the innocent eye test

Light Bleeds Through the Clerestory

2008-06-02T15:32:46Z

-I know you, I know you. You're the only serious person in the room aren't you, the only one who understands, and you can prove it by the fact that you've never finished a single thing in your life. You're the only well-educated person, because you never went to college, and you resent education, you resent social ease, you resent good manners, you resent success, you resent any kind of success, you resent God, you resent Christ, you resent thousand-dollar bills, you resent Christmas, by God, you resent happiness, you resent happiness itself, because none of that's real. What is real, then? Nothing's real to you that isn't part of your own past, real life, a swamp of failures, of social, sexual, financial, personal, . . . spiritual failure. Real life. You poor bastard. You don't know what real life is, you've never been near it. All you have a thousand intellectualized ideas about life. But life? Have you ever measured yourself against anything but your own lousy past? Have you ever faced anything outside yourself? Life! You poor bastard.

--The Recognitions

Our Hospitality

2008-05-25T11:44:20Z

"Nous embrassons tout, mais nous n'estreignons que du vent" -Montaigne

What does it mean to eat your enemy? To boil him, to chop him up, and eat him? It was a good deed for the more utilitarian primitive societies, protecting the body from more ignominious violations, wolves and the like. And yet, for the more mystical tribes, it was the greatest punishment imaginable: forbiddance from entering the sacred pyre. For how else would one's soul rise? How could it be distilled from the corporeal if not by fire? At a heretic's burning in the middle ages they'd measure the wind's direction lest some unfortunate beholder catch a whiff of the hell-bound fumes. Had Christ's tree been used as firewood instead of framing, how things might have changed! But for all their esteem, the Romans could never reach Grecian understanding. Imagine the early martyrs, limbs torn by lions, grinning with satisfaction at their murderers' shallow thinking.

Smoke was the Ojibwean medium for prayer; the peace pipe, where it wasn't possible to break your promise because it already resided in another realm, already condensed into ethereal mandate. So then, to inhale directly, and it must be directly, which excludes the foil/bic pen method, it must be unadulterated, contained, and then expired. It consists of nothing less than a communion with nature's inestimable complexity, and then, with exhalation, resulting in submission to the sublime.

Jessie got a lot of shit for smoking her oxy. I remember when she thought that the oxy referred to was the acne medicine and was all like "hey, I've got lots of that stuff!" Then, a few months on, she started positioning it on the aluminum like puzzle pieces, it took a lot of practice. Others griped with righteous indignation, as if pills improperly used didn't really belong to those who had acquired them. But she remained steadfast in her methods, saying that inhalation was more mellifluous, that it might not get you as high but that it was a more otherworldly experience, like slowly slicing through the gossamer between heaven and hell as opposed to experiencing the latter or the former in more extreme degrees.

I remember, in a meeting, comparing my addiction to a scene in Our Hospitality where a distraught Buster Keaton, dangling hopelessly on a cliff, finds his salvation in a rope cautiously lowered in his direction. He grips it with a desperate hope only to realize that, upon his arrival on sure ground, his saviour, who he is now tethered to, is trying to kill him, and had only saved him for the purpose of finishing him off himself. He must now attempt to hide behind whatever objects are in his and his assailant's immediate radius, which proves to be quite scarce. Slapstick abounds until finally they find themselves on opposite sides of a train-track where, sure enough, a locomotive blithely sets him free.

I maintained that there is an element of luck to it! That where we live, what we do, who we love, most likely plays a larger role in recovery than our self-motivation/control does. Which isn't necessarily an avenue towards empty excuses. We all have some single moment that, if we are willing to recognize it, is more than enough motivation than we need. If we are willing to recognize it, willing meaning open to. It's not a matter of self-salvation, but hearing the distant bellowing of an approaching train which lacks the kinetic resources to stop, even if it intended to.

But part of me dislikes this metaphor as well. It lends itself easily to "demon possession" or, its secular counterpart, "illness." I am not ill, I have no more claim to this country's fucked up healthcare system than anyone else. Had a 28 year old patient on medicare earlier tonight. Previous medical history consisted of "migraines," "depression," "irritable bowel syndrome," and "restless leg syndrome." I've got the first three nailed down and could most likely rustle my legs into a syndrome if it meant social security and all the vicodin I could eat for the remainder of my helpless days.

No, I will not acknowledge any outside source in this battle. I am not a victim to some haphazard genetical game of chance. For all of psychology's supposed great strides in this century the discipline remains, at least popularly, Cartesian, as a means of disassociating ones self from ones self-inflicted illness as if it were a poltergeist.

And doesn't Buster end up finding a use for the shortened piece of rope he's still attached to?

Oh shit, no good youtube videos. Of what real use is this goddamn website!

Spoiler alert.

He saves his true love from a waterfall.

She had sought him out.
Trying to save him.

1 or 2 as Needed

2008-05-24T08:17:32Z

I am convinced that I am the only employee of the ER that rides public transit. Even the "Environmental Services" people have cars. Encountering patients at the bus stop is not uncommon, sometimes I give them cigarettes, try to rep the hospital a bit, "did they take care of you alright?" Mixed responses, some raves, most complain about the wait time, the more outspoken ones wish they had scored better scripts.

