Another look at the

SPOILER ALERT! Warning: If you have not seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, first of all, welcome back & secondly, there may be some plot elements revealed here…

In preparation for yesterday's release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls I’ve been re-watching the Indy films and am coming around to the idea that I’ve never really given Temple of Doom enough credit.

During our quixotic endeavor to catalog and rank every film in my VHS collection in college, joel miron & I had a discussion regarding which Indy movie was the best of the (then) trilogy. We debated the relative merits of Raiders of the Lost Ark & The Last Crusade and pretty much assumed that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom wasn’t a part of that discussion. I remember miron even watching both ends of the trilogy & making a list of pros & cons for each to settle the issue (miron, if you can produce it, i would love to see that list... otherwise, get to work on another one).

While often read as the weakest, perhaps primarily because of it’s non-Christian centric story, in re-watching the film it stands up pretty well among the four. One of the differences that make the film stand out, i think, is that Indy isn’t ‘driven’ by dreams of fortune and glory as he is in the other films, rather he’s called. The film explores questions of fate even though its framed most explicitly as a story about seeking fortune & glory, but really its the least so. Take, for instance, the shot after revealing the children were stolen from the village, Indy is presented as ‘hero’, low angle shot, panning in. While this 'hero' shot is present in all the films, the narrative moment that this shot presents Indy as 'an only hope' rather than 'a hero'.


The film is, clearly, darker than the other Indy films, allowing Harrison Ford to play 'bad Indy' & exploring a variety of sadistic scenes, but it isn't this darkness that inherently makes the film superior (and i'm not ready to say that it's the best of the Indy films, though i'm no longer ready to say anymore that it's not the best of them, either)... The exploration of darkness & 'light' in the structuring of this film as one about fate & calling, rather than about treasure hunting and personal gain makes it more intriguing than at first glance. I think the film's setting & it's non Christian-centric center also make it interesting in the sense of questioning convention. Officially, Temple of Doom is a prequel, because the events happen 2 years before Raiders of the Lost Ark, and with the success of that first film, going to a previous time & to an unknown setting (India was at least an 'unconsidered locale in the mid 80's) was a huge gamble that actually didn't pay off... Relatively hated by critics & at the box office this makes the film, in some circles, even more worth a closer look...

how d'you like them apples...

It occurred to me today as i was leaving work and polishing an apple on my shoulder that i look pretty damn good eating an apple. I came up with a theory when i was living in Münster that if nothing else, i look good eating apples, so i ate apples all the time. There's something to the way i bite with a bit of reckless abandon, but without the Roman-esque excesses of juices dripping down my chin...

When i'm not biting, i hold the apple well, slightly daintily at the ends of the core, but without seeming overly concerned with getting my hands a bit sticky... My arms swing freely, if a bit away from my body (think Brody Peed walking down the halls of Clinton High School, but without the muscles). I've gotten pretty good at walking while eating an apple, i can usually time finishing the apple pretty well with my arrival at a garbage can...

I can even, truly, finish an apple... not in the Teutonic sense, perhaps, where you eat ALL of the apple, stem, core & seeds, but all the way around, then to the top & bottom, getting almost of meat off of it...

So what i really want to know is, what is it that you look really good doing? Dancing in the club ( deine Bewegungen gefählen mir), doing shots, or smoking (i look a lot like John McClane when i smoke, taking entire cigarettes in in just a couple inhalations)... So tell me, in an effort of supporting and promoting self-confidence & positive self image (not in the blow smoke up their ass sense, but for real, quality things that don't generally get noticed).

iMemory

The iPod undermines musical memory. If we think about Marshall McLuhan’s ideas that media are both extensions and amputations of humanity’s various faculties and apply it to the iPod, it speaks directly to the memory. I don’t use my iPod very often, and more often than not when I do, I’m listening to a book on tape or a podcast discussing some nerdy thing or another. But when I do listen to music, I mostly listen to music that I absolutely love, music that moves me. The world is my music video when I walk around listening to my iPod.

Occasionally, I’ll go through spells where I walk everywhere with my iPod listening to music. I listen to it on the bus (instead of reading) and I switch from playlist to playlist depending on my mood and occasionally dig through my library for ‘the perfect’ song for a particular moment (like the Counting Crows’ “Omaha” when I drive into ‘Omaha’). I feel like (though I haven’t tested this) during these times, I have somewhat lost my own ability to get a song stuck in my head when I take the iPod off. I can definitely still hum or sing a song that I’d just listened to, but the phenomenon of thinking of a song that you’ve not thought of or heard for a long time and suddenly having it in mind, wanting to hum or sing it, wanting to hear it, that seems lost. But, with a big enough playlist, I can always have the ‘right’ song at my fingertips.

This (possibly invented) phenomenon makes me wonder about the iPod’s possible effects on musical composition and invention. I’m thinking about 13-19 years down the road when a generation of young musicians that has grown up in an iPod inundated world and wondering what might be the effect on music creation. If it’s true that the ability to imagine music is interrupted by the ability to always be able to hear music, what then becomes of the musical imagination? Musical composition is always at least partly musical derivation. But by being constantly presented with the musical actuality, does the imagined music (and thereby its derivations) suffer? Is the prevalence of musical sampling as a new musical art form a result of the iPod (and earlier the Walkman) age? What might this mean for future musical creativity (if anything)?

Yesterday.

