iPodding! I have been on the road, and not updating here - this isn't much, but it's something; keeping a finger in...
1. Rambling on My Mind - Robert Johnson
2. Accordian - Madvillain
3. You are My SUnshine - Norman Blake
4. I shot the Sheriff (live) - Bob Marley
5. Hell's Bells - AC/DC
6. Blue Spark - X
7. The Moon in June - Soft Machine
8. Discipline - Sun Ra
9. Purple Haze (Live at Winterland) - Hendrix
10. Inhuman - Sonic Youth
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Friday, April 22, 2005
One for Idaho
Sweet! a bill, "Stating findings of the Legislature and commending Jared and Jerusha Hess and the City of Preston for the production of the movie "Napoleon Dynamite."" - it is the coolest public document I am likely to read this - century? I don't know. But it warms the heart, no?
(Link from The Valve and Terry Teachout.)
(Link from The Valve and Terry Teachout.)
Another Friday Ritual
Yes, the mp3 shuffle game. This week's crop, I coulnd't have done better if I were picking them on purpose.
1) Silver - Pixies
2) Plastic Palace People - Scott Walker
3) Rockaway Beach - Ramones
4) Maggie May - Rod Stewart
5) Will the Circle Be Unbroken - Staples Singers
6) Spiders and Flies - Mercury Rev
7) Dry Rain - Meat Puppets
8) 5-4=Unity - Pavement
9) Big Fat Ma and Skinny Pa Went Dancing - Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives
10) Moonage Daydream - David Bowie
1) Silver - Pixies
2) Plastic Palace People - Scott Walker
3) Rockaway Beach - Ramones
4) Maggie May - Rod Stewart
5) Will the Circle Be Unbroken - Staples Singers
6) Spiders and Flies - Mercury Rev
7) Dry Rain - Meat Puppets
8) 5-4=Unity - Pavement
9) Big Fat Ma and Skinny Pa Went Dancing - Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives
10) Moonage Daydream - David Bowie
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
April 19
It has been 10 years since Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. I don't remember how I reacted. I don't remember hearing about it, or thinking about it - I remember the aftermath - people on the radio accusing "towelheads" - me thinking they were probably wrong - and somewhere realizing what day it was.
April 19, 1993 is much clearer, the memory. It was Patriot's Day; I had been to see the Red Sox, and then gone to Cambridge with my pals; we were eating at the Border Cafe. The TV's were on, and the news came on, the shots of tanks driving into David Koresh's compound, the news that the place was on fire - the news that there did not appear to be any survivors. I felt horrified. I felt, before that, that there was no reason on earth not to simply wait Koresh and company out, and that any overt attack would lead to something horrible. It did. And in the aftermath, I thought it would create copy cats - the paranoids would spring into action. They did.
The Oklahoma City bombings left me numb. I remember feeling confusion and denial, numb despair, but very little else. It matters that I can't find my journals from the time - if I recorded any thoughts, they are gone. I don't think I recorded many thoughts - the bombing was too stark an event. It was not something you could have an opinion about - it was just horrible.
We must acknowledge these horrors. The memory of these evils. Those who suffered and died. Take a moment and reflect.
April 19, 1993 is much clearer, the memory. It was Patriot's Day; I had been to see the Red Sox, and then gone to Cambridge with my pals; we were eating at the Border Cafe. The TV's were on, and the news came on, the shots of tanks driving into David Koresh's compound, the news that the place was on fire - the news that there did not appear to be any survivors. I felt horrified. I felt, before that, that there was no reason on earth not to simply wait Koresh and company out, and that any overt attack would lead to something horrible. It did. And in the aftermath, I thought it would create copy cats - the paranoids would spring into action. They did.
The Oklahoma City bombings left me numb. I remember feeling confusion and denial, numb despair, but very little else. It matters that I can't find my journals from the time - if I recorded any thoughts, they are gone. I don't think I recorded many thoughts - the bombing was too stark an event. It was not something you could have an opinion about - it was just horrible.
We must acknowledge these horrors. The memory of these evils. Those who suffered and died. Take a moment and reflect.
Monday, April 18, 2005
2 Korean Films
So are Korean films going to be the next big thing? They have, I think, been the next big thing in some circles for the last few years - and recently, seem to be making inroads in American commercial theaters. Chunhyang and Chihwaseon have been released; so have Untold Scandal and The Tale of Two Sisters - and Kim Ki-duk's films are becoming regular features in the states: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring was released; 3 Iron is going to be released; Bad Guy and The Isle are shown various places.... And so, this weekend, two Korean films turned up, and I saw them both....
OLDBOY took second place at Cannes last year, the Quentin Tarantino jury, and it’s easy to see why. It’s got all the Tarantino factors - ultraviolence, metaphysics, tricks with time and sequence (though not excessive), dark humor played close to tragedy (and tragedy played as comedy) - it does it all very well. The other obvious influence is Takashi Miike - ultraviolence, comedy, taboo shattering - and it lifts a couple scenes directly from Miike. It is, however, a luded up Miike - it is telling that the moment most obviously swiped from Miike comes at the climax of Oldboy - Miike put his version about a third of the way into his film, played it a lot more graphically (and funnily), and, well, topped it a couple times before he was done. Miike consistently starts where other people end up... In any case, Oldboy is slower and more ponderous than Miike - and a bit less clear than the best Tarantino. Still, it’s quite good, if not quite great.
MEMORIES OF MURDER, meanwhile, was a huge popular and critical hit in Korea, and is now being shown in the states. It is a serial killer policier set in 1986, and apparently based on real events. Two women are found raped and murdered - the local cops start investigating, but they are hacks - a cop from Seoul shows up and tries to investigate for real. Not surprisingly, they clash: the locals manufacture evidence and kick confessions out of suspects - the big city cop preaches science and real police work and makes some progess, enough to save the poor saps the locals try to pin the crimes on, anyway. But the plot is not quite the point - they find clues, they close in on the killer, but can't quite find him - and they can't stop people from getting killed. There is a political subtext to all this - the story takes place about the time of the collapse of the military regime in South Korea, and the protests and political unrest, as well as the government's continued oppression, keep interfering with the police investigations. The political tensions build (never quite at the center of the film, but always there), and end in a brawl, where the cops' sins finally come home to roost - the fact that, by that time in the film, most of the cops have become noticeably less brutal is just an added irony... And it's that - the development of the characters of the policemen, and the depiction of their interaction - that makes the film remarkable. The cast is superb - the cops are absurd, affecting and sometimes very nastyl all at once; the filmmaking emphasizes their performances and relationships. And throughout, the film maintains a funny, off-kilter style. The opening sequence sets the tone - one of the cops turns up at the first murder scene, where a bunch of kids are playing. One of them crouches on the drain where the body is, imitating the policeman, while the rest of the kids find the murdered woman's clothes in a nearby field and start playing with them. The film maintains this tone throughout, even as events become more and more appalling, and the police grow increasingly desperate - while creating an undercurrent of tragedy, particularly through subtle use of repeated imagery objects and situations.
