A Robot Lives Downstairs

God vs. Marketing

2008-09-27T12:05:00.001-05:00

Nobody's coming to heaven anymore. God consults with marketing.
"Okay. Who's your target audience?"
"People."
"That's far too general. How do you expect to position a brand to everyone? It's impossible. Let's narrow it down."

[Later]
"So you're saying that the incentive is that they get to look at you and sing your praises foreternity."
"Yes."
"And you think that's an incentive."
"Of course. Wait. What are you implying?"
"It's just that that is most likely not an incentive for the majority of your audience."
"But I created them!"
"But that's not enough. You need them to want what you're offering now."
"Well, that's why I created hell. So if the carrot didn't work, the stick might."
"So the alternative incentive is fear of eternal punishment."

Who's more wrong - God or marketing?

Mud

2008-09-16T19:39:00.005-05:00

This afternoon, on the concrete steps of the parkette/amphitheatre, I asked Lilli how she felt about Claude replacing Reena. I suggested it was unfortunately political. She was rustling in her lunch when I asked, and she replied to the space between us, “to my dismay, I realize I have a spartan apple in my lunch instead of an empire.” She paused for exactly one second, then finished, “no – my mistake – it is a navel orange.”

Dust spun around our partially sat-on paper bags. Every day we are weights for our lunch packaging. They crackle in protest with each gust. Today they were yelling. My sandwich was uninspiring. I had hastily prepared it after Breakfast Television and before subway. We heard each other chew but tried not to listen.

Abruptly, she asked, “which way do you take from the station to work?”

“Along King, usually the North side most of the way.”

Our office is on King. My answer was redundant. She coyly swallowed her last bit of lunch. I smiled briefly and then felt it leave before I was ready. She is French, and objectively pretty; she would be considered so according to the criteria of almost any culture and time I can think of. She is also the director I report to and despite that I think about how pretty she is many times a day. I thought about it then when she stood up too quickly and I remained seated, head beside her thigh.

On the short walk back, a Ministry of Health poster glared at us. Lilli coaxed and assuaged her Blackberry and spoke at it, “to prevent infection, we are encouraged to wash our hands. The message is appropriate, but perhaps these authorities are addressing the wrong audience?” I pictured Return of the Fly with the tiny human hands on the guinea pig, and laughed. She cursed an email from Reena.

I heard a slap, then another. Bright noises began all around. The wind blowing our lunches had meant something this time, and we hadn’t been aware of it, lost in routine lunch behaviour. It was the beginning of a rainstorm. The tempo increased until the individuals were indiscernible and we were soaked within exactly four seconds. The sun disappeared within six.

We covered our heads with our lunch bags and started to run. The sidewalk was full, we moved onto the grass. Lilli was a few paces in front. A few feet in on the wet grass she slipped. Her legs slid out in front of her until she was perfectly horizontal in the air. She landed on her back and skidded into a shrub surrounded by wet soil. I slipped the moment she hit the ground but landed on my chest, and slid into her. Both of us were in the mud and laughing.

We both struggled to seating positions when I noticed concern dark on her face. She had lost her Blackberry somewhere in the soil. It was too late to care about the dirt or the rain, so we both dug around in the plants on our hands and knees. We were badgers, children. Lilli, semi-panicked tried her best to stop giggling and concentrate. I was aroused but dug my way to a hard plastic shape, and the distraction made it subside.

“Eureka,” I said, and cursed myself for my suppressed inner-nerd showing itself.

“How could I live without you,” she said with alarming sincerity, as I handed her the treasure.

I wanted to kiss her and instead I said, “when you’ve been clawing around in the mud your fingernails aren’t just dirty, they’re packed, they’re full.”

“Here, try this – there’s a slight creaking sound when you press around the edges of your nails,” she pressed my fingers with hers, “oh, yours aren’t as pliable as mine. When I get sand in my mouth from wind or carelessness, a few grains are enough to send me home.” She paused for a bar and a half of the rain music, and then, “if it was wet sand, and I scooped the earth with my mouth like it was my hand, I’d probably cry but part of me would know I’d never get a presence that cool and dense on my gums and tongue in any other way.” I wondered if she wanted me as I wanted her. The words she chose were bright like teeth and lips on my ears.

She spoke again, “we have so many other hollows for the earth to fill. If all our concave surfaces were packed with soil and clay we’d be smooth, unshaped. The small of our backs, the gaps around collar bones, between our toes.”

Yes.

“We wouldn’t have details. Our silhouettes would be as featureless as those icons that indicate public washrooms. Our sex would be concealed and uninteresting. Our clothes would be unbranded. We would all be mud people, pressing on our fingernails, discussing current events, damaging our couches, ending the two-century tyranny of the soap manufacturers.”

