Strange Brew

Critics do not generally rank Max Von Sydow’s work in the film Strange Brew among his best, but perhaps now that 20 or so years have passed, it’s time for a critical reassessment.

Strange Brew is the tale of Brewmeister Smith , a great pyschiatriest as well as a brewmeister, whose megalomaniacal desire to rule the world leads him on a downward spiral of violence and murder. Max Von Sydow gives a complex and poignant performance of the brewmeister, rivaling his work with Ingmar Bergman in such films as Winter Light but falling short of his more recent effort in Hamsun.

Although it is an outwardly unserious film, if you look for deeper meaning you will be richly rewarded. Beneath the comedy, Strange Brew is a tragic fable of people leading desperate lives. Like Bergman’s films, it takes place in the great white north and is infused with the chill of the colder clime. Gloomy lighting and long meditative takes convey the burden of the Brewmeister’s worldview and his efforts to rule the world validate him as a misguided hero/martyr. The bathos is experienced on a visceral level when he gazes at the lights on the map of the world he hopes to rule, his personal inadequacy there for all to see. Von Sydow brings depth to this characterization as only he can.

Unfortunately, the movie does not focus entirely on the character of BrewMeister Smith. His tale is told largely through the actions of two of his employees, hapless brothers, a pair of sociopaths whose disrespect for societal norms is demonstrated by their alcoholism and inability to focus on their work. In one part, the brothers create a movie within the movie, but it is unfocused and the set designs and dialogue are unintentionally laughable. These buffoons, with the unlikely help of their dog, ultimately wreck the Brewmeister’s plans. One could have only wished for a more capable foil.

Were it not for Max Von Sydow’s presence I would not recommend Strange Brew, but Max is without question one of the greatest actors of our generation and none of his films should be missed. I’ve been a big fan ever since I saw Steppenwolf in downtown Philadelphia when I was fourteen years old.

A kid I knew, Allen, had moved to the Philadelphia suburbs the previous year and was having a hard time adjusting to his new life. His parents had invited a number of his friends to come visit, but none would let their child go off alone to the big city at the tender age of fourteen. Ultimately, I was invited because I was the only one who would be allowed to go.

We had never been that close. Actually, we had never even been friends, so I ditched him pretty much immediately after I got there. I met some other kids in his class and hung around with them most of the time. They were into hockey and when Allen came around, they’d say, take off, hoser. I didn’t play hockey, but we had a good time playing soccer, smoking a little weed, doing acts of petty vandalism, and torturing Allen.

But during the weekdays everyone was at school, I had nothing to do so I took the train into downtown Philadelphia and roamed the big city streets. In retrospect, it was totally irresponsible of his parents to let me do that, but by that point they were so disgusted with my behavior toward Allen that they didn’t care what happened to me.

I had never been to a big city before and I felt like I was in the land of Oz. I have vague memories of skyscrapers and the hectic city life of people in business suits walking briskly to and fro, but it was the seamy side of downtown that caught my attention and resonated in my life for many years. I walked streets littered with trash and broken glass past sex shops, boarded up buildings and graffiti covered walls. There were very tough looking black guys selling drugs, bums curled around bottles of Mad Dog 20/20, and hookers getting an early start on the night.

Being a Christian boy from the Midwest, I was fascinated by the sex shops and adult theaters. Iwalked back and forth in front of them for large parts of several days, but could never get up the nerve to go into one. Eventually, I settled for seeing R rated movies in regular movie theaters. First I saw Young Frankenstein, which had its titillating moments, but was pretty far from what I was hoping to see. Then I saw Steppenwolf and got my first introduction to Max Von Sydow. It had quite a bit of nudity and sex, but it was the theme of the movie that captivated me. I felt a strong kinship to Harry Haller as he stood in front of the mirror with a razor at his throat. I too was leading a life of quiet desperation, I too felt like an alien shackled by society and its crass commercialization. It was powerful stuff for a fourteen year old.

When the movie was over, I had forgotten about sex entirely. I took the train back out to Allen’s house and thought deeply about the meaning of life.

The next day, however, I was back downtown, walking the devastated city streets looking at the whores and trying to get up the nerve to go in one of the sex shops or adult theaters. Like a lonely wolf of the steppes, I sauntered down a side street I had never seen before and came across a sign that said “Magic Theatre.” It had images of women in bunny bikinis. I felt like heaven had opened up and Jesus reached out and whacked me on the head. This was a sign that God wanted me to see some porn. And maybe some sensual adventures would follow.

I know you. You’ve already figured it out. The sign was not what I thought. I paid my money down and sat in the nearly empty room waiting for my revelation, but it really was a magic show. The only revelation I got was that a guy could hammer a long nail up his nose without killing himself.

But things did get very weird. Allen’s father killed himself that night in the bathroom with a razor, though it was his wrists he cut, not his throat. I was put on the next plane home and didn’t see Allen again for 15 years. Strangely enough, he became a professional hockey player, though he never got beyond the minor leagues. Just by chance, I watched him skate for a Canadian team in Spokane one time, but I made no effort to meet him. I figured he’d probably just tell me to take off. He didn’t do anything to distinguish himself in the game and had a nervous breakdown soon after. I later heard from another friend that he was incarcerated in a mental health clinic near Toronto.

