It's Good To Be Pragmatic: An Interview With Helen DeWitt | Los Angeles Review of Books : I read James Wood's review of White Teeth, in which he introduced the term "hysterical realism," a long while back: He complained of novels obsessed with information, novels of relentless vivacity with no real understanding of character. It seemed to me that this way of formulating the objection was only possible in ignorance of Edward Tufte's work on information design. ..
Information design might enable the reader to see the world through the eyes of persons with different kinds of expertise — which is to say, among other things, to see the possibilities for misunderstanding among persons with radically different frames of reference. The alternative, too often, is fiction which presents characters drawn to precision rather than the expression of feeling as obsessive, alienated, autistic, antisocial. It's hard to believe this impoverished view of the world can lead to great fiction.
// (this goes to question for me, what is her relation to the voice she writes in Lightning Rods?
maybe over simple to say, but I sure am feeling like: it is her voice //
I spent nine years in Oxford (B.A., D.Phil., JRF), then decided I could
not face the enforced specialization of academia. Spent seven years
working on various novels, trying to combine this with various jobs. In
1995 I decided this must stop. I had 100 novels in fragments, including a
300-page single-spaced MS with terrible structural problems. I quit my
job: I would write till money ran out. Had terrible argument with my
father. .. Thought: We don't
pick our parents. If we could choose, I would have picked someone better
than this. Thought: OK. I can't work on this book. I will write a novel
with a simple structure that can be FINISHED. I will set aside a month
and write with NO INTERRUPTIONS. (Story: Son of single mother, obsessed
with Seven Samurai, goes in search of better father than the one fate
provided.)
I'd think she'd like this interview because, it appears, it is published as just what she said, no q & a format, no context added. so did she like that? searched for interviewer's name on her blog:
paperpools: Lee Konstantinou, author of Pop Apocalypse, has a review of Lightning Rods and slightly mad interview
of me over at the LA Review of Books. (Grappling with this interview
meant that I lost a whole day that I could have spent hanging out with
Joey Comeau, who did, admittedly, use the time to write for his horror
movie blog; there is also, admittedly, quite a lot in the interview
about my longing to put the interview behind me and spend time with the
writing half of A Softer World.)
The review is extremely funny (at least to me). LK draws attention to
the DeWitt fondness for the instructional, which to his mind is at odds
with the cultural trend toward informality, relaxation. I don't know
whether he is right about this alleged cultural trend -- he may well be,
but then we now live in a culture where taking part in a marathon, or
even triathlon, is commonplace. At any rate, the thing I notice in
myself is not so much this predilection as an inability to believe that
other people don't really share it.
The review is extremely funny (at least to
me). LK draws attention to the DeWitt fondness for the instructional,
which to his mind is at odds with the cultural trend toward informality,
relaxation. I don't know whether he is right about this alleged
cultural trend -- he may well be, but then we now live in a culture
where taking part in a marathon, or even triathlon, is commonplace. At
any rate, the thing I notice in myself is not so much this predilection
as an inability to believe that other people don't really share it.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Lightning Rods Dewitt tmn (2012 last March)
got Lightning Rods by Helen Dewitt from Ponce library... revisited
this commentary (sure is better than any I found so far elsewhere by
googling: not much discussion. not really getting into it. got to talk about tv for that innit!)
these notes from TextEdit what the heck did not bring over formatting, darn. hypertext, italics for me, some bold, bit o color for bit re satire Jon Stewart, parody Colbert and for Jim McC funny re I don't feel rage towards it (see you tomorrow, 1Q84) and now not caring to do ohswells oh okay doing at least partially need my italics . . . .huh re formatting is it bcs TextEdit uses,eg, 'strong' rather than 'b' for bold ~ used to be, I think, that blogger recognized both these whatevers html styles? but have they taken a stand for web design uniformity is it?
Opening Round March 9 March 9 Mark Binelli Lightning Rods v. Salvage the Bones
Kevin Guilfoile: I have to admit to being increasingly fascinated with the very idea of Lightning Rods’ existence since the day I started reading it. As Judge Binelli describes it, the entire novel is basically a reductio ad absurdum satire about the acceptance of, and even promotion of, ridiculously bad behavior. But what’s remarkable about Lightning Rods is that it isn’t anything other than that. This must have taken a superhuman level of concentration and discipline to write. The temptation to include something like a narrative arc. And characters. And at least one other idea. Why, it must have been enormous. .. I know it sounds like I’m making fun of it, but I actually say all this with sincere admiration. Granted, if it hadn’t made me laugh I’d have thought the whole enterprise a colossal waste of time, but that only adds to the high-wire act. but now I think she wasn't doing it on purpose!
And there are moments when she flat out teases the reader over this. This next part might be a little bit spoilery, but there is a section in the middle in which a new character is introduced. yes yes Roy who eats m&ms, thank you, been looking to find someone reacting to this. He is developed in far greater detail than any other person in the book, even the protagonist. It is not only hinted at, but explicitly stated in a bit of naked foreshadowing that he is going to have a major role in the development of the book’s plot. right - chp ends re the far-reaching repercussions that lightning rod facility seen by someone who shouldn't have seen it. And he is mentioned again only one other time. Barely in passing. well basically y that is the effect but okay the repercussions were that after eventually being let-go several mergers down the road, Roy talks about this to someone, who is his brother in law & who is in the FBI and that is who then comes to Joe -- but ends up wanting to use the lightning rods in govt. so it turns out to further joe's success, whereas that chapter ending sounded a note of coming doom to the enterprise. happens at other pnts I think, too, like the very opening sentence of the book ~ "one way looking at it whole thing an unfortunate side effect of Hurrican Edna" ~ 'unfortunate' I don't know, I think she Dewitt may have at that time thought it was going to be unfortunate and then by end of the book was not writing it that way but did not change it (and refuses editing, see below...) so now I am irked by the sloppiness. irked I do not trust her. also per comments here Hurricane Edna and being an Encyclopedia salesman seem like from decades earlier than she set the novel, and now I think that's just that she had one idea at the start and then went differently. sloppy.
You don’t even realize a joke is being played on you until like two days later when you get to the last page. well I did right away because it then took up without Roy and I wanted to know if really going to play out so at az searched for Roy. also for Ed Wilson & Elaine story which also does not go anywhere but ok that works as a vignette, there's no contraindicating explicit foreshadowing. Right at the point where you might be getting frustrated that this is basically a work of fiction with no conflict yes, DeWitt sets up a point of explicit tension. yep. She even says it’s going to happen. And so you start to anticipate it. You read faster. The book is heading downhill toward confrontation and denouement. And none of that ever happens. I know! I’m not sure how many people are going to be as amused by a book-length punk like that. But I can only say, brava. if it were on purpose. could it have been I don't guess I think so, now, after reading posts on her blog...
-sophronisba: Lightning Rods made me laugh out loud a few times. I admire DeWitt's uncompromising willingness to go all the way with her premise, and I really thought she nailed the voice. except if it's not that she nailed it (in mockery, parody) but that she speaks it -- and so knowing that, can we not enjoy it the same? no we cannot, why, there is some connection lost (reader to book/author, I guess) and without that not. But what bugs me about the book is that to get the humor you really have to accept a lot of male/female stereotypes; if you can't embrace those stereotypes, then the book will not work. I laughed, yes, but the book ended up having an odd retro feeling for me that I don't think the author intended.
-Neighbors73: I agree, I get that it was a satire, but the gender stereotypes .. Am I really to believe in 2000's America, all the "top performers" in a company are men, and all the women are secretaries?
-ondaatje: I wanted to like the DeWitt but I got thrown off balance by technicalities early on. Specifically, I thought the hurricane she refers to in the beginning (Edna) happened (as it did in the real world) in 1954. And the traveling Britannica/Electrolux salesman, not to mention the role of women in the workplace, felt in line with that era. So it was a shock, and very confusing, to realize that she was talking about the present day. I think this never allowed me to buy in to deadpan of her satire. Add to that the lack sympathetic characters and the plot teases that never paid off, and I was frustrated and glad when it was over.
