Kristin By Sea

Carousel: surprisingly thought-provoking

2011-01-10T00:09:00.000-08:00

I gave this old Broadway classic a spin today, believing that it and I had some unfinished business. The last time I listened to Carousel, I watched the movie version, and the whole thing was so old-fashioned and over the top, that I didn't finish it. My experience with it today proved what I already knew to be true: Carousel is indeed the product of another era, (1945, to be exact). But, there were a few surprises a long the way, and I learned that 1) stepping into another time is a great way to get some perspective on the present, 2) we have more in common with people of the past than we may realize.

Songs titled, "This Was a Real Nice Clam Bake," and "While the Children are Asleep," paint the picture . . . with Carousel, you'll get more than your fair share of dated, quaint lyrics and dialogue romanticizing domesticity and small-town life. And then it hit me. There was a time when this wasn't old-fashioned, when these songs got air play, when this was a massive critical and popular sensation, when people would nod their heads along to these songs and go there with the characters. In "While the Children are Asleep," Mr. Snow sings with relish about the fleet of ships he hopes to maintain, the bevy of kids he can't wait to have, the time he'll spend with his wife at the end of the day . . . that's his dream.

That's his dream!

When was the last time you heard a young person say, "My dream is to be well off, living in a house filled to the rafters with kids, and happily married"? (My brother, actually, has said that . . . but he's such an anomaly, we won't count him, ha.)

As far as women go, the feminist movement sure blew that one to bits. Few women today would admit to that being their "dream" without feeling the need to apologize for being so unforgivably horse-and-buggy. Or maybe it's a class thing. As a woman, if you come from the middle classes on up, you're thinking about what college you want to go to, your career, what you're going to "be." But the funny thing is that, in my neighborhood, there are still lots of stay-at-home moms. Many women, regardless of the amount of education they get, will end up doing the traditional thing. My neighbor went to UC Berkeley and on to Law School . . . now she's at home full time with three girls. If you had asked her as a teenager what her "dream," was, it probably wasn't to be the housewife around the corner.

And yet, that's what she's doing. Probably because, at the end of the day, home and family are the most important thing, or at least co-equal with any other noble pursuit.

The way I see it, is that home and family are super-important, as well as career, education, hobbies, and other such things pertaining to personal development. For women and men, it's a tricky juggling act doing right by our families and doing right by ourselves. The juggling act is made all the more tricky by the fact that both dimensions are necessary. I think most people, to feel "complete," need a family/home life of some sort, but they also need a life outside of that. And yet there's so little time, both in a day, and in a lifetime as a whole. A woman can only (safely and easily) have kids through her 30s, and meanwhile, in this "career first" day and age, I've heard that more and more people are not matching up (hence the need for online dating services.) On the other end of the spectrum, you have my Mormon girlfriends who are my age (25) and already married with kids.

I guess nothing's perfect.

The old-fashioned "family first" ethic is heart-warming, but doesn't provide us with the total picture of happiness. And then today's model, where it's taken for granted that one will marry and have children, and some women are led to think: "I only became a housewife," is equally misleading; after all, a happy home-life, particularly a happy marriage, is one of the most rewarding things in life.

But, back to Carousel. Lest you think it's all darning stockings and apple pie, a pointedly resentful musical number took me by surprise and proved that people back then dealt with the complexities of things more than we realize. A chorus of women belted out something to the effect that a man is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, and then individual singers went on and on about the horrors of household work, the inevitable hollowness of husband-wife relationships, the ennui of it all. The girls had come quite a long way from their cheery chattering early on in the show about this or that beau turned fiance. I guess it didn't work out :(

And then came the most striking moment in the musical. They collectively ask Julie Jordan, the female lead, for her opinion on all of this. Not having seen the movie for some time, I've forgotten the particulars of Julie's romance, but I do remember it was the centerpiece of the story . . . and perhaps because of that, because her romance ran deeper than that of the common lot, her response was quite thoughtful. The music turned contemplative, and she sang that it didn't matter how much work was involved, if the guy was good or bad, if things worked out as you planned or not . . . the only thing of any relevance was that: "He's your feller and you love him, that's all there is to that." That response might seem too facile on the one hand, given what she goes through with her guy. But there is a morsel of truth in it, I think. At the end of the day, life isn't glamorous or perfect. There are no fairy tales. But, when you love the people in your life, when you love what you do, it will make up for that. Love can turn the seemingly mundane, (or tragic, in her case), glass-is-half-empty sort of life, into a purposeful one.

We can probably all relate to the feeling of looking at other people and wondering what gets them out of bed in the morning . . . what keeps Mr. So-and-So on track and on the road by 8AM to get to work, what motivates him to come back at night, (I wouldn't want to return to that bratty bunch of kids), what keeps his wife doing the grocery shopping, etc. etc. What motivates most any of us to keep doing whatever it is we do, particularly once life has settled. Young people can be dream. But what about mid-life and beyond, when we come to terms with what will be and what will not be, when we join up with everyone else and find ourselves just getting by, just being everyday, just like . . . everyone else?

Julie's right: love's the answer, love's the thing that makes it all make sense. The more of it you have, the happier you'll be. And, if we take Julie's character as a model, we could further say that the key is to be yourself as much as possible, and then let love surprise you. Julie was always different from the other girls, (e.g. a song like, "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan"). Ever an outsider and daydreamer, she doesn't fall for the safest guy (something that results in its own set of heartaches and complications). But, in spite of these imperfections, something about her marriage is deeper than those of the other girls, who fell in love and married more formulaically. Life starts catching up with them and they wonder if it's all worth it. Julie somehow knows it is.

Love is an irrational, but completely necessary ingredient. It's so irrational in fact, that it's discouraged, it almost gets ironed out of us. When I think of my own growing up, I was taught to worship values, to value being this way or that, to value achieving this or that, and to pursue things based on those values. While the values I was taught were all good, they were generic, having nothing to do with who I uniquely am or what I care about. In other words, I was taught to do things not for the joy of it, (or the love it), but because they are "right." It's a completely different mindset. As I've gotten older, I've gotten a bit more in tune with myself, and I've started doing things because I love them, not because I'm supposed to love them, or because they conform to the right values, but because I, independent of anyone or anything, love them, completely, totally, irrationally.

It's tempting to think that if we put love first, we'll be magically guided to the right profession or to Mr. or Mrs. Right. But I'm not sure it always works out that way. Julie Jordan's character is proof that just because you pursue something you love, doesn't mean you'll end up traveling down the safest, "best" possible path. But what she does have is conviction and passion, the likes of which make the tough times easier to swallow, and give her life a kind of richness, a richness that evades the more superficial characters.

This entry is so sprawling and in need of a proper conclusion and tidying up: but it's almost 4AM, time to to call it a night :)

The Five Essential Albums of Rock and Rap

2010-12-10T03:52:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the incomparable Joe Venito for suggesting this topic. I can't say for rap, but I'll take a shot at rock. I've always been a greatest hits type, never one to listen to full albums (with the exception of David Bowie). So I'm just going to write about my five favorite rock artists/bands. You guys can read a history of rock anywhere so this entry is not so much an authoritative analysis of the genre . . . it's just my personal top five.

The Rolling Stones:

For me, rock music began with the Stones and achieved its classic high point with the Stones. They are the archetypal rock band: they've got the badass attitude; charisma; a powerful, distinctively grooving, rock rhythm section; hot guitar work; everything's sweaty and improvised . . . they were/are rebels par excellence and, above all, they knew how to capture that feeling of rebellion and translate it into musical sound.

Rock music grew up under the Stones. Before the Stones, it was the soundtrack to suburban teenage life, you know, sock-hop fare. But, with the Stones, rock started to sound smart, powerful, mature, soulful, . . . and very much for grown ups (at least college kid age, we'll say). It wasn't just for teenage girls to squeal at. Plus, it sounded musically sophisticated. The Stones were great players and, even this many years later, their records still sound fresh and grooving . . . particularly an album like Exile on Main Street.

Also, I think more than any other band, the Stones fused together blues, country, and RnB and gave it a little something extra to form bona fide rock music. Pre-Stones rock music tends to sound too heavily rooted in one genre or another, particularly country or RnB, to really sound like rock. Think of the country twang of rockabilly music (Carl Perkins's "Blue Suede Shoes") or the keyboard-driven RnB of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti," the latter of which sounds like Ray Charles only faster and sillier. Or take a number like Elvis's "Hounddog": it's got that RnB thump to it, the beat hadn't quite changed . . . and it sounds like the great old blues singer Big Momma Thornton's version, only more uptempo and with pop-inflected backing vocals and hand claps. The genres had yet to gel with one another to form rock music, and, even though several key ingredients were in place (the backbeat, the party/rebel vibe, the instrumentation), the music just didn't rock yet. The Stones somehow knew how to make it rock, and they did this by making the music equal parts country, blues, and RnB with some gospel thrown in for good measure, and giving the music a new, tough, sexy attitude.

Part of the genius of the Stones is that they struck just the right balance between these disparate genres of music, not only fusing them to create rock, but using them to give the music just the right color. Their music is bright and sunny thanks to the country and gospel influences, but not too bright and sunny, like the Allman Brothers, or even Lynyrd Skynyrd. That said, their music is also somehow spiritual, deep, and even dark at times thanks to the blues, without getting too dark and bluesy like proto metal, e.g. Led Zeppelin, which I actually love, but which sometimes gets a bit too dark because there's no country or gospel influence to brighten things up.

I have the Rolling Stones to thank for my appreciation for American roots music, in particular country, blues, and gospel. Their album Exile on Main Street features all these genres and more, (even mixing in some Cajun if I recall correctly), to magical effect. I didn't even listen to country music until I heard Mick Jagger say he liked it, at which point I followed suit. The Stones showcase all of these genres to their best effect and further helped me understand an important principle: each of these genres, particularly country and the blues, is rooted deep in the American psyche. So, when rock music is steeped in these sounds, it strikes a primordial chord in the ear of the American listener--or really any listener, given the power of these genres of music--and has a kind of holiness about it.

Quite an achievement for a British band, eh?

For the reasons listed above, the Stones are my favorite band of all time, hands down. It's like, there wouldn't be Rock music with a capital R without them . . . and who knows what might have happened to hip-hop as a result. Run DMC made hip-hop cool by injecting it with a tough, rebellious, rock-n-roll look and sound. In other words, they put some Rolling Stones into hip-hop. Actually, we should say they put the Rolling Stones through Aerosmith, into hip-hop. Otherwise hip-hop might have remained some kind of novelty, dance/party music, I dunno. I saw a documentary on early, early, early hip-hop and it sounded silly, frankly, with cutesy-bootsy rhyming over dance beats. Even the battling sounded light, it really needed some muscle, some attitude. Perhaps we could say that the Rolling Stones helped rock *and* hip-hop to mature.

David Bowie:

David Bowie made rock music an artistic, avant-garde art form. His imaginative and literary lyrics; gender-bending personae; theatrical performing style; passion for modern art, science fiction, and fashion; and keen interest in new sounds (e.g. new styles of soul music and electronica), resulted in a sophisticated, rather high-brow brand of rock that lost none of its edginess in the process. Bowie showed that rock could be used to tell any story and express any and every emotion. In the process of becoming several different characters, (Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke), and writing in a dizzying array of styles, I think one can safely say that no rock artist has ever used rock music to say and do so much. Bowie showed that rock 'n roll wasn't merely "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll" as the saying goes.

What I learned from Bowie: be imaginative! Approach rock music with the awareness and depth of an artist.

Jimmy Page:

I guess I could have put Led Zeppelin here, but, in particular, I'm fascinated by Jimmy Page. He's my favorite guitarist. It's hard to put into words what I love about his playing, but I'll try. It sounds so manic: jagged and menacing at one moment, sensitive and heart broken at another, enchanted and otherworldly at the next. He sounds virtuosic and yet rough and raw. Above all, his playing sounds dangerous, like anything can happen. Really, for me, it's a very mystical pull. Every time I get discouraged in my practicing, I just watch a Led Zeppelin DVD. 1 min. of watching Jimmy will do the trick, and he's the one who made me want to play the guitar in the first place. His music is that force, that presence in the musical universe that makes me think, "Playing guitar in a hot rock band is the be all and end all of human existence, the absolute best-est, most badass thing a person could ever do and the most fun a person could ever hope to have, so . . . I just can't give up!"

Nirvana:

In my opinion, Nirvana absolutely reinvigorated rock music. In the 80s, all the pop music was great and heavy metal was having a hey day, but rock music fell off the radar. Classic rock had run its course, the genre was tired out. Since the essence of rock music is rebellion, what was needed was a fresh take on that concept, and Nirvana did just that at the dawn of the 90s. Their music was psychologically rebellious. It was mental and, frankly, scary. You know, it was the whole dark grunge thing. But, somehow, when Nirvana did it, it was exciting. Their followers, who constitute the genre of "post-grunge" tended to just sound depressing. But Nirvana brought rock music to new "lows" without stripping the music of its vitality. And they sounded sophisticated and poetic doing it, also creating a new style of guitar work in the process (the grunge guitar sound).

Nirvana proved that rock music can stay relevant and, like Bowie, they showed that it can be used to explore most anything, so long as it is rooted in the concept of "rebellion." Their music wasn't about the standard fare . . . cars, women, drugs, (well, maybe drugs, I dunno). But it seems to be more about internal pain. I know Cobain was a big Bowie fan, covering Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World," I think he got cues from Bowie to take rock music in a darker, more introspective direction. But, unlike Bowie, he made that angst the meat and potatoes of his sound. But it worked because it was just a new way of being rebellious, and that's what rock is all about. The lesson I learned from Nirvana? Be a rebel, in your own way, whatever that means.

One more thing I learned from Nirvana: the pen is mightier than the axe. While the heavy metal people were shredding away, Nirvana created music that was equally powerful if not more so because the lyrics were razor-sharp.

Jack White:

While I haven't actually listened to a lot of his work, what I've heard commands my respect because he did what I thought was impossible: he reinvented the blues. He made the blues sound contemporary all over again by giving it a new, punk attack. It's like punk blues. What I love, love, love about this is that his style of rock sounds current without sacrificing its core ingredients. Most artists, including my beloved David Bowie, modernized rock by stripping it of its traditional influences, (e.g. country and blues). But Jack White has a self-proclaimed love for Americana and roots music (I'm assuming that's why he lives in rural Tennessee). He's updated rock by updating its key ingredients, not tossing them out and replacing them with something foreign like jazz, pop, or electronica. His music gives me hope that rock music can stay vibrant into the future without losing touch with its roots. That's another way of saying that rock music as I know and love it and hope to play it, (warmed up by country and made soulful by the blues), will be relevant and a career playing in that mode is possible. That's pretty huge for me, so thanks Jack.

What about you, Joe? Who do you like?

Asking questions, a simple and profound kindness

2010-10-06T02:20:00.000-07:00

What is most important to a person's happiness?

That may not be the right question to pose given that it's 2 AM :) But an answer's already popped into my brain, so here goes: assuming there are many good answers, one possibility is that it's essential to feel connected to the people and world around us. It's important to feel valued, relevant, understood, and a sense of interdependency with at least a handful of people, if not more. If that's the case, then sincerely asking others about how they feel and what they think about this or that may be one of the kindest things a person can do. Nothing builds bridges like asking questions and, unless the people you're with feel comfortable freely volunteering information about themselves, there is no other way to bridge the divide.

The topic's been on my brain because I just had some conversations with people who are unable to do that. I asked them a question, they answered. I asked another, they answered. And so on and so on . . . and if I didn't ask them something, the conversation would go dead. I've been in so many conversations like that it seems. From my experience, most people love to chat about themselves and very few people socialize with the intent of connecting with others. If they wanted to connect, if they wanted it to be a two-way-thing, . . . they would ask questions.