But anyway, when I saw that Max Von Sydow was in Strange Brew, I was transported back to that long ago day in Philadelphia and I confess that when I put the tape in the machine, I thought I might find some deeper meaning. Did I, well no, of course not. Brewmeister Smith is a mighty cinematic figure, but he is no Harry Haller. When the movie was over, the only thing I contemplated was a beer. Still, even though it’s not Steppenwolf, I heartily recommend Strange Brew. There are worse things to contemplate than beer, eh?

Tornado Days

This is a house in Henderson, Kentucky taken last fall after the big tornado that tore through the area killing more than 20 people across the river in Indiana. It's just a typical American house. As a photographer, I question the value of pictures like this of things that are just mind-numbingly typical. On one hand, I think of posterity. Pictures of common things that no one bothers to photograph don't look so common with the passage of time. On the other hand, anyone can take this picture. It doesn't require any particular skill, either technically or compositionally. But on the third hand, I still see something that appeals to my aesthetic in this. Of course I've manipulated it somewhat in the darkroom to make its appearance consistent with my mind's eye.

With all the fantastic improvements in photographic technology, the ability to translate the mind's eye will more and more often be what separates the pro's from everyone else. I see tourists everyday with equipment equal to my own and it's just going to keep getting better and less expensive. Professional photographers will have to continually go to further extremes to seperate themselves. I saw a show recently at the Brooklyn Museum featuring the work of Edward Burtinsky. There was one fantastic shot of a field of oil wells in California. I wondered how he was able to get such a shot. The answer turned out to be that he rented a crane. That plus he had an 8 x 10 camera. Another example is an acquaintance who regularly rents helicopters to get the shots he wants. That's all well and good, but for us lower class folk, we have to struggle a bit harder to find compelling images.

Anyway, larger image here.

The rosy scenario

I was looking for a quote from Kurt Vonnegut yesterday and came across scattered references in which he talked about how the U.S. has become a one party state and how he believes there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Those, essentially, are the conclusions I have reached.

Regarding the idea that the U.S. is a one party state, I didn’t get it from Vonnegut. I’m pretty sure that I first heard it from Noam Chomsky, but that doesn’t matter. I am not a follower of Chomsky or Vonnegut or anybody else for that matter. The question of whether an idea is valid or not has nothing whatsoever to do with who does or does not espouse it. That kind of thinking is known as the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy.

I did not have any kind of “Eureka” moment when I first read that the U.S. was a one party state. In fact, I thought the idea was ridiculous and I still find it easy to slip back into naive hope that democracy will prevail. But it won’t. Although it’s difficult to grasp that so much of what we’ve always believed is illusionary, the evidence for the one party state is overwhelming. Of course this is a mere blog entry, not a book with thousands of footnotes and an annotated bibliography, so I could not present all of that overwhelming evidence even if I did know it all. But for sake of argument, start by considering the ramifications of the facts that we had a coup d’etat in 2000 and that the House and Senate passed the Stalinization of America Act, or whatever they called it, a few days ago, which declared the president to be an all powerful dictator who can jail and torture anyone for any reason without any review by anybody. Then watch the twin pillars of your illusionary country dissolve before your eyes.

And there is nothing that you or I can do about it. Inexorable historical forces render the actions of individuals meaningless in the long term. I will even climb to the apex of apostasy and say that the coup of 2000 does not matter. If Al Gore would have been allowed to take office, things would eventually end up being more or less the same. The details would of course differ, but at some point in near future, we would find ourselves in precisely the same place. The anti-democratic historical forces have too much momentum.

I know this is not a popular analysis and I’m not at all saying that people shouldn’t fight it. I have the greatest respect for the people like Kos and Atrios who believe that there is a Democratic Party and that we can turn back the tide of history by electing them. In fact, my advice is to act as if we do live in a vibrant democracy and really do have the power to make positive changes. Maybe my thoroughly defeatist analysis is wrong? It’s certainly best to act that way, just in case. At least for now.

I say “at least for now” because, as non-Muslim American citizens, we can still say and do pretty much whatever we want without fear of losing our jobs. going to jail, being tortured, or killed by death squads. I do not believe that we will have these freedoms much longer. so if you are inclined to fight (non-violently) for them, now is the time.

But once it comes to the point where criticizing the government will destroy your life, my advice is to choose life. Odds are, you’ve only got one.

Dark Days

I've been too lazy to write, but hate for you to drop by and not get to see any new content. So here is a sample from my Dark Brooklyn series. I've been working on the project for several years now, but this is the first time I've shown any of it. I'm not at all confident that the idea is worth pursuing. Yet I pursue it.

I remember reading a review of a movie about a photographer from a small town in Spain who came to New York and went gaga over the Manhattan skyline. The joke was that he didn't realize how pathetically unorginal his ideas were. Of course that was Manhattan. I don'think anyone's ever taken pictures of Brooklyn before. I hope not.