-sophronisba: I actually really loved the first two-thirds or so of The Last Samurai, but it fell apart at the end. That seems to be a theme with DeWitt.
Quarterfinals March 20 Roxy Reno The Sense of an Ending v. Lightning Rods
Kevin: Wow. That Observer article is fascinating.
In the abstract, Helen DeWitt’s uncompromising approach to her art is admirable, but in reality a lack of self-doubt is a poor measure of genius. Most of the writers who hold such an attitude are delusional. The fact that DeWitt has managed to produce two excellent books by treating her editors as adversaries is testimony to her peculiar talent, but it makes for a terrible example. .. I’m skeptical that DeWitt is a genius driven mad by her inferiors in the publishing business. right. She appears to be a brilliant but troubled woman who became increasingly frustrated when the people she was working with—people who, trust me, feel very passionately about bringing great commercial art to the marketplace—wouldn’t willingly become her enablers. .. I knew that Lightning Rods was something of a response to her experience in publishing, but I had no idea it was such a multi-layered response. yeah ~ like, geez, she meant it ? (though: meant what, exactly?) You could, in fact, read it as a manifesto on the primacy of the artist—The Fountainhead for the 21st century, only with the hero building glory holes instead of gas stations and without the graphic celebration of rape. One wonders if a morally reprehensible political philosophy will one day be built from it.
-JimMcC: I like gonzo books that are out silly and angry and funny and unexpected. Lightning Rods just felt like lazy satire to me. A fun premise dropped into a world that never gels, clumsily written, and executed more with a grudge than with any real appreciation of the subject. The novel itself feels like a relic. If it were written in the 70s, I think I would have appreciated the muscular attack on workplace sexuality. But other people got here first, wrote about it better, and actually seemed to demonstrate an understanding of human beings. Root your satire in SOMEthing. The thing is, I found myself decently amused with the book as I read it but have become increasingly dissatisfied with it. yes. I don't feel rage towards it (see you tomorrow, 1Q84), but it has become something of an irritant. Though if this ends up head to head with Murakami in the next round, you best believe I'll suddenly be on its side. :)
Semifinals March 26 Michelle Orange Lightning Rods v. 1Q84
.. both Helen DeWitt and Haruki Murakami boil the novel down to one of its basic precepts: Here’s my brain: nifty, right? ..
Lighting Rods captivates from the start. The first 50 pages, especially, evoke the death-spin insularity of the voices in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. DeWitt has the knack for making formal daring feel utterly familiar. She commits fully, thrillingly, to the idiom of pragmatic self-interest as the stuff of her characters’ inner lives. Joe and the others cogitate and address themselves with the fathomless logic and received life-management platitudes that you imagine must be hiding something terrifying when you encounter people who actually talk that way.
and I was so into it but then I read around Observer profile and her response on her blog and my impression is Oh SHE ACTUALLY TALKS THAT WAY.
and now I don't much care to finish it? why? I thought reading it I was with a mind in a similar relationship to the voice as me ?
paperpools: Rashomon paperpools.blogspot.com/2011/12/rashomon.html [Michael Miller has published a profile in the New York Observer, here.]
paperpools: chrono paperpools.blogspot.com/2011/12/chrono.html
But the fact is, there might be a solution I did not see; if so, it would involve a lot of dreary striving, but there are people who would be spared grief. The person to ask was someone with relevant information. Bill {former agent} must presumably know what I should have done differently; he might know what I could do now; the person to ask was the person with the answer to the question. So I wrote to Bill (part of this e-mail is quoted in the piece) and went on packing. I did not say where I was going, because if I had said I was going to Eastbourne, to Beachy Head with its 600-foot cliff, it would be very easy for him to stop this. He could simply call the police in Eastbourne, explain the situation, forward the e-mail, tell me he had done so; if I went, I would be picked up by the police.
I got a reply from Bill in 40 minutes which I could not bring myself to look at. Just before it was time to go, I read his e-mail - and it must be said there was a great deal of sympathy and feeling in his reply. (I sent this to Michael Miller, though I could naturally not grant permission to print it, because I wanted to be fair; many people, I think, would warm to this. See Bill in a more favorable light than the person packing to catch a plane.) It did not answer the question. It was an emotional response to a factual question - which is precisely what one always does get from the biz. So I walked out the door with my carry-on bag and took the U-Bahn to Rudow and the bus to Schoenefeld and got on the plane.
It is very tiring to expose yourself to more of the same misunderstandings, but I realised, as I flew to Gatwick, that this is a bad thing to do to someone: contact him before leaving to commit suicide, in the hope of a helpful solution, and then jump off a cliff because he said the wrong thing. How can you do that to someone? If you're going to jump off the cliff, it turns out, it would have been much better to jump without writing, Bill is very emotional, perhaps not the kind of person to respond rationally at a time of crisis.
The fair thing to do was explain once more that I simply wanted to know whether there was something I could do; if there was something I hadn't tried, I would do it. And then give him time to think things over, because perhaps he would not immediately know what to say. So I checked into a hotel and wrote explaining again, pointing out that I thought I was doing what people had wanted DFW to do. I got a reply which still did not answer the question, he said that suicide was the most selfish thing you could do and Wallace's family had had to live with terrible grief and so on. There was a certain irony to this, because the reason things had gone wrong was that I had unselfishly spent 3 months looking after my mother instead of pulling together another MS for Bill to sell.
...I think at this point I wrote to Bill suggesting it might be better if he talked to David. His assistant wrote saying that Bill had gone on vacation to Mexico for 2 weeks and was uncontactable. I wrote explaining to Shaun that I was a 12-minute bus ride from a 600-foot cliff and did not think I would wait 2 weeks for Bill's return on the off-chance that something useful might come of it. It seemed as though it would look bad for Bill if a suicide took place in his absence, so perhaps it might be better to consult one of the other agents.
comments seminfinals
-jamesharrigan: An interesting comment that Judge Orange made was that Lightning Rods hits "...a sweet spot between satire and parody". I confess that I don't understand the distinction, can someone enlighten me?
-Neighbors73: I would say that parody has an element of mimicry to it. That a parody will imitate what it makes fun of (think Stephen Colbert) versus just making fun of it (think Jon Stewart).
I'd consider the corporate double speak in Lightning Rods to be an example of parody. But DOES SHE ? (Dewitt) ~ she does think she is being funny, I think, and mocking the subject matter ? but the seemingly-parodied voice in which Joe thinks, as also it turns out does every character whose thoughts we encounter, is that HER OWN VOICE?
-JohnWarner: That's the exact comparison I make. Colbert is parody, Stewart is satire.
these notes from TextEdit what the heck did not bring over formatting, darn. hypertext, italics for me, some bold, bit o color for bit re satire Jon Stewart, parody Colbert and for Jim McC funny re I don't feel rage towards it (see you tomorrow, 1Q84) and now not caring to do ohswells oh okay doing at least partially need my italics . . . .huh re formatting is it bcs TextEdit uses,eg, 'strong' rather than 'b' for bold ~ used to be, I think, that blogger recognized both these whatevers html styles? but have they taken a stand for web design uniformity is it?
Opening Round March 9 March 9 Mark Binelli Lightning Rods v. Salvage the Bones
Kevin Guilfoile: I have to admit to being increasingly fascinated with the very idea of Lightning Rods’ existence since the day I started reading it. As Judge Binelli describes it, the entire novel is basically a reductio ad absurdum satire about the acceptance of, and even promotion of, ridiculously bad behavior. But what’s remarkable about Lightning Rods is that it isn’t anything other than that. This must have taken a superhuman level of concentration and discipline to write. The temptation to include something like a narrative arc. And characters. And at least one other idea. Why, it must have been enormous. .. I know it sounds like I’m making fun of it, but I actually say all this with sincere admiration. Granted, if it hadn’t made me laugh I’d have thought the whole enterprise a colossal waste of time, but that only adds to the high-wire act. but now I think she wasn't doing it on purpose!
