Saturday, September 27, 2008
Truer Words...
“We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.” -- Paul Newman, RIP.
Friday, September 26, 2008
DFW on Political Discourse
"My own belief, perhaps starry-eyed, is that since fictionists or literary-type writers are supposed to have some special interest in empathy, in trying to imagine what it’s like to be the other guy, they might have some useful part to play in a political conversation that’s having the problems ours is. Failing that, maybe at least we can help elevate some professional political journalists who are (1) polite, and (2) willing to entertain the possibility that intelligent, well-meaning people can disagree, and (3) able to countenance the fact that some problems are simply beyond the ability of a single ideology to represent accurately.
Implicit in this brief, shrill answer, though, is obviously the idea that at least some political writing should be Platonically disinterested, should rise above the fray, etc.; and in my own present case this is impossible (and so I am a hypocrite, an ideological opponent could say). In doing the McCain piece you mentioned, I saw some stuff (more accurately: I believe that I saw some stuff) about our current president, his inner circle, and the primary campaign they ran that prompted certain reactions inside me that make it impossible to rise above the fray. I am, at present, partisan. Worse than that: I feel such deep, visceral antipathy that I can’t seem to think or speak or write in any kind of fair or nuanced way about the current administration. Writing-wise, I think this kind of interior state is dangerous. It is when one feels most strongly, most personally, that it’s most tempting to speak up (“speak out” is the current verb phrase of choice, rhetorically freighted as it is). But it’s also when it’s the least productive, or at any rate it seems that way to me—there are plenty of writers and journalists “speaking out” and writing pieces about oligarchy and neofascism and mendacity and appalling short-sightedness in definitions of “national security” and “national interest,” etc., and very few of these writers seem to me to be generating helpful or powerful pieces, or really even being persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already share the writer’s views.
My own plan for the coming fourteen months is to knock on doors and stuff envelopes. Maybe even to wear a button. To try to accrete with others into a demographically significant mass. To try extra hard to exercise patience, politeness, and imagination on those with whom I disagree. Also to floss more."
-- David Foster Wallace from a 2003 interview with The Believer.
Implicit in this brief, shrill answer, though, is obviously the idea that at least some political writing should be Platonically disinterested, should rise above the fray, etc.; and in my own present case this is impossible (and so I am a hypocrite, an ideological opponent could say). In doing the McCain piece you mentioned, I saw some stuff (more accurately: I believe that I saw some stuff) about our current president, his inner circle, and the primary campaign they ran that prompted certain reactions inside me that make it impossible to rise above the fray. I am, at present, partisan. Worse than that: I feel such deep, visceral antipathy that I can’t seem to think or speak or write in any kind of fair or nuanced way about the current administration. Writing-wise, I think this kind of interior state is dangerous. It is when one feels most strongly, most personally, that it’s most tempting to speak up (“speak out” is the current verb phrase of choice, rhetorically freighted as it is). But it’s also when it’s the least productive, or at any rate it seems that way to me—there are plenty of writers and journalists “speaking out” and writing pieces about oligarchy and neofascism and mendacity and appalling short-sightedness in definitions of “national security” and “national interest,” etc., and very few of these writers seem to me to be generating helpful or powerful pieces, or really even being persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already share the writer’s views.
My own plan for the coming fourteen months is to knock on doors and stuff envelopes. Maybe even to wear a button. To try to accrete with others into a demographically significant mass. To try extra hard to exercise patience, politeness, and imagination on those with whom I disagree. Also to floss more."
-- David Foster Wallace from a 2003 interview with The Believer.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
David Foster Wallace
"The project that's worth trying is to do stuff that has some of the richness and challenge and emotional and intellectual difficulty of avant-garde literary stuff, stuff that makes the reader confront things rather than ignore them, but to do that in such a way that it's also pleasurable to read. The reader feels like someone is talking to him rather than striking a number of poses.
Part of it has to do with living in an era when there's so much entertainment available, genuine entertainment, and figuring out how fiction is going to stake out its territory in that sort of era. You can try to confront what it is that makes fiction magical in a way that other kinds of art and entertainment aren't. And to figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine. It's unbelievably difficult and confusing and scary, but it's neat. There's so much mass commercial entertainment that's so good and so slick, this is something that I don't think any other generation has confronted. That's what it's like to be a writer now. I think it's the best time to be alive ever and it's probably the best time to be a writer. I'm not sure it's the easiest time."
--Rest in peace Mr. Wallace.
Part of it has to do with living in an era when there's so much entertainment available, genuine entertainment, and figuring out how fiction is going to stake out its territory in that sort of era. You can try to confront what it is that makes fiction magical in a way that other kinds of art and entertainment aren't. And to figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine. It's unbelievably difficult and confusing and scary, but it's neat. There's so much mass commercial entertainment that's so good and so slick, this is something that I don't think any other generation has confronted. That's what it's like to be a writer now. I think it's the best time to be alive ever and it's probably the best time to be a writer. I'm not sure it's the easiest time."
