Saturday, March 15, 2003
Patty:
That's right, it's St. Patrick's Weekend and the drinkfestivities have already begun to flow. The authorities dyed the Chicago River green this morning, and green will it stay for the next couple days. Share your tales of alcohol and the hum of human gatherings here (once haloscan finishes their tinkering).
Kyle made us all pancakes this morning, of the plain AND crushed-ThinMint varities, and he and I even finished up the awful red wine that was popped open last night.
Enjoy with safety.
That's right, it's St. Patrick's Weekend and the drinkfestivities have already begun to flow. The authorities dyed the Chicago River green this morning, and green will it stay for the next couple days. Share your tales of alcohol and the hum of human gatherings here (once haloscan finishes their tinkering).
Kyle made us all pancakes this morning, of the plain AND crushed-ThinMint varities, and he and I even finished up the awful red wine that was popped open last night.
Enjoy with safety.
Friday, March 14, 2003
Bowling/Re-Redux:
In light of further, and more extensive, feedback from Flynn, I feel compelled to say what it was that I did and did not like about Bowling for Columbine.
1) Moore's ability to get people, even sure-handed celebrities/professional actors, to balk and capture it on camera is almost second-to-none. It's amusing, it's brutal, and it's often the most revelatory technique: if people are made to look ridiculous, we all suddenly focus on a truth sharply. While he may stack the chips totally for the benifit of his argument, such is his right and logic to do so, seeing as how he's filming an essay (that is coincidentally entertaining)
2) I disagree that Moore's only motivation to make this film was to sell tickets, although that is a classic hypocritical by-product of most art that is critical of of the means which makes its wide dissemination possible. Agree with him or not, he is convincingly passionate about laying bare what he lays bare, and much of it is hard to overlook or write-off. Here, Moore is not exactly taking on consumerism persay, rather he is questioning the strange American affinity for guns and no one, not even he, can seem to find an answer.
3) His weakness is precisely what he chooses NOT to show. He has a remarkable nose for the most visceral and extreme visual examples, but relies on their weight too much. His concessions to the flipside of his argument lie mostly in his own smug sarcasm, and the fact that he himself was an award-winning rifle-shooter as a young child. He is usually candid about everything he says, but doesn't necissarily say everything about every issue he judges with a jumpcut.
4) His ability as a documentary maker is fantastic, just for the art's sake. When you can put-on-pause an argument you cannot stand and admire his manipulation of the medium in all its channels of communication: image, text, music, sound, montage, then it really is something brilliant.
5) I think that Moore and I (and most lucid people) agree that it isn't always the "other side" of an issue like gun control that is the "enemy" as much as is old-fashioned, disturbing stupidity. He is careful to make people look ridiculous on a case by case basis, not just "white people," though that is the general demographic he targets. He points out flaws in the system for what they are, and pokes at them with a dry-but-bitter humor. The difference between you and Moore might be that the means to amend the damage of instituionalized stupidity are more lefty or more righty (or neither), but it is hard to deny tha stupidity in all its glory is responsible for a lot of our problems.
6) In the end, you don't HAVE to leave Bowling for Columbine with a need to run to the drugstore for posterboards and markers to make gun-control protest signs, you don't even have to feel like you need to self-revoke your NRA license, but you will have been asked the question that Moore asks so many of his interviewees: every other country that has violent media, that has millions of guns (canada), that share the control conditions of the American experiment does not have nearly as many murders proportionally as America, why is this so? It's disturbing, and it's your choice whether or not to care. Heston's on-camera fudged response to the question was embarrasingly semi-racist, but mostly it was uninformed, and underthought. Clearly, some people just do not think enough. The answer doesn't have to be "join us, the liberals" but the film just about forces you to at least think, lest you be made to look ridiculous. I think that is a good effect, even if it seems kinda creepy. But it's not Moore who's making the rules, it's stone logic. Logic is our default God.
7) there's something more, but I can't get it to articulation (not that any of this is articulate anyway) right now....
In light of further, and more extensive, feedback from Flynn, I feel compelled to say what it was that I did and did not like about Bowling for Columbine.
1) Moore's ability to get people, even sure-handed celebrities/professional actors, to balk and capture it on camera is almost second-to-none. It's amusing, it's brutal, and it's often the most revelatory technique: if people are made to look ridiculous, we all suddenly focus on a truth sharply. While he may stack the chips totally for the benifit of his argument, such is his right and logic to do so, seeing as how he's filming an essay (that is coincidentally entertaining)
2) I disagree that Moore's only motivation to make this film was to sell tickets, although that is a classic hypocritical by-product of most art that is critical of of the means which makes its wide dissemination possible. Agree with him or not, he is convincingly passionate about laying bare what he lays bare, and much of it is hard to overlook or write-off. Here, Moore is not exactly taking on consumerism persay, rather he is questioning the strange American affinity for guns and no one, not even he, can seem to find an answer.
3) His weakness is precisely what he chooses NOT to show. He has a remarkable nose for the most visceral and extreme visual examples, but relies on their weight too much. His concessions to the flipside of his argument lie mostly in his own smug sarcasm, and the fact that he himself was an award-winning rifle-shooter as a young child. He is usually candid about everything he says, but doesn't necissarily say everything about every issue he judges with a jumpcut.
4) His ability as a documentary maker is fantastic, just for the art's sake. When you can put-on-pause an argument you cannot stand and admire his manipulation of the medium in all its channels of communication: image, text, music, sound, montage, then it really is something brilliant.
5) I think that Moore and I (and most lucid people) agree that it isn't always the "other side" of an issue like gun control that is the "enemy" as much as is old-fashioned, disturbing stupidity. He is careful to make people look ridiculous on a case by case basis, not just "white people," though that is the general demographic he targets. He points out flaws in the system for what they are, and pokes at them with a dry-but-bitter humor. The difference between you and Moore might be that the means to amend the damage of instituionalized stupidity are more lefty or more righty (or neither), but it is hard to deny tha stupidity in all its glory is responsible for a lot of our problems.
6) In the end, you don't HAVE to leave Bowling for Columbine with a need to run to the drugstore for posterboards and markers to make gun-control protest signs, you don't even have to feel like you need to self-revoke your NRA license, but you will have been asked the question that Moore asks so many of his interviewees: every other country that has violent media, that has millions of guns (canada), that share the control conditions of the American experiment does not have nearly as many murders proportionally as America, why is this so? It's disturbing, and it's your choice whether or not to care. Heston's on-camera fudged response to the question was embarrasingly semi-racist, but mostly it was uninformed, and underthought. Clearly, some people just do not think enough. The answer doesn't have to be "join us, the liberals" but the film just about forces you to at least think, lest you be made to look ridiculous. I think that is a good effect, even if it seems kinda creepy. But it's not Moore who's making the rules, it's stone logic. Logic is our default God.
7) there's something more, but I can't get it to articulation (not that any of this is articulate anyway) right now....