And there are moments when she flat out teases the reader over this. This next part might be a little bit spoilery, but there is a section in the middle in which a new character is introduced. yes yes Roy who eats m&ms, thank you, been looking to find someone reacting to this. He is developed in far greater detail than any other person in the book, even the protagonist. It is not only hinted at, but explicitly stated in a bit of naked foreshadowing that he is going to have a major role in the development of the book’s plot. right - chp ends re the far-reaching repercussions that lightning rod facility seen by someone who shouldn't have seen it. And he is mentioned again only one other time. Barely in passing. well basically y that is the effect but okay the repercussions were that after eventually being let-go several mergers down the road, Roy talks about this to someone, who is his brother in law & who is in the FBI and that is who then comes to Joe -- but ends up wanting to use the lightning rods in govt. so it turns out to further joe's success, whereas that chapter ending sounded a note of coming doom to the enterprise. happens at other pnts I think, too, like the very opening sentence of the book ~ "one way looking at it whole thing an unfortunate side effect of Hurrican Edna" ~ 'unfortunate' I don't know, I think she Dewitt may have at that time thought it was going to be unfortunate and then by end of the book was not writing it that way but did not change it (and refuses editing, see below...) so now I am irked by the sloppiness. irked I do not trust her. also per comments here Hurricane Edna and being an Encyclopedia salesman seem like from decades earlier than she set the novel, and now I think that's just that she had one idea at the start and then went differently. sloppy.
You don’t even realize a joke is being played on you until like two days later when you get to the last page. well I did right away because it then took up without Roy and I wanted to know if really going to play out so at az searched for Roy. also for Ed Wilson & Elaine story which also does not go anywhere but ok that works as a vignette, there's no contraindicating explicit foreshadowing. Right at the point where you might be getting frustrated that this is basically a work of fiction with no conflict yes, DeWitt sets up a point of explicit tension. yep. She even says it’s going to happen. And so you start to anticipate it. You read faster. The book is heading downhill toward confrontation and denouement. And none of that ever happens. I know! I’m not sure how many people are going to be as amused by a book-length punk like that. But I can only say, brava. if it were on purpose. could it have been I don't guess I think so, now, after reading posts on her blog...
-sophronisba: Lightning Rods made me laugh out loud a few times. I admire DeWitt's uncompromising willingness to go all the way with her premise, and I really thought she nailed the voice. except if it's not that she nailed it (in mockery, parody) but that she speaks it -- and so knowing that, can we not enjoy it the same? no we cannot, why, there is some connection lost (reader to book/author, I guess) and without that not. But what bugs me about the book is that to get the humor you really have to accept a lot of male/female stereotypes; if you can't embrace those stereotypes, then the book will not work. I laughed, yes, but the book ended up having an odd retro feeling for me that I don't think the author intended.
-Neighbors73: I agree, I get that it was a satire, but the gender stereotypes .. Am I really to believe in 2000's America, all the "top performers" in a company are men, and all the women are secretaries?
-ondaatje: I wanted to like the DeWitt but I got thrown off balance by technicalities early on. Specifically, I thought the hurricane she refers to in the beginning (Edna) happened (as it did in the real world) in 1954. And the traveling Britannica/Electrolux salesman, not to mention the role of women in the workplace, felt in line with that era. So it was a shock, and very confusing, to realize that she was talking about the present day. I think this never allowed me to buy in to deadpan of her satire. Add to that the lack sympathetic characters and the plot teases that never paid off, and I was frustrated and glad when it was over.
-sophronisba: I actually really loved the first two-thirds or so of The Last Samurai, but it fell apart at the end. That seems to be a theme with DeWitt.
Quarterfinals March 20 Roxy Reno The Sense of an Ending v. Lightning Rods
Kevin: Wow. That Observer article is fascinating.
In the abstract, Helen DeWitt’s uncompromising approach to her art is admirable, but in reality a lack of self-doubt is a poor measure of genius. Most of the writers who hold such an attitude are delusional. The fact that DeWitt has managed to produce two excellent books by treating her editors as adversaries is testimony to her peculiar talent, but it makes for a terrible example. .. I’m skeptical that DeWitt is a genius driven mad by her inferiors in the publishing business. right. She appears to be a brilliant but troubled woman who became increasingly frustrated when the people she was working with—people who, trust me, feel very passionately about bringing great commercial art to the marketplace—wouldn’t willingly become her enablers. .. I knew that Lightning Rods was something of a response to her experience in publishing, but I had no idea it was such a multi-layered response. yeah ~ like, geez, she meant it ? (though: meant what, exactly?) You could, in fact, read it as a manifesto on the primacy of the artist—The Fountainhead for the 21st century, only with the hero building glory holes instead of gas stations and without the graphic celebration of rape. One wonders if a morally reprehensible political philosophy will one day be built from it.
-JimMcC: I like gonzo books that are out silly and angry and funny and unexpected. Lightning Rods just felt like lazy satire to me. A fun premise dropped into a world that never gels, clumsily written, and executed more with a grudge than with any real appreciation of the subject. The novel itself feels like a relic. If it were written in the 70s, I think I would have appreciated the muscular attack on workplace sexuality. But other people got here first, wrote about it better, and actually seemed to demonstrate an understanding of human beings. Root your satire in SOMEthing. The thing is, I found myself decently amused with the book as I read it but have become increasingly dissatisfied with it. yes. I don't feel rage towards it (see you tomorrow, 1Q84), but it has become something of an irritant. Though if this ends up head to head with Murakami in the next round, you best believe I'll suddenly be on its side. :)
Semifinals March 26 Michelle Orange Lightning Rods v. 1Q84
.. both Helen DeWitt and Haruki Murakami boil the novel down to one of its basic precepts: Here’s my brain: nifty, right? ..
Lighting Rods captivates from the start. The first 50 pages, especially, evoke the death-spin insularity of the voices in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. DeWitt has the knack for making formal daring feel utterly familiar. She commits fully, thrillingly, to the idiom of pragmatic self-interest as the stuff of her characters’ inner lives. Joe and the others cogitate and address themselves with the fathomless logic and received life-management platitudes that you imagine must be hiding something terrifying when you encounter people who actually talk that way.
and I was so into it but then I read around Observer profile and her response on her blog and my impression is Oh SHE ACTUALLY TALKS THAT WAY.
and now I don't much care to finish it? why? I thought reading it I was with a mind in a similar relationship to the voice as me ?
paperpools: Rashomon paperpools.blogspot.com/2011/12/rashomon.html [Michael Miller has published a profile in the New York Observer, here.]
paperpools: chrono paperpools.blogspot.com/2011/12/chrono.html
But the fact is, there might be a solution I did not see; if so, it would involve a lot of dreary striving, but there are people who would be spared grief. The person to ask was someone with relevant information. Bill {former agent} must presumably know what I should have done differently; he might know what I could do now; the person to ask was the person with the answer to the question. So I wrote to Bill (part of this e-mail is quoted in the piece) and went on packing. I did not say where I was going, because if I had said I was going to Eastbourne, to Beachy Head with its 600-foot cliff, it would be very easy for him to stop this. He could simply call the police in Eastbourne, explain the situation, forward the e-mail, tell me he had done so; if I went, I would be picked up by the police.
I got a reply from Bill in 40 minutes which I could not bring myself to look at. Just before it was time to go, I read his e-mail - and it must be said there was a great deal of sympathy and feeling in his reply. (I sent this to Michael Miller, though I could naturally not grant permission to print it, because I wanted to be fair; many people, I think, would warm to this. See Bill in a more favorable light than the person packing to catch a plane.) It did not answer the question. It was an emotional response to a factual question - which is precisely what one always does get from the biz. So I walked out the door with my carry-on bag and took the U-Bahn to Rudow and the bus to Schoenefeld and got on the plane.
