The Gash

2007-03-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE NCAA AND CBS

To Whom It May Concern,

As a University of Memphis student and a supporter of College Basketball, I join a growing community in asking you to discipline Bill Raftery. In your national coverage, your announcers are supposed to remain objective in their analysis and commentary. However, in the Memphis-Ohio State game, Mr. Raftery could hardly contain his vociferous preference for Ohio State, and as a result was uncritical of the lopsided officiating.

Mr. Raftery stands behind his status as a supposed basketball institution, and a colorful one at that. As a fan of the sport, his act is growing tired. The purpose of an announcer is to provide insightful analysis and display a knowledge of the game. Based on recent telecasts, it is increasingly apparent that his expertise is limited to pithy one-liners and pointless colloquialisms. This, on top of his obvious rooting interest toward premier teams and celebrated players, proves that he is no longer useful as an announcer and that his status as an institution is undeserved. In his bias, lack of insight, and perfunctory “inside” knowledge gleaned from the front page of the local Sports station or from a sports report prepared for him by an assistant, Mr. Raftery has the traits of the worst announcers.

I join with a growing number of fans who long for a season of Basketball without the irritating persona of Bill Raftery. In particular, I ask that you consider him unwelcome at coverage of University of Memphis basketball games, or at least that he be asked to issue a statement of apology for his bias.

2007-03-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

OK, I wrote some really mediocre reviews of three new albums I love but they’re on my laptop and I can’t get them online. So you’ll get them next week.

Here’s what I what to take on this week:

THE DEFINITIVE 200 ALBUMS

If you get tired of reading me, you can read the Onion article here.

Boy is this a stupid list. It’s obviously an attempt for Record retailers (who this is brainchild of, along with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) to repackage records and include some kind of “bonus” that will make it cost more. I think it’s a last gasp effort for the Record sellers to remind us that they still matter, even if Record seller is a pleasant euphemism for music marketers.

I don’t know if this list will be publicized or not, as Blockbuster often does with their “classics” in an attempt to sell more movies, but if it does it will backfire in a big way for the following reasons:

1. The audience who likes slick, overproduced rap, Matchbox 20 and/or the Grease soudntrack, and Country (all of which are included for mostly arbitrary reasons) do not care about lists like this, and therefore will not consult it to buy a Miles Davis CD.

2. The audience who likes Jazz, PET SOUNDS, and Electronica and have memorized every Rolling Stone or Pitchfork list, are going to immediate disregard the list for the inclusion of the above genres.

Therefore the companies involved will lose a lot of money in repackaging these albums. And what’s most mystifying is that they decided to rank these. Why not just put them in alphabetical order to better justify Norah Jones as having delivered a better album than anything the Beach Boys did besides PET SOUNDS (which is, of course, insane)? And apparently 191 albums are better than Steely Dan’s AJA, and over 200 (at least) are better than CAN’T BUY A THRILL, COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY, PRETZEL LOGIC, GAUCHO, KATY LIED, THE ROYAL SCAM, etc, among them something by KID ROCK?????!?!?!? One album by Radiohead. No Stooges, Television, Wilco, Sigur Ros, Elliot Smith, Flaming Lips, Nick Cave, R.E.M., Neutral Milk Hotel, Kinks, Gram Parsons, Leonard Cohen, Roy Orbison, or Nick Drake. No Bruce Springsteen albums that don’t start with BORN. Also, there are no albums by the Talking Heads or the Velvet Underground, two of the most influential bands to ever wear goofy shirts, and my two favorite bands EVER.

Here are the most questionable inclusions:

(BTW, as for the format issues, I am quitting Blogger soon; I'm sick of this cut and paste junk; how hard is it to format something out of WORD?)

13. Santana, SUPERNATURAL

14. Metallica, four albums, including their S/T, which even most of their fans hate (at #14)

Shania Twain, COME ON OVER

Alanis Morissette, JAGGED LITTLE PILL

27. Norah Jones, COME AWAY WITH ME

Outkast

33. Dixie Chicks, WIDE OPEN SPACES (two years ago, this would not have made the list)

36. Def Leppard, HYSTERIA (are you kidding me??!?!)

37. Soundtrack, GREASE (more on this in a second)

Bon Jovi, SLIPPERY WHEN WET (remember folks, there are no Talking Heads albums on this list)

Whitney Houston, WHITNEY HOUSTON
Dave Matthews Band, CRASH (Oh sweet lord….)

57. 50 Cent, GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’ (Because the people he has exploited and is exploiting need to have his filthy, materialistic legend plastered on a list like this made by people who don’t listen to him)

Green Day, AMERICAN IDIOT (50 spots better than OK COMPUTER)

65. Coldplay, RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD (Soon to be playing softly in an elevator near you)

66. Meatloaf, BAT OUT OF HELL (I used to think that the Loaf was kind of underrated, so its nice to see that now I can stop saying this, because he’s now overrated)

Usher, CONFESSIONS

69.George Harrison, ALL THINGS MUST PASS (“See,” They’re saying, “we can be inclusive snots too! Then there’s this:

Kid Rock, DEVIL WITHOUT A CAUSE (bitchin!)

74. Phil Collins, NO JACKET REQUIRED

76. Faith Hill, BREATHE (Which is a much more groundbreaking accomplishment than all the stoic hipsters who cried after hearing OK COMPUTER)

84. Linkin Park, HYBRID THEORY (I’m starting to wonder if this is a joke.)

86. Def Leppard, PYROMANIA (I can just see this dude demanding TWO Leppard albums on the list or he QUITS!)

87. Janet Jackson, CONTROL

91. Matchbox 20, YOURSELF OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU (the most unforgivable sin on this list)

95. Creed, HUMAN CLAY (never mind – this is one spot ahead of LONDON CALLING, mind you. Creed is one spot ahead of LONDON CALLING.)

97. Celine Dion, FALLING INTO YOU (damn that woman can sing!)

100. Dixie Chicks, HOME

103. Soundtrack, TITANIC (You know! It had that song by Celine Dion on it! And . . . all the other songs!)

113. Dixie Chicks, FLY

116. Mariah Carey, DAYDREAM

117. Soundtrack, TOP GUN (Where the hell is Belinda Carlisle anyway?)

123. Tool, LATERALUS

127. Christina Aguilera, CHRISTINA AGUILERA (I actually think this is an OK album, and might go on some best albums of the last 20 years list. But the 127 Best albums EVER?

133. Natalie Cole, UNFORGETTABLE (See this belongs here, because obviously it made Natalie Cole the megastar she is today, and wasn’t merely proof that she could only sell an album by relying on her Dad’s fame. Oops)

151. Janet Jackson, JANET

154. Will Smith, BIG WILLIE STYLE

158. George Michael, FAITH (Another OK album by an artist we now revile, which still has no business being ahead of THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST)

162. Avril Lavigne, LET GO (WHAT?!?!?)

168. Soundtrack, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Obviously there was no criteria for this list; it just had to be “something you can buy in a CATS.)

172. Shakira, LAUNDRY SERVICE (The influence of this album is astounding . . . NOT; #175 is Curtis Mayfield’s superlative SUPERFLY soundtrack, BTW)

176. Live, THROWING COPPER (Oh, are we through making fun of them now?)

178. White Stripes, WHITE BLOOD CELLS (Who on earth thinks this is a better album than the not-included ELEPHANT or GET BEHIND ME SATAN?!?)

182. Wings, BAND ON THE RUN (snicker . . .)

197. U2, ALL THAT YOU CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND (Let the arguing begin, although even among still-active U2 fans, the suggestion that this album is better than BOY, WAR, or even RATTLE AND HUM should be insidious)

I probably left a few out (BEYONCE, for example). But I still find the list appalling, and it is obviously only around to turn money for people who don’t necessarily need to sell records to exist. Everyone on here is fat and happy, and most of them are defunct (in more ways that one). No kid is going to see this list and fall in love with an underrated classic.

To end this with something positive, if I knew that, tomorrow, I was going to be whisked away to a desert island and could only bring ten albums, they would be:

Velvet Underground, VELVET UNDERGROUND (the gray album)

Talking Heads, FEAR OF MUSIC

Beatles, RUBBER SOUL

Flaming Lips, YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS

Television, MARQUEE MOON

Nick Drake, BRYTER LAYTER

Radiohead, THE BENDS

R.E.M., OUT OF TIME

Bob Dylan, JOHN WESLEY HARDING

The Beach Boys, SURFS UP

2007-02-24T22:22:00.000-08:00

When you don’t read this, the Oscars will have come and gone. You are probably wondering my predictions. I don’t know, maybe you’re wondering how silly putty picks crap up from comic books*. But I think BABEL will win while Scorsese gets his obligatory Best Director/Lifetime Achievement/Sorry We Haven’t Given You An Oscar Yet Best Living Director statue. The other awards are a shoo-in: DREAMGIRLS will sweep the supporting noms while Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren will take home the big awards. I have seen none of those actorial movies. Like everyone else who lives in the bubble outside the mainstream (not many girls there), I am upset that CHILDREN OF MEN did not receive some arbitrary major nominations that would have opened it to the wider audience it deserved.

Here are my latest thoughts:

THE DEPARTED, on second viewing, gets even stronger. Scorsese gives a perfect overdose of style to a story that is somewhere in between a SOPRANAS knockoff and the Irish version of GOODFELLAS. Marty is working with the best actors available and they’re all excellent. My first impression of Matt Damon was that he was a dull cipher for a character that needed to a lot of buried syndromes. This time, I was pretty impressed by the way Jason Bourne allowed Scorsese to turn his image upside-down: he’s an impotent lothario scumbag who just happens to be very, very smart. Mark Wahlberg wraps his talent around the best dialogue the movie has to offer, and its proof that he has not abandoned the talent that BOOGIE NIGHTS proved he had. Di Caprio is awesome – he’s in the midst of a Nicholson-esque string of great, diverse roles. The supporting cast, particular Alec Baldwin and Ray Winstone, are pitch-perfect.

This is the most acrid Scorsese, normally a life-affirming libertine, has ever been. He attacks, in no particular order: priests, city government, the current Elephant Administration ™, Chinese Democracy (of the non-Axl variety), ceremony, psychiatrists, cell phone culture, the inadequacy of prescription drugs, real estate, the nation’s ultra-patriotic post 9/11 love of firemen, KANGAROO JACK funnyfatman Anthony Anderson, City Pride, TV News Sophists, and funerals. This is the least effective part of THE DEPARTED (the man has never been very good, or needed to be, at messages), but it is still the most powerful piece of High Profile Cinema in the last few years.

THE ILLUSIONIST and THE PRESTIGE

Two magic movies in Fall ’06 and both featured the participation of legendary conjurer Ricky Jay (as a performer in PRESTIGE, a consultant in ILLUSIONIST). THE ILLUSIONIST was, apparently, the bigger hit, which was odd because THE PRESTIGE was the more conventionally entertaining. I liked both films kind of. They both suffered from high concept stories obsessed with making a connection between deception-based magic and deception-based storytelling. With its showy cinematic, THE ILLUSIONIST would seem to be the one making more of a moral about the ILLUSION of movies, but ultimately THE PRESTIGE spends more time in the “You Can’t Really Believe Everything You See” camp. THE ILLUSIONIST is popcorn camp passed off as high style (done very well), while THE PRESTIGE is a grand gesture about all kinds of contrived wizardry pieced together into a genre pic.