Gerry/ Bowling For Columbine: Redux:
An adjustment vis-a-vis Flynn's astute comment:
ABout the last part about capitalism requiring us to have a father figure -- I disagree. This impulse has been with humans since the Hebrews and Babylonians; all capitalism is is a greater attempt at making gathering resources and producing goods based more efficient based on the meritocracy of early imperial China and the Enlightenment, with a dash of feudalism, humanism, and the human impulse of competition
All history considered, I think I was pondering contemporary capitalism in all its media-soaked sheen more than anything, and Moore's film last night helped me clarify what I was perhaps clumisly stumbling upon: part of his commentary is (and I agree) that the coverage of "news" by the media scares Americans with "imminent mortality" : AIDS, African killer bees, any given shooting in southcentral L.A., "blanket alerts" from the federal government, escalators are some of his pregnant examples. Commercials, points out Marylin Manson during one revealing interview in the film, then provide the safety/reassurance for sale (and, perhaps hence why so many Americans are so gun happy/trigger happy).
So, in the Blair Witch Project, we are both relieved that there is "something, some force" out there away from civilization, be it benevolent or homicidal, AND simultaneously thrilled/assuaged by the pseudoreality, thankful that the fucked-up forces in the woods are not "real" (even if subconsciously we need them to be). So, to attempt to sum up this spirituality, most people aren't willing to admit to a need for GOD/father figure, but they will pay to have it implicitly experienced (ie buying the ticket/dvd/poster). In Gerry, a blatant fiction, more reality is unloaded: the realities of time, of dialogue, of thirst, of clinging together, of much visually readable psychology. Biology in cruel conditions is presented, forcing speculation inwards, rather than onto some larger-than-life spirit. In Blair Witch, it always seems that plot/"the creepy forces" are leading the group astray; in Gerry, there is no plot/God, and the two characters lead themselves astray. So the real horror is the simple, classic game of "who wants to hold fate?" For the irresponisible, the weak-willed, the emotionally underdeveloped, the shallow human, the inviting path of least resistance is to delegate responsibility onto the Father Figure, as opposed to those trying to abide my Socrates' "know thyself"/"I only know that I don't know" example that requires constant self-examination of one's own behavior and affect on other humans or those with a "fuck it all, it's relative"-existential bent.
Ultimately, I think my thoroughly muddled point is that plot = father figure, that the two share some vital characteristics/ affects. More and more, I see that I love art that is plotless and driven by instinct, improvisation, and truth. Another good recent example of a film unruled by plot, that just happens organically, is Almodovar's Habla Con Ella which everyone should try and see. With much more thought, I think the half-formed trails begun in some of these recent posts might lead to a larger, cogent idea/thesis, though I don't know what I'll do with it.
An adjustment vis-a-vis Flynn's astute comment:
ABout the last part about capitalism requiring us to have a father figure -- I disagree. This impulse has been with humans since the Hebrews and Babylonians; all capitalism is is a greater attempt at making gathering resources and producing goods based more efficient based on the meritocracy of early imperial China and the Enlightenment, with a dash of feudalism, humanism, and the human impulse of competition
All history considered, I think I was pondering contemporary capitalism in all its media-soaked sheen more than anything, and Moore's film last night helped me clarify what I was perhaps clumisly stumbling upon: part of his commentary is (and I agree) that the coverage of "news" by the media scares Americans with "imminent mortality" : AIDS, African killer bees, any given shooting in southcentral L.A., "blanket alerts" from the federal government, escalators are some of his pregnant examples. Commercials, points out Marylin Manson during one revealing interview in the film, then provide the safety/reassurance for sale (and, perhaps hence why so many Americans are so gun happy/trigger happy).
So, in the Blair Witch Project, we are both relieved that there is "something, some force" out there away from civilization, be it benevolent or homicidal, AND simultaneously thrilled/assuaged by the pseudoreality, thankful that the fucked-up forces in the woods are not "real" (even if subconsciously we need them to be). So, to attempt to sum up this spirituality, most people aren't willing to admit to a need for GOD/father figure, but they will pay to have it implicitly experienced (ie buying the ticket/dvd/poster). In Gerry, a blatant fiction, more reality is unloaded: the realities of time, of dialogue, of thirst, of clinging together, of much visually readable psychology. Biology in cruel conditions is presented, forcing speculation inwards, rather than onto some larger-than-life spirit. In Blair Witch, it always seems that plot/"the creepy forces" are leading the group astray; in Gerry, there is no plot/God, and the two characters lead themselves astray. So the real horror is the simple, classic game of "who wants to hold fate?" For the irresponisible, the weak-willed, the emotionally underdeveloped, the shallow human, the inviting path of least resistance is to delegate responsibility onto the Father Figure, as opposed to those trying to abide my Socrates' "know thyself"/"I only know that I don't know" example that requires constant self-examination of one's own behavior and affect on other humans or those with a "fuck it all, it's relative"-existential bent.
Ultimately, I think my thoroughly muddled point is that plot = father figure, that the two share some vital characteristics/ affects. More and more, I see that I love art that is plotless and driven by instinct, improvisation, and truth. Another good recent example of a film unruled by plot, that just happens organically, is Almodovar's Habla Con Ella which everyone should try and see. With much more thought, I think the half-formed trails begun in some of these recent posts might lead to a larger, cogent idea/thesis, though I don't know what I'll do with it.
New Favorite Poet:
try and obtain something by Dean Young and read it. Here's a start, one of the poems from his book Strike Anywhere I'm borrowing from Carlo Tee-hop. It's typical of his sensical non-sequitor style: highly imaginative, dead humorous, and always following a new logic.
Here's another highlight, from his poem "Poem In Which Everyone Survives"
.....................................................I love
how sentences, like lives, can follow their own
glittering vein into the mountainside like
that moment when the keys are tossed between
us, suspended, and the moment after when one of us
is gone until Steve, who I haven't seen in years,
suddenly calls, who I suddenly got to New Orleans with
the day after Mardis Gras, 1975, masks blowing
down the street like fragments of Sappho, my wrist
in a cast, driving all night, whose girlfriend I
didn't sleep with even after they broke up and
she came up behind me and kissed my ear while
I watched a wasp crashing against the window, drunk,
and aren't we all crashing against the invisible
but do we want in or out? Whack. Whack...
It's sort of improvisational, even surreal, but grounded in pain. It reminds me of Denis Johnson.
try and obtain something by Dean Young and read it. Here's a start, one of the poems from his book Strike Anywhere I'm borrowing from Carlo Tee-hop. It's typical of his sensical non-sequitor style: highly imaginative, dead humorous, and always following a new logic.
Here's another highlight, from his poem "Poem In Which Everyone Survives"
.....................................................I love
how sentences, like lives, can follow their own
glittering vein into the mountainside like
that moment when the keys are tossed between
us, suspended, and the moment after when one of us
is gone until Steve, who I haven't seen in years,
suddenly calls, who I suddenly got to New Orleans with
the day after Mardis Gras, 1975, masks blowing
down the street like fragments of Sappho, my wrist
in a cast, driving all night, whose girlfriend I
didn't sleep with even after they broke up and
she came up behind me and kissed my ear while
I watched a wasp crashing against the window, drunk,
and aren't we all crashing against the invisible
but do we want in or out? Whack. Whack...
