Not for Epileptic Onions

Okay, okay, so I just posted about an experimental filmmaker. This is not going to turn into an avant-garde wankfest, people, wherein bloggy head gets shoved up experimental ass. I promise. Except - this is special. Really. I was almost inspired to start this post with OMG - & I like computer shorthand about as much as I like the smiley faces & emoticons or whatever they're called. E.g., not so friggin' much, but that's a tale for another time.

Anyway. What I have so newly discovered is that Ken Jacobs recently created a 2005 extended made-for-DVD remix of a "Nervous System" film performance I'd seen in 1999 - Ontic Antics Starring Laurel & Hardy. From the flyer for that screening (of course I kept it - & it was Thursday, May 27, 1999 at 6:00 pm, to be exact):

"The Nervous System places two identical film prints on two projectors capable of single-frame advance and freeze. The twin prints step through the projectors frame by frame as dictated by the artist-projectionist, caught somewhere between movie and slideshow. They tend to advance slightly out of synchronization, usually with only a single frame difference. Difference makes for movement and uncanny three-dimensional space-illusions when a spinning propeller up front, between the two projectors, interrupts and alternates their cast images. Tiny shifts in the way the two images overlap onscreen create radically different visual effects. The throbbing flicker is necessary to the creation of 'eternalisms,' unfrozen slices in time, sustained movements going nowheres unlike anything in life. For instance, without discernable start and stop and repeat-points, a neck may turn...eternally."

watch the trailer

No really, please watch the trailer. It's the reason I started this post in the first place. I didn't think I'd ever have the chance to share even part of this with anyone.

I practically couldn't walk when this was over. It peeled back the perceptual layers of my world in a way that I'd never experienced without chemical inducement. I mean, it was such a manipulated experience - but its lasting effect was to heighten reality, somehow. At the time I'd only recently discovered Phil Solomon, whom I blame for knocking me off my narrative horse. While I was trying to figure out if I wanted back on, this experience occurred & basically annihilated the crux of the choice.

Apparently, what Jacobs has done for the DVD is create a three-part version. (1) He committed a specific performance as described above to posterity, followed by (2) the original Laurel & Hardy film he uses, Berthmarks & then (3) a segment in which Laurel & Hardy "struggle to resolve themselves against the prominence of the digital pixels".

I am slightly confused as to why I cannot readily locate an opporunity to purchase this DVD. Presumably Mr. Jacobs' presence is not required to put the disc in the player? Perhaps I am merely being toyed with, a DVD-carrot dangling forever just out of reach. Oh, cruel fate.