For reals this time:
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
44. Collected Poems 1909-1962, T.S. Eliot
45. Tropic of Capricorn, Henry Miller
46. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman
47. Understanding Me, Marshall McLuhan
So, 47 books on the year. Not bad, I suppose.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
TickTickTick
He asked me innocently then what had brought me to his home - and without a minute's hesitation I told him an astounding lie, a lie which was later to prove a great truth. I told him I was only pretending to sell the encyclopedia in order to meet people and write about them. That interested him enormously, even more than the encyclopedia. He wanted to know what I would write about him, if I could say. It's taken me twenty years to answer that question, but here it is. If you would still like to know, John Doe of the City of Bayonne, this is it...I owe you a great deal because after that lie I told you I left your house and I tore up the prospectus furnished me by the Encyclopaedia Britannica and I threw it in the gutter. I said to myself I will never again go to people under false pretenses even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people. And if anybody knocks at my door to sell me something I will invite him in and say "why are you doing this?" And if he says it is because he has to make a living I will offer him what money I have and beg him once again to think what he is doing. I want to prevent as many men as possible from pretending that they have to do this or that because they must earn a living. It is not true. One can starve to death - it is much better. Every man who voluntarily starves to death jams another cog in the automatic process. I would rather see a man take a gun and kill his neighbor, in order to get the food he needs, than keep up the automatic process by pretending that he has to earn a living. That's what I want to say, Mr. John Doe.1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
44. Collected Poems 1909-1962, T.S. Eliot
45. Tropic of Capricorn, Henry Miller
46. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman
I had actually considered getting a Klosterman book - this one specifically - quite some time ago, but eventually decided not to because he seemed to just be a bitter dude who could really use a hug. My opinion hasn't really changed, but after having been exposed to a bit more of his writing via the pieces he does for the various men's magazines, I've revised that to a bitter dude who could really use a hug, but who is at least entertaining, which is probably more than you can say about most people. That could also be why he gets to write for a living and I don't, but I'm gonna chalk that up to cake instead, just because I can.
Pie > cake.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Hollow Man
I have been passed over and ignored so many times that I begin to wonder if they are right, if there is something in me whose existence I deny that is lacking, if I myself do not deserve to be. I am so tired of being asked what I want. Isn't it obvious that no-one knows what they want, that wants are transitory and self-destructive, that wanting and not getting is the very definition of the human experience? It is the lack of wanting that makes me question myself, a lack of a desire for anything other than a good screw and a warm bed. I disappear, I wrap myself in her, subordinate myself to her, and in the night I turn away from her, turning my back on the emptiness I see reflected in her eyes.
Tall Tales
When I was younger I was a liar. I was always desperate to stay out of trouble, and lying got me out of it. No-one ever expected the soft little kid with the 90 average to lie, and I used that to my fullest advantage. It became a game, finding out how much I could get away with; how little work I could get away with doing, how many deadlines I could extend or escape entirely. I lied to teachers, I lied to friends, I lied to myself. I lied about stupid things, I lied about important things that were actually stupid things but I was too young to know it at the time. The content was insignificant; what mattered was the reaction, the sympathy, the approval.
The first time a teacher confronted me with my lying was in my final year of high school. I had missed the first rehearsal for the school play; I hadn't seen it on the schedule. I told the teacher-director that another teacher had kept me for punishment of some infraction or another. She was new to the school, had never taught me and was unfamiliar with me. She spoke to the teacher I had named as my tormentor, and the truth emerged. Other teachers were involved, culminating in a meeting involving her, my advisor and myself. They asked why. Here was my moment, my Waterloo. I told them I had been under a lot of pressure, that I felt my life was out of control, that I didn't know why I had said it. I told them my parents were breaking up. I started to cry.
The best lies have a kernel of truth at their heart. That's one of the first things you figure out. I suppose the worst thing of all was that I had done it without thinking, that nothing was sacred in my quest to wriggle away from trouble. The tears I shed were tears of anger, of fear, of humiliation - and, yes, on some level, for the dissolution of a marriage which had happened years earlier but which had never been explained to me.
The subject was dropped. They never brought it up again.
Everyone lies to teachers, though. Everyone hates their teachers, even the grade-grubbing ass-kissers. They hate teachers most of all, for forcing such indignity upon them, for making them so reviled and tormented by their younger peers. How quickly teachers forget the special brand of contempt the young reserve for their teachers, how they struggle to befriend their squalling, backstabbing, broods who want nothing more than to escape the ignorant grasp of authority. "You don't understand me," they rage, and they are correct; there is no understanding institutionalized contrariness.