Can you judge a person's character by how well they converse? I think so. I'm not referring of course to the size of their vocabulary or the profundity of their thoughts. I'm referring to the extent to which they converse for the purpose of connecting with others. Do they monopolize conversations, stealing the spotlight and promote their agendas? Or do they use conversations as opportunities to share their own opinions *and* have their minds enriched by the input of others? Or simply to laugh with others, share a moment in time with another person?

The people whom I most respect are excellent conversationalists. They possess the ingredients necessary for great conversation: confidence and curiosity. They like themselves enough to share their own thoughts, but, because they are curious about the world around them and because they genuinely care about other people, they are equally interested in knowing what others have to say.

On the flip side, the people I know who are the most self-centered and mean are the worst conversationalists. They constantly talk about themselves and their favorite topics and when it comes to other people and things in life they don't know about, they just don't care.

Somewhat on a tangent, I've decided that one of the meanest things a person can do is intentionally isolate another person. There are people in my life who, I'm sorry to say, are very mean and emotionally abusive. The way they abuse others is by isolating them: never laughing at their jokes, never sharing their opinions on anything, making them feel alone or awkward for feeling a certain way or saying a certain thing, not making eye-contact, flat out ignoring them and, of course, *never* asking questions. As someone who's been on the receiving end of that, I can say that isolation is one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. That makes connectedness one of the most joyful things I've ever experienced. Again, ask questions :) Or smile. Include the other person, etc. etc.

As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate kindness in others much more than I used to. Lately, I've found myself wanting to reach out to people I remember from my past who possessed that rare quality of truly caring about the world around them and the people in it . . . people who reached out to me. I can think of an old piano teacher, an aunt and uncle and a cousin. It's a short list, really. But I want people like that in my life. I think they possess a greatness, a generosity of spirit that inspires me to be a better person.

I've also re-evaluated what really matters when it comes to interacting with people. It's great if you're beautiful, funny, intelligent, . . . the life of the party as they say. But the thing that qualifies you to socialize is your desire to connect with others. As long as you approach any social situation with the desire to obtain some kind of mutual understanding, then it's a success. I have to keep that in mind sometimes, seeing as how I'm a rather reserved, quiet person. I never feel like I have anything to say. But that doesn't matter, actually. What matters is how well I reach out.

I'm too lazy now that it's 3:30 AM to give this a proper conclusion. Let's just say that I don't want to be like those people earlier who never ask questions if only because, in the long run, self-centered people end up isolating themselves. They don't grow. They're always on the defensive. They already know everything, and, as a result, they refuse to learn anything new. They're unable to truly cooperate with others and bring out the best in other people, which makes them unable to be partners in lasting, meaningful friendships and relationships. Sadly, for those emotionally abusive people I talked about earlier, I've watched the arc of their lives. I've watched them destroy themselves and so many good things. It's a poison. It's harrowing. It's tragic.

Ask questions.

Pascal on Christianity and . . . the Blues.

2010-09-29T01:35:00.000-07:00

The Harvard Classics 15 min. a day program is an excellent way to dip into something thoughtful for a moment or two. I've commenced the habit and was rewarded with an excerpt from Blaise Pascal's Thoughts. I had heard of Pascal's mathematical achievements, but I was unaware of his passion for religion. Indeed, he devoted much of his intellectual life to defending the Jansenist sect of Catholicism.

In the particular essay I read, he posits that a person must come to know 1) there is a God and 2) their need for redemption, or their "wretchedness," as he put it. The world is set up in such a way as to make us aware of those two facts. There are moments when we experience the reality of God: in nature, in the power of love, our consciences may evidence it. But there are equally moments of godlessness . . . when we sin or watch the sufferings of others at the hand of sin or natural disasters, etc. In other words, our experience is set up in such a way that we experience both the reality of God and the reality of living in a fallen world, a world in which we are separated from God . . . hence the need for a divine intermediary, Jesus Christ. Christianity allows us to make sense of why we sometimes feel God is there, and why we sometimes feel that He isn't. That's because he *is* there, it's just that, in our current fallen state, we are separated from him. Pascal's reasoning is perhaps the closest we can ever come to answering the question, "If God is real, then why do bad things happen?" In fact, Pascal explained that our awareness of evil and suffering can potentially be faith-promoting because it can prove to us the need for Jesus Christ.

This line of thinking brought the blues to mind. I've always wondered why blues music feels so powerful and I wonder if it has something to do with the blending of the major and minor modes . . . do we possibly hear that as a musical metaphor for life, with it's blending of good and evil as discussed by Pascal, as experienced by all of us? I think the blues might be an excellent sonic illustration of Christian doctrine.

Whoa.

Lady Gaga changd my life . . .

2010-07-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

I always respected Gaga's extraordinary visual imagination and songwriting abilities, but this performance doubled my admiration for her. It shows off her voice, performance skills, piano playing, and rock 'n roll attitude. As a singer in training, I'm wowed by anyone who sounds good live and it was nice to see her performing at her instrument without all the potentially distracting clothes and dancers and sets, etc. She's so skilled at putting on a spectacle that I think it sometimes distracts from her sheer musicianship.

As far as the rock 'n roll attitude, there are very few who can pull this off. It's a spiritual orientation and a powerful, devil-may-care charisma that few possess. No woman has ever nailed it to my satisfaction with the exception of Alanis Morisette. So big props to Gaga for taking us to that place . . .

Oh yeah ... I switched from piano to guitar some years ago feeling that the piano didn't let me "rock out" enough . . . but there was something about this performance that made me want to revive the piano playing again.

Thank you for inspiring me, Miss Gaga!

Trey Songz: Cutie-Pie Perv or just honest?

2010-07-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

MTV Unplugged with Trey Songz looks pretty cute, Trey has a sweet face. I was expecting music that was equally sweet and, well, let's just say I was caught off my guard: that adorable little son-of-a-gun knows a thing or two about yep, mmmhmmm.

Isn't it funny how they have no shame in Contemporary RnB? And how they equate romance with sexual "performance"? The tracks start off with cheezy synths and chimes and cooing vocables and the next thing you know you gotta skip to the next track because someone walks in the room or you start blushing or you just feel flat out uncomfortable . . . whichever comes first ;) Contemporary RnB always makes me feel like I'm eavesdropping, like I'm some voyeur peeping at a couple on their honeymoon, like I snuck in when the happy two weren't looking and made myself nice and comfy under the marriage bed.

Okay, cheesiness and explicit content aside . . . it did occur to me that perhaps I'm being just a little too hard on Trey Songz and the whole genre and that society is perhaps too hard on men in general when it comes to sexuality. I've personally never been one to stereotype men as sex-crazed beasts, but the stereotype does exist and it comes up in conversation between women all the time when they discuss relationship woes. The thing that women never like to admit, though, is that they *expect* guys to initiate and want them that way.

I don't think there's a women alive who isn't disappointed if a guy doesn't make a move of some kind on a first date, definitely by the second. And this is true even for "wait until marriage" types like myself. If I went out with someone and they didn't do something I wouldn't be sure if they liked me as more than friends; I'd want to sense, almost from day one, that they wanted to sleep with me :) And it really wouldn't be cool to me if a guy was too shy to touch me, kiss me, etc. And I would much, much prefer it if he initiated. Don't get me wrong . . . if I thought a guy was the right one and he was super shy, I would never let that get in the way of my dating him . . . I'm just speaking of what is ideal in my imagination. And, interestingly, I think the more reserved a girl is, the more she expects a guy to get the ball rolling . . . and she is exactly the kind of girl who is also the most prudish and critical of men being too "sexual." I know of straight-laced women like this. They complain of "morals these days" but I'm quite sure that if their significant other didn't get the job done nothing would happen in the birds and bees department.

So . . . that's a lot to expect from guys, I think. I have three younger brothers and I feel compassion for guys since I spend so much time with my bros and inevitably talk about girls and relationship stuff with them. It's nice to be the girl in certain respects, to be on the receiving end of everything. Not that girls can't take matters into their own hands, but, you know, traditionally speaking it's the other way around.

And now back to Trey Songz. Maybe when he sings his long list of things he's going to do to this or that girl, he's really just targeting exactly what women expect or want from guys whether they like to admit it or not . . .

Poe: the tortured genius

2009-11-14T03:45:00.000-08:00

Edgar Allen Poe's poetry is mysterious, romantic, surreal, and dark . . . but not nearly as twisted as his short stories might lead you to predict. A sensitive, intelligent man emerges from the text. Poe seemed to write poetry for himself. Poetry was a way for him to capture and preserve beautiful things he imagined or experienced. It was also a way for him to document his dreams and nonsensical inner life. I enjoy how he lets his subconscious mind run wild, though I must admit his poetry can be a bit (too) inscrutable. I also enjoy the lyricism of it.

Baudelaire and Poe have a lot in common in that I think they were both visionary men who turned to poetry as a place to turn their visions into realities. However, Baudelaire is more pleasurable for me to read because, as discussed in my previous post, his visions take us to a "higher reality," a view of things that lifts us out of ourselves. Poe's visions, on the other hand, seem to come from a place deep inside his brain that, while fascinating, is purely subjective.

Poe was not only a poet, he was also an intellectual and literary critic. One can sense in his poetry that he is thinking things through, or reasoning with the reader. Some of his poems are complete dreamscapes, but some feel more rooted in rational analysis. One senses a tension between the mind and the heart. Baudelaire, on the other hand, has completely left his mind behind . . . he is pure emotion and spirituality.

Baudelaire: the intangible becomes tangible

2009-11-14T03:39:00.001-08:00

Baudelaire is my favorite poet at the moment. What I admire most about his work is his transcendental awareness of something bigger than himself, and his devotion to expressing that in words and providing us with concrete imagery that will make that awesome something real. A man of highs and lows, the scope of his poetry is cathartic. Further, he has a taste for the beautiful and the magical that makes his work very intoxicating. At times his work takes a strong turn towards hedonism, but it always feels tethered to an awareness of good verses evil. His poetry is complex in a real, human way. I love it.

Stephen King: entertainment and the subconcious mind

2009-10-27T02:29:00.001-07:00

In search of Halloween entertainment, I discovered Stephen King's Cat's Eye under the "supernatural horror" genre (perfect for those of us who want scariness w/o the blood) on nextflix. After a mindless 20 min. wasted on Interview with a Vampire, (Brad Pitt is just too cute to be a vampire and Tom Cruise looked ridiculous with red cough syrup dripping from his teeth every five minutes), Cat's Eye helped me to rebuild the brain cells I lost. (I promise I'm done with parentheses . . . as of) now.

Upon completion of the film, I felt as impressed by it all as I was at the start of things, but my adulation left me scratching my head. It's easy to say why some writing is great: it might convey powerful ideas that change your life (E.M. Forster) or overwhelm you by the sheer craftsmanship of it (Keats). In this case, the highest compliment that I could give the work was that it was very entertaining. The word entertainment connotes pure mind fluff, which certainly didn't fit the bill. I felt like these stories were working on me at a deeper level than I could comprehend.

Which brings me to my new grand theory about the whole "it's just entertainment" thing. I've decided that all art, whether it's high-brow or low-brow, lofty or merely entertaining, must contain powerful ideas. It's the ideas that make the work capture our imagination, whether the intended effect is sobering or just plain fun. The difference between art that is applauded for being "intellectual" and art that is relegated to the "it' just entertainment" category, has to do with how the art form works on the brain. It it effects us at a conscious or rational level, then we will certify the art as being full of big ideas. If the art works on us at a subconscious level, we will likely say that the art is gripping, but we may fail to give it the credit it deserves, mainly because we are not fully attuned to how the the art works on us.

Comedy is perhaps the best example of what I mean. Have you ever watched a comic routine and felt like a lot more was communicated than meets the eye? It's tempting to say "oh, it just made me laugh" . . . but when you think about it more deeply, you realize that the comic was playing off of deep seated stereotypes, social mores, and taboos? In Stephen King's case, his stories might seem like they are "just entertaining," but they pack a punch by assaulting our deeply rooted concept of real v. fantasy and, above all, by exploring the perennially fascinating good-verses-evil theme. King's stories target subliminal instincts and values without us knowing it.

Shakespeare: the language of the heart

2009-10-22T02:40:00.000-07:00

I recently read (and reread) an excerpt from Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. What impressed me the most was the dramatic flair of the writing. Every stanza was devoted to fleshing out the fiery passions of Venus, bringing her to life for us like a prima donna on stage. Shakespeare seems to be most interested in the emotional and the irrational and how those urges translate themselves into action. In this poem and in the plays I've read so far, the characters are all driven by passions which result in actions which may or may not have desirable consequences. But the characters never worry about things like consequences. Hearts are on fire, the gestures are grand, characters get tangled up with themselves and with life . . . just the perfect recipe for a great play. It's Shakespeare: would we expect anything less?

Gerard Manley Hopkins: nature and God

2009-10-19T02:39:00.000-07:00

In his lifetime, Hopkins was a Jesuit priest, which explains the preoccupation with religious themes in his poetry. From what I've read so far, Hopkins is primarily interested in the divine origins of nature and the divinity that links us with nature and with God. Like Keats, he has a transcendental temperament. Unlike Keats, however, his mindset is religious as opposed to secular. Where Keats turns to beauty in and of itself for inspiration, Hopkins turns to beauty because it manifests God's love and existence. As a result, his poetry has a jubilant, peaceful tone. Hopkins has a quiet certainty about the cosmos . . . Keats, on the other hand, is somewhat burdened by a divine vision of reality that he feels unable to completely comprehend and understand. Keats is on a spiritual quest while Hopkins has spiritually arrived. Hopkins's "The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe" manifest a joy in religion I rarely encounter.

As a quick side note, Hopkins loves alliteration and assonance almost to a fault. But the result is a unique style. He also likes to play with punctuation and structure, but not at the expense of the beauty and readability of the poem.

Keats: Sleep and Poetry, a unique world of words

2009-10-18T01:11:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, (or not so every now and then), one comes across a writer who's way with word is so particular that they construct a unique universe out of language. Keats is just such a writer. While reading Sleep and Poetry, I was astonished by the uniformity of the aesthetic. Keats created a mood of otherworldliness without dropping the ball once for pages on end. Every word contributed to the grand tapestry of the whole.

Purposefully cutting ties with reality, Sleep and Poetry weaves in and out of interior monologues and dreamscapes. We experience Keats's dreams with him and experience him talking to himself about his dreams . . . dreams both in the sense of sleep dreams, and dreams in the sense of life ambitions and goals. We learn about Keats's never ending quest to create great art and his sense of despair at not having achieved that goal, at which point he escapes into his sleep and dreams.

One of the most surprising things about Sleep and Poetry was that it was more philosophically robust that I expected it to be, and Keats came off as being more intellectually restless than I remember. I had him stereotyped as a fluffy, pretty poet. I mean, who would write a whole poem about a vase? Sleep and Poetry, however, was a sophisticated investigation into the meaning and purpose of art and life. For all it's surface beauty, it had an urgency and despair, even an aggressiveness, that gave me something to sink my teeth into.

A dilemma Keats grapples with is how to live with himself, how to handle his dreams and passions. On the one hand, he wants to push himself to climb that artistic mountain so to speak and translate the ineffable into poetry. At the same time, he shies away from that burden and extolls a simpler, perhaps more hedonistic approach to life. He rhapsodizes about nature and romance and yes, even sleep.

Certain tendencies associated with romanticism proliferate, particularly the romanticization of nature and romance, transcendentalism, and morbidity. The mood is passionate and vital, but there is a tone of despair. The poet seems convinced that there is more to life than he is somehow able to comprehend; only in art (and sleep) can he experience the euphoria and grandeur of it all. Woe betide that he should die before experiencing and expressing it all.

The Canterbury Tales: a joy to read when read in translation.

2009-10-04T02:31:00.000-07:00

While steadily plugging away at the Norton Anthology of English Literature, I must admit I was a bit disappointed when the Canterbury Tales popped up because my last experience with them was not so good. All I remember was impossible vocab and grammar (think two centuries before Shakespeare, yep that rough) and blue humor that, at the tender of 12 or so, made me blush. The solution? I printed a "modern translation" version off the internet and listened to lots of hip-hop . . . after which what used to pass for dark blue humor seemed rather, um, pastel?

