re: filmed, splendor

I don't know. I think many of the short stories could work as films.  
I would also love to see Babel-17 or the Fall of the Towers  filmed.  
As much as I'd like to resurrect Andrei Tarkovsky from the grave and  
have him produce his own version of "Dhalgren" in Russian or  
something... I'm sure it's not going to happen.

Maybe we can get Soderbergh to do it. YEAH! Soderbergh has enough  
clout to make an insane-o epic nonlinear masterpiece. He could get  
some of the big stars he's always working with to be in it, too. I'd  
pay cash money to see a three way bisexual lovefest in a burned out  
scorpion nest between Matt Damon--I'm supposing in this scenario that  
he plays Kidd, you know, just because they'd need a bankable name to  
get producers to pony up for the flick--and two others. As I believe  
the kids say these days, "Hawt".

And yeah, I want _Splendor and Misery_ just as badly. You know, I  
know there's perfectly valid reasons (like that stuff about the Thor  
Power decision I remember reading one time) for why books don't get  
finished and published.

But let's just play with this for a moment: in a long long career of  
writing challenging texts, looping difficult, complex texts and  
intertexts and ouroboros texts, what if a writer wanted to create the  
greatest metatext of all time? How might he do it? Couldn't he create  
a wonderful work that has an almost cliffhanger ending, announce the  
sequel, wait, publish a few supposed lines from the sequel in a  
review somewhere, and wait ten more years, publish a *new, different  
book* and go on with his life? Occasionally mention it in interviews  
when asked. That sort of thing. Now we in the audience all have a  
wonderful inventory: the most evocative title in ages, a deep  
unsatisfied longing, a hint of what is there, and our speculations.  
This book is already written in our minds, inasmuch as it is  
*unwritten* in reality. If he passes before it's finished, I'm going  
to just assume that's what he intended all along!

Shouldn't we just mail him a check for $12.95 or something?


JonO
Minneapolis


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