Monks
Old Bill was watching from the docks. If Christ is going to come from the east, then death, I suppose, will always come from the west. Dark ships bobbed like cork in a bucket of water. Their familiar shapes, dragon crested, becoming clearer as that endless day wore on.
Vikings
Lo, and behold there on the low slung horizon, what did I spy but the dark mass of land as if from some distant dream. The dark shapes of mountains, the likes of which we had never seen rose up like ancient sentinels keeping watch on that barren land. The oars move rhythmically through the rough green water as we head towards safer shoals. In the distance I watch as a slow line of boats are being dropped into the water by men in dark robes.
Amelia E.
“It appears that we are here for the long haul,” Amelia told me, minutes after we’d put down on this piece of crap island, Gardner’s, I suppose. And neither one of us with a scrap of no how in terms of staying alive. Who knew how much I’d regret not spending any time in the scouts. She insisted I was just glum because nobody would remember my death.
The journey down
Janice was the first one to climb down. The heat was unbearable, as it always was in that god-forsaken valley. The grass was timid and brown. I admit that I stayed up in the tree for the first few days until I was sure that Janice wasn’t going to be killed. I told her that I was keeping watch for snakes.
Relieving yourself
It weren’t the type of day that you’d want to do much more than take a piss on if anyone asks me, which happens near never. To say that it was a fair battle would be
Ventriloquism
I start with a voice. Nothing more. Nothing less. It ain’t an easy business that I’ve been sloughing around in these past six years. A lot of my friends have moved uptown to shittier apartments with prettier girls. I ain’t in to that kind of selling out. In fact, I can’t think of a worse thing that a man could do.
When I was a kid, my father used watch a bit of SNL with me before I went to bed. I miss pops you know. Every time I see a six pack of beer or the bruise on the leg of a hooker I think of the man. I get all worn out and teary eyed. We used to love the guys who could imitate the voices the most. Hell, I can’t even remember who they was. I just remember them talking like someone else. I suppose that’s how I got started doing this whole cheap thing.
But you know. Not everyone can be good at every damn thing they pick up. Some of us is just good at one thing. I’m good at voices. What’s so bad about that? Johnny C. and Will got out of the business because they met some big assed girls who told them what they could do better. I’m just not the type of guy who stops being who he is because of a little bit of tail.
A lot of fellows rely on me to do them a favor, and I don’t consider that to be a bad thing.
If nothing else I learned from this article that I need to start relating to lil s in a new way. So today I decided to start telling her what a smart little girl she was. And yeah, this was working out just fine for a while, she still paused in her activities to smile at me when I called her a smart girl. However, at one point during the day she crawled up next to me and proceeded to gnaw on my belt for about ten minutes, and I just couldn't bring myself to call her a smart little girl. In fact, I sort of wondered, teething aside, if she hadn't thought of the possibility that my belt had flame retardant or other foul chemicals on it. No. She was just blithely chewing away.
The tough part about not telling little girls that they are cute is that they are cute. So, to talk about other stuff is really beside the point. I mean, they're cute? Sure you can you read them a book or talk about the impact that the removal of the Berlin Wall had on the economy of East Germany, but I'm not sure that's all that interesting to her.
Suggested Topics for speaking with little girls:
1) The war in Afghanistan. She should definitely have some sort of opinion about it. If she doesn't be sure to let her know that you were totally against this war from the start, even if you weren't, because then she'll respect you more.
2) Puppies. Because puppies are cute, but you're not demeaning them when you talk about how cute puppies are.
3) The intense pressure of the second grade spelling bee. Be sure to quiz her on encyclopedia as that's the one that tripped me up. If she can't spell it remind her that only smart girls go to prom. If she asks what prom is tell her to rent a couple of seasons of Beverley Hills 90210.
4) The Miss America Pageant. But make her do a deconstructionist narrative on the show. If she falls short be sure to point out what relevant pages of Derrida she should read to catch up with the other smart little girls.
5) What boys in school she likes and stuff. Mainly because this has nothing to do with her looks, but you don't want her to be some kind of weirdo who doesn't notice looks at all. Encourage her to go after the kids who do really well in math and science even if they seem dorky now.
6) Sylvia Plath I saw a picture of her the other day, and it turns out she was a pretty good lookin' lady. However, be sure to tell the child that being good looking can lead you to putting your head in an oven. Be sure not to mention the poetry.
Some topics to avoid:
1) Disney Princesses-These dames are all hot and being pursued men and stuff. Don't lead the child into a conversation about the impossibility of Belle, the town beauty, actually falling for a giant wolf, wonderful rendering aside, she'll say, it's just implausible. Don't encourage this.
2) Anything related to popular culture as it's about 90 percent things you want to avoid.
Don't to it bunny.
3) Whether your jeans make you look fat. Look, of course we all want to ask kids questions like this because they are unerringly honest. However, resist the temptation to get some tough love from a four year old because you'll ruin them later in life.
4) How cute they are. As noted above. They are. Be sure to avoid it. Tell them they look kind of grubby and let them know that being smart is probably the only thing that can overcome that.
5) Romantic comedies. They've already ruined one generation. We're more cynical now. Let her be cynical.
6) Your wish that the Girl Scout's sold really good fiber bars instead of those filthy cookies that made you put back on the three pounds you'd worked so damn hard to take off last winter.
6:45-S talks to me about the plans for the day while I try to remain asleep.
7:30-Lil s awakes late enough that I don’t think I’ll be entirely exhausted. As a reward I let her mop the downstairs floor thoroughly. I mean, the shirt she had on was at least nine distinct colors by the time I put her down for a nap at 10:30. I feel like she did an especially good job near the front door, and I try and tell her so, but she’s busy eating a blanket. I think I’m going to have her skip trade school for secretaries and go straight to being a human mop. Is there an industry for that?
8:15-After playing with s for a while and giving her some food I spend a little quality time with the computer. Lil s scoots around the floor trying to find something that is not one of her toys to play with. She scoots over to my feet on the couch and briefly inspects my toes before departing for greener pastures. Lil s loves to climb towards our front door because it has a mat with a nice rough texture just inside it that she can pat. That mat is also always dirty. For a while I sort of lose sight of her over by the mat as I’m on the computer, but I can still hear her playing. A minute or two goes by and I check on her, and she peers up at me and smiles, and then coughs. At this point I become aware that she’s probably pulled some hairball off the floor and eaten it, and is now in the process of vomiting it up. I don’t panic though. I pick her up and put her down on a blanket. She then proceeds to army crawl towards her almost empty milk in an attempt to wash the hair ball down. As it turns out she was just hiccupping because of the milk. Parenting is fun.
8:15-9:45 Lil s scoots around the floor or has a bit of milk, chasing after a ball, chewing on our stairs, chewing on a foot rest, or trying to pull the blanket strings/blanket off the couch because it has the computer on it, and she thinks it would be a good idea to have it fall on her head.
10:00-Feeding time. Blueberries. Blueberries stain everything. Thus, I prepare myself by stripping s down to her diaper, and me down to my unmentionables. I am determined that neither one of us will get blueberry stains anywhere. First off I heat up the blueberries in the microwave for too long, and the liquid portion explodes all over the inside. I’m off to a good start. Thankfully s does a fairly good job of eating, only occasionally trying to take the spoon and make sure to smear the blueberries all over her cheeks and at one point, her right eye. I’ve seen worse. She also takes my hand as she’s reaching for the spoon and makes sure to smear a little on me as well. However, we make it through the whole process without either one of getting stained clothes. Victory is almost ours. Except that s is covered in blueberries, and I wind up using about half a paper towel roll to get her clean, apologies to the environment, and midway through the process she starts crying because no one likes to have their face washed off by someone else, and I realize that the blueberries are everywhere, legs, under arms, shoulders, scalp. I’ve still seen worse but they take some vigorous rubbing to remove, and she’s crying and looking at me like I’ve betrayed her. Eventually I get all the berries off and hurry her off to bed. Naturally she’s taken another colossal uh bathroom break that I have to clean up before putting her down. And it is at that point that I momentarily panic because I notice that she has a long line of what I initially think is poop on the underside of her right arm only to realize a second later that it is no doubt just blueberries. And as I wipe it off I wonder how stained her sheets will get during her nap from all of the berries that lie somewhere hidden on her skin
12:06
I’m reading over some notes sent to me about an old family trip, and I’m particularly impressed by a couple of details that strike me as the sort of things that give an essay a nice texture. Ergo; I say out loud, “that is some good shi-.” This is followed by me saying “ooops.” And then looking down at my feet where lil s has been working on her podiatrist skills, and she is looking back up at me with a huge grin on her face.
