DFW

"The way I am as a writer comes very much out of what, what I sort of want as a reader."

FFC

I like this article - and find it very inspirational as I always do when listen or read things Coppola says or see his movies of course or drink his wine.  I think he's a wonderful and true artist and I've always felt that he must have been in order to have a seemingly well-adjusted and artistically "interesting" (for lack of a better word) daughter.

Some thoughts having read this.  I was reminded of some other things that I've read when FFC was speaking about how art is not something that's supposed to make you money.  Thinking about the notion that for a long period of human history an artist's audience was really "just" his local community.  And how we lost something, maybe in the 60's and 70's when art became more and more of a global commodity.  How you never really could achieve fame without the widest possible audience.  In the case of film - the rise of the blockbuster...and worth being measured by global box office...but that misses the larger point and is just going to devolve into a pointless rant about commercialism...the larger point is more that art like everything according to Dave Wixted is LOCAL.  And so FFC speaks about maybe not looking to your art as a source of wealth or a career but more as something you do because you HAVE to in a deeper more meaningful way.  And it thus becomes more of who you are.  And so what is 'your' community in the digital age?  Well I'm thinking that we may be coming out of a short-lived age of global commercial art and a return via the internet and the extraordinary leaps that have been made in digital photography to a more local artistic experience.  I'm writing this blog here for me and the small group of people who I have included in my community of readers.  I find it interesting that after a now extended period of cultural assimilation of the Facebook experience that maybe we're starting to see the real impact and it's a surprising one.  Because ultimately, after a shake-out period, we all end up being who we are, for all intents and purposes, in reality on Facebook too.  And in that way, but tweaked slightly, I think the internet will eventually be a gathering place, for each of us in our own way, of communities specifically organized around the things that make us all who we really are--the things that we self-identify as "really us."  And in those communities and FOR those communities we all have the opportunity, as the spirit moves us, to make our art motivated by the purest of intentions (the art itself) and for the most receptive and RELEVANT audience (people who share our world view and perspective on the human condition.)

FFC's process is fascinating too for itself seeming emphasis on organization via a very tactile set or pursuits.  Reading writing and 'developing' his stories by underlining and hi-lighting, cutting out pages and pasting into a binder which is then itself hi-lighted and annotated.  It's a delicious, organic process that I respond to and one that suggests a certain emphasis on giving physical manifestation to the thought process thereby locating it outside the brain and maybe giving it more life in a way and putting it into a routine where it can be subject to OTHER artistic processes and "aired out" in that way.

And for the rise of these tools that we have that make it so easy to make art.  You can take a modern camera, digital of course and loaded with filters and effects that were previously only achieved in the processing/developing and editing stages now just built in at the "point of purchase"--at the very moment you're actually taking the picture.  Now the old-guard purist would say "that's not how it's supposed to be done" and "something is lost" but I think something is gained--namely freedom.  The ease connects you more to the ART of it all because you don't have to worry about anything else.  Why shouldn't it be that way?  And there's an 'argument' of sorts that it maybe makes 'artists' out of people who wouldn't otherwise be but (a) what's wrong with that? and (b) I think, as with all things, the truth will come out anyway.  The people that are real photographic artists will rise to the top anyway.  And the gadgets and toys are just that to the rest of them.  We've all seen people NOT USE the amazing tools they have.  How many people have dusty video cameras?  Even the lamest 21st century video camera is a fucking MARVEL in the context of what has been possible in the short history of technological image capturing--instantaneous, hi-quality image reproduction and no one uses it.  Well, only the people who actually make something out of it.

And one is reminded finally of Jack White's music and his comments in It Might Get Loud about how much time can be spent and wasted on getting everything 'just right' when usually you're 99% of the way there from the get go and you should just move on.  Foo Fighters new record as the prime example.  Recorded in a garage because it sounded better that way.

