tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67999507738176158022024-03-19T05:54:09.503-04:00Up the FlagpoleStephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-2546487536944113682023-05-13T13:15:00.013-04:002023-12-07T14:57:29.940-05:00AI and the Second Fiddle<p><span style="font-size: medium;">A few years back I read a news story in which some leading climate scientist pointed out that human beings could always, as a last-ditch fix for global warming, send up rockets full of bazillions of grain-of-sand-sized <i>mirrors</i> to explode at the edge of space and fill the upper atmosphere with said contents, effectively preventing <i>x </i>percent of the sun's rays from hitting the earth and so cooling things off for us earthlings more or less instantly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Asked why we're not simply <i>doing</i> this already, the climate scientist made a surprising (I thought) answer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The bazillion-tiny-mirrors fix would meaningfully and maybe semi-permanently change the appearance of the sky. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The <i>sky</i>. The thing we've <i>always </i>lived under, blueness and brightness of which have been etched on human (and, no doubt, animal) consciousness for many, many millennia. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I find myself thinking about this when I ponder recent astonishing advances in AI.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Just as human beings have <i>always</i> had a bright blue sky to live under, they've <i>always </i>had the biggest intellects on the block.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We're living, here in the 2020s, at the very moment<i> </i>at which the <i>sky</i> is going to change.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Soon AI won't just do math and play chess and fold proteins and design buildings and play the stock market and make art and compose music and <i>perform </i>music better than human beings can hope to; it'll even (nakedly privileging my own academic field) <i>write literature </i>better than humans.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">No kidding: unless there <i>is </i>a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2023/04/11/the-problems-with-a-moratorium-on-training-large-ai-systems/" target="_blank">moratorium on AI tech</a> all kinds of soon (I'm not holding my breath: if there's anything being an American for more than a half-century has taught me, it's that money gets what money wants<span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>and it wants AI), ChatGPT will soon, if simply asked, crank out brand-new Vladimir Nabokov novels all day long.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And some percentage of those (if anyone has the time or inclination to read them) will be <i>blastingly</i> excellent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Same as <i>Lolita</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Same as <i>Pale Fire</i>. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We're about to be the <i>second</i>-smartest things on the planet. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We're about to be handed, for the first time ever, the <i>second </i>fiddle. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">How many years will we be able to keep telling ourselves <i>we're </i>the bosses around here once a clearly, plainly, obviously superior alien intelligence has settled in and made itself nice and comfy? As it's already halfway done?<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Is that the wrong question to ask?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">How many <i>months?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">How many <i>weeks? </i><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What <i>is </i>the second-fiddle part, exactly? How does it go? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Will AI be writing the sheet music?</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQE41dmvJxoYK0GTAnAeL4R2Ky-7trVaF3MF8xzckgCWRX1YhqoZ-v2OekROWuW9KpmMf_b1xc-LEjgPNT2lchVQSau2wtBCi0qd10u_PXqaDunExNIf46Z3FcTG0taFYVIAWAxTLtQxrs9IUh3g4n0puxqtOKQvgxAa4bs9NqY6dD-AaxQkDiXMi0Iw/s1024/DALL%C2%B7E%202023-05-13%2013.00.44%20-%20Photo%20of%20a%20robot%20sitting%20despondently%20on%20a%20tombstone%20in%20a%20graveyard%20in%20eerie%20sunset%20light%20digital%20art.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQE41dmvJxoYK0GTAnAeL4R2Ky-7trVaF3MF8xzckgCWRX1YhqoZ-v2OekROWuW9KpmMf_b1xc-LEjgPNT2lchVQSau2wtBCi0qd10u_PXqaDunExNIf46Z3FcTG0taFYVIAWAxTLtQxrs9IUh3g4n0puxqtOKQvgxAa4bs9NqY6dD-AaxQkDiXMi0Iw/w392-h392/DALL%C2%B7E%202023-05-13%2013.00.44%20-%20Photo%20of%20a%20robot%20sitting%20despondently%20on%20a%20tombstone%20in%20a%20graveyard%20in%20eerie%20sunset%20light%20digital%20art.png" width="392" /></a></div><br />Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-79258480797930593962023-04-25T21:23:00.011-04:002023-12-07T15:06:43.849-05:00"Twin Peaks: The Return" and the Fantasy of Returning<p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">David Lynch and Mark Frost’s tortuous <i>Twin Peaks: The Return</i> drew
some lukewarm reviews when it premiered in summer of 2017. <i>The New Yorker</i>’s
Richard Brody, for instance, complained that “the series’s deliberate, lovingly
observational pace, though admirably bold, also turns portentous and vain.” In the six years since it aired, though, <i>The Return</i> has steadily
accrued accolades, most notably <i>Cahiers du Cinema</i>’s naming it, provocatively,
the best <i>film</i> of the 2010s. One reason <i>The Return</i>’s stock keeps climbing is that
it rewards close and careful parsing and re-viewing—see, for instance, YouTube
commentator Rosseter’s epic and fanbase-shaking video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AYnF5hOhuM&t=1229s" target="_blank">“Twin Peaks Actually Explained (No, Really),”</a> with its remarkably thoroughgoing dissection (one I’ll
reference later). </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Another reason <i>The Return</i> continues putting on thunder is less
happy, maybe, but worth exploring: it transmits a compelling allegory for the
U.S.’s still-darkening political situation—an allegory looking more oracular
with each passing month and year. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNsvmemKBF3_JG24oJTW8YiYqd1WUCCoLIMI0z_ZTNT7bEZmJ_3ErSSIS8IIrlG5vdfUCsfuZpLz6dnSbgjnkZGibqHjAJ5sW3QOCDHu303NS-HDC_Erh8kYiEwB55Q94o9e6DsceaidhoDuhSzRjr4SJCp9obb9_RL28QNT8VK15lnJnk5Ln6l648yg/s3600/TP.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="3600" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNsvmemKBF3_JG24oJTW8YiYqd1WUCCoLIMI0z_ZTNT7bEZmJ_3ErSSIS8IIrlG5vdfUCsfuZpLz6dnSbgjnkZGibqHjAJ5sW3QOCDHu303NS-HDC_Erh8kYiEwB55Q94o9e6DsceaidhoDuhSzRjr4SJCp9obb9_RL28QNT8VK15lnJnk5Ln6l648yg/w445-h295/TP.jpg" width="445" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Though Lynch isn’t generally regarded as a political filmmaker,
others have noted <i>The Return</i>’s political dimension. <i>The New Yorker</i>’s David Lam
wrote in 2018 that “even though it was written before Trump’s election, and
Lynch is not what you would call a social realist, the eighteen-hour <i>Twin
Peaks: The Return</i> played out . . . as a summer-long fever dream of dread and dissociation,
seemingly tailor-made for our real-life waking nightmare of crisis and collapse.”
Indeed it’s difficult, owing in part to the timing of its release, not to take
some elements of <i>The Return</i> as anything other than naked political commentary:
a single-parent junkie squatting with her kid in a foreclosed-on Mc-mansion; a
random-gunfire incident outside our beloved old Double-R diner; the webcasting,
conspiracy-theory spewing Dr. Jacoby (now Dr. Amp) in blue- and red-lensed
glasses obviously meaning something very different than in 1991. Still, the
show’s politics remain oblique: there's no mention of any recent U.S.
president, no reference to any branch of federal government, no utterance of the words <i>Republican</i>
and/or <i>Democrat</i>.</span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This all lays the groundwork, naturally, for a fierce case of
the return of the repressed. And indeed it’s Season III’s most central plot device—the
radical makeover of franchise protagonist Dale Cooper, played by Kyle
MacLachlan—that brings us most unmistakably into the realm of political allegory. Barring the final
moments of the original series’ cliffhanger finale, Special Agent Cooper was
always a Pollyanna, all-American do-gooder, an FBI-badged paragon of cheerful lawfulness. To say he's <i>changed</i> for the twenty-five-years-later <i>Return</i> barely
begins to get at it: fractured, doppelgangered, fugue-stated, demon-possessed,
the new Cooper is as plagued and self-divided as the present-day nation he once
much less effortfully embodied. (He’s “been under a lot of stress lately,” as Naomi
Watts’s Janey-E says.) And if one facet of the disconcerting new Cooper is a
commentary on and indictment of red America and its undisputed leader, it’s Mr.
C.</span></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh07C8zwNC2yuzK4bxnZbhkZQIM5Pd4Dh2pmJ9djAkLtBVaq8hb01FaFxFGwPx0KIZ6NRl0j1fOMeHeg7QtgC__bzQo5Ak4PDSdAFBgR3dGq-s6gkrycvllPkgfMujndF_fbuZH0J6eGoVb664QjRvf_nST3Jz6ncgffVdcSyx9eLnSFYLf4RGNiL5aXQ/s806/Mr%20C.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="806" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh07C8zwNC2yuzK4bxnZbhkZQIM5Pd4Dh2pmJ9djAkLtBVaq8hb01FaFxFGwPx0KIZ6NRl0j1fOMeHeg7QtgC__bzQo5Ak4PDSdAFBgR3dGq-s6gkrycvllPkgfMujndF_fbuZH0J6eGoVb664QjRvf_nST3Jz6ncgffVdcSyx9eLnSFYLf4RGNiL5aXQ/w442-h295/Mr%20C.jpg" width="442" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> </span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mr. C is the Bob-possessed Cooper the audience met in the
last moments of the 1991 season-ending cliffhanger. By 2017 he's a master
criminal, loose all these years, internationally connected, maybe a
billionaire. God knows how he’s made his fortune, but he’s done it in a haircut
half hilarious, half menacing, all 1980s (though its startling weirdness is what makes it especially redolent of the most famous ’80s coiffure still lurking
around the culture). One jewel of Mr. C’s mysterious criminal empire is an
opaque Manhattan high-rise with an empty glass box inside—a quantum-grade TV
from hell that, watched too long, summons demons to gruesomely flay America’s
future (this in the form of Sam and Tracy, two horny grad students who don't quite
get to conceive the next generation). Politically progressive viewers' guts
will churn as they recognize the inexplicability of Mr. C’s power over others.
Humorless, cruel, vapid unto what can seem stupidity, his march through the
world is relentless: we watch him toy with a man twice his size in an
arm-wrestling match, terrify a prison warden with baffling mention of a severed
dog’s leg, summon a ghostly cadre of bearded and flanneled “woodsmen” to rescue
him where he lies gunshot and bleeding. Most jarringly familiar, though, might
be Mr. C’s sheer rapacity: “If there’s one thing you should know about me,
Ray,” he tells a henchman early in <i>The Return</i>, “it’s that I don’t <i>need</i> anything.
I <i>want</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Woe to anyone who gets in his wantful way.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Frightening as this dream-language version of the implacable
Mr. Trump is, progressive viewers will soon realize Lynch and Frost aren’t simply
or unproblematically on <i>their</i> side. The other of Agent Cooper’s two major new
personas—the one mistakenly identified throughout most of The Return as Las
Vegas insurance exec Dougie Jones—indicts two of progressives’ own worst
proclivities of recent years: one for sleepwalking in a world of consumer
delights, another for fantasizing an inevitable nick-of-time return to liberal social
values and good government. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoYtwfTDgB4eJoTGUL3qjxHaB4IvmRibwbkHYVXPk1_Pk8IaoqPkZwfjjviKw6_MgY2nJwrDMkBXtgCcoIdRo6_YKSDY45TgoOpACfkyPCl_Ywy7A6_LUVX1n8zv18nS-syAXfcJzzgQmw3H8XPWAW9Tqr4cZFzKe6VTocd5qSn-YkSM1hGZO6izJOFg/s1200/Dougie%20Jones.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoYtwfTDgB4eJoTGUL3qjxHaB4IvmRibwbkHYVXPk1_Pk8IaoqPkZwfjjviKw6_MgY2nJwrDMkBXtgCcoIdRo6_YKSDY45TgoOpACfkyPCl_Ywy7A6_LUVX1n8zv18nS-syAXfcJzzgQmw3H8XPWAW9Tqr4cZFzKe6VTocd5qSn-YkSM1hGZO6izJOFg/w390-h259/Dougie%20Jones.jpg" width="390" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With even one year’s retrospect, the early-’90s
Cooper must have seemed a herald for the Clinton-Gore era and its eight years of
power for handsome, cheerful young White men who looked good in suits and
seemed ready to help middle America (think Twin Peaks, Washington) recover from
the innocence-shredding traumas of the Reagan and Bush-41 years. It’s this <i>good</i>
Cooper—the true <i>Agent</i> Cooper—the audience spends 15 of 18 episodes of <i>The
Return</i> tearing its hair out waiting to wake up and get back on the case again.
The case, of course, isn’t just zooming off to the Sherriff’s Department in
Twin Peaks to confront the evil Mr. C; it’s resurrecting the good old days of
the early ’90s and making everything <i>right</i> with America again. (Stoking this
desire is the fact that we see far more of U.S. in <i>The Return</i> than in the two
original seasons.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycqkur2hJLfokX5ruthk8eY-9xMyyO3Do58y_V6aj8MWo_PQEztgwsa2RoLS0MJ3GE9CIoioinukmZM_WMvgsbUwKqhIV201TNyoDWbk08CzUo4npAaPtCaVxqqgUCTDm5LDRY9eWuy9N3755IraIVBvKvhGRzdVezSurzqbeIA238puCSGe-AjrPtw/s1280/Agent%20Cooper.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycqkur2hJLfokX5ruthk8eY-9xMyyO3Do58y_V6aj8MWo_PQEztgwsa2RoLS0MJ3GE9CIoioinukmZM_WMvgsbUwKqhIV201TNyoDWbk08CzUo4npAaPtCaVxqqgUCTDm5LDRY9eWuy9N3755IraIVBvKvhGRzdVezSurzqbeIA238puCSGe-AjrPtw/w457-h258/Agent%20Cooper.jpg" width="457" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /> </span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Turns out it’s a fool’s errand. After getting off to a
promising and poignant start, the finally-jolted-awake Agent Cooper's
make-everything-right-again project goes sideways in a hurry. First his own face
appears as an unsettling double-exposure atop the ludicrous sheriff’s-office
scene in which Demon Bob (Mr. C's soul, if you will) is pummeled back to hell—an image suggesting,
following Rosseter’s assertion that Agent Cooper has always shared a mind with
the audience, our own awakening to the ridiculousness of the belief that evil
like Mr. C’s will be defeated by do-gooder citizens, one of them a kid from
London in, bizarrely, a magic green glove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(“We live inside a dream,” the superimposed Cooper face groans significantly.)
