But is it bliss if they have to jam it down your throat?
Thursday, July 31, 2008
"Mamma Mia!"
Look, I feel bad not talking about "Mamma Mia!" which I saw when it opened and totally enjoyed for what it was, while everybody else was watching "The Dark Knight". I heart ABBA to bits and it was lots of fun... but some of it was very badly done. "Mamma Mia!" is its own genre: you know the songs are great, the plot is terrible, nothing makes sense, but are you going to have fun or not? It's your choice...
But is it bliss if they have to jam it down your throat?
But is it bliss if they have to jam it down your throat?
"Call of Duty 3"
Anticipating 4...
"Call of Duty 3" is a wonderful way to experience World War II- if you keep on dying too much, you can always select the easy mode and show them Nazis what's what. Isn't it appalling that squinty-eyed computer nerds can do the Creator one better by being more lenient and merciful? Why didn't God come up with an Easy Mode for Life? Savepoints to which you could return and undo the mistakes of the past? So what if you had a bad time at Chambois because some Dietrich shot your leg off... Load from your last checkpoint, but this time come out shooting from the RIGHT, not the LEFT. THAT'S how you get that purple medal!
"Call of Duty 3" is a wonderful way to experience World War II- if you keep on dying too much, you can always select the easy mode and show them Nazis what's what. Isn't it appalling that squinty-eyed computer nerds can do the Creator one better by being more lenient and merciful? Why didn't God come up with an Easy Mode for Life? Savepoints to which you could return and undo the mistakes of the past? So what if you had a bad time at Chambois because some Dietrich shot your leg off... Load from your last checkpoint, but this time come out shooting from the RIGHT, not the LEFT. THAT'S how you get that purple medal!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
My Chemical Romance's "The Black Parade is Dead"
I'm not deluded about My Chemical Romance and "The Black Parade"- I enjoyed that album inmensely because of all the OTHER things it reminded me of, Queen and Bowie and T-Rex and Alice Cooper and Meatloaf and Pink Floyd and pretty much everything else in a classic rock station's lineup. But there is a level of dishonesty in that, just as there is in Gerard Way's make-up. You never quite believe My Chemical Romance is a rock band- you believe they're PLAYING at being a rock band.And those limitations come out in their live CD/DVD combo. I didn't think the production in "The Black Parade" was ideal- it didn't distinguish enough among tbe many melodic ideas the band had, and highlighted sameness instead. But compared to the live record, the studio stuff might as well have been "Sergeant Pepper's". The band's musical (and Way's vocal) limitations are sadly exposed. They're thwarted by their grandiose intentions: the last segment of "Welcome to The Black Parade" wants to sound like it's the "1812 Overture", but ends up sounding like Blink 182.
They're what they are- a pretty good cover band. Not that you could tell THAT to crowd in Mexico City, (where the alleged last performance of "The Black Parade" took place): Those girls would NOT be ashamed to hire them for their quinceanera party.
"Brigadoon" AND "The Black Parade is Dead" in one day!!! Where else are you going to get that?!?
Vincente Minelli's "Brigadoon."
Aaaah, Brigadoon, the original M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village".
While Lerner and Loewe's "Brigadoon" will be revived as long as there's a drama department with too many extra kilts, Vincente Minelli's 1954 version with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse is on the lower tier of classic movie musicals- somewhere between "Picnic" and "Godspell". It's not just because the famous MGM painted backdrops feel even more painfully unreal than usual-it's a story where landscape is essential. It's not because it's inexplicably missing some great songs, ("The Love of My Life" is second only to Oklahoma's "(I'm Just a Girl Who) Can't Say No" in the slutty-comedy number; and I maintain that "Come to Me, Bend to Me" is the song from which "Music of the Night" was ripped.) It's not even because of how awkward the Cinemascope looks, dwarfing the content of every scene, (it's like going to a football stadium to see two midgets dance.) It's none of those things...individually...but all of them combined they only add up to a "good enough time".
While Lerner and Loewe's "Brigadoon" will be revived as long as there's a drama department with too many extra kilts, Vincente Minelli's 1954 version with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse is on the lower tier of classic movie musicals- somewhere between "Picnic" and "Godspell". It's not just because the famous MGM painted backdrops feel even more painfully unreal than usual-it's a story where landscape is essential. It's not because it's inexplicably missing some great songs, ("The Love of My Life" is second only to Oklahoma's "(I'm Just a Girl Who) Can't Say No" in the slutty-comedy number; and I maintain that "Come to Me, Bend to Me" is the song from which "Music of the Night" was ripped.) It's not even because of how awkward the Cinemascope looks, dwarfing the content of every scene, (it's like going to a football stadium to see two midgets dance.) It's none of those things...individually...but all of them combined they only add up to a "good enough time".
The Complete Saki
It's "funny" how both Oscar Wilde and Saki, who worked out of the same "catty, witty bitch" aesthetic, are now most widely enjoyed for works in which the laughter is so sour, they belong to the horror genre. I'm thinking of "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" when it comes to Wilde, and stories like "Shredni Vastar" and "Tobermory" for Saki. Most of Saki's stories are Edwardian stand-up acts, usually delivered by irreverent fops like "Reginald" and "Clovis", and he could have been a mean-spirited Wodehouse, except that he's always guessing at the horrors that await even the politest of company. Take "The Reticence of Lady Anne". It's a typical "Everybody Loves Raymond" situation. The night prior a couple has had a little spat, a tiff really, and as the husband comes down to breakfast he's met with his wife's icy silence. So the husband attempts to patch things up. Nothing; the silent treatment. His polite veneer cracks ever so slightly as he pleads his case. Still no response from the lady. The husband starts to get pissed and reflect that it's not all his fault, etc etc, his argument escalates, until he finally storms out of the room all pissed off at the frigid bitch who still doesn't deign reply- but then how could she? She's been dead all along.
And that would be too grizzly a punchline for "Everybody Loves Raymond", but it's just about right for Saki.
Monday, July 28, 2008
CHAPTER 45: THE GARRET
We’d just left Gilbert at the top of the narrow, steep staircase, about to enter Monsieur Jacques’ garret, where he’ll spend the night.
Let’s join him as he hunches on ahead, (the roof slopes down and forms an acute angle with the floor). There’s a skylight that lets in no light, but lots of wind. Gilbert is thrilled, though: a windy garret in Paris! Can art, love and consumption be far behind?
ABOVE: Gilbert's Garret is just like this one, but less Pucciniesque.
He’s got his little hay mattress and in the corners there’s piles of old newspapers (read rat’s nests). Two cords stretch across the loft from which hang Therese’s hole-full undies, as well as several paper bags full of kidney beans.
Jacques: “The good thing about sleeping in here is that you can’t see how terrible it is to sleep here. Good night, and we’ll make the morning even better.”
But Gilbert’s got the ants in the pants (or it might be rats or roaches; vermin is democratically spread around the garret)- and he can’t go to sleep. So he starts inspecting the paper bags full of kidney beans, and with a prod here and a prod there pretty soon he’s brought down the cords and the paper bags have fallen to the floor and it’s all a terrible mess and Gilbert’s scrambling around and slipping on beans when he notices that there’s writing in the bags.
Indeed, the bags are made of sheets of papers pinned together- and there’s text there. Gilbert starts reading a passage, written in the first person, which goes sort of like this:
“Pretty grisettes and choristes mean nothing for it is in the artful arrangement of dress and manner that my heart has decided..." etc, etc, basically "I ain't into everyday sexy hoes, I like classy ladies."
Gilbert is moved because indeed in a way he feels as though he was torn at Taverney between the everyday sexy ho that was Nicole Legay and the classy lady that was Andree De Taverney. It’s almost as though the writer could see into his soul and his feelings and it’s all so powerfully overwhelming that he starts snoring right away, and next thing we know “Monsieur Jacques” is shaking him:
“Wake up! Were you up all night reading this stuff?”
Gilbert: “Yes, sir, and it was fascinating, it felt as though
every one of them words rang true and burned like thunder and coal/ pouring out of every page like it was written in my soul…”
Jacques: “All right, all right, I get it, you liked it.”
Gilbert: “Great novel!”
Jacques: “More like a memoir- those pages belong to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s latest, possibly last, book.”
Gilbert: “So that’s what happened to him? Like me, he came to the city, poor, unknown, begging… I feel such a connection to him!”
Jacques: “May you be spared the thirty years of suffering that plagued that man.”
Gilbert: “No, but I feel the same way… about love… and about loving that one special lady, that one…”
Jacques: “Oh, yes. The kid in is love, of course. Let me tell you about love. It’s a racket, it’s a pretty racket, that’s all it is.”
Gilbert: “No, no, Rousseau would understand how powerfully two people can come together. It’s all in these pages.”
Jacques: “Yeah, but those are the memoirs of Rousseau in his twenties, when he didn’t have a lick of sense. He wanted to love women and save men and write important books that would change the world. But eventually he learned it was all a disappointing hassle, and his name wouldn’t be remembered a second after he died. Wait until you get to the part where he’s old. He might have to resort to do more practical things like, hmmm, for instance, copy music.”
Gilbert: “Copy music? I have a knack for it. The lady I have a crush on was always playing the harpsichord and I used to watch her and it was totally in a non-creepy way, I promise.”
“Monsieur Jacques” teaches Gilbert the blindness-inducing task of copying musical dictation from one sheet to the next, (THANK YOU JESUS FOR INVENTING THE COPY MACHINE!) and assures him that it’s a nice night job that might allow him to study philosophy while making money at nights.
Gilbert: “I’m a part timer?”
Jacques: “Yes, a night worker. Which will allow you to attend the school of surgery, of medicine, and of botany. Just barely. Did I hook you up, or did I hook you up?”
Gilbert: “You hooked me up, Rousseau. I mean, JACQUES! JACQUES! Because I still haven’t figured out who you are!”
Let’s join him as he hunches on ahead, (the roof slopes down and forms an acute angle with the floor). There’s a skylight that lets in no light, but lots of wind. Gilbert is thrilled, though: a windy garret in Paris! Can art, love and consumption be far behind?
ABOVE: Gilbert's Garret is just like this one, but less Pucciniesque.
He’s got his little hay mattress and in the corners there’s piles of old newspapers (read rat’s nests). Two cords stretch across the loft from which hang Therese’s hole-full undies, as well as several paper bags full of kidney beans.
Jacques: “The good thing about sleeping in here is that you can’t see how terrible it is to sleep here. Good night, and we’ll make the morning even better.”
But Gilbert’s got the ants in the pants (or it might be rats or roaches; vermin is democratically spread around the garret)- and he can’t go to sleep. So he starts inspecting the paper bags full of kidney beans, and with a prod here and a prod there pretty soon he’s brought down the cords and the paper bags have fallen to the floor and it’s all a terrible mess and Gilbert’s scrambling around and slipping on beans when he notices that there’s writing in the bags.
Indeed, the bags are made of sheets of papers pinned together- and there’s text there. Gilbert starts reading a passage, written in the first person, which goes sort of like this:
“Pretty grisettes and choristes mean nothing for it is in the artful arrangement of dress and manner that my heart has decided..." etc, etc, basically "I ain't into everyday sexy hoes, I like classy ladies."
Gilbert is moved because indeed in a way he feels as though he was torn at Taverney between the everyday sexy ho that was Nicole Legay and the classy lady that was Andree De Taverney. It’s almost as though the writer could see into his soul and his feelings and it’s all so powerfully overwhelming that he starts snoring right away, and next thing we know “Monsieur Jacques” is shaking him:
“Wake up! Were you up all night reading this stuff?”