It's sort of improvisational, even surreal, but grounded in pain. It reminds me of Denis Johnson.
drummist:
...at one intermission, after they had played a fast number on which their present drummer couldn't keep up, Lou Donaldson told Mingus, "I've got my hometown buddy here. I'll bet he'll make those fast tempos." He introduced Mingus to Dannie, and Mingus, noting his careful grooming and nice clothes, was skeptical. Dannie sat in for several numbers. On the first number, an uptempo "Chreokee," he had very little trouble. Mingus says he could tell Dannie was a good musician and just needed more work. Dannie joined the workshop later that winter when the regular drummer left. Mingus believes the drummer is the most important member of the group and says he'd rather have no drummer at all if Dannie weren't available. "He's a musician, not just a timekeeper, one of the most versatile and creative drummers I've ever heard."
-- Diane Dorr-Dorynek, Liner Notes to Mingus Ah Um, 1959
...at one intermission, after they had played a fast number on which their present drummer couldn't keep up, Lou Donaldson told Mingus, "I've got my hometown buddy here. I'll bet he'll make those fast tempos." He introduced Mingus to Dannie, and Mingus, noting his careful grooming and nice clothes, was skeptical. Dannie sat in for several numbers. On the first number, an uptempo "Chreokee," he had very little trouble. Mingus says he could tell Dannie was a good musician and just needed more work. Dannie joined the workshop later that winter when the regular drummer left. Mingus believes the drummer is the most important member of the group and says he'd rather have no drummer at all if Dannie weren't available. "He's a musician, not just a timekeeper, one of the most versatile and creative drummers I've ever heard."
-- Diane Dorr-Dorynek, Liner Notes to Mingus Ah Um, 1959
The Day in Briefs (Actually, I wore snowman boxers):
1) slept in only to realize I wanted to get out to a theater on Oak Street (requiring formal transit) for a 11:10am showing of a movie
2) rushed a hot shower
3)had Cheerios w/sugar and OJ
4)rushed to catch all but the first 5 minutes of Russian Ark, a fascinating bit of creative non-fiction experi-documentary filmmaking: it's a tour through St. Petersburg's Hermitage Gallery that travels back in time in segments before the Revolution of 1917 highlighting the opulance/decadence of the Tsar culture. What was interesting about the film is that it unfolds from a first-person camera point of view, and it unfolds completely as one long take: NO CUTS!!. Yes, it's a full hour and a half feature that has absolutely NO CUTS. And there are hundreds of extras, period costumes/sets, and lots of dialogue. Obviously, it was filmed in one day (by a no-doubt jittery but iron-enduranced Steadicam operator) but months of choreographical rehearsal were required to get it all down. Interesting concept, great sets and whatnot.
5)Lunch at Su Casa, a Zagat's rated Mexican place. Enchiladas, very good.
6)walked all the fuck over the Navy Pier area of Chicago on a bitter windy day, although reports claim that 50s and 60s are possible tomorrow and through the weekend! Good excercise.
7) Feeling week from the walk, I wander into a "yuppie gourmet" store that is actually not too pricey and very enticing. I was fascinated with their assortments of rare/specialty sodas from around the nation. I bought a $2 bottle of "Bitter Lemon Soda" which I cannot wait to taste.
8) Reetu and I meet after she is done with work; share a pint at an Irish pub were I waste money on a jukebox for songs I never hear (Police, Weezer, Beck)
9) Reetu and I catch Moore's Bowling for Columbine, which I find to be mostly affecting, powerful, and entertaining, too. Even if I dont' agree with Moore on all his tactics, they are undoubtedly convincing, and also very artistic without pretention. Plenty of "did they just say that" moments, most noteably from Charleton Heston. More thoughts later, must sleep.
10) Dinner with Kyle and Julie and Reetu at the famous Gino's East Pizza for "authentic" deep dish, which is REALLY deep (and filling). mmmmm
1) slept in only to realize I wanted to get out to a theater on Oak Street (requiring formal transit) for a 11:10am showing of a movie
2) rushed a hot shower
3)had Cheerios w/sugar and OJ
4)rushed to catch all but the first 5 minutes of Russian Ark, a fascinating bit of creative non-fiction experi-documentary filmmaking: it's a tour through St. Petersburg's Hermitage Gallery that travels back in time in segments before the Revolution of 1917 highlighting the opulance/decadence of the Tsar culture. What was interesting about the film is that it unfolds from a first-person camera point of view, and it unfolds completely as one long take: NO CUTS!!. Yes, it's a full hour and a half feature that has absolutely NO CUTS. And there are hundreds of extras, period costumes/sets, and lots of dialogue. Obviously, it was filmed in one day (by a no-doubt jittery but iron-enduranced Steadicam operator) but months of choreographical rehearsal were required to get it all down. Interesting concept, great sets and whatnot.
5)Lunch at Su Casa, a Zagat's rated Mexican place. Enchiladas, very good.
6)walked all the fuck over the Navy Pier area of Chicago on a bitter windy day, although reports claim that 50s and 60s are possible tomorrow and through the weekend! Good excercise.
7) Feeling week from the walk, I wander into a "yuppie gourmet" store that is actually not too pricey and very enticing. I was fascinated with their assortments of rare/specialty sodas from around the nation. I bought a $2 bottle of "Bitter Lemon Soda" which I cannot wait to taste.
8) Reetu and I meet after she is done with work; share a pint at an Irish pub were I waste money on a jukebox for songs I never hear (Police, Weezer, Beck)
9) Reetu and I catch Moore's Bowling for Columbine, which I find to be mostly affecting, powerful, and entertaining, too. Even if I dont' agree with Moore on all his tactics, they are undoubtedly convincing, and also very artistic without pretention. Plenty of "did they just say that" moments, most noteably from Charleton Heston. More thoughts later, must sleep.
10) Dinner with Kyle and Julie and Reetu at the famous Gino's East Pizza for "authentic" deep dish, which is REALLY deep (and filling). mmmmm
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Gerry:
So, the film I saw this afternoon was called Gerry, I think for two reasons: 1) one of the character's (Matt Damon's) name is Jerry, 2) it's part of the lingo that the two characters have, and refers to a "mistaken detour."
What can I say...um, it's a really, really experimental film. It's all set in the southwest American desert (i'm guessing), and there are some really really really long takes. It's been called a highly existential film (by Ebert, I think, and others), and I think that is correct. So, nothing new is being pioneered here, intellectually, but I think a lot of daring things are done artistically, and I was intriqued for the entire film, despite certain shots that I'm sure lasted at least 10 minutes and showed nothing but the two actors walking away from the camera as it followed them in a stark desert at near-dawn. Yes, ten minutes.
So I say experimental because of the long takes, but the whole feel/experience of it mostly. There is no plot, really. THey just get lost in the desert. There's barely any dialogue, and it's mostly improvisational. Some of it seems planned, like an oblique, fireside talk about the computer game Civilization, but it unfolds so naturally that it doesnt seem unlikely at all, despite civilization being a key word here (and the name of the game isnt mentioned, i'm just guessing that's the one they discuss). It's so...spare, but somehow it still kept me watching comfortably. It wasn't a struggle to keep attention, like some Godard films, but it was just as challenging at times.