12:30
Lil s and I make for the great outdoors. If she’s as bored as I am of sitting in the living room then I figure she’s going to love it. We spend only a minute on the blanket before s heads again for greener pastures. In this case the pastures really are greener. She tugs at bits of grass, and I’m thinking she can be a weed wacker and a human mop, but I think she’s learning because she doesn’t try to eat the grass or dried leaves. This being the case I decide to let her keep crawling, and she makes her way into a patch of new grass, which, unfortunately, is also full of mud. Thus, by the time she wiggles her way back to the blanket her shirt has become something that we’ll wear outside again in the future. Images of old Tide commercials keep running through my head about taking stains out because your lousy kids keep getting them. For a while I look at Sadie, her messy shirt, her red and blond hair. The latter of which, I’m certain that if I tell her mother she’ll almost forgive me the shirt. It looks just like yours. This especially because a woman at church the other day said she’d never seen a baby look more like its father than lil s. Though, her judgment may not be gospel level at she thought lil s was a boy despite the pink dress. And after I talk to lil s for a while, her face smiling up at me, she crawls up towards my face, and puts her hand on my chest.
Patches of blue sky, not abundant in these parts, interfered with on all sides. Clouds no more than puffs of smoke, the wispy hair of an old man. A helicopter heard before seen, torpedoing through blue. A squirrel chittering warnings at a robin from the oak in our alley. A cicada making it’s awful racket. Robins and crows exchanging places in a tree. The tree is alive with the noise of birds. In the distance children are arguing on the playground. These are the things at which she cocks her head, and tries to understand.
When I get inside it occurs to me that I should at least, for my wife’s sake, make an attempt to salvage the shirt. However, as I leave to go upstairs lil s begins crying. I think she was getting used to spending time with her daddy.
4:00
By the time lil s has taken her third nap I have washed, dried, and gotten ready the little onesie that was damaged by our back yard earlier in the day, so that her mother will not complain too vociferously. I can tell when I put it on that lil s appreciates all the hard work I put into making her outfit look almost like new, though she might resent the two hours she spent scooting around our floor in her diaper like some commoner. If she does, she doesn’t say so.
5:00
We go outside and sit on the front porch. Lil s arches her back to look up at either the overhead light or me. I try and determine if her eyes are green or blue. The mosquitoes are light and variable, but lil s’s chubby legs don’t exactly put up adequate defense. After doing intermittent battle with one I see it land on her foot and quickly swat it. However, I notice that its already started its business and that I’ve got blood on my hands and she on her foot. But I suppose we’ve already gone enough blood shared between us. Why, just today I watched her climb into a pile of dirt just because it was there.
If you're like me, a person under a certain age with a slight liberal bent, you've probably met tried to be a veggie for a while, (I don't mean that literally, though if I did, I'd probably choose to be a carrot) or you've met someone who is giving it a go for a while. We all know these people are obnoxious to have over to dinner parties, and we ask them if they still eat fish and chicken. Isn't there a saying about perhaps having entertained angels at your table, in this case it's ideologs. Anyhow, the point is that being a veggie is weird and that no one should try it. Wait, that wasn't the point.
Anyhow, I spent nine months as a carrot while we were spending a couple of years in the midwest, and I enjoyed it. Sure I lost twenty pounds and was eating bits of dirt to try to up my iron content, but I finally felt good about not hurting animals. Note: My real reason for being a veggie was not related to animal cruelty, though I submitted in conversation tonight that standing next to a cow and blowing it's brains out with a shotgun would undoubtedly change my relationship to my food; it's just not my bag. No. Mine was in issue of resources. At some point I was driving home from work and saw a sign for Wendy's. And you hear these stories about people eating meat after long layoffs and getting really sick, but after I had a delicious hamburger I realized that veggies just get confused after the long layoff and that what they're actually feeling is not sick but full.
How many 1/4 hamburgers do you get from a single cow?
Give up? I tried to picture a small cow in a science book. The cow had a diagram pointing to it, mostly black lines and arrows. I'm not sure why. Anyhow, I then tried to mentally extract hamburgers from that cow's stomach. The book was small. I came up with 50. I was wrong. It turns out that an average cow gets you about 2,000 hamburgers.
So mainly what I learned tonight is that we should all be eating more meat. I mean, look, I've probably only eaten one or two cows in my lifetime. We've got plenty more to go around. Have you driven down I5 in CA? They have like a million on that farm all loving life in close proximity to one another. It's kind of like going to college for cows except you are roommates with everyone, and you don't have a room. That's right, you can see your friends at any point in time. It must be awesome. Besides all the poop. Oh well.
Anyhow, I think we need to commit to eating more meat in our country. Don't let these filthy vegetarians win by waxing on about animal cruelty, hit them up with Rousseau, the original anti-animal cruelty advocate, let them know that you eat meat like twice a week, and so you're still owed a cow or two.
Okay, honestly, despite this stunning statistic everyone should be a flexetarian. Thus, you avoid awkward dinner parties, but you still get less meat. So, yeah, eat less meat. Try to buy it locally. Just, you know, think about it a little bit more. Don't go too crazy. It's like my wife always says, "Everything in moderation." And as I down my third burger of the night I always remind her yes, "Even moderation sometimes."
With the arrival of Cars 2, (apparently this movie is. eh, not so good. I'm just relieved that critics can watch a cartoon movie without getting all in a tizzy. Lord knows we've watched our fair share of cartoon movies in the last few years, and I can't argue with rotten tomatoes).
Note: This list was inspired by a blogger who had the audacity to rank Wal-E number one. I mean, the damn movie doesn't even have talking for an hour.
11. A Bug's Life
Why? I went to see this movie in the theater, and I don't remember much about it except that I may have accidentally gone to see ants instead. I mean this. I think we wandered into the wrong theater and watched the end of Ants, and were embarrassed that we'd done it, and so wandered back into the right theater and watched A Bug's Life, but we'd already missed the first twenty minutes. The point is, the movie may or may not have been ants. And yeah, I liked the cute circus performers as much as the next guy, but the movie was kind of ho hum. Remember that scene in BATB with the CGI dancing? This wasn't that.
10. Cars
Why? I like cars. Cars is a good movie because it's all about environmentalism, and I like the environment. It's also about...cars. That's the thing. It has some memorable characters, but the movie itself isn't memorable. Special apologies to my nephew Joseph who loves Lightning McQueen like the brother he doesn't have.
9. Toy Story 2
Why? Remember how Woody had to convince Buzz that he wasn't a toy in that first movie, and how exciting it was to see all the Toys coming to life like we'd all secretly hoped/believed in children? Well, we'd already seen it by the time this one rolled around, so it needed to be a little more special than it was. Another mad cap adventure by all those zany toys, but it sort of feels like just entertainment.
8. Ratatouille
Why? Because it's a rat cooking in the kitchen. I think the other bloggers I read really loved this movie because it was different. However, different is good, but I don't need to see a rat jumping around a pot of cheese because it's gross. And some things are just gross. Let's stop pretending like we're all so smart and smarmy and in on the joke with Ratatouille, and think it's wonderful that he was accepted. No. He was an effing rat in the kitchen. Not okay.