Gilbert: “Yes, sir, and it was fascinating, it felt as though
every one of them words rang true and burned like thunder and coal/ pouring out of every page like it was written in my soul…”
Jacques: “All right, all right, I get it, you liked it.”
Gilbert: “Great novel!”
Jacques: “More like a memoir- those pages belong to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s latest, possibly last, book.”
Gilbert: “So that’s what happened to him? Like me, he came to the city, poor, unknown, begging… I feel such a connection to him!”
Jacques: “May you be spared the thirty years of suffering that plagued that man.”
Gilbert: “No, but I feel the same way… about love… and about loving that one special lady, that one…”
Jacques: “Oh, yes. The kid in is love, of course. Let me tell you about love. It’s a racket, it’s a pretty racket, that’s all it is.”
Gilbert: “No, no, Rousseau would understand how powerfully two people can come together. It’s all in these pages.”
Jacques: “Yeah, but those are the memoirs of Rousseau in his twenties, when he didn’t have a lick of sense. He wanted to love women and save men and write important books that would change the world. But eventually he learned it was all a disappointing hassle, and his name wouldn’t be remembered a second after he died. Wait until you get to the part where he’s old. He might have to resort to do more practical things like, hmmm, for instance, copy music.”
Gilbert: “Copy music? I have a knack for it. The lady I have a crush on was always playing the harpsichord and I used to watch her and it was totally in a non-creepy way, I promise.”
“Monsieur Jacques” teaches Gilbert the blindness-inducing task of copying musical dictation from one sheet to the next, (THANK YOU JESUS FOR INVENTING THE COPY MACHINE!) and assures him that it’s a nice night job that might allow him to study philosophy while making money at nights.
Gilbert: “I’m a part timer?”
Jacques: “Yes, a night worker. Which will allow you to attend the school of surgery, of medicine, and of botany. Just barely. Did I hook you up, or did I hook you up?”
Gilbert: “You hooked me up, Rousseau. I mean, JACQUES! JACQUES! Because I still haven’t figured out who you are!”
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
No shame here. Everyone has that hipster-derided band they heretically worship. Mine's Aerosmith.
AEROSMITH RULES!!!
(Hey, it could have been STYX or KC and the Sunshine Band, so hush, nay-sayers.) I'll proudly wear my Toxic Twins T-Shirt even in mixed company. They were my first kick ass concert experience. My first band to make out to. I even bought that "Pickin' on Aerosmith" bluegrass album. I've read their autobiography, and that involved (EEEK!) learning about Steven Tyler's awkward first time (Black hooker. He cried afterwards). I was even a member of Aero Force One back in the '90s!
Still, we're here to talk "Guitar Hero", and not celebrate "Rocks" or "Pump" or the dirty-gritty wonder that is "Get Your Wings".
This is some dream-fulfillment stuff here: Me, rocking right alongside Joe Perry, hitting something like 89% of the notes in Easy Mode 'cause my eye-hand coordination can be filed under Michael J. Fox. Still, I feel like an axe meister.
Which doesn't mean I'm not completely puzzled by the track selection. Well, puzzled is not the correct word: clearly the band wanted new fans to remember they existed long before Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler were born, but (and I speak as a devoted fan, a one time "Box of Fire" owner)- how many kids REALLY want to play alongside minor tracks from "Draw the Line"? You can pretend Aerosmith didn't climb out of obsolescence on a rope made of ballads- but come on, no "Angel"? No "Cryin'"? No "Janie's Got a Gun"? Instead we get "No Surprize"? "Nobody's Fault"? "Bright Light Fright"? Honestly? Not that these aren't fine songs for fans such as moi, but frankly, if it's not on any of Aerosmith's seventeen greatest hits collections, how would they figure anyone wanted to rock out to THAT? Maybe I just suck so much that I haven't unlocked the Aerosmith hits I would actually want to play along to. I mean, do we really need the pussy sniffing "Pandora's Box", with that line about "catching hell from the women's liberation"? It hasn't aged gracefully.
Much of "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" is a game of "Ha, we went with THAT song instead of the one you thought!" That would have been a great idea for one of those previously addressed SEVENTEEN GREATEST HITS COLLECTIONS, ALL WITH IDENTICAL TRACKLISTS- but it's not what I want in A VIDEO GAME.
Am I really such a Philistine for wanting to do the guitar solo from "Amazing"?
AEROSMITH RULES!!!
(Hey, it could have been STYX or KC and the Sunshine Band, so hush, nay-sayers.) I'll proudly wear my Toxic Twins T-Shirt even in mixed company. They were my first kick ass concert experience. My first band to make out to. I even bought that "Pickin' on Aerosmith" bluegrass album. I've read their autobiography, and that involved (EEEK!) learning about Steven Tyler's awkward first time (Black hooker. He cried afterwards). I was even a member of Aero Force One back in the '90s!
Still, we're here to talk "Guitar Hero", and not celebrate "Rocks" or "Pump" or the dirty-gritty wonder that is "Get Your Wings".
This is some dream-fulfillment stuff here: Me, rocking right alongside Joe Perry, hitting something like 89% of the notes in Easy Mode 'cause my eye-hand coordination can be filed under Michael J. Fox. Still, I feel like an axe meister.
Which doesn't mean I'm not completely puzzled by the track selection. Well, puzzled is not the correct word: clearly the band wanted new fans to remember they existed long before Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler were born, but (and I speak as a devoted fan, a one time "Box of Fire" owner)- how many kids REALLY want to play alongside minor tracks from "Draw the Line"? You can pretend Aerosmith didn't climb out of obsolescence on a rope made of ballads- but come on, no "Angel"? No "Cryin'"? No "Janie's Got a Gun"? Instead we get "No Surprize"? "Nobody's Fault"? "Bright Light Fright"? Honestly? Not that these aren't fine songs for fans such as moi, but frankly, if it's not on any of Aerosmith's seventeen greatest hits collections, how would they figure anyone wanted to rock out to THAT? Maybe I just suck so much that I haven't unlocked the Aerosmith hits I would actually want to play along to. I mean, do we really need the pussy sniffing "Pandora's Box", with that line about "catching hell from the women's liberation"? It hasn't aged gracefully.
Much of "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" is a game of "Ha, we went with THAT song instead of the one you thought!" That would have been a great idea for one of those previously addressed SEVENTEEN GREATEST HITS COLLECTIONS, ALL WITH IDENTICAL TRACKLISTS- but it's not what I want in A VIDEO GAME.
Am I really such a Philistine for wanting to do the guitar solo from "Amazing"?
Indiana Jones and the Curse of Youth
The inexorable finger of fate has, once more, settled on unwary youth. Now it's Shia LaBeouf who has fallen to the Indiana Jones curse, the inescapable dictum that any youngster involved with the Indiana Jones movies will subsequently succumb to ignominiy, drugs, alcohol, or a grouse-hunting incident. There was the tragic case of River Phoenix, who played the archaeologist as a child, and took on a heroin habit. And who can forget Short-Round's pathetic end in a Xing-Lao opium den? Or the shame that overtook "Young Indiana Jones" himself, Sean Patrick Flannery, when he was forced to star in "Young Indiana Jones"? And I swear the evil little prince from "Temple of Doom" just tried to sell me a subscription to the New York Post.
YOUNG PEOPLE. BEWARE OF THE CURSE.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Preston Sturges' "Sullivan's Travels"
TALKING ABOUT VERONICA LAKE!
And I can talk about her happily for a while...
I can't believe I had never seen Preston Sturges'"Sullivan's Travels". Perhaps I had simply HEARD too much about it? But that's a flimsy excuse. No forgiveness! It's one of life's great pleasures to watch Veronica Lake and Joel McRea flirt, (well, she flirts; he never truly appears all that interested, which, in my book, makes him a big old homo. IT'S VERONICA FREAKIN' LAKE!).
Meta before meta was cool, "Sullivan's Travels" follows successful comedy director John L. Sullivan as he attempts to get a feel for the downtrodden- which he will use as inspiration for his big socially significant opus, "Oh, Brother Where Art Thou." He's clueless about how to go about this- in a proto-Bunuel gag he consistently fails to even get out of Hollywood- but eventually he does go through some dark stuff and learns a valuable lesson:
The poor already know all about poverty, and the rich couldn't care less- so what's so wrong about cheering people's lives with mindless escapist movies? Some have nothing better to hold on to.
I was so ecstatically in love with 98% of "Sullivan's Travels" that the discordant 2% tastes that much sour to me. The irony in Fellini's "8 1/2" is that maybe the on-screen director has lost his inspiration, but the off-screen director sure hasn't. The irony in "Sullivan's Travels" does not work as well- the onscreen director chooses comedy, but the off-screen director plays too close to tragedy. The movie we are watching goes to places that are too dark and don't sit well among the earlier pratfalls. (The sight of Sullivan being tortured inside a "sweat box" is close to nightmarish to me- so scary the movie turns that it can only march itself back into a happy ending through the sheer power of movie bullshit.) I also thought it was unfitting that Sullivan discovers the power of comedy while watching a Mickey Mouse short- what the movie clearly called for was for him to notice the power of one of his OWN comedies. Epiphanies are seldom other than personal. And I frankly HATED the closing shot: Joel McRea and Veronica Lake are about to get married- and juxtaposed with their beautiful Hollywood faces we see the toothless howling of bums and murderous convicts. Sure, this may be what the movie IS about- but it is probably the ugliest, most unappealing ending moment EVER.
But then it's hard to complain since those are precisely the juxtapositions that made this movie so ahead of its time- sometimes the imperfections in a face are what makes it memorable.
(Extra praise goes to the way the black characters are presented in the Church scene- complex, dignified, part of a community that is the moral and religious superior to anything else we've been shown along the way. Like I said, ahead of its time.)
Ok, once more for the road: VERONICA LAKE!
And I can talk about her happily for a while...
I can't believe I had never seen Preston Sturges'"Sullivan's Travels". Perhaps I had simply HEARD too much about it? But that's a flimsy excuse. No forgiveness! It's one of life's great pleasures to watch Veronica Lake and Joel McRea flirt, (well, she flirts; he never truly appears all that interested, which, in my book, makes him a big old homo. IT'S VERONICA FREAKIN' LAKE!).
Meta before meta was cool, "Sullivan's Travels" follows successful comedy director John L. Sullivan as he attempts to get a feel for the downtrodden- which he will use as inspiration for his big socially significant opus, "Oh, Brother Where Art Thou." He's clueless about how to go about this- in a proto-Bunuel gag he consistently fails to even get out of Hollywood- but eventually he does go through some dark stuff and learns a valuable lesson:
The poor already know all about poverty, and the rich couldn't care less- so what's so wrong about cheering people's lives with mindless escapist movies? Some have nothing better to hold on to.
I was so ecstatically in love with 98% of "Sullivan's Travels" that the discordant 2% tastes that much sour to me. The irony in Fellini's "8 1/2" is that maybe the on-screen director has lost his inspiration, but the off-screen director sure hasn't. The irony in "Sullivan's Travels" does not work as well- the onscreen director chooses comedy, but the off-screen director plays too close to tragedy. The movie we are watching goes to places that are too dark and don't sit well among the earlier pratfalls. (The sight of Sullivan being tortured inside a "sweat box" is close to nightmarish to me- so scary the movie turns that it can only march itself back into a happy ending through the sheer power of movie bullshit.) I also thought it was unfitting that Sullivan discovers the power of comedy while watching a Mickey Mouse short- what the movie clearly called for was for him to notice the power of one of his OWN comedies. Epiphanies are seldom other than personal. And I frankly HATED the closing shot: Joel McRea and Veronica Lake are about to get married- and juxtaposed with their beautiful Hollywood faces we see the toothless howling of bums and murderous convicts. Sure, this may be what the movie IS about- but it is probably the ugliest, most unappealing ending moment EVER.
