Long Days, Long Months: 13 August

Driving from Saint Petersburg to Athens, every time wanting to explore rural north Florida, but the logic of the Interstate, of the drive, drags you forward. You don't even want to stop to piss.

Watching a lot of films: randomly coming across Death Hunt, with Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, reminds me of certain movie stars of the 1960's and '70's - the loner (Bronson as Paul Kersesy, Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan, Marvin in Point Blank, Steve McQueen in Bullitt) and the rebel (Bronson/Kersey and Eastwood/Callahan again, Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). Contrasting these performances with those of Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson, the young prototypes of Hollywood's New Wave, one begins to imagine conversations movie-goers had at the time - kids especially, as they figured out what they thought and how they'd respond to the upheavals of the time.

Finally got the second Sun City Girls compilation of singles, compilation tracks, and unreleased recordings: Napoleon and Josephine. I've heard, roughly estimating, about two-thirds of all the records S C G have released, but surprises still keep a-coming: namely, "Reflection of a Young Boy Eating From a Can of Dog Food on a Shiny Red X-Mas Ball," 22 minutes long, though originally shortened when included on the Three Fake Female Orgasms double-45 [1991]. Following in the path laid, in earnest, by "The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Trick," on their eponymous debut L P [1984], the Girls, here collaborating with David Oliphant, who apparently enacts many of the electro-acoustic effects heard, delve deep into collage aesthetics, ending up far away from the Rock-band template. As such, it paves the way for later albums like Juggernaut, Cameo Demons and Their Manifestations, and Flute and Mask, as well as the "radio" works.