1.09.2004
bad street performers
i like street musicians to be as lousy as possible. at least 95% of the time (the guy who used to play ennio morricone-ish guitar/flute at the L stop when i lived in brooklyn is the badass exception to this). back then, there was this guy that used to be out on 8th avenue every day. i'd walk past him on break from the worst job of my entire life, and the scene would look something like this...
he'd be moderately well dressed in a sport jacket and slacks that were easily 30 years old. tweed and earth toned-- tragic-comic in a way that evoked old hollywood. his gray hair was curly-- adding much to his harpo-marx-hobo breed of aura. he had a leathery face, but remained strangely innocent, as well as virtually expressionless. he seemed unaware of, or indifferent to, anyone around him. and he seemed equally indifferent to money.
his instrument was-- more or less-- the drums, which consisted of a functional snare and high hat, as well as a series of rusty pots and pans. i don't think he ever even hit the pots and pans, actually. instead, he'd just bang away on the snare and use the high hat as an occasional crash, usually three in a row (ratt-a-tat-tatta-rat-tat crash! crash! crash!, over and over and over again).
this man could clearly not play the drums. a co-worker once said that he played like someone who had forgotten how to play correctly, but i don't buy it. he sounded like me horseing around on my friend ed's set in high school (i could hardly even pull off the kick/snare intro to gnr's "paradise city," to contextualize). instead it became one of these strange instances of brilliant absurdity. perhaps not unlike the tantrum of a homeless man, but self-contained and mildly dignified. a refreshingly spontanteous rupture into what would otherwise be a fifteen minute oasis in a desert of deep, deep employment banality (i.e. my work break). but that's another story...
i think the bar is set a bit lower, here in philly, on street musicians. in new york the dynamic was an either/or of professionalism or bat-shit insanity (to borrow a phrase from jon stewart). in philly, you have people who are assumedly learning how to play in public. instead of the other-worldy appeal of rhythymless harpo marx, you are forced to maintain a strange sympathy to such a performer. the appeal is more nostalgic, since the gesture is more child-like. today, i walked by a man on my way to the train playing awkward, abbreviated trombone. it took me a minute to figure out that what i was hearing was intended to be music. and then, a few seconds later, i recognized the song. it was bob dylan's "blowing in the wind." that's about the most interesting thing that's happened in my life today.
he'd be moderately well dressed in a sport jacket and slacks that were easily 30 years old. tweed and earth toned-- tragic-comic in a way that evoked old hollywood. his gray hair was curly-- adding much to his harpo-marx-hobo breed of aura. he had a leathery face, but remained strangely innocent, as well as virtually expressionless. he seemed unaware of, or indifferent to, anyone around him. and he seemed equally indifferent to money.
his instrument was-- more or less-- the drums, which consisted of a functional snare and high hat, as well as a series of rusty pots and pans. i don't think he ever even hit the pots and pans, actually. instead, he'd just bang away on the snare and use the high hat as an occasional crash, usually three in a row (ratt-a-tat-tatta-rat-tat crash! crash! crash!, over and over and over again).
this man could clearly not play the drums. a co-worker once said that he played like someone who had forgotten how to play correctly, but i don't buy it. he sounded like me horseing around on my friend ed's set in high school (i could hardly even pull off the kick/snare intro to gnr's "paradise city," to contextualize). instead it became one of these strange instances of brilliant absurdity. perhaps not unlike the tantrum of a homeless man, but self-contained and mildly dignified. a refreshingly spontanteous rupture into what would otherwise be a fifteen minute oasis in a desert of deep, deep employment banality (i.e. my work break). but that's another story...
i think the bar is set a bit lower, here in philly, on street musicians. in new york the dynamic was an either/or of professionalism or bat-shit insanity (to borrow a phrase from jon stewart). in philly, you have people who are assumedly learning how to play in public. instead of the other-worldy appeal of rhythymless harpo marx, you are forced to maintain a strange sympathy to such a performer. the appeal is more nostalgic, since the gesture is more child-like. today, i walked by a man on my way to the train playing awkward, abbreviated trombone. it took me a minute to figure out that what i was hearing was intended to be music. and then, a few seconds later, i recognized the song. it was bob dylan's "blowing in the wind." that's about the most interesting thing that's happened in my life today.
1.08.2004
thoughts on violence
so i guess it's fair to say that i'm interested in violence. i'm interested in it as a way of comprehending things (in music and film especially)-- most particularly when expressed by non violent people. i like a lot of the ideas of isabel cristina pinedo, who's book recreational terror makes several interesting links between violent horror and postmodern desire (*in a vasly oversimplified nutshell-- gore makes manifest the desire to see the rational, enlightenment "man" ripped to shreds, not to mention compartmentalized, turned inside out, etc.*). i'm also a fan of the dumb, schlocky, kung fu side of violence. i love horror movies and genre movies. i loved "kill bill," for example, and i'm a huge fan of certain dario argento movies (rent the dvd version of phenomena).