But then it's hard to complain since those are precisely the juxtapositions that made this movie so ahead of its time- sometimes the imperfections in a face are what makes it memorable.
(Extra praise goes to the way the black characters are presented in the Church scene- complex, dignified, part of a community that is the moral and religious superior to anything else we've been shown along the way. Like I said, ahead of its time.)
Ok, once more for the road: VERONICA LAKE!
Ross MacDonald's "The Drowning Pool"
Lew Archer becomes intimately involved with yet another dysfunctional family. Dysfunctionality is Ross MacDonald's muse, and it inspires him into a tough sort of L.A. poetry that's turning him into a little obsession of mine. This is noir the ideal way. Can't help but picture someone like Veronica Lake peering from behind cascades of hair and bringing out a snub-nosed little gun from her bathrobe. But then how incest and L.A.'s corrupt oil infrastructure provide a key to the mystery reminds me of "Chinatown." Seminal?
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Long-Winded QWERTY Rant
Dear Imaginary Reader:
This has been weighing down on me for awhile.
Sometime back a friend and I were watching "The O'Reilly Factor", (we're both into S&M) when the dude said something that we were shocked to find out we actually AGREED WITH. After several cleansing scrubdowns, we soothed ourselves by recognizing that even broken clocks are right twice a day, etc.
Similarly, I hate Joel Osteen.
His "awww shucks, down home" charisma is undercut by a nearly total lack of religious understanding- indeed, part of his 'evangelical' appeal is how little connection to theology it has and how suffused with feel good aphorisms it is. (Any preacher whose idea of a strong connection to God is having good credit and an affordable mortgage cannot even jokingly claim a connection to that other preacher who went on about how it's the POOR who are blessed.)
Anyway, much as I hate Osteen, broken clocks, etc etc: he tells a good folksy story, and I particularly enjoyed this one of his. (I paraphrase, of course)
Mom is teaching her young daughter to make the famous family meatloaf recipe- a sacred family ritual. Mom brings out the weathered notebook with the exact recipe, which begins with "cut out both ends of the loaf and throw them away." After a few hours they sit down to AMAZING meatloaf. Still, the daughter has a scientific mind and can't help but ask: "Why do we cut out the ends of the meatloaf? What does that have to do with the flavor?" The Mom says she thinks it's because... Geez, she doesn't really know. So they call grandma. Grandma says: "We cut them because that's how my mother taught me how to do it. She's the one who came up with the recipe." So noqw they're all curious and call great-grandma at the home where she's holding on to her last few memories- including the meatloaf recipe. "Great-Grandma, we're looking at your meatloaf recipe. Why does cutting out the ends make it taste so good?"
Great Grandma: "Oh? It doesn't. See, when I started making meatloaf and wrote down the recipe we had a really small pan, so we had to cut out the ends to make it fit. That's all."
!!!
What a great load of STUPID THINGS we unquestioningly follow because it's THE WAY IT'S ALWAYS BEEN DONE... Of course, Osteen's own limited point of view doesn't allow him to see what an indictment of religion he's just delivered. But I'm not on about religion today. I'm all about keyboards, and about how unquestioning *I* am.
A week or so ago I saw a comic strip (it could be "Calvin and Hobbes", or some such philosophically minded funny) where a character remarked that the big invention is not so much that someone figured out the alphabet, but they figured out it went in THAT order ;-) (Of course, they don't; there's no particular reason why A should go before B and not the other way around, except that putting things in order helps us learn and memorize them more easily.)
THAT started me thinking about a scavenger hunt I went on some time back. One of the puzzles that, when solved, would lead to a number clue, was simply a large keyboard, above which was the question: "When?" I stared moronically at the keyboard and I might be gathering moss there still if a super-smart person hadn't just looked down and laughed: "Haha, 12-25." I was like: "Huh?" He looks down at my idiotic self: "Christmas, dude! December 25!" This did NOT add to my comprehension. He sighed: "Dude, Christmas! NOEL!" Still nothing. Finally, he's like: "You intellectual void! The keyboard is missing the L button! It has NO L! GET IT?"
^^;
At that moment I realized that after two decades of hunting and pecking, I still don't have memorized the layout of my keyboard. I'm a reasonably fast typist, and sheer repetition means that with peripheral vision I can sort of hit the right keys without looking down too much, but with my eyes closed I couldn't really tell you the layout. Nonetheless, I have always been told that keyboards are arranged in that scrambled way according to a complicated scientific calculation of how often certain letters are used etc etc etc etc
Which as many things in this life turns out to be bullshit.
When typwewriters were being invented, naturally the first prototypes included a keyboard arranged in the LOGICAL, ALPHABETICAL WAY: it allows anyone who can spell to easily figure out the location of the letters from the get go. The system worked so effectively that people typed TOO FAST, causing the boards to get jammed and break down frequently. (If you're as ancient as I am and have used an actual typewriter, you'll know why.) So in 1868 Christopher Latham Sholes patented the messy scrambled layout we're familiar with (at least those of us who use a decent, God-fearing alphabet, and not, say, Commie Cyrillic or Kanji.) The idea was to SLOW DOWN TYPISTS with the unfamiliar layout, which put together letters that DON'T USUALLY GO TOGETHER- in short, to DECREASE productivity. This kept the typewriters from breaking down as often. People learned how to do things the retarded way simply because it was what they had to work with.
But with the advent of the mechanical typewriter, the reason for a non-alphabetical keyboard WENT OUT OF THE WINDOW. It was the logical moment to change- but typists had by and large gotten used to the layout they were familiar with. ("It's the way it's always been done!") They simply lacked the vision to understand that the slight inconvenience of putting keyboards RIGHT would make it easier for newcomers to the system, (every new generation) to learn how to type FASTER- and that their own mental adjustment would be minimal- after a month or so we would all be typing as fast as always because they already know alphabetical order.
For about two seconds after I learned about the true origin of the keyboard I felt that whole "standing at the peak of Darien" feel- discovering the undiscovered country- and then some quick research brought me down to size. OF COURSE thousands of people have figured this out ever since the creation of laptops and computers, but there's actually been a lobby of complacent QWERTYers (read conservatives) who are terrified of the change and will not allow it. It's unheard of! This is how things have always been done! We'll stick with the retarded because it's what we're familiar with! EMBRACE THE ABSURD!"
Typical!
Typists of the World, Arise From Your Slumbers! We Can Get Things Back to Logical in a Matter of a Few Years! The Power is In your Hands!
Or you can go check out YouTube for babies that dance to Flo-Rida.
-Maybe I AM talking about religion.
How can people not get that the rules that were essential to the survival of a tiny desert tribe thousands of years ago no longer apply? Disencouraging masturbation and homosexuality among the Israelites(i.e.: practices that did not lead to the desperately needed expansion of the Jews) made absolute sense if they were to have enough kids to ever create the kind of army that would keep them from being a downtrodden, land-less minority. (Despite all the propaganda you read from a certain big tome, they weren't nearly as mighty and God-chosen as they want you to believe.) However, it's of complete irrelevance to a modern overpopulated world with different social priorities. Similarly, take circumcision- MALE circumcision, a barbaric practice modern societies cling to with fanatical zeal even though it has repeatedly proven to be no of no consequence either way. Circumcision made a LOT of sense as a hygienic practice to desert dwellers, preventing dirt from collecting unseen under the male glans, (EEEW EEEW EEEW). In its time it was certainly a medical advance. But in a world in which showers aren't seen as a weird bi-yearly ritual and health education is the norm, it's completely unnecessary.
Circumcision, homophobia, and, fergodsakes, telling kids they'll grow hair in their hands and go blind if they jerk off, are all savage vestiges of the past.
So are QWERTY computers.
*sigh* I'm preaching to a very quiet, unimpressed choir, aren't I?
This has been weighing down on me for awhile.
Sometime back a friend and I were watching "The O'Reilly Factor", (we're both into S&M) when the dude said something that we were shocked to find out we actually AGREED WITH. After several cleansing scrubdowns, we soothed ourselves by recognizing that even broken clocks are right twice a day, etc.
Similarly, I hate Joel Osteen.
His "awww shucks, down home" charisma is undercut by a nearly total lack of religious understanding- indeed, part of his 'evangelical' appeal is how little connection to theology it has and how suffused with feel good aphorisms it is. (Any preacher whose idea of a strong connection to God is having good credit and an affordable mortgage cannot even jokingly claim a connection to that other preacher who went on about how it's the POOR who are blessed.)
Anyway, much as I hate Osteen, broken clocks, etc etc: he tells a good folksy story, and I particularly enjoyed this one of his. (I paraphrase, of course)
Mom is teaching her young daughter to make the famous family meatloaf recipe- a sacred family ritual. Mom brings out the weathered notebook with the exact recipe, which begins with "cut out both ends of the loaf and throw them away." After a few hours they sit down to AMAZING meatloaf. Still, the daughter has a scientific mind and can't help but ask: "Why do we cut out the ends of the meatloaf? What does that have to do with the flavor?" The Mom says she thinks it's because... Geez, she doesn't really know. So they call grandma. Grandma says: "We cut them because that's how my mother taught me how to do it. She's the one who came up with the recipe." So noqw they're all curious and call great-grandma at the home where she's holding on to her last few memories- including the meatloaf recipe. "Great-Grandma, we're looking at your meatloaf recipe. Why does cutting out the ends make it taste so good?"
Great Grandma: "Oh? It doesn't. See, when I started making meatloaf and wrote down the recipe we had a really small pan, so we had to cut out the ends to make it fit. That's all."
!!!
What a great load of STUPID THINGS we unquestioningly follow because it's THE WAY IT'S ALWAYS BEEN DONE... Of course, Osteen's own limited point of view doesn't allow him to see what an indictment of religion he's just delivered. But I'm not on about religion today. I'm all about keyboards, and about how unquestioning *I* am.
A week or so ago I saw a comic strip (it could be "Calvin and Hobbes", or some such philosophically minded funny) where a character remarked that the big invention is not so much that someone figured out the alphabet, but they figured out it went in THAT order ;-) (Of course, they don't; there's no particular reason why A should go before B and not the other way around, except that putting things in order helps us learn and memorize them more easily.)
THAT started me thinking about a scavenger hunt I went on some time back. One of the puzzles that, when solved, would lead to a number clue, was simply a large keyboard, above which was the question: "When?" I stared moronically at the keyboard and I might be gathering moss there still if a super-smart person hadn't just looked down and laughed: "Haha, 12-25." I was like: "Huh?" He looks down at my idiotic self: "Christmas, dude! December 25!" This did NOT add to my comprehension. He sighed: "Dude, Christmas! NOEL!" Still nothing. Finally, he's like: "You intellectual void! The keyboard is missing the L button! It has NO L! GET IT?"
^^;
At that moment I realized that after two decades of hunting and pecking, I still don't have memorized the layout of my keyboard. I'm a reasonably fast typist, and sheer repetition means that with peripheral vision I can sort of hit the right keys without looking down too much, but with my eyes closed I couldn't really tell you the layout. Nonetheless, I have always been told that keyboards are arranged in that scrambled way according to a complicated scientific calculation of how often certain letters are used etc etc etc etc
Which as many things in this life turns out to be bullshit.