I lied to friends, not realizing that people talk to one another, that friends are friends with other people and that nothing said remains in a vacuum. Was it a sign of their friendship that they never confronted me, or a sign of their contempt? I never asked.
Sometimes I wonder about the people I involved in my lies. If I saw them again, could I apologize? And what would be more demeaning, the apology or the revelation that there was no reason to apologize; that my presumption all those years ago, that I myself was so insignificant that I had had no effect whatsoever upon them in their vulnerable, formative years?
I have never been good with apologies.
The first time a teacher confronted me with my lying was in my final year of high school. I had missed the first rehearsal for the school play; I hadn't seen it on the schedule. I told the teacher-director that another teacher had kept me for punishment of some infraction or another. She was new to the school, had never taught me and was unfamiliar with me. She spoke to the teacher I had named as my tormentor, and the truth emerged. Other teachers were involved, culminating in a meeting involving her, my advisor and myself. They asked why. Here was my moment, my Waterloo. I told them I had been under a lot of pressure, that I felt my life was out of control, that I didn't know why I had said it. I told them my parents were breaking up. I started to cry.
The best lies have a kernel of truth at their heart. That's one of the first things you figure out. I suppose the worst thing of all was that I had done it without thinking, that nothing was sacred in my quest to wriggle away from trouble. The tears I shed were tears of anger, of fear, of humiliation - and, yes, on some level, for the dissolution of a marriage which had happened years earlier but which had never been explained to me.
The subject was dropped. They never brought it up again.
Everyone lies to teachers, though. Everyone hates their teachers, even the grade-grubbing ass-kissers. They hate teachers most of all, for forcing such indignity upon them, for making them so reviled and tormented by their younger peers. How quickly teachers forget the special brand of contempt the young reserve for their teachers, how they struggle to befriend their squalling, backstabbing, broods who want nothing more than to escape the ignorant grasp of authority. "You don't understand me," they rage, and they are correct; there is no understanding institutionalized contrariness.
I lied to friends, not realizing that people talk to one another, that friends are friends with other people and that nothing said remains in a vacuum. Was it a sign of their friendship that they never confronted me, or a sign of their contempt? I never asked.
Sometimes I wonder about the people I involved in my lies. If I saw them again, could I apologize? And what would be more demeaning, the apology or the revelation that there was no reason to apologize; that my presumption all those years ago, that I myself was so insignificant that I had had no effect whatsoever upon them in their vulnerable, formative years?
I have never been good with apologies.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
One Last Gasp
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
44. Collected Poems 1909-1962, T.S. Eliot
45. Tropic of Capricorn, Henry Miller
Capricorn is so good that there's an outside chance I might finish it before the new year, but I also need to start working on monologues, which will cut into reading time.
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
44. Collected Poems 1909-1962, T.S. Eliot
45. Tropic of Capricorn, Henry Miller
Capricorn is so good that there's an outside chance I might finish it before the new year, but I also need to start working on monologues, which will cut into reading time.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
She
A self-fulfilling prophecy;
an enigmatic mystery.
You hold her close
but are no closer
to the thoughts that whirl within.
And would you change that, if you could?
Skin her alive
tear her apart
make her yours
make her pay
sweet Cupid's price.
Would you change her, if you could?
Stop this chase
this endless rag
this danse macabre.
O, listen close and you will hear
the tale of ages in her glance
Silly ditties and jingle jangles
you are hers
but she is not yours.
She is not yours,
and that's the way you like it
for who can tire of that
which they never have?
You are afraid
and hold her tighter in the night
she puts the truth to the lie
that you are.
an enigmatic mystery.
You hold her close
but are no closer
to the thoughts that whirl within.
And would you change that, if you could?
Skin her alive
tear her apart
make her yours
make her pay
sweet Cupid's price.
Would you change her, if you could?
Stop this chase
this endless rag
this danse macabre.
O, listen close and you will hear
the tale of ages in her glance
Silly ditties and jingle jangles
you are hers
but she is not yours.
She is not yours,
and that's the way you like it
for who can tire of that
which they never have?
You are afraid
and hold her tighter in the night
she puts the truth to the lie
that you are.
Ring Ring
Whispered conversations
in the dark
endless silences
saying everything that needs to be said
yet nothing.
Words I want to say
that neither you nor I
are ready for,
but I want
I want
I want
A heartbeat
pounding in my mind.
A sham,
a flimflam.
I want
to hope.
Words,
waiting to be launched,
to set sail
for the promised land
on a puff of exhaled breath;
on a wire.
in the dark
endless silences
saying everything that needs to be said
yet nothing.
Words I want to say
that neither you nor I
are ready for,
but I want
I want
I want
A heartbeat
pounding in my mind.
A sham,
a flimflam.
I want
to hope.
