I once heard an objection to time-travel along these lines. It’s physically impossible to travel through time, because there is, at any time, only a select amount of particles in the universe. A thousand years from now, the particles from your nose could be anywhere, in a chair, a tree, an animal, the ground, a cloud. Thus, supposing you did travel through time, a contradiction would arise. The same particles which are in your nose would also, at the same time, be in the cloud or other object they would have been in had the time travel not taken place. But since there is, at any time, only a select amount of particles in the universe, this state of affairs is a physical impossibility. The time traveler would have, simply by virtue of traveling through time, multiplied the amount of particles in the universe, and, without meaning to, would pose a very tricky philosophical problem: how is it that we can say that those particles in the cloud (or any object) are actually particles from the time traveler’s nose? Can, indeed, things be called the same because they share all the same properties, even though they don’t share the property of ‘being in the same place’? Isn’t that another contradiction, a logical one? For these reasons, C.S. Lewis speculates, in his uncompleted story The Dark Tower, about the chronoscope, an instrument that would allow you to see into the future from your present vantage point, just as a telescope allows you to see into distant spaces from an earthly-situated vantage point. The chronoscope would allow you see the future distribution of particles without the particles you presently have being disturbed. Unless we allow the scientific possibility of ‘action-at-a-distance’, the chronoscope seems to be a handy instrument. We wouldn’t be able to mingle with the future or the past, but we’d be able to see it. The problem is that if ‘action-at-a-distance’ is possible, our very distant observations might enact the unwanted consequences we’re trying to avoid: the very phenomenon of our observing the future might affect things so that they would be one way with the observation, and another without. But we’ll ignore this for now.
Recall: time travel is supposed to be physically impossible because if the time traveler did indeed travel, the amount of particles in the universe, which ought to be set, would increase, encompassing now the particles of the time traveler and the future distribution of the particles of the time traveler, had the time traveler not traveled. But supposing a loosely fatalistic universe in which everything that will be will inevitably be, and if things will inevitably be, and the future is already set, then the present distribution of particles might not be what we think it to be. The chasm might not be the metaphysical one in which new particles popped into being, thus interrupting what is supposed to be the fixed amount; it might be the epistemological one in which what we thought to be the fixed amount, isn’t the amount at all. Indeed, if the time traveler does, after all, travel, the universe, which includes all its times, has already, since time immemorial, included such an action. In this way, the time traveler doesn’t introduce into the universe new and before non-existent particles; he only fulfills and brings to fruition a certain distribution of particles, a distribution that the universe already had in mind since its inception. All the time-traveler did was to enact, and put into a certain pattern, the various particles that do happen to already exist. And among these various particles happen to be those that might be what is called ‘temporally indexed’. That is, there are actually particles that exist in the present that are different from their future counterparts. When a particle changes, as we say, from X to Y, X ceases to be X and becomes Y, even, as we must say, that without X, the emergence of Y would have been a physical impossibility. Perhaps, however, present-X stays in the present so that future-Y can come about. In this way, if X travels through time, he is no longer present-X, but future-X. If he is future-X, present-X can linger behind so as to allow the emergence of future-Y. Let present-X, future-X, and future-Y all represent particular distributions of particles. Since all these distributions are unique, their co-existence seems to be a real physical possibility. In this scenario, we avoid the difficulties from before, which lead to consideration for the chronoscope. Here, we’re not saying that there is a state of affairs in the future in which the very same physical particles are in two places at once; we’re saying that, in the future, after the time traveler travels, there are two distinct distributions of particles, future-X and future-Y (which came from past-X, which was then present-X). Future-X and future-Y are kin, not because they are identical, but because they are counterparts, linked together because of their own unique relationship with one another.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tieing together loose ends
I began reading The Idea of the Holy again today, by a German theologian who died in the early 20th century, an author, by the way, that influenced C.S. Lewis so deeply that a key element of his thought was included in the preface for The Problem of Pain. I was actually lead to this book by that preface and boy am I glad it did. I can remember so many times reading about a certain idea my whole life in all the different philosophy books I’d been reading, and one of the many things you try to do when you read is to try and tie together all the loose ends and end with one, coherent, beautiful tapestry of a philosophy. This is how it happens.
I read and enjoy, but don’t fully understand, The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer. I ponder and mull over exactly what it is about The Will that I find so fascinating and alluring, a mysterious force that yearns and wills and longs, at the bottom of everything, behind the curtain of all appearances, a ferocious, condensed, consolidation of pure and irresistible force, dynamism, and drive. Our only hope of ever coming into any kind of conscious contact with it is through the medium of music, a phenomena I try my hardest to treat as a key puzzle piece in my own personal philosophy. So, we have The Will. But then I turn to The Birth of Tragedy Through the Spirit of Music, by Frederick Nietzsche, and his Dionysian stupor seizes me in just the same way, and feelings are aroused that are completely akin to those that rose when I contemplated Schopenhauer’s Will. How, I wondered, did Nietzsche miss it? Of course, they’re not the same thing; the Dionysian reveling is almost a creaturely response to whatever the Will is, assuming such a thing existed. But I’m briefly just mentioning these examples to illustrate a point.
I move on to what drew me so intoxicatingly toward Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, a peculiar book written with the trademark, literary unorthodoxy, a probing analysis and wrestling with the complex and paradoxical story about God’s seemingly contemptuous command to sacrifice his only son to Him, thus eliminating his seed and violating the promise made previously about the numbers of his seed outnumbering the stars in the heavens and the sands at the beach. I am then also drawn to the writings of the mystics, all with a marked absence of reasonings, rational arguments for abstract concepts about God, a marked absence of theory-building, detached theorizing, disconnected intellection, or impersonal and robotic, scientific schematization or systematization of any or all or some of whatever religious topic happened to be under scrutiny.
I have named a few, but the common thread in all of this is an emphasis on what Rudolph Otto calls the non-rational aspects of religion, our conscious relation to the objects and persons of which religion is about, and most importantly about the things of the Spirit itself, whether we’re talking about God, the soul, angels, demons, Heaven, sacred objects, or whatever. This is what I was drawn to. What is Schopenhauer’s Will, what is it that Schopenhauer was reaching for in the dark without revelation, but an element in the non-rational part of God Himself? What was it that prompted Nietzsche to emphasize the Dionysiac frenzy other than those faint and uncertain mists being condensed and filtered out to the pagan from the non-rational region of God, and from that mysterious frontier, affecting behavior that is like the hysteria that can be witnessed during a passionate, Christian, religious experience, with all the juicy characteristics noted long ago by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience?