SEAN

I've watched this movie twice now, in as many days.  The first time, and even the second time, its affect wasn't immediately felt--there's nothing really in the strict narrative of the movie that is, in itself, noteworthy.  The story is interesting and the general conceit of tracking down individuals in a family 30 years after and making two films about them 30 years apart is neat in a "7 Up's" kind of way.

There was something else that was haunting me.  Something less tangible and in the end I think something that even the filmmaker didn't quite have a handle on himself.  He said he had discovered similarities between his own story and the life-story of his subject, Sean.  And so he wove into the film footage of his own family and elements of his own story - the generations of his life; his sons, his wife, his parents.  In doing so I think, for me, he tapped into something universal in the human experience.  The line from the Steve Winwood song - "how the endless road unwinds you."  And maybe Steve was talking about touring but I always took it as a metaphor for life.  And maybe with regard to this movie, and life itself, I mean it in a slightly less sinister way.

Life on display in this movie is unrelenting.  It goes on and on and because the director is using footage from his own life we see the effects of it close up.  People stay the same as they age.  The look older and fatter (in some cases) but they are who they are, only more so.  But at the same time the march of the years softens them, like a stone under a waterfall.  They become less angry maybe.  Life becomes less urgent.  Sean's hippie Dad is still a hippie but the weight of old age threatens his joy.  Sean goes from 4 year old baby, to grown man (but still a son) to married man to father himself.  We see his grandparents go from earnest communists disrupting a congressional hearing to smiling, laughing, whimsical romantics.  The directors relationship with his wife is shown first in a interview between the two of them where the romance and happiness is palpable but they age.  They don't split up, they don't grow apart, they just grow into themselves as individuals, in on themselves like separate in-grown toenails, even as their bond between them is just as intense a fact as it was in the beginning in their early romance.  She goes off to live in Paris, her home country, for three years without him.  It's not the end for them.  It's not all tears and tearing of garments.  Their life is between them.  Their history together is an unbreakable bond that the marriage certificate can barely sniff at.  When she comes back to America where else is she going to go?

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say even still.  I'm trying to grasp at it.  The urgency of life drops away even as life becomes more serious as you age toward the inevitable end.

http://www.lensculture.com/tonningsen.html?thisPic=3

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/10/14/think-tank-star-wars-storm-troopers-vader/

BRUCE SAYS "HAH!"

This is an excellent DFW article, not just about him but even more from him about the nature of writing and its mission in the modern era:

You teach the reader that he’s way smarter than he thought he was. I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you’re dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you’re the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us…that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need, I think—and I’m not saying I’m the person to do it…is serious engaged art, that can teach again that we’re smart.

Clean Louis CK

The little Record

Earl King

This is a really nice piece of fiction printed in the NewYorker.  It's based on what I know to be a classic story of the Earl King which was one side of the tiny record we had as kids in the Wixted family - the other side being the Velvet Ribbon.  The writer captures the strange unnerving beauty of the story, the loss and the helplessness and adapts it in a really nice way.  A must read, I feel...

I love Matt Taibbi.  And now he's blogging for Rolling Stone which I just discovered today.  He's got this great post about Sarah Palin.  Here's a fab. Taibbian piece from it:

Bush was sincere in his respect for the citizen’s right to craft important opinions about the world while drinking beer and watching baseball, and that came across in his speeches — it was a big reason for his success.

But Bush couldn’t have spent more than ten minutes in a dirty trailer in Arkansas before signaling for the helicopter. The guy was just too used to being around rich people, nice houses, cigarette boats full of sheiks and oil executives, etc. Sarah Palin on the other hand really is the kind of person who you can picture eating egg salad off a ping-pong table. That and her utterly genuine stupidity and meanness can take her a long way — all by themselves, I think these things can win the White House for her — and it seems like she senses this on an animal/reptilian level. Hence the renewed emphasis on jacking off her audiences of late.

Fantastic....

SPOILER ALERT - HE POOPS JABBA!!!!

AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

JOY...FOSSE

When Politics Becomes Religion ... - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

When Politics Becomes Religion ... - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Truly shocking and disgusting. Where does it end?

I Love Wildlife-Right Next to My Mashed Pertators

Sarah Palin does it again. The blame for the oil spill rests with the environmentalists. Right.

Identity

What if we're all Jesus?

Newport Home

Mom & Dad's house...

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Monkey Love

Blood Monkey website.

SLOTHS

Lovely, sweet, love...

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Crazy, right? Well I guess it's hard to tell unless you live here and have to shovel all this shit out.

Back in NY

I was so happy to get off the plane at Newark Airport yesterday. I guess it showed--or maybe I was actually saying those words--and I had to explain that it wasn't specifically Newark that I was talking about but the whole tri-state area. It all just feels a little bit more lived-in than the rest of the country, or what I've seen of it. And I'd had my fill of overheard business conversations and cool rolling suitcases and frequent one-pass flying privileges and "Mariott Courtyard Check-ins."

The hotel we stayed at in downtown Atlanta, the Westin Peachtree Plaza, was this massive 73-story building with over 1,000 rooms apparently and it really felt that large. It was not a comfortable, warm place at all. There seemed to be a perpetual cold breeze blowing in the lobby which maybe would have been nice in the summer but in the winter was nasty. And AGAIN, the room that we got, the first time around, was really crappy. I feel like if you try to save any money on your hotel they give you the worst room you can find. Either way I've now learned that you almost always have to ask for something different/better. Our first room was on the 67th floor which meant that it took a long elevator ride to get to. And the door was dirty and they were renovating the room next door and the view was of a crane attached to the outside of the building and the toilet would start running every hour or so and then stop again. It was all just creepy. So after a night we asked to change to a room with a king-sized bed (after a night of switching to accommodate Lizzie and Georgia's moods we decided we should all just sleep together) and the new room was on the 38th floor and was much nicer.

February Vacation

Hopefully I've successfully thrown off anyone who's reading this "blog" and now I can write in anonymity. yeah that makes sense but who cares?

The girls and I are off from work and school and we're headed to Atlanta for a few days on a film making adventure: Daddy and Daughters in the Old South.

