Emily came over earlier and we watched Cisco Pike, Kris Kristoferson’s film debut. He plays a has-been but still-struggling singer/drug dealer trying to leave the drug biz, drawn back in for one more deal by corrupt, jaded but dreamy police Sargeant Gene Hackman, who offers a light sentence on a previous drug charge if Cisco can raise $10,000 for him by the end of the weekend by selling his confiscated pot. Kristoferson is pre-beard, softer, and with what looks like the promise of a great career–he even wrote and performed several of the songs in the film. I think that Gene Hackman is one of the greatest actors of his generation, able to convey malice and dangerous potential with the twitch of an eyelash. Plus he’s just beautiful. Emily is the perfect person to watch 70’s film with–she understands the radical urgency of the fashions and the aesthetic significance of the pulled-back zoom.
I made some crab cakes and a salad, and then we took off for a reading of New Narrative writers at Artifact, a salon that happens once a month in the Mission. Laura Simms, a poet from Wisconsin read her poetry, and Dodie Bellamy read from an essay that she’s working on about her work. Dodie’s essay was brilliant, so completely entertaining. She read about being a student of Bob’s, who takes responsibility for unleashing the New Narrativers on us, and afterwards she came to me and said she felt strange reading about Bob and our house in front of me, but I told her we were talking now and that I was completey charmed by the piece. Her metaphors are so clever and witty. She spoke of being a Language Poet groupie, and learning to write from gay men, who showed her that pornography and group sex were okay subjects to write about. She was introduced by her husband, writer Kevin Killian, whose introduction could have earned an Academy Award nomination, so filled with sincerity and wit. We split before Rob Halpern could read, but I tend to drift with his writing, so it was for the best.
Tomorrow it’s time to meet Bachelor #5, and a second date with Bachelor #2!