Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni has died at the age of 94.

I make particular mention of Antonioni’s death because Blowup remains one of my favourite films. If you love film yet you’ve never seen Blowup, you owe it to yourself to watch in awe and then discuss with your friends what it all means.

Amarillo, Texas

The movers arrived at 8:30 a.m. They left at 3 with almost all our earthly possessions. We were on the road 30 minutes later.

The Wife gave Gazza his sedative (half a pill) 40 minutes before we left. . . . It didn’t do a damned thing. She ended up giving him two pills (two day’s worth) and still he meowed incessantly.

Got pulled over by a pig somewhere in West Texas for driving 76 in a 70. Give me a fucking break. . . . Which he did, but then why pull me over and waste 15 minutes of my time?

I just want to be settled. . . .

Oh, and our movers won’t arrive until 8 August. So much for settling. . . .

Uzodinma Iweala tries to assuage white guilt. Is anyone reading?

This is the West’s new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help. . . .

That’d be a lot funnier if it weren’t so fucking true.

Picking up yesterday’s post (“Y: The Last Man”). . . .

Variety reports that the cast has been set for Watchmen. Ever since Terry Gilliam’s name was removed from consideration, my hopes for the great comic book adaptation have been shot. The casting news does little to inspire any new hope.

Yet another comic adaptation I’ll probably steer clear of: 

“D.J. Caruso and Carl Ellsworth, the team behind the hit thriller Disturbia, are reteaming for Y: The Last Man, New Line Cinema’s adaptation of the acclaimed Vertigo comic book. J.C. Spink, Chris Bender and David Goyer are producing.”

Y happens to be the last comic I still buy on a monthly basis. Considering its run is almost finished, it may end up being the last comic I buy on a monthly basis. Besides Y, Fables is the only other comic I buy, but only in its trade paperback format.

For the past three years, novels have consumed most of my reading time. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t hurt too much selling the majority of my comic collection before we moved. There are very few comics I imagine myself rereading. Only two spring to mind: Sandman and Watchmen. Safe, boring choices, I know, but I never tire of exploring their worlds.

From Salon: 

The art of editing is running against the cultural tide. We are in an age of volume; editing is about refinement. It’s about getting deeper into a piece, its ideas, its structure, its language. It’s a handmade art, a craft. You don’t learn it overnight. Editing aims at making a piece more like a Stradivarius and less like a microchip. And as the media universe becomes larger and more filled with microchips, we need the violin makers.

The past two and a half years have convinced me that a good and patient editor is worth his weight in gold.

30 July.

We’ll be on the road and headed west either the 30th or the 31st (depending on the length of time the movers take to load the 18-wheeler).

We’re 95 percent packed.

I’m 100 percent ready.