Drug-seekers; they have little notes in their accounts to which most MDs don't pay much heed, they're too busy to be negotiating and more often than not just give what they're asked for. No, it plays out for the seeker in other ways, maybe a prolonged wait time (which they are very quick to pick up on and bring to my attention), or perhaps in the curt attitude of the other clinical staff. They'll get what they want, eventually, if they're willing to wait and, perhaps, be a little humiliated in the meantime. Being lectured by cranky nurses over their missed followup appointments, setting up primary care etc.

And, of course, there are the downright leeches, feeding off of taxpayers' money and not blinking, willing to jump through whatever hoops. They're getting free, free, vicodin. But there are also the seekers with a palpable sadness in their eyes, seeping with diffidence. They are ashamed, perhaps the way one feels going to one's family for money knowing they won't refuse you. Perhaps even resentful of a system that makes it all too easy.

I watched as she absconded, briskly made her way up the stairs to the stop while stealthily placing the paperwork into her inner coat pocket. Gone were the dark sunglasses, a common prop in the drug-seeking game. I smiled at her and she restively replied, sat on the bench and began to type a text message, rolling her body forwards and backwards.

I took a drag of my cigarette and it goes down wrong. I let out a set of vicious coughs before beginning to wretch feverishly. I cupped my upper lip with a fist and breathed deeply into it, slowing down the intervals until I could breathe normally again. I laughed facetiously. "That didn't go down well." "Happens sometimes," she replied. I desperately needed a glass of water but the last bus of the night was pulling up. "Condition - you have to learn to do something about it."

She got off at the pharmacy nearest to the hospital, the one I'm always giving nice upstanding folks directions to. Nice folks who have no idea how even so slightly deviating from the printed instructions could really knock their socks off.

No Unction

2008-05-23T19:18:58Z

The tremors scathe his emaciated body. His right arm especially, finds it difficult to type. The quivering escalates until he pins his wrist to the desk, like a child being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Takes a breath, feels it coming on, gags a few times, enough to get to the restroom, just can't keep anything down. Tears and sweat dripping into the red-tinted water. He feels the skin on his wrists tingle as if some small insect were creeping along up his arm. His head throbs, can hardly read the labels on the little orange containers. Oh glory! There's just the one that's not prophylactic, that's meant for exactly this situation. Lost in a mess of paper and empty cigarette boxes. Collapses back onto the bed and screams into his pillow. This is it, the voice speaks. This is what you had planned for yourself all along. You chose this, and why? The voice sounds like that of a politician. There were never any goals, no ambitions. But now, it says, we will succeed. A thin rainbow-coloured film hangs in the air and screams. Lines and shapes moving around like in an Oskar Fischinger film. He stares, wanting it to disappear. This was never a weight attached to you. There was no foreign involvement. No sacrifice. And now you must wait, it says. It will come to you. But you must wait.

The Kitchen

2008-05-22T13:19:44Z

Been blocked off with boxes the past two weeks or so. When I try to gain entry the smell repulses me. I open the window and throw away the rotting bananas and pizza crusts, liquid oozing gingerly down the front of the refrigerator. Cooking, for me, is a healthy sign, as a productive parsimonious exercise. The Tahitians used to put into the water an intoxicating mixture prepared from the huteo nut or the hora plant; the fish, drunk with it, floated leisurely on the surface, and were caught at the anglers' will. Australian natives, swimming under water while breathing through a reed, pulled ducks beneath the surface by the legs, and gently held them there till they were pacified.