You meet it again in the honest and passionate studies and behavior of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a great admirer and an unspoken and unacknowledged disciple of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, James, and Schopenhauer; he yearned for the life in a monastery, thinking the life of a monk more authentic, more suited for meeting the challenge of living life, or, as Kierkegaard puts it, finding the idea for which you would die rather than lose it. The cold, lifeless method of philosophy called the analytic method, specializing in rigorous definitions, logically airtight language ripped from the everyday uses we know and placed up on the summit of an unreachable mountain, ripped from the culture from which the words first found life and meaning, and giving to the words a responsibility and burden they were never meant to bear: this, thought Wittgenstein, was the dangerous and erroneous idea of giving language the potential to wrap its arms around all of reality. But it was Wittgenstein’s job to draw a limit around what language could and couldn’t do. Language resides in the domain of concepts and in so far as a concept denotes an idea, it encompasses it, comprehends it. However, there is a domain of life, especially partitioned off by, he would argue, ethics and religion, that language was never meant to denote. He is famous for saying on this point that whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent. He is talking about the non-rational aspects of a part of reality that is the most important, since it’s the part of reality that has to do with Spirit. But the things of the spirit can’t be directly talked about; they have to be awoken in consciousness by means of a certain kind of language - the kind that uses metaphors. This is why poetry having to do with such issues is so important. The poet compares the thing of the spirit to a thing we have sensed; in response to the thing we can sense, certain feelings form in consciousness a certain noticed emotive phosphorescence; the poet then asks: “You see what you feel when you think about this thing you have sensed? What you’re feeling is akin, and is an analogy to, what you would feel if you were ever in the presence of this non-rational part of God of which we must remain silent, and of which we can’t speak.”
I read and enjoy, but don’t fully understand, The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer. I ponder and mull over exactly what it is about The Will that I find so fascinating and alluring, a mysterious force that yearns and wills and longs, at the bottom of everything, behind the curtain of all appearances, a ferocious, condensed, consolidation of pure and irresistible force, dynamism, and drive. Our only hope of ever coming into any kind of conscious contact with it is through the medium of music, a phenomena I try my hardest to treat as a key puzzle piece in my own personal philosophy. So, we have The Will. But then I turn to The Birth of Tragedy Through the Spirit of Music, by Frederick Nietzsche, and his Dionysian stupor seizes me in just the same way, and feelings are aroused that are completely akin to those that rose when I contemplated Schopenhauer’s Will. How, I wondered, did Nietzsche miss it? Of course, they’re not the same thing; the Dionysian reveling is almost a creaturely response to whatever the Will is, assuming such a thing existed. But I’m briefly just mentioning these examples to illustrate a point.
I move on to what drew me so intoxicatingly toward Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, a peculiar book written with the trademark, literary unorthodoxy, a probing analysis and wrestling with the complex and paradoxical story about God’s seemingly contemptuous command to sacrifice his only son to Him, thus eliminating his seed and violating the promise made previously about the numbers of his seed outnumbering the stars in the heavens and the sands at the beach. I am then also drawn to the writings of the mystics, all with a marked absence of reasonings, rational arguments for abstract concepts about God, a marked absence of theory-building, detached theorizing, disconnected intellection, or impersonal and robotic, scientific schematization or systematization of any or all or some of whatever religious topic happened to be under scrutiny.
I have named a few, but the common thread in all of this is an emphasis on what Rudolph Otto calls the non-rational aspects of religion, our conscious relation to the objects and persons of which religion is about, and most importantly about the things of the Spirit itself, whether we’re talking about God, the soul, angels, demons, Heaven, sacred objects, or whatever. This is what I was drawn to. What is Schopenhauer’s Will, what is it that Schopenhauer was reaching for in the dark without revelation, but an element in the non-rational part of God Himself? What was it that prompted Nietzsche to emphasize the Dionysiac frenzy other than those faint and uncertain mists being condensed and filtered out to the pagan from the non-rational region of God, and from that mysterious frontier, affecting behavior that is like the hysteria that can be witnessed during a passionate, Christian, religious experience, with all the juicy characteristics noted long ago by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience?
You meet it again in the honest and passionate studies and behavior of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a great admirer and an unspoken and unacknowledged disciple of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, James, and Schopenhauer; he yearned for the life in a monastery, thinking the life of a monk more authentic, more suited for meeting the challenge of living life, or, as Kierkegaard puts it, finding the idea for which you would die rather than lose it. The cold, lifeless method of philosophy called the analytic method, specializing in rigorous definitions, logically airtight language ripped from the everyday uses we know and placed up on the summit of an unreachable mountain, ripped from the culture from which the words first found life and meaning, and giving to the words a responsibility and burden they were never meant to bear: this, thought Wittgenstein, was the dangerous and erroneous idea of giving language the potential to wrap its arms around all of reality. But it was Wittgenstein’s job to draw a limit around what language could and couldn’t do. Language resides in the domain of concepts and in so far as a concept denotes an idea, it encompasses it, comprehends it. However, there is a domain of life, especially partitioned off by, he would argue, ethics and religion, that language was never meant to denote. He is famous for saying on this point that whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent. He is talking about the non-rational aspects of a part of reality that is the most important, since it’s the part of reality that has to do with Spirit. But the things of the spirit can’t be directly talked about; they have to be awoken in consciousness by means of a certain kind of language - the kind that uses metaphors. This is why poetry having to do with such issues is so important. The poet compares the thing of the spirit to a thing we have sensed; in response to the thing we can sense, certain feelings form in consciousness a certain noticed emotive phosphorescence; the poet then asks: “You see what you feel when you think about this thing you have sensed? What you’re feeling is akin, and is an analogy to, what you would feel if you were ever in the presence of this non-rational part of God of which we must remain silent, and of which we can’t speak.”
Who Framed Michael Myers?
Some movies, that are otherwise very good, commit what might be called unforgivable sins. An unforgivable sin in the movies is that one flaw that is so gaping, that hemorrhages with such ferocity, that the rest of the movie is spoiled, because our consciousness is forever after preoccupied with wondering why the fault was committed alongside what would have otherwise been a very well done movie. The strength of these kinds of movies can be measured by how far they rise above the flaw, which itself is measured by how much, and with what rapidity, the audience forgets the flaw because of the movie. I forget about M. Night Shyamalan’s screed against movie critics when the character Harry Farber (movie critic) is mulled alive by a Scrunt while reciting what is supposed to be hackneyed, screenplay plot twists in an effort to mock his critics in a fit of self-referential irony. It falls flat, but the rest of the movie redeems that mediocrity.
One wonders, however, about the wisdom of revealing the past of Michael Myers, shown to us as a boy, a deeply disturbed boy lets not forget, but a boy with gleams of hope (you wonder), gleams that could have been nourished if the boy had lived in a more loving home. I don’t wish to resurrect the beaten-to-death horse that is the nature vs. nurture debate, but if the Halloween series could be any more clear, we’d have to give Michael Myers the ole’ nature-option. No matter what stinking environment he would have grown up in, we feel sure that his evil knows nothing about the caresses or love that might have come from a nurturing family; pure evil is as undomesticated as a force of nature, so that the momentary entertaining of the nurture-option is a waste of time. It’s a category mistake. Sure, we see the beginnings of his inner demons in the torturing and murder of small animals, a half-conscious tribute to other serial killers whose confessions revealed the same obsession before their evil-maturity blossomed into more interesting victims. But the latest Halloween installment by the talented hand of Rob Zombie makes the nurture-option a distinct possibility. The evil of Michael Myers can now be more accurately theorized about. Before, our theories were wild, in the dark, and had about as much luck as the ancients who, without the necessary perspective, wrongly hypothesized the shape of the earth to be flat. Now, we have a foot-hold. A debate can get off the ground. What was before undebatable because we didn’t have enough knowledge for there to be a debate at all is now an arena for pros and cons.
