Surface Tension  Owsley Brown's documentary Night Waltz: The
Music of Paul Bowlesis a lovely, rather eccentric tribute to the
great American writer who died in 1999 at the age of 88. It
combines interviews with Bowles, filmed in his Tangier apartment
during the last years of his life, with seven abstract
pieces—visual interpretations of his musical compositions, each
one played in its entirety on the soundtrack.  Brown's strategy
of approaching Bowles through his music rather than his writing
makes for a documentary portrait that's both fresh and a bit
perverse. Bowles began studying composition with Aaron Copland
when he was in his late teens. Music was his primary focus
throughout the '30s and most of the '40s. He wrote instrumental
pieces and song cycles but was best known at that time for his
theater and dance scores, among them the incidental music for
Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. After his move to
Tangier in 1947, his focus shifted to writing and he never
composed music again.  In fragile h