When typwewriters were being invented, naturally the first prototypes included a keyboard arranged in the LOGICAL, ALPHABETICAL WAY: it allows anyone who can spell to easily figure out the location of the letters from the get go. The system worked so effectively that people typed TOO FAST, causing the boards to get jammed and break down frequently. (If you're as ancient as I am and have used an actual typewriter, you'll know why.) So in 1868 Christopher Latham Sholes patented the messy scrambled layout we're familiar with (at least those of us who use a decent, God-fearing alphabet, and not, say, Commie Cyrillic or Kanji.) The idea was to SLOW DOWN TYPISTS with the unfamiliar layout, which put together letters that DON'T USUALLY GO TOGETHER- in short, to DECREASE productivity. This kept the typewriters from breaking down as often. People learned how to do things the retarded way simply because it was what they had to work with.
But with the advent of the mechanical typewriter, the reason for a non-alphabetical keyboard WENT OUT OF THE WINDOW. It was the logical moment to change- but typists had by and large gotten used to the layout they were familiar with. ("It's the way it's always been done!") They simply lacked the vision to understand that the slight inconvenience of putting keyboards RIGHT would make it easier for newcomers to the system, (every new generation) to learn how to type FASTER- and that their own mental adjustment would be minimal- after a month or so we would all be typing as fast as always because they already know alphabetical order.
For about two seconds after I learned about the true origin of the keyboard I felt that whole "standing at the peak of Darien" feel- discovering the undiscovered country- and then some quick research brought me down to size. OF COURSE thousands of people have figured this out ever since the creation of laptops and computers, but there's actually been a lobby of complacent QWERTYers (read conservatives) who are terrified of the change and will not allow it. It's unheard of! This is how things have always been done! We'll stick with the retarded because it's what we're familiar with! EMBRACE THE ABSURD!"
Typical!
Typists of the World, Arise From Your Slumbers! We Can Get Things Back to Logical in a Matter of a Few Years! The Power is In your Hands!
Or you can go check out YouTube for babies that dance to Flo-Rida.
-Maybe I AM talking about religion.
How can people not get that the rules that were essential to the survival of a tiny desert tribe thousands of years ago no longer apply? Disencouraging masturbation and homosexuality among the Israelites(i.e.: practices that did not lead to the desperately needed expansion of the Jews) made absolute sense if they were to have enough kids to ever create the kind of army that would keep them from being a downtrodden, land-less minority. (Despite all the propaganda you read from a certain big tome, they weren't nearly as mighty and God-chosen as they want you to believe.) However, it's of complete irrelevance to a modern overpopulated world with different social priorities. Similarly, take circumcision- MALE circumcision, a barbaric practice modern societies cling to with fanatical zeal even though it has repeatedly proven to be no of no consequence either way. Circumcision made a LOT of sense as a hygienic practice to desert dwellers, preventing dirt from collecting unseen under the male glans, (EEEW EEEW EEEW). In its time it was certainly a medical advance. But in a world in which showers aren't seen as a weird bi-yearly ritual and health education is the norm, it's completely unnecessary.
Circumcision, homophobia, and, fergodsakes, telling kids they'll grow hair in their hands and go blind if they jerk off, are all savage vestiges of the past.
So are QWERTY computers.
*sigh* I'm preaching to a very quiet, unimpressed choir, aren't I?
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
CHAPTER 44: MONSIEUR JACQUES
Gilbert follows the old herb collector-cum-philosopher out of the woods, not without receiving all sorts of valuable lessons in Latin- (the real name of the stink blossom is "Bartonicus Simpsonium", that sort of thing.) All the talk about vegetation brings out the entrepeneur in Gilbert, who hopes to one day make money by selling weed.
Bucolic scenes of mentorship among the green woods just outside of Paris, but alas, nature often gives way to pavement and coarse brick walls, and finally FINALLY GILBERT GETS TO PARIS!!! LET THE CITY DOORS OPEN!!!
*celebration dance*
Gilbert, awed: "Paris! Such magnificence, such splendor, such..."
Old Man: "You just stepped on rat shit."
Indeed, the only living boy in Paris gets a quick initiation on big city filth, squalor, poverty, dilapidation and other such synonyms. If this was an anime, a big sweaty drop of dissapointment would appear above Gilbert's head. If this was "Ally McBeal", a record would scratch as our boy's dreams are run over by a cart full of rotten apples. If this was "Curb Your Enthusiasm", Gilbert's enthusiasm would be much curbed.
Gilbert: "Does it always smell like THIS?"
Old Man: "Let's just say there's a reason why we are so advanced in the development of perfumed napkins."
Not that there aren't some beautiful buildings once you look past the crusty build up of cripples- the Church of St. Eustace captures Gilbert's imagination, while a pickpocket captures Gilbert's shoes.
Gilbert: "What the..?!? How did he take my shoes without me noticing?!?"
Old Man: "Best thieves in the world. We always carry extra pairs just for such a circumstance."
The Church bells ring eight times, which sets the old man all aflutter: "BTW, Gilbert, it slipped my mind, but I should tell you about the old ball and chain. She's de-lightful, delicious and demonic, so let's try not upsetting her."
Gilbert: "Will she not welcome my presence?"
Old Man: "Am I not the man of the house!!! Do I not get to invite anyone I so choose?!? Will a man who preaches freedom to the world be cowed into slavery by his own wife?!?"
Gilbert: "No, no and yes?"
Old Man: "You are wise beyond your years."
The pair arrives at a tall lean door that creaks open, pushes their way up a steep, shambling staircase into a dark, upper floor where the sound of shuffling slippers announces the wifey awaiting with the old rolling pin.
This is a woman between fifty and fifty-five (God forbid Dumas should look up her exact age in the encyclopedia!), a sour, pimply face, with NAG written all over it.
Old Man's Wife: "You still live here? Could have fooled me!"
Old Man: "Dear Therese, I am a little late, but how could I fail to come back to your charms..?"
Old Man's Wife (Therese): "What exactly are you dragging behind you, Jacques? Did you hire a servant to carry your basket of weeds? You intend to pay him how? AH, the wonders of senility!"
Old Man (we can call him Jacques now!): "Gilbert is NOT a servant, dear Therese! He's a charming young man of most refined intelect who I've invited as a guest."
Therese: "A guest! A leech, you mean! There's food for two and that's it."
Gilbert: "Perhaps I should just..."
Jacques: "Gilbert and I will share my portion."
Let us sit down with this three to a rickety table where they share some bread and soup and the insidious, overt nagging continues.
Therese: "So you're quite popular today, Jacques! We've had five debtors come looking for you, but I told them you were out communing witn nature. They say they're going to have to have you commune with your broken kneecaps."
Jacques: "Now, deat Therese, let's try to keep things pleasant in front of our guest. Where do you think we should set a bed for him?"
Therese: "A bed? Are you deranged? This isn't a hotel!"
Jacques: "It's the poor boy's first night in Paris and I will most certainly not let him sleep outdoors!"
Gilbert (his face an 'I wanna be anywhere but here' grimace.): "I saw a quite pleasant bridge on the way here."
Therese: (voice rising) "Why don't we put him in your study with your papers, then?"
Jacques: "No, not the papers, he could accidentally start a fire and they would burn!"
Therese: "What a blow to humanity! Fine, so maybe if we fold him just right he can fit in the cupboard!"
Jacques: "We have a loft upstairs, all right? He'll sleep in the hay mattress we have in the loft!"
Therese: "A loft! Listen to him! It's a garret, you old fool."
Gilbert: (meek) "That will do nicely."
Jacques: "Let's go set up your straw mattress, Gilbert!" The two males exit from under dear Therese's glares, the old man mumbles to the young one: "Sometimes she's not this horrible. Ah, well, here we are. Have a pitcher of water, a piece of bread- no matter what, no man has the right the refuse those two things to another. Good night."
The old man leaves Gilbert at the door to the garret. Gilbert's wondering whether that cool spot under the bridge might not be more comfortable after all.
ABOVE: Monsieur Jacques and his wife Therese. Look, I'm not going to keep you guessing, you know it and I know it, it's Jacques Rousseau and his wife of 35 years, Therese Levasseur. Let's just have Gilbert not figure it out for a while longer. It's called dramatic irony.
Bucolic scenes of mentorship among the green woods just outside of Paris, but alas, nature often gives way to pavement and coarse brick walls, and finally FINALLY GILBERT GETS TO PARIS!!! LET THE CITY DOORS OPEN!!!
*celebration dance*
Gilbert, awed: "Paris! Such magnificence, such splendor, such..."
Old Man: "You just stepped on rat shit."
Indeed, the only living boy in Paris gets a quick initiation on big city filth, squalor, poverty, dilapidation and other such synonyms. If this was an anime, a big sweaty drop of dissapointment would appear above Gilbert's head. If this was "Ally McBeal", a record would scratch as our boy's dreams are run over by a cart full of rotten apples. If this was "Curb Your Enthusiasm", Gilbert's enthusiasm would be much curbed.
Gilbert: "Does it always smell like THIS?"
Old Man: "Let's just say there's a reason why we are so advanced in the development of perfumed napkins."
Not that there aren't some beautiful buildings once you look past the crusty build up of cripples- the Church of St. Eustace captures Gilbert's imagination, while a pickpocket captures Gilbert's shoes.
Gilbert: "What the..?!? How did he take my shoes without me noticing?!?"
Old Man: "Best thieves in the world. We always carry extra pairs just for such a circumstance."
The Church bells ring eight times, which sets the old man all aflutter: "BTW, Gilbert, it slipped my mind, but I should tell you about the old ball and chain. She's de-lightful, delicious and demonic, so let's try not upsetting her."
Gilbert: "Will she not welcome my presence?"
Old Man: "Am I not the man of the house!!! Do I not get to invite anyone I so choose?!? Will a man who preaches freedom to the world be cowed into slavery by his own wife?!?"
Gilbert: "No, no and yes?"
Old Man: "You are wise beyond your years."
The pair arrives at a tall lean door that creaks open, pushes their way up a steep, shambling staircase into a dark, upper floor where the sound of shuffling slippers announces the wifey awaiting with the old rolling pin.
This is a woman between fifty and fifty-five (God forbid Dumas should look up her exact age in the encyclopedia!), a sour, pimply face, with NAG written all over it.
Old Man's Wife: "You still live here? Could have fooled me!"
Old Man: "Dear Therese, I am a little late, but how could I fail to come back to your charms..?"
Old Man's Wife (Therese): "What exactly are you dragging behind you, Jacques? Did you hire a servant to carry your basket of weeds? You intend to pay him how? AH, the wonders of senility!"
Old Man (we can call him Jacques now!): "Gilbert is NOT a servant, dear Therese! He's a charming young man of most refined intelect who I've invited as a guest."
Therese: "A guest! A leech, you mean! There's food for two and that's it."
Gilbert: "Perhaps I should just..."
Jacques: "Gilbert and I will share my portion."
Let us sit down with this three to a rickety table where they share some bread and soup and the insidious, overt nagging continues.
Therese: "So you're quite popular today, Jacques! We've had five debtors come looking for you, but I told them you were out communing witn nature. They say they're going to have to have you commune with your broken kneecaps."
Jacques: "Now, deat Therese, let's try to keep things pleasant in front of our guest. Where do you think we should set a bed for him?"