Though I liked both films kind of, I preferred THE PRESTIGE mainly because of Christian Bale’s crazy eyes, Michael Caine’s enduring watchability, David Bowie’s participation, Scarlett Johannson’s siren presence, and Hugh Jackman’s perfect mix of vulnerability and cocksure arrogance. Bale, in particular, is an actor who deserves more credit: I found him boring in BATMAN BEGINS, but it wasn’t his fault. Except for maybe fellow chap Clive Owen, he is the most inaccessible persona on the screen, and this makes him fascinating. He refuses to let us in, to show up on talk shows wearing jeans and a blazer and tell funny stories about his kids. He stares in the camera as though he can break the lens. When he laughs, it’s because he’s smarter than you. It’s hard to believe this is the doe-eyed expressive ragamuffin from EMPIRE OF THE SUN.

THE ILLUSIONIST features a tedious performance by Edward Norton, who has only been interesting in movies he could manipulate (like the wretched DOWN IN THE VALLEY). As the cop, Paul Giamatti is always interesting, but Norton sleepwalks through every scene he’s in. Since 25^TH HOUR, Ed has been in a downward spiral that might necessitate the dreaded “comeback.” But since he was never a major star to begin with, and never a pop-culture icon, audiences are likely to yawn when he does, unlike the Travolta/Carradine resurgence models.

Still, a double-bill of both films is more than passable entertainment.

I have been busier than the guy who cleans the toilets in Hell recently, so I have plenty of reasons not the see the hideous January/February releases like the recently released JIM CARREY HAS LONG HAIR AND AN EXPLICIT SEX SCENE AND BABBLES ABOUT NUMEROLOGY. I recently saw a preview that said

"WILD HOGS IS THE FIRST GREAT COMEDY OF THE YEAR! ALLEN, LAWRENCE, TRAVOLTA, AND MACY (why William H, why??!?!) ARE A DREAM TEAM."

Rhetorical question: would anyone arrest a serial killer of blurb artists-for-hire? Not-so-rhetorical conclusion: I think I’ll do it anyway.

Speaking of serial killers: One question about these dud-season releases, why was David Fincher’s ZODIAC dumped at the beginning of March? As I remember, the same thing happened with his mediocre PANIC ROOM. Fincher directed, by my vote, the best Serial Killer movie ever made, and one of the best movies of the last twenty years: SEVEN**. Now he’s back in his wheelhouse, working with a great cast (and, sadly, Jake Gyllenhaal), and making a stylish late-period piece ripped from the headlines. Could it be a bomb? Is Fincher a dead man walking? Has he both betrayed his iconoclastic roots that made him such a force of nature and ruined his chance to make big budget genre pics (of which his THE GAME is one of the best of recent memory)?

A long post, I realize. In case you’re one of the people who hasn't talked to me in the last four weeks, the best album since Arcade Fire’s FUNERAL is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s SOME LOUD THUNDER. I say this only so you can go buy it. I’ll post about it’s Television/Talking Heads-inspired awesomeness in a later post.

* - I ripped off this line from a movie you should see, KISS KISS BANG BANG

** - I absolutely refuse to type the actual title: SE7EN***

*** - I just did

2007-02-15T16:16:00.001-08:00

THREE MOVIE REVIEWS

1) LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

LETTERS is Eastwood at his (paradoxically) most restrained and least subtle. For The Man With No Name But Two Oscars, that is saying an awful lot – but his latest progression of movies is following that trend: more restrained in terms of form and stylistics, and less subtle in terms of performance and nuance.

Still, LETTERS is a really good film, kind of brave at times in its insistence that the fanaticism of the Japanese was not their raison-de-etre. That the Japanese fit so neatly into the typically stoic-passionate vision quest of Eastwood’s films is a testament either to the Japanese or the filmmakers’ ability to make them something other than noble savages, Eastern voodoo archetypes, or kamikaze nutjobs.

Where the film lacks subtlety are in the typical scenes where serious looking members of the proletariat tell us the theme of the movie. There’s a very moving “We don’t know anything about the enemy” speech that is intended to be very moving. And, like PRIVATE RYAN, there’s an unnecessary framing device.

My take on Eastwood is this: He has made one masterpiece (UNFORGIVEN) and one awesome, archetypal, though mostly forgotten genre piece (HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER). His third best film is LETTERS. The rest of his catalog (and it’s expansive, because he makes a movie a year) is hit or miss: from

Wildly overrated: MYSTIC RIVER, MILLION DOLLAR BABY

Curious Misfires That Are A Classic Mismatch of Director and Material: BREEZY, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL, WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART

Wildly Underrated: A PERFECT WORLD, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, BRONCO BILLY

Solid, but mostly forgotten, certainly not iconic, but very entertaining genre pictures: SPACE COWBOYS, THE EIGER SANCTION, FIREFOX, THE GAUNTLET, HEARTBREAK RIDGE, TRUE CRIME, ABSOLUTE POWER

There are those who are quick to celebrate some kind of Eastwoodian Renaissance with MYSTIC RIVER, and those people were quick to dismiss him after BLOOD WORK (you didn’t see it; I’m not surprised – it was his least seen movie since THE ROOKIE). But now Eastwood, Scorsese, and Speilberg have been entered in some kind of high-falutin’ “Best Director in the World” contest. I think the person who will be hurt most by this is Eastwood, who has the capability to move toward the arty and the overly serious as opposed to the genre pieces that generally better reflect his gifts and charms. (I'm still waiting to see FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS)

2) SCIENCE OF SLEEP

I complained that the otherwise stellar ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND was not funny where it should have been. Music Video wunderkind Michel Gondry directed it with the kind of solemnity usually reserved for Hallmark movies. Gondry’s gifts, I decided, were a quirky visual flourish that doesn’t draw attention to itself (whereas everything about SUNSHINE was designed to draw attention to its elaborate artificiality). But with SCIENCE OF SLEEP, he surprised me with his humor.

The film is endlessly inventive and funny. It has both a daffy exuberance and hipster’s lazy attitude towards finishing things. Gondry’s brilliant decision is in his refusal to distinguish between reality and dreams, and it allows the movie to fit outside and inside both worlds.

Gael Garcia Bernal pisses me off. He is obviously the kind of guy who can walk into any bar where I happen to be, and pick up the girl that I have deemed the best looking and the coolest. More than any actor under forty, the camera is in love with him, and he is comfortable in front of it. Charlotte Gainsbourg is the filmic equivalent of the “girl that I have deemed the best looking and the coolest.” She ranks a close second to Zooey Deschanel on my working list of “girls who wear sweaters too big for them that I dream about ”

Chuck Klosterman has a hypothetical situation involving a wizard that makes you that much better looking for every dollar you give him. This hypo is similar to my thoughts about the Velvet Underground and movies. If a movie includes a VU song, I will like it that much better. Needless to say, SCIENCE does.

3) BABEL

BABEL is a bleak, practically hopeless meditation on people who uncomfortable with the place they are. Like 21 GRAMS, it works on three levels: in this case, global, economic, and personal. Almost Nobody in BABEL really likes themselves all that much, and yet the film finds the weirdest sort of compassion for every one of them.

I wish I credit this to Alejandro Innaritu for some reason other than “artistry,” but I cannot. Innaritu is a plain old-fashioned cliché: an artist. He has no truck for the type of cohesive realism that modern directors feel hamstrung by and allow to hamper their resources for artistic and political expression. That said, BABEL doesn’t feel overly political – the implications are all the viewers. No one comments on the surroundings, and this has caused many to say it is uneven. I think it’s the reason for its greatness.

The performances are amazing, and one of the things Oscar got right was in nominating the Mexican and Japanese actresses whose names I can’t remember.

If Babel has a flaw, it’s that oft-mentioned lack of causality. But if you can escape that, and you should, it is one of the best films of the year.

BTW, If I were going to update my top ten list after my recent viewing experiences, it would look something like this (withe everything else dropping to honorable mention):

1) BRICK 2) CHILDREN OF MEN 3) UNITED 93 4) THE DEPARTED 5) BABEL 6) THE FOUNTAIN 7) MIAMI VICE 8) NEW YORK DOLL 9) TALLADEGA NIGHTS 10) LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

2007-02-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

Eulogy to a Hell of a Dame by Charles Bukowski

some dogs who sleep At night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about.

I don't really know what to say about the life of Charles Bukowski, other than that he spent most of his life as a boorish drunk postman/barhopper with ridiculous poetic ambitions that were amazingly realized. There is not much redemption in his story. For most of his life, if his numerous autobiographical tomes are to be interpreted, he was an acne-ridden slob who could not hold down a job, a woman, or regular room and board. Then his poems became a success, he was an underground sensation, and he traveled the country to give drunken poetry readings and cryptic answers to 'Zine lapdogs. Anyone who wants to know more about the last sentence can see the recent documentary BORN INTO THIS, where Bukowski seems at once arrogant and befuddled by and about his ability to write poetry.

The average person does not know Charles Bukowski, and this is ironic because it is the average person he thinks he is writing about. But Bukowski's averages are grotesques: lonely, irresponsible loudmouths who manage to piss off every boss they ever worked for. It is the critics who find that Bukowski supremely represents the bridge and tunnel crowd.

Still, I've always found Bukowski to be a fascinating poet and novelist, ever since Ben and I attempted to adapt his last novel, PULP, into a screenplay. His HAM ON RYE is one of my favorite books. He writes about the underbelly from the underbelly, without any attempts at sympathy or objectivity. It is raw, unforced, and immediate - gutter poetry, I've heard it called, and that about gets it.

The latest attempt at a Bukowski movie, FACTOTUM, is hit or miss. In the 80s, critics fawned over the Bukowski adaptation BARFLY. Bukowski apparently hated it, and chronicled the experience in the superlative "novel" HOLLYWOOD. BARFLY starred Mickey Rourke as Bukowski alter-ego Henry Chinaski, and stumbled around the whole movie talking like Snagglepuss. I found it to be an annoying performance in a dull movie. FACTOTUM stars Matt Dillon, an actor I've always liked, and while Dillon does not give into Rourke-esque indulgence, he is wrong for Chinaski. Chinaski is a pug-ugly, pudgy loser who could have only existed in 1940. Dillon is a former teen idol. Sadly, like Rourke, his movie star looks will always haunt him, because this is the role he seems to enjoy the most - depraved, wayward, and rough.

The biggest problem is the curious decision to the update the time. There are many adjectives that can be used to describe C.B., but "timeless" is not one of them. His novels are rooted in a period; Chinaski rejects a very particular, archaic set of values that made him an iconoclast at the time, but today would make him at home with many. In reading the novels, he is the antithesis of the so-called greatest generation - and thats what made him such a compelling literary figure: his refusal to buy into any of the party lines. Today, of course, one out of every three people you meet are the antithesis of the greatest generation.

Chinaski was Bukowski's warped, brilliant attempt at the picaresque tradition - where the rogue hero grows only through his misadventures. But he's also a naive in the tradition of Forrest Gump or Candide, whose apparently world-weariness is countered by his discomforting (often grotesque) childishness and need for companionship. Like those heroes, Chinaski succeeds with wit, not knowledge, and instinct rather than understanding. This character seems out of place in a setting that is so obviously modern. The job-bouncing Chinaski would not be able to rent five dollar rooms anywhere. In FACTOTUM, he is an anachronism who is never explained, and this makes the film curiously disjointed.

Still, there is much to admire about the movie, particularly in the passionate performance of Lili Taylor. The film captures out-of-work lowlifes in the same way that Bukowski did - without degrading or sentimentalizing them in a Damon Runyan gallery of toughs. It has the typical crude, hilarious, and cringe-inducing humor of the best Bukowski work. At its worst moments, it gave further proof that no filmmaker will ever be able to capture Bukowski, thus never exposing him to a wider audience. At its best, it reminded me of the brilliant closing losing lines of HAM ON RYE, perhaps my favorite ending of any novel. Chinaski, unemployed and penniless, covered in acne that is at once his badge and his scar, plays a primitive robot boxing game with a Mexican boy. The fighters fight; Chinaski loses. Bukowski writes:

"I put in another dime and blue trunks sprang to his feet. The kid started squeezing his one trigger and the right arm of red trunks pumped and pumped. I let blue trunks stand back for a while and contemplate. Then I nodded at the kid. I move blue trunks in, both arms flailing. I felt I had to win. It seemed very important. I didn't know why it was important and I kept thinking, why do I think this is so important?
And another part of me answered, just because it is.
Then blue trunks dropped again, hard, making the same iron clanking sound. I looked at him laying on his back down there on the little green velvet mat.
Then I turned around and walked out."