All we had in the first couple installments were speculations and confessions from Myers’ psychologist. Less was more, and we wondered how in the world something as evil as what the doctor was speaking could actually reside in the soul (if there was a soul) of this sick and twisted and morbid man. Our imaginations got lost trying to figure it out. This was the key element in the terror. But in the Zombie version, we were fed more biographical detail, detail that gave us new, valuable information as to what explains the behavior of the psychotic. What was before a mystery is now a faint and blurry image, a mirage that’s beginning to materialize. Instead of wondering what God-awful event or series of events could have given us a person this full of unadulterated evil, we actually do have the event or series of events that account for it. It’s a combination of elements that have recurred and have been reduplicated in thousands of homes across America.
There isn’t anything here unique except for the bloody and violent reaction. Thousands of homes have had a loud, cursing, verbally and physically abusive dad and husband; and perhaps thousands of homes have had the mom who means well, but supports the family doing dirty deeds during a seedy nightlife; and thousands of brothers have had favored siblings who get away what they were never allowed to get away with themselves; and thousands of more children have gone through getting picked on at school. There is nothing unique or startling about all the conditions that lead to the breakdown; the only thing unique in this whole biographical banality is the murderous reaction. But even here, things aren’t that extraordinary or exceptional. Sure, in reality, the gore in the murder scenes attains to a gruesomeness that would make the faint in heart sickened that such a diabolical will could go through with such a deed. But Zombie should have known that in the minds of horror fans, nothing new was produced, no murders stand out; the only thing that stands out as some sort of flimsy plot device is just the insipid facts of their hideous deaths. What’s so special about that?
The contradiction is that the evil of Michael Myers is supposed to special and unique and unmatched and inexplicable and unable to be theorized about. That got to the very marrow of his nature and why he became the cultural icon he is. It is because of this mythology that Zombie loves it, and it is because of that mystique that made him seize upon it for a remake. The only other condition that’s left hanging which accounts for his vileness is his descent into muteness, partly as a result of social detachment in the mental institution, yet another unexceptional variable heaped into the mix to make him more and more estranged from common humanity. With this move, Zombie takes us further away from a Halloween movie and more into the territory of the generic serial killer flick: the only indicator of the much-needed freshness that ought to be wafting our cinematic nostrils is the tone and personality of a talented film-maker. But that isn’t enough for a solid, uninhibited, illimitable reboot. The mythology-torch needs to be carried onward; things can’t regress so far in another direction that the myth’s cover is blown and the emperor was naked the entire time.
One wonders, however, about the wisdom of revealing the past of Michael Myers, shown to us as a boy, a deeply disturbed boy lets not forget, but a boy with gleams of hope (you wonder), gleams that could have been nourished if the boy had lived in a more loving home. I don’t wish to resurrect the beaten-to-death horse that is the nature vs. nurture debate, but if the Halloween series could be any more clear, we’d have to give Michael Myers the ole’ nature-option. No matter what stinking environment he would have grown up in, we feel sure that his evil knows nothing about the caresses or love that might have come from a nurturing family; pure evil is as undomesticated as a force of nature, so that the momentary entertaining of the nurture-option is a waste of time. It’s a category mistake. Sure, we see the beginnings of his inner demons in the torturing and murder of small animals, a half-conscious tribute to other serial killers whose confessions revealed the same obsession before their evil-maturity blossomed into more interesting victims. But the latest Halloween installment by the talented hand of Rob Zombie makes the nurture-option a distinct possibility. The evil of Michael Myers can now be more accurately theorized about. Before, our theories were wild, in the dark, and had about as much luck as the ancients who, without the necessary perspective, wrongly hypothesized the shape of the earth to be flat. Now, we have a foot-hold. A debate can get off the ground. What was before undebatable because we didn’t have enough knowledge for there to be a debate at all is now an arena for pros and cons.
All we had in the first couple installments were speculations and confessions from Myers’ psychologist. Less was more, and we wondered how in the world something as evil as what the doctor was speaking could actually reside in the soul (if there was a soul) of this sick and twisted and morbid man. Our imaginations got lost trying to figure it out. This was the key element in the terror. But in the Zombie version, we were fed more biographical detail, detail that gave us new, valuable information as to what explains the behavior of the psychotic. What was before a mystery is now a faint and blurry image, a mirage that’s beginning to materialize. Instead of wondering what God-awful event or series of events could have given us a person this full of unadulterated evil, we actually do have the event or series of events that account for it. It’s a combination of elements that have recurred and have been reduplicated in thousands of homes across America.
There isn’t anything here unique except for the bloody and violent reaction. Thousands of homes have had a loud, cursing, verbally and physically abusive dad and husband; and perhaps thousands of homes have had the mom who means well, but supports the family doing dirty deeds during a seedy nightlife; and thousands of brothers have had favored siblings who get away what they were never allowed to get away with themselves; and thousands of more children have gone through getting picked on at school. There is nothing unique or startling about all the conditions that lead to the breakdown; the only thing unique in this whole biographical banality is the murderous reaction. But even here, things aren’t that extraordinary or exceptional. Sure, in reality, the gore in the murder scenes attains to a gruesomeness that would make the faint in heart sickened that such a diabolical will could go through with such a deed. But Zombie should have known that in the minds of horror fans, nothing new was produced, no murders stand out; the only thing that stands out as some sort of flimsy plot device is just the insipid facts of their hideous deaths. What’s so special about that?
The contradiction is that the evil of Michael Myers is supposed to special and unique and unmatched and inexplicable and unable to be theorized about. That got to the very marrow of his nature and why he became the cultural icon he is. It is because of this mythology that Zombie loves it, and it is because of that mystique that made him seize upon it for a remake. The only other condition that’s left hanging which accounts for his vileness is his descent into muteness, partly as a result of social detachment in the mental institution, yet another unexceptional variable heaped into the mix to make him more and more estranged from common humanity. With this move, Zombie takes us further away from a Halloween movie and more into the territory of the generic serial killer flick: the only indicator of the much-needed freshness that ought to be wafting our cinematic nostrils is the tone and personality of a talented film-maker. But that isn’t enough for a solid, uninhibited, illimitable reboot. The mythology-torch needs to be carried onward; things can’t regress so far in another direction that the myth’s cover is blown and the emperor was naked the entire time.
Avatar - an opinion.