Paul Auster is a very bad man

I’ve been reading Paul Auster lately and want to tell you about his work. But as I’ve mentioned before in these pages, I very much dislike the typical book review.

I have read The New York Trilogy, Leviathan, Book of Illusions, and am deep into Timbuktu. One of the things I hate most about typical reviews is the plot synopsis. If I were to tell you that Leviathan was about a giant sea creature that emerged from the darkest deep to terrorize New York City and how a wise-cracking police detective and a seemingly frumpy marine biologist came together (in more ways than one) to fight the menace, that kind of retelling would negate any possibility that you would get to experience the unfolding of the story in the way that the author intended. And isn't that what it's all about?

But as much as I dislike the plot synopsis, I think traditional book reviewer’s incessant quest to find the author’s real meaning is even worse. If I were to tell you that Timbuktu was about Paul Auster’s search for true love in an imaginary land surrounded by harsh and forbidding desert that represents the aridity of modern society, not only would I be guilty of committing the same wrong as straightforward plot synopsis, I would also be mistaken in my analysis, for who can accurately see into the conscious and subconscious mind of an artist?. More than just ruining any possibility of my readers experiencing the work as the author intended, I might also bias their reading of the work in a way that is diametrically opposed to the author’s intentions. What if Timbuktu is really about the escape from romantic entanglements and the search for sanctuary in an isolated, pristine environment far from the cloying togetherness of modern society? Or something altogether different?

Another problem with the plot synopsis and the search for the true meaning of the work is that people may not read the book at all because they don’t like stories of that type. If I were to tell you that Book of Illusions is about a magician who hides his inner pain with the aid of magic tricks, you might not read it simply because you don’t like books about magicians or because you don’t like books about people who hide their inner pain. That kind of thing happens all the time and the sad part is that it negates the possibility that a story can transcend its subject. A great storyteller can conceivably make any subject a great story. We miss so much, for example, if we don’t read One Hundred Years of Solitude because we don’t like stories about people in small towns.

And worst of all is when the reviewer focuses on the life of the artist. The artist’s life may be interesting at some point after one has read his or her work, but knowledge and speculation on that subject can only damage the possibility of discovering the work the way in which the author intended. It's best to approach literature humbly, in as close to total ignorance about the work or its author as possible.

Unfortunately, I started letting the challenge of reviewing Auster’s work without actually discussing either it or him get me down. I don’t think it’s giving anything away to say that his purpose is not to create transcendent joy in the reader. It is, after all, literature and literature normally deals with the full spectrum of human experience. Literature is not about exclusively good things happening to extraordinarily happy people leading happy and fantastic lives and then going to heaven where they live happily ever after. Perhaps it would be nice if humans were wired that way, but we're not. Sometime bad things happen and we are often richer for them, both in life and in literature. And in addition to reading Auster, I also started watching Solaris over and over again, the film by the Russian director Tarkovsky, which is thematically similar to Auster’s work.

I think that my immersion in Auster-land, along with other things going on in my life, put me in something of a funk. In general, I am not the type to whine about these things. Sometimes life gets us down a bit, but who are people such as you or I to complain about our petty existential ills when there is so much real suffering going on in the world? Nevertheless, I complained about my little bout of depression to my cousin who lives in California. He suggested that I get out of my tiny dark New York apartment and get some fresh air and sun. It’s not that I didn’t know that without being told, but sometimes it helps when a caring outsider affirms our inner knowledge. I decided to get some fresh air.

So I put Paul Auster in my backpack, along with the DVD and my laptop, and went out to find a better place to read and watch Solaris. My first idea, naturally, was to go to the park, but although the idea to get some sun sounded good in principle, in practice I sunburn easily and need to stay in the shade. Plus, so much light made watching Solaris difficult. And I found the joggers, dog walkers, and other assorted park goers annoying. I decided to go to Greenwood cemetery instead.

That turned out to be a very good idea. I found a shady spot by a mausoleum on the side of a hill, rested my back against the cool hard stone and continued my reading and Solaris watching. There is very little city noise among those hills and a slight breeze rustles the leaves enough to cover it completely. Every now and then there would be a car, usually Greenwood security, and occasionally someone would walk by on the road below, but for the most part I enjoyed a splendid isolation and began to cheer up.

Nearly a week passed this way and I got a lot of work done. But during idle time I observed my surroundings. I got to know the names on the graves and mausoleums within my line of sight and pondered the folly of these all too human rituals. I came to recognize the guards and could even anticipate their rounds. And I began to notice a few recurring visitors, one man in particular.

Every day, precisely at 11 am, he came into the cemetery, sat down under a Beech tree and stared at a particular marker for about 10 minutes. At first this daily ritual did not intrude on my consciousness, but as the days passed I became curious and eventually went down and looked at the stone after he left. The name was Michael Webster. He was born in Knarlesborough, England in 1803 and died in Brooklyn in 1856. What was so special about this grave? Obviously, it must have been a relative, but why would someone who died in 1856 matter to this man today? Why would he come to the cemetery every day, precisely at 11 am, to stare at this marker?

