1. The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez DVD
For the life of me, I can’t fathom why they haven’t come out with the DVD for operatic director Peter Sellar’s masterpiece, aired once upon a time on PBS’s Great Performances. Joan Cusack looking very much like a golden era movie star, Mikhail Baryshnikov as the Wall Street Homeless man, Peter Gallagher, and music by both John Adams (Harmonielehre) and Tibetan Monks create this superlative remake of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, now set in modern day Wall Street. With no dialogue, actors rely on their Noh-like masks to project an eerie presence in a movie equivalent of Shamanistic rituals to exorcise the disease of the 90s: junk bonds. Reviewers at IMDB advise one to drop everything if this ever comes on air again. I have to agree. Thank heavens I recorded it on VHS back in 1993, then transferred to dvd.
2. Gordella Ensemble: Georgian Folk Songs CD
The cd of the Georgian Ensemble that was featured in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu
3. Schecter Electric Synthesizer Guitar with Olympic Equestrian Mary Chapot’s signature
Because we all know, pink synthesizer guitars squeaking out muted trumpet samples of Miles Davis’s riffs go hand in hand with showjumping horses. Well, he did record a song called “Stablemates.”
4. Custom dual EV twin all-tube Sundown Amplifier with a vintage Fender Twin reverb installed
This is a one-of-a-kind amp made by Dennis Kager, who talked me out of a Roland JC-120 Chorus. When I said I loved the Fender-like Reverb on the Roland, he proceded to yank the reverb unit off a retired vintage Fender Twin and installed it on his prototype Sundown Artist Twin. I bought it, of course.
5. Rough Sex 1 DVD
6. Rough Sex 2 DVD
7. JM Productions/Chatsworth Pictures’ Donkey Punch DVD
Hippies used the Kama Sutra, Yuppies and Hollywood stars consult Rumi poems. Me: I watch Donkey Punch to learn new moves.
8. Barbara Taylor Bradford: Etiquette To Please Your Husband
Romantic novelist writing an advice book to wives earlier on in her career. It’s not worth it: buy a Vanderbilt Etiquette edition: it has all the things that is condensed in this impossible to obtain paperback.
9. Arseny Tarkovsky Poems
This very short collection of poems printed by Greville Press in England, features poetry by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovski’s poet father, Arseny Tarkovsky. I thought I paid a dizzying sum for a mere 8 poems. Now I know I was wrong.
10. Nobuyoshi Araki: Luna Nagai
For me, possibly the greatest Japanese photographer ever. He combines sex, controversy, and all things beautiful in his easy going, frenetic, always inquisitive style. Someone who will be greatly admired…unfortunately, like many artists, after he passes on.
