In the Strangest of Places
Saturday, April 24, 2004 | 0 Comments
In his novels and other writings, [Walker] Percy grappled with the difficulty of separating the accidents of personality from the essence of personhood. Above all, he chronicled the struggles of flawed people trying to act decently and remain faithful in an imperfect and hurtful world. Percy illuminated the distinction between being a wanderer and being a wayfarer. For him, there had to be more to life than dividing one's time between being a producer and being a consumer. Percy's lost, loss-suffering, and alienated characters search for a more authentic existence than what is offered by postmodern capitalism: a lifetime of often meaningless work.
Therefore, while I was pleasantly surprised, I was by no means shocked, recently, to learn that, toward the end of his life, when Walker Percy spoke enthusiastically about his "favorite American philosopher," he was referring to Bruce Springsteen.
— John Marks
Back in the 1970s, there wasn't much they couldn't do: Pour on the volume and they didn't distort. Leave 'em baking in the sun on a car's back deck and they still played like champs. Best of all, hot sweaty hours full of sweet talk, glandular logic, and, finally, abject begging could pass, and, being a loop, they just kept on a-'playin'. Babies were conceived, moon landings were ignored, and a presidential resignation meant little when you were funkin' to the soothing tones of the mighty 8-track.
— Robert Baird
What a pleasant surprise to stumble into some nice bits of writing in, of all places, Stereophile magazine. The first comes from John Marks's regular column, "The Fifth Element, " in the May 2004 issue. (And I assume Herc is already mentally composing his comment on it.) The second is from "The Zen of Honky Tonk," Robert Baird's April 2004 profile of The Flatlanders. Neither piece is available online yet.
Little Children, pt. 1
Thursday, April 22, 2004 | 0 Comments
I did something last night that I hadn't been able to do for nearly three months: I stretched out on the sofa and read for two hours. After listening to Terry Gross's interview with Tom Perrotta, I picked up a copy of Little Children, his latest, which I realized last night is the first book I've read about people my age. And by "my age" I don't mean 31-year-olds — there are plenty of those books out there — I mean a book about people born in the early-1970s, people who listened to Nirvana in college and who are now married (happily or not) and starting families.
One of the back jacket blurbs describes Perrotta as an "American Nick Hornby," which seems about right to me, though I'm not sure yet if that's a compliment or not. The last novel I read was High Fidelity, which, like Little Children, is filled with recognizable characters and recognizable situations. Both books are about relationships and the difficulties of maintaining them in this age of cynicism and irony. And both books are utterly devoid of inspiring prose.
That's not to say that Hornby and Perrotta aren't talented writers. They craft fine stories and have a knack for making the reader care for characters who aren't particularly likeable. They've also discovered a language of pop culture references — a kind of Gen X shorthand that must make their novels excruciating reads to anyone over the age of, say, 55. I just wish that their writing were capable of surprising me as readily as it charms. A few cherry-picked examples from the first 150 pages of Little Children:
After Todd, a stay-at-home Dad, kisses a stay-at-home Mom whom he meets at the park:
He had a feeling similar to the one he'd had right before kissing Sarah, like his world had cracked up to reveal a thrilling new possibility. (52)
After Todd realizes that his marriage is in jeopardy:
They were heading for trouble, Todd understood that, driving toward a high cliff at very slow speed in a car with no brakes. (99)
So many of Perrotta's observations of suburban life are so spot-on — I especially like the way that his lead characters absolutely adore their children while still resenting somewhat the life-changes they've caused — but the narrative voice never quite transcends the banality of the lives it is documenting. Maybe that's the point. I doubt it.
Long Pauses Feed
Wednesday, April 21, 2004 | 0 Comments
I've noticed from site stats that several readers are now hitting the Long Pauses Atom feed. I'll admit that I know very little about feeds, but I do want this site to be as universally usable as possible. Three questions for feed users:
- Would you prefer that I feed the full post as opposed to short descriptions?
- Is there anything in particular about the formatting of my blog that makes the feed less usable?
- Can you recommend a particular newsreader?