The most disappointing thing about the movie Avatar is this idea of failed expectations. If a guy goes into hiding for a little short of a decade, brooding over whatever amazing peace of artistic genius he happens to be sculpting, when he emerges, it better be a Sistine Chapel or a Washington Monument or a War and Peace. And it better not tease us with the some sort of facsimile; we see the mansion from the road, but once we enter what we think is the front door, we turn around to see the ‘mansion’s’ backside, and it’s nothing but plywood, lumber, and studs. It’s got to have width as well as height. This is the main reason why Axl Rose’s Chinese Democracy was a commercial failure: the mechanical pyrotechnics had no soul - the madman went underground to be an aloof monk, having over a decade to craft a Mona Lisa, and comes up with a hodgepodge of unrelated, and overlong, singles, technically apt, but over-conscious and over-stuffed.
Avatar is a visual goldmine, accomplished with state of the art technology, and perfected by the craft of a genius, using never-before-created tools to present a 3D image the likes of which had never been done before. It was the element of something new, progress, an evolution into new regions of cinematic creation that was the meat of the buzz surrounding the movie. Cameron’s love for dark and light blues had the opportunity to be splashed on a canvass never before manufactured. The only problem was: we’ve got to get the images to say something. Herein lies the heart of Avatar’s Achilles’ Heel. When such beauty is mixed with such adolescent speech, the result is a peculiarly unfortunate and discordant mix. If a morbidly fat woman began to speak fluently and logically, had an engaging personality, and humorous wit, or could tell a great story, we soon forget the image and preoccupy ourselves with the personality. But the beautiful blonde with the voluptuous torso, with the tan skin, who happened to talk at the level of a second grader or who happened to be mentally retarded, is not as quickly forgotten, and in social circles, is soon ignored or mocked. The looks produced high expectations for the woman; when she spoke, not just our estimation of the woman dropped, but the appearance does too. This might be Avatar’s curse. Avatar is a drop-dead gorgeous babe, elegantly dressed, lightly but effectively perfumed, with a graceful gait, and a seductive smile; but then she talks. The discordance comes at you almost like a skipping CD during your favorite song, or like the power going out on your TV during your favorite movie.
I also thought the story cliched. There was once a time when the story wasn’t cliched. There was a time when every story was at one time not cliched. By a story being cliched, I mean that the fundamental skeleton of the story has been repeated so many times with so little adjustments or tweaks, that you can’t even pay attention to the latest permutation without thinking about all the prior clones. A good way to break away from a cliched story is the fixing of elements with the aim of avoiding that psychological possibility. A cliched story is the one about the good guy protecting the protagonist from the antagonist. But a good movie that made use of this cliched story is Terminator 2; a bad movie that made bad use of the cliche, and is because of this a bad cliche, is probably Cyborg. But Avatar couldn’t allow me for a span of two minutes to forget about this recycled, cliched story Cameron is making use of to preach to me this liberal parable about the evils of colonialism or military mindlessness or the evils of Western Civilization, or the evils of all the ways through history ‘superior cultures’ have instituted their own brand of ‘Manifest Destiny’. Have a moral, but don’t consciously use a cliched story as the unwitting puppet for your sermon; you come off as obnoxious, not caring about art for art’s sake, and sanctimoniously snobbish.
If you’re going to have a sermon, you better couch it in a very good story, a story good enough to distract the audience’s attention throughout the film, so they are so engrossed, that the thought of any kind of moral you might have implanted into the film germinates only after the movie is over, and germinates in a way that is not noticed. In this way, the audience gets the feelings of being in control of their thoughts, and the moral seems to be considered as a result of their own, or what they think is their own, thoughtful ruminations about the movie. But throughout Avatar, the moral, I felt, was shoved in my face, that the moral was screaming at me, that Cameron was shouting at me how my own sentiments were awful, and the shouting was so loud I nearly missed the movie. In my ear, I heard Cameron constantly whispering things like: “Yes, the women are mostly good; yes, the military is mostly bad; yes, most white men are either sniveling or feminized or alpha-male drones obsessed with guns and death; yes, any minority is good; yes, the victims of colonialism were completely helpless tribes, utterly sinless, with no hand in their own subjugation, utterly spotless in their transgressions, with no possible hostility toward neighboring tribes; that is, until the evil Westerners ruined everything.”
Avatar is a visual goldmine, accomplished with state of the art technology, and perfected by the craft of a genius, using never-before-created tools to present a 3D image the likes of which had never been done before. It was the element of something new, progress, an evolution into new regions of cinematic creation that was the meat of the buzz surrounding the movie. Cameron’s love for dark and light blues had the opportunity to be splashed on a canvass never before manufactured. The only problem was: we’ve got to get the images to say something. Herein lies the heart of Avatar’s Achilles’ Heel. When such beauty is mixed with such adolescent speech, the result is a peculiarly unfortunate and discordant mix. If a morbidly fat woman began to speak fluently and logically, had an engaging personality, and humorous wit, or could tell a great story, we soon forget the image and preoccupy ourselves with the personality. But the beautiful blonde with the voluptuous torso, with the tan skin, who happened to talk at the level of a second grader or who happened to be mentally retarded, is not as quickly forgotten, and in social circles, is soon ignored or mocked. The looks produced high expectations for the woman; when she spoke, not just our estimation of the woman dropped, but the appearance does too. This might be Avatar’s curse. Avatar is a drop-dead gorgeous babe, elegantly dressed, lightly but effectively perfumed, with a graceful gait, and a seductive smile; but then she talks. The discordance comes at you almost like a skipping CD during your favorite song, or like the power going out on your TV during your favorite movie.
I also thought the story cliched. There was once a time when the story wasn’t cliched. There was a time when every story was at one time not cliched. By a story being cliched, I mean that the fundamental skeleton of the story has been repeated so many times with so little adjustments or tweaks, that you can’t even pay attention to the latest permutation without thinking about all the prior clones. A good way to break away from a cliched story is the fixing of elements with the aim of avoiding that psychological possibility. A cliched story is the one about the good guy protecting the protagonist from the antagonist. But a good movie that made use of this cliched story is Terminator 2; a bad movie that made bad use of the cliche, and is because of this a bad cliche, is probably Cyborg. But Avatar couldn’t allow me for a span of two minutes to forget about this recycled, cliched story Cameron is making use of to preach to me this liberal parable about the evils of colonialism or military mindlessness or the evils of Western Civilization, or the evils of all the ways through history ‘superior cultures’ have instituted their own brand of ‘Manifest Destiny’. Have a moral, but don’t consciously use a cliched story as the unwitting puppet for your sermon; you come off as obnoxious, not caring about art for art’s sake, and sanctimoniously snobbish.