These questions began to gnaw at me. I don’t know why. I had never done anything like this before, but for whatever reason, I decided to follow him. Every day, after staring at the Webster tomb for 10 minutes, he took the same path deeper into the cemetery, eventually disappearing over a hill. One day, I positioned myself at the top of the hill and observed that he visited another gravesite every day, the site of a woman and child who had died nearly a year ago.

With this information, it was easy enough to solve a big part of the mystery. The woman and child who died the previous year were survived by one husband and father, a guy named Michael Webster. So this guy was Michael Webster, just like the name on the tomb. Every day he comes to the cemetery, visits a grave with his name on it, then mourns the loss of his wife and daughter. It all made perfect sense, except the stone with his name on it, and I should have left it right there, but the mystery remained. I was intrigued by his behavior and decided to follow him further.

After visiting the gravesites, he left the cemetery at the Prospect Park West exit, walked across the expressway, turned left and walked down to 5th Avenue. He walked slowly, looking in shops and reading menus until he got to Union Street where he turned right and walked up to the library. After spending several hours in the library, he continued up Eastern Parkway, cut through the museum parking lot and walked through the Botanic Garden. After that, he crossed Flatbush Avenue, entered Prospect Park, walked around the lake, and exited by Prospect Park Southwest. Finally, he walked over to Church Avenue and entered a walk-up on one of the numbered streets. Every day he made this same trip, usually looking in the same windows and reading the same menus. This went on for nearly a month.

Meanwhile, my wife had left me and the landlord was questioning me about the rent. I had lost a lot of weight and let my hair and beard grow longer so as not to be recognized in my daily surveillance. I was wondering when and where it would all end, and then it did. I was no longer waiting for him in the cemetery, but picking up his trail as soon as he left the apartment in the morning. On that final day, he wheeled out a little red shopping cart filled with books, paper and some sticks of firewood. Instead of going to the cemetery, he went straight to the park. First he meticulously cleaned all the ashes from one of the picnic grills, then started a fire and burned all of the books and papers. He carefully put the newly created ashes in a sack and walked over to the cemetery. He spread most of the ashes in the grass on the graves of his wife and child, then threw a few in the air by the grave of his presumptive ancestor. After that he walked to a car service on McDonald Avenue, got in a car, and disappeared forever. I have searched on the internet for information on his whereabouts with no success. I considered hiring a private detective, but no longer have any assets, so that idea is impracticable.

By this time, a careful reader will probably have figured out that there is one more thing I need to clear up, and then I am through. As I was following Webster home after he had spread the ashes on the graves of his wife and child, he did a quick about face and bumped right into me. “Excuse me,” he said and stared at me with a strange expression. “No problem,” I said, expecting to move on, but he just stood there, looking me in the eye with a malignant grin on his face. “No, really,” he said, “it was clumsy of me, bumping into you like that. Is there something I can do for you? Perhaps some question you would like answered?”

I was taken aback by his insolence and completely at a loss for words. “Have you ever seen Solaris?” I asked. It was the only question that popped into my head.

“Yes, I have seen it,” he said.

“What did you think?”

“I thought it sucked, but I heard the Russian version is much better.”

"yes, infinitely so," I said.

He continued standing there, looking at me. “Anything else?” he asked. “Paul Auster,” I said. “What?” “Have you ever read Paul Auster?”

“Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact I have.”

“What did you think?”

“Auster is great,” he said. “Anybody who likes great literature should read him. Start with The New York Trilogy.”

So there you have it, straight from the mouth of a crazy man.

But if you ask me, Paul Auster is a very bad man.

My advice: stay far, far away from his books.

Slow times

It's been slow motivation-wise lately and I haven't been doing much work. Yesterday, I had descended to the point where I was working on my screensaver and came across this old photo, which had never interested me before. Of course the original didn't look a lot like this, but I saw it anew, with darkroom eyes, and made it what it is.

A larger version can be seen here.

Who'da thunk it?

I was looking for reviews of Solaris (Tarkovsky version) when I came across the Top 100 Spiritual Films list. I was not particularly surprised that Solaris would be on a list of spiritual films, but I was surprised that it would be on a list of the best spiritual films at a Christian website. The movie is certainly open to a multitude of interpretations, but I find a Christian one difficult to formulate.

But the Arts & Faith site is full of surprises. A lot of it is just what you would expect – The Gospel According to Matthew, John, etc., Jesus of Nazareth, Peter and Paul, the Passion of the Christ. But surprisingly, there were many films that are good by any measure and don’t jump out at you as being Christian. Then there were a few that were jaw dropping surprises, Dogville, first among them.