so it surprised me the other night when i found myself turning off a movie for being too violent. the flick in question was ichi the killer, one of the most brutal films of the always brutal takashi miike. i have mixed feelings about miike. on the one hand, he's fun and stylish and occasionally weird as hell (the best of the ones i've seen is his horror/musical the happiness of the katakuris). on the other hand, i occasionally find him a bit shallow and cheap in his provocations. he has a habit of taking fairly mundane, yet entertaining, b-movie fare and dressing it up with some psycho-sexual, freudian hocus pocus or the occasional new-wave prankster-ism. the result is that nerdy art-flick-loving americans like me get the privilege of waxing theoretical, but the content always strikes me as spread a bit too thin. he's at his richest as a stylist, and i find that when he attempts to amount to more than that he often falls short.
for example, i find the male-fantasy-surrealism of a film like audition to amount to little more than second rate david lynch on a cerebral level, but as a straight-up horror movie i think it's fantastic. the pacing is great, the freaky stuff freaks you out, the jolts make you jump in your seat. it's a fun movie. i guess i just wish his "weirdness" was less deliberate or something.
**keep in mind that all of this is being written here in dubya's america. i've never been to japan. i've never studied japan, or japanese cinema or anything like that. i'm just a guy who likes movies. i think that maybe some of my suspicions are due to the fact that i'm absolutely bewildered by the bits and pieces that amount to what we call "japanese culture" here in the states. my criticisms here are admittedly naive.**
anyway, back to violence. i just couldn't stomach this movie. and i'm trying to think through why. i know one thing that did it-- the misogyny, which cuts waaaay deeper than the femme-fatale misogyny of audition. but then again, there's certainly no short supply of that in movies, and especially in horror.
there are certian movies that really do shock. the original version of the texas chainsaw massacre is perhaps an important example. i can't think of a dumber, meaner, more unabashedly illiterate expression of sadistic fantasy, and yet i find it totally fascinating. i actually think there are aspects of texas chainsaw that are somehow effective in a way unmatched by any other movie i've ever seen (however unintentional these aspects may be). i think the thing with ichi is that it always maintains some sort of authorial control. miike seemes really determined to push buttons/limits throughout the film-- turning the experience into the sort of how-low-can-you-go endurance test that i like to think i grew out of shortly after high school. and what was left in its place was a lot of nasty nonsense that sucked all the fun out of horror and gangsters and even gore itself. i felt rattled, in a way, but it was a flat sort of rattled. kind of like a hangover.
i'm beginning to ramble, but i'd like to end with this... i'd like to have a discussion about this (hahahaha)... i'm curious about the types of things that mark our personal barriers of excess. what's too much? is there a specific taboo that you can't watch (for example, i can't watch bulging veins)? how is this reflected through a personal or social predicament? how are these things historical? is it prudish to establish parameters? do we establish them unconsciously anyway?
comments?
so it surprised me the other night when i found myself turning off a movie for being too violent. the flick in question was ichi the killer, one of the most brutal films of the always brutal takashi miike. i have mixed feelings about miike. on the one hand, he's fun and stylish and occasionally weird as hell (the best of the ones i've seen is his horror/musical the happiness of the katakuris). on the other hand, i occasionally find him a bit shallow and cheap in his provocations. he has a habit of taking fairly mundane, yet entertaining, b-movie fare and dressing it up with some psycho-sexual, freudian hocus pocus or the occasional new-wave prankster-ism. the result is that nerdy art-flick-loving americans like me get the privilege of waxing theoretical, but the content always strikes me as spread a bit too thin. he's at his richest as a stylist, and i find that when he attempts to amount to more than that he often falls short.
for example, i find the male-fantasy-surrealism of a film like audition to amount to little more than second rate david lynch on a cerebral level, but as a straight-up horror movie i think it's fantastic. the pacing is great, the freaky stuff freaks you out, the jolts make you jump in your seat. it's a fun movie. i guess i just wish his "weirdness" was less deliberate or something.
**keep in mind that all of this is being written here in dubya's america. i've never been to japan. i've never studied japan, or japanese cinema or anything like that. i'm just a guy who likes movies. i think that maybe some of my suspicions are due to the fact that i'm absolutely bewildered by the bits and pieces that amount to what we call "japanese culture" here in the states. my criticisms here are admittedly naive.**
anyway, back to violence. i just couldn't stomach this movie. and i'm trying to think through why. i know one thing that did it-- the misogyny, which cuts waaaay deeper than the femme-fatale misogyny of audition. but then again, there's certainly no short supply of that in movies, and especially in horror.
there are certian movies that really do shock. the original version of the texas chainsaw massacre is perhaps an important example. i can't think of a dumber, meaner, more unabashedly illiterate expression of sadistic fantasy, and yet i find it totally fascinating. i actually think there are aspects of texas chainsaw that are somehow effective in a way unmatched by any other movie i've ever seen (however unintentional these aspects may be). i think the thing with ichi is that it always maintains some sort of authorial control. miike seemes really determined to push buttons/limits throughout the film-- turning the experience into the sort of how-low-can-you-go endurance test that i like to think i grew out of shortly after high school. and what was left in its place was a lot of nasty nonsense that sucked all the fun out of horror and gangsters and even gore itself. i felt rattled, in a way, but it was a flat sort of rattled. kind of like a hangover.
i'm beginning to ramble, but i'd like to end with this... i'd like to have a discussion about this (hahahaha)... i'm curious about the types of things that mark our personal barriers of excess. what's too much? is there a specific taboo that you can't watch (for example, i can't watch bulging veins)? how is this reflected through a personal or social predicament? how are these things historical? is it prudish to establish parameters? do we establish them unconsciously anyway?
comments?
