So the nonsense-spouting guy at the end of the bar wanted to play president. I'd reference the banality of evil, but this isn't even evil, it's pedestrian. It’s the sequel to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” revealing how Jimmy Stewart’s character actually made out with his gut-level confidence in his common decency and good sense amid all the slick fancy types.
Saturday, July 18, 2020
Noodling Note
I've made a number of tweaks and improvements to yesterday's posting, "Trump is Us". The biggest change was in the final paragraph (above the endnote):
Friday, July 17, 2020
Trump is Us
The deeper we descend into the yaw of dysfunction, willful ignorance, and utter incompetence that is the Trump era, the more I recognize that he wasn't some Black Swan - an aberrant phenomenon no one could have foreseen. Trump's not a uniquely malign presence who wielded superpowers to seize power and make America grate again.
I'm less and less surprised by Trump's adoring base or his tolerators. They're not gripped by inexplicable madness. They're not uniquely susceptible to Trump's idiosyncratic basket of poison and poisoned candy. He hasn't brought us down; rather, we sunk and he was there, in the sub-sub-sub-sub basement, poised to step jauntily into elevator.
We're finally getting just a little bit clear on him. There's increasing consciousness - on both the Left and the Right - that what we have here is a guy who wanted the role, not the job.
We've always known this, at a blurry deep-seated level. As early as 2016, I could make even Republican friends grin at the suggestion that we appoint him King - letting him strut around in a robe and a crown while some real administrator does the actual work. They chuckled, and you'd have chuckled, too. We all knew the truth, beneath our outrage or adoration.
He wanted the position, not the job. This should spark deja vu for Slog readers endlessly subjected to this observation:
In the long view, all you need to know is that he's that guy: the guy at the end of the bar spouting nonsense who nobody takes seriously, and who, normally, no one would want to see appointed Dog Catcher, much less President. We know the guy. We’ve always known him. He's not the embodiment of evil. Just a vain, loudmouthed ignoramus, and there are always plenty of them out there. We chuckle and shrug, deeming them edge cases.
This particular vain, loudmouthed ignoramus, enjoying some unique advantages (top four: 1. rich Daddy, 2. reality tv stardom, 3. slimy ability to flatter rubes, and 4. the tremendous benefit of a complete lack conscience), rose to the top in a system inherently lacking pre-filters. When he was elected, the loudmouthed ingorami finally had their moment. I'm honestly happy for them. Representative democracy doesn't profess to necessarily elevate the best/brightest - the candidate and policies YOU like. Democracy gives every strata a shot. So if your segment was too complacent, Karenesque, and counter-deluded to defeat the retards, don't blame the system (or, for that matter, the retards).
He's the proverbial horse spastically on the loose in the hospital. And to return to my point, he got here not via startling aberrance, but by being the very epitome of his times. He wanted to be president because he wanted to be president, not because he wanted to lead. And that's not surprising, opaque or mysterious. That's what we imperious rich aristocrats - inhabitants of the First World - do all day.
We use our copious spare time and unwavering sense of entitlement to project images of ourselves bathed in glory, feeling anger and resentment when those images remain unfulfilled, coddled though we are. None of us wants to actually do the work. We're a nation of special cases, each intrinsically superior, an entire society lost in you-go-girl imagery. This makes us susceptible to demagogues who voice our resentment.
So the nonsense-spouting guy at the end of the bar wanted to play president. I'd reference the banality of evil, but this isn't even evil, it's pedestrian. It’s the sequel to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” revealing how Jimmy Stewart’s character actually made out with his gut-level confidence in his common decency and good sense amid all the slick fancy types.
For reasons I can't fathom, people use the term "influencer" with a straight face. And this dude's the ultimate Influencer. This is where that road leads. While presidents post-Biden will likely be less stupid and self-defeating and racist and trollish and corrupt and incompetent, it may be a very long time before we get another president ala Obama, Clinton, or Bush the Elder who wants to do the work more than - ala Reagan, Bush the Younger, and Trump - s/he wants to play the role. Because as a society we're 100% about seeming, not being. We can hardly parse the difference.
We're finally getting just a little bit clear on him. There's increasing consciousness - on both the Left and the Right - that what we have here is a guy who wanted the role, not the job.
We've always known this, at a blurry deep-seated level. As early as 2016, I could make even Republican friends grin at the suggestion that we appoint him King - letting him strut around in a robe and a crown while some real administrator does the actual work. They chuckled, and you'd have chuckled, too. We all knew the truth, beneath our outrage or adoration.
He wanted the position, not the job. This should spark deja vu for Slog readers endlessly subjected to this observation:
Most singers become singers because they want to be singers, not because they want to sing. That's why most singers are so awful.That's Trump to a tee. And that's all of us, as well. Not just the raving MAGAs, but also the progressive Resistance which spent four years Karenning over what a racist he is, diagramming his three-dimensional chess moves, delving into his psychology, and performatively setting their hair on fire over every trollish tweet, while, really, he's just malignant Chauncey Gardener.
