Actorserf

Saturday, January 20, 2007

The Unexamined Life

Some more T. S. Eliot thoughts.

I don't know that I ever explicitly considered the concept of the "buried life" in Eliot's work. I do know that what always attracted me to him was the sense of longing in his poetry, as well as his way with words and imagery. Prufrock is my favorite, a poem about a lonely, middle-aged man.

I find it interesting that most of the things I tend to write have a melancholic tone about them, all the moreso because I have generally thought of myself as an intrisically optimistic person. To be sure, I have always been shy, something which lends itself to sadness and reflectiveness. But shyness is not an active trait; you cannot "play" shy onstage without being a cliche. In order to come across as shy one must understand that shyness is rooted in the desire to be outgoing, to be vivacious and interesting; that desire is simply thwarted by neuroses and fears. It is in finding the moments where characters yearn to break free and find themselves unable to that shyness is effectively conveyed in a living way.

As I grow older, I find that I am almost entirely comprised of complete contradictions. I am shy, yet wish to expose myself emotionally on stage and screen. I'm quiet and introverted, yet can act incredibly arrogant and overbearing when meeting people. I'm a romantic, and yet intellectually I think I tend to come across as a smug cynic.

Cynicism is a funny thing. People who are called cynics generally think of themselves as pragmatists; it's not being unfair to think the things they think, it's simply being realistic. And yet, every cynic is, at heart, a romantic. It is because their romantic leanings and beliefs have been trod upon by the world that makes them react intellectually in the opposite direction, forming a wall of defense so that their soft, inner core can't be hurt. This sounds so cliche, the "whore with the heart of gold," and yet the effectiveness of that archtype reflects its inner emotional truth.

Uh, I think I just called myself a whore. At least I have a heart of gold?

I doubt so many things; about myself, about others, about the world. And at the same time, I am hopeful; oh, so hopeful.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Do I Smash the Mirror?

So a couple days ago I noticed this review for a new book about T. S. Eliot. I read through it, and the book sounds pretty interesting, possibly worth a pickup, identifying the concept of the "buried life" as a recurrent theme in all of Eliot's work and using both famous and more obscure poems to demonstrate this. And then the bomb drops.

T. S. Eliot was anti-Semitic.

I don't really know what to make of this. I've read the two poems mentioned in the review as the literary evidence of Eliot's views, but I didn't get that sense from the reading. Yes, he uses "the Jew" as an identifier, but I had assumed it was a more literary device, an instantly evocative, time-specific term much as Twain's use of "nigger." I suppose that could be my own naivety speaking.

I wonder if part of the reason why comic book characters retain their allure is because they remain essentially uncorruptible. This is not to say that they're perfect; perfection is, after all, perfectly boring. But the problems they face tend to be problems of identity, of isolation and of relevancy. You never find out that Superman was a racist or Batman a vicious homophobe.

I think the other reason why superheroes stay popular is that they have become mythical; that is, their stories are the among the only truly American myths (here we pause for the neat little fact that one of Superman's co-creators was Canadian). Superman is about a guy with incredible powers, yes, but it is (more importantly, to my mind) about where we, as a people, wish to evolve. I watched Superman Returns a few days ago, and I have to say, Singer nailed most of it. There were definitely a few "Superman = Jesus" scenes I could have done without, and a few scenes in general that I think could have been cut (I also kinda hate the "Superman is Lois's baby daddy!" sub-plot), but there were also so many moments which were absolutely perfect, references stretching all the way back to the very first comic book cover that Superman appeared on (the shot of him lowering Parker Posey's car to the ground, nose-first, echoes this cover).

Perhaps it is more illuminating of my own personality that I find the message of self-sacrifice and virtue for its own sake within Superman; perhaps it is true that our readings of any kind of literature always reveal more about ourselves than the work in question. Perhaps that is why I was unable to find the anti-Semitic meaning behind T. S. Eliot's words. I guess, given the option, I'd take that over, "I'm stupid."

Thursday, January 18, 2007

False Idols

So I have this friend here who, for some reason, keeps telling me I should consider auditioning for Canadian Idol, which is, of course, the Canadian (read: crappier) version of American Idol.

I'm not quite sure how to take it. On the one hand, yes, he is correct in saying I have relatively little to lose. On the other hand, I find it difficult to determine which would be more embarassing: to be cut in one of the early purges of the wholesale cattle call, or to make it on tv and then get cut. I am, of course, assuming that I'd be able to avoid coming across as an delusional no-talent, which might not be the best assumption to make.

I don't quite know why he keeps mentioning it, and it's beginning to irritate me. Yes, I could approach it as just another audition. No, I don't think I'd have much of a chance of winning - I don't think I have anywhere near a strong enough voice. I'm not being all falsely modest, I just think I have a realistic idea of what I sound like and what I'm capable of. Could I make it to the televised rounds? Possibly, I'm not too sure how strong the candidate fields are up here; I don't think I could in America. So, yes, that could potentially mean exposure. But how is that going to serve me in the future? Doors might open, but it would always be as, "the Canadian Idol contestant," at least until something else could legitimately be used to label me.