2007-01-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most enthralling film experience of the year was my recent viewing of NEW YORK DOLL. The story of Arthur “Killer” Kane, former bassist for the cross-dressing, drug-snorting New York Dolls, is a cliché of the highest order – it has the dizzying highs and squalid lows that most film critics deplore because of the innate push-button sentimentality. But here’s the thing: NEW YORK DOLL is a documentary. The storybook structure is entirely true. Though some (perhaps unnecessary) artifice has been used to tell the story, all of this happened exactly like this. The film may not be remarkable (as the Onion said, it’s the filmic equivalent of the best episode ever of VH1’s BAND REUNITED), but the story is.

The New York Dolls broke on the punk scene in 1971, an uneasy synthesis of misfits, junkies, and social outcasts who decided that to gain a crowd, they’d have to be noticed. While many punk bands were fronting androgynous singers, the Dolls took it a step further – dressing as transvestite whores and dancing seductively around the stage. Their scene was the scene, plain and simple, and the music was at once lurid and exhilarating.

Full disclosure: I have never really cared that much for the Dolls. I find them to something of a Stooges/MC5 knockoff*, and none of their music excites me as those two bands do. A major rock figure (who will be mentioned later) calls them innovative and original, but I just don’t see it. I can’t tell whether David Johansen is channeling Mick Jagger, or outright copying him (they even look alike though Jagger is, amazingly, better looking.) Their music isn’t so much great as it is opportunistic: it’s the kind of sound you’d expect from a group of dudes that look like ladies. And in archival footage released last year as NEW YORK DOLLS: ALL DOLLED UP, they came off as insufferable, immature assholes looking around for “squares” to shock.

But I am fascinated by them.

The story of the Dolls is familiar to anyone who has read PLEASE KILL ME or has spent any time reading about New York scene. When they were about to have a major breakout, drummer Billy Murcia ingested a number of conflicting substances and died after imbecile groupies poured hot coffee down his throat. The band broke up in 1975 with only a cult following and having made no money. Lead Guitarist Johnny Thunders and new Drummer started the Heartbreakers and developed a new cult. They both died of heroin overdoses. Guitarist Sylvain Sylvain faded into obscurity, occasionally working with Johansen. Johansen had an unsuccessful solo career until he dudded himself again, this time as an anachronistic lounge singer named “Buster Poindexter.” Anyone alive in 1988 remembers his only hit, HOT HOT HOT. He then had a semi-successful acting career in films liked SCROOGED and CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU? Now, he regrets this decision because it damaged his status as a nihilistic icon.

“Killer” Kane, the statue-like bass player, suffered the strangest fate. After years of unsuccessful attempts to recapture the early “success,” he became an abusive, suicidal drunk and lost all of his money. He grew sullen and bitter, particularly at the thought of Johansen’s late-80s resurgence. At some point, he stumbled into a Mormon temple and spent fifteen years poor but clean. The 180 is obvious: from the most extreme libertine to the most rigid conservative. Kane took the bus, wore dorky ties and short-sleeved button down white shirts, and worked at the Family History Library. He pawned his guitars and ignorantly paid every year to keep them in hock, when for about seventy dollars more he could have owned them outright. Occasionally someone would mention that he had once been in a rock band.

But the Dolls had one very influential fan - one of the more enigmatic, respected, and consistent pop stars in recent memory: Morrisey. Before Morrisey became a shoe-gazing megastar, he was obsessed with this transgender rock. That this very private personality participates in the interviews of this documentary is a testament to his admiration. He is the doting impresario behind the comeback. His actions seem completely selfless as he recognizes the debt he owes to them. This is odd because their music is so different.

In 2004, Johansen, Sylvain, and Kane reunite to play “Morrissey’s Meltdown.” By all accounts, it is a success. Johansen and Kane bury the axe. Kane is, for once, happy.

I have no doubt that in 1973, “Killer Kane” was an obnoxious, unbearable persona who bought into the glam and decadence of the scene that embraced him. But in 2004, Arthur Kaneis a sad, sweet, soft-spoken figure – an ascetic who sincerely believes that his unique misery can be successfully channeled into service for the Mormon church. Also, he is not the brightest bulb - whether robbed by his early indulgences or just born this way. To paraphrase Chuck Klosterman in his article on Metallica, rockers like Kane have all their success and are adulated at an early age, and thus never have to grow up or learn to handle conflict in a mature, reasonable way. Kane was probably never good at much other than playing Bass - his popularity in the band was a result of his lack of personality. He lacks the necessary introspection or intelligence to do something about his lot, to put everything in perspective. so he puts his complete trust in the Mormons to point him in the right direction. Judging by this movie, they've done an amazing job at giving him some kind of purpose.

There is a tendency among my fellow Evangelicals to ridicule Mormons and point out their theological inconsistencies, to effectively shun them from any meaningful conversation about God. I realize this film was made by a Mormon, and therefore may have a slanted perspective, but these people love Kane unreservedly, even though he was once the antithesis of their moral teachings. He was a broken, violent, bitter man and they gave him something to keep him alive. As Morrisey notes, he is mostly "miserable," but the community gives his sustenance - they keep him from being more miserable.

It is amazing to think that for fifteen years, you could walk into this library, and meet the bass player for the New York Dolls. When he arrives in London to play Morrisey’s gig, he marvels at a hotel room that most of us would find completely average. Before the big show, he explains to a baffled Johansen about the “Word of Wisdom.”

NEW YORK DOLL is being marketed as a movie about redemption, which it certainly is, but I find it more fascinating as a movie about bass players. In Tom Hanks’ underrated teenage girl fave THAT THING YOU DO!, the bass player is named, simply, “T.B. Player,” a mark of the easiest member of the band to forget. They carry large instruments and usually stand stock still. In Metallica, Jason Newsted was the ostracized and ridiculed member, and he eventually quit. Bass players are often left out of the core of the group. I found a list of the greatest bass players ever, and, other than Flea, the average rock fan probably couldn’t even name them.

Even if you loathe punk, or are ignorant about it, you should enjoy this documentary. After reading a vitriolic biography of Iggy Pop, I was refreshed by this film that describes the weird energy of the period, and the at-times awful fallout. And no matter what creed or faith you belong to, it shows the resuscitating power of spirituality when fused with an absolute faith in its ability to save you.

It made me like the Dolls.

* Other bands/people that ripped off the Stooges/MC5 (for better or wose): Dead Boys, WASP, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust act, Def Leppard, KISS, Slayer, Joy Division, The Clash, The Beastie Boys, Metallica, Jet, Aerosmith, Blondie, The Hives, The Strokes, Mid-70s Lou Reed, and (most famously and atrociously) The Sex Pistols.

2007-01-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

BEST OF 2006

I always begin by noting the movies I've missed. The (somewhat unfortunately) trend continues as the number of movies on the list escalates. There are a lot of movies I really wanted to see, but couldn't, and they don't come out on DVD for a while. 2006 was a good year for films, not a great year. But any year that features my top two can't be dismissed. Also, it cannot be considered a bad year when Michael Mann, Robert Altman, and Martin Scorsese make movies.

So a redux is to come. But it's the season to be making self-important lists.

I wanted to see and missed or haven't yet seen: FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, LETTERS TO IWO JIMA, THE GOOD GERMAN, FAST FOOD NATION, BABEL, PANS LABYRINTH, BORAT, TIDELAND, IDIOCRACY, THE PRESTIGE, THE QUEEN, INLAND EMPIRE, THE ILLUSIONIST, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, DREAMGIRLS, APOCALYPTO, ARMY OF SHADOWS

So that said, here's the big top 10, with little fanfare or explanation

Normally I reserve a spot for a documentary, but this year I did not see (a 2006 release) worth considering.

10. LITTLE CHILDREN

Todd Field's film of Tom Perotta's book is flawed, but he makes the kind of bold decisions that I like to see filmmakers make. After leaving the film somewhat annoyed with those choices, I realized that I had unfairly taken ownership of the book and refused to see his vision. After much thought, I realized that he almost perfectly cinematized the book and gave us a version faithful in tone if not to the letter. Great performances throughout.

9. A PRAIRE HOME COMPANION

The second most fun movie of ot-6, and a good note for Altman to end on. It fits perfectly in his meandering, endless watchable canon. The dryness is hilarious and the world well-conceived. It also has this weird amped-up ticking clock of a narrative that Altman (and Keiler) refuse to take seriously. And that's all part of the fun.

8. A SCANNER DARKLY

I am torn on Richard Linklater. He is the most hit or miss director working. For every movie he makes that bores me (SCHOOL OF ROCK), he returns with this fascinatingly odd science fiction question. It's in the best spirit of the 70s paranoia film, fused with the innovative technique of rotoscoping. And (this may not be saying much) it's the best performance of Keanu Reeves' career.

7. TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE LEGEND OF RICKY BOBBY

The most fun movie of the year. I have not been more pleasantly surprised by a comedy since OFFICE SPACE. Unlike the overrated ANCHORMAN, this is a comedy that actualyl tries to tell jokes, instead of rolling out strange setpieces. Like the underrated HAPPY GILMORE, it has some interesting things to say about sports culture and celebrity, but it never blatantly says these, because it wants to be really, really funny. The scenes with Reilly and Ferrell are among the comic highlights of the century.

6. MIAMI VICE

Michael Mann made another movie. And I loved it. And I am immune to your criticisms, those of you who wanted this to be STARSKY AND HUTCH.

5. THE FOUNTAIN

I shrugged at PI and was horrified (in a good way, I guess) by REQUEIM FOR A DREAM. But THE FOUNTAIN gives me an Aranofsky I can go along, wide-eyed, with as he introduces me to magical trees and ambiguously interlinear magic. A meditation on love, justice, faith, hope, and reincarnation that will either haunt you or piss you off. You will not leave this movie unchallenged.

4. THE DEPARTED

All the stupid criticims of this movie are from the anti-traditionalists interested in boosting their own heroes as the "greatest living director." GANGS OF NEW YORK was an inglorious ambitious mess, and THE AVIATOR could have probably been directed by someone else (though not as well), but THE DEPARTED is Marty at his best. As with the best Scorsese, even the most base acts of violence are at once disgusting, exciting, and saddening. I am curious about how much of this (at any production level) was inspired by the superlative THE WIRE.

3. UNITED 93

I did not want to see this movie. I probably will not see it again. My biggest questions remains: would this still be a great movie if nothing depicted had happened? Does it matter? A perfect match of style and substance, it avoids memorialism and shameless sentimentality. And yet, it is kind of a memorial because of the respect with which Greengrass gives his subject.

2. CHILDREN OF MEN

Read my review in the next post.

1. BRICK

I have rarely felt more invigorated after leaving a movie. BRICK is creatively conceived, brilliant acted, and a thematic puzzle that doesn't beg to be put together, but can be (or maybe it's a mystery, I'll ask Malcolm Gladwell.) Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives the years best performance as the smart kid who never goes to class because he's too busy kicking around open lockers and falling in love with doomed girls. If I were to vote now, I would give the BRICK the "gashie" for BEST DIALOGUE OF THE DECADE. And it's not even showy about its conceit. This is why I have a hard time explaining its charms to so many people who expect it to be BUGSY MALONE or A SHARK'S TALE. High School is kind of a film noir, and Rian Johnson's first movie dances with that.