In the long view, all you need to know is that he's that guy: the guy at the end of the bar spouting nonsense who nobody takes seriously, and who, normally, no one would want to see appointed Dog Catcher, much less President. We know the guy. We’ve always known him. He's not the embodiment of evil. Just a vain, loudmouthed ignoramus, and there are always plenty of them out there. We chuckle and shrug, deeming them edge cases.
This particular vain, loudmouthed ignoramus, enjoying some unique advantages (top four: 1. rich Daddy, 2. reality tv stardom, 3. slimy ability to flatter rubes, and 4. the tremendous benefit of a complete lack conscience), rose to the top in a system inherently lacking pre-filters. When he was elected, the loudmouthed ingorami finally had their moment. I'm honestly happy for them. Representative democracy doesn't profess to necessarily elevate the best/brightest - the candidate and policies YOU like. Democracy gives every strata a shot. So if your segment was too complacent, Karenesque, and counter-deluded to defeat the retards, don't blame the system (or, for that matter, the retards).
He's the proverbial horse spastically on the loose in the hospital. And to return to my point, he got here not via startling aberrance, but by being the very epitome of his times. He wanted to be president because he wanted to be president, not because he wanted to lead. And that's not surprising, opaque or mysterious. That's what we imperious rich aristocrats - inhabitants of the First World - do all day.
We use our copious spare time and unwavering sense of entitlement to project images of ourselves bathed in glory, feeling anger and resentment when those images remain unfulfilled, coddled though we are. None of us wants to actually do the work. We're a nation of special cases, each intrinsically superior, an entire society lost in you-go-girl imagery. This makes us susceptible to demagogues who voice our resentment.
So the nonsense-spouting guy at the end of the bar wanted to play president. I'd reference the banality of evil, but this isn't even evil, it's pedestrian. It’s the sequel to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” revealing how Jimmy Stewart’s character actually made out with his gut-level confidence in his common decency and good sense amid all the slick fancy types.
For reasons I can't fathom, people use the term "influencer" with a straight face. And this dude's the ultimate Influencer. This is where that road leads. While presidents post-Biden will likely be less stupid and self-defeating and racist and trollish and corrupt and incompetent, it may be a very long time before we get another president ala Obama, Clinton, or Bush the Elder who wants to do the work more than - ala Reagan, Bush the Younger, and Trump - s/he wants to play the role. Because as a society we're 100% about seeming, not being. We can hardly parse the difference.
Thursday, July 16, 2020
A Mystic's Revenge
"If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by."
Sun Tzu
Fact check: true.
But it needn't be so martial. You can get very far from this use case and still have it be true. Anything you feel tempted to resist eventually ceases and dissolves. Time is on your side. The most energetic opposition (or even mere annoyance) is defeated by sustained patience.
Sun Tzu
Fact check: true.
But it needn't be so martial. You can get very far from this use case and still have it be true. Anything you feel tempted to resist eventually ceases and dissolves. Time is on your side. The most energetic opposition (or even mere annoyance) is defeated by sustained patience.
We all know what happened to the guy who said "Look on my works and despair."If you are 1. patient (that takes work) and 2. not needy (that takes a lot of work), time is always on your side.
Why "not needy"? Time alone won't bring you ice cream.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Old People's Comfort Zones
I need to insulate pipes in my basement. As do-it-yourself jobs go, this is crazy-easy. You buy fiberglass tubes, open the tubes, surround the pipe, close and pull the paper from the sticky part. That's it! What could be simpler?
Of course, the devil's in the details. The Thing, itself, might be easy, but then there are the many things you need to be careful not to do, and myriad related things to bear in mind (to an insulation expert, these would be referred to as "the ways you could be a complete idiot"). Finally, you'l need to survive the inevitable project snafu (is there ever not a snafu?), and that requires a repertoire of McGiver moves to draw from. The ability to write a compelling ode to a taco won't help much.
So the project has frozen into a titanic mountain, after I've spent $300 on fiberglass tubes and goggles and tape and PVC covers and tacks and what have you. I'm absolutely unable to start.
This happens a lot (I wrote about project paralysis here). And the worst thing is that the part I'm currently most hung up on is laughably slight.
I once bought a small HEPA-filtered shop vac - it's in my basement somewhere - and I'll need it to suck up fiberglass dust when I'm done. But I only used this vacuum once, years ago, and there's some kooky problem with it that I can't remember. Days are going by, and I'm just about breaking out in hives over it.
What's wrong with me? Why can't I go down to my basement, unearth the damned vacuum, and figure out the kooky problem? The prospect fills me with dread. And I suddenly realize I'm looking a lot like an Old Guy.