Van Sant claims he was kinda of going for a Cassavettes type movie, but with some modifications. He has some great, and some pretentious, things to say in a good Onion Article from last week.
This review is coming out jumbled, I know, because I'm having an IM conversation that I shouldn't be having. Sorry.
Anyway, Casey Affleck and Damon are the film's only humans (save for two brief shots), and are dwarved by the canyons, arroyos, and crumbling earth around them. One point came hard and fast to me, a realization, and it is this: in a more commercial/less artistic "survivor" type film, people get lost in nature and you're waiting for them to find something, or for something to find them (see Blair Witch), some sort of "power" amounting to the presence of GOD or something; in Van Sant's riskier, uncompromising movie, there is no GOD, nothing to find, no music, no melodrama, no drama, just wind and the crunch of walking, and time time time. Commercially, Gerry will not sell to a wide audience BECAUSE of this existential silence, of nothing happening...essentially of NO PLOT. Commercially, a more compromised film REQUIRES that GOD presence. So, the idea is that perhaps capitalism (i'm not saying good or bad here) is founded upon the masses need for a father figure, a parental reassurance. This is nothing new, I'm sure I'm channelling Nietzsche and Stephan Crane's poems and Bergman and others...but oh well.
On time: the film's pace and effective camera-presence bring you into the environment with the lost friends, and you feel their time. You fill in their thirst. There are no scenes of desperate crying or clawing for water because you can feel the length they've been out there. It only takes subtle gestures or expressions to understand. The film never feels desperate, even when the duo are at their lowest point. YOU feel the desperation, but the enormous scenery is silent and uncaring as ever. It's like a Robert Frost poem set in Utah. The dialogue is so sparse, so realistic.
I gotta stop, maybe I'll come back with a fresher mind.
So, the film I saw this afternoon was called Gerry, I think for two reasons: 1) one of the character's (Matt Damon's) name is Jerry, 2) it's part of the lingo that the two characters have, and refers to a "mistaken detour."
What can I say...um, it's a really, really experimental film. It's all set in the southwest American desert (i'm guessing), and there are some really really really long takes. It's been called a highly existential film (by Ebert, I think, and others), and I think that is correct. So, nothing new is being pioneered here, intellectually, but I think a lot of daring things are done artistically, and I was intriqued for the entire film, despite certain shots that I'm sure lasted at least 10 minutes and showed nothing but the two actors walking away from the camera as it followed them in a stark desert at near-dawn. Yes, ten minutes.
So I say experimental because of the long takes, but the whole feel/experience of it mostly. There is no plot, really. THey just get lost in the desert. There's barely any dialogue, and it's mostly improvisational. Some of it seems planned, like an oblique, fireside talk about the computer game Civilization, but it unfolds so naturally that it doesnt seem unlikely at all, despite civilization being a key word here (and the name of the game isnt mentioned, i'm just guessing that's the one they discuss). It's so...spare, but somehow it still kept me watching comfortably. It wasn't a struggle to keep attention, like some Godard films, but it was just as challenging at times.
Van Sant claims he was kinda of going for a Cassavettes type movie, but with some modifications. He has some great, and some pretentious, things to say in a good Onion Article from last week.
This review is coming out jumbled, I know, because I'm having an IM conversation that I shouldn't be having. Sorry.
Anyway, Casey Affleck and Damon are the film's only humans (save for two brief shots), and are dwarved by the canyons, arroyos, and crumbling earth around them. One point came hard and fast to me, a realization, and it is this: in a more commercial/less artistic "survivor" type film, people get lost in nature and you're waiting for them to find something, or for something to find them (see Blair Witch), some sort of "power" amounting to the presence of GOD or something; in Van Sant's riskier, uncompromising movie, there is no GOD, nothing to find, no music, no melodrama, no drama, just wind and the crunch of walking, and time time time. Commercially, Gerry will not sell to a wide audience BECAUSE of this existential silence, of nothing happening...essentially of NO PLOT. Commercially, a more compromised film REQUIRES that GOD presence. So, the idea is that perhaps capitalism (i'm not saying good or bad here) is founded upon the masses need for a father figure, a parental reassurance. This is nothing new, I'm sure I'm channelling Nietzsche and Stephan Crane's poems and Bergman and others...but oh well.
On time: the film's pace and effective camera-presence bring you into the environment with the lost friends, and you feel their time. You fill in their thirst. There are no scenes of desperate crying or clawing for water because you can feel the length they've been out there. It only takes subtle gestures or expressions to understand. The film never feels desperate, even when the duo are at their lowest point. YOU feel the desperation, but the enormous scenery is silent and uncaring as ever. It's like a Robert Frost poem set in Utah. The dialogue is so sparse, so realistic.
I gotta stop, maybe I'll come back with a fresher mind.
Encouragement:
On our second full date, Chicago and I did not fail to evolve as fast friends with potential for more. I slept in later today, needing rest, and headed out on foot to explore Clark St. on the way to a screening of the new Gus Van Sant film at 2:30. I found a large, tasty ham/cheese/egg on a roll at a place called The Billy Goat Diner and Bar, and then was absorbed for at least an hour in the kitschy-hipster merchandise of a store called Strange Cargo: picture any vintage clothing/"garbage" type store and then try an idealize it and you might get this place. It was genuinely amazing. They have an entire wall covered with iron-on images from the mid-70s to the late 90s (Kiss, Dallas characters, Foreigner, Star Wars, Fara Fawcett, Simpsons, various American shit-beer labels, and my own purchase, JOURNEY!), and you can choose from a varied array of different styles and colors of tshirts (ringers, baseball tees, baby dolls, regulars...) and have them iron it on IN the store. Good prices, too. So, yes, I am the proud owner of a white-and-blue longsleeve baseball tshirt with a rockin' JOURNEY image on the front (featuring all five members of the band in rocker poses).
I also picked up a vintage Bowie poster, though I'm unsure of which Bowie-era it's from. Mid-70s, I think...They also had a Dead Kennedy's and a Simpson's poster that were tempting. Oh yeah, and I bought two pairs of white tube socks with stripes at the top for $1 each. Ah, the retail possibilites of 80s-youth memory. I'm a willing sucker.
OOh, and I finally found an un-pretentious, affordable shoulder-slung "messenger" bag in a nice brown color, so I can carry my books and grade book around in trendy style. Yay!
On I went next to the film, which I will review later/above.
The theater is in an interesting shopping complex called the Landmark's Century Center. It's like a diluted mall: very small, but with all top-name stores. I was weak and bought some stuff from Express Men's (an expensive habit I usually eschew), and for a moment considered getting a small "executive" cd-player (the kind with wood speakers) since it was on decent sale and I haven't had a cd-player (other than my computer) for years. It passed, though.