7. I don't remember much about Monster's Inc. because it came out like a million years ago, but it did have that cute little girl and the voice of John Goodman on a monster, which is perfect. Much like Toy Story, the idea that monsters live under the bed brought to life is enough to push this movie past some of its lesser brethren, even if it doesn't stand the test of time.
6. The Incredibles
Why? Because I'm not five, and this movie was actually pretty enjoyable. I'd rank it higher, but I"m not certain that five year olds would like/understand this movie. Other than that, it was an interesting take on the superhero genre, and, despite not entirely being for kids, it was good clean fun.
5. Wal-E-
Why? Because Short Circuit has already been made. No disassemble Stephanie! Johnny Five is alive! Yeah, that's right Pixar, the 1980's has already seen this movie and we loved it so much that we made a vastly inferior part 2. So, screw you. The love story was cute though wasn't it? And we go back to that environmental message in cars, though, I don't feel like it was overt enough.....sarcasm meter flaring. Anyhow, maybe if I didn't have to watch Wal-E cleaning for a solid hour before he even said Eva this movie would be rated higher.
4. Toy Story
Why? They brought the toys to life. And, we get an existential drama of Buzz learning to define himself within the cosmos and then within the boy's life. It's a hell of a take down from where he starts, and that etch a sketch sure is cute.
3. Finding Nemo
Why? Because every kid in American can now name a clown fish. And that dumb fish was cute, and that turtle who smoked pot. The familial story was kind of moving, even for a dude like me, and the camaraderie they developed in the fish tank was a superior version of those zany circus performers. Also, sea gulls do just say, mine, mine, mine, mine, over and over. But mainly it was the sweetness of the family story, which we've been telling over and over again in different ways since man first wrote on a cave wall or at the very least, since we got Oedipus.
2. Toy Story 3
Why? Because it's a damn good movie. Because it's a movie about things changing in life. Hell, we're actually down some toys at the start of this movie. Because this movie is sad, and it's about what can happen to an unloved toy. Don't mistreat the Velveteen Rabbit like that. It works as an action movie, and it works as an emotive one. I'm not sure it shouldn't be number one.
1. Up.
Why? Montage. Okay, I'm retroactively sliding this to number two because even though that scene with the dog was funny I saw it ten million times. But wait, that girl bird's name was inexplicably Kevin, and it never changed. Ah, what a cute movie. Number 2 it is.
Lately as S and I have been watching movies, I wait for an opportune time and then just start singing Jason Derulo's encore, except I keep asking to be hit with a montage.
Why? Because 9/10 movies about romance or a good movie about cleaning know that a montage is pretty much your only option. How are we going to show how much these two strangers care about each other. I know? Montage.
Other options include the incredibly chemistry established in a few minutes on screen like Tom Cruise had with Penelope Cruz in Vanilla Sky. However, it was Peneleope Cruz, how much credit can we really give the guy? You also have the option of the awesome before sunrise/after sunset of not using a montage at all but actually allowing the two main characters to have a conversation that's interesting enough that you believe they could actually want to see each other one time. However, that wastes a lot of time that could be taken up with slapstick humor and maybe a little bit of trouble that ultimately results in somebody speeding to catch someone at an airport. Security be damned!
Let's hit some people with montages. Best montage ever. Up. The scene where an entire married life is condensed into four minutes.
Weep you bastards. Weep.
Mary Poppins kind of set the bar for the original clean up montage. Though, you sort of have to wonder why she has time to talk to that robin when the house needs to get cleaned up. Give it a rest Mary. Go pick up some shoes. I also love how the kids just smile lovingly at her at first. Why? Because they don't have to do shi-; she's just taking care of it all. Later, she teaches them black magic, a little Harry Potter action, ie ban in schools, and suddenly they love cleaning up because it's so easy. I'm just saying I'm not sure about these kids characters.
I'm upset because I couldn't find the Family Guy montage where they clean up a bar in like 30 seconds, except, they didn't. This kind of set the bar for montages. Pun intended. Oh well, I'll settle for a Star Wars montage. Also, I love Consuela.
Youtube fails me again. I can't find exactly what I'm sort of excoriating. Instead, I found a video that is it's own made up montage type thing. However, we do have an old that awesome song "I ain't missin you" as background for this bad ass montage. What I can take mainly from this montage is that people in movies fall in love much more frequently than your average person, and also have to overcome way more obstacles, like icebergs and death and stuff.
You know the only thing better than a romantic montage? A romantic montage about a period piece because people in olden days really loved each other a lot more. Also, this one is about dancing, and everyone loves dancing in a period piece because of all the eye contact and hand touching and gazing across the room and all that sort of stuff that is just way hotter than grinding it out at the bottom of some skeezy club. Give me a white glove any day.
Wait, did somebody put period dramas to the tune of Hungry Eyes. Yes they did. Life cannot get any better.
Listen, the main thing that I learned from doing this montage search is that people choose shitt- music for montages. I don't want to her Nickelback or some slow ass Josh Groban song. You can use "My heart will go on" by Celine Dion for virtually any of these and my heart will be melting. Pun intended. Anyhow, sure this song has it's own movie already, but that doesn't mean it can't be uses for virtually everything else. Your other option is to use some cool song like Hungry Eyes because Dirty Dancing is amazing and you know it. Ie, eighties or early nineties. I will be right there waiting for you works. Colplay songs kind of work for some reason. Snow Patrol too. Slow paced songs with heavy piano are usually crap. You know what sort of works, "Raining in Baltimore" because it is heart breakingly beautiful. And yes, you can even set it to The Notebook, which was, I hear as I didn't read it, a better movie than a book and yes everyone in our theater cried at the end as well because Raining in Baltimore is so good.
Okay, that's the deal. You can basically do bad ass music like the Counting Crows or something equivalent, like maybe some old shi- by Whiskeytown. Don't go flooding my video, not that you would, with some garage band you heard in Cleveland. They suck. And unless the montage is about doing drugs keep Radiohead out of it. I'm just really angry that I can't nab any montages from movies, so I'll settle for one last made up montage of a kick ass period piece movie North and South. If you doubt these people's love; I doubt your soul, and I may also doubt that we'll ever have peace in the world and the validity of the free market economy for the world.
7:07
s's trilling finally upshifts into full blown crying, so I get out of bed.
7-8
s scoots around on the floor yelling like an insane person.
At one point she says something that could probably be inferred as mama. Like any good dad, I started chanting dada over and over for a solid ten minutes. s mainly looked confused until I started in with the m's again. Ingrate child.
Feeding time
I put her on blankets and let her feed herself bottles on her own these days. I do it because I'm trying to teach her independence. I'm also doing it because my e-mail doesn't check itself.
Later feeding time
I put on her bib and give her some squash with rice cereal. I accidentally taste some forgetting that it includes breast milk. I nearly die. s is getting better at eating, by which I mean she just opens her mouth as if she's a trash compactor and takes it in. Apparently it's better if they're all involved in the process and try to grab the spoon, but to hell with that, it makes a mess. Besides which maybe it will create a solid co-dependency that will have her living with us when she's forty.
10-12 She crawls around on the floor doing a pretty adequate job mopping the floor. Occasionally she makes her way over to an audio toy and pushes some buttons, then, as the noise starts, she looks over at me and smiles proudly. Yes, s, you did that, I tell her, in case she didn't know.
1:45
She starts scooting towards me while rubbing her eyes. That's the great part about kids, sometimes they'll just let you know when they need to go down for a nap. It takes all the pressure off you. Besides which, I'm virtually inured to brief bouts of crying at this point. (I'm less immune to the crying that results when I do something like smack her head against the stroller as I'm picking her up off the floor because I feel guilty. Not that that happened today).
The long and the short of my day with s is that she started to learn how to talk. And by talk I mean insanely jibber. And in the process of insanely jibbering she opens her mouth really wide as if she thinks that when speaking a person should look like Kermit the Frog.
