Third
Known Nest by Tom Kalin
Compilation
37:10 2000
We each have only
one single life which is our real life, starting at the cradle and ending
at the grave. I warn Dorothy every time I see her that if she doesn't
watch out her life is going to be left aching and starving on the side
of the road and she's going to get to her grave without it. The farther
a man follows the rainbow, the harder it is for him to get back to the
life which he left starving like an old dog."
--Jane Bowles, "Plain Pleasures"
"Third Known Nest is a collection of nine short works completed approximately
one each year from 1991 to 1999. Interwoven by nine quotations from some
of my favorite writers, the eighteen short entries in Third Known Nest
function as an intimate visual diary -- fractured pictures from my day-to-day
life. I carried a super-8 camera with me whenever and wherever I traveled,
and also at home -- just running errands or in the garden. I shot nearly
a hundred fifty-foot reels of film.
Six of the pieces in Third Known Nest were shot on super-8; two on 16mm
and one on Mini DV. With the exception of Nation, I edited them on an
off-line 3/4" editing system (cuts only) in order to elaborate an intricate,
layered collage. Partially provoked by music video, each entry in the
cycle of tapes pairs a literary touchstone with a song. They're somewhere
in between formal 'experimental film' montage and the bombardments of
our noisy pop culture. Though individual works are distinct in tone, the
overwhelming impact of the program is emotional, nostalgic. Above all
else, Third Known Nest works as a gallery of portraits in flux-- my self
and the people I love: some living, some dead.
As a counterpoint to feature films, these short pieces are pure liberation,
a cheap, fast escape into the joys of the camera and the edit. No scripts,
no production meetings: heaven. I've long admired the art of Dadaist Kurt
Schwitters, his audio recording of the Ursonate and most of all the visionary,
life-sized Merzbau collage which eventually threatened to engulf his home.
Like many others of his time, he remained a nomad after the war. I hope
Third Known Nest shares something with Schwitters' graceful balancing
act of "high art" against "low culture" -- beauty in the gutter, bumping
up against the flotsam and jetsam that clutters our world."
--Tom Kalin
ONE (Jane Bowles)
Tom
Kalin
00:30 2000
"We
each have only one single life which is our real life, starting at the
cradle and ending at the grave..."
ONLY AVAILABLE ON THIRD KNOWN NEST COMPILATION
finally
destroy us 
Tom
Kalin
04:00 1991
This
piece continues Kalin’s poetic and interpretive use of music married
to vision, drawing on a range of images and textures to create a romantic
reverie of a relationship between two men.
Nation flashes contradictory bodies of language, politics and medicine across a sharp and close screen.
TWO
(Patricia Highsmith)
Tom
Kalin
00:55 2000
"It
is curious that in the most important periods of one's life, one never
keeps a diary..."
ONLY AVAILABLE ON THIRD KNOWN NEST COMPILATION
Edited
to music by Brian Eno, Nomads maps out a race of people constantly travelling,
rapidly taking on characteristics of the inhuman world around them.
Darling Child
Tom
Kalin
02:00 1993
Illustrating a quote by Truman Capote, this tape presents a virtuoso treatment of urban isolation and modern loneliness.
THREE
(Derek Jarman)
Tom
Kalin
00:40 2000
"I
am a mannish / Muff diving / Size queen / With bad attitude..."
ONLY AVAILABLE ON THIRD KNOWN NEST COMPILATION
Confirmed Bachelor
Tom
Kalin
02:45
1994
This
short tosses petals and blossoms at a fundamentalist doctor’s pseudo-medical
commentary on the ins and outs of gay male carnality.
FOUR (Oscar Wilde)
Tom
Kalin
00:15 2000
"Ah!
It is so easy to convert others. It is so difficult to convert oneself."
--Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist
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Information Gladly Given But Safety Requires Avoiding Unnecessary Conversation
Tom
Kalin
01:05 1995
A
short that adopts the form of advertising, while eloquently advocating
personal freedom.
FIVE (Alfred Chester)
Tom
Kalin
00:55 2000
"Where
the robots can eat food, they eat chemicals instead, as one would expect..."
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I hung back, held fire, danced and lied
Tom
Kalin
05:00 1997
A
memorial for living, inspired by a quote from James Baldwin.
SIX (Virginia Woolf)
Tom
Kalin
00:30 2000
"Look
how the willow shoots its fine sprays into the air!..."
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Dark Cave
Tom
Kalin
04:15
b/w/c 1998
"His
heart was a dark cave filled with sharp toothed, fierce clawed beasts
that ran snapping and tearing through his blood. In pain he left the work
table and prowled around the room, singing to himself, "Who can I be tonight?
Who will I be tonight?"
--Alfred Chester, Exquisite Corpse
SEVEN (Virginia Wolf)
Tom
Kalin
00:30 2000
"And
the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking."
--Virginia Woolf, The Waves
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EIGHT
(Roland Barthes)
Tom
Kalin
00:30
2000
"But
I -- already an object, I do not struggle."
--Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida
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Give Me Your Future
Tom
Kalin
07:00
1999
"Turn
the lights down / Way down low / Turn up the music / Hi as fi can go /
All the gang's here / Everyone you know / It's a crazy scene / Hey there
just look over your shoulder / Hoo hoo--Roxy Music, "Mother of Pearl"
NINE (James Baldwin)
Tom
Kalin
00:30 2000
"The
roles that we construct are constructed because we feel that they will
help us to survive and also, of course, because they fulfil something
in our personalities;..."
ONLY AVAILABLE ON THIRD KNOWN NEST COMPILATION