Then Cooper’s time-travel expedition to 1989 to save Laura Palmer on the night
of her murder goes awry as she vanishes with a scream into the ether of
nothingness, no longer available, it seems, for rescue or redemption. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Laura, of course, is, in this allegory, the old-fashioned
American goodness and innocence we're sorely lacking these days. In case those
qualities’ hopeless gone-ness wasn’t evident enough upon her disappearance in
the woods as the time-travelling Cooper tries to prevent her death, Lynch and
Frost spend The Return’s final episode making us watch Cooper try and fail <i>again</i>
to get Laura home. The last Cooper incarnation we meet in <i>The Return</i>—a
taciturn, soulless FBI agent whose name may or may not be Richard—finds, in
Odessa, Texas, an odd woman (she's got a brains-blown-out dead man in her
living room) who <i>looks</i> like Laura Palmer but isn’t: her name, she truly
believes, is Carrie Page. This, though, doesn’t prevent “Richard” from taking
her “home” again, driving her all the way to Laura’s old house in Washington
State. No one named Palmer lives there, though, they learn—and as our old,
befuddled G-man wonders aloud to himself on the dark street outside what <i>year</i> it
is, Carrie/Laura looses still another blood-curdling scream—this one ending the show,
answering Cooper’s politics-adjacent question, and letting us know for absolute
certain that sleepwalkers <i>can't</i> go home again.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Returns” aren't tenable, this is to say. And in light of
both this unhappy formulation and the show’s corollary one that there’s
something indefatigable in Mr. C’s creeping malice, there's precious little comfort for progressives
in Lynch and Frost's allegorical vision. Two possible
suggestions the show makes are both tough pills to swallow. One is that the
fugue state we as audience spend so much time wishing “Dougie” would wake from
is no curse but some supreme Nirvanic blessing: just look at all the fantastic
things, after all—new cars and slot-machine winnings and massive insurance checks—that
fall into the laps of characters with the great good luck just to share oxygen
with our blissed-out astral-plane traveler, freshly arrived in gunned-up,
stressed-out Nevada from the purple-ocean realm Rosseter identifies as the
“unified field” known to all Transcendental Meditators. What worry is <i>evil</i> to
anyone grounded in such bliss? </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The show’s second suggestion might be no less grating. It
involves remembering that Laura Palmer was <i>never</i>, in either the original series
or the 1992 prequel <i>Fire Walk with Me</i>, an emblem of all-American innocence or
goodness: she was always, as Rosseter says, an emblem of <i>balance</i> of a sort
Lynch and Frost found woefully lacking in American television and culture. The mysterious
“extreme negative force” referred to as Judy throughout <i>The Return</i> is simply,
Rosseter suggests, finality or closure of a sort Laura Palmer’s dualistic
nature, light and dark, was intended to countermand, even if ABC, in 1991, forced
Lynch and Frost to “solve” the should-have-been-eternal mystery of her murder. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDGaJqqR1A-xhI5HKQ2Y-o0WuH4YEdzt8YFDmtC2QftsBGLuwQnbQ9PFhMQX_UEqoSkmpE7Mz1O2JIy21GVAqNsuTboOdp3Ic29ex9xnF7HecuaBUvWub0nKCHg7-BRKa-OB8_72d8t8GrWL5wVf0M9YHZvVCVMwHVNFDHtnl7lidS2ul3GZpqdgiBXQ/s1023/Carrie_Page.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="1011" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDGaJqqR1A-xhI5HKQ2Y-o0WuH4YEdzt8YFDmtC2QftsBGLuwQnbQ9PFhMQX_UEqoSkmpE7Mz1O2JIy21GVAqNsuTboOdp3Ic29ex9xnF7HecuaBUvWub0nKCHg7-BRKa-OB8_72d8t8GrWL5wVf0M9YHZvVCVMwHVNFDHtnl7lidS2ul3GZpqdgiBXQ/w404-h409/Carrie_Page.webp" width="404" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> </span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Refusing to let us see Laura go home again, <i>The Return</i> insists that the
finality of a light-defeats-dark ending is both impossible and undesirable. Its
political advice to both red <i>and</i> blue America is that we embrace the light and dark
rather than imagining some ultimate victory for either one. In this it accords
with philosopher Andrew Potter, who warns in <i>The Authenticity Hoax</i> that
present-day dreams of returns to things real and authentic (thoroughly decent
Twin Peaks, Washington, might emblematize such a "thing" for both red <i>and</i> blue
Americans) demonstrate “a dopey nostalgia for a non-existent past, a one-sided
suspicion of the modern world, and stagnant and reactionary politics
masquerading as something personally meaningful.” Foregoing going <i>back</i>
to accept a simultaneously dark <i>and</i> bright future might be how we negate the
prophecy of the horseshoe pendant Laura—or Carrie Page—wears around her neck as
she lets loose her world-ending scream upon being dragged “home” again. It’s
upside-down as no such charm should be, all its American good luck run out.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>A version of the above was presented at the Popular Cultural Association's 2021 national conference.</i></span></span> <br /></p> <br /><p></p>Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-33761168560878621192018-06-08T14:26:00.016-04:002023-04-25T21:24:41.801-04:00Parts Unknown<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: medium;">My unoriginal feeling is if it arrives at your consciousness seemingly bearing instruction, you ought to pay attention to it. <br />
<br />
Even if the channel by which it reaches you is a TV channel. <br />
<br />
That, unsurprisingly, is how Anthony Bourdain entered <i>my</i> consciousness. <br />
<br />
Now, I won’t presume to know the first thing about the “real” Anthony Bourdain. And my only slightly less pedestrian thought is that probably no one else should either. <br />
<br />
I sure don’t mind admitting, though, that whenever, in the last ten years or so, I’ve been channel-surfing and lighted on Bourdain’s <i>performed</i> self—his <i>TV</i> self—I’ve always stopped for a minute or fifteen or sixty to take some instruction. <br />
<br />
Instruction in how to comport oneself among strangers. In the value of being smart without being pretentious. In how to age without getting old. In the importance of asking good questions of others, then shutting up and actually listening to their answers. <br />
<br />
Also: in how to be male without being grotesque. <br />
<br />
He was, in a way, the Mr. Rogers of my adulthood, reminding me not only to get out and see the neighborhood but to be decent and well behaved in the company of the neighbors. <br />
<br />
We see now the clue that was always right there in his TV show’s title. <br />
<br />
Anyway…it’s sad: Anthony Bourdain, gone way too soon. <br />
<br />
The good news is he was famous. So his face and voice get to stick around. And keep providing instruction.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLgbt8BzOjUc4NmIz6GyvNHa8sa_jhuvOTyX3VTO4fI5ReYjAZvpM3tidxtMlr5K9nq85EAN2brT5Hc99jVcYKVX0C_e1Uh7rixOTDhvpnnSzhgj2oWBymL8nCND98XGTymjWnm5aCL9d/s1600/Bourdain+Obama.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="700" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLgbt8BzOjUc4NmIz6GyvNHa8sa_jhuvOTyX3VTO4fI5ReYjAZvpM3tidxtMlr5K9nq85EAN2brT5Hc99jVcYKVX0C_e1Uh7rixOTDhvpnnSzhgj2oWBymL8nCND98XGTymjWnm5aCL9d/s640/Bourdain+Obama.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-81323619889834987472017-07-05T22:37:00.019-04:002023-05-13T14:04:33.302-04:00Lynch Drops the Bomb (and the Hammer) <span style="font-size: medium;">I’ll admit it: I’m one of those who winced upon learning, a
couple years ago, that David Lynch would be returning to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin Peaks</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Catch lightning
in a bottle once, you don’t do anything as silly as it attempt it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">again</i>, right?<br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Especially when <i>again</i> is fully twenty-six years later.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
I also figured Lynch had to be smart enough to know better<i> </i>than<i> </i>to try.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
So now, then, this corollary admission:</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
The new <i>Twin Peaks</i>, eight of eighteen episodes in, is pretty
dang good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
True, the Dougie Jones stuff is thin gruel. (Kyle MacLachlan’s often
touching portrayal of a fugue-state Agent Cooper isn’t the problem; Lynch and Frost’s meandering, uninspired vision of suburban and corporate Las Vegas <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i>—a problem only exacerbated by the fact
they <i>seem</i>, sometimes, to be trying to spoof <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breaking Bad </i>with this stuff<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i>)<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
Beyond that, though, the show does indeed
recapture a fair amount of the surreal, wondrous-strange magic of the ’90 and ’91
seasons.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And at least <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">some </i>of
the new season finds Lynch dropping the hammer, leaving behind the delightful, "is this for <i>real?</i>" hokiness that<i> </i>is<i> </i>the show's calling card to do what he did in 1986’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blue
Velvet </i>and 2001’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mulholland Drive</i>:
demonstrate he can hang just fine, thanks very much, with the Kubricks, Scorseses, and PTAs of this world.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Episode 8, which Showtime calls “Gotta Light?,” is pretty much
one big drop-the-hammer moment—a not-uncommon assessment, I know, having taken in a fair bit of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">best-hour-of-TV-ever!</i> yowling
(<a href="http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a55877/twin-peaks-part-8-recap/" target="_blank">this</a>,
for instance—or <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/06/26/twin_peaks_part_8_is_one_of_the_most_radical_hours_of_tv_ever.html" target="_blank">this</a>)
that started about two minutes after the episode finished airing.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
So what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>Episode
8?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
For its first twenty minutes, it’s just a particularly tense,
taut, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">strong </i>third-season episode—one
featuring the most unnerving (as of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>moment,
at least) incursion yet of surreal/supernatural forces into the show’s universe.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And a Nine Inch Nails musical interlude, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because why not?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
After that, though, the remaining forty minutes—and they
work well as a standalone short, in case anyone’s intrigued but not<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>familiar with the larger, admittedly
complex <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin Peaks </i>cosmos—are
Lynch’s meditation on…</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
The bomb.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nuclear </i>bomb.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNyn5i30DQUydtDeMiCSprEqtChyG0G9pjWiLRX1bQ5AuCVI7bujB0TdQgo4XO2B5joIgft4i7pyu1Xp_xhSVghOZ3n0VVn2lkyl25eaqRE5zOvqE992Yoeci5M_YV7Yg7-DetWybcsXP/s1600/Trinity.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="675" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNyn5i30DQUydtDeMiCSprEqtChyG0G9pjWiLRX1bQ5AuCVI7bujB0TdQgo4XO2B5joIgft4i7pyu1Xp_xhSVghOZ3n0VVn2lkyl25eaqRE5zOvqE992Yoeci5M_YV7Yg7-DetWybcsXP/s640/Trinity.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, part of what makes these final forty minutes so
remarkable is that there’s precious little in Lynch’s forty year-old oeuvre to suggest
a meditation on this<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>particular
subject was coming—though the instant <i>this</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
</i>viewer saw the 1945 Trinity test erupt on his own <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin Peaks </i>monitor, he felt in his bones it was right, on some level,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>that Lynch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should</i> finally arrive here.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
The other thing that makes these forty minutes remarkable is
their pulverizing beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, they’re possibly the forty most gorgeous minutes Lynch has ever put on
screen—stuff to rival the Scorsese of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Raging
Bull</i>, the Anderson of <i>There Will Be Blood</i>, and (this one’s especially apt) the Kubrick of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2001: A Space Odyssey</i> (wait till you see what’s <i>in</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>that mushroom cloud).</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Add to all this the fact that the final twenty of those
forty breathtaking minutes (it’s a two-act short, really, twenty minutes per
act) are doing great Amurican <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">monster-movie
</i>horror….</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDbYLQ8EHujFhIYRXiYXtt5CgyU7JVVA8FIuyDdZ9ksHAGaRTW5ojwi6X8jB8g3PmGL4A9KMLN888MTQ-sDIL795eR76HhojWOCHZ0rniprS789Uvteez0CwMhCDXaii38jKDk0i7VqBCq/s1600/Woodsman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDbYLQ8EHujFhIYRXiYXtt5CgyU7JVVA8FIuyDdZ9ksHAGaRTW5ojwi6X8jB8g3PmGL4A9KMLN888MTQ-sDIL795eR76HhojWOCHZ0rniprS789Uvteez0CwMhCDXaii38jKDk0i7VqBCq/s640/Woodsman.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
And…what's not to love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
This, quick, though, before we turn the corner and
acknowledge that Episode 8 may not be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">flawless,
</i>exactly:</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
It’s mildly befuddling, the amount of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that-was-batshit!</i> <a href="http://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/tv/twin-peaks-return-review-episode-8/" target="_blank">blogging</a>
and <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/06/twin-peaks-episode-8-recap-easter-eggs-references-callbacks-woodsman-water-well-horse-white-eyes" target="_blank">articling</a> that's gone on in the days since Episode 8 aired. I mean, “Gotta Light?” really isn’t so perplexing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
anything, it’s an uncommonly cogent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin
Peaks </i>episode—maybe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too </i>cogent
(though again: flaws soon).</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
True, a whole lot of that fantastic forty minutes is
thickly, aggressively <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">surreal</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to sort out the nightmare we’re into here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(It sorts way
more neatly than, say, Laura Palmer’s frequently mind-bending Black Lodge
appearances.)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
</div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Everything at first blush bonkers in this forty-minute, two-act short—the creepy white "mother<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">" </i>homunculus vomiting up eggs and evil
spirits; the shimmering gold mist emitting from our beloved old friend the
Giant’s skull; the crackling, flickering “woodsmen” scurrying about that 1940s
gas station; the Abraham Lincoln-gone-satanic figure staggering around the
nighttime desert, croaking “Gotta light?” at terrified New Mexicans, crushing their
skulls in his hands, uttering into a commandeered radio-station mike the terrifying
gobbledygook ("This is the water, and this is the well...") that makes everyone in listening range collapse into slumber; the
good-luck penny discovered “heads up” (our 16<sup>th</sup> POTUS again); the half-frog, half-cicada, all-horrible thing that hatches
in the desert, then disappears, God help us, into that beautiful sleeping
child’s mouth: it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all </i>clearly
harnessed toward illustrating one pretty coherent notion:</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
That the U.S. sure<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>betrayed
itself—sure delivered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">evil </i>unto
itself—when it concocted the bomb. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
(If anyone doubts Lynch is taking us to a <i>moral</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>place here, consider what’s
playing as his camera goes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2001</i> star-gating
through that mushroom cloud: Krysztof Penderecki’s jarring
contemporary-classical piece, “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
So why<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>does it
make perfect sense that Lynch should finally, after forty years, arrive <i>here</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>at the bomb?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Because his whole body of work is about the seething, wormy