HONORABLE MENTION: INSIDE MAN

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS: SUPERMAN RETURNS, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, MARIE ANTOINETTE, FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

I WAS NOT AS BLOWN AWAY BY AS I THOUGHT I'D BE BY: HALF NELSON, TRISTAM SHANDY, THE PROPOSITION

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR: AMERICAN DREAMZ

Anything I left off? Anything I MUST see? Write below.

2007-01-14T07:19:00.000-08:00

CHILDREN OF MEN REVIEW (redux)

Much hoohaa has been made about the "Three Amigos:" the three ridiculously talented and prolific Latino directors who have broken out even further this year: Alfonso Cuaron with CHILDREN OF MEN; Alejandro Innaritu with BABEL; and Guillermo Del Toro with PAN'S LABYRINTH (the last two are unseen by me, though I certainly will see both).

I have never really understood Del Toro's "genius," though many have tried to explain it to me. Many gush about HELLBOY or MIMIC, but I found them derivative and uninvolving, and even lacking in the type of directorial flourish usually gushed about in Del Toro reviews. Still, I'm looking forward to PAN'S LABYRINTH, which is supposedly a big step for him, without ever really moving away from his passions. Innaritu has been accused of making panoramics that lack any kind of guiding reason, and are dominated by a bombastic chaos thats too cinematic for his verite approach to the film, but I loved AMORES PERROS and 21 GRAMS. The Academy had no problem with the glossy CRASH, perhaps because it was just that, glossy. It never made you forget it was a movie. Innaritu has real balls for trying to merge these narratives with a gritty realism that suggests that the world is disordered and somewhat beyond repair, but replete with humanity.

Then there's Cuaron. Breaking on to the scene with much ballast but little success in 1998's big budget, high-expectation GREAT EXPECTATIONS, he returned South of the Border with the raw, energetic, and alarmingly sexual Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN. His next return to the Gringo studios was much stronger, as many feel his Harry Potter flick is the best of the bunch. (And, no, I haven't forgotten 1995's A LITTLE PRINCESS; I just haven't seen it and don't know anything about it).

But CHILDREN OF MEN is a masterpiece. Based on a novel by mass-marketeer PD James, Cuaron's film is at home equally in the sci-fi dystopia genre and as a modern thriller with a lot of heart. The plot is revealed (a little too much) in the trailer: It's 2029 and the youngest living human is eighteen - in other words, eighteen years have passed since the last birth. Britain is the only country that hasn't succumbed to internal combustion, but it's a dreary place. Illegal Immigrants are being carted off left and right, and diverse terrorists groups are blowing up civilian haunches. The plot is vaguely similar to V FOR VENDETTA, but the commitment of Cuaron proves once and for all how stupid the comic book artifice of that message-film dystopia really was.

Of course, the not-so-subtle undertone, as with any similar work since Orwell defined the genre with 1984, is that the future is much like the present. There are references to Abu-Ghraib, Iraq, September 11th, and the ridiculous celebrity sub-culture. But Cuaron keeps those as backdrop (literally), and refuses to let any of his well-conceived characters act as a voicebox. Mostly, because they are trying to survive - and that's what makes it such an exhausting experience.

Clive Owen is neither particularly smart nor particular heroic as the hero. He sleepwalks through the first half of the movie and then becomes its emotional center almost by accident. He never lets his innate cool overwhelm a character who is, basically, a burnout and a failure. Though he will not (and should not) earn any award nominations for the performance, it moves him up in the ranks of my favorite actors. And Michael Caine plays Michael Caine, and I was thankful for it. It reminded me of Winston Smith's love for chocolate, and how that kept me going through pages and page of Big Brother's faceless atrocities.

The most brilliant conceit is the opening image: cable news coverage of the ridiculous celebrity death of the aforementioned youngest human, "Baby Diego." In this moment, Cuaron and co. show us the extremes of media, the utterly counterfeit nature of celebrity, and the human need that is associated with it. And then he gives us our cynic, and guide through this film in Owen. It's a great narrative pathway to the world we're about to discover.

At one point, a fictional futuristic disc jockey exhorts his listeners to feel nostalgic for 2003. It is odd that the directors voice becomes the generic voice of a superhits station mike-banger, but it works - because I did feel nostalgia for 2003, when we seemed to be more optimistically recovering from the 9/11 and most of sincerely believed we were involved in some world liberation project. It might be a stretch for Cuaron to decide that this barren chaos is the future we have created. But there is hope in a familiar sound, and when we hear it, we recognize that even in the most broken of places lies hope.

That Cuaron made this film from a pulp novel adapted by six different screenwriters is the equivalent of blowing up a printing press and producing MOBY-DICK. It's flawless (and thankfully wasn't hit by the pandemic of 2006 films of being too long.) You must see this movie.

(Bonus points if you find the Pink Floyd allusion in the movie)

2006-12-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

In Sweet Smell of Success, UberMensch Critic JJ Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) tells the lecherous publicity hound Sidney Falco, “You’re a Cookie Full of Arsenic.” JJ pretty much sums of my feelings about STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP. It is sweet, chewy, addictive, and poisonous. Aaron Sorkin’s new show is acid as the inside of a broken carburetor I once refused to throw away: it operates on the kind of devil-may-care nihilism that usually drives punk rock and ironic garden parties, and then makes up for it by connecting every emotion dot to form a prime-time smiley face. It is brilliantly acted and written, even more brilliant considering the utter implausibility of its premise. But Sorkin, like Matt Perry’s character on the show, has the kind of magic-wandpen to keep a mixture of saps seated that includes those who hate it, those who love it. As the show keeps cancellation sirens, the question will remain as to whether or not those indifferent will ever start watching (or stay up past 9 PM, one).

What works about STUDIO 60? The acting. There are few weak links in this cast, though it is pretty hard to believe that Sarah Paulson is either as a) talented or b) sexy as the show makes her out to be. Minor characters played by Lucy Davis and Nate Corddry are consistently interesting. Top acting honors go to Steven Weber, the boring lothario brother of the boring straight-laced brother from the horrendous WINGS, finding new life as a sleazebag who struggles with his sleazebag convictions. The show-within-a-show also gives us a chance to see what it might be like to write against a weekly deadline, and the horrors and pratfalls of putting on a live show. And the Soap Opera is fine.

What doesn’t work? The politics. The premise. The preposterous asteroidical ticking-clock nature of each episode. Rather than give us a glimpse inside a TV show (which the writers seem to know about and are good at conveying dramatically), we are instead subjected to the constant contrived dilemmas of the “Will they or won’t they make it?”camp. I don’t know which episode was more ridiculous: the show where everybody got the flu or the show where a character gets arrested in a small-town that magically, symbolically becomes the personification of everyone who hates the show and everyone the show hates. Yet with all this drama, the show still struggles to find viewers. I blame the acid.

Also, I blame the much-maligned titular show-within-a-show. Too much has been written about this, but the complaint is simply this: it isn’t funny, and it’s supposed to be legendary. With the return of prodigal sons/comedy geniuses Perry and Bradley Whitford, the show is apparently in some process of revolutionizing television. How? With a skit where Juliette Lewis hosts Meet the Press? With something called “Crazy Christians” (which asserts, get ready for this, that Christians believe in a man in a sky! YOWZA!)? A guy doing a bad Nicolas Cage? With a comeback special involving an orchestrated song? We are supposed to buy the upward momentum that the show-within-the-show is creating, but its hard to believe when they have yet to produce a funny moment.

I’ll keep watching, but I may give up on it. I certainly won’t shed any tears if it’s cancelled.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS gets a lot right, but it gets more wrong. Two actors are exceptional, and they are so good that it makes you forget you’re watching TEXAS 90210, right down the key trope where 26 year olds playing 17 year olds. The two actors worth mentioning are Kyle Chandler as a Coach who hates politics and his shrill, awful wife (or at least he should; she’s a pest), and Zach Gilford, the 24-year-old playing 16-year-old Matt Saracen. Though Gilford looks like he should be finishing law school, he is uncanny is his ability to play an inarticulate kid who has trouble looking people in the eye but just so happens to be blessed with the tools of a great athlete.

When they are not on screen, we’re given a sultry, Brando-esque 25 year old playing the 18 year old fullback, a hunky 27 year old playing the 18 year old embittered, paralyzed quarterback, and a 26 year old playing a cheerleader who “gets around.” ** None of them are particularly good, as each alternates between brooding, moping, shouting, crying, grinning seductively for a shot destined to make a Seventeen cover or a James Blunt video, more brooding, and finally revelating (a word I made up that it is a key factor of all these DAWSONS CREEKS shows; it usually begins with, “There’s something I have to tell you.”)

At first, I was taken by how real the football seemed. But so far, all but one game has come down to a last second play. Two of the games have been won by trick plays. This puts it in the same lame-ass category as REMEMBER THE TITANS and OLIVER STONE’S MOVIE ABOUT FOOTBALL THAT WAS REALLY ABOUT THE EVILS OF CAPITALISM. There is a pretty good chance that every game will be won or lost by one of the four characters we’re supposed to focus on. Football is pretty hard to film, which explains why there is so little of it in the show. The rest is dedicated to the dopey soap operas of West Texas.

Unlike STUDIO 60, I’m pretty much giving up on this one. However, despite the relative mediocrity of both movie and TV show, the book of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS remains one of my five favorite books ever written. I have read it about four times and will probably read it again.

I have been enjoying 30 ROCK, because of how paradoxically inane and clever it is able to be. And MY NAME IS EARL and THE OFFICE are reaching their peaks. No matter what anyone says, LOST is still terrific. And I’ve been Netflixing “THE WIRE,” which is brutal but awesome. Any shows worth watching?

** - As you can tell, I have a real problem with this. Seventeen year old girls think they're supposed to be able to look like the aforementioned 26 year old actress/model playing an eighteen year old. The show markets itself to young audiences, and then casts them unrealistically. Besides the cheerleader, there is another "17 year old" who could turn around and conceivably play Jackie Kennedy. The argument has been made that adolescent actors just can't perform as well as these more-mature stars. My argument to the gang at FNL: try harder. I'm around high school kids all the time and they look and act nothing like the kids you're putting on screen. That's why "Young" Mr. Gilford stands out, because he manages to convey something of the growing pains of an actual teenager. The rest are like something concocted by someone who has only read about high school. Try to cast the show with actually 18 year olds; or at least actual 20 year olds playing eighteen year olds.

2006-12-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Its . . .

Honorable Mention

OK GO, Oh No; Built To Spill, YOU IN REVERSE; She Wants Revenge, SHE WANTS REVENGE; The Soundtrack for STRANGER THAN FICTION; The Walkmen, A HUNDRED MILES OFF; Thom Yorke, THE ERASER; Wolfmother, WOLFMOTHER; The Strokes, FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF EARTH; The Hold Steady, BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA; Bobby Bare Jr. Young Criminal’s Starvation League, THE LONGEST MEOW; Cat Power, THE GREATEST; Damien Rice, NINE

10. EEF BARZELAY, Bitter Honey

How can I bump Thom Yorke and The Strokes for my resident favorite guy you’ve never heard of? Easy: favoritism. I continue to nurture my hideous manlove for this four-eyed Jewish guy who really doesn’t look like he should be an alt-country headliner.

TV ON THE RADIO, Return to Cookie Mountain

I really want to see these guys live. They deserve a lot of the “best upcoming band/best band in the world” press they’re getting.

MARK KNOPFLER AND EMMYLOU HARRIS, All the Roadrunning

A joy. The best match since Peanut Butter and Jelly. Here’s hoping this is just the first of many collaborations.