She checked her Blackberry.

I may have misunderstood every sign I’ve ever read.

Elephant Show people

2008-09-15T08:23:00.004-05:00

Elephant Show people ranked according to relative awesomeness, most awesome to least awesome

Eric Nagler

The Nylons

Bram

Elephant

Lois

The other elephant who came out to play when requested by the first elephant

Eric Nagler

The kid when they show footage of their live shows who is too young to dance but his mom is holding his arms and making him dance anyway

The tuba that supplies Elephant's voice

Sharon (Bram has cigarette burns up and down his arms from Sharon's abusive response to missed harmonies; I think torture is not awesome)

Supermouse has moved two blocks

2008-08-14T17:18:00.003-05:00

So my brother, Luther, and his girlfriend Lindsey had a rat in their apartment two blocks away from mine some time ago, and Lindsey's coverage of the event was hilarious and took place over many days. Originally they had dubbed the rat "Supermouse" because of its size, but eventually repeated sightings proved it was a rat. If you are friends with Lindsey I recommend you read her story if you haven't before. Mine is not nearly as interesting. And hopefully no where near as long-lived...

Today, Supermouse came to my house. Natalie was thankfully not home, and I am working from home this week so was able to deal with it. I walked into the kitchen and saw a dark blur run under the oven. Yesterday our cat had parked himself in front of the oven for a while and made us suspect something was wrong, but I couldn't confirm it with a flashlight scan. So after seeing the blur today, I knew my nightmare had come true. It was bigger than mice are supposed to be, so of course I thought, "oh crap, I've got a rat."

I quickly grabbed the cat and sat him in front of the oven. I looked at him and said "do your job, damn it," because he sucks at being a cat. I rattled a broom under the oven trying to stir it out and let the cat take care of it, but he quickly lost interest and walked to the dining room to lay in the sun spot. Useless. So I grabbed my keys and headed to Home Depot for rat-fighting supplies.

I flirted with the idea of the sarin pellets but thought of a dead rat decomposing in the walls of my home and kind of gagged. No, it had to be something that removed the problem in the open. The wooden and copper guillotine. These dangerous traps come in two sizes - mouse (tiny) or rat (frigging gigantic). I needed the medium size based on my assessment of the blur, but of course had to settle for the super-size.

I came home and set the trap with cheese beside the oven. First try! When I had tried to help Luther set his own I couldn't do it at all. I was very proud. I put up a barrier to keep the cat from investigating the trap and went into the living room to email my landlord.

Two sentences into the composition and I heard a vicious crack. I ran into the kitchen to see the world's biggest mouse (it had a dark thin unridged tail, which I think is not a rat tail) twitching like crazy with the trap turned over on top of him. It was really awful, like he was trying to swim. I grabbed a bucket and tried to put it over him and the trap in case he was able to escape, but the bucket wouldn't fit. He wouldn't stop twitching so I grabbed the broom and brought the handle down on the trap quickly to finish the job. He stopped moving immediately. Okay, job done. Good. Yuck.

I went back to the living room to continue writing my email to the landlord with the new update, and when I finished I thought about what to do next. I knew I needed to dispose of it, but I was also thinking about what would happen if another one showed up. An exterminator might be needed, and would benefit from knowing what kind of animal it is, right? I pulled the trap open and released the body onto the floor. It looked kind of peaceful but with a flat neck. I put a quarter beside him for scale (!) and took a picture with my cell phone. Evidence for future exterminators. Then I put him in a paper bag, then in a plastic bag, and then in the green bin. It's organic waste, right?

It took me 8 tries to reset the trap and put it back into the sweet spot that worked so well. It's set and waiting. Let's hope it was a one-off...Supermouse doesn't breed, does he?

Books I Read Last Year (2007)

2008-02-07T12:41:00.002-05:00

This is for Tiff. And, I suppose, anyone else who likes to read. You'd have to like to read, because this ain't a concise post.

I can't create a list of the best books of 2007 because there's no way I can actually read only books from the current year. I haven't even read most of the Western Canon yet. So I'm going to list everything I read last year, which comprises a few hundred years as opposed to one, and then give you a top 5 list with mini reviews from that.

Fiction I read in 2007 (not in any order):

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana - Umberto Eco
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemmingway
Prince Caspian - C.S. Lewis
The Magician's Nephew - C.S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
The Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius (thanks, Derek)
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (thanks, Natalie)
The Road - Cormac McCarthy (thanks, Steve)
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
Good Benito - Alan Lightman
Watchmen - Alan Moore (thanks, Ian)
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
Ratner's Star - Don DeLillo
The Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King
Song of Susannah - Stephen King
The Dark Tower - Stephen King (thanks, Keith x3!)