If you’re going to have a sermon, you better couch it in a very good story, a story good enough to distract the audience’s attention throughout the film, so they are so engrossed, that the thought of any kind of moral you might have implanted into the film germinates only after the movie is over, and germinates in a way that is not noticed. In this way, the audience gets the feelings of being in control of their thoughts, and the moral seems to be considered as a result of their own, or what they think is their own, thoughtful ruminations about the movie. But throughout Avatar, the moral, I felt, was shoved in my face, that the moral was screaming at me, that Cameron was shouting at me how my own sentiments were awful, and the shouting was so loud I nearly missed the movie. In my ear, I heard Cameron constantly whispering things like: “Yes, the women are mostly good; yes, the military is mostly bad; yes, most white men are either sniveling or feminized or alpha-male drones obsessed with guns and death; yes, any minority is good; yes, the victims of colonialism were completely helpless tribes, utterly sinless, with no hand in their own subjugation, utterly spotless in their transgressions, with no possible hostility toward neighboring tribes; that is, until the evil Westerners ruined everything.”
Monday, June 14, 2010
The things which I have seen I now can see no more - Wordsworth
I remember being an outsider at a certain social gathering one night. A group of people were talking about their love for a certain kind of music which I happen to not like. My immediate reaction was to call them - in my head - a group of snobs who think any type of music they don't like to be inferior. But this doesn't follow at all. In fact, to the people inside the group, snobbery isn't even on their minds. Snobbery seems to be something that the outsider calls those who are 'in the know', those for whom the notion of snobbery is furthest from their mind. Thus, to the music lovers, the notion of 'loving the right music' wasn't even on their mind - they were just loving the music they happened to naturally love. The question of whether or not the music fit a certain category or genre comes - if at all - as an after-thought.
It's the same with religion. Religion, as we know, is a category we use to label a certain set of behaviors, beliefs, and rituals. But to those 'inside' the religion, the word 'religion' isn't even on their minds. Their minds are too preoccupied thinking about God. The outsider calls the religious man 'religious' as an outsider. If the outsider were to ask the religious man whether he was engaging in religious behavior, the religious man himself would have to become an outside inspector of his own prior behavior. Thus, to those within a category, the category is forgotten; but to the outsider, he has nothing but the category. But an interesting thing happens if I, as an outsider, ask the music snob to explain whether or not their preferred music is actually good and beautiful. There's something about the very study that sops what was before a pure, virginal, thoughtless enjoyment of the kind of music it was most natural for him to love. We're now in the position of the outsider, conjuring up criteria, categories, and requirements: lyrical complexity, genre, voice inflection. All of these elements, which were before rightly ignored (not even consciously ignored, but, by the very nature of what's going on, being blithely ignorant of), are now classified. But do you see what's happened? The classifier now has a before and after with their enjoyment: before the classification and after. Before the classification, the enjoyer's whole psychological framework was more honest in its enjoyment: now, he is almost the object under his own microscope - and how can his previous enjoyment be dublicated in these conditions?
When I am enjoying a great movie or a great book or a great song, I am not at all thinking about whether my taste in these art forms is acceptable, mainstream, or cool. In fact, it's only after I've thought about these distractions that my previoius enjoyment is somewhat tarnished. When I read about the maddening resolve of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, why cloud my enjoyment or engrossment with petty considerations about genre, acceptability, classifications, writing style, being up to date or mainstream? The child, avoiding his mother in the closet, with a candle, face close up against a ragged copy of Treasure Island, is closer to sincere and unclouded enjoyment of art than the most sophisticated literary critic. The child isn't thinking about 'the right books' or even about books at all; to bring up the subject would be an impertinence. The child is too busy attending to the story; and the story becomes, without the child consciously noticing it, the lense through which the world is interpreted and understood.
These principles seem to me to unlock a mystery I've been trying to figure out for a long time. I'm talking about the habit we all have of trying to get our friends to enjoy the kinds of art we love. If we introduce our friend to this art for any reason, or on any ground, we are bound to become that objective classifier of systems that is so dangerous for the recovery of that old frame of mind that is so necessary for what it means to genuinely enjoy a work of art. It is so much more natural for our friend to be drawn into the music without any kind of prior justification, no excuses for parts of the art the friend might find objectionable, no pressure on the friend to feel as you did at certain times. In doing this, we build a framework though which we invite our friend to experience the art. But it was through the absence of any kind of framework that we came to love the art at all. What we build up for our friend was abscent for us. How can we expect the friend to feel as we felt if the conditions in which the friend experiences the art are one way for him, and another for us? Enjoying a song, a movie, or a book is as simple and mysterious as falling in love. It can't be forced, as if to treat it as a magic potion that, if digested, works an identical effect in any person. It is more like our taste in food. When I'm tasting the steak, I'm thinking less of the steak and more about the taste, my enjoyment resting less with the steak and more with the taste that the steak occasioned. If I find afterwards that it is fashionable to eat steak, then, if I really love the taste, this will no more diminish my love for steak than if I discovered it was socially frowned upon. But if your love adjusts to the up and and downs of social acceptance, you'll know your love was a sham.
It's the same with religion. Religion, as we know, is a category we use to label a certain set of behaviors, beliefs, and rituals. But to those 'inside' the religion, the word 'religion' isn't even on their minds. Their minds are too preoccupied thinking about God. The outsider calls the religious man 'religious' as an outsider. If the outsider were to ask the religious man whether he was engaging in religious behavior, the religious man himself would have to become an outside inspector of his own prior behavior. Thus, to those within a category, the category is forgotten; but to the outsider, he has nothing but the category. But an interesting thing happens if I, as an outsider, ask the music snob to explain whether or not their preferred music is actually good and beautiful. There's something about the very study that sops what was before a pure, virginal, thoughtless enjoyment of the kind of music it was most natural for him to love. We're now in the position of the outsider, conjuring up criteria, categories, and requirements: lyrical complexity, genre, voice inflection. All of these elements, which were before rightly ignored (not even consciously ignored, but, by the very nature of what's going on, being blithely ignorant of), are now classified. But do you see what's happened? The classifier now has a before and after with their enjoyment: before the classification and after. Before the classification, the enjoyer's whole psychological framework was more honest in its enjoyment: now, he is almost the object under his own microscope - and how can his previous enjoyment be dublicated in these conditions?
When I am enjoying a great movie or a great book or a great song, I am not at all thinking about whether my taste in these art forms is acceptable, mainstream, or cool. In fact, it's only after I've thought about these distractions that my previoius enjoyment is somewhat tarnished. When I read about the maddening resolve of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, why cloud my enjoyment or engrossment with petty considerations about genre, acceptability, classifications, writing style, being up to date or mainstream? The child, avoiding his mother in the closet, with a candle, face close up against a ragged copy of Treasure Island, is closer to sincere and unclouded enjoyment of art than the most sophisticated literary critic. The child isn't thinking about 'the right books' or even about books at all; to bring up the subject would be an impertinence. The child is too busy attending to the story; and the story becomes, without the child consciously noticing it, the lense through which the world is interpreted and understood.