Words,
waiting to be launched,
to set sail
for the promised land
on a puff of exhaled breath;
on a wire.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Ugh
I wanted to tell you what you mean to me
but all I could think of were bedtime stories
You know
like the one about the kid
who fell under the steamroller
which turned out to be his mother
and then he became a Christmas tree.
Don't judge me
I had a weird childhood.
I sit in branded cafes surrounded by dweebs
Who the heck uses the word "dweeb" these days?
It's so 1984
I love Big Brother!
Man
There were these kids the other day
and one of them was saying how
he was on this trip to New York
and one of the kids told the teacher he was getting a handjob
from his girlfriend
(which he totally wasn't. Just so you know.)
so all the guys had to sit on one side
of the bus
and the girls on the other side
and all I could think was,
DIEDIEDIEFUCKINGDIE
True story.
I want to call but I'm afraid
Afraid of needing
of smothering
of myself.
Oh man
then the other day
I was walking down the street
and it started to rain
and it made me think of you
so I hid in a doorway
but that made me think of you too
so I ran away from my memories
and got soaked.
That's not a metaphor for anything,
I really did get wet.
but all I could think of were bedtime stories
You know
like the one about the kid
who fell under the steamroller
which turned out to be his mother
and then he became a Christmas tree.
Don't judge me
I had a weird childhood.
I sit in branded cafes surrounded by dweebs
Who the heck uses the word "dweeb" these days?
It's so 1984
I love Big Brother!
Man
There were these kids the other day
and one of them was saying how
he was on this trip to New York
and one of the kids told the teacher he was getting a handjob
from his girlfriend
(which he totally wasn't. Just so you know.)
so all the guys had to sit on one side
of the bus
and the girls on the other side
and all I could think was,
DIEDIEDIEFUCKINGDIE
True story.
I want to call but I'm afraid
Afraid of needing
of smothering
of myself.
Oh man
then the other day
I was walking down the street
and it started to rain
and it made me think of you
so I hid in a doorway
but that made me think of you too
so I ran away from my memories
and got soaked.
That's not a metaphor for anything,
I really did get wet.
Sweet
| Your Christmas is Most Like: A Charlie Brown Christmas |
 Each year, you really get into the spirit of Christmas. Which is much more important to you than nifty presents. |
Afternoons and Coffeespoons
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
44. Collected Poems 1909-1962, T.S. Eliot
So this is the new Blogger, hunh? Looks the same to me.
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
44. Collected Poems 1909-1962, T.S. Eliot
So this is the new Blogger, hunh? Looks the same to me.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Speaking of Harry Potter
Watching Goblet of Fire right now, and boy, it is a bad movie. I tried watching it a week or two ago and turned it off in irritation, because it was just too different from the book. As is the case with most adaptations, it's understandable that plot elements would be cut; what's unacceptable is the changing of motivations and intentions and the addition or extension of scenes which were not written. I mean, if you're already strapped for time fitting in plot lines and characters (Ludo Bagman has been cut entirely, as has Dobby and the whole house elf sub-plot), why are you wasting time adding in shit that wasn't originally written and isn't as good?
There's deeper limitation, however, and it's the first time I'd noticed it in these movies - the casting is simply too weak. Now that the kids have to actually demonstrate some sort of depth to their characters, their lack of ability/training is really starting to show. Even the adults cast as the teachers seem to be getting a bit tired, squeaking out moments here and there, but otherwise slogging their way through another paycheck.
I wonder, as I watch this, how many of the actors have actually read the books. This might sound like an odd thing to think about; one might assume that the first thing any actor in an adaption would do is read the source material, but actors and directors frequently go into productions without having done so, whether out of indifference or a desire to approach the material without bias.
Speaking of reading books:
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
There's deeper limitation, however, and it's the first time I'd noticed it in these movies - the casting is simply too weak. Now that the kids have to actually demonstrate some sort of depth to their characters, their lack of ability/training is really starting to show. Even the adults cast as the teachers seem to be getting a bit tired, squeaking out moments here and there, but otherwise slogging their way through another paycheck.
I wonder, as I watch this, how many of the actors have actually read the books. This might sound like an odd thing to think about; one might assume that the first thing any actor in an adaption would do is read the source material, but actors and directors frequently go into productions without having done so, whether out of indifference or a desire to approach the material without bias.
Speaking of reading books:
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
43. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss.Is it just me, or is that a pretty darn accurate description of marriage?