It is very tiring to expose yourself to more of the same misunderstandings, but I realised, as I flew to Gatwick, that this is a bad thing to do to someone: contact him before leaving to commit suicide, in the hope of a helpful solution, and then jump off a cliff because he said the wrong thing. How can you do that to someone? If you're going to jump off the cliff, it turns out, it would have been much better to jump without writing, Bill is very emotional, perhaps not the kind of person to respond rationally at a time of crisis.
The fair thing to do was explain once more that I simply wanted to know whether there was something I could do; if there was something I hadn't tried, I would do it. And then give him time to think things over, because perhaps he would not immediately know what to say. So I checked into a hotel and wrote explaining again, pointing out that I thought I was doing what people had wanted DFW to do. I got a reply which still did not answer the question, he said that suicide was the most selfish thing you could do and Wallace's family had had to live with terrible grief and so on. There was a certain irony to this, because the reason things had gone wrong was that I had unselfishly spent 3 months looking after my mother instead of pulling together another MS for Bill to sell.
...I think at this point I wrote to Bill suggesting it might be better if he talked to David. His assistant wrote saying that Bill had gone on vacation to Mexico for 2 weeks and was uncontactable. I wrote explaining to Shaun that I was a 12-minute bus ride from a 600-foot cliff and did not think I would wait 2 weeks for Bill's return on the off-chance that something useful might come of it. It seemed as though it would look bad for Bill if a suicide took place in his absence, so perhaps it might be better to consult one of the other agents.
comments seminfinals
-jamesharrigan: An interesting comment that Judge Orange made was that Lightning Rods hits "...a sweet spot between satire and parody". I confess that I don't understand the distinction, can someone enlighten me?
-Neighbors73: I would say that parody has an element of mimicry to it. That a parody will imitate what it makes fun of (think Stephen Colbert) versus just making fun of it (think Jon Stewart).
I'd consider the corporate double speak in Lightning Rods to be an example of parody. But DOES SHE ? (Dewitt) ~ she does think she is being funny, I think, and mocking the subject matter ? but the seemingly-parodied voice in which Joe thinks, as also it turns out does every character whose thoughts we encounter, is that HER OWN VOICE?
-JohnWarner: That's the exact comparison I make. Colbert is parody, Stewart is satire.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
change river upstream
I've got bookmarks to critics who are no longer at the site they went to when they left the site I have bookmarked.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
HOMELAND 2-4 ['New Car Smell'] recaplet by Jacob Clifton
Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
Absolutely everything changes that you can think of.
After an adorably slow reveal from Saul regarding the nature of Brody's confessional video, Estes authorizes an operation involving Nick's kryptonite -- Carrie Mathison, whose employment at the CIA is edging back towards probable now that last season's entire finale is proving to be one giant mistake on his part -- but led by a new guy, the enigmatic and oddly proportioned yet supernaturally beautiful analyst Peter Quinn. He's been Estes's favorite for a while on the homefront -- even Carrie forms an instant bond with him, because he is interesting and weird and neurologically atypical and very, very good at his job. Oh, and also on the team are Virgil and Max! I never thought we'd see those dudes again! Nice.
But before we get into the operation, which is almost the entire episode: Dana sasses the Vice President gorgeously yes and in his own West Drawing Room library or whatever, which pushes Finn all the way into being adorably in love. He takes her on a midnight jaunt up the Washington Monument and lays one on her, leading to one of the coolest and most charmingly authentic scenes in what I may in the future claim -- in retrospect, once the dazzle has worn off -- as the best episode of this entire show. yes and yes.
Carrie spooking Nick into running to his handler, then, involves running into him outside of Langley, and you immediately see what's coalescing here: It's the old hunger game, Real Or Not Real, where they are both running into an old lover and "running into an old lover." Carrie gets a call from Nick so she meets him at the hotel bar. He's operating and not operating on Roya's orders; she's operating and not operating on Quinn's; they're both authentically happy for a pretext to see each other after their run-in earlier. It's dizzying and wonderful and a little overwhelming. Nick strikes a little too deep with questions about her ECT treatments. She drops her smile just long enough shows resentment her brow creases on No when he asks, Was it terrible? for him to make her, and he bounces. Saul and Quinn back at HQ don't entirely buy this like spiritual connection they have, so -- against all evidence we have ever seen on this program, ever -- they second-guess her feelings on this and tell her to come back in, despite her protestations that he'll somehow signal his people. Can you guess what her ass does next? Yeah, you got it. Right on up to his hotel room, playing the nookie card until her resentment rises from her gut and suddenly, radically -- I mean, you couldn't guess this next bit -- scrubbing the mission entirely, Carrie's off getting him to admit that he's an Al-Qaeda agent on tape, and admitting she was fully in love with him the entire time, and calling him a traitor to his country and his family, and telling him to fuck off for making her go crazy.
So: What is left of the show you remember at this point? Because my God, do I love the one we're watching now.
Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
Absolutely everything changes that you can think of.
After an adorably slow reveal from Saul regarding the nature of Brody's confessional video, Estes authorizes an operation involving Nick's kryptonite -- Carrie Mathison, whose employment at the CIA is edging back towards probable now that last season's entire finale is proving to be one giant mistake on his part -- but led by a new guy, the enigmatic and oddly proportioned yet supernaturally beautiful analyst Peter Quinn. He's been Estes's favorite for a while on the homefront -- even Carrie forms an instant bond with him, because he is interesting and weird and neurologically atypical and very, very good at his job. Oh, and also on the team are Virgil and Max! I never thought we'd see those dudes again! Nice.
But before we get into the operation, which is almost the entire episode: Dana sasses the Vice President gorgeously yes and in his own West Drawing Room library or whatever, which pushes Finn all the way into being adorably in love. He takes her on a midnight jaunt up the Washington Monument and lays one on her, leading to one of the coolest and most charmingly authentic scenes in what I may in the future claim -- in retrospect, once the dazzle has worn off -- as the best episode of this entire show. yes and yes.
Carrie spooking Nick into running to his handler, then, involves running into him outside of Langley, and you immediately see what's coalescing here: It's the old hunger game, Real Or Not Real, where they are both running into an old lover and "running into an old lover." Carrie gets a call from Nick so she meets him at the hotel bar. He's operating and not operating on Roya's orders; she's operating and not operating on Quinn's; they're both authentically happy for a pretext to see each other after their run-in earlier. It's dizzying and wonderful and a little overwhelming. Nick strikes a little too deep with questions about her ECT treatments. She drops her smile just long enough shows resentment her brow creases on No when he asks, Was it terrible? for him to make her, and he bounces. Saul and Quinn back at HQ don't entirely buy this like spiritual connection they have, so -- against all evidence we have ever seen on this program, ever -- they second-guess her feelings on this and tell her to come back in, despite her protestations that he'll somehow signal his people. Can you guess what her ass does next? Yeah, you got it. Right on up to his hotel room, playing the nookie card until her resentment rises from her gut and suddenly, radically -- I mean, you couldn't guess this next bit -- scrubbing the mission entirely, Carrie's off getting him to admit that he's an Al-Qaeda agent on tape, and admitting she was fully in love with him the entire time, and calling him a traitor to his country and his family, and telling him to fuck off for making her go crazy.
So: What is left of the show you remember at this point? Because my God, do I love the one we're watching now.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
years away you
Josh Ritter - "Harrisburg" - from the Live at The Iveagh Gardens
Josh Ritter - Harrisburg - (lyrics in description) - long way to heaven closer to Harrisburg / me I believe that the Garden of Eden was burned to make way for a train and he didn't make heaven. he didn't make harrisburg.
Josh Ritter - Roll on - (lyrics in description) / west of her there's
Richard Buckner - Blue & Wonder / what's that word it's the one that means.
/ Richard Buckner - Settled Down / 'cause I'm younger now . history my dear friend . years away you say my name . I'm settled down but I won't give up again I'm younger now.
Ah but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.
THE BYRDS- "MY BACK PAGES" /by B Dylan 'Ah but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.'