underside of post-World War II American life.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
It’s an oft-noted feature of movies like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blue Velvet </i>and both the old and new <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin Peaks </i>series that it’s tough to tell when, exactly, they’re set: the 1950s?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ’80s?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The twenty-first century?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever
the exact—or maybe shifting—time frame<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>we’re
always in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">post</i>-war America, land of
white-picket-fenced houses, blue-jeaned and motorcycle-jacketed bad boys, Main
Street hardware stores, land-line phones with spiral cords, lead-sled muscle
cars, linoleum-countered roadside diners, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">etc.</i></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And post-war America begins,
of course, with the bomb.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
If there’s a seething, creeping, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mostly</i>-concealed evil<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>lurking in
post-war America—an evil forever threatening to let the content of our nightmares
rupture forth into our friendly bobby-socks-and-apple-pie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">waking</i> lives—it’s got<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>to
have something to do <i>with</i> the bomb.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
It’s got to somehow <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">originate
</i>with the bomb.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And when the aforementioned beautiful sleeping child, fresh
from the most adorably chaste first kiss you’ve ever seen, opens her mouth to
let that nightmare bug fresh from the nuclear-bomb-blasted sands up the road
from her family’s Craftsman house crawl down her throat, the message couldn’t
be clearer: </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
The bomb is the truly hellish evil <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all </i>Cold War-American children swallowed.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
A coincidence,
maybe, the beautiful sleeping child swallows the nuclear-mutant bug right after<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>her first date with her counterpart,
upright and handsome post-war American <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">boy</i>?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Sorry. No.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Soon enough, no doubt, these two will start a family—maybe-possibly
Laura Palmer’s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>own.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And we know, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin
Peaks</i> watchers, what trouble <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">family
</i>is in Lynch’s universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
It’s a good place to get serial-raped and murdered, your
middle-class American post-war <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nuclear </i>family. It's the cultural institution, in Lynch's imagination, bearing the brunt of the terrible karmic toll for the great American sin <i>of</i> the bomb. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
So <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that’s </i>what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin Peaks </i>has to do with Hiroshima.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Anyway…I’m not here,
again, to accuse “Gotta Light?” of being a perfect<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
</i>work of art. Here’s the problem:</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
It’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>a
freestanding short film.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Its final forty minutes contain tie-ins—both clear and probable—to
larger <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin Peaks</i> narrative strands.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
For instance: that scary face peering out at us from within
the creepy white mother homunculus’s vomit stream isn’t just some anonymous evil spirit.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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</div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bob</i>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And it would appear we’ve just witnessed the <i>birth</i> of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Bob.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (Funny: "Bob" is an acronym <i>of </i>"birth of bob." And it's one wee letter off from "bomb," too. Hmm.)</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Bob comes from the creepy white mother homunculus’s vomit.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And the creepy white mother homunculus ("the Experiment," she's called in the closing credits) comes from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bomb</i>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
I wasn’t sure what so<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
</i>bothered me about this until I saw Margaret Lyons’ question to herself in
her own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/watching/twin-peaks-the-return-episode-8-art-house-tv.html" target="_blank">post-Episode-8 <i>New York Times</i> article</a>: “does
Bob, a supernatural manifestation of evil, really need an origin story?”</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Exactly.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Who knows <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">where </i>Bob
comes from?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
He’s an owl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s the
wind in the Douglas Firs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s your own
father. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
There had been, up to now, no explaining his insane malice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just <i>appeared</i>, implacable and
irrational. And if Bob just <i>appeared </i>in the Palmer household, he could just as easily show up behind <i>your </i>couch, be at the foot of <i>your </i>bed.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHO5TVoe3RqXdTke5amRKgb5ecIFocenbHPYB4wk7UTJFZmPvqO5YbQBJngUBdg3jEioOqml7P7j0BP9Y8rvSsnV0KSFmN5xci2cSKZo1SY4UjWNYbyVzGD8l1mU3qL-nhmRtP19edFNMC/s1600/Bob+bed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="375" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHO5TVoe3RqXdTke5amRKgb5ecIFocenbHPYB4wk7UTJFZmPvqO5YbQBJngUBdg3jEioOqml7P7j0BP9Y8rvSsnV0KSFmN5xci2cSKZo1SY4UjWNYbyVzGD8l1mU3qL-nhmRtP19edFNMC/s640/Bob+bed.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
</div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
I’m not sure I like<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Lynch’s
letting me in—even if it’s in dream terms—on Bob’s backstory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dude’s way scarier when he’s baffling. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
And if I don’t need to know how Bob<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>came to be, I sure don’t need to know how Laura Palmer came to be. Yet "Gotta Light?" seems to want to reveal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this </i>to us, too: her soul springs straight from the skull of our
beloved old friend the Giant—a guy we’re having to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">start</i> to suspect might be, like, God
or something.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
Laura is created as a direct counterbalance, apparently, to
the evil of Bob, newly born in the flames
of the Trinity test.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meh</i>, I say.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
I don’t particularly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want
</i>to understand how the Giant, Mike, the Man from Another Place, the
Evolution of the Arm, Bob, and the version of Laura Palmer haunting the Black Lodge <i>operate</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These supernatural figures' logic—their “rationality”—has always been delightfully opaque and alien;
I’d hate to think we’re entering a phase of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin
Peaks </i>in which Lynch starts over-explaining his universe’s otherworldly
metaphysics to us, starts revealing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too </i>much
of what goes on behind the red curtain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">
I don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever </i>want
to know why garmonbozia (human pain and suffering) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">must</i> take the form, in the Black Lodge, of creamed corn.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMGaSvRqBk1Q814IZQ4lXS7qYqke6vxKhzOs8NW5Y9omXXcUBnFCJdYpLTA1dLFJterXqygCxhnAQEvxj9-BDsV9N_m2Wq9Czshu5nDqMSckq7zXhl2Hbi-g4B9Nf_IPo9fZye6U5pieYW/s1600/garmonbozia.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="1051" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMGaSvRqBk1Q814IZQ4lXS7qYqke6vxKhzOs8NW5Y9omXXcUBnFCJdYpLTA1dLFJterXqygCxhnAQEvxj9-BDsV9N_m2Wq9Czshu5nDqMSckq7zXhl2Hbi-g4B9Nf_IPo9fZye6U5pieYW/s400/garmonbozia.png" width="400" /></a></span></div>
</div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
I just know it makes sense on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">some </i>ineffable level that it should.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-7046642237174146262014-02-19T16:25:00.056-05:002023-04-25T21:40:39.164-04:00How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Scorsese and Love Spike Jonze and the Coens<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Caught both the Coens' <i>Inside Llewyn Davis </i>and Spike Jonze's <i>Her </i>in recent days. And I'm happy to report I'm now mildly embarrassed about the Hollywood-is-sick-unto-death screed Scorsese's beastly <i>Wolf </i>provoked from me. </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Llewyn Davis </i>may not be top-flight Coens. But it's pretty dang good. And if you're a fan of their stuff (and lordy is this boy), you'll see it makes an excellent companion piece to 1991's <i>Barton Fink</i>, another movie casting a second-tier artist<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>arrogant, aloof, married to a burdensome "life of the mind"<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>as irresistible cannon fodder for the universe's mean streak.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OD7mfu70YCAENU3muRC5JSc0EWbqjBM28LiRqA_i3ojPFirtekvebaxN4SF8319cDi6nXwKQ3j2T5M-VPH7dYB55eGrC6zDVMsxaVSRd7AW-Cz-5unSNmcLymBqA7mDpP5-jhLTRDyBx/s1600/Barton+Fink.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OD7mfu70YCAENU3muRC5JSc0EWbqjBM28LiRqA_i3ojPFirtekvebaxN4SF8319cDi6nXwKQ3j2T5M-VPH7dYB55eGrC6zDVMsxaVSRd7AW-Cz-5unSNmcLymBqA7mDpP5-jhLTRDyBx/s1600/Barton+Fink.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If<i> Barton Fink </i>is <span style="font-family: inherit;">a bit of </span>a hot mess, though<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">, </span>its supernatural freak-out climax incoherent in much the same way the <span style="font-family: inherit;">final <span style="font-family: inherit;">stretch</span> </span>of Kubrick's <i>The Shining</i> <span style="font-family: inherit;">is</span>, then <i>Llewyn Davis </i>is <span style="font-family: inherit;">maybe</span> a mite too leashed. It could sure use <i>Fargo</i>'s wood chipper. Or <i>No Country for Old Men</i>'s air tank. Or <i>A Serious Man's </i>tornado. Or something. After building a nice store of eerie tension (it's testament to the Coens' powers they can do this with a whole lot of Greenwich Village folk<i> </i>music playing), the movie arrives at <span style="font-family: inherit;">its</span> abrupt shrug of an ending, basically its opening scene all over again with one bit of added info. So unsure are the brothers how to <span style="font-family: inherit;">finish their movie that </span>they heap the job onto poor Bob Dylan. It's a would-be disarming ending that, unlike Sheriff Ed Bell's telling of twin dreams at the end of <i>No Country</i>, doesn't particularly reward reflection or scrutiny.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That's the bad news about <i>Llewyn Davis</i>. The good news is it's bleddy gorgeous, thanks in large part to first-time Coens collaborator (for feature-film purposes, at least) Bruno Delbonnel, a cinematographer to be reckoned with. The guy summons beautiful platinum hazes through which to shoot the Village and Washington Square. And various interiors are near-breathtaking (not to mention thematically apt) studies in shadow and light<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>see especially a highway-side cafeteria imbued with so much existential dread it's amazing the worst thing we have to watch happen in it is a heroin overdose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzY_9TF8E79nhE1fHj5hCQpizreZpxezkroIoYsjdHvlGzpz_Y8SVEr0rv6FXRdRKQYUtjCXMGs6gQPzA8-zXSK72wYUPPb4xI2vwtQBMHQRhYhdMjVFzD4jAiUeJFXDj-TfynUFMc7y-J/s1600/Llewyn+Davis.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzY_9TF8E79nhE1fHj5hCQpizreZpxezkroIoYsjdHvlGzpz_Y8SVEr0rv6FXRdRKQYUtjCXMGs6gQPzA8-zXSK72wYUPPb4xI2vwtQBMHQRhYhdMjVFzD4jAiUeJFXDj-TfynUFMc7y-J/s1600/Llewyn+Davis.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe the best<i> </i>thing about <i>Llewyn Davis</i>, though, now that I think of it, is it sure indicates the Coens aren't done making movies to please themselves. Which is how most first-rate artists operate, of course: they do it <i>their </i>way, and if any viewers/readers/listeners out there want to come along for the ride, so be it. Not many well-bankrolled filmmakers enjoy that kind of freedom these days. And as charming and all-around good as <i>True Grit </i>was, it certainly left this <span style="font-family: inherit;">fan</span> wondering if the Coens were entering a Disney(ish) phase. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nope. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(I'm remembering now going to see <i>No Country for Old Men </i>for the first time at the Shirlington 7 outside D.C. and watching a seriously pissed off, stylishly dressed yuppie couple storm out of the theater, warning all of us queued up for the next screening, "It <i>sucks! </i>Don't go! Don't go!" I think it's safe to say <i>Llewyn Davis </i>will hit those two the same way<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>which is a beautiful thing.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So bully for the Coens. Another strong one. And I'm still banking on their having at least one more <i>No Country</i>-grade bedazzler left in the tank.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The real kick in the head of the winter movie season, though, is Spike Jonze's first flat-out gob-smacker, <i>Her</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is an excellent film. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But maybe not for the reason lots of commentators think it is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Tu9HvX_Ppe2cvhZ36dI8R1A5VkPtRH0Q6YyFqrtu842ZNncIWh7EgYRBdURFmZkkOLH9zEGWMD4J3TBQZhHWJSnAfeM4otABtCbZGEe3qySso2tqjqDlpgZ5UtafBgxA0kTHALOcSjxW/s1600/Her+1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Tu9HvX_Ppe2cvhZ36dI8R1A5VkPtRH0Q6YyFqrtu842ZNncIWh7EgYRBdURFmZkkOLH9zEGWMD4J3TBQZhHWJSnAfeM4otABtCbZGEe3qySso2tqjqDlpgZ5UtafBgxA0kTHALOcSjxW/s1600/Her+1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I know we're all supposed to be blown away by Jonze's, like, prescience, making us ask ourselves how we'<span style="font-family: inherit;">ll</span> cope when, one day soon, we boot up our laptops to hear them say, "I am"<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>and <i>mean </i>it in a way Siri obviously doesn't.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But the fact is we're on almost two centuries now of writers and movie-makers following Mary Shelley down that<i> </i>philosophical rabbit hole. (Holy hell: four more years and <i>Frankenstein </i>is 200.) </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">All Spike Jonze does is switch up the tired old genre conventions we usually fall back on when exploring the Shelley Preoccupation. </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because meditations on artificial/technological intelligence have almost always come to us in sci-fi-horror clothing, right? </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not that it's a tradition in need of badmouthing. It's given us <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>, after all. And <i>The Terminator</i>. And <i>Blade Runner</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGTSKde5KU6ewKjE0f6NamTIMsURGn6ygdNjXDYgfATpgRx2H3fmLj-3yjxODtLf8neWWA4HbQkUSqzgjrpMyIVDjDu3jshGwYQJ90t9ybGmucuhNZRYCevj8i47ndPlGOC63dSeb-omRm/s1600/Roy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGTSKde5KU6ewKjE0f6NamTIMsURGn6ygdNjXDYgfATpgRx2H3fmLj-3yjxODtLf8neWWA4HbQkUSqzgjrpMyIVDjDu3jshGwYQJ90t9ybGmucuhNZRYCevj8i47ndPlGOC63dSeb-omRm/s1600/Roy.