I'm not sure we're really into consonants yet, but I found that she was able to entertain herself more today. One time I left the room only to come back and find her having gone about ten feet over to where she could gnaw on one of mommy's sandals. Ergo; I don't know if her culinary distinction is quite where we'd like it. Of course, when I saw her with the shoe I replaced it with one of mine and said, "Dada," because that's just good parenting.
From an article by David Eagleman in The Atlantic about our brain chemistry:
MANY OF US like to believe that all adults possess the same capacity to make sound choices. It’s a charitable idea, but demonstrably wrong. People’s brains are vastly different.
Who you even have the possibility to be starts at conception. If you think genes don’t affect how people behave, consider this fact: if you are a carrier of a particular set of genes, the probability that you will commit a violent crime is four times as high as it would be if you lacked those genes. You’re three times as likely to commit robbery, five times as likely to commit aggravated assault, eight times as likely to be arrested for murder, and 13 times as likely to be arrested for a sexual offense. The overwhelming majority of prisoners carry these genes; 98.1 percent of death-row inmates do. These statistics alone indicate that we cannot presume that everyone is coming to the table equally equipped in terms of drives and behaviors.
And this feeds into a larger lesson of biology: we are not the ones steering the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we believe. Who we are runs well below the surface of our conscious access, and the details reach back in time to before our birth, when the meeting of a sperm and an egg granted us certain attributes and not others. Who we can be starts with our molecular blueprints—a series of alien codes written in invisibly small strings of acids—well before we have anything to do with it. Each of us is, in part, a product of our inaccessible, microscopic history. By the way, as regards that dangerous set of genes, you’ve probably heard of them. They are summarized as the Y chromosome. If you’re a carrier, we call you a male.
This article, when coupled with the imminent cultural critic Ali G goes on to highlight one the main theories I've been a proponent of for years, which is that women, excluding German women who are cold, should be in charge of every major nation in the world because we'd have way less violence. Or, at least according to this statistic we would. Anyhow, I'm probably going to train up lil s like a ninja of politics so she can be the first ever female emperor of the universe, and I'll teach her to crush anyone who opposes her. This might defeat the purpose, but I'm still pretty excited about it. Mainly the crushing part.
Tonight, as I was getting s ready for bed, I pulled the computer towards her and mildly crushed her hand in the process. She slowly pulled it away and started crying. Then, after a few seconds she leaned forward and started wildly bashing on the computer. "Sometimes the things and people that hurt us the most are also the ones we love the most," I told her, but she was busy learning to type.
He had started working on the picture well before she died. This was not technically true. His mother had had a premonition of his wife’s death months before she actually passed. By that point in time though he had decided that his mother could no longer be trusted. This was a commonly held opinion for men in that time.
His wife had died in an accident involving a hunting party. And this really, now that he stopped to consider it, holding his pencil above the page and gazing pensively out the window in the posture of someone stopping and thinking or perhaps daydreaming, lips a bit dry and cracked but no matter, proved that his mother was a bit of a fraud. She, his mother, had claimed that Lydia’s death was going to come about due to something that he said. And when questioned further, just to be sure because one can never be certain, she said that it didn’t have to do with an actual murder or anything, rather, just his voice, something he said. He hadn’t said a word to her on the day she’d been killed in the hunting accident.
The whites had brought them guns two years ago before they sailed away to their distant shores, and hunting, a purely English past time had briefly consumed the village. And it was during one of these hunts, they really didn’t have much to hunt for, just a couple of flightless birds, which, when you came right down to it, were rather pathetic. However, it was on one of these hunts that his wife had been shot. In fact, he thought, etching the left side of her mouth, which had been slightly asymmetrical with a piece of charcoal, he hadn’t even approved of the hunt or given her any sort of verbal affirmation. She had been a strong headed woman.
The sun seems to be at no angle. It just sits directly overhead beating down on the hut where he is working on a picture of his dead wife. It was the botanist among the Europeans who had first taught him to draw. It was a proclivity that his fellow islanders found a bit odd as they were often out thieving or surfing or trying to sleep with women. They could not see the point of sitting alone in a room bent over a piece of animal skin with charcoal. The general consensus was that such an activity was characteristic of the white man, and a rather great waste of both a man’s time and energy. In the end, what fun was it to look at a picture?
I feel like MSN already had this one, but maybe they recycle every six weeks or so. Never fear, because this blog never recycles, except for when it does.
1) Become an NBA basketball player. Like me you probably dreamed of doing this when you were a kid anyway. I think the chief thing this article points out is that if you change jobs to become a professional biker or marathon runner or something, you'll probably lose weight at work. Otherwise, you're probably screwed.
2) Hunger strike. Any time your boss does something that you don't even care of remotely, it's probably time to go on a hunger strike. Oh, you want me to retype that letter that had some issues. Hunger Strike. Oh, you would like me to stop using facebook at work. Hunger Strike.
3) Start eating horse meat. Horse meat is really low in calories and high in protein. "What's that you're eating friend?" "Horse meat." Feel free to bring in a spit and roast it right there. You'll probably have some office mates come by and join you in losing weight.
4) Go on a diet of just office items. You'll find after a few weeks of dining on paper clips and staplers that you'll be losing weight in no time. You might also die, which is sort of a slight downside.
5) Tag. Consider corner tag or freeze tag during your lunch break. It's best if your office mates don't know that you're playing because it will be easier to freeze all of them, and then berate them afterward for continuing to move. They'll probably all join in quickly if you open a beer or something. I've seen it on TV.
6) Put up a volleyball net between instead of a cube. Then when you start to get bored with your inane job midday, you can just hit the ball around for a while and lose some weight or break or computer or whatever.
7) Hire a personal chef and bring them in to work. Constantly consult them throughout the day on your caloric intake while assuring your boss that they'll pose no change in the office dynamics. Say office dynamics again for good measure.
8) Instead of working just go to the gym. Then when you get back to work insist that you've been working so furiously that you started sweating profusely and had to take a break by going to the gym. Destroy security cameras that speak to the contrary.
9) Start a congo line every fifteen minutes or so at work. Not only will you find yourself losing weight, but everyone loves the random person who starts a congo line. Try not to make it pervy.
10) Do trades at lunch like a second grader. Always trade for things that have lower calories. If the person won't trade with you start crying and complaining that your mom packed you a crappy lunch. It's hard to eat when you're upset.
11) Practice yoga at least twice a day. Insist on playing quiet music and shush your boss and co-workers if they start to interrupt your chi.
12) Have an office Olympics. Make up games like cart racing or musical chairs. Force everyone to play. If asked to stop, claim that you'll go on a hunger strike.
13) Buy a really expensive talking fish who makes you feel guilty for eating by constantly reminding you about starving kids in Africa. This fish should be a real intellectual.
14) Pack yourself tuna fish every day and eat it laboriously slow. Eventually people will start asking you stop bringing something so foul smelling, and you'll say something like, "Okay, I'll just starve then."
15) Just dress in black all the time. It slims.
16) Mange more effectively by getting up frequently. Keep reminding your boss and other people to work smarter not harder. Peer over people's shoulder and ask them what they're e-mailing about. They'll probably punch you in the face and the loss of blood should help.
17) Buy those fancy shoes that look like socks. Insist that the only way to practice with them is to race. Challenge people to races. If you lose, claim you pulled a muscle.
18) Disable all of the elevators so everyone, yourself included, has to take the stairs. Spend all day complaining about taking the stairs.
19) Take the day off work and do something enjoyable like a vacation or you know, watching television or something. Just don't work.
20) Try setting up a series of meetings during the week. But keep planning them further and further out, until you've walked at least three miles by the last meeting.
21) Be that obnoxious person in the office who always walks fast. Act really busy, but basically just have nothing to do but walk fast. If your boss starts talking with you about lackluster work habits say, "I'm busy right now. Walk with me."
22) Replace your seat with a treadmill. Put your computer up on your treadmill and insist that you work better standing up.
