If like me (and Richard and Tara) you’re still coming to terms with last night’s losing of Lost, here’s another metaphysical jungle tale to your possible rescue (it will also suck up about 120 less hours of your life).  It’s this year’s winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Here’s this year’s jury head, Tim Burton, on the film: “I liked it because it is a movie that you normally don’t see, not Western, with fantasy elements done in a way I have never seen before.  It is a beautiful strange dream.  It has a quiet reflective nature, full of surprises.”

Surprises, indeed!  One of those past lives of Uncle Boonmee apparently features him as a catfish who makes love to a princess in a blue lagoon by wiggling his tale.  Let’s see ya try that one, Man In Black…I mean, Samuel!  The Lost-evocative trailer for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives follows below:

 
Tim Burton Announces Palme d’Or Winner at Cannes: Thai Film Uncle Boonmee

 
Last week’s Anthology Film Archives 40th Anniversary Blowout, Return to the Pleasure Dome, honored, naturally, the works of filmmaker Kenneth Anger.  Technicolor Skull—Anger on theremin (!), Dangerous Minds pal, Brian Butler, on guitar—performed that night (see below), as did Sonic Youth and Lou Reed.  Vice is carrying a stream of Reed’s 13-minute noodling performance.  Fans of Metal Machine Music Lou can check it out here.

 
In honor of his birthday, here’s some truly wonderful Robert Zimmerman esoterica!  On his Sirus XM show, Theme Time Radio Hour, Bob Dylan sometimes (infrequently, I’m guessing) features the often hilarious musings of his pal and fellow troubadour, Tom Waits.  Now, thanks to Aquarium Drunkard, you can catch up with five of those segments here.

Dig if you will Dylan’s nasally intro to the Body Parts segment, “I don’t tell a lot of people this, but Tom Waits and I have been sending cassettes back and forth to each other for quite some time.”  Wow, how do I get taped dispatches from Tom Waits sent to me?!  And to demonstrate how even the most familiar of Dylan compositions can be stretched like silly putty, here’s PJ Harvey‘s take on Highway 61 Revisited:

 
Tom Waits: Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour

 
I love His Bobness as much as the next guy or gal but instead of picking one of his revered classics to share today I couldn’t resist putting up this hilarious and spot-on parody by National Lampoon from back in the early 70’s which without a doubt has pissed off many an earnest fan the world over ever since. Enjoy !

 
Bonus: One of the finest Dylan covers ever, The 13th Floor Elevators doing It’s All Over Now Baby Blue

 
Relatively new to Youtube is this 2008 documentary in its three hour (!) entirety. I’ll admit I haven’t watched the whole thing yet so can’t vouch for quality, though it evidently touches on the whole beloved Krautrock spectrum. Hell, I’d watch a documentary about plumbing if it had something about Can in it, so I’ll be diving right into this one shortly.

 
As a kid, Sesame Street ruled my universe and this song was one from the show I couldn’t get enough of.  Over the weekend I heard this song played at a party and lost it!  I never knew it was actually released on vinyl until now.  I think that the biggest shock was finding out that the song is by The Pointer Sisters!  The Sisters weren’t limited to numbers, as the video below shows, they were keen on letter songs as well.
 

 
Meet the wolf-pack! They’re not goth. They aren’t “Emo,” either. They’re something altogether goofier! Not so much mall-rats as mall-wolves, I suppose. And they will have you know that they are not posers!

 
This is hilarious. Dig the audience! What is this? Who are Why are they there? It’s incidental that the Bay City Rollers happen to be onstage with a tartan-wearing Ann Margaret, but the audience! I love the range of reaction, from uninhibited dancing to the one lady knitting.

This wonderfulness via Lady Bunny blog/Marc Campbell.

 
No means no, goddammit! This dog is going to need a really good attorney.
 
Thanks, Marc Campbell!

 
Mark Twain, the revered American author of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer left over 5000 pages of unedited autobiographical writing when he died, with the instructions that it not be published until 100 years after his death. And that’s now. I can’t wait to get my hands on this!

Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted the first-hand account of his life kept under wraps for so long. Some believe it was because he wanted to talk freely about issues such as religion and politics. Others argue that the time lag prevented him from having to worry about offending friends.

One thing’s for sure: by delaying publication, the author, who was fond of his celebrity status, has ensured that he’ll be gossiped about during the 21st century. A section of the memoir will detail his little-known but scandalous relationship with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon, who became his secretary after the death of his wife Olivia in 1904. Twain was so close to Lyon that she once bought him an electric vibrating sex toy. But she was abruptly sacked in 1909, after the author claimed she had “hypnotised” him into giving her power of attorney over his estate.

Their ill-fated relationship will be recounted in full in a 400-page addendum, which Twain wrote during the last year of his life. It provides a remarkable account of how the dying novelist’s final months were overshadowed by personal upheavals.

“Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this document he calls her a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It’s completely at odds with the impression most people have of him,” says the historian Laura Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain’s Other Woman.

“There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn’t such a happy time. He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he’d never said about anyone in print before. It really is 400 pages of bile.”

After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all (The Independent)