Therese: "A bed? Are you deranged? This isn't a hotel!"
Jacques: "It's the poor boy's first night in Paris and I will most certainly not let him sleep outdoors!"
Gilbert (his face an 'I wanna be anywhere but here' grimace.): "I saw a quite pleasant bridge on the way here."
Therese: (voice rising) "Why don't we put him in your study with your papers, then?"
Jacques: "No, not the papers, he could accidentally start a fire and they would burn!"
Therese: "What a blow to humanity! Fine, so maybe if we fold him just right he can fit in the cupboard!"
Jacques: "We have a loft upstairs, all right? He'll sleep in the hay mattress we have in the loft!"
Therese: "A loft! Listen to him! It's a garret, you old fool."
Gilbert: (meek) "That will do nicely."
Jacques: "Let's go set up your straw mattress, Gilbert!" The two males exit from under dear Therese's glares, the old man mumbles to the young one: "Sometimes she's not this horrible. Ah, well, here we are. Have a pitcher of water, a piece of bread- no matter what, no man has the right the refuse those two things to another. Good night."
The old man leaves Gilbert at the door to the garret. Gilbert's wondering whether that cool spot under the bridge might not be more comfortable after all.
ABOVE: Monsieur Jacques and his wife Therese. Look, I'm not going to keep you guessing, you know it and I know it, it's Jacques Rousseau and his wife of 35 years, Therese Levasseur. Let's just have Gilbert not figure it out for a while longer. It's called dramatic irony.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Ramin Bahrani's "Chop Shop"
Luminous.
One of the first genuinely GREAT movies I've seen in a while (as opposed to "gee, that was competent and awesome and BATMAN and it made 143 ZILLION OPENING WEEKEND etc etc")
We observe a few days in the life of Ale and his sister Isamar. They're semi-homeless Latino kids of unspecified origins, and indeed they might as well have sprouted in the dubious Eden of Queens, New York, since they don't have any obvious parentage. To watch their little commonplace drama of living on the margins is a harrowing experience. The obvious reference point is Vittorio De Sicca's "The Bicycle Thief", but this is a new experience. Ramin Bahrani might very well be inspiring a neo-realistic wave with this movie, because I can't imagine very many film makers of heart who will not learn to cast a better eye upon America. If not for recognizable landmarks and the fact that the characters speak English, this could very well be a movie about the slums of Bombay- (oh, pardon moi, it's MUMBAI now. DAMN IT. Life keeps on changing on us old codgers.)
What this movie recognizes is that the U.S. works very much like a Third World Country- it's all a question of knowing where to put the cameras.
But this is not aqit-prop, or venomous Lars Von Trier screed; what really gets you about this movie is that even though its parts should suggest despair, you're actually sent off on a joyful, hopeful note. GO WATCH NOW.
*
I can only find two things that keep "Chop Shop" from becoming one of the world's classics:
1- The uninspired title.
2- The movie goes for a naturalistic, "lines were probably improvised" feel, but some of it is scripted and you will know exactly when and where. It's nothing jarring, and it's handled wonderfully by a director who knows how to work with kids, but I noticed, and maybe you'll notice too.
This is picking at that darned nit, sure enough.
One of the first genuinely GREAT movies I've seen in a while (as opposed to "gee, that was competent and awesome and BATMAN and it made 143 ZILLION OPENING WEEKEND etc etc")
We observe a few days in the life of Ale and his sister Isamar. They're semi-homeless Latino kids of unspecified origins, and indeed they might as well have sprouted in the dubious Eden of Queens, New York, since they don't have any obvious parentage. To watch their little commonplace drama of living on the margins is a harrowing experience. The obvious reference point is Vittorio De Sicca's "The Bicycle Thief", but this is a new experience. Ramin Bahrani might very well be inspiring a neo-realistic wave with this movie, because I can't imagine very many film makers of heart who will not learn to cast a better eye upon America. If not for recognizable landmarks and the fact that the characters speak English, this could very well be a movie about the slums of Bombay- (oh, pardon moi, it's MUMBAI now. DAMN IT. Life keeps on changing on us old codgers.)
What this movie recognizes is that the U.S. works very much like a Third World Country- it's all a question of knowing where to put the cameras.
But this is not aqit-prop, or venomous Lars Von Trier screed; what really gets you about this movie is that even though its parts should suggest despair, you're actually sent off on a joyful, hopeful note. GO WATCH NOW.
*
I can only find two things that keep "Chop Shop" from becoming one of the world's classics:
1- The uninspired title.
2- The movie goes for a naturalistic, "lines were probably improvised" feel, but some of it is scripted and you will know exactly when and where. It's nothing jarring, and it's handled wonderfully by a director who knows how to work with kids, but I noticed, and maybe you'll notice too.
This is picking at that darned nit, sure enough.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Acknowledgements
Ferris Bueller, meet Charlie Bartlett. But Charlie Bartlett, you should meet Veronica Mars, if you haven’t already, which I suspect you may have.
What a great start! “I Must Be High,” “Passenger Side”, “Casino Queen” which almost threatened to explode into Glam-Country.
GLAM COUNTRY. Now, there, I’ve made up a whole new musical genre. I can’t wait for a group to explore that.
India sucks. Romantic comedies but no kissing? That's like living life without big juicy cow-burgers. What lunacy is that?
Iran sucks, too. (This movie doesn’t, though. Go watch, now. It should inspire animators of future adaptations of graphic novels.)
Man, that island. TOTALLY full of secrets.
The first Lew Archer mystery. What a writer! Every sentence is a nice clean punch.
Flame WarZ!!!
Dear Imaginary Reader:
There are wars being waged in the back pages of Hallucina. FLAME WARZ!!! I thought I should maybe update you on them. Back when that whole brouhahaha about the FARC and Ingrid Betancourt was going on I said something or other about Colombia that may have been perceived as derogatory. Peruse the archives if you will. I was subsequently “schooled” by a cadre of Colombian academics who rose in defense of their sacrosanct homeland at the perceived slight. I would like to issue an official retraction of any previous statements. I was wrong. Colombia does not suck. If Colombia was a bird and not a country, I would like to think of it as a peaceful, beautiful, majestic dove- and that dove would not all have been forced to swallow balloons full of cocaine and sent north. If Colombia farts, it smells like chrysanthemums and azaleas and happiness.
It’s Bolivia that sucks. I just got confused because those are all countries full of Hispanics.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tim Dorsey's "Atomic Lobster"
Dorsey's funny. Florida funny. Dave Barry's troublemaking cousin. We all know how crazy it gets down here. But the fact is, the moment you finish a Tim Dorsey novel, if I give you a quiz, and ask you what it was all about and how it was different from the OTHER Tim Dorsey novel, you'll scratch your head and there will be no answer. Coleman's still finding creative ways to turn beer cans into bongs, Serge's still obsessive about Florida's beautiful history, and I still can't tell their truck-stop girlfriends apart, and there's all sorts of wackiness going on, and I feel like I've read the same novel ten times by now. Maybe I oughta quit.
Nah.
I'll be there for the next one.
Friday, July 18, 2008
"Doctor Who First Series" (2005)
British mainstay "Dr. Billie Piper" is about Billie Piper who travels in a Billie Piper and has many Billie Pipers throughout the galaxy, including a classic encounter with Billie Piper. Although it's low budget campiness, the series has great Billie Piper effects and the storylines are very Billie Piper.
James Lee Burke's "The Neon Rain"
Post-Frank Miller Batman usually has a little of the surly alcoholic in him, but even at his most tormented excesses he didn't dedicate himself to a black out the way Lieutenant Dave Robicheaux does in "The Neon Rain", the first of James Lee Burke's series dealing with Robi. You can read the Robicheaux novel as Louisiana travelogues, as accounts of dark deeds, but mostly it's about watching the characters insult each other in witty (if not always believable) thug-talk, and then watching them explode in dizzying acts of violence. "The Neon Rain" is also notable for addresing shady American involvement in Nicaragua right while the whole Iran-Contra sewer was blowing open.
Oh, yes! Nicaragua. Iran. Too more sucky countries. Is there a non-sucky country out there? I would like to like Sweden, but it's so goddamn WHITE! It's like everyone's got leprosy.
OOOH, some folksy wisdom from a Burke interview.
"I consider myself pretty traditional, really. People of my generation, who were born in the Depression, tend to be traditionalists. If I had to call myself a name I'd say I was a Jeffersonian liberal. But, see, something has become askew in American thinking. Liberals now are tarred in every way by people who want to associate in the popular mind liberalism with some kind of fanatical movement.
Traditional liberalism has involved certain kinds of movements that gave us Social Security, minimum wage, public healthcare, environmental and consumer protection, the civil rights acts of the 1960s, the fair hiring act, the equal employment act, public education. What is it that is so objectionable about Medicare for God's sake?
I remember on many occasions when liberals, or people who were supposed to be liberals, were called liberals and they shrink. It's beyond me, absolutely beyond me. I mean, do people think that the right wing gave us Social Security, collective bargaining, clean water? I don't know. I think it's one of those deals where you say it enough times, people began to believe it.
Now, there are people, to my mind, who are libertine, who have taken on the guise of being liberals and they are not liberals. They are involved in something else. I'm not knocking them, but this stuff about correctness in language, this hyper-sensitivity about ethnicity and the notion that people are not accountable for what they do, this is not liberalism.
Liberalism is founded on the Jeffersonian notion that ultimately the individual deserves the protection of his government, that the government has to give power to and protect those who have no voice, who are disenfranchised. The government is there to make the society work in an equitable and just way. That's the spirit of and the tradition of the liberal movement in this country. This other stuff has nothing to do with it.""
More
I'm not sure he's using "libertine" correctly there. "Puritanical" might be closer to it. PC-thugs?
"I've also been called a greasy tub."
"Batman: Gotham Knight"
Six animated vignettes linking "Batman Begins" with "The Dark Knight". The quality of the stories in "Gotham Knight" is merely adequate, but where this direct-to-DVD cash in really detours from the DC Universe formula is that this is unashamed ANIME. Sure, it's scripted by chopstick-challenged comic celebrities, (Greg Rucka, Brian Azzarello) but it's the generally superior Asian-style animation that distinguishes this. Anime fans will be tickled by picking up the sources of the varying design styles. (My own faves: Studio 4C's "Tekkon Kinkreet"-like segment, and the "Nadia" looking one.)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
"Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs"
Hmmm. I love “Futurama”, I do, but the fact is that the material is not suited to this “several-episodes-strung-out-into-one-movie format”. I noticed it in “Bender’s Big Score” and I noticed further in “The Beast with a Billion Backs”. The plot lines just get lost out there, stretched out, and I found myself a little numbed in a way. The individual moments are as clever and wonderful as you’ve come to expect, “Futurama” is still great in the way it sneaks truly outrageous scientific concepts into your television- ("universes that mate" is as believable an explanation for creation as any “intelligent design” theory). But frankly there were some slips in this outing. “Bender’s Big Score” was so romantic, and yet here the Fry/Leela relationship was not only not developed, but not even hinted at! I’m veering into the fan-boyish with that sentiment, I realize. I just don’t think the movie format suits Futurama’s pacing. If only they would sporadically release a four-episode-pack! I would much prefer that.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers"
Provincial gossip. That's what "Barchester Towers" amounts to, and of course, there's some delight in that. So Mr. Bold has died, leaving Eleanor a widow. Will her father, that venerable Mr. Septimus Harding, actually be called back to be the warden of Hiram's hospital? Well, never mind, there's the new bishop, and his battleaxe of a wife, and the Reformist Mr. Slope who has designs on Mrs. Bold. Is she going to lean towards him, or towards the more marriageable Mr. Arabin? Yes, the more marriageble man it is. Goodie. All is well in Barchester.
