For as much as I railed against this town, my body has shook from a heightened sense of awareness that I will miss this place; the Kansas City period is over and it hurts. I know the blah, blah: You don't what you got 'till it's gone, etc. I moved to town at age 26, when some or most people have started families already, a fucking kid, or at least juvenile of my craft. I went to college later than most, 22, so I still existed in an "undergrad" mode: Everybody is single, they all drink, have ample free-time, think of their futures as this thing in a fog. Hadn't worked or busted my ass in a while, save for six months in Japan. I lived in the "playtime" haze most people who want to write exist in early on--I thought product over process, did not consider revision. Daydreamed champagne and an office with walls of books never anything specific, but with colorful spines. Daydream I am handsome. That's not much different from the occasional daydream today, but now I think about the work, find myself in never ending process.
The move here and the program led to professional development I didn't expect.
I've also met a group of exceptional people I wouldn't have met if I didn't come out here. This includes a close-knit of friends who also will leave/left town: I said goodbye to Lewis in the Westport Third Watch parking lot at the end of June, Robin and Greg at Blue Koi on 39th street yesterday, Marcus--who is not leaving--at Dave's Stagcoach last night. This whole thing will continue to roll at least through Friday. It hurts in some ways, but I don't want to compare it to something big like death from a long-term cancer, or whatever. That would infer it was never a decision to come here three years ago; rather, it was inflicted on me. I'd rather think of this as an Elton John temporary farewell tour: far too long for it's own good, me dressed like Donald Duck in the end.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Needs more drunk Tina Fey
i.
This move to Stillwater is coming up quick. I still need to finalize everything.
ii.
I saw three movies in the last 48-ish hours: Inception (friday), Ponyo (Saturday afternoon), and American Splendor.
iii.
Of the three American Splendor was the best--it's visually interesting like the other two movies, messes with story structure in a po-mo sense like the other two movies, but is very clear and easy to follow. That the film functions as biography probably creates that structure to mess around in. I also identify with the film's very Ohio-ness--I've tried to write about this before: It seems Ohio, and to a similar degree Indiana and Michigan, produces the working/lower middle class intellectual stiff. Examples include Vonnegut, Bukowski (who is from LA, yes), Michael Moore, and Pekar.
An early scene in American Splendor has Pekar showing his "comics" (mere scripts with stick figure drawings) to R. Crumb. Pekar talks about the potential to make comics very different from what we expect and compares his work to French filmmakers and the Italian De Sica. I liked this a lot. He doesn't see himself as a revolutionary--there's no manifesto--he's just trying to communicate the Incommunicable At Times, and trying to do it in the least bullshit way possible. There is no high-art/low-art with guys like that. Comics can be uttered in the same breath as new-wave European cinema. Pekar, and the others, mix all culture up, use whatever they can to reach as many people they can. It's an aesthetic I embrace but have a difficult time articulating. I probably won't ever be able to do it.
iv.
Call it general cinematic malaise, but people seem to confuse "intelligent" with "muddled." Human beings themselves can be intelligent and muddled--look at Pekar, Vonnegut, Buk, John Berryman, Einstein, etc. Films shouldn't be--Kurosawa, to paraphrase, said a great movie should be one that's clear and understandable for everyone. Inception doesn't seem clear to ChristopherNolan. An "auteur" I guess, this film and Dark Knight suffer from too many ideas packed into two and a half hours. Nolan needs to simplify his ideas--why not make Extraction, where the characters steal corporate secrets from the minds of billionaire CEOs first, and then make Inception in 2012?
The first third of this film is excellent. Nolan drops us in media res at a real-time pace--we get thrust into the process of infiltrating dreams for corporate secrets in a well crafted action sequence--before Nolan slows down and walks us through the "process" of infiltration in a quick, articulate way. The concept of inception--to place a thought into one another person's mind--is interesting, but complicates the dreamscape and the film's world too much. By the second half the rules established earlier fall apart and I wasn't sure what was going on anymore.
This could be Nolan's ultimate flaw. He makes interesting "intelligent" films but makes them in an era where we crave for any authenticity from Hollywood. That Nolan gives us a sharp-looking film with a cool idea is "good enough" when it's clear that it is not good enough. Nolan may never get feedback he really needs: to simplify his ideas, to focus better.
v.
Ditto Ponyo I guess. Not a lot happens in a narrative sense, but I like Miyzaki's films for their poetic intensity--his movie's small moments make them great. Read the synopsis here. Sosuke lives on a small house on a cliff with his mom (Tina Fey). His dad captains ships and is gone long stretches of time. Early in the film, Sosuke's mom expects Sosuke's dad to come home, but he bails--takes on a second shift. Mom's reaction? She opens a big beer, gets drunk, and angry, but not in a Maury Povich-mom sort of way. It's longing and it's something organic that I don't get from Pixar movies. It's hard to describe the great stuff in Ponyo.
