the only thing to learn from stories are stories. or paragraphs. or sentences. or words. stories are in this world but always about another. someone has said dreams and everyone hates that.
western philosophy is always about another world. the one made up by the philosopher, ha. here it is best to debate which philosophy is more accurate. existentialists like to win.
when i read a story, i look at the mind through which the story was created. then maybe the publication information or the typeface and often read the last sentence first and wait for it like a wave seen far away. sometimes that sentence gets louder and sometimes it comes in just a brush of skin, which is okay.
watch the mind enough and some stillness reveals itself. it's the same with a story or driving on a motorcycle the very first time. one should, if driving a motorcycle the very first time, wear the proper gear (helmet, etc) and do the proper low-wave and wear the proper face, for people can tell.
it is the wanting that is the problem and then it isn't. a lot like raining or a train going.
there is a homeless man who wears cyclist gear and rides around our town. he is properly dressed for what he is doing and yet everyone knows what he is, i think, because he doesn't really hide it. we like to hide it: that we are just wandering around. i want to often just wander around and then there it is, wanting, and then there it is gone, just wandering, again, oh yeah.
the sameness between stories and mind is this: an imagined ego. here we go again: the individual, the personal and the breaking through of that or the fear of the breaking through of that or the looming of the breaking. oh, not the doors.
as soon as we say it's all about the emotion or the sentence or the language or the rhythm we say what or how? say craft or say write or say lose yourself or say read.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tree of Life as prayer
A very fine review of Malick's new film. my favorite director by far, and the reviews are very positive right now. so excited. Ebert calls the film a prayer; i've thought of Malick's movies as meditations. not in that they "think" or "concentrate" or even "explore" a particular subject, but that they vibrate with the aliveness of awe toward all things, an experience similar to meditation.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
books for no one: 2011 reads
Waste by Eugene Marten: if i hadn't finished Infinite Jest at the tiniest beginning of this year, Waste would be my favorite book read in 2011. it's a small book but there's nothing of smallness in it: Sloper is unique in his lostness and living; the sentences are as well crafted and surprising as any; the world is as large, dark, perverted, and somehow gentle as anyone could want.
The Second Book of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell: reading Mitchell's mind on the page is like letting someone wipe your mirror clean. you forget you are anyone at all. and what a thing to be grateful for, to not be anyone for some time of each day.
About a Mountain by John D'Agata: written in a fever of historical, linguistic, and personal chaos of hilarity. a memoir that doesn't feel like one, finally.
Players by Don Dellilo: the empty dialogue, the boredom of days, the need to be someone in a vast cityscape of someones, the relentless oppressive hemmed-in-living of city life and the prose, which seems lost in his later work. there's a doomed feeling here, but not of great circumstance or terrible violence: the doom here is quiet and unrelenting and relishes boredom. these players aren't distant or detached, they're too unaware that this is a possibility, that they might look at their lives and see what they really are: unfeeling to anyone other than themselves. it's beautifully, sadly done.
these are my favorites of the year so far. other mentionables, which i may hit later. the ones i'm looking forward to: Us by Michael Kimball, another early Dellilo, Butler's There is No Year, and some of Dogen's Zen essays.
The Second Book of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell: reading Mitchell's mind on the page is like letting someone wipe your mirror clean. you forget you are anyone at all. and what a thing to be grateful for, to not be anyone for some time of each day.
About a Mountain by John D'Agata: written in a fever of historical, linguistic, and personal chaos of hilarity. a memoir that doesn't feel like one, finally.
Players by Don Dellilo: the empty dialogue, the boredom of days, the need to be someone in a vast cityscape of someones, the relentless oppressive hemmed-in-living of city life and the prose, which seems lost in his later work. there's a doomed feeling here, but not of great circumstance or terrible violence: the doom here is quiet and unrelenting and relishes boredom. these players aren't distant or detached, they're too unaware that this is a possibility, that they might look at their lives and see what they really are: unfeeling to anyone other than themselves. it's beautifully, sadly done.
these are my favorites of the year so far. other mentionables, which i may hit later. the ones i'm looking forward to: Us by Michael Kimball, another early Dellilo, Butler's There is No Year, and some of Dogen's Zen essays.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Winter's Bone: Where's My Daddy?
in the most highly acclaimed independent film of 2010, the main character has to ask a lot of people where her dad is. if she doesn't find him, her house is gone, and she and the kids are on the street (er, i mean, "in the field like dogs.") finally, someone tells her where he is. she gets money. the end.
here's the authenticity of the Ozarks: cars in lawns, trash in lawns, trash on porches, rusty trampolines, no cell phones!, grim faces, eating squirrel, cooking meth, speaking in accents, woods.