This, after all, is what Old People are famous for: shrunken comfort zones. Inflexibility with anything outside their norm. They're musty, frozen, stagnant, inflexible, incurious, non-adventurous, preferring to sit in some chair and knit or wittle or spit tobacco than learn how to use their iPhone or reset the time on their microwave.
And I'm that guy. My comfort zone has shunken to the point where the prospect of finding and using an unfamiliar vacuum feels as inviting as crabbing on the Bering Sea.
But, wait. Let's flip it.
Everything else in my life has started to feel insanely easy. The things I've been doing all along have 57 years of practice, which is a ton. I'm a leading expert at my life such as it is. All 57 year olds are high virtuosos at the things they always do. The resultant sense of ease is a heady reward.
When I was 22, I couldn't do much of anything but play trombone. "Ease" was a concept I understood only abstractly. Installing insulation would not have intimidated me much more than any other pursuit. I'd have attempted it in a bleary, blurry fog of ignorance, botched it, found some hail mary move to more or less save it, and moved on to botching something else. Par for the course!
Now, I know ease. And the things outside that bubble of ease quite understandably seem extra-daunting. I'd need to descend from quite a lofty throne to find and debug that vacuum.
So it's not that I'm shriveling and rigidifying into some helpless whiny stick-in-the-mud. I'm just really uninterested in botching, because it's been so long since I botched. Kids botch all the time, so it's no problem. Me? I'm out of practice, and aghast at the prospect.
Does everyone but me already already understand this? I never know! I remember the time I suddenly came to understand the function of glue and thought it was a Eureka!
Followup posting here.
Of course, the devil's in the details. The Thing, itself, might be easy, but then there are the many things you need to be careful not to do, and myriad related things to bear in mind (to an insulation expert, these would be referred to as "the ways you could be a complete idiot"). Finally, you'l need to survive the inevitable project snafu (is there ever not a snafu?), and that requires a repertoire of McGiver moves to draw from. The ability to write a compelling ode to a taco won't help much.
So the project has frozen into a titanic mountain, after I've spent $300 on fiberglass tubes and goggles and tape and PVC covers and tacks and what have you. I'm absolutely unable to start.
This happens a lot (I wrote about project paralysis here). And the worst thing is that the part I'm currently most hung up on is laughably slight.
I once bought a small HEPA-filtered shop vac - it's in my basement somewhere - and I'll need it to suck up fiberglass dust when I'm done. But I only used this vacuum once, years ago, and there's some kooky problem with it that I can't remember. Days are going by, and I'm just about breaking out in hives over it.
What's wrong with me? Why can't I go down to my basement, unearth the damned vacuum, and figure out the kooky problem? The prospect fills me with dread. And I suddenly realize I'm looking a lot like an Old Guy.
This, after all, is what Old People are famous for: shrunken comfort zones. Inflexibility with anything outside their norm. They're musty, frozen, stagnant, inflexible, incurious, non-adventurous, preferring to sit in some chair and knit or wittle or spit tobacco than learn how to use their iPhone or reset the time on their microwave.
And I'm that guy. My comfort zone has shunken to the point where the prospect of finding and using an unfamiliar vacuum feels as inviting as crabbing on the Bering Sea.
But, wait. Let's flip it.
Everything else in my life has started to feel insanely easy. The things I've been doing all along have 57 years of practice, which is a ton. I'm a leading expert at my life such as it is. All 57 year olds are high virtuosos at the things they always do. The resultant sense of ease is a heady reward.
When I was 22, I couldn't do much of anything but play trombone. "Ease" was a concept I understood only abstractly. Installing insulation would not have intimidated me much more than any other pursuit. I'd have attempted it in a bleary, blurry fog of ignorance, botched it, found some hail mary move to more or less save it, and moved on to botching something else. Par for the course!
Now, I know ease. And the things outside that bubble of ease quite understandably seem extra-daunting. I'd need to descend from quite a lofty throne to find and debug that vacuum.
So it's not that I'm shriveling and rigidifying into some helpless whiny stick-in-the-mud. I'm just really uninterested in botching, because it's been so long since I botched. Kids botch all the time, so it's no problem. Me? I'm out of practice, and aghast at the prospect.
Does everyone but me already already understand this? I never know! I remember the time I suddenly came to understand the function of glue and thought it was a Eureka!
Followup posting here.
Friday, July 10, 2020
The Pace of Technology
It dawns on me that, in the 80s, when 1950s nostalgia was the rage, I watched shows like MASH and Happy Days, both set in the 50s, without once contemplating any tech anachronisms.
In fact, I never fully realized MASH was a period piece. An era three decades prior was completely relatable. People lived the same life, with the difference being mostly stylistic - clothes, haircuts, and music. Not once, while watching either show - or while watching movies shot contemporaneously - did I ever ask "How did people live like that?"