People do it, though, right? Is it self-indulgent and pretentious to say that there are certain things that I am unwilling to do? Should I suck it up, go and take whatever happens, especially since nothing is likely to happen? What the hell would I sing?

I feel really scatterbrained today; I can't even seem to focus enough on this to make it interesting. The feeling actually started late yesterday, but I haven't shaken it yet. Maybe a shower will help.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Sentinel

Cold and silent, she stands at the window
pregnant with hope,
an empty vessel
waiting to be filled.

Snow falling on faces
silent whispers on eyelashes
munchings and crunchings of footsteps
warm burrows; safe and secure.

Quiet sentinel
here at the beginning of days
where stories begin
and lives entwine.

This was ours
is ours
will always be ours
if we want it so

and I do
I do
God help me,
I do.

God is a gambling trickster
a bored housewife
feeding the penny slots
waiting for her payoff

she pulls the lever
and watches our spinning dials
waiting to see if they line up
whirr whirr whirr

click
click
click
Jackpot?

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Altar

I usually try to avoid shit like this. Consider it a bit of an experiment, I suppose.

whispering sheets
lamplight gleaming
hot breath
steaming windows
fumbling towards
ragged gasps
interlocking fingers
pleading cries
slippery center

hold me down
take me in
lift me up
make me yours
is it me?
or is it you?

moons exploding
suns imploding
vessels dilating
insistent brushes
pain blossoms
pleasure buds
future harvest
flowering spring
reap and sow

hold me down
take me in
lift me up
make me yours
is it me?
or is it you?

glassy eyed
glottal stop
air deprived
empty mind
swallow spit
claw at walls
surround me
pull me in

hold you down
take you in
lift you up
make you mine
is it you?
or is it me?

Yay Snow

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

Rabbit, Run was good. Really really good. I'd comment a bit more but it's way too early for thinking and I need to run anyways. Maybe another time.

Monday, January 15, 2007

The Farewell

the closer we get to our destination
the further away from you I am
slip sliding away
is that what the song means?
I always wondered.
wheels humming on pavement
the staccato rhythms of dotted lines
fading into the distance
like you, fading behind me
fading beside me
hand in hand
together at last
the only way we can be
the only way we know how.
Words lie heavy on my tongue
I will not cheapen them
I will not cheapen you.
But,
oh,
how I long to say them
how easy it would be
and how hard it would make things.
You never asked me for anything
you never gave me anything
but your truth
and this is how I repay you.
I do bite my thumb, sir,
but I do not bite my thumb at you, sir.
We hold hands
but not too tight;
we both know the end of this dream is near.

...But I Keep Rolling On

Writing is inherently an autobigraphical process. When people say, "Write what you know," they are not necessarily referring to physical circumstances. Facts can be researched, after all. No, what people mean is that the emotional circumstances of the characters you create have to mirror the ones you see and know in your life. This is not to say that every character has to be based on a single, specific individual; in my experience the people I write about tend to be composites of people I know.

I had a conversation recently with a friend, who also writes, about the responsibility an author has to the people in their lives upon whom their writing is based. She mentioned that she had written several things that she would never publish or perform, for fear of hurting the people upon whom the work was based.

I don't know that I agree with that. Personally, I have enough problems with censoring and doubting myself without extending it to the things I write. When I write or when I perform anything about a relationship, I don't see any way to avoid having an observer with whom I have been in a relationship think it's written about them, or performed with them as the subtext. And they would be right - no matter the physical details, I will plagiarize my own emotional content to make the character more real. So in some way, shape or form, my feelings for that person will be expressed through the character. They might be positive, they might be negative, they might be illogical. But they will be as honest as I can make them.

And yet, it is true that as a member of society, it is right and good to hold things back from people. There are some things that no person deserves to hear, there are things that can be borne in the interest of society. If everyone sought instant gratification for all their wants, society would not exist. All art that concerns itself with the individual is inherently antisocial in the literal definition of the term, stripping it of its negative connotation - it is, after all, preoccupied with the individual. Perhaps it is this preoccupation within the art itself that has made artists so tortured in modern times; you don't hear stories about Michelangelo or Da Vinci crying in their wine about some girl they really liked who wouldn't go to the prom with them.

This raises an interesting question - which me is more "real", which is more truly "me"? The me free of societal cares and whims? Or the more controlled me that manages to get along with society?

Sunday, January 14, 2007

If Music Be the Food of Love...

When it comes to identity, there are so many things people latch onto in an effort to help define themselves. For whatever reason, music is the most powerful of these identifiers. People are affected by music, people associate specific emotions and times of their life with certain albums.