Richard Buckner - Still Looking for You (Townes Van Zandt cover) [XX Merge Offstage] / tvz album At My Window -this is spectacular. hear this familiar voice these my tvz words try to tell myself that I'm fine that I tried but it just ain't true
Townes VanZandt - Still Looking For You 1993 - YouTube
all roads to / still looking for /
tvz d 1997 January 1
Josh Ritter - Harrisburg - (lyrics in description) - long way to heaven closer to Harrisburg / me I believe that the Garden of Eden was burned to make way for a train and he didn't make heaven. he didn't make harrisburg.
Josh Ritter - Roll on - (lyrics in description) / west of her there's
Richard Buckner - Blue & Wonder / what's that word it's the one that means.
/ Richard Buckner - Settled Down / 'cause I'm younger now . history my dear friend . years away you say my name . I'm settled down but I won't give up again I'm younger now.
Ah but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.
THE BYRDS- "MY BACK PAGES" /by B Dylan 'Ah but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.'
Richard Buckner - Still Looking for You (Townes Van Zandt cover) [XX Merge Offstage] / tvz album At My Window -this is spectacular. hear this familiar voice these my tvz words try to tell myself that I'm fine that I tried but it just ain't true
Townes VanZandt - Still Looking For You 1993 - YouTube
all roads to / still looking for /
tvz d 1997 January 1
Monday, July 23, 2012
might go back to Georgia and settle down quiet some where
Steve Earle - Fort Worth Blues - YouTube
Steve Earle - Mercenary Song - YouTube
Mercenary Song - Steve Earle | cowboyrics:
Me and ol' Bill there we both come from Georgia - Met Hank out in New Mexico
And we're bound for Durango to join Pancho Villa - We hear that he's payin' in gold
Well I guess a man's got to do what he's best at - Ain't found nothin' better so far
Been called mer-cen-aries and men with no country. We're just soldiers in search of a war
And we're bound for the border We're soldiers of fortune
We'll fight for no country but we'll die for good pay
Under the flag of of the greenback dollar Or the peso down Mexico way
When this war is over might go back to Georgia and settle down quiet some where
But I'll most likely pack up & head south for Chile - Heard tell there's some trouble down there
And we're bound for the border We're soldiers of fortune
We'll fight for no country but we'll die for good pay
Under the flag of of the greenback dollar Or the peso down Mexico way
Steve Earle - Mercenary Song - YouTube
Mercenary Song - Steve Earle | cowboyrics:
Me and ol' Bill there we both come from Georgia - Met Hank out in New Mexico
And we're bound for Durango to join Pancho Villa - We hear that he's payin' in gold
Well I guess a man's got to do what he's best at - Ain't found nothin' better so far
Been called mer-cen-aries and men with no country. We're just soldiers in search of a war
And we're bound for the border We're soldiers of fortune
We'll fight for no country but we'll die for good pay
Under the flag of of the greenback dollar Or the peso down Mexico way
When this war is over might go back to Georgia and settle down quiet some where
But I'll most likely pack up & head south for Chile - Heard tell there's some trouble down there
And we're bound for the border We're soldiers of fortune
We'll fight for no country but we'll die for good pay
Under the flag of of the greenback dollar Or the peso down Mexico way
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Knees Up: Jacob Clifton is an author and critic based in Austin TX.
CURRENT RECAPS
---
I v like this week's true blood recap title - from Elvis Costello song 'I want you'
I Woke Up & One Of Us Was Crying
CURRENT RECAPS
---
I v like this week's true blood recap title - from Elvis Costello song 'I want you'
I Woke Up & One Of Us Was Crying
Friday, July 6, 2012
Date Rape and Last Night's 'Louie' | ThinkProgress
-Zack Handlen: I'm not sure I agree that Lori's rage at Louie is as justified as you're arguing--to me, Louie is put in the position of being coerced into doing something he isn't comfortable with by someone who tries to convince him of his complicity in an unspoken arrangement. Sure, there's some spoiled, white-guys-expect-blowjobs-from-the-sky in his response to her offer, but until that moment, there was no talk about sex (that we saw), and there was no indication that he believed the BJ was his right. Lori's "You owe me" line didn't seem much different from the asshole guy who expects a girl to put out because he bought her dinner, and the vignette was interesting because it reversed our expectations of gender in this scene (in shows and movies, the woman is always hesitant, uncomfortable, and more interested in emotional intimacy; the man is the one who talks about deals, who browbeats, insults, and then tries to use force) while still allowing both characters to make sense as characters. As you say, the ambiguity of the scene is striking and powerful, and I think Louie's willingness to see her again helps contextualize the aftermath, and turn it into a subtle critique of privilege. He doesn't seem uncomfortable or frightened by her, and because of that, it's clear that he never _really_ saw her as a threat. To him, it isn't rape. It's just something that happened, and he gets to feel that way because he's a dude. You swap the genders around, and it becomes a lot uglier. (And what I love about this show is that while all this stuff is fascinating, the basic arc of the episode, "I love my daughter's jokes because they're new to me" translating to "I value people who are unexpected," works wonderfully on its own. huh. The Gender Studies part is just icing.)
-The scene in question was posted by Louis to youtube. What a great episode. Like he said in a recent podcast with Bill Simmons, "If you're sparking discussion amongst people, that's exciting. That's what any art or culture should do. Just make people yell at each other, get mad, and polarize -- that means you did something really compelling."
Was Louie date-raped? - Salon.com:
-earling: It is simply taboo for a raped woman not to be destroyed and outraged by being raped, but at this point in the gender wars it's apparently okay for a man to take it in stride. So the double standard is that feminism insists "frailty thy name is woman," whereas, men (dot dot dot) whatever. The lack of outrage here around men's sexual self-determination is actually pretty empowering of men, which ought to be annoying to some thoughtful feminist blogger somewhere .
Louie - TWoP Forums - Page 53
-huahaha: Wow, Louis packed so many layers into that plot line that it’s hard to untangle. He starts by challenging expectations about who’s an appropriate date for him. As an audience, we’re conditioned to believe that pouchy, middle-aged men deserve the hot 20- or 30-something of their dreams. Instead, we’re faced with a woman who is actually Louis’ equal -- she owns multiple businesses, is in his general age wheelhouse, is brash and funny, and isn't conventionally attractive, much like Louis.
They mutually seem to agree they aren't interested; then they have a fun time out as friends. Then... the car pulls over into an alley. So many women have been in this situation -- everything is fine, fine, fine, and friendly, until the other person escalates and there’s no graceful escape.
Louis takes the opportunity to play with the nasty stereotype that women giving oral sex isn't that intimate of an act, but for men to do it is very intimate (read: gross). He also explores the idea of women raping men. When she offers oral sex, he can’t really refuse, but we don’t read it as rape yet. Many people believe that men can’t be raped by women because the act can’t take place without an erection. Her demand for him to reciprocate oral sex knocks that barrier down though.
The physical violence is so important to the scene because without it, we can just keep laughing along with the gender role reversal. Once she punches him, it's clear that he's in a dangerous, scary place and can't really say no. Women are often in that situation whether violence takes place or not -- the physical threat is still there.
Even after he's given her what she wants, she makes him say that he'll see her again. I thought it made sense that Louis agreed, and not just because he’s a passive character. Often victims continue to see their attackers because they want to prove to themselves that they're in control of the situation and don't need to feel traumatized. But it's really a sign of just how bad the coercion was.
-milburn stone: huahaha, really thoughtful and interesting post that gets at what was going on there.
p52
-ganesh: I still can't believe she punched him in the face and shattered the window. I can honestly say I don't think I've seen anything like that on television.
Who didn't let the gorilla into the ballet?
twitter/jacobtwop/status....27492096 :
I've never been less annoyed by Melissa Leo.
twitter.com/jacobtwop/status...55883009 :
...And there it is. Goddammit, this is exactly how Melissa Leo ALWAYS makes me feel. Fool me once, Melissa Leo.
The gorilla kills everyone at the ballet *once*, shame on *the gorilla*.
-Are you usually annoyed by her?
-In a big way.