By contrast, now I watch movies and shows set or shot thirty years back, and it's like a different civilization. No cell phones, computers, or Internet. Long distance calls were an exorbitant luxury, we frequently got lost while driving, and resorted to physical libraries to ferret out nuggets of information. Big lumbering leaded-gas-fume-belching cars stalled a lot, and heart attacks were the scariest prospect in an age without coronary stents. 70 year olds were decrepit, and one homogenous pop culture smothered the landscape, hypnotizing most while alienating misfits with no means of escape. Everyone was drunk-driving and smoking their way through lives where their possessions and surroundings were designed solely for conformist appearance, never for comfort or efficiency, making relaxation (e.g. reclining on ungenerous sofas with our big greasy sideburns, polyester shirts, and smoldering piles of cancerous cigarette butts) look squalid.
Watching period pieces from the 80s, I can't take my eyes off the differences, and am frequently jarred by production anachronisms, which seem inevitable. We're too different now for emulation to be seamless (exception: the HBO series “The Deuce,” which even smelled like 1970s New York).
It's hard to zoom out one's framing far enough for a clear view of the pace of change while standing squarely inside the whirlwind. But there are hints. Remembering how easily relatable the 50s felt in the 80s, compared to how remote and barbaric the 80s feel today, shows how wild the acceleration has been.
In fact, I never fully realized MASH was a period piece. An era three decades prior was completely relatable. People lived the same life, with the difference being mostly stylistic - clothes, haircuts, and music. Not once, while watching either show - or while watching movies shot contemporaneously - did I ever ask "How did people live like that?"
By contrast, now I watch movies and shows set or shot thirty years back, and it's like a different civilization. No cell phones, computers, or Internet. Long distance calls were an exorbitant luxury, we frequently got lost while driving, and resorted to physical libraries to ferret out nuggets of information. Big lumbering leaded-gas-fume-belching cars stalled a lot, and heart attacks were the scariest prospect in an age without coronary stents. 70 year olds were decrepit, and one homogenous pop culture smothered the landscape, hypnotizing most while alienating misfits with no means of escape. Everyone was drunk-driving and smoking their way through lives where their possessions and surroundings were designed solely for conformist appearance, never for comfort or efficiency, making relaxation (e.g. reclining on ungenerous sofas with our big greasy sideburns, polyester shirts, and smoldering piles of cancerous cigarette butts) look squalid.
Watching period pieces from the 80s, I can't take my eyes off the differences, and am frequently jarred by production anachronisms, which seem inevitable. We're too different now for emulation to be seamless (exception: the HBO series “The Deuce,” which even smelled like 1970s New York).
It's hard to zoom out one's framing far enough for a clear view of the pace of change while standing squarely inside the whirlwind. But there are hints. Remembering how easily relatable the 50s felt in the 80s, compared to how remote and barbaric the 80s feel today, shows how wild the acceleration has been.
Criterion Collection Films 50% off at Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble's biannual 50% off sale on all Criterion blu rays and dvds starts today (it's the most wonderful time of the year), and will last for several weeks. In celebration, I'm republishing this posting from 2017. I haven't updated the links to blu ray decks on Amazon, but they're easy enough to search for.
Note: Blu ray is much better quality than streaming, and streaming doesn't give you extras, booklets, and commentary tracks. And if you never care about any of that stuff, then you probably don't love any movie enough to want its Criterion edition.
Barnes and Noble (online and stores, both) is running their biannual Criterion Collection sale, with everything (including box sets) 50% off.
The Criterion Collection is the Rolls Royce of film distributors. They only carry great films, using the best available prints, and they take considerable trouble to improve image and sound when necessary. Their releases include copious extras (usually a printed booklet, too). Their release is the last word on any great film.
A lot of people lose their minds during these biannual sales, because every film is so damn attractive. I've been gaming them for a few years now, and have a few tips to share:
1. Don't buy on the basis of how good the film is (they're all great). You can often get much better deals on non-Criterion releases, or find ways to stream. And unless you're some fussy nerd, you generally won't need the very best print, so don't factor that in at all (unless you've got your sights on some lost film of the 1930s where the standard release is raggedy/terrible). Buy Criterion when you really want lots of extras. So: either favorite films (which you'll periodically rewatch) or else difficult, landmark films which you'll want to "chew on" - films by profound, challenging directors like Bergman or Tarkovsky. In both cases, you'll probably enjoy deep dives into special features and essays. If you'll just watch a film and put it back, Criterion is a waste of money.
2. Check price of used Criterion releases at Amazon Marketplace, half.com, and eBay. They may be even cheaper than 50% off new.