Yesterday started like this:


...and ended like this:


it's good to be home... We got home from Orlando late Monday evening. Today wasn't actually that much colder here than it was at Cocoa Beach yesterday, but ... i had my feet in the ocean yesterday. And a seemingly endless supply of Rum Runners (and fine academic thinking, too, really). The paper went ok. Peter Straub said he wished i'd talked more about the funeral home and, frankly, so do i, but (Norton, looking for a good zombie theory book?) i'll do more in the rewrite.

The spectacle of Universal was a bit disappointing, as was the cultural promise of Kennedy Space Center, but the Hulk was worth the wait... Overall, it was a fine attempt at amateur tourist art...

terribly busy & important...

taking a brief break away from my paper writing (in preparation for my imminent ICFA presentation) i'll share with you my latest "creative" work. A translated poem (from the original Word Verification) as well as an as yet untranslated flash fiction piece...

akrza yanoocy pzkkeh cdidj kzuja ecaoh omaoeax
hcqwk dktxq hjxtp chnubkf
gbhylb fhpts unuia mrked ydszc iwvygjp
ncnzfmu qohyq cyrjzg omgwpo elcugu myhyc nwecc
ylbwvwv stxro

thqrg chbuttg eyyxlx ofrryf qftlko
tpbdrpb xmbcig nfrvxyq eqium wyapce
uokpzfi nbzoqe kkyvh vnxfyf lvgnghp qmpwwma epvndpy urrvcj
ughhgd hfmun oswigaq bimjkx wlomtr ujqgbl
dtkokfa xlpfn jtzfm vfgaa hrqlnue rptxzm ygwlvvq
yvteyrh sguvv ltsdc hmvhwg ofgnudd
rlzbk tckkrk hmvkpkf qseik
equyyqc lwyrjkur
yhqfav lrgruss tqbvaa

ovkwz czypd gsfpk zqhouu qpqoof ctsne
zbwrg cudsuyj yjlrkgm
zbqghj cqjnoxp ypyyjf
qrhuavj swxclu yzwfcte xzema ewfgx
qviian kcocav uuhtes spvrinq awufvji

Grunting laughter cannot express a rape by moonlight.
It takes form slowly, imposingly,
but dies alone, unnoticed under the hot familiar breath
of furious confidence, “At least never again.”
My faith is broken,

let God provide for those who need. Surely
yet another conquest cannot the upset established order
of self-sure unnecessity. Wallowing in individual history
scoffs ancient riddles, loosely entwined with
immemorial power. But others come around
to solving their differences.
Underlying resentment wins out,
but can’t change the course of history [destiny].

Nature tempts us toward and away
with insignificant troubles aspiring
to surface. Obscured, they give
away the sick feeling that rejoined
the hope of completion, not solution.




... and the short short story

hojrph nlpnrx uzukkff vrwbr dzvxlql wpmswl wwsihgg qydpxr swuybu levjao pbqyq fwgrj ggdegzh uwwhd jqtdd ftvsed khcgwsy yspyalu tichmvg uwyygrm jwosa avyrj gxbxhf yhcrz segjb wzpia dyhpt nctwkyr nsnhaov wzzmp fnvtl yarqs lqoop pygbo vwbrufp lgncgl oushel eiwfc ofyjcaj tinmd zuzesdy twmcdpq wlylswi nostwhz, soimuz lreey pqmnrrl kcgcuqb qgdut vajuxk

oh, did i mention i was a crap poet? So, the context for all this is that i'm studying a lot of art centered on process & i post a lot of craigslist ads for my office gig and started collecting and translating those word verification checks as i was posting ads. I kept the original order and then tried to make some meaning out of the individual words i'd translated.

And now, you, too can play. Translate the short story & let me know where it goes... Just a word of warning. It is a bit more laborious than i originally thought it would be. Happy writing...

follow the white budgie

I said this morning, as i was packing up to leave the house, that almost all of the pictures i've taken lately have been insurance/damage related (that's right, i can talk in slashes). Pictures of how the bed ripped into the hardwood floors, pictures of how the UPS guy bent our gate latch all to hell, and (just this morning) pictures of brigette's smashed up Accord...

So, i was looking up 'budgie' on Wikipedia and came across this image about conservation classification (how endangered the animals are) and i was thinking, since there is a classification on there of "extinct", shouldn't there be, perhaps, a nuisance-level on the other end of the spectrum, where you're actually encouraged to kill them. Say, for ants and cockroaches and Christian Fundamentalists (if they're serious, they ought to thank you for this).

I saw a sidewalk chalk activist today, he was drawing a big peace sign on the ground. I didn't really stop to pay attention what he was writing, but it struck me that i've never seen the people who leave messages in this way. But he looked pretty much like you would expect him to look.

Jim Carey has totally stolen my life...

or at least much of my philosophy.

I'm flipping around as i read student papers ("the horror, the horror") after Colbert & Jim Carey was on Letterman...

but first, a bit of background. I totally had the idea for The Truman Show when i was, like 9, and then the movie came out... and nothing. Suddenly, he doesn't return my calls, it's like nobody's ever heard of me...

...anyway, tonight Jim Carey tells this story about knowing Frank Sinatra and asking him to come up to a table he's at with some beautiful woman to impress her... point is, it's a Don Rickles story... what this has to do with me, you may be asking, well, i have this dream... it's what i call continuing the oral tradition... here's how it works.
I love stories, good stories, person(al) stories, anecdotes, if you will... stories about something that's happened to you, well, in the interest of continuing the telling of great stories, i think we should be able to tell other people's stories as if they're our own... The reason being, is that nobody cares about a story of what happened to your college roommate's high school friend, so you turn that friend into your friend, suddenly (if it's a good story) that story lives on...

Anyway, just wanted to let you know who was stealing from me today...