I have never really felt that way about music.

To be sure, there are songs I like and dislike, songs whose lyrics I appreciate and enjoy on a deeper level than aesthetic enjoyment of the lyricist's craft. I can hear songs and instantly associate them with a specific time frame, whether college, high school or earlier. But for the most part, I lack any kind of a deeper emotional connection to songs. I don't have a song that encapsulates everything about me, a signature karaoke song, if you will. I don't have a breakup song. I don't think I've had "relationship" songs; we did have some, but I think they got carried over to her future relationships, and honestly (I'm trying very hard to avoid the tone of this getting bitter, as I'm not. Of course, protestations of non-bitterness tend to be the first sign of being bitter), she can keep them if she's that attached to them.

Is it possible that I really do have these kinds of songs, that I emotionally edit myself and my history to avoid them? Of course it is. So much of my history is forgotten, probably compartmentalized; I've always had a vague sense of not really existing, of having no history, of being liable to dissolve into mist the instant someone touches me, because there seems to be so much of my life I cannot remember. Perhaps that is why I am so apt to pour myself into relationships, and why I tend to be attracted to more aggressive, dominating women; I seek (or had sought; I definitely try to avoid this these days. Not necessarily the attraction, as you can't help that, but the seeking) definition and meaning for myself from another person.

When I was younger, my father didn't listen to a whole lot of music. I remember we had a record player in Brantford, but not much music; certainly very little of the pop variety. The only music I remember being played was by this wannabe crooner named Roger Whittaker. I think my dad liked him. There was one song in particular I can remember, about a father who had gone off to war (the Second one), and the letters he wrote back to his wife, seen from the perspective of their child. The song ends with a letter from one of the father's platoon mates, telling of the father's death.

I seem unable to find this song. I'm not even sure what its title is; I would assume 1944 or something along those lines, since that factors into the chorus ("It was ninteen hundred and forty four; papa went off to war"). I wonder what hearing it today would do to me. Would I break down into sobs for a childhood I never really knew and can't seem to remember? Would I be struck by what a terrible song it was, and feel ashamed for liking it?

Would I feel nothing at all?

Saturday, January 13, 2007

The Nightingale and the Caterpillar

Interesting, the ideas that pop into your head while on long road trips. Actually, the first sentence came yesterday, but the real meat of this piece and then tying it to that little blurb I'd jotted down yesterday came today, in the car. I have another little idea but I'm not quite sure if I can do it justice. I also hope the space editing comes out ok; there isn't much of it, but what with different browser resolutions, I'm sure there's a chance it'll look screwy to somebody.

Secrets secrets don't make friends
but sometimes
secrets secrets keep friends
and promises break them.

Once upon a time
there was a boy
who had a secret
he didn't want anyone to find out.
So he turned himself into a nightingale
and flew away
over hill
and dale.

One day he heard a song
and alighted to find a young maiden.
"I am so sad," she told the nightingale.
"My father is mean, and will not give me any baubles
to play with."
So the nightingale flew to the nearby town
and stole a bauble from the butcher's wife
to bring back to the girl.

"Oh," she said,
"How happy you make me,
pretty nightingale!"
And she danced all the way home.
But the next day
she was sad again;
her father had taken her pretty, she said.
So the nightingale flew to the nearby town
and stole a bauble from the tailor's wife
to bring back to the girl.

The weeks went by;
every day she was sad,
and every day a glimmer of happiness -
or so the nightingale thought -
for the maiden was cunning and shy
(as maidens are)
and was fashioning a cage for the nightingale:
a cage of pretties
lashed together with ivy
to hold her pretty.
Then came the fateful day
when it was complete,
and the nightingale was trapped
in the cage of his labors.
How he struggled against the walls of his glittering prison!
But it was too late,
and the maiden was too crafty.
She tied a leash around the nightingale's leg,
so he couldn't break free,
even after beating his wings all day.

Exhausted,
the nightingale sank to the floor of his prison,
and cried himself to sleep.
But in the night
he heard a small voice above him,
and looked up
to find a caterpillar peeping into his cell.
"Little nightingale, why were you crying?"
she said.
"I am stuck,"
he said,
"And do not know if I will ever be free again."
"Do not fear,"
she said,
"I will help you, if you will but promise me one thing."
"Anything,"
he said.
She told him
and he promised.
So the caterpillar slipped between the bars
chewed through the leash
and then the ropes of that hateful cage
and the nightingale flew free
with the caterpillar on his shoulder -
for that was part of his promise.

Many miles they flew,
to a land where the strangers spoke in tongues
and the water stood still in Winter's grasp.
And here the nightingale landed,
for that was also part of his promise.
Since there was no-one around to find out his secret anymore,
the nightingale turned back into a boy
and built himself a cottage
while the caterpillar built herself a cocoon.

