… Edited David E. James “Workonthis collectionoftexts began some three years ago, whenwehoped to publish it in2003to celebrate Stan Brakhage’s seventieth birthday. Instead, belatedly, it mourns his death. The baby who would become James Stanley Brakhagewasborn on 14January 1933 in an orphanage in Kansas City, Missouri.Hewasadopted and named by a young couple, Ludwig, a college teacherofbusiness, and his wife, Clara, who had herself been raised by a stepmother. The family moved from town to town in the Middle West and, sensitive to the stressesofhis parents’ unhappy marriage, Stanleywasa sickly child, asthmatic and overweight. … He attempted to write a novel and renewed his friendship with the Gadflies, attending movies with them and beginning to read some of the classics of film theory. Especially taken with Cocteau’s Orpheus and