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Just Had to Point This Out
There's a story over here about "Nuspelynh". The article itself is pretty basic, but what interests me is the last sentence. See, a week or so ago I spent some time editing a friend's essays, burying myself in the relatively arcane minutiae of copy-editing (for which my Bible, of course, is Elements of Style. Hence, upon reading the Wired article, my uncontrollable spasm of laughter upon reading the final sentences:
"For example, Nuspelynh's founder spells father fadhxr... or as a homonym for "foddar." But I pronounce it with a clear theta sound, because I'm not fucking Fran Dreischer."
Man! Where were the editors on that one!
God, I'm a nerd.
"For example, Nuspelynh's founder spells father fadhxr... or as a homonym for "foddar." But I pronounce it with a clear theta sound, because I'm not fucking Fran Dreischer."
Man! Where were the editors on that one!
God, I'm a nerd.
Harry Potter and the Crappy Title
Seriously, is George Lucas giving J.K. Rowling ideas for book titles (it's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", if you didn't know)? And speaking of books:
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
I'm not too sure why he got it, but my dad passed it on to me, so I feel somewhat obligated to read it. It's decently short, somewhere around 190 pages, and made effectively shorter by the illustrations (the inclusion of which I find somewhat odd and unnecessary, but whatever), so it'll be done with quickly, I'm sure.
Getting back to Harry Potter, I had a brief discussion with a friend a bit ago about how while I didn't necessarily know the exact contents of the last book (obviously), I felt fairly confident that almost anyone could predict the general events which would be contained therein. Here, then - since I love proving how fucking brilliant I am and, should I get any right, can totally point back to this post as evidence of said brilliance when the book comes out - are my predictions for the last Harry Potter (yes, there might be spoilers for anyone who hasn't read Half Blood Prince):
1) Snape will be revealed to have been working against Voldemort from the start. This is a no-brainer. My guess is that the revelation (and Harry's acceptance of it) will only come simultaneously with Snape's death, which I personally detest, but it's the way basic storytelling tends to work, just as you knew from partway through book one that at some time in the series Dumbledore had to die or be otherwise incapacitated. Personally, I like to think that Snape will play a key role in Voldemort's defeat, but that could just be because Alan Rickman's portrayal of him is fucking awesome. Honestly, though: in all the Harry Potter books, which character has developed the most, which character have we learned the most about motivations and history, aside from Harry himself? Snape. Is this happenstance? If it is, J.K. Rowling has fooled a lot of people into thinking she's a decent writer.
2) Voldemort's physical body will be destroyed. However, he will not necessarily be finished, "for once and for all," if you will. I just find it difficult to believe that Rowling will be able to wrap up the destruction of the current avatar and the remaining horcruxes, of which there are at least 3-4, without a 1000+ page book (which I suppose is possible), or some appallingly bad storytelling (also possible). I also find it difficult to believe Rowling will be able to resist writing more Harry Potter books in the future - hence the possibility that the location of one or more horcruxes will remain unknown. I certainly wish she wouldn't, but authors rarely are able to quit while they're ahead when they write a popular series.
3) Ron and Hermione hook up. Or at least profess their feelings for each other. God, take longer.
4) One of Ron or Hermione die. This could just be my personal preference expressing itself (and is the prediction which I feel the least confident about, because it isn't necessarily dictated by traditional story telling plotlines, nor is it required from a character perspective), but I just don't see Harry having the fortitude to stand up to Voldemort without some further emotional impetus. It's a bit difficult to say whose death would have more impact; Ron being the Sam Gamgee sort of (homo-erotic, if you're inclined to read it that way) man-love and support, and Hermione being the one who, you know, actually knows things. Killing a girl would also be pretty intense, and the level of violence has certainly elevated with each book.
5) Draco redeems himself. Plain and simple: he's a bitch. He doesn't belong with the Death Eaters. Somewhere in there he'll lose his nerve and stand up to mommy (somewhat paradoxical, I know).
That's about all I can think of for now. Write faster, Ms. Rowling! My reputation as a genius depends on it.
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright
I'm not too sure why he got it, but my dad passed it on to me, so I feel somewhat obligated to read it. It's decently short, somewhere around 190 pages, and made effectively shorter by the illustrations (the inclusion of which I find somewhat odd and unnecessary, but whatever), so it'll be done with quickly, I'm sure.
Getting back to Harry Potter, I had a brief discussion with a friend a bit ago about how while I didn't necessarily know the exact contents of the last book (obviously), I felt fairly confident that almost anyone could predict the general events which would be contained therein. Here, then - since I love proving how fucking brilliant I am and, should I get any right, can totally point back to this post as evidence of said brilliance when the book comes out - are my predictions for the last Harry Potter (yes, there might be spoilers for anyone who hasn't read Half Blood Prince):
1) Snape will be revealed to have been working against Voldemort from the start. This is a no-brainer. My guess is that the revelation (and Harry's acceptance of it) will only come simultaneously with Snape's death, which I personally detest, but it's the way basic storytelling tends to work, just as you knew from partway through book one that at some time in the series Dumbledore had to die or be otherwise incapacitated. Personally, I like to think that Snape will play a key role in Voldemort's defeat, but that could just be because Alan Rickman's portrayal of him is fucking awesome. Honestly, though: in all the Harry Potter books, which character has developed the most, which character have we learned the most about motivations and history, aside from Harry himself? Snape. Is this happenstance? If it is, J.K. Rowling has fooled a lot of people into thinking she's a decent writer.
