Better Than Friday - 38 (Patreon)

Howdy. 

Happy Mayday, hope ya'll are well. 

1. Coming Up Next - One of the greatest books I've read - The Peregrine by J.A. Baker 

This is an account of birdwatching that turns into a visceral poetic philosophical narrative of a man seeking, in a way, to become the hawk he observes. 

Stunning. Violent. Gorgeous. 

John Alec Baker said, about The Peregrine, that 

'everything I describe took place while I was watching it, but I do not believe that honest observation is enough. The emotions and behavior of the watcher are also facts, and they must truthfully be recorded'. 

You can hear that in this talk with Werner Herzog (a huge fan of the book and the source from which I discovered it) at Stanford. 

From Goodreads:

From autumn to spring, J.A. Baker set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fen lands of eastern England. He followed the birds obsessively, observing them in the air and on the ground, in pursuit of their prey, making a kill, eating, and at rest, activities he describes with an extraordinary fusion of precision and poetry. And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk.

It is this extraordinary metamorphosis, magical and terrifying, that these beautifully written pages record.

2. Delicious Coffee I've Been Loving

In case you're looking to try some new coffee, I love the stuff I've had from Roseline. 

3. 1960's American Calisthenics Music 

A friend of mine sent this to me the other day - what a gem of bizarre Americana. 

TEN TIMES!

4. Vampire's Kiss 

I watched this "comedy" (one of the darkest I've seen) for the first time recently. 

Nicolas Cage gives one of the absolute strangest performances of any actor I've ever seen...ever. 

I have no idea what kind of accent he's supposed to have. 

The film is about a man who is bitten by a vampire and thinks he's becoming one. 

But it could also just be one man's descent into madness. 

I lost it during this scene though. Hysterical. 

5. I just discovered this singer. Then I discovered that he just died from Covid-19. 

Loving this song. 

This came up in my Spotify 'Discover Weekly' playlist.

I'd never heard Christophe before, but I've been a fan of Alan Vega, the lead singer from the protopunk band Suicide, since I was like...15 or something. 

While Vega passed away several years ago, Christophe just passed away on April 20th from Covid-19. 

Terrible. Rest in peace. 

From a Buddhist Temple I spotted on a run.