Howard A. Rodman
@rodman
Novelist: The Great Eastern, Destiny Express. Screenwriter: Joe Gould's Secret, Savage Grace. VP, Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Past President, WGAW Professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts Postpunk guitarist Home barista
Every single day the current President of the United States does things far worse than those which forced this President to resign. The President's party today shows more cowardice, more craven obedience than the same party in 1974, which was willing to vote for the President's removal.
In 2011, at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Trump — in the audience — was roasted by President Obama. You could see the steam emerging from his ears. It was perhaps at that moment he decided to run for President. In addition to Obama's verbal comments, there was a screen with this image:
Once again the @nytimes.com feels compelled to insert a “critics say” in front of an indisputable fact. This addiction to Both Sides Always serves neither journalism nor the larger world, and is part of the devaluation of reality that has led us to very bad places.
I'll be reading from my newly reissued novels DESTINY EXPRESS and THE GREAT EASTERN this Sunday, 6pm, at Riffraff Books in Providence. In conversation with the great and good Laura Colella. Merriment guaranteed, and a dollop of what Don Barthelme used to call "unhealthy mental excitement." Join us!
Happy birthday to Mr George Clinton, without whom, no funk. May he be tearing the roof off the sucker.
@theonion.com Is Alex Jones still broadcasting under the banner 'InfoWars'? I'd thought that all his base are belong to us. Has no one rid us of that meddlesome priest?
If a system is not in an eigenstate it can be in a superposition of multiple eigenstates. The act of measurement causes the system to instantly collapse into one of these specific eigenstates. Sometimes multiple unique eigenstates share the same eigenvalue; this scenario is known as degeneracy.
The addiction of @nytimes.com to Both Sides-ism has long lost its novelty, barely retaining the ability to elicit a dark laugh. One can of course parody: Demented Dictator Delights Some, Dismays Others. But that's like fishing by tossing dynamite in the lake. It works, but it's not sporting.
Happy birthday to Warren Oates, axiom of cinema. No 'new Hollywood' without him. As Richard Linklater put it, "Because there was once a god who walked the Earth named Warren Oates." Bennie might say: I got nothing to celebrate. And I would say, with Lyle Gorch: why not?
Dear Gemini, Is there something of note about the man’s life that you perhaps neglected to mention?
The DESTINY EXPRESS/THE GREAT EASTERN book tour continues! July 8, The Salmagundi Club, NYC, w/ Robert Polito. July 9, Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, w/ Sam Marks. July 19, East End Books, Provincetown. July 26, Riffraff Bookstore & Bar, Providence, w/ Laura Colella. howardrodman.com/events
“The Airborne Toxic Event has in fact occurred, and it’s even worse than he imagined. Subtler, more insidious, its victims’ deaths prolonged: resembling a normal cloud more than anything obviously virulent. And one of its first victims was the Culture." —Don DeLillo, White Noise.
Blonde on Blonde. Sixty years old today. The album of albums, it lives within me. Impossible for me to imagine each and every one of those 720 months without Blonde on Blonde as soundtrack.
Last night, Lincoln Center. Glenn Branca's Symphony #13 for 100 Guitars conducted by Reg Bloor. That's me in Alto Section Four. Today my body is wracked, my ears are ringing, and I feel like the last three days of rehearsal and performance are easily among the most fulfilling of my life.
Remembering Chantal Akerman on the anniversary of her birth. She was the first person to pay me to write a screenplay, for which I will always be grateful. I treasure the collaboration, all that I learned from it. About cinema. About heart. She lives on in our cinemas and in our souls.
From reading/signing/conversation about my novels DESTINY EXPRESS and THE GREAT EASTERN (from @rarebirdlit.bsky.social and @unnamedpress.bsky.social ) at the new bookstore/event space The Loved One in Echo Park last night...
With Marjane Satrapi in happier times. Her memory will always be a blessing. Photo by and courtesy Erin Cressida Wilson.