here's the twist: it's noir-realism, in the Ozarks.
here's the danger: every character feels, looks, acts like every other character. mean-faced and humorless. what's worse: we're not dealing with characters here, we're dealing with character types. the lead, jennifer lawrence, has the most convincing "character," which at the very least has some hopes and aspirations and, you know, a body and hair and clothes. everyone else in the movie might as well be mindless, serving her either dutifully or scornfully in the film's slow and sometimes overly dialogue-driven plot (Looking for my dad, hey, need to talk to him, need to talk with him, really do) Note: a slight exception can be made for John Hawkes, who brings some life and a bit of humor to an otherwise empty role.
the thing about Winter's Bone is not that it's unconvincing, not that it tries too hard for a kind of realism, and not even that it's going for a kind of noir take on this story. it's failing is that it feels rather mundane: we're supposed to want this girl to find her dead dad's bones so she can stay on her land; we're supposed to follow her initiation into this "world" of her father's. problem is, we don't know her dad, we barely know her, and that makes it hard to care; secondly, this world, while seeming somewhat dangerous, isn't all that interesting. so, her dad cooks meth, so what? so, wait, mean people are associated with this world...of course they are. there is talk of "kin" and these people seem to adhere to different codes than the "kin" code, but all of that is small. worse, the emotional resonance of Winter's Bone is lacking. we do see reasons to cheer for Lawrence's character (I can't even remember her name), but none of them are surprising; all the reasons are cliched. we see the dangerous world she's entering, but none of it is surprising; most of the people here do the cliched things we expect them to do. this is Winter's Bone major failing: it takes an interesting situation, a terrific setting, and the possibility of some great characters, and instead of doing something unique and exciting, it gives us a paint-by-numbers noir piece.
finally, a spoiler alert: in the end, Winter's Bone almost feels vapid - a movie in which the exact problem we started with was solved almost perfectly (even better, she's handed a bag of money!). here's another cliche: for my money, give me Blue Valentine; or, if we want to get sort rustic, how about Old Joy or Wendy and Lucy; or even Junebug - all of these films decide to do the thing that great independent movies should: surprise at every turn and rip our hearts apart over and over in myriad small ways.
here's the authenticity of the Ozarks: cars in lawns, trash in lawns, trash on porches, rusty trampolines, no cell phones!, grim faces, eating squirrel, cooking meth, speaking in accents, woods.
here's the twist: it's noir-realism, in the Ozarks.
here's the danger: every character feels, looks, acts like every other character. mean-faced and humorless. what's worse: we're not dealing with characters here, we're dealing with character types. the lead, jennifer lawrence, has the most convincing "character," which at the very least has some hopes and aspirations and, you know, a body and hair and clothes. everyone else in the movie might as well be mindless, serving her either dutifully or scornfully in the film's slow and sometimes overly dialogue-driven plot (Looking for my dad, hey, need to talk to him, need to talk with him, really do) Note: a slight exception can be made for John Hawkes, who brings some life and a bit of humor to an otherwise empty role.
the thing about Winter's Bone is not that it's unconvincing, not that it tries too hard for a kind of realism, and not even that it's going for a kind of noir take on this story. it's failing is that it feels rather mundane: we're supposed to want this girl to find her dead dad's bones so she can stay on her land; we're supposed to follow her initiation into this "world" of her father's. problem is, we don't know her dad, we barely know her, and that makes it hard to care; secondly, this world, while seeming somewhat dangerous, isn't all that interesting. so, her dad cooks meth, so what? so, wait, mean people are associated with this world...of course they are. there is talk of "kin" and these people seem to adhere to different codes than the "kin" code, but all of that is small. worse, the emotional resonance of Winter's Bone is lacking. we do see reasons to cheer for Lawrence's character (I can't even remember her name), but none of them are surprising; all the reasons are cliched. we see the dangerous world she's entering, but none of it is surprising; most of the people here do the cliched things we expect them to do. this is Winter's Bone major failing: it takes an interesting situation, a terrific setting, and the possibility of some great characters, and instead of doing something unique and exciting, it gives us a paint-by-numbers noir piece.
finally, a spoiler alert: in the end, Winter's Bone almost feels vapid - a movie in which the exact problem we started with was solved almost perfectly (even better, she's handed a bag of money!). here's another cliche: for my money, give me Blue Valentine; or, if we want to get sort rustic, how about Old Joy or Wendy and Lucy; or even Junebug - all of these films decide to do the thing that great independent movies should: surprise at every turn and rip our hearts apart over and over in myriad small ways.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)