Because You Lied
Tuesday, April 20, 2004 | 0 Comments
Because you lied to me, Dick. Remember? The White House sent its managers to Congress before the vote, and they briefed the House and Senate Intelligence committees on the dire threat of Saddam. The reconstituted nuclear program. The mushroom clouds that would be appearing over New York and Washington in a few years. The lie you were telling the American people in general terms, you told us with specific, impressive-sounding statistics and authoritative reports -- that legendary 'bad intelligence.' It was on that basis and that basis alone -- the basis of imminent threat to America from weapons of mass destruction -- that my colleagues and I voted to give your boss the authority to invade. Now we know better.
I accept my share of responsibility for the thousands who have since died and are still dying in an elective war that had nothing to do with the war on terrorism but which you and your fellow extremists at the Project for a New American Century had been lusting after since 1992, a war you wanted so badly you lied to Congress and the American people to get it, you dark and terrible man. I was not cynical enough. I know I must make amends for my mistake. But first, come November, the American people must fix another mistake.
Andrew Christie imagines what he would tell Dick Cheney if he were in Kerry's shoes. I just wish that Kerry would say something. His "we need a broader international coalition and more troops" line is already wearing thin. With Spain and Honduras pulling out and other leaders feeling growing pressure to follow suit, such a coalition will be damn near impossible. And I doubt that it would make much of a difference in Iraq anyway.
I'll be voting the "Anybody but Bush" ticket in November, but I'm still waiting for Kerry to give me a reason to do so enthusiastically.
In Case You Were Wondering
Monday, April 19, 2004 | 0 Comments
Yes, a mid-90s Nissan Altima can take out a four foot, solid brick mailbox. Be warned, though. Doing so will total the car, especially if said Altima is driven by a drunk 20-year-old.
This brick was a good forty feet from the point of impact:
This was not an insignificant mailbox. In total, it must have weighed more than 500 pounds:
Yes, we are pretty sure the box was hit by a Nissan:
I just like this photo because it looks like I'm saluting a fallen comrade:
Jack seems relatively unphased by the whole ordeal:
By the way, I've now become the guy who answers the telephone and says things like, "Listen, I don't want to get you in any more trouble than you're already in, but I'm also not going to pay a cent to have that mailbox replaced. You get me a check or you can talk to the police." How the hell did that happen?
Song of the Moment
Monday, April 19, 2004 | 0 Comments
I always keep an eye on Jeffrey Overstreet's music suggestions (Jeffrey makes a wicked mix CD, by the way), and so I recently chased some links and ended up at InSound.com, where you can download a couple mp3s from Sufjan Stevens, including "Holland." (I apologize for that last sentence.) "Holland" is a heckuva song from Greetings from Michigan. I've added it and Stevens' latest, Seven Swans, to my Amazon Wish List. Can anyone make a strong case for one album being better than the other? Any other Sufjan fans?
Okay, I'll Play
Friday, April 16, 2004 | 0 Comments
Since all the cool kids are doing it:
- Grab the nearest book.
- Open to page 23.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the sentence on your blog along with these instructions.
So:
"Then he tottered over to the bed, and collapsed on it, still wearing his scarf and red pumps."
— Naguib Mahfouz, Children of Gebelaawi
Beautiful
Friday, April 16, 2004 | 0 Comments
When I asked my ESL students last night about the great literatures of their native language, one of the Iranians told me about the Arab conquest of Persia. In their effort to erase all evidence of Persian culture, the ancient Arabs outlawed the speaking of Farsi, which, of course, only served to inspire a new generation of writers.
"Our language was saved by the poets," he told me.
God Save the Queen
Thursday, April 15, 2004 | 0 Comments
A friend just sent me this link from the National Catholic Reporter. Joan Chittister, like so many of us, watched Condoleezza Rice's testimony with great interest, hoping to learn more about our government's pre-9/11 knowledge of al-Qaeda. Instead, she was stunned by "the amount of self-congratulation spent on the fact of the testimony itself." Chittister has made of the hearings an opportunity to reflect on the value of a monarchy in the 21st century, and I love her for it:
As Americans, we are inclined to be a bit insular. Probably because we live on one of the largest islands in the world. Bounded on the east and the west by oceans and on the north and south by nations far smaller than we, the geography may have affected the boundaries of our minds, as well. We see ourselves as the center of the globe, the biggest, the best, the latest, the smartest, the most advanced, the most powerful, the most right, the paragon of all paragons in all things.