3. The new Criterion release everyone's most excited about is Tarkovsky's "Stalker".
4. There's great discussion in Amazon reviews, and, especially, in user comments on the individual film pages at Criterion's web site (Here, for example, is the page for "Stalker"). Also: Criterion Forum
5. There's no reason to still be using a DVD player. Blu-ray decks are cheap, and they play DVDs, so you won't obsolete your previous disks. This one costs just $46, and this one, for $139, will play DVDs and Blu-Rays from any region (note that some constricted players can be made all-region by entering certain codes with the remote. Google your model number for more info). This one, for $549, is the cheapest great/expensive one with lots of bells/whistles (the manufacturer sometimes has refurb units cheap - email them for more info).
6. Bear in mind that Criterions can go out of print. When that happens, their price may shoot up. So you may want to move quickly (keeping tip #1 in mind) and then hold on to your films as an investment. On the other hand, I've bought $200 used copies of out-of-print Criterion films, viewed, and sold mine back again for about the same price. There's always demand for Criterions.
7. If, like me, you're a huge fan of "The Leftovers", consider "Walkabout", the Australian film which inspired this last season, and starred David Gulpilil (who played the aborigine Kevin's father tried to get the song from).
8. If you're buying "blind" a film you've never seen, be sure to check it through Movielens to make sure it's a film you'll actually like.
Criterion films I either own or am considering buying this time:
The 39 Steps Director: Alfred Hitchcock
The Battle of Algiers Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Brazil Director: Terry Gilliam
Breathless Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Burden of Dreams Director: Les Blank
Burmese Harp Director: Kon Ichikawa
Dekalog Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Don't Look Now Director: Nicolas Roeg
Eisenstein: The Sound Years Director: Dmitriy Vasilev, Sergei M. Eisenstein
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Director: Terry Gilliam
A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman ("Through a Glass Darkly," "Winter Light," "The Silence")
Grand Illusion Director: Jean Renoir
Great Adaptations Director: David Lean
Grey Gardens / The Beales of Grey Gardens Director: Albert Maysles
Hiroshima Mon Amour Director: Alain Resnais
In the Mood for Love Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Jules and Jim Director: François Truffaut
La Ronde Director: Max Ophuls
The Lady Eve Director: Preston Sturges
The Lady Vanishes Director: Alfred Hitchcock
The Leopard Director: Luchino Visconti
Mala Noche Director: Gus Van Sant
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters Director: Paul Schrader
Naked Director: Mike Leigh
Olivier's Shakespeare ((Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III) Director: Laurence Olivier
Orphic Trilogy ("The Blood of a Poet," "Orpheus," "The Testament of Orpheus") Director: Jean Cocteau
The Passion of Joan of Arc Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Paths of Glory Director: Stanley Kubrick
Picnic at Hanging Rock Director: Peter Weir
Pierrot le Fou Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Rashomon Director: Akira Kurosawa
The Rules of the Game Director: Jean Renoir
Rushmore Director: Wes Anderson
Safe Director: Todd Haynes
Scenes From a Marriage Director: Ingmar Bergman
The Seventh Seal Director: Ingmar Bergman
Solaris Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Stalker Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Tanner '88 Director: Robert Altman
This Is Spinal Tap Director: Rob Reiner
Three Colors: Blue White Red Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Throne of Blood Director: Akira Kurosawa
Videodrome Director: David Cronenberg
Walkabout Director: Nicolas Roeg
Yi Yi Director: Edward Yang
Note: Blu ray is much better quality than streaming, and streaming doesn't give you extras, booklets, and commentary tracks. And if you never care about any of that stuff, then you probably don't love any movie enough to want its Criterion edition.
Barnes and Noble (online and stores, both) is running their biannual Criterion Collection sale, with everything (including box sets) 50% off.
The Criterion Collection is the Rolls Royce of film distributors. They only carry great films, using the best available prints, and they take considerable trouble to improve image and sound when necessary. Their releases include copious extras (usually a printed booklet, too). Their release is the last word on any great film.
A lot of people lose their minds during these biannual sales, because every film is so damn attractive. I've been gaming them for a few years now, and have a few tips to share:
1. Don't buy on the basis of how good the film is (they're all great). You can often get much better deals on non-Criterion releases, or find ways to stream. And unless you're some fussy nerd, you generally won't need the very best print, so don't factor that in at all (unless you've got your sights on some lost film of the 1930s where the standard release is raggedy/terrible). Buy Criterion when you really want lots of extras. So: either favorite films (which you'll periodically rewatch) or else difficult, landmark films which you'll want to "chew on" - films by profound, challenging directors like Bergman or Tarkovsky. In both cases, you'll probably enjoy deep dives into special features and essays. If you'll just watch a film and put it back, Criterion is a waste of money.
2. Check price of used Criterion releases at Amazon Marketplace, half.com, and eBay. They may be even cheaper than 50% off new.