BRAIN

BRAIN

WHISPERS THE FALLING SNOW

It snowed all through the night but it never really stuck, just a crusty-thin layer of white on the lawn. Spears of brown-green grass poked through the snow and ice there and a white powder variously collected on the semi-decrepit cars haphazardly parked by teenagers in the driveway.
Seannie, the second-youngest in the family of three boys and two girls, typically got out of bed early just to see his father, even for a brief half-hour, while his Dad got ready for work in the pre-dawn winter darkness. Since it was Christmas-time, waking up with Dad also gave Seannie the chance to plug in the outdoor holiday lights which had been hastily strung over whatever tree branches remained in the yard after a summer of five kids inventing new sports on their thin quarter acre.
Dad disliked the chore of hanging the Christmas lights each year mostly because of the cold but also because it required him to a) get up on a ladder and b) to do something essentially frivolous and even maybe a little artistic, God forbid. Usually he just wanted it over with as quickly as possible but Seannie and his brothers and sisters would encourage him and tease and cajole him into making the most of it. Eventually the display would bear a passing resemblance to something at least festive, extension cords crisscrossing the yard feeding power to even the most remote outpost of withering maple tree.
Dad often grumbled complaints about lack of daylight this time of year. Waking up early and coming home late made him cherish whatever encouragement he could get from nature, the black, frigid mornings making it hard to go to work – especially when he had no choice either way. Seannie imagined himself a Man Friday to his Dad’s Crusoe, swearing he would be there for him at a moment’s notice. He was ready for whatever his Dad needed and Seannie always thought some adventure, some mission, some secret journey lay just around the corner of any old cold December morning which is why he was the only full witness to the events of that particular morning.
Since it was Saturday, Dad was going out at the crack of dawn to get his NY Times at the deli. Mommy was still socked into bed, snowed under the covers by a week’s worth of mothering five kids and hunkered down under the layers against Dad’s punishing home-heating restrictions. Seannie eyed her in the soft glow of her own Christmas decoration – the electric faux candles that adorned each of the windows of her bedroom. His Dad was ex-Navy (although like the mafia, you never really leave the Navy) and he liked to remind his wife and children, only half-jokingly, that they must “maintain a constant state of readiness at all times” and it was this mind-set that drove him out into the morning, despite his more leisurely weekend schedule, to get the news.
This was a drill. Who knew when the real emergency would happen and these forays prepared him, he thought deep down under layers of catholic guilt and depression-era conservatism, for the catastrophe that could and surely would happen soon enough.
He steeped out into the morning and realized to his immediate and intense frustration that his car was locked in behind two others. His teenage kids had arrived home late the previous night and despite his standing order that the last detail of their evening was to realign the cars to leave his triple-used and rust-encrusted Volkswagen Rabbit closest to the road, here it was, his car--as plowed under and effectively out of service as his wife was herself inside in eyelid-mowing REM mode likely dreaming of a far-off, kid-free Irish countryside.
“Goddamnit,” he grumbled--his favorite curse word and one he used constantly despite being, by all accounts, quite the upright catholic man.
But he would not be deterred and since he was a problem solver and, truth-be-told, a bit of a short-cutter, he surveyed the frozen lawn and determined, with a self-congratulatory decisiveness that the shortest route to the road for him and the Rabbit was a right-turn off the driveway across the lawn, a left around the Norway maple and a quick right between the two pines while taking care to avoid the goddamned overly-sensitive Dogwood. He’d be out on the road in no time.
“Plan your work and work your plan,” his own German mother intoned in his ears as he fired up the engine and a festive blue smoke plumed from the tailpipe and added its own color to the front-lawn Christmas display. He put the engine in gear and gingerly rolled across the path leading to the front door and on the way to the road. As he passed the maple that Seannie hung out of all summer long the bald tires of the rabbit flipped the frozen extension cord that streamed out from the house to the trees onto the axle of the car. And without knowing it, he began to drag the baroquely cabled network of power for the entire Christmas light display. Since the cords were all inter-connected the immediate result was a smoky pop from the electrical outlet in the living room where Seannie stood gazing out the window. Soon after the wires leading to bedroom where Mommy slept began yanking the electric candles one-by-one from the window sills where they had been Scotch-taped. Mommy shot out of bed startled awake. She ran to her Seannie knowing he was the only one of her children that could be in any kind of immediate danger and they both watched the smaller of the two pine trees on the lawn begin to bend grotesquely toward Dad’s Rabbit as he drove by it, its string of lights snapping off the branches to follow his car like some weird jagged kite tail. Noticing the tree bending Dad stopped the car and got out. Seannie imagined he could see the word he could not actually hear form itself in the condensed breath that spat out his father’s mouth.
“Goddammit!”
Mommy clucked a little chuckle and turned off to make some tea.
Seannie looked out at his Dad, totally in love.

THIS ISN'T FUNNY BUT...

One can just imagine the Python bit that could be inspired by this story:

Researchers at the University of New South Wales found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic.

CAVEMAN

I don’t understand why people hate these Geico ads. I was in a showing of Bolt – the latest Disney/Pixar/Whatever creation for kids that they (the kids) just have to see (and I just can’t help but sleep through, dozing quickly off as soon as the lights go down in the theatre and the opening credits pop-up) – and they had a new ‘Caveman’ ad: two guys in motorcycle leather and helmets dismount, in slo-mo, as a pair of skinny, scantily clad models wait breathlessly as they (the Cavemen) approach. Then they eye the billboard with a club-wielding Neanderthal (‘So Easy a Caveman Can Do It') above the models heads and, sheepishly, return to their bikes, their mojo gone, their coolness squashed. The Neanderthal in the seat next to me grunts “fucking stupid,” or words to that effect (seemingly oblivious to the five-year old bouncing on his lap [but who am I to talk]) and I marvel at this level of disgust that these ads inspire. They’re not that bad, really. The acting on the part of the guys playing the cavemen is actually pretty good if you watch. But I even think the cockney gecko is funny, liking jokes in and around funny accents as I do.