-Haha, when were you liking her? Before they got in the car?
-Not "liking," just shocked she wasn't giving me hives like usual. That scene was like watching her Oscar speech all over again
-What are you watching with Melissa Leo in it?
-Louie. She played a sort of... Ugh, it was tough. It was pretty amazing, but I am not made of very stern stuff.
LOUIE s2 e2 Telling Jokes / Set Up
twitter/jacobtwop/status....27492096 :
I've never been less annoyed by Melissa Leo.
twitter.com/jacobtwop/status...55883009 :
...And there it is. Goddammit, this is exactly how Melissa Leo ALWAYS makes me feel. Fool me once, Melissa Leo.
The gorilla kills everyone at the ballet *once*, shame on *the gorilla*.
-Are you usually annoyed by her?
-In a big way.
-Haha, when were you liking her? Before they got in the car?
-Not "liking," just shocked she wasn't giving me hives like usual. That scene was like watching her Oscar speech all over again
-What are you watching with Melissa Leo in it?
-Louie. She played a sort of... Ugh, it was tough. It was pretty amazing, but I am not made of very stern stuff.
LOUIE s2 e2 Telling Jokes / Set Up
Friday, June 22, 2012
An Unexpected Life : Bunheads - pilot recap by Jacob | TWoP | p1 :
Everybody's talking so fast and so much there's not really time to process what's going to happen next because of all that is already happening.
.. So far Michelle is not really strutting her Lorelei charm, is she?
p2 Michelle: "Suffice to say I don't deserve to be loved, and need some kind of stalker to talk me into it."
...What was that you were saying about teaching young women important lessons? But I guess coming from the Haus of Sunflowers [sent by Max to Lorelai; but it was daisies? or something, not sunflowers; she'd said it was her favorite; it was when he asked her to marry him maybe?] and "I built you a car" [haha Dean to Rory on her 16th Bday] it's not as bad as it sounds to us. The guy's been coming every month for over a year, every time he's in Vegas, and he is just a slow learner. Besides, Michelle's got that audition.
.. Michelle thanks him, graciously and goofily, and he just keeps piling it on, and before you know it he's saying shit like, "I took the liberty of making us a dinner reservation for tonight" and other stalker things. You know, I don't think the Friend Zone is a very valid reason to be shitty about women, but even more than that I don't think the Friend Zone is really a thing: It's called trying to be nice about the fact that I'm clearly not interested. And so when you push it, or stalk, or whine about how Nice Guys Lose or Women Only Like Assholes, or complain about the Friend Zone itself, it's a really gross expression of privilege in at least two ways, because men are told they can have whatever they want -- nothing new -- but women are in turn told to never piss anybody (men) off, so it's a car accident of two things that we shouldn't be taught in the first place. What you're saying is that you think you're in love, but you have no idea what that means, or else you would respect the woman enough to take her at her word instead of trying to trick her or wear her down.
p3 On the other hand, in the real world sometimes that works out okay, and if the woman doesn't have enough faith in her own agency to ignore it, or shove the guy out of a moving vehicle, then she's assisting in her own harassment. It's their job [the pursuers? I think] to say yes, and our job [the pursueees] to say whatever we actually want, and our responsibility to mean it.
But I've never found this particular Edward Culleny full-court press very attractive, because at the very least it presumes that I'm [as the pursuee] either so retarded or so sexless that I need help figuring out whether or not I want to fuck you. Trust me when I say, I already know the answer to that one. And [/but/ (ie, anticipating the objection; & conceding the complication)] yes, everybody likes to be pursued.
I guess the only way out of this particular sexual Viet Nam is just, know your privilege, learn to read a room, but also learn to accurately gauge the other person's ability to read the room /ok./. If you're being too subtle, and you are aware that you're being too subtle, it's not contingent on the guy to knock it off at that point because you're the one making the choice, and that is for unsavory reasons. I mean, this has been going on for a year. Your self-respect is in question. Both of you.
CHICAGO [audition]
Director: "No."
Michelle: "But I'm 25?"
Director: "Really? But also, no."
... ... ...
p6 STUDIO
In the backyard of Hubbell's house is a dance studio and in that dance studio is a small class of teens and teaching those teens is Hubbell's mother, Madame Fanny. And just like you were eventually able to forget Kelly Bishop was the mom in Dirty Dancing -- and the show survives, God willing -- I bet you'll forget she once played Emily Gilmore too. The price of presence is lingering presence, and damn does she have presence, so it's okay if you can't shake it off all at once, but I love what she's doing here.
Four of the teens are named Sasha, Boo, and I think Melanie and Ginny. Boo is the one we feel sorry for. Sasha is the one that is a bitch. At some point, we will probably feel sorry for her too, but not today, Sasha. Not today.
Fanny: "...And relax. Oh please, so dramatic. Mr. Balanchine once made us do grand battements* for two and a half hours. We only stopped when someone finally dropped dead."
*(The first time somebody decides to email me about spelling, I'm going to start misspelling on purpose. Until then I will do my best, between my atrocious French and completely forgotten ballet, but please don't waste either of our time proving how much you know about everything, because there is nothing to be gained by that for either of us. The first thing you have to ask yourself before you do anything whatsoever involving another person is who you're trying to impress.)
The first thing you have to ask yourself before you do anything whatsoever involving another person is who you're trying to impress.
Afterwards, Sasha is a bitch to Boo and Boo is a sadsack who doesn't have the body for ballet but hasn't figured that out yet, so just like in every movie, one assumes she'll end up moving into hip-hop dance -- or even more likely, some made-up salad of a dance technique that combines all dances -- because that is what happens in every movie that has ever been made.
...
p9 Fanny introduces her to the girls, and then suddenly everything is moving really fast because Fanny is throwing a party tonight to welcome Michelle into the family.
Sasha: "Do you not want us to come?"
Michelle, already getting Sasha's vibe: "Well first, I don't know you..."
We head into a discussion about the sort of unrealistically smalltown vagaries of life in Paradise: There's no movie theater, the skating rink doesn't open until November every year, and -- most unrealistic of all -- "Sometimes Mr. Feldstein forgets to lock the library door, and we go in and read!" I like this kind of stylized timeless Stars Hollow dorkiness, but I can understand why it's confusing for some viewers, because like hell. To all of it, to any of it, to most of the characters we have yet to meet: Like hell. But it's part of the trip.
p11 Like you do in the middle of throwing a party in your home, Boo finds Madame Fanny doing some lonely, lovely dance moves in the studio, all alone. Actually, it makes sense that she'd need a moment to herself, and that she'd retreat to her best thing.
You want artsy people to be flighty, and performers to be dramatic, and sometimes that comes at your peril, because yes, dancers are artists and they are performers, but more than either of those, they are physical machines of perfection with a focus you can't even contemplate, meaning that even when they're being dramatic or messy they're still doing even that hardcore as fuck. They are scarier than tennis guys with this. Scratch a ballerina, you are going to find a bisexual cokehead that hates her mother and hoards candy. This is true 100 percent of the time, with absolutely no exceptions in the history of the universe, which I can tell you with full confidence because I have met and partied and eaten popsicles for dinner with each and every one of them, and I am dead serious when I say girl, they will wear you out.
Scratch a ballerina, you are going to find a bisexual cokehead that hates her mother & hoards candy. I have met & partied & eaten popsicles for dinner with each & every one of them, and I am dead serious when I say girl, they will wear you out.
p12 Boo: "Madame Fanny? Please encourage me to apply to the Joffrey program."
Fanny: "Couldn't hurt."
Boo: "No but I mean like really get in there and delude me. I can't dance like Sasha, but I can dance like a boy, I can turn and jump, so how do I parlay that into..."
Fanny, verbatim: "-- Ballet is very hard, Boo. And a lot of it does depend on how you're made. You have to be realistic."
Boo: "Do I, though?"
Fanny, verbatim: "You're a big-boned girl. You have a tummy. Your waist is very short..."
Boo: "Uh."