Of these two - Oldboy has the hype - it has the international honors, it has Tarantino, it has a better distribution deal - but Memories of Murder is one of the best films of the decade.
(Update: Some editing for wording, and a couple more links added.)
OLDBOY took second place at Cannes last year, the Quentin Tarantino jury, and it’s easy to see why. It’s got all the Tarantino factors - ultraviolence, metaphysics, tricks with time and sequence (though not excessive), dark humor played close to tragedy (and tragedy played as comedy) - it does it all very well. The other obvious influence is Takashi Miike - ultraviolence, comedy, taboo shattering - and it lifts a couple scenes directly from Miike. It is, however, a luded up Miike - it is telling that the moment most obviously swiped from Miike comes at the climax of Oldboy - Miike put his version about a third of the way into his film, played it a lot more graphically (and funnily), and, well, topped it a couple times before he was done. Miike consistently starts where other people end up... In any case, Oldboy is slower and more ponderous than Miike - and a bit less clear than the best Tarantino. Still, it’s quite good, if not quite great.
MEMORIES OF MURDER, meanwhile, was a huge popular and critical hit in Korea, and is now being shown in the states. It is a serial killer policier set in 1986, and apparently based on real events. Two women are found raped and murdered - the local cops start investigating, but they are hacks - a cop from Seoul shows up and tries to investigate for real. Not surprisingly, they clash: the locals manufacture evidence and kick confessions out of suspects - the big city cop preaches science and real police work and makes some progess, enough to save the poor saps the locals try to pin the crimes on, anyway. But the plot is not quite the point - they find clues, they close in on the killer, but can't quite find him - and they can't stop people from getting killed. There is a political subtext to all this - the story takes place about the time of the collapse of the military regime in South Korea, and the protests and political unrest, as well as the government's continued oppression, keep interfering with the police investigations. The political tensions build (never quite at the center of the film, but always there), and end in a brawl, where the cops' sins finally come home to roost - the fact that, by that time in the film, most of the cops have become noticeably less brutal is just an added irony... And it's that - the development of the characters of the policemen, and the depiction of their interaction - that makes the film remarkable. The cast is superb - the cops are absurd, affecting and sometimes very nastyl all at once; the filmmaking emphasizes their performances and relationships. And throughout, the film maintains a funny, off-kilter style. The opening sequence sets the tone - one of the cops turns up at the first murder scene, where a bunch of kids are playing. One of them crouches on the drain where the body is, imitating the policeman, while the rest of the kids find the murdered woman's clothes in a nearby field and start playing with them. The film maintains this tone throughout, even as events become more and more appalling, and the police grow increasingly desperate - while creating an undercurrent of tragedy, particularly through subtle use of repeated imagery objects and situations.
Of these two - Oldboy has the hype - it has the international honors, it has Tarantino, it has a better distribution deal - but Memories of Murder is one of the best films of the decade.
(Update: Some editing for wording, and a couple more links added.)
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Hen Mines
I have been struggling to come up with something to blog here today - I have to blog something here today - all that work redesigning the place (well - clicking on a different template - that's work, no?) and.....
Thanks to Electrolite for this link to Defense Tech - where we learn:
Thanks to Electrolite for this link to Defense Tech - where we learn:
Like me, you've probably stayed awake countless nights wondering, "Did the Brits ever make plans for a nuclear landmine, powered by chickens?"
Well, dear reader, I'm here to tell you that the answer is yes.
What follows is, well - well,it's worthy of the opening....
Friday, April 15, 2005
Turn and Face the Strange....
Changes!
Yes, it's redesign time. Why, you ask? To dabble with the "blogroll" a bit - though that's probably still to come. The main reason is to make it easier to read, especially if I start posting longer pieces. I've posted a couple - and hope to continue to post longer pieces every week or so. And I find them hard to read in the narrow, fixed width layout I was using. This template lets you expand the text a bit. So - that's the point. That and I was kind of tired of the green. I don't know if this orange lifesaver look is a lot better, but, it's what we're going with for a while.
Yes, it's redesign time. Why, you ask? To dabble with the "blogroll" a bit - though that's probably still to come. The main reason is to make it easier to read, especially if I start posting longer pieces. I've posted a couple - and hope to continue to post longer pieces every week or so. And I find them hard to read in the narrow, fixed width layout I was using. This template lets you expand the text a bit. So - that's the point. That and I was kind of tired of the green. I don't know if this orange lifesaver look is a lot better, but, it's what we're going with for a while.
It's Friday - what's on your iPod?
1 Bombastic Intro - Big Black
2 Kingdom Of Heaven - Thirteenth Floor Elevators
3 The Recluse - Cursive
4 Randy Described Eternity - Built To Spill
5 Caligari’s Mirror (Live - One Man Drives While The Other Man Screams) - Pere Ubu
6 God Only Knows - Beach Boys
7 Jet Plane In A Rocking Chair - Richard & Linda Thompson
8 Swimming Ground - Meat Puppets
9 Drunken Hearted Man - Robert Johnson
10 Araca Azul - Damon & Naomi
It was, I should add, something of a difficult commute home - usually I can get through 8-10 songs, depending on how many I skip or whether any epics come up. But today - those 10 got me one stop! Getting home took another 6, on the train alone... fun times! screaming kids, people crammed in like sardines - and a drunk on the platform as I was getting off, pushing against traffic, bouncing off people, and coming about 6 inches from going in front of an incoming train. Another day on the red line...
So here's my bonus 6. Lots of married couples in there...
Kid A - Radiohead
Back To The Base - X
Take Me Down To The Hospital - Replacements
I Can Learn - White Stripes
Miss Doris - Sonny & Linda Sharrock
Teenaged Lobotomy - Ramones
2 Kingdom Of Heaven - Thirteenth Floor Elevators
3 The Recluse - Cursive
4 Randy Described Eternity - Built To Spill
5 Caligari’s Mirror (Live - One Man Drives While The Other Man Screams) - Pere Ubu
6 God Only Knows - Beach Boys
7 Jet Plane In A Rocking Chair - Richard & Linda Thompson
8 Swimming Ground - Meat Puppets
9 Drunken Hearted Man - Robert Johnson
10 Araca Azul - Damon & Naomi
It was, I should add, something of a difficult commute home - usually I can get through 8-10 songs, depending on how many I skip or whether any epics come up. But today - those 10 got me one stop! Getting home took another 6, on the train alone... fun times! screaming kids, people crammed in like sardines - and a drunk on the platform as I was getting off, pushing against traffic, bouncing off people, and coming about 6 inches from going in front of an incoming train. Another day on the red line...