It's really hard to convey why it's somewhat fun to spy on these people, because there's really nothing particularly interesting going on there. Trollope tells you all the gossip about his 1850s British cathedral town, and there's just really not that much to it. It's just sort of...a pleasant stay. Jolly good.
Carter Smith's "The Ruins"
So I have a total Jena Malone crush, and I very much enjoyed the way Scott Smith's novel worked the very difficult trick of ratcheting up tension while making it clear that things are simply not going to turn out allright.
Still, the movie didn't quite take me all the way into the heart of horror. It's too bad, because this is actually an underrated success, miles above similar fare like "Hostel" or "Turistas", and it's gory as all get out. But it just didn't have the atmosphere and the methodical heightening of tension that made the book a great scary yarn.
You know the plot, right? Gorgeous young people, that rocking spring break, the terrible idea of wanting to see what the locals are REALLY all about, going off the beaten trail, and ending up trapped in a creepy Mayan ruin with some very scary local vegetation.
Ok, Korea, Mexico- what other countries am I going to look down on this week?
Still, the movie didn't quite take me all the way into the heart of horror. It's too bad, because this is actually an underrated success, miles above similar fare like "Hostel" or "Turistas", and it's gory as all get out. But it just didn't have the atmosphere and the methodical heightening of tension that made the book a great scary yarn.
You know the plot, right? Gorgeous young people, that rocking spring break, the terrible idea of wanting to see what the locals are REALLY all about, going off the beaten trail, and ending up trapped in a creepy Mayan ruin with some very scary local vegetation.
Ok, Korea, Mexico- what other countries am I going to look down on this week?
Hyun Se Lee's "Hard Boiled Angel" Volumes 1-3
Here's an interesting (if not necessarily true) anecdote from the Korean war, as told in the second volume of Hyun Se Lee's "Hard Boiled Angel". Two American soldiers emerge from the jungle to see a group of South Korean villagers gathered around a man who has been hung upside down from the ankles and is being beaten with sticks. The Americans approach the group and ask: "Is this man a North Korean communist?" The villagers say: "Yes, yes, ok", so the soldiers helpfully open fire on the man and kill him.
The Americans didn't know that the villagers only knew two English words, "yes" and "ok." The Koreans didn't know that their wedding tradition of "tying up the groom" wasn't universal.
Cultural miscommunication is something to keep in mind when reading Lee's manhwa. (Manhwa would be the frankly inferior Korean answer to manga). If I take "Hard Boiled Angel"'s sexual politics as some sort of gauge, the Korean view of women makes it look like Japan is ruled by Empress Gloria Steinem. There's two kinds of women in this series: women being raped, and women about to be raped. Our "angel" is Jiran Ha who is so smart and cool, all of her co-workers are always looking into her panties to see if she has balls. She fights hordes of masturbating, bleeding-nose pervs who are always trying to touch her boobs- but it's totally impossible to distinguish whether it's these dudes who are leering, or the creator.
Hyun Se Lee is widely considered as Korea's foremost manhwa creators, and his stories do have an out-there quality that's almost courageous in light of Korea's censor-happy culture, (in the past he's gone to court to defend his work in the series "Mythology of the Heavens")- but when the forward-thinkers in a society are busy trying to prove that women can actually serve as something better than spitoons, I get sad.
You don't know how lucky you are, boy. (Or girl)
The Americans didn't know that the villagers only knew two English words, "yes" and "ok." The Koreans didn't know that their wedding tradition of "tying up the groom" wasn't universal.
Cultural miscommunication is something to keep in mind when reading Lee's manhwa. (Manhwa would be the frankly inferior Korean answer to manga). If I take "Hard Boiled Angel"'s sexual politics as some sort of gauge, the Korean view of women makes it look like Japan is ruled by Empress Gloria Steinem. There's two kinds of women in this series: women being raped, and women about to be raped. Our "angel" is Jiran Ha who is so smart and cool, all of her co-workers are always looking into her panties to see if she has balls. She fights hordes of masturbating, bleeding-nose pervs who are always trying to touch her boobs- but it's totally impossible to distinguish whether it's these dudes who are leering, or the creator.
Hyun Se Lee is widely considered as Korea's foremost manhwa creators, and his stories do have an out-there quality that's almost courageous in light of Korea's censor-happy culture, (in the past he's gone to court to defend his work in the series "Mythology of the Heavens")- but when the forward-thinkers in a society are busy trying to prove that women can actually serve as something better than spitoons, I get sad.
You don't know how lucky you are, boy. (Or girl)
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Victor Hugo's "The Man Who Laughs"
While "Les Miserables" and "Notre Dame of Paris" are entrenched securely enough in the modern canon, (even if it be through Broadway or Disney), Victor Hugo's "The Man Who Laughs" is not as well remembered today, or as often reprinted. I don't know why, though: I just read it, and it is as unforgettable as Hugo's other works, and one of its movie versions makes it into Roger Ebert's "Great Movies".
You must make some adjustments for the way Hugo's genius works. All of his books are arranged sort of like this:
Pierre aimed the gun right at Marielle's temple.
The gun was brocaded with pearls, just like the one that Le Marechal Aubonne took on his expedition to meet the savages at the Auckland Islands in 1786. Oh, that mankind should say that the gun-wielder is civilized, and the gentle fool that kneels before him is a savage! There is an amusing anecdote about this, when Saint Frederick noted that there isn't much of a difference between "savage" and "salvage". Salvation! Ah, salvation comes through savages! One day mankind will know that savages are children. Yes, for only if we are as children will we walk through the gates...
And just when you are nodding off among the historical irrelevances and romantic exaggerations, he comes back with...
"Yeah, so anyway, Marielle was shot in the head, and she didn't die, because she was a VAMPIRE!"
And you're like: "Oh shit!" and keep on reading through twenty chapters on the history of vampirism, and then there will be something about how Catholics are vampires when they drink the blood of Christ, and there will be something about how rain is the blood of God, and just when you're nodding off once again, there will be an awesome plot twist when Pierre turns out to be a werewolf.
Rinse and repeat into greatness.
The character of Gwynplayne is the acknowledged and direct ancestor of DC Comics' "The Joker". As a child, Gwynnplayne's face was carved into a hideous smile. He is rescued from certain death by Ursus (Bear), a burly theater man who travels with Homo (Man)- a wolf. Added to this Felliniesque circus is Dea, who's beautiful- but blind- and therefore the only one to SEE Gwynplayne's true beauty. (I was reminded more than once of Chaplin's "City Lights" while reading this.) This topsy turvy freakshow where beasts are dignified is in contrast with the hideous glimpses we get of British aristocracy, particularly in the character of Josianna, the kick-seeking bitch. When she writes to Gwynnplayne: "You are poor- I am rich. You are hideous- I am ugly. Therefore, I love you"- the plot gets kicked into the final series of melodramatic but undeniably moving revelations.
You must make some adjustments for the way Hugo's genius works. All of his books are arranged sort of like this:
Pierre aimed the gun right at Marielle's temple.
The gun was brocaded with pearls, just like the one that Le Marechal Aubonne took on his expedition to meet the savages at the Auckland Islands in 1786. Oh, that mankind should say that the gun-wielder is civilized, and the gentle fool that kneels before him is a savage! There is an amusing anecdote about this, when Saint Frederick noted that there isn't much of a difference between "savage" and "salvage". Salvation! Ah, salvation comes through savages! One day mankind will know that savages are children. Yes, for only if we are as children will we walk through the gates...
And just when you are nodding off among the historical irrelevances and romantic exaggerations, he comes back with...
"Yeah, so anyway, Marielle was shot in the head, and she didn't die, because she was a VAMPIRE!"
And you're like: "Oh shit!" and keep on reading through twenty chapters on the history of vampirism, and then there will be something about how Catholics are vampires when they drink the blood of Christ, and there will be something about how rain is the blood of God, and just when you're nodding off once again, there will be an awesome plot twist when Pierre turns out to be a werewolf.
Rinse and repeat into greatness.
The character of Gwynplayne is the acknowledged and direct ancestor of DC Comics' "The Joker". As a child, Gwynnplayne's face was carved into a hideous smile. He is rescued from certain death by Ursus (Bear), a burly theater man who travels with Homo (Man)- a wolf. Added to this Felliniesque circus is Dea, who's beautiful- but blind- and therefore the only one to SEE Gwynplayne's true beauty. (I was reminded more than once of Chaplin's "City Lights" while reading this.) This topsy turvy freakshow where beasts are dignified is in contrast with the hideous glimpses we get of British aristocracy, particularly in the character of Josianna, the kick-seeking bitch. When she writes to Gwynnplayne: "You are poor- I am rich. You are hideous- I am ugly. Therefore, I love you"- the plot gets kicked into the final series of melodramatic but undeniably moving revelations.
GRAPHJAM- USA Today is now dead.
I don't usually just LINK, but GRAPHJAM is hilarious. I just heard about it but I'm sure all the cooler nerds have known about it for ages, so never mind me if I'm one of those people who's like: "Have you heard about You Tube? It's this website where...."
more graph humor and song chart memes
more graph humor and song chart memes
Friday, July 11, 2008
Martin McDonagh's "In Bruges"
Lovely little surprise! I expected absolutely nothing from this movie, had it pegged as another tired entry in the “witty hitmen” sub-genre, but this was a modest winner. Martin McDonagh’s is Ireland’s David Mamet- but his plays always feel too aggressive, like he’s going for a break-and-jab move after that extra pint. That darkness is still there, but by setting it all in “fairy-tale” like Bruges, (Belgium, don’t you know!) he’s come up with something that is a little warmer- cozier may be the word, funny, and just well crafted. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of blood, and Colin Farrell is more focused here than in the badly filmed mess that was “Cassandra’s Dream” (sorry, Woody!). And racist midgets are always funny. But my nerd bone was tickled by the way the plot hangs on references to Nicolas Roeg’s horror quasi-classic “Don’t Look Now”.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Cristian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
The Philip Seymour Hoffman character in "The Savages" is a student of Bertolt Brecht, and at one point he contrasts "Plot" vs. "Narrative", as Brecht did. I would say that plot organizes events in an effective, but more artificial way than narrative; narrative simply shows you what's going on, and "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" is a perfect narrative in the way it gives you a situation- a black market abortion in 1980's Poland- and withdraws commentary. I can imagine this movie being shown equally in some Church basement- "abortions are evil"- or, more correctly, as the perfect argument for legalized abortion it is: "abortions must be legal because if they're not THIS HORRIBLE SITUATION THIS WILL HAPPEN." Testimony to this movie's greatness is that it is not merely about a shady abortion transaction, but a wide commentary on how Communism (or any totaliarianism) engenders fear at the cellular level, on how a society can go on pretending NOTHING IS WRONG while its very beams tremble. Highly recommended, for those who don't mind their Saturday night ruined by reality.
