Blahdeblah

I'm so torn. I want to talk about some intriguing political commentaries I've read recently, I wanna talk about some fondly remembered items from my college days, and I wanna talk about the funky dream I had last night. The dream is probably the least likely to yield good blog, so suffice it to say it was a mash-up of various favorite locations with spooky movies. Plus chaste romance with mysterious damsels in distress. My kinda dopey dream.

I'll save the more complex stuff for a day when I'm not late for work and can afford to post.

Alison Bechdel's Movie Rule

The Rule.

I think this rule (a movie must contain two women having a conversation about something other than a man) is too Procrustean if taken straight, simply because it excludes Citizen Kane. Any movie-watching rule that keeps you from Kane is a rule that needs revision. But it's a great yardstick that addresses a blind spot, a blind spot I've had but never thought about. I'm mentally reviewing my fave films to see if they follow the rule.

Summer, AKA The Green Ray: Yes. Women discuss vacation plans, the etiquette of nude sunbathing. Still, it follows the letter more than the spirit, since the impetus of the story is a timid woman's uncertain quest for love, and one could argue that all her conversations about things other than men are presented as avoiding the real issue, which would, for our heroine, be men.

Le Eclisse, AKA The Eclipse. Yes. Women discuss playing the stock market, living in Africa, "What shall we do tonight?"

Claire's Knee. Nope. A man is the central character, and it's tuff to fulfill The Rule with a man at the center of the narrative. But it's full of substantial conversation in which women are almost always included; it disobeys the letter of The Rule, but it comes closer to an ideal of female inclusiveness and equality than most flicks.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Nope. Still, it's proven fertile ground for feminist readings. "Men, Women and Chainsaws" is a book I wanna read, about the gender politics of horror flicks.

TCM2. Ditto.

Daisies: not quite one of my favorites, but a terrific film I've seen recently, that satisfies the Rule. Although the heroines are women of action more than of conversation.

Spirited Away: Need to rewatch it, but IIRC women discuss job requirements, dealing with a fearsome Matriarch, etc. A delightful animated fairy tale that you should watch, BTW.

Alison Bechdel's masterwork, Fun Home (highly recommended) is about a man, so I doubt she's really trying to get everyone to avoid stories about men.

Also, I'm reading L'Morte D'Arthur by Mallory; women rarely play a role in the stories other than as McGuffins, but a lesbian feminist professor of mine specialized in these stories. The Rule brings a blind spot to light, but we needn't develop a manufactured blind spot in response to that blind spot. My professor is no doubt very aware of women's peripheral role on these stories, but doesn't let it prevent her from engaging and speaking on behalf of the tales.

I'm reminded of all the black guys I know who have been enthusiastic from childhood about kung fu movies, perhaps in part because they short-circuit the specific racial politics of our culture. Representation is important, but sometimes getting away from the whole representation/lack-of-representation either/or is a good idea.

Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year

A cold snap that kills all the new leaves is an ambiguous way to usher in Easter, the holiday of renewal and new life, but my Easter visit with my family was invigorating nonetheless. Spending time with my family was a blessing, and it sounds like my brother's going through a potentially rewarding set of trials. He's interning at one of Music Row's many song publishing companies, and now he's got the gig of listening to their song demos, pairing them up with likely performers, and pitching the songs to the performers' staff. The next country album you listen to, if you listen to modern country, might include a song my brother matchmade. Of course if they give this gig to interns it may not be quite as hot a job as it sounds like to starry-eyed l'il Aaron.

I sat in on a Sunday School lesson my Dad taught; it's obvious Dad would like to get more intellectual dialectic going, but the sweet elderly people in the audience were obviously more attuned to folk wisdom and familiar pieties than to the eggheadedness of Dad's Robert Nouwen-inflected lesson. They seem awful impressed by him, though. There's another Sunday School group there that I usually attend when I visit, and it's much more up for brainy discourse and Scriptural parsing. It's also about a half-dozen people.

We watched Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, which is one of my Dad's faves; Mom seems a bit ambivalent about it. I loved it, and it inspired a family discussion about violence. I was intrigued that the first violence in the film takes place about two-thirds of the way in. Dad pointed out that I'd forgotten a s--bbing early in the film, probably because it's done in Altmanesque mise-en-scene rather than more upfront Hollywood Violence Mode, and Mom pointed out that the story is violent against women almost from the start, since most women in it are subjugated in prostitution. McCabe is a wanna-be Alpha Male who succeeds on a tiny scale, but soon finds that as more people come to town he is neither the best business mind nor the hardest tuff guy in town. It's a familiar story, since we've all seen or lived it, but it's more familiar in life than in movies. There are plenty of underdog stories in movies, but not many that deal with a gap between the underdog's self image and the reality. Also; although I've never indulged in illegal drugs, stories about opium and heroin, the numbing drugs, appeal to me somehow. Naked Lunch, novel and film, intrigue me just as hard-headed Mrs Miller's succumbing to opium intrigues me. Burroughs writes that a heroin-user can stare at a shoe for hours, and that the heroin junkie's surroundings have NO EMOTIONAL AFFECT. I can't sit still and get focused, and everything in my surroundings is coiled with explosive emotional affect for me. So it's a good thing for me that Burroughs points out this artificial Buddha mind dissolves as soon as the junk runs out, and the junkie goes mad for more junk.

Fragments, again.

I've added a new link; Ken Levine. He's a writer from some smart sitcoms. He writes about stuff I don't care about (like sitcoms. Also American Idol, celebrities and TV in general) but does it with such wit that I find it entertaining. As the old saw has it, it's the singer, not the song.

