Last night I went to see The Third Man at the Hammer and I was reminded of just what a fabulous film it is and how great it is to live in a city where you can watch classic and arthouse films on the big screen. So I’m sorry–you missed The Third Man, but there are still a half dozen other movies yet to screen in the “Footsteps and Fog” British noir series. Friday there are a pair of trucker noir movies, The Long Haul and Hell Drivers. Saturday’s offerings include The Clouded Yellow, a movie described as having “echoes of Gaslight,” as well as The October Man. And Monday finishes the series with The Noose and No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which Monthly Film Bulletin called “the most sickening exhibition of brutality, perversion, sex and sadism to be shown on a cinema screen.” I’m in.

And if you’re hungry for more Brit films with fog, the double feature on Halloween looks promising: The City of the Dead and The Skull. Satanic conspiracies, Marquis de Sade’s skull, witch burnings…what more do you need for a happy Halloween?

Yes, I know it’s raining and that means a stay-at-home night for some number of residents who harbor an overwhelming fear of precipitation. For those of you among the more adventurous, however, this is a great literary night. Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and more recently of Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son,  is giving a talk at the Central Library, and noir genius James Ellroy is presenting and signing his new novel, Blood’s a Rover, at Skylight. If that just whets your literary appetite, there’s more wordy goodness on Thursday when Wallace Shawn, who cowrote My Dinner with Andre and has just authored Essays, a book which promises to be more exciting than its title, talks with Bruce Wagner at Hammer and Jane Smiley signs her latest, her first novel for young readers, The Georges and the Jewels, at Borders Northridge. I admit I’m a first line fetishist, and Smiley’s novel satisfies. It begins like this, “Sometimes when you fall off your horse, you just don’t want to get right back on.” Amen, Jane.

Last weekend, drawn by the promise of Munch and Gauguin, I visited Gouge, the Hammer’s current exhibit on woodcuts. If you’re looking for something to do this holiday weekend, I say, go to Gouge. It exceeded my expectations. In addition to those “fine art” woodcuts I was anticipating by Gauguin and Munch (and Kandinsky, Matisse, and Vallotton among others), there were woodcuts with a religious theme and a nice sampling of activist woodcuts.

Among my favorites were Joseph Váchal’s Seven Deadly Sins (they are so cute–they look like Pokemon sins) and Artemio Rodriguez’s The Triumph of Death which is one of the large amazing political pieces. Other Rodriguez fans may be happy to know that next weekend, La Mano, the press Rodriguez helped to found, is having it’s annual art sale: December 5-7, 1749 N. Main Street.

Saturday afternoon I had the pleasure of hearing Meghan Daum and Nina Revoyr read at the Hammer, and I’m compelled to break my bloggy silence to recommend both of their books to folks looking for “summer reading” (whatever that is). Those who know me, know my general recommendation for summer reading is Moby Dick, but if you’ve already tackled that, you may want to check out Daum and/or Revoyr.

I admit that I went specifically to hear Ms. Daum whose name you may know from her LA Times column or one of her two books, My Misspent Youth, an essay collection, or Quality of Life Report, her novel. This time, she read from a work in progress, a book about buying a house in 2004, at the height of the housing insanity in LA. More on both Daum and Revoyr after the break. 

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