Tamara Jenkins' "The Savages"
Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are perfect cinematic counterparts, and in "The Savages", a movie about siblings dealing with their progenitor's senility, they hit all the right notes. Tamara Jenkins previously directed that little seen gem, "Slums of Beverly Hills", and it's been a decade or so, but her sophomore effort is worth it. This is a funny, honest, devastating movie about those realities primetime ignores, namely, the reality of death. Shameful, uncontrollable death. In a way it reminded me of "Year of the Dog" in the way in which its pathetically real characters try to redeem themselves by finally showing decency to a certain household pet.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
CHAPTER 43: THE OLD BOTANIST
Gilbert enters his weird self-righteous philosopher mode, and sneaks up on the Old Man feeding the birds. The cast enlarges by one! Who will play this Old Man, whom we will soon find to be wise and irreverent?
George Carlin! According to IMDB, he’s not doing much of anything right now.
Upon Gilbert’s arrival, the birds scatter away to plan their vengeance against humanity.
Gilbert: “Good sir, did you not hear that God takes care of the sparrows?”
Old Man: “Sure, but even God needs a little help every now and then.”
Gilbert: “No kidding, I haven’t eaten in a day either.”
Old Man gets the hint and breaks his bread with Gilbert, who also sits on the tree-stump. They have some quiet moments being at one (or rather at two) with nature: There are squirrels defecating on the trees above, toads mating in a pond nearby, etc.
Old Man: “Have some cherries too. Ripe! And please don’t drink the pond water. I, er, had a little accident there earlier. SO. You’re dressed fancy for a young wanderer!”
Gilbert is indeed wearing the clothes Chon forced upon him. “I come from Versailles,” he begrudgingly admits.
“Ha!” The Old Man chuckles perceptively: “You had a fight with your master.”
Gilbert: “I HAVE no master! We are all equal in this great complex pattern of society and all men deserve respect as human beings of equivalent worth, etc etc...”
Old Man: “You have a library card, don’t you?”
Gilbert: ‘No, sir, but I HAVE read the best book ever written! It is called ‘The Social Contract’! It taught me all I know.”
Old Man coughs violently: “You doooon’t say. But, that book, you know, it’s pretty dry, boring stuff, are you sure you understood it?”
Gilbert: “Dry? Boring? Jean Jacques Rousseau is bigger than Jesus!”
The Old Man coughs again: “Awww, geez, I mean, I dunno about all that. Haven’t you heard about his life?”
Gilbert: “I know all I need to know from his book.”
Old Man: “He’s kind of a sorry little man these days.”
Tears of indignation spring to Gilbert’s eyes: “How can that be? He’s devoted his whole life to helping mankind! Surely he’s crowned with honors, fame, wealth, love!”
Old Man: “Yeah, and surely life doesn’t suck. Pass a cherry.”
Gilbert: “It sounds like you know him.”
Old Man: “Who knows anybody?”
Gilbert: “Tell me people love him!”
Old Man: “Kids throw stones at him on the street.”
Gilbert: “But adults revere him.”
Old Man: “They’re probably going to arrest him one of these days.”
Gilbert: “But at least he must have made lots of money!”
Old Man: “He has to gather his pennies to buy bread and cherries.”
Gilbert’s illusions have taken a bitch slap. “What a horrible world. How does one go on?”
Old Man: “One relies on inner strength, on the things that can’t ever be stolen from you.”
Gilbert raises his head: “Yes! Yes! That’s just it! Rousseau couldn’t have said it better!”
Old Man: “I think that line is on his next book. The one he’s working on now.”
Gilbert: “So at least we’re both Rousseau fans!”
Old Man demures: “He’s all right.”
…
So the Old Man and Gilbert dork out over Rousseau's works, the Old Man suggests Gilbert accompany him to Paris and off they trot, and since the Old Man doesn’t give out a pedophile vibe, this is the perfect time for us to have a pop quiz.
It’s Multiple Choice!
The Old Man is clearly:
a) Jean Jacques Rousseau
b) Albert Einstein
c) Marie Antoinette, heavily disguised
d) Gilbert from the future, come to give advice to his younger self
e) JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
George Carlin! According to IMDB, he’s not doing much of anything right now.
Upon Gilbert’s arrival, the birds scatter away to plan their vengeance against humanity.
Gilbert: “Good sir, did you not hear that God takes care of the sparrows?”
Old Man: “Sure, but even God needs a little help every now and then.”
Gilbert: “No kidding, I haven’t eaten in a day either.”
Old Man gets the hint and breaks his bread with Gilbert, who also sits on the tree-stump. They have some quiet moments being at one (or rather at two) with nature: There are squirrels defecating on the trees above, toads mating in a pond nearby, etc.
Old Man: “Have some cherries too. Ripe! And please don’t drink the pond water. I, er, had a little accident there earlier. SO. You’re dressed fancy for a young wanderer!”
Gilbert is indeed wearing the clothes Chon forced upon him. “I come from Versailles,” he begrudgingly admits.
“Ha!” The Old Man chuckles perceptively: “You had a fight with your master.”
Gilbert: “I HAVE no master! We are all equal in this great complex pattern of society and all men deserve respect as human beings of equivalent worth, etc etc...”
Old Man: “You have a library card, don’t you?”
Gilbert: ‘No, sir, but I HAVE read the best book ever written! It is called ‘The Social Contract’! It taught me all I know.”
Old Man coughs violently: “You doooon’t say. But, that book, you know, it’s pretty dry, boring stuff, are you sure you understood it?”
Gilbert: “Dry? Boring? Jean Jacques Rousseau is bigger than Jesus!”
The Old Man coughs again: “Awww, geez, I mean, I dunno about all that. Haven’t you heard about his life?”
Gilbert: “I know all I need to know from his book.”
Old Man: “He’s kind of a sorry little man these days.”
Tears of indignation spring to Gilbert’s eyes: “How can that be? He’s devoted his whole life to helping mankind! Surely he’s crowned with honors, fame, wealth, love!”
Old Man: “Yeah, and surely life doesn’t suck. Pass a cherry.”
Gilbert: “It sounds like you know him.”
Old Man: “Who knows anybody?”
Gilbert: “Tell me people love him!”
Old Man: “Kids throw stones at him on the street.”
Gilbert: “But adults revere him.”
Old Man: “They’re probably going to arrest him one of these days.”
Gilbert: “But at least he must have made lots of money!”
Old Man: “He has to gather his pennies to buy bread and cherries.”
Gilbert’s illusions have taken a bitch slap. “What a horrible world. How does one go on?”
Old Man: “One relies on inner strength, on the things that can’t ever be stolen from you.”
Gilbert raises his head: “Yes! Yes! That’s just it! Rousseau couldn’t have said it better!”
Old Man: “I think that line is on his next book. The one he’s working on now.”
Gilbert: “So at least we’re both Rousseau fans!”
Old Man demures: “He’s all right.”
…
So the Old Man and Gilbert dork out over Rousseau's works, the Old Man suggests Gilbert accompany him to Paris and off they trot, and since the Old Man doesn’t give out a pedophile vibe, this is the perfect time for us to have a pop quiz.
It’s Multiple Choice!
The Old Man is clearly:
a) Jean Jacques Rousseau
b) Albert Einstein
c) Marie Antoinette, heavily disguised
d) Gilbert from the future, come to give advice to his younger self
e) JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Monday, July 07, 2008
Death Cab for Cutie's "Plans"
Some albums take the snaking long way to find your heart- (you'll hear more about my relatively recent embrace of Wilco's catalogue). When Death Cab for Cutie made the jump to the majors, I briefly listened to "Plans", concluded it was just a richer take on the same intimate, cozy, a little-too-pretty sound I liked but not loved. But now "Plans" resonates for me, and it is very much one of those albums that last beyond the summer they capture.
The mast-song, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark", is achingly beautiful, but I have mixed feelings about it. A little conflict with a good songwriter is an ENGAGING thing, of course.
Take the pivotal moment.
"If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied-
Illuminate the NO's on their Vacancy Signs..."
It's a clever, tortuous thought-line, smart kids like those, but there's no way that upon first listen you won't go: "Illuminate the NOSE? Oh, OH, I get it!" How does it happen to be a memorable image and bad songwriting at the same time? Dunno, but it happens often in Ben Gibbard's writing.
The mast-song, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark", is achingly beautiful, but I have mixed feelings about it. A little conflict with a good songwriter is an ENGAGING thing, of course.
Take the pivotal moment.
"If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied-
Illuminate the NO's on their Vacancy Signs..."
It's a clever, tortuous thought-line, smart kids like those, but there's no way that upon first listen you won't go: "Illuminate the NOSE? Oh, OH, I get it!" How does it happen to be a memorable image and bad songwriting at the same time? Dunno, but it happens often in Ben Gibbard's writing.
Juan Antonio Bayona's "The Orphanage" (produced by Guillermo del Toro)
I used to think that the only effectively scary thing about Spain is the bullfighting, but "The Orphanage" actually works as good as any Asian movie about haunted eye implants. It draws from a reservoir of horror cliches- CREEPY LITTLE KIDS!
- but it succeeds by virtue of atmosphere and powerful acting by Belen Rueda as the woman who returns to live in the orphanage of her youth.
Bad idea.
PLACES YOU DON'T EVER MOVE INTO:
-Orphanages
-Hospitals
-Mental Asylums
-Deserted Prisons
-Old Hotels
-Your Parent's Garage
- but it succeeds by virtue of atmosphere and powerful acting by Belen Rueda as the woman who returns to live in the orphanage of her youth.Bad idea.
PLACES YOU DON'T EVER MOVE INTO:
-Orphanages
-Hospitals
-Mental Asylums
-Deserted Prisons
-Old Hotels
-Your Parent's Garage
Sunday, July 06, 2008
"Spiderwick Chronicles"
Mary Louise Parker is some minor goddess of vulnerability, she's the sort of person who can convincingly godfather the marijuana infrastructure of a town, but she's able to squinch her face into an emotional, tearful look that can lift even this minor "Harry Potter/ Unfortunate Series of Events" rip-off.
You know what, though? This movie worked way better than something elaborate like "The Chronicles of Narnia" by virtue of its own self-sufficiency. If kids remember as their own "Neverending Story" one or two generations from now, I wouldn't be shocked.
You know what, though? This movie worked way better than something elaborate like "The Chronicles of Narnia" by virtue of its own self-sufficiency. If kids remember as their own "Neverending Story" one or two generations from now, I wouldn't be shocked.
"Eyeshield 21"
Yeah, I have tried a million times, but I don't like sports.
I'm not retarded, I totally understand competition, our team against theirs, strategy, I know the rules of most rational sports, (that doesn't include the luge), but it's just not in me. (It must mean I like it up the bum hole!) I can understand why sports are compelling- I like theater, but imagine I had to watch "Hamlet" every night in the same sets, with the same costumes- fuck, how do people do it? And remembering that Emmet Gillians had a .467 average in '78 seems to me a horrible use of our limited brains. (Understand, I'm all for people PLAYING games and DOING sports- football's main audience starts hyperventilating if they have to lift anything heavier than a pig skin.)
A very smart friend of mine once wrote me a seductive essay about how even the Classic Greeks and Romans held sports to the upmost- I nodded, but I thought: "Yeah, they also practiced slavery, pederasty, and killed women who tried to learn math. What's your point?"
George Lucas' "American Graffiti"
My Fourth of July pic. I surprised myself by realizing I’d never seen this before. Did you know George Lucas could write at one point?
Thursday, July 03, 2008
At last, a Che Guevara shirt serves a purpose!
Surely you all heard about how some dudes wearing Che Guevara shirts and looking all commie were able to rescue Ingrid Betancourt, the kidnapped ex-candidate to the presidency of Colombia who'd been held in the jungle for six years by the FARC.
Ah, Colombia. What a shitty country. I can talk smack about Colombia because I actually had a Colombian girlfriend for a while.