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But as the increasingly inevitable moment of the Awake Machine nears, Spike Jonze, at least, isn't feeling the whole sure-to-sink-its-weirdly-lifelike-thumbs-into-our-eye-sockets-while-crushing-our-skulls-betwixt-its-weirdly-lifelike-palms thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>He</i> sees the Awake Machine coming and veers....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Romantic comedy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>That's </i>interesting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I mean, <i>Her </i>is still sci-fi, in a low-octane way. But what it <i>really </i>is is rom-com. And while I'm no particular fan of the genre<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>and while the flick is full of oh-lover navel-gazing dialogue that would make me drink Drano if not for the novelty of one of the lovers being a circuit board-bound disembodied voice<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>it's nonetheless wondrous strange to see the Shelley Preoccupation dragged back from exhaustion (or the grave<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>har har) in this surprising way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It gives Jonze proprietary claim, maybe possibly, to a no-screwing-around Real Insight: <span style="font-family: inherit;">t</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">hat far from being the terror we've all been anticipating for two centuries now, the Awake Machine will probably<i> </i>amount to little more than an opportunity for an already wildly narcissistic species to fall even<i> </i>more in love with itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because that's the uneasy realization in the back of the viewer's mind the whole time this wondrous-strange rom-com is unwinding: that what we're really looking at here is a man<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>Theodore Twombly, played by a once-again crushingly excellent Joaquin Phoenix<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>interacting not with another person, or even another "person," but <i>with</i> <i>himself</i>. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Masturbatory style. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theodore's is, after all, the only body in the bed during the Big Sex Scene with Samantha, his O.S. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And Theodore's attempts to get it on with other beings with actual brains and bodies all go memorably badly. (Two words: dead cat.) </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And Theodore's beloved Samantha springs from nowhere other (the movie definitely suggests) than the 1.5 sentences he speaks to his newly updated computer about his own mother.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">True, Samantha is a wildly brilliant, funny, sexy...entity. But she's also a corporate product<span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">—</span>a consumer good that <i>may</i> be doing nothing more, beginning to end, than following her owner's lead, reflecting <span style="font-family: inherit;">Theodore</span> back to himself, interacting with him the way his own lovelorn personality indicates to her algorithms she <i>should</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We may have <i>thought </i>we were living already in the Age of Narcissism, <i>Her </i>says to us. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But buckle up. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because that age might find a whole 'nother gear soon enough.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And <i>maybe </i>that will be a nightmare, <i>Her </i>says. But it's going to be a funny, sexy, oh-so poignant nightmare. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And isn't that the nicest kind of nightmare to have?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course I'm being facetious when I say <i>all </i>Spike Jonze does is switch up the old <i>Frankenstein </i>genre conventions. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">He does that <i>and </i>nails <span style="font-family: inherit;">about a</span> hundred other Qualities of Great Films: split-second comic timing, pitch-perfect writing, couldn't-have-been-played-by-anyone-else casting, and, maybe most notably....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gorgeosity.<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Her </i>looks nothing like <i>Llewyn Davis, </i>it's true. But it's similarly visually sumptuous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6FeyRy0vrFfCkDHIE-njixPU_CVjq83Bb_9F0NvM-R4xquo3Xpy8-Fkmi-pM8JMDcl8BznxA9QrtNtM97si89IfIh-tTwfB8R9afVFltXvcEfB66DJDHJQnQV22q0k2bDC3Ld3nq8lw1F/s1600/Her+2.jpe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6FeyRy0vrFfCkDHIE-njixPU_CVjq83Bb_9F0NvM-R4xquo3Xpy8-Fkmi-pM8JMDcl8BznxA9QrtNtM97si89IfIh-tTwfB8R9afVFltXvcEfB66DJDHJQnQV22q0k2bDC3Ld3nq8lw1F/s1600/Her+2.jpe" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The movie it <i>does </i>look a little like is Sophia Coppola's <i>Lost in Translation</i><span face=""calibri" , "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 107%;">. I</span>t's effortlessly stylish in much the same way. And <i>Her </i>is<i> </i>a love letter to a future Los Angeles much as <i>Lost </i>is one to circa-2003 Tokyo. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(<i>Her</i> is also, in a way, a love letter to present-day Shanghai, the place where most of its <i>wow!</i>-grade cityscapes were shot.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's w</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">orth noting, too, that its setting cleverly plays up its genre-switch game, since we're all but forced to compare its<i> </i>future L.A. to Ridley Scott's vastly more menacing one in <i>Blade Runner.</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-qgX4Hv9iTMyK5twWDdJT7A4A6pw1b9OhkGRvjjgReEM776q-NE7LcNFVkNXcuI-eBecFdFQy-mbt_tGg4PO9Xua8od5vJuXJKXxwd7M69DKePdsa6N27N2n8d3wEpYD_58_H-GpbZpd/s1600/Blade+Runner+LA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-qgX4Hv9iTMyK5twWDdJT7A4A6pw1b9OhkGRvjjgReEM776q-NE7LcNFVkNXcuI-eBecFdFQy-mbt_tGg4PO9Xua8od5vJuXJKXxwd7M69DKePdsa6N27N2n8d3wEpYD_58_H-GpbZpd/s1600/Blade+Runner+LA.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'll bring that last thought out of parentheses to close on this tangential one: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Her </i>reminds us of what's always been best about what we've come to call postmodernist art and thought. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">It insists to us the future is <i>never</i> already or innately emplotted. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">We're empowered to write it. <i>We</i> have to emplot it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So we should choose our genres wisely.</span></span><br />
<br />Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-18184305861763571092013-12-28T23:50:00.061-05:002023-04-25T21:41:46.275-04:00The Feature Film Is Dead, and “The Wolf of Wall Street” Is Its Tombstone<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>There are lots of bad Hollywood films pitchforked at us every year, of course. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>But not many from the director of <i>Taxi Driver</i>,<i> Raging Bull</i>,
and <i>Goodfellas</i>.</span></span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><i>The Wolf of Wall
Street </i>is both a Martin Scorsese movie and a crime against cinema. It’s a soulless, brainless, lazy, relentlessly ugly calamity it’s hard not to read as hostile to its audience—an
audience out fully three hours<i> </i>of <span>its one and only </span>life
on earth by the time the nightmare’s over. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>This is a film that ask<span>s the searing question, "What happens if you lift a bunch of fiction<span>al <span>'men' out of a Bud Li<span>ght ad, drop the<span>m</span> into an NC-17 playground, and <i><span>let the cameras roll</span><span>?"</span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>And<span><i> </i><span><span>then </span>leave <i>nothing</i><i> </i>on the cutting-room floor<span>?</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>I’d synopsize the story, but there is no story.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>I’d mention the characters, but there are no characters.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOIXm20kN9HgJmyBAZUtxN22lMVm2FkW_M7MZPrJJR4UtgYQxtWw0_5dveW8xteGvoXQs43JX41QqFNFVNT9rwPBln-lOY21Kl2CVxSmY4PTPVLpXfzdc6J_fowLRAESOe53x6Rm04u0N/s1600/Wolf.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOIXm20kN9HgJmyBAZUtxN22lMVm2FkW_M7MZPrJJR4UtgYQxtWw0_5dveW8xteGvoXQs43JX41QqFNFVNT9rwPBln-lOY21Kl2CVxSmY4PTPVLpXfzdc6J_fowLRAESOe53x6Rm04u0N/s400/Wolf.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>There’s just a bloated, depthless cartoon that makes
the idiotic mistake of cranking the debauchery knob to an anemic “10” when it’s well
over two decades now since Bret Easton Ellis gave us a similarly revolting Wall
Street nightmare (<i>American Psycho</i>) with
the knob wrenched to 12 and a half. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>If debauchery's all you're going for, and you can’t get your knob to at <i>least</i> 13, what's the point?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><span><a name='more'></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe it’s just the beginnings of the old-and-crankies
on my part. But I sometimes feel a little
betrayed when hugely talented artists I’ve put a certain amount of spiritual
stock in decide it's time to start farting in public.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>I mean, <span style="font-family: inherit;">can</span> the man who gave us Jake Lamotta before the
mirror really not <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">see</span> </i>how
unwatchable, how unbearably <i>bad </i>these
never-ending scenes with Leo DiCaprio preaching hyena capitalism to cattle
pens full of coked-up stockbrokers <i>are? </i>Minute after impossible minute grinds by,
DiCaprio screaming vapid corporate nothings about, like, Steve Madden shoes
into a hand-held mike. And just when you’re
sure there can’t <i>possibly </i>be another
such scene in the film, twenty minutes later he’s hollering into that mike
<i>again</i>, another<i> </i>six, seven, eight, <i>nine</i> minutes ticking <span style="font-family: inherit;">pa<span style="font-family: inherit;">infully</span></span> off the clock.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>There are a few possibilities here, maybe.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>The first is that Scorsese just needs to retire. Because he can no longer tell the difference
between good cinema—which he <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">may</span></i> have been limply trying for here—and
a migraine. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>The second is that <i>The
Wolf of Wall Street </i>actually <i>isn't</i> an attempt at good movie making. It’s just a hate letter addressed to multiplex-g<span>oers. </span>It’s Scorsese saying, All right, dolts. You think the 2013 <i>Superman </i>was a good movie? And
<i>Cars </i>and <i>Skyfall</i> and <i>The Secret Life
of Walter Mitty</i>? Well here’s some
red meat for you, morons. Choke on
it. All <i>three hours </i>of it. And how about
you give it a best-picture nod, too, since the fact it came out in December <i>must </i>mean it’s Oscar material?<i> </i></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><i>The Wolf</i> <i>of Wall Street</i>, this is to say,<i> </i>just might be Scorsese’s <i>Metal Machine Music</i>. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>But there’s a third possibility. And it brings me no joy to introduce it,
but I feel, as I gaze out on the smoking ruins of 21st-century
American cinema, the time has come to do so.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe there are so few good American movies these days
because we’re becoming a nation of philistines.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe Martin Scorsese <i>can’t</i>
make<i> </i>a great movie (or even a good
one) in 2013 because he’s no longer living in a culture that licenses him to do
it. Maybe he’s working in an America that doesn’t <i>want</i> good movies. That can’t tell the difference between a good
movie and <i>The Hobbit: The Desolation of
Smaug</i>. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe a culture’s <i>desire
</i>for good art is the rainwater that makes good art grow. <i> </i> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe one of our founding assumptions about great popular
art is back-assward: great
artists don’t <i>create</i> mass audiences for
themselves through sheer brilliance, persistence, and brute intellectual <i>will</i>. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe society instead uses <i>its </i>force of will—one harder to see, but
no less real—to grow the great art and artists it secretly wants and needs.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe Americans, despite initial widespread expressions
of anger and disgust, <i>willed </i>Friedkin
and his <i>Exorcist </i>into being. Hitchcock and his <i>Psycho</i>. Waters and his <i>Female Trouble. </i> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe the veiled social will that gave rise to those great movies
and scores of others is now fading away. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Maybe Martin Scorsese’s status as a sometimes-great
artist doesn’t make him a magician who can grow a big, strong orange tree in the
middle of Death Valley. Maybe no matter how hard he tries, the best he’ll manage is to raise a gnarly little weed like <i>The
Wolf of Wall Street</i>. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Okay, okay: the nation-of-philistines thing might be going too far. There’s been no particular scarcity of excellent
pop music since 2000. Or excellent <span style="font-family: inherit;">TV, truth be told</span>. And it’s not
like there have been <i>no </i>good American
movies in the 21st century: behold Lynch’s <i>Mulholland Drive </i>(2001), Coppola’s <i>Lost in Translation </i>(2003), the Coens’ <i>No Country for Old Men </i>(2007), Lee’s <i>Brokeback Mountain</i> (2005), Spielberg’s <i>Munich</i> (2005). </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Every year, though, there are fewer films cut from
anything like the same cloth as <i>Taxi
Driver</i>,<i> The Godfather</i>, <i>Nashville</i>,
<i>Annie Hall</i>, <i>A Clockwork Orange</i>, and <i>Chinatown</i>—or
any of a thousand more obscure, no-less inspired Golden Era titles: your <i>Eraserhead</i>s, your <i>Night of
the Living Dead</i>s<i>,</i> your <i>Chelsea Girls</i>. And I know—I <i>know</i>—there’s been no paucity of mega-budget CGI extravaganzas in
recent years making perfectly prominent critics jump out of their seats with glee and
invent whole new vocabularies of superlatives to drive up the Metacritic <span style="font-family: inherit;">and Rotten Tomato<span style="font-family: inherit;">es </span></span>scores. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>But that fact begs a certain question:</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Does anyone really think we’ll still be talking about <i>Avatar </i>twenty years from now? </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>How about <i>Gravity</i>? Or <i>Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows</i>? Or <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>? Or <i>Wall-E</i>? Or <i>Iron
Man</i>? And lest I come off as a simple special-effects/summer-blockbuster hater, how
many 21st-century American movies that seem, at first blush, cut
from genuine Golden Era cloth do we really think will stand that same test of time? <i>Winter’s Bone</i>? <i>Django
Unchained</i>? <i>Sideways</i>? <i>The Hurt Locker</i>? <i>There
Will Be Blood</i>? <i>21 Grams</i>? <i>Borat</i>? <i>Black Swan</i>? <i>Midnight in Paris</i>? </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Takers? Anyone? On twenty years from now?</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Look: I’m not saying it means fire and brimstone that the era of the Hollywood feature film as <i>art</i> is
ending. But maybe I’m saying it’s ending. And pretty rapidly, too. And it’s rarely clearer than when a
once-major artist like Martin Scorsese drops a stink bomb like <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i>.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Is some other cultural form going to step up to provide art for the masses?</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Don’t look to pop music: unless it’s Justin Bieber's we’re
talking about, there <i>are </i>no mass audiences
anymore.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Don’t look to the American novel: a few strong 21st-century
efforts by Toni Morrison and Jonathan Franzen aside, its best days look to be gone. Besides which, how many Americans still read? Anything?</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Could it be we’re simply evolving out of our need<i> </i>for <i>art</i>, now that so much of what
happens in “reality” gets sucked up instantly into the Screenland we used to go to <i>for </i>art?</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>(Wasn't the painted c<span>anvas always a "screen"? Wasn't the stage? The printed page?</span>) </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>For bett<span>er <span>or worse, w</span></span>e seem poised to find out.</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-22882901287432206502013-07-01T22:38:00.052-04:002023-05-13T17:30:05.285-04:00"Mad Men" and the Myth of Counterculture<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>How did hip morph, in U.S.