3. The new Criterion release everyone's most excited about is Tarkovsky's "Stalker".
4. There's great discussion in Amazon reviews, and, especially, in user comments on the individual film pages at Criterion's web site (Here, for example, is the page for "Stalker"). Also: Criterion Forum
5. There's no reason to still be using a DVD player. Blu-ray decks are cheap, and they play DVDs, so you won't obsolete your previous disks. This one costs just $46, and this one, for $139, will play DVDs and Blu-Rays from any region (note that some constricted players can be made all-region by entering certain codes with the remote. Google your model number for more info). This one, for $549, is the cheapest great/expensive one with lots of bells/whistles (the manufacturer sometimes has refurb units cheap - email them for more info).
6. Bear in mind that Criterions can go out of print. When that happens, their price may shoot up. So you may want to move quickly (keeping tip #1 in mind) and then hold on to your films as an investment. On the other hand, I've bought $200 used copies of out-of-print Criterion films, viewed, and sold mine back again for about the same price. There's always demand for Criterions.
7. If, like me, you're a huge fan of "The Leftovers", consider "Walkabout", the Australian film which inspired this last season, and starred David Gulpilil (who played the aborigine Kevin's father tried to get the song from).
8. If you're buying "blind" a film you've never seen, be sure to check it through Movielens to make sure it's a film you'll actually like.
Criterion films I either own or am considering buying this time:
The 39 Steps Director: Alfred Hitchcock
The Battle of Algiers Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Brazil Director: Terry Gilliam
Breathless Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Burden of Dreams Director: Les Blank
Burmese Harp Director: Kon Ichikawa
Dekalog Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Don't Look Now Director: Nicolas Roeg
Eisenstein: The Sound Years Director: Dmitriy Vasilev, Sergei M. Eisenstein
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Director: Terry Gilliam
A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman ("Through a Glass Darkly," "Winter Light," "The Silence")
Grand Illusion Director: Jean Renoir
Great Adaptations Director: David Lean
Grey Gardens / The Beales of Grey Gardens Director: Albert Maysles
Hiroshima Mon Amour Director: Alain Resnais
In the Mood for Love Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Jules and Jim Director: François Truffaut
La Ronde Director: Max Ophuls
The Lady Eve Director: Preston Sturges
The Lady Vanishes Director: Alfred Hitchcock
The Leopard Director: Luchino Visconti
Mala Noche Director: Gus Van Sant
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters Director: Paul Schrader
Naked Director: Mike Leigh
Olivier's Shakespeare ((Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III) Director: Laurence Olivier
Orphic Trilogy ("The Blood of a Poet," "Orpheus," "The Testament of Orpheus") Director: Jean Cocteau
The Passion of Joan of Arc Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Paths of Glory Director: Stanley Kubrick
Picnic at Hanging Rock Director: Peter Weir
Pierrot le Fou Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Rashomon Director: Akira Kurosawa
The Rules of the Game Director: Jean Renoir
Rushmore Director: Wes Anderson
Safe Director: Todd Haynes
Scenes From a Marriage Director: Ingmar Bergman
The Seventh Seal Director: Ingmar Bergman
Solaris Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Stalker Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Tanner '88 Director: Robert Altman
This Is Spinal Tap Director: Rob Reiner
Three Colors: Blue White Red Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Throne of Blood Director: Akira Kurosawa
Videodrome Director: David Cronenberg
Walkabout Director: Nicolas Roeg
Yi Yi Director: Edward Yang
Monday, July 6, 2020
The Nazi Paradox Meets Bubba's Noose
Here's what I don't get about neo-Nazis, and have tried to grok since grade school. If I understand correctly, this is their essential rap:
The odd thing is that in the 35 years I've been slowly grinding away at this paradox, not one speck of additional evidence has materialized. No connections have crept up, no metaphors conjured, no corollaries developed. It's just a singular puzzle, unique so far as I can tell.
Until now.
Bubba Wallace, the NASCAR driver who reported finding a noose in his garage after demanding that NASCAR drop the Confederate flag, has been accused (mostly/only by President Trump, so far as I can determine) of lying about it.
Which, hey, is possible. With a population of 328 million, anything/everything imaginable can and will happen here and there. So that's not the interesting question for me.
What draws my interest is the fact that the sort of person who'd cry "Hoax" is precisely the sort of person who'd leave a noose in the garage of someone attacking the Confederate flag. The pro-noose people are also the noose skeptics. I have trouble processing this, and, as I made the effort, it immediately associated with the other paradox.
If I understand correctly, this is the rap:
The Jews are subhuman parasites who should be exterminated. And the Holocaust was a hoax. It's a slanderous lie to say the Nazis exterminated the subhuman parasites who absolutely deserve extermination.Weird, no? They're indignant that their peeps would be accused of doing the central thing they advocate. It's like the NBA screaming bloody murder at accusations that their players dribble.
