Monday, January 29, 2007
Caryn James, Why Do You Waste Our Time?
Yet another article in the NYTimes Film section that is ridiculous. In the article Caryn James laments about the dullness and repetitiveness of awards show speeches by the actors who keep winning their categories. Try to cloak thanks in an entertaining package, James suggests, citing Mirren (whose mantelpiece must be sagging under the weight of all those statuettes) and Hugh Laurie as examples. Then she suggests that the blandness of the speeches have something to do with an apolitical mood in Hollywood. Um. And then she calls Ellen Degeneres "namby-pamby." No joke. I'm not going to include a link to this article because I don't want you to have go through the random pointlessness of that piece. Seriously. The NYTimes needs some new Film writers.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Golden Rule: Don't Talk Smack About People You Don't Know
I'm guessing Caryn James is rethinking her stupid Times article of the 22nd (i.e., a "film" article that was more about image than movies and seemed straight out of US Weekly) now that Angelina Jolie's mother has died of cancer. You try putting on a happy face at something as stupid as the Golden Globes while your mom is dying of cancer. Just try.
Film
This weekend in film:
Catch and Release -- my friend is from Boulder so she wanted to go see it. We saw it. Kevin Smith kept an otherwise sleep-inducing movie on the right side of a coma.
Wordplay -- the documentary about crossword puzzles moves sluggishly until the Stamford tournament at the end. Not to be watched within twelve hours of Catch and Release or within three hours of driving a car/operating machinery (heavy or otherwise).
The Latin Movie III -- my friend, fellow Yalie Charles Umiker, is a Latin teacher at Duchess Country Day School in New York. Every year he and his 7th graders make a film, and it is friggin' hilarious. To see clips of little kids pretending to be Zeus, Pandora, and others, go to youtube and type in latinology.
The Paper Chase -- this supposed classic about first year Harvard Law students isn't exactly Legally Blonde, and it holds up as poorly as I'm betting the Reese Witherspoon film will in 30 years.
Catch and Release -- my friend is from Boulder so she wanted to go see it. We saw it. Kevin Smith kept an otherwise sleep-inducing movie on the right side of a coma.
Wordplay -- the documentary about crossword puzzles moves sluggishly until the Stamford tournament at the end. Not to be watched within twelve hours of Catch and Release or within three hours of driving a car/operating machinery (heavy or otherwise).
The Latin Movie III -- my friend, fellow Yalie Charles Umiker, is a Latin teacher at Duchess Country Day School in New York. Every year he and his 7th graders make a film, and it is friggin' hilarious. To see clips of little kids pretending to be Zeus, Pandora, and others, go to youtube and type in latinology.
The Paper Chase -- this supposed classic about first year Harvard Law students isn't exactly Legally Blonde, and it holds up as poorly as I'm betting the Reese Witherspoon film will in 30 years.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Another dream, another book
Dream:
Kirk Cameron (who at some point in an earlier part of my dream was, I think, talking about how much fun he had as a soldier in Iraq) and I were filling in tourist information on a map while a bear (clearly supposed to be an over-sized version of my puppy) lapped me incessantly. We finished the map and I shoved the bear away from me, sick of being lapped. The bear didn't like that and, without warning (I usually see things coming in dreams), the bear lunged at me. I woke up, my heart literally cowering in terror at the bottom of my bed.
I'm finally, FINALLY making some headway on my thesis, only to stop and go to New Haven for the weekend for a mini-reunion with the old roomies. Sigh. Well, at least there will be good food.
Am reading Thank You for Not Reading (something about exile has to do with something about translation, as far as my thesis is concerned) by Dubravka Ugresic, who is Croatian and a writer, but not a Croatian writer (too nationalistic). The book is extremely well-written, and while I feel at times of a similar temperament, aesthetic, and political mind, I'd be afraid to say it to her. Every person who is ever watched and enjoyed a TV show will be crushed. People who do not watch television and then rail about television on television will be crushed. Anyone who has ever felt high-and-mighty will be crushed. Anyone who has allowed others to notice how timid they are will be crushed. In general all people will be crushed, with the possible exception of the Amish.
Do utterly genuine people with no angles exist? I know Dubravka includes herself in the people she crushes (sort of) but I wonder... I don't know what I wonder. Except that in the matter of literature, everything of value has taken a back seat to mass media production, boxes of cereal with dehydrated marshmallows.