--Rest in peace Mr. Wallace.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Where I'm Calling From
"Three times a week from some bar, supermarket, or tire-and-tool cluttered service station, I put calls through to New York and reestablished my identity in time and space. For three or four minutes I had a name, and the duties and joys and frustrations a man carries with him like a comet's tail. It was like dodging back and forth from one dimension to another, a silent explosion of breaking through a sound barrier, a curious experience, like a quick dip into a known but alien water." --John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
What We Should Be Talking About
http://www.washingtonindependent.com/5247/obama-targets-bin-laden-defends-constitution-and-shames-palin
Sunday, September 7, 2008
It Goes On
...but I’m not persuaded that it means all that much for true independents, those who have never worked inside the studios, never wanted to and probably couldn’t if they tried. I don’t think it means much for Kelly Reichardt, who made the lovely independent film “Wendy and Lucy,” and is unlikely to direct the next comic book blowout, because her aesthetic sensibility and worldview are of no economic use and interest to the studios or to most audiences either. That’s not a bad thing, not even remotely, especially for those who think films have worth beyond their box office returns.
As long as there’s been a Hollywood, there has been an off-Hollywood, outsiders and mavericks who show their movies any which way they can, at film societies, art houses and ethnic theaters. There was always overlap between these worlds, but it wasn’t until the 1990s and the ascendancy of Miramax Films that that the two became so interdependent as to be, at times. nearly indistinguishable. History was on Miramax’s side: In the 1980s, while Hollywood was bingeing on blockbusters, the sleepy independent film world was jolted awake by Jim Jarmusch’s downtown cool, Spike Lee’s urban style and the provocations of other D.I.Y. free-thinkers offering something new, different, electric. They were punks with cameras, and they shook the dust off a moribund scene.
--Manohla Dargis's wonderfully encouraging article reminds us of the simple truth that is far too often glossed over, the truth right in front of our noses that sometimes seems impossible to see: that people will always need to make movies. I am no snob, and I know how much it hurts me and lots of other people whose work I care about deeply that Warner Independent and Picturehouse are gone, Paramount Vantage is smaller, etc. But all the greats (not to mention all the merely interesting) have one thing in common: they have to make movies. And so they will, no matter what. In spite of panic, the pursuit of truth and depth of feeling will always find their way.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
"I'm not gonna give 'em hell. I'm going to tell them the truth and they're gonna think it's hell."
Please mean it this time. Thank you.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Karl Rove's Head
The Daily Show has been absolutely indispensable this entire election, but especially these last two weeks. This was, for me, the apex so far:
Real Corruption
I guess there are some things I need to write down today...
The RNC has my nerves rattled. I spent all last night yelling at the TV until I was red, after being reminded why I started following this stuff and hating the lies and distortions that are delivered with a straight face. Liberals have almost built a shield up to this stuff, maybe gone into denial that it ever happened in the first place because it was that horrible. But last night that strategy to submit an onslaught of pithy lies was on display again, and I felt helpless again because to retort them with facts sounds long-winded and dull. I just want to throw my hands in the air and just say "why don't you see all this America?" "Can't you see you're being sold indefensible spin once again?' I feel sick.
My two favorite "pundits" this election have been MSNBC and Air America's Rachel Maddow and Andrew Sullivan, who are both refreshing in their clear-eyed passion for the real point of following politics and even-handed in their disarming of the noise machine. For example, Sullivan on his great blog today, in reference to the ridiculous line in Palin's speech that "Listening to [Obama] speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the state senate.":
I don't even want to talk about this stuff. I want to talk about movies and books and music and love and trees and my new sneakers. This whole thing has become so overblown, bloated to the point where we can no longer identify democracy within any of it. The point of this country was to get away from kings and queens and figureheads and saviors. At least that's what I had been led to believe in grade school. As much as I am thrilled by Obama, I have to check myself constantly. We have senators and congressmen and judges and mayors and governors that begin to make up our government, and a president is just another cog. This country is too big, and our politics have gotten too ridiculous. Obama is a conformist from time to time too, because he has to be. As much as he rises above the system (and it is admirable), the system still dictates that he pander.
When we are constantly told how important this election is, how the very fate of our society is at risk, sometimes I fall for it. I think that we will have more wars, more rights will be taken away from me and people I care about, our schools will continue to crumble, etc etc. And yes, it is important. These things are obviously important. And I do believe the country will be headed to far better heights with Barack Obama as the face of our government.
But that doesn't change the fact that the system doesn't really work, that it is fueled by figureheads and a need to appeal to very different people in a very big place. That we use government as a crutch, we hate each other over who we vote for and what we fall for. That we spin the discussion of spin in our journalism (the self-reflexiveness is gross), and destroy any chance at unity in the process. It is constantly constantly disheartening.
What's between people is what matters and that is what's off. Maybe that's why Obama is exciting. Maybe those of us who understand that a President shouldn't have as much power as Bush understand that the biggest wreckage he left behind is the way he drew that line between our political parties to make it personal. That's why we're excited now, and why last night gave me such a head ache. Yes, it's the same old government corruption story, but with the twist of corrupting our spirits.