The odd thing is that in the 35 years I've been slowly grinding away at this paradox, not one speck of additional evidence has materialized. No connections have crept up, no metaphors conjured, no corollaries developed. It's just a singular puzzle, unique so far as I can tell.
Until now.
Bubba Wallace, the NASCAR driver who reported finding a noose in his garage after demanding that NASCAR drop the Confederate flag, has been accused (mostly/only by President Trump, so far as I can determine) of lying about it.
Which, hey, is possible. With a population of 328 million, anything/everything imaginable can and will happen here and there. So that's not the interesting question for me.
What draws my interest is the fact that the sort of person who'd cry "Hoax" is precisely the sort of person who'd leave a noose in the garage of someone attacking the Confederate flag. The pro-noose people are also the noose skeptics. I have trouble processing this, and, as I made the effort, it immediately associated with the other paradox.
If I understand correctly, this is the rap:
"God bless the Confederacy, and god damn the darkies, who ought to be strung up from trees, and who push the slanderous lie that there are people out there who'd string them up from trees."I'm still confused - by the paradox, not by the hatred part, which feels completely non-mysterious.
In fact, the hatred part is, more than anything, boring. An old meme. A last gasp.While the hatred part of the equation strikes me as a last gasp of a fading perspective (consider the elderly demographics of the hardcore MAGAs) the other part - the paradox - continues to puzzle. But I now have two data points to consider; not just one. Thanks, President Trump.
When, in 1977, the American Nazi Party marched in Skokie, a town with many concentration camp survivors - a demonstration which many of us supported as a civil liberty test case - those guys were bona fide scary, but we all laughed at the absurd goose-stepping relics, dismissed as lunatic fringe. Forty years later, a gaggle of pasty-faced citronella-bearing douchebags gather in Charlottesville, and scabby losers like Steve Bannon claim hilariously to be the master race, but the intervening decades of comparative tolerance make them seem like a titanic threat. As hatred slowly fades, remaining specks strike us as disproportionally worrisome.
As I wrote hereBy the time we're down to our very last Nazi (some geezer raving and saluting from his electric scooter), we'll all be so unhinged by his presence that we'll jump in the ocean and drown en masse like lemmings.
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Misfires and Bullseyes
The greatest kindness one can pay a creative person is to amiably tolerate misfires.
I don't trust people who hit all bullseyes. It means they're holding back and not giving their all. Or they're cheating somehow.
Shiny David Copperfield always nails it.
I don't trust people who hit all bullseyes. It means they're holding back and not giving their all. Or they're cheating somehow.
Shiny David Copperfield always nails it.
Saturday, July 4, 2020
The Precipice and the Virus
The fear you feel in high places isn't really about the danger. The fear's palpable even if the danger's removed; by, for example, installing a barrier. It's your own inclinations that you're afraid of.
It’s not the fear of jumping intentionally, with kamikaze exuberance. It’s the sudden gulping recognition that your error margin - your grey area of uncertainty - encompasses "death plunge". A scenario is imaginable where...whoops.
The fear stems from the unholy juxtaposition of trivial/comical "whoops" and oblivion. The two are so disparate that they can't be framed simultaneously. We must flip back and forth, like with the alternate perspectives of an optical illusion. Whoops....Oblivion. Whoops....Oblivion. The flipping is what causes the vertigo. The most daunting precipice isn't the one between current position and prospective destination. Far steeper is the distance between "Whoops" and "Oblivion". That's the truly nauseating drop-off.
I have a perennially self-defeating and neurotic older friend who hasn't left his apartment since March. Hasn't seen a human being, hasn't breathed fresh air. He will not converse through the window when I deliver his groceries. His windows remain firmly shut.
He doesn't own a mask because he's not going outside - perhaps ever. He doesn't follow the guidelines, because he's uninterested in skirting the edge between safety and danger. He'll remain far, far back, in safety, thank you very much. Even if it kills him.
At first I assumed he felt like he was being extra safe. But after consideration, that's not it.
I tried encouraging him (via phone) to put on a mask and enjoy a nice walk down his breezy, deserted suburban street. But as he ranted - citing opinions from the television (dodgy to begin with) that he'd misheard, misremembered, and misapplied, about persistent viral clouds and uncertain modes of transmission - I glimpsed the actual precipice. It wasn’t the virus he was afraid of. A perfect clarity settled in. I could envision the truth as clearly as if I were the Oracle of freaking Delphi.
If he did finally go out, he'd do so in the fraught state of shaky failure he reserves for urgent circumstances. His nose would stick out from his mask, if there were any mask at all. He'd walk, inexorably and hopelessly, toward the sneezes. He'd touch only things lots of other people had touched. And, returning home in a state of mindless agitation, he'd find a way to 1. not wash his hands, and 2. touch his face. Whoops...oblivion.