We forget that unlike cell phones in Europe, which will work anywhere on the globe, ours don't work outside the United States. We fail to understand that our videos can't play too many places but on U.S. soil. We don't even advert to the situation facing other coalition troops in Iraq. "I've been in the United States for six weeks," one Brit told me, "and I have not heard a word on U.S. TV about the British soldiers in Iraq though our boys are being killed there, too, and news about U.S. engagement plays on European television daily."
We are a world unto ourselves. We forget, in other words, that rather than purporting to lead the human race in all things good, it may be time to join it. And government accountability may be as good a place as any to start. Most of all, at least in the Condoleezza Rice event, perhaps we have forgotten our P's and Q's. Or rather, their P's and Q's. "PQ's" is British shorthand for "Parliamentary Questions." In England, the Prime Minister himself goes to the House of Commons every Wednesday at noon to answer questions from members of parliament about any facet of government policy.
More than that, the Leader of the Opposition can question or rebut the Prime Minister's answers on the spot. No talk of "separation of powers," no refuge-taking behind the veil of "presidential privilege."
Whenever I watch footage of those Wednesday afternoon shouting matches, I imagine an American president in the prime minister's shoes. To be precise, I imagine George W. Bush in the prime minister's shoes, but I'm all for bi-partisan bitch-slapping. The impeachment hearings certainly would have been more interesting (and perhaps seeing educated adults arguing breathlessly about the meaning of "is" would have helped reveal how absurd it all was). I disagree with many of Tony Blair's policy decisions, but I can't fault his intelligence or his articulateness. He handles his accusers with great aplomb and with nary a stutter or mispronunciation. And the political discourse at large benefits for it. Dubya has given fewer press conferences than any modern president, and I think we all know why. I wonder if any ideas have "popped" into his head since Tuesday night. (By the way, don't you love the way he phrased that line, ascribing the action verb to the idea rather than to himself, as if it were his job to merely stand there waiting for inspiration? Apparently thinking is just too much work.)
Writing in the First Person
Wednesday, April 14, 2004 | 0 Comments
My brain is turning soft. It's not that I've forgotten to update my 2004 film viewing and reading lists; it's that I have, for all intents and purposes, abandoned my intellectual life. I don't have the energy for it. Or the time. Or — and this is the big one — the attention span. And it's starting to wear me down.
I imagine that, if I were to pick up any book about the mourning process, it would confirm what I strongly suspect: that I'm in some classic first stage (denial, maybe?); that my conscious and subconscious are pitted in a fierce battle for control. As usual, the conscious mind thinks it's winning — and by all appearances it is doing so — but here's the thing: I don't have a short attention span. I'm the guy who starts a book and finishes it the same day. I'm the guy who spends his free time watching ridiculously slow films about Danish farmers and street vendors and agnostic ministers. But I've suddenly become the guy who can't sit still, who can't even make it through a one-hour TV show, who must be doing at all times. And so something must be wrong.
Here are some of the ways that I've encountered death lately:
- Last week I listened to "The Few Who Stayed: Defying Genocide in Rwanda" from American Radio Works. Making sense of the murder of 800,000 people in the spring of 1994 is about as easy as trying to understand why news from Sudan is buried in today's editorial page.
- My wife, a forensic artist, has begun work on a new case — reconstructing the face of an unidentified man found floating in a nearby river. Because of the case, I often open my email to find emotionally-detached, clinical discussions of the "business" of forensic anthropology — not to mention the requisite photos. My wife's work, by the way, will be featured in a two-part series by a local TV news crew, who are thrilled to have such a hot exclusive for sweeps. They will, no doubt, describe her as CSI: Knoxville.
- Names of the Dead. When I scan the daily headlines at the Times, I always take a second or two to read the names and the ages and the hometowns of the American soldiers who have died.
- And, of course, I think daily of my mother- and father-in-law, who were killed in January, and of my wife, who was made an orphan at too young an age.