These principles seem to me to unlock a mystery I've been trying to figure out for a long time. I'm talking about the habit we all have of trying to get our friends to enjoy the kinds of art we love. If we introduce our friend to this art for any reason, or on any ground, we are bound to become that objective classifier of systems that is so dangerous for the recovery of that old frame of mind that is so necessary for what it means to genuinely enjoy a work of art. It is so much more natural for our friend to be drawn into the music without any kind of prior justification, no excuses for parts of the art the friend might find objectionable, no pressure on the friend to feel as you did at certain times. In doing this, we build a framework though which we invite our friend to experience the art. But it was through the absence of any kind of framework that we came to love the art at all. What we build up for our friend was abscent for us. How can we expect the friend to feel as we felt if the conditions in which the friend experiences the art are one way for him, and another for us? Enjoying a song, a movie, or a book is as simple and mysterious as falling in love. It can't be forced, as if to treat it as a magic potion that, if digested, works an identical effect in any person. It is more like our taste in food. When I'm tasting the steak, I'm thinking less of the steak and more about the taste, my enjoyment resting less with the steak and more with the taste that the steak occasioned. If I find afterwards that it is fashionable to eat steak, then, if I really love the taste, this will no more diminish my love for steak than if I discovered it was socially frowned upon. But if your love adjusts to the up and and downs of social acceptance, you'll know your love was a sham.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Semi-Charmed Life - a lyrical interpretation
This is a lyrical breakdown of the song Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind. I love this song and I think it’s one of the best songs of the later 90’s.
It begins. The girl is great. There are no problems. She lives for him - or she says she does. Things are going so well that he’s holding on; he packed and ready to go. Great imagery. Packed. Like on a trip? Sure! It’s a journey: and hold on! At the beginning, she’s golden! Unspotted. Nothing is wrong. But then things are complicated by sex.
The sex is a drug. But she’s smiling! The motif of the smile recurs throughout the song. No matter what they go through, they’re smiling. The ‘one stop’ metaphor is cool: it’s like a bus stop. In a bus, the bus stops are inevitable: the bus stop symbolizes the fights, when the smiles stop. There’s a certain rhythm that divides her.
A coda concludes an event. In this case, it’s the event that divided her, the fight. The fights don’t always end well; the coda is cursed. But remember it’s a rhythm that divides them. What has a rhythm? A song; and a song has verses and a chorus. The coda is built into the structure of the song, the verses and the chorus. That is the metaphor of their relationship: a song, with verses, cut off with a cursed coda, leading into the chorus, and then back to the verses again.
To everyone else it looks like a freak show. Maybe that’s why lovers almost always look absurd to outsiders. They're on a stage and they’re the freak show. Then, the relationship is compared to a game that is ‘given’. Given to whom? The audience. The onlookers, hostile, understanding, or indifferent. But deep down, in spite of all the games, she wants something else to get her out of this semi-charmed life. A charm could be many things. Could it be a spell? A blessing? Delight? I go for blessing.
This is like a perfect modern equivalent to Wordsworth on the power of memory, or even Proust’s title: Remembrance of Things Past.
Wordsworth (‘Tintern Abbey’): it’s been five years since he visited the abbey. He tells us how all the things at the abbey affect him. The cliffs remind him of deep seclusion. Then, he tells how the beautiful form of the cliff affected his memory. The memory gave him, “sensations sweet, / Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.” The present things evoke the memory of them five years ago and there is a bittersweetness and a joy in the evoking. Memory is the anchor of ‘purest thought’; it is a mansion where you can get lost, but it is beautiful all the same.
Drugs and sex complicate things.
More memory motifs.
Remember: the metaphor of the relationship is a song. The four right chords can make him cry. The song gets really happy right here.
Another memory motif stretched out. This part is usually edited from the radio version. It’s the radio’s loss. The girl is a crashing plane. Then there’s paradox: tripped on the urge to feel alive ‘and’ struggling to survive? Then he’s at confession and she’s the priestess, confessing how good the sex was.
More paradox. They’re broken, but they hold each other. Despite them being broken, it’s all he wants. The high is amazing. He won’t run for his life. The smile motif comes back to haunt him. But - another paradox - nothing is alright. Alright? Breaking up is out of the question: I’m not listening when you say, “Good-bye.”
The song just really captures the essence and excitement of the ups and downs and paradoxes of a bad relationship full of thrills and absurdities, but always leaving that indelible mark on the memory. The melody is catchy and upbeat, but the lyrics are dark, delving into drug addiction and sex and all the complications that come from that: after all that, the singer ‘wants something else’.
I'm packed and I'm holding,
I'm smiling, she's living, she's golden and
she lives for me, She says she lives for me,
Ovation, She's got her own motivation,
she comes round and she goes down on me,
It begins. The girl is great. There are no problems. She lives for him - or she says she does. Things are going so well that he’s holding on; he packed and ready to go. Great imagery. Packed. Like on a trip? Sure! It’s a journey: and hold on! At the beginning, she’s golden! Unspotted. Nothing is wrong. But then things are complicated by sex.
And I make her smile, It's like a drug for you,
Do ever what you want to do,
Coming over you,
Keep on smiling,
what we go through.
One stop to the rhythm that divides you,
The sex is a drug. But she’s smiling! The motif of the smile recurs throughout the song. No matter what they go through, they’re smiling. The ‘one stop’ metaphor is cool: it’s like a bus stop. In a bus, the bus stops are inevitable: the bus stop symbolizes the fights, when the smiles stop. There’s a certain rhythm that divides her.
And I speak to you like the chorus to the verse,
Drop another line like a coda with a curse,
And I come on like a freak show takes the stage.
We give them the games we play, she said,
I want something else, to get me through this,
Semi-charmed kind of life,
I want something else,
I'm not listening when you say, Good-bye.
A coda concludes an event. In this case, it’s the event that divided her, the fight. The fights don’t always end well; the coda is cursed. But remember it’s a rhythm that divides them. What has a rhythm? A song; and a song has verses and a chorus. The coda is built into the structure of the song, the verses and the chorus. That is the metaphor of their relationship: a song, with verses, cut off with a cursed coda, leading into the chorus, and then back to the verses again.
To everyone else it looks like a freak show. Maybe that’s why lovers almost always look absurd to outsiders. They're on a stage and they’re the freak show. Then, the relationship is compared to a game that is ‘given’. Given to whom? The audience. The onlookers, hostile, understanding, or indifferent. But deep down, in spite of all the games, she wants something else to get her out of this semi-charmed life. A charm could be many things. Could it be a spell? A blessing? Delight? I go for blessing.
The sky it was gold, it was rose,
I was taking sips of it through my nose,
And I wish I could get back there,
Some place back there,
Smiling in the pictures you would take,
This is like a perfect modern equivalent to Wordsworth on the power of memory, or even Proust’s title: Remembrance of Things Past.
Wordsworth (‘Tintern Abbey’): it’s been five years since he visited the abbey. He tells us how all the things at the abbey affect him. The cliffs remind him of deep seclusion. Then, he tells how the beautiful form of the cliff affected his memory. The memory gave him, “sensations sweet, / Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.” The present things evoke the memory of them five years ago and there is a bittersweetness and a joy in the evoking. Memory is the anchor of ‘purest thought’; it is a mansion where you can get lost, but it is beautiful all the same.
