My Night Life
Baltos Lankos, 2007
illustrated by Auguste Varkalis
editions in English, Lithuanian, French, and Italian
The Lithuanian filmmaker and chronicler of the American underground movement, Jonas Mekas, wrote down his dreams between August 1978 and June 1979. It was a busy time in New York: he was in the process of acquiring the courthouse which would become Anthology Film Archives in the east village; he wrote a weekly column for the Village Voice about the recent films of his colleagues Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Peter Kubelka and others; he was taking care of his three-year old daughter Oona and editing a film in her honor, "Paradise Not Yet Lost (Oona's Third Year)." At this time he also suffered the death of his close friend George Maciunas, founder of the Fluxus movement.
All these events and characters, combined with memories of his childhood in the Lithuanian fields and snow, are transformed and filtered through the absurd logic and advenutures of dreams.
The dream book was typewritten by Jonas Mekas and designed and illustrated by Auguste Varkalis, a Lithuanian painter and musician and great friend of the author. Varkalis composed the music for Mekas' latest 16mm opus "As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty."