Computers are amazing.

2010-11-07T14:56:00.000-05:00

My Morning

2010-04-06T16:23:00.001-04:00

I awoke this morning from dreams about my mom as a destitute field worker, taking me around the dust bowl of a poor yet magical America. My alarm went off at 9:15 and I felt gross. My skin was oily and I could feel a zit by my right eye, which was crusted with sleep. A 212 phone number rang and I quickly composed myself and hopped out of bed, hoping the call was from my photo editor. Instead, it was a woman from Scottrade asking about my account transfer. I did not want to deal with that so I got off the line quickly, threw clothes on and headed outside to sit in my car to prevent a street-sweeping ticket.

The right side of the road was completely full. Usually it's completely empty from 9:30-11 on Tuesdays so that the gutters can be cleaned. There must've been a memo that I didn't get saying that cars wouldn't be policed today for some reason. At 9:45 the street sweeper drove by, accomplishing nothing. What a pointless city service. Why deploy the street sweeper and not the parking enforcement? I watched the trash collectors do their more valuable job before heading back inside.

I collapsed on my bed and contemplated giving in to my tiredness, but decided to stay up and possibly go to yoga at noon. I felt ambivalent about yoga because it's such a hassle, but wanted its benefits all the same. I ate a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, took some Sudafed and sat on the couch for an hour, watching the romantic comedy Someone Like You. At 11am I decided that I was wasting time and went to my computer to handle an email from my old professor George. He forwarded me a job opportunity, so I thanked him for it and then applied to the photo researcher position. That felt like an accomplishment. I then made up my mind to go to yoga, threw on my yoga outfit and left.

The song playing on my iPhone was The Decline by NoFX, one of the most epic songs ever made. This was my favorite band in 8th grade. They released this EP (1 song long) in 1999 or 2000, as my love for punk rock was fading. This was the final triumph of the genre. It is still a pleasure to hear.

I missed the Q train by seconds and wondered, where could I have recovered that time? If I had caught the walk signal on Livingston? If I left moments earlier instead considering an email sent by another old prof, Simone, to whom I debated responding? Regardless, the express train was gone so I decided to take the R to 8th street, which was closer to Yoga to the People. On the train, I decided to replay The Decline over and over between the 13:17 min point to the 14:53 min point. The song is 18:21 minutes long, but it's that section that really does it for me. The lyrics are about the decline of western civilization and gives me chills every time I listen to it, the way a great movie does at its climax. I decided to type up the lyrics from this section of the song, as they are incredibly poignant and moving.

After typing up the words on my notes app, I closed my eyes to enjoy the music and subsequently missed my stop. I mean, I never get off at 8th street, let alone take the R train, so I had no sense of things. I got off at Union Square at 11:50. It's best to be at least 15 minutes early for yoga, as it fills up fast. I considered walking from Union Square, but decided I'd definitely miss class that way. I considered going to the downtown 6 train to Astor place, but that seemed risky as well, since the 6 train was on the other side of the station. I crossed the platform and a downtown N express came. I considered abandoning yoga and salvaging this excursion by going to school and transferring some scanned files to my flash drive, which I brought with me for this exact circumstance, but I felt gross and didn't really want to go to school. I then decided that if another express train came before the local, I'd just go home. The Q showed up a minute later, at 11:53.

Lyrics from the section I typed up:

Save us!
The human existence is failing,

Resistance essential,

The future written off,

The odds are astronomically against us
Only moron and genius
Would fight a losing battle
Against the super ego
When giving in is so damn comforting

And so we go on with our lives
We know the truth but prefer lies
Lies are simple simple is bliss
Why go against tradition when we can
Admit defeat. Live in decline.
Be the victim of our own design
The status quo built on suspect
Why would anyone stick out their neck?

Fellow members of club "We've Got Ours"
I'd like to introduce you to our host
He's got his, and I've got mine
Meet the decline

2010-04-01T12:41:00.000-04:00

Dream (killed repeatedly, the world explodes)

2010-03-27T23:10:00.001-04:00

feelings of chernobyl / eastern bloc / dull greys

living in a small house w many families
pretty girls, all with other boyfriends
i'm 15 years old or so
i kiss the girls; it's dangerous because their boyfriends and families are very mean
i have sex with a girl in the bathroom tub, door open, very risky
go upstairs, try to have sex with this other girl,
her father and brother find us
go crazy / spray my eyes with harsh cleaning product, blinding me, i run off, run away down the street

-

lots of events in which i am tortured
high speed chase down small-town road, being shot at

-

i'm running away with other derelicts / we steal and are dirty
we are chased by townspeople in pickup trucks
in one scene i am beaten to death by people with pitchforks and torches
lots of screaming

-

i am running away from a house of a family i have wronged
two hooligan brothers decide to run after me
i am barefoot
they can catch me, but instead set up a missile-launching device in a tree
it's a napalm bomb

i run across the street, asking them them for mercy
they follow, slowly giving up
a random bum gets hold of the missile-launcher/catapult and fires it
i am struck with an a-bomb and i completely disintegrate in slow motion
it's heavy and intense and i blow up in a huge fire of intense pain and heat

a lot like Terminator 2

-

all of it starts to happen over again, with little changes of detail
i go to a 99 cent store looking for a lighter, barely escaping the blinding by the girl's families
etc

suddenly the camera pans out an i pop through a television and i'm watching these horrific events as an innocuous viewer with my friends
it's like i'm editing it on a computer
we're watching it, hearing the screams, and i'm adding a score, toying with the pace

2010-03-23T11:28:00.000-04:00

2010-03-18T11:37:00.001-04:00

Dream (Catatonic, with special powers)

2010-03-16T10:47:00.004-04:00

I'm laying in a meadow that's become a battlefield. I'm a peasant, and all of us peasants are running around, fleeing a mighty, evil army. I don't make it far. I don't recall being slain, but I end up on the ground, unable to move. Fellow peasants rush to me once the violence abates, and realize that I'm in a catatonic state.

As I try to talk, bubbles of foam form at my mouth. These bubbles become odd precious objects to the people. They grab each one as it forms and put it aside. Children eat them and find them to be joyous. I blink my eyes and a light goo emits from out of them. This is also collected.

Members of the evil army approach. They want to know what is up with the commotion. A leader peasant explains to them my curious situation, and the soldiers sit down and partake in the wonder.

Flashback: I'm in a castle, but the inside is designed like an uber-modern living room. A feast is being prepared. People watch TV and drink beer. I walk around aimlessly, unable to fit in socially and not hungry.

Then I'm walking the castle grounds. The light is very particular; I'm not sure what time it is. A Robin-Hood figure, a Tim-Robbins-type, meets me and takes me under his wing. He insists that I stay with him to be safe, though it feels like he's getting me into trouble. Sure enough, one or two bandits (that feel like V for Vendetta types), storm the castle in search of our hero. He rushes off and takes me with him. I'm carrying a bag that contains something of dire importance. I feel powerless, but amped.

We jump off of the side of the castle into a huge moat-like river. I fly through the air and dive into the river. Under water, I realize that I can breathe pretty easily. I begin to feel catatonic. I bear important artifacts on my person, and realize that the bandits (who now resemble Mr. Smith from the Matrix) are after them. I stay underwater and hide within a forest of coral. I am hiding, but capture seems imminent. I black out as they capture me.

On land, they stand over me. I try to speak and bubbles of foam fall out of my mouth.

Tino Sehgal - This Progress

2010-03-10T19:41:00.005-05:00

I finally made it to the Guggenheim on March 10, 2010: the final day of Tino Seghal’s takeover of the famous rotunda. I conceded to go alone, since my numerous attempts to schedule a social outing there had failed. My solo adventure became a profound one.

There are two parts to the exhibit. The more evident piece features a couple embraced in a slow-motion make-out session in the middle of the lobby floor. It immediately reminded me of his piece in the After Nature show at the New Museum (that institution’s best exhibition to date). In that previous work, a single female writhed around on the floor at the end of a stairwell, also in slow-motion, and with an oddly seductive quality that mesmerized me, perhaps because the woman I witnessed (and the subsequent woman I watched a second time) stared into my eyes... I will never know if that was instructed by the artist, or is it was a unique flirtatious encounter. Sehgal's work is frustrating like that.

This embrace between a young man and woman, called Kiss, was in fact choreographed by Sehgal, and mimicked quite closely four famous kisses from art history (Courbet, Rodin, Brancusi, Koons). This was told to me by acclaimed art critic Jerry Saltz, who I saw at the top of the rotunda, having taken the elevator up as I always do. By doing so, I inadvertently missed the second – and more significant – aspect of the show: an audience-activated piece called This Progress. Instead, I had created my own experience, which was that of punctuated loneliness.

Seeing two lovers permanently intertwined, as if they existed outside of time, is lovely. It hits me in the gut, being as I am a romantic, and feeling very vulnerable and susceptible to such gestures at the moment. I leaned over the edge of the museum’s short walls from perhaps ten or twenty different heights and angles, staring at the couple, and thinking passing thoughts, sometimes thinking nothing. I also observed the crowded rotunda, full of conversations, of people milling about. (Are this many people free on a Wednesday afternoon?) The bustling liveliness made me feel more aware of my solitude, and put me deeper in touch with dangerous ideas of despair.

As I paid closer attention to the throngs of amblers, something seemed amiss; most of these chats seemed fabricated. Not everyone talking seemed like natural friends. They seemed guided. Indeed, as I later discovered, these conversations were the bulk of Sehgal’s solo show. Sehgal’s army of regular folk - interpreters - was engaging the museum-goers in a predetermined conversation. This reminded me of the first piece of Tino Seghal’s I ever saw: Welcome to This Situation at Marian Goodman Gallery uptown, in which, upon entering a back room, one is met with a small group of twenty- or thirty-somethings who proceed to engage in a grad-school-type conversation about theory and history. Ultimately, if you stay long enough, they ask you what you think, thus creating an objectless (but not un-commodifiable) work of art.

After seeing Jerry Saltz on various levels of the museum, I decided to ask him what he thought of all of this. He loved it, primarily because it activated the space in a way that visual art cannot really accomplish. Like sculpture, Sehgal’s situations make one aware of the present moment, in space and time, and engage one as part of the artistic experience, instead of simply consuming it. This is roughly the idea behind the recent Relational Aesthetics movement, which was also given an unconventional exhibition at the Guggenheim about a year ago, called theanyspacewhatever. (It was far less impressive than Sehgal’s show. I left feeling very little.) Saltz insisted I experience the entirety of Sehgal’s vision. He must have doubted my will because he gave me $20 to make sure I devoted my time to returning to the bottom of the rotunda and starting up the ramp from the base. It is here, you see, that a child greets you and starts you on your journey to the top.

“Hi, my name is Ryan. This is a piece by Tino Sehgal. Will you come with me?” This is the greeting from one of many elementary-schoolers lined up at the beginning of the ramp. YES, I say, and the child takes me for a walk. He says, “Can I ask you a question? What is progress?” Moving forward, I say. He insists that I add to that toward something better, at which point he hands me off to a girl (age17-27), and tells her what I’ve said. She asks me what I'm progressing toward. I tell her that I want to capitalize my film and video art, to make a living doing what I love. She turns the conversation into one about film; we talk for about seven minutes about dissecting movies, Stanley Kubrick, all the filmmaker friends she knows, and my general goals in this field. Then another girl (age 25-35) interrupts us with a comment about something else. Her and I proceed up two more flights, talking about art, work and life. She then disappears and an elderly man greets me. He tells me a pretty long story about his daughter’s boyfriend, who is making a film financed by German and French money (called The Edge, to be released soon…). He goes on about how difficult the process has been for this man, but how he has persevered, and how his ultimate goal – to make a film – is nearly accomplished. He then tells me It’s been nice talking with you, this piece is called This Progress, and disappears.

I am left then in this interesting mental space; I feel inspired, encouraged, even a little loved and appreciated. It’s a lie. Sort of. I decide to do it again. This time, the conversation is less career- and goal-oriented, more love- and romance-oriented. I talk about break-ups in my life, about connections I’ve made with people, about the idea that perhaps sometimes you have to move backward to go forward. I try to reveal this fabrication with some of the participants: Do you use this line on everyone? Did somebody else tell you we talked about this or that? They didn’t waver. Why did the first old man tell me this story about filmmaking? “Clearly you’re a filmmaker! What else could you be?!” he says to me, after looking me up and down. Hmm.

I want to analyze the present moment, to ask the guides how they got into this position, what their days are like in this space, how odd it is to be having this seemingly organic conversation in such a rigorous, intentional way. Can I ask a girl for her phone number? Can I switch topics completely, or must they stay focused on this idea of progress? Is this progress, really??

Tino Sehgal seems to be a Richard Linklater fan. The experience of This Progress is much like the rambling, philosophical discussions had in Slackers, Waking Life and Before Sunrise/Sunset. Being personally engaged in these conversations does indeed bring it more to life, but doesn’t necessarily make it better. For instance, who is to say that this girl and I are to have a more interesting conversation than one penned by a writer for two actors to enliven? But clearly the substance of what is said matters less than the act of participating in a dialogue beyond the surface of small talk. As Jerry Saltz articulated, the space is activated in a way that visual arts simply cannot accomplish. Participation is important. In art? Maybe. In life? Definitely.

2010-03-10T18:25:00.001-05:00

2010-03-08T20:39:00.000-05:00

2010-03-02T20:08:00.004-05:00

2010-02-26T18:34:00.001-05:00

Look For It In The Funny Papers

2010-02-24T15:24:00.013-05:00

It’s been said that in fascist societies, or in ones that are heading speedily toward fascism, the best critical discourse you can find on the social and political hot buttons of the day will be in the funny papers, not the front page news. We’re in a moment like this today, I believe. Artists like Joe Sacco, Ari Folman, Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi are offering some of the most humanizing and probing topical inquiries around, while “real” journalism is sounding as jingoistic as our warring policy-makers.

In 1963, Ernst Gombrich wrote that one of the strengths of the cartoon format is the "flash of pleasant insight" it can offer at having made the unfamiliar clear in an instant. But he also reminds that this flash is really “the illusion of an explanation while really the analogy is rather incomplete." So to with political analysis in the mainstream news - though it's staged to inform, whenever a shorthand formula is applied to very nuanced and complex relationships, the semantic products become a minefield of abstractions and incomplete systems (never mind the hand of the advertisers and other stakeholders shaping the essential content). Back in the day of the British Empire, one of the most pervasive and popular tools of the Indian nationalist message in the early years of its crystallization was the newspaper cartoon. In particular, the cartoons from the satirical weekly The Hindi Punch from 1904 chronicled the popular debate on the changing imperial map and India’s stakes therein, while maintaining a safe distance, via seemingly innocuous humor, from the long arm of Britain’s surveillance and censorship. These cartoons lived and operated under the radar of serious social criticism, but carried with them a measure of reformist currency that only becomes clearer in historical retrospect.

“The Sentinel,” published in April 1904, disposed a subtle, abstruse symbolic treatment of Tibet and India’s conjoined relationship in the imperialist stance, but condensed and made instantaneously digestable the connections between imperialism abroad and imperialism at home. 1903-1904 was a crucial year’s turn on the British imperial stage - it witnessed the Younghusband ‘Expedition’ to Tibet, the third time India would bear the financial brunt of an expansionist British colonial project (Indian taxpayers had also funded incursions in Afghanistan and Burma earlier in the century). The cartoon was drawn in response to a recent public address by the British Viceroy on reviewing the last five years of his colonial administration; a type of State of the Union delivered from the executive seat of British India.

The Sentinel standing astride the geographic bounds of the British Empire is pictured here as an Indian sepoy. At attention with rifle resting on his back shoulder, the front hand is outstretched and disproportionately enlarged, detached in scale from the rest of the body, fingers hovering above and marking exactly in their span the east and west sides of the northern borders of India and Tibet. The disembodied, out-of-context hand signaled the discorporate and excessive forces of imperialism. The Sentinel is cast as a passive and virtual enabler of events, engendering very little in the way of direct action, but inflecting a certain tone on the reluctant role he plays in Anglo-Tibetan affairs. The message is intangible but still palpable; its language is equally bound up by the didacticism of cartoon shorthand, and the ambiguity and tenuousness of the analogy it seeks to make, but cannot quite spell out.

2010-02-22T23:11:00.002-05:00

Diet as Lifestyle

2010-02-21T13:36:00.005-05:00

Stephan Colbert interviews John Durant of hunter-gatherer.com, who doesn't eat processed food or dairy, but does eat meat. What are humans meant to consume? It's an interesting question.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

John Durant

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Skate Expectations

2010-02-18T23:11:00.003-05:00

2010-02-16T00:34:00.004-05:00

Valentines

2010-02-14T11:11:00.002-05:00

The Lost Coast

2010-02-08T04:06:00.007-05:00

-

The Lost Coast Trail, Northern California

It is almost the one year anniversary of my first and so far only trip to the mysteriously named Lost Coast of California inside the King Range National Conservation Area. Therefore, I thought I would share my experience as best as I can recall—mainly because, as you will see, it was quite impossible to keep a journal of our time on the trails and because it was such an amazing and intense experience it is just difficult to describe what happened.

File on the beach, early on the journey

The characters: there is of course me, Jason J—who had recently been dubbed Man-God by a romantic interest (which is an entirely different story and I only write it now because it's funny to me); I was extremely under- and ill-prepared for the Lost Coast, and quite possibly the only one of my friends ever to suffer a nervous breakdown in the midst of such natural beauty. Then there is Jason File—our amateur backpacking guru and overall trip guide and planner; he prefers to stay/pack light, doesn't necessarily have an encyclopedic knowledge of all nature, yet this only makes traveling/hiking/backpacking with him all the more fun. Then there is Mark, who at the time of the trip was preparing to graduate from Stanford law school so he obviously was happy to be outdoors; he has all the modern amenities one can ask for on a backpacking trip—however, as you will see, like me, made a poor decision in footwear.

The trip started from Berkeley. We drove North via the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge, then through Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and so on. In some unimportant town we stopped to buy beer—at the time we thought it was Natural Light beer—and then without many other options ate dinner at a Taco Bell. We mused that this could end up being a bad decision, in a toilet sense.

The trip north is spectacular even at night. In the forested areas the twists and turns of the highway are endless but also there are the eerily lit up mountain walls, their light glowing like UFOs from behind the trees. We had a good soundtrack through this part of the journey; we came across a very peculiar radio station. The host seemed to be reading the news straight from the Healdsburg Gazette or some other such backwoods press. He would announce the goings-on within the town and then give his particularly wonderful insight. As much as we made fun of this radio host, he was our faithfully comedic companion throughout the final hours of the drive—you could say he was our Sancho Panza. Eventually, we had made it to the Mattole Campsite where we would camp for the night and which would be our starting point on our journey on the real Lost Coast.

The campsite seemed vast in the darkness. A long way off I could hear the sounds of the ocean. Mark, File and I unpacked a little bit, set up our tents in the dark. I had my own single man tent; I believe Mark and File slept in Mark's 3 man tent. Before we went to bed we opened some beers and realized that we were drinking Natty Ice—welcome to our frat. Then we took a good walk through the dunes towards the ocean. My sense here was not of thinking of the upcoming journey but of just being happy with two of my best friends. Each of our lives had put us in different parts of the state at this point and so we met with some irregularity; only a few years earlier, while in college at UC Santa Cruz, we had all lived together in the same house.

We woke up in the morning to a much different campsite. When we had arrived I had had no sense of other cars or people (except for one bonfire on the beach). When we awoke the parking lot of the Mattole site was full of vehicles and the voices of people/kids could be heard in all directions. After a somewhat meager breakfast (I discovered that I actually don't like cous cous), we set off.

Jason J posing as 'Man-God' at campsite south of Spanish Ridge Tr

The first bit of this portion of the Lost Coast trail is sand dunes. I had envisioned the Lost Coast trail as a more Sierra-like climb through the forest—for whatever reason—so I wore these very tough boots which I had borrowed from my dad. Within the first hour of the hike I could feel my pinky toes grating against the edge of the boots. My poor toes were in trouble.

The weather was perfect however. Chilly, sunny; the ocean was endless to our right. We stopped periodically to explore a tide pool or snap a photo or dig into some GORP; we talked about whatever crossed our minds. To our left the cliff walls rose up perhaps 3 or 4 stories. At the edge of the cliff we could see cows grazing.

Further down the trail we came to a small creek/river (which might have been called Cooksie Creek) emptying into the sea. There weren't many rock hopping options to cross it so we took off our boots and socks and waded through the water. The sky had turned gray by now. The icy water numbed the pain in my feet but then once across it was impossible to get all the sand off my feet and then back into my socks. I realized that I had not brought enough pairs of socks. If the journey continued like this I would run out of socks by the first night. Mark and File both had similar issues though they might have had more pairs of socks.

We eventually would cross a few more rivers just like this. At one particular crossing, there was a small wooden cabin. While we were crossing, we could see an old woman pull back the curtains from a window. I wonder who that woman is? Why does she live there? How did she come to live in this place?

In the early part of the hike there was also a very intriguing historical site—the Punta Gorda Lighthouse. The lighthouse is a small, two-story structure. Surrounding it, we could see the demolished foundations of the dwellings that used to serve it. We will return here later.

File approaching the Punta Gorda Lighthouse

Now for the fun; the weather was going berserk. One minute the sun would come booming from behind the clouds and we would start sweating beneath our clothes. Then it would quickly change to a fierce, biting wind, followed by small, stinging rain. Then back again to the sun and over and over. There was no reprieve from the changing weather. It became impossible to get truly comfortable. The many crossings of the rivers had soaked our socks. My pinky toes were bleeding, Mark was developing blisters on his heels from his new hiking boots. I think File was battling either the end/beginning of a cold. In short, the trip was evolving into what we had all hoped it would be. A battle between our "we can make it through anything" attitude and the Lost Coast's unforgiving weather and terrain. However, at this point, the weather was just tough to deal with, my crippled feet were just an annoyance. The degree to which File and I were soaked through was simply hilarious.

In the midst of a particularly bad downpour, we stopped along the beach and found our way into a small crevice in the cliff wall. Here we could escape the wind and rain a little bit. File and Mark smoked a cigarette and we all ate our Snicker's bar that we had packed. Well, we ate half of it. Later on in the first day we ate some skittles on a grassy cliff overlooking a giant rock in the water covered with lounging sea lions.

Snicker's and Cigarettes, File's poncho

Not only were my socks at risk but my entire pack was at risk. I had absentmindedly forgotten a poncho or any sort of water-proof covering for my pack. File covered his pack with his poncho while simultaneously wearing it. Mark's pack came equipped with its own covering. For me however we had to invent something. File took out his tent and pulled off the rain flap. The extra flaps of the tent covering had to be tied to my belt. The wind found its way through the holes and blew my covering up like a small parachute. The photographic evidence of this is hilarious to look at. I felt quite silly and mad at myself for forgetting something as simple as a poncho. In hindsight, it was hilarious.

The rain flap turned parachute

I'm not sure exactly how many miles we covered in that first day, but I would say between 8-10. We made camp just south of the Spanish Ridge Trail. The rain was still relentless but so was the constant changes in weather. For a moment it seemed the sun would break through permanently. I moved quickly to hang my clothes to dry. This didn't work at all. Quickly the rain returned and it was a lost cause. I would just have to survive in the clothes I had on. Wet socks would just be the way to go. It was also impossible to begin a fire since everything was so damp. For dinner we ate our preferred camping food which is ready made indian cuisine that you get from trader joe's in those little pouches. When preparing this type of food, the easiest and simplest way to entertain yourself is to make fart and shit jokes. That's just how it works.

Instead of setting up my one man tent, we used it to cover our packs. We all squeezed into the 3 man tent, exhausted from exertion and happiness. Our spirits were still high. We experienced one laughing fit caused by File retelling the story of his girlfriend and him attempting to camp and pitching their tent. Inside our tent, File obliviously remarked, "I told her 'I can't get it up!"

Mark looking proud at camp south of Spanish Ridge Trail

The morning was promising. It was also decision time. We could turn around and return to Mattole—which was my vote as I knew I was still ill-prepared. The other option was to travel further south then turn east and take the Kinsey Ridge Trail back north. We assumed that this upper ridge trail would be easier to go by and thus we could make it all the way back or at least most of the way back to Mattole. I should also mention we were making these decisions without a very detailed map. With the information we had, Kinsey Ridge Trail didn't seem that far from where we were and wouldn't take too long to travel. My hopes for the out-n-back route were outnumbered. We headed south and towards Kinsey Ridge.

The view south from Kinsey Ridge Trail, maybe an hour up

The Lost Coast Trail hooked up with Kinsey Ridge Trail maybe 30 minutes walk from our camp site. We turned east and into the cliffs. The initial part of the Kinsey Ridge Trail was climbing switchbacks through the forests. The trail seemed wide enough for vehicles. To me this was a good sign. It couldn't be that far from a road and a road is where we should eventually the turn north towards Mattole. As we gained elevation the weather grew colder, windier. It began to rain. And the switchbacks did not stop, we just kept climbing higher and higher. Every corner revealed a new portion of the ridge to be climbed. Eventually we were so high the rain turned to hail. Out of nowhere File realized that he had lost his beanie. It had just been on his head and now suddenly it was missing. My feet were bleeding, my legs were on fire. We had been walking uphill for close to two hours. File's troubled knee began to hurt. Mark seemed tired and unresponsive.

We stopped at two hours and ate some much needed food—basically oatmeal bars and some beef jerky. It felt good to stop and drop our packs. After eating my bar I realized that we probably hadn't packed enough food. That is, if we were forced to stay two nights versus just one other night, we would seriously have to ration our food. And still we hadn't made the assumed northern turn which would put us on the correct route back to Mattole.

We kept climbing until it began to snow. We stopped midway through a switchback, surrounded on all sides by snow. File and I looked at each other. We agreed that it was impossible. We didn't feel comfortable going further. We would have to turn around and try to make up as much time as we could. We could camp somewhere along the Lost Coast Trail and then make it a short third day. Mark agreed. We turned around and made it down Kinsey Ridge Back to the Lost Coast Tr. We had spent very nearly 3 hours attempting to get past Kinsey Ridge and it only took us about an hour to get back to the coast. Interestingly, on the way back down we found File's beanie off the side of the trail.

We passed our first campsite. We crossed a few more tiny streams. Mark didn't bother taking off his shoes any longer. By this time the blisters on his heels had scraped off. We trudged on. The weather wasn't as severe as the first day's trip but was just as schizophrenic. My feet were bursting from discomfort. I was actually becoming quite distracted by the pain. I couldn't keep up with Mark and File and stopped a few times along the rocky beach—boulders really. Eventually in the middle of a small beachy stretch I felt that I couldn't take it any longer. I was so exhausted, so much in pain that I had to stop. I had no interest in walking further. For a moment I even thought that perhaps I would just sit there and wait to die. I really did. I didn't want to move. I felt on the verge of tears. I said to File that I felt like I was going crazy. I just wanted to go home. I sat for a few minutes, regaining my composure, trying to cheer myself up. File and Mark waited patiently. Then I stood up and convinced myself that I could do it.

File and his poncho at camp south of Spanish Ridge Trail, nice weather!!

The Lighthouse was our goal. We could camp there and have an easy walk back to our car. I can't even describe the sense of relief I felt when we turned a corner and could see the Lighthouse far off in the distance. I knew we still had perhaps 2 hours of walking left to reach it but just seeing it! I knew my boots and the weather had not gotten the best of me.

We got to the lighthouse and pitched our tent inside the first story. For dinner we ate what can only be described as burrito stew (beans and salsa mixed together). I don't need to explain how much better any type of food tastes when you're out in nature. Another group of hikers came up on the lighthouse and explored around it. They had a dog with them who for whatever reason decided to stay with us into the night. We felt like this dog was our protector, our spirit animal.

The rest of the night was uneventful. We were so exhausted we couldn't do much but sit around and talk. We awoke, snapped a few pictures and then set off for Mattole.

Leaving the lighthouse, our hideout after Kinsey Ridge failure

Because the end was in sight, my feet bothered me less. And even though only two days ago we had traveled these exact same trails everything seemed foreign once again. We passed a dying sea lion. We thought it was dead but as we passed it craned its head toward us. That could have been me earlier, I thought.

Somehow we arrived to the Mattole campsite via a different trail which took us through a bowl shaped dune. Because we were inside the bowl, we couldn't see the campsite until we were almost right over it. As we approached the parking lot I just felt like laughing. I felt like I had accomplished something great. Had I simply survived this trip despite my ill-preparedness? I don't know. The feeling on that beach where I just stopped was a feeling I had never known. I had experienced something new. I had not injured myself in any permanent way so I had gained something. In my mind, nothing could be as hard as that walk.

We got to our car, unloaded our packs, opened the trunk and celebrated with Natty Ice. In a Suburu just a few feet away a young couple were having sex, windows fogging up, etc. File, Mark and I talked a little bit. We have had a good amount of funny trips (together and separate) and still this one I think stands out to us for its hilarity and intensity. I don't know if we ever plan on returning but if we do, I think we will be a little more prepared.

File, Mark, Jason J feeling victorious and just moments from Natty Ice

Get thee to the Drawing Center

2010-02-08T00:34:00.015-05:00

What could be better than an engineer-turned-architect-turned-experimental composer? How about one that fought against the Axis of Evil and had his eye blown out by a tank?

Iannis Xenakis' show at the Drawing Center is quite simply off the hook. I suggest getting to it if you are going to be in New York between now and April and have a bit of time on your hands. While his drawings are the focus of the exhibition, the multimedia stations steal the show. In one booth, a computer program written by Xenakis simulates synesthesia by translating his 2-D structures into symphonic poems allowing the viewer/listener to "see" the music and "hear" the drawing. The effect was both striking and subtle, way more interesting than being comforted by the "stranger" after a long night cocktails and awkward conversation.

This video doesn't do it justice, but may give you an idea:

35 Rhums

2010-02-01T22:48:00.009-05:00

The more I turn things over in my head, the more flaws and imperfections get to the surface. I sat down to write a brief praise of 35 Rhums as a great, possibly overlooked film of 2009 but it's going all Monet on me. I mean are you still allowed to wait patiently and drop the title of your film into the dialogue? Is this just another plodding French film with a barely discernible plot line? The answer is yes.

That's what's great about it. The story is told with broad, controlled, and perhaps elegant strokes. The drone of the train and the monotony of the passing skyline, the angst of politicized youth, and the solace of home and it's routines are just a few images captured. The absences are even more telling, a mother, a budding relationship, and latent Freudian sexuality are all just shy of the lens.

I'm American. I'm usually waiting for a storyline to jump out and bash me in the fucking head. It's nice to just watch and wonder sometimes.

You are an Artist. Want a Cookie?

2010-01-29T12:18:00.006-05:00

My boy Raymond Williams, bringin' it: http://tiny.cc/keYYc

The super-readable story of how it came to be that the social forms and relationships emerging out of the baby-fresh, 18th c. commercial market gave us our current conception of who the artist is - "a symbolic abstraction of a whole range of general human experience," who is also supposed to be... wait for it... happy about it!

HEY: You are an artist. You are the working stiff's romantic ideal. You are the communal projection of the generalized human values that have been endangered by industrialization. We are also not going to recognize that for shit, socially or industrially speaking. No pressure...you're special! And everybody knows it. Thank you, commercialism.

20-minute playlist #3

2010-01-29T03:12:00.008-05:00

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The extra videos are for you to listen to the music before you actually download the mp3s. Enjoy.

Jay Reatard - See/Saw (3:01min)

It's a shame this bro is gone. This track reminds me of the type of 'underground' pop some smart marketing exec would buy up to put into a commercial for some hip new company. Except thankfully this didn't happen and the pure fun of listening to the song remains intact without any force fed images of 'happy times' clouding your vision. I want to play this song for all my friends, real loud, and I want us to party to it. Let's do it.

You Say Party! We Say Die! - Laura Palmer's Prom (4:44min)

As much this song uses big elements- Bernard Sumner-y simplistic guitars, church organ synths, fat mid-tempo drums- the whole thing is held together and in check by some sweet vocals. It's great when a group knows how to hold the best part of a song just out of reach of the listener....until midway the song breaks out for 30-40 seconds then goes right back to that restrained feeling. Then in the final minute they give you the coda and you just feel like listening to the whole song over again. As the lyrics suggest this song is about striving, needing, reaching out. If you love someone, play this for them and sing the lyrics loud and clear. Tell them how great it feels to be with them.

Yuck - Georgia (3:40min)

When it starts you might think you're in the late-80's-early-90's again. Great male/female dueling vocals. The perfect amount of fuzzy distortion and then a perfectly singable chorus about a girl named Georgia. Whoever she is, this song makes me love her too. I have no doubt this band would be great to see live. Don't be tricked by their less than appealing name though.

Jonquil - Pillow Quest (3:50min)

I really noticed this song while reading a blog about graduate school. I'm patiently waiting to hear back from grad schools and right around the 2:20 minute mark this song goes into a build up so triumphant and transcendent that I could feel the utter happiness of receiving an acceptance letter from my top choice programs. It truthfully brought me to tears. If this song can estimate the emotion I would have about feeling so blissfully accomplished then I know it's good. You feel me?

Girls - Solitude (3:45min)

It makes perfect sense that this was the b-side to Album's best track. It has all the emotional depth of Hellhole Ratrace and it's even more listenable than that epic 7 minute love letter. What I picture here is a woodsy bar, middle aged people around smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. And in the middle of it all a young couple escaping it all, slow dancing their troubles away. They're poor and have nowhere to go but some day - "I'll settle down with you".

(18:59min)

Garfield Minus Garfield

2010-01-25T18:59:00.002-05:00

The best contemporary art being made!

20-minute playlist #2

2010-01-22T06:16:00.017-05:00

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The links below are to mp3s (I'm assuming everyone knows how to find bands on myspace/facebook etc). Enjoy.

Mazes - Painting of Tupac Shakur (1:20min)

I don't know much about this band. When the song starts I get excited about a chill ambient guitar song, something good for either the beginning or ending of a mixed cd I'm making for a friend. Then the guitar goes low and the drum clicks wake you up. Get ready, let's go, alright, alright, alright. How could I forget how fun rock can be?

Street Chant - Scream Walk (2:32min)

Somewhere there is a better version of this song but alas we get the 7" version. These New Zealand kids are young and they like to rock. When I listen to this which I often do I feel like I'm a young angsty teen again, minus the acne, and it's awesome. Bonus for being punk and not sounding like crap. The video version of the song is probably better than the mp3.

Pegase - Wherever You Are (4:44min)

Every time I pick up a bass guitar I play the bass line to this song, even before I had ever heard it. It's just the thing to play when you pick up a bass. I have many personal feelings about this song. I drive to AM/PM and buy 2 sparks (RIP). I get in my car and drive to downtown blasting this song. I drink the sparks and feel hopeful about the night. What more is there? Really.

Deastro - Parallelogram (2:56min)

I have no idea why this guy isn't more popular than he is. Do I have bad taste in music? I don't think so. The musical theme here is triumphant. While the indie/blog trend now is to be lo-fi, chillwave, etc, Deastro puts his music right in the front. He's not afraid of clarity or lushness. The sounds you hear are just as sonically complicated as his lyrics. This song is the soundtrack to something great happening.

jj - Let Go (3:02min)
jj - My Way (3:30min)

Pitchfork unwisely gave Let Go something like 4.4... what the hell are they thinking? Is our generation not deserving of our own Enya? While Enya was sailing away, our parents were buying tevas and ushering us through the movie aisle to get our seats for Jurassic Park. Can't jj get high on ecstacy and sample Lil Wayne while we use our respective iTechnologies? It makes perfect sense.

Sex Is Stupid

2010-01-20T14:03:00.014-05:00

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I didn’t feel particularly ruttish. On the contrary, I felt rather passionless. But I also felt despondent and wanted physical attention. People get like that, right? It was probably a mistake. It was a mistake. I wasn’t attracted to this girl. Not at all. I mean, she was okay. She was cute-ish. I liked her body. I was drinking steadily.

Matt and Jesse and Neil met me at this little spot at 8:15. That itself was quite taxing. Why do plans not just make themselves? Emails turn into such goofy threads. I suck at finding spots to eat. I’m the worst. It happened though, thank god. The possibility of having no plans puts me on the verge of tears.

I wanted to drop off this stupid plastic bag from Staples that I had in my hands. I mean, my house was two blocks away, literally. But I didn’t want to be late, and whatever. So this bag is in my hands because I didn’t want to carry an actual bag around, and because I couldn’t rationalize taking it home real quick. I mention this because it will come up later. Oh, and just to quickly mention, the contents of the bag were a reel of 16mm film (of the cloudy sky for 3 minutes), a work print of that film (which I’m excited to load into my projector), and a binder from Staples, in which to put my thesis paper and a CD of my MFA work, which I have to turn in to my department soon. So, it’s like physical and mental baggage, in a way.

There was a birthday crew of eight at the table adjacent to ours. They kept looking over at us. There was a gay guy there who was quite the instigator. Seems like gay guys always figure that all straight people should hook up, all the time. They might have something there. They’re right. I figured so, apparently. It’s my birthday soon too, and my friends told the waiter, which was nice – this sort of lead to the whole mingling of the tables.

This birthday group followed us to this other bar. I told them where we were headed, so I suppose a part of me wanted this. But really, I just felt like it was something to say to cut through the awkwardness of these two groups of people being made a match. The gay guy told us birthday folk to kiss. Awkward.

There’s this other girl. She’s tops. Really pretty and down to earth and cool and stylish, in a dressed down way, and into what I’m into. I know that because she goes to my school and we talk and I can tell. Don’t start on the dating-people-at-school thing. I don’t care if they’re undergrads and I’m not. Regardless, I am really looking forward to getting to know this girl. I’m excited. Nervous. I’m not ready. I don’t care I’ll get ready I’m tired of waiting and I’m over this melancholy it’s time to live thelifeiwant!

She texted me. I was eating. I didn’t notice the text because Jesse and I switched seats on account of me being left-handed and him being right-handed, but we deliberately didn’t switch our jackets; I made a point of us leaving said jackets on the backs of the wrong chairs for some reason, thus somehow sabotaging myself, in a way. Sort of. Maybe I’m reading into that. I can always point to these little decisions I make that lead to greater consequences.

If I got the text earlier, maybe I could have planned better to meet her instead of deciding with my friends, which then included Kristen and Nora, to go to a nearby bar. So it was like, in motion by the time I saw the text. Also, the girl was in Manhattan; there was just messy energy around it somehow, from me, perhaps. One of those situations where I’m showing Nora the whole text conversation to see how to play it. I know I know it shouldn’t be 'played,' like a game / do what you want / no rules / etc. but it was complicated, okay? Also, again, I decided to bring with me that plastic bag with my stuff, after asking people what they thought I should do. I was hoping someone would say “Run it home! You’ll just be a minute! It’s clearly bothering you!” But no one did because it's actually a weird tick to fret so much about it maybe, and it's my responsibility to take care of myself and my things and so I brought it to the bar because whatever!

Neil was bringing great energy and conversation, of course. He was chatting up everyone. He had his eye on one girl in particular, who had eyed me earlier but what did I care? Not for any of these people, that’s for sure. Though I engaged in all that typical banter and stuff. Questions about work and birthdays and such nonsense, like where did you grow up / tell me all about it. Not only did I not want to answer that question, but I never wanted to answer another meet-and-greet question or see any of these people again for the rest of my life. That's a quote, btw.

Moving on, I felt conflicted because I wanted to meet the girl, but it didn’t feel clear or smooth enough. I felt kind of like a deer might feel when headlights are bearing down on it, cos it felt like time was passing, and my window for any decision was narrowing, but I was also just plain stuck in something. If this group from the bar didn’t show up, it would almost be easier. I felt more bound to them than my actual friends, for some stupid reason that I don’t understand. Plus, I had this plastic bag, and I definitely didn’t want to go to Manhattan with it. But the F train was right by this bar, so then it seemed silly to run it home at that point. It really put me in a pickle. It’s a trite thing to let ruin my mental flow, but I guess that’s kind of what this story is about.

I was reading texts and thinking hard about this girl – this real girl that I actually like – in the middle of this supposed conversation I was having with the birthday girl. She was boring. There was no spark. No sexual chemistry in the air. None. Maybe from across the room as a corollary to Neil’s enthusiasm – Neilthusiasm. The birthday girl was watching me text. I resolved to stay in Brooklyn, with this awkward situation on my hands, instead of bringing my awkwardness to Manhattan. But I couldn’t very well tell her what was going on, because that would be rude. I mean, I ended up taking this girl home, after all.

So after all, I ended up taking this girl home. I didn’t want to. I wanted to go to her place, if anything. But like I said, my place was two or three blocks away, literally. She reminded me of this point when I asked where she lived, which was, like, a cab ride away. A cab ride we should have taken. I say so because I tend to do much better in a new environment, sexually and socially. In my own place, I feel the mental clutter of my whole life weighing on me, all the past energy the room has accumulated, which I wouldn't be as sensitive to in a new place. Like, just get down to business, right? Plus, we should have gone to her’s because she ended up vomiting all night in my bathroom and really killed the mood, which probably should have been killed anyway. If we were at her’s, I would have gladly left then and there.

We had french kissed in the bar and I felt her body and it was nice to be reminded of other women’s bodies... I’m alluding with subtext there to the girl I’ve really loved and been trying not to think about this whole time, because it’s really her body that I want to be feeling, her face I want to be kissing, her I want to be meeting. Well anyway, I probably should have left this person at the bar, left it at a silly public make-out sesh. It would have been enough for her; I mean, she was elated to be kissing me. I know this sounds arrogant, but seriously, this girl was very lucky to be with me here. Her friend, the one with Neil, told me so as we left, in the form of “Thanks for making her birthday!” Something like that. It would have sufficed for me, to leave it at a drunken bar-level mistake, but I guess I really needed more validation, or destruction. People need these things sometimes, right?

I didn’t have any real desire for this girl. We got naked and all that, but it’s like I’ve known before: Sex is stupid if it’s not genuine. Love makes it. There was no love here. It made me sick. It made her really sick. My roommate complained via a note at my door about the vile smell in the bathroom. I wanted this girl to take a cab home immediately! but of course she ended up spending the night. I was getting tired while she was throwing up so I started dozing off and told her to just get some rest before going home so that I could fall asleep without worrying about her. Instead, though, as she eventually passed out effortlessly, I thought about the girl I should stop thinking about, about how this unattractive stranger was defiling the bed I’d shared with my love, how the whole scene was sick, and how it would be much better if I was pursuing the girl – the real girl – the one I was texting with, slowly, maturely, all that /

I guess this is why people say you should just be alone, avoid the whole complicated mess. I mean, I had plans today. That Staples binder, for instance. Instead, I cleaned up the bathroom after much avoidance of reality to the tune of five hours in my bed watching Netflix and Hulu and YouTube. Five hours is a long time. I woke up at 7:30am (!) because that’s what happens sometimes when you share a bed with someone with whom you’re not comfortable. I couldn’t fall back asleep, even though I had only slept for three and a half hours. I could have had sex with her then, in the morning daylight, which was uncharacteristically cruel. Wasn’t feeling it though. You understand. I laid there thinking, ruminating: what would make me feel better? Sex? No sex? Getting this person out of here as quickly as possible or being nice/ignoring her sudden hideousness? She rolled over on top of me and in my head I kept repeating, “I’m not feeling this. Please leave.” I couldn’t say that though. I wanted to, believe me. But it’s hard. So I got up and she followed and I showed her the door, then got back in bed. I mean, I need rest. I got very little on the eve of this story because street sweeping started at 9:30 so I had to sit in my car for an hour and a half. That's how the big day started. I had a book. Don’t start with the whole issue of Why’d I park on the wrong side of the street. Mistakes are made, okay? It was an excellent parking spot, otherwise. After that, I took a really long nap on the couch before picking up my film and going to a great art reception and then Staples, but regardless, I’m tired.

Couldn’t fall back to sleep after all this though. This odd morning-insomnia didn’t stop me from my pattern of avoidance; I tried masturbating, of course, but it was really, really difficult. Lousy orgasm, too.

The Internet, The Past, Boundaries

2010-01-17T14:43:00.006-05:00

Breaking Up in a Digital Fishbowl is an article from the NYTimes that I found interesting...

Talks about how, in our modern age of super-interconnectedness (via facebook, primarily), it is near impossible to completely sever ties with someone with whom you were once intimate. It becomes that much easier to check in on that person, to "stalk" them - even if you would rather not - and to remain in a sort of purgatory that keeps a hold of that certain part of your emotional make-up.

It's hard enough to navigate social relations as it is. Boundaries become ever-blurred by this process of living in "public," as it were. How does one know what is appropriate, what is too much to ask of others, what is too much to divulge? As a rather open person, it is a constant struggle for me, personally, to know how best to censor myself for the sake of others, versus my desire to express my thoughts in order to hear them out loud, to receive feedback, etc.

Dream (Anticipation, soaring through air)

2010-01-15T12:00:00.004-05:00

I'm congregating with classmates, acquaintances and friends to watch a film. I walk out the door and people are in the hallway and I'm walking down a staircase but then I'm walking back up because people are saying that the film is actually playing in one of these rooms and I'm a little confused and disappointed but it's not a huge deal so I roll with it. My old classmates Amy and Emily are next to the door and they ask me, incredulously, if I'm on amphetamines and downers, which they know I am.

The movie we are about to watch has been hyped up quite a bit, like Where the Wild Things Are. It's a strange setting though because it's being screened in a guy's living room. The guy I recognize as the old manager to the University theater in Berkeley. Everyone takes their place: I sprawl out on a nice piece of couch and then converse with a girl, negotiating taking over the whole couch, which I end up doing.

The movie is disappointing, mainly because there are a lot of technical difficulties and people end up not really paying attention to it. So it's on to the next order of business. Something about brunch with Assumpta and Anya, perhaps. Anya is there and I walk outside and downstairs and so does she. I'm outside and I see some guys playing wall ball or something, and they seem a little sketch but not really dangerous and they ask me to throw them their ball, which I do. Then a whole cadre of people come storming down the alley and they seem really determined or something, like a mob or a marching political group maybe, which they turn out to be.

Suddenly the streets are completely flooded with people protesting something. In order to really make their voices heard, they need to climb the tallest trees and buildings, apparently which I do as well. I climb a house and then a tall thick tree on top of that house and start hollering for freedom and justice.

I am screaming and proclaiming so passionately that I begin to fly. I'm not sure how that worked... Maybe it's because the protest chants were environmental in nature, and we were using leaves to aid our message, and I started soaring with these leaves, first down to the ground, and then in a sort of hovering/propelling motion. It was like I was paddling in air, pushing myself as I went. I fluttered down a flight of stairs and started singing as well. I was amped. I flew into a big open room that felt kind of like a sweat shop, but wasn't. Neil and Assumpta were in there and I riled them up and inspired the whole room to start singing: A-a-a-men! A-a-a-men! A A men amen amen! over and over. Then I flew out. As I left, I heard Neil and Assumpta say to each other: Is there anyone else better suited for that job? No. He's the perfect person to do that.

They were talking about me as a sort of congregational spirit leader or something.

I flew out and caught the eye of some authorities, who were heavily against what I was doing. One looked at me and said - you can't fly! then picked up a rock, looked at me in the eye, and threw it at me. My intention was to catch it and throw it back at him, but I couldn't hold on. I flew on, but it was more of an exhausting hover, like a hummingbird, than a soaring. I sailed on past more threatening authority figures who were trying to take me down. I flap my arms harder, in a sort of backstroke/paddleboat motion, and swim through the sky, away from trouble, singing loudly as I do so.

20-minute playlist #1

2010-01-15T02:29:00.008-05:00

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Summer Camp - Was It Worth It

Girl, you are young and beautiful but you're boyfriend doesn't treat you right. Your friends and your family don't understand why you're staying with this guy. One night you decide to have a bottle of wine, maybe call up your girlfriends, you all get drunk and turn the stereo on and this is the song you sing.

Millionyoung - Weak Ends

Forward drums in the beginning, trance-like synths. That eery, reverbed, echoed to hell vocal until the drums drop and then the wail of an underwater creature. If only we lived in the ocean.

You can download one of Millionyoung's eps over at his myspace page.

Still Blue Still Turning - Time is a Place

You hear music but it's far away and you just want it to come closer. You want to be wrapped up in the sounds. But it's an impossibility. It's a long track but repeatable because it never seems to satisfy you the first time through.

B Hugs - In the Lounge

You're out on your father's boat in the middle of the cape. It's that time in between night and day. The orange glow of the sun is being pushed out by the blue and black sky. You might be alone or you might there with friends, it's up to you. You feel lazy and content. But slowly you begin to dream of what is happening on the shore. You struggle between staying out or returning.

First Rate People - Girls' Night

This is the happiest you will ever be with your lover. "Everybody that you look like should send you a letter to say they're sorry they couldn't change..."

First Rate People's myspace is full of interesting things, including a link to download the song above.

3 videos of singing girls

2010-01-14T13:38:00.005-05:00

Sleigh Bells "Crown on the Ground" LIVE at Le Poisson Rouge NYC from AbzPunkPhoto on Vimeo.

Best Coast-Sun was High (and so was I) from Zak Krevitt on Vimeo.

Metric - Live it Out (live) from Camp Revival on Vimeo.

Dream (Troublemaking, things coming easy)

2010-01-13T11:00:00.003-05:00

I am in a very very long line, inside a gymnasium. I am meeting some friends, like Rob and Wes, who want to go on this immense cruise/outing/sports adventure or something. I'm not sure what it is. I meet them though, and my spirits, which start quite low, get very high, very quickly. There is a teacher or organizer on a loudspeaker, and he's barking orders. He or she says something that sounds like another thing, so I shout out that other thing as a joke, which everyone finds very funny. The whole auditorium erupts in laughter. It's a Bart Simpson moment. I get in trouble. A very strict dean/principle appears and takes me out of line, forbidding me from participating in the event.

The hall empties out and I'm sitting at a folding table with the other rejects. It's like detention but not. I'm still in a good mood. I am entertaining everyone. Ben Stiller shows up, as do three other celebrities. Todd Philips is one of them, and I ask him about his career because I'm inspired by it and want to follow in his footsteps or something. I get his business card. I get Ben Stiller's too. They're sitting there, laughing with me. Some other big shots show up and it's a great day.

I feel really good, despite missing the big event. Everything works out.

The White Ribbon

2010-01-11T19:12:00.006-05:00

J Hoberman's thoughts | AO Scott's thoughts

This is a film to see and to discuss. Michael Haneke, the brilliant director behind The Piano Teacher, Caché, Funny Games, The Seventh Continent and more, is a master of filmic craft. His ideas are always provocative, if not easily digestible and agreeable. In this one, he says it's an exploration of the mindset and childhood of Nazism. I've linked to terrific reviews from two of my favorite critics, who offer countering perspectives on this powerful film.

Dream (Immense beauty, magic elevators, statues in landscapes)

2010-01-06T22:42:00.003-05:00

I was preparing an art piece that consisted of bench-like sculptures. I walked through palace-like halls, which functioned socially and bureaucratically. A few maintenance workers and secretaries were helping me with the grunt work of assembling my piece - I led them out large, impressive glass doors, over beautiful foot bridges and onto great lawns on which concertos were playing and streams were flowing with pristine water.

Things got confusing - I lost track of my helpers and became stressed over my art piece's unveiling. I got caught up with my parents during a little symphonic event, and finally ran off to figure out what was going on. I ran back into the castle/office tower to find myself in a strange room that mimicked a Zelda: WIndwaker board/Disneyworld attraction. It had huge hologram-like, dazzling set-pieces that made me feel like Alice in Wonderland. A large black man paraded about as some sort of magician. I thought about how he wasn't a great actor/performer, and wondered how much he was paid.

I entered an elevator that resembled the magic one from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. My mom was in the lobby with me. We boarded the elevator, which whisked us into the air. We flew around, looking at amazing vistas. It was like looking at a a glorious golf course with a castle in the middle of it. Each "hole", as it were, was covered in ornamental (baroque, perhaps?) furniture design and statuary. I was looking for my sculpture piece.

I was deeply hurt and saddened by the fact that these sculptures were what I was trying to build with my art project, except not quite.Finally I saw what seemed to be my piece, which consisted of two cast-iron benches sutured together back-to-back, but askew. I was devastated to see that it looked rather unspectacular.

I woke up from this dream with a heaviness from the previous night's drinking. I thought about how silly it is that I was so concerned and worried over something inconsequential while surrounded by breathtaking beauty and wonder.

Dream (Breathing in water, loving life)

2010-01-05T11:11:00.004-05:00

I'm in a swimming pool. There's a party. It's fun. I jump into the water. I guess I'm wearing clothes. I slowly sink to the bottom and sit there pretzel-style. I'm with someone. I start humming, then singing. Suddenly, this other person and I are singing loudly under water. Everyone seems to join in. I am aware that I can breathe underwater. It doesn't seem that significant, but feels really fun. After our song is finished, I surface and everyone is cheering. I feel spectacular, and everyone else does too.

Best Films Of 2009

2009-12-30T10:53:00.001-05:00

Top Ten (12) List.

Inglourious Basterds
A Tarantino masterpiece and an ode to film and filmmaking. Hilarious, tragic, and beautifully violent. Great acting, brilliant score, superbly written. Tarantino alters history. Great King Kong conversation. This film should easily win all awards in my opinion. Hands down.

Where The Wild Things Are
A Spike Jonze Masterpiece about the complexities of being a child. Visceral. Haunting. Amazing. I saw this with my mom. We both cried. Beautiful music. Karen, I love you.

Hunger (Technically 2008, but US release 2009)
True story of IRA hunger strike in the 1981. Michael Fassbinder starves himself to death for this role. The real Bobby Sands refused to eat for 66 days and died at age 27. Brutal. Powerful. I also had the privilege to see Steve McQueen's video art installation at the Venice Biannale which was amazing too.

Julia (Technically 2008, but US release 2009)
Tilda Swinton acts so well in this independent film. She plays an alcoholic that kidnaps a child and holds him for ransom. They eventually develop some kind of twisted relationship while traveling through Mexico being chased by gangsters. Extremely dark to the point of cringing and hard to watch, but really really great. Kind of like something of a Cassavettes film, but with more kidnapping, murder, and insane plot twists. Do not I repeat, do not confuse this with Julie & Julia by mistake.

The Girlfriend Experience
Porn Star actress and a simple story directed by Steven Soderberg showcasing Lower Manhattan. Shot on a Red Cam for extra sexiness. Elegantly blending pornography into feature film.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson's painstaking detailed stop motion animation film. Amazement for the whole family. No one will ever say anything bad about this movie. It is pretty cussing good.

Sugar
Really awesome small movie about sports and immigration. Another gem by the folks that brought you Half Nelson.

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans
Wernor Herzog and Nicloas Cage go way too far. I mean way too far. So over the top outrageous that I enjoyed every minute of this movie. Hysterical. Ridiculous. Great shots of iguanas and alligators. Horribly bad to the point of being good. Til the break of dawn. What you don't have a lucky crack pipe?

Up In The Air
Hard times and comedy. Clooney kills it. Really kills it. You are right there with him and his empty backpack. Additional highlights include: Vera Farmiga wearing nothing but a neck tie around her waist, Zach Galifianakis and Danny McBribe cameos, cool opening credits.

District 9
One of the better science fiction morality films I've seen. Aparthied metaphor. Really well acted and directed too. Neil Blomkamp wrote it when he was 13 about personal apartheid experiences. In my opinion it becomes more of a film about physical transformation and doing the right thing while facing oppression. I guess some people see it as stereotypical to Nigerians, but it is quite clear that the filmmakers never had that on their mind. It is actually a really well done movie.

Anvil! The Story Of Anvil
Great documentary about a band making it or never making, but keeping it going.

The Hurt Locker

A good little film about having the most dangerous job in the world and owning it. Really well acted and shot. Explosions. Suspense. War without blah blah blah politics. I dug it. Pretty good all around until the ending with the heavy metal music chiming in as our hero returns. That was unnecessary. Is it something to see? Yes. Is it a best picture kind of movie? No way. Is it directed by Katherine Bigelow (the same director of one of my all time favorite films called Point Break)? Fuck yes. Way better than Avatar? In my opinion.. absolutely yes.

The Worth Watching List:

Two Lovers
Antichrist
The Carter
Sin Nombre
Gomorrah
Che: Part 1 and 2
Tyson
The Cove
The International
The Hangover
500 Days Of Summer
Public Enemies

The Big Budget Popcorn Eye Candy Flawed List:

Watchmen
I liked this better than most comic adaptations. Zach Synder is an idiot though. Worst musical pairings ever. Ruined the movie for me. Otherwise it could have been really good. It was visually solid. The animated comic is much better. And of course so is the real graphic novel.

Avatar
Overall I really didnt like it. I do respect the production value though and it is an experience. I heard this movie was made by unicorns with laser guns. It is cool to see this 3D stuff though I suppose. Or you could just watch Dances with Wolves on Mescalin while wearing Raybans and reading the New York Times.

Star Trek
Not a fan of JJ Abrams or Star Trek at all, but it was fun for chuckle I guess. There are worse ways to waste 2 hours and $12.50 at the Arclight.

The Didnt See Yet List:

Precious
The Messenger
A Serious Man
A Single Man
A Prophet
Crazy Heart
Bright Star
The Road
An Education
Broken Embraces
The Box
Moon
Cold Souls
Capitalism: A Love Story
The White Ribbon
The September Issue
Nine
Big Fan
Food Inc.

The Next Year List:

Enter The Void
Voyage Of Time and The Tree Of Life
Mesrine: Part 1 and 2
The Fighter
Arrested Development

I am also working on a best films of the decade list.

#1 Film of Decade 2000-2009:

There Will Be Blood.

Superior acting, direction, and score. A complete Paul Thomas Anderson masterpiece. A beautifully dark and important film based on Oil! by Upton Sinclair. Regilion vs. Capitalism. Capitalism prevails. Paul Dano (Religion) gets beat to death in a bowling alley by Daniel Day Lewis (Capitalism).

"I'm finished."

Everything else is a distant #2.

Avatar

2009-12-26T15:48:00.002-05:00

A lot has been said for Avatar. People go on and on about its technical achievements, its budget, the 3D extravaganza, etc. I can’t say I’m convinced at all that it’s a good film. In fact, I found it boring and offensive, despite my predilections for visual beauty, peace, environmentalism and a new age consciousness of energy, all of which this movie supposedly espouses. This will be a downer of a review:

The plot and script are very boilerplate. There’s nothing interesting about this hero’s quest, and it feels tired and predictable. The movie starts with voiceover narration from a tough, paralyzed soldier, brother-to-a-scientist, down-but-not-out rugged pretty boy. We are introduced to a futuristic world, yada yada.

Science fiction stuff is introduced: the main character lays in a pod and his conscience and agency is transferred into an alien body. Okay, I'll ignore the many plot holes here of how he maintains both lives seamlessly. This was definitely done better in The Matrix, but fair enough. He acclimates to the body perfectly. Immediately. Of course. Except there are no blue or red pills, and he never says "I know kung fu." Sigourney Weaver, the tough-boss-but-still-motherly character doesn’t have much to work with. I wished I were watching her in The TV Set the whole time.

Jake Sully – that’s our hero – gets into trouble but finesses his way through it, of course. He meets a Pocahontas-type character, who teaches him the native way of life, and they fall in love. She's super-skinny and tall. There's been controversy about these ads for Ralph Lauren, but I guess this is different, since it's a movie, and the characters have blue skin.

In Terrance Malick’s The New World, Colin Farrell as John Smith enters the lives of the natives, first as a prisoner too, and falls in love with Pocahontas. Ultimately, though, he chooses his career obligations over his love affair, Pocahontas settles for Christian Bale’s character, and the natives await their eventual slaughter. Malick is able to show us the beauty of the earth and the eastern seaboard in a way that undercuts the human drama with a pervasive wave of serenity and wonder.

In Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner is similarly enticed into the peaceful, spiritual existence of the natives, and declares his loyalty to them, falling in love with Stands with a Fist. He is captured though by the American army he’s deserted. His pet wolf is killed – a tragedy akin to Artex’s death in The Neverending Story, but akin to nothing in Avatar. Eventually, the Sioux tribe that Costner has loved is conquered by the United States.

Where The New World and Dances with Wolves tell the truth, Avatar lies. About two hours into Avatar, the corporate force of imperialism wreaks havok on the Na'vi through “shock and awe” (one of many allusions to current USA wars). Neytiri (the alien lover) feels betrayed (appropriately) by Sully. The native community is ruined. If the movie ended here, I would be happy, not because I’m sadistic, but because it would ring true. That’s how it’s happened it Iraq, that’s how it’s happened in all stories of conquest. Sully would be left to ruminate his actions, realize the system he's bound to, and grow. Instead, the movie keeps going. Sully devotes himself to an insurmountable cause, going to battle against the US corporate military force with the entire natural kingdom by his side, and the help of some other human deserters. Of course they win. The humans are excused from the planet, except for some new friends, and Sully turns into his Avatar for real, I guess, in some spiritual ritual of energy transference.

Okay, there is so much wrong with all of this fantastical escapism. The human saving the day is insulting in the same way that Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side is insulting. Other movies fitting this bill: Dangerous Minds, Take the Lead, any movie in which an outsider reforms a group of minorities. Jake Sully is more alien than alien, mastering the talents of the tribe better than the tribe itself.

Avatar advocates peace, I guess. In 1914, Woodrow Wilson declared that the Great War would end all wars. Using violence in the name of peace - or in the name of god - is ridiculous. This is a violent movie, but the kind that isn’t honest, again. It shows no actual gore or death or suffering. It’s video game violence, which is the worst kind, since it glorifies aggression and power without admitting to the adverse effects, which, as we know, are actually gut wrenching. Michael Haneke, Sam Peckinpaw, even Quentin Tarantino, are directors who can actually portray the honesty of violence, whether or not maintaining a cathartic satisfaction. Avatar, by comparison, is a war commercial. In fact, it looks just like the 3-minute trailer for the Marines that preceded it.

A much better film that analyzes similar issues is Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. Race, war, imperialism, nature, humanity, alienation, and love are all discussed with intelligence, and the action, I'd argue, is more fun. It ends sadly because these are heavy issues that resist a happy ending.

Anyway, back to Avatar: the corporate motives to extract unobtainium (read: oil) from the land are thwarted. The military is told to go home and think about what its done. Great dream! Total lie! This offends me because it assuages our country’s guilt without having done anything besides spend a historical amount of money telling a story. In truth, we are raping the fields of the Middle East as we speak. I haven’t heard of any heroic tales of US soldiers sticking up for the Iraqi people in any real way. No US tanks have been destroyed by American tanks, and if they were, I’m sure our media would vilify the act, not celebrate it. Are we Jake Sully? Are we really?

Which way do we want it, America? Can we really advocate environmentalism and nature through a gross over-spending of resources on Hollywood entertainment? Is nature actually celebrated through computer-generated flowers? Is peace advocated through 30-minute battle scenes of visual delight? Is wearing dark glasses in a theater really enhancing the experience? I took my glasses off many times and enjoyed the brighter view, the bridge of my nose unencumbered. In the end, Sully becomes alien. District 9 ends the same way. It’s a good message: to be human these days is to be alienated as much as possible from humanity, or to put it another way: we are alienated from our own humanity. If this was what people talked about upon leaving Avatar, I bless this to set box office records. It won’t be. Like Titanic, we are doomed to miss the point, confined to our arrogance.

"Kismet"

2009-11-18T00:09:00.007-05:00

Music by Souvenir

Video by Keith Telfeyan

Bright Star

2009-11-09T18:55:00.004-05:00

Shy poem of artistic poverty

Everything of such delicate quality
Soft kisses, windblown curtains, moments of everlasting luxury

Thimblefuls of piety
Wings fluttered like your splendid modesty
Carefully sewn cloth, simple snacks in the grass, the safe joy of mutual vanity

Victoria, crisp grass and sun-soaked land
Hands in hair, feet deep in sand
Music floats and hearts broke and a wooden wedding band

Music That Moved Me When I Was 27

2009-10-10T01:44:00.010-04:00

Move to California - Times New Viking

Hint hint.

Testament - the Wake

This is one of my favorite songs from the past few years. Beautiful music. Beautiful lyrics. The entire tone is just perfect.

The Ghost - James Yuill

Tones of protection of and optimism that made this song a good companion for the Fall 2008 election season when everything looked rather peachy and hopeful.

Olympic Airways - Foals

I remember watching this video at the library when I was inundated with work but dreaming of freedom, and then feeling that freedom over the summer as I drove on Highway 89 along Lake Tahoe - the same song blaring from my stereo.

Plays John Cassavetes, Pt. 2 - DJ /Rupture v. Ekkehard Ehlers

Since I began listening to him in 2002, DJ /Rupture has matured a great deal. Like a marriage or friendship, I am happy to be sharing part of my (musical) life with him.

We're Looking for A Lot of Love - Hot Chip

The whimsy and freshness of Jared's spring wedding in South Carolina.

In the Morning - Masters of the Hemisphere

There is some shame in hearing an album for the first time years after it's release (especially when it is a member of the contemporary indie zeitgeist), but I am glad that I heard it at all. I wish that I could put most of the album on this list.

Lightspeed - Matt & Kim

Reminds me of another classic.

Ready 2 Wear - Felix da Housecat

I liked this song a great deal all year but it wasn't until I was compiling this list that it hit me how much staying power this song has. It never gets old.

Negative Thinking - Death Set

Feeds into the reckless abandon that I loved about the punk rock from my youth.

Again & Again - Black Lips

Can more bands sound like this, please?

Hung Up On A Dream - Tough Alliance

Fittingly, this song received heavy rotation especially while I was interviewing at law firms in fall 2008. I think part of me is still in that hotel in SF's tenderloin, waiting got a cab that never showed up.

Let's Go Surfing - the Drums

Life's a beach and everyone should dance on my grave once I'm dead with this song on full blast.

Skeleton - Abe Vigoda

I don't think I would have liked this song so much if the music video was not so haunting.

So Bored - Wavves

More than in the past, there are a great deal of bands that put together smashing tracks, but just don't have the ability to put together a good string of distinctly wonderful tracks. Wavves is rather new, so maybe they will put together some better stuff in the future, but for now this song is the zenith.

Summer Long - Papercuts

The worst part about being in California was having to get off the phone with Lindsay every day knowing that the vice of loneliness was closing both of us in. Fuck long distance relationships.

Stardust - Louis Armstrong

There are moments in my relationship with Lindsay when I begin to understand what Woody Allen is saying about love and memory in Stardust Memories. I don't think that I was able to really get some of the nuance until I was able to have similar moments with someone I love.

Daily Routine - Animal Collective

I not by any means a member of the ACo cult, but this song is a strong representation of many goods things that they do but that also get annoying when listening to an entire album.

Young Shields - Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

Brooding and dancing! Why couldn't this song exist when I was 16?

Rake's Song - the Decemberists

One of the many songs I fell in love with when driving around California this summer. The Decemberists do a great job of creating strong presence while remaining true to their more subtle style. This album (Hazards of Love) shows off their range very well.

Sun Too Bright Turn it Off - Starkey v. Slugabed

I listened to a lot of Starkey this year and this song really shows his talent of mixing intensity with sentimentality. It's why he is a keeper.

Everybody's Down - No Age

Everything stops when the drums enter the track. I just get lost in them.

Seventeen Years (from Honey Oil War mix) - 16bit v. Ratatat

I listened to this mix weekly over the summer in Sacramento, running along Ancil Hoffman's trail. Great rendition of an epic Ratatat song.

Bank Teller - Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers

This song is just so fun and for some reason makes me think of standing in line at the Wells Fargo on Market Street in SF and awkwardly positioning myself so I can meet with an attractive teller, though I have no recollection of this ever happening. (Couldn't find link to track.)

Idyll - Benoit Pioulard

I didn't know that songs could come with warm blankets.

Romantic Music - Daedelus

Listened to this song as I walked to the polling place where I was a poll watcher. Obama's campaign was a romance of sorts, for better or for worse. (Couldn't find link to track.)

District 9

2009-09-24T14:25:00.004-04:00

District 6 was the home to many South African people in the 1970s who were demanded to vacate by the conditions of apartheid. District 9 is an allegorical reference to it, where aliens, who have stranded themselves via spacecraft over the city of Johannesburg, are segregated by the humans in a shanty town and again relocated further away.

The political and historical issues are interesting and handled with thought. Director Neil Blomkamp grew up through these very times. It shows in the film, which is genuine and entertaining. I really liked the way "documentary" and "news" footage was worked into the film language at the beginning of the movie. This was the strongest part of the 90 minutes, and drew me in. Structurally, it fades into general summertime fare with fighting and explosions, and also includes a worthless love subplot, which is either lazy writing or evidence of compromised vision. A more soulful, inward hero's quest would have worked better thematically, since it loosely parallels Kafka's Metamorphosis.

Alien movies are not about aliens. They are always about us. Extra-terrestrials probably exist. There is too much out there to suppose it improbable. But human thinkers and creators cannot tell a story about extra-terrestrials because it is simply not in the realm of our reality. We have only our imaginations, which run wonderfully wild! In Alien, a gruesome, curious creature erupts from the abdomen of a man. It is man's own subconscious demons, manifested in a stomach ache, a birth, a grotesque death. Later in that film, Sigourney Weaver discovers a fully grown alien beast inside her own chamber. It feels a lot like a Lynchian moment, because Alien and Twin Peaks, for example, both come from a similar imaginative space, wherein our own demons and fears and curiosities haunt us, and their appearance in our actual reality is delightfully frightening.

Even more typical Hollywood fare, which often turns such insights into base commodities and cheap thrills for the masses, use aliens similarly. Independence Day is essentially a film about American bravado and how our football-fandom complex is strong enough to suppress the scary, invasive and prurient thoughts that might attack us. It celebrates our ability to perhaps overcome all that is truly scary about the unknown. Close Encounters of the Third Kind approaches these subconscious mysteries with greater wonder. The Day the Earth Stood Still employs aliens as a sort of benevolent dictatorship over our own behaviors.

Ultimately, an alien film can be judged by the way in which it treats the all-powerful wave of the mysterious human condition. District 9 is not unique in doing the same, but it does make it more explicit. Clearly, we understand here that the aliens are us, and we are them. An alien force within all of us, individually and collectively; instead of that force antagonizing and threatening us, we threaten it. We expel it. Get it away! Kill it! It's evil! It's true: it is evil, because our consciousness makes it evil. But it's also good. Everything is everything.

Blomkamp sentimentalizes the lead aliens to prove this point. Even our base desires have humanity in them. A murderer is capable of love. A priest is capable of sodomy. Et cetera. Unfortunately, the big ideas that I'm expressing here get muddled and lost in the looking glass by clumsy filmmaking that remove us from this zen point of view. As soon as the main arch of the film is triggered, we are given a bland and predictable series of inevitable events: Wikus must escape, he must reach out to his wife, he must befriend Christopher Johnson (a great pun at renaming aliens), he must break in to MNU, guns blazing! When Blompkamp settles in to this very familiar structure, most of his talent and insight vanishes, and we are left with tired movie clichés.

The cliché I want to single out is that of the averted death by way of unnecessary dialogue by a stupid bad guy. The primary "villain" in District 9 is an aggressive MNU soldier out to hunt down the aliens with a a shoot-first attitude, who then turns to hunt down Wikus. This character has at least three opportunities to get his man, and every time, he says something to the effect of "I've been looking forward to this" or "Time to do what I should have done long ago". And every time, the camera cuts to a new angle and something saves the day - a stray bullet knocks away his gun or something. This same thing happens when the illegal weapons dealer is about to kill Wikus too. Basically, Wikus's life is saved by forced luck. I don't believe for a second that he would survive all of this. It is also absurd that our hero would not conversely kill the primary enemy. He kills plenty of people, but refrains every time on the main nemesis, as if he wouldn't hurt a fly. We know he would - his selective pacifism is unfounded. Ultimately, the MNU officer is killed by the aliens, who rip off his limbs as a group. The way of his death is obviously significant, but feels forced.

Another filmic device used for convenience regards the issue of language and communication. The aliens speak in a click-clacky language that might resemble that of an African tribe. Somehow, humans can understand this dialect rather easily. The biblical story of Babel illustrates how our species is unable to harmonize and unify because of the many tongues bestowed on us by god, who did so to prevent a giant tower to heaven from being built by all the people of earth. The end of District 9 shows an ascent to the spaceship that feels a lot like that fictional tower. And the ascent was indeed made possible by the effective communication between humans and aliens. In a way, this is a profound message that I've teased out. But while watching, I was annoyed by the laziness with which it was brought out. Perhaps there simply isn't enough time to explain everything within a film.

I have two more issues to discuss. The first regards the body. A lot has been written about what might be known as "meat hell", or the trapped physical condition of our lives. It is the bestial quality that thwarts our desire to be pure celestial spirits. The oeuvre of David Cronenberg exemplifies this train of thought. It is integral to District 9, as so much has to do with physiognomy. If our bodies to betray us, are we still human? If we consume the body of something else, do we become that energy in some way? There is much to consider here regarding our lives as omnivores, as aging muscle and bone, as sensorial creatures.

At last, let us consider some of some things I've mentioned thus far: the political and historical references, the weapons warlord, the consuming of bodies... There are two major entities that must be mentioned: MNU (Multi-National United) is the Orwellian/Industrial-American archetype that oversees all alien management, and is primarily interested in turning their weapons into profit (of course). This is cut and dry: a well-crafted way to speak of corporate rule. The other entity is that of a gang of Africans that run an underground market in the slums. They sell the aliens cat food, which is equivalent to drugs and junk food that pervade most impoverished communities. They also collect weapons - like MNU - in search not for billions, but for superpowers. The kingpin of this gang is taught by a sort of shaman that if he eats an alien, he will gain his powers.

The issue at hand regards the all-too-delicate issue of race politics. The movie has alienated its share. Is it racist to depict Africans - Nigerians in particular - as gangsters? I wonder, if this movie has erred in its treatment of a people or issue, what would have been more appropriate? It is a very tricky thing, to depict a truth as one sees it, without stepping on the perspectives of others.

Taking Woodstock

2009-09-07T14:12:00.003-04:00

There isn't much to say about the 2009 movie Taking Woodstock, because it is quite boring. It moves along without much ado, chronicling these historic events modestly and with kindness. It succeeds in touching the fringes of an overblown event. It feels like a tale told by a close friend who happens to be boring himself, instead of an attempt at objective, grand journalism. It is indeed refreshing to see a perspective of Woodstock that ignores actual concert footage. It is also nice to see (though slightly, despite the film's slow wind-up) the gritty details of how such a phenomenon could happen. I'm still left with a lot of questions about logistics...

What else can I say? The characters are barely worth discussing. They're all rather likable in a bland way, save for the mother, who is wretched, but not enough to discuss any further. The pacing of the film is soft and careful, but not in the touchingly intimate way that other Ang Lee films are. Brokeback Mountain, as well as The Ice Storm, was so infused with interesting drama and passion that every slow scene was charged with intrigue and satisfaction. Not so here.

The title is interesting, I suppose, though forgettable. It sounds as though Woodstock itself is drug, like taking acid. Characters in the movie do take acid, and the portrayal of their little trip (about five minutes of screen time) is honest and good. It was at this point in the movie that I most connected: life is groovy.

Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-02T15:05:00.005-04:00

Quentin Tarantino is a filmmaker. I stress this obvious point because I appreciate very much how evident his films - this one in particular - are made. The first thing that the audience of Inglourious Basterds sees is the company logo for Universal Pictures, all grainy and retro and lush. We are looking at film; we are looking specifically at an older version of the now-glossy, shiny logo that precedes so many Universal releases. Tarantino wants us to know that we are at the movies. He follows this with a release date, in roman numerals, I believe, on the title card, and then procedes to indulge in a very extended list of credits, switching fonts no less than three times, and to the cue of a comedically dramatic score. Bear in mind, it is and has been the trend in movies to minimize the introduction of a film. Most blockbusters (think Lord of the Rings and Batman) have but one title card, and move along very quickly. This film basks in its filmness, and for this, I praise it highly. If you are not one to appreciate such things, much of this movie might be lost on you, but probably not :)

After this very tongue-in-cheek introduction, it is time for the storytelling, which is excellent. The movie occurs in five chapters. The first is so gripping that I found myself wondering how I could already care so much about characters I’ve barely met. The scene functions like a classical painting in this respect. Every technical aspect is commendable here: the photography is brilliantly shot, the camera movement is precise and nimble, the script is gripping, and the acting is extraordinary. The tension created could be cut with a knife, but instead it's cut with rounds and rounds of loud bullets. The knife comes in later.

There are viewers who will be turned off by the prospect of graphic violence. I myself am not unilaterally opposed to violence. I side with pacifism as a political principle, but as a lover of art and film, I recognize that, since violence is a part of life, it belongs in movies. The biggest, most mind-numbing blockbusters, like Transformers or Die Hard or so many others, have egregiously glorified senseless, gratuitous violence. In effect, our culture has become desensitized to it, which is unfortunate. We turn to violence for catharsis, personally and socially: a huge explosion might release our individual frustrations and fears, while a broadly sketched vigilante with a gun might exemplify our egos in fantasy. Like anything, we need more to fulfill what was once fulfilled with less. Those tropes are being pushed to pornographic proportions, and we continue to consume them like an obese over-eater, not asking the right questions, like, for instance, what is this fulfilling?

Violence, like sex, language, pictures and everything in life in general, is most often employed callously and without thought. But Inglourious Basterds does something significant. It re-sensitizes violence. It shows everything, explicitly. The whole theater gasps and groans and nervously laughs. We are looking at seriously fucked-up shit. To see the actual beating of a skull with a bat, one might argue, takes away the power of mere suggestion: to imagine it alone is pretty gruesome and powerful. (Funny Games by Michael Haneke exemplifies this sort of critique on simulated violence.) But we're in the movies here - we want to see! People really do kill each other in gruesome ways - ways that we can only imagine - and here they are. By making things obvious and apparent, by revealing them, deeper questions arise; our conversation can deepen once we move past the what and how. We can see anger being released; we share in it physically instead of simply judging it mentally. Our collective ego wants punishment in this fashion. We can consider this, feel guilty, question our behavior and our reactions. This isn’t about gore for the sake of it, like so many slasher films (that have their own merit). Blood appears at specific cues, and with reason. It augments the story where it could have otherwise been implicit. Tarantino doesn't do implicit. He does explicit. He does it unabashedly. And I thank him for that.

Every cinematic moment is telegraphed loudly to the audience. Romance, vengeance, tragedy and triumph are all cued by ostentatious music, slow motion, showy lighting, and long takes. It's hyper-real, super-self-aware filmmaking. The arc of the plot is no exception. Here we have a movie that revels in a revisionist fantasy and goes all the way. It is unapologetic about its pleasure. That this pleasure is in killing Nazism completely deserves a hearty critique, to be sure, and we will get there. But first, I commend this film for being such a film - escapist, overblown, formally precise and entertaining, while enriching my life through perspective and fodder for contemplation.

Perhaps Tarantino has gone too far in characterizing Nazis, or making a film about them at all, at the risk of offending modern Germany and its people. Perhaps the broad strokes with which these caricatures are painted is juvenile, distasteful or plain mean. Hitler and Goebbels, for instance, are made more boorish and unlikable than they even might have been. Where there could be pity or nuanced respect, there is only hate. Private Zoller, who's celebrated for murdering countless Allies, foolishly pursues a girl with whom he has absolutely no chance. The character played by the star of the film - Christoph Waltz, for whom enough praise cannot be given - is despicable to the core, despite an uncanny charisma. I ask though, is this dark moment in Earth's history not open to study or ridicule? Surely it is, and Germany itself humbly revisits it, so as not to repeat it, if I'm not mistaken. Are there jokes about the Holocaust that might be distasteful? Indeed, but this film operates beyond such conversations, I think. Inglourious Basterds is its own world. It is exceedingly effective in lampooning the evils of Nazism, while also slyly critiquing the arrogance of the Allied nations as well.

The war is fought between multiple countries, and each takes on a cartoonish attitude. But it is not nationalities that this film is about – it is about the silliness of warring nations and the imperfections of the human condition, akin to Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. Surely the Russian ambassador in that film is offensively portrayed, but to lambast a film of that caliber for that misses the point. Mike Myers and Michael Fassbender share a delightful scene that jests at the British for instance, but it is less about the English, and more about a comedy of etiquette. The USA, perhaps the real focus of the film, is critiqued more subtly.

Let us critique the story itself: why was it written in the first place? I am not sure of the inner-workings of Quentin Tarantino's mind, and perhaps he simply saw fit to indulge in a battle against the most obvious of villains… (Let us remember that his last film, Deathproof, featured an extended climax against a completely unlikable personage as well.) But I see here something more complex: something akin to, "okay America, you want to vilify someone from the other side of the world? Here you go!" Tarantino feels like the kind of dad that, when he catches his 10-year-old smoking a cigarette, forces him to smoke a whole carton then and there. He gives us what we want, and then some. The climax of this film is laughably delicious. There are films like The Lives of Others that conclude so poetically and perfectly, like nothing else could have happened, and then there's this, where the ending is like eating pure sugar, so obvious, so glorious and perhaps sickening as a result...? This is a self-evident American movie. I have a hard time critiquing the whole story because it is a critique of itself, essentially.

Is it a Hollywood film? To me, "Hollywood" implies a system in which a script is re-written by producers that think they know better, where a test audience changes the plot points to maximize box office returns, where big actors are forced into nuanced parts for the same reasons, where swill is marketed for profit alone, where everything is micromanaged and any originality that might have appeared in the vision of a screenwriter or director is replaced by stock safe bets and tried-and-true story arcs that feel, ultimately, terrible and boring and a waste of time and money and effort. This is not a Hollywood film. This is an auteur film. Tarantino has deservedly earned the trust and final cut from his financiers. Maybe he compromised on the original length (it played at over 3 hours two weeks prior to wide release), but my faith lies in the fact that this is his vision, realized. Universal Pictures is one of the biggest companies in the film industry, but that doesn't make this a Hollywood film, except technically. Radiohead, after all, released Kid A under Capital Records, and it surely wasn't a mainstream hit in the era of Brittney and boy bands.

Inglourious Basterds doesn't redefine the movies, but it does typify them. Tarantino relishes in movies, seeing fantasy played out, and there is a deep psychological justification that our society recognizes. Also, I fell deeply in love with Mélanie Laurent.

(500) Days of Summer

2009-09-02T15:04:00.005-04:00

Let’s start with the title. It’s cute. It has parentheses for some reason. This makes it interesting in some ambiguously edgy way. The denotative reading suggests a happy summer romp that goes on ridiculously long, like the surfing movie Endless Summer, or Comedy Central’s SPF 100 from ten years ago. That the word Summer is actually a girl’s name is a nice little pun…

First we see an Annie-Hall-esque note to the audience that this movie isn’t about anyone specific, and then names a girl. “…especially you, Heather Lane” or something like that. Okay, it’s a movie written about a girl. Cool.

The movie starts with a disembodied narration. It sounds exactly like the narrator from a remarkable and under-watched film from three years ago called Little Children. It is, in fact, the same narrator. Points to the producers for cashing in on his terrific talent, though his tone doesn’t quite match this cute, quirky movie the way it did so perfectly for the ominous, eerie beauty of Little Children.

We are warned immediately that this is not a love story. Fair enough…

The title sequence is fantastic… too good, really. The characters are shown as children, growing up in parallel lives. The director employs a split screen to emphasize this point. I am a fan. He also employs super-8 film, also of which I am a fan. I use the same medium for art videos. But I use it with complete awareness of its nostalgic value, and my dishonest relationship to it: I was born in January of 1981 – my childhood videos are firmly shot on terrible-looking VHS tape. Joseph Gordon Levitt was born less than a month later than me. Zooey Deschanel was born one year earlier. These people, to whom the movie is designed for me to relate, were not shot on super-8mm film as kids. They saw it on the Wonder Years like I did. Why do we create false nostalgia? Is it purely about aesthetics? The rest of the movie suggests that, yes, it is.

We meet our protagonist. I forget his name. Clearly it is not his name that we are supposed to remember. He works in a big office. He sits at the table during board meetings and apparently carries clout amongst his peers, who are all middle-aged, except his co-worker buddy. My question here is this: is it feasible for a 28-year-old to be so well-regarded as a writer for greeting cards? Can he dress so well and earn such money in Los Angeles like this? The correct answer, I’m sure, is yes, but as a bit of a slacker, this seems far-fetched to me personally. Like Friends, it seems like a Hollywood ploy to make youthful life seem more pretty and convenient than it really is. After all, real twentysomethings making their way in big cities take lame jobs and live in less-than-ideal apartments. If they don’t, they are driven, astonishing people to whom we look up. This protagonist of ours – let me look up his name… ah, Tom Hansen (how could I have forgotten?!) – seems to be both. He’s like us: he gets lovesick and self-conscious and wants more in life, but lives in an awesome place in LA and has a pretty cool job. We learn, though, that what he really wants to do is be an architect. WHO DOESN’T?

(I read somewhere that being a wedding photographer is one of the best professions out there: lots of money, fun, creativity. Great hours. It’s true. It’s a good gig. The thing I was reading mentioned snidely that many photographers that shoot weddings actually aspire to shoot for National Geographic or something, and that they should be happy with such an awesome job, or leave it for people that really love it…)

My point is this: people I know are either on their way up one ladder or another toward their ideal job, or they are doing something far worse than writing greeting cards. Additionally, and more importantly, people that have so much talent flowing through them such that they can aspire to be architects while wowing their boss and co-workers with greeting cards tend to be arrogant to some degree. I definitely am. This makes it hard for me to accept that Tom Hansen is a real person. This distracts me.

Furthermore, isn’t the greeting card industry dominated by Hallmark? How is a little independent company paying Tom so well?

Moving on, Summer is introduced as Tom’s boss’s new assistant. She looks right at him. Twice. Huh. Their relationship continues at a karaoke bar, where there are no lyrics on a screen and the mic is on a cool stage and the whole place is amazing and the singers feel like stars. If such a place indeed exists, I doubt that a bunch of middle-aged co-workers are going there to celebrate Millie’s birthday. Are we going to a boring co-worker party or are we going to an awesome hangout? This is another example of the film having its cake and eating it too.

Back at the office, the two incredibly-dressed lovers kiss at the copy machines, in front of an amazingly-well-designed workplace poster warning against paper cuts. American workplaces, to my knowledge, look more like Kinko’s than they do stylish, smart stages.

The world created by this movie doesn’t exist. At times, it overtly admits this, like when Tom sings and dances with people in a park. We all know that movies are fictional, and it’s partly what makes them enjoyable, but I am taking exception to this one because of the way in which the lie is packaged. It is targeting me. It has the right music. It has the right wardrobe. The pictures of Zooey (obviously the right girl) look like the photography on ffffound.com. The narrator is taken from the aforementioned great independent film. The scenes in Ikea are taken from the art of Guy Ben-Ner, who staged domestic scenes with his family in an Ikea some years ago (was he paid as a consultant for this movie?). Ingmar Bergman is referenced. Sid and Nancy are referenced. Knight Rider is referenced. The stylization is borrowed directly from Wes Anderson, who taught us that a music department and art department can create a perfect film. The Ikea bit is particularly pointed, as I did the same thing in college with the girl I loved. I’m sure many of us did…

Advertisements prey on our collective imaginations all the time, and I expect it from them. I don’t like seeing it in cinema. I like to think of cinema as a place for artistic expression. When I see characters dressed dapperly in skinny jeans, skinny ties and fitted blazers, I want to believe that this style is genuine. I don’t want to see product placement for Panasonic.

The film, ultimately, feels too aestheticized for its own good. It looks great. It has some animation. It has various film and video stocks. It’s cool. But for what? Our guy has a good job, friends with whom he isn’t that competitive, a little sister who is overly-smart, all the superficial suggestions of awesomeness, sleeps with his boss’s assistant (who is gorgeous), can’t keep her, gets depressed in a comedic way, quits his job out of moral superiority (in a very cliché-laden speech scene), and pursues his real goal of architecture. This is an adolescent fantasy of a film.

Do we want adolescent fantasies? I suppose so. I feel guilty indulging in this film. It feels fake, and its sadness feels inauthentic. The happy ending and the overall exuberance with which the story is told make me feel like the recipient of a greeting card. “Love stings” or “It is better to love and lost than to never have loved at all” or something. Well, yes. I guess I want a more profound message from a film to consider it good… Not even. I want it to feel real, or honest. (500) Days of Summer feels test screened and manufactured. When Tom is pining over Summer, I want it to last so I can feel it. This movie feels like candy. I want a meal.

The Future of Paper

2009-02-11T12:07:00.005-05:00

It was a few years ago, at least. Actually, college, I believe, when I thought about where technology would take the computer.

I want to reiterate this because I see it fast approaching: Computers will become like sheets of paper - thin, malleable and disposable. We can type a search for any info we want - a web page, a pdf we created that exists on a huge omnipresent database - and cause it into fruition onto a piece of electronic paper. That paper can scroll through multiple pages, maybe even fold into one's pocket, and then be thrown away because of the ample abundance at which we will create them.

This technology will somehow be environmentally safe, and non-detrimental to our health, ie, its light emissions will not cause the sort of eye and brain damage that current monitors cause.

We already see TVs and computer screens getting thinner and thinner. There is a new product that lets one read a book on a single eye-friendly tablet. These things will naturally continue down such paths, and be created with such rapidity and fervor that the natural death of the news print media will slowly morph into a coalesced version of web and physical thing.

No one really prefers to sit at their computer and read news from their screen, for instance. But most of us are choosing this over actual newspapers because of the absence of cost and the convenience. Soon, we will not have to choose between the two. We can always sit in a bay window, outside at a cafe, with a ubiquitous sheet of e-paper, drinking our coffee and reading or seeing anything that we please.

"The Gregorian"

2009-02-11T12:01:00.006-05:00

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(2 intros to the same story... for my fiction class.)

His speech at the Northern Front had been a success, and he knew it. From flashing his now trademark smile to throwing his muscular arm from above his six-foot frame and crashing it against the unsuspecting podium, he had controlled the separatist audience as a conductor would a symphony. When he first began calling for deurbanization, his Ivy-shaded vernacular and Boston accent betrayed him. But he had learned a lot from those failed campaigns. Rather than speak on the presumption that the separatists would listen to his like-minded ideas of revolution in spite of his pedigree, he now spoke as if all that his pedigree provided him was spite; ideas had become an afterthought. Now, when he demanded that the Metropol bombers be executed, he heard the heckling and the threats from his first campaign; when he ordered that capita-maximums be enforced throughout the Central Territory, he saw his commanding officer killed in the failed mutiny; when he called for mandatory immigrant deportations to Canada, he felt the pangs of Maryanne breaking their engagement; when he denounced the Treaty of Cincinnati, he smelled his son’s burnt flesh from the South Side bombing. Only by wearing his past as if it were a crown of thorns, he knew, could Gregory Bender succeed in winning over New America. Now, as he waved to the adoring crowd from his helicopter, six days before the Territorial Councils would choose a new president, he delighted in sensing that the punctures were deepening. There was no turning back.

_____________________________________________

The hardest part about pulling the trigger, I knew, would be that he remembered my daughter’s name. It’s always what’s worst about undercover work, having to get to know the guy, realizing that they personally aren’t that bad as they say back home. But this is war and I have my duty. There are three separatist leaders competing for control over New America and Gregory Bender is the only one who has the power to inspire its permanent disillusion from the Union. No doubt, with his experience, intelligence, and presence on the stage, he is the most dangerous man in either country. His conviction is astounding and his intense face and large build makes it seem that he is willing to take on the Union with his bare hands. With all the fighting and sacrifice that these people have gone through, they need to believe in someone like Gregory; what’s worse is that he knows this better than anyone and is perfectly willing to exploit it. If I could not see the destruction he’s causing, I’d say there was a beautiful dependence in their symbiosis. The trouble is, after having been in his inner circle for the past two years, I can see that he has given up on any reconciliation between New America and the American Union. It doesn’t matter if he’s discussing military operations with a general or rallying a hall full of widowed housewives, he’s only concerned with making them an extension of his will, a means by which he can satiate his torment. He has witnessed too much and lost too much because of this war to see anything past it. He is beyond compromise. Like me, he is on a suicide mission. That’s is why I must kill him. I just wish the poor bastard would stop asking about my daughter.

Today's Sharp Sparkle, or Say It Plain

2009-01-21T11:34:00.005-05:00

I think there's too much burden placed on the orgasm, you know, to make up for empty areas in life.
- Woody Allen, Annie Hall

It's the Wednesday morning after the inauguration. Depending on whom one asks, the party is over or the party has just begun.

School began last week, but I feel as if today is the first day. There is a lot of work to do, from here on out.

I felt many emotions during the inauguration. For some reason, I began the day thinking that something extraordinary was about to occur; whether it would be good or bad, I did not know. I packed a lunch that I did not eat; I packed a phone charger, which I did not use, in case there was some catastrophe; I brought my iPod shuffle in case I was stuck in the immovable crowd that never appeared. For some reason, I thought that sensationalism was the name of the day.

Instead, everything happened without surprise, without mysticism.

The potentially groundbreaking message I assumed would come from our new president was muted by pragmatism, history, and wisdom. Although I never thought negatively of the speech, critics said that it lacked the "umph" that other inaugural addresses contained. Maybe, for us who pray to messiahs and bow to the shock and awe, withholding the "umph" was exactly what we needed. Much of what Obama promises is far-fetched and could be construed as pandering. What he does less of, though, is promise that solutions will be easy. Instead of creating the catch phrase, he chose to retell our story with a comprehensiveness that we have not seen in a long time. Obama could not start out with fantastic solutions because his plans for us first require us to reacquaint ourselves with our past, with our identities. Only by knowing ourselves, both individually and as a nation, can we begin to consider what we need to accomplish to reach greater heights. President Obama invoked Lincoln and Washington; he referenced slavery and the hopes our relatives had when they came to this continent. He tried his best to reintroduce us to ourselves, which can only be accomplished by remembering that we are not mainly 9/11, Pearl Harbor, the Super Bowl, the season finale, or the orgasm. Instead, as the inaugural poet laureate Elizabeth Alexander said:

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks,
raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce,
built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Instead of shiny solutions, maybe we need to relearn what a solution looks like and for what reason it's sought.

Maybe we need to relearn that it is us, not Him, who should do the striving.

"Soar, Loser"

2009-01-16T15:58:00.007-05:00

I am trying to get into this awesome looking (legal) fiction writing class. The assignment for next week is to write a 100-word story. Here are some initial attempts:

Gregory did not know what to expect when the plane landed. Last time, reporters outnumbered supporters. Still, he thought that his chances here were good: Many of the candidates were relatively unknown in Phoenix. Gregory’s vocal support of the Cleveland riots won him appeal among separatists, but he had much to prove to the Western Frontier. There was greater fervor here. He thought that he had done enough by calling for Chicago’s immediate conversion to Urbtowns, but his obvious pedigree betrayed his statements supporting the Yeomen.

When his entourage reached the terminal, Gregory was shocked to find General Scarve waiting.

__________________________________

His scars were still evident. She tried not to look surprised when she removed his shirt, but she could not help but gasp. He was used this and was bracing for her inevitable disgust. To his surprise, her fingers followed the marks, gently feeling the thick skin with curiosity rather than the judgment to which he had become accustomed.

She looked up at him. “Are these from the fire?” She asked.

“Mostly. Some were from the surgeries afterwards.”

“You must have been afraid.”

“I am more afraid now, thinking about it, than I was. Back then, I expected nothing different.”
________________________________

“Are you finished?”

“Yes, sort of.”

“Are you or aren’t you?”

“I’m not.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

“You don’t understand how hard this is.”

“I understand enough to tell you that you better hurry the fuck up. I have work to do, too.”

“See, this is exactly why I am not done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I bet you don’t even know what you are supposed to do. Would you even know it, if I were finished?”

“Hopefully so.”

“Why does it even matter?”

“Everyone else looks done.”

“That’s what they want you to think. Calm down.”

________________________________________

Sophia chased after Eric, reaching for his arm.

“Why can’t you understand that I am a victim, too?”

Eric pushed her to the wall. “You sold us out. I’ve lost so much. “

Their eyes met. Eric stared intently at her with all of his anger, but he never was a good enough actor. He held his glare for only a moment before looking away, his eyes swelled with tears.

“Is this what you wanted, Sophie?”

“No. They said they wouldn’t use everything I told them.”

“Of course they would. They’re fucking jackals!”

Sophia smirked to herself. “So are you.”
________________________________________

Copyright Law Needs Reform

2009-01-11T18:07:00.007-05:00

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Stephen Colbert interviews Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law. Copyright laws are turning our innocent kids and artists into criminals.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Lawrence Lessig

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Reflections on the Curious Case(s) of Benjamin Button

2009-01-03T16:55:00.002-05:00

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***Warning: Potential spoiler for both the film and short story***

First, I want to go over what I did like from the film, then the differences and similarities between the short story and cinematic versions of Ben Button, and then critique the relationship between Daisy and Benjamin.

If the film was called anything but the Curious Case..., it would be a rather fine Hollywood film. (I would call it Titanic meets Forrest Gump, except much better written than both.) It was consistent and beautiful. It tried to tell a complex story that spanned through what might be the United State's lifespan as the source of influence, innovation, and ideals that make us all, to some extent, patriotic. Beginning on November 11, 1919, the final day of WWI, and ending just as Hurricane Katrina hits NOLA, it evoked thoughts of innocence and reflection that made the United States such a strong country. Coming into its own after WWI and clearly having lost it's way in the wake of Katrina, Ben's life (and the backwards clock, a great image) could simply be a statement that the United States became and remained great for its wisdom of an elder nation, yet maintaining the innovative spirit of youth. This is reinforced by the final image of the backwards-moving clock being submerged in flood water.

The film also made strides to involve many different perspectives in their characters, probably also something that speaks to the potential for mulitcultural experiences in the United States and abroad. Ben is raised by an African American and the couple who made the backwards clock in the first scene is biracial. Ben meets Irish, English, Russian, and African personalities who all have influences on his life. He spends time in Russia (presumably during the Soviet reign). Daisy also has interesting experiences, dancing in Russia and being a part of a fast-moving and apparently bisexual and promiscuous dancing company (this is pretty light, but nice for a Hollywood film to at least recognize). It does a relatively good job at bringing in new concepts and ideas without flouting them. I doubt many mainstream films have succeeded as much as Ben Button in this.

From a cinematic standpoint, the film had great cinematography and color. It was also cleverly written, with deep as well as humorous parts, making the three hours seems more like two. For a film that tried to say a lot, this is a compliment. The acting was solid, although I think that it could have been much stronger had the early Benjamin been played by a child rather than Brad Pitt. That way, his youth amidst his looks would be better conveyed.

But, these positives are severely negated by 1) it's lack of depth in analyzing Ben's trials, glazing over what complexities in life would come with aging backwards, and 2) not truly being an adaptation of Fitzgerald's short but enlightening character study.

The differences between the short story and film are staggering, both in context and in purpose. As someone who has read the short story numerous times (and, admittedly, a part of the minority of the audience for which this film is intended), I am shocked that they decided to maintain the short story's title. First, the timeframe for the short story is between 1860 and 1930; the film takes place between WWI and Katrina, almost an 80 year difference. This will of course change many of the era-defined circumstances that take place, such as the Ben's great military experience being the Spanish-American War rather than WWII. Second, in the short story, Benjamin is the heir to a Baltimore Hardware fortune and attends Harvard; in the film he is orphaned in NOLA by a button producer and does not have any formal schooling. These differences are admittedly superficial at first glance, but many of these changes can affect how characters are perceived as well as their life experiences that define who they are.

In its' defense, many great adaptations have been superficially modified/modernized, so this mere fact is not dispositive of a credible adaptation. But usually in modernized / contextually modified adaptations (such as Requiem for a Dream, Titus, Paltrow/Hawke's Great Expectations) maintain the basic ideas the drive the original works. The idea in the original short story, though, has more to do with a man who begins life with age - taking both the bad and the good - and then must face the opposite perspective in the end, while still not being taken seriously for the same reason. In early life, Yale rejects Ben for being too old, only to suffer in the future when Ben, now late in life, destroys Yale at football; he becomes a military hero in early life only too see his preeminence falter because he looks like a child late in life; looking like a wealthy distinguished man, Ben wins the hand of the teenage Hildegarde (Daisy, in the film. sort of), only to detest her as he becomes a youth. ("And here we come to an unpleasant subject which it will be well to pass over as quickly as possible. There was only one thing that worried Benjamin Button; his wife had ceased to attract him.") Unlike in the film, where Ben seems to use (and Daisy seems to accept) his excuse of traumatizing their child for leaving the family high and dry, in the short story Ben openly leaves the aging family for more excitement, opting to indulge in his youthful ambitions rather than grow old and settle down. The short story leaves Ben a tragic, if not discontent, hero, rather the dull one-dimensional hero that the film instead chooses.

Father-son relationships also play a much stronger role in the short story. The crux of the beginning is spent on the father reconciling his son's ailment. In the film, the father is another superfluous character. In the short story, Ben must also face his child's conflict with Ben's aging, which parallels the shame that his father originally felt. In the film, Ben meets his daughter once, with the daughter not even knowing that Ben is her father. For me, this is the strongest subplot in the short story; I don't really know why this would be taken out of the adaptation, if not to make Ben less complicated of a character, with less baggage and less conflict at the beginning and end of his life.

The similarities between the two versions of the Curious Case of Benjamin Button are equally tenuous. The only direct parallel is that Benjamin ages backwards. Really, it's only the basic premise of the short story that is at all similar to Fitzgerald's original. And even this similarity seems somewhat gimmicky, as little in the film truly hinges on Benjamin's affliction. I guess that some of the older people in the rest home would have treated him different, but everything could have happened had he been a personable child, except maybe the drinking and sex with the hooker, which seemed to have no bearing on the greater plot.

Besides his interactions with Daisy, nothing Ben did before he began working on the tugboat (something that he could have easily done as a young teenager as well) really dictates the plot or develops his character. During his middle age, he still could have fallen in love and had the affair in Russia, although, granted, he would probably be more prone to going out on the town had he been young. Later in his middle years, Benjamin and Daisy seemed to act as any couple would, living together and trying to begin a family, so there is really nothing special about his age at that time, either. When he decides to leave Daisy and his daughter to go out on his own, the same thing could have occurred with a man who was afraid to commit to his family (which he essentially was).

His desertion at the end of the film is also problematic for me, at least in the sense that the film makes no recognition of the double standard between Benjamin and Daisy. Apparently, in their youth, Benjamin and Daisy got along well; Daisy was able to accept and look past Ben's physical age. When it came time for Daisy to be the elder, Ben could not accept her in that same way. There is no reproach for his lack of faith that the family would work out and Daisy seems to roll with the punches rather well, considering that Ben basically allowed her to fall for him, impregnated her without being dedicated to her, and required her to find another husband to grow old with and to love, even though Ben and Daisy were clearly lifelong lovers. The way in which these two characters are treated is borderline sexist, honestly, and shows more about Daisy's strength than Ben's interesting perspective on life.