Random Anorgasmia

2008-05-17T16:38:36Z

Because it's a good sign to be able to talk to people about it. But then they're all like "that's so cool" and you're all like
"NO it's NOT. It's FUCKING HELL. You fucking hipsters."
In the rec room there's a poster with a quote by Elizabeth Roosevelt who I'm sure was a really great person but that quote's so full of shit. "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people." And you're all like I like the use of semicolons but personally I'd reverse that quote completely.
Small minds discuss ideas. (anybody can discuss ideas)
Average minds discuss events. (ok, I can agree with that)
GREAT FUCKING MINDS discuss PEOPLE. (which might preclude most philosophers but whatever)
Eventually settled on valium. Cause ativan just puts him to sleep.
And lithium...man that was a great song. And apparently Chantal Akerman is addicted to it.
And everyone's like "it's such an expensive habit" but you win a couple grand on online poker a couple hours after that dude from Sierra Leone installed your internet. The guy who you smoked cigarettes with and who told you fascinating stories about the war at home and who asked specifically if he could use your towel after taking a leak.
Just like cigarettes, when most of the people you work with spend more money at starbucks on a daily basis than you do on those pall malls.
2 packs a day. J thinks I smoke too much. "no seriously dude, at 22, that's waaaay fucking too much!"
Teleological. Cart purposive. And that's what pissed our protaganist off so much during the duration was the ends-based motivation of the treatment. Very pragmatic when you knew all along it was a matter of god and the devil being at war over your soul. So results-on-paper don't suffice. TIMELINES don't suffice.
So we go to meetings because of his dui's, and my dear mother's premature departure. And any of my friends with half a brain still in tact sensing my perfidious nature. But those meetings. "Those guys all have families!" J says. "We don't have families. We're young and stupid." And he has a great girlfriend, and if she had a kid, he says, "everything would change."
Are there no nice girls in portland?
N keeps saying that I need to meet a nice girl. One that doesn't remind me of my mother.
Gettin' drunk. Lost most of yesterday's earnings on a really really stupid call. A weak flush draw which I blame on my withdrawal symptoms. What draws me to high stakes? Poker's one thing. But what about the appeal of every time you shoot up you don't know whether you'll make it out alive or not?
Because, putatively speaking, you're supposed to marry before losing the parent of the opposite sex. And if we're to really buy into the notion of spiritually sanctioned marriage then there's this gap that needs to be filled somehow.
Pompey just won the cup. Steve Mitchelmore must be ecstatic. Well done to them.
Chelsea will still win the CL just calling it now. 2-1 Drogba and Lampard scoring. Ballack muthafucking MVP.
Oh and Redknapp as England manager? Isn't it so painfully obvious to anybody other than myself?
So, about "the gap." They say that addiction is a means of forgetting a SPECIFIC event. Bullshit. I mean, if right now I had the ability to read small print I'd dig up my copy of Inner Experience. "Le non-savoir." or perhaps more importantly losing the desire to savoir et sil navait pas de ciel je tamerias et sil ny avait pas denfer je te CRAINDRAIS." Though he muthafucking slay me yet will I muthafucking follow that piece of shit is how I translate that.
and it wouldn't be a danielpost without a mountain goats youtube video. What else have I done since acquiring the internet other than chat with people, play poker, and watch mountain goats videos?

Convalescence

2008-05-13T10:09:50Z

My precious has arrived.

The guy who installed my internet was from Sierra Leone and we smoked cigarettes and talked about african soccer.

More to come.

Caedmon's Hymn

2008-01-26T06:10:56Z

Those damn telecine-rs
They botched up all my flickers.

:(

Enjoy.

Music: Philip Jeck, Maja Ratkje, Exuma, Philip Glass

16mm Found Footage, B&W and Colour, 8'

edit: man, embedded video looks terrible. link here

at Reading, at Liverpool

2007-08-21T00:33:11Z

Three games, three going one goal down, seven points. The Reading match was brilliant, pure reslience. SWP proved why he's not a striker and shouldn't be played as one (and yet, was played in the middle in the Liverpool match, but more on that later.) Lampard gave a glimpse of what could be another dominant season, and Drogba gave no indication that we should expect any less of him this season than last.

But the problem of continually giving up the first goal needs to be addressed. Last season during the Champions League knockout rounds it could be attributed to injury problems, but this season I see it as confusion about how fully Chelsea have truly adopted this "attacking" mindset that Jose speaks of. The lineups seem to indicate that, but in practice there's too much picking up Makalele's slack, especially between Lampard and Mikel. The occasional fast break does not an attacking mindset make, especially if the players are in doubt of their defensive duties, which has been Chelsea at their worst this campaign.

I don't think Mikel is a starter yet, he will be next year, and he certainly shows moments of brilliance and uncanny composure for someone his age, but not at the expense of Makalele (who just signed a new deal apparently). I kept thinking during the Liverpool game how perfect Makelele would have been in both shutting down Gerrard, who was already vulnerable with injury, and threading passes through to the wingers who, Malouda especially, were largely ineffective. I also don't buy Essien at right back, he may be our best option at the moment but it's such a pity to see his quality diminished in that way. I'll repeat, he is Chelsea's best player and ought to be given priority in the midfield (with Lampard of course).

The Reading performance show that Chelsea will undoubtedly be contenders for the league, meaning, they will continue that eerie ability to snatch points out of nothing, and to get a little lucky here and there. But there's a lot of work to be done in order to challenge for the Champions League. I think Essien could be a fine holding midfielder, I just don't think their training him as one. If not, we'll Makalele to be in form for the big games, maybe with Lamps and Essien in front, SWP and Malouda on the wings, and Drogba as the long striker. Pizarro's shown real class, and will be very effective off the bench.

And, again, why not Ben Haim at right back? Forget Alves, we need a strong backline, and Alex seemed perfectly fit to me. Maybe on Saturday.

Portsmouth should be easy, especially at home.

And now, regarding the penalty.

The last time a ref botched a call that much in a Chelsea/Liverpool match, the Reds went on to win the Champions League as a result of it. This time they lost two points. Cry me a river.

But that call was not the only bad one Styles made in the match. The yellow cards were, for the most part, ludicrous, for both clubs even, which greatly hampered the flow of the match, especially with Torres' Spanish theatricality. With the entire back line on a yellow card, they played deep and the midfielders were forced back in their own half as a result.

Unless Benitez wants a yellow flag or whatever NFL coaches use to make challenges to contrast with his red tie, I suggest he puts a lid on it and let the FA deal with it. No fair-minded commentator thinks that Chelsea are favoured in the penalty department.