I like Dogville very much and can argue that it is a spiritual movie, but not a positive one. Sure, the secular humanist philosopher comes off badly, but the good church going town folk turn out to be morally flawed, to put it mildly, and they neither seek nor find any redemption. If it is about spirituality, it is about the crushing of the spirit and its rebirth as a bitter and vengeful thing. And where is the Christian message? That one should say to hell with all that forgiveness shit, join the gangsters and slaughter anyone who ever wronged you? Yea, I could be cynical and say that is what today’s Christianity is all about, but that is not consistent with the depth and independence of the list. Take away the obvious Christian movies and the ones that remain would provide a good start for many right wing Christians' list of worst movies of all time.

Just a reminder

See the look on these people's faces. This is what terror really looks like.

Television never showed what it was really like to be near the World Trade Center on 9/11. Sure, the buildings were there, and they were burning, but somehow out in TV land, the horror was in the loss of the buildings, but under the buildings themselves, the horror was at the people up there dying, and some of them falling, the same people we saw in the street every day.

And that look of shock and horror on everyone's face. And the smell. And the steady shower of paper. Those things never made the news, but those things are what we remember.

Report from the fetid streets of hell

Living in New York, you can have some really bad days. Airplanes fly into buildings, people fall from the skies. the electricity goes off for days, transit strikes add hours to already hellish commutes. There are blizzards, heat waves, rain and wind and hundreds of little hassles. You get on a subway car with no air conditioning or a homeless person who couldn’t smell worse if he were dead. The noise, the smells, the rats, the existential ugliness of the urban landscape and so many of the people who inhabit it. Yes, any time or any day, things can turn very unpleasant very quickly.

But the reverse is true as well. When life is good here it can be very, very good. Sometimes it can be very good in big ways, sometimes in small. Yesterday was one of those small-time good days that make me more comfortable being a member of the human species.

I am not the most social person, to put it mildly, so when my wife informed me that there was a neighborhood block party and it was my chance to meet the neighbors, my response was “why would I possibly want to meet the neighbors?”

Our street was blocked off and people had brought out a lot of lawn and beach chairs and set them down in the middle of the street. Three tables had been set up and were covered with food and board games. A nice lady had a grill hooked up and was making chocolate chip pancakes for the kids.

Several of the nearby businesses had kicked in some money which was used to hire a magician. Everyone brought some kind of pot luck and the Mexican restaurant on the corner provided free roasted corn, hot dogs, and a stream of taco and burrito sampler platters. The fire department sent a truck and let the kids explore it and the firemen opened up a hydrant. Throughout the day there were 20 to 30 kids running up and down the length of the block. We had a few beers. It started at 10 am and there were still a few people left when I went home for the last time a little after 11 pm.

I live in one of the more ethnically diverse neighborhoods in New York, which is saying quite a bit, and our block party was representative. There were white Americans, Germans, Japanese, Africans, African-Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, other Latinos, Polish, Russian, Bangladeshi’s, Pakistani’s, Palestinians, and Jews. There were people who owned businesses and people who worked in trades; people with menial jobs, office workers and technical types. There were students and professors, fashion designers, people who work in the print media, movie and television people, and even a couple of hipsters. Everyone got along just great but beyond that it was effortless. I didn’t even give the diversity a thought until I sat down to write about it. I don’t think anyone else did either.

Perhaps there’s a lesson there somewhere, but I don’t know and I don’t really care. We all had a good day and plan to do it again next summer.

Rabbit is rich

I was clicking around through the NY corner of Blogland this morning, following links to NY blogs, marveling anew at how boring and fucked up so many twenty-something blogger types are and the painfully boring lives of people who blog in general when I finally came across a great site. As with so many cultural insights, I owe thanks to Roy. I noticed a link to Alicublog in this person’s blogroll which made me think it might be worth checking out some of the other listed sites.

So I found Rabbit Blog. Rabbit Blog is the site of Heather Havrilesky, an oft-published magazine writer, where she runs an advice column along the lines of Dear Abbey only much, much better. Her correspondents are interesting, her advice very well-written and sound.

This advice to a guy who was unsure about his position in the corporate world is priceless.

I want you to clear you head and focus on one very basic truth about the workplace, any workplace in the world: It's no fucking fair.

It's very, very important to remember this, no matter what industry you work in, no matter what kind of a job you have. Offices are poorly managed. Almost across the board. In fact, let's make a list of ten things to keep in mind, every single day, before you arrive at your job, whatever job it is.

Rabbit's Eternal Truths of the Workplace

1. Most offices are horribly managed.

2. Most managers can't, technically, "manage" worth a shit.

3. Most coworkers are out for themselves and no one else.

4. Most people -- bosses, colleagues, underlings, whatever -- don't know how to communicate clearly with each other.

5. Most people do work that ranges from mediocre to absolutely shoddy.

6. When you do good work, most people won't notice or if they do notice, they won't reward you for it.

7. Most bosses don't know how to clearly communicate their expectations to you, and are likely to sprinkle in personal insults, inappropriate comparisons to your coworkers, condescending asides, and other disturbingly unprofessional digressions when they speak with you.

8. When you communicate your goals and objectives clearly, most people will misunderstand you or assume that you're being overly aggressive or nitpicky or trying to steal their jobs.