Stopped at a used book/record store fancifully titled Record and Book and picked up some cheap rare poetry volumes from Richard Hugo and Galway Kinnell, plus a squat, prim copy of Neruda's Nobel Lecture (I started reading it and it floored me like all his poetry does).
So while I'm not cringing in guilt, I've definitely made up for the money I "saved" by not flying out here. Oh well, what good is life without fabulous ties and poetry?
Today's pleasant foot-travel and spending for stuff really pushes me closer to the choice of "city life." But a choice it remains unmaid.
On our second full date, Chicago and I did not fail to evolve as fast friends with potential for more. I slept in later today, needing rest, and headed out on foot to explore Clark St. on the way to a screening of the new Gus Van Sant film at 2:30. I found a large, tasty ham/cheese/egg on a roll at a place called The Billy Goat Diner and Bar, and then was absorbed for at least an hour in the kitschy-hipster merchandise of a store called Strange Cargo: picture any vintage clothing/"garbage" type store and then try an idealize it and you might get this place. It was genuinely amazing. They have an entire wall covered with iron-on images from the mid-70s to the late 90s (Kiss, Dallas characters, Foreigner, Star Wars, Fara Fawcett, Simpsons, various American shit-beer labels, and my own purchase, JOURNEY!), and you can choose from a varied array of different styles and colors of tshirts (ringers, baseball tees, baby dolls, regulars...) and have them iron it on IN the store. Good prices, too. So, yes, I am the proud owner of a white-and-blue longsleeve baseball tshirt with a rockin' JOURNEY image on the front (featuring all five members of the band in rocker poses).
I also picked up a vintage Bowie poster, though I'm unsure of which Bowie-era it's from. Mid-70s, I think...They also had a Dead Kennedy's and a Simpson's poster that were tempting. Oh yeah, and I bought two pairs of white tube socks with stripes at the top for $1 each. Ah, the retail possibilites of 80s-youth memory. I'm a willing sucker.
OOh, and I finally found an un-pretentious, affordable shoulder-slung "messenger" bag in a nice brown color, so I can carry my books and grade book around in trendy style. Yay!
On I went next to the film, which I will review later/above.
The theater is in an interesting shopping complex called the Landmark's Century Center. It's like a diluted mall: very small, but with all top-name stores. I was weak and bought some stuff from Express Men's (an expensive habit I usually eschew), and for a moment considered getting a small "executive" cd-player (the kind with wood speakers) since it was on decent sale and I haven't had a cd-player (other than my computer) for years. It passed, though.
Stopped at a used book/record store fancifully titled Record and Book and picked up some cheap rare poetry volumes from Richard Hugo and Galway Kinnell, plus a squat, prim copy of Neruda's Nobel Lecture (I started reading it and it floored me like all his poetry does).
So while I'm not cringing in guilt, I've definitely made up for the money I "saved" by not flying out here. Oh well, what good is life without fabulous ties and poetry?
Today's pleasant foot-travel and spending for stuff really pushes me closer to the choice of "city life." But a choice it remains unmaid.
Before We Forgot To Leave for the Cities
V.
The axis of a runaway teacher:
With that alacrity of men on television
Came the sudden thaw, so on the perpendicular slopes
Fed the white-tailed deer, gregarious or hungry,
Noses buried where the snow had reincarnated into the wildgrass.
Driving, I saw them and then words shed their skins for me
Too many to count, the new rhythm of America's breast,
Of Indiana highway and the true geography of relative baseball;
Where the carpet of this continent lays flat for farming and seeing.
Then rose Chicago like perfect eruption, the lake's blue neoned
by the luminescent gray of ice floe refracting the sent sun
Then rose extroversion and happy humming of egos and songs
Then came I to my friends with heart and sadness and beer
Finally, there was a modulation: a lifting from that fool's theme
from which are improvised the strum-ballads of the lonely tenor,
That mantra of loss that goes how could you not
Love me anymore,
To a key of distance abolished, where even the
Foulest stranger is harmonic with the human chord.
And I can never test my students from this new vocabulary of love,
because the text is being written between everyone without words.
V.
The axis of a runaway teacher:
With that alacrity of men on television
Came the sudden thaw, so on the perpendicular slopes
Fed the white-tailed deer, gregarious or hungry,
Noses buried where the snow had reincarnated into the wildgrass.
Driving, I saw them and then words shed their skins for me
Too many to count, the new rhythm of America's breast,
Of Indiana highway and the true geography of relative baseball;
Where the carpet of this continent lays flat for farming and seeing.
Then rose Chicago like perfect eruption, the lake's blue neoned
by the luminescent gray of ice floe refracting the sent sun
Then rose extroversion and happy humming of egos and songs
Then came I to my friends with heart and sadness and beer
Finally, there was a modulation: a lifting from that fool's theme
from which are improvised the strum-ballads of the lonely tenor,
That mantra of loss that goes how could you not
Love me anymore,
To a key of distance abolished, where even the
Foulest stranger is harmonic with the human chord.
And I can never test my students from this new vocabulary of love,
because the text is being written between everyone without words.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
The Pretties:
Spent the morning at the Chicago Art Institute among great painting. They have a surpisingly extenstive collection of Impressionists/Post-Impressionists. I actually liked almost all the Monet pieces they were displaying, especially the six "haystacks" and some of his foggy London paintings. I saw the second Caillebot painting of my life, which was stunning, but not as stunning as "The Refurbishers of the Parquet" that hangs in my room (a print, not the original).
I saw all the "biggies" : Picasso's blue guitarist, his "Nude Reclining Under a Pine Tree", Grant's "American Gothic," and, of course, Seurat's "A Sunday on the Grand Jatte" of Cameron Frye incremental-close-up identification-experience in FB's Day Off fame.
Every time I visit a gallery, I make sure and identify/remember the few paintings that hit me, and if any of these are available in poster-form in the gift shop, I but them. The Institute didn't have any of the paintings I really connected with: Kandinsky's "Improvisation (with Canons)," Van Gogh's "The Poet's Garden" or "The Drinkers," Manet's "Girl Reading," none of Monet's "Haystacks," and some others. So, I picked up the Seurat for my collection, which is most acceptable.
After meeting Reetu for lunch, I felt nap-needy and "L"ed back to the appt for rest, only stopping to get some groceries and some music from my car. I made dinner for Reetu and Julie, my infamous shepard's pie a l' Alita Guida (the main ingredient being my even more infamous fork-mashed potatoes (a good batch, too, I must say)).
Tonight, we head either to a local brewery, or to some place that advertised $5 sangria pitchers (which would take be back to the incredible last night in Madrid with Roper, Homey D, and Jordy at that underground lit. bar that only served amazingly pungent sangria). Yay for vacations, and Miss Bradfield has even mentioned the possibility of trekking up across the Mason-Dixon to stay with us this weekend, as well, which would be legendary.
Spent the morning at the Chicago Art Institute among great painting. They have a surpisingly extenstive collection of Impressionists/Post-Impressionists. I actually liked almost all the Monet pieces they were displaying, especially the six "haystacks" and some of his foggy London paintings. I saw the second Caillebot painting of my life, which was stunning, but not as stunning as "The Refurbishers of the Parquet" that hangs in my room (a print, not the original).