Non-fiction I read in 2007:

Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre - Walter Kaufman
A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism - Andrzej Walicki (thanks again, Derek)
Please Kill Me - The Uncensored Oral History of Punk - Legs McNeil
Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 - Simon Reynolds (thanks again, Steve x 2!)
I'm not including technical manuals and texts. I read far too many of those this year and the list would only be interesting to me and maybe my cat.

Out of the list of many, my top five:

1. Cloud Atlas
This is one of the best novels I have ever read. The admirable things Mitchell does with structure remind me of Underworld by DeLillo, but its his capacity for playing with language that makes reading this so delightful. The time periods (19th Century, early 20th, late 20th, early 21st, a few decades in the future, distant and post-apocalyptic future earth) and sources (travel journal, correspondence, journalism, autobiography, interview, and oral storytelling) reflected in the split-sections of the novel each have a completely realized and satisfying lexicon and style. Of course, intriguing structure and clever language do not necessarily make a novel memorable or worth reading carefully; Cloud Atlas is, however, both. The themes are universal, challenging and compelling. Dialogues about savagery and civilization are stated simply and with great insight. This book is wise about individuals, realistic about our collective blind tendencies toward honoring power, and hopeful about those that fight against it, however small. This is going to be a story I need to re-read every few years as our species heads inevitably toward the not-so-speculative future depicted within it.

2. The Road
Interestingly, the two best novels for me this year both had post-apocalyptic themes. The Road is ambiguous about both the cause and nature of its cataclysm, and takes place solely in the aftermath. Very brief mentions of the world as we know it occur in recollection, but they aren't common enough to make our life even conceivable as a precursor to theirs. The world is bleak, bereft, broken. We follow a father and son through a burned-out America, and they appear to be the only ones who have kept the memory of love alive. They are forced into situations where human lives must be taken, but we assume that they are right because they are the only ones whose motivations we know. Our heroes may be situational savages but they are surrounded by human animals that want their blood. It isn't science fiction. These aren't vampires. These are people driven to desperation and madness by anarchy and starvation. And as we identify more and more with the father and the son who face these endless enemies, we share their fear, and don't want to make their decisions with them. The Road is very sparse in its language, sketchy, bare, and short. The novel's impact is as much a function of this style as it is of the subject matter. It can be a problem as well. The repeating rhythm of the text and your rapid progress through it can lull you away from the language itself. When the careful reading of a single, slightly vague sentence can shift your view of the entire story, it is frustrating to miss out on these tiny but vital elements of the story. If you read this novel - and, of course, I think you should - make sure you go back if you find yourself tuning out the details.

3. Lolita
As a portrait of obsession, it has no equal. Obsessive, possessive attraction, actually. Every word out of Humbert Humbert, the narrator/protagonist, references in some way his love, his nymphet, Lolita. This is not an exaggeration. His description of the roads of America, his car, hotel rooms, his wives, tennis, even a murder - when read out of context - seem to be describing the lines of his obsession's body, her movements, her smell. But equally impressive is that everything about this novel is questionable. H.H. describes his own various institutionalizations in the years before the main story begins, leaving his entire narrative open to the possibility that it is largely delusional. The names of all of the characters, including Humbert himself are changed, Dragnet-style, to protect the innocent. The story is presented as the memoir of a deviant by the lawyer charged with distributing it, and the lawyer's introduction is presented as fact, not fiction. Not one part of the story is reliable or objectively determinable. Is Dolores Haze, the famed Lolita, a victim? We have only H.H.'s description to go on, and he makes it seem as though she is the one that initiates, that she is far more experienced than her 12 years should have allowed, that she is the one that breaks his heart. This novel plays with you in numerous ways concurrently.

4. Kafka on the Shore
If you've read Murakami before, then I really don't need to say much about this. It's 100% Murakami: oddly matter-of-fact but detached depictions of sex, remixed Greek myths, unclear difference between character hallucinations and the possibility of a genuinely magical world, sad, beautiful, silly. If you've never read Murakami and the above sounds intriguing, read this one or The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, they're both very good. Kafka on the Shore is also very intricate. It's a joy to see how the utter strangeness that seems random at first begins to make sense, and how these threads of ideas - a man that can talk to cats, the Johnny Walker logo as a vampire, cryptic prophecies, a quirky library and a powerful cabin in the woods - tie together so neatly and in such a satisfying pattern by the end.

5. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre
Usually I find philosophical texts to be dry - I think I'm not unique in that assessment. This one is different - it is a collection of essays and prose by what the editor deems to be contributors to Existential thought, many who either pre-dated or vehemently denied their role in the movement. There is prose by Rilke, and it is magnificent. There are Kafka stories that say more about "being" in two pages than Kierkegaard says in his long, rambling selections presented in the book. The essay by Sartre called "Portrait of the Anti-Semite" is devastating and brilliant, it implicates us all in prejudice and shows the absurdity of even the smallest discrimination. I need more context than just this book to understand Heidegger, but I could at least superficially glean that he wasn't superficial. All of these are assembled and prefaced with a succinct overview of each writer/thinker. Combined, it's a picture of existentialism that Kierkegaard could never achieve on his own. (Is that enough Kierkegaard slagging? Maybe I should mention that Jaspers' abominable thought-spew makes the self-absorbed Dane seem coherent?)

And now, a word about Stephen King
As a final note, I have to explain why I haven't put the Stephen King books in this list of my top 5 of last year, despite their high placement in my all-time list. The Dark Tower is seven books long, I've taken 15 years to read them, and I couldn't possibly count the three I read in 2007 as individual novels that could be ranked among the others. (Why am I ranking anyway? Meaning-making, constructing the beginnings of an ontology to make sense of my aesthetic values. Or, merely because of a request from Tiff?) I should write a post about the Dark Tower series, and maybe King in general soon. Not for people who've read and enjoyed his work, but for those who assume that Stephen King is just a typewriter with scary glasses.

Music of 2007 Help Me

2008-01-05T20:58:00.001-05:00

I haven't been listening to enough music this past year. I always like to look at best of the year lists and figure out what I missed, and this year I missed just about everything, it would seem. My top 10 list is really obvious. It's safe indie. I didn't buy many cd's this year, and several of them were back catalogue anyway.

Anyway, My top 10 this year, of albums I actually own and so can actually suggest that they are good:

1. Radiohead: In Rainbows
2. The National: Boxer
3. Stars: In Our Bedroom After the War
4. Bloc Party: A Weekend in the City
5. Blonde Redhead: 23
6. The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
7. Bjork: Volta
8. Caribou: Andorra
9. Wilco: Sky Blue Sky
10.Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Honorable Mention:
Sigur Rós: Hvarf/Heim
Gogol Bordello: Super Taranta!
The White Stripes: Icky Thump

The ones that I have but I haven't listened to enough yet to determine whether they're good or not:
Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
Feist: The Reminder
Bright Eyes: Cassadaga
The Good, The Bad & The Queen: The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Kevin Drew: Spirit If...

Artists I have always liked in the past but haven't heard the 2007 albums from:
Beirut: The Flying Club Cup
Iron and Wine: The Shepherd's Dog
Air: Pocket Symphony
The New Pornographers: Challengers
Liars: Liars
Amon Tobin: Foley Room
The Concretes: Hey Trouble
Dinosaur Jr.: Beyond
Wu Tang Clan: 8 Diagrams
Grinderman: Grinderman (Nick Cave)
Art Brut: It's a Bit Complicated
Interpol: Our Love to Admire
Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Nine Inch Nails: Year Zero
Beck: The Information
Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Ask Forgiveness
Rivers Cuomo: Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
The Hives: The Black and White Album

"Best Of 2007" albums I haven't heard yet (or have only heard singles from):
Justice: + (that's supposed to be a cross)
Kanye West: Graduation
Bruce Springsteen: Magic
Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam
Battles: Mirrored
Panda Bear: Person Pitch
M.I.A.: Kala
LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
Grizzly Bear: Friend EP
Burial: Untrue
Jay-Z: American Gangster
The Field: From Here We Go Sublime
Les Savy Fav: Let's Stay Friends
Okkervil River: The Stage Names
Jens Lenkman: Night Falls Over Kortedala

Other 2007 (not generally "best of") albums I'd like to hear:
Band of Horses: Cease to Begin
Menomena: Friend and Foe
St. Vincent: Marry Me
Rihanna: Good Girl Gone Bad
Frog Eyes: Tears of the Valedictorian
Great Lake Swimmers: Onigiara
Simian Mobile Disco: Attack Decay Sustain Release
!!!: Myth Takes
Deerhunter: Cryptograms
Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity
Black Lips: Good Bad Not Evil
Dirty Projectors: Rise Above
Health: Health
Dizzee Rascal: Maths + English
Besnard Lakes: The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse
Honeydrips: Here Comes the Future
Timbaland: Timbaland Presents Shock Value

So, if you have heard any of these albums, let me know what you think.

Natalie's Listening to Dead Horse by G 'n R

2007-09-24T20:41:00.000-05:00

Charlie, an acquaintance of an acquaintance. Says neurosurgery becomes boring. So, “it’s not brain surgery” is probably inaccurate. As is “it’s not rocket science,” ‘cause that’s just math. What’s really difficult? Hostage negotiation. Listening to parents tell you what’s wrong with your life choices without explicitly saying so. Ameliorating social ills without aggravating others. Being the politician that before entering office is known for his honesty, three months after he’s been elected. Hearing the gripes of the privileged when you are not. Fighting sentient armed robots.