Fanny: "...None of which means you shouldn't try. Right?"
And that's how I fell in love with Fanny. Body issues are real, and destructive, but that's not what this conversation is about. You asked the question, you got the answer. If you'd asked, "Am I pretty," girl you are gorgeous. But what you asked is, "I am fairly certain I understand the reality of this situation, but just in case, I'm asking one more time." And you got the answer you need, which is: No. Plenty of other things, but not this one thing. Not to say you shouldn't try, because everything that rises does converge, but if you want the actual answer, there's your answer.
And that's not about feminism -- much less lookism, or fattism, or whatever dumb thing they're calling it nowadays, where you constantly need other people to validate your appearance for you -- but about whether or not a hammer is good for screwing in screws .. (or whether Michelle Simms would make a good Effie in Dreamgirls, which, hold that thought) ..
...
p17 Michelle: " .. That's the key to any audition. Attitude. You have to show up confident, and be ready to do or be anything they want in an instant. I once got an audition for a Broadway show, totally last minute, I grabbed my bag, I ran thirty blocks, I walked in the door? It was for Dreamgirls."
The teens gasp; one of them asks what happens.
Michelle: "I got a callback."
Teens: "Shut up!"
Michelle: "Attitude, my friends."
I dunno, I kind of love how it keeps flipping back and forth, but ultimately it's like, twenty years later I still remember this movie review of Life Is Beautiful that said basically the message was only the very most hilarious people deserved to escape the Holocaust. (That still cracks me up.) But as far as Boo's ass or Ginny's breasts, the message seems to be really waffly. Can Boo join the Joffrey program or not? I guess we'll find out, half a season from now. Or maybe this distinction won't matter by then. Maybe it'll continue to do this back and forth, and make its point that way, or maybe it's just a fight I'm going to have with the show. I mean, Ryan Murphy has been doing this same insincere uncommitted shit since his first TV show in 1999, with -- oddly, but consistently and very specifically -- second-wave Anita Hill feminist issues and Downs Syndrome, and he still hasn't come up with anything vaguely like a considered opinion about those things, so I guess we'll see?
Everybody's talking so fast and so much there's not really time to process what's going to happen next because of all that is already happening.
.. So far Michelle is not really strutting her Lorelei charm, is she?
p2 Michelle: "Suffice to say I don't deserve to be loved, and need some kind of stalker to talk me into it."
...What was that you were saying about teaching young women important lessons? But I guess coming from the Haus of Sunflowers [sent by Max to Lorelai; but it was daisies? or something, not sunflowers; she'd said it was her favorite; it was when he asked her to marry him maybe?] and "I built you a car" [haha Dean to Rory on her 16th Bday] it's not as bad as it sounds to us. The guy's been coming every month for over a year, every time he's in Vegas, and he is just a slow learner. Besides, Michelle's got that audition.
.. Michelle thanks him, graciously and goofily, and he just keeps piling it on, and before you know it he's saying shit like, "I took the liberty of making us a dinner reservation for tonight" and other stalker things. You know, I don't think the Friend Zone is a very valid reason to be shitty about women, but even more than that I don't think the Friend Zone is really a thing: It's called trying to be nice about the fact that I'm clearly not interested. And so when you push it, or stalk, or whine about how Nice Guys Lose or Women Only Like Assholes, or complain about the Friend Zone itself, it's a really gross expression of privilege in at least two ways, because men are told they can have whatever they want -- nothing new -- but women are in turn told to never piss anybody (men) off, so it's a car accident of two things that we shouldn't be taught in the first place. What you're saying is that you think you're in love, but you have no idea what that means, or else you would respect the woman enough to take her at her word instead of trying to trick her or wear her down.
p3 On the other hand, in the real world sometimes that works out okay, and if the woman doesn't have enough faith in her own agency to ignore it, or shove the guy out of a moving vehicle, then she's assisting in her own harassment. It's their job [the pursuers? I think] to say yes, and our job [the pursueees] to say whatever we actually want, and our responsibility to mean it.
But I've never found this particular Edward Culleny full-court press very attractive, because at the very least it presumes that I'm [as the pursuee] either so retarded or so sexless that I need help figuring out whether or not I want to fuck you. Trust me when I say, I already know the answer to that one. And [/but/ (ie, anticipating the objection; & conceding the complication)] yes, everybody likes to be pursued.
I guess the only way out of this particular sexual Viet Nam is just, know your privilege, learn to read a room, but also learn to accurately gauge the other person's ability to read the room /ok./. If you're being too subtle, and you are aware that you're being too subtle, it's not contingent on the guy to knock it off at that point because you're the one making the choice, and that is for unsavory reasons. I mean, this has been going on for a year. Your self-respect is in question. Both of you.
CHICAGO [audition]
Director: "No."
Michelle: "But I'm 25?"
Director: "Really? But also, no."
... ... ...
p6 STUDIO
In the backyard of Hubbell's house is a dance studio and in that dance studio is a small class of teens and teaching those teens is Hubbell's mother, Madame Fanny. And just like you were eventually able to forget Kelly Bishop was the mom in Dirty Dancing -- and the show survives, God willing -- I bet you'll forget she once played Emily Gilmore too. The price of presence is lingering presence, and damn does she have presence, so it's okay if you can't shake it off all at once, but I love what she's doing here.
Four of the teens are named Sasha, Boo, and I think Melanie and Ginny. Boo is the one we feel sorry for. Sasha is the one that is a bitch. At some point, we will probably feel sorry for her too, but not today, Sasha. Not today.
Fanny: "...And relax. Oh please, so dramatic. Mr. Balanchine once made us do grand battements* for two and a half hours. We only stopped when someone finally dropped dead."
*(The first time somebody decides to email me about spelling, I'm going to start misspelling on purpose. Until then I will do my best, between my atrocious French and completely forgotten ballet, but please don't waste either of our time proving how much you know about everything, because there is nothing to be gained by that for either of us. The first thing you have to ask yourself before you do anything whatsoever involving another person is who you're trying to impress.)
The first thing you have to ask yourself before you do anything whatsoever involving another person is who you're trying to impress.
Afterwards, Sasha is a bitch to Boo and Boo is a sadsack who doesn't have the body for ballet but hasn't figured that out yet, so just like in every movie, one assumes she'll end up moving into hip-hop dance -- or even more likely, some made-up salad of a dance technique that combines all dances -- because that is what happens in every movie that has ever been made.
...
p9 Fanny introduces her to the girls, and then suddenly everything is moving really fast because Fanny is throwing a party tonight to welcome Michelle into the family.
Sasha: "Do you not want us to come?"
Michelle, already getting Sasha's vibe: "Well first, I don't know you..."
We head into a discussion about the sort of unrealistically smalltown vagaries of life in Paradise: There's no movie theater, the skating rink doesn't open until November every year, and -- most unrealistic of all -- "Sometimes Mr. Feldstein forgets to lock the library door, and we go in and read!" I like this kind of stylized timeless Stars Hollow dorkiness, but I can understand why it's confusing for some viewers, because like hell. To all of it, to any of it, to most of the characters we have yet to meet: Like hell. But it's part of the trip.
p11 Like you do in the middle of throwing a party in your home, Boo finds Madame Fanny doing some lonely, lovely dance moves in the studio, all alone. Actually, it makes sense that she'd need a moment to herself, and that she'd retreat to her best thing.
You want artsy people to be flighty, and performers to be dramatic, and sometimes that comes at your peril, because yes, dancers are artists and they are performers, but more than either of those, they are physical machines of perfection with a focus you can't even contemplate, meaning that even when they're being dramatic or messy they're still doing even that hardcore as fuck. They are scarier than tennis guys with this. Scratch a ballerina, you are going to find a bisexual cokehead that hates her mother and hoards candy. This is true 100 percent of the time, with absolutely no exceptions in the history of the universe, which I can tell you with full confidence because I have met and partied and eaten popsicles for dinner with each and every one of them, and I am dead serious when I say girl, they will wear you out.