1.06.2004
the red and the black
after over two months (i'm a slow, slow reader sometimes), i've finally finished stendhal's the red and the black, a book i decided to devote myself to after months of curiosity (not to mention a recommendation from my friend allison). anyway, it's pretty epic and involved. our calcualting, machiavellian hero is julien sorel, a poor kid from the provinces of 19th century france with a keen intellect and extraordinary memory. julien works his way through the french aristocracy-- talking-the-talk of faith and piety while secretly harboring fantasies of "napoleonic glory" (i'm stealing that from the description on the back of the book, by the way).
julien is thoroughly hypocritical, and his suppossedly "radical" agenda takes second stage to personal gain for the majority of the book. in fact, its only real expression is in his two forbidden romances: first with madame de renal, and second with mathilde de la mole. both are rich and off limits due to social standing. the former is the wife of his first boss and the latter is the daughter of his second boss.
the first half of the book deals with the seduction of madame de renal, who is good natured and submissive and-- despite stendhal's spectacular gift for description-- not terribly interesting. but the immense third-person storytelling more than makes up for it, of course-- mapping out all the superficial nuances of 19th century french manners and customs. everyone is so blazingly superficial throughout the book that you begin to feel a little less decadent/apocalyptic at the sight of christina aguilera (or what have you) when you put the book down.
i had a better time during the second half of the book, where julien meets his spirited, amoral match in mathilde. the psychodrama that unfolds between the two of them is deep and disgusting and surprisingly familiar for "a chronicle of the nineteenth century." it's a perfect, mish-mashed, hegelian struggle for recognition with all the messy emotions and appauling contradictions of a weepy 3 am phone call to a recent ex.
but the thing that impressed me most about the book is how it manages to be dry and unsentimental (save a slightly disappointing turn towards the very end) without resorting to some sort of woeful misanthropy. too often, contemporary storytelling falls into the trap of what you might call "romantic negativity," where bad news equals "realism" and we're expected to applaud some hyperbolic list of atrocities as everything spirals off into the hateful abyss (come to think of it, even a similar novel like madame bovary-- for all its pleasures and insights-- has this sort of dimension to it). the red and the black is not a manifesto of stendhal's contempt for the human race. he maintains respect for his characters throughout, and even in its darkest moments the book feels somewhat dignified as a result. it deserves its designation as a "love story" free of cynicism.
(p.s. like how i'm throwing hegel around two posts after confessing that i'm only half way through the phenomenology? if i'm getting too pretentious, please let me know in the comment list or whatever...)
julien is thoroughly hypocritical, and his suppossedly "radical" agenda takes second stage to personal gain for the majority of the book. in fact, its only real expression is in his two forbidden romances: first with madame de renal, and second with mathilde de la mole. both are rich and off limits due to social standing. the former is the wife of his first boss and the latter is the daughter of his second boss.
the first half of the book deals with the seduction of madame de renal, who is good natured and submissive and-- despite stendhal's spectacular gift for description-- not terribly interesting. but the immense third-person storytelling more than makes up for it, of course-- mapping out all the superficial nuances of 19th century french manners and customs. everyone is so blazingly superficial throughout the book that you begin to feel a little less decadent/apocalyptic at the sight of christina aguilera (or what have you) when you put the book down.
i had a better time during the second half of the book, where julien meets his spirited, amoral match in mathilde. the psychodrama that unfolds between the two of them is deep and disgusting and surprisingly familiar for "a chronicle of the nineteenth century." it's a perfect, mish-mashed, hegelian struggle for recognition with all the messy emotions and appauling contradictions of a weepy 3 am phone call to a recent ex.
but the thing that impressed me most about the book is how it manages to be dry and unsentimental (save a slightly disappointing turn towards the very end) without resorting to some sort of woeful misanthropy. too often, contemporary storytelling falls into the trap of what you might call "romantic negativity," where bad news equals "realism" and we're expected to applaud some hyperbolic list of atrocities as everything spirals off into the hateful abyss (come to think of it, even a similar novel like madame bovary-- for all its pleasures and insights-- has this sort of dimension to it). the red and the black is not a manifesto of stendhal's contempt for the human race. he maintains respect for his characters throughout, and even in its darkest moments the book feels somewhat dignified as a result. it deserves its designation as a "love story" free of cynicism.
(p.s. like how i'm throwing hegel around two posts after confessing that i'm only half way through the phenomenology? if i'm getting too pretentious, please let me know in the comment list or whatever...)