It's easier to describe what kind of sucks about it--nothing seems to happen, there's a little tension but not much. The story is told from the perspective of Sosuke and, like stories told by kids, it's boring construction-wise. To quote my friend Robin, who watched it with me: All the parents respect me (Sosuke) and my Kindergarten girlfriend is jealous of this super cool/perfect girl from the sea. Ponyo drowns this town and everyone seems all right with it. The moon, somehow, has come very close to the earth and could crush it, but whatever: everyone respects Soskue and he'll figure it out because he's fucking five years old.
vi.
I hope this all makes sense. I hate when people write stuff and call it a "rant." That's not interesting.
This move to Stillwater is coming up quick. I still need to finalize everything.
ii.
I saw three movies in the last 48-ish hours: Inception (friday), Ponyo (Saturday afternoon), and American Splendor.
iii.
Of the three American Splendor was the best--it's visually interesting like the other two movies, messes with story structure in a po-mo sense like the other two movies, but is very clear and easy to follow. That the film functions as biography probably creates that structure to mess around in. I also identify with the film's very Ohio-ness--I've tried to write about this before: It seems Ohio, and to a similar degree Indiana and Michigan, produces the working/lower middle class intellectual stiff. Examples include Vonnegut, Bukowski (who is from LA, yes), Michael Moore, and Pekar.
An early scene in American Splendor has Pekar showing his "comics" (mere scripts with stick figure drawings) to R. Crumb. Pekar talks about the potential to make comics very different from what we expect and compares his work to French filmmakers and the Italian De Sica. I liked this a lot. He doesn't see himself as a revolutionary--there's no manifesto--he's just trying to communicate the Incommunicable At Times, and trying to do it in the least bullshit way possible. There is no high-art/low-art with guys like that. Comics can be uttered in the same breath as new-wave European cinema. Pekar, and the others, mix all culture up, use whatever they can to reach as many people they can. It's an aesthetic I embrace but have a difficult time articulating. I probably won't ever be able to do it.
iv.
Call it general cinematic malaise, but people seem to confuse "intelligent" with "muddled." Human beings themselves can be intelligent and muddled--look at Pekar, Vonnegut, Buk, John Berryman, Einstein, etc. Films shouldn't be--Kurosawa, to paraphrase, said a great movie should be one that's clear and understandable for everyone. Inception doesn't seem clear to ChristopherNolan. An "auteur" I guess, this film and Dark Knight suffer from too many ideas packed into two and a half hours. Nolan needs to simplify his ideas--why not make Extraction, where the characters steal corporate secrets from the minds of billionaire CEOs first, and then make Inception in 2012?
The first third of this film is excellent. Nolan drops us in media res at a real-time pace--we get thrust into the process of infiltrating dreams for corporate secrets in a well crafted action sequence--before Nolan slows down and walks us through the "process" of infiltration in a quick, articulate way. The concept of inception--to place a thought into one another person's mind--is interesting, but complicates the dreamscape and the film's world too much. By the second half the rules established earlier fall apart and I wasn't sure what was going on anymore.
This could be Nolan's ultimate flaw. He makes interesting "intelligent" films but makes them in an era where we crave for any authenticity from Hollywood. That Nolan gives us a sharp-looking film with a cool idea is "good enough" when it's clear that it is not good enough. Nolan may never get feedback he really needs: to simplify his ideas, to focus better.
v.
Ditto Ponyo I guess. Not a lot happens in a narrative sense, but I like Miyzaki's films for their poetic intensity--his movie's small moments make them great. Read the synopsis here. Sosuke lives on a small house on a cliff with his mom (Tina Fey). His dad captains ships and is gone long stretches of time. Early in the film, Sosuke's mom expects Sosuke's dad to come home, but he bails--takes on a second shift. Mom's reaction? She opens a big beer, gets drunk, and angry, but not in a Maury Povich-mom sort of way. It's longing and it's something organic that I don't get from Pixar movies. It's hard to describe the great stuff in Ponyo.
It's easier to describe what kind of sucks about it--nothing seems to happen, there's a little tension but not much. The story is told from the perspective of Sosuke and, like stories told by kids, it's boring construction-wise. To quote my friend Robin, who watched it with me: All the parents respect me (Sosuke) and my Kindergarten girlfriend is jealous of this super cool/perfect girl from the sea. Ponyo drowns this town and everyone seems all right with it. The moon, somehow, has come very close to the earth and could crush it, but whatever: everyone respects Soskue and he'll figure it out because he's fucking five years old.
vi.
I hope this all makes sense. I hate when people write stuff and call it a "rant." That's not interesting.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Stuff Stuff Stuff
i.
Willow Springs 66 is out. I have two poems in it. It's a solid issue.
ii.