“It’s not hostage negotiation.” It’s not trite so no one actually knows what you mean until you explain it, making it something you can’t just throw into the ambient dialogue to fill space. I tried it. You shouldn’t. Don’t try the robot one either. If you have to use one, the hostage negotiation is the better choice, but still unacceptable as I established earlier.

What does this lead to? The conclusion that our language is a trap. I can’t claim to know whether this is true in all languages, as I am unilingual. But in English…

Orwell hated idiomatic language, equating its unthinking separation of intention from expression with fascism. And I believe him. But if we avoid assorted clichés and instead try to be original with what we say we are bewildering to our interlocutors, are even harder to understand. So I don’t know what to do when I speak or write. There is no way to say something meaningful in a way that is transmitted pristinely to another. I can combine words in innovative ways in an attempt to match word for thought-pattern exactly what I want to say, but it will violate a syntax or the unique combinations will connote something different in the listener than my intention. Or I can use only established patterns like Pacey on Dawson’s Creek hoping that by throwing enough hackneyed phrases together that the familiarity of the rhythms will allow a deeper meaning to filter in to the other’s brain. Neither is what I need. So I will never be able to really explain anything of substance to anyone.

I still sleep okay.

Small thoughts about 18 films 10-18

2007-09-16T11:53:00.002-05:00

10. Silk. So why did I see this one? I was a sucker for The Red Violin, the same director. I thought it would be beautiful - a trader ventures to Japan to collect silkworms in the decade preceding the Meiji Restoration and falls in love. But it wasn't that beautiful. Michael Pitt was impenetrable; I never knew what he felt. The scenery should had a bigger role. Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, where our literature presents setting as character as often as people.

11. I'm Not There. This was the Bob Dylan biopic. I'd rather watch this than any other biopic I can think of, except for maybe Capote. Because it tried to capture the person through several meta-analyses. It presented him as if his former lives (Woodie Guthrie, Arthur Rimbaud, etc.) were parts of his real life story, or through fake documentary of made-up people that were very similar to him. However, it also removed the bearings you have in a biopic, making me feel at times lost. This is maybe irrational, but part of me really wants to know how far I am into a film. What more do I need to commit to this? Should I be bracing for leaving this film world yet? I couldn't do that here.

12. Le Scaphandre et le Papillon. The story sounded bleak, a magazine editor suffers a stroke that leaves his only means of communication the blinking of his left eye. Through a simple system of alphabet recitations and yes or no blinks, he recites his memoir. Then I saw the trailer, and it looked like it would be in some ways whimsical, with his memories and dreams merging as he lives imprisoned in his body. It was neither. It wasn't bleak and it wasn't whimsical. Instead, it was sad, honest, and funny.

13. Alexandra. The only other Sokurov I had seen was Russian Ark. And this one wasn't an experiment, it was just a film. It presents war in a different way than I've seen. The Grandmother of a Russian Captain visits him on base in Chechnya. She treats all soldiers as her grandson, spoiling them with one hand while she disciplines them with the other. It's quite clever how she manipulates them. Then she visits the town without permission and creates a friendship with a local woman her age. It's this relationship above anything else that explains the perspective on war that the film portrays. It was equal parts refreshing to see these themes presented in this way, and unsatisfying that it didn't have more to say about it.

14. Flash Point. No, I didn't see SPL last year, so I can't compare this. This is Hong Kong action cinema. It was 2/3 a throwaway police drama, and 1/3 unbelievably exciting Mixed Martial Arts crazy shit. Unfortunately it was divided timewise this way too. After sitting through the first parts, it probably made the last sequences seem that much better. I need to see SPL.

15. La Fille Coupee en Deux. Claude Chabrol seems lazy to me. It's a story (or two stories) that I've seen many times. A woman must choose between two men, one significantly older, married and (depending on your sexual politics) abusive, the other rich and devoted but her own age and possibly unbalanced. The other story is what the rich can get away with. It is, however, told in one narrative. It just seemed to me that any time I tried to get a handle on some piece of symbolism or intention it was left meaningless. The film starts in an amniotic red, with overhead lights shaking across the screen, their light trails making them appear sperm-like. The character we are following is a minor character in the story, not one of the three, and not one of the rich. Does that sound like it fits the themes above? I don't know. It's still an enjoyable drama, but that depth is missing I think.