Q: What is the difference between Man U and a triangle.
A' A triangle has three points.

vs. Birmingham

2007-08-12T23:47:31Z

It might seem odd to express consternation about Chelsea's finishing abilities coming off of a 3-2 victory, but United's albeit entertaining stumble gives cause for concern ahead of the mid-week match with Reading. I watched the two back-to-back; very similar games with Birmingham being more adventurous offensively and Marcus Hahnemann making Colin Doyle's slippery fingers even more risible. Methinks that goatee-sportin, Tom Clancy-lovin American would have easily saved Chelsea's first and third, making Johnson's blunder even more costly.

The offence looked good, but it was ultimately unsatisfying. Something like last season's Arsenal who were, of course, pimping their attractiveness as the antidote to Chelsea's narrow yet effective style. There seemed to be formation issues, confusion about the wingers' roles. SWP's and Johnson's paths crossed more than once, effectively cancelling each other out (which attests even more to Phillips' brilliant performance, that he had a clumsy fullback behind him to contend with!) If Mourinho sticks to a 4-4-2 with wingers (which I think he should), the right-back needs to stay in his half for the most part, those prolonged runs only work with a diamond, (where they are both needed to expand the line of attack and covered by Makalele should they lose possession), or with inferior attacking options ahead, like Johnson experienced with Portsmouth last campaign.

Ashley Cole played a more subdued role excellently, timing his runs with Malouda's inward ventures. Johnson, as a slightly-above-average attacker and barely-average defender, doesn't fit this formation, especially with either SWP or Joe Cole ahead of him. Neither, really, does Alves, although his quality would merit some sort of imaginative inclusion. By the way, Sevilla's stubbornness to the media on this topic (redolent of Valencia's chairman saying they wouldn't sell Villa for €500 million) makes me think it isn't going to happen, but it has made its way onto the official site so we'll see.

Anyways, let's look at formations: Chelsea began today's match with:

I propose bringing Alex in for Wednesday's match. He had a tremendous Copa America and by all reports is in full fitness. Plus, he could stand to build up a working relationship with his fellow-portuguese-speakier Carvalho ahead of the match at Anfield. Ben Haim would be a more stalwart right-back; he's done it before and I think they should train him as such. Kalou was impressive today but I still feel he works better off the bench. Push the wingers back I say, stick Lamps and Joe Cole outside the box (remember his goal against Sweden?) and, perhaps most importantly, keep Pizarro centralized. He is an excellent finisher who can easily outfox Reading's two sweepers, and that needs to be emphasized against a team that would happily harass him with their entire backline were it not for Phillips and Malouda creeping in on the sides. Also, Essien is probably Chelsea's best midfielder at the moment; he needs more responsibility. Really it's more of a 4-1-3-1-1.

This makes a lethal offensive force in my mind, something that could break the most cagey of defences, (Reading will play for a draw no doubt.) Alot's been said about Chelsea's width but they need to stretch it even wider to topple Coppell's boys. Drogba's appearance today means he must be close to 100%, but he will be essential against Liverpool and ought to spend most of Wednesday on the bench. My hunch is that he'll start in place of Kalou in a re-creation of today's lineup, but I don't approve. Give him and Kalou some time in the second half, bring Mikel in for Lamps to bolster the counter-counter-attack. After substitutions:

Blasphemy to Chelsea fans, but Terry's injury may be a blessing in disguise; I can't think of two defenders in the world more suited to shutting down Torres than Alex and Carvalho. The away games against the big three are going to be even more crucial this season and shutting down the feisty Spaniard would be an excellent start. With some minor tinkering Chelsea will go 3-0 and gain an early spot at the top of the table. I predict 2-0 against Reading and 2-1 against Liverpool.

Of course, the home unbeaten record is nice but nowhere near the top of the list of priorities. And condolonces to Rooney and Man U. fans. My! those Royals have a nasty streak to them!

The Drop Edge of Yonder

2007-08-11T20:15:47Z

Rudy Wurlitzer, screenwriter of Two-Lane Blacktop and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, has an exciting new novel slated for a Spring release. I'm not too familiar with his prose; I once skimmed through a copy of Nog (a favourite of both Pynchon's and Barthelme's) at the Reed library but never got around to finishing it. This ought to be incentive enough to more eagerly hunt his stuff down.

Looks like an exciting start to the new EPL campaign; nice to see Sunderland nick some points for Spurs, the Magpies look strong too. Really looking forwad to tomorrow morning's matches, I'm thinking Reading can trip the Reds up a bit. And in case there was any doubt, I am going with Chelsea regaining the title, think they'll pull off the CL too, most likely at the expense of the domestic cups. Here are my

1. Chelsea
2. Manchester United
3. Liverpool
4. Arsenal
5. Newcastle
6. Tottenham
7. Aston Villa
8. Blackburn
9. Sunderland
10. Man City
11. Reading
12. Portsmouth
13. West Ham
14. Everton
15. Middlesborough
16. Birmingham
17. Bolton
18. Derby
19. Fulham
20. Wigan

I'd like to drop Arsenal down a few spots, but I think the Persie/Cesc combo won't make them miss Henry all that much. Honestly, all three promoted teams look pretty strong, but I'll be willing to admit that that may simply be due to the fact that last year was the first time I followed the Championship pretty closely. Still, Wigan will be woeful without Paul Jewell, and I think Sunderland have made some smart enough buys to make them a real dark horse. And I don't think West Ham quite have what it takes to make any sort of impact.