So here's my bonus 6. Lots of married couples in there...
Kid A - Radiohead
Back To The Base - X
Take Me Down To The Hospital - Replacements
I Can Learn - White Stripes
Miss Doris - Sonny & Linda Sharrock
Teenaged Lobotomy - Ramones
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Separating the Friday Posts
This is pathetic. Here it is Thursday night, and the last post on this thing is last Friday's iPod random ten. Pathetic! I am at least glad I started posting iPod lists every Friday - it forces me, every week, to realize what a sluggard I have been. (Last week, for what it's worth, I had an excuse - the flu; irritating work developments. But this week, I have had - well, I guess I have had something like an excuse - Wong Kar-wei series at the Brattle - I went to a couple of those - makes for long nights... But should give me somethign to write about.... sad.)
Enough! The movie world is getting interesting - this weekend, Oldboy is opening - can I believe the hype? Soon we will find out. Next weekend, it's Kung Fu Hustle - Stephen Chiao is always good for a laugh, and sometimes more... Can't be bad!
Last weekend, I had to settle for Eros. Not horrible, but given the talent, you could expect a bit more. The first episode - Wong Kar-wei's - is pretty good, though a bit repetitive and formulaic. I think the handover ruined poor Wong Kar-wei’s artistic reason for living. His recent films keep going back to the 60s, but with a mournful, nostalgic tone, which is a change for the worse from the much better, much more urgent movies he made before the handover. Even the ones set in the past were made with a sense of a deadline - they were dominated by time, and the sense of time running out. That sense is gone. It is completely missing from "The Hand", and not as compelling in In the Mood For Love as it was in any of his other films. So - much rides on 2046 I guess - he needs to find something, do something to move forward. If he keeps remaking In the Mood For Love he is not going to be a great filmmaker again.
The rest of Eros is not much. The Soderburgh episode is funny, but kind of a toy, a kind of in-joke . . . and not very sexy by any standards . . . The Antonioni piece is vile - a parody of Antonioni, with bad acting, bad dubbing, bad dialogue, naked models running around in fast cars and riding horses, fucking each other in crumbling towers and dancing naked on a beach . . . atrocious! No amount of FFN can make up for the inanity of it all!
Enough! The movie world is getting interesting - this weekend, Oldboy is opening - can I believe the hype? Soon we will find out. Next weekend, it's Kung Fu Hustle - Stephen Chiao is always good for a laugh, and sometimes more... Can't be bad!
Last weekend, I had to settle for Eros. Not horrible, but given the talent, you could expect a bit more. The first episode - Wong Kar-wei's - is pretty good, though a bit repetitive and formulaic. I think the handover ruined poor Wong Kar-wei’s artistic reason for living. His recent films keep going back to the 60s, but with a mournful, nostalgic tone, which is a change for the worse from the much better, much more urgent movies he made before the handover. Even the ones set in the past were made with a sense of a deadline - they were dominated by time, and the sense of time running out. That sense is gone. It is completely missing from "The Hand", and not as compelling in In the Mood For Love as it was in any of his other films. So - much rides on 2046 I guess - he needs to find something, do something to move forward. If he keeps remaking In the Mood For Love he is not going to be a great filmmaker again.
The rest of Eros is not much. The Soderburgh episode is funny, but kind of a toy, a kind of in-joke . . . and not very sexy by any standards . . . The Antonioni piece is vile - a parody of Antonioni, with bad acting, bad dubbing, bad dialogue, naked models running around in fast cars and riding horses, fucking each other in crumbling towers and dancing naked on a beach . . . atrocious! No amount of FFN can make up for the inanity of it all!
Friday, April 08, 2005
Another Friday Music Post
On goes the iPod - and what comes out?
1 For You - Big Star
2 Airbag - Radiohead
3 Ramses - Steve Coleman and 5 Elements
4 I'm the One - Van Halen
5 One Lonely Night - REO Speedwagon
6 Walk All Over You - AC/DC
7 The Green Manilishi (live) - Fleetwood Mac
8 Celebrated Summer (live) - Husker Du
9 Dead Set on Destruction - Husker Du
10 She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult
So I don't know what principals of rendomness are at work when Husker Du comes up back to back like that, but whatever they are... well, I can't complain too much. As long as it's Husker Du and not REO Speedwagon.
1 For You - Big Star
2 Airbag - Radiohead
3 Ramses - Steve Coleman and 5 Elements
4 I'm the One - Van Halen
5 One Lonely Night - REO Speedwagon
6 Walk All Over You - AC/DC
7 The Green Manilishi (live) - Fleetwood Mac
8 Celebrated Summer (live) - Husker Du
9 Dead Set on Destruction - Husker Du
10 She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult
So I don't know what principals of rendomness are at work when Husker Du comes up back to back like that, but whatever they are... well, I can't complain too much. As long as it's Husker Du and not REO Speedwagon.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Friday iPod Blogging comes on Saturday this week
30 Seconds Over Tokyo - Rocket From the Tombs (live)
Can't you Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones
Trouble on the Line - Loretta Lynn
Randy Describes Eternity - Built to Spill
Cheating on You - Franz Ferdinand
Embraceable You - Charlie Parker
40 - U2
In D - Acid Mothers Temple
Julio Iglesias - ButtholeSurfers
Thank You - Led Zeppelin (BBC recordings)
Can't you Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones
Trouble on the Line - Loretta Lynn
Randy Describes Eternity - Built to Spill
Cheating on You - Franz Ferdinand
Embraceable You - Charlie Parker
40 - U2
In D - Acid Mothers Temple
Julio Iglesias - ButtholeSurfers
Thank You - Led Zeppelin (BBC recordings)
Friday, April 01, 2005
Dead Souls
This will be more pleasant than the last post (if it ever posts.) I started this last night, it wouldn't post - I know I should try to do something Funny Here, in Honor of the Season, but I think I'm getting the flu again, so I'm going to skip the levity and stick with, well, facts.
And what are those facts? Evidence that someone has some interesting writers! I was watching Jeopardy last night, and what should come up in double jeopardy, but the following three categories - "Warsaw" - "She's Lost Control" and "'Joy' Division" - very nice.