Strangely, the names of the dead in Iraq have the strongest emotional pull on me right now — partly because they remind me of my aunt and uncle who are still mourning their son's death in Grenada twenty years ago, partly because they remind me of how disastrously misguided America's foreign policy is right now, and partly because, now that we're in Iraq, I don't know how we'll get out. History is not on our side.
The tragedy of Africa is too great to even contemplate, so, like most comfortable Americans, I don't. Even during my weekly ESL class, when I sit across a table from refugees, I distance myself from their past, from what they've seen and what I cannot even imagine. Surely things like that don't really happen. Not in 2004. Not when a Christian nation like America exercises such a powerful influence on the world. I refuse to acknowledge it.
But I'm refusing to acknowledge a lot these days. I posted this last August for a friend whose father had died unexpectedly. It's from Anne Lamott's essay, "Ladders," from Traveling Mercies.
Don't get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible. You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people; shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession. Martyrdom can't be beat. While too much exercise works for many people, it doesn't work for me, but I have found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering.
But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion. You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination.
I hope she's right.
Speechless
Wednesday, April 14, 2004 | 0 Comments
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You've looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?
THE PRESIDENT: I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it. (Laughter.) John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet.
I would have gone into Afghanistan the way we went into Afghanistan. Even knowing what I know today about the stockpiles of weapons, I still would have called upon the world to deal with Saddam Hussein. See, I happen to believe that we'll find out the truth on the weapons. That's why we've sent up the independent commission. I look forward to hearing the truth, exactly where they are. They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm.
One of the things that Charlie Duelfer talked about was that he was surprised at the level of intimidation he found amongst people who should know about weapons, and their fear of talking about them because they don't want to be killed. There's a terror still in the soul of some of the people in Iraq; they're worried about getting killed, and, therefore, they're not going to talk.
But it will all settle out, John. We'll find out the truth about the weapons at some point in time. However, the fact that he had the capacity to make them bothers me today, just like it would have bothered me then. He's a dangerous man. He's a man who actually -- not only had weapons of mass destruction -- the reason I can say that with certainty is because he used them. And I have no doubt in my mind that he would like to have inflicted harm, or paid people to inflict harm, or trained people to inflict harm on America, because he hated us.
I hope I -- I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm
not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.
Wow.
Miscellaneous Debris
Tuesday, April 13, 2004 | 0 Comments
Some fun linkage while the paint dries and the bruises heal:
- Ricky Gervais and novelist Tom Perrotta on Fresh Air
- And while we're on the subject, visit The World of The Office and download Garreth hilarity
- UThink — Blogs at the University of Minnesota
- Michael Chabon on Teenage Art
- How I Spent My Summer Vacation — Dave, an old high school friend, kept a road diary during his spell as touring keyboard player for Maritime
- Identity Theory — A darn good literary Website
- Daniel Mendehlson on Angels in America
Song of the Moment
Tuesday, April 13, 2004 | 0 Comments
I've been meaning to post this one for some time now. I'm not sure how well "Cucurrucucu Paloma" will work for those of you who haven't seen Almodovar's Talk to Her, but I had to buy the soundtrack for this song alone. (Alberto Iglesias's original score is also quite beautiful.) I just can't imagine being able to sing like Caetano Veloso. I'd never talk again.
Bear With Me
Sunday, April 11, 2004 | 0 Comments
I'm busy carrying heavy stuff. And painting. And driving a U-Haul. And not sleeping.
Talkin' About Movies
Friday, April 02, 2004 | 0 Comments
Note: Last night I delivered the following talk at the 2004 NEXUS Interdisciplinary Symposium: Reconstructing Theory and Value. I was part of a panel called "Film in the New Millennium," where I was joined by Paul Harrill, who discussed his short film Brief Encounter with Tibetan Monks; Mark Bernard, who gave a paper on postmodern families in Boogie Nights; and Jeremy Fischer, an actor who introduced us to "The Vertical Process," a new approach to method acting. As I told the audience last night, I got a bit distracted by the panel title, which is just so fascinating to me and so massive. That's a subtle way of saying that what my paper lacks in focus, it makes up for in, well, I'm not sure really.