It's going to be a really exciting title race though, maybe even more exciting than last year's.

On a Scale of 1 to 10

2007-08-03T09:17:58Z

On Vicodin you can feel the hand of God personally reach down and clench your liver with every drink. You’re also not supposed to smoke, or drink coffee, or eat spicy food...or watch foreign films.

Demerol requires an extra large needle and the discomfort is both compounded and prolonged if the nurse misses the vein on the first attempt.

In my cell in the emergency room Adam notes the similarity to a House M.D. episode: “have you ever seen anyone writhing on the floor from heartburn?!”

Loops von Froot

2007-07-31T16:41:51Z

Anyone who sprachens Deutsch wanna translate the Kinski bit for me?

Face to Face

2007-07-30T11:50:33Z

"Now the summer night smiles its second smile: for the clowns, the fools, the unredeemable." --Frid in Smiles of a Summer Night

Bergman Dead at 89

My first true cinematic love. I recall the old vhs at the library, being drawn to the quote, something about a "philosophical film," and then again again, showing it to my friends, fifteen years old, playing chess with death, yearbook quote following Camus, "Antonius Block from The Seventh Seal," the march of death, background image on my livejournal, the eager anticipation with each new Criterion release, pedantic old Peter Cowie, and then, the Nykvist films, what films!, the music, how we'd always try to identify the music, the letter in Winter Light, the flashback in Wild Strawberries, the play in Through a Glass, the boy at the beginning of Persona, Liv Ulman's abortion in Scenes From a Marriage, the magic lantern in Fanny and Alexander, the death of god no not the death but the absence of God and the confusion at whether absence is preferable to death if its more comforting that there is no god or holding out hope that he might one day show his face and that someone would be there to film it and that someone would be Ingmar, waiting in Faro, waiting.

The Darkness Doubled

2007-07-29T06:15:00Z

In 2004, Mark Lapore and Phil Solomon collaborate on a film for their friend and fellow filmmaker David Gatten who has recently been diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. The film has an ambiguous function; ostensibly a eulogy, and yet a symbol of solidarity, of comfort, “do not go gently into that dark night.”

It’s an idea Lapore has been pestering Solomon with for some time: a film composed of captured scenes from Grand Theft Auto, not of the gun-slinging bitch-slapping variety, but showcasing the game’s protagonist at his most vulnerable. At a country house (presumably a hideout of some sort), taking shelter from the rain on the patio, a hanging pot of flowers being tossed around by the wind. As a collaboration it exhibits Lapore’s irreverence and Solomon’s solemnity. A technique many would see as flaky converted into a touching tribute to a kindred soul. “Experimental” and “perilous” share the same latin root.

And yet, a year later, it is Mark Lapore who has died, Gatten having miraculously recovered. Untitled (for David Gatten) is now Lapore’s self-created eulogy.

The video game metaphor makes the film all the more eerie. The character is hiding, but from what? One imagines the anxiety; perhaps from the police, perhaps from a rival gang that has targeted him for taking one of their own, perhaps from his own comrades who have been ordered to hunt him down for having compromised his superiors. Death as something lingering the darkness, ready to pounce on its unexpecting victim. Lapore knew that he smoked too much, he had adapted the silent film entitled The Nicotine Princess about the dangers of smoking, albeit with characteristic irony.

Was there something in him, while he and Phil struggled to figure out the controls to a game neither of them knew much about, that knew what was in store for him? A doctor’s diagnosis: “you will die in a matter of months” vs. a life lived in fear, of constantly looking over one’s shoulder.

And the way that this knowledge colours our interpretation of all his films; his earlier anthropological studies, his attentive care to the mundane, his loving portraits of his daughter. They seem all the more…personal.

Verlaine was a huge influence on Lapre. No, not the French poet.

I remember how the darkness doubled
I recall how lightning struck itself.
I was listening to the rain
I was hearing something else.
--Television, “Marquee Moon”

...

I left the Ontario Cinematheque a little disappointed. Compared to the earlier screenings of El Sur and Sol de Membrillo, Erice’s most recent effort failed to fully satisfy. La Morte Rouge has Erice reminiscing on the first film he recalls ever having seen: the 1944 Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes film The Scarlet Claw. Erice’s is a touching film, rife with profound ruminations on the development of an artists’ vision, pre-work, pre-career. It reminded me of something Scorsese said about the first time he discovered what a “director” was, that there had to be someone steering the movie in a certain direction, and deciding instantly that that was what he wanted to do. Except, Erice’s realization is more metaphysical. He speaks of his fear of the man with the claw creeping into his bedroom, and not being able to later identify him. When an actor plays an actor (master of disguise) we often lose sight of his being…an actor, and why couldn’t the mailman in a coastal Spanish village be, in secret, equally villainous?