In the spring she emerged,
a pretty butterfly,
and the boy and the butterfly spent every perfect day together,
until the boy began to feel something new,
something he had never felt before.
So one day he turned to the butterfly
and whispered
his secret
in her ear.
In a flash,
she turned into a beautiful maiden,
who thanked him for breaking the spell placed on her
by an angry witch
who had entrusted her with a secret
that the maiden did not keep.

Did they live happily ever after?
Oh, my dearest.
That is a secret
for another time.

Edit: Nevermind, the spacing I was hoping for didn't even come out. Looks like it's time to search the internets for html.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Run Run Run Run

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike

Since seeing this New York Times story, I've been meaning to pick up and read as many of the books as possible, certainly all of the top 5, to see what the hullabaloo was about. Beloved I might revisit at some time in the future; I read it in grade 7 or 8 or so and don't recall enjoying it all that much, probably due to a combination of intellectual immaturity and a lack of empathy/identification with the characters. Honestly - and perhaps this is a bit of a taboo sentiment - is it possible that Beloved, like Jesse Jackson, is immune to criticism because it's an Important Novel about America's elephant in the room (racial issues/slavery), and any critique would be met with charges of racism? Hell, maybe even suggesting that would get someone labelled as a racist.

In any event, I was flipping through Underworld and Rabbit (I can never remember Blood Meridian or American Pastoral, though I've at least read some Roth before - can't say I'd ever even heard of McCarthy prior to reading the story) and chose Rabbit because the opening grabbed me better. In fact, I completely forgot (and just remembered) I had intended to pick up some Faulkner. Goddamnit. Oh well, there's always next time.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Ahhhh

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

When you start to dabble in counterculture thought, one of the first questions you tend to ask is, "Why doesn't counterculture work?" That is, if people are turned into soulless automatons by society, why haven't people figured it out by now? Heath and Potter do an excellent job of tracing counterculturalist critique back to its roots in Marxist thought, yet another member of the, "why didn't it work?" club, and in doing so, expose the fundamental issue counterculturalist thinkers often refuse to face, and the reason why their prescriptions for change are frequently lacking.

Counterculturalist thought, like Marxist thought, depends on a basic adversarial society; that is, society is divided into those who have power and those who do not. The powerless masses are then manipulated by the powerful; in Marxism, for their labor, in countercultural critiques, for their purchasing power. This, of course, is not a situtation any rational individual would wish to remain in, hence the Marxist and counterculturalist beliefs that society will eventually unite and throw off the shackles of oppression. The fact that no such uprising has occurred leads both groups to posit a cycle propagated by those in power; for counterculturalist thinkers, this is the barrage of advertisements and institutions which create artificial needs and desires, keeping people locked into the neverending consumer cycle.

Heath and Potter start with a relatively simple question: what if they're wrong? What if the decision to remain in consumer society is not irrational, but is, in fact, completely rational? "Ah," I hear you cry, "But, pray, how can an irrational outcome derive from rational actions?" The answer: collective action problems, situations where a collective group finds an outcome desirable, but, in the end a less satisfactory outcome is reached because none of the individuals have an incentive to make the optimal outcome reality. The prototype collective action problem is the prisoner's dilemma, where two criminals are caught, separated into different interrogation rooms, and given a choice: testify against their partner or remain silent. Should both remain silent, they each get a year (there's a bit of an involved setup to the problem, in which it is assumed that the two of you committed a crime, but are actually being brought in for a lesser infraction). Should one testify about the greater crime and the other remain silent, the rat goes free and the silent partner gets 6 years. Should both testify against one another, both will receive 5 years.

Obviously the best outcome for both individuals is for both to remain silent. However, in practice, when the two criminals are unable to co-ordinate or otherwise communicate, they will tend to choose the last option: both will testify, and both will receive 5 years. This is because there is no incentive for the prisoners to act out of anything other than self-interest, and is why petty crime quickly becomes organized crime; you need rules to govern such situations, you need a rule of omerta which has real consequences for those who break it, who attempt to become "free riders."

The prisoner's dilemma is, of course, a relatively static situation. However, it can be extended to a perpetual one, as in the case of an arms race: two countries choosing their defense expenditures. Ideally, if both chose low or minimal levels, both would be safest; fewer bombs, tanks and such to go about killing each other with. However, if one chose low and the other chose high, the higher spender would be relatively more secure, due to their position of military dominance. If both choose high, they will be safer than if they had chosen low and their rival high, but less safe than if both had spent less - more bombs, tanks and such, with the attendant pressures to use them before they become obsolete. The fear of this, and of falling to a relatively lower level of expenditure than your rival (and thus a relatively lower level of security) is what makes arms races escalate and perpetuate themselves, maintaining an irrational outcome through rational decisions.