When anyone says out loud "You know, lately, people ask me Hey [Name here], 'what do you think of [important topic to Name here]?' Friends, here's my take..." no one has asked that individual their opinion on the important topic. No one asks Bill O'Reilly or Colin Cowheard their opinions on anything. Ditto Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart--though those two are conscious of the trope and exploit it. I only bring this up so that I can talk about LeBron James.
iii.
I'm from southwest Ohio so, like everybody outside of the Cleveland-Akron-Canton megalopolis, I never followed the Cavaliers before he arrived. So if people outside of that megalopolis mourn, it's probably crocodile tears. I got the Cincinnati Reds right now, I've never actually been to Akron, and I will move to Stillwater at the end of the month; so I'll just follow Kevin Durant and the Thunder (who seem to be setting people up for a 1996-1998 Utah Jazz-style disappointment: they will win, make it to the finals then lose to the Miami Heat--an easier disappointment because overcoming market economics to raise yourself up by your bootstraps only to lose to an unstoppable-team-of-destiny-touched-by-God is easier to reconcile, because you lacked control from the beginning).
LeBron, however, is not unlike any other lower-middle class/poor kid from a post-industrial, medium-sized Ohio town. You want to love your city, you want to represent it and share its great qualities with the world, but you will always leave. The only people who stay in Dayton: (a) come from money, (b) have an engineering background (that usually means they come from money), (c) lucked into a stable profession that keeps them comfortable, or (d) had few options and are stuck. If someone has the option to leave, they take it. I imagine Cleveland-Akron-Canton is very similar. It is accurate for similar kids from Toldeo, Mansfield, and Zanesville. Cincinnati doesn't count because it is Cincinnati. Columbus is cosmopolitan, a sort of Austin Texas-like aberration.
iv.
LeBron will miss northeast Ohio, and talk about it his first year in Miami. Annoy Bosh and Wade with anecdotes about how Sushi Rock on West 6th beats Toni's Sushi. Talk about how the Marlins bought a World Series in 1997 without any notion of irony. Guys from Ohio like to talk about how much they love Ohio, but don't want to live there. The only friends Guys Who Leave Ohio have left in Ohio are guys like Delonte West. LeBron will adjust and the Heat will win a title in 2012. And in 2030, he will cover the Cavaliers for FOX Sports Ohio. He will wear bowties and thick-framed glasses like the ones worn by dictators.
Willow Springs 66 is out. I have two poems in it. It's a solid issue.
ii.
When anyone says out loud "You know, lately, people ask me Hey [Name here], 'what do you think of [important topic to Name here]?' Friends, here's my take..." no one has asked that individual their opinion on the important topic. No one asks Bill O'Reilly or Colin Cowheard their opinions on anything. Ditto Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart--though those two are conscious of the trope and exploit it. I only bring this up so that I can talk about LeBron James.
iii.
I'm from southwest Ohio so, like everybody outside of the Cleveland-Akron-Canton megalopolis, I never followed the Cavaliers before he arrived. So if people outside of that megalopolis mourn, it's probably crocodile tears. I got the Cincinnati Reds right now, I've never actually been to Akron, and I will move to Stillwater at the end of the month; so I'll just follow Kevin Durant and the Thunder (who seem to be setting people up for a 1996-1998 Utah Jazz-style disappointment: they will win, make it to the finals then lose to the Miami Heat--an easier disappointment because overcoming market economics to raise yourself up by your bootstraps only to lose to an unstoppable-team-of-destiny-touched-by-God is easier to reconcile, because you lacked control from the beginning).
LeBron, however, is not unlike any other lower-middle class/poor kid from a post-industrial, medium-sized Ohio town. You want to love your city, you want to represent it and share its great qualities with the world, but you will always leave. The only people who stay in Dayton: (a) come from money, (b) have an engineering background (that usually means they come from money), (c) lucked into a stable profession that keeps them comfortable, or (d) had few options and are stuck. If someone has the option to leave, they take it. I imagine Cleveland-Akron-Canton is very similar. It is accurate for similar kids from Toldeo, Mansfield, and Zanesville. Cincinnati doesn't count because it is Cincinnati. Columbus is cosmopolitan, a sort of Austin Texas-like aberration.
iv.
LeBron will miss northeast Ohio, and talk about it his first year in Miami. Annoy Bosh and Wade with anecdotes about how Sushi Rock on West 6th beats Toni's Sushi. Talk about how the Marlins bought a World Series in 1997 without any notion of irony. Guys from Ohio like to talk about how much they love Ohio, but don't want to live there. The only friends Guys Who Leave Ohio have left in Ohio are guys like Delonte West. LeBron will adjust and the Heat will win a title in 2012. And in 2030, he will cover the Cavaliers for FOX Sports Ohio. He will wear bowties and thick-framed glasses like the ones worn by dictators.
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