A Nervousfilms Summer Reading List

Being that Drew FORGOT we are getting on a plane tomorrow (and on into the next day), Australia bound, I thought maybe I should publicly remind him via the internet! DREW, you hear me? We are leaving TOMORROW! We will be performing Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then live in Perth on the far, west coast of the Australian continent on Sunday July 17th! Make sure you pack!

In the name of this twenty-six hour or so flight (gulp) I thought I should recommend some summer reading since I am trying to decide what periodicals to pack! The Nervousfilms gang is actually quite the literary bunch! In fact, I often scare art & film people when they ask me what I like most about Brent's work and I say "The writing. Duh!" Speaking of which, I just saw that Mike Everleth over at Bad Lit (a very supportive organization for our filmic pursuits) has started an incredible venture: Bad Lit Press! Bad Lit Press is setting out to e-publish underground film screen plays, what a brilliant idea! I find that reading screenplays seriously helps you dissect how films are made and allow you to focus on the actual content of what the filmmaker is getting at (the thing that, you know, should be the most important part of any art, the content)- a stripped down idea of a directors vision. Keep up the awesome Mike!

Now, where were we...here is what the Gravity gang is bringing to read on our equatorial crossing:
I am bringing some New Yorkers (which include a new George Saunders story that I have been holding out on reading since he is the best living writer and I am disappointed in all other writing after reading his work. I mean it.) and The Master and Margarita (a favorite of Brent's that I always eschewed due to a human sized, bipedal cat but, after beginning, realize is an amazing parable of Communism written with a fluctuating voice/point of view unlike anything I have ever read!).

Holli McGinley is also bringing some New Yorkers in addition to A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (an author who seems to be  everywhere lately!), an unchosen Garrison Keillor (wait, he doesn't only live in the radio?), The Adventures of Kavelier and Clay by Michael Chabon and a Faulkner audio book, The Reivers. Mike McGinley just sent me a whopping  list too- Celine's Guignol's Band, Nabokov's Bend Sinister, William Saroyan's Madness In The Family- this is one intense summer reading list McGinleys!

John keeps flip flopping on what he is bringing but it seems to center around Foucault and post structuralist French theory. Yawn. Unless sleeping is what he is aiming for with these readings...? Theory gets in the way of living John, don't you know that? Sheesh! I was gonna say Drew is reading the opposite of what John is, Maps of the Mind ("parapschology occult ESP and all that crud," says Drew) and Lynch's meditative Catching The Big Fish but, in fact, these are just other kinds of structuring of the unknown, trying to find patterns where there might be some, trying to make sense of things to feel better about or smarter than them...both of you will grow out of this phase, at least I know I did, hehe!

Brent? I have no idea. He is off speaking at a media arts summer camp today so his packing is going to be a fast and furious late night ordeal! But, the last time I checked he was engrossed in Look Homeward, Angel by Tomas Wolfe, which came highly recommended by the lovely Brendan Canty, and The Demons by Doestovtsky...but, Brent is also writing a ton right now for at least three different projects that I know of which means he will be the writer among us readers on this long, long journey into night (and then day again)! Geez, we are going to have one suitcase of just books alone! What does your summer reading list look like??