9. The culture of most work settings is ineffectual, passive aggressive, wildly dysfunctional, dorky, and almost willfully chumpy, and often rewards mediocrity, troublemaking, pouting, and juvenile behavior.

10. If you attempt to be yourself or express your true feelings in most office settings, you will inevitably offend someone, step on someone's toes, piss someone off, or get slapped with a sexual harassment suit.

Yep.

Jouvert 2006

This is the second draft of the 2006 Jouvert parade. Enjoy.

And if you want to check out how my work compares with other photographers, try here.

Hot Dick on Hil Sex Pic

That, and intelligent observations as well! In this article in the almost incomparable (okay, we can compare it to the eXile) Buffalo Beast, Matt Taiibi takes Hilary to task for being, well, Hillary, the Republican front runner for President in 2008.

We live in a two-party system where both parties are pro-war; when the wars go badly, the system scrambles to find a way to prevent antiwar sentiment from taking the drastic step of mounting a meaningful opposition.

Therefore from time to time we have to suffer through the spectacle of some status quo dingbat letting his hair down and performing a tortured impersonation of a peace activist during an election season...

Her semantically-tortured apostrophic attack against Rumsfelds incompetence, in which she railed against the administrations strategic blunders but carefully avoided any discussion of the decision to invade that she and most other Democrats so enthusiastically supported, identified her as the status quo dingbat in this generations version of the same old story.

Yep.

All things to everyone

This is classic.

Stay tuned, more to come

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. I've been very busy with prepping photos for upcoming shows, grant applications and working on the long delayed web site. With all that crap, I've pretty much quit generating new work, but yesterday was the annual Jouvert parade, so I got my sorry ass out of bed at 4 am and made my way down to Flatbush avenue to join a few thousand heavy drinking west Indians parading through large clouds of dope smoke down the mean streets of Brooklyn. Nothing like chugging rum at dawn with a bunch of lunatics and getting painted, oiled and talced.

This year's photos were not great, not even as good as last year's. I don't know if the problem was more me or the event itself. The vibe just wasn't the same this year. Nevertheless, in a few days I'll have some kind of website up and will link to it here.

In the meantime, the above picture gives you a bit of a taste, vibe and all.

Sports Report

The American Basketball team lost again at the World Championships. This time they were soundly beaten by Greece, a team with no current NBA players.

Continuously using pick-and-roll plays to beat the Americans’ defense, the Greeks shot 63 percent (35 of 56) from the field and made 31 of 44 shots over the final three periods.

The United States has not played for a world championship since winning the last of its three titles in Toronto in 1994.

Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post explains it like this:

Our arrogance has no boundaries when it comes to international basketball, though it ought to by now, after yet another loss in a major competition. Even Americans who pay fairly close attention to world basketball, people who should know better, took one look at the Greek roster and dismissively figured, "No NBA players on the roster? Then no chance for Greece."

And it's a racial condition as well. We -- and by "we" I mean Americans of all colors -- have conditioned ourselves to look at European teams specifically and dismiss them out of hand because they're white. Or we think they're white. And of course, Americans have led the world in telling folks that white men can't jump, though amazingly some of those Greek kids apparently didn't accept our premise.

Well, yes, but the racial aspect isn’t just that white guys can’t jump, it’s that black guys are selfish losers who can’t play team basketball.

That, of course, is the worst kind of racism. Any cursory glance at the history of basketball definitively proves that skin color or African ancestry does not preclude one from playing smart basketball at the highest levels of the sport.

We can, however, assign a lot of the blame to “ghetto culture.” It’s all about individual status. There are those who dominate and those who submit. It’s not just a racial thing. The same could be said for the Masters of the Universe Wall Street bullshit, but unlike stock speculation, basketball is a team game and a good team always has a chance to beat a collection of better individuals.

But the NBA, NCAA and the television networks share the biggest part of the blame. They are the ones who allow the “me first” and “humiliate the opponent” attitudes that come straight outta the ghetto to dominate the game.

These powers that be in big time sports and television are irresponsible and they may be fools, but they are not idiots. They no doubt have polls and ratings to show that more people will watch ghetto basketball than the more traditional team oriented sport.

This is unfortunate because ghetto basketball reinforces the very worst elements of ghetto society. Being poorly educated, pathologically selfish and abusive works for basketball stars, but doesn’t usually get a person very far in the real world. So very, very few kids will escape their lives of poverty by becoming professional basketball players, yet so much of our culture encourages them to act in the worst possible way for advancing their interests.

On the other hand, the colleges and the NBA could have a positive influence by punishing the ghetto style of play. This is not as radical as it sounds. The rules have been changed over the years to encourage it. They can be changed again to discourage it. That’s a big reason why the U.S. can no longer dominate the international game. Because the international rules favor team basketball. If those who played ghetto ball couldn’t make the team in college, much less the NBA, better values would be pushed back down to the ghetto and people would change.

Krzyzewski and a few players congratulated the Greeks, but most of the U.S. team quickly headed to the locker room.

Yep.