So, now it's been demonstrated how consumers could remain locked into buying cycles; but how do they get into them in the first place? Here is where counterculture gets its rudest shock. Counterculturalists theorize that mass culture is a culture of faceless oppression; mindless drones wearing the same styles, the same colors, the same brands. How else could one explain the (seemingly irrational) decision of consumers to buy new styles of clothing every year, when the previous year's clothing remains perfectly functional? It must be because of a desire to "fit in," right?

Again, Heath and Potter disagree. It is, in fact, the search for cool, the search for individuality, which drives consumers. Cool items are positional goods; that is, they confer a position above and beyond the mere functionality of an item. Coolness is also a zero-sum game; that is, it is only possible to be cool if someone or something else is uncool (this leads to the most awesome quote ever used in a quasi-intellectual book: "As Butthead put it, 'If nothing sucked, and like, everything was cool all the time, then it's like, how would you know what was cool? ...It's like, you need stuff that sucks to have stuff that's cool.'") Therefore, cool-seeking consumers are always pushing, always looking for the newest, coolest item to set themselves apart from their peers, but as soon as they find it, their peers rush to buy it as well, forcing the trend-setters to move on to the new, cool thing - an arms race of coolness.

This perspective also explains the process of "co-optation" which counterculturalist thinkers bemoan, the process by which their "independent" styles and arts are processed, sanitized and then vomited onto the mass market. Counterculturalists see this as a betrayal of their values, and accuse those who participate in the process of "selling out," but it's not selling out because modern counterculturalist critics and institutions are not revolutionary; they're merely reframing the same counterculturalist thought that has dominated the left since the '60s, a pattern of thought that has been driving consumer culture since then.

Kudos to you for reading this far down! This is massive, and probably really boring, so I suppose I'll stop...for now.

Can't Sleep

...so of course, when I can't sleep, I type something up of dubious quality and post it here. Hurrah!

This is actually the continuation of a story which I had started some time ago - I think I posted the first half of it on here but I can't be bothered to go dig it up.

She wakes to a brand new day, the horizon pregnant with the sun.
This is the day.
This is her day.
She goes about her daily tasks, hoping to calm her nerves. Starts the coffee machine. Steps outside, grabs her paper. Pulls her favorite mug off the dish rack. Sugar, one flattened teaspoon. No milk, no cream. Pours, thrusting her face into the rising aroma, losing herself in the moment, in the sheer joy of sensation, of stimulation, of feeling alive.
And yet she cannot escape the feeling, that feeling, the gnawing in her stomach and in her mind that will not stop, that cannot stop, that is slowly devouring her piece by piece and second by second.
This is the day she says goodbye.
This is the day she says hello.
Calm. Calm. Must stay calm. She flicks through the paper, not really reading any of the stories, and pauses on the horoscope page, something she never pays attention to, seeking - what? Guidance? Advice? Justification? She is the scorpion, the eagle, the phoenix; destined to be reborn time and time again, a destiny which she feels looming once more.
But. But. But.
Always buts. No ifs ands or buts, says the cliche, but no-one ever really brings up ifs or ands. Only buts. She knows what is right to do, what she has wanted to do, what he has been daring him to do.
But.
Isn't it funny how the mind works against us in so many ways; knows our fears, our weaknesses, the things that send us to sleep exhausted from tears.
You'll never meet another.
He can change.
You love him.
Life is rarely neat and tidy; it is a neverending mess that stains your mind and body. Here is where your father spilled. There is where your mother dripped. And there he is; splashed on the walls, on the furniture, on the ceilings - a childish scrawl, a ramble of spent passion. If only he could be scraped away. If only it were so easy. She closes her eyes and replays the conversation in her head, the conversation she has had dreams and nightmares about for weeks.
I don't know what I want.
You don't know what you want.
We don't have anything in common.
They never had anything in common, she remembers. It was convenient, he was nice, she was nice, everything was nice. Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years and neither of them knew exactly how it happened but it did.
She pours another coffee, as she has every morning for as far back as she can remember. Brings it back to the bedroom, to the waiting shadowy lump.
"Brad?"
Now.
"Brad, honey?"
Nownownow.
"Mmmmm?"
"...coffee..."
She's glad he's still asleep; it keeps him from seeing her screaming, begging, pleading. But then, he hasn't noticed it all year; why would today be any different?

I think when I had originally started this I had actually intended for her to go through with it. Oh well.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Second Verse, Same As the First

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter

For various reasons, I've always been the kind of person who falls into things very quickly. To a certain extent, I suppose that implies a certain superficiality to my feelings; a Romeo-esque love of love, and when I was younger I think that was certainly the case, before I started to get into the nuts and bolts of relationships.

Well, that and I was desperate to get laid.