Scratch a ballerina, you are going to find a bisexual cokehead that hates her mother & hoards candy. I have met & partied & eaten popsicles for dinner with each & every one of them, and I am dead serious when I say girl, they will wear you out.
p12 Boo: "Madame Fanny? Please encourage me to apply to the Joffrey program."
Fanny: "Couldn't hurt."
Boo: "No but I mean like really get in there and delude me. I can't dance like Sasha, but I can dance like a boy, I can turn and jump, so how do I parlay that into..."
Fanny, verbatim: "-- Ballet is very hard, Boo. And a lot of it does depend on how you're made. You have to be realistic."
Boo: "Do I, though?"
Fanny, verbatim: "You're a big-boned girl. You have a tummy. Your waist is very short..."
Boo: "Uh."
Fanny: "...None of which means you shouldn't try. Right?"
And that's how I fell in love with Fanny. Body issues are real, and destructive, but that's not what this conversation is about. You asked the question, you got the answer. If you'd asked, "Am I pretty," girl you are gorgeous. But what you asked is, "I am fairly certain I understand the reality of this situation, but just in case, I'm asking one more time." And you got the answer you need, which is: No. Plenty of other things, but not this one thing. Not to say you shouldn't try, because everything that rises does converge, but if you want the actual answer, there's your answer.
And that's not about feminism -- much less lookism, or fattism, or whatever dumb thing they're calling it nowadays, where you constantly need other people to validate your appearance for you -- but about whether or not a hammer is good for screwing in screws .. (or whether Michelle Simms would make a good Effie in Dreamgirls, which, hold that thought) ..
...
p17 Michelle: " .. That's the key to any audition. Attitude. You have to show up confident, and be ready to do or be anything they want in an instant. I once got an audition for a Broadway show, totally last minute, I grabbed my bag, I ran thirty blocks, I walked in the door? It was for Dreamgirls."
The teens gasp; one of them asks what happens.
Michelle: "I got a callback."
Teens: "Shut up!"
Michelle: "Attitude, my friends."
I dunno, I kind of love how it keeps flipping back and forth, but ultimately it's like, twenty years later I still remember this movie review of Life Is Beautiful that said basically the message was only the very most hilarious people deserved to escape the Holocaust. (That still cracks me up.) But as far as Boo's ass or Ginny's breasts, the message seems to be really waffly. Can Boo join the Joffrey program or not? I guess we'll find out, half a season from now. Or maybe this distinction won't matter by then. Maybe it'll continue to do this back and forth, and make its point that way, or maybe it's just a fight I'm going to have with the show. I mean, Ryan Murphy has been doing this same insincere uncommitted shit since his first TV show in 1999, with -- oddly, but consistently and very specifically -- second-wave Anita Hill feminist issues and Downs Syndrome, and he still hasn't come up with anything vaguely like a considered opinion about those things, so I guess we'll see?
Thursday, June 21, 2012
I Love You Jason Stackhouse - True Blood 5-1 Turn! Turn! Turn! - recap by Jacob | TWoP | p1 recaplet:
.. Pam shows up out of nowhere to be bitchy about Eric, and Sookie makes a deal with her to turn Tara into a vampire. So that's Sookie's day. Mopping, sitting by a gravesite all night, and eventually being attacked by her newly vampire best friend, who would seem to have come back a good bit more feral than most.
I don't know how to feel about that. I don't know what it says that the most intelligent, verbal character on the entire show has come back from the dead fucktarded. My fear is that it's emblematic of the show in general, which would also seem to have come back from hiatus a good deal more fucktarded than even in previous years. I know what it's like when I overstay my welcome with a show, and hang onto it out of habit, so I want to give you plenty of warning about the facts, which are that maybe this show sucks now? Or I am just in a shitty mood, and let what just happened to be a remarkably crummy script ruin the whole experience.
Like oh boy are you going to hate this girl Nora, who is Godric's Progeny and thus Eric's vampire sister -- although they also fuck, and while they're fucking they call each other brother and sister, it's all quite droll -- and I think she was invented to get on your nerves. Like scientists in a lab could not have designed a more off-putting person. Zooey Deschanel working in an ire-magnet store could attract less ire.
.. In the end, I guess, it's worth sticking around to see just how offensive the Newlin and Tara storylines will get -- and of course the hope, as always, is that the show will stay amazing -- but I'm not so sure I'm going to last the season. How about you?
You Get The True Death, True Blood - posted June 11, 2012 by Gabe | Videogum
It’s not as if we hadn’t seen this coming for awhile. I think I knew for sure that it was time to say goodbye to True Blood last season when I wrote that I hoped I was dead before the show returned. And yet, here I am. Sad story. I knew going into last night’s season 5 premiere that I would not be recapping the show because guess what: LIFE IS TOO SHORT. When I get to them bright pearly gates and Saint Peter is like “Surprise, Jew! Now let’s look back on how you spent your brief time on Earth,” and everything goes by in a flash except the flash sort of slows down at one point because those are the YEARS I spent slogging through recaps of True Blood, I at least want to be able to turn to Albert Einstein and Audrey Hepburn at the fabulous dinner party that first night and say, “at least I eventually learned my lesson,” and then everyone will high five and we’ll cheers to me with crystal goblets of cloud wine. The point is: enough. But I did watch last night’s episode just to see how bad things were going to get.
Probably the most ridiculous thing about True Blood besides everything about it is trying to imagine explaining last night’s episode to someone who had never seen the show before. We jump in right where we last left off, and it’s a fucking nightmare. “OK, so, you see, the two vampires just killed the Vampire Prime Minister, I think, something like that, and now they have to kill someone with a silver UMBRELLA and fuck their own siblings in a The Wire Season 2 storage container and get new VAMPIRE PASSPORTS before the Vampire government stabs them with wooden stakes for vampire treason. Meanwhile, the naked dog bird shapeshifter who owns a bar and grill with a pool table is being hunted by the werewolves for killing another werewolf because he wants to date a woman with a child that he met in a support group and it turns out werewolves are cannibals at funerals that is a thing and Lafayette has the dark Mexican magic but he is sad because he stabbed his own boyfriend while wearing his boyfriend’s own silk robe but now the body is gone probably to be turned into an Egyptian mummy and there used to be maenads whatever those are and Sookie is a fairy but we’re not talking about that right now and where are the Panther People now that you mention it but the most important thing is that this all comes back to THE WAR IN IRAQ.” Oh neat. Let’s keep watching this sounds great!
Obviously, you could make this point about lots of shows that have complicated plots and are five seasons deep. It’s never going to be easy to just pick something up 100 hours in. But here’s the thing: most of those shows don’t make me want to JUMP OFF A ROOF. That’s the big difference, you see? So goodbye to this show. I will never watch another minute of it. It’s terrible. I know that millions of people love it and masturbate to it and that’s fine, I’m happy for them, Vampire Jessica is kind of hot except for the whole I’M AN ADULT AND SHE’S IN A VAMPIRE COSTUME thing, but you know, you do you, everybody.
-Have you been talking to my girlfriend, because she said almost the exact same thing after last night’s fiasco. “I will never watch another minute of this show.”
--I think 99% of America jointly said “I’ll never watch another minute of this show” last night. And I think 99% of those people said that immediately after Eric got done ravaging his vampire sister in a storage container and said (with a serious face) that “We fight like siblings, but we fuck like champions.”
-I think they are Gabe giving up on The Walking Dead and Kelly giving up on Breaking Bad away from just not doing recaps of television anymore.
No Television Show Will Ever Die Again | Videogum
-notsewfast: I’ve been stealing pens from the
set of The Killing in hopes that they will get frustrated with the
extra expense and cancel the show. /// :)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/news/recent_phds.html
Kate Withy
Placement: Georgetown University (TT) (2009)
Dissertation Committee: Jonathan Lear (chair), John Haugeland, Arnold Davidson, Eric Santner (German dept)
Dissertation:“Heidegger on Being Uncanny” - Abstract PDF
//this is awesome. ~ exactly right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)