Hey, just read a press release (no link; Google it yourself, ya lazy bums!) that they're making a feature film of The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey. This peculiar and hypnotic book spellbound me as a boy; it's the story of a strange penguinlike creature that enters a typical Gorey residence and very benignly weirds everybody out. I gave it to a boy recently, and he found it just as enthralling as I did, so it still casts a spell, even over Manga kids. Making a feature film from a slender picture book seems like an interesting exercise in the unlikely event the result doesn't suck. It'll have to be a matter of playing with a motif rather than straight adaptation, since the original work is, like, a short picture book.

Speaking of playing with motifs, I'm listening to Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um and recommend it unreservedly. I have no insightful commentary, though.

You know who's under appreciated? Nina Simone. Perhaps because of the diversity of her corpus; she's a tough artist to get a handle on, because on one album (such as Silk and Soul) she'll do such a wide range of styles and moods. From bumptious R & B to tender ballads, from the warmest of tender balladry to the fiercest of frightening anger, there's not one thing she does well, there's dozens of things she does brilliantly. And the diversity of her work never comes across as mere eclecticism; there's a blistering intelligence behind her song choices, behind her original material, her arrangements... The more one hears of her broad and diverse body of work, the richer the underlying personality of the artist reveals itself to be. And she plays piano at a professional level. How many top singers can say that? But because she doesn't rely on one or two kinds of songs with which to make he mark, she doesn't get brought up as often as she should.

Finally; Bums.

Opportunity schlocks.

A couple days back I got a phone call from a Chris who said he knew a friend of mine who had given him my contact info so he could talk to me about being involved in an unspecified project. I assumed, due to my friend's activities, that this was about a small locally produced film. Either that, or the guy was a scam artist trying to rope me into a pyramid scheme. Or being a drug courier. Or a fluffer. I agreed to meet him at Panara Bread.

So yesterday I walked into Panara and asked a guy if he was the Chris I was looking for. Nope, but he recognized me from a local film I'd been in. I thought that was an auspicious omen, but omens took a dive because when I found Chris it became immediately apparent that this was the pyramid scheme thing. I actually sat through a whole pyramid scheme pitch once in my young, foolish and unemployed days, and I've learned that if the recruiter won't tell you up front what the nature of the work is, the nature of the work is selling Grit, the family newspaper. Or being a drug courier. Or fluffing. Not that I think I'm too good for any of these jobs, but they're not for me.

So anyway, as soon as I sniffed the nature of his game I decided to use it as an actor's exercise; I'm about as far from the pitchman type as you can get, so it couldn't hurt to observe and learn. The main thing I noticed (beyond his good grooming and well-rehearsed pitch) was that he maintained constant eye contact. I'm the kind of scared little bunny rabbit who's uneasy about looking folks in the eye; I fear that I unnerve people by looking bang at them then instantly flinching away. This guy put me at my ease by looking right at me, not challengingly, just confidently. Sure, he was up to no good, but I felt pretty comfortable with him looking at me. It was the pitch, not the pitchmaking, that annoyed me. I got to remember that: eye contact makes you look confident, not aggressive.

A big part of his pitch was designed to convince me that the mysterious organisation he was representing was "working with" some movers and shakers, but the fact that he met me at Panara bread rather than, y'know, his office, pretty much blows the "we're a big awesome company" facade. There's no shame in having to do business in Panara bread, but don't try to convince me you're already moving and shaking. Anyway, the guy wouldn't tell me what the job was: "That's what you'll learn in the workshop that takes place over the next few weeks." I said it didn't seem like something that needed me. He said, with an undertone of either contempt or frustration, "It's not." Having mutually rejected one another, we shook hands, I grabbed my tea, and I split.

Unflinching eye contact. I'll remember that.

Wonder If They'll Ever Know

Space Exploration continues.

According to Yahoonews, they've found caves on Mars. They're hoping to find microbial life or the remains of it in these caves. This reminds me of Conquistadors coming to South America and trying to find gold instead of taking note of everything that was there. Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of life. I think it's swell. But if you're on a completely arid planet, do you

A. Keep looking and looking and looking for life?

B. Figure out how to make an arid planet work for you?

C. Figure out how to make you work for an arid planet?

D. Go home and give your Tang to a hungry child?

E. Come to my apartment? You want microbial life, I got the hook-up.

Like The Top of the Chrysler Building

The pollen is totally stealing my lunch money. Apologies to people I've been owing a phone call too, but I can't talk now. Literally.

It's hard to clean up a shockingly messy apartment when you never have. I've only ever done the most nominal cleaning and sorting, mostly to keep things sanitary. I'm compulsive about personal cleanliness (thanks Calvin!) and so I'd occasionally spot-clean this dump to make sure I wouldn't have to touch anything dirty. But beyond that I've allowed things to get really Grey Gardens, and now I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. That leaf is big and heavy, though.

I'm culling my oversized comic book collection. I'm doing this by reading it. I read a comic, ask myself if it'll be worth reading in five years, and again in ten, and again in fifteen. Many comics which have survived other culls are landing on the recycling pile now. No, I won't sell them or give them away. Some of them have mildew or spores, so I'd hate to pass that junk on to anyone. A friend tells me to get a dehumidifier. I need to, but that's one item on a very long list.

My latest DVD recommendation: Without You I'm Nothing, a Sandra Bernhardt concert-style performance. This demonstration of cabaretesque divahood was just what I needed, considering I've got to slog through our cabaret one more time, this time after traveling to Atlanta. I'll try to borrow a little of her carefully crafted sparkle.