In the end, Fitzgerald's original, while short and not as epic as the film, acts more as a character study of how such a person would progress through a life lived backwards. Fitzgerald does not shy away from making Benjamin fallible and honest, taking a cold hard look at beginning life choosing structure and ending with the restlessness of youth. Conversely, the film wants to tell a story, requiring that the characters do not veer too far from a formula that keeps them apart, yet tethered by an undying love. The film wanted to end sentimentally, meaning that Ben needed excuses for his youthful selfishness. The film somewhat succeeds at making Ben sympathetic until the end, but it does so at the expense of the honest assessment of the human condition that made it's original author one of the greatest American writers.

Hopefully up next: something more fun and a Top Films of the Year list...

2009-01-01T04:01:00.000-05:00

Smear

2008-12-28T17:07:00.010-05:00

This is the beginning of a short story I started in February 2006 and have probably not touched since then (except the last paragraph, which I just wrote). I am going to try to finish a respectable draft in the coming weeks.

Smear

This is what you get when you mess with us.

I.

“Hold my calls for the next hour, Alicia.”

“But what if he calls, Senator Augustine?”

“I don’t imagine him calling, but if he does just tell him that I have nothing to say that he wants to know.” It’s touching that she thinks that the President—that anyone—has anything left to say to me or want from me, except my head.

Before I close the door to my office, I consider something; I turn back to my loyal secretary of eight years.

“Actually, Alicia, there’s really nothing left for you to do here. How about you take the rest of the day off. I am sure Leo would be elated if you picked him up from school.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“I am.”

“Okay. Senator Augustine?”

“Yes?” For the first time during the conversation I look directly at Alicia and notice that her glasses are foggy. Her lips are quivering.

“I am very sorry that this all happened.”

“I know. Me, too.” I muster a half-smile, faintly patting her shoulder, hoping to relate my appreciation for her kindness. She is probably the only person left in this city who truly feels sorry.

Once in my office, I close my door and take a long and deep breath. Then, I grip my jaw with my right hand. I massage the wall against which I lean; the wall that was supposed to keep me safe. I move my head from left to right, taking inventory of the world that had become so commonplace, yet, in its sudden fleetingness, so spectacular: photographs with various world leaders, mementos I had collected from my diplomatic travels, the mahogany desk cluttered with bills on which I will never have the chance to vote, a framed poster from my first successful campaign in 2016.

In my weakest moments, I imagined this happening, but no amount psychological conditioning could prepare me for what I was now going through. I had unknowingly reached my zenith, and now it was time to atone for my sins.

After slowly removing my jacket and placing it on the rack, I fall into my chair, my eyes closed in a futile attempt to force myself to wake from this dream. I open my eyes and glance at the television that I must have left on before I left for the Senate chambers this morning. CNN is showing footage from the morning Session, during which multiple Senators threatened impeachment if I did not agree to immediately resign.

The caption read: Michigan Senator with Dark Past Accused of Corruption and Adultery.

A montage of speeches from various Congressmen, many of whom I considered good friends, flashed on the screen, providing the media with soundbites such as “How dare you, Senator Augustine, think that you could keep a veil over the American People,” “You are the kind of lowlife that gives this institution a bad name,” “If Senator Augustine is the type of man who the Democratic Party wants to support, then maybe we need to reconsider the leadership in Congress and the White House,” and, my favorite, “How long did you think that you could continue this charade before you were figured out?” This was followed by a shot of the Minority Speaker Wharton shaking hands and discussing the events with other Republican Congressmen, all of whom were coyly smiling behind their hollow condemnations.

It was only when they cut to Sofia's press conference that she had given earlier in the week, the one in which she expounded on our past romance, my history with drugs, my secret bank accounts, and our rekindled affair, that I was forced to turn off the television.

II.

Sofia and I became acquainted under serendipitous circumstances. It was New Years Eve, 1999: the end of the world, or the beginning of a new era, depending on whose opinion you solicited. After hastily leaving my job at Endnote, a local record store, I picked up my good friend Walt and his girlfriend Amber, fellow burnouts just trying to make it through high school. It was already ten o’clock when I finally drove my 1988 Honda Civic away from the comfort of suburban Clarksville into the rural country just outside of metropolitan **.

“Dude,” Walt shouted from the passenger seat, “we are really cutting it close.”

“Hey,” I snapped, “I warned you yesterday that I got off at nine. You could’ve been ready sooner.”

“I had to get the pills. It wasn’t exactly easy to find a dealer who was home.”

“Why didn’t we just, like, plan to buy some at the party?” Amber, always late with her suggestions, whined, “I mean, Jake and Snowball are going to be there, right? We could have just scored pills from them.” I could picture her in the backseat, glaring past the windshield at the empty road that lay ahead, her blond hair with neon red streaks covering her pierced face.
“I don’t know about you but I am not going to take a pill from some skank dealer.” Walt, always a man of high taste, took out a pack of Camel Lights from his pocket, staring at it inquisitively before taking out a cigarette, “I want to ring in the year 2000 on pure MDMA, not some cheap mix of speed and aspirin.”

“Hell yeah,” I nodded my head, smiling, losing them to my own thoughts. “Once we get to the party everything will be cool.”

We sped ahead into the darkness, surrounded by farmland; rows of pastures were visible only by the faint moonlight. As the car pierced through the natural serenity, we were all hoping that the chemicals in our pockets would help us recreate that same sense of perfection inside of our corrupted selves.

I had once felt guilt for having to resort to these chemicals to feel at peace with the world, but quickly began considering it just compensation for having to grow up lacking the privileges many others around me viewed as rights. For each pang of anxiety I felt for knowing there was no such thing as unconditional love to save me from chance; for each moment of despair from living inside a vacuum where my emotional needs were unfulfilled; for each time I thought I should hear “yes” when all that I heard was “no,” I felt greater reinforcement that I had a right to seek fulfillment by any means necessary. In retrospect, it’s laughable how easily the love I craved in childhood transferred to the destructive euphoria I consumed in adolescence and finally to the money and power I willed in adulthood. Now, sitting in my dim office, I see that what I thought I was a place away from which I ran was instead my perpetuate shadow that would remain until I could find the way out of the cave; I needed real sunlight to truly exorcize this darkness.

Lynn Westmoreland: Stupid Politician

2008-09-06T19:54:00.004-04:00

Stephen Colbert interviews Lynn Westmoreland, Representative from Georgia.

Wow.

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Atheism: A Proper Way to Govern

2008-08-30T19:58:00.002-04:00

Stephen Colbert interviews Lori Lippman Brown of The Secular Coalition of America. Great points are made. Comedy ensues.

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The Work of Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

2008-07-03T17:49:00.004-04:00

A response to Walter Benjamin's essay, in quotes:

…to create conditions which would make it possible to abolish capitalism itself.

The concepts which are introduced into the theory of art in what follows [are] useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art.

Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space; its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.

Technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself.

The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which has experienced.

: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.

By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.

…lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition which the obverse of contemporary crises and renewal of mankind.

We define the aura of [natural objects] as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be.

The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.

…what might be called a theology in the form of the idea of “pure” art, which not only denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject matter,

mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual… To ask for the authentic print makes no sense… Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.

Works of art are received and valued on different planes… the accent on cult value [and] the exhibition value of the work.

…did not expose it to his fellow men… it was meant for the spirits… an instrument of magic. … the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental.

Photographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acqure a hidden political significance.

[The viewer] feels challenged by [photographs] in a new way … Captions have become obligatory.

The directives which the captions give to those looking at pictures in illustrated magazines soon become even more explicit and more imperative in the film where the meaning of each single picture appears to be prescribed by the sequence of all the preceding ones.

… whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art…

“do not all the bold descriptions we have given amount to the definition of prayer?”

the audience’s identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera … this is not the approach to which cult values may be exposed.

Art has left the realm of “beautiful semblance” which, so far, had been taken to be the only sphere where art could thrive.

The “spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity.

The equipment-free aspect of reality here has become the height of artifice; the sight of immediate reality has become an orchid in the land of technology.

…thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art.

The progressive reaction is characterized by the direct, intimate fusion of visual and emotional enjoyment with the origination of the expert … the same public that responds in a progressive manner toward a grotesque film is bound to respond in a reactionary manner to surrealism.

Made analyzable things which had heretofore floated along unnoticed in the broad stream of perception. For the entire spectrum of optical, and now also acoustical, perception the film has brought about a similar deepening of apperception (the state or fact of the mind in being conscious of its own consciousness).

An unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man,

The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.

The creation of a demand which could be fully satisfied only later.

The Dadaists attached much less importance to the sales value of their work than to its usefulness for contemplative immersion. … what they intended and achieved was a relentless destruction of the aura of their creations, which they branded as reproductions with the very means of production.

Contemplation became a school of asocial behavior.

My thoughts have been replaced by moving images.

A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. … In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art.

For the tasks which face the human apparatus of perception at the turning points of history cannot be solved by optical means, that is, by contemplation alone. They are mastered gradually by habit, under the guidance of tactile appropriation.

The ability to master certain tasks in a state of distraction proves that [the mass’s] solution has a become a matter of habit. Distraction as provided by art presents a covert control of the extent to which new tasks have become soluble by apperception.

Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds in the film true means of exercise.

The masses have a right to change property relations; fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property.

Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system.

Through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way,

Communism responds by politicizing art.

The New Normal at Artists Space

2008-06-23T17:39:00.004-04:00

“The New Normal” is a descriptive paradigm given to us by Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney, and refers to our post-9/11 culture in which privacy has become a quaint fantasy. The phrase has been appropriated for this tech-savvy 13-piece traveling exhibition, which finds its inspiration in the wire-tapping, luggage-searching, internet-monitoring frenzy.

The exhibit – clever, bold and engaging – features Dick Cheney himself as a sort of ironic centerpiece. Jennifer and Kevin McCoy re-stage the list of requirements that the Vice-President mandates of all hotels he visits, resulting in a deadpan installation made of a king-size bed, Fox News on TV, today’s New York Post, etc. Other works also deal with a Patriot-Act-inspired sense of disseminated information: Six CIA Officers Wanted in Connection with the Abduction of Abu Omar pictures photocopied passport IDs of these six men, which were obtained from hotels in which they stayed. Artist Trevor Paglen seems to echo the idea that publicizing private information cuts both ways.

Kota Ezawa has fun with his source material in a more jestful manner. He has digitally animated the infamously available home-video footage of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, resulting in a playful cartoon that remains incisive due to its subtext: why do we partake in such juvenile consumption? Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher, also bringing an air of joy to the foreboding issue of ubiquitous surveillance, address privacy through the personal by asking online communities to send in unaltered images of the space underneath their beds.

The New Normal ranges from the overtly political (Eyebeam R&D lets you track your neighbor’s campaign contributions) to the resolutely poetic (Mohamed Camera’s video of breezy curtains that demarcate public from private). At its most simple, the show may be its most effective: Thomson & Craighead’s Beacon rhythmically displays real-time anonymous web searches:

“numb toes”
“self identity advertising”
“teen movies”
“why dogs dig”

A poignant idea, artfully made: the private is public, for better or worse.

Gun Control

2008-05-14T20:09:00.001-04:00

Stephen Colbert interviews Paul Helmke of The Brady Campaign, a gun safety lobby.

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Katy Grannan – "The Westerns"

2008-01-10T17:54:00.006-05:00

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January 9-Febuary 16, 2008

Few artists can attain the sort of success that entails two simultaneous New York gallery shows, complete with three successive advertisements in January's Art Forum, the third being for her concurrent show at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. Greenberg Van Doren and Salon 94 are helping Katy Grannan do just that, with her recent body of work, " The Westerns."

The title refers to Grannan's 2002 move from the east coast – where she exploded out of Yale in 1999 – to the frontier of the west, as it were. The work consists primarily of two succinct profiles. At Greenberg Van Doren Gallery uptown is a series that focuses on a woman named Nicole, whom Grannan has followed for two years. This series is entitled "Another Woman Who Died in Her Sleep," though no photographs depict a death. Downtown at Salon 94 is the Gail and Dale series.

Katy Grannan continues in the methodology she has become known for, displaying stark 40"x50" C-print portraits of raw, ambiguous human emotion. Her oeuvre developed through the process of placing classified ads for models in small town papers, shooting real, anonymous people in their homes, then moving the process into the woods, and now out to the west coast. These two specific series are the first in which the artist has followed a specific subject over a lengthy period; the time-endured relationship pays off in the work, which shows a range of despair, ennui and volatility.

Sexuality and form are ever-present here. Grannan confronts the body without exploiting it, offering a hand at intimacy, but staying strangely away. I do not feel like I know or understand these people. Their bodies seem intentionally awkward and contorted and their gazes are never alluring, but occasionally mesmerizing. Nicole, one can imagine, is on a constant verge of a breakdown, if not well into one. Her outfits settle at odds with her body, often revealing her crotch and breasts, which suggest a fragile, available sexuality. Gail and Dale, two middle aged transsexual best friends, seem to inhabit a specifically off-putting sense of femininity. It all feels weirdly macabre and decidedly un-sexy. The aim seems that one would be drawn into these strange lives, into their broken dreams, into their eerie self-obsession. I do not feel drawn in.

The work is technically perfect, of course. Most photography on sale in the $10,000 - $30,000 range is, if not all. The framing and presentation is fittingly sterile and modern; it complements Grannon's formalist veneer. There remains in her work a strong feeling of construction, in the narrative air of Gregory Crewdson, under whom she studied while receiving her MFA at Yale. None of the work feels spontaneous. Rather, the poses seem rehearsed, almost performed. This hurts the feeling of intimacy many of us crave when looking at the portrait of another person. And on the this formal and technical level, I want more: more parallel lines, more control of the entire mise-en-scene.

As a collection of work, "The Westerns" succeeds in showing us a deliberate discomfort in the warmth of Californian rays. It's a jarring union of place and subject; one that the world needs to offset the abundance of the media-induced lies of the Hollywood dream. Politically speaking, there is a combustible spark within this personal study. In terms of decoration and aesthetics, though, it caters to a very specific taste. The pictures are hardly pretty, despite the concise glossiness. It thus becomes an issue of taste, which always seems to pop up these days when taking art. With her overt and uncanny awkwardness, what does it mean that Katy Grannan is currently on top of the art world?

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing

2008-01-01T02:11:00.002-05:00

This quote from German theologian/philosopher Meister Eckhart complicates the task of blogging, since, indeed, nothing written can resound as loudly, can speak so truthfully, as that which is left alone, unwritten.

Or perhaps this profound idea is simply a clever excuse to not do anything tangible or substantive in this world. Indeed, I have used it as such. Until now. Thus, I affirm this to begin my adventure into writing with the intention of public consumption and contemplation.