John Menick | Archive for July, 2006

Chabrol in the Times.

Part 9 of the Hitch and Truffaut interviews.

Godard meets Woody.

The Independent on Camp 6:

Camp 6, a state-of-the-art maximum-security jail built by a Halliburton subsidiary, will be able to hold 200 prisoners. Commander Robert Durand, a spokesman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said the $30m, two-storey block was due to open at the end of September. He added: “Camp 6 is designed to improve the quality of life for the detainees and provide greater protection for the people working in the facility.”

This development will refuel the controversy about the jail, which still holds 450 prisoners from President George Bush’s “war on terror”. Campaigners pointed to Mr Bush’s claim earlier this summer that he would “like to close” Guantanamo. Just weeks after he made his comments in June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration’s system for trying prisoners using military tribunals breached United States and international law.

At the time, some campaigners predicted the decision marked the beginning of the end of Guantanamo Bay. Since then, however, the Bush administration has signalled its intention to introduce new legislation that would circumvent the court’s ruling. The revelation that Camp 6 is poised to open is proof that it intends to keep using the prison.

Amnesty International’s UK campaigns director, Tim Hancock, said: “This appears to make a mockery of President Bush’s statements about the need to close down Guantanamo Bay. In addition to strongly urging the President to step in to prevent any extension to this already notorious prison camp, we call on him to speed up the process of closing Guantanamo and of ensuring that all detainees are allowed fair trials or released to safe countries.”

…

The new facility is reported to be modelled on a jail in Lenawee County, Michigan. Commander Durand said Camp 6 will have better recreation and exercise amenities for detainees and integrated medical care. Other facilities at the US naval base on Cuba include Camps 1, 2, 3 and 5, which are maximum-security, single-cell blocks; Camp 4, which is a medium-security, communal living prison; and Camp Iguana, also medium security, which houses detainees cleared for release and awaiting transfer.

An “homage to Alphaville” by Soderbergh. From the latest issue of Wholphin.

The online film journal Rouge just published Michael Witt’s translation of Dominique Païni’s article describing the history of the aborted collaboration between Godard and the Pompidou. The translation includes a piece of information crucially missing from most American press articles: namely, how exactly it was all supposed to work:

Talks between Jean-Luc Godard and the Pompidou Centre began in 2003. The initial proposal was based on the screening of films over a fairly long period (nine months), drawing both on cinema history and contemporary production, and organised around a principle of monthly meetings. The rhythm envisaged at the outset was that of a week of ‘image gathering’, two weeks of editing, followed by projection of the resultant film at the Pompidou Centre in the fourth week. The plan was that this would lead to a sort of series in which each ‘episode’, when completed, would be enriched through its proximity to those that came before. The event therefore comprised nine monthly meetings to which visitors to the Centre were to be invited with a view to discovering a new opus each time.

Also in Rouge: Dziga Vertov storyboards, a Abbas Kiarostami and Víctor Erice exhibition, and more.

According to AP, more than 300 Lebanese and 30 Israelis dead, and close to half a million Lebanese refugees.

Wired devotes an article to profiling one young blogger in Beirut, plus links to several others.

After 10 years, Pynchon fans can look forward to Against the Day, a new novel to be released this December. Surprisingly, Pynchon may have written the Amazon description himself:

Spanning the period between the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx. [More]

Below are a few photos from eteam‘s July 19 presentation at Sarah Meltzer Gallery. The duo presented their strange and brilliant International Airport Montello, a project commissioned by Art in General involving the creation of a somewhat imaginary airport in the middle of Nevada desert. Following the performance, eteam staged a low-tech version of an airport lounge complete with fast food, crosswords, and randomly stacked luggage.

Daily updates from Zena in Beirut.

Mazen Kerbaj in Beirut.

“Yo Blair!” Read the full transcript.