16. Dai-Nipponjin. A documentary film crew follows around a super-hero in his daily activities. When Japan needs him, he is electrically grown to building-sized, where he fights absolutely absurd "baddies". The documentary side is very subtle on the humor making me think I was missing a whole lot in the translation. Unfortunately, the big battles were done in CGI and didn't match at all with the documentary feel. I'd have liked to see it better integrated. Sony managed to do what I wanted to see in its Ratchet and Clank commercials years ago. Surely they could have done better? The last 20 minutes turns into Ultraman or some other reference that I have no clue about seeing as I ain't no Otaku. The absurdity of it is still funny, and the closing credits are brilliant, but I know I missed the meaning. I felt like the 12 year-olds watching Family Guy who think that the everything is random and I just want to tell them that Stewie hitchhiking in the rain is Bruce Banner, it's not random, it's referential.

17. Joy Division. I'm not going to watch documentaries in the theatre anymore. This was a good documentary, with some nice techniques that really reflect the subject matter. But it's still a documentary, and that's TV. I stopped going to Doc Soup and Hot Docs, why did I think I should go see this one? Should have seen Control instead despite my above-noted feelings about biopics.

18. A L'Interieur. Is there a word to describe the feeling that the entire audience was clearly feeling? It's better captured in phrases like "No...they wouldn't do that in a movie, would they? Oh god, they are. Should I plug my ears or shut my eyes, which part of the horror I'm about to experience will be the part that gives me nightmares, the sound or the picture?" This was brilliant. The antagonist shares a bit with Black Christmas' Billy, in that the motivation and behaviour are completely fucked up and unclear, making the tension that much better. This film builds up better than any I've seen in a long time. Alas, the ending has problems, depending on how you interpret it. I don't want to say more about it because you should see this if you are a sick bastard like apparently I am. I can't think of a better way to end the festival...

Small thoughts about 18 films 1-9

2007-09-16T00:53:00.001-05:00

This is what I saw at TIFF this year (2007), in case you're interested:

1. The Mother of Tears. Asia Argento is a sort-of-hot version of her father. Seeing them stand side-by-side made it more apparent that she is sort of haggard-faced like him, but in four-inch heels her legs are far better than his. I'm commenting on her instead of the movie 'cause the movie was pretty bad. But not bad as in I didn't like it, just really poor ADR throughout, and atrocious dialogue. And the climax was incredibly disappointing.

2. The Man from London. This was the one by Bela Tarr that everyone at Cannes hated. Someday I will tell you about the worst Q&A ever that occurred after this screening, but not today. I quite like the film. I think people didn't like the fact that the plot wasn't strong, or even present, really. This is because the plot is a crime story, and despite that, very little happens. But people expect plot from a crime story. If the subject matter had been love or misery, 12-minute long shots of ship's hulls would be more acceptable I suppose. But I love that the film spent too much time on random tangents - people who had no place in the plot are given enough time to tell their own story through their actions - and how Tarr shows objects (and plays sounds) out of context that become real when presented later. It's fun guessing what it means, like when Owl Magazine used to have extreme close-up pictures that you tried to figure out, and it ended up being a close up of a carpet but you guessed that it was a sweater.

3. Frontiere(s). A French horror film that starts out in the midst of the Paris riots, and ends up as a Nazi Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It had every cliche possible, but somehow it made more sense to me than many similar horror films have in the past. I mean from a motivation point of view. And there were scenes in it that were sufficiently fucked up. I think the director's film Hitman will be worth watching when it comes out.

4. George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. Yep. This is really good. Opening night of the zombie invasion again, like with Night of the Living Dead, but the social commentary is media, myspace, and the remake of Dawn.

5. Nightwatching. Peter Greenaway made this, and presented it like we were soooo lucky to be able to watch his films. But it was very interesting, without most of his usual tricks. Still plenty of penii shown, but a period piece that made me care about the characters, want to find out the mystery behind Rembrandt's The Night Watch, and revel in the beautiful tableaux he constructed. Martin Freeman (Tim from the Office) plays Rembrandt, and he was very funny, very vulnerable, and very human. Better cast as Rembrandt than as Arthur Dent.

6. Stuck. OMG Mena Suvari is thin. I shouldn't care, but it was strange because she's a pretty major actress I suppose, and she made Midnight Madness feel like a soulless gala because the photographers were smitten. It's entertaining and does a good job at showing how awful people are to other people, even when they are good in other areas of their lives.

7. Margot at the Wedding. What happened between Noah Baumbach and his Mom? I thought I could piece it together from The Squid and the Whale but I guess I wasn't quite there. Nicole Kidman is the fucked up mom in this one, and she shows exactly what not to do when dealing with children. Or people. Or dealing with anything. Or being. God, everyone is so hateful in his films. He makes hugging your children seem manipulative.

8. Sukiyaki Western Django. Quentin Tarrantino acts in this and his performance ISN'T AWFUL!!! Part of me loved the chaos of this film, but another part of me thought it could be a lot better. And I don't know why. Which makes me feel dumb. So, assorted impressions instead: The town sheriff does a good Gollum-styled conversation with himself. The leader of the Genjii (white) has great style and some nice sword-play. Best Akira reference ever. 20 minutes too long, but nothing was really redundant.