I saw all the "biggies" : Picasso's blue guitarist, his "Nude Reclining Under a Pine Tree", Grant's "American Gothic," and, of course, Seurat's "A Sunday on the Grand Jatte" of Cameron Frye incremental-close-up identification-experience in FB's Day Off fame.
Every time I visit a gallery, I make sure and identify/remember the few paintings that hit me, and if any of these are available in poster-form in the gift shop, I but them. The Institute didn't have any of the paintings I really connected with: Kandinsky's "Improvisation (with Canons)," Van Gogh's "The Poet's Garden" or "The Drinkers," Manet's "Girl Reading," none of Monet's "Haystacks," and some others. So, I picked up the Seurat for my collection, which is most acceptable.
After meeting Reetu for lunch, I felt nap-needy and "L"ed back to the appt for rest, only stopping to get some groceries and some music from my car. I made dinner for Reetu and Julie, my infamous shepard's pie a l' Alita Guida (the main ingredient being my even more infamous fork-mashed potatoes (a good batch, too, I must say)).
Tonight, we head either to a local brewery, or to some place that advertised $5 sangria pitchers (which would take be back to the incredible last night in Madrid with Roper, Homey D, and Jordy at that underground lit. bar that only served amazingly pungent sangria). Yay for vacations, and Miss Bradfield has even mentioned the possibility of trekking up across the Mason-Dixon to stay with us this weekend, as well, which would be legendary.
Show Me Reetu:
She's got quite a nice workplace, here. Reetu is one-of-three employees in the Goodman Theater 's Education Dept. She writes up study guides and leads workshops for schoolkids who come to see the company's shows through the season. It's a mammoth theater complex, and I got a mini-tour at intermission. I'm so happy she's doing so well in the theater-world, making contacts and learning. It makes sense.
Julie's job is equally interesting; she works at a Women's Shelter, dealing with women who have endured considerable domestic violence, writing reports on the failure of the court system to properly deal with shit, and generally helping to better society with her perky, determined self.
And, of course, Kyle is a bike messenger. I got to see him in full battle gear last night: ratty hoody, helmet, ripped soccer warm-ups, buckled satchel, cellphone clipped, unshaven (of course). He and Julie are an amorous, amusing couple that also make sense (I'm telling you, so much sense has been made since I've been here). It was good to see him, to see everyone. Many hugs and smiles around, and nothing wrong with that.
She's got quite a nice workplace, here. Reetu is one-of-three employees in the Goodman Theater 's Education Dept. She writes up study guides and leads workshops for schoolkids who come to see the company's shows through the season. It's a mammoth theater complex, and I got a mini-tour at intermission. I'm so happy she's doing so well in the theater-world, making contacts and learning. It makes sense.
Julie's job is equally interesting; she works at a Women's Shelter, dealing with women who have endured considerable domestic violence, writing reports on the failure of the court system to properly deal with shit, and generally helping to better society with her perky, determined self.
And, of course, Kyle is a bike messenger. I got to see him in full battle gear last night: ratty hoody, helmet, ripped soccer warm-ups, buckled satchel, cellphone clipped, unshaven (of course). He and Julie are an amorous, amusing couple that also make sense (I'm telling you, so much sense has been made since I've been here). It was good to see him, to see everyone. Many hugs and smiles around, and nothing wrong with that.
Long Drive and Thoughts:
I am perhaps too proud of my patience; I've been cultivating and tuning it/them for years. Yesterday, I made the longest single drive on record, for me, alone: 9 hours + from Brockport, NY to North Chicago (I got a little lost, missing the exit off of Lake Shore Drive). I made one extended stop at a rest station along Rte. 90 for Sbarro's spaghetti and meatballs (and then, only 10 minutes), but otherwise flew it straigth across the feet of the Great Lakes. And, so, I had plenty of time to cycle through the 40 odd cds that I brought, and let my thoughts wander where they would:
Item: Ohio is a long fucking bitch. It never ends.
Item: Small commuter-culture differences were evident. Nowhere I've driven in NYS do they urge you repeatedly before approaching a set of toll booths to "Check Your Brakes," but such is the custom in Ohio and Indiana. It's kind of insulting/patronizing. Are they trying to fool me? Like testing my car's equipment should be some fun role-playing game? Why not come right out and make a sign that says "Slow Down Motherfucker" or perhaps "We Would Not Like You to Plow Through Our Booths at Rapid Speeds So Depress Brakes Now." Indiana made up for this unsightly idiosyncracy with another, more amazing, one: for a few miles on 90, Indiana has erected sentinels that flash to alert drivers when "An Animal Is Near." There are what look like a pair of tennis ball tubes, facing away each other and most likely emiting a stream of laser-detectionage parallel to the ground. On top of all of this, they have solar panels for heads. Such things jar me from my lulling nystate-centricism.
Item:
Poem
Like a simile,
the lovers became.
Item: I will always need new music.
Item: [insert thick folds of turning, burntout once-love over and over: an attempt to figure out my desires, my convictions, my dignity, and my needy self, here]
Item: [insert convoluted, but occasionally (and now, sadly, ill-remembered) brilliant, insights about reactions, cognitive dissonance and the soul, happiness, and other behaviors here]
Item: Pace, pace, pace.
Item: I'm pretty sure that despite state-by-state tolls and semi-ridiculous gas prices, that I'm saving some small amount of money by NOT flying. Sure, flying would have been easier, but now I have free mobility, open-ended departure, and more storage room for stuff. Hey, I might just drive down to Tennessee from here, who knows? (double wink). Plus, I'm finally aware, because I felt its length firsthand, of the immensity of America. As Flynn correctly pointed out, this is my chance at shadowing Kerouac.
Item: Primary Goal for Break: decidee what I'm going to do next year, re: the School/Boston quandary; Secondary Goal for Break: my mouth and mind swimming in endless beer; Goal 3: read poetry, write poetry
Item: Typical mood over any 2 minute stretch: "Confidence, happy! // Sudden painful memory, clouds.// Wait, this song reminds me of sopmore year, yay! This song of Newell 5! Happy again! / Wait, no..."
Item: I have a slow leak in my rear, passenger side tire that needs to be checked everytime I stop for gas; I stop for gas anytime I pass a rest station and the guage is less than half full. Both of these activities have become immensely satisfying to me.
Item: I love meeting artists who are also interesting people (and are attractive girls, too)
Item: What am I going to do this summer?
Item: It's amazing how easily the right memory from Colgate can make me laugh aloud alone. I don't know if this is a sympton of depression or mania, but it's frequency has increased since my vacation began. I really feel tetherless and Begnini-like happiness. I'm psycho-giddy. (que-est que c'est?) (sp?): BlueJays tickets recounted in a poem, a Ben Folds solo song ("Not the Same"/"Rockin' the Suburbs"), throat rattle, 8 1/2, faces and whatnot parading...
Item: Big-building Chicago is stunning and easier to comprehend at once than New York. Lake Shore Drive is a gorgeous one. I could live here... (again, baseball team needs work, though)
This is scantily representative of what passed through the thinker on his Odyssey. More reactions to Chicago/shadowing forthcoming...