Illusionists

I saw The Illusionist a couple days ago and just finished watching Spike Lee’s Inside Man. It didn’t occur to me going into it, but at some point I realized that the films are very much alike.

Oh, I know, every single plot detail is different, but in the end they are both about illusions and almost every scene is in some way illusionary.

They have other things in common as well. The production values and camera work are excellent. The acting and direction are top-notch. Both movies are able to pull off both the little illusions and the grand finale on first viewing.

The big difference is that all of the illusions in Inside Man stand up to further scrutiny. Once the illusions are revealed, all the plot elements and characters’ actions make sense.

Whereas with the The Illusionist, when the movie is over and you think about it, you quickly realize that it was a bunch of bunk. The characters’ actions moved the story along and provided drama, but ultimately made no sense whatsoever.

They are both enjoyable movies while you’re watching them, but Inside Man has substance and will stay around. The Illusionist, on the other hand, is no more substantial than a CGI generated ghost walking around 19th century Vienna.

Sorry if I seem too harsh. There’s a lot to be said for a very well-produced movie that is enjoyable to watch. I recommend seeing it, by all means. I’m just disappointed because one of its illusions was that it might be high art, but it turned out to be nothing more than good entertainment.

And I’m not saying that Inside Man was high art. It too was good entertainment, ultimately better entertainment, and perhaps it did manage a few moments that transcended the genre.

Straight from the netherworld

I started noticing this writer’s work during the last election. I’m privy to a couple mailing lists run by people who aren’t what you’d call intellectual sophisticates. Most of the emails contain stupid sex jokes or pictures of hillbillies in the outhouse or the like, but occasionally there’s right wing propaganda.

The example below is typical of this writer. I don’t mean this as an example of a stupid argument. It is a very intelligent argument for a very stupid proposition aimed at people who if they are not genetically stupid are willfully so. It is the worst kind of propaganda pure and simple. I do not believe that the author believes a word that she is writing. And I do not believe that she is unaware that she is using logical fallacies. She is more than happy to use them in her rhetoric. She is, I believe, a rhetorician.

These kind of emails are passed around constantly among people who belong to the Elks, the Moose or the Kiwanis club. A lot of them are college educated, but failed to learn anything that didn’t apply directly to their career.

During the presidential election these emails were constantly being passed around among the reddest people in the red states and a lot of regular people of their acquaintance. I'll bet they’re gearing up now for the mid-terms. I’ve tried to trace a couple of them with no success. Given their sophistication, I suspect that it is part of some Republican operation and that the person who writes them gets paid. She’s probably some ivy leaguer living in New York laughing it up while she suckers the yokels with such crap. But that’s just speculation.

What is a Billion ?

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a
casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians"
spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising
agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in
one of its releases.
a. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
b. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
c. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
d. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
e. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate
our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at
New Orleans. It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.
Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the
Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.  Interesting
number, what does it mean?

a. Well, if you are one of 48,674 residents of New Orleans (every
man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.

b. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home
gets $1,329,787.

c. Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.
Washington, D.C .. HELLO !!! ... Are all your calculators broken ??

This is too true to be very funny:

Tax his land,
Tax his wage,
Tax his bed in which he lays.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes is the rule.
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirts,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his booze,
Tax his beers,
If he cries,
Tax his tears.
Tax his bills,
Tax his gas,
Tax his notes,
Tax his cash.
Tax him good and let him know
That after taxes, he has no dough.
If he hollers,
Tax him more,
Tax him until he's god and sore.
Tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he lays.
Put these words upon his tomb,
"Taxes drove me to my doom!"
And when he's gone,
We won't relax,
We'll still be after the inheritance TAX !!


Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax),
IRS Penalties (tax on topof tax),
Liquor Tax,
Luxury Tax,
Marriage License Tax,
Medicare Tax,
Property Tax,
Real Estate Tax,
Service charge taxes,
Social Security Tax,
Road Usage Tax (Truckers),
Sales Taxes,
Recreational Vehicle Tax,
School Tax,
State Income Tax,
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA),
Telephone Federal Excise Tax,
TelephoneFederal Universal Service Fee Tax,
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax,
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax,
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax,
Telephone State and Local Tax,
Telephone Usage Charge Tax,
Utility Tax,
Vehicle License Registration Tax,
Vehicle Sales Tax,
Watercraft Registration Tax,
Well Permit Tax,
Workers Compensation Tax.

COMMENTS: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and there was
prosperity, absolutely no national debt, the largest middle class in
the world and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What the heck happened ?????

Let’s review the argument.

A billion dollars is a lot of money.
Some liberal bitch with a French name wants to give 250 of them to a bunch of low life blacks, 2 million per family.
Good decent salt-of-the-earth (working class whites) pay lots of taxes.
If good decent people didn’t have to pay taxes, we’d be living in heaven on earth.

Of course it’s easy to rebut this nonsense point by point. Obviously nobody’s advocating $2 million per family to flood victims in Louisiana, it’s not like a bunch of islamo-fascists hijacked some airplanes and flew them into the levees. Major infrastructure is expensive. Just ask those throwing those hundreds of billions at Iraq.