Now I can say that I love the Canterbury Tales, enough to call them a favorite. Above all, I loved the comic, irreverent voice that emerged from the writing. Chaucer is shrewd and analytical, but his criticisms of the world ultimately amuse and delight him. He took on a host of themes that no other writer before him (at least no other writer featured in the anthology) explored, including sexuality, gender, religion, politics, society, class, etc. His critical perspective felt surprisingly modern and topical. Contrast that with the grand Anglo-Saxon epics (e.g. Beowulf) and the genteel Arthurian romances (e.g. Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight), and Chaucer comes off as a strong, down to earth personality, determined to use literature to explore the (what was then) here-and-now and put his own comic stamp on it. There was something individualistic about his writing that surprised me. And, above all, I laughed at a lot of the stories and found the work to be as entertaining as it was enlightening. Thanks to Chaucer, the late middle-ages feel much, much, closer.

A favorite random moment: Pertelote, beautiful hen and wife of Chanticleer, the even more beautiful rooster, rips into her husband for his fear of a fox: "Have you no manly heart to match your beard?" she squawks :)

Or what about when one of the pilgrims interrupts the priest who goes on and on and on and on with one tragic, moralizing story after the next. The value of said stories? "Nat worth a boterflye" he snaps in Middle English. Precisely so. I've never liked tragedies. Too depressing. The pilgrim then turns to a fellow pilgrim and asks him to change to the topic:

"Come forth, you priest--Sir John, now come ahead!
Tell something that will gladden us inside,
Be blissful, though a nag you have to ride.
So what if you've a horse both foul and lean?
If he will serve you, should you care a bean?
Be merry in your heart and always so."

Little Shop of Horrors: creepy without trying to be.

2009-10-04T02:05:00.001-07:00

Little Shop of Horrors is a delightfully eccentric, well-written movie. Famously low-budget, it was filmed in two days, or so the story goes. The star of the film, a man-eating venus fly-trap, is more hilarious than freaky thanks to "special effects" I could have simulated using random crap from around the house. The spookiness of the film comes from the casting and offbeat dialogue. The characters do and say the strangest things and it just doesn't feel like they're acting. Seriously, the "actors" in this movie seem to be genuinely weird people. Further, a tone of morbidity runs throughout, with constant jokes about and illusions to death, illness, and funerals. The movie even has a mad dentist. (What could be creepier than a madman with a hand drill up your mouth?) This is a good one for watching at 4:00am Halloween night . . .

Cadillac Records: tacky, but better than nothing.

2009-10-04T01:54:00.000-07:00

I would recommend this movie for music fans only. It helped me put a face to legendary names like Leonard Chess, Muddy Waters, Etta James, Chuck Berry, Little Walter, and Howlin' Wolf. Otherwise, I think this movie was a flop . . . okay at best. I'm being quite picky, it's just that that, well, Beyonce is way too gorgeous and sweet to play Etta James. She's super talented so she pulls it off as well as she possibly could, but every time I saw her pretty face saying foul things or screaming for gin or smack, I just couldn't suspend my disbelief. All in all, the script failed to create complex characters. The characters talked and acted in ways that felt too predictable, shallow, and over-the-top. The screenplay just wasn't well written. When the bad-boy Little Walter died, bloody and broken-toothed in Geneva's arm, I couldn't help it . . . I burst out laughing. Tackiness always cracks me up.

Bye Bye Birdie: I am deeply disturbed!!!

2009-10-02T01:01:00.001-07:00

I'm not joking! Some people refer to this 1963 film as a "satire." I think there is a hidden agenda, but that doesn't make the film's excesses tongue-in-cheek. The fact that so many people who review this film enjoy it as something that "takes them back" to the "good old times" proves that if the filmmakers were attempting to seriously question or subvert 1950s pop culture, they widely missed their mark. "Parody" would be the better term. This film exaggerates and thereby gently pokes fun at numerous aspects of 1950s suburban culture: Elvis, the nuclear family, the Ed Sullivan Show, teen consumer culture, teen "rebellion" (as in kissing your boyfriend/girlfriend).

I couldn't even get through more than 15 min. of the movie, truth be told, it was so grating. I'd like to finish it now though, just to understand it better. I guess what I'm interested in figuring out is what kind of a society would create such a thing and enjoy it as somehow being wholesome, uplifting, and entertaining. I know it seems like I'm over reacting, but this film creeped me out. I get a dark feeling in my gut when I embrace their premise that naivete is a thing to be praised, particularly when that message is targeted at women. The women were especially dumb, but the men were half-brained too. This movie is all about never wanting to grow up, get older, and engage with the world. It, and other entertainment like it, functions like a giant megaphone shouting: "Happiness is being dumb, in love, and 16. Or remembering when your were dumb, in love, and 16. That is the great climax of life." I've enjoyed a lot of chick flicks and silly movies in my day so I promise I don't always take things so seriously, but there was something about this movie that was very sinister.

Many people are reviewing this film as capturing an era that we have lost that was somehow more mature? Somehow more about "family values"? What in the hell do they mean by that? Is it a good thing if people's worlds revolve around a rock star coming to town, getting "pinned" by their boyfriend, or, um . . . what's for dinner? Is it just me, or is the whole Shriner's men's club association thing downright weird? Did anyone else feel antsy after seeing female after female after female wearing what looked to be very uncomfortable dresses and bras? I guess Stepford Wives sums up the vibe of that movie for me. I've never seen so many vapid women. Honestly, the mother goes ga ga over the rock star, too? And we're supposed to chuckle at that? It's disgusting.

Yes, the movie does have an adult edge to it . . . but not the right kind. Sure, they lampoon the Soviets in what could pass as very light political satire. But the adult edge comes in the Britney Spears for middle-aged men effect. One reviewer at imdb.com pointed at the film's under-handed glorification of Anne Margaret's burgeoning sexuality. Several, in fact, have discussed feeling rather, um, "aroused" by her performance. It's true, the opening and closing credits where she sings her little guts outs like a true vixen in front of the blue screen are provocative. And whoever dressed her seemed to favor outfits that tended toward . . . tight. So they snuck in a little sex for the adults. Gross.

I'm glad that whole 50's thing got shattered because it wasn't real anyway. And if it was . . . then what a nightmare . . . to live in an all-white community where everyone is in harmony because they have the exact same lifestyles and values. Sounds racist, classist, sexist, everything bad. Why do people feel so threatened by growing up? Why shy away from complexity and waste adult minds on wanting to be 16 forever? Talk about a mental trap. I hated being 16, I didn't know who I was, I didn't have an adult perspective on things. Wisdom and experience are to be prized, not regretted.

Grosse Point Blank: a romantic comedy in disguise, and thoughts on dry humor

2009-09-22T02:00:00.001-07:00

This movie wasn't a romantic comedy, but it was romantic and it was funny. So I guess it is a romantic comedy, after all. A romantic comedy minus those ooey-gooey moments that make you squirm in your seat and feel just a little embarrassed that your watching :)

First off, John Cusack's presence made the film work. What can I say, the man is enigmatic. His expressions are fun to watch and his diffident charm makes him the ideal leading man for a movie of this kind. After watching Scarface (1932) which didn't have any great actors, I appreciated John for his sheer charisma. A few actors have it, the vast majority don't. It's an indescribable something that draws the viewer into the film and captures the imagination.

Also, the script was very good. It didn't quite play to my particular sense of humor, so I didn't laugh very often. But I could sense the script was well-written. The tongue-in-cheek humor gave the movie a smart, off-beat feel. Funny how when humor is tongue-in-cheek or dry or whatever you want to call it, (basically when the jokes aren't set-up with ridiculous facial expressions or slap-stick misshaps), then humor is elevated to the level of an art form and commands respect from all who encounter it.

Tongue in cheek humor almost always elevates the comic to a superior status by putting their audience on the defensive: if the audience fails to "get" it, the joke's on them. Actually, it even goes beyond "getting" the joke. A proper response to tongue in cheek humor is tongue in cheek humor . . . otherwise the receiver of the joke drops the ball, so to speak. Which is quite an easy mistake to make. This helps to explain why, with tongue in cheek humor, it often feels like the comic is laughing at you and not with you. As a decidedly not funny person, I'm often on the outside of jokes and I often feel awkward around people with dry senses of humor.

Tongue in cheek humor is very powerful and, in social situations, can be applied to a dazzling or disastrous effect. It can be very tasteful and delightful if the comic knows when to stop and is willing to laugh with you if you fail to catch on or do not know what to say. Otherwise, it will feel like the dry-witted humorist is abusing their powers by refusing to throw you a life-saver. People like that are downright annoying . . . I hate the types who seem to enjoy putting others on the outside of jokes and watching them squirm . . .

Which leads me to a final point about humor. Interestingly, the most people-centered and friendly folks I know are often funny. They enjoy making light of life and laughing with you. On the flip side, the most arrogant people I know (certainly the most arrogant person I know), are also very funny . . . but they do it in the smart-alecky, refuse-to-throw-you-a-life-saver kind of way.

I guess humor is like most everything else in life. It isn't inherently good or bad, but what counts is the spirit you do it in.

Who first experimented with camera angles?

2009-09-21T01:09:00.001-07:00

Something I noticed about Scarface (1932) that made it tiresome is that the camera angles were so tame. It was like watching a play except on film. The camera was almost always 10-20 feet away, putting all of the characters in a predictable "box" and me, the viewer, provided the fourth wall to that box so to speak. Hitchcock's movies break out of that box . . . was he the first?

Scarface (1932) and what makes art timeless

2009-09-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

From the title of this post, you're probably expecting me to herald Scarface as a classic. But it's just the opposite. This seminal gangster flick is, in my opinion, now only relevant to film connoisseurs and history buffs. Why is it, then, that Alfred Hitchcock movies from the same era have aged so much better?

If a work of art is valuable only for its technical innovations, then that work of art will captivate the public imagination so long as its technical achievements go unsurpassed. For artists with the technique of Beethoven or Shakespeare, their art will have extraordinary staying power . . . but few are in their league. Scarface was in the category of only being exciting to viewers in 1930. Cinematography has come such a long way that it really doesn't have a fighting chance on technique alone.

Timelessness comes down to content and ideas. The more mind-bending and revolutionary the ideas involved, the longer it will last. Scarface fails yet again. Heck, it was a gangster movie. I know I'm expecting way too much from it. But the truth is that the simplistically good and bad characters in this movie bored me to tears. And sentimentality will doom any work of art to the trash bin.

Up until this point, I've just been stating the obvious. But what makes this line of questioning fascinating is when you compare Scarface to an Alfred Hitchcock move from the same era. And Hitchcock's movies, at a surface level at least, were often no "deeper" then the next who-done-it.

Where do the charisma of Hitchcock movies come from? They give me a lot to think about at a subconscious level; they stick with me and unsettle me long after I click the TV off. This many years later, their power is extraordinary. Vertigo may be my favorite movie of all time. I can watch that movie over and over and never get tired of it. Why? If timelessness is all about ideas, then why is that that most powerful works of art are the ones you walk away from understanding the least?

On a happier note: the magic of Sarah Vaughan

2009-09-20T00:31:00.001-07:00

Just listened to "Misty" and "In a Sentimental Mood" as sung by the great Sarah Vaughan. That last tune was so haunting. It creates the most singular mood. It's supposed to be romantic, but the way she sings it, the song sort of lingers after it's finished and leaves one with lots of questions . . . that's the thing that's great about jazz. I'm not a big jazz fan, but I will say that there are certain moods and auras that only jazz can evoke. I think it has a lot to do with the chords used in jazz, the dissonances of those chords give the music it's particular flavor and make jazz good at creating nuances of feelings. If I want straight up happy I turn to pop, if I want straight up romantic I might turn to R&B, if I want straight up rebellion it would be rock or hip hop and straight up beautiful is classical . . . but if I want something that will express something in between, something I can't quite put my finger on, I turn to jazz . . .

Indie Rock: a shameful chapter in the history of rock 'n roll

2009-09-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. The principle thing I learned from it is that a work of art will fail if the characters depicted are unlikable. Nick was boring, Norah was cute . . . but Clarissa was a big, whiny three-year old and Tess (or Tiss, or whoever she was), was a skanky ass hoe. So there you go. I couldn't care less about the characters and therefore could care less about what happened to them. Cut that tie and then the whole movie goes down the drain, along with the soundtrack, and, more to the point, indie rock.

What's wrong with indie rock? Well, to sum it up, it sounds bad. But why? I know you're dying to know just why it sounds so gosh-awful. And you're probably scratching your head, like me, and wondering how we ever went from Led Zeppelin to Modest Mouse, (really, who would name their band that?), from the Stones to Yo-La-Tango. (?)

Well my friends, the answer is that indie rockers misapplied the great, time-honored truth: every great movement is in reaction to something. Rock 'n roll happened in reaction to big-band swing; punk rock happened in reaction to classic rock, alternative rock happened in reaction to the last vestiges of classic rock and the MTV era, indie rock happened in reaction to alternative rock, and well, anything that sounded good. You know the problem with indie rock? They exist in reaction to everything about rock that's great. They tampered with the very ingredients of the formula that make rock sound good, heck that make any kind of music sound good. Let's examine this point by point.

1) Great band names became beyond lame band names. I've already cited a few examples above. When I heard about MuteMath's latest release, I didn't even wince.

2) The blues went down the toilet. 'Nuff said. None of the indie bands know how to play the blues. You take the blues out rock, you take the rock out of rock.

3) Cool lyrics about love, sex, and rebellion became lyrics about autumns sweaters and never-ending math equations. (Thanks Yo-La-Tango and Modest Mouse!)

4) Bass-driven grooves became . . . oops! The bass is either absent or it's playing a drone.

5) Rich, beautifully phrased guitar melodies became short, choppy, staccato ostinatos (repeated melodic fragments inspired by avante-garde classical music a-la Phillip Glass). You kinda have to know that last bit for those tinny sounding ostinatos to have a fighting chance at sounding cool. Don't forget to take your opera glasses with you to the Nothing Rhymes With Orange concert.

6) R&B inspired belting became nerdy whining. Really, I don't know what else to call it. Is it just me, or do lots of indie singers sound like they, well, don't know how to sing? The women often adopt an affected Billie Holiday-ish pout and the guys make a style out of straining for high notes and warping the vowels to suit their English-major poetic recitation fantasies? It's unforgivable.

Alright, I'll cut the ranting but indie rock sets my panties in a twist. I just think it sounds so bad. Does anyone really, really like it? It just isn't cool. Doesn't look cool, doesn't sound cool.

Nothing.

Swingers: favorite lines

2009-09-19T00:56:00.000-07:00

Mike approaches a girl at a party and her initial response?

"What car do you drive?"

Vince Vaughan's put down: "She's business class . . . big but, can't fly coach."

What the guys all said, time and time again, about some lonely bar before hopping over to the next lonely bar:
"This place is dead."

Vince Vaughan to Mike: "You're so money and you don't even know it."

Swingers: it was fun to see it from a guy's perspective . . .

2009-09-19T00:31:00.000-07:00

The whole single, dating, romance thing . . . sucks, doesn't it? If you're in a great relationship, well, good for you. But for the rest of us, whether you're trying to meet someone, trying to avoid having someone meet you, trying to forget someone . . . it just sucks from every angle. The great thing about Swingers is that it attests to that in a very honest way but wraps up with a happy ending. It's like a chick flick without the sappiness along the way. Oh yeah, did I mention that it examines the whole dating thing from a guy's perspective? That was really fun. Because what I learned is that we're all in the same boat, guys are girls: it's awkward and painful for all of us, in the same ways, and for the same reasons.