ABOVE: My Colombian ex-girlfriend, Miss Moreno. She dumped me when some guy called Oscar came into her life, I'm not clear on the details...
If Colombia was a Hollywood movie, it would be about an evil military regime trying to stiffle the scruffy guerrillas that are only searching for freedom and justice.
If Colombia was an independent movie, it would be about the conflict between old men caught in traditional behavioral patterns and the violent but naive youth that just want to be understood.
Unfortunately, Colombia is Colombia, and you have kind of evil dictators vs. even more monstrous drug dealers, and there's really no one and nothing to root for, and people routinely kill each other over musical preferences, (watch a movie called "La Virgen de Los Sicarios" to get a real feel for Bogota.) Don't get me wrong, Colombia is a beautiful country, full of friendly people. Between 9:45 A.M. and 3:32 P.M. If you find yourself in Colombia beyond those happy hours, your intestines will be fed to coked-up pigs.
Ah, Colombia. What a shitty country. I can talk smack about Colombia because I actually had a Colombian girlfriend for a while.
ABOVE: My Colombian ex-girlfriend, Miss Moreno. She dumped me when some guy called Oscar came into her life, I'm not clear on the details...
If Colombia was a Hollywood movie, it would be about an evil military regime trying to stiffle the scruffy guerrillas that are only searching for freedom and justice.
If Colombia was an independent movie, it would be about the conflict between old men caught in traditional behavioral patterns and the violent but naive youth that just want to be understood.
Unfortunately, Colombia is Colombia, and you have kind of evil dictators vs. even more monstrous drug dealers, and there's really no one and nothing to root for, and people routinely kill each other over musical preferences, (watch a movie called "La Virgen de Los Sicarios" to get a real feel for Bogota.) Don't get me wrong, Colombia is a beautiful country, full of friendly people. Between 9:45 A.M. and 3:32 P.M. If you find yourself in Colombia beyond those happy hours, your intestines will be fed to coked-up pigs.
Adele "19"
I was torn between Adele and Duffy, both are highly hyped throwback lasses. Adele won via her cover of Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love", but that's one of my least favorite Dylan moments anyway, and it has been done better, say, by Billy Joel. It's a mediocre sort of victory. Other than "Chasing Pavements", I just don't hear anything all that special here. Sorry, Britain.
CHAPTER 42: THE OLD MAN
"Andree & Gilbert", the first book in the SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA, is about many things. It’s about how empires fall, it’s about how kingdoms crumble, it’s about how unseen forces control the destiny of nations. It’s also about journeys.
Take Gilbert, our young philosopher. He’s on a journey to Paris. He’s been on a journey to Paris since chapter 19, and he STILL hasn’t gotten there.
Guess what?
He doesn’t get there in this chapter either.
But he’s making progress. He’s on the road, a regular Kerouac, enjoying the springtime smell of vegetation. He’s freewheeling now that he’s escaped from Luciennes and Versailles. When it’s night time, he just lays by the way under a tree and uses a rabbit for a pillow. He’s exercising free will in the great gym of life.
Unfortunately, this whole going with the flow, being-one-with-nature-thing means that when he wakes up, his rabitty pillow is gone and the most edible thing around seems to be his leather hat.
But Gilbert is held aloft by his high hopes: “I am so close to Paris! The Big Pomme! I’m SURE to get a high paying job there! Right?”
He keeps on walkin’ for hours. His stomach sings a sad song.
Eventually he sees that the road branches out in three directions, and there’s a helpful signpost: one way to Marais-Jaune, one way to Champ Alouette, one way to Trou Sale.
So he takes all three.
He walks around for a million more hours.
Just when he thinks he’s getting to Paris he realizes he’s actually traveled back to Versailles. So he goes north from there and somehow manages to wind up in Versailles AGAIN.
He’s more lost than the people in “Lost.”
All the while he’s pretty much planning to exercise his free will by stealing a baguette from the first French man he sees in the woods, which would be fair re-distribution of wealth from the have to the have-nots. He’s in a hungry, anti-social state when he accidentally takes a dark winding path that leads into a clearing, and there, in the midst of nature, like the answer to his prayers, there is a man.
This man is seating on a fallen tree trunk, amiably letting the dew gather on his brown coat. Next to the man there’s a box full of herbs, and resting against his leg there is a spade, but Gilbert is not as interested on these items as he is on the little pieces of bread the man is distributing democratically among the canaries that have gathered around.
“Call me Tweety,” says Gilbert and goes forth to greet his new acquantaince.
Take Gilbert, our young philosopher. He’s on a journey to Paris. He’s been on a journey to Paris since chapter 19, and he STILL hasn’t gotten there.
Guess what?
He doesn’t get there in this chapter either.
But he’s making progress. He’s on the road, a regular Kerouac, enjoying the springtime smell of vegetation. He’s freewheeling now that he’s escaped from Luciennes and Versailles. When it’s night time, he just lays by the way under a tree and uses a rabbit for a pillow. He’s exercising free will in the great gym of life.
Unfortunately, this whole going with the flow, being-one-with-nature-thing means that when he wakes up, his rabitty pillow is gone and the most edible thing around seems to be his leather hat.
But Gilbert is held aloft by his high hopes: “I am so close to Paris! The Big Pomme! I’m SURE to get a high paying job there! Right?”
He keeps on walkin’ for hours. His stomach sings a sad song.
Eventually he sees that the road branches out in three directions, and there’s a helpful signpost: one way to Marais-Jaune, one way to Champ Alouette, one way to Trou Sale.
So he takes all three.
He walks around for a million more hours.
Just when he thinks he’s getting to Paris he realizes he’s actually traveled back to Versailles. So he goes north from there and somehow manages to wind up in Versailles AGAIN.
He’s more lost than the people in “Lost.”
All the while he’s pretty much planning to exercise his free will by stealing a baguette from the first French man he sees in the woods, which would be fair re-distribution of wealth from the have to the have-nots. He’s in a hungry, anti-social state when he accidentally takes a dark winding path that leads into a clearing, and there, in the midst of nature, like the answer to his prayers, there is a man.
This man is seating on a fallen tree trunk, amiably letting the dew gather on his brown coat. Next to the man there’s a box full of herbs, and resting against his leg there is a spade, but Gilbert is not as interested on these items as he is on the little pieces of bread the man is distributing democratically among the canaries that have gathered around.
“Call me Tweety,” says Gilbert and goes forth to greet his new acquantaince.
AH, YES!!!
Yes, the Dumas!
There’s been a few weeks’ delay in our tale, but aaahhh, isn’t that Dumas-esque in and of itself? Imagine yourself, Dear Imaginary Reader, waiting for the newest issue of your beloved feuilleton, impatiently standing by the docks, where the ship with the paper comes in, just to see what fresh new imbroglio Madame Dubarry is caught in. What will Joseph Balsamo be up to next? Will Andree de Taverney remain pure among courtly temptations? And now that our young philosopher Gilbert has escaped from the velvety prison that Chon had reserved for him as King Louis XIV’s physician at Luciennes, what WILL HE DO?
Ah, but the newspaper man says: “Not this issue, mon ami! Dumas has been drinking his profits away, and can’t put a noun and a verb together! The novel is on hiatus!”
Oh, how you rage and write letters to the Editor and threaten to cancel your subscription! And the Editor who fears the dwindling audience grabs the first coach that will take him to Dumas’ summer home in Margueaux, bursts through the door and says: “Alex, man, what’s going on? Where’s the next chapter?!? People depend on this!!!”
And Dumas sobs: “I can’t do it anymore… The pressure… The muse, elle est gone!”
And the Editor says: “Jesus, is that a crack pipe?!? What's wrong with you???”
And that’s pretty much what happened during the summer of 1847, according to the delightful memoirs of the Countess of Fauchette.
Without further ado: Chapter 42 of the SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA!!!
There’s been a few weeks’ delay in our tale, but aaahhh, isn’t that Dumas-esque in and of itself? Imagine yourself, Dear Imaginary Reader, waiting for the newest issue of your beloved feuilleton, impatiently standing by the docks, where the ship with the paper comes in, just to see what fresh new imbroglio Madame Dubarry is caught in. What will Joseph Balsamo be up to next? Will Andree de Taverney remain pure among courtly temptations? And now that our young philosopher Gilbert has escaped from the velvety prison that Chon had reserved for him as King Louis XIV’s physician at Luciennes, what WILL HE DO?
Ah, but the newspaper man says: “Not this issue, mon ami! Dumas has been drinking his profits away, and can’t put a noun and a verb together! The novel is on hiatus!”
Oh, how you rage and write letters to the Editor and threaten to cancel your subscription! And the Editor who fears the dwindling audience grabs the first coach that will take him to Dumas’ summer home in Margueaux, bursts through the door and says: “Alex, man, what’s going on? Where’s the next chapter?!? People depend on this!!!”
And Dumas sobs: “I can’t do it anymore… The pressure… The muse, elle est gone!”
And the Editor says: “Jesus, is that a crack pipe?!? What's wrong with you???”
And that’s pretty much what happened during the summer of 1847, according to the delightful memoirs of the Countess of Fauchette.
Without further ado: Chapter 42 of the SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA!!!
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Charles Dicken's "Nicholas Nickleby"
"Pickwick" is episode, "Oliver Twist" is plot. "Nicholas Nickleby" draws from both forms to create the first of Dicken's truly immersive books. Still, my third read confirms my previous feelings- somewhere around page 500, the volcanic power of the first half is exhausted, and I'm reminded Dickens is getting paid for every extra chapter the structure can bear. Is there a less interesting romance in the whole of Dickens that the belated one between Nicholas and- whatever that girl was called?
All the other characters are simply unforgettable, though: Smike, the Squeers, Newman Noggs, the Mantalinis, the "phenomenon", LaCrevey, the Cheeryble Brothers, Mrs. Nickleby (allegedly modeled on Dickens' own crazy mum).
And noo young man can fail to relate to Nicholas' first difficult strides in a job market that about as propitious as America's in 2008.
One is suffocated by the way everything bad piles on Nicholas and his sister, Kate. God, is the world full of ill-willing assholes!
So of course one cheers at the climactic moment when Nicholas gets mad as hell, he just can't take it anymore, and opens a can of whoop-ass on his evil boss Wackford Squeers. It's an unforgettably triumphant scene- but it comes too early.
Which is probably good- had it come on the saccharine final moments, Nicholas might have tried to solve his problems with fervent, tearful prayer.
ABOVE: Nicholas, newly arrived to London to find his fortune, suavely attempts to enage in his first menage a trois.
All the other characters are simply unforgettable, though: Smike, the Squeers, Newman Noggs, the Mantalinis, the "phenomenon", LaCrevey, the Cheeryble Brothers, Mrs. Nickleby (allegedly modeled on Dickens' own crazy mum).
And noo young man can fail to relate to Nicholas' first difficult strides in a job market that about as propitious as America's in 2008.
One is suffocated by the way everything bad piles on Nicholas and his sister, Kate. God, is the world full of ill-willing assholes!
So of course one cheers at the climactic moment when Nicholas gets mad as hell, he just can't take it anymore, and opens a can of whoop-ass on his evil boss Wackford Squeers. It's an unforgettably triumphant scene- but it comes too early.
Which is probably good- had it come on the saccharine final moments, Nicholas might have tried to solve his problems with fervent, tearful prayer.
ABOVE: Nicholas, newly arrived to London to find his fortune, suavely attempts to enage in his first menage a trois.
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