2) Voldemort's physical body will be destroyed. However, he will not necessarily be finished, "for once and for all," if you will. I just find it difficult to believe that Rowling will be able to wrap up the destruction of the current avatar and the remaining horcruxes, of which there are at least 3-4, without a 1000+ page book (which I suppose is possible), or some appallingly bad storytelling (also possible). I also find it difficult to believe Rowling will be able to resist writing more Harry Potter books in the future - hence the possibility that the location of one or more horcruxes will remain unknown. I certainly wish she wouldn't, but authors rarely are able to quit while they're ahead when they write a popular series.
3) Ron and Hermione hook up. Or at least profess their feelings for each other. God, take longer.
4) One of Ron or Hermione die. This could just be my personal preference expressing itself (and is the prediction which I feel the least confident about, because it isn't necessarily dictated by traditional story telling plotlines, nor is it required from a character perspective), but I just don't see Harry having the fortitude to stand up to Voldemort without some further emotional impetus. It's a bit difficult to say whose death would have more impact; Ron being the Sam Gamgee sort of (homo-erotic, if you're inclined to read it that way) man-love and support, and Hermione being the one who, you know, actually knows things. Killing a girl would also be pretty intense, and the level of violence has certainly elevated with each book.
5) Draco redeems himself. Plain and simple: he's a bitch. He doesn't belong with the Death Eaters. Somewhere in there he'll lose his nerve and stand up to mommy (somewhat paradoxical, I know).
That's about all I can think of for now. Write faster, Ms. Rowling! My reputation as a genius depends on it.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Viral, Like the Clap (Not Like the Clapper)
For anyone wondering what "viral" marketing might mean, I refer you to this website, a blog supposedly started by a guy trying to get a PSP for Christmas which was turned out to be run by a marketing company that had been hired by Sony. As the internet goes, it's a pretty old story - old enough that the original site is now no more, and the only reminders of its existence are the numerous posts on various forums and news sites and The Consumerist's archived copy, which is what the link points to.
The two videos are must-watch, although I'd say the site is really summed up by the post title, "don't just wear it – pwn it!!1!" There, encapsulated in a single sentence, is almost every single horrible internet cliche that marketing pricks could dig up. It's difficult to say which is sadder: the fact that people made this website thinking that it would work, or the fact that some other asshole paid them to do it.
The two videos are must-watch, although I'd say the site is really summed up by the post title, "don't just wear it – pwn it!!1!" There, encapsulated in a single sentence, is almost every single horrible internet cliche that marketing pricks could dig up. It's difficult to say which is sadder: the fact that people made this website thinking that it would work, or the fact that some other asshole paid them to do it.
Well Played, God, Well Played
In the early sixties, MCA came under federal investigation for its business practices and possible relationship to organized crime...When Fricano, the lead interrogator of the grand jury, zeroed in on the blanket waiver that Reagan helped engineer for MCA as president of the Screen Actors Guild, the actor's memory failed. 'I think I have already told you I don't recall that,' said Reagan...Later on, grand juror Ruth Ragle said, of Reagan's testimony: 'The only thing he knew was his name.'"And they say there's no such thing as karma.
One of the things Naomi Klein touches on in No Logo that I found particularly interesting is what I like to think of as the evolution of branding. Branding started out as an attempt by producers to humanize their Industrial Revolution, mass produced goods from each other; hence the first mascots were Aunt Jemima- and Uncle Ben-types: comforting faces on anonymous products. As time went by, however, this was insufficient; there was too much of a disconnect between the brand an the product being sold. Whether through happenstance or design, some companies realized that by making the concept of the brand more ephemeral, less tied to a specific product and more connected to a spirit or an ideal, not only could the sales of a single product be increased, but any number of unrelated products could also be sold. Aunt Jemima sells syrup; to expect her to sell a car would be folly. Adidas sells shoes - or does it? In reality, Adidas sells athleticism - the ideal, active lifestyle, which you can participate in, if you only have the right shoes. And the right apparel. And the right cologne. And the right soap. And so forth.