So. To begin. Three brief anecdotes:
Anecdote 1. In 1985, while discussing his latest novel with a French interviewer, Philip Roth lamented the sad state of literary discourse in America. "Talking about movies," Roth said, "in the relaxed, impressionistic way that movies invite being talked about is not only the unliterate man’s literary life but the literary life of the literate as well."
Anecdote 2. In September 2002, Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami was denied entry into the United States. He had planned to accompany his latest film, Ten, to the New York Film Festival and was scheduled afterwards to lecture at Harvard and Ohio State Universities. Ines Aslan, a spokeswoman for the festival’s organizers, recounted their frustrating efforts to reach a compromise with officials at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. "It wasn’t that they could not make an exception," she said. "It was that they did not choose to." Kiarostami was understandably bitter. In a letter to the festival’s director, he wrote, "I certainly do not deserve an entry visa any more than the aging mother hoping to visit her children in the U.S. perhaps for the last time in her life.... For my part, I feel this decision is somehow what I deserve."
Anecdote 3. In November 2003, I walked into my manager’s office, where I discovered her and two other colleagues discussing the ham-handed Christian allegory that, in their unanimous opinion, had ruined both Matrix sequels. I must have sighed or something because one of them turned to me and asked, "What? I thought you were a serious film buff. Don’t you enjoy talking about movies and religion?" The answer, of course, is "yes." But, as I tried to explain to them that day, The Matrix seems to me to be of limited value for such purposes—a text that seldom elevates discussion above banal, uninformed observations about the "postmodern condition" or something, all of it wrapped in the trappings of anaesthetized ultraviolence. I think I may have even quoted from Baudrillard’s own critique of the film—the one in which he compared watching The Matrix: Revolutions to (and this is a loose translation) "taking a monumental special effect in the rear."
Two-and-a-half hours later, though, I was still in my manager’s office, and we were all still talking about movies. By that point, I had probably worked through most of my favorite subjects: the problems of "transcendence" in Carl Dreyer’s Ordet, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Orthodox aesthetic of Sculpting in Time, Ingmar Bergman’s agnostic struggle in Winter Light and The Silence, and—since we were on the subject of cinematic Christian allegories—the long-suffering mule in Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. My colleagues, to their credit, were all patient with me. At times, even interested. None fell asleep, at least.
"Film in the New Millennium" must contend, I think, with the issues raised here. Roth may have overstated his case somewhat, but there’s little denying that "talking about movies" is the most significant cultural activity in which the average American participates. New technologies are constantly making that discussion better-informed, while, at the same time, making it also even more superficial and less "literate." Digital cable and satellite television are pumping hundreds of channels into most homes now, exposing audiences to a wider variety of films and generating new avenues for film distribution; and DVDs, with their commentary tracks and behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes, are demystifying the filmmaking process.
But when Americans gather to talk about movies, what are they really saying? The terms of this "cultural" discussion are, now more than ever, being defined by those with the greatest economic stake in the health of that discussion. More channels, as we all know, does not necessarily mean that more people are watching more great films; it means that cable bills and advertising revenues are soaring. Those DVD features, more often than not, are crafted by studio marketing departments. Weekend box office returns, for godsake, have become the stuff of CNN’s Headline News. Baudrillard’s interviewer was quick to point out that The Matrix, like Madonna’s latest album, purports to critique a system that, in fact, promoted it aggressively and that benefited directly from its commercial success. "That is indeed what makes our times quite difficult to stand," Baudrillard replied. "This system produces a trompe-l’œil negation, which in turn is becoming a part of the entertainment industry, . . . Moreover, it is the most efficient way to forbid any true alternative."
Chalk it up as one more symptom of late capitalism. To bastardize Yeats, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the dancer from the dance—the film from the massive machine that has generated it. Lord of the Rings is produced at New Line; Elijah Wood is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly; CNN, each half hour, runs the same footage of hobbits and elves lined up for the first midnight viewing; America Online offers exclusive Middle Earth prize packages; DVDs are released twice, in theatrical and then deluxe, extended editions; the film itself might then be broadcast on HBO and, later, TNT; and the whole process takes place under the massive banner of TimeWarner. It’s like that scene in Adaptation, you know, the one where Charlie Kaufman—not the real Charlie Kaufman but the Nicholas Cage Charlie Kaufman—describes himself as a snake eating its own tail. "He's called Ouroboros, and that's me," he says, a nice preemptive and typically ironic stab at our postmodern sensibilities.