JOSH RITTER, The Animal Years

I may be the only person out there who likes his earlier album, GOLDEN AGE OF RADIO, better. But this is still an excellent album. He is the best at what he does. If all singer-songwriters had the same self-effacing heartland swagger as Ritter, we wouldn’t have a problem.

THE FLAMING LIPS, At War With The Mystics

Has anyone else heard the rumors that you can play this along with Star Wars?

ELF POWER, Back To The Web

If the better psychedelic efforts of the 60's had any kind of hindsight and overview, this would be the album they’d produce.

NEKO CASE, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

I saw her at the Hi-Tone and she rocked. When she sings STAR WITNESS, I feel like my heart is going to explode.

THE DECEMBERISTS, The Crane Wife

Surprise, Surprise, right? After the hook-y PICARESQUE, my favorite album from last year, Meloy and co. return to HER MAJESTY THE DECEMBERISTS form. Only here they’ve continued to make that ambitious move of turning all their songs about pirates into some unpublished 18^th Century novel that you could have sworn you saw on PBS.

2. BECK, The Information

I think it’s one of Beck's best albums – that incredibly listenable bouncy pop and energy that never tries too hard to be loved. Is anyone working at as high a level as Mr. Odelay? Sadly, this album is being overlooked because of some kind of snobbery.

1. DESTROYER, Destroyers Rubies

Troubadour/Punk/New Pornographer Dan Bejar rocks out this almost ridiculously ambitious album. At once heartfelt and ridiculous, full of a violent passion. It has an emotional power that hangs with you three weeks later. I think this guy loves what he does and it shows. Bejar’s earlier efforts, YOUR BLUES and STREETHAWK: A SEDUCTION, are both really good, but nothing anticipated this.

TEN FAVORITE SONGS OF THE YEAR

1. Demon Valley, Bobby Bare Jr.

2. Your Blood, Destroyer

3. Star Witness, Neko Case

4. Ballad of Bitter Honey, Eef Barzelay

5. Painter in Your Pocket, Destroyer

6. Think I’m In Love, Beck

7. The Spider and the Fly, Elf Power

8. These Thing, She Wants Revenge

9. Goin’ Against Your Mind, Built To Spill

10. Dirtywhirl, TV on the Radio

Strangely, I didn’t buy or steal any albums I didn’t like. I don’t think.

Five Albums I bought this year that didn’t come out this year that I really liked

1. Recent Songs, Leonard Cohen

2. Here Come The Warm Jets, Brian Eno

3. Roy Orbison, Mystery Girl

4. Steely Dan, Katy Lied

5. The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Keep reading, kids!

2006-11-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

Darren Aranofsky's THE FOUNTAIN is a big stinking movie that is surprisingly brief. It is the type of philosophical postcard that filmmakers don't make very often - 2001 by way of Charlie Kaufman. It's about as accessible to a mass audience as Derrida in the original French, but its rewards are many. You get the sense that the actors (Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz headline, and both are fine) don't really know what's going on, and maybe on some level neither did Aranofsky.

If there's a companion piece to THE FOUNTAIN, it is unfortunately a drizzly little piece of mid-90s filmmaking starring Robin Williams and directed by Bill Forysth called BEING HUMAN. Both sought to ask questions about humanity, love, death, companionship, immortality, etc. on a grand, non-linear scale, but the former had an everyman tone that was painstakingly contrived. That and it was purposely free of a quality we modern movie-goers like to call "entertainment."

I found THE FOUNTAIN very entertaining - for its ambiguities in theme and story. If it is hampered by a low budget and perhaps a smaller scale, it makes up for its largess in ideas. It operates on a keen level of mystery until the very end, and has the courage to leave some of those questions unanswered. It suggests that there is a larger element of transcendence and grace that we would give all eternity to find, though most of us unfortunately have to be jarred by tragedy in order to face this.

I mean, how often is it we see a movie about the tree of life? Modern movies don't take this on a subjects. Modern movies tackle such life-affirming questions as what happens when a kooky Brit pretending to be an ugly foreigner goes to a dinner party and defecates in a bag? And we pat ourselves on the back because we can somehow or another invoke Twain and De Tocqueville in the same sentence as "Borat," when in fact we're giggling about the poop.

THE FOUNTAIN offers no such levity. Aranofsky takes his subject seriously. He hurts for his characters and he's interested in their stories. He longs for transcendence and he's hoping to tap into the a repressed desire we all have for such beauty. As Plato wrote in PHAEDRUS, "he is bursting with passion which he understands not." And I admire Aranofsky for refusing to think such beauty is maudlin or stupid - that the desire for immortality is rooted in nothing less than our desire to become one with the stars in the heavens.

It is a wonderful movie. I hope you'll see it. Bring your patience.

2006-11-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on Rhetoric / Descartes / Certainty / Imagination / Post-Renaissance Humanists

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE: VICO’S IDEALS IN AN AGE OF CERTAINTY

In Rhetoric in the European Tradition, Thomas Conley speaks of Giambattista Vico as a little known professor of Rhetoric from Naples who “exercised no visible influence in the eighteenth century” (199). Only in later centuries has his reputation enhanced. However, Vico has an important and timely, if overlooked, place in the history of rhetoric. Vico’s dedication and adherence to the discipline of rhetoric in a time when it was attacked, or in Conley’s words, “classicized.” Vico’s reaction against what he called “modern philosophical critique,” the preeminent Cartesian method, ironically gave rhetoric the very voice that it is supposed to train. Vico sees the Cartesian method as useful, but devoid of the imagination and invention that a rhetorical education prizes and nurtures. This applies also to his educational method, in which he found a useful place for Cartesian theory, but offered something altogether more humanistic and classical.

In On The Study Methods of Our Time, we find Vico looking back to the ancients (865). Critiquing Francis Bacon (although Vico recognizes him as a “pioneer”), he desires not to achieve an “absolutely complete system of systems” but to remedy cultural gaps. Moving away from the realm of supremacy and empiricism, Vico instead points to the ancients with their unified disciplines and progressive successes. While the ancients were “handicapped” by a lack of scientific knowledge or technological advancement, they “nurtured the reasoning powers of their young men” (869). In scientific method, the “study methods of our time” are clearly superior to those of the ancient, but Vico finds fault with the modern, Cartesian focus on “pure, primary, truth.”

In Discourse on Method, Descartes shows skepticism about philosophy, rhetoric, and the type of Humanistic education that those like Vico and the ancients propose. Such philosophy is full of “unstable foundations” and he concludes that it contains “nothing that is not doubtful” (5). As Bizzell and Herzberg note, “The method of Descartes owes nothing to argument and everything to solitary mental analysis” (793). At its center, the Cartesian method proposes that proof is strong enough to speak for itself, and therefore has no need to be embedded in flowery speech or metaphor. Perhaps implied in the method is a future student who will be able to recognize truth using Descartes’ guiding aims of certainty and empiricism in place of invention and dialectic. One need not argue every side when science indisputably shows which side is correct. Descartes hopes to “include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself to my mind so clearly and so distinctly that I had no occasion to call it doubt.”

If Descartes seeks to remove the boundaries of doubt and ambiguity, Vico explores the avenue that these factors play in the edification of humanity. This focus is best exemplified in Vico’s metaphor that describes the “aim” of his humanistic method: “it should circulate, like a blood-stream, through the entire body of the learning process.” Simply, man is a living, breathing creature, not a calculator forever computatively seeking a correct answer. Rather, metaphysically and spiritually, he should be a creature of wonder, loving argument and poetry, and “useful to human society” (877). “What is eloquence,” Vico asks, “but wisdom, ornately and copiously delivered in words appropriate to the common politics of mankind?” Still, Vico keeps in mind that the end goal is truth, but differs with Descartes on the means with which to arrive there. However, Vico does not resent the sciences. He merely influence the strain that the Cartesian method influences on education.

Vico’s Orations compiled as On Humanistic Education are equally enlightening. In an oration titled On True Learning, he suggests that philosophers often disguise ignorance as pretended knowledge (87-89). After presenting his audience with a dialogue that illustrates this, in which a philosopher “proposes to demonstrate physical phenomena by geometric methods,” he argues:
Why do we pretend to impose on a man of sane mind geometric demonstrations which he cannot follow? Such a one, although he has unobstructed vision and is vigilant, is still not able to see the sun in full daylight, even though we know that the mind is attracted to truth as the eye is to light. Let us at last confess our natural limitations. Our studies are valuable insofar as we learn that we do not know or we know only a few things. (89)

Learning that “we do not know” is a far cry from the Cartesian condescension against probability. However, without this, invention and independent discovery become lost an important place within the confines of education. As Bizzell and Herzberg note, “Such a method oppresses rather than inspires students” (863). Rhetorical study, on the other hand, encourages the guiding virtues of invention and imagination that allows a student to develop his intellectual powers. These skills are bolstered through the improvement of memory and eloquence, and a renewed focus on ethics. In his writings, Vico clearly does not express disdain for science, but does note that the current educational system dedicates “an excessive amount of attention to the natural sciences” (871).

As Vico points out in On The Study Methods of Our Time, the ancients supercede modern thinking because of their focus on the big picture – the guiding principles. Modern philosophical critique, in its dedication to reason, overlooks the universals that thinkers like Plato and Augustine for which so passionately strive. In an oration titled On the Liberal Arts and Politic Power, Vico channels the Platonic desire for dialectic to order the soul (118). Though this passage is long, I feel compelled to include it in its entirety because it sums up what I wish to prove so plainly. Vico sees rhetoric as a necessary part of an education that includes science to such a large degree that he includes such particular sciences as mechanics, optics, and geometry. In his description of a “supreme commander,” he refers to virtues both of spirit and mind. His sketch is similar to that of Plato’s divine charioteer guided to the heavens – all the virtues are aligned, and he is not merely “decorated with an ostentatious helmet and crest.” Vico illustrates the virtues of the mind as such:

“Dialectic provides him with cautiousness of judgment so that he may avoid surprise ensnarements. Geometry teaches the design of the camp and the battle order of the troops in a circle, then dispersed, then in square and finally in wedge-shaped formation as conditions require. By arithmetic he can establish the number of the enemy from the location they occupy. Optics allows him to estimate from a distance the height of fortifications and the length and duration of a march. Architecture erects the arches, builds the walls of defense, the ramparts, and excavates the trenches. Mechanics contributes to the inventions of artillery, and moral philosophy aids him in knowing the customs and nature of the people. The lessons of the past will enable him to know what to avoid and what to pursue. Eloquence gives him the means to arouse the reluctant to battle, to encourage those who are dispirited in defeat, to restrain the exuberant in victory. How much utility the natural sciences contribute to the military arts is confirmed by the example of the leader who accounted for the causes of the eclipse of the moon or sun to his frightened troops and thus urged them on to great feats.” (emphasis added)

Rather than replace science and its study, Vico only desired to renew the focus on the integration of rhetoric and oratory because of the power it placed on invention and imagination. The “supreme commander” cannot rule by his control of scientific faculties alone, or the elevation of his own reason to a status above received wisdom and historical knowledge. Instead, the sciences (geometry, arithmetic, mechanics, architecture, optics) have an important place alongside the rhetorical skills of eloquence and dialectic. It is interesting, and perhaps intentional, that Vico couches this exhortation in between the rhetorical virtues of dialectic and eloquence, as though all the scientific skills are aided by a mastery of oratory.
Also, the “lessons of the past” play an important role in the training of this supreme commander. Similar to Machiavelli’s Prince, who must take into account all factors both present and past in became a successful monarch, Vico’s commander must master the twin virtues of science and rhetoric.