And what are those facts? Evidence that someone has some interesting writers! I was watching Jeopardy last night, and what should come up in double jeopardy, but the following three categories - "Warsaw" - "She's Lost Control" and "'Joy' Division" - very nice.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
End
Terri Schiavo is dead. I'm not going to say much about it - it's a sad, painful story, turned into a disgusting spectacle by the republican party and the media. The vultures are still circling - Tom Delay making threats: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today." And James Dobson, uttering this stunning piece of hypocrisy on CNN:
But neither of them check the courts. They're totally out of control. And there is, you know, almost a feeling of futility when it comes to the courts handing down decisions that contradict the will of the people.
You know, we saw it two weeks ago with regard to executing minors. Seventy percent of the people disagree with that. It doesn't matter what the people think and the -- neither the executive nor the legislature will step in.
Oddly, the fact that the polls on Schiavo's case were uniformly against government interference doesn't seem to register. You'd think the principal would be the same there.... Of course that assumes that the talk about activist courts and sanctity of life means something - it doesn't. It's smoke, and it's meant to cover their perfectly consistent agenda - asserting the state's control over your body. Not over their bodies - the hypocrisy of these scumbags - and that is what Dobson and Delay and everyone like them are - is that they fight tooth and nail for control over your body, but they themselves fully believe themselves immune from that control. So Delay wouldn't bat an eye at the contradiction between his own behavior when his father was on life support. The rules are for you, not for him. He's Tom Delay!
Anyway... I feel very sorry for Ms. Schiavo's family - her husband, her parents (however much they created this situation) - it was very sad to witness.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Just about Exactly My Commute
It being Friday, and me being a follower of all things fashionable a couple months ago... here, once again, the the last 10 songs my iPod offered. Not only a nice run, but all of it stuff I was in the mood to hear...
1 Stephanie Says - Velvet Underground
2 Personality Crisis - New York Dolls
3 Dirt - Mission Of Burma
4 Death or Glory - The Clash
5 Moya - Godspeed You Black Emperor
6 Apartheid - Peter Tosh
7 It’s So Easy - Buddy Holly
8 Garden was Crowded and Outside - Liars
9 Walk Awhile - Fairport Convention
10 The View - Modest Mouse
1 Stephanie Says - Velvet Underground
2 Personality Crisis - New York Dolls
3 Dirt - Mission Of Burma
4 Death or Glory - The Clash
5 Moya - Godspeed You Black Emperor
6 Apartheid - Peter Tosh
7 It’s So Easy - Buddy Holly
8 Garden was Crowded and Outside - Liars
9 Walk Awhile - Fairport Convention
10 The View - Modest Mouse
Sometimes the Jokes Aren't
We all got some amusement out of Billmon's post on David Horowitz's Cultural Revolution. But then we read this story about a new law in Florida, with this lovely quote: "While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”"
The language there is a bit blander, but the sentiment - the sentimentality, really - the whininess, disguised as Political Correctness (don't forget where that term came from) - could have come straight from the thing itself.
It's the usual dreck, the usual Horowitz tactic of trying to destroy both liberal speech and free speech itself, wrapped in the language of political correctness itself (oh, god the irony! it burns us!), with plenty of the whiff of sulfer and hints of brickbats to follow that the Red Guards loved.
I mean, this is wicked hyperbole, calling Horowitz a Moaist - except - wasn't he basically a Maoists (or Stalinist or something) in the 60s - what sign is there that he is any less a Stalinist now? Certainly no evidence from this. Don't be fooled by the fact that then he called himself a leftist, now he says he's on the right - he's the same monster he was then isn't he? He is, in as direct a way as it is possible to be, exactly what he says he hates.
The language there is a bit blander, but the sentiment - the sentimentality, really - the whininess, disguised as Political Correctness (don't forget where that term came from) - could have come straight from the thing itself.
It's the usual dreck, the usual Horowitz tactic of trying to destroy both liberal speech and free speech itself, wrapped in the language of political correctness itself (oh, god the irony! it burns us!), with plenty of the whiff of sulfer and hints of brickbats to follow that the Red Guards loved.
I mean, this is wicked hyperbole, calling Horowitz a Moaist - except - wasn't he basically a Maoists (or Stalinist or something) in the 60s - what sign is there that he is any less a Stalinist now? Certainly no evidence from this. Don't be fooled by the fact that then he called himself a leftist, now he says he's on the right - he's the same monster he was then isn't he? He is, in as direct a way as it is possible to be, exactly what he says he hates.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Passionless
1) I finally rented Passion of the Christ. I skipped it when it came out, for a variety of reasons. I’ve never had much interest in bloated epics - I haven’t seen any of Mel Gibson’s earlier bloated epics - so why see this one? That and the crowds - mobs of the devout... I feared I would react badly. I remember seeing Titanic - and having to control my laughter at the end, with the CGI’d people slipping off the CGI ship. Human pinball... There were a lot of places in that lousy film that demanded a laugh - or at least ironic appreciation of the melodrama. I rather liked the melodrama of Titanic - just that instead of a taut, silly picture, reveling in its genre heritage (ironically, like Almodovar or Maddin, or not), drawing the real emotion out of the conventions of its expression, it was a bloated epic, full of cheesy music, cheesy effects, cheesy, gratuitous camera work, big gaudy sets that require time, to appreciate... God! How to ruin a fun idea! Anyway, around me all the poor girls were sobbing, and I had to hold back the laughter...
2) Let’s cut to the chase: The Passion of the Christ looks cheap. The opening sequence looks as fake as anything in Guy Maddin, but it looks like Mel is trying to pass it off as a real Hollywood movie set. Once you get to the crowd scenes, you can see Mel saving money, by shooting things tight, to minimize the amount of background he needs to dress. Even longer shots are kept within fairly narrow bounds. Of course I could be wrong - it could just be that Gibson is a complete hack, who simply doesn’t know how to make a film look good. I don’t know. I think it’s the money. I think he wanted this to be a real bloated epic, but did not have a bloated budget. $25-30 million - that’s low for bloated epic, though a pretty good amount for a real movie. So I may be right. The problem is - trying to look like a bloated epic on a modest budget is a formula for making a really boring looking film. If Mel had had $100 million to throw around, he probably could have made something truly spectacular (though undoubtedly gaudy and vulgar in the worst way - but that was the point of the film - to turn the last hours of Christ’s life into thrilling spectacle, full of gore and the simulation of high emotion) - lacking the budget, he also lacked the imagination to make a film that looked like anything other than a cheap bloated epic.