But is film the right medium for such vulnerability? All of Erice’s film have an “other” that simultaneously distances and familiarizes the subject: Frankenstein in Beehive, the movie star Irene Rios in El Sur, the quinces in Sol de Membrillo whose physicality are obsessed over by the painter and yet negated by the filmmaker, and, perhaps most abstractly, the scribbled watch in Lifeline that actually works. And yet when this “other” itself becomes the subject something feels too deliberate. Voiceovers almost always feel too deliberate, or at least too superfluous. Bresson revels in their superfluity, Godard adopts them as a cinematic form that he can push to a Derridean type of archi-writing, (often bordering on inaudibility, but never more than two tracks.) Erice simply reads, narrates that which the images aren’t quite showing.

Now it is, of course, meant to be a letter, to Kiarostami. But a cinematic letter surely ought to be more than dialogue accompanied by visual aides. Even Godard’s’ Lettre a Freddy struck me in a similar way. And even Godard says at some point in the Histoire(s), (I forget the exact phrasing) that the cinema is the art of alterity.

...

What then makes a personal cinema? Lapore and Brakhage film their family members, but aren’t they temporarily transported into a different realm once the camera goes on? Or perhaps the formal controls, to shoot, develop, and edit every stage of the film. Some might argue.

Cf. Ian Mckellan

Or Nick Ray, the auteur par excellence. Right, JLG, he IS cinema. Ok. But the credits for We Can’t Go Home Again, after Nick’s prologue (voiceover) states “A FILM BY US.” And even more explicitly in the end, as he wraps the noose around his (the director’s) neck, the students lazily protest, “I have been interrupted.” Nick’s film.

...

I probably don’t say this enough but God bless youtube! I send the user a message, where on earth did you find this film? The title is in Italian, from television perhaps? I’ve heard that Peleshyan doesn’t want these films shown, his first two, this being the second. It’s a very youthful film, playful like Lipsett, the other Arthur.

I remember having a similar Scorsese moment early on in my encounter with Peleshyan. Specifically, reading the crew information. His films have a personal feel, like he just set out one day with a camera and just left it running. But those of us who have tried that know that that’s not the best way to document reality. It does, in fact, require direction. One can feign impartiality like the recent crop of leftist essays, but it will be an supercilious de-sedimentation at best. Requiring a Hegelian absolute consciousness to direct it, to personalize it.

And there’s something authentic and yet lucky about it, I hesitate to call it transcendental. But, say, like the Roman artist who, frustrated at his inability to paint a horse foaming at the mouth, throws a moist sponge at the canvas in a fit of fury, only to discover it perfectly attained the desired result. “no accidentology, but chance discovery” said Virilio (via Aristotle)

Double yourself and receive me darkness
--Whitman, “The Sleepers”

I don’t know how much “distance montage” is Peleshyan’s own term, or something that critics have adopted an easy label. But in reading Eisenstein I get the impression that editing is the only place where the filmmaker can exert total control. And thus, the more distant the conjoined images, the more personalized it becomes. When it becomes a matter of intuition. Like Ray, Godard had only superlatives so say about Peleshyan. The last invited into the hotel of Russian directors in Les Enfants Jouent au Russe

Children.
Play
Russian.

The Darkness Doubled

2007-07-29T05:48:09Z

Children.
Play
Russian.

Balance

2007-07-13T17:00:01Z

Two-Lane Blacktop is being released by Criterion. (ecstatic)

Jane magazine is kaput. (devastated)

Lord Black is guilty. (not sure how to feel)

A Matchbox

2007-07-02T04:37:23Z

Falwell dies, and Christopher Hitchens says "If you gave him an enema you could bury him in a matchbox" on national tv.

This man's seriously turning the talk show appearance into an art form. C'mon people, I've been without a computer for two months...what else did I miss?

Sad to hear about Edward Yang passing away. He was one of our best, and unlike many recent film-related deaths, I feel a real sense of selfish deprivation.

Just bought tickets for this. I can't think of too many word-combinations that make me as giddy as "a new film from Victor Erice."

The Inner India

2007-06-30T01:52:03Z

...a fierce experience, don't know if I'd say "life-altering" yet, most of what I'm taking from it is more of a philosophical nature than anything religious/spiritual, which seems to be the norm for westerners. There is of course such a wide barrier between the India presented by intellectuals, politicians, television, the touristy spots etc. and what you see in the streets and countrysides. I found myself criticizing westerners for applying their own logic and customs to the country's specific problems, except I soon realized that Indians do the exact same thing. And then, who am I to tell an Indian to be more Indian? The colonial legacy is so deeply ingrained in the culture, it was my first taste of that as being entirely irreversible. In the Americas it seems there was always at least SOME element of coexistence between settlers and natives. But how did cricket become so immensely popular there? Does it speak to a perhaps more munificent side of colonialism or simply to its pervasiveness? On one of my many train rides I spoke to a woman from Chicago, decked out in Hindu garb, and regaling me with theories on how Christianity and Islam were robbing Indians of their culture, to which I responded, "would you be able to look an Indian Christian in the eye and tell them that their faith is simply the result of a centuries-old intoxication?" She said yes and we arrived in Dehra Dun.