Is Vico chasing phantoms? In an immediate sense, yes. As Peter Burke notes, a “cult of Vico” rose forty years after his death, thus exaggerating his influence on culture while he was alive (2). Burke writes, “It has been observed that Vico finally became famous at the very moment when posterity had nothing more to learn from him” (89). The prominent attacks on rhetoric were too vociferous and contemporary to be ignored. In History of the Royal Society, Thomas Sprat expresses that the Society became wary of language and distrustful of the “shallowness” and deceitfulness inherent in Rhetoric (Bizzell and Herzberg 796). Whether or not Sprat really wanted “to return back to the primitive purity” of language, the message was clear: rhetorical education had a limited place in the brave new world divorced from “these specious Tropes and Figures.”

But Vico’s contentious voice gave confidence to a later generation who would use his name and his legacy as a rallying call to fellow rhetoricians. The thinkers and poets influenced by Vico – Coleridge, Arnold, Blake, and Marx among them – belie the claim that nineteenth century posterity had nothing to learn from Vico. The humanistic education owes much to what at the time was considered a mere reaction to Descartes. As rhetoric found a new flowering in the works of Newman and Mill, the words of Vico rang proud and true. Questioning the posterity of certainty and Cartesian thought, these writers began to look to Vico as a voice of humanity and sanity in a time when man was subtly encouraged to become a rational machine removed from the conversations that nurtured the great ages before them.

In short, Vico bravely and iconoclastically preserved the voice of his beloved ancients from louder modern influences. For this, modern rhetoric is thankful in its own preservation as a discipline, as are the imaginative, inventive students that the discipline continues to produce.

2006-11-17T21:59:00.000-08:00

Marie Antoinette . . . (copied from an earlier email I sent)

. . . is a mess - a two hour movie poem about the
trappings of the rich that looks pretty but does
nothing. Most of the reviews have admired Coppola's
ability to make a movie about Marie Antoinette that
doesn't really saying anything about Marie Antoinette,
which is the type of ludicrous thing critics say when
they want to seem edgy. The movie is utterly free of
narrative - after the first ten minutes they could
show the movie out of order and noone could tell -
which allows Ms. Coppola to overwhelm us with shots of
Kirsten/Marie picking out shoes and eating dessert.

Seriously, there is a five minute scene set to a Kevin
Shields (of MY BLOODY VALENTINE) remix of "I Want
Candy" where people are eating dessert. It's supposed
to symbolize decadence. It reminded me of the Simpsons
where Homer is a boxer and his rise to fame is
visualized by a montage that shows the increasing
quality of his car washes. The last time I saw that
many desserts was when I went with my Dad to dinner at
a Piccadilly.

And while we're on the music, I loved it in the
trailer. I liked the Kubrickian closeups and
painting-like compositions scored to New Order and
Gang of Four. But it's a gimmick. It serves no
purpose, and lady doesn't have the fortitude to
actually set the whole movie to a pop soundtrack. It's
interspersed with classic period piece orchestration.
When The Strokes come up, it's laughable. I smelled an
artistic statement, but I don't even think she knew
what it was.

And while we're at it, didn't a lot of interesting
things happen to Marie Antoinette? Because this movie
seems to think she spent all her time frolicking.
Coppola has made one of the longest, most beautiful
movies about frolicking ever, and it still isn't good.

I still like Coppola. Her first two movies were
awesome. They had style and bled passion. They were
personal and yet not shamelessly sentimental. This is
her first bad movie. It's just pointless.

ALSO . . .

THE FEARLESS FREAKS, a documentary about the Flaming Lips, is the best thing I've seen recently. If you love the Lips, as I do, I think this film will only endear you more to their weird genius. Wayne Coyne is a badass; a true believer/Oklahoma kook; a complete original. He is a joy to listen to, whether talking about his brothers or singing about an ingenue Asian blackbelt who is the only hope against the villanous pink robots.

And then there's Steven Drozd, who at the time of the filming was a full-out heroin addict. In one harrowing, unbelievable scene, Drozd shoots up on camera. It is painful, powerful, and saddening - the perspective gives you the sense that you could stop it but you're too weak, and so is he. But the redemption comes as, a few weeks after this scene, Drozd gives up the junk. Then they go off to make YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS, which is one of my favorite albums ever ever.

These guys are family. Coyne still lives in the same ghetto where he grew up. He doesn't seem to understand that he's a celebrity or an innovator. He just likes making music.

And has anybody checked out Beck's THE INFORMATION? I love it.

2006-11-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

Interested in Aristotle? Confused by Macbeth? Wondering what the former has in common with the latter? No? Well then, you probably don't want to read my essay on the subject:

Seriously, this is what my blog is going to be about. Occasionally people say they want to read my papers and I figured, rather than send them out individually, I'll just throw them up on The Gash.

This paper argues that Macbeth is not a Christian play, but operates on a more rationalistic morality defined by Aristotle in his "Golden Mean" - which I take pains to explain (though my teacher told me that was the weakest part of the paper; this is a glorified rough draft). This is not to say that Macbeth has no biblical principles, but Shakespeare has fashioned a world in which the traditional lens of Christ-centered salvation. Macbeth sins against a pagan moral order, and I think Shakespeare wants to show how sin doesn't always have ramifications on a transcendent plane. This goes with my thesis that, while Shakespeare's plays sometimes have Biblical undercurrents, ultimate he was not a Christian (it is not only my thesis, but I hold to it).

(Attention MLA format goons: everything was in the right place when i finished, but the fault lies not in my stars but microsoft word)

Here goes nothing:

“Measure, Time, and Place”: The Golden Mean in Macbeth

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes about the “nature of the states of character that are produced” (953). The virtuous man must “act according to the right rule.” To elucidate the virtue, Aristotle employs a “sphere of actualization,” traditionally referred to as a “golden mean” (954). In order to comprehend the virtue, one must understand the proportionality that “both produces and increases and preserves it.” For example, in the case of the courage, Aristotle presents the alternate poles of cowardice and rashness. The virtuous man, then, will exist in between the excess and the deficiency, both of which will destroy him and the virtue he seeks to uphold. The mean preserves the virtue as a truly brave man can “stand (his) ground against them.”

The resurgence of an Aristotelian world order characterizes the Renaissance and its writers. Charles B. Schmitt writes, “the comprehensive nature and persisting validity of the Aristotelian synthesis still had value for the age” (Schmitt 33). Edmund Spenser, in particular, sought to synthesize Aristotle’s pre-Christian teaching with Biblical doctrines of temperance, holiness, and humility.

In analyzing William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, one might assume that in his depiction of such depraved “dread exploits” (IV.i.164), the author purposely removes virtue. The focus does seem to be on Macbeth’s immediate descent into vice through the vehicle of selfish ambition, vain trust in apparition, and a darkening of heart and conscience. It puts the emphasis on the personified idiot’s tale that the doomed Macbeth makes life to be, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (V.iv.30).

Throughout the play, however, there is a clear moral imperative, similar to Aristotle’s, to “temper” ambition. Also, the results of the excessive vices that Aristotle mentions are vividly portrayed. In Shakespeare’s fiction, the tragic result of this violation is Macbeth’s recognition that the world is an idiot’s tale, ultimately meaningless, when removed from the divine ratio. As Harold Bloom notes, Macbeth “allows no relevance to Christian revelation” (519). Macbeth’s sin is not against God, but man, and in a humanistic order that the Golden Mean upholds. His primary blasphemy comes in the distortion of the Aristotle’s proportional virtue, and in this offense he falls victim to the “punishment” that is also “a kind of cure” (Aristotle 595) For violating the mean, Macbeth realizes that “what’s done cannot be undone” (V.i.71) and accepts a bloody fate. In the closing scenes, when few examples of moderation remain, the audience experiences the cathartic reminder of temperance when Malcolm exhorts the need for “measure, time, and place” (V.viii.86) in the kingdom to come. Catharsis, a term familiar to Aristotle, makes Shakespeare’s play a stark and subtle (at times subliminal) but masterfully intricate actualization of the Golden Mean.

Rather than the traditional optic of Christian morality, I will view Macbeth through the ancient, but inherently applicable prism of Aristotle’s ethic. Seen through this lens, scenes take on new layers, as the man who does not “despise things that are terrible” (Aristotle 594) faces a grisly fate. The horror of Macbeth becomes a humanistic nightmare for those who seek success outside of Aristotle’s definition of virtue.

Each of the “weird sisters” welcome Macbeth with a progression of titles: first as Thane of Cawdor, next as Thane of Glamis, and finally as “king hereafter” (I.iii.51-54). His previous position, before an exhibition of distinguishing valor, the Thane of Glamis. represents the deficient state for Macbeth. As Duncan will point out, “I have begun to plant thee and will labor to thee full of growing” (I.iv.32-33). This “harvest,” as Banquo calls it, is a worthy reward, “the proportion both of thanks and payment” (I.iv.22). For the moment, Macbeth proves to have the virtue the previous Thane of Cawdor lacked. Such prophecy from the mouth of the second witch is not altogether noxious, but accurate, as this “supernatural soliciting” finds fulfillment (I.iv.43). While the first and second witches’ words represent the (deficient) past and (virtuous) present, the third witch offers him a glimpse of excess – kingship. Macbeth immediately recognizes that such a title is akin to “borrowed robes” (I.iii.115), and reminds both himself and his companion Banquo not to “eat the insane root that takes men prisoner” (I.iii.85). Brave Macbeth is not without his neuroses, but such soul-searching proves appropriate. He lacks the experience, virtue, and nobility necessary to accept these “robes.” Still, the stirring ambition in Macbeth, in the form of a “horrid image”, inspires him to achieve what he cannot and that what for which he is not ready. The demeaning and seditious words of his wife will lead him to commit murder, thus taking what does not belong to him, and veering into the excess of his just state.

Stirred by ambition, Macbeth struggles with accepting the merited position, Thane of Glamis, that Duncan offers him. Lady Macbeth convinces him that this position is wholly beneath him, and that the position of king is due him. She finds the present “ignorant” and wants to feel the future in an “instant” (I.vi.65-66). In encouraging Macbeth to find his present state deficient, Lady Macbeth further steers Macbeth toward the excess. Macbeth recognizes “vaulting ambition” (I.vii.27) as necessary for him to achieve this state. He must “vault” over the appropriate state to which he belongs, and in doing so commit the dastardly act of murder. When Macbeth announces he will “proceed no further in this business,” (I.vii.34) Lady Macbeth challenges him, saying:

. . . Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valor,

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life

And live a coward in thine own esteem,

Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”

Like the poor cat I’ th’adage? (I.vii.43-49)

Macbeth responds, “I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares more is none” (I.iv.51). Here, Macbeth argues, like Aristotle, that what “becomes a man” are just and temperate actions, while Lady Macbeth distorts Macbeth’s idea of virtue into cowardice. It is this distortion of the Golden Mean that causes Macbeth to commit his foul deeds, as his wife’s emasculation helps to rid him of his innate virtues. His association of “cowardice” with inaction guides his next step. Ever the valiant soldier, Macbeth must prove that he belongs, that he is a man – to his wife, to his countrymen, and even to the king he must slay. Macbeth can stand being a step below a king, but he cannot take such demeaning talk from his wife. Her exhortation to “screw your courage to the sticking place” is in reality a twisted directive to act rashly, out of unjust ambition and murderous intent. Macbeth has now disassociated courage with the ideal, moderate virtue that Aristotle describes, and replaced it with a vision of his own selfish glory.