Sometimes I feel disturbingly open and simple; if the cliche of people is that of an iceberg, 80% (or whatever it is) below the surface, I feel like I'm one of those ancient Greek amphitheaters where you can stand at the top and see and hear everything with perfect clarity. I don't want to close up, I don't want to pull back from things, but often it seems I have little or no choice if I want to avoid emotional distress. At the same time, I would never want to miss out on something because I was shutting myself off from it. I think I'd rather be hurt trying to make something work than never, ever try. This also bleeds into my martyr complex, which finds the notion of suffering in the name of romantic passion rather attractive. I'm not much of a fan of it, but I always seem to find myself in the same sort of situations, so I don't think I can realistically deny that about myself.

Chuck Klosterman makes an interesting point in one of his essays: people are never self-aware. People who think they're extroverts often actually act introverted, as they perceive themselves as constantly monopolizing conversations. People who think they're creative understand themselves as creative in the typical, societally-understood paradigm of creativity; that is, they subscribe to someone else's definition of what it means to be creative, which is the exact opposite of true creativity, and so forth. So, maybe I'm not quite as obvious as I fear?

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Let's Do the Timewarp Again

What the hell is wrong with people?

For at least a day or two there, the most watched video on YouTube was the Saddam Hussein execution video, with well over 500,000 hits yesterday when I looked.

WHO THE FUCK WANTS TO SEE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING KILLED?

What is this, the 19th century? And why is it ok to show someone being killed on tv, but not a tittie? Or maybe it's just the preparation and leadup to the actual hanging, I wouldn't know. I do know which one I find more enjoyable. Well, if said tittie was attached to someone attractive, and not a saggy (possibly fake) 40-year-old specimen. Ugh. Much like anything related to Michael Jackson and a courtroom, I have studiously ignored the proceedings. It's not going to change anything; if it has any sort of effect it will likely be in the short-term negative.

Speaking of which, if you didn't know, the US death toll in Iraq passed 3,000 (with, I believe, somewhere around 22,000 wounded) somewhere around New Year's. Happy New Year? Apparently neo-cons are just as up-in-arms about the 3,000 number - not because they're actually upset, mind you, but because the wider anti-war sentiments being generated by the number demonstrate a weakening of America's will since the Second World War and Vietnam. 3,000 KIA, after all, is dwarfed by the number of casualties in both of the aforementioned conflicts: 58,000 in Vietnam and 405,000 in the Second World War.

Back to the execution. Marshall McLuhan had a theory that television was a "cool" medium; that by its very nature, the audience (us) was required to participate in the medium in order for it to be effective. He contended that this was why "hot," complete characters were ineffective on television, while broadly stroked archtypes were the reverse: complete characters require little or no completion by their audiences, and so are viewed with suspicion in a television environment. Television is not projected to the audience; rather, it is projected through its audience. It's a fascinating thought - one of many he had - and one I hope I'm communicating properly; to be honest, I'm not too sure how much of his thought I comprehend.

I've been feeling rather unsettled of late; just another down cycle, I think. Isn't it odd how you can't really see the patterns in your life when you're in the middle of them, that you can only pick them out with hindsight? Why is that?

Someone said (at least, I think I'm stealing this from someone; if I'm not, I guess you can all just bow to my fucking genius) part of the problem might be this: we experience the present through our senses, and not with our rational mind, which is what we use to predict the future and analyze the past. Hence, it is impossible to have a rational understanding of the present, since rationality has nothing to do with how we process our present circumstances. I mean, it sounds ok, but isn't back to the old, arbitrary division of sense-perception vs rationality? And maybe that division is right, maybe those two can't ever be integrated, but that doesn't mean the assumption of that division shouldn't be questioned. McLuhan (not to parrot him, but I'm kind of neck-deep in his thought at the moment) suggests that the development of writing is directly responsible for the Western perception of this division; that literate society preconditions us to divide rationality from the senses and emotions, because the process of writing things down for posterity is necessarily an emotionless one. It is far more difficult to create an emotional reaction through writing than it is with an aroma, for example.

It's interesting, but it still doesn't provide many answers. At least, none that I can see at the moment.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Last One

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.

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.

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.

Oooo

Look, it's a new template!

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.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

One Last Gasp

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.

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.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Charlie Brown, of all the Charlie Browns in the World you're the Charlie Browniest.

Click!

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.

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.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Afternoons and Coffeespoons

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Monday, November 27, 2006

A Rose By Any Other Name?

Your Expression Number is 4

Practical and down to earth - everything in your life is organized.
You are a great writer and teacher. You never forget a detail.
Very patient, you have the ability to cultivate talents in difficult fields.

You also tend to have an artistic side. You'd make a great architect or classical musician.
You face your responsibilities with a positive attitude - and you always get things done.
You are serious, sincere, honest, and faithful.

Sometimes your strong sense of responsibility leads to frustration.
You also tend to develop strong likes and dislikes, which border on dogmatism.
At you're worst, you can be a dominant disciplinarian.