The message of the movie, "be yourself," was time-worn, but it was given a refreshingly complex treatment. Mike is hurting over the break-up of a six year relationship and struggles to meet someone new. His friend Trent, a ladies man, tries to teach Mike a thing or two about meeting women. When Mike follows Trent's script, things don't work out, of course. However, the movie isn't so simplistic that Mike hits it off with someone as soon as he lets his guard down. He has to fumble around. And Trent's influence isn't completely bad: thanks to Trent, who drags Mike out of his lonely apartment, Mike meets the Heather Graham character.

The point of it all? You have to be yourself, but being who you are won't work with everyone and a combination of approaches--Mike's down-home honesty and Trent's go get 'em energy--work best. You have to be patient and stick it out. Things will eventually click if you hang in there. And never forget that everyone's in the same, sinking boat. At the end of the day, cocky Trent and shy Mike were haunting the same bars and parties with the same results. (Just because Trent got girls to sleep with him didn't mean he found true love. It is fair to say, however, that Trent minded his loneliness less, free spirit that he was.) It doesn't matter who you are: true love is a matter of luck, timing, and patience.

And, by the way, perhaps the truest part of the movie was this: you won't forget that special someone from your past until you meet someone new. So get to it, don't sit around, and dramatically lower your expectations until finally, to your utter disbelief, Mr. or Mrs. Right appears.

"Can't Hardly Wait": just not that good . . .

2009-09-18T02:20:00.000-07:00

Can't Hardly Wait . . . I couldn't hardly wait for it to end . . . 'cause it was about as funny as what I just said. So, not funny . . . except for the movie's best line, delivered by a stoned nerd who sagely observed:

"You know what? My retainer kinda looks like a Klingon warship."

Haha! I know exactly what he means. (Except mine was pink).

The romance between Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ethan Embry was heartwarming, though. They were the only intelligent beings depicted in the film. You know, I didn't think Melissa Joan Heart could ever come off as, well, dumb. But if I ever see Vicki the Yearbook Girl hop around on one leg and whip her pig tails 'round in loop-di-loops again to get attention, I will solemnly swear to never ever watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch . . . not even once, for nostalgia's sake!

I will say, however, that this film had a good soundtrack. I forgot how big Smashmouth was back in the day. And there's a pleasing sunniness to '90s pop rock. Whatever happened to pop rock? Those indie people stripped it of the "pop" part and replaced it with indie weirdness. I'm so sick of "quality," "original" music. But that's a topic for another post. There were moments when the lyrics of the song were perfectly timed to whatever was happening the movie . . . there are parallels, I think, between the role of soundtracks in film and the role of songs in musical theater. Sometimes music gets the point across best.

But, like the mindless characters in Can't Hardly Wait, I'm too lazy to flesh things out in any greater detail.

The Wackness: A beautiful movie . . .

2009-09-17T00:18:00.001-07:00

I'm really glad I stuck this one out. 99% of this movie is very depressing; you really don't get to the golden 1% unless you tough it out through the forced evictions, the divorces, the attempted suicides, the exploitative sex, the loneliness, the drug abuse, the disillusionment . . . but, if you do, you learn that the dirt of the film was there to provide a foil for the spiritual beauty of Josh Peck's character. And, oh yea, you get the bonus of seeing Mary Kate Olsen playing a stoned hippie in Central Park.

Poor Josh Peck's character, Lucas Shapiro, weathers the vagaries of life and comes out of the refiner's fire wearing his depression as a badge of honor. What I mean is that the thing that makes Josh (and his good friend, Dr. Squires), stand out from the rest, is their sensitivity. They feel things poignantly, they care about life, they both are looking for something beautiful and sacred that the other characters could care less about. The most obvious example of this is their failed love affairs . . . they get burned easily by bad women . . . they want to go "deeper" than said women can go.

While the characters never verbalize this, of course, what they come to value in themselves is their vulnerability and honesty. While other characters seem to selfishly bulldoze their way through life or mask their problems by popping meds, these two characters find their humanity in fully experiencing life's highs and lows and just talking things out. They develop an inner confidence that while they may be imperfect, they are essentially good: so when life hurts, they no longer blame themselves for feeling down. Instead, they know their pain is a result of their inner goodness bumping up against a cold, decadent world.

This movie is a bonus for hip-hop lovers. It had an excellent sound track of hip-hop tracks from hip-hop's golden age, 90's east coast stuff. Music was important metaphorically in this movie. When characters wanted to bond with each other, they exchanged mix tapes. Music set an example of honesty and self-expression that Lucas and Dr. Squires aspired to. Makes you wonder how many lives have been saved by music.

I really enjoyed the intimacy of this film. I found Lucas Shapiro to be a very sympathetic character and the movie brought me right into his mind.

I also loved the cinematography. There were quite a few moments when I wanted to freeze the film and take a screen shot.

This movie is a favorite!

P.S. it's not for the kids :)

And a useful moral-of-the-story is to be very, very careful to only fall in love with nice people.

Beowulf: favorite moments . . .

2009-09-14T04:59:00.000-07:00

From Beowulf's fight with Grendel, the monster:

"Then out of the night
came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift . . .
. . .
In off the moors, down through the mist-bands
God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.
The bane of the race of men roamed forth,
hunting for a prey in the high hall.
Under the cloud-muck he moved toward it
until it shone above him, a sheer keep
of fortified gold. Nor was that the first time
he had scouted the grounds of Hrothgar's dwelling. . .
. . .
Spurned and joyless, he journeyed on ahead
and arrived at the bawn. The iron-braced door
turned on its hinge when his hands touched it.
Then his rage boiled over, he ripped open
the mouth of the building, maddening for blood,
pacing the length of the patterned floor
with his loathsome tread, while a baleful light,
flame more than light, flared from his eyes.
He saw many men in the mansion, sleeping,
a ranked company of kinsmen and warriors
quartered together. And his glee was demonic,
picturing the mayhem: before morning
he would rip life from limb and devour them,
feed on their their flesh; but his fate that night
was due to change, his days of ravening
had come to an end."

Is it just me, or is Beowulf so Eminem's Relapse? I love both . . .

Grendel's wounded retreat:

"His fatal departure
was regreted by no one who witnessed his trail,
the ignominious marks of his flight
where he'd skulked away, exhausted in spirit
and beat in in battle, bloodying the path,
hauling his doom to the demons' mere.
The bloodshot water wallowed and surged,
there were loathsome upthrows and overturnings
of waves and gore and would-slurry.
With his death upon him, he had dived deep
in his marsh-den, drowned out his life
and his heathen sou: hell claimed him there."

WOW!

Try the King's description of where Grendel's mother dwells:

"A few miles from here
a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch
above a mere; the overhanging bank
is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface.
At night there, something uncanny happens:
the water burns. And the mere bottom
has never been sounded by the sons of men.
On its bank, the heather-stepper halts:
the hart in flight from pursuing hounds
will turn to face them with firm-set horns
and die in the wood rather than dive
beneath its surface. That is no good place.
When wind blows up and stormy weather
makes clouds scud and the skies weep,
out of its depths a dirty surge
is pitched toward the heavens.

Beowulf: a glimpse into a dignified era

2009-09-13T03:22:00.001-07:00

Beowulf was one of those reads I picked up to satisfy my desire to start at the very beginning with my study of English literature. To my surprise, I enjoyed reading it more than anything else I can remember reading since E.M. Forster's Room With a View.

The most astonishing thing about Beowulf was the quality of the writing. The poet's deft and innovative way with figurative language took my breath away. Pains were taken in every case to describe things in new terms. In addition, this careful attention to diction was combined with passion for drama and good storytelling. The resulting effect? Flawless. I can't count how many times I paused while reading to marvel at the perfection of it all.

With every work of art I enjoy, I always ask myself why I think it was created. In this case, I believe Beowulf was created for multiple purposes including the preservation of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon pagan culture and genealogy; an exploration of language in the spirit of art-for-art's sake (the Beowulf poet famously invented words that were never used in any other manuscripts from the period); and sheer entertainment. However, the beating heart of this work, in my opinion, is the poet's desire to explain the divine order of things. Fate determines every outcome and fate is controlled by God. People who live virtuous lives have God and fate at their side; mortality, however, guarantees that everyone's luck will run out at some point . . . in the vast scheme of things, we are all in God's hands and will return to our maker. For the virtuous, death is not be mourned. Beowulf, the virtuous and heroic king, dies a "majestic death."

That phrase really caught my attention. How glorious, to die a "majestic death." And wouldn't it be even more glorious to believe that such a thing existed? The faith of the Beowulf poet intrigued me. His utter trust in the cosmic order of things felt, well, not of this world.

I wish I could meet the Beowulf poet for lots of reasons. I'm impressed by his craftsmanship and touched by his preoccupation with the noble and the good. Last but not least, I admire his imagination. According to the introduction, he worked hard to resurrect the customs and language of an era that was obsolete to him. He wrote in the 10th century about the 5th or 6th centuries . . . what passion!

Beowulf, the sine qua non of poems. Now one of my all-time favorite reads.

Phish died and went to heaven and then recorded their trip!

2009-09-13T03:11:00.000-07:00

That's right! Phish's latest, Joy, has a holiness about it. That band is in a very good place emotionally right now. Their latest album is has a "celebrate life" vibe to it that is very infectious.

Interesting thing to me about Phish is that, on the one hand, a lot of their material sounds like it comes straight out of the canon forged by The Grateful Dead and the Band. The guitarist sounds like a perfect fusion of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman. I swear I can't hear anything "new" about their sound, and yet they do not sound like a retro cover band. Their sound is not at all nostalgic. And when I turn on Phish, I don't feel like some old fogie enjoying old music disguised as new music. But when I listen to some of the latest garage rock bands on XM radio, I do. (Those people acid-tripped their way back to the 60s, it's quite remarkable). So what can possibly explain the phenomenon? It really is very, very curious . . .

Sondre Lerche and the problem with the singer-songwriter genre

2009-09-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

Just listened to Sondre Lerche's latest, Heartbreak Radio. You know, it's a shame that Sondre can't consistently write catchy Europop hits as adorable as he is. This last album was very lovely, but I got bored. And I'm not even saying it's his fault. Pretty chords, pretty melodies, witty lyrics and stories I had no interest in because they were so darn pretty. But there's more: I finally realized why I have beef with the singer-songwriter genre.

What is the purpose of a beat?

The singer-songwriters use a beat as a means for keeping time, a way to keep everyone playing together and, in general, as a way to structure the music.

Boring.

Everyone knows a beat's sole reason for existing is to make you wanna dance or headbang or something. If it doesn't make you move, it's time to scrap that beat and make a new one.

Too many singer-songwriters waste their beats. Bad mistake! Bad mistake! I'll bet money on this: every great song has a great beat.

Empire Records . . . a fun flick

2009-09-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

I'm working my way through EWU's course on "Coming-of-Age Movies with Killer Soundtracks." Empire Records was the most frivolous pick so far, but it's very entertaining to watch for two reasons. For one, the casting was excellent. For another, you can never go wrong with teenage antics set against a backdrop of feel-good monster hits. It's amazing how one never tires of certain things, like the "be yourself" theme or watching people fall in love or witty repartee. Funny how this movie made me nostalgic about being a teenager even though being a teenager is so not fun . . . at least it wasn't for me, anyway. Anyhoo, the movie let me relive what for me never was; and I enjoyed the music quite a lot.

A few favorite lines:

"This music is the glue of the world, Mark. It holds it all together. Without this, life would be meaningless."

"Always play with their minds."

Best and worst sex scenes in a movie . . .

2009-09-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

So, based on my previous posts, we all know what the worst sex scene in movie history is (based on what I've seen so far.) I repeat: Beth and Harold getting it on . . . no love involved, just Sarah sharing her husband with Beth, who wants to get pregnant. Truly beyond weird. I swear, I'm scarred for life. There are certain images I will never get of my head: damn you Harold and Beth! (Who's named Harold, anyway?! . . . Oops! Almost forgot. My grandpa is.)

Best sex scene?

Lucy and George in A Room With a View. It happens at the very end on their honeymoon and it just worked. It was sweet. I'm not one who typically advocates for showing these things on film, but I thought it was tasteful.

I'm watching so many movies now and most do have the characters taking a roll in the hay or two. I used to always look away but I don't anymore (I'm taking notes, if you know what I mean, lol). It's been interesting to compare them and I've discovered that not all sex scenes are made equal. In the English Patient, the lovers were practically mauling each other. It wasn't too good for Brittney Murphy in 8 Mile, either. She was slammed against a wall both times and had some guy's hand's all over her in both cases, no romance, just a good, violent up-and-down tossing. As if she were some worthless rag doll.

I think it all goes to show that sex has a spiritual dimension to it we sometimes overlook. People invest their emotions and personality into it and, when the chemistry is right, it comes out the way it did for Lucy and George. And when it's bad, it comes out like it did for Beth and Harold, or maybe Eminem and Brittany Murphy. Funny how sex can be the best or worst thing in the world, depending on the people involved and the context.

The Big Chill Reconsidered: why it may now be a favorite

2009-09-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

The Big Chill has been stuck in my head, for better or for worse. It is a strange, somewhat unsettling film. Here are a few points about it that make it quite excellent in spite of all that.

In a previous post, I criticized the screenplay and thought that the dialogue did not do enough to explain why the characters mattered to each other so much. And then I realized . . . that is the beauty of it. Sometimes you really can't put into words why you love someone, why you have to have certain people in your life. You just do. It's spiritual. You feel comfortable around them. And that's what I noticed about these characters. They felt very comfortable just talking, shooting the crap with each other, being themselves around each other. On a certain level the connection was mundane, but at the same time it was profound.

Second, and I can't take credit for this observation, that last disturbing sex scene between Harold and Beth showed how perverted sex becomes when it's used exclusively for procreation. My family's church is always harping on them about sexuality and this church, along with most others, laments how sex is abused for pleasure and how it's ultimate purpose is procreation. But Harold and Beth's tryst shows how, without passion and love, sex is just a bodily function again. In my mind, there's no difference between a prostitute and her client and Harold and Beth. Know what I mean? Next time I see a steamy sex scene between two characters who are really crazy about each other, I'm gonna holler for joy. That's how it should be.

The Big Chill: I need therapy!

2009-09-10T02:39:00.000-07:00

The more I think about that movie, the more depressing I find its characters to be. Their problem was that they got bored with life. Glad I don't have a problem. Someone needed to come along in that film and give them all a good kick in the pants. Go! Do! Have fun! These people need hobbies. That would have been the answer to their problems. No amount of fancy philosophizing or whatever can define happiness or spread it better than a good hobby. So, to lift my spirits, I'm going to remind myself of everything I love to do. Please dear God, may I never turn into one of those depressing characters from The Big Chill.

Okay, here we go. This is the stuff that gets me up in the morning.

Hip-hop, rock, pop, classical, jazz, playing guitar, playing piano, singing, ear-training, writing songs, going to the library, reading Beowulf, watching Rick Steves, making pancakes, walking my dog, ballet, M&Ms, San Francisco, LA, my beautiful white Apple computer, my jewelery (I wearing a gorgeous garnet ring and crystal, white-gold bracelet right now), picnics, going to concerts, BBQs (vegetables only, of course), graffiti (I don't do it, just like lookin' at it!), my autographed Eminem poster, hiking in the Santa Cruz mountains, road trips, laughing at mindless Youtube videos, the four seasons, my doll collection, my guitar collection, late gothic Italian art, illuminated manuscripts, Tchaikovsky, Corot, my daydreams . . .

It isn't that hard to be happy about life if you value having fun and you fill your life with fun stuff. I mean, that's what kids do. They play, they have as much fun as they can get away with. Why is that adults completely forget how to have fun?

Not me. I'm a be a kid forever.

Do coming of age movies abuse their soundtracks?