23) Spend a good portion of the day walking around your work looking for buried treasure. Dig in any spot that looks like it might have an x. Digging is hard work.
24) Buy a tiger and unleash it in the office. You'll find that running for your life is pretty good exercise.
25) Bring in a stop watch and ask your boss to time you when you run around the building. Tell him you think you can beat your record time. If he asks you to work, complain that he's only having you do it because he can't beat your record time. Take the stopwatch and time him. Even if he doesn't move, make sure he knows he lost to your time.
I've long been aware on some subliminal level that novels and movies develop a certain contract with the viewer early on. It's often easier to identify in novels, but it generally has to do with prose and sentence construction. As a side bar, this blog makes a very simple contract with any reader: mistakes will be frequent, but the content generated tends to be more humorous rather than intellectually driven. Thus, when a mistake arises, though it may detract from an initial reading, it's not really a big deal. However, if I start reading a book and it has a sentence like, "He began running a long distance and was surprised not to feel a stitch in his side because he usually got short of breath while running a long distance and had trouble breathing." Well, I would expect you to conclude that the author had not been very careful with their sentences. And therefore, that you would not have to be very careful in your reading. Or better yet, you'd just put the damn thing down because the author didn't care enough to even write decent sentences.
This same contract operates in movies though it's sometimes harder to define. While I struggled with Paper Heart, I have no qualms about calling Love and Other Drugs a pretty crappy movie. However, a viewer doesn't suffer long in expecting anything big as one of the opening scenes involving the protagonist and his family is so incredibly formulaic, and awkward, almost reminiscent of Meet the Parents, though somewhat unintentionally, that you are aware that it's kind of going to suck.
Years ago I remember watching a episode of Ricky Gervais' show, The Extras, in which Kate Winslet plays a character acting in a Holocaust movie in order to win an Oscar. Ironically, six or so years after her turn in Extras as that woman seeking an Oscar by selling out, she appeared in the Reader, a Holocaust movie that helped her win an Oscar. I'm relaying the story in part because it was surprising and in part because it was surprising to see so much of Kate Winslet's chest in that movie. As my wife said during one of Love and Other Drugs many love scenes with a bare chested Anne Hathaway, "She was in the Princess Diaries." Yes, Anne Hathaway is topless an inordinate amount of times in this movie, and we discover that Jake Gylenhall is not out of shape, however, this does not manage to save the movie. The characters, right from that opening scene are destined to be overly simplistic, to deliver canned lines of dialogue to one another and generally act exactly you'd expect two people caught in an awkward love affair in a movie to act. Ie, not like real and specific people as in a very good movie like Blue Valentine, but like actors playing a role in a movie. And no amount of melodrama or shots of skin can redeem that contract that has been violated. The movie is not interested or interesting enough to show us real people, and therefore it fails. (Edit-the movie does get better towards the end, but it only makes you resent a lot of what has come before that deflate a potentially interesting scenario)
On the other hand, The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, an in depth look at the evolution of science and its connection to the Romantic or pre-Victorian era is good from start to finish. The scientific geniuses have all been studies so intimately by Holmes, that we learn as much about their lives at home as we do about the discoveries that made them geniuses. On the other hand, this is the sort of book that will make a modern American feel guilty. I mean, William Herschel was interested in astronomy so he set about building his own homemade telescope that turned out to be an improvement upon the one at the Royal Academies, then he found a new planet, the unfortunately named Uranus. Anyhow, all I have to do to find a planet or our place in the solar system is use Google. This book is chalk full of hard working men who will make you feel a bit guilty about your addiction to reality television. The one exception might be Humphry Davy, but even he invented a lantern to help coal minders not get blown up by methane and almost discovered anesthesia before becoming more of a hunter and fisherman type.
One of the most intriguing things about the book was the interest that authors like Colerdige and Keats took in the new scientific discoveries. Coleridge in particular saw scientists and artists as inextricably linked rather than as adversaries. A very small part of me was also jealous that people in the day and age still had places to explore. Caveat that many of the places they were "exploring" already had inhabitants. And so, perhaps it's just one more inducement to travel. Anyhow, whether it is Sir. Joseph Banks practicing free love in Tahiti, Herschel watching the stars, or Mungo Park wandering into the interior of Africa, this book is rich with both ideas and characters.
The proof is found in the pudding. I find pudding distasteful.
From the journal of Sir Joseph Banks in the late 18th century on his reflections about Tahiti:
From them appear how small are the real wants of human nature, which we Europeans have increased to an excess which would certainly appear incredible to these people to be told it. Nor shall we cease to increase them as long as Luxuries can be invented and riches found or the purchase of them; and how soon these Luxuries degenerate into necessaries may be sufficiently evidenced by the universal use of strong liquors, Tobacco, Tea, et. etc."
And if we're not getting fascinating stuff like a journal from 250 years ago sounding eerily like the laments of today, then I'm learning that the Andromeda galaxy is going to one day collide or join the Milky Way. I mean, if I last 3 billion years, I'm going to be excited to see what happens there.
A description of the possible outcomes of ballooning by Horace Walpole. Ballooning was the original X game and also the first time that man was able to fly. One of my favorite stories from this section involves two men shedding all their clothes and defecating to drop enough weight to clear some cliffs. Walpole: "How posterity will laugh at us one way or another! If half a dozen break their necks, and Ballonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use. If it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted."
We see in the lectures of Humphry Davy, after he was done proclaiming how great taking Nitrous Oxide was, that connection between Romanticism and Science. Davy: "Man, in what is called a state of nature, is a creature of almost pure sensation. Called into activity only by positive wants, his life is passed either in satisfying the cravings of the common appetitites, or in apathy, or in slumber. Living only in moments he calculates little on futurity, He has no vivid feelings of hope, or thoughts of permanent and powerful actions. and unable to discover causes, he is either harassed by superstitious dreams, or quietly and passively submissive to the mercy of nature and the elements. But once woken by science, man is capable of connecting hope with an infinite variety of ideas. Above all science enables him to shape his future, actively."
That's it I'm volunteering to colonize Mars.
Coleridge: "If the labours of Men of science should ever create any material revolution, direct or indirect, the Poet will sleep no more than at present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the Man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of science itself."
Humphry Davy towards the tail end of his life when he was writing, fishing, and taking morphine, ah sweet life:
"The art of living happy is, I believe, the art of being agreeably deluded; and faith in all things is superior to Reason, which, after all, is but a dead weight in advanced life, though as the pendulum to the clock in youth."
The book also has a nice passage about Mungo Park traveling through Africa and writing variant letters to people at the same time. Ie, honey I'll be home to the wife, and, I'll probably die here to the head of the Royal Society. The book has a chapter about Frankenstein, largely based upon the use of voltaic batteries on animals and briefly on humans during this time period, in which it was shown that a person's limbs could still move about if they had a current running through them even after death. Though, to be fair, the scientist who took up this practice wound up going crazy and killing himself. Anyhow, the point is that it's a good book, and I didn't think I'd be recommending late eighteenth and early nineteenth century science history to anyone, but I am!
The other day I was sleeping on the couch sans shirt when a knock happened at the door. I did what any sane person does when they here a knock, I crept over to the door and placed myself at an angle where I could see the face of the person on my doorstep, but they couldn't see me. Sure enough, it was Jehovah's Witness.
Listen, I've taken pamphlets on three separate occasions during the time I've lived in this house. I've stood at the door and talked about the excellent advice proffered in the book of James. Zip it. That's new revised standard. But on this day, I hid. I walked into the kitchen and told S that we had visitors as the door. Well, to be honest, we whispered it to one another. And while we stood in the kitchen whispering to one another a nice older woman stood on our front porch with a pamphlet about the imminence of the end times. After she'd left the front porch I watched outside my small window as the volunteers met in the middle of our street and talked to one another. At one point I hid because I thought they could see my face from forty five feet away and up a hill. Apparently I thought that they were bald eagles or something. And I watched as they piled back into their cars and drove off to some other neighborhood to spread the good word.
