When Stan Brakhage died three years ago, I felt stung.  Though I’m getting to that age where we start losing our heroes, Brakhage was and will be one of the few guiding stars in my firmament and was vital to the end-- a hard one to let go.  He had retired to and passed away in Victoria, British Columbia, a detail which didn’t register at the time.  This morning I was looking at some stills of his work on a biography page, saw the Victoria connection, and was dumbstruck.  I’m going to the University there in the Fall to focus on my visual music, which owes everything to Brakhage and just a handful of others.  Victoria is a small, sleepy city and so this feels like an utterly strange coincidence.  I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out where to go to school, so I’ll take this as a good omen, and plan to have a celebratory/ritual screening of “The Mammals of Victoria.”

For a visual introduction to Brakhage, Fred Camper’s site is the place to go.

posted by randy
11:37AM, 04 Jun 2006
[4 comments]