Adidas, of course, patterns itself on Nike, one of the pioneers of this sort of branding. But in Nike's rise to brand pre-eminence, it also spawned the next evolution of branding. Nike's rise is synonymous with the rise of Michael Jordan, and it is here that things get interesting. In order to link the shoes with raw athleticism, Nike needed an icon, needed someone they could elevate, who would, by association, elevate them. Jordan filled that niche. Clearly, he could not have if he hadn't performed athletically, but if not for Nike he would not be one of the most recognizable people in the world today. But in creating his image, Nike also gave birth to a completely new concept: the individual as brand.
Why is this interesting to me? Because it explains trends in popular entertainment today, though Klein doesn't extend it that far - possibly because in 2000, this trend hadn't quite become fully apparent, and also possibly because she didn't really care. Why does Paris Hilton get to act in movies and then record an album? Why do rappers appear in movies? Because their brands give them the ability to move between mediums with relatively little dropoff. Public figures maintain a persona, a persona which can be thought of as their brand ideal; much as Nike stands for athleticism and Disney stands for family-friendly Americana, DMX stands for street autheticity and Paris stands for...well, I'll leave that alone. Whether or not the individuals actually came from those circumstances is immaterial; what matters is what they can convince their audience they stand for; in short, how successfully they can create their brand image.
On its own, this is not so important; one would assume that the number of individuals who could actually brand themselves would be relatively few - Jordan and Tiger are really the only two who come to mind aside from fashion designers, though they're probably a bit ahead of the game in terms of understanding the relationship between branding and the individual, because of their intensely personal relationship with the labels they create/design for. But couple the branding of the individual with the growing consolidation among media companies and suddenly you have a problem. See, consolidation means synergy, one of those annoying buzz-words that suits probably parroted up and down boardrooms a few years ago (I'm assuming they've moved on, as those people are wont to; the latest one I had heard as of a year or two ago was "viral," which is probably still used).
So, what's synergy? Picture, if you will, a young woman beginning a career in the performing arts. She signs on with Disney to be a Mouseketeer. Disney then puts her in an "indie" movie produced by Miramax (owned by Disney), a movie which gets a heavy advertising push on ABC (owned by Disney); preferential ad rates and times, guaranteed slots on the daytime and evening talk shows on the network and so forth. Since our fictional girl is a Mouseketeer, let's assume she can sing; ok, so she gets to sing a song on the sountrack, produced by Hollywood Records (Disney-owned again). After the movie comes out and assuming it does decently at the box office - or maybe even if it doesn't - Disney then puts her in The Lion King, on Broadway, for a one month run. She is, after all, a movie star who can sing. But now she's more than that - she's a triple threat. Yet the push behind her, the "evidence" of her ability, the creation of her brand all comes from one company, not a multitude of specialized observers recognizing her talent in each of their areas of expertise, independent of each other. And bibbity-bobbity-boo, there you have it; the Disney mill has just churned out another pop starlet.
Why is entertainment increasingly homogenous? Because of this. Why do all the young performers seem interchangable? Because they are. Gone are the days when Nicholson, Hoffman, Pacino and De Niro all vied with each other, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Could you imagine Nicholson in The Godfather? Hoffman in Taxi Driver? Pacino in Cuckoo's Nest? De Niro in The Graduate? Of course not. But could you imagine Jake Gyllenhaal in Spiderman? Kirsten Dunst in Lost in Translation? Tobey Maguire in Lord of the Rings? Elijah Wood in Brokeback Mountain? I bet you could. And therein lies Hollywood's problem: too many films with interchangable characters, interchangable actors and interchangable scripts.
Maybe I'm being overly harsh; Golden Age Hollywood was no different, and possibly even worse in its cookie-cutter approach to movie-making. But I can't shake the impression that stars in the Golden Age found ways to differentiate themselves, tangible and otherwise. Think of the raw sex appeal of Gable, the urbaneness of Grant, the physical and verbal tics of Stewart, the pride of Katharine Hepburn and the grace of Audrey. Where did they go? And will we ever see their likes again? Can we ever see their likes again?
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Last Book?
1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
Alas, it appears that I shall fall well short of 50 on the year. Oh well. There's always next year, I suppose.
As I had been expecting, No Logo was fantastic in the analysis department and somewhat lacking in the active department. I think it's partially deliberate on Klein's part, but partially symptomatic of any kind of cultural analysis. The problem is not the writer; rather, it's the nature of the game itself. Writers identify power structures and the rules they operate under, but power structures are not fixed, nor are they monolithic. An analysis may be brilliant, but once the rules of the game change, the utility of that analysis also falls. Time and time again this has happened, ever since people have been writing about culture and economics.