Why exactly did I hide from people who wanted to talk about something that we have in common? Why am I generally afraid of answering the door at all? Is it part and parcel with living in a city that we desire our own private space? Is the private space idea enhanced by me being a privacy and individuality loving American?
It made me wonder about things like Fox News and MSNBC, and the people you don't hide on your facebook feed, and how we're inclined in this new information age to only have the information filtered in our direction that we want to hear. Such that, an article in The Atlantic about how Sarah Palin wasn't actually a terrible governor in Alaksa and worked across party lines comes out of the blue. I thought all she did was build a bridge to nowhere and get imitated by Tina Fey?
I don't know what this lack of engagement with ideas that don't challenge our own will do to us in the end. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps it's the same sort of insulation that's occurred throughout human history but now the means are different. All I know is that I feel sort of bad about hiding from the nice people trying to deliver a pamphlet to me about the end of the world.
Let's begin with Paper Heart. The best part about recommending or reviewing movies that have been out for four years is, well nothing. The gamut has pretty much already been run, though I'm not entirely certain what the gamut even entails. Skeet shooting? Anyhow, Paper Heart, takes on that ever rising art form, the mockumentary. Listen, Christopher Guest pretty much set the bar for this years ago, and it took everyone else a hell of a long time to catch on. One of the strengths of this movie is the degree of authenticity that some of the mock interviews are imbued with, such that, midway through the movie, I found myself Googling just to make sure that I was watching a mockumentary and not some doc/mock hybrid.
In general people enjoy movies about love. In general people also enjoy movies with Michael Cera in them because he is delightfully awkward. In that way this movie does not disappoint. Michael Cera is largely awkward, and the movie is quirky. The highlight of the quirks are scenes acted out by paper cut outs that are voiced over by the interviewee. This both works and his funny and unique. All good things.
The movie also deserves some praise for its sexlessness. It is sort of cleansing to watch a movie that is funny without it being domineered by crudity or sexuality to the nth degree. In fact, it's just sometimes nice to watch a movie in which sex is just kind of off the table. The question is love.
Does this quirky sexless movie really amount to anything in the end? Sort of. I found myself struggling by the end of the movie to generate any sort of empathy or interest in what happened between the two leads, which is, in the end, what the movie seems to attach importance to, perhaps to it's detriment. I don't know. I like things that end as well, and giving a movie an end that involves the resolution of a possible love relationship is a time honored tradition. However, in this case I think a bit is lost if you find yourself more interested in the (seemingly) random encounters with interviewees than the "main" relationship. Perhaps this movie wanted to be something more, but it winds up being a quirky and fun way to spend an hour and half, which there is nothing wrong with, and certainly puts it in a class above a number of the dross out there, but I don't think it gives much more. The question is really whether that entertainment is enough. For me, yes.
The Fourteen big Ideas according to the Atlantic
14. Green Revolution is Neither: Essentially, as a proportion we're actually using less green energy in 2011 than we were in 1997. I think we just need to talk more about green jobs. I'm looking at you Obama. Only, not really because I hear about them all the time. Maybe instead of abolishing the EPA we could just classify them all as green jobs. In short, troubling, yet not surprising. We will stop using fossil fuels when they are used up.
13. The Maniac Will be Televised-Essentially, large personalities draw bigger ratings. I'm looking at you Sarah Palin. However, we've been hearing about the cult of personality forever, perhaps the only thing that's changed is its shelf life.
12. The Players own the game: Essentially: pro sports as slavery. IE, you have to work at the same company until your contract is up. Problem: it's hard to generate much sympathy for guys who make millions of dollars playing a game. Unless that game is soccer because soccer is boring, and I feel bad that those guys have to be bored all the time.
11. Gay is the new normal: Essentially, as our society has become more accepting, according to polls, of gay marriage and homosexuality in general, people from gay marriage opponent organizations are starting to claim that they're being marginalized. Uhmmm, I don't think we're there yet guys. It's still illegal in 45 states. No whining about being marginalized.
10. Bonds are dead-I don't understand monetary policy, and this article did nothing to change that. The point is, you should be investing in race horses. Race horses are the key to future riches.
9. The next war will be digitized-I think the point of this one was that we'll be playing video games in our next war, which seems like a good idea.
8. Grandma's in the Basement-Uh, more families are now living together in multi-generational units. I think we can all agree that being a good American involves making a lot of money, striking out on your own, and humoring your parents at the holidays with a phone call or two. This is deeply distressing.
7. Public Employee, Public Enemy-My wife works for the government at the EPA. Believe you me, I remind her every day that if it weren't for her we'd all be doing fine economically. Then I recommended some more tax cuts. The point of the article is that most mayors et al underpay public employees on the front end and load up their pensions on the back end causing the financial burden to fall down the line. Not good.
6. Wall Street: The Same as it ever was-These bastards are rich again. How fast can I get my MBA and start working at B of A.
5. The Arab Spring is a job crisis-No worries. Once the power of the free market hits these democratic governments everything will be fine. Move along.
4. Elections work-In praise of the Tea Party. Hey, at least they got people sitting on their hands to think about the fact that they might want to vote every once in a while if they don't like what's happening.
3. The Rich are different than you and me-They are rich. It's pretty much an Ayn Rand novel out there right now. Whatever happened to Marx?
2. Nothing stays secret-Interesting aside on the whole, Pakistan arrested the six military employees who cooperated with the U.S. in helping them to nab Bin Laden. Naturally the initial reaction is, what the hell is up with that guys? However, if a bunch of U.S. citizens cooperated with China on helping to eliminate someone in our country, we might ask a couple of questions as well. However, I don't want Wikileaks et al to stop us from being Team America, World Police.
1. The rise of the middle class-just not ours-In short, your wages have since 2002 have decreased. However, the upside is that the rising class of consumers in Brazil, China, et al will allow us to bestow the glories of the free market and consumerism on the rest of the world. Meaning, crappy jobs for all! Huzzah!
Obligatory picture/mention of Aristotle when attempting to deploy anything like an argument about what art is.
S and I were having a conversation the other night about art after watching the movie Blue Valentine, the substance of which was basically whether a work of art's quality was somehow enhanced by it being sad. Generic term, that. However, S's point is that I tend to be drawn to pieces of art that conclude on a down note. I tend to think that they have something more authentic about them, and that movies that rely on cliched structures to end happily are not in fact art, but mere entertainment. I'm using the term mere entertainment in the snobbiest way possible. This is not to say that I don't often enjoy entertainment myself, but rather, that I find it's charms to be seductive and rarely redemptive. What I'm saying is that they are often easy, but easy in a way that leaves me actually feeling a little bit empty. A piece of art on the other hand, sad or not, tends to make me feel a little more united with the rest of humanity. Note: I should give S credit here as she identified this difference during our conversation pointing out exactly that, something along the lines of, "When I see a movie that has an unhappy ending, or is generally depressing, it actually makes me feel depressed. I think that it actually leaves you feeling as though you are closer to other people."
I have some further quotes to support my side of the argument, but it's probably time to supplement the writing with visual media. What we were talking about in regards to Blue Valentine was actually a matter of taste. Later I'll argue that it also has something to do with storytelling and integrity, but for the time being we'll drop it. Anyhow, the video below about a honey badger is precisely a matter of taste type thing. Ie, if you have a really strong distaste for curse words, you probably won't like it. I feel as though this aversion to cursing is a bit generational, as I don't use them myself very frequently, but I don't find the use of them, unless it's gratuitous, to be particularly troubling. And in fact, I often find it enhances the humor, as in this video, when used properly. I'm sure S would disagree. Anyhow, other than some minor use of curse words, mainly you're just listening to this guy describe all of the wonderful attributes of a honey badger. It's hilarious. But I suppose that's a matter of taste. Watch and judge.
