece is short and his argument is a little thin, what the article really seems to be about is the fact that film directors shouldn't be 
hallowed unless they pushed the medium. Bergman's films are entertaining, but he's no Godard, no Bresson, no Dreyer, says Rosenbaum.
Ebert can't help but sound like the reasonable one (he's defending an acknowledged master, not to mention sticking up for someone who just died).
In doing so, Ebert casts himself again as the middle-brow, mainstream voice of reason:
[Rosenbaum] means form itself is more important (and entertaining, I guess) than narrative, emotional content and performance. Not everyone would agree.
In fact, almost no one would agree. (And Rosenbaum doesn't say exactly that, anyway).
Rosenbaum is guilty of some generalizations, and probably of being contentious for its own sake, but isn't it always questionable to come to the defense of the majority view?
It seems NYFR readers are pro-Zodiac. Is this a great movie? I'll buy that it's probably the best American movie I've seen this year (other than the as-yet-undistributed Frownland) but only by default. Someone who shall remain anonymous suggested Knocked Up, which is inexplicable.
Above: still searching for this year's great film.
In a great instance of programming confluence, the Walter Reade theater is following up BAM's screening of Wiseman's movie about Big Hairy Apes (see below) with a whole retrospective of one BHA in particular.
See the complete program here.
Two nights ago I went to see Frederick Wiseman’s 1974 documentary Primate and something very peculiar happened. Somewhere in the first half of the film, someone was talking to the camera giving an interview.
I’ve never seen this in a Wiseman film, and I thought that such a thing did not exist. So did my friends. So does pretty much everyone else. The entry on Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications website puts it well:
“Wiseman's aesthetic falls squarely in the ‘direct cinema’ tradition of documentary filmmaking, which emphasizes continued filming, as unobtrusively as possible …with no music, no interviews, no voice-over narration, and no overt attempt to interpret or explain the events unfolding before the camera.”
Wikipedia: “Wiseman does not interview his subjects, nor does he narrate or comment on what happens.”
FilmWest 40, an Irish site: “His films are marked by an absence of commentary or music and there are no direct interviews to camera.”
And back in 2002, yours truly wrote for the Independent Weekly that “Wiseman shuns the documentary conventions of narration and interview.”
Watching Wiseman’s films, rules seem to have been laid down. Strict parameters. Commandments. He’s made 37 movies, and as far as I know, this is the only time he has broken Thou Shalt Not Interview.
What gives?
The interview is with a scientist explaining some research techniques at the institute where the film takes place, and it offers some perspective into what the doctors are doing in this movie. There's a lot of tough stuff to watch in Primate -- graphic scenes of chimps getting cut open and dissected while they're still alive, apes being sedated and then violated with vibrating anal probes.
My friend's argument was that without some explanation of scientific technique, Primate would wind up an animal rights film, which was surely not Wiseman's intention. So just this once, he decided to throw in an interview to set things straight.
I found that a little difficult to buy. Why this movie? Why would he break the rule just this once? No, I argued, it had to be that he broke the rule because there never really was a rule. His other films don't have interviews simply because they don't. This one does. So what?
I emailed Wiseman’s production company, and he was kind enough to respond. It turns out we were both wrong.
Wiseman: “The scene is in the film as a visual joke and in part to parody interview films.”
So, there ya go.
I'm calling it now. This will be the best film of 2008.
Indiewire has been kind enough to offer us a first glimpse of it. Hope they don't mind if New York Film Review swipes the image:
I was going to cobble together a compact description of the movie from reports found from Googling, but the results of using the "translate this page" function on my browser were too gratifying to warrant any tampering:
How one disputed around the log… Two years after critical and public success Kings and queen (and a year after the consecutive legal vexations at the exit of film, Lira our article), Arnaud Desplechin is on the point of carrying out its sixth full-length film, a tale of Christmas. As opposed to what implied certain rumours, it would not act of an adaptation of a novel of Philip Roth, the original scenario of film being signed by the realizer himself, with the collaboration of its old accomplice Emmanuel Bourdieu, author last year of noticed the malefic Friendships. If few elements of the scenario filtered, the film should be articulated around a meeting of family during the holidays of Christmas.
One will find in a tale of Christmas
most of the casting of Kings and queen since the parents will be incarnated by Catherine Deneuve and the truculent Jean-Paul Roussillon. As for the children of this couple, they will refer Mathieu Amalric (“cesarized” for its burlesque service in the Desplechin precedent), Anne Consigny (already seen in Léo while playing “In the company of the men”) and again come in the universe from the scenario writer, Melvil Poupaud. For the role of the girl friend of Amalric, the scenario writer again called upon Emmanuelle Devos, and for that of the partner of Poupaud, it, not without mischievousness, chose Chiara Mastroianni: the actress (whom it had directed in How I disputed…) will thus interprètera the daughter-in-law of - his/her mother, should it be pointed out? - Catherine Deneuve… Produced like always by Why Not, a tale of Christmas will be turned mainly to Roubaix, birthplace of Desplechin, next spring.
If you've seen Fred Wiseman's movies, you know that his seemingly detached method of exhausting a topic by observing it (and observing it and observing it) without interviews or voiceover, is informative and transcendent. It's also resolutely editorial. When Wiseman was asked (in the documentary "Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment") about his supposedly objective style, he reprimanded the interviewer: "You've gotta be puttin' me on -- every cut is a lie!" See what he thinks about the mechanisms of state legislature in his appropriately titled "State Legislature" on Thirteen tonight at 9 o'clock.
The painting of Wiseman above is by John Dubrow (www.johndubrow.com).