2009-09-10T01:57:00.000-07:00

While watching The Big Chill I noticed that the filmmakers relied heavily on their soundtrack to create a sense of chemistry between the characters. The premise of the film is that all these friends from way back are reuniting, seeking the fun and good times of yore. The scenes were punctuated by one big hit after the next. The characters would say something inane to each other and then a monster, feel-good hit would start blasting. It's like they couldn't communicate the magical feel-good vibe of best-friendship to the audience with dialogue or acting alone. So they turned to music to get the job done.

Sometimes the music felt a bit tacked on. Must one conclude that the dialogue or acting was lacking, or is it just that, in certain cases, only music will do?

Tough call.

The acting was excellent in this movie, but the screenplay could have been better. It could have shown how these characters find love and friendship again without turning things into an orgy. And sometimes the dialogue left me scratching my head. I wondered how the characters could stand each other . . . or why they didn't get bored out of their minds.

That said, as my musical theater instructor once explained: "Sometimes emotions get so big, that all you can do is burst out into song."

The Big Chill: great premise, fails to deliver.

2009-09-10T01:38:00.000-07:00

I think I get the point The Big Chill was trying to make: without love and friendship, life feels empty. The premise of the movie is a good one. Several friends reunite 15 years out of college after one of their own commits suicide. Having gone their separate ways, they rekindle some of the fabric and magic of earlier days and learn that what they were "missing" in their lives is each other.

. . . missing certain aspects of each other, that is, they they should not have "rediscovered." My problem with the film is that it honestly portrayed the complexity of adult life and pointed to the right answer: love. But not that kind of love, please. The climax of the film was when Glen Close shares her husband with her close friend who desperately wants to get pregnant. (The husband and this desperate woman are long time, strictly platonic friends.)

I'm quite sure that will be the worst, most unsettling sex scene I will ever see depicted on film. It started out with the two looking at each other in the most awkward way possible and the guy fumbles: "I think I forgot how to do it." Whilst they were 'rounding fourth base, they stared at each other with these calm, completely lucid expressions. So bizarre. I used to feel scandalized by super steamy sex scenes, but now it's like, bring back the steam . . . and please, please, please, make the two lovers. The chumminess of it all and the "It's 4:00pm in the afternoon! Time to make a baby!" pragmatism was so bizarre. No, actually it was the way he started kissing her that made me feel real weirded out in a very deep place in my tummy. I'm scarred.

I'm happy to say that I will never ever watch this movie again. Too odd. However, I'm glad I saw it because, until the last 10 minutes of the movie when everyone started having sex en masse, I found the film thought provoking. It makes you ask yourself questions like, "What really matters in life? What is happiness and how does one find it?" The film's answer: love people. (Hehe.)

The Big Chill: Fav lines

2009-09-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

William Hurt:
"You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you."

Don Galloway:
"Nobody said it was going to be fun. At least nobody said it to me."

Glen Close:
"Sometimes I don't believe what I hear myself saying."

William Hurt:
"I could have, I chose not to. I'm not hung up on this completion thing."

(in regards to floating from job to job)
"What are you getting at? I was evolving. I'm still evolving."

"I wouldn't call it fame exactly. I had a small, deeply disturbed following."

"He went out with a bang, not a whimper."

Mary Kay Place:

All the good men in the world are "married or gay."

Jeff Goldblum:
"That's what's great about the outdoors. It's one big toilet."

Mary Kay Place:
"I did not know him in the biblical sense."

Jeff Goldblum:
"Friendship is the bread of life. Money is the honey."

JoBeth Williams:
"Even fortune cookies are getting cynical."

Jeff Goldblum:
"I must tell you I'm picking up vibrations here at the house and I'm almost certain there's sex going on around here. Sarah, have I ever told you how beautiful your eyes are?"

The most romantic song of all time . . .

2009-09-09T02:24:00.001-07:00

I think it's Nat King Cole singing "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons." Everything about this track is pure romance, from the warmth of Nat's voice to the intimate elegance of the piano solos to the jazzy sweetness of the Spanish-tinged guitar. Love it. This is the perfect "first dance" song for a wedding . . .

Diner: if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up some place else . . .

2009-09-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

. . . as the old saying goes . . . the characters in Diner exemplify this.

The first problem faced by the leading men in this film is that what "works" in adolescence doesn't work so well in adulthood. The best example of this is Shrevie's marriage. He half-heartedly jokes about how, before he was married, his relationship with his bride-to-be was all about the sex. The thrill of the taboo of it, the thrill of fitting it in behind the parents' backs, etc. Now that she's always available and sex gets a green light and there's no more wedding to plan . . . why, there's nothing to talk about and nothing exciting to do.

Shrevie's marriage is just one example of how the characters in this movie find themselves taking on new responsibilities and commitments before they are prepared to make wise choices. As the result, they find themselves "trapped" in commitments that leave them without room to grow.

The question is: are responsibilities the problem, or is it more that you have to choose your responsibilities wisely and be careful of what you take on? Pertaining to that question, the movie sent mixed messages . . . my own opinion is that responsibilities are not the problem, it's just that if you, as the saying goes: if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.

The characters in this movie feel trapped because they 1) do not have a vision for a career, or any "passion" they are pursuing 2) they have a base understanding of relationships. They don't know how to connect emotionally with women, everything is just sexual and on the surface so they are doomed to live with superficial marriages.

Is it any wonder that life is failing to "deliver" for this cast?

When you read the movie this way, it seems kinda depressing. But actually, it was a very enjoyable film to watch because it was easy to sympathize with the characters and, sadly, the problems they face are ones that a lot of people go through. This movie felt honest.

Last point would be that the action of the movie revolves around a diner where the boys like to meet up to chit chat about their growing pains. The diner symbolizes fun, relaxation, "good times." When the boys go there, they are trying to reconnect with a freedom they feel they've lost. In a sense, the diner is therapeutic and helps the characters in this film unwind and vent. But the diner is damaging, too, in the sense that it ties the characters back to their old selves. If these characters are going to move forward with their lives, they need to, well, do just that. They need to leave their teenage antics behind . . . it's time for them to grow up big time in terms of how they see women and they need to find their passion/purpose in life.

But the problem of course is that the characters can never ditch the diner because unless they revert to their old selves, they stop having fun. They don't know how to be adults and have fun because they don't know how to take on the right kind of challenges. Challenges and responsibilities make life rewarding: but you have to pick the right ones, otherwise you'll feel "saddled."

My solution? You've got to be really passionate and bursting with love if you're going to take on the right kinds of challenges and responsibilities that will enable you to grow. I'm a musician and even though I don't make a lot of money teaching lessons and recording my own music, I'm so crazy in love with what I do that I know I will always be happy. The responsibilities of my career will only make me happier because I love being challenged musically. While I have next to no experience with relationships, I already know how important it's gonna be that I find someone that I'm best friends with, that I have a lot in common with so that I can enjoy everyday life with that person. What got Shrevie into trouble was that he thought his wife was hot and nice, and that was about it. Remember how he started yelling at her because she didn't know who Charlie Parker was? He just couldn't stand being married to someone who didn't "get" his passion for music. I totally feel him. I have to marry a musician!!!

The closing shot of this movie was excellent. Elyse throws her bridal bouquet out into the crowd and it ultimately lands on a table around which all the leading men in the film are situated. Who will pick up the bouquet? Will they take on the "responsibilities" of life, or shirk away? The ambiguous ending allows the viewer to form their own opinion about what the characters "should do." Like I said earlier, this film is more about depicting a problem (ennui) then proscribing a solution.

Makes you wonder how many adult problems are rooted in people's inability to mature and grow up. I mean, if you're immature, you'll likely marry for the wrong reasons and have a divorce to look forward to. If you're immature, you won't have the vision and guts necessary to follow your passion and do what you love for a career. Life is gonna suck if you don't have a heart and depth.

Diner: fav lines

2009-09-09T01:02:00.000-07:00

Boogie: You know I got plans.
Bagel: Always a dreamer, hey, Boog?
Boogie: If you don't have good dreams, Bagel, you got nightmares.

=============

This kinda sums up the whole movie:
Shrevie: when you're dating, everything is talking about sex. Where can we do it? Why can't we do it? Are you parents gonna be out so we can do it? Everything is always talkin about getting sex, and then planning the wedding, all the details. But then, when you get married... it's crazy, i dunno. You can get it whenever you want it. You wake up in the morning and she's there. You come home from work and she's there. So all that sex planning talk is over with. And so is the wedding planning talk cause you're already married. So... ya know I can come down here and we can bullshit the entire night away but I cannot hold a 5 minute conversation with Beth. I mean it's not her fault, I'm not blaming her, she's great... It's just, we got nothing to talk about... But it's good, it's good

============

One of the boys (not sure who, this is a voice over during the credits):

"We used to think it'd be so cool to be older and hang out here and now . . . we're older and we're cooler and we're still hanging out here."

Cab Calloway: "The Reefer Man"

2009-09-09T00:59:00.000-07:00

Random. Silly. Grows on you. Check out the bassist.

The English Patient fav movie line

2009-09-08T19:34:00.001-07:00

Juliette Binoche:
"The heart is a fiery organ."

So tacky. So The English Patient.

Pretty Woman: fav movie lines

2009-09-08T19:24:00.001-07:00

Richard Gere couldn't manage his friend's stick-shift Porche so he let Julia Roberts take over. Zooming through the Hollywood hills, she cheerily comments:
"This car corners like it's on rails."

Julia Roberts to Richard Gere when questioned about what she really wants:
"I want the fairy tale."

Julia and Richard were, ahem, negotiating:
Julia: I would have stayed for two thousand.
Richard: I would have paid four.

Their first encounter on the street if ya know what I mean:
Richard: What's your name?
Julia: What do you want it to be?

Julia: Can I call you Eddie?
Richard: Not if you expect me to answer.

The English Patient killed me.

2009-09-08T01:17:00.001-07:00

Let's put it this way. If, after three hours of watching a movie, you find yourself laughing hysterically while a lover holds his paramour in her death throws, then something went terribly wrong in said movie. Terribly wrong. Yeah, well, this was a terrible movie.

The whole, "I'm randomly attracted to a married person and I have to have them even though it will destroy my life, her life, and her husband's life" thing just doesn't tug at my heart strings. And Juliette Binoch's out-of-nowhere fling with the bomb detonator didn't really work for me, either. One moment, she doesn't give two straws about that guy, and the next thing you know she claims it's her destiny to marry him.

? (blink)

The "thesis" of the movie is a line from a poem, (oh please, let's not abuse poetry!), read by Juliette Binoche with particular relish: "the heart is a fiery organ."

Now, according to the producers of The English Patient, that means that people:

1) have no control over who they marry and thus are stuck in relationships they can never be happy in and therefore they must . . .

2) carry on affairs with others and claim to be perfectly happy with the dual arrangement, there are no complications at all until their spouse finds out, at which point they . . .

3) drive their spouse so insane that he foists them into a plane and they go flying across the desert in the attempt to smash into the offending Romeo so that they can all be dead together, but they . . .

4) fail miserably at this because they fail to smash into Romeo and only the angry husband dies, so the offending Juliette gets left in a cave, her lover runs to get help and fails miserably at this (incompetent moron) so she . . .

5) dies and then the offending Romeo hauls her into a plane and they crash. Ouch.

6) He dies from burn wounds and somehow this is all profoundly moving.

7) The end.

8) The wild eyed look in Colin Firth's eyes before he (almost) smashed into the offending Romeo was actually pretty good.

9) I burst out loud laughing when the offending Romeo finally died from his burn wounds. Looking at his face was like looking at a crazy-eyed, rotting peach.

Hilarious.

Okay, fans of The English Patient, defend this piece of sh*t.

And Mike Clark of USA Today steps up to the plate with his one line review:

"An aerobic workout for the tear ducts."

Poor, Mike. Poor, sorry, retarded Mike. Something tells me he wasn't being sarcastic :(

But he made me crack up again!

The English Patient, reviews, et al: so bad it's good.

Do you know your pop culture?

2009-09-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

I sure don't . . . but, before long, thanks to a Netflix and Rhapsody membership and the guidance offered by EW Pop Culture University, I'll finally be itk. Check it out:
http://www.ew.com/ew/package/0,,20284496,00.html
So excited. Maybe for once I'll have something to say at those darned holiday open houses.

Publish Post

Madonna, Tori Amos, and feminism: Like a Prayer, the missing link

2009-09-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right. I was listening to "Like a Prayer," and Madonna's fervent cooing on the verses sound a whole bunch like Tori Amos. And since Madonna came first, it would be more appropriate to say that Tori has been copying Madonna's style. Honestly, the similarity is striking.

Here's why that similarity is noteworthy.

Madonna is often criticized for being sleazy and sensational in the worst kind of show-biz way. In fact, to my father she is the devil incarnate. No joke. To discover a link between her and the more "principled" 90s feminist singer-songwriters that followed her proves a point about her music that I have always felt: it has a philosophy and it's about self-expression. Don't get me wrong, I'll admit Madonna has pushed buttons in her day just to get attention. But I think there's a lot more to it than that underlying her art.

What Madonna is being sexual, it's not in the Britney Spears-ish "I'm a slave 4 u" way. It's in the feminist-ish "I'm gonna be sexual if I wanna be sexual; sex is a choice I'm making and it's not about me pleasing some guy, it's about me getting some because I want some." Photo shoots like that of her infamous bridal dress pose prove that Madonna has been passionate about turning conventions on their heels and breaking down the cultural assumptions that women should behave and feel a certain way, be sexual in a certain way . . . i.e. in a sweet, chaste, naive sort of way. Now, I have no problem with women and being sweet and naive but where I part ways with those who can't stand Madonna is that I don't believe women should have to be sweet, chaste, and naive. Sleazy is never cool, but I don't necessarily equate sexuality with sleaze and I believe, as a matter of principle, that our concept of "woman" should be a wide umbrella encompassing a variety of personalities and lifestyles. I think that's what Madonna was getting after.

Does Madonna go to extremes that may be distasteful at times? Yes, she does. But that's what artists do. They can't be subtle. If they're subtle, they'll bore you and likely fail to communicate their point. The job of an artist is to shake things up, to take risks that are not allowed in any other forum. Go Madonna!

Now, back to the 90's singer-songwriter Tori Amos connection. Tori put out an autobiography a few years ago and talked about her conflicted relationship with sexuality. Apparently, she was raised Catholic or Southern Baptist or something and, basically, felt guilty about her sexual instincts. She describes herself being torn between the two biblical figures of the Virgin Mary and the prostitute Mary Magdalene. She came up with some new-ageish sounding solution to reconciling the two in her mind which I have since forgotten: I think it was just her fancy way of admitting that she ultimately sided with Mary Magdalene (without admitting it). Anyway, doesn't Madonna's music sound like something that would speak to Tori at, dare I say it, a deep level?

I always felt and liked the feminist agenda in Madonna's music and so does Tori, I know it.

I never wanna hear one more comment equating the mindless pop stars of the '00s with Madonna. I'm warning you, don't push me over the edge this time. Or it will start raining bloody tampons.

As Good as It Gets: the first movie I've ever favorited without knowing why

2009-09-06T19:41:00.001-07:00

Wow, am I on a romantic comedy streak. Just finished As Good as it Gets and it's the first movie I've seen in a long time where I genuinely cared about the characters involved and had to put down my guitar to finish the movie and it all leaves me scratching my head wondering why. Jack Nicholson is such a curmudgeon while Helen Hunt sparkles . . . those two should never have ended up together and yet I found myself rooting for Jack in an odd way.

You know, the beauty of this movie is how three characters, Simon, Melvin, and Carol, overcome their differences and "issues" and find love and friendship. I guess that's why I liked it. Who doesn't like chicken-soup like that? Who doesn't love to see the impossible happen? Just makes you feel kinda warm and fuzzy. Check out this line from the end from crusty ol' Jack himself (to Helen):

"I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do. And how you are with Spencer. And then every single thought that you have and how you say what you mean and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. And I think most people miss that about you. And I watch them wondering how they can watch you bring their food and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive."

Wow.

