The Agony of the Body Artist
A dispatch from 1975: Roger Ebert on conceptual artist Chris Burden’s ground-breaking and then-controversial performance piece at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Thinking Molecules of Titan
[Fiction] A previously unpublished sci-fi story by the writer and film critic, who died on April 4 at age 70:
“‘This is a vague idea,’ said Regan. ‘I’m still working on it. Titan evolves molecules that group in such a way that they, oh, get together, like, and don’t actually communicate, like, but prowl around in non-self-conscious collective-information patterns. That’s what we’re hearing, now that we’re closer to the source.’
“‘There’s only one way this is going,’ Alex said. ‘A lunar intelligence.’
“‘Intelligence is not required,’ Regan said. ‘All that’s needed are patterns that move more easily than other patterns. Patterns that lend themselves to pattern-originators. The way of least resistance. We don’t like sulfur, but it’s yummy for the deep-sea plumes.'”
Roger Loves Chaz
A love letter:
“Wednesday, July 18, is the 20th anniversary of our marriage. How can I begin to tell you about Chaz? She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she has my love, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone, which is where I seemed to be heading. If my cancer had come, and it would have, and Chaz had not been there with me, I can imagine a descent into lonely decrepitude. I was very sick. I might have vegetated in hopelessness. This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live. She was always there believing I could do it, and her love was like a wind forcing me back from the grave.”
‘Memory.’ The Introduction to Roger Ebert’s New Memoir ‘Life Itself’
The point for now is: I had no conception of such a show and no desire to work with Siskel. The three stages of my early career (writing and editing a newspaper, becoming a film critic, beginning a television show) were initiated by others. Between college and 2006, my life continued more or less on that track. I was a movie critic and I had a TV show. It could all have been lost through alcoholism (I believe I came closer than many people realized), but in 1979 I stopped drinking and the later chapters became possible.
Hugh Hefner Has Been Good for Us
Hefner and Playboy have been around so long that not everyone remembers what America used to be like. It was sexually repressed and socially restrictive. Many people joined in the fight against that unhealthy society. Hefner was one of them, and a case can can be made that Playboy had a greater influence on our society in its first half-century than any other magazine.
‘Who’s Gonna Get Me a Beer?’ An interview with Lee Marvin
MALIBU, 1970 — The door flew open from inside, revealing Lee Marvin in a torrid embrace, bent over Michelle Triola, a fond hand on her rump. “Love!” he said. “It’s all love in this house. Nothing but love. All you need is love . . .”