But the people you meet in the country and smaller villages are fascinating in their inelegance, in their lack of ambition, in their methods of self-identification. Something beyond one's occupation, social status, or even spouse! (which are, of course, all pre-destined) Maybe it's that urge to self-identify that is absent all together. I was reading Heidegger, took the Basic writings and Cambridge companion with me, learning more about that sort of pure existence, something a priori and autonomous, which I really sensed (and envied) over there.

I had a digital camera with me that was constantly clouding up due to the humidity, often shutting down completely; an eerie metaphor for the mental state of its owner. (Also, since arriving home, I've been watching Louis Malle's series Phantom India which is essentially the film I would have tried to make and fallen far short, so I don't feel too bad!) I soon lost all inclination to document but, rather, to experience, which I wasn't sure how to do, or what that consisted of. Bataille's Inner Experience was also one of the few books I had room to take with me. Incredibly useful in my absorbing and digesting the chaos around me. I felt the inclination when faced with highly oppressive external circumstances (the heat, claustrophobia, ubiquitous and bold insects) to withdraw even further into myself. But, of course, this need not be an antidote or an escape, if viewed phenomenologically, instead of a me vs. the world complex, but rather a harmony or even, possibly, a unity. (I did try yoga once, in the same place where the Beatles wrote Abbey Rd.! It didn't do much for me though, and I feel I kept an open mind. Suppose my long-dead interlocutars ought to suffice.)

And then, on the flight back, I had a moment of horror when I simply realized the obvious: "I am several thousand feet above the earth's surface! I am floating in space!" It wasn't a paranoid fear of death, or a wonder at even the possibility of flight, but a sort of confusion as to how I could have been in this same situation dozens of times before and never really grasped the reality of it. That all the airplane's amenities are designed to make you feel on solid ground. Over there, the audiences don't care that their favourite actors don't sing their own songs.

People ask "did you have fun?" I was sick most of the time, constantly offended by the average Indian's obsession with light skin (every other ad seemed to be for a different brand of "whitening cream")(common for a member of the upper middle class to refer to "darkies"), my body was littered with various insect bites which I would scratch viciously, perpetually annoyed at the vociferous honking of every single car/truck/motorcycle that would pass me as I tred as close to the side of the road as I could manage. But, as I've hinted, I sense a sort of Platonic recognition, or a Bataille-ish disintoxication. It's summer here now and the heat seems dishonest, teasing me with cloudy periods and the occasional gust of cool wind. Do I now prefer the trustworthiness of consistent 40+ degree weather?

The local film center just had their optical printer fixed. It's a device that lets you rephotograph already processed film, to layer images and such. I already feel the juices in my head simmering with ideas, to achieve that same sense of claustrophobia that can only be achieved artificially here, to unite disparities, to compile different states of the same thing.

Well that ought to be enough rambling. Feel I've reached some lucidity here though, I may post an edited version in my blog as I've had trouble deciding how to write about the experience. I took a notebook with me, filled it with mundane anecdotes. I now laugh at the inane observations I drew, as if I was trying too hard to make it a life-altering experience, isogetically placing every trivial moment into my pre-ordained plan. Hope all's well over there. Would of course love to hear about what you've been watching/reading and all that good stuff.

Cheers,
Daniel

Scarlet Minivet

2007-05-13T17:32:38Z

Is today the day I abandon my cinematic ambitions? I take up my pen and attempt to describe the msot beautiful bird I have ever seen. A camera would have spoiled the innocence of our encounter, would have betrayed our mutual trust and curiosity.

I was enraged at the various historical monuments which deigned to forbid photography; as if vision could be quantified and labelled with a price-tag! The Taj stooped so low as to allow cameras (up to a point) but to not allow tripods of any sort. So long as your images were wobbly and amateur-ish, anything more is gonna cost ya.

But how pedantic it would have been! To get the lighting right, to properly reflect the iridiescent orange over the overcast sky. And that's always been the appeal right? Autonomy. You're no charismatic, you don't work well with groups/crews. You experience, retreat, document, repeat.

No, I'm done with the burden, the irascible glares from the locals, thinking I'm diluting their locale, stealing their souls. That there exists experiences more endemic to commiting to memory than to celluloid, the former may just be the more reliable.

The way a new environment influences writing, begin with the streets of Delhi at night contrasted with the day when the light exposes the omnipresent piles of garbage. Write about reading Borges under a shred of light being cast by an outside streetlight (since you can't find the lightswitch), and reading it word by word, scanning the beam over the moving text, left to right as with a typewriter, about his going blind while writing these words, words that seem to reflect the author at his most potent. Move to fiction, and you find you're writing about the ominous lighting in the tavern where the chapter's climax occurs, the colours, the people melting together, and yet everything makes sense! It wins its truth. It earns its truth.

--The Scarlet Minivet, found in tropical southern Asia from the Indian subcontinent east to southern China, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

India Song

2007-05-07T06:26:16Z

Since arriving I've felt caught between the realms of experience and documentation; to sit back and take it all in, or frantically chew up mini-dv tapes and pages with the barrage of sensations. I want to escape the tourist's pragmatism, beyond the "well, when will I be in India again?" rationale. I want to be looking for something, as so many westerners do. But what? Inner peace? Unlikely. Here the layers are so thick.