Here's what they say about State Legislature over at thirteen.org:
In his ongoing project to explore contemporary American life as expressed in institutions, Wiseman turned his camera on the legislature to illustrate the way the democratic decision-making process works. In his trademark style, nothing is staged. Wiseman captures the lawmakers as they debate and discuss the concerns of the electorate, on issues that range from violence in schools, mad cow disease and video voyeurism to illegal immigration, secondhand smoke and the deregulation of telephone rates.
Frownland, Tuesday, April 24th, Anthology Film Archives, 8:30
After a scorching premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival, a very anticipated (in admittedly very small circles) film is crawling into New York tomorrow night -- Ronald Bronstein's Frownland.
Frownland is a comedy without jokes -- a melee of a movie, really -- about Keith, a door-to-door coupon salesman and self-described "troll who came out of the water." Every word that he says is garbled with interminable and unnecessary apologies, kaleidoscoping quotidian exchanges into Mad Lib collages of stammers and grunts. His neuroses reach extremes verging on self-annihilation. He's an artless con artist, running the coupon scam with hilarious ineptitude. "My father died of a heart attack," he tells a customer, trying to develop rapport, before adding "I hadn't seen him for six years, it wasn't that painful."
While he's been making the movie, Bronstein has worked as a projectionist of the precious and obscure at Anthology and MoMA. Fascinating, then, that he's made something so intent on tearing the preciousness away from art movies. Who knows if the destiny of Frownland is one of obscurity, though, so you'd be well-advised to take this opportunity to see one of the best American films of the past year at 2nd and 2nd tomorrow night at 8:30.
It's free, but seating is limited, so kindly RSVP to frownlandinc@gmail.com
Did you pick up a free copy of the fiction issue of Vice? There’s some decent two-pagers in there, among them 
an old shorty by Charles Willeford, author of novels that became such masterpieces as Miami Blues and Cockfighter (in which he played the judge). In case you missed it, get a litany of hospital euphemisms in this little ditty about being laid up in a sickbed, as well as a little interview with his widow, by clicking on the link:
http://www.viceland.com/int/v13n12/htdocs/index.php?country=us
“If Bush invades Iran, that’s it. It’s bricks-through-windows time. No way, man. They’re not going after Kiarostami.”
I won’t name the pal I’m paraphrasing (and praising), for fear the feds will abscond with him, but I’m sure he’ll be excited about the fact that tomorrow P.S. 1 opens a photography exhibit coupled with an installation by the Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami. 
In March, MoMA will host a complete retrospective of AK’s films as well as a “media installation comprising separate projections of each of the five parts of the artist's 2004 feature Five.”
Get the details at http://www.ps1.org/ps1_site/content/view/228/102/
Check back soon for a review of the show. If you can’t wait, sate yourself with some old Gelgud Gallery Gab: http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A16877
Stylus Magazine is running my Godard-McKay mashup article – in which I wonder what would happen if you intercut Talladega Nights with Two or Three Things I Know About Her – at this address:
They were even kind enough to include a link to your fave blog (New York Film Review, natch).
Be sure to click around a bit over at Stylus. Their Top Ten 2006 lists are unique and varied (http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/stylus-magazines-top-15-movies-of-2006.htm), and show they’re in the know about Miami Vice. They also run a regular feature called “A Second Take,”
Often we watch a Hou Hsiao-hsien film as if it was Jerry Bruckheimer product. Maybe The Wedding Crashers has more in common with Preston Sturges than audiences thought … We do not expect our readers to agree, which is precisely the point: consensus occludes independent thinking.
Thanks, Stylus!
Listen closely when fans talk about Werner Herzog and you’ll hear a timbre in their voices. It’s not exactly admiration or just simple excitement. It’s a cultish vibrato. Herzog doesn’t just have a cult following. I think he has an actual cult.
The slavish devotion to this director is the reason he can get away with a stubborn insistence that there’s no difference between his documentary films and his feature fictions, even when it means avoiding potentially rewarding conversations that would reveal how he manages to be so good at both. It’s why so many people have seen My Best Fiend, a documentary featuring him droning to the camera about unbelievable (really, these are lies, right?) feats of insanity that his muse Klaus Kinski has performed. It’s why, a few years ago, I think I watched an acquaintance almost literally swoon while quoting the recently published Herzog on Herzog. The excerpt that had him dizzy was the one where Herzog talked about his ideal film school, where in “a loft with a lot of space” students would do “things with real physical contact.” They’d practice “sparring, somersaults (backwards and forwards), juggling, magic card tricks.” Whether he’d turn out filmmakers he wasn’t sure, but he wanted his students to “experience a certain climate of excitement of the mind.” He didn’t say if the compound would be in Waco, Texas or if he’d have the students wear matching black Nikes, but one gets the feeling his pupils might be speaking in tongues rather than learning to load film stock.
Then again, maybe it’s not so creepy. Last month, I saw The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser for the first time in years – Herzog’s often humorous story of the attempted assimilation into society of a strange man kept in a dungeon through young adulthood – in its brief run at BAM. It was a total knockout. I was moved. Perhaps the experience I had at Kaspar was the one Herzog cultists have with all of his numerous movies, and their following is not as much cultish as understandably devoted. Maybe there is no cult.
Then again, maybe there is. And maybe the cult is spreading into institutions that you’d think would be impervious to the spells cast by such black arts – institutions like the New York Public Library. And maybe this sorcery has persuaded the respectable decision-makers at the NYPL to host a talk with Daddy Werner in which he will have nothing less than the last word on the twentieth century, as the audience will look deep into his eyes, get very sleepy, and find out the answer to the question “Was the twentieth century a mistake?”
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