Klein's brainflash is the identification of brand politics (which, to be honest, I'm not even 100% sure if she's the first one to observe, though the hoopla around her book certainly indicates she was one of, if not the first), and its repercussions, both on the industries themselves and on us, the consumers. The superbrands are companies which have attempted to divest themselves of physical manifestations, the selling of "things", and instead package a lifestyle, a lifestyle summed up in one of their products. This is why Adidas can sell a cologne, Virgin can operate an airline company and Roots (a Canadian clothing label) can open a resort. Expertise can be bought in the blink of an eye; what cannot be instantly created is brand cachet, the identification of specific values and beliefs with a certain brand. Klein believes that this strength is also the weakness of the brands, that using the limitless value of a brand against its creators provides the economic leverage for change.
It's a nice thought, but looking back on her book now it seems (as all such statements inevitably seem) quite naive. Yes, there has been change. Yes, there have been times when companies have backed down, or been forced to change policies quite publicly. But does anyone honestly think that sweatshops have been eliminated? Klein is quick to point out that one of the problems with anticorporate activism is that there are few alternatives; a backlash against Shell meant that a contract went to Chevron instead, but Chevron was guilty of many of the same practices - Shell just happened to be the company that came up on the radar first. Small towns campaign against Walmart, but freely allow other big box retailers to move in, even though their effects are exactly the same as a Walmart moving in, just in other lines of retail. Klein also notes that the debate was shifted quickly by producers from, "Why are we using sweatshops," to "What defines a sweatshop, and what are the minimum requirements that we can get away with?" In a move typical of big business, "sweatshop free" has gone from a legitimate moral issue to just another marketing tool, another way to differentiate your product (American Apparel, anyone?).
It's clear that what's really needed is a paradigm shift in society, an elimination of the hold which brands retain on the consciousness of people, and yet such a statement is far more naive than Klein's belief in a grassroots, sustainable development movement. People simply don't care. They don't care that their entire value system is force-fed to them by others, they don't ask themselves why, they don't ask themselves who really benefits. They just want to live, they want someone to tell them what to do, where to do it and how long to do it. Hell, I'd like that sometimes. We all would, wouldn't we?
Wouldn't we?
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
Alas, it appears that I shall fall well short of 50 on the year. Oh well. There's always next year, I suppose.
As I had been expecting, No Logo was fantastic in the analysis department and somewhat lacking in the active department. I think it's partially deliberate on Klein's part, but partially symptomatic of any kind of cultural analysis. The problem is not the writer; rather, it's the nature of the game itself. Writers identify power structures and the rules they operate under, but power structures are not fixed, nor are they monolithic. An analysis may be brilliant, but once the rules of the game change, the utility of that analysis also falls. Time and time again this has happened, ever since people have been writing about culture and economics.
Klein's brainflash is the identification of brand politics (which, to be honest, I'm not even 100% sure if she's the first one to observe, though the hoopla around her book certainly indicates she was one of, if not the first), and its repercussions, both on the industries themselves and on us, the consumers. The superbrands are companies which have attempted to divest themselves of physical manifestations, the selling of "things", and instead package a lifestyle, a lifestyle summed up in one of their products. This is why Adidas can sell a cologne, Virgin can operate an airline company and Roots (a Canadian clothing label) can open a resort. Expertise can be bought in the blink of an eye; what cannot be instantly created is brand cachet, the identification of specific values and beliefs with a certain brand. Klein believes that this strength is also the weakness of the brands, that using the limitless value of a brand against its creators provides the economic leverage for change.
It's a nice thought, but looking back on her book now it seems (as all such statements inevitably seem) quite naive. Yes, there has been change. Yes, there have been times when companies have backed down, or been forced to change policies quite publicly. But does anyone honestly think that sweatshops have been eliminated? Klein is quick to point out that one of the problems with anticorporate activism is that there are few alternatives; a backlash against Shell meant that a contract went to Chevron instead, but Chevron was guilty of many of the same practices - Shell just happened to be the company that came up on the radar first. Small towns campaign against Walmart, but freely allow other big box retailers to move in, even though their effects are exactly the same as a Walmart moving in, just in other lines of retail. Klein also notes that the debate was shifted quickly by producers from, "Why are we using sweatshops," to "What defines a sweatshop, and what are the minimum requirements that we can get away with?" In a move typical of big business, "sweatshop free" has gone from a legitimate moral issue to just another marketing tool, another way to differentiate your product (American Apparel, anyone?).
It's clear that what's really needed is a paradigm shift in society, an elimination of the hold which brands retain on the consciousness of people, and yet such a statement is far more naive than Klein's belief in a grassroots, sustainable development movement. People simply don't care. They don't care that their entire value system is force-fed to them by others, they don't ask themselves why, they don't ask themselves who really benefits. They just want to live, they want someone to tell them what to do, where to do it and how long to do it. Hell, I'd like that sometimes. We all would, wouldn't we?