The thing I liked about this movie is that it was too quirky and unpredictable to be "sappy." I mean that last line might sound kind of sappy if you hear it out of context, but I think most people who have seen the film would agree with me that the people involved and the things that happen to them are just too lop-sided and out-of-the-blue to make this movie pretty and cute. Instead, this movie is about imperfect people with imperfect lives who find the "inner beauty" in each other. I really like that because that is real love, in my opinion. Great relationships, be they romantic ones or friendships, are all about digging beneath the surface of things and appreciating the divinity in another human being. I suppose the message of this movie is that two people, no matter how how dysfunctional they may be or how different from one another they may be . . . two people--no matter what--can bond when they they discover and value the divinity in each other.

And now I know why I liked that movie.

Jay-Z's Blue Print 3: Excellent

2009-09-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

I'm loving this album. It sounds classy, sophisticated, and passionate. "Empire State of Mind" and "Thank You" are my favs so far, but I'm enjoying every track. Wow, hip-hop fans are really getting treated this year, what with Eminem's Relapse and now this from jigga man.

Norton Anthology of English Literature: this is my project for 2009!

2009-09-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

Okay . . . for what's left of it. I really want to finish the Norton Anthology by the end of this year. Then I will tackle the Everyman's Library. Things must be done in order, good people.

Pretty Woman: the consummate chick flick

2009-09-05T00:59:00.001-07:00

I'm a Julia Roberts fan and I decided to give her breakthrough hit a go (er, that's my excuse, anyway). So here's why I am convinced this movie was written for women, by women. And I promise. My next post will not be about romantic comedy or anything romantic-ish. (But maybe the post after that will be.)

Women want to be loved for who they "really" are. A woman sees herself as a "diamond in the rough" and dreams about some guy coming along and appreciating all of her inner beauty and extraordinary qualities, the existence of which she is sure of, though said qualities have yet to make themselves manifest. Mr. Right will help her transform herself into the woman she believes she is, deep down. e.g. Julia Roberts is a crass, unrefined hooker, but Richard Gere believes there is an elegant lady underneath that street smart facade. Of course, he's right.
Women want a guy who is just as interested in conversation as he is in sex. e.g. Julia Roberts is in langerie and climbing all over Richard Gere, who, unresponsive, asks if they can "just talk." Wow.
At the same time, woman want a guy who is crazy about their body. I think Richard Gere and Julia found odd enough places to, um, be overcome by passion, so I think it's fair to conclude that, yes, Richard Gere is very crazy about Julia Robert's body. I might add that women want a guy who is crazy about their body as is. This is represented by Richard complimenting Julia on her red hair (she ditches the blond wig) and her height.
Woman love it when men lavish money on them. For many men, money is the most important thing in their lives since they go to work all day for it. (You are how you spend your time.) Traditionally speaking, and particularly in a conservative social milieu, when a guy spends money on a girl, it's his way of saying, "I value you because I gave up what I prize the most just to please you." Richard Gere giving Julia his credit card and instructing her and the Versace sales clerk to ring up a storm fits the bill nicely.
For some odd reason, women fantasize about influencing the men in their lives and bringing out the softer, kinder side in their men. Thanks to Julia, Richard Gere learns that money isn't always what matters most and he turns his back on a ruthless business deal in favor of a kinder solution. He has a change of heart just for her. Aw, shucks.
Respect and power. Not more power, but equal power. Woman really want it, bad. Julia's know-how, as exhibited by her skill with the stick-shift (Richard could barely drive it) symbolized this. It was also quite nice how Richard would say things like, "Julia, what are you feeling? What do you want out of this relationship?" Oh my gosh.
The test. Every romantic comedy has to have a test. It's where the guy is put through sleet, snow, and fire to prove that, yes, he really, really, really loves and deserves the leading lady. In this case, Richard has to chose between going back to New York and nursing his fears and phobias vis-a-vis relationships and women, or getting hitched to Julia. Can you guess what he chooses? And, oh yeah, there were lots of little "tests" along the way. Times when Richard would goof up and invariably apologize or do whatever it took to get Julia to stay with him.
The fairytale, (the whole my prince is going to marry me thing and rescue me from the tower where I am held captive by the dragon, etc. etc.) I practically died of laughter when Richard asked another one of his "Julia, how are you feeling? What do you want out of this relationship?" questions and Julia recited her "childhood dream" of yes, being a princess trapped in a tower by her "evil step-mother," (when she was grounded by her mom, apparently), and how Mr. Knight rescued her from the tower, and so on and so forth. Verbatim! Julia! Don't you know this is the secret desire of every woman's heart and therefore it is sacred and only to be recited between the covers of a little pink journal clasped and locked closed with a little golden key? Julia!!!!! Wasn't it enough for you to have Richard climb up the fire-escapes of your lousy apartment building to bring you red roses and sweep you up into a glorious, cinematic kiss? What about when Richard came to your rescue and punched out that creepy rapist attorney friend of his? For shame, Julia. Keep it under wraps.

I really could go on and on . . .

So, what can we conclude about women from this? If this truly is the female fantasy, (and I think it is more or less), then I would pose two points. One is that women have serious issues when it comes to self-actualization and self-respect. I think too many women are waiting for some guy to "complete" them and they are also a little too excited about being needed by someone and "loved." It's the whole fairytale thing. The result is that they 1) may procrastinate becoming their best selves by their own independent efforts and 2) they may settle for some guy who isn't really worth them just because they are so darn delighted to be "needed" and "loved."

What can we conclude about men? A woman's desperation for romance and commitment as symbolized by "the fairytale" and "the test," suggest that men are perhaps a bit too stingy when it comes to bonding emotionally with the women in their lives. So guys: if you want to see an end to sappy chick-flicks and ooey-gooey Harlequin romance novels, step up the romance a bit. That way girls won't have to turn to entertainment to find sweethearts who are really sweethearts.

Which begs the question . . .

What would really happen to romantic comedies if girls and guys changed? Would the content and vibe of romantic comedies change or would romantic comedies vanish altogether?

Something tells me romantic comedies will always be with us. Whether we like to admit it or not, I think we all (guys and girls a like), adore watching people fall in love.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly delivers . . .

2009-08-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

I'm glad I sucked it up and toughed it out through this three-hour-long classic. It started to pick up towards the middle and there were some moments of true movie magic towards the end.

The reason this movie didn't grab me at first had everything to do with script. I learned an important principle: the most captivating plots have (ideally) a single, main climax towards which all the action tends. The problem with this movie is that it felt too episodic and, after one particularly climactic scene which felt like an ending, the action wandered around some more towards another climax.

The climaxes, however, were flawless. The scene where Angel Eyes & gang, Tuco, and Blondie, shoot it out in the ghost town gave me goosebumps. Who could forget the fateful duel between the three protagonists? Whoever shot the others down would get the gold . . . What about the scene where Tuco is left to die, his head stuck in a noose, his feet barely balancing on the gravestone? With no one there to save him, he chooses when (and if) he steps off the stone to his death. The wildness and violence of it. My review can't even begin to put into words the tension present at certain moments in the film. Or Clint Eastwood's charisma as uttered his enigmatic one-liners . . .

Quentin Tarantino has referred to this move as "The best directed movie of all time." Perhaps that because it leaves the viewer with scenes that, for whatever reason, will always stick in the brain . . .

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly . . . has gotten worse.

2009-08-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

To finish or not to finish? Not being one for westerns, I knew I was in for a doozy when this thing loaded up on netflix, 3 hours long. I'm half way through this movie and I can barely . . . get . . . through . . . it. Beyond boring. Clint Eastwood has gone from being a charismatic man of few words to being a man with nothing to say. But this flick's a classic, so, in the name of education I will slog my way through it. Anyone out there actually like this movie?

The most romantic moment in film . . .

2009-08-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

I found it: the beloved lake scene. Darcy strips down and takes a dip . . . thinking about Elizabeth. Elizabeth takes a tour of his mansion . . . thinking about Darcy. Both characters believe they are hundreds of miles apart physically, and another million miles spiritually. But then the two "stumble upon" each other, and, well, they may just have a second chance at it.

By the way, the BBC Pride and Prejudice has a divine soundtrack composed by Carl Davis. One gets so attached to this movie and the excellent musical themes that accompany ever character and every moment. Guys . . . this would likely make a good gift for your girlfriends.

Who's the Hunkiest Romantic Comedy Hunk?

2009-08-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

Now. Lest you think I'm a hopeless grinch, I do have a heart for a selected few romantic comedies and I'd like to pose favs for the male leads.

Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You get's a big thumbs up. As aforementioned, he looks like a good kisser. His australian accent adds a touch of class and his dimples are to die for. Now there's a man who could have melted the most lesbian of lesbian hearts. God bless you, Heath!

Hugh Grant in Two Weeks Notice also gets a thumbs up and perhaps two thumbs up since I enjoyed the plot of this movie more than that of 10 Things. If you're a girl and his baby-blue eyes, puppy dog expressions, devil-may-care charm, and British wit do not win you over . . . then I declare you are half a woman! Half a woman!

Now, I'll tell you who really takes the cake for hunkiness. Women of the world unite: I know you are all in this one with me. How many times have we enjoyed the following chick flick under the guise of relishing fine literature set to film? How many times have we "analysed" the lake scene when all we wanted to do was see the leading man topless? (Okay, the movie is too tasteful to make him go topless. But he does remove his cravat and waistcoat!) As I was saying, how many times? In all serious, for me it might total around 100.

And the award goes to: Colin Firth playing Mr. Darcy in the BBC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries. Best chick flick ever, hands town. This movie is simply every woman's dream. Even that of a cold-hearted chick-flick, romantic-comedy hater, like me.

10 Things I Hate About . . . romantic comedies!

2009-08-26T04:03:00.000-07:00

So, it's ten years later and I finally get around to the classic romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You. Interestingly, all romantic comedies have this one thing in common: they all revolve around a girl skewering some guy (one way or another) and her watching him twist, turn, and writhe over the refiner's spit of ludicrous chivalric deeds until he is done to her perfection. Blue, black, and broken all over, he has finally proven his love to her (and his total lack of self-respect to us). When she deigns to bat an eyelash or flash him smile, (maybe even kiss him!), we supposedly have a happy ending as the dysfunctional couple unite and consummate their abusive relationship.

Ouch!

Maybe it's just because I have brothers and I'm upset about how their girlfriends treat them. But really. The antics women expect. It's sadistic. It has nothing to do with true love and everything to with a woman satisfying her prima-donna fantasies. Don't get me wrong, guys are not blameless when it comes to relationships and I think, to a degree, the romantic comedy as we know it is fundamentally a feminine plea for respect, attention, "true love." The kind of stuff some men are stingy about (when they're staring at those 'ahem beneath your tight sweater.) But honestly, ladies, romantic comedies are not the way to start a cultural dialogue about male-female relations. At best they are a lame, passive-aggressive response to real, deep seated issues. They make any self-respecting man . . . wince.

Okay, now that I've proven myself to be as onry as Kat, now might not be the best time to reprimand her. But I can't help it:

Kat, when Heath Ledger kisses you, you are supposed to enjoy it! Every last single delicious moment of it! Or else move over byotch cuz I wanna take your place.

One good thing I will say for this movie, (apart from it having a good soundtrack), is that it was a lesson in not judging people unfairly. I went through much of the movie hating the Julia Stiles character for being such an annoying feminazi. At the end of the movie, however, we learn about what a certain Joey did to her and I had some compassion. I guess we all have our "issues." And sometimes porcupine-prickliness is just a defense mechanism, a front to help a person cope with internal pain and protect themselves from future exploitation. Poor Kat/Julia. She still should have enjoyed kissing the adorable Heath Ledger, though.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit: a good soundtrack

2009-08-25T00:46:00.000-07:00

Roger Rabbit got kinda annoying, so I ended up fast-forwarding through much of this movie, but one thing was a winner: the soundtrack. Alan Silvestri did a great job evoking post WWII LA with a mix of smoky, swingin' hard-bop and grandiose, symphonic statements (think Back to the Future.) It all screams HOLLYWOOD! I'm always looking forward to the perfect soundtrack to my LA expeditions. I'll pop this one in next time I'm in search of "classic" studio Hollywood . . . when I'm putzing around Warner Brothers studio or Universal City . . .

The Game . . . gangster rap that won't make you blush.

2009-08-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

"Rap is just a white man's tour of the ghetto." If I hear that tired old adage one more time I'm gonna . . . admit that 99% of the time it's true. So, as a well-to-do white girl in the 'burbs, I must confess that I get a little touchy when I start hearing the musical equivalent of Gangsters blasting through my mustang's subwoofers. That said, I rarely unplug the 'pod because, well, I like my rap thuggish.

And that's what made the LAX Files such a great album. It oozed gansta glamour without the histrionics. The Game seems to be a fan of Contemporary R&B so the production generally consisted of cooing women and soulful keyboards. The gangster grit was all in the beats and the Game's voice and rapping. Being relatively unschooled in hip-hop, it's difficult for me to be terribly specific. I can only say that his album sounded tasteful. I'm looking forward to his next release . . .

The finally found bigfoot. Phew!

2009-08-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

What a relief, I'm glad to know that Smosh got to the bottom of that mystery. I was getting a little apprehensive about my upcoming trip to the Sierras. Now I can rest at ease.

Paris, I love you, too!

2009-08-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

In this video, we learn that Paris loves everything. The color pink, lasagna, her boobs.

Paris: "You've never had sex?"

Anonymous Paris Hilton Fan: "Nope, never had sex."

Paris: "I love that!!"

??

Random.

Best Breakthrough Video

2009-08-23T13:58:00.001-07:00

Funny. Poignant.

My VMA votes . . . .

2009-08-22T12:51:00.001-07:00

It's that magical time of year again, MTV's Video Music Awards are just around the corner. Here's my picks:

1) Best Female: Taylor Swift, "You Belong to Me"

2) Best Hip-Hop: Eminem, "We Made You"

3) Best Male: Eminem, "We Made You"

4) Best New Artist: Lady Gaga, "Poker Face"

5) Best Pop: Lady Gaga, "Poker Face"

6) Best Rock: Green Day, "21 Guns"

7) Breakthrough Video: Gnarls Barkly, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul"

8) Best Video (that should have won a Moonman): Beastie Boys, "Sabotage"

Crossing my fingers!

Vote here:

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/vma/2009/categories.jhtml

Cut the ribbon: This Side of Paradise

2009-08-22T01:11:00.001-07:00

. . . and the reading marathon of the Everyman's Library 100 essentials begins. I'm starting things out with a bang by reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, and, incidentally, the novel that made him famous: This Side of Paradise. He was only twenty-two when he wrote it. Wow.

The first draft of the novel was rejected by the publishers, so Fitzgerald had to revise things before they took it up. He revised with fury and passion: if this novel didn't make it, he knew he'd lose his chances forever with the lovely Zelda Sayre.

Zelda, a well-to-do southern belle, broke off her engagement to him after about a year, when it seemed like Fitzgerald's career was going nowhere. After This Side of Paradise turned him into a celebrity, she decided she liked him after all. Sounds like true love. Fitzgerald was so smitten that he took her back . . . but he always held it against her.

Rightly so.

I don't like her.

Oh no! U2 neutered rock 'n' roll!

2009-08-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

Just finished listening to Mutemath's latest: Armistice. Red-flags, anyone? Is it just me, or should a rock band never be named Mutemath? And Armistice is borderline. It calls to mind some grand, important, serious statement. And rock 'n' roll should never be grand, important, or, above all, serious. Whatever happened to the sweat and the sex in rock? It really hasn't been there since the Rolling Stones. Here's my theory as to how the the lusty house of rock that Chuck Berry built got bulldozed.