On one hand, I am an unapologetic elitist when it comes to literature; on the other, I believe in sincerity, though I think it's a different kind of sincerity from the kind Ugresic finds abhorrent. Literature is equal parts craft and art -- you must read Dickens and read like Dickens and read like the Dickens to have the right to write like Dickens. Even then, not everyone can be a writer; and if you aren't obsessed with books and words and syntax and story and rhythm, then you're not a writer. You have to study tradition before you can question tradition, all of which comes before choosing to break tradition (otherwise, you're just fucking around). You just can't knock on writers you haven't read (it's like those morons who yell about Hounddog without having seen the film, talked to the director about how the rape scene was shot, or asked the actress how she felt -- people just like to have something to be against). Moreover, you shouldn't write something unless you have something worth writing. Writing is labor and love and privilege and it should be treated with the utmost dedication and respect. You have to be sincere about your work -- your story can be a total fiction, your characters despiccable, your dialogue silly or witty or obtuse, but you have to know it when you write it. You have to make choices and be aware. If you don't mean what you write, you have to meant to have not meant it. At the end of the day, f you haven't made yourself ill over your writing, you're probably not a writer.
Kirk Cameron (who at some point in an earlier part of my dream was, I think, talking about how much fun he had as a soldier in Iraq) and I were filling in tourist information on a map while a bear (clearly supposed to be an over-sized version of my puppy) lapped me incessantly. We finished the map and I shoved the bear away from me, sick of being lapped. The bear didn't like that and, without warning (I usually see things coming in dreams), the bear lunged at me. I woke up, my heart literally cowering in terror at the bottom of my bed.
I'm finally, FINALLY making some headway on my thesis, only to stop and go to New Haven for the weekend for a mini-reunion with the old roomies. Sigh. Well, at least there will be good food.
Am reading Thank You for Not Reading (something about exile has to do with something about translation, as far as my thesis is concerned) by Dubravka Ugresic, who is Croatian and a writer, but not a Croatian writer (too nationalistic). The book is extremely well-written, and while I feel at times of a similar temperament, aesthetic, and political mind, I'd be afraid to say it to her. Every person who is ever watched and enjoyed a TV show will be crushed. People who do not watch television and then rail about television on television will be crushed. Anyone who has ever felt high-and-mighty will be crushed. Anyone who has allowed others to notice how timid they are will be crushed. In general all people will be crushed, with the possible exception of the Amish.
Do utterly genuine people with no angles exist? I know Dubravka includes herself in the people she crushes (sort of) but I wonder... I don't know what I wonder. Except that in the matter of literature, everything of value has taken a back seat to mass media production, boxes of cereal with dehydrated marshmallows.
On one hand, I am an unapologetic elitist when it comes to literature; on the other, I believe in sincerity, though I think it's a different kind of sincerity from the kind Ugresic finds abhorrent. Literature is equal parts craft and art -- you must read Dickens and read like Dickens and read like the Dickens to have the right to write like Dickens. Even then, not everyone can be a writer; and if you aren't obsessed with books and words and syntax and story and rhythm, then you're not a writer. You have to study tradition before you can question tradition, all of which comes before choosing to break tradition (otherwise, you're just fucking around). You just can't knock on writers you haven't read (it's like those morons who yell about Hounddog without having seen the film, talked to the director about how the rape scene was shot, or asked the actress how she felt -- people just like to have something to be against). Moreover, you shouldn't write something unless you have something worth writing. Writing is labor and love and privilege and it should be treated with the utmost dedication and respect. You have to be sincere about your work -- your story can be a total fiction, your characters despiccable, your dialogue silly or witty or obtuse, but you have to know it when you write it. You have to make choices and be aware. If you don't mean what you write, you have to meant to have not meant it. At the end of the day, f you haven't made yourself ill over your writing, you're probably not a writer.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Nostalgia
Things I didn't know I'd miss until they were gone:
the ghetto mall (New Haven, now a nice mall/residential apartment)
York Square Cinemas (New Haven)
Rainbow Cafe (New Haven)
Cedar Bar & Grill (NYC) (rumored)
gas stations (everywhere) (it's just a matter of time)
others (can't remember off the top of my head)
Seriously, I've begun to photograph everything that has, had, or could have a smidgeon of meaning in my life because before you know it, there's a Starbucks taking its place. What are you going to miss? Imagine America without gas stations. I'm 110% positive I've seen a photography book about gas stations out there, and hear me this, that book is going to be a must-have in ten or twenty years when there are no more gas stations (due to lack of gas). Can you imagine America's highways, hell, its average suburban towns, without gas stations? It would be, well, so much nicer, wouldn't it? Canada would be alot emptier (the Irving gas station being the only thing for hundreds of miles on the lonely highways), but America would be alot less icky. Assuming what replaces them isn't skeevier... I don't think plug-in stations would work so much as hydrogen/electric cars will need time to rejuice. Anyhow, here's to nostalgia, the biggest reason people buy TV show DVDs. We're holding onto the past, onto the cultural landmarks that have helped to develop how we live our very lives.