And why do the good working class folk pay so many ridiculous taxes? Well, because the very wealthy and the corporations don’t, unlike the good old days of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Beave, and white picket fences.

And there are plenty of countries where working people don’t pay a lot of taxes. Collectively its known as the third world.

But by the time you finish explaining all of that to your imaginary yokel, he or she is already reading the next piece of propaganda. Your story is not so pleasing as the free lunch in paradise for all good people narrative.

Sure, they are suckers, but who wants to hear that about themselves?. Yea, they’ll get what they pay for, considerably less, but nobody’s going to stay tuned for the end of that narrative either.

Unfortunately, there is no opposition party in this country, no one to tell an equally pleasing story that would have such a better ending. We get what we pay for.

Locked Rooms in a City of Glass full of Ghosts

I just finished my first reading of Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy. I had never read Paul Auster for a couple of reasons.

First because I had the impression that his prose was dry, pretentious and literary. I don’t know why I thought that. Maybe from watching Smoke.

Second, he was highly recommended to me by a couple of people I reflexively didn’t respect much. That’s shallow and wrong of me I know. They are both well-read younger guys with that superior young guy attitude. Intellectually I know better than to let that bother me since I had the same attitude in spades. Ultimately I was able to overcome it and picked up the book.

Much to my surprise Auster wasn’t dry and pretentious at all. The New York Trilogy is deep literature that is very enjoyable and easy to read.

But I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to be able to tell you about it. Although I’m willing to play the critic on a few movies, there is no way I’m going to take away any of the pleasure you may get if you read those books. To discover what is going on in the many layers of the narrative provides much of the enjoyment of reading them. I still haven’t read anything about them, or Auster.

I want to read a lot more before I let others influence my opinion, but I do look forward to that day. Although Auster is fun and easy to read, he is tricky and I can easily see that there are a lot of hidden things and multiple ways of interpreting them.

So I recommend New York Trilogy. Go for it. And go for it in virginal ignorance of Paul Auster if you still can. That’s my advice.

Shape of things

Barbara Ehrenreich whomps on Wal-Mart’s ass, as is her wont.

When Wal-Mart workers can't afford health insurance or new school clothes, the whole working class begins to flail. Furthermore, the Wal-Mart business model increasingly betrays what was once the operating principle of American capitalism, as explained by Henry Ford the First: You've got to pay your workers enough so that they can buy your product; that's what keeps the system going. When the American majority can't buy the very goods they manufacture or sell, that system is cruising for a bruising.

I’ve seen a lot of this myself. By the nature of my work, I’ve spent a little bit of time at a lot of companies over the past few years and, although the people I work with are not quite as low on the economic ladder as Wal-Mart employees, it’s easy to discern the same trends.

Companies are under constantly increasing pressure to cut expenditures and from what I’ve seen they do not go about it intelligently. All too often the decisions on who or what to cut are based on petty office politics rather than competence. And as the more competent people are laid off or bail out, the product suffers and profit declines. Meanwhile, those remaining are required to work ever more hours for which they are rarely paid. Either they are salaried workers or hourly types being offered comp time in lieu of overtime. Of course that comp time is in no way officially tracked and rarely collected. And raises are limited to 3 or so percent annually and promotions are generally out of the question.

Meanwhile only speculators or trust fund babies can afford to buy a house. I made the mistake of calling a realtor about a house I saw the other day. It is an old house, early twentieth century, fairly large but not particularly well built. It needs repairs, has a very small yard, sits near a noisy freeway in a generally ugly neighborhood in a not trendy part of the city. 1.6 million. What’s that in monthly payments? $11,000 dollars. My sister bought a house just like it in a small town in Indiana for $29,000 total a few years ago. People making $80,000 with a couple kids in New York can’t begin to afford a house and have to live paycheck to paycheck just to make the rent and very basic living expenses. And I’m not even talking about Manhattan, or even trendy Brooklyn.

And most of these companies that aren’t paying squat are very profitable. All of the squeeze is to make ever higher returns for the shareholders and top management, most of whom are arrogant sociopaths, many of whom are incompetent at everything besides gaining power.

Ah well, what can you do? Live well and prosper, emotionally at least, while we can. How will the inevitable crash play out? I guess we’ll just have to see.

Shit for brains

Via Atrios:

According to CNN just now a Time poll for a hypothetical McCain-Clinton race has it at 49% McCain 47% Clinton.

First the standard disclaimer: I know, I know, anyone is better than Bush and any Democrat is better than any Republican. Still, if our leaders are the brain cells of our nation, we sure got shit for brains.

It’s all to easy to imagine McCain vs. Hillary. McCain will advocate putting a force of 400,000 in Iraq and gearing up the draft in order to invade Iran and Syria. Hillary will boldly compromise, arguing for a force of 200,000 and a partial draft in order to invade either Iran or Syria.

Yep, that’s the future. Republicans show real leadership with insanely stupid ideas and the Doormatocrats boldly compromise. It sucks to see the future.