Letter from Stan Brakhage to Sally Dixon
(1/1/1971-1/15/1971)
Dear Sally,
Thanks for your beautiful letter and penned pendent, de-pendent, etc.
I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to answer worthily: I find myself
exhausted these days — mysteriously inasmuch as I haven't really been able to do any work that would account for it: the news of Marie's death was the last straw to my system . . . care like a sledge hammer — I've been in physical mourning all week now. In addition to the grief at her death, I've felt a terrible social disintegration somehow grotesquely symbolised by the fact that she'd been dead and buried a week without anyone having thought to inform either myself or Ken Jacobs: I learned it quite by accident, called
him and discovered he knew nothing about it: probably very few others know:
maybe this is your first sign of any such thing. One of the very greatest film-makers of our Time dies and is buried in the style of Mozart: what
else is there to say? What makes that particularly grotesque is that she and Willard DID for so many years stand so much against the impersonaliza-tion that characterizes American 20th Century living. Both fought so bravely to hold people together in their endeavors. That/comes-to-that! I find myself in an absolute circle of grief and loneliness. I remember TOO well how much the film-makers did once relate to eachother humanly. Now we seem to have all become cinhers in some immortality machine, some historical -process of an increasingly fascist society. And I am sick, sick with the social mean-and-meaningless-ness and the sadness of her death -- not that she died . . . but that she died amidst such estrangement as she did — and such despair as her alcoholism attempted foolishly to withstand. I myself could not bear to go and visit hen this last trip to New York: with Ken, and others,
it was the same: the despair had almost completely taken over and replaced
Marie herself: and, worst of all, she continued an act of gaity which would
not even permit the despair to manifest itself honestly: (do I misspell
"despair"?: am I trying to make it mean "desperate" also?): I cannot even
think this morning: NCR have ## I the fulfillment of any emotion: confusion
only.
I had not thought to write all that, or anything really. I just intended to send you the information you asked-for, I do not want to hinder your processes at all — no matter WHAT — for you do seem to be at center some full LIFE these days . . . bless it.
We don't have a list of all prices: thus I'll quote you only those you
requested and a few others readily available.
"Dog Star Man" is $1200.00
"Sirius Remembered" is $200.°°
"The Weir Falcon Saga" is $500. °°
"The Machine of Eden" is $200.
"The Animals of Eden and After" is $600.°° "Scenes From Under Childhood" is $2,800.°° "eyes" is $600.°°
"The Dead" is $l80.°° "Blue Moses" is $200.°°". "Three Films" is $175.°° "Fire of Waters" is $110.00 . "The Art of Vision" is $5,000.00. "Daybreak & Whiteye" is $100.00. "Anticipation of The Night" is $600.°°. "Window Water Baby Moving" is $l80.00. "Films By Stan Brakhage" is $75.00. "Reflections on
Black" is $l80.00 Jane had to raise prices on all "Songs". She will send a list when she gets her new catalogue.
