The thermometer cracked today at 92 degrees. Which in common parlance means that the air outside was thick, like being suffocated under a down comforter while a fire rages on the floor below [Ed. aside: in my earlier times, I would rather naively assert that the masses would assert their distaste for global warming through pursed, smiling lips, en route to sand-draped shores and ocean breezes.]
In other words, with all heat, dry or otherwise, the air becomes murky. Adjunctly, bugs like murky, but in this heat, can they survive it? While walking out to get toilet paper, I saw this at my doorstep:
Yes, that's a dead butterfly. Yes, it means some form of curse or another, meaning that yes, I have inspired the wrath of Satan or a tengu, does it mean anything else? I inquire.
* * *
I have two main problems with living on graveyard:
1) Meeting up with people. I've been playing phone tag with a friend of mine the last few days, attempting reconnect with old friends from SF. Generally, this results in my getting together before work. Generally, this also means an abbreviated meeting and/or the second problem:
2) Brunch. As somebody who takes great joy in the new, especially in forms decadent, As is well known in culinary circles, brunch is the castoff meal where all manners of largely dull, unsophisticated palates mingle together with their children, their parents, their large gaggle of friends and lord over angrily and in the throes of hangover their servings of mimosas and variations ova. In other words, it's passionless, largely as a means of survival.
And if it's one thing this largely inconsequential writer can't stand, it's the passionless.
In some ways, this summer might represent Young Orpheus's descent to the Pied-Piper of Hell. Who wants to help me edit my resume?
As usual, David Denby nails it. Excuse me: Denby. Nails. It.
So cut to the scene, Friend Daniel and I outside the Sunshine Cinema, me with requisite twig, Daniel having just emerged from el bano. After watching The Tree of Life.
Me: Just go with me on this one. I need to say the words, and then either back down or back them up. But I need to test the words out.
Daniel: And we haven't talked about the film yet, but those words are?
Me: That was the most infuriating film I've ever seen.
Now, the Denby interview happens on Charlie Rose, talking about the summer films either out or previewed in some capacity. And he's on a panel with A.O. Scott and the always foxy Dana Stevens. The clip:
The thing that killed me about the film was it's near-perfectness of the middle section. Talking with Friend Sarah afterwards, it was a new Raw. It was a new way of conveying Emotion, Life, the Ineffable. The middle section, for all its faults (and there were a spare few), it was about as perfect as you could get in filmmaking. Unfortunately, tacked around it was a probably well-placed Job quote, an IMAX nature film, and Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
I resolved that night that I need to own this film. That at least says something.
Item 2.
Mr. Abrams. Give it up. You're a hack. I completely get the fact that you provided that niche so sorely pining for Wachowski-sibling ruminations, but cereal-box philosophy is not your thing. You're a melodramatist. It involves a certain loss of complexity and depth, but I'm sure you'll understand when we say you're just not cut out for anything intellectually deeper than a wading pool filled with Kierkegaard. The cereal box was veneer, anyway.
I should retrace. I never saw Lost, save for a few episodes. I have watched Fringe, and do enjoy it but it's always seemed somewhat off. As for his other stuff: Alias and Felicity and Cloverdale and Undercover something -- Great, I think. Not really familiar with most of it, although the few bits I've seen have done nothing but make me realize that certain people trade on their ability to get more attractive people around them.
But wait, I forgot to mention this little beast:
I should be fair. He was only the writer, and it was an early script. But, as one of the less than three films I have ever walked out on in my life, I can comfortably and assuredly say that not only was this one of the most unpleasant film experiences of my life, but it was largely because of the dialogue and writing.
Thank you, JJ Abrams, for ruining what should have been a good mother-son bonding experience. I left her alone, while going to the arcade.In other words, Thank you JJ Abrams for destroying a little bit of my childhood with your shit, formulaic drivel striving for a deeper resonance but that found its stride as shit, formulaic melodramatic drivel.
And what I'm really saying: Mr. Abrams, your attempt at the New -- the junky quasi-intellectual sci-fi -- is just that. It's Junky. There is a market out there for the hearts and minds of sixteen-year-old girls. Judging by the general reaction and demographics of the defenders of said piece, you should absolutely stick with it. Absolutely. Positively.
But those smarts? Leave it to those of us who have it. We're a dying breed, we get defensive and a little bit round-the-wagons cold.
It's been awhile, what with the valley of lethargic antipathy that is the post-project doldrums not coming with a road map or really any sort of guidance whatsoever. I ate potato chips for dinner, so there. My fearless readers, you get another in the long line of compendium posts that I seem to be so efficient, nay, resigned, to cobbling.
The notes:
Firstly, I would like somebody, more versed in the voodoo that is contemporary physics theory as it pertains to personal electronic devices in the early 21st century, to explain how the simple shock of walking up three flights of stairs can render, without external aid of any sort, the touch screen of a cell phone to shatter to the point of unusability. Because people, this happened. And it was sort of beautiful.