I am perhaps too proud of my patience; I've been cultivating and tuning it/them for years. Yesterday, I made the longest single drive on record, for me, alone: 9 hours + from Brockport, NY to North Chicago (I got a little lost, missing the exit off of Lake Shore Drive). I made one extended stop at a rest station along Rte. 90 for Sbarro's spaghetti and meatballs (and then, only 10 minutes), but otherwise flew it straigth across the feet of the Great Lakes. And, so, I had plenty of time to cycle through the 40 odd cds that I brought, and let my thoughts wander where they would:
Item: Ohio is a long fucking bitch. It never ends.
Item: Small commuter-culture differences were evident. Nowhere I've driven in NYS do they urge you repeatedly before approaching a set of toll booths to "Check Your Brakes," but such is the custom in Ohio and Indiana. It's kind of insulting/patronizing. Are they trying to fool me? Like testing my car's equipment should be some fun role-playing game? Why not come right out and make a sign that says "Slow Down Motherfucker" or perhaps "We Would Not Like You to Plow Through Our Booths at Rapid Speeds So Depress Brakes Now." Indiana made up for this unsightly idiosyncracy with another, more amazing, one: for a few miles on 90, Indiana has erected sentinels that flash to alert drivers when "An Animal Is Near." There are what look like a pair of tennis ball tubes, facing away each other and most likely emiting a stream of laser-detectionage parallel to the ground. On top of all of this, they have solar panels for heads. Such things jar me from my lulling nystate-centricism.
Item:
Poem
Like a simile,
the lovers became.
Item: I will always need new music.
Item: [insert thick folds of turning, burntout once-love over and over: an attempt to figure out my desires, my convictions, my dignity, and my needy self, here]
Item: [insert convoluted, but occasionally (and now, sadly, ill-remembered) brilliant, insights about reactions, cognitive dissonance and the soul, happiness, and other behaviors here]
Item: Pace, pace, pace.
Item: I'm pretty sure that despite state-by-state tolls and semi-ridiculous gas prices, that I'm saving some small amount of money by NOT flying. Sure, flying would have been easier, but now I have free mobility, open-ended departure, and more storage room for stuff. Hey, I might just drive down to Tennessee from here, who knows? (double wink). Plus, I'm finally aware, because I felt its length firsthand, of the immensity of America. As Flynn correctly pointed out, this is my chance at shadowing Kerouac.
Item: Primary Goal for Break: decidee what I'm going to do next year, re: the School/Boston quandary; Secondary Goal for Break: my mouth and mind swimming in endless beer; Goal 3: read poetry, write poetry
Item: Typical mood over any 2 minute stretch: "Confidence, happy! // Sudden painful memory, clouds.// Wait, this song reminds me of sopmore year, yay! This song of Newell 5! Happy again! / Wait, no..."
Item: I have a slow leak in my rear, passenger side tire that needs to be checked everytime I stop for gas; I stop for gas anytime I pass a rest station and the guage is less than half full. Both of these activities have become immensely satisfying to me.
Item: I love meeting artists who are also interesting people (and are attractive girls, too)
Item: What am I going to do this summer?
Item: It's amazing how easily the right memory from Colgate can make me laugh aloud alone. I don't know if this is a sympton of depression or mania, but it's frequency has increased since my vacation began. I really feel tetherless and Begnini-like happiness. I'm psycho-giddy. (que-est que c'est?) (sp?): BlueJays tickets recounted in a poem, a Ben Folds solo song ("Not the Same"/"Rockin' the Suburbs"), throat rattle, 8 1/2, faces and whatnot parading...
Item: Big-building Chicago is stunning and easier to comprehend at once than New York. Lake Shore Drive is a gorgeous one. I could live here... (again, baseball team needs work, though)
This is scantily representative of what passed through the thinker on his Odyssey. More reactions to Chicago/shadowing forthcoming...
The Place:
Reetu and Julie have an upbeat, fly appartment on Chicago's North side/Irving Park neighborhood, and I am their grateful guest for the next undetermined number of days. Wooden floors, high ceilings, an efficient kitchen, I was able to actually find a parking space right across the street, two bedrooms, and the live mere blocks away from The Music Box Theater, a landmark venue for independent/foreign films. The set-up is righteous.
Reetu and Julie have an upbeat, fly appartment on Chicago's North side/Irving Park neighborhood, and I am their grateful guest for the next undetermined number of days. Wooden floors, high ceilings, an efficient kitchen, I was able to actually find a parking space right across the street, two bedrooms, and the live mere blocks away from The Music Box Theater, a landmark venue for independent/foreign films. The set-up is righteous.
Arrival:
After only one, my first, night in Chicago, I feel as though I'm ready to marry her.
Something feels like belonging, here; it's odd. The only thing missing is a good baseball team.
After only one, my first, night in Chicago, I feel as though I'm ready to marry her.
Something feels like belonging, here; it's odd. The only thing missing is a good baseball team.
Sunday, March 09, 2003
Removed from Structure:
It dawned on me this morning (hee hee), this questions: what the fuck am I going to do with myself during these next three free weeks? Chicago takes care of the first week, but then what? I sense possibility, but hope that defaults do not usurp this monstrous sabbatical. I've got to DO something, dammit, someTHING. Any suggestions?
I know "it" will involve driving. In fact, I'm cast as some sort of outsider/interlocuter (sp?), travelling without purpose to shadow people's living. This weekend, I've been shadowing Susan, college sophmore and fellow Flynnmate (the pool, not the person), tomorrow (if timing works) I'll be shadowing Reetu to her theater company's premiere party, during the week perhaps I'll tail Kyle as he daringly bike-messenges. I'm almost a journalist, but acting for my own selfish aims. I also shadow strangers, unintentionally, because its impossible not to notice social signifier diversity and whatnot when I'm suddenly around so many different people in varying locations. This could be "it," maybe I just need more subjects to shadow.
And beer...
It dawned on me this morning (hee hee), this questions: what the fuck am I going to do with myself during these next three free weeks? Chicago takes care of the first week, but then what? I sense possibility, but hope that defaults do not usurp this monstrous sabbatical. I've got to DO something, dammit, someTHING. Any suggestions?
I know "it" will involve driving. In fact, I'm cast as some sort of outsider/interlocuter (sp?), travelling without purpose to shadow people's living. This weekend, I've been shadowing Susan, college sophmore and fellow Flynnmate (the pool, not the person), tomorrow (if timing works) I'll be shadowing Reetu to her theater company's premiere party, during the week perhaps I'll tail Kyle as he daringly bike-messenges. I'm almost a journalist, but acting for my own selfish aims. I also shadow strangers, unintentionally, because its impossible not to notice social signifier diversity and whatnot when I'm suddenly around so many different people in varying locations. This could be "it," maybe I just need more subjects to shadow.
And beer...