3) What kills this film more than anything is the pacing. It is slow and ponderous - not because Gibson wanted to make a slow, meditative film - this is not meditative in any sense - but because it is slow and ponderous. Scenes are dragged out endlessly - with lots of pointless cutting around the room, and portentous music, the actors deliver their lines in slow monotones, as if they were reading them phonetically of cue cards (what are the odds?); scenes drag on and on, repeating their main points... This reaches a kind of nadir not so much with the flogging, though that’s pretty bad - take the structure of the flogging scene: slow start, lots of posturing and leering by various romans; some sad looking onlookers - then the beating begins; it stops - we get the same foolishness we started with, almost a reply of the beginning of the scene - then more, worse beating - and another pause, and they flip the poor SOB over and more of it.... then Jesus' followers coming out to sop up the gore and - you expect them to start writhing in the blood or something disgusting like that.... No, bad as it is, that isn't the nadir - the nadir comes later, the march through the streets of Jerusalem - slow, repetitive, clichéd - how many times can you show poor Jesus flopping to the ground in slow motion, with the cross bopping him on the head as he hits the ground? Watch and find out! Over and over - like a loop: Jesus staggers under his cross - Romans leer and flog - crowd shots - Romans growl and flog the crowd - sympathetic onlooker! - Jesus falls - Romans snarl and leer and whip the crowd - they drag Jesus to his feet and Mel replays the loop... This was when I gave up and started fast forwarding...
4) There is exactly one effective moment in the whole film: the moment of Jesus’ death. His face is shown in tight close up with a wide lens, lit/colored in blues and shadows - it flattens his face out, stretches it, so that for a second there, it looks like an ikon, and has the spiritual effect of an icon. (Evoking, we could say, the Transcendental Style of art.) For that shot, almost by accident, the film achieves something moving and beautiful. It is fleeting - it is literally one shot. It is gone.
5) There have been exactly two great Jesus movies. One is Life of Brian - it is not exactly a Jesus movie, but it is a very sharp satire on religion and politics, the JPF or PFJ and poor Reg/Loretta and the rest based, perhaps, on student politics of the 60s (if I remember the commentary tracks right), but probably as accurate a portrayal of Palestine during the life of Christ as you can find. Dozens of radical sects, political or religious, all squabbling among themselves, accusing one another of betraying whatever they were betraying... I'd bet on it.
The other - one of the greatest films ever made - is the magnificant Gospel According to Matthew. God, but this film shames Gibson's movie, on every conceivable level! But let's stick to just the one level - the tone of the film - and it's pacing. It is odd - there are those who like to say that Mel's Jesus movie is the most faithful adaptation of scripture ever - that is total nonsense. For one thing, it completely hashes the tone and pace of the scriptures. A decent adaptation has to get the strengths of the original, I would think, and that style is one of the best things about the gospels. Pasolini gets that just about right. Read the Gospel of Matthew - it buzzes along at a murderous clip. Then read the Gospel of Mark - which slims it down and speeds it up. Their style is economical, taut, spare - they are never bloated. And the dominant impression one gets from Pasolini's film is of speed - watch how Pasolini shoots Jesus. Over and over we see shots of Jesus walking away from the camera, shouting over his shoulder at a crowd of (literal) followers, who are trotting along at his heels, camera and all. Not to mention shots where Jesus turns his back on the camera (and his followers) completely - demanding we follow him. He's always running away - he's always moving into a new world, that demands that we move to follow him.
It's embarrassing and depressing to compare Pasolini's mastery to Gibson's hackery. And it is ironic that the effect of Gibson's lack of style is to stop the film completely - drain it of its violence and its energy (it's too late to be impressed by a bunch of fake blood, I'm afraid - that's not violence - that's makeup), it's sense of tumult, its radicalism. It reduces Jesus to sentimental flotsam, a cheap plastic replica of something once emotionally and spiritually powerful.
It is a bad movie. A depressing movie - the gospels tell a hell of a story - Jesus is a great character, who represents all manner of powerful things. Gibson's movie seems deliberately designed to strip the direct challenge of Jesus' message and character out - to obliterate the possibility of a real individual response, and to substitute a mass sentimentality, controlled from above, controlled and shaped by some other authority. It is a completely "priestly" movie, in Nietzsche's sense. It wants to make herds. And it succeeded marvelously, drawing in herds of viewers who responded like cattle. It's a disgrace.
2) Let’s cut to the chase: The Passion of the Christ looks cheap. The opening sequence looks as fake as anything in Guy Maddin, but it looks like Mel is trying to pass it off as a real Hollywood movie set. Once you get to the crowd scenes, you can see Mel saving money, by shooting things tight, to minimize the amount of background he needs to dress. Even longer shots are kept within fairly narrow bounds. Of course I could be wrong - it could just be that Gibson is a complete hack, who simply doesn’t know how to make a film look good. I don’t know. I think it’s the money. I think he wanted this to be a real bloated epic, but did not have a bloated budget. $25-30 million - that’s low for bloated epic, though a pretty good amount for a real movie. So I may be right. The problem is - trying to look like a bloated epic on a modest budget is a formula for making a really boring looking film. If Mel had had $100 million to throw around, he probably could have made something truly spectacular (though undoubtedly gaudy and vulgar in the worst way - but that was the point of the film - to turn the last hours of Christ’s life into thrilling spectacle, full of gore and the simulation of high emotion) - lacking the budget, he also lacked the imagination to make a film that looked like anything other than a cheap bloated epic.
3) What kills this film more than anything is the pacing. It is slow and ponderous - not because Gibson wanted to make a slow, meditative film - this is not meditative in any sense - but because it is slow and ponderous. Scenes are dragged out endlessly - with lots of pointless cutting around the room, and portentous music, the actors deliver their lines in slow monotones, as if they were reading them phonetically of cue cards (what are the odds?); scenes drag on and on, repeating their main points... This reaches a kind of nadir not so much with the flogging, though that’s pretty bad - take the structure of the flogging scene: slow start, lots of posturing and leering by various romans; some sad looking onlookers - then the beating begins; it stops - we get the same foolishness we started with, almost a reply of the beginning of the scene - then more, worse beating - and another pause, and they flip the poor SOB over and more of it.... then Jesus' followers coming out to sop up the gore and - you expect them to start writhing in the blood or something disgusting like that.... No, bad as it is, that isn't the nadir - the nadir comes later, the march through the streets of Jerusalem - slow, repetitive, clichéd - how many times can you show poor Jesus flopping to the ground in slow motion, with the cross bopping him on the head as he hits the ground? Watch and find out! Over and over - like a loop: Jesus staggers under his cross - Romans leer and flog - crowd shots - Romans growl and flog the crowd - sympathetic onlooker! - Jesus falls - Romans snarl and leer and whip the crowd - they drag Jesus to his feet and Mel replays the loop... This was when I gave up and started fast forwarding...
4) There is exactly one effective moment in the whole film: the moment of Jesus’ death. His face is shown in tight close up with a wide lens, lit/colored in blues and shadows - it flattens his face out, stretches it, so that for a second there, it looks like an ikon, and has the spiritual effect of an icon. (Evoking, we could say, the Transcendental Style of art.) For that shot, almost by accident, the film achieves something moving and beautiful. It is fleeting - it is literally one shot. It is gone.