And then we have the case of Abbas Kiarostami, long recognized as one of the world’s finest living filmmakers but disallowed from entering America because of his nationality. That his films, in general, but Ten, in particular, espouse the same liberal and humanitarian ideals upon which the Bush administration justified its war with Iraq—if we are to believe the official rhetoric, at least—was apparently inconsequential to those with the authority to grant his visa. At my most cynical, I’m reminded of President Nixon’s response to his old law partner Leonard Garment, who visited the White House to finalize plans for the construction of the Hirshhorn museum of modern art. "I will not have the Mall desecrated with one of those horrible goddamn modern atrocities like they have in New York with that, what is it, that Whitney thing. Jesus H. Christ. . . . I wash my hands of the damn thing. Just make sure I don't have to see it when I look out this window."
In a strange way, it’s the same logic that led Laura Bush, in early-2003, to cancel a White House poetry celebration after learning that one of the invited speakers had encouraged his colleagues to use the event as an opportunity to publicly denounce war on Iraq. "It came to the attention of the First Lady's Office that some invited guests want to turn what is intended to be a literary event into a political forum," a White House statement said. "While Mrs. Bush understands the right of all Americans to express their political views, this event was designed to celebrate poetry." The beautiful irony in all this—as many of you, I’m sure, recall—is that the First Lady’s event was to be a celebration of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes. I’m still trying to imagine an apolitical reading of, say, Hughes’ "Let America Be America Again"—and not only that, an apolitical reading delivered in the White House.
And so those of us who are particularly motivated—either personally or professionally—to "talk about movies" in this new millennium find ourselves positioned somewhere within what I’ll for now call an "attitudinal triangle." At one point of the triangle sit those who see movies as just "mindless entertainment." The majority of Americans live there, I would imagine, and an entire industry has grown up to satisfy their cravings. I would include even the majority of popular film reviewers in that camp. Witness the staff reviewer for our own Knox News-Sentinel, who in any given week rates approximately 80% of all current releases with at least 3 ½ stars on her 5-star scale. The public critic as arbiter of taste and thoughtful, informed educator has been replaced by a voice that too often simply reinforces existing attitudes—much to TimeWarner’s delight, I might add. (Remember Ouroboros?)
At another point of the triangle sit a dwindling number who would still seek art for art’s sake alone. They are, at times, a reactionary lot, arguing like Mrs. Bush for a "celebration" of beauty or form or individual genius or patriotism or dignity divorced completely from the messy details of democracy or commerce or justice. As an aside: That those last three terms—democracy, commerce, and justice—have become inextricably bound to one another in our post-Cold War world is perhaps the messiest detail of all.
And finally, at the third point of the triangle sit those, like many of us here today, who have systematically honed their skills as critics and readers and lovers of art during the late-20th century. With political motivations of our own—let’s admit it—and armed with continental philosophy—or, in my case at least, with water-down, superficial understandings of continental philosophy—we champion the "text as politics," flaying its lifeless flesh for the symptoms of exploitation. Like the popular "thumbs up, thumbs down" film reviewer, many in this camp are reluctant to draw firm conclusions based on purely aesthetic criteria, arguing instead for a kind of implicit relativism. Ideology, they would argue, flattens the curve, giving equal legitimacy to a Pynchon novel, a Budweiser advertisement, and an episode of Seventh Heaven. I like Ishmael Reed’s line from his novel, The Terrible Threes: "There were still galleries in which art hung that was less interesting than the jargon that was peddled in its behalf" (Threes, 152).