But then don't we wind up needing some arbiters of taste when it comes to things like art? It could be your opinion that a modern piece of art that involves a lamp glued to a toilet seat is a fine piece of art, and I might be inclined to argue that perhaps Michelangelo's David or Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait would seem to be greater contributions. Can we both be right? Maybe, but probably not. I'd be forced to deploy all sorts of intellectual arguments about what art means in the context of different cultures, and really, I'd just have to know a lot more about art to make a decent argument. The only argument I could make would be something akin to the general revelation of nature that Patrick allegedly used with the Irish. Deployed here, it would sound something like this, "look at the David. Look deeply. Are you not moved to a bit of wonder to think that a man created this thing? And here, I'd say, referring to the piece of art involving a toilet and lamp. Here is just where we put shit."
The discussion that S and I wound up having was a bit more complete than that as I argued that in the case of Blue Valentine, the ending was internally consistent with the character we were shown in the movie. To end it any differently would have actually been a piece of shoddy directing, and relatedly, what made the movie more like art than entertainment were the depth that was given to the characters throughout, and especially the recognizable elements of hard work in a long term relationship. Either way though, to end a movie an upbeat note because it feels better to end on an upbeat note is not consistent with my experience of what it means to be a human being. Rather, it is filled with a myriad of little joys, sometimes great joys,evening conversation, mind numbing boredom coupled with a thousand mini defeats, humiliations and disappointments. In the short time span of the movie we were able to see both the joys and disappointments in the relationship of these two people. It felt authentic.
In general we tend to attach too much meaning to endings. In my experience of life the only true ending for everyone is death. Everything else is just the dance steps in between. Thus, I try, and often fail as we are narrative loving creatures, to not attach all too much meaning to endings. Or at the very least I try and figure out if the ending and the movie, novel, whatever, has an internal integrity that has been kept.
Okay, in the end I haven't been able to give much in the way that a person might go about determining the difference between art and entertainment. Note: The whole argument of how that distinction is blurred in modern times is probably best left elsewhere, and I'm just assuming for the sake of the argument that the reader is interested in determining the difference between art and entertainment. Or at the very least interested in the possibility that art can be redemptive. The argument I've given, loosely, is depth and a certain internal integrity. Though, what I'm ultimately going to say is that I've had to train myself in literature, far less so in film, to recognize what art looks like. Looks is probably the wrong word. Rather, I mean something like how it feels on my nerve endings. Does it make me think or feel deeply or re-imagine my place in the world and it's relation either cosmically or to the person sitting next to me on the bus. Or does it just titillate me a little, uncomfortable word, does it just stave off the mind numbing boredom that occasionally comes with being me. If it's the latter, it's probably not art. Art then, for me, is a bit like that old definition of pornography. I recognize it when I see it. Thus, concludes my brief, and largely unhelpful, argument about art as well as the submission of Blue Valentine as a movie that you should watch and the honey badger video as something that is probably worth the brief break from mind numbing tedium.
After I'd had this conversation with S I stumbled across a couple of interesting pieces of journalism that discuss this very thing. The first is an interview with David Foster Wallace given by a Russian guy over the phone in 2006. Text below.
OK – Can we tell art from entertainment? For example, a program on TV with just entertainment value, can we call it art, if it's really very good? Like your Entertainment, is it art or just entertainment?
DFW – You’re asking me a basic question of what’s called in English “esthetics”. The question of what is art, – your own Tolstoy wrote an entire book about this. This is a very, very complicated question. Personally I believe that there’s a difference between art and entertainment. But it’s not a sharp dark line dividing the two, it’s more like – do you know what the word “continuum” is?
OK – Yes, I have mathematical education.
DFW – We have here much more like continuum here than any kind of a strict demarcation. One reason why the question is very interesting now is that America has gotten very, very, very good in producing entertainment. Vivid spectacular engrossing colorful sophisticated entertainment. And many American scholars and estheticians wonder how serious art will survive in a culture that becomes more and more about entertainment and amusement and escape.
OK – The Entertainment in your book – do you consider it art or…
DFW – The movie? The movie in that book is probably equivalent of Viktor Pelevin’s briefcase with the money. Probably – I did this book a long time ago – my guess is that really, really effective entertainment is usually commercial, meaning it’s primary goal is to get the audience to spend money. There’s a basic economic phenomena that’s named elasticity of demand. And what you want is inelasticity of demand, where the ideal piece of entertainment would something that people would want to see over and over and over again and pay for each time. The analogy for me is much more something like narcotics or addictive drugs than it is some kind of art. But probably the movie in that book is meant to be a sort parody, like exaggeration of entertainment the same kind as the subsidized time is kind of parody of corporate domination in culture.
OK – But, nevertheless, is it art?
DFW – Here’s the problem: you and I can sit down with a pot of coffee and many cigarettes and we could have a whole argument about this. The problem is that any definition one gives of art or any way that one tries in a sentence or two distinguish art from entertainment can be blown full of holes by counterexamples. I have two very simplistic believes: one is that the basic defining feature of an entertainment is that it provides some sort of relief or escape from real human life and the way we also feel inside all the time in the real life. Whereas art provokes more of an engagement or confrontation with that probably. It’s one reason why art requires more work both intellectually and sort of emotionally to observe than it does entertainment. That’s for me one difference. The other is that the entertainment’s goals, I usually think, in America are primarily economic, primarily commercial objects. And their true agenda is to get the consumer to spend money on them. Whereas art, including bad art, usually has much more complicated agendas that has to do at least partly with trying to give some sort of gift or have some kind of meaningful communication with the audience. Not that it’s necessarily succeeds or isn’t some times very bad. But at least deep down in it has the agenda.
Those are my two ways, sort of in my stomach or intuitively distinguish the two but of cause either of us can think of hundreds counterexamples that would make those differences very difficult to maintain in an argument.
The later argument comes from an essay by Vince Passaro about the movies of Martin Scorsese. Specifically it submits that Scorsese is our greatest director because he embraces the basic tragedy of human existence.
Quoting now from Passaro:
Tragedy is inherently, necessarily, uncompromising. And it makes much of the audience, and those who market to it, squirm, with its painful and paradoxical insistence that our lives are ruled by both individual agency and the iron dictates of society, family, and fate.
Tragedy is so far off our cultural radar that Scorsese has rarely been accused of it. He has, of course, been accused of many other aesthetic crimes, most commonly that he celebrates violence. This is like saying that Dante celebrates sin, or that Proust celebrates snobbery. Scorsese is not celebrating our condition, he is recognizing it: recognizing what becomes of men who are separated from God, men who are lost. Don DeLillo, who grew up in a world much like Scorsese's, once described the lingering effects of Catholicism this way: "For a Catholic , nothing is too important to discuss or think about, because he's raised with the idea that he will die any minute now and that if he doesn't live his life in a certain way this death is simply an introduction to an eternity of pain. This removes a hesitation that a writer might otherwise feel when he's approaching important subjects, eternal subjects."
These are the stakes for Scorsese. These are his protagonists men who will suffer and who cannot face down the eternity of pain. Aristotle, our primary architect of tragedy, understood, (as did the authors of the Gospels) that to see and feel deeply the suffering of others helps us to endure our own. This is the redemption that art can offer- Vince Passaro
Children grow up. This is a wonderful thing. One of s's new habits, a habit that apparently according to S she's developed because she's discovered that there are other entities in the world besides her, like she's undergoing this real psychological change in understanding what it means to be a human being, whereby, she actually recognizes S and I as other. The way this manifests itself is that she'll often smile at us and grab our face, which occasionally hurts but is mostly cute. And, equally adorably, she'll sometimes kind of pat you on the shoulder when you pick her up, both to reaffirm that you are indeed a solid separate entity and also because it makes you feel pretty damn good to have the little urchin patting you on the back. Note: I can't wait until I discover that other sentient beings exist besides myself. I think it's going to be a great step for me.