My urgings were wrong-headed. He unconsciously senses his fraught self mismanagement, and that’s what keeps him - appropriately, I suppose - indoors. His choice is to either retract to the opposite end of the universe from the danger (putting himself in converse peril), or else self-immolation. Simply going about his business is unthinkable.
I know what you're thinking. "Huh. Crazy people. What are you gonna do?" But consider this: how many of us can stand with our toes against the ledge of a 10,000 foot drop-off while remaining calmly normal?
Also factor in this scenario, if you can (it's a tale about reaching for the comically/tragically wrong tool in the face of danger).
It’s not the fear of jumping intentionally, with kamikaze exuberance. It’s the sudden gulping recognition that your error margin - your grey area of uncertainty - encompasses "death plunge". A scenario is imaginable where...whoops.
The fear stems from the unholy juxtaposition of trivial/comical "whoops" and oblivion. The two are so disparate that they can't be framed simultaneously. We must flip back and forth, like with the alternate perspectives of an optical illusion. Whoops....Oblivion. Whoops....Oblivion. The flipping is what causes the vertigo. The most daunting precipice isn't the one between current position and prospective destination. Far steeper is the distance between "Whoops" and "Oblivion". That's the truly nauseating drop-off.
I have a perennially self-defeating and neurotic older friend who hasn't left his apartment since March. Hasn't seen a human being, hasn't breathed fresh air. He will not converse through the window when I deliver his groceries. His windows remain firmly shut.
He doesn't own a mask because he's not going outside - perhaps ever. He doesn't follow the guidelines, because he's uninterested in skirting the edge between safety and danger. He'll remain far, far back, in safety, thank you very much. Even if it kills him.
At first I assumed he felt like he was being extra safe. But after consideration, that's not it.
I tried encouraging him (via phone) to put on a mask and enjoy a nice walk down his breezy, deserted suburban street. But as he ranted - citing opinions from the television (dodgy to begin with) that he'd misheard, misremembered, and misapplied, about persistent viral clouds and uncertain modes of transmission - I glimpsed the actual precipice. It wasn’t the virus he was afraid of. A perfect clarity settled in. I could envision the truth as clearly as if I were the Oracle of freaking Delphi.
If he did finally go out, he'd do so in the fraught state of shaky failure he reserves for urgent circumstances. His nose would stick out from his mask, if there were any mask at all. He'd walk, inexorably and hopelessly, toward the sneezes. He'd touch only things lots of other people had touched. And, returning home in a state of mindless agitation, he'd find a way to 1. not wash his hands, and 2. touch his face. Whoops...oblivion.
My urgings were wrong-headed. He unconsciously senses his fraught self mismanagement, and that’s what keeps him - appropriately, I suppose - indoors. His choice is to either retract to the opposite end of the universe from the danger (putting himself in converse peril), or else self-immolation. Simply going about his business is unthinkable.
I know what you're thinking. "Huh. Crazy people. What are you gonna do?" But consider this: how many of us can stand with our toes against the ledge of a 10,000 foot drop-off while remaining calmly normal?
Also factor in this scenario, if you can (it's a tale about reaching for the comically/tragically wrong tool in the face of danger).
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Biden Does it My Way
"Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself"
In May of 2016, I published a posting titled "The Smartest Thing Hillary Clinton Could Do".
In May of 2016, I published a posting titled "The Smartest Thing Hillary Clinton Could Do".
Two points are inarguable:This time around, Biden's been doing precisely that. It's debatable whether he'd have gone this route without the cover of Covid-19. But all parties seem to agree that it's helped him to give Trump - increasingly out of step with the country, as tiresome as an old meme, and incapable of adaptation - loads of room to stumble.
1. No one who likes Donald Trump will have their mind changed by anything Hillary Clinton has to say.
2. No one who dislikes Hillary Clinton will have their mind changed by anything Hillary Clinton has to say.
There's nothing for her to do. It is not in her power to increase his negatives or her own positives. For those rubbed the wrong way by her love-it-or-hate-it voice, six months of Clinton grinding over what a prick Trump is will only work against the intended narrative. And in the course of those six months, she and Bill will commit many unforced errors. All while Trump trolls the bejesus out of her (America's brashest troll meets America's tightest coil).
This election is Clinton's to lose. She's got as strong a margin as she started with (and feebly squandered) against Obama and Sanders. So the smartest thing Hillary and Bill could do would be to rent a nice house in the south of France until November, and disappear. Not say a word. Let her proxies (not Bill) snipe at Trump. Let Trump be the only candidate committing unforced errors. Give him the total spotlight he craves. Let the nation experience nothing but wall-to-wall Trump for six months. Let Trump undo Trumpism.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)