Wouldn't we?
Monday, December 18, 2006
...And Then There Was Nothing
It's been quiet of late. Nothing really interesting is going on. Things are in motion, but I can only do so much without headshots. Have a session on the 28th, and then I assume it'll take at least a week or so for me to choose which shot(s) to use, and then at least another week to get some printed up.
Meeting with a voice teacher tomorrow. Was at Toronto's Reference Library, where they have a surprisingly decent number of scores in a reference area. Stopped by TheaterBooks to pick up some plays for monologues. Something else to work on; I've neglected my monologues for several years now, to the point where I couldn't confidently go to an audition where they asked for a monologue.
Been reading No Logo. It's excellent. I appreciate the lack of shrillness in its tone; Klein explicitly says that the title of the book is not meant as a manifesto or pamphleteer-type slogan, and that the book itself is simply an exploration of the phenomenon of corporate branding and its results. As far as that goes, there's a number of fascinating observations about the shift in industry from selling things to selling brands (and hence, by extension, the lifestyle that corresponds to a given brand). A question, though: is it possible to buy a brand without necessarily subscribing to the brand lifestyle? Or is it assumed that any purchase is subconsciously motivated by knowledge of the brand, given the ubiquitous advertising that the world's super-brands engage in?
Along these lines, I've been looking for stores in the Toronto area which might be selling clothes done by local designers. Do such stores exist? I have no idea. One wonders if there might be a market for that sort of thing. I did, however, recently get some new ideas for making my own shirts. Well, painting my own stencils onto plain t-shirts, which amounts to more or less the same thing.
Reading it also reminds me that I meant to pick up some Marshall McLuhan. Unfortunately (though only unfortunate in the sense that I can only read one book at a time), today I cracked and bought the new-ish Jimmy Stewart biography, so that'll probably be the next book I read.
Snippets of phrases have been flitting in and out of my head over the past few weeks, but any time I sit down to try to get any of them typed out they invariably seem trite and inane. I suppose that never stopped me before.
Currently listening to some Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground and Gang of Four. I'm a little upset that I never listened to any of this stuff before. Earlier today I was snooping through the punk section at an HMV, and I noticed they had no Dead Kennedys. Not only did they have no Dead Kennedys cds in stock, there wasn't even the little band placeholder. It was as if that store was completely unaware of the band's existence. It made me sad, and a little angry, like an emo potato.
If that t-shirt wasn't black, I would consider getting it.
Meeting with a voice teacher tomorrow. Was at Toronto's Reference Library, where they have a surprisingly decent number of scores in a reference area. Stopped by TheaterBooks to pick up some plays for monologues. Something else to work on; I've neglected my monologues for several years now, to the point where I couldn't confidently go to an audition where they asked for a monologue.
Been reading No Logo. It's excellent. I appreciate the lack of shrillness in its tone; Klein explicitly says that the title of the book is not meant as a manifesto or pamphleteer-type slogan, and that the book itself is simply an exploration of the phenomenon of corporate branding and its results. As far as that goes, there's a number of fascinating observations about the shift in industry from selling things to selling brands (and hence, by extension, the lifestyle that corresponds to a given brand). A question, though: is it possible to buy a brand without necessarily subscribing to the brand lifestyle? Or is it assumed that any purchase is subconsciously motivated by knowledge of the brand, given the ubiquitous advertising that the world's super-brands engage in?
Along these lines, I've been looking for stores in the Toronto area which might be selling clothes done by local designers. Do such stores exist? I have no idea. One wonders if there might be a market for that sort of thing. I did, however, recently get some new ideas for making my own shirts. Well, painting my own stencils onto plain t-shirts, which amounts to more or less the same thing.
Reading it also reminds me that I meant to pick up some Marshall McLuhan. Unfortunately (though only unfortunate in the sense that I can only read one book at a time), today I cracked and bought the new-ish Jimmy Stewart biography, so that'll probably be the next book I read.
Snippets of phrases have been flitting in and out of my head over the past few weeks, but any time I sit down to try to get any of them typed out they invariably seem trite and inane. I suppose that never stopped me before.
Currently listening to some Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground and Gang of Four. I'm a little upset that I never listened to any of this stuff before. Earlier today I was snooping through the punk section at an HMV, and I noticed they had no Dead Kennedys. Not only did they have no Dead Kennedys cds in stock, there wasn't even the little band placeholder. It was as if that store was completely unaware of the band's existence. It made me sad, and a little angry, like an emo potato.
If that t-shirt wasn't black, I would consider getting it.
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