The Rolling Stones may be to blame (I'm getting to U2). They were so sexy, so sleazy, and so exciting that I think every rock band wanted to be like them, one way or another. So every band tried to outsex the Stones and what we got in the '70s was one bare-chested band after the next, strutting their hot sweaty stuff, pumping out the jams like musical stallions. And rock became so big, so anthemic and so dripping in machismo that we . . . had had enough of it by the end of the decade. Except for the 80s hair metal bands who kinda kept the machismo thing alive but dropped the sexy. (Unless u think spandex is sexy?)

Enter punk rock. Rock kept its angst but it was stripped of sex: in other words, it was stripped of the blues. And those bad-ass brats were so ugly . . . intentionally. It takes a special breed of groupie to daydream about getting her upper protuberance snagged on some guy's lip ring, and her fingers tangled in his greasy, half-grown out mohawk. Don't matter if he's a rock star: ew. Punk rock is not sexy and that's what one thing, among many things, that made it inconoclastic in its day.

And then there was college rock. I guess that would be rock music for literate, thoughtful people like Michael Stipe. Again, cool and fun and catchy, but not sexy. Not rock 'n' roll. But at least you can hear the punk influence, and at least punk has an edge.

And then U2 and all of U2's alternative offspring (Coldplay) come along. The music is stripped of its thrashing, punk angst. We are left with cavernous spaces, tribal beats, and the wild voice of a native (Bono) belting out the heart-wrenching progressive message of truth, telling the tale the Native Americans never lived to tell. (?) Either that or singing the song of the repentant sinner. (How far away from Mick Jagger can you get?!!) The Edge's minimalistic guitar scintillates with nary a blue note. And everybody hails these guys as the best thing to happen to rock because, well, their music is so "good" and "spiritual" and all that jazz. And it's loud and has a backbeat, so therefore it must be rock, right?

Wrong! You take the blues out of rock and you no longer have rock. You take the sex out of rock and you no longer have rock. You have potentially good music with energy and a back beat, essentially amped-up singer-songwriter fare . . . but not rock.

I bet you can guess which side of the line Mutemath fall on.

After listening to an hour of Mutemath, I recovered by listening to Prince.

Since the beginning of the world and the dawn of time . . .

2009-08-20T17:39:00.001-07:00

lol . . . that's how I like to begin my study of any topic. So this study of English literature is going all the way back to 450 AD: the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain.

Before I briefly guide you through 1,000 years of the English language's evolution, let me first say that I am very impressed by The Norton Anthology of English Literature so far. It is among the first and only academic texts I have ever read where the editors are not trying to impress me by confusing me. Thank you!

So, since time immemorial, the Celts lived in Britain. They were conquered by the Romans, who were then conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxon is just a hyphenation of Angle and Saxon, those two tribes both hailing from Germany.

The English language as we know it really begins with the Anglo-Saxon invasion. These German speaking tribes furnished us with a stock, German vocabulary. The language of this period is known as Old English. Old English can only be read in translation. Old English is, essentially, German.

In the 11th century, the Normans (people from Normandy, France), invaded and brought the French language with them. And there you have it. English is basically a fusion of German and French. It took some time, however, for the vocabulary and grammar to completely evolve away from Old English into Middle English. Middle English is the language spoken by Chaucer in the 14th century. With a little help, modern English speakers can read Middle English. Again, Middle English is a fusion of German and French.

Fun fact: the Wars of the Roses in the 14th century helped to accelerate the development of Middle English. These wars between the English and French resulted in English patriotism and interest in their own vernacular language and, ostensibly, a dislike for all things French. (Up until the 14th century, French was the language spoken by the educated and upper classes). During the 14th century, Parliament began conducting proceedings in English. Geoffrey Chaucer, a popular and influential poet in his own time, championed English by writing poetry in English instead of French or Latin.

Main points to remember:
Old English (essentially German, from the Anglo-Saxon tribes)
Middle English (post-Norman invasion, German + French, the language of Chaucer)

To be or not to be sexy?

2009-08-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Just had an interesting conversation with my mom. No, not that conversation. We had the kind of conversation you are never too old to have: how should women approach sexuality, how can they get respect from men?

My answer: find the right man.

At the risk of sounding simplistic, I believe there are two types of people in this world: selfish people and unselfish people. Selfish people go through life seeing everything as a transaction and seek to use everything in their environment to their own benefit. In contrast, unselfish people live life with a desire to share, contribute, and connect; unselfish people desire to think and feel at a higher, spiritual (as apposed to materialistic, advantageous) level. So the men out there who objectify women (and the women out there who objectify men) are just selfish people who do not care about love and do not want more than a physical relationship. Give those men a wide berth.

My mom's view of things is more that men are inherently sexual and they need to be trained to not see women as mere pawns in satisfying their sexual needs. Women need to dress modestly so that men do not look at them in the wrong way and get "tempted." T'hey need to not be sexual so that men will respect them for more than their bodies.

While there is some merit to her case, I would say this: if a guy likes women exclusively for that, the hole is in the guy . . . he's just a selfish, shallow person. No amount of foregoing makeup and miniskirts will turn him around. Surrounding him with respectable, intelligent women will not change what he wants out of a relationship. He's just a lemon. And look at the other aspects of his life. Chances are he's greedy in the way he approaches his career and other dealings.

In defense of my mom . . . when women dress or conduct themselves in a "sleazy" way, the chances that they will attract a lemon go way up. Because bad men love sleaze. Also, in the process, they will likely alienate good men who want more from a relationship. That's why makeup and miniskirts should be kept under lock and key around young, teenage girls. Youngsters may not have the wisdom to sort out the apples from the lemons. And young girls may fail to realize that being physically beautiful is only half of the equation . . .

. . . the other half of being drop-dead gorgeous is having wits and a strong personality. No man in my acquaintance worth winning has ever been attracted to an airhead. A vacant expression, irritating giggle, and fawning mannerisms are turnoffs to men . . . except the selfish ones I talked about earlier who love flattery and seek to dominate. Most men want it all ways . . . physical beauty, mental agility, and character. Makes sense, no?

So, the good news is that I do not believe women need to hide their beauty or "reform" men. Sexuality is all about the spirit it's done in. A woman in a tight, low-cut sweater can come off as ditzy or divine depending on how she sports it. Does she have the brains to match her boobs? Does she show off her figure to say "come get me, I'm easy" or to flaunt a beautiful body she is proud of? In other words, is she doing it all to "trap and bait" or to celebrate?

My religious beliefs put me in the "wait until marriage" camp, but I will be the first to say that there are unmarried couples out there who are having better, more meaningful sex than some married couples. Loving at a spiritual level transcends wedding vows and it transcends whether or not the woman flaunts it in her little black dress . . . instead it has everything to do with the people involved and the extent to which they are spiritually capable of loving (the extent of their unselfishness).

As in all things in life, love is the opposite of greed; love is always the solution and greed is always the downfall. If women want good relationships with men and vice versa, they must take care to not match up with greedy people. Attracting unselfish people involves fighting the greed in yourself, and then trusting your gut . . .

Everyman's Library adventure #1

2009-08-20T02:16:00.000-07:00

So I printed out my list of the 100 titles I'm determined to get through and dated it. Let's go.

First up is F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise.

I forgot everything I learned in college because . . .

2009-08-20T02:03:00.001-07:00

I broke the golden rule which is to condense your knowledge of something into one sentence (maybe two). Here are some examples of me doing that based on stuff I looked at this summer:

Kafka's Metamorphosis = Life is absurd.
Flaubert's A Simple Heart = The world will mercilessly hack down those who do not fight back.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind = Go with the flow: accept (even embrace) the good and the bad about life and who you are.

It is surprisingly difficult to sum things up so briefly. The process of doing it really makes you think through the work of art and, best of all, if the work of art is worth remembering, you generally will be able to remember one sentence about it.

That one sentence answers the question I was discussing before, "Why was this work of art made?"

And then answers to the second question, "How does the artist get their point across," sort of come to you if you can remember the answer to the first.

In college, my professors thought they would sharpen all of us up by stuffing our brains with bucketloads of information. It was so painful regurgitating all of it. It's so much better, when you read/see/hear anything, just to take away from it the one thing that really matters . . . the main idea.

I'm feeling overwhelmed, but wait . . .

2009-08-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

I know how to do this. How to read literature? How to make sense of any work of art? I think this is the best approach:

Ask yourself, "If I were the artist, why would I have created this?"

If you can answer that question, then I think you "get it," insofar as any work of art can be completely understood.

Answering that question will give you the "meaning" of the work.

As far as technique goes, see if you can answer how the artist communicated their point. If it's a work of literature, then how do the plot, writing style, characterization, and symbols in the piece work together to make the point.

Just two questions.

It's really easy, isn't it? Pass me Ulysses.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature . . .

2009-08-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

Is excellent. This can keep you busy for a lifetime. I checked it out from the library along with my Everyman's Library selections. It's got it all . . . definitions, pictures, a vast compilation of essential works, timelines, critical essays, bibliographies, endless "for further exploration" resources. It'll make the nerd in all of us drool!

Can't wait to finally make sense of a vast topic that I've been curious about for a long time.

Join me as I read the Everyman's Library

2009-08-19T17:12:00.001-07:00

The Everyman's Library satisfies my passion for two things: reading and lists. They have a "100 Essentials" that fits the bill perfectly. If I can get through this series, I will always be the smartest person in the room . . . of course that's why I (or anyone) reads.

Check it out at:
http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/classics/set_list.php?id=0

The Everyman's Library was originally published in the UK and was designed to be make the classics affordable for the layman, hence the title of the series. A pleasing democratic touch.

Clarissa . . . I want you back . . .

2009-08-19T02:50:00.001-07:00

Nickelodeon in the 90s. Now those were the days. Love this song, happy memories . . . and Melissa is still so cool this many years later!

I want black satin sheets . . .

2009-08-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

Stunning song and vid. Female pop stars and R&B singers are a dime a dozen, but female rock stars are a unique breed. Who can you think of? Ain't many, Pink pulls it off. I could do without Pink making out with herself, but every other aspect of this vid, the fashions and everything, was delicious. Cool that she was rolling around with herself on black satin sheets, tho. Black satin sheets . . . way more provocative than skin . . . :)

What a chick ditty!

2009-08-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

"Love Story" by Taylor Swift. This music video has it all . . . a castle, princess dresses, a ball, a Pride and Prejudice setting, a midnight tryst, the lovers running across a field towards each other across other (guy bare-chested) . . . there's even a silver pony! I love it! This vid prompted me to coin "chick ditty." Check out my definition for it at http://www.urbandictionary.com
Probably won't publish for a few days.

Urban Dictionary favs . . .

2009-08-18T02:28:00.000-07:00

Magic Toaster:

A derogatory term describing an un-savvy computer users view of what a computer is.

Why my magic toaster no come on? I plug in, but no toast.

Blinker Beat:

When the tic-toc of the blinkers syncs with the music playing on the car radio.

e.g: dude check it out, I got blinker beat happening on this Jay-Z song.

Good hang:

Def: someone who is fun to hang out with

Ex:
yo dude what do you think of dustin?
o yeah hes a good hang

Sloth-cloth:

An old tee-shirt you wear while hanging around the house.

The word is hard to say many times quickly.

The great man came to the door wearing baggy boxer shorts and a food-stained sloth-cloth.

Go primitive:

Instead of keyboarding or texting a long and detailed story someone suggests a phone call as a more direct way to have the conversation.

Dude, I'm good with texting but this is giving me carpel tunnel, let's "go primitive" I'll call you tomorrow at 8.

Agressive-passive:

A word describing somebody who is uncomfortable being openly amiable and kind, so they give more subtle hints to their goodwill while maintaining a disagreeable exterior. See also.

That man spent the entire meal complaining to me about my service, and then he left me a $5 tip. He's totally aggressive passive.

Making base contact:

Making Base Contact; "saying" meaning contacting your wife, girlfriend, or serious female relationship via your cellular phone, just like as paramedics make base contact to get additional orders for patient care, one can give ones female an updated status on what the boys and yourself are doing.

you: hey guys so are we getting ready to head to the bar now?

friends: yeah sure were leaving in ten, can't wait to get smashed!!

you: sounds great lemme just go "make base contact" first

OR

you: great if you leave any sooner Ill be over by the garage "making base contact"

Man Cave:

A room, space, corner or area of a dwelling that is specifically reserved for a male person to be in a solitary condition, away from the rest of the household in order to work, play, involve himself in certain hobbies, activities without interuption. This area is usually decorated by the male that uses it without interferance from any female influence.

Tom retreated to the Man Cave to play his online rpg game.

unsurance:

Coverage by contract whereby the party which has undertaken to guarantee protection or coverage against loss by a specified peril reneges said coverage when protection or action becomes necessary.

I had to take little Throckmorton to a specialist for his asthma, but the visit was not covered by our health unsurance policy.

Writer's Crap:

Derived from 'writer's cramp', writer's crap reffers to a stage when one is only capeable of writing utter crap.

'That story was horrible, i think she's got a bad case of Writer's crap'

holidrawl:

Depression caused by the lack of a holiday to party about for at least a one-month period. Typically occcurs between St. Patrick's Day and Memorial Day in the US and also during the month of August when holidrawl is present between 4th of July and Labor Day.

Date: April 26th

Dear Diary;

I'm in such holidrawl that I can't think of anything else to tell you! *flips back to entries from St. Patty's Day and cries hysterically*

Lyrical themes . . .

2009-08-18T02:17:00.000-07:00

Lyrically speaking, who agrees?

Pop music = romance
Rock music = rebellion
Hip-Hop = pride-in-your-stride
Singer/Songwriter = storytelling
Country = storytelling + romance

Funny how certain lyrical themes just sound best with certain sounds. I used to turn my nose up at "ooh-baby"ish lines, but, as someone who writes pop-ish music, that's where I've ended up and I'm cool with it. Pop music sounds best when it's light and sweet. Unless your a genius like Eminem and you know how to break the rules. Not me.

Penny pranks, hehe.

2009-08-16T23:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/pennypranks
Kinda reminds me of when my bro and I paid up at a Taco Bell drive thru w/ nothing but coins. It took the poor people 5-10 min. to count it out. Rudest thing I ever did . . . but, hey, you gotta use your pennies.

Pink's Latest . . .

2009-08-16T22:44:00.000-07:00

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

Pink inspires me b/c of her great voice and original, arty style. Above all, she knows how to sing the blues and brings a gritty, bluesy flavor (a la Janis Joplin) to her songs.

Cobra Starship, Hot Mess: Experience your brains popping out of your ears!!

2009-08-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

The best punches come on the sly. So, the next time you want to have at it, don't sock it to 'em with your brass knuckles like any other average Joe. Instead, lure the offender into your vehicle, secure the child safety locks, crank up the stereo to Cobra Starship, slam the doors shut . . . and no one gets out until every last freakin' fortissimo note of the album has boom-blasted that car up and down. Your friend will emerge from the vehicle in an altered state of consciousness . . . guaranteed!!

Ah, the glory of emo-inflected euro-pop (made in the U.S.A), belted out over pummeling club beats, distorted guitars, and blistering synths! This is music made with love and you'll get an ear-full of it! It will enthusiastically bowl you over! Kinda like my review!

In all seriousness, this was a "fun" album and it was worth hearing in its entirety once and left me with a handful of tracks worth hearing multiple times. My only complaint is that this band my suffer from Junior-Senior-itis. Lukewarm Junior-Senior fans will know what I'm talking about. It's the experience of turning on an album and thinking, "This is the best, catchiest stuff I've ever heard!" only to reach the end of the album gasping, "I can't take it anymore!" It may, however, leave others gasping, "Gimme more, I need a fix!"

Hence the title of my review . . .

For me, on too many of the tracks, it was as if they couldn't decide who should do what and when, so they were like, "Ah, heck. Let everybody play. Spank-my-but drums, buzzing bass, UFO-hovering synths, fuzzy guitars, whining vocalist, the choir, the guy playing the quirky organ stabs and triggering the siren samples . . . ready . . . set . . . GO!" MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY.