Doing crystal myth,
Will lift you up until you break,
It won't stop,
I won't come down, I keep stock,
With a tick tock rhythm and a bump for the drop,
And then I bumped up. I took the hit I was given,
Then I bumped again,
And then I bumped again.
Drugs and sex complicate things.
How do I get back there to,
The place where I fell asleep inside you?
How do I get myself back to,
The place where you said,
I want something else to get me through this,
semi-charmed kind of life,
I want something else,
I'm not listening when you say, good-bye,
More memory motifs.
I believe in the sand beneath my toes,
The beach gives a feeling,
An earthy feeling,
I believe in the faith that grows,
And the four right chords can make me cry,
Remember: the metaphor of the relationship is a song. The four right chords can make him cry. The song gets really happy right here.
When I'm with you I feel like I could die.
And that would be all right,
All right, When the plane came in,
She said she was crashing,
The velvet it rips,
In the city we tripped,
On the urge to feel alive,
But now I'm struggling to survive,
The days you were wearing,
That velvet dress,
You're the priestess,
must confess,
Those little red panties,
They pass the test,
Slide up around the belly,
Face down on the mattress,
Another memory motif stretched out. This part is usually edited from the radio version. It’s the radio’s loss. The girl is a crashing plane. Then there’s paradox: tripped on the urge to feel alive ‘and’ struggling to survive? Then he’s at confession and she’s the priestess, confessing how good the sex was.
One,
Now you hold me,
And we're broken.
Still it's all that I want to do.
Feel myself coming off the ground,
I'm scared but I'm not coming down.
And I won't run for my life,
She's got her jaws just locked now in smile
but nothing is all right,
All right, I want something else,
To get me through this,
Semi-charmed kind of life,
I want something else,
I'm not listening when you say,
good-bye.
More paradox. They’re broken, but they hold each other. Despite them being broken, it’s all he wants. The high is amazing. He won’t run for his life. The smile motif comes back to haunt him. But - another paradox - nothing is alright. Alright? Breaking up is out of the question: I’m not listening when you say, “Good-bye.”
The song just really captures the essence and excitement of the ups and downs and paradoxes of a bad relationship full of thrills and absurdities, but always leaving that indelible mark on the memory. The melody is catchy and upbeat, but the lyrics are dark, delving into drug addiction and sex and all the complications that come from that: after all that, the singer ‘wants something else’.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Sideways (2005): a movie review
I just saw the movie Sideways again last night and it renewed my love for the movie. This truly is one of my favorite movies. I love the friendship between Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) and Jack Lapate (Thomas Haden Church). They are complete opposites. Their personalities clash throughout the movie. But as the movie goes on, you come to see that this clash is necessary: they see in the other what they lack in themselves.
We meet Miles on the flip side of a sour divorce, a disillusioned 8th grade English teacher. He is obviously gifted with words and a gifted writer, but he is essentially a failed novelist, having yet to successfully publish his book. And his knowledge of wine is tremendous. Jack is a struggling actor (stuck being the voice in infomercials) and is looking forward to being married in a week. Back in college they were room-mates and they’ve been friends ever since.
As a gift to his friend Jack, Miles plans on taking him to the wine country in Santa Ynez Valley, in California, with beautiful countrysides, rolling hills full of grapevines. There they will enjoy the wine, play golf, enjoy nature, and give Jack a stylish transition from the single life to the married one. But there is a problem: Jack wants to have sex on his last week of freedom! Jack is hilarious. He is cocky and lets it all hang out, and when it clashes with Miles’ depression, negativity, and pessimism, I was laughing out loud.
When they’re at a restaurant, Jack sees Maya for the first time, a waitress, someone who Miles has had a secret attraction toward for a while. But Miles is still scarred from his divorce and he thinks she is married anyway. But thanks to Jack’s Sherlock Holmes-style detective skills, we find that she is divorced as well.
Maya is my favorite female lead in the history of the movies, barely beating out Grace Kelly in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). Her voice is so soothing and she is so beautiful and understanding, and she is such a good listener. She knows exactly where Miles is coming from and always looks him straight in the eye. Her gaze isn’t a stare; it is so healing and sympathetic. She is so selfless and noble. I remember the scene where Miles trusts her enough to lend her the manuscript of his unfinished novel, not yet grammatically corrected. What is the magical thing that happens? She reads it. All of it. She understands it. “Did all of that really happen to you?”, she asks in a voiceover. “That must have been so painful.” Her voice is so genuine.
The most beautiful scene in the movie is when they are on her back porch and she asks Miles why he loves Pinot so much. He is nervous as we all are when we are called on to explain something that means so much to us, all the more so for Miles since Pinot, and his reasons for loving it, are bound up with his identity: he loves Pinot because the Pinot grape needs to be nurtured and coaxed into its fullest expression just as he himself does.
This is when Maya realizes Miles is talking about himself: when she falls in love with him. Maya gently launches into why she got into wine. This scene touches me to the very marrow: they're talking about wine, but they're talking about so much more. It makes you think about so much. It makes you think about what it would feel like to meet a woman who shares your interests and loves and in a way that she can illuminate a whole new dimension of it, and yet at the same time show forth her inner beauty. The scene is utterly transcendent. I adore it.
Then of course we meet Stephanie, Jack’s fling, and complications multiply. Jack’s wedding the following weekend has to be kept a secret. This, while Miles is really falling in love with Maya. So, there is real love, but the lurking deception threatens to ruin everything.
The movie is hilarious. I love it when Miles and Jack are meeting Stephanie and Maya on a double-date. Miles’ depression and negativity threaten to ruin Jack’s chances of sleeping with Stephanie, which leads to Jack warning Miles to be cool. Oh yes: “If they want to drink Merlot, we’re drinking Merlot.” “No!!”, Miles screams: “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot!!” Hysterical.
Giamatti plays a schlub perfectly. The drama of the film belongs to his character and it is heartbreaking. I can’t think of actors that better portray that element of misery that is self-inflicted. Not only is Sideways one of the best buddy-movies there are, it’s a background-documentary on wine itself. The movie is full of wine trivia, interesting information on how to grow it, what factors are involved, how to criticize it, the insider’s peculiar way of drinking it: it’s almost a ritual. The movie as a whole is a masterpiece.
We meet Miles on the flip side of a sour divorce, a disillusioned 8th grade English teacher. He is obviously gifted with words and a gifted writer, but he is essentially a failed novelist, having yet to successfully publish his book. And his knowledge of wine is tremendous. Jack is a struggling actor (stuck being the voice in infomercials) and is looking forward to being married in a week. Back in college they were room-mates and they’ve been friends ever since.
As a gift to his friend Jack, Miles plans on taking him to the wine country in Santa Ynez Valley, in California, with beautiful countrysides, rolling hills full of grapevines. There they will enjoy the wine, play golf, enjoy nature, and give Jack a stylish transition from the single life to the married one. But there is a problem: Jack wants to have sex on his last week of freedom! Jack is hilarious. He is cocky and lets it all hang out, and when it clashes with Miles’ depression, negativity, and pessimism, I was laughing out loud.
