Haven't blogged in a while, this week the city went and replaced the watermains on our block, which meant three days (from 8 in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon) of no water. So i spent those three days at my mother's... only a few screenings this week. Everyone i know (just about) is up in Toronto for the Toronto Film Festival. Haven't been there in years. A lot to write about, but rushing and rushing. Went to Anthology for a press screening of Pat O'Neill's "The Decay of Fiction"; it's use of the decaying Ambassador Hotel and its "ghostly" citations from film noir classics makes it an avantgarde sibling of those two LA noirs now in release: "Hollywoodland" and "The Black Dahlia". Will try to write more on that. Ordered some books, two novels by Peter Carey and two by David Mitchell. This was prompted by Ruth Franklin's rave in The New Republic for Mitchell. The books arrived today. Read Jean Nathan's "The Search for the Lonely Doll" which i picked up at the Strand the other day. trying to do mroe reading, not just newspapers and magazines. The upcoming 9/11 anniversary is looking ominous: George W. Bush is once again hijacking the agenda, and by putting a focus on "security" he trumps the Democrats. This coming election now seems ominous: Bush and his cronies are the canniest politicians since the Hitler Gang.

Got an e.mail from Jenni Olson about upcoming screenings of her movie in November; at first, i was confused because i didn't register that it was in November, so i was checking MoMA's schedule for her movie tomorrow. But i'm looking forward to seeing that. But it turns out that Ellen Flanders's doc, "Zero Degrees of Separation", is playing today at MoMA, so i'll catch that. (I hate to admit it, but one encouraging factor for me is that Jenni and Ellen are friends who are about my age, and who were part of that circuit of lesbian/gay festival programmers... if they can get something done, what's stopping the rest of us?) In the ad for the NY Film Festival, truns out that Jenn Reeves will have a short in the "Views from the Avant-Garde" section this year.

Getting out of the house and not having access to computers, etc. meant that i didn't seen anyone's blog for a few days. But just caught up with Michael Giltz's blog: he had a review of a concert at Joe's Pub of the English group The Magic Numbers which was sensational, one of those reviews that made you wish you were there, and Michael declares them the greatest rock-and-roll band now working. George Robinson has some thoughts on movies like "A Cantor's Tale" and... well, George's review on his blog of "Le Petit Lieutenant" made me make sure that i didn't miss the last screening. Larry came with me, and we did like it, and especially admired Nathalie Baye's performance, as George noted in his review. Dave Kehr is in Toronto. On his MySpace page, Mason Wyler has put new pictures, nothing salacious, just charming shots of himself... and a paean to his boyfriend/husband/best friend Marcus. Can't help it, it's so touching to see that kind of sincerity without irony. (Mason Wyler notes that he was never one of the cool kids in school, more like a nerdy Boy Scout type.) Got an e.mail from Brett, he has been travelling but mostly trying to relax. He is trying to decide what's next for him. I do miss him....