5) There have been exactly two great Jesus movies. One is Life of Brian - it is not exactly a Jesus movie, but it is a very sharp satire on religion and politics, the JPF or PFJ and poor Reg/Loretta and the rest based, perhaps, on student politics of the 60s (if I remember the commentary tracks right), but probably as accurate a portrayal of Palestine during the life of Christ as you can find. Dozens of radical sects, political or religious, all squabbling among themselves, accusing one another of betraying whatever they were betraying... I'd bet on it.
The other - one of the greatest films ever made - is the magnificant Gospel According to Matthew. God, but this film shames Gibson's movie, on every conceivable level! But let's stick to just the one level - the tone of the film - and it's pacing. It is odd - there are those who like to say that Mel's Jesus movie is the most faithful adaptation of scripture ever - that is total nonsense. For one thing, it completely hashes the tone and pace of the scriptures. A decent adaptation has to get the strengths of the original, I would think, and that style is one of the best things about the gospels. Pasolini gets that just about right. Read the Gospel of Matthew - it buzzes along at a murderous clip. Then read the Gospel of Mark - which slims it down and speeds it up. Their style is economical, taut, spare - they are never bloated. And the dominant impression one gets from Pasolini's film is of speed - watch how Pasolini shoots Jesus. Over and over we see shots of Jesus walking away from the camera, shouting over his shoulder at a crowd of (literal) followers, who are trotting along at his heels, camera and all. Not to mention shots where Jesus turns his back on the camera (and his followers) completely - demanding we follow him. He's always running away - he's always moving into a new world, that demands that we move to follow him.
It's embarrassing and depressing to compare Pasolini's mastery to Gibson's hackery. And it is ironic that the effect of Gibson's lack of style is to stop the film completely - drain it of its violence and its energy (it's too late to be impressed by a bunch of fake blood, I'm afraid - that's not violence - that's makeup), it's sense of tumult, its radicalism. It reduces Jesus to sentimental flotsam, a cheap plastic replica of something once emotionally and spiritually powerful.
It is a bad movie. A depressing movie - the gospels tell a hell of a story - Jesus is a great character, who represents all manner of powerful things. Gibson's movie seems deliberately designed to strip the direct challenge of Jesus' message and character out - to obliterate the possibility of a real individual response, and to substitute a mass sentimentality, controlled from above, controlled and shaped by some other authority. It is a completely "priestly" movie, in Nietzsche's sense. It wants to make herds. And it succeeded marvelously, drawing in herds of viewers who responded like cattle. It's a disgrace.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Slow Down
Time to try to get back to the movie blogging. First up - Tsai Ming-Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn. (This is somewhat obscure, but it's available on DVD and might get screeneed around the country - it is not entirely impossible to find. If it matters, I am not going to skimp on details - I could say "plot details" but as we shall see, that might not be the word. Anyway, if that sort of thing matters...)
All right then. You can check out the position of this film on my best of the 00s list. Second best Taiwanese film of the decade! It’s a good one. What makes it a good one? That is harder to answer than I wish I were. I was challenged, recently, to defend it - the usual complaints were aired: "it's so slow, there's no point, nothing happens." That provokes a small crisis. It's a problem because films like that, films paced like that, are very hard for me to defend normally. I am happiest when I can defend a film intellectually - I can't deny that I am most comfortable talking about films on rational, analytical grounds. And the truth is, I think I can defend Goodbye, Dragon Inn on those grounds - I can work out the logic of it, the themes and structural felicities and so on - it's just that with films like this, slow, minimalist films, those analytical points almost seem to be floating free in the air. Because the markers of conventional aesthetic and intellectual values are so subtle, it is easy for those who don't see them to say that they aren't there, and that the film's defenders read them into the film. And - in films like this - those doubts sometimes gain some footing.
But I see them, all the things this film does. I get it. And that creates the temptation, to fall back on some variation of the "I must be smarter than you" defense, or worse, the “I am more sensitive than you, Philistine!” defense - both vile, disgusting habits. But it's hard not to. This type of film - minimalist art in general, probably - creates this problem. It is as if you either can see what is going on in this type of art or you can't - if you don't see what is going on, without thinking about it, you won't see it when someone explains it to you. Because that kind of subtlety gets right down next to what you are - it is close enough to blankness, emptiness, that it is a real question whether there is anything there. Whether the film does show you anything, or if it simply reflects what you want to be there.
Obviously, I think it is there (the value); I think this film is as dense as any Miike or Imamura or David Lynch film. Visually, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. One reason is that I think art is fractal, like maps and Mandelbrot sets - when you move closer or further away, there is just as much information in them. A movie like this, where things don't seem to happen on the story level, contains as much information as any conventionally dense film, just placed differently. The placid surface conceals or mutes the complexity of the film - though even saying that implies something wrong, implies that the surface does not itself create specific and valuable artistic effects. But...
The film itself? I say, it is as dense as any film you are likely to see, in even the most conventional sense. It's just not all stated explicitly. What happens?
It is set in a movie theater - a huge, sprawling movie theater, with halls and attics and storage rooms surrounding the screening room. King Hu's Dragon Inn is playing to either a packed house or a handful of lonely men more interested in cruising than the swordplay on screen. A woman with a limp walks around, sweeping floors, spying on the film or the projectionist, flushing toilets. One man in the audience tries to pick up another man in the theater - then tries the men's room - then tries the storage rooms, which are full of men, silently wandering among the boxes. 40 minutes into the film, there is a line of dialogue - "this theater is haunted. There are ghosts here." "I am Japanese" replies the man we have been following - probably the only words he knows in Chinese. He goes back to the movie, and is annoyed by a woman eating nuts. The film ends and 2 men meet in the lobby - one is Miao Tien, who has been playing the father in Tsai Ming-liang's films for more than a decade. (He was a ghost in the last one.) The other is Shih Chun - one of the stars of King Hu's Dragon Gate Inn (Miao also appeared in King Hu's film.) "They have forgotten us," he says.
It fits in with Tsai's career. The long takes, of people sitting still - or walking along a corridor - climbing stairs - or standing at a urinal - watching the film playing on screen; sexual longing, the need for connection, but no connection. It has Tsai's brand of comedy - using those long takes to lull you, then slowly springing a joke on you (2 men stand beside each other in a long row of empty urinals; they stand there for several minutes. A third man comes in, and stands beside one of them. They stand there for several minutes. A man emerges from a stall behind them, washes his hands. They stand there for several minutes. Someone inside the stall reaches out and closes the door. The three men at the urinals stand there for a few more minutes. Another man comes into the room, walks up to the threesome standing together, reaches between them and takes a pack of cigarettes from the shelf above them. They keep standing there. It's in the timing. Trust me. If you've recently read some Beckett, you will understand. If you have seen enough Tsai, you will understand Beckett.) At the very end, the star of the film (of all of Tsai's films) appears for the first time, for 2 or 3 scenes. But he's playing the projectionist, so his presence has permeated the film. Outside, it rains.