9. The Devil's Chair. I was so excited to see what appeared to be Hellraiser style, alternate-demon-filled-world, and was let down. Then there was the Trainspotting/Goodfellas freeze-frame with narration thing. It gave it energy, it removed the usual story-building blahs in a good horror. But it made the whole thing feel hollow. Have you seen Session 9? It wasn't good either, was it? And it had David Caruso.

Being Mugged

2007-07-23T09:40:00.001-05:00

I’m listening to Autobiography of a Yogi, written by Paramahansa Yogananda, and read by Sir Ben Kingsley. I’m between Sumach and River Streets, on Gerrard Street, and it’s just past 9pm on a weeknight. I’m on the Regent park side of the street. I’ve walked it many times, but never this late. I had a thought about people rolling others for shoes a few minutes before. I’m not scared or tense. The tales being told on my Ipod are enlightening. They make me feel good about people, and about my potential.

I notice suddenly that a man, probably around my age, black or arab maybe with a scarred face is walking immediately behind me and just to my left side. After maybe 30 seconds, where I think, “oh, another crazy person or retarded person has decided to make friends with me.” I turn my head slightly to him, see his angry and scared eyes, and say “what’s up?” Then he is pushing me as hard as he can toward the buildings. I notice he’s got a friend with him. I think briefly about how awful this could be if he gets me off the street and into a building or alleyway, and I push back. That moment is scary. He tackles me to the ground when I push back, and I land on my knees and hands on the sidewalk, maybe 5 feet in from the street. He’s saying “give me the money” over and over again. I’m saying “okay, dude” and “hold on a second”. My wallet’s in my bag, not in my pocket, so I can’t just hand it over. He’s crouched over me, his friend standing behind me, watching for police, I assume. There’s cars going by every second, I know they can see me. There’s people walking on the sidewalks, distant enough that they won’t help, but close enough that I know they can see what’s going on. I grab my wallet out of my bag and open it. He says “how much you got” and I say, “I’ve only got 15 bucks, dude.” He starts to reach for the wallet and I say “you can have the cash, and there’s like 8 bus tickets here. Take them.” He says “what else you got.” I hand the cash and the bus tickets and say “that’s all, dude. You got some cash and some bus tickets.” He notices my headphones sprawled in front of me on the ground. He says “give me the Ipod”. I think to myself, this was a gift, it’s not really mine when it’s a gift. I say, “no, dude, not the ipod. come on, you’ve already gotten cash and bus tickets.” He says “I will shoot you,” and puts his hand inside his pants. Strangely, I don’t believe him, but remember a conversation I had with a friend before about how it’s not worth finding out whether or not he’s got a gun. He has baggy pants, you can’t tell. He’s saying, “take the ipod out of your pocket” and I say, “okay” and pull it out and put it in his hand. He then says “you’re not stupid, you’re not going to call the cops, right? Don’t make me shoot you.” And I say “I’m not going to do anything, dude. I’m just going to leave.” And he turns around and him and his friend run. I get up, never look back, and walk straight ahead along Gerrard towards home. I notice that my heart-rate hasn’t really gone up, it’s maybe 100. That’s normal for me. I rub my right hand where it scraped the sidewalk as I walk. I don’t want to look back, and I don’t want to reach for my cellphone. When I get over the Don Valley I call my wife.

I never called the police. I wasn’t afraid during it, it didn’t feel like it was really out of control. Neither of them were terribly erratic. They didn’t hit me or even swear. Although at first when I was recounting the story I added the word “motherfucker” to his dialogue, and it took me until the next day to realize he never said it. I had put some words I assumed I’d hear in the story. That’s weird. I didn’t get angry at all for a while. I was depressed, couldn’t concentrate, and really sad. I don’t identify with him, but I’ve always wondered about what life is like in such a rough place. I mean if you live in poverty, how can you develop the morality we expect? But a few days later, I’m fucking angry. It doesn’t matter what his situation is, or what mine is either. Fuck you for taking my sense of security away from me. I walk around in my neighbourhood now, taking note of my impressions, and I get flustered by things that never flustered me before. I always assumed that people mind their own business. We aren’t friends or enemies, we don’t know each other, we go our own way. But someone, anyone, can decide to invade that space. At any time. And that’s wrong. I can tell you that living paycheque-to-paycheque in subsidized housing is not an excuse for traumatizing strangers.