What's Your Expression Number?

The answer itself isn't so weird, what's weird is that it fits me ok and yet the only criteria they asked for was my name.

I do believe that names and words have power, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to concede that the name a person has actually has an effect on their personality. It just seems a bit too flip, too easy. Then again, haven't studies shown that certain names are perceived differently from others (the one I seem to be recalling is that names with forward sounding vowels - Brad, Mike and so forth - were associated with more attractive men than those with tones produced in the back of the throat, such as John)? One would assume that any such biases would be cultural/societal in nature though, especially since there are many tones and letter pronunciations which are not replicated in every other language.

This, then, begs the question: can you change your personality by simply changing your name? Logically, if one's name has any sort of effect on your actual personality (or, perhaps more importantly), how others perceive your personality, then perhaps you could. The issue, however, would seem to not simply be a superficial changing of one's name externally, but changing your very identity, the name that comes to mind when you think of yourself. In that sense, I suppose changing your name could very well lead to a distinct change of personality. What kind of person would I be if I had been named Hannibal? Or Kermit? Or Jeeves?

Wow, I guess that's one more thing to thank/blame my parents for.

Butterfly in the Sky...

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Shattered

Alas, I am no longer a "nyactor".

A couple weeks ago I walked into the International Student Services department at the New School and was informed that I had missed a deadline to apply for my OPT (Optional Practical Training, a year-long extension to a student visa for, well, optional practical training). Thus, since my visa had technically expired when my program ended (late August), I had to get out of the country as soon as possible.

This seemed fine; I figured I'd pop out to clear out my student visa, so it wasn't like I was trying to stay in the country illegally, and then come back, sort out my stuff in New York and move back up to Canada.

Not so, said US Immigration.

It turns out that after having been in the US so long, US Immigration wants to be certain that I am established in Canada before they'll allow me across the border again. This (apparently) means that the next time I try to cross the border (in several months, at the very least, I assume), I need to bring all manner of documentation with me, from bank statements showing a decent amount of money to bills, rental contract/deeds associated with a domicile, and whatever else those capricious immigration officers feel like asking me for.

After I got over my initial upset-ness at being barred from New York (I've decided in the past week that I fucking hate the suburban lifestyle), I realized it's really not all that bad. If I couldn't get any kind of visa after the year the OPT would have lasted (and it looks like I can't), and couldn't really put down roots in New York, then the year spent there would have been wasted (in terms of my career in the long-term) and I would have been looking at moving back up here in a year anyways. Auditioning will continue up here, minus the headache of having to deal with visa issues whenever I do manage to get cast in something. Canadian Equity will actually let me join, as opposed to the American original. The corporate world also beckons, but I'm not quite finished with acting yet. I don't suppose I'll ever be. The only really unfortunate things are that the vast majority of my stuff remains in New York (being mailed out slowly but surely, thanks to my awesome roommates) and that I'll be missing filming the last (possibly the last ever) 3 episodes of the season for my tv show.

I'm somewhat at a loss as to what to do with this. I don't mind continuing to write stuff here, but it seems somewhat ludicrous to have the address "nyactor" when said actor is not, in fact, in "ny". However, I don't know if blogger would let me move my archived stuff to another one, and I'd really rather not have to go clicking all over the internets to find some silly little fluff I wrote in 2005. Something to think on, I suppose. I certainly have lots of time to do that these days.

I close this with an amusing/interesting horoscope of mine for today:

You are a hard-worker, but there is such a thing as working too hard! Although you might want to push in one direction right now and force things to happen, try to resist this impulse. There are some things that you cannot change through sheer force of will. Other people and elements might need to come into the picture before there can be a real breakthrough. Be patient and trust that events are flowing forward at their own pace.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

First Steps

Watched Little Manhattan while doing laundry today. It's a cute movie, about an 11 year old taking his first steps into the world of romance. There's a bit in the movie where the kid has a little inner monologue about love that I found interesting, as he states his belief that love is about grand gestures; banners flown over stadiums, words on jumbotrons, letters spelled in the sky and such.

I found that interesting because when I was younger, I used to believe the same thing. Love was monumental, it was monolithic, it was this massive, angst-ridden undertaking. I used to dream up scenarios where I could prove my love to people I had crushes on (I was an intensely shy kid, given to fantasizing and day dreaming in idle moments. Well, I guess I still am that kid deep inside). It goes without saying that I never really spoke to any of my childhood/teenage crushes. Not in any sense that would have forwarded my romantic desires, at least.

As I grow older, I find myself coming to believe quite the opposite. Love isn't grand gestures at all; grand gestures invariably cost money, so all they prove is financial wherewithal - something which people may use as criteria for selecting partners, but which (one would like to believe) has nothing to do with that amorphous phenomenon we call love. It is, in fact, in the little things where love is found. It's in how you come to know exactly how she likes her tea made, how you can recognize that faraway look in her eyes or the distant sound in her replies when she's thinking of something else and not listening to what you're saying, it's in the way her presence comforts you without any words needing to be said.