That's what happens. Digging into it a bit - you have, basically, two characters, the the Japanese guy and the gir. These two move through the theater, driven by their desires, which are somewhat over-determined - she is working, but she is also looking for the projectionist, who avoids her. He is cruising, but he is also just trying to stay dry (and take a piss, maybe). These are powerful enough motivations, and interesting in their own - but Tsai skips the conventional story you might make out of these elements, and structures what is there in ways that give it its own depth. Take the patterns of presence and absence he creates - the cycling of the people in the space, the play of perception and time. Consider the role of the projectionist - framing what happens, controlling the plot, such as there is, in a way, yet absent - not seen until the end. Consider the circulation of objects - the steamed bun the woman eats, the food she offers to the projectionist then takes away. Consider the function of the film being screened, and of the actors from that film watching it. The effect is to create a series of displacements - the film, the actors, the woman and projectionist - the sense of different times occupying the same space created by the shifts from crowded areas to empty areas, or by the comparison of King Hu's film and its actors - who, again, are also Tsai Ming-liang's actors. (Miao Tien is almost as important to Tsai's work, as Lee Kang-sheng.) Miao and Lee certainly evoke Tsai's other films - in which they usually play father and son. Here, neither is on screen much - in fact, their presence (especially Lee's) is specifically withheld - and they have no interaction in the film. But that is part of the significance of the film, part of its language - to offer and deny possibilities of connections - to play off previous relationships, even if just by denying them. (Or by using the Japanese man as a kind of surrogate for Lee.)
All right then. You can check out the position of this film on my best of the 00s list. Second best Taiwanese film of the decade! It’s a good one. What makes it a good one? That is harder to answer than I wish I were. I was challenged, recently, to defend it - the usual complaints were aired: "it's so slow, there's no point, nothing happens." That provokes a small crisis. It's a problem because films like that, films paced like that, are very hard for me to defend normally. I am happiest when I can defend a film intellectually - I can't deny that I am most comfortable talking about films on rational, analytical grounds. And the truth is, I think I can defend Goodbye, Dragon Inn on those grounds - I can work out the logic of it, the themes and structural felicities and so on - it's just that with films like this, slow, minimalist films, those analytical points almost seem to be floating free in the air. Because the markers of conventional aesthetic and intellectual values are so subtle, it is easy for those who don't see them to say that they aren't there, and that the film's defenders read them into the film. And - in films like this - those doubts sometimes gain some footing.
But I see them, all the things this film does. I get it. And that creates the temptation, to fall back on some variation of the "I must be smarter than you" defense, or worse, the “I am more sensitive than you, Philistine!” defense - both vile, disgusting habits. But it's hard not to. This type of film - minimalist art in general, probably - creates this problem. It is as if you either can see what is going on in this type of art or you can't - if you don't see what is going on, without thinking about it, you won't see it when someone explains it to you. Because that kind of subtlety gets right down next to what you are - it is close enough to blankness, emptiness, that it is a real question whether there is anything there. Whether the film does show you anything, or if it simply reflects what you want to be there.
Obviously, I think it is there (the value); I think this film is as dense as any Miike or Imamura or David Lynch film. Visually, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. One reason is that I think art is fractal, like maps and Mandelbrot sets - when you move closer or further away, there is just as much information in them. A movie like this, where things don't seem to happen on the story level, contains as much information as any conventionally dense film, just placed differently. The placid surface conceals or mutes the complexity of the film - though even saying that implies something wrong, implies that the surface does not itself create specific and valuable artistic effects. But...
The film itself? I say, it is as dense as any film you are likely to see, in even the most conventional sense. It's just not all stated explicitly. What happens?
It is set in a movie theater - a huge, sprawling movie theater, with halls and attics and storage rooms surrounding the screening room. King Hu's Dragon Inn is playing to either a packed house or a handful of lonely men more interested in cruising than the swordplay on screen. A woman with a limp walks around, sweeping floors, spying on the film or the projectionist, flushing toilets. One man in the audience tries to pick up another man in the theater - then tries the men's room - then tries the storage rooms, which are full of men, silently wandering among the boxes. 40 minutes into the film, there is a line of dialogue - "this theater is haunted. There are ghosts here." "I am Japanese" replies the man we have been following - probably the only words he knows in Chinese. He goes back to the movie, and is annoyed by a woman eating nuts. The film ends and 2 men meet in the lobby - one is Miao Tien, who has been playing the father in Tsai Ming-liang's films for more than a decade. (He was a ghost in the last one.) The other is Shih Chun - one of the stars of King Hu's Dragon Gate Inn (Miao also appeared in King Hu's film.) "They have forgotten us," he says.
It fits in with Tsai's career. The long takes, of people sitting still - or walking along a corridor - climbing stairs - or standing at a urinal - watching the film playing on screen; sexual longing, the need for connection, but no connection. It has Tsai's brand of comedy - using those long takes to lull you, then slowly springing a joke on you (2 men stand beside each other in a long row of empty urinals; they stand there for several minutes. A third man comes in, and stands beside one of them. They stand there for several minutes. A man emerges from a stall behind them, washes his hands. They stand there for several minutes. Someone inside the stall reaches out and closes the door. The three men at the urinals stand there for a few more minutes. Another man comes into the room, walks up to the threesome standing together, reaches between them and takes a pack of cigarettes from the shelf above them. They keep standing there. It's in the timing. Trust me. If you've recently read some Beckett, you will understand. If you have seen enough Tsai, you will understand Beckett.) At the very end, the star of the film (of all of Tsai's films) appears for the first time, for 2 or 3 scenes. But he's playing the projectionist, so his presence has permeated the film. Outside, it rains.