These are all gross reductions and oversimplifications, of course, but that is partly my point. None of us exists wholly at any of these extremes; we move, instead, with some fluidity between them. Which brings me back, finally, to that third anecdote—the marathon film and religion discussion that took place over in Dunford Hall. What happened there that day has come to represent something of a model for me of what it means to really talk about movies. It forced each of us to swing, uncomfortably at times, between the points of that attitudinal triangle. It was spoken in a personal, patient voice, valuing relationships and opinions, shared and unpopular ones alike. It was heated and enthusiastic and highly-charged but still humble, self-deprecating even. It was historically-informed—I did my best to proselytize for the European masters and to speak to issues of film form—and it was culturally- and politically-engaged. Perhaps most refreshing of all, though—especially given the larger context of this NEXUS symposium—is that it forced even the most skeptical of us to recognize the legitimacy, the necessity even, of acknowledging religious experience (for lack of a better word) as a shaper of our encounters with culture.
And, so now, the good news. One last anecdote. In preparation for this panel I searched through my issues of Film Comment that were published over the past four years, jotting down the titles of films that had worked their way onto critics’ year-end "best" lists but that I had been unable to see. I then forwarded a portion of that list on to a few members of a film discussion email listserv in which I have participated for a number of years. By the end of the week, packages were arriving at my door, each containing perfect digital copies of DVDs that have yet to be released in America: films by Bela Tarr, Bruno Dumont, Shohei Imamura, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Olivier Assayas, Hou Hsiao-Hsien. And on and on. This is how I was finally able to see Kiarostami’s Ten, in fact. My friends had ripped DVD-Rs on their computers in Toronto or London or wherever, and I watched them all on my Malata region-free DVD player—an inexpensive machine that circumvents the region-coding that prevents most players from properly displaying discs manufactured in other countries. So there I sat, in the cultural wilds of East Tennessee, watching these remarkable films, and all it cost me was the kind generosity of a few friends (whom I’ve never met face to face) and the price of a couple blank DVDs. Take that, TimeWarner.
Film in the New Millennium—like communication in the new millennium and politics in the new millennium and education and community and democracy in the new millennium—will be experienced increasingly via purely digital, anational forms. There’s nothing new to that idea—nothing that hasn’t been said already a hundred times in each new issue of Wired. The less obvious lesson to be learned from this anecdote, though, is that the historically-informed, socially- and politically-engaged, and passionate, fan-boy film discussions that I called for earlier are already taking place, but they too seldom occur in the pages of, say, Literature Film Quarterly. Or in the pages of anything, for that matter.
Acquarello, a NASA aerospace engineer, posts weekly capsule reviews of foreign and art films on his Website, Strictly Film School. Its traffic numbers in the tens of thousands, and Wellspring Home Video now often includes a link to his site as an "extra" on their foreign film DVD releases. When producers from the Criterion Collection began compiling sources for their recent releases of The Killers and Diary of a Country Priest, two of their first contacts were Trond Trondson, a geophysicist in Calgary, and Doug Cummings, a graphic artist in Los Angeles, who operate sites dedicated to Tarkovsky and Bresson. (I know this because I regularly exchange emails with Pascal, Trond, and Doug.) Culture bloggers, many of them former and current academics, are forsaking traditional modes of academic publication for the more immediate and, dare I say it, rewarding experience of online publishing. And, in an example that hits a bit closer to home, Paul and I are both contributors to Senses of Cinema, a quarterly, partially-refereed online journal associated with the Australian Film Commission. As an ABD soon to be hitting the job market, I’m painfully aware of how utterly irrelevant those lines on my C.V. will be to most hiring committees. But that also will change in this new millennium. And I can’t wait to watch it happen.
Bye, Bob
Friday, April 02, 2004 | 0 Comments
Well, son of a gun, Bob Edwards is leaving Morning Edition at the end of the month. Eastbound I-40 will never sound the same again.
CSS Zen Garden
Thursday, April 01, 2004 | 0 Comments
With my last reworking of Long Pauses, I attempted to rebuild its architecture from the ground up using CSS. Cross-platform and cross-browser problems stopped me dead, though. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, I'd open a page in Netscape or Safari and watch it all blow up.
CSS Zen Garden is an amazing example of what good CSS-based design can offer. I have a feeling that I'll be ripping off Springtime sometime soon.
Darren Hughes is a web designer and freelance writer in Knoxville, Tennessee.