This is one of my favorite things I've ever read about this mess, back in 2006 at the height of Presidential disaster. I can try to invent my own version of this, but Garrison Keillor did it too well (Wall-E said the same thing just as beautifully but in movie form):
The RNC has my nerves rattled. I spent all last night yelling at the TV until I was red, after being reminded why I started following this stuff and hating the lies and distortions that are delivered with a straight face. Liberals have almost built a shield up to this stuff, maybe gone into denial that it ever happened in the first place because it was that horrible. But last night that strategy to submit an onslaught of pithy lies was on display again, and I felt helpless again because to retort them with facts sounds long-winded and dull. I just want to throw my hands in the air and just say "why don't you see all this America?" "Can't you see you're being sold indefensible spin once again?' I feel sick.
My two favorite "pundits" this election have been MSNBC and Air America's Rachel Maddow and Andrew Sullivan, who are both refreshing in their clear-eyed passion for the real point of following politics and even-handed in their disarming of the noise machine. For example, Sullivan on his great blog today, in reference to the ridiculous line in Palin's speech that "Listening to [Obama] speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the state senate.":
You can go look at Obama's State Senate legislative record here. And his US Senate record here. At last count, sponsorship of 820 laws in Illinois, and authorship of 152 bills and co-sponsorship of 427 in Washington. The 2007 Ethics Reform bill alone cannot be dismissed as simply non-existent. And since part of Palin's own claim to substance is an ethics reform bill, it seems extremely weird that she should believe that Obama's record is a total zero.
At her first press conference, why not ask her why she said that Obama has never passed a single reform, when he passed the 2007 Ethics Reform, described by many as the most sweeping package of its kind since Watergate. Of course, she doesn't know. She was given this speech. But she should be asked to respond to the question of why she said something patently untrue to the entire country.
But you can see the idea here: to keep equating Palin's experience with Obama's. At one point, Rudy Giuliani claimed that after her first day as governor of Alaska, Palin had more executive experience than Joe Biden and Barack Obama combined. So there's your standard. It's fatuous and stupid. But if you repeat it often enough, it might just work.
I don't even want to talk about this stuff. I want to talk about movies and books and music and love and trees and my new sneakers. This whole thing has become so overblown, bloated to the point where we can no longer identify democracy within any of it. The point of this country was to get away from kings and queens and figureheads and saviors. At least that's what I had been led to believe in grade school. As much as I am thrilled by Obama, I have to check myself constantly. We have senators and congressmen and judges and mayors and governors that begin to make up our government, and a president is just another cog. This country is too big, and our politics have gotten too ridiculous. Obama is a conformist from time to time too, because he has to be. As much as he rises above the system (and it is admirable), the system still dictates that he pander.
When we are constantly told how important this election is, how the very fate of our society is at risk, sometimes I fall for it. I think that we will have more wars, more rights will be taken away from me and people I care about, our schools will continue to crumble, etc etc. And yes, it is important. These things are obviously important. And I do believe the country will be headed to far better heights with Barack Obama as the face of our government.
But that doesn't change the fact that the system doesn't really work, that it is fueled by figureheads and a need to appeal to very different people in a very big place. That we use government as a crutch, we hate each other over who we vote for and what we fall for. That we spin the discussion of spin in our journalism (the self-reflexiveness is gross), and destroy any chance at unity in the process. It is constantly constantly disheartening.
What's between people is what matters and that is what's off. Maybe that's why Obama is exciting. Maybe those of us who understand that a President shouldn't have as much power as Bush understand that the biggest wreckage he left behind is the way he drew that line between our political parties to make it personal. That's why we're excited now, and why last night gave me such a head ache. Yes, it's the same old government corruption story, but with the twist of corrupting our spirits.
This is one of my favorite things I've ever read about this mess, back in 2006 at the height of Presidential disaster. I can try to invent my own version of this, but Garrison Keillor did it too well (Wall-E said the same thing just as beautifully but in movie form):
Politics is a slough, and maybe we should let the weasels have it for now. Even if two more Republicans follow the Current Occupant into office, this country will still be around in some form or other. Cities may crumble and we may be forced to reside in walled compounds and hire security men to escort us to Wal-Mart and back, but much will remain, such as love, for example, and the quickening one feels in the spring. Flowers will bloom in whatever wreckage we make. Somewhere, someone will sing the old songs about love walking in and driving the shadows away.
People have been falling in love through every dismal era of history and through every war ever fought. Enormous black headlines in the newspapers and agitated talk in the cafes and yet she waited for him on the corner by the hotel where they had agreed to meet, and as traffic streamed past she watched the buses pulling up to the curb, looking for his familiar shape, his beautiful face, his slight smile. Under her arm, a newspaper, and inside it a columnist shaking his tiny fist at corruption, but it isn't worth two cents compared to what's in her heart. When her lover steps down, the air will be filled with bright purple blossoms and they will embrace and turn and go into the hotel, and on this, the future of the world depends.
Take the day off, dear reader, and ignore the world and let the president play his fiddle. Find the one who means the most to you and make yourselves happy. If that be ignorance, make the most of it.
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