Secondly, there's a certain joy in the smell of a counter cleaner that it should smell like over-ripened, treacly and sugar-enriched oranges. The lingering scent makes me think my counter should still be sticky.
Thirdly, and tangentially, I had a grand experiment with cocktailing this weekend, which frankly worked like a charm. Going back to the treacle, there's the negroni. That was the base. One part gin, one part Campari, one part sweet vermouth. Needless to say my counter/bar area had the tackiness of a women's locker room after the visiting freshman-boys-chess-club ventured through the wrong locker area.
My addition? Beer. Add one more part beer, let it rip. It livens and separates the flavors, seemingly transforming the cocktail from a fine late night summer drink to a finer, midday at the yacht club affair.
Except your yacht club serves PBR.
Fourthly, and similarly tangential, a rule: the game of Scrabble should absolutely be devoured while drinking said Negronis. Makes the words so much crisper.
Fifthly, and completely unrelated to everything said above, so get over it. I've been reading this critique of Jonathan Franzen's eulogy for the novel, and more importantly, its relevance. Franzen argues the novel is dead, much in the same way that longform journalism is dead. Martha Nichols argues that it isn't largely based on the inherent suspense and gratification delayment the simple necessity of turning a page entails, further saying that the books that will most likely live on tend to be sort that you have to apologize for reading upon inquiry.
I read the mood as more transitional right now. Franzen has a style more inline with American realism, the sort of Pulitzer bait that isn't very far removed from the practice of longform journalism. It's fine, but currently feels old and stale compared to the other forms and stylistic approaches engaged in currently (I'm thinking of the more European experimental styles, the philosophical novel, even the gothics). I still maintain that for art to retain its power, it needs to find the way to say things new, and while the realist tradition, with its power drawn more from the author's ability for observation than framing, ...well, the dusty layers of caked-on mold are starting to show.
Sixthly, finally, breathlessly, I've recently had two friends bemoan photography's place in the art world. Studio shit? Junk. I agree. Slice of life, candid, street? Maybe so. This is seriously a problem that keeps me up at night, so understand I have no way around it. In light, though, I've been messing around with the camera more, and some of these photos, while you may have seen them, I offer only for amusement and...my attempts at the ineffable. Because that's what it's really about.
So after the near-loss of the star character in this psychodrama (namely, me), the inclusion of a ghost and a large preponderance of apparently contraband Russian porn being allowed to sift through, this blog is back up and running, albeit the slightly less kempt, the slightly more visual, and altogether being cobbled together in a place that looks like a warzone.
What happened, you say? A damned film class, I say. The result:
Now, I'm not trying to say it's good. It's a first attempt. Like first time even working with anything motion -- film, video, etc. And the sound design is essentially made for this size of interface -- when played on the big screen I actually blanched a bit at the lack of some sounds making it through, others I wish I could have tweaked a bit more.
My favorite of the feedback so far? "This is definitely the work of Geof Metz." I give major kudos to the author of that one.
Anyway, as this is essentially a reunion episode I'm going to keep it short and fluffy and altogether completely prosaic.
But the best tidbit about this film so far: When uploading it to youtube, it wants to tag it with "Horror Film" and "Mime."
For those of you who read this regularly -- and have reason to keep up with this other than the apparent rockstar SE optimization I did on a pair of posts that have culled traffic from Germany, Russia (oh, have I gotten a lot from Russia), as well as parts elsewhere for what was essentially a very very dull post (one might venture prosaic(?)), well, here goes.
I'm not planning on shunting this one, but I've got a little bit of dialogue exercises I feel like fucking around with, and what better way to do so than by pulling crappy, corporate photos.
Another digest post. Click off now or forever hold your peace.
Friday night, first the Brooklyneer, where, despite the guy in the "I'm trying to sell Sailor Jerry or at least introduce the world to the greater benefits of Don Ho and mayonnaise-laced teriyaki" shirt, the bar seemed okay. Actually, pretty decent, all the way around. But remember, it's the West Village, where people drink for the scenery, not for the "Public House" idea of the public house.
Battleship Potemkin. In a phrase, lovely, dated, and I think it gave me ADD. And I cannot fault friend Daniel for bringing earplugs.
I will get this out of the way: as someone who had only once in his life ever ice skated for the grand total of free, I have to give a rousing endorsement to The Pond in Bryant Park. That is, at 8 a.m.
I have had to twice defend my position of disliking Terry Gross, and I didn't even have last night's episode for an exhibit. C.I.P. In a conversation with Lena Dunham, the director of Tiny Furniture, she could not keep away from the middle brow catnip of "So how much of this story is really you?", stretching it to an infuriating