Though when I put it that way, it's a bit disturbing. Do I really care if the ten gas stations within a mile of my parents' house drop off the map tomorrow? Mmm... I honestly can't say. But I do miss that basement restaurant that fed me so many yummy grilled cheese croissant sandwiches with multi-colored tortillas on the side, that Rainbow Cafe with its signed poster of Mary Martin's Peter Pan and jumbo, greasy cookies and bad local art. And I'll miss York Square, where I saw a sneak preview of Chicago, the movie, and the uncomfortable Y Tu Mama Tambien with a conservative South Dakotan friend of mine, The Machinist with a screamer, and Capturing the Friedmans with loads of middle-aged people with no sense of humor. Sigh. The ghetto mall with its constant fear of being stabbed in the neck at the Burger King, the dollar store where a certain celebrity kid-friend of mine bought shampoo, the Radio Shack that couldn't help me when I broke my computer. Memories, I tell you.
Cedar Bar, not so much, but still. I wish I had had a chance to say goodbye. It's time to stop photographing friends and family and to start photographing the local mercantiles. You won't regret it, trust me.
the ghetto mall (New Haven, now a nice mall/residential apartment)
York Square Cinemas (New Haven)
Rainbow Cafe (New Haven)
Cedar Bar & Grill (NYC) (rumored)
gas stations (everywhere) (it's just a matter of time)
others (can't remember off the top of my head)
Seriously, I've begun to photograph everything that has, had, or could have a smidgeon of meaning in my life because before you know it, there's a Starbucks taking its place. What are you going to miss? Imagine America without gas stations. I'm 110% positive I've seen a photography book about gas stations out there, and hear me this, that book is going to be a must-have in ten or twenty years when there are no more gas stations (due to lack of gas). Can you imagine America's highways, hell, its average suburban towns, without gas stations? It would be, well, so much nicer, wouldn't it? Canada would be alot emptier (the Irving gas station being the only thing for hundreds of miles on the lonely highways), but America would be alot less icky. Assuming what replaces them isn't skeevier... I don't think plug-in stations would work so much as hydrogen/electric cars will need time to rejuice. Anyhow, here's to nostalgia, the biggest reason people buy TV show DVDs. We're holding onto the past, onto the cultural landmarks that have helped to develop how we live our very lives.
Though when I put it that way, it's a bit disturbing. Do I really care if the ten gas stations within a mile of my parents' house drop off the map tomorrow? Mmm... I honestly can't say. But I do miss that basement restaurant that fed me so many yummy grilled cheese croissant sandwiches with multi-colored tortillas on the side, that Rainbow Cafe with its signed poster of Mary Martin's Peter Pan and jumbo, greasy cookies and bad local art. And I'll miss York Square, where I saw a sneak preview of Chicago, the movie, and the uncomfortable Y Tu Mama Tambien with a conservative South Dakotan friend of mine, The Machinist with a screamer, and Capturing the Friedmans with loads of middle-aged people with no sense of humor. Sigh. The ghetto mall with its constant fear of being stabbed in the neck at the Burger King, the dollar store where a certain celebrity kid-friend of mine bought shampoo, the Radio Shack that couldn't help me when I broke my computer. Memories, I tell you.
Cedar Bar, not so much, but still. I wish I had had a chance to say goodbye. It's time to stop photographing friends and family and to start photographing the local mercantiles. You won't regret it, trust me.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
And suddenly the division between newspaper arts sections and bad entertainment magazines buries itself in the sand.
After All That Goodness, a Sudden Fall From Grace
Seriously. Why is this a NY Times article? Why is it even a story? Seriously. US Weekly much?
Seriously. Why is this a NY Times article? Why is it even a story? Seriously. US Weekly much?
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