Fugue #159

Enbal’s boyfriend’s film company, formerly Seminal Seminole (he went to Florida State for a year), is called American/Independent. He’s wearing a t-shirt, check it out: The logo is the silhouette of the Statute of Liberty wearing a miniskirt and knee-high lace-up boots, holding what appears to be a Super-8 camera, instead of her customary torch.

He’s working on (he would tell you) a short film about hockey fights in the 1970s:

"‘About is maybe too strong of a word. It’s about hockey fights in the same way that a Pollack painting is about paint. No, scratch that. Most of Pollack’s stuff actually is about the paint, ha. In the same way that...ok, take Ellsworth Kelly. In the same way that Kelly’s stuff is about the world around him - Paris, New York. Like that."

A blank look.

"This film is about hockey fights in the sense that the film contains footage of hockey fights, but it’s not narrative or documentary. Hockey fights are an inspiration for abstraction."

Another blank look.

"It’s an implicit homage to Stan Brakhage."

That, indeed, clears it up. Or would, if Brakhage had played hockey. He didn’t. Why hockey?

"I dunno. I just like it. Look at this clip from a Boston Bruins game in 1981. There’s this one guy, I don’t know his name, he’s big. I used this shot over and over again, each time adding more junk to the negative. It’s great."