Twenty-six pages in my notebook before even arriving in India. Two tapes in Agra alone. And what am I going to do with them? Post them here?

I didn't take this photo, I stumbled upon it while catching up on wood s lot entires that I had missed. But, after having taken a rickshaw tour through Old Delhi, I can claim it to be accurate. It might not even be Delhi, it might not even be India.

Happiness

2007-04-19T05:55:41Z

I'm leaving for India in a little less than two weeks, and due to my extreme thermophobia I'm thinking of shaving my head. A friend suggested donating my hair to charity, which I was totally stoked about, but...

"10 inches measured tip to tip is the minimum length needed for a hairpiece."

To paraphrase the dude from Deep Throat: "I'm only two inches away from happiness!"

I'll post before/after pics if/when I go through with this.

Legal

2007-04-18T15:18:53Z

"Don't be afraid, he said. If they find you you are going to have to do it. Do you understand? Shh. No crying. Do you hear me? You know how to do it. You put it in your mouth and point it up. Do it quick and hard. Do you understand? Stop crying. Do you understand?" --The Road

I wonder if reading the paperback version of The Road is a different experience. Not the Oprah sticker, but the proportions. I glanced at it at the bookstore. It looked shorter, the standard size instead of the hardcover's unusual height, which allows for those three paragraph breaks that give each moment a vital significance, that blur the passage of time. I remember one time while staying at my paren't house feeling compelled to write, searching for paper, and only being able to find a ruled legal pad. The extra 25% or so of height threw me off, I would feel done with a page and would want to move on. I picture the father in The Road finding a box of such paper in an abandoned office building and deciding that it will have to do to tell his story, for those who will follow.

I wonder if McCarthy was inspired by Raskolnikov's final dream, there are ostensible similarities, a sense of abandon, where survival takes first priority. The child is always suspicious of his father's moral superiority: "we're the good guys." But didn't Raskolnikov feel the same way? Of course he wouldn't use the word "good" but...

Didn't the kid at Virginia Tech feel the same way?

Just ten pages long, poorly written, adolescent in tone and spirit. But can this be presented as Exhibit A? Are his teachers to blame for not sending him to the campus shrink for a trial perscription or two? (Which, at least at the schools I've gone to, is all they ever do.) If so, every high school goth kid would be blacklisted, we'd uphold the Satanic Verses fatwa, William Gass could damn well be tried for high treason! The same interpretative fallacy. How wrong to search for answers in an author's writings!

Imagine if, instead of his clumsily written short plays, the police discovered a manuscript in his dorm room. A short novel, rather crudely written and scribbled on a thick pad of legal paper. It is called The Road and describes a man and his son attempting to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.

"It is clear that he had delusions of righteousness. That amidst the debauchery typical of any college campus he saw himself as the lone 'good one' who was allowed to use whatever means he wanted in order to 'survive.'"

"It is a twisted book, dark and macabre, which even has a scene where the father encourages his son to kill himself! Surely an ominous passage that can shed some light on the mind of this troubled young man."

And Oprah clearly misses the point; if all she wanted was a powerful story about a father and son surviving tribulations she could do much better. But he is, one of the greatest writers of our time (and was there ever any doubt that he would win the pulitzer?)

I remember a few years ago when a group of wealthy American fratboys and sorority girls were killed in a terrorist attack at an expensive resort in Bali. I remember the media portraying them as martyrs. "Martyrs?," I asked, "for what cause?"

I'm reading a book on Kosovo right now where the author argues that the UN's greatest failure was to pledge their allegiances to whichever side kept its brutality the most well hidden.

Willpower

2007-04-13T16:59:26Z

This makes me love these two guys even more:

"On the inside of The Shit Hits The Fans cassette, it said, “Write to Bill Callahan. Believe it or not, there’s a fanzine about us.” I couldn’t believe someone would have a fanzine just about the Replacements. So I wrote Bill Callahan a letter and sent him some stamps. The ‘zine was called Willpower, and he did six issues. They were really funny—they’d have cartoons about the Replacements he drew, and it was extremely comedic. We’d write back and forth—it wasn’t like a super-detailed pen-pal thing, but we were friendly—and eventually he started doing another ’zine and I went to college. I don’t remember how I put two and two together, but years later I discovered he was the guy in Smog." --Craig Finn of the Hold Steady

Plot Summary

2007-04-10T08:13:10Z

Or perhaps a resurrection; the seedy underbelly of the revolution; the fitful placement of self-evidence; to talk about everything and anything, to write about everything and anything; the violence of solitude; illumination by pocket-flashlight; the making of making; the heart-wrenching supralapsarian, eloquent; the green casement of the monolith; the heavy door to the study; the fish floating parallel to the ocean floor; the ubiquity of disaster; the marriage of heaven and hell; the hoodrat's rationale, the chastity belt; the sharp things stuck beneath his skin; the licentious midwife; the oscillation of vulnerability; the power of polarity; the discovery of new directions