Oh My Godard, What a Deal

In these recessionary times, we're all looking for good deals. And while I often snicker when I hear the cultural backwater that is San Francisco referred to as the "Paris of the Pacific", I was pretty pleased that last week when our humble Castro Theatre hosted the first screening in the U.S.A of Jean-Luc Godard's (ironically) Made in the U.S.A. Sadly, travel prevented me from catching the screening, but I suspect a Criterion DVD is just around the corner.

And, speaking of Godard, our local rag The Believer magazine has just released their 2009 film issue. This magazine is really hit or miss, but this issue is worth its $10 cover price for the magazine alone, but inside is an amazing little jewel of a DVD dedicated to Godard in the U.S.A. There are two Dick Cavett interviews, an interview of him on the beach in a bikini in Del Mar with Alice Waters, and several other extras.

I got my copy at the 826 Valencia store for $8.26 (go figure) including tax.

And while I was out on Valencia, I was thrilled to see that Dog Eared Books had several copies of the dear old Horizon magazine, a periodical published from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. This arts quarterly -- like American Heritage magazine -- arrived boxed and in a hard cover. I almost teared up as I thumbed through the familiar pages of this magazine that was on coffee tables of several of my relatives as a child and formed many of my early impressions about art, taste and aesthetics. How fitting that two issues featured favorite artists of Catalonia -- Gaudi and Miro.

We can't put a price on things that bring us happiness, but having Horizon and Godard on a Saturday afternoon is pretty close to bliss.