culture, from a secret code of the dispossessed to something good for selling semi-disposable
furniture and hamburgers?</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>It seems a pressing question now that hip is so omnipresent in our lives, lurking in
every Starbucks coffee cup, every Urban Outfitters store, every Volkswagen ad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It even finds distressingly fertile ground
on the Web, winking out at us from a billion images of light saber-wielding cats.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>The suspicion for years now
has been that the 1960s were the turning point—the moment when hip quit flirting
with the mainstream (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">à la</i> Dizzy and Kerouac
in the '50s), abandoning its bungalows and rat-hole apartments to shack up with
capitalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And because advertising was the
medium by which so many square Americans made first acquaintance with hip's
delights, Madison Avenue has often been cast as the horse whisperer that
lassoed hip, made it behave, and sold it to Peoria and Levittown.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>For this reason, it's inevitable
we look to the celebrated AMC series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad
Men</i>, set on Madison Avenue in the '60s, for theories about what really went
on in advertising in those crucial years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the good news is the show doesn't disappoint, offering a sophisticated,
nuanced vision of a love-hate relationship between the advertising industry and
the ultra-hip counterculture headquartered just a few Manhattan blocks
away.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUuMDzzrFCe7kGBs6Fv1JSPrL-Kw4JCPSFAC5CaudYmWoFVxoqrOFQ09LAuU9e0NPX4sgLrgWM_Azki7hfHkraTVnWOtw5iIEy0cn4H6VtZM-8PqrYCs2PcXEoPd7QFcrrEYitKwDsceo/s590/Don+Draper.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUuMDzzrFCe7kGBs6Fv1JSPrL-Kw4JCPSFAC5CaudYmWoFVxoqrOFQ09LAuU9e0NPX4sgLrgWM_Azki7hfHkraTVnWOtw5iIEy0cn4H6VtZM-8PqrYCs2PcXEoPd7QFcrrEYitKwDsceo/s400/Don+Draper.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>As <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>sees it, '60s advertising didn't <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just</i> co-opt and defang hip; it also found a soul-mate in it, was
infiltrated by it, and even learned to do its bidding—just as hip learned to do
Madison Avenue's.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In positing a complex
symbiotic relationship between hip and consumer capitalism, not a simple
parasitic one, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>creator
Matthew Weiner throws in with such recent cultural theorists as Thomas Frank,
Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter, and—especially—John Leland.</span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Thomas Frank came to
prominence in the '90s by slaughtering a sacred cow: the American left's treasured
story of a hip counterculture willfully poisoned by an insidious, malignant consumerism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to that story, a scruffy but beautiful
people's movement of vast revolutionary potential was co-opted, neutralized,
and re-marketed as schlock by powerful corporations that knew an existential
threat when they saw one.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>In his 1997 book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Conquest of Cool</i>, Frank tells us this
"standard binary narrative" imagines that "pseudo-hip"
consumer goods of the '60s and after were "tools with which the
Establishment hoped to buy off and absorb its opposition, emblems of dissent
that were quickly translated into harmless consumer commodities, emptied of
content, and sold to their very originators as substitutes for the real thing"
(16).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the narrative leaves out,
Frank suggests, is that Greenwich Village hipsters had nothing on '60s executives
where fear of Sloan Wilson's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Man in the
Gray Flannel Suit </i>was concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, corporate management habitually looked to the counterculture for inspiration
to save their businesses from the perils of obsolescence and group-think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"The curious enthusiasm," Frank
writes,</span></span><br />
</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>of American business for the symbols, music, and slang of the counterculture marked a fascination that was much more complex than the theory of co-optation would suggest. In fields like fashion and advertising that were most conspicuously involved with the new phase of image-centered capitalism, business leaders were not concerned merely with simulating counterculture signifiers in order to sell the young demographic (or stave off revolution, for that matter) but because they approved of the new values and anti-establishment sensibility being developed by the youthful revolutionaries. (26)</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Consumer-oriented corporations of the '60s didn't see hip as a threat, then; they saw it as a godsend, and they worked feverishly to amplify the signal coming down off Mt. Dylan.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>If this seems strange, this
willingness on corporations' part to serve as conduits for a social movement
that hated them, it's only because we haven't considered the possibility that corporations
understood hip better than hipsters did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the formerly gray-flannel-suited class realized early on was that
"rebellion," as Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter explain, "is not
a threat to the system; it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>the
system" (175).</span></span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Hip generally articulates
itself through ownership of "rebellious" clothes, records, and cars—emphasis
on clothes, records, and cars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Widely
adopted, then, hip feeds the "system" by stoking social appetites for
status-conferring consumer goods that relentlessly and conveniently obsolete
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In their 2004 book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nation of Rebels</i>, Heath & Potter point
to the '60s "peacock revolution" in men's fashion as evidence that industries
adopting hip as their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">modus operandi</i>
were well remunerated indeed (173).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
isn't surprising once we accept that <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>the
restless, individualistic, free-spirited bohemian is, in many ways, much more
in tune [than the bourgeois elite of old] with the true spirit of
capitalism—where . . . commerce moves too quickly for anyone to put down roots
and . . . everyone's money is the same color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unlike so-called bourgeois values, which are basically an imitation of
feudal social norms, hip values are a direct expression of the spirit of
capitalism. (202)</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>The '60s counterculture <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>presents, then, was never
consumer capitalism's antagonist; it was only ever its vanguard.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>If things were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this </i>easy, though, a show like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>could probably depict a straightforward
love-fest between a Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and hip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it doesn't: SCDP's white, straight male executives
are eager to participate in hip on one level, but they're clearly unnerved by
it on others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To understand why, we can look
to John Leland, who, in his 2004 book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hip:
The History</i>, theorizes that while hip does indeed fan consumerism's flames,
it serves, too, as a perennial thumb in the eye to capitalism's ruling class, of
which SCDP's executives are probationary members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Working in Thomas Frank's wake, Leland limns <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">two </i>popular narratives regarding hip: a
"bohemian essentialist" one about a righteous people's movement
co-opted, and a "consumption ethic" one about hip's being always
already complicit in consumerism (284).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Frank and Heath & Potter clearly
buy into the latter narrative—but Leland hopes we're not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too </i>quick to dismiss hip's oppositional possibilities, since
"these two, contradictory readings do not neatly untangle themselves"
(285).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's true, Leland concedes, that
"an expanding economy needs its troublemakers and tricksters, people who
invent new desires that can be satisfied by new products"—which is why, as
per the consumption-ethic narrative, "hip's call to drop your old life and
seek a more satisfying one [has always] sounded like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ka-ching </i>in the market" (295).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it's no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">less </i>true (here's
the bohemian-essentialist line) that hip, founded in American slaves' desire to
communicate and establish inner lives their masters would have been just as
happy to stamp out, has always been a challenge to the privileged, reminding
them constantly of the power the marginalized have to shape the social meanings
on which modern markets depend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
Leland notes, "Ever since white slave owners and overseers strained to
understand what the Africans were saying, getting hip paid benefits in profit
and control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the evaders, who needed
ways to converse privately in their antagonists' presence, being hipper meant
autonomy" (289).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>And autonomy for the
dispossessed—or power to the people—is roughly the point at which SCDP execs
begin, in their dealings with hip, to squirm.</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Contradictory though they may
be, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>gives hallelujahs to both
the consumption-ethic and bohemian-essentialist narratives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The show theorizes hip, for instance, as always
already complicit in consumerism when a disgusted Don Draper throws two square Jantzen-bathing-suit
execs out of SCDP for prudishly refusing his R-rated ad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(On Madison Avenue, it seems, it's hip's way or
the highway.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The consumption-ethic
narrative is also in evidence when Peggy Olson cooks up her best ideas for
Bacardi rum smoking weed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in </i>the
office, or (especially) when Lenny Bruce analogue Jimmy Barrett turns hipster <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enfant terrible </i>on the set of an Utz
commercial, swilling from a hip flask between takes and ripping mercilessly, comedy-club
style, on a woman in the studio, hip and commerce fused in the eye of a TV camera
that never stops rolling.</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU9IhvkE7H-bqGDIinrK74FRPp3M0hLgPjvQ2w5Bh3M6kgtxOdocAf73EDSH2qSF0mfwVAMfAPgszbP_pgbBMF3TkXah86goCCrK26YN9i6V_rapPlE2NkZa-kcXyqJ8EGPVRTErHs6S_S/s560/Jimmy+Barrett.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU9IhvkE7H-bqGDIinrK74FRPp3M0hLgPjvQ2w5Bh3M6kgtxOdocAf73EDSH2qSF0mfwVAMfAPgszbP_pgbBMF3TkXah86goCCrK26YN9i6V_rapPlE2NkZa-kcXyqJ8EGPVRTErHs6S_S/s400/Jimmy+Barrett.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>On the other hand, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>approbates the bohemian-essentialist
belief in hip's fundamental opposition to capitalism in scenes featuring SCDP
creatives flagrantly ripping hip off, co-opting it, concocting a version of it
so laughably lite it can't help but illustrate the chasm between itself and
whatever it is the Stones (whom Don fails, in season five, to lasso) are up to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Pitching to Martinson Coffee, an SCDP youngster
tells a Martinson executive people of his generation "don't want to be
told what to do . . . we want to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feel</i>,"
then plays from a reel-to-reel machine a bongo-laden jingle sure to make even the
most wannabe beatnik scream with laughter.)</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>There's bohemian
essentialism, too, in Don's bewilderment at his long-time Village girlfriend
Midge's heroin use (a hip too far, it seems, for the man who threw out the
prudes) and in an exchange he has with Anna Draper's niece Stephanie in
California: when Don, goaded by Stephanie's comment that advertising is
"pollution," suggests she "stop buying things," she
retorts, "Don't think that's not possible"—a jab anticipating the
coming communes, not exactly a hip advertiser's dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And all this before we note that Don, Pete
Doherty, Roger Sterling, and Bert Cooper are frequently ill at ease around
assertive women, black people, and queer people—marginalized Americans who will
be, in many respects, beneficiaries of '60s and '70s hip counterculture, a
prospect SCDP's masters of the universe seem none too thrilled about.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span> </span></i></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span>Mad Men</span></i><span>,
then,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>both celebrates hip's proclivity
for bedeviling power <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> exposes it
as the same old consumer-society shell game, now in thigh boots and Nehru
jacket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the show seems on the whole,
though, to assert hip counterculture's munificence in American life in a way,
say, Philip Roth's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Pastoral </i>absolutely
doesn't sets it in even deeper accord with John Leland, whose most salient
belief about hip and markets is that "hip becomes relevant precisely when
it is impure, jumping in the pit with the beast of capitalism—feeding it,
resisting it, exploiting it, shaping it. Co-opting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it</i>, even as it is co-opted in return" (306).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Leland, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>holds that hip's immersion in filthy lucre is nothing to
hold particularly against it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where,
after all, do we want social change to happen if not in the places where we
earn and spend money, since that's most of what Americans do anyway?</span><span> </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>When Don makes his hideous
and homophobic "You people" remark to Sal Romano while firing him, equally
hideously, from SCDP, we as audience at least have the pleasure of knowing the
days for such speech are numbered—in part because Stonewall, a watershed moment
in American hip, is right around the corner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the same<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>hip fostering
social equality also peddles Heinz beans and Jaguar E-Types doesn't mean we have
to throw out the baby out with the bathwater.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before he's wrongfully fired, Sal creates a Diet Pepsi TV spot that's a glorious
work of camp; Peggy, similarly, creates a Popsicle ad ("Take it, break it,
share it") skewering the Catholic church that's harassing her in the form
of a young priest who wants her confession about her out-of-wedlock child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These ads, both hip to the bone, prefigure
the coming gay-rights and feminist movements—even if they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">also </i>shill for consumer goods.</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Hip's innate
market-friendliness doesn't change the fact that it is, as Leland says, "one
of America's protections against religious or political fundamentalism"
(307).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Leland, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>knows that hip "needs the market to do this job"
(307), since the market is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how </i>hip's
power-to-the-people message gets broadcast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's like SCDP copywriter Paul Kinsey tells a bus full of Freedom Riders
in season two: "Advertising, if anything, helps bring on change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The market . . . dictates that we must
include everyone."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kinsey is a
buffoon who here lucks into speaking truth—which makes him a lot like advertising
when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it </i>lucks into speaking hip.</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>The same Don Draper who makes
the hateful (not to mention unhip) "You people" remark to Sal Romano clearly
understands all this on some level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
one of his Village girlfriend Midge's hirsute friends tells him acidly, "You
make the lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You invent want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You're for them—not us," Don coolly
retorts, "I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The universe is indifferent."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By "the universe," he seems to mean
capitalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By "indifferent,"
he seems to mean it's unfaithful—it's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>
intrinsically devoted to any politics, repressive or progressive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Money <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can
</i>speak hip, just as hip has always spoken money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the moment he makes his
"universe" speech, Don is Bob Dylan hip; he's Beatles or James Dean or
Jayne Mansfield hip—all saints in hip's pantheon, all demonstrating that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real</i> hip has nothing to do with
eschewing the marketplace: in fact, it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">needs
</i>the marketplace just like the flower needs the honeybee.</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Six seasons in, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mad Men </i>is shaping up to be the story of
the slow, painful un-hipping of Don Draper, a straight, white, hard-boiled
dinosaur whose innate smarts won't save him from cultural obsolescence, even if
his story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">does </i>begin in an act of
radical self-invention that marks him a secret hipster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, Peggy Olson, the show's quiet
co-protagonist, is on the opposite trajectory, poised to ride a wave of hip feminism
to a Madison Avenue corner office (possibly Don's, as we see at the end of the
sixth season).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Don says "You
people" to Sal, we know he's in trouble; by the time he disses Muhammad Ali
as a "bigmouth" and switches off the Beatles' "Tomorrow Only
Knows" having endured only half of it, we know he's all but toast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, when Peggy, joint in hand, tells
two lazy male cohorts <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> being
helpful with a Bacardi campaign, "You both can leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm in a very good place right now," we
know she's just stood all the way up on her surfboard.</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>That Don and Peggy's stories clearly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are </i>the story of hip in the
all-important '60s, and that their stories intersect in an advertising agency, tells
us almost everything we need to know about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real
</i>hip's relationship with commerce.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>Works Cited</span></b><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Frank, Thomas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip
Consumerism</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chicago: The U of
Chicago P, 1997.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Heath, Joseph, and Andrew
Potter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: HarperCollins, 2004.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>Leland, John.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hip:
The History</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: HarperCollins,
2004.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span face=""Calibri","sans-serif"" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A version of the above was presented at the 2013 PCA/ACA Conference in Washington, D.C.</span></i></span></span><br />
<i></i><br />Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-84104155174522552632013-06-26T22:56:00.055-04:002023-05-13T17:35:29.965-04:00Six Pithy to Semi-Pithy Observations about Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow"<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><b>1.</b> It has to have started as a joke about a novel so<i> </i>complex it turns into rocket science. <i>Actual</i>
rocket science.<b> </b></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><b>2.</b> True, it's a Bakhtinian orgy of a thousand
discourses, many of them remarkably specialized. But it's narrated in just
two main voices, really: the grandiose, God-sized one that gives us the
famous opening line, "A screaming comes across the sky," and the deliberately
facile (o-or <i>glib!</i>) one that's in charge for roughly
a million Roadrunner & Coyote-type scenes, including the one that gives us the equally famous "<i>fickt nicht mit dem raketemensch!</i>" After a few hundred pages they're both pretty
hard to take—the second especially, as it gets to sounding a little too much like this guy:</span></span><br />
</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t4yejxttGdY" width="320" youtube-src-id="t4yejxttGdY"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><b>3.</b> I<span>t'<span>s like a brilliant, ambitious, thoroughly research<span>ed novel about <span>the last days of World War II dropped acid<span>. Rather a</span></span></span></span></span></span><span> whole <i>lot</i> of acid.</span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><b>4.</b> World War II is to Pynchon what the JFK assassination is
to Don DeLillo in <i>Libra</i>:
postmodernity's founding moment, o-or the moment at which the modern world's
complexity outstripped the human mind's capacity to conceptualize, theorize,
narratize, chart, map, or otherwise <i>grasp</i> it (behold <i>GR</i>'s several hundred characters and dozens of fragmented, often
only semi-followable plot lines, some of them of ambiguous ontological status). This post isn't about <i>Libra</i>, so I won't quote DeLillo. But here's Pynchon on the War</span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
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<![endif]--><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>and, by extension, on his own book:</span></span><br />
</span><p></p><div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>The War, the Empire, will expedite . . . barriers between our
lives. The War needs to divide this way,
and to subdivide, though its propaganda will always stress unity, alliance,
pulling together. The War does not appear
to want a folk-consciousness, not even of the sort the Germans have engineered,
ein Volk ein Führer—it wants a machine of many separate parts, not oneness, but
a complexity . . . . Yet who can presume
to say <i>what </i>the War wants, so vast
and aloof is it.</span></span></blockquote>
</div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>And here's another interesting passage, courtesy of Pynchon's
character Roger Mexico:</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>"There's a feeling about that cause-and-effect may have
been taken as far as it will go. That
for science to carry on at all, it must look for a less narrow, a less . . .
