Nice to see you.




Order Lone Wolf World via Amazon or above
2018 Best New Talent - Short and Sweet Festival Sydney
2014 Pushcart Prize nominee. (more)

Books:



Get a weekly post delivered straight to your email. Email Subscribe to anthonyjlangford2@yahoo.com.au

Greatest Written Films - Disgrace



Disgrace (2008)

Let’s get it straight. Disgrace is not a pleasurable experience. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching. More the contrary. The screenplay is based on the novel by J.M. Coetzee about the new South Africa (as it was when the novel was released in 1999) and how many, particularly white people were adapting to the changes after apartheid. And yet, it's not a political film. Its overtones are subtle. It’s easy to miss them, as the personal story of its characters draws you in. Its protagonist is David Laurie (John Malcovich) and his daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines). One represents the way things were and the other, his daughter, is trying her best to fit into the new mould.



David is a university professor whose brief affair with one of his students goes terribly wrong. He is exposed. And yet he makes no attempt to save himself, a sacrificial lamb to the greed of his own desires. He retreats to the Eastern Cape to spend time with his daughter, who is making the best of a changing political climate. it's filtering down to grass roots level. Perhaps it affects them the most. South Africa is still fraught with violence and few can escape its impact.

It's a rich film, with conflicting nuances. Sometimes right and wrong is all mixed up and it’s easy to get lost in the grey. Director Steve Jacobs and his writing/producing partner, Anna Maria Monticelli stay wide of the obvious, capturing the essence of the novel.



This film has been largely overlooked, a terrible mistake, perhaps because some of its themes aren’t so obvious, and daresay due in part to some of its disturbing scenes. John Malcovich gives one of his best performances, and that's saying something. We are used to seeing delicious tantrums from him, but here he is forced to hold back more than even his character wishes. He is forced to come to terms with his own failings and wonders how he can adapt and yet still live with himself. Not an easy film to endure but a must see.


For more on the novel and it’s author visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_(novel)


Disgrace at Rotten Tomatoes.


Coming next,
July is Novel Month,

A rundown on my six completed novels in reverse order.
The Sixth, Tru Luv Kills.

Hope to see you then.

Drop City - Fools Rush In


Drop City were a Sydney outfit that existed from 1993 until 2000.
In 1996, Fools Rush In was released as a single from their forthcoming album, This Heavenly Machine. They didnt have a filmclip for it, so I recorded them playing at a Festival in Glebe and shot extra footage and made this clip. I gave it to them and they liked it and it became the video. It played extensively on ABC's RAGE and Foxtel's Channel V (Known as RED at the time). Though I never got to meet the band or get a signed cd etc, I'm still glad I did it.
If you look closely, I managed to sneak in a couple of shots of myself and yes, I was going through my grunge/hippy phase.







The album, This Heavenly Machine.

It was a shame to see them split up. Like many Australian bands, had they been American or European, they would have had a lot more success than they had. *Our population is just too small, and the opportunities few.) The album before this one, Magic Transitor Radio was one of my favourite albums of the 1990's.

Years later, I came across lead singer Matthew Tow who has a new band, The Lovetones, working in a Sydney record store. He served me but I didn't tell him that we had a connection.



My Books


Next week,
July is Novel month.
A synopsis and first page from each of my six completed novels.
(In reverse order).

Hope to see you then.


Poem - Alone Not Home



Alone not Home

I want to go home
Except I don’t know where home is
I live in a place I do not like
With people I do not know
Who think they know me.
No.
I fumble my way through a job I have no interest in
And a relationship that’s not interesting.
I thought I had a chance at something
But I have missed everything.
I am no good at pretence
With no desire to try and impress
All I seek is the Truth
In a world I perceive to be false.
I wish people could be more honest
And yet knowing that a wish is mere fantasy
I must be deceiving myself.
If truth is at the heart of the every matter
And home is where the heart is
Why is home so elusive?






(The top painting is by William Adolphe Bouguereau - The Broken Pitcher - 1891. Photograph-unknown.)




Coming in July,
It's all about the novels.
Next week, a music Video I made for a band in the 90's.

Until then,

=]

Story - The Purger

The Purger was my first published story in 2007 and again in 2008. It is presented here for the first time.



The Purger

Yakob³ was a traditional flesh chemist. He was proficient, but not because he enjoyed helping others. He didn’t care about flesh people. They could not afford biomechanical enhancements and were therefore, sub-standard. Flesh disgusted him.
What he treasured was the purification of the individual. It was his prescriptions which purged patients of their impurities. Converts came to him every day to cleanse the tiny evils that dot the interior, like specks of old cancer. It was Yakob³'s dream to purge the entire Starbase. He was no fool. Nearly half of the population were without biomech aides. It would take him a lifetime, but with every case, he garnered new pleasures.
He had discovered that with so many flesh vermin passing through his confined business, impurities would find their way into the circulation. Minimising his oxygen intake had proven to be unsuccessful. By the end of each day, his thought processes had begun to decay. He would rush home and seal himself into his pristine cublica, circulating a purifying concoction of his own design. From there he began the ritual of cleansing. He would follow it with a dose of proto-pellets and in most cases, this would see him true until rejuvenation.
Nevertheless, he would dream of extraordinary filth. Transported to a dark world, stumbling naked and dirty through mountains of rubbish; toothless flesh people slithered on piles of effluent and decaying tissue. Toxic rain sizzled on his skin. Jets of vomit fell from his stinking orifice. He sank into the slush until he was submerged where multitudes of hungry parasites sucked the meat from his bones...


When Yakob³ woke before First Call, he was trembling, withdrawing. He sprang into action. He barely arrived at the sanitiser before the structo-organisms could drain his glands. Afterwards came extraordinary relief — a euphoria, almost sexual — a throwback to sapien days. He cleansed his smooth and hairless body for an hour. He dressed, ate, and with the greatest relief, once again felt purged.
Everyone should feel this way. He'd purge them all. And he had only just begun.
He opened the business, fantasising about new conquests for the day.
Minutes later, a clownish figure strolled in, targeting him. It beamed a toothy, decaying scrawl: ‘Death to biomechs!’
Yakob³ was more confused than alarmed.
The clown raised a handmade tool, jagged, and slammed it into the sinews between Yakob³’s shoulder and neck. As it withdrew, blood and bio fluid gushed.
Yakob³ staggered. The tool came down into his body again, and again.
‘Release the flesh!’ The clown scrambled for freedom.
Yakob³ stumbled to Central Terminal. He sat. He vomited.
Onlookers converged.
His body liquids ran — murky and multitudinous. He defecated. He urinated. He had become the flesh mountain of his nightmares. His head swam. Colours seeped into luminous white. It was oddly soothing. He felt almost…tranquil. Almost.
An inner voice, a throwback sapien voice, spoke truths. He had been wrong. Bioenhancements were the stuff of pollution. The flesh was meant to be free.
At last, he was truly purged.

the end.




My Books