After killing Duncan, Macbeth remarks, “To know my deed, ‘twere best not to know myself” (II.i.93). Nonetheless, Macbeth makes a game attempt at wearing the “borrowed robes” that have been placed upon him. However, consumed by Banquo’s “dauntless temper” (III.i.56), and by the earlier prophecy that his sons will become kings, Macbeth worries that his crown is “fruitless” as long as Banquo lives, but takes comfort in the fact that Banquo, like Duncan, is expendable (3.iii.43). Macbeth strikes quickly and hires murderers who swiftly kill Banquo. Perhaps in celebration, Macbeth holds a banquet and invites many noble Lords to attend. This is a display of his kingship, his adequacy. His words resemble not only the earlier kingly speech of Duncan, but also the proportional vocabulary of Aristotle. Inviting the Lords to sit, He reminds them that they know their “degrees” and that the hostess, Lady Macbeth, equally keeps her “state” (3.iv.6-7). Now the banquet table becomes an apt metaphor for proportion and measure. As the scene opens, everyone sits in his right place, and the woman serves her royal purpose. The latter is most ironic, as Lady Macbeth surely dominates and emasculates her husband. The very act that put Macbeth in his position came from Lady Macbeth’s jests, as opposed to his own capacities. Nothing about the scene is true, least of all Macbeth’s noble standing. The ridiculous spectacle he will create is further evidence of his undoing.

The deceit continues when, after his guests are seated, Macbeth comments, “Both sides are even. Here I’ll sit i’ ‘th midst” (III.iv.11-12). The scene depicts order, but the immediate entrance of the murderer shows the underlying chaos. Since Banquo’s son Fleance remains alive, the murderous spree will continue. In an aside, Macbeth fears Fleance, lamenting, “I had else been perfect . . . but now I am cabined” (III.iv.23,26). When Macbeth returns to the table, he finds Banquo, in ghostly form, sitting in his place. The Lords may know their respective degrees, but Macbeth’s state has been blurred, as only he can see the spirit. There is a dual symbolism in the appearance Banquo’s ghost. First, he represents the complicit guilt that Macbeth feels, and will never be able to escape, for his lost comrade. But that the ghost chooses to sit in Macbeth’s seat, in the “midst” of the table, reminds both Macbeth and the audience that he will never be able to return to a noble middle state.

Unbalanced by the ghost, Macbeth creates a spectacle with an apparently insane tirade. When the ghost finally leaves, Macbeth feels “like a man again” (III.iv.131). Lady Macbeth rebukes him, telling him that he has “displaced the mirth . . . with most admired disorder” (III.iv.132-134). The orderly distinctions that the Golden Mean upholds have given way to frightening apparitions. Truly now, “nothing is but what is not” and those who would trust Macbeth to lead now see him for the truly excessive, dangerous figure he has become.

As a rebellion against Macbeth grows, Malcolm, Duncan’s son, tests the loyalties of Macduff. In doing so, he reveals the true qualities of a king, stating that he has none in an attempt to reveal Macduff’s true nature. He announces:

. . . The king-becoming graces

As justice, verity, tempr’rance, stableness,

Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,

I have no relish of them but abound

In the devision of each several crime,

Acting it in many ways. Nay, had I power, I should

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,

Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth. (IV.iii.115)

Macduff is outraged and terrified at Duncan’s apparent world-view, bemoaning, “O my breast! My hope ends here!” (IV.iii.132) The act is a subversive ploy to test Macduff’s loyalties, but by contrast Malcolm’s words represent the qualities, discussed in Nicomachean Ethics, that Macbeth lacks and a truly noble king should possess. Malcolm instantly admits to his necessary trickery, claiming that “modest wisdom plucks me from overcredulous haste” (IV.iii.139). Whether or not Malcolm is truly virtuous, or merely setting himself up as a foil for the depraved Macbeth remains to be seen. But in his subversive espousal of “modest” virtues, he at least recognizes the traits a king should have, and in which Macbeth has fallen deficient.

As the play draws to a close, Macbeth recognizes his world is falling apart. After learning his wife is dead, he ruefully personifies life as the brief but gravely meaningless ranting of an idiot. Macbeth also senses his impending doom as the prophetic fulfillment of the apparent movement of Birnam Wood signals his downfall. He declares, “I ‘gin to be weary of the sun and wish th’estate o’ th’ world were now undone” (V.v. 55-57). In this “weary” confession, Macbeth recognizes the guiding moral order that he attempted to overthrow. Just as Duncan can represent a virtuous ruler in his kingly manner and speech, so does the sun represent a fixed position in the sky, a constancy and order that stands in bright contrast to the disorderly chaos of Macbeth’s kingdom. Macbeth’s weariness is not at himself, but at his failure to defeat this order. Wishing the “estate” were now undone, he perhaps imagines a Scotland where his evil goes unpunished, forgiven by moral relativity, pragmatic logic, or a miracle of Christian grace. Instead, he is guilty of violating the mean that Aristotle takes pains to depict. He is punished not for his violation against the heavens, but against the guiding values of man. Malcolm’s concluding call for “measure” is no mere mandate for the new kingdom. It is the closing word on Shakespeare’s exhortation to avoid the excesses into which Macbeth falls.

2006-11-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

Two great links

First, a news story:

Guns N' Roses cancels concert appearances because of laws that ban them from drinking on stage.

And you thought they didn't have principles....

Second, a great article:

Who is the best band of the 80s? U2 and REM?

The only problem I have with the otherwise stellar memory piece is that he thinks U2 somehow came unscathed out of that mid90s reinvention. Sure, from 1982-92, they were the most revolutionary, political, and powerful band on the planet. Now they sing "Beautiful Day" at the Super Bowl. No thanks, guy. Otherwise, though, a lot of good points about what I love about both bands in their respective primes.

2006-11-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

Perhaps my favorite GK Chesterton passage, from Chapter 5 of ORTHODOXY, one of my all-time favorite books.

it has been said that the primary
feeling that this world is strange and yet attractive
is best expressed in fairy tales. The reader may, if
he likes, put down the next stage to that bellicose
and even jingo literature which commonly comes next in
the history of a boy. We all owe much sound morality
to the penny dreadfuls. Whatever the reason, it seemed
and still seems to me that our attitude towards life
can be better expressed in terms of a kind of military
loyalty than in terms of criticism and approval. My
acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more
like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty.
The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we
are to leave because it is miserable. It is the
fortress of our family, with the flag flying on the
turret, and the more miserable it is the less we
should leave it. The point is not that this world is
too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is
that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a
reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for
loving it more. All optimistic thoughts about England
and all pessimistic thoughts about her are alike
reasons for the English patriot. Similarly, optimism
and pessimism are alike arguments for the cosmic
patriot.

Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate
thing -- say Pimlico. If we think what is really best
for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads
to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is
not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that
case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea.
Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of
Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would
be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for
somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a
transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If
there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico
would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles;
Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she
is loved. For decoration is not given to hide horrible
things: but to decorate things already adorable. A
mother does not give her child a blue bow because he
is so ugly without it. A lover does not give a girl a
necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as
mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is
theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than
Florence. Some readers will say that this is a mere
fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of
mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow
great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization
and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone
or encircling some sacred well. People first paid
honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it.
Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was
great because they had loved her.

Pimlico is a suburb of London. Gentrified today, it was a pretty rough place in GK's day. Substitute "Pimlico" for anywhere - your job, your school, your church, your city, the suburb where you grew up. This is one of the most rousing, convicting calls I've ever read.

"The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it."

Amen, brotha. If only we could really love Pimlico.

2006-10-30T19:18:00.000-08:00

In perhaps his most famous lecture, SELF-RELIANCE, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a stirring call for the coming age of the transcendental identity. "Trust thyself," said Waldo, "Every heart vibrates to that iron string." If Emerson's weltanshaung can be summed up in a sentence, this is it. If you look most inner, you'll discover yourself and (this is a key trope in all of American literature) create yourself. In the same way that Walt Whitman created himself by "sing"ing himself into existence, through an alter-ego that is one of the kosmos, the new American identity was based on this apparent paradox: that the transcendent is within, not without.

In NATURE, he closes by noting that "Man is a god in ruins." The exhortation is clear, and though Emerson is vague and invites close, practically microscopic readings, this is spelled in bold letters - through elaborate allegory and commonplaces. Man has moved away from his nature. focused to much on the "bones" and "sepulchres" of the past, and left that vibrating inner string that is true in perfect. "g"ods are perfect and so can man be, but he's lost it.

Who's to blame? The church, for one. In THE DIVINITY SCHOOL ADDRESS, Waldo claimed, in front of a graduating class of future pastors, that historic Christianity put a "noxious" influence on the person (read: divinity) of Christ. Tradition is also to blame, as he writes in another lecture, THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR: "We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe." And in CIRCLES, he seems to suggest that such "noxious" tradition has made us buy into illusion: that we are living in completed humanity and can go no further, when in fact we are only in the middle of a never-ending cycle that becomes greater as it goes. The end result? I think he'd think of a better way to say it, but it boils down to an epiphany that links us with the very "god"hood we've lost.

Move on. Move on. Move on. Look internally and move externally. Find your calling. Once I find what is unique about me it is going to be good. The question I constantly ask, but get no answer of, from Emerson and Walt Whitman is this: what about Jack the Ripper? I pick a figure who is practically their contemporary, but you can substitute a blank a fill it in. John Wayne Gacy. Hannibal Lecter. Ted Bundy. Osama Bin Laden.

Aren't these just guys who found their calling? Aren't these just guys who trusted themselves? Too much?

Emerson did not have much truck for Calvinism. When he speaks about grace, he usually refers to it in a sense of "elegance and beauty." Occasionally he writes about an endowed spirit over all of humanity, but that comes from an over-soul, a guiding presence that's about as far from Yahweh as Buddha.

I love the way he says it. But I don't like what he says. Ultimately he offers a vain solution to our desire for transcendence, and I stagger when I wonder if anyone has found anything close to peace when searching inside himself.

2006-10-28T07:10:00.001-07:00

LATEST NEWS ON THE GUNS N' ROSES "CHINESE DEMOCRACY" ALBUM!

I cannot reveal my sources . . . okay, it's the Wikipedia.

First, I find it amusing that if you search for Chinese Democracy on the wiki, you get the actual page about the progress of liberalization/revolution in China, followed by this helpful note:

This article is about the political movement in China. For the Guns N' Roses album, see Chinese Democracy.

But here's some interesting quotes from the oddly exhaustive Wikipedia article:

------

On April 1, 2006, critic Chuck Klosterman wrote a tongue-in-cheek review of Chinese Democracy at SPIN.com. It was an April Fool's Joke.
According to a March 2005 New York Times article, production costs for the album have reached $13 million, probably the most expensive recording ever. Mercuriadis, however, refuted the article in a letter and claimed that the newspaper's sources for the article had not been involved with the project for "six to nine years."
During a backstage interview at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards on August 31, 2006, Axl once again stated that Chinese Democracy will be released this year.
Sebastian Bach stated that Axl had played the album in full to poolside guests in his mansion after the September 23rd concert.
In September 2005, the Finnish band The Dogshit Boys released their fifth album, also bearing the name Chinese Democracy.

------

All this to say, in many circles, CHINESE DEMOCRACY carries the combined pop heftiness of the Elvis Comeback Special, The Beach Boys' 15 Big Ones, The Beatles playing on a rooftop, and the recent joint announcement by Bono and Eddie Vedder that they aren't going to suck anymore (OK the last one didn't happen, but, hey, I can dream).

Just put it into perspective: APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION was a legendary album. It is one of the greatest rock albums ever made - the ironic soundtrack of my fifth grade year*. GNR became a phenomenon, and had the audacity to release two CDs as a followup, both of which hit the top of the charts. Then they disappeared. Axl got fat, the rest of the guys got drugged up, Axl got drugged up, and fourteen years later, after that hideous Velvet Revolver fiasco, Guns and freaking Roses are back (minus the rest of the guys).

And according to Axl, certainly one of the most charismatic and disgusting band frontmen of my lifetime, we may have this album, which he has been talking about for the last eight years, in our hands by December.

Did I mention that Sebastian Bach is involved? Does this make you more excited, less excited, thoroughly creeped out? Discuss.

Things are going to change, I can feel it.