Aminals:
Despite growing fear that this blog is becoming exclusively a catalogue of reactions to cable television programming, I find it necessary to comment on Animal Planet's The Planet's Funniest Animals. Back in the oldschool days of home-video shows, I was a fan; something about Bob Sagat and lame jokes made it work. I lost interest in the progeny until this morning when I unwittingly found myself enjoying back-to-back episodes of this animal version.
Reasons:
1) The host is perhaps the most comfortable presence I've ever seen in front of a camera, and he delivers the often corny dialogue with an flawless combination of paced, natural speech rhythms and an even more natural smile. Just when he nears the punchline of an awful joke and you might anticipate some kind of facial tick, the noticeable ripple from his internal sense of taste rebelling, to give away the whole veneer of "tv land" fluidity, he finishes the quip with a somehow-acceptabl smarmy smile. It's not even smarm, it's just some power he has over the lameness of the script, as if exuding such natural confidence kills any chance for his audience to cringe. In fact, it adds an earnest, irony-free tone to the whole show, which is maybe why it appealed to me so much. Plus seeing cats do funny shit is touching.
2) Watching cats doing funny things: squeezing through tiny openings, dangling off of treadmill handles, attacking a sock-puppet handled by who they found necessary to introduce as "a middle aged man who hasn't lost his love for sock puppets" ("remember kids..."), or other "cute" tricks
3) The whole aura of amateurism, that pixelly grain of the home videotape that makes you wonder "who are these people, and how could they have possibly conditioned their poor animals to behave like this." It's a glimpse at random Americans, which often ends in a shudder. It amazes me how different people can be.
4) The unintentional humor that results from the puns and voice-overs while they role clips. They'll show five short clips, and each joke will have a completely unique structure: one will be pat obvious, one will be somewhat original and clever, one will make absolutely no sense, one will be a blatant re-authoring of the purpose of the video because what is on the video is inane or maybe they just saw a more "entertaining" way to frame it, one will be a more clever but no less blatant re-authoring. It's almost like they took demographics into account while sequencing the jokes as to appeal to the widest audience in any given five minutes of the show*.
5) Most all the humor is delivered at an extremely slow, soothing rate, as if explaining complex directions to a young child. This is odd.
*In one meta-case, they gathered six random footages of innocuous dog/cat play and framed them under the heading-game "What Just Happened?" In each clip of the segment, the host asks "What just happened?" and comes back at himself with some "funny" answer. The meta-humor comes in when the "answers" have nothing rational to do with what is being shown, almost as if the joke was written to be understandable and simple but because it went too far and became merely vague, any number of random and crackedout innuendos are made, ultimately lending another layer to the question "What just happened?" I'm racking my memory for an example, but alas....
Despite the potential for unintentional humor, the suaveness of the host definitely made it harder for me to laugh "at" the show, and I kept watching. Maybe "they" are finding ways to fool us despite our knowing that we're being fooled, kind of like a post-modern Big Brother/ post-Descartes/Matrix effect?
Despite growing fear that this blog is becoming exclusively a catalogue of reactions to cable television programming, I find it necessary to comment on Animal Planet's The Planet's Funniest Animals. Back in the oldschool days of home-video shows, I was a fan; something about Bob Sagat and lame jokes made it work. I lost interest in the progeny until this morning when I unwittingly found myself enjoying back-to-back episodes of this animal version.
Reasons:
1) The host is perhaps the most comfortable presence I've ever seen in front of a camera, and he delivers the often corny dialogue with an flawless combination of paced, natural speech rhythms and an even more natural smile. Just when he nears the punchline of an awful joke and you might anticipate some kind of facial tick, the noticeable ripple from his internal sense of taste rebelling, to give away the whole veneer of "tv land" fluidity, he finishes the quip with a somehow-acceptabl smarmy smile. It's not even smarm, it's just some power he has over the lameness of the script, as if exuding such natural confidence kills any chance for his audience to cringe. In fact, it adds an earnest, irony-free tone to the whole show, which is maybe why it appealed to me so much. Plus seeing cats do funny shit is touching.
2) Watching cats doing funny things: squeezing through tiny openings, dangling off of treadmill handles, attacking a sock-puppet handled by who they found necessary to introduce as "a middle aged man who hasn't lost his love for sock puppets" ("remember kids..."), or other "cute" tricks
3) The whole aura of amateurism, that pixelly grain of the home videotape that makes you wonder "who are these people, and how could they have possibly conditioned their poor animals to behave like this." It's a glimpse at random Americans, which often ends in a shudder. It amazes me how different people can be.
4) The unintentional humor that results from the puns and voice-overs while they role clips. They'll show five short clips, and each joke will have a completely unique structure: one will be pat obvious, one will be somewhat original and clever, one will make absolutely no sense, one will be a blatant re-authoring of the purpose of the video because what is on the video is inane or maybe they just saw a more "entertaining" way to frame it, one will be a more clever but no less blatant re-authoring. It's almost like they took demographics into account while sequencing the jokes as to appeal to the widest audience in any given five minutes of the show*.
5) Most all the humor is delivered at an extremely slow, soothing rate, as if explaining complex directions to a young child. This is odd.
*In one meta-case, they gathered six random footages of innocuous dog/cat play and framed them under the heading-game "What Just Happened?" In each clip of the segment, the host asks "What just happened?" and comes back at himself with some "funny" answer. The meta-humor comes in when the "answers" have nothing rational to do with what is being shown, almost as if the joke was written to be understandable and simple but because it went too far and became merely vague, any number of random and crackedout innuendos are made, ultimately lending another layer to the question "What just happened?" I'm racking my memory for an example, but alas....
Despite the potential for unintentional humor, the suaveness of the host definitely made it harder for me to laugh "at" the show, and I kept watching. Maybe "they" are finding ways to fool us despite our knowing that we're being fooled, kind of like a post-modern Big Brother/ post-Descartes/Matrix effect?
Saturday Night Yut:
Greetings from sunny, SUNY Brockport (yes, I just perpetrated an age-old pun at the expense of state-created acronyms), where I have been a guest on the 7th floor of 10 in Bramley dormitory. State-funding = posh living quarters. Susan is in a 5-girl suite, but the amount of comfortable space is astounding, and everything is so new. The standard-issue furniture is actually plush and not hard to look at. ID cards are multi-functional as door keys, food tickets, and whatnot. Everything basically seems high tech.
Alcohol-fueled adventures of the night, however, remain sentimentally similar, and it was good to be in the culture of plastic-cup beer clutching, pong-tossing young adults again. Breakfast calls....more later
Greetings from sunny, SUNY Brockport (yes, I just perpetrated an age-old pun at the expense of state-created acronyms), where I have been a guest on the 7th floor of 10 in Bramley dormitory. State-funding = posh living quarters. Susan is in a 5-girl suite, but the amount of comfortable space is astounding, and everything is so new. The standard-issue furniture is actually plush and not hard to look at. ID cards are multi-functional as door keys, food tickets, and whatnot. Everything basically seems high tech.
Alcohol-fueled adventures of the night, however, remain sentimentally similar, and it was good to be in the culture of plastic-cup beer clutching, pong-tossing young adults again. Breakfast calls....more later