5:30 Why are you awake. Probably to punish me for something I did wrong while you were in the womb.
6:30 If I lie in bed long enough I'm sure she'll fall back asleep.
7:10 After forty raucous minutes of yelling at the ceiling she falls asleep.
10:00 I attempt to feed s some bananas mashed up with some oatmeal and a little milk. Why don't I just keep adding things until we actually violate Michael Pollan's threat of what real food is. Ie is rice cereal mixed with banana, oatmeal, milk, squash and carrots actually still a food? Or is it just disgusting? Anyhow, S has told me to make sure to mash up the banana properly. Naturally I start cutting it up and then have this amazing idea. I pick up the banana in my right hand and squeeze it tightly, watching its guts spread out in my palm and stick to my fingers. Then I sort of rub my hand more and wonder if there might not be a better way to cut up a banana. I add the oatmeal and milk. And yes, it looks a little lumpy, but it s starts choking I can save her.
s takes a brief bite of the banana and then starts crying. "That's how I feel about overripe bananas too kid," I tell her while shoveling another spoonful in between tears. Seconds later she dribbles about 97 percent out of what I've fed to her on her copious chins. And cries. After a few minutes of playing the dribbling game I decide that s just doesn't like bananas and that it's probably a good sign as bananas are notorious for being grown in questionable places. I assume she's taking a stand for worker's rights everywhere.
8:30-9:30-We walk by a daycare in the neighborhood that costs around my whole paycheck per month. The kids all look happy and gather round one of the teachers who is showing them the life cycle of a butterfly or something. I think she may have been a magician. If you have enough money you might not be able to buy your happiness as you're more complex, but you can certainly purchase your child's.
The day before, after church, when s was well overdue for a nap she lay her head down against my chest ever so gently and went to sleep. And yes, my heart melted. My little girl used to always sleep like that. Now it only happens with exhaustion. And even though I'm fairly certain that I tore my other labrum while holding her, I was pretty damn happy.
1-3
s takes the longest nap that she's ever taken for me. I have time to start reading a book, take a nap of my own, finish reading the book and then unload the dishwasher. Two hour naps are the greatest thing in the world because it allows you enough time to actually feel somewhat sane. I mean, it's sort of ironic that parents, who love their children, love them the most after two hour naps. Or maybe it's not so strange. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Today I was talking to our nanny about how s does this thing where she scoots around the floor. It's not quite crawling as she's not up on her knees, but she certainly moves. It's basically inefficient crawling. Anyhow, I'm relating to her that I'd left little s to get a bottle ready for her and then come back and found her slapping the wooden flooring around three feet away from where I'd left her. "She doesn't move around that much for me," our nanny replied. And that's when I realized that it was probably because our nanny didn't leave s alone for as long as I do, and I either felt like a bad parent or like a really good one. Listen, it doesn't bother me to find s sitting on the floor and inspecting the baskets on our book shelf. Hell, today I noticed after she'd been crawling around for a while on the floor that she makes a great mop. The whole front of her shirt was covered in dirt and lint. I'm not saying I let her eat it or anything. I'm just saying that her scooting makes mopping obsolete. And also, most parents must do this, once your kids start moving around a bit I'm guessing you get over that whole, they must be on a blanket and supervised at all times. I mean, she's seven months old, let her live a little.
Later in the day, while I'm using the computer I look down to find that s has crossed the room to start tugging on the cord at my feet. "That's cute honey," I tell her, pulling the cord away and tucking it behind the couch, "but you can't always have what you want. And maybe part of learning to be an adult is coming to grips with that reality." She started playing with my big toe. I'm thinking we really connected.
I fell asleep in the middle of MSN Mondays. Ergo; I'm giving it another crack because it wouldn't be fair to the good folks at MSN for me to resist writing about them just because I fell asleep early in preparation for s's 5:30 wake up time. The show must go on.
Eight careers you may have written off too quickly
1) Marine Biologist-
Yes, 9/10 little girls wanted to grow up to be marine biologists. Primarily because dolphins are cute and being a marine biologist pretty much involves playing with dolphins and cuddling with them and taking them to meet your parents and scout out your boyfriends. Note: The rapscallions almost always dislike them. But yeah, you grow up and start attending college, unlike most of the guys you know, and you realize that being a marine biologist ain't all it's cracked up to be that you'd spend a bunch of time in a lab or sorting through small crustaceans to sex them, and I don't mean that in a perverse way, and it doesn't seem to great anymore. Guess what? It is. It's pretty much just learning to swim like a dolphin and train sharks and stuff. Look again.
2) Tightrope walker-Sure you probably considered this but then realized you have an inner ear thing, which already makes things like skiiing and snow boarding a pain in the as- as it is, and you are fairly certain that you'd probably bite it big time on your first walk. Think again. Do you know that nine in ten tightrope walkers do not die from an accident during a show? I may have just made that up, but it certainly sounds true to me. Take another look!
3) Retiring-Sure, you're probably thinking that you shouldn't retire in your late twenties, that society requires that you work at something. That work gives you meaning. That retiring is for the elderly. I'm hear to tell you that you don't need to spend your declining years watching Price is Right every morning and occasionally dropping in on your condo in Arizona. No. Retire now. Your friends will probably let you couch surf. Society can do without you pushing papers from one place to another. They'll find another guy to do that job. Retire. Meet your full potential. Spend time reading philosophy, literature, science, travel, become a very interesting person before you even consider what comes next.
"This is where the Los Angeles Sparks play their home games."
4) Tour guide to the Scottish Highlands-I know what you're thinking. I don't actually know where Scotland is. I thought it went extinct during the Pleistocene. You'd be right. However, that doesn't mean that you can't offer amazing tours of the Scottish highlands. Get your as- out there. Who said you actually have to know anything about a place to give a tour of it. Most people have enjoyed stories and fictions since time in memomoriam. The great tragedians of the Greek era knew this, and you know it. See this old Loch, use the word loch for lake, there, that one was free. This old loch is the place where Thomas Scottishmen signed the declaration of Scottish Independence from the Moors. Guess what? People don't know much about Scotland. You can tell them anything and develop your fictional skills.
5) Ninja-I know. You gave this up after you turned seven when a million other kids showed up at Halloween as a ninja. You wanted to be unique, a middle manager at some quasi meaningless business where you could order a few folks around and have this tiny little kingdom. Guess what/ None of those kids became ninjas. Imagine throwing one of those start thingies that I used to the know the name of, is it ninja star? and watching it bend around a hallway corner to stab someone in the trachea who has wronged you or someone who has hired you to get revenge for them because you are a ninja and not same lame office manger. It feels pretty good doesn't it?
6) Reality tv star-I know. It's pase at this point. However, as they increasingly scrape the bottom of the barrel in the declining years your chance to abase yourself for fifteen seconds of fame could be nigh. Have you lost your dignity? Well, strike while the iron is hot. I'm pretty sure there is a show for everyone. I watched a really compelling one a couple of years ago about guys competing for women in Alaska by throwing axes and chopping wood and stuff. It was awesome.
7) The oldest profession in the world-That's right. A farmer. Remember Adam and Eve? Turns out they weren't prostitutes. They were farmers. I know that you live in a city and the sound of a cricket mildly scares you, and the last time you drove a tractor was across your living room floor at age six. However, farming can't be that hard. Plus it's fun to have good relationships with the animals and always be shaking your head at their crazy antics and later killing them. This has got to do a lot for a person.
8) President of the universe-I know what you're thinking? Weren't Skeletor and He-Man kind of doing a job share on this one while they both took time off to care for their newly born children. No sir. That was the famous and progressive television show called Masters of the Universe. No. You're shooting for the stars my friend. I know that your political ambitions don't actually involve voting or even looking at local candidates, but that makes you perfect for president of the universe. Your lack of knowledge about interplanetary star systems and the people you'd be in charge of make you the best candidate possible. So start making signs Cosmicomics style.