Perhaps people will say that there's nothing in that that is eternal, that is lasting. And you know what? Maybe there isn't. Maybe love doesn't last forever. But you know what else? Maybe that's ok. Why the obsession with "till death do we part", anyways? Is it because people want to believe in it, want to believe in something greater than themselves, want to believe that love is more than just a evolutionary, socialized extension of the sex drive? Maybe saying, "I love you" in the heat of passion, in the heat of a moment is, in fact, the truest expression of it, greater than any calculated gift, a supernova of emotion that's very preciousness derives from the fact that it does not, can not last. I don't know.

Oh, and before people go thinking I'm just a cheap bastard, I'm fine with spending money; it's just that when I spend money, I want it to mean something aside from a dollar sign. Price tags on presents have never been a concern of mine; if it's within my budget and it's what I want to get, the best gift that I can think of, I'll get it. What's important is the selection process; I actually (this is somewhat embarassing) tend to keep lists about potential presents to get people. I hate getting "normal" gifts for people; if I'm going to get something for someone, I want them to know it came from me the minute they open it, I want it to mean something. Hence, the list; as the year goes by, usually I'll see at least a couple things that will trigger thoughts of a person, or we'll have a conversation where they happen to mention something they really like (or even something embarassing or amusing about themselves - these are gold). That's when I write it down, as (being a Bear of Very Little Brain) when the pressure's on and a birthday or other gift-giving holiday approaches, I can never think of any of these things.

Neurotic? Probably. Worth it? Totally.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Tidbits

A week or so ago I caught The Last King of Scotland, which is - I hesitate to say good, as it isn't, really. Forest Whitaker is awesome and James McAvoy isn't bad, but the movie as a whole left so much unsaid that it was somewhat frustrating.

I do find it interesting that the user comment on IMDB mentions that McAvoy's character is, "highly unlikable...for the most part comes across as a flighty, over-educated twit with foggy ideas on good deeds and uncontrollable hormones that lead him to hounding after every marginally attractive married woman he comes across," because to my mind, part of the point of the doctor is that you are not meant to sympathize with him. There are shades of metaphor in the character of the doctor (Nicholas Garrigan), a Scotsman who becomes Idi Amin's personal physician, and, if the events in the movie are even partially accurate, one of his most trusted confidantes and advisors. Much like the countries of the West, Garrigan is an enabler; he sees what he can get out of Amin, and blinds himself to the paranoid, homocidal reality. Garrigan is a mirror for us all, a reminder that we are responsible for some of the most rephrensible acts the world has seen, and not just in some mealy-mouthed intellectual, "We are all inter-connected" bullshit way.

Before the movie played there was a trailer for a film version of The History Boys, based on the play of the same name and boasting most (if not all) of the same actors. Anyways, there's a bit in the trailer when a teacher is talking to a kid about reading, and how the joy of reading is when you read something written years, decades or centuries before your time, something you yourself had thought, and it was like a hand from the past, reaching out to you to comfort you.

Personally, I had always taken the replication of thoughts in a much more negative way, as a sign that there was no such thing as an original thought, and, basically, people are stupid and unable to move beyond the same questions, generation after generation. And really, it's sort of the same thing, it's just a nicer way of looking at it.

Over the past few months I've had a number of people tell me I was shading quite negative/cynical in my attitude. I'm not really sure if they're right or not. But when enough people tell you they think something, it probably behooves you to engage in a bit of self-examination. The other response, I suppose, is to find new friends, but I don't really see how that would help if those people were right in the first place. Unless the new friends you got turned out to be emo-goths, and then you could be like, "Dude - I am too negative."

I've also been having some visa issues as of late. Seems I missed a deadline and such for extending the visa I was on. People are scrambling, things are being talked about and it will either work out and I'll be able to stay or it won't and I won't. In some ways, I see this as a good thing; it's a problem I would have had to deal with eventually, so might as well get it out of the way now. As an odd aside, though, I wonder how exactly people go to LA (or wherever) from Canada and magically get cast in things; what sorts of visas do these people acquire? Because they obviously can't have one going down in the first place, frequently they just sort of show up and start auditioning. This, in itself, might be questionable - one of the interesting asides from the Katharine Hepburn book I read was how so many movie stars in the Golden Age were reputed to have had horrible first screen tests, at least partially (or perhaps mostly) because the studios figured the general populace would be more accepting of "underdog" actors who were at first denied their shot at stardom by ignorant executives. However, I can't shake the impression that somehow, some way, people show up, audition, get cast and then get visas, presto change-o and such.

Blah for visas and immigrant law. Blah.