Hashish & Moonfleet

This has been an exceptional Sunday for me. It started in the afternoon with an exceptional reading of Clark Ashton Smith poems by our friend Donald Sidney-Fryer, who returned to the bookstore to read Smith's epic The Hashish-Eater. It is a daunting poem for both audience and performer, but Donald has engaged these lines so many times, reading them from a long scroll which unravels slowly as he delivers the verses.

Dinner followed, with Donald, J. Greenberg, and Do Gentry; a relaxed opportunity to discuss Clark Ashton Smith (and a three volume The Complete Poetry and Translations of Clark Ashton Smith forthcoming from Hippocampus Press.)

J. excused himself early to set up for his weekly Kabinet film screening; Moonfleet, the second of four Fritz Lang screenings planned in February. I've come to rely on the Kabinet screenings as a means of expanding my film appreciation. J. has done an amazing job of presenting a broad range of interesting films in the just-under-a-year existence of the screenings. On Sunday, Feb. 26th, Lang's Metropolis, "The mother of all science fiction films," will be accompanied --live-- by the ever-evolving musical-sound sensation INSTAGON.