Before the movie we went to Ranch-1 (chicken place); the idea was to try and not spend so much money on non-store-bought food just in case one (me) gets laid off (or ‘severed’ as I’ve heard it said) soon. And so, since I’m trying not to eat so much (not for financial reasons but instead to avoid becoming large(r) and unwieldy(-ier)) I only wanted the fajita and soda whereas Terry wanted Combo #2, chicken fingers fries and soda. Unfortunately, my ‘order’ wasn’t on the Combo menu so it couldn’t be ordered by number. So I needed Combo #2, and a non-combo fajita and a diet coke. Seems easy but I ended up with Combo #2, a fajita and three D.C.’s. And it was $16. Maybe I overthink it. Possibly.

And it seems too obvious a blog topic to decry the state of our consumer culture (I'm segue-ing off the Combo Meal Mall Culture Thing in case that wasn't clear); the bloated extra value meals, the self-lathering soap dispensers (especially [i.e. being obvious] lap-topping on the commuter train in a cashmere Brooks Brothers blazer)…but, then again, check this out: SNUGGIE!!!. The whole point of the TV commercial advertisement was that blankets are too inconvenient because you have to uncover your arm to answer the phone, say, or reach for the remote (exposing your jiggly white flesh to the cold); the Snuggie solves the problem by enabling one (and one’s family, presumably) to upholster oneself in warm and available-in-three-colors fleece (that 21st century miracle fabric made from recycled plastic Evian bottles). Now you can turn the heat down and you and your entire family can roll around the house like acolytes in an obscure religious sect, paying homage to the self-flushing toilet and the McDonalds Dollar menu.

PROP 8

If you have any interest in equality in this country and haven't been following the hoopla surrounding the passage of California's Prop 8 which bans gay marriage check out Andrew Sullivan's site for the most comprehensive coverage of the issue and the protests yesterday all over the world...it's inspiring. Where's the president-elect on this issue? Where is any live-and-let-live libertarian? Where are the "real" Americans who really believe in freedom and justice for ALL?

DAVE'S

I HATE WINTER

It's not even 6 o'clock yet and it's dark like night. I should be on the beach somewhere watching the sun just START to dip towards the horizon. Winter sucks and it's just getting 'warmed' up.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

What a bunch of crap.

46 HOURS

It would take me 46 hours to complete this trip, but just imagine, if you can, the tasty goodness.

WHAT'S TO BECOME OF JON?

Sullivan references a question that I thought about immediately upon watching the Daily Show after the election:

Beyond the problem of audiences souring on Obama jokes is the question of whether Jon Stewart even wants to make Obama jokes.

I don't think I'm as eager to tune in as I was. But I'll always give Jon Stewart the benefit of the doubt.

TWO PRESIDENTS

These days, given the economic challenges facing the country, the in-coming Obama administration is trying to get a handle on the what policy they will implement to deal with it all. Thus this week's economic press conference. W., to his credit, is actually saying all the right things, and offering his assistance and opening the door of the White House to his successor. Maybe he's just happy to have the help; maybe he's relieved that it's all starting to not be his problem anymore. Remember Clinton's transition? I don't remember him being even half as accomodating. Then again, he didn't want to leave (as evidenced by Bill & Hill's barn-burner of a campaign this spring. One is reminded of the Robin Williams (?) joke - a man spends 9 months trying to get out of the woman and the rest of his life trying to get back in.) Maybe Dubya will miss it. Likely not. But for now we have two presidents. And given the mess we're in we need all the help we can get.