Get the Klosterman April Fools Joke here

* - Imagine a gangly, awkward, thick-glassesed eleven year old playing Gyromite and being nervous about going to church, rocking out to PARADISE CITY.

2006-10-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here are two EXCELLENT Slate articles. I get annoyed at Slate when they write about politics (pinkos) or sports (fanboy weiners) , but I like their TV/Pop Culture stuff, particular the writer of the first article, Sam Anderson. He wrote a great encomium/obituary/explanation of Mitch Hedberg.

1. Anderson explains why Weird Al Yankovic matters. He better articulates a point I've been making for years: that Weird Al deserves a lot of street cred for sticking to his aesthetic. He has never gone over into that creepy Bob Saget Caricature where he has to dirtify himself in order to maintain success. The guy is kooky, creative, innocent, and a true original.

2. This article vents all my frustration with STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP. It's brilliantly written at points and hopeless at others. It fails miserably at emulating the SNL set comedy, and that's a key dynamic of the show: if the comedy isn't good, why are Matt and Danny (Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford) such industry geniuses, and why is the show-within-a-show enjoying renewed success? I love the scheming network politics and balance between industry and art, but there's just something wrong with that setup. Still, I find it very enjoyable, and hope that it lasts.

Enjoy!

2006-10-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

As far as great, underrated albums go, few top the Beach Boys' SURFS UP. It's the forgotten masterpiece of the Beach Boys' discography, a flawless, fascinating, and potent document of the times that features songs that should be classics but aren't. It is at once nostalgic (Disney Girls 1957), political (Student Demonstration Time), a lyrically inventive (Feel Flows), and utterly evocative in its sublime depiction of nature (a trademark of early 70s Beach Boys; see the equally underrated HOLLAND). It may be album that SMILE never was, and yet it always sits in the shadow of what SMILE could have been. The operatic final track SURFS UP, written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, is one of their best songs, and was originally set to be included on SMILE. An overload on the senses, puzzlingly metaphorical beyond comprehension, and at times unbearably sad ("The music all is lost for now"), it seems to be Wilson's attempt to reconcile his bubble-gum career with his high art ambitions. He sings, "I heard the word / Wonderful Thing / A children's song."

The Beach Boys/Beatles argument continues to rage, even though the Beatles seem to be dominating on all counts. The Beatles did RUBBER SOUL, which inspired PET SOUNDS, which in turn inspired SGT. PEPPERS. But then the Fab 4 came back with MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, the White album, ABBEY ROAD, and LET IT BE. The Beach Boys, due to the fight over SMILE, came out with the sadly mediocre, compromised SMILEY SMILE. Next was the excellent WILD HONEY, and then three forgettable albums before SURFS UP. Also, in the next year, their attempt to reinvent themselves as "Carl and the Passions" was oddly interesting at best and ultimate proved a critical and commercial failure. *

Which is why I consider SURFS UP a comeback album, a return to graces by the greats. A powerhouse. Unfortunately, other than HOLLAND, the album marked the beginning of the end (although, technically, I guess the SMILE sessions were the beginning a very slow, drawn-out end, but whatever). Unless you're considering Kokomo the equivalent of the Elvis Comeback Special, in which case I'll ask you how many times you've seen the movie COCKTAIL.

Also, it is quite possibly my favorite album cover ever - check out the irony: the Boys give it a title straight from their surfcorvettesafarisuntanlotion days and give us for imagery this baroque, bleak deathly image.

This usually gets grouped into albums that either Dennis or Carl exerted too much influence over, but Brian still sings most of the songs. And as much as Mike Love seems to be reviled for his lack of ambition and love of convention, the album owes much to his bewilderingly calm humming of the opening track, "Don't Go Near The Water" - his pretty melody hides a scary economic message that's eventually whitewashed for a feel-good message. But it works. Maybe Love wasn't even in on the joke (apparently, he loathed the Van Dyke Parks influence). I don't know.

Here's two Beach Boys-related thought I've had:

1. What if SURF'S UP had been the follow up album to PET SOUNDS? Would the Beach Boys have had that post-1966 Beatles success? As of now, I think not. This is a much more soulful, less ambitious album. The world was waiting for Good Vibrations and SMILE.

2. If SMILE, as Brian Wilson released it in '04, hit in 1967, would there have been a general letdown? Maybe. But that's a wild jump of logic, as it assumes that what he finally put together 30 some odd years later was exactly what he wanted to make at the height of his creative success.

I've been listening to this album about three times a week for the last six months. It's moving up the list. If your sole experience with the Beach Boys is their early doo-wop (which I still argue is the best of its kind), or PET SOUNDS, or Wilson's final attempt at SMILE from two years back, then check out SURFS UP. It's my recommendation of the week.*

By the way, I love this unapologetic HARD DAYS NIGHT knockoff video. It shows the Boys at their happiest, goofiest, most carefree, after releasing their breakthrough album. Even though it's just hopping on the craze wave of wacky music videos (see Hermans Hermits, Dave Clark Five, The Monkees), it still shows why they were so infectiously likeable.

* - If you ever get a chance, check out Dennis' solo effort: PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE
** - Unfortunately, the only apparent way to buy SURFS UP today is to buy a double CD with SUNFLOWER. This is too bad, as the album art they've chosen to use is the composite photo from the SUNFLOWER album. I don't know if they ever even released SURFS UP on CD.

2006-10-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

This review by Roger Ebert (he's back! Yes!) has me really excited about Marie Antoinette. If this is a hit, Ms. Coppola will be in a position similar to her father in the 70s, where every movie she makes inspires ecstatic anticipation - they're happenings. I really hope it's good, because I really dig her.

(the link is:)

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061019/REVIEWS/610190303

Also, FYI, the last episode of LOST was the second best ever, just behind "Everybody Hates Hugo" from Season 2. Cool Twin Peaks dream sequences.

2006-10-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

Yes. I'm Back.

Be careful not to drown in all the inevitable confetti.

(Pause for elation/annoyance/confusion.)

So Why "The Gash?"

I decided to pick a blog name based on the first song that popped up on my Ipod Shuffle. That song, unfortunately, was "War, What Is It Good For?" The next song was "Lightnin' Hopkins" - Cool, but it's the R.E.M. song and I would anger the four people who found out about it, thinking this to be a page dedicated to the legendary blues guitarist (or basketball player, whatever he is). Finally, this song from the Flaming Lips' masterpiece Soft Bulletin came up. It fits. This is The Gash, baby.

BTW, I'm still "Andytown." "The Gash" is "Andytown"'s new blog.

Why did I stop blogging?

No comments. The global village I had envisioned turned out to consist of mainly two of my former students and three people who I could no longer have a conversation with because they'd already read it on my blog. That and I got bored. Any wonder why I'm still single?

Also, I tried the myspace thing and got thoroughly creeped out. Rarely a day passed when some "eighteen year old" "girl" from "Jackson, Tennessee" didn't want me to watch her webcam. Also, one of my friend's wives starting haranguing me about how much I used it, when I did not in fact use it very much.

Why did I delete it?

I'm not sure . . . I still maintain that I didn't.

Why did I start again?

Why the hell not? Although, mainly I'm going to use this as an online forum for some writing ideas. Not to say that you're going to read my Great American Novel (which, by the way, I'm writing: a new development - actually I'm writing the precursor to my G.A.N. This is more of my breakthrough novel. Melville did it.), but I got the idea talking to my friend Kyle Wells, who is much much smarter than me, and often gives good advice that I don't take, because I assume I'll screw it up somehow. Kyle told me he thought it was a good idea to have some kind of online journal. Him being a pastor-in-training (and soon to be a really good one, I'll bet), and me being a professor-in-training (and probably the kind who hands out "A"s the way guys outside strip clubs hand out fliers), it makes sense to try to write a little bit about the things you are studying/reading/thinking about.

Also, Ralph Waldo Emerson did it. And I'm obsessed with him. Blogging is the new journalling. Don't worry. You're not going to read in here about how I didn't get enough love from my parents.

But no movie reviews? No rant about the state of standup comedy? No vivid descriptions of spam I've received? No pointless youtube links? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Just not as much of it.

I expect "The Gash" to be a more serious endeavor - generally more contemplative, thoughtful, creative, polished, edited, and personal.

Therefore, I expect to have even fewer readers than I had before. All this to say, I'm no longer pandering for comments. No more "hey, tell me whats on your Ipod?!" followed by an embarrassing shame on you letter for not participating in Hands Across the Internet.

Enter at your risk.

But first here's what I've been up to:

MOVIES WATCHED IN THE THEATER (since August):

THE BLACK DAHLIA (sucked)
HALF NELSON (a little overrated, but good)
THE DEPARTED (awesome, I can't say anything that hasn't already been said, just an awesome flick)
LITTLE CHILDREN (not as good as the book, but thoughtfully and artfully done)

DYING TO SEE:

MARIE ANTOINETTE
THE FOUNTAIN (Maybe; it could be really pretentious)

MOVIES NETFLIXED (since August) (full disclosure):

THE FRENCH CONNECTION II
WHY SHOULD THE DEVIL HAVE ALL THE GOOD MUSIC?
BRICK
INTERIORS
PRISON BREAK (started watching it, lost interest about episode five)
KICKING AND SCREAMING (Noah Baumbach, not Will Ferrell - I loved it, as did I love)
MR. JEALOUSY (His underrated second feature)
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: UNDER REVIEW
THE SENTINEL (Worst movie of the year; a soulless action movie that will be a permanent black spot on Michael Douglas's career. He should hope noone watches it)
THE SMITHS: UNDER REVIEW
LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN (Loud, trashy, manipulative, illogical, stupid, derivative . . . I loved every minute of it. Seriously)
TAP (Best tap dancing cat burglar movie ever made. Period.)
METROPOLITAN; BARCELONA; THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO (I will blog about Whit Stillman at some point. This "trilogy" is masterful.)
ENTOURAGE: FIRST SEASON (Great stuff)

BOOKS READ

... Actually I only finished two Richard Yates novels: THE EASTER PARADE and A GOOD SCHOOL. I'm about halfway through a biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Rusk, and two thirds of a book about "queer theory" (the reimagining of male friendships through a modern eye) by Caleb Crain called AMERICAN SYMPATHY. It's really compelling. I've been skimming through two other biographies: one on Jazz legend Charles Mingus, the other on the aforementioned Mr. Yates (blogpost to come).

TRAVELLED TO

New Orleans
New York (went to Game 2 of the NLCS Playoffs!)

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW DECEMBERISTS ALBUM

It's great. More like their old stuff, not as many hooks as PICARESQUE, but great. And just in case you thought it was a phase, I'm more obsessed with Steely Dan than ever.

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW LOST SEASON

I'm hooked. Remember that Season two didn't get kicking until around episode eight. Also, I've enjoyed the trashing, incredibly self-serious STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP, which might get cancelled. And the last three OFFICE episodes have been as good as any that have been on yet. They're really catching their stride.

UPCOMING:

Very little other than a paper about Macbeth and one about the teacher/student relationship between R.W. Emerson and Walt Whitman.

REMINDER:

check out FILMSPOTTING

It's still one of my favorite hours of the week, even if its interspersed over the course of ten car trips.

And also check out Joey Pensak's blog.

I don't expect your comments.

Early notices on this blogpost:

"THE GASH is so insignificant we're not even going to make a snarky comment about it" - Pitchfork.com

"THE GASH is like eating a delicious batch of cookies, only to find out that you live in a mental institution, and you have just swallowed twelve tongue depressers" - The American Medical Association (tm)

"THE GASH is a deathtrap. Do not live there under any circumstances." - The American Tenants Association

"This fiscal season, THE GASH shows little to no chance of making a profit." - Forbes Magazine

"Well, at least he's doing SOMETHING." - Andytown's friends and extended family.