My first museum visit of the week was to the Magnes Museum to see "Ben Katchor: Picture-Stories" late Thursday afternoon. Katchor is one of my favorite comic artists, though the first time I read his stuff I had to scratch my head a little before I figured out what was going on. I'm not exactly sure a museum is the best place to first encounter his work, as the combination of his drawings and words is so dense that the viewer quickly tires of standing in front of it and trying to absorb it. Much better to curl up on the sofa with Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District or The Jew of New York. Katchor chronicles a fictional space and time that feels like it could be New York at the turn of the last century, except that it is a world just one door down from our reality. It's hard not to smile at the idea of municipal mustard fountains or people lining up around the block to see a bit of lining that has come loose and is peeping from the bottom of a woman's coat. Katchor understands why I prefer to buy magazines from a newstand instead of getting them from a subscription, and I think he must also understand the minutiae of daily life that make my heart ache.

Saturday evening I took a stroll down Telegraph for prawn spring rolls and a jasmine rice clay pot at Unicorn before making my way back to PFA for the first three parts of Alexander Sokurov's Spiritual Voices: From the Diaries of War. PFA is showing a series of Sokurov's videoworks, and I was pretty damn impressed at these few hours that I saw. Oh my God, I think I'm actually getting used to the pacing of Russian film. Episode 1 consisted solely of a 35-minute static shot of a snowbound landscape. The clouds changed, the narrator spoke of Mozart, Beethoven, and Messiaen while their music played in the background, and that was it. It was breathtaking. In the next two episodes we leave that landscape and travel to its polar opposite, the arid crags of the Tadjik/Afghan border, to observe the Soviet soldiers positioned there. Time continues to move slowly as we travel with these young men to their frontier post, as we sit with them on top of a hill, waiting for something to happen, hoping nothing will happen. Sokurov asks a lot of his viewers, but I always appreciate it when a filmmaker considers me an intelligent human being. I meditated on the beauty of the Afghan landscape, the inner strength of the Soviet soldiers, the iconography of their bodies and uniforms, my country's current involvement in that land.

The next afternoon I was back at the Berkeley Art Museum to see "Komar and Melamid: Asian Art and Conservation Project." These two Russian artists had a rather brilliant idea to help provide for the Thai elephants left in the lurch after the Thai forest industry shut down: teach the elephants how to paint and then sell the paintings. Always known for their strong sense of irony, Komar and Melamid are definitely teasing the art world with their project, calling into question what we call art and how we view it. Whether you believe the elephants are simply exhibiting a childlike exuberance at dragging a brush across a canvas, or whether you believe there's something more going on in those massive brains of theirs, it's hard to deny the beauty of these abstract images.

Somewhere in my relationship with Patrick I developed a fierce loyalty to Philip K. Dick, so it was with some trepidation that I bought my ticket to see Minority Report later Sunday afternoon. Even if it sucked I figured I was sending Hollywood the message that I would throw my money behind a movie based on Dick's work. Fortunately, it was really really good. I mean, it was still a Spielberg movie, but it also preserved the grit and uneasiness and seduction of a good Dick story. Yes, it should have ended 15 minutes earlier than it did, and I could have done without the dumb fight scene in the car manufacturer. However, I found myself breathless with anticipation at where the film was going to take me next. And that Samantha Morton, she can stop by for tea anytime.

Magnes Museum
Ben Katchor
Unicorn
Minority Report
Citizens for a Murder-Free America