When they’re at a restaurant, Jack sees Maya for the first time, a waitress, someone who Miles has had a secret attraction toward for a while. But Miles is still scarred from his divorce and he thinks she is married anyway. But thanks to Jack’s Sherlock Holmes-style detective skills, we find that she is divorced as well.
Maya is my favorite female lead in the history of the movies, barely beating out Grace Kelly in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). Her voice is so soothing and she is so beautiful and understanding, and she is such a good listener. She knows exactly where Miles is coming from and always looks him straight in the eye. Her gaze isn’t a stare; it is so healing and sympathetic. She is so selfless and noble. I remember the scene where Miles trusts her enough to lend her the manuscript of his unfinished novel, not yet grammatically corrected. What is the magical thing that happens? She reads it. All of it. She understands it. “Did all of that really happen to you?”, she asks in a voiceover. “That must have been so painful.” Her voice is so genuine.
The most beautiful scene in the movie is when they are on her back porch and she asks Miles why he loves Pinot so much. He is nervous as we all are when we are called on to explain something that means so much to us, all the more so for Miles since Pinot, and his reasons for loving it, are bound up with his identity: he loves Pinot because the Pinot grape needs to be nurtured and coaxed into its fullest expression just as he himself does.
This is when Maya realizes Miles is talking about himself: when she falls in love with him. Maya gently launches into why she got into wine. This scene touches me to the very marrow: they're talking about wine, but they're talking about so much more. It makes you think about so much. It makes you think about what it would feel like to meet a woman who shares your interests and loves and in a way that she can illuminate a whole new dimension of it, and yet at the same time show forth her inner beauty. The scene is utterly transcendent. I adore it.
Then of course we meet Stephanie, Jack’s fling, and complications multiply. Jack’s wedding the following weekend has to be kept a secret. This, while Miles is really falling in love with Maya. So, there is real love, but the lurking deception threatens to ruin everything.
The movie is hilarious. I love it when Miles and Jack are meeting Stephanie and Maya on a double-date. Miles’ depression and negativity threaten to ruin Jack’s chances of sleeping with Stephanie, which leads to Jack warning Miles to be cool. Oh yes: “If they want to drink Merlot, we’re drinking Merlot.” “No!!”, Miles screams: “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot!!” Hysterical.
Giamatti plays a schlub perfectly. The drama of the film belongs to his character and it is heartbreaking. I can’t think of actors that better portray that element of misery that is self-inflicted. Not only is Sideways one of the best buddy-movies there are, it’s a background-documentary on wine itself. The movie is full of wine trivia, interesting information on how to grow it, what factors are involved, how to criticize it, the insider’s peculiar way of drinking it: it’s almost a ritual. The movie as a whole is a masterpiece.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
A parable from Animal Farm: where I've worked.
As I re-read Animal Farm by George Orwell, I get an eerie reminder of what the history might be at my own job as a restaurant waiter. Try to fill in the blanks or connect the dots. Snowball is one of the pigs, driven away by the other pig, Napoleon. Snowball was the pig that proposed the idea of a windmill for the farm, an idea Napoleon was against. He was so against it that he chased Snowball away with some wild dogs. While Snowball is away, Napoleon makes himself the leader and starts to make changes.
Keep in mind, I’m leaving out crucial plot elements in Animal Farm itself. My aim isn’t to give an exhaustive plot outline; I’m just isolating those parts that I think are a pretty good allegory for what might have happened where I work. Anyway, after Snowfall is driven away, Napoleon takes charge. Before Snowball’s exile, the animals held meetings to come up with ideas, solve problems, and find solutions. But now that Napoleon is in charge, there is a committee of pigs.
At one of their committee meetings, Napoleon deceives the animals, saying that the windmill-idea was stolen from him by Snowball! The windmill symbolizes a better life, so the animals work harder to make that symbol a reality. But a storm comes by and destroys it: Napoleon tells the animals that Snowball destroyed it! Snowball becomes the fall guy for the windmill’s downfall. Anyone heard taking Snowball’s side is killed or exiled from the farm.
Under Napoleon’s rule, things don’t get easier. The animals’ toil gets harder, the pigs get more and more control, and the pigs reserve for themselves more and more privileges. History is rewritten: Snowball is vilified, while Napoleon is glorified. Even though the animals’ toil is excessive and they’re starving and cold, they’re brainwashed enough to believe that they have a better life under Napoleon rather than the farmer, Mr. Jones.
After some years and the events leading up to and after Boxer’s death, the pigs can walk on two feet now; they whip the disobedient and are even wearing clothes. What were before The Seven Commandments (of Animalism: one of which was “All animals are equal.”) is now a single commandment: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
The animals begin to see, during a poker game between the humans and the pigs, that when you really look at the face, the pigs and the humans actually look quite similar: that you can’t really tell them apart. Isn't it ironic that Boxer's best friend is a donkey, Benjamin, the wisest of the animals, and the one who is all alone in discerning revolution? Benjamin. Think about it.
Fill in the blanks; connect the dots.
Keep in mind, I’m leaving out crucial plot elements in Animal Farm itself. My aim isn’t to give an exhaustive plot outline; I’m just isolating those parts that I think are a pretty good allegory for what might have happened where I work. Anyway, after Snowfall is driven away, Napoleon takes charge. Before Snowball’s exile, the animals held meetings to come up with ideas, solve problems, and find solutions. But now that Napoleon is in charge, there is a committee of pigs.
At one of their committee meetings, Napoleon deceives the animals, saying that the windmill-idea was stolen from him by Snowball! The windmill symbolizes a better life, so the animals work harder to make that symbol a reality. But a storm comes by and destroys it: Napoleon tells the animals that Snowball destroyed it! Snowball becomes the fall guy for the windmill’s downfall. Anyone heard taking Snowball’s side is killed or exiled from the farm.
Under Napoleon’s rule, things don’t get easier. The animals’ toil gets harder, the pigs get more and more control, and the pigs reserve for themselves more and more privileges. History is rewritten: Snowball is vilified, while Napoleon is glorified. Even though the animals’ toil is excessive and they’re starving and cold, they’re brainwashed enough to believe that they have a better life under Napoleon rather than the farmer, Mr. Jones.
After some years and the events leading up to and after Boxer’s death, the pigs can walk on two feet now; they whip the disobedient and are even wearing clothes. What were before The Seven Commandments (of Animalism: one of which was “All animals are equal.”) is now a single commandment: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
The animals begin to see, during a poker game between the humans and the pigs, that when you really look at the face, the pigs and the humans actually look quite similar: that you can’t really tell them apart. Isn't it ironic that Boxer's best friend is a donkey, Benjamin, the wisest of the animals, and the one who is all alone in discerning revolution? Benjamin. Think about it.
Fill in the blanks; connect the dots.
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