MY BELLE

She seems happy, no? She must really love him...(this is them coming out of a restaurant last night.)

WHERE'S THE DOG GONNA SLEEP?

GOOD OLD LOG

PRESIDENT RUSTY

The New York Times, as a subtext to its November 5, 2008 boldface masthead headline “OBAMA,” said “Racial Barrier Falls In Heavy Turnout.”

Something troubles me about this being the automatically accepted “big story” of Obama’s win. Something seems off when CNN lingers on a weeping Jesse Jackson and a tearful, jubilant Oprah Winfrey during Obama’s stirring speech after accepting John McCain’s concession call, finding the drama mostly there—American blacks finally overcome.

The MSM as Sarah Palin dubbed them are trying to interpret Obama through the prism of their own worldview, seeing Obama as the ultimate answer to their generation’s goals of hippie peace love and understanding, and thus Obama as the culmination of a decades-long struggle to finally integrate the presidency and to bring equality to the White House.

And there is no doubt that it is an important event in American history—that we have chosen a black man to represent us in the most important and powerful office in the world. But this view of the 2008 presidential election misses a huge point, I think, and ironically belittles Obama’s race by implying that it matters more than it does. To put it another why, while his race matters to some people, it’s not the most important story.

What we liberals have always had a hard time understanding is that true equality happens not from some politically-correct accommodation of someone’s specific race, religion, gender or sexual orientation (Jackie Robinson’s integration of baseball is perhaps the ultimate justification of this view; baseball’s color barrier was [and needed to be] forced down), but happens instead through true indifference to it. I think my attraction to Obama as a candidate is not his race but that he was born AFTER 1960. Maybe he’s not necessarily a Gen-X’er but he’s closer to that ‘tween-generation and has more in common with it than Hillary’s Boomers and obviously McCain’s de facto Greatest Generation (McCain’s actually more of a Boomer in age but he flies like a GG’er by virtue of his family pedigree and the “Country First” world view he at least aspired to.)

Barack Obama is Brian Johnson, Anthony Michael Hall’s nerd in the Breakfast Club, (a reference that perhaps only someone born after 1960 will understand.) He’s a geek-made-good and proof that brains matter and that, when push comes to shove and we find ourselves stuck in weekend detention, the smart kid is the one we want doing our homework. This is why he was elected.

Check out this sorta summing-it-all-up piece in the Financial Times. Obama is by all accounts an outsider, a super-brain with mother/father issues, a nice guy, a sober non-party'er, and a man driven to succeed. While we've all fiddled away despite the fires burning our country's financial health and precipitating our moral bankruptcy, Obama was inviting himself to study hall and avoiding the cool kids in the cafeteria. But he prepared when we really needed him and now he's stepped up. Hopefully he can get us an A on our social studies paper.

CAN I SEE DADDY? IN MY EYE?

You know how we all like to take pictures with our ever-smaller powerful pocket cameras? But you also know how some people are just so better at it? They just are. It's not only how they take the picture but what they take the picture of...and even when they take the picture.

This Italian guy - also here at Blogspot - takes pictures of buildings mostly, near as I can tell. And for some reason, the pictures from his little tour of Canadian cities of all things are just so cool.

UNWINDING

Thomas P.M. Barnett writes, briefly, about an Obama 'unwind' of the Bush disaster. I love the word 'unwind' using it myself to describe my family's economic situation (i.e. feeling safe for the time being in these perilous times that our financial life [assets and liabilities] unwinds - assuming we can find someone to buy our house, and thus continuing to spend recklessly as is my wont.) I think he's on to an interesting idea and one that would put Obama in the historical perspective as a transition president and not a forward-looking leader. He would be more of a Truman than a Reagan for example. It's an interesting idea.

Why Sarah Why?

I just subscribed to Rolling Stone and for some reason I just got an old issue - from Oct. 2nd - and just read the Matt Taibbi piece which can be linked to here. Money quote (of all money quotes):

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power.

Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.