Louise Brooks had her birthday the other day...

...on the 14th, but I was too busy to mention it. and I am too busy still to go into it much now (apologies to the lack of substantial posts lately by the way, back on track soon with the long winded egocentric ramblers, I promise), but she was great in the few movies she did and I highly recommend her memoir LULU IN HOLLYWOOD, which I am going to get copies of in the store. Criterion is releasing a super fancy deluxe edition of her most famous movie, Pandora's Box in a couple weeks, so if you haven't seen it, nows the time.


But she did a bunch of great movies, rent Beggars of Life and Diary of a Lost Girl. Both are amazing. You will watch these then get upset that you've never seen them before, then get annoyed that nobody is talking about Brooks enough and then you're wandering around old used bookstores in small towns looking for old photographs in boxes under tables. It all starts here!

Ivan Brunetti did an incredibly poignant one page strip about Brooks published in Schizo 4. That whole issue is pretty amazing by the way. Comprised of short one page comics that range from biographies of people such as Satie and Kjerkegaard to autobiography dwelling on the day to day of brunetti's life, the issue works as one piece, with each part working off the strips around it, creating an amazingly complex picture of the artist and his life. It's an intense read and quite sad at times-its written in such a way that you know the feelings are genuine. It's the real deal, and few other writers can get across utter dispair and hopelessness as well as whats done here. That is also what makes the moments of contentment or warmth hit like they should (there is a wordless strip in the issue thats laid out to resemble a cross section of his house that is a favorite of mine-not only of brunetti's work but ever). And of course, it's continually funny in many different ways. Brunetti is a master of the cheap laff, the vulgar, the fart joke, but he is also incredible at humor that emerges from the characters and situations and above all else, the absurdity of life. below is a small jpeg of the Kjerkegaard strip:

Anyhow, if you haven't read it your really missing out. Y'knowl, just stand at our magazine rack and read it next time you come in. It's so beautiful as an object, I bet you'll buy it.
Happy birthday Lulu!

(P.S. I am having a real fucking hard time lately getting images on this blog!)