That's what happens. Digging into it a bit - you have, basically, two characters, the the Japanese guy and the gir. These two move through the theater, driven by their desires, which are somewhat over-determined - she is working, but she is also looking for the projectionist, who avoids her. He is cruising, but he is also just trying to stay dry (and take a piss, maybe). These are powerful enough motivations, and interesting in their own - but Tsai skips the conventional story you might make out of these elements, and structures what is there in ways that give it its own depth. Take the patterns of presence and absence he creates - the cycling of the people in the space, the play of perception and time. Consider the role of the projectionist - framing what happens, controlling the plot, such as there is, in a way, yet absent - not seen until the end. Consider the circulation of objects - the steamed bun the woman eats, the food she offers to the projectionist then takes away. Consider the function of the film being screened, and of the actors from that film watching it. The effect is to create a series of displacements - the film, the actors, the woman and projectionist - the sense of different times occupying the same space created by the shifts from crowded areas to empty areas, or by the comparison of King Hu's film and its actors - who, again, are also Tsai Ming-liang's actors. (Miao Tien is almost as important to Tsai's work, as Lee Kang-sheng.) Miao and Lee certainly evoke Tsai's other films - in which they usually play father and son. Here, neither is on screen much - in fact, their presence (especially Lee's) is specifically withheld - and they have no interaction in the film. But that is part of the significance of the film, part of its language - to offer and deny possibilities of connections - to play off previous relationships, even if just by denying them. (Or by using the Japanese man as a kind of surrogate for Lee.)
Blogs and Deviation
On women bloggers - P. Z. Myers says something here that I completely agree with. In fact, he says it so goddamned well, I am just going to quote it:
As a reader (and I think much of the function of blogs is to indicate what you are reading, and to point to things you think other people might like to read), I know that politics is not what pulls me. It's true that the last 3-4 years have been very politically charged - so I have been reading a lot of politics - but other than the period right around the beginning of the Iraq war, and the whole election season, politics has always been a bit secondary. I get my Atrios fix, and check in on Josh Marshall and Alterman now and then, but most of my reading is elsewhere. Pharyngula; Majikthise; Long Story, Short Pier; Berube and Wolcott; Crooked Timber (currently down) and John and Belle; Pandagon. Teresa Neilson Hayden was, for a long time, at the top of the list - she has cut back on the number of posts lately, which is the only reason she isn't so high anymore...
None of these is a traditional politically oriented blog. Pandagon is closest, especially when Ezra Klein was on board - and I had slacked off reading them before Mouse Words came on board. She is not a traditional political blogger - though the problem there seems to be more with the "traditional" part than the "political" part. She writes plenty about politics - but it's not policy wonkery, it's, oh, frightening court cases or insane Christians. Which, as far as I am concerned, is what makes her worth reading. The Kevin Drum types get very boring very quickly - letting them define politics (as policy, really) is bad enough - letting them define what constitutes blogging is even worse.
So... I can see, by the way, that I listed more men than women in my list of favorites - I have also noticed that as I have tried, over the last month or so, to find more variation in the blogs I read (basically, to shift from politics to culture/academics/the arts), I have started reading more women bloggers. If that is because women don't blog on "politics" I think that might be because women who are interested in politics have a broader and more sophisticated view of what politics is.
We're all concerned about politics, so most people toss a link to the political blogs, just to keep track of what's going on in these things that affect all of our lives…but you know what that means? The political blogs are the lowest common denominator. They're like bacteria, ubiquitous, omnipresent, floating and sliming and breeding everywhere. But people don't aspire to be bacteria (not that I have anything against bacteria—wonderful critters, interesting and deserving of respect), we try to be a bit more complicated and diverse. Sure, we come up short when everyone starts bragging about their colony size or how many petri dishes they've infested or how many clonal descendants they have, but seriously, who cares? We want to be unique. We want to explore unusual experiences. We want to express ourselves in different ways. Let's agree to be different people. Flaunt your metazoan nature, rather than wishing you were more like those prolific prokaryotes.
As a reader (and I think much of the function of blogs is to indicate what you are reading, and to point to things you think other people might like to read), I know that politics is not what pulls me. It's true that the last 3-4 years have been very politically charged - so I have been reading a lot of politics - but other than the period right around the beginning of the Iraq war, and the whole election season, politics has always been a bit secondary. I get my Atrios fix, and check in on Josh Marshall and Alterman now and then, but most of my reading is elsewhere. Pharyngula; Majikthise; Long Story, Short Pier; Berube and Wolcott; Crooked Timber (currently down) and John and Belle; Pandagon. Teresa Neilson Hayden was, for a long time, at the top of the list - she has cut back on the number of posts lately, which is the only reason she isn't so high anymore...
None of these is a traditional politically oriented blog. Pandagon is closest, especially when Ezra Klein was on board - and I had slacked off reading them before Mouse Words came on board. She is not a traditional political blogger - though the problem there seems to be more with the "traditional" part than the "political" part. She writes plenty about politics - but it's not policy wonkery, it's, oh, frightening court cases or insane Christians. Which, as far as I am concerned, is what makes her worth reading. The Kevin Drum types get very boring very quickly - letting them define politics (as policy, really) is bad enough - letting them define what constitutes blogging is even worse.
So... I can see, by the way, that I listed more men than women in my list of favorites - I have also noticed that as I have tried, over the last month or so, to find more variation in the blogs I read (basically, to shift from politics to culture/academics/the arts), I have started reading more women bloggers. If that is because women don't blog on "politics" I think that might be because women who are interested in politics have a broader and more sophisticated view of what politics is.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Friday iPodding
Since I was listening to it on the train, I might as well post it...
Raw Power - Stooges
Crash the Party - Richard Thompson
On Some Faraway Beach - Brian Eno
Joe Bean - Johnny Cash
Shore Leave - Tom Waits
Return the Gift - Gang of Four
Crosseyed and Painless (live) - Talking Heads
Wear My Ring - Gene Vincent
We all Know - Devendra Banhardt
Paint it Black - Stones
Raw Power - Stooges
Crash the Party - Richard Thompson
On Some Faraway Beach - Brian Eno
Joe Bean - Johnny Cash
Shore Leave - Tom Waits
Return the Gift - Gang of Four
Crosseyed and Painless (live) - Talking Heads
Wear My Ring - Gene Vincent
We all Know - Devendra Banhardt
Paint it Black - Stones
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Colossal Wastes of Time
I have been thinking about posting something about the Congressional investigations into steroid use - though it's hard to come up with words for such naked grand-standing by useless old men... It is not that steroids are a good thing -but they are not all that big a thing. Overall? in the long run? it will be a joke, something to snicker about, whine about, use to bash Barry Bonds and McGwire and Sosa and whoever else you don't like... that's about all, unless it makes baseball as boring as the Olympics, where it seems half the results get thrown out on appeal.
Anyway, in related news, I hear next week, Congress will be calling NBA point guards to investigate allegations of palming and double dribbling. And the week after, it's baseball again, as we get tot he bottom of the Scandal of the Phantom Tag.
Anyway, in related news, I hear next week, Congress will be calling NBA point guards to investigate allegations of palming and double dribbling. And the week after, it's baseball again, as we get tot he bottom of the Scandal of the Phantom Tag.
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