sterile set of assumptions. The next
great breakthrough may come when we have the courage to junk cause-and-effect
entirely, and strike off at some other angle."</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><b>5.</b> It's thrilling, sure,
watching a planet-sized brain hit <i>all</i> the afterburners, shake off <i>all </i>the shackles, give itself license to say or depict absolutely
anything<i> </i>that occurs to it, propriety and concern for whether the reader's keeping up be damned. (Really: no novel was
ever more toweringly indifferent to its audience.) But it gradually becomes clear this avalanche
of language, to steal a phrase a friend uses to describe <i>Moby Dick</i>, is concerned mainly (if words like
"concerned" and "mainly" even make sense here) with denouncing a nebulous, death-obsessed, hyper-bureaucratized "Them" bent on dragging the modern world, through
such insane enterprises as World War II, into its grave. And you almost have to wonder, after a certain amount of the old ultraviolence (there's stuff in this book, to note it, Bret Easton Ellis wouldn't touch with a ten-foot whatever), whether <i>GR</i> is really an indictment of Them or their unwitting agent.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><b>6. </b>I <i>am </i>a Pynchon fan, believe it or not: <i>The Crying of Lot 49 </i>has to be one of my ten all-time favorite novels. If you're looking to get into Pynchon, start with that way more controlled, way more coherent book. It's a <i>maximalist novella</i>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Now <i>that's</i> funny.</span></span><br />
</span><br /></div>
Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-59783268323490399242013-01-02T21:31:00.090-05:002023-04-25T21:45:35.713-04:00Three Thoughts on Tarantino's "Django Unchained"<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>1. </b>Though there's
no point denying it'll do its part, for better or worse, to shape young
Americans' thoughts and feelings on the subject of race, saying <i>Django Unchained </i>is a movie <i>about</i>
race is a little like saying <i>Chinatown</i> is a movie <i>about</i> the American immigrant experience. This is because <i>Django </i>does absolutely no serious thinking on the subject of race; it
attempts no insights about race as a force shaping American memory and
consciousness. What it is, simply, is a
movie about movies—and their seldom <i>fully</i>
exploited potential for wish fulfillment.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<br />
<span>What's the most primal, enervating wish, arguably, a human being
can have?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That for <i>revenge.<o:p></o:p></i> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In what context might an American filmmaker set a revenge-wish-fulfillment
story if his goal is to make contemporary American audiences lose their minds with glee right there in their
movie seats<span>? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, how about a scary abusive-husband context? (There's your <i>Kill Bill</i>.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or a N<span>azism/antisemitism context? (There's your <i>Inglorious Basterds.)</i></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or—why not?—an American-slavery context? (Hello, <i>Django
Unchained</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's hard not to think Tarantino will be doing Crazy Horse and Custer next.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But deepening our understanding of what went on between
slaves and masters in 1850s Mississippi is <i>not</i>
on Tarantino's to-do list in <i>Django</i>. In fact, he seems weirdly determined <i>not </i>to extend our knowledge beyond the set
of facts and quasi-facts most Americans with high-school educations already carry
around in their heads: that slavery typically took place on a "plantation," one of whose key features was a "big house"; that most slaves
toiled in the hot sun, picking cotton, while "privileged" ones tended <span style="font-family: inherit;">m</span>assuh's needs indoors; that phrenology, a popular 19th-century garbage science, was sometimes used to validate slavery; that a slave who attempted escape and failed might be chained
to a tree and bullwhipped to within an inch of her life, so her knotty scars
could serve as a warning to others.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We know all this before we sit down for almost three hours' worth
of <i>Django Unchained</i>. And we've gained precious little on the knowledge
front (Mandingos, anyone?) by the time it's over.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What we <i>do </i>get is
the not-inconsiderable pleasure of watching a gun-slinging American slave take
his brutal, insane, hilarious revenge on a bunch of mental-defective white Southerners
who sure do have it coming. And what the
movie, which tirelessly quotes '70s spaghetti-Western and blaxploitation flicks,
never lets us forget is that this thrill is brought to us <i>by the movies</i>, which institution's ability to fulfill wishes is as
boundless as our violence-obsessed American imaginations care to let it be.</span><br />
</span><p></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><br /></span>
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFLEnIgLdzykE00TdRRQcaqv1XmVO2W_7iyLtILTv20CZhQqzWt2jE99DhKP7CfHLw_G84hbU3oHq_mGq1Tz_2FX2e89ELMDoYtkqE6jNwZIQmQxv0qZ-Oy__h23He5_t1ERsfPjskC0W/s1600/django.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFLEnIgLdzykE00TdRRQcaqv1XmVO2W_7iyLtILTv20CZhQqzWt2jE99DhKP7CfHLw_G84hbU3oHq_mGq1Tz_2FX2e89ELMDoYtkqE6jNwZIQmQxv0qZ-Oy__h23He5_t1ERsfPjskC0W/s320/django.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So be careful<i> </i>what
you <i>wish</i> for, America, says the closing scene of <i>Django Unchained </i>(much like the movie-theater massacre near the
end of <i>Inglorious Basterds</i>). Because Hollywood <i>will</i> give it to you. And the
brain that finds its delight in the theater's dark is the same one you'll take back out to the
parking lot after the lights come up again.<o:p></o:p><b> </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>2. </b>One thing that's always been simultaneously
excellent and awful about the U.S. is its antipathy to history, or its conviction that history's
lessons simply don't apply to it or to anything that goes on inside its borders.
On the one hand, this results in a citizenry
embarrassingly baffled by events like 9/11. (Why should all this Jewish/Palestinian stuff come over here to <i>our </i>New York City?) On the other, it results in a citizenry willing to elect Barack Obama, who would have looked mighty like an American slave just a couple <span>short </span>human lifetimes ago, president.<o:p></o:p> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh how <i>Django
Unchained </i>participates in this American proclivity. It literally (I guess) dynamites American
history, congratulating American audiences on being part of a nation hip<i> </i>enough to give the "wisdom" of its great-great-grandparents the
finger. Gleefully rewriting the high-school
textbooks, morphing abject trod-upons into fire-breathing hellions, the movie invites
us, maybe foolishly, to overlook the grim reality too many black Americans still live in
today, a century and a half to the minute after the Emancipation Proclamation</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">—</span>a
reality birthed by a <i>history</i> no mega-badass
Django Freeman will be riding in and blowing up any time soon.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But then isn't all the smoke and splatter thrillingly
protean, too? Doesn't Obama's America
deserve at least one truly celebratory Hollywood movie, movies being, like,
windows on the American soul? And doesn't
the U.S.'s going from Emancipation Proclamation to black president in less than
a century and a half (holy heck: maybe history <i>doesn't </i>dictate the future in America) deserve at least <i>one </i>great fireworks display of the sort <i>Django </i>ends with? And isn't
that the real meaning of Django's horse's dressage steps there among the embers—a
final up-yours to all the racists, subtle and otherwise, who convinced
themselves America would vote for a dressage-loving stuffed shirt like Mitt Romney just
because he was white, which fact, owing to our <i>history</i>, should, like, <i>mean </i>something?<o:p></o:p> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Isn't history blown to smithereens actually a pretty beautiful sight?<b> </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>3. </b>While <i>Django Unchained </i>might wind up remembered
as the Tarantino movie best capturing its moment's zeitgeist, the fact remains it's lesser
Tarantino. Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx,
Kerrie Washington, and a never-more-fearless Sam Jackson make the material seem pretty decent. But don't look or listen too closely, because <i>Django</i>'s characters are strictly comic-book fare, lacking anything like the depth
and complexity of those we know from <i>Pulp
Fiction </i>or, especially, <i>Jackie Brown</i>. (It's a shame Tarantino's sworn off
novel adaptations, since what he did with that Elmore Leonard book was pretty choice.)<o:p></o:p> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Leo DiCaprio is badly miscast as Calvin Candie; the role
should have gone to Don Johnson, who's way more menacing as a plantation owner
called Big Daddy, gone from the movie too soon.<o:p></o:p> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And one last gripe: how does DiCaprio's Candie inspect, in
one scene, the bleached insides of a long-dead
slave's skull, pointing out dimples bespeaking servitude and docility, without having the insides of his <i>own </i>skull
inspected in like fashion by, say, Django Freeman before the closing credits
roll? </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The tune's called "Bloodbath," dude. Let's hit all
the notes.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-9299750572448507052012-08-25T14:44:00.073-04:002023-04-25T21:46:47.452-04:00The Building as Brillo Box (or, An Excursion to Two Philly Architectural Landmarks)<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span>Before anyone takes me for a more devoted student of architecture than I actually am, I'll go ahead and admit if I hadn't moved to the greater Philadelphia metropolitan region in the mid '90s, I probably never would have become fully aware of the Guild House's existence.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>I first saw it in some Rizzoli coffee-table book in '95 or so. A little black and white photo in a chapter on postmodernist architecture. I'd just moved to Bethlehem, about an hour north of Philly, for grad school at Lehigh, and the Guild House's nearness put a hook in my head.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>That and the fact it seemed to be one genuinely weird piece of architecture.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Within a year or two of seeing it in that book, I was riding around North Philly with a couple friends on an evil-hot summer day when all of a sudden there it was, gliding by us in the rippling July sunlight: the GUILD HOUSE, austere and naked and aggressively ugly in its sea of concrete and asphalt. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The hook settled deeper in my brain.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Seeing occasional mention of the place over the years in books and on websites (inevitable if you're studying postmodernism) strengthened my resolve to go, like, see<i> </i>it one day. </span><br />
<br />
<span>Or <i>confront</i> it, rather, since that's what it seemed to demand. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>That day finally arrived a couple weeks ago, in summer 2012, when I set out from quaint Buckingham, Bucks County, to go dig on not only the Guild House but another Philly landmark I'd too long neglected: Lescaze and Howe's PSFS building, the 1932 international-style masterpiece at Market and 13th.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The skinny on the Guild House is it's a city-subsidized old-folks' home on Spring Garden Street (<i>not </i>the shady grove the street name would suggest)<i> </i>designed in the early '60s by American super-starchitect Robert Venturi. </span><span>It was one of his first buildings, and lots of architecture scholars and critics point to it as <i>the </i>founding moment of postmodernist architecture in the U.S.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Here's a photo I took of it when I confronted it that day a couple weeks ago:</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8EybbGub6zvf2oRlko5hmH6n2khu8kS2Ca1oA_myS1sJILlLe9cNY-3zHGjFRnsFcK90-b0xZBPA1-J5TYxgsoVmc3eXeKXirfcEN3yWdcALoOYCCM7eI3xxuoqodupuw12tCF5k9XC23/s1600/IMG_0462.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8EybbGub6zvf2oRlko5hmH6n2khu8kS2Ca1oA_myS1sJILlLe9cNY-3zHGjFRnsFcK90-b0xZBPA1-J5TYxgsoVmc3eXeKXirfcEN3yWdcALoOYCCM7eI3xxuoqodupuw12tCF5k9XC23/s640/IMG_0462.JPG" width="640" yda="true" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span>
<span>Here's another:</span></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<br />
</span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwpAmavjetzEWaGC9yoq4AivAxeB8yp4hxwieUk5HOlxvXEenFgpNFp-8C3IWFe9zyTMqjRcZmm3PQOrpmQBTiUHILP7C-zu-LlAY-Psq9hPF54A-1LKUrGb7Ba4v0GTyiHkbpXM85wTNA/s1600/IMG_0463.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwpAmavjetzEWaGC9yoq4AivAxeB8yp4hxwieUk5HOlxvXEenFgpNFp-8C3IWFe9zyTMqjRcZmm3PQOrpmQBTiUHILP7C-zu-LlAY-Psq9hPF54A-1LKUrGb7Ba4v0GTyiHkbpXM85wTNA/s640/IMG_0463.JPG" width="640" yda="true" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>And here's another, closer still, of the famed sign over the door, which you bet Venturi designed:</span></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsxDctciI6hX9pJOCtRXFCRfoTlMH9Z4GSajz5IRj5UeQE_cS0Bo5xEauomia3_D1U8DLl2Ivj1dWP6oGzicFtHoiiLxsqqnPRr6KgL5yzTmAZr3epsHw7491ETohxkegWSKi4VEsGBZGb/s1600/IMG_0465.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsxDctciI6hX9pJOCtRXFCRfoTlMH9Z4GSajz5IRj5UeQE_cS0Bo5xEauomia3_D1U8DLl2Ivj1dWP6oGzicFtHoiiLxsqqnPRr6KgL5yzTmAZr3epsHw7491ETohxkegWSKi4VEsGBZGb/s640/IMG_0465.JPG" width="640" yda="true" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span>When I pulled up to the building in my Yaris hatchback, there was a one-armed old guy leaning against the white wall there, stage left, smoking a butt, looking mean as hell. I wish I'd had the courage to hold up my iPhone and photograph him, but I didn't. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span>It <i>did</i> occur to me, though, that Venturi, who's still alive, might have been paying the dude to loiter there, so perfectly did he complement the building.</span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">