We went to Windsor for the weekend. We were on farms and in quaint little villages. We went to St. Jacobs, the most unreal town I can think of. Everything is idealized. We don’t walk, we drive everywhere, in a metal bubble. I think about raising a family, and how much easier it could be there. But that’s not me. This event cannot and will not change my perceptions that much. Some neighbourhoods are not in a good place. Walking through the poorest area with a nice dress shirt and an Ipod is not smart. That’s what I need to do different. Be smart about the fact that I live in a city. The city hasn’t changed at all. It’s the same. And I have to be mostly the same, but learn from this thing.

And at the same time, I will maintain that nobody has the right to hurt another person, in any context, ever. Next time you think it’s okay to hurt somebody, remember that. You don’t hit people, you don’t steal their bicycles, you don’t break into their houses, you don’t rape them, you don’t threaten them, you don’t kill them. And if you’re on the other side of things, knowing you don’t do those things ever, you might have been one of the people driving by, or walking just a few yards away on the sidewalk.

Happiness at the bottom of an email

2007-05-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

So I got this invitation from Hotmail to join Windows Live Mail. I had already joined the beta before and reverted to Hotmail because I didn't like Live at all. In fact, Microsoft knows this already because I went to the trouble to fill out a very long exit survey when I opted out of the beta.
At the bottom of the email was this message:

As an MSN member you have received this e-mail to inform you of updates, changes to the service, or special news and information vital to the service. Our policy is to send e-mail messages only to announce such information, and we'll continue to honor this policy. These communications are required as a part of this service. If you do not wish to receive these letters you may discontinue your participation in the service and close your account.

It made my day, seriously. I'm so very happy when I get passive-aggressive notes from a service provider. Never mind that asking me to rejoin a beta is not what anyone would ever call vital to the service. Thankfully they make it easy for me to close my account when I wish to disagree with their policy by providing a link. That's thoughtful.

Something I don't remember writing

2007-04-10T16:21:00.000-05:00

I found this on my computer and don't remember writing it, although I remember the Queen's park incident:

There’s no difference between your kitchen and my kitchen except for the materials. And I can’t cook anyway. So I don’t need better materials. I thought these things as someone was killed in a nearby neighbourhood. I thought these things as somebody came in a nearby apartment. I’m always thinking these things.

I can’t answer homeless people anymore. I don’t trust those with money or those who appear to have none. I sometimes shout at them but I never feel proud of myself.

I shout at cars. I shout at people shouting at cars. I can’t get over the mutability of perspective or my own implication in the things I hate.

The other day I was in Queen’s Park and at least three hundred, maybe eleven thousand different people at different times were taking pictures of two squirrels that were inordinately friendly and stayed there all day enjoying the attention. But they were really just squirrels with nothing more to offer than inquisitive postures, and yet they captured tourists like Honest Ed’s. It got funny to watch. I was distracted and took our Frisbee in the jaw. She has a stronger arm than it would appear.

I grew up for this. I started thinking of art or science or language. And now I think of other people having sex nearby, and I don’t give anything to charity. I used to paint and now I draw. I used to understand meiosis. So I walk a lot instead, and explore narrow bands of the city. Really narrow. Rags. Geographic bandages.

The Challengers

2007-04-09T18:58:00.000-05:00

Not only is The Challengers an awesome movie, but the triumphant song they do at the end of the film is incredible. It sounded to me like a Magnetic Fields song. That's because my music knowledge started in 1992. It turns out it's a song by Jon and Vangelis, but their version is nowhere near as good as that sung by the 4 twelve-year-olds that make up the eponymous band/gang (well, also the last-minute addition of another girl). If you once upon a time saw the movie and have wondered for years if the song is truly as ingenious as you remember, here's a video of the original Vangelis and some other guy version:
Jon and Vangelis - I'll Find My Way Home (YouTube)

If anyone ever finds a capture of the movie version, make it known, loudly.

Two Hoses. No Hope.

2007-03-31T13:10:00.000-05:00

I tried to buy an air pump that would pump both my air mattress and my bike tires. But here's the thing: it's a different hose type for air mattresses and dinghy's then it is for tires and basketballs. Different nozzles are available only for their "root" type of hose. My wife and I spent 90 minutes in Canadian Tire trying to figure out a solution to no avail. It seemed that no one would ever require an air pump that does all of your air pumping needs. But then, we found one that does it all. But it only works from your car's lighter. Because the only time you'd need to pump multiple things with air is if you're mobile I guess. I don't want a car. I want to inflate an air mattress and a bicycle with the same device. No dice.

No Frills

2007-03-31T10:37:00.000-05:00

The white cashiers at the closest grocery store always complain about the Asian population that frequents the store and I think I'm only privy to their racism because I'm white, too. They hate when people buy things with change and they think it's a "China thing." But am I supposed to argue with a cashier making minimum wage just because they're ignorant? Is a systemic problem going to be counteracted by random fights with retail?