Actually, the arrangements weren't chaotic so much as they were over-enthusiastic. In terms of sound effects, this band had a lot they wanted to include on each track and aired on the side of trimming the tree as opposed to trimming it all down.

But I tend to feel that way about emo bands in general. The arrangements often sound noisy to me. If you really love the sound of Fall out Boy, for example, then you'll probably like this album. You'll likely give Cobra Starship two thumbs up for passion and energy.

You have been warned . . .

All I want is u!!

2009-08-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

Love this song . . . love this song . . . can't stop listening to this song . . . cute video, too . . .

Dostoyevsky, thanks for helping me with my love life!

2009-08-16T04:13:00.001-07:00

So the basic idea from Dostoyevsky was that we have the power to choose what we get out of life and how we see life. Sometimes life pitches us curve balls that are beyond our control, but that is the exception, not the rule. So the next time you have a "woe is me" moment, reconsider . . . is the world really that bad, or are you just incompetent?

Okay, ladies . . .

Most of us have had the experience of getting burned by someone we knew all along would be bad for us. You know the type, the party boy, the "popular" guy. No good, no good!

Funny how, back in the day, I used to go for those types and then gripe about how terrible men were. And, just like the narrator in the story, my bitter feelings and irresponsible actions were all a reflection of my ginormous ego. I was "too good" for the shy, quiet, less-than-perfect-looking guy in the back of the classroom. And, ultimately, I didn't want to a deep personal connection, I didn't want a real relationship. I wanted the thrill of the chase, I wanted to get bent up out of shape by the Greek God every one else lusted after. For shame! For all my griping . . . I got what I wanted . . . I chose what I got . . . I got what I deserved.

No excuses.

Dostoyevsky was passive-aggressive!

2009-08-16T03:31:00.001-07:00

This will be - - I think - - the last in a long line of Notes from the Underground posts. So enjoy. This is the part where I tell you what it all means. Finally.

And here is the theme summed up: A human being may have such an enormous ego that they kill everything good that comes their way just so that they can stay aloof and in control. The classic example of this happening in N fr U, is when the unnamed narrator woos a prostitute, (just for the heck of it, just to see if he can have that kind of power over someone), and then rejects her when she shows up at his door. What an a-hole. Why is this significant? The lesson I learned is this: every time you are mean and unkind and you reject the world and the people around you, you need to look inside of you. The problem is inside of you. Not outside of you. Fix yourself. Human beings have the power to choose what kinds of lives they will live. That power of choice can be used for good or for evil. Use it for good!

N of U brilliantly illustrates how a person may deceive themselves into believing that the world is a terrible place and therefore it is their duty to manipulate, control, and ultimately reject the world. The anonymous narrator (admittedly of above average sensitivity and intelligence) finds that he is unable to connect with the world around him. People are mean to him, his talents are unappreciated. He writes a compelling essay for us explaining how hard it is for him, a dreamer, an adventuresome intellectual, to ever "connect." People and reality are just a ball and chain. So he commits himself to an "underground life."

Then he starts telling us stories about his life, and, at first, it seems like his theories hold up. The friends he meets with really are jerks and it seems like the world is truly the grim place the narrator makes it out to be. And then the narrator starts doing strange things. Like not wanting to pay his man servant on time, just for the heck of it. Just to have the power of withholding wages. Or making a woman fall in love with him and then casting her away. We begin to see that the narrator is actually heartless and very much to blame for his empty life. He sees the world through a twisted lense, and, above all, insists on seeing the world through that twisted lense so that he can have an excuse to be angry and abusive. At the end of the day, he is choosing to use a combination of isolation and abusive manipulation to feel apart and above it all. He never wants to be understood, he never wants to love, he never wants to let his guard down in any way . . . because, well, ultimately he is insecure and is nursing a fat ego. He tells himself that he is so awesome and that's why he's misunderstood. Turns out that he's misunderstood because he wants to be misunderstood. Life sucks for him, and he wouldn't have it any other way . . . because, pathetic as it may be, he feels strong and safe in his little cubby hole.

The cool thing about N fro U is the way the narrator is portrayed. At first, he comes off as extremely intelligent, likeable, and superior. His high flown theories are impressive and I found myself buying everything he said, even identifying with what he said (yikes!!!) . . . until he started telling stories about his life and then, unwittingly, exposes himself for the shallow fiend that he is. It was rather startling to experience that reversal. Dostoyevsky set it up beautifully.

Great read . . .

It made me think hard about the times when I've felt cynical and mean-spirited. Usually those feelings have gone hand-in-hand with narcissism. It's true, there are bad people out there and bad things in the world. But with some heart and intelligence, you can find the good in the world if you want to find it.

My new favorite song . . .

2009-08-16T03:28:00.000-07:00

Love this song . . . the vid is cute but kinda *yawn* . . . good song, tho.

Dostoyevsky was a rapper

2009-08-04T14:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't yet finished Notes from the Underground, so I'm going to hold out on the philosophical analysis for the time being until all the puzzle pieces come together. I'm leaving the punks behind for a post or two now to discuss Dostoyevsky's technique . . . a technique he has in common with the best writers, poets, painters, and, yes, rappers . . .

The key is using symbols. It's been a very long time since I've read a personal essay in which the author went to such pains to express their ideas symbolically. I've already mentioned a few symbols in the previous posts, but I'll list them here again . . .

"The Wall": when Dostoyevsky wants to refer to the assumptions and certainties people take for granted, he refers to the Wall. Small minded people bump up against "the wall" and don't question it, free spirits deny it exists . . .

"The mouse": this is the symbol for how Dostoyevsky feels in comparison to his associates who question the world less. Because he is constantly second-guessing himself and everything around him, he feels powerless to act.

"The crystal palace": some people believe that happiness can be reduced to an equation . . . classic example is the white-picket-fence scenario. If you give a person a marriage, a mortgage, kids, and affluence they will be happy. That white-picket-fence fantasy we poke fun at works in exactly the same way as "the crystal palace." Dostoyevsky denies that such a palace exists for humanity. Just because certain conditions are met in a person life doesn't necessarily mean they will be happy. Instead, people need free will and independence to do things their own way, not a formula . . .

I found the use of these symbols to be incredibly effective. Dostoyevsky made it so easy to understand and remember his concepts. And it got me to thinking . . . my favorite rappers lace their rhymes with concrete imagery that function like symbols. And every great painting has an iconic image/symbol that makes it unforgettable. That is the mark of high art. Don't express an idea using vague, abstract language . . . convert it into a visual that sticks on the brain like a sticky note . . .

Dostoyevsky: The Original Punk Hero?

2009-07-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

Punk culture is so sprawling at this point that it means different things depending on where you are. My experience with it comes from my days as a student at UC Berkeley. Around campus, there were the students; on Telegraph Ave. and downtown, there were the punks. Although it was never stated policy, I think the City of Berkeley likes to keep Telegraph grungy so as to attract the alternative subculture. After all that studying, everyone needs a diversion . . . and Telegraph Ave.'s human zoo is second to none.

I was always intrigued by those kids. They had green hair, sneering expressions, and so much metal on their face that the city could have cleared the streets with a giant magnet. And yet despite the extremities that made you second guess their presence of mind - - I'm talking about piercings that were beyond painful to look at - - -I always thought those punks were a cut above your average drop out. I was convinced by the swagger in their stride that there was something really there, an ethic worth getting to know and thinking about.

I would never have guessed that a key to unlocking it all would reveal itself in a Dostoyevsky novella of all places . . . but his Notes from the Underground reads like a punk bible, if such a think exists. The clue to me was the dignified suffering of the narrator . . . kinda reminded me of the poker-faced expressions of the types who served up salads at the Intermezzo Cafe . . . with ear-lobes stretched to the size of doughnuts and railroad spikes in their tounges. C'mon. You can't tell me they weren't in pain?! But you'd never know it, and they served up the salads with such dignity, such aplomb.

Dignity in suffering, joy in suffering, pride in suffering . . . why? Dostoyevsky's novella answers that fascinating question and gives the punk movement, at least the slice of it that I've experienced, an intellectual underpinning. I'll never see those mohawked cool cats the same way again. In my eyes, Telegraph Ave. is now teeming with Dostoyevsky Jrs. . . .

Dostoyevsky's novella reads like a personal essay, a conversation really, with a man who constantly refers to himself as being "spiteful." His problem? He suffers from what he calls "acute consciousness"; in other words, he is more sensitive and intelligent than most people. It isn't empty narcissim and that last description of him is mine, not his. The character does not profess to be superior in any way, in fact, he is very confused by himself. And yet he is aware of something that makes him different from most people, something he is vaguely proud of. That is his relentless questioning, "Why?!?!?" When most people create a "Wall" of certainty in their mind, an impenetrable boundary that they will not question . . . this guy fights it. Reality just doesn't add up to him the way it does to most people.

So where does the joy in suffering come from? Every time the world is unfair, nonsensical, cruel, unreliable, or abusive in any way, this character feels a strange sense of pleasure because his theories about reality being funked up are validated. They become evidence to him that yeah, the world really does suck, and he's right to not accept things for the way they are. When he suffers he is being honest and true. And he feels pride because it becomes him against society: while everyone is saying that the world is just and all is well, he becomes the emboldened one against the millions, proving everyone wrong that reality is messed up. He feels powerful. But the power just exists in his head. He often feels bested by the more simplistic, passionate brutes out there who act without thinking about the world. It never occurs to them that perhaps there is no real justice, no real right or wrong. They believe everything they are taught without any second-guessing. And so they sometimes bulldoze over the narrator who, trapped in a tangled web of thoughts, can not decide how to act when no clear right or wrong presents itself.

The fascinating thing about this character is the inner struggle he experiences. On the one hand he loves being pitted against the world; it builds his self-esteem. On the other hand, he feels guilty and disgusted with himself for his relentlessly bad, "spiteful" attitude. And he's sick of being trampled on by people who seem inferior to him. He's sick of feeling like "a mouse" in comparison to people who are driven by blind momentum.

More coming!

March of the Morons: classic sci-fi and the mind v. the heart

2009-07-10T04:34:00.000-07:00

March of the Morons . . . with a title like that, I had no idea what to expect. And I still don't "understand" C. M. Cornbluth's classic sci-fi tale. But the importance of understanding the work has now taken the backseat to my interest in the way the story worked on me.

First and foremost, the story had an unsettling ending that elicited a strong emotional response. By packing the story with an emotional punch, the author made me care about his work and planted a seed in me, as it were. Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, the story kept popping up again and again in my mind as I tried to make sense of my reaction. In the process of trying to understand my feelings, I contemplated the story and the themes of the work.

The lesson I learned from this experience is that the best way to get people to think about something is to make them feel something strongly, first. That's because thinking is hard work. Speaking for myself at least, people will go as far as they can go in life without thinking. Most people will overcome their slothfulness, however, to make sense of their emotions. Emotions are impossible to ignore; they demand analysis. The times in my life when I have done the most soul searching and questioning have always been the times that are the most emotionally traumatizing. And the works of art that have challenged me the most intellectually are the ones that challenged me first, emotionally.

Thanks to Cornbluth's story, I've now developed a new criterion for effective art. The most complex and satisfying art begins by triggering an emotional response and then invites and holds up to rational analysis. That last part is key. If a work of art is emotional without also being intellectually rigorous, it will come off as merely sentimental.

So far in this post, I've been writing from the perspective that emotion and reason, the mind and the heart, are two separate aspects and organs. I'm starting to believe, however, that that distinction is artificial and that the two are actually linked. The heart will not engage with a work of art if the mind does not, and vice versa. Take a story like Flaubert's A Simple Heart. Flaubert, a proponent of naturalism, wrote this story to explore the sufferings of a poor servant girl living in a cruel, Darwinian world. His stated intention with the story was to jab at the reader's conscience, to make them feel pity and empathy for the sufferings of an innocent. But the world Flaubert created in his story was so thoroughly cruel and Darwinian that the behaviors of all the characters were too predictable. The work was not intellectually challenging because there was no tension in it, it was so deterministic that one did not need to read to the ending to know how it would end. For that reason, I never cared about the poor servant girl. The story never came to life. Because the story lacked powerfully complex ideas, it didn't tug at my heart strings.

So, when it comes to the age-old debate about reason v. emotion, I'd like to chip in my two cents and say that the two are inextricably linked. When we feel a strong emotion, our mind kicks in to think about it. But we wouldn't feel that emotion in the first place if our mind were not unsettled by something. Emotion gives rise to thought, thought gives rise to emotion. They are two aspects of consciousness that go hand in hand, two sides of the same coin. When we think, we feel; when we feel, we think . . .

Kristin By Sea

Carousel: surprisingly thought-provoking

The Five Essential Albums of Rock and Rap

Asking questions, a simple and profound kindness

Pascal on Christianity and . . . the Blues.

Lady Gaga changd my life . . .

Trey Songz: Cutie-Pie Perv or just honest?

Poe: the tortured genius

Baudelaire: the intangible becomes tangible

Stephen King: entertainment and the subconcious mind

Shakespeare: the language of the heart

Gerard Manley Hopkins: nature and God

Keats: Sleep and Poetry, a unique world of words

The Canterbury Tales: a joy to read when read in translation.

Little Shop of Horrors: creepy without trying to be.

Cadillac Records: tacky, but better than nothing.

Bye Bye Birdie: I am deeply disturbed!!!

Grosse Point Blank: a romantic comedy in disguise, and thoughts on dry humor

Who first experimented with camera angles?

Scarface (1932) and what makes art timeless

On a happier note: the magic of Sarah Vaughan

Indie Rock: a shameful chapter in the history of rock 'n roll

Swingers: favorite lines

Swingers: it was fun to see it from a guy's perspective . . .

"Can't Hardly Wait": just not that good . . .

The Wackness: A beautiful movie . . .

Beowulf: favorite moments . . .

Beowulf: a glimpse into a dignified era

Phish died and went to heaven and then recorded their trip!

Sondre Lerche and the problem with the singer-songwriter genre

Empire Records . . . a fun flick

Best and worst sex scenes in a movie . . .

The Big Chill Reconsidered: why it may now be a favorite

The Big Chill: I need therapy!

Do coming of age movies abuse their soundtracks?

The Big Chill: great premise, fails to deliver.

The Big Chill: Fav lines

The most romantic song of all time . . .

Diner: if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up some place else . . .

Diner: fav lines

Cab Calloway: "The Reefer Man"

The English Patient fav movie line

Pretty Woman: fav movie lines

The English Patient killed me.

Do you know your pop culture?

Madonna, Tori Amos, and feminism: Like a Prayer, the missing link

*As Good as It Gets*: the first movie I've ever favorited without knowing why

Jay-Z's Blue Print 3: Excellent

Norton Anthology of English Literature: this is my project for 2009!

Pretty Woman: the consummate chick flick

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly delivers . . .

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly . . . has gotten worse.

The most romantic moment in film . . .

Who's the Hunkiest Romantic Comedy Hunk?

10 Things I Hate About . . . romantic comedies!

Who Framed Roger Rabbit: a good soundtrack

The Game . . . gangster rap that won't make you blush.

The finally found bigfoot. Phew!

Paris, I love you, too!

Best Breakthrough Video

My VMA votes . . . .

Cut the ribbon: This Side of Paradise

Oh no! U2 neutered rock 'n' roll!

Since the beginning of the world and the dawn of time . . .

To be or not to be sexy?

Everyman's Library adventure #1

I forgot everything I learned in college because . . .

I'm feeling overwhelmed, but wait . . .

The Norton Anthology of English Literature . . .

Join me as I read the Everyman's Library

Clarissa . . . I want you back . . .

I want black satin sheets . . .

What a chick ditty!

Urban Dictionary favs . . .

Lyrical themes . . .

Penny pranks, hehe.

Pink's Latest . . .

Cobra Starship, Hot Mess: Experience your brains popping out of your ears!!

All I want is u!!

Dostoyevsky, thanks for helping me with my love life!

As Good as It Gets: the first movie I've ever favorited without knowing why