<span><br /></span>
<span>Below is one more picture someone took of the place when it was nearing completion in '64. It attests to how little the House has changed over the decades, though if you look carefully, you'll note a now-AWOL sculpture<span>—</span>I'm not joking<span>—</span>atop its central facade:</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicuNRQW_vhJlTl9l8m_q0hwWszs-OlrqSGxdEOoSFMM-kE8ycHLqes4NvfstT_tVZf5-27zzoAeJDA33-WJNUOcnZw-9MuF7-PmRbsErofowpv6ze7Dv3eXw4YSXF6jdgcjD87vtPqpdbp/s1600/Guild+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicuNRQW_vhJlTl9l8m_q0hwWszs-OlrqSGxdEOoSFMM-kE8ycHLqes4NvfstT_tVZf5-27zzoAeJDA33-WJNUOcnZw-9MuF7-PmRbsErofowpv6ze7Dv3eXw4YSXF6jdgcjD87vtPqpdbp/s640/Guild+1.jpg" width="640" yda="true" /></a></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Let me at this juncture reveal this: </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>I love this building almost more than I can say.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>I'm not shocked, though, some other folks (<a href="http://philaphilia.blogspot.com/2011/06/butt-fugly-building-of-week-june-14th.html" target="_blank">this blogger</a>, for instance<span>—</span>hit page-down when you get there) don't feel the same way about it. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>We don't need, I don't think, to get into what postmodernism is to note what's conceivably interesting about this building: it's relentlessly plain and dismal (not only is it symmetrical, for love of Christ, but the chain-link fence is <a href="http://operationawesome6.blogspot.com/2012/04/writing-you-dont-see.html" target="_blank"><i>part of the design</i></a>) in ways that should make it as invisible to us as any of a hundred thousand other relentlessly plain and dismal American buildings<span>—</span>except we're all of us (you, too, if you've read this far) privy to a key fact <i>not </i>revealed by the building itself:</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It's by <i>Robert Venturi</i>. </span><span>The same Pritzker-Prize winner who, about the same time he was creating the Guild House, came up with this house for his mom:</span></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROeFiurpOKGu8ss82Qcy4Jqhp9dJG9sUDq98ILogLkTSFg6FlrQPBTihzwtmxAY00CPeXnR8TGS2fCYfi_ismGyiZYuGnfq1sucTogxFL13GiKtRXtdrNf-LFL4Urc2pZd-n4BTT_HFOI/s1600/Venturi+1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROeFiurpOKGu8ss82Qcy4Jqhp9dJG9sUDq98ILogLkTSFg6FlrQPBTihzwtmxAY00CPeXnR8TGS2fCYfi_ismGyiZYuGnfq1sucTogxFL13GiKtRXtdrNf-LFL4Urc2pZd-n4BTT_HFOI/s640/Venturi+1" width="640" yda="true" /></a></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>And, some years later, this art museum for the city of Seattle:</span></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7818i6lVXMDYPEhyphenhyphenPBWdIlBHphZ4SqJr0gv0lhmamncCA-E78cApQQ2ZBG0xVXR5MjSlp40myMITorO8zhGZRsH8qNSlemIc8U-Uhu8HL5vMMac28rBMDlSAPL9YWcxKCWv5Aiqiay9fJ/s1600/Venturi+2" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7818i6lVXMDYPEhyphenhyphenPBWdIlBHphZ4SqJr0gv0lhmamncCA-E78cApQQ2ZBG0xVXR5MjSlp40myMITorO8zhGZRsH8qNSlemIc8U-Uhu8HL5vMMac28rBMDlSAPL9YWcxKCWv5Aiqiay9fJ/s640/Venturi+2" width="640" yda="true" /></a></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Once we put the Guild House in this context<span>—</span>the oeuvre of a highly trained, highly accomplished starchitect<span>—</span>a weird likelihood emerges:</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The Guild House's plainness and ugliness are <i>intentional</i>.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It's a short hop from there to the reason, I guess, I love the building so much:</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It <i>isn't</i>, as it turns out, a big, dull, ugly, urban old-folks' home. </span><span>It's a meticulous <i>copy</i> of a big, dull, ugly, urban old-folks' home.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Or, better, it's a <i>simulation </i>of a big, dull, ugly, urban old-folks' home.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Or, better still, it's a <i>simulacrum</i> of one. </span><span>A copy, that is, without an original.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Venturi seems to have decided, upon starting his first highly visible public project, to create an artwork so cleverly disguised <i>as </i>a dull, urban old-folks' home that the vast majority of people walking by it, visiting it, or even living<i> </i>in it would never realize it was, in fact, an artwork.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>What an audacious thing for a young upstart architect to do.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Now, the building does <i>hint</i>, for sure, at its own art-ness. There's that big, semicircular crowning window in the center facade. There's the irregularity of the square punch-out windows' sizes. There's that white-brick line running around the building's top half, right through<i> </i>the fifth-floor windows. And the building has a somewhat more interesting footprint than it probably needs to, with those 45-degree angles in the corners breaking up the perpendiculars. ("Irregular" and "complex," the <a href="http://keasthood.com/profile/legacy/guild-house/" target="_blank">contractors who poured the House's concrete call its frame</a>.)</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>These are all pretty subtle hints, though, that the building is, in fact, High Art. </span><span>So subtle I'll bet north of 99% of human beings who see the place never do really <i>see </i>it. </span>
<span>Not even the art lovers. The people with memberships at the Barnes or the Kimmel or the Philly Art Museum. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The Guild House is a massive artwork hidden in plain sight. </span><span>It's <i>secret</i> art. </span><span>How many non-schizophrenics, after all, would ever guess the TV antenna atop the building in that old photo was, in fact, a sculpture? </span><span>(Come to think of it, wouldn't a schizophrenic be more likely think a sculpture was really an antenna?)</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The building is a portal, in a way, to a realm so purely symbolic, so unmoored from ontological reality (a simulation without an original), it doesn't seem possible it could coincide with anything as utterly banal as a municipally funded home for old people. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>But there it is. Doing just that.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It's a forceful reminder of what's best about our big cities. They're percolators of the quantum mechanics governing the interplay of history, signifiers, and concrete infrastructure.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It struck me the day I visited the Guild House that it's very like another famous artwork from almost the exact same American cultural moment. </span><span>This one:</span><br />
</span><span><br /></span>
<br />
</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxkdPKQwMny2N6Kw4a2m8xI8U-vJsXmZg91ZLCFiLQo09EpH-rtqCC_ysfu5PmyWvnDKupfb7mEX9gveH8D93fxu2AhDQNKTt_Y17-5dkhyAeF1dCPnsNlK-qQatCsUHlKRzpBl6rBW3uU/s1600/Warhol+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxkdPKQwMny2N6Kw4a2m8xI8U-vJsXmZg91ZLCFiLQo09EpH-rtqCC_ysfu5PmyWvnDKupfb7mEX9gveH8D93fxu2AhDQNKTt_Y17-5dkhyAeF1dCPnsNlK-qQatCsUHlKRzpBl6rBW3uU/s320/Warhol+1.jpg" width="301" yda="true" /></a></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>It's a Warhol, of course. A hilariously faithful copy of something we might find even today on the shelf at Costco or Sam's Club.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>He made hundreds of them. All exactly alike.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The Brillo box's lesson, like the Guild House's, is that art, in cultures as symbol-laden as ours, leaks out of the museum and gets all over everything. </span>
<span>It oozes into the supermarket. It creeps like invisible ivy up the sides of the apartment house. It broadcasts out over the land (from fake TV antennae, possibly), making every mundane thing as famous as the Mona Lisa or Versailles. It usurps everyday life's real-ness, replacing it with image-ness.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Warhol's Brillo boxes were intellectual dynamite in the early '60s, to be sure. </span>
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>It's one thing, though, I think, to be an artist exploring these ideas in cardboard and acrylic paint and another to be an architect exploring them in projects involving fat stacks of cash. </span><span>(Even a humble municipal project like the Guild House had to cost hundreds of thousands of 1961 dollars.) </span><span>And that's before we consider that public architecture enters people's lives whether they want it there or not. Try, once it's towering over your neighborhood, avoiding a Venturi building the way you can, say, an Andy Warhol artwork, if <i>it's</i> not your thing.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It's Venturi's audacity I guess I'm circling back to. </span>
<span>A <i>secret </i>audacity, maybe. But an audacity nonetheless. And w</span><span>hile we're on that subject, I'll quote something Venturi himself said about the Guild House in his famous book <i>Learning from Las Vegas</i><span>—</span>or, rather, about its now-AWOL sculpture.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The golden "TV antenna" atop the Guild House was, he said, "a symbol of the aged, who spend so much time looking at TV."</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>This was, in its willful dumbness<span>—</span>its eff-you ironicism<span>—</span>such a <i>Warhol </i>thing to say it's hard to believe the two weren't somehow in cahoots. </span><span>And maybe now is the right time for me to say my love of the Guild House might have something to do with my not having to live in it. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>I'm not sure how I'd feel if I knew my abode<span>—</span>my damn <i>home</i><span>—</span>was an expression of a maybe slightly mean-spirited irony.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Would the consolation of knowing I was living in a secret artwork, a secretly famous building, be enough?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>I don't know. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>But I will say it wounds me, as someone who doesn't have to live there, that the Guild House's TV-antenna sculpture <i>is</i> AWOL. </span><span>It wounds me, at least, to think someone who knows it for what it is (or was?) opted to take it down. And to diminish Venturi's secret project. </span><span>The only way I'd be totally cool with its absence is if some roofer patching leaks found it toppled up there one day, mistook it for obsolete technology, bent it in half, and dumpstered it.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>If the TV-antenna sculpture <i>is</i> sitting in a landfill somewhere, or if it's blended into the bodies of a hundred new Toyotas, that's fantastic: its power as a <i>secret</i> artwork is still growing.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>I guess I really hope, though, that it's down in the building's basement, in some dark corner, surrounded by mouse droppings, forgotten, waiting for a 22nd-century resurrection.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>I guess I'd also like to think I'm the only person on earth who's noticed the secretly famous Guild House's hood ornament is missing. That not even Robert Venturi knows or cares. That the antenna and I are psychically connected on some quantum-metaphysical level.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Oh<span>—</span>the PSFS Building.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Here's a picture of it in its heyday:</span></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPs8cG5cw5VKkEP6Hbxbe6RnvKoKDJ7N_qqV5jtt6mbx9qZvAPGNJ_K49ZQMxkvOMPVIeHxrZdu2Q-L1mRqizEMoGUuobyYwxUVyYJQCTtfNhGZV7xN673rY_WiO3gwS0Ul6kjrlPdYA1V/s1600/PSFS+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPs8cG5cw5VKkEP6Hbxbe6RnvKoKDJ7N_qqV5jtt6mbx9qZvAPGNJ_K49ZQMxkvOMPVIeHxrZdu2Q-L1mRqizEMoGUuobyYwxUVyYJQCTtfNhGZV7xN673rY_WiO3gwS0Ul6kjrlPdYA1V/s640/PSFS+1.jpg" width="420" yda="true" /></a></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Here's a picture someone else took of its prettiest face(s):</span></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIKSvYyzWKncMewUm1KFiAJuW997uj31kQi93Mbm6-Uozj3rIMe0sEiE93tjXLSOLgyyd0amKJrCHNgyDmMbyTlN3o3gjv5hzM4QUpyolqYrq8Xopk4EgOCkfxe56wY7QvGkN1sInBXnc-/s1600/PSFS+2" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIKSvYyzWKncMewUm1KFiAJuW997uj31kQi93Mbm6-Uozj3rIMe0sEiE93tjXLSOLgyyd0amKJrCHNgyDmMbyTlN3o3gjv5hzM4QUpyolqYrq8Xopk4EgOCkfxe56wY7QvGkN1sInBXnc-/s640/PSFS+2" width="640" yda="true" /></a></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Here's a picture I took of one of its many palatial interiors:</span></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0VSypj4GohvgBeSWw_vjBoynwqaSH_4E0U10syHNoBsbXvez9sJximlxSLZLa2pt3zFMeIjCldTC32_kQZrC3XqdcStZDIiC-ldulKGe4Ym9ntwLRg1ACf-T_U2vzw7SMta_HdAKtnSdZ/s1600/IMG_0480.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0VSypj4GohvgBeSWw_vjBoynwqaSH_4E0U10syHNoBsbXvez9sJximlxSLZLa2pt3zFMeIjCldTC32_kQZrC3XqdcStZDIiC-ldulKGe4Ym9ntwLRg1ACf-T_U2vzw7SMta_HdAKtnSdZ/s640/IMG_0480.JPG" width="478" yda="true" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span>It's hard to know what to say about the PSFS Building except that it's pulverizingly beautiful in all the ways you'd expect.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It's sure no <i>secret </i>artwork, though. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>And since I'm interested, I guess, in quantum-level irony, I'll take the Guild House any day of the week.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span><br />Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-84395988460981991932012-08-07T23:13:00.068-04:002023-04-25T21:48:36.461-04:00Andy's People<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>When I was growing up in the '80s and '90s, I for sure dug Warhol. If you were a hip kid back then (I wasn't), or even a hip-kid wannabe (that was me), you didn't get too much say in the matter: the spirit of Pittsburgh's oddest son so pervaded the Cooltown of Sonic Youth and the Smiths, Douglas Coupland and Bret Easton Ellis, David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch, that dissing Andy would've been tantamount to admitting that your enthusiasm for all those others was pure posture. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>That's not to say I had to will<i> </i>myself to like Warhol. From my first glimpses of the Marilyns and Elvises, Jackie O's and Brillo boxes, soup cans and electric chairs, some irony-loving lobe of my brain sat up <span style="font-family: inherit;">grinn</span>ing—so digging the cat was never the devotional chore just exposing myself to some other hyper-hip figures of the <span style="font-family: inherit;">era </span>proved to be. (I think I mentioned Bret Easton Ellis.) </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Eleven years of college only approbated those twinges of naked ironic pleasure, buttressing them with the more cerebral reasons we all recite <span style="font-family: inherit;">now</span> for <span style="font-family: inherit;">advancing</span> Warhol as a no-effing-around Major Figure<span style="font-family: inherit;">: t</span>hat he erased the silly (not to mention sanctimonious, not to mention essentialist) line between art and commerce. </span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>That he demonstrated e<span style="font-family: inherit;">mptying t</span>he self to be <span style="font-family: inherit;">as great</span> a trick as plumbing its depths. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>That he illustrated more convincingly than any other artist the extent to which we moderners have foregone reality to live in what Robert Hughes calls the Empire of Signs.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>And so on. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>A visit to MoMA a few months ago, though, reminded me forcefully why we keep going back to the same artworks over and over again as we ag<span style="font-family: inherit;">e:</span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>The bleddy things <i>change</i>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>No matter how many years dead their creators.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I didn't realize till four or five weeks after that MoMA trip (the main delight of which was the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/arts/design/cindy-sherman-at-museum-of-modern-art.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">Cindy Sherman retrospective</a>) that some Warhol I'd seen had gut-punched me, had messed me up on a level that had me thinking about our tinsel-headed friend at least once a day, every day, all those weeks later. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>The craziest part was I couldn't even remember <span style="font-family: inherit;">the</span> picture that had gotten me. <span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">A<span style="font-family: inherit;">nd</span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I <i>still</i> can't. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I just know it was something I'd seen plenty of times before—something from the early period, before Warhol eschewed painterly effects (drips, smears, lacunae, muscular brush strokes) for the increasingly hard, lurid, photographic surfaces of his most famous images.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>It was something like this, maybe:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bdaUVxlrNO4xzAALwPMlWHKvtZFcQQUXSEKCjXUAiLmakR419GMtIiw05HFv7sOoQ216SdjRoo4Dj9tSa4EEF2XzFalvxg29GmTJFZrAIcDfO70Wt9HDVlOlJqIhYCDIWbxtc12hWiJR/s1600/popeye" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eda="true" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bdaUVxlrNO4xzAALwPMlWHKvtZFcQQUXSEKCjXUAiLmakR419GMtIiw05HFv7sOoQ216SdjRoo4Dj9tSa4EEF2XzFalvxg29GmTJFZrAIcDfO70Wt9HDVlOlJqIhYCDIWbxtc12hWiJR/s640/popeye" width="547" /></a></span></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span></span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Or this:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggdNjl1LgVEd3PewTLH0x3zRvqKLL-askvHYac3-VsGanLnDVEQ2ki0_gHpTeUJUBZ4q-HjVOvIHTHhvK51B3g5nLyF066N6kqED8L8NmwN0zV1FexT9XGvTOnwfx_dmleAq7GioaCGwab/s1600/TV+$199.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eda="true" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggdNjl1LgVEd3PewTLH0x3zRvqKLL-askvHYac3-VsGanLnDVEQ2ki0_gHpTeUJUBZ4q-HjVOvIHTHhvK51B3g5nLyF066N6kqED8L8NmwN0zV1FexT9XGvTOnwfx_dmleAq7GioaCGwab/s640/TV+$199.jpg" width="513" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Or this:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoBvZ73BbtBjvl3qbLK9uztlZPI2UTEtjkJA1omiSlRunZN7IxeVQu_vr3EONEYCLKyYDKXVZAnpR17ayWt906JEOdUifzEeleQ7HifnF7VfeFvq79LpcPelUdwmWeBgIqV2y2BpgEc53/s1600/Dr.+Scholl.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eda="true" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoBvZ73BbtBjvl3qbLK9uztlZPI2UTEtjkJA1omiSlRunZN7IxeVQu_vr3EONEYCLKyYDKXVZAnpR17ayWt906JEOdUifzEeleQ7HifnF7VfeFvq79LpcPelUdwmWeBgIqV2y2BpgEc53/s640/Dr.+Scholl.jpg" width="537" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>All, obviously, mass-media images hand copied, left seemingly unfinished. All hitting me now with an emotional wallop, believe it or not, <span style="font-family: inherit;">they didn't hit me with </span>when I was younger. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>So what's changed?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I think I see now these pictures—and lots of similar early Warhols—aren't really about GE TVs, Dr. Scholl's foot stuff, comic-book heroes, tabloid newspapers, or women's wigs. </span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>They're not even about the advertisements that would teach us to <span style="font-family: inherit;">crave</span> those things. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I see now the real subject of these pictures isn't <i>in </i>the pictures.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>It<span style="font-family: inherit;"> i</span>s, in a way, outside them. Facing them. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>The real subject is the viewer of the "original" images—an <i>implied</i> viewer a little entranced, it seems, with what the ads and comic books promise, who maybe believes the promises, who's too tired or innocent or desperate or mind-blasted to come to them with anything like the auto-smirk we in the museum feel obliged to paste on our faces when we <span style="font-family: inherit;">round</span> the corner and see the Warhols.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I know, I know. <i>Entranced? </i>At first glance, these images have all the gravitas of junk-mail circulars. The originals were disposable, after all. Literally. Born to die in kitchen trash bins. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>But these banal, schlocky images' importance <i>within</i> the implied viewer's life is plain in their having been painted. In their having been <i>framed</i>. If they weren't on some level important—the stuff of dreams, the building blocks of human consciousness—why would they be here for us to study this way, presented in this weirdly validating fashion?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>That it's an implied viewer's <i>perception</i> we're seeing when we look at the pictures</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>—</span></span>not just lazy or half-hearted or sloppy mimicry</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>—</span></span>is clear from those painterly effects: the blank spaces, the smears, the drips, the scribbles. They sure look to <i>this</i> viewer like the caresses of a mind too seduced by those images to take them in whole—too breathlessly enchanted, in some maybe sad way, by their promises to pause and fill in the overexposed white blanks we're left <span style="font-family: inherit;">with</span>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Why can't I shake the feeling it's a seriously lonely mind doing this caressing?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Because I don't mind admitting it was one lonely feeling that picture I can't even remember sent me home from MoMA with that day. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Is it that the reproduced images seem designed to lure the lonely? The pre-adolescent zit-faced kid in the dim lunchroom corner? The housewife trapped in a laundry room on a rainy October afternoon? The back-of-the-bus, newspaper-hidden commuter, dully aware of a<span>n ache</span> in his shoes? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I don't know. I guess.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>But these early Warhols, so much quieter and sadder—so much less fame- and death-obsessed—than the stuff the Silver Factory would be churning out a few years later, sure do give me the fantods now.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I guess I always figured Warhol boiled down to a big chain-yank. That his <span style="font-family: inherit;">audacious</span>, well-nigh unprecedented trick was creating art that invited viewers to be absolute nobodies feeling absolutely nothing.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>I'm thinking now I was wrong. That there's way more heart there—more <span style="font-family: inherit;">love</span> for and identification with the lonely and little people (see them passing by on the 47th Street sidewalk, way down below the Factory windows)—than I ever somehow saw before.</span></span><br />
</span><br />Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6799950773817615802.post-11985709921895333002011-08-03T23:09:00.048-04:002023-04-25T21:49:50.502-04:00Flying the Coop<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The man
known as D.B. Cooper is back in the news after a bunch of years away.</span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
Who's he? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
Just the only person ever to hijack a U.S. airliner and get away with it. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
The night before Thanksgiving, 1971, Cooper, a bureaucratically suit-and-tied
white man, jumped out of a speeding Boeing 727 into a raging thunderstorm
high above Washington State, parachute on his back,
$200,000 in twenty-dollar bills clutched, presumably, to his chest.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
We the People never heard from him again. And only the
half-decomposed remains of a few marked twenties, discovered a
decade later by some kids on a riverside, testified he hadn't been just a
dream.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
What a beautiful story. A confluence, like all beautiful stories,
of at least a few human dreams, wishes, golden mind-threads, some of
them timeless, some of them historical and moment-bound.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
It's an American outlaw story, of course, in the Bonnie-and-Clyde, of-, for-,
and by-the-people tradition. D.B. Cooper hurts nobody. The hostages
all go free. The blow, if there is one, is to the System, the Bank, the
Corporation, Fort Knox, made on behalf, in some weird way, of those jogging
away from the scene, down the tunnel to family and friends at the gate,
those left with the gift of a fantastic story to tell the
rest of their lives: The Night They Were on the Plane with D.B. Cooper.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
It's a story of the eff-it audacity, the hilarious fury, of the
power-to-the-people 1960s. Which didn't really get rolling until 1970
anyway.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
It's a story of the triumph of the diminutive human over behemoth
technology. John Henry defeating the steam shovel. How many
times, after all, has each of us beheld the sealed portal in the emergency
aisle, winced at the howl of those goose-vaporizing engines, gazed
down the long aluminum tube of human heads, and sensed that death was sealed
not only magically <i>out</i> but also, somehow, inexorably, <i>in</i>?<i> </i> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">That we were, in effect,
corpses in the grasp of some giant robot like
Frank Freas's?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjONFPCBTCtblPxws_-0eExq-KQ7ExptPjTIbNgsaFlAppF_LBniXJQy1S5XsrpvihOhcOvLgBke4G_ogHhD5pUU3PlojF6JMOAskHwIgzhAVYqLYH_5yVWyO2Qer9gboEOonoKvZC9EepM/s1600/Freas.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjONFPCBTCtblPxws_-0eExq-KQ7ExptPjTIbNgsaFlAppF_LBniXJQy1S5XsrpvihOhcOvLgBke4G_ogHhD5pUU3PlojF6JMOAskHwIgzhAVYqLYH_5yVWyO2Qer9gboEOonoKvZC9EepM/s320/Freas.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now imagine
going <i>out</i> that portal, into the 300-m.p.h. maelstrom, plummeting from the
screaming robot's torso, bear-hugging 200,000 reasons to
live, betting it all there's such a thing as the <i>future</i>.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
Even if it's a future, despite your flabbergasting audacity, no one
else will ever (if all goes right) know anything about.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
And that's the deepest, most golden thread in this story, I think. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
It's a story of fame wed to anonymity. An act of radical self-promotion
coinciding—it's a magic trick—with an act of self-erasure. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
There's something in every moderner that wants to vanish
from the world that educates it, disciplines it, hospitalizes it, gives it
a Social Security number, demands it speak, vote, get a job, buy more
shoes, raise two children, be the sweetest granny or grandpa ever,
climb into the incinerator and assume a place in an urn on the mantelpiece
already. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">There's something that wants to erase the heavy burden
of selfhood inflicted on us the moment the chart gets hung on our crib in
the maternity ward.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
But that something wants, paradoxically, to <i>survive</i> the self-erasure to
enjoy it.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
This is what D.B. Cooper did—or <i>does</i>, since it's the only thing he'll <i>ever</i> do
for as long as we remember him. From the hatch of an airliner,
belly of the beast, node in a person-processing system as airtight as
any we moderners have ever concocted, he <i>erases</i> himself in a manner so
fantastic it makes him famous.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
The act is so perfect we don't even know if he survives it.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
D.B. Cooper, who might have lifted his <i>nom de guerre</i> from <a href="http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/dancooper.htm">a flying French comic-book
hero</a>. He's back in the news today, because the FBI may have
learned his real identity.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><i>
Please</i> don't let it be true.</span></span><br />
<br />
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Stephen doCarmohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559147657241978435noreply@blogger.com