Years of Poems and Spirits

Comical tragedies are sure tear jerkers. Encountered two recently:

A Spoild Man (short fiction, the New Yorker)
Reminded me of a few works I read before … but too tired to remember which ones. Or is it an metaphore of many things in life, including that of the American Dream? The dream was induced by an American, that is for sure.

Turtles Can Fly (an Iran-Iraq movie)
If there is any good artistic rendering of Leviathan’s famous opening: “the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, this must be it.

The kid-king setting echos the Road Warrior movies. However, whereas the Gibson movies are meant to be absurdist fantasies, the Kurdish kids life portrayed in the movie are fiendishly real. The most moving moment came when the Blackhawk helicopters flying over a hill full of confused and scared refugees, spreading leaflets that promised a “paradise”.

There can’t be any stronger contrast between the powerful and the powerless, between the weightiness of the promise and the hopelessness of reality.

Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Another surprise find. I thought I watched all the Vietnam movies there are.
This one differs from others in that it tells the story of an anti-hero–in the sense that a “good” guy turning “bad” (from a pure liberal pov) Unlike Born on the 4th of July where a USMC soldier lived through war and turned into a peace activist, “Joker” lived through a battle and turned into a bona fide killer!The movie is full of shit–machoism, libido and adrenaline, but that is why I love it. In fact, I am writing this piece listening to the “micky mouse marching song” on YouTube and Joker’s final words:

 My thoughts drift back to erect nipple wet dreams about Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the Great Homecoming Fuck Fantasy. I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I’m in a world of shit… yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid.

It is a story of survival. Also, every one performed so well and the script was just chrisp and juicy. Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was my favorite character until he was shot. I didn’t get Kubrick’s other movies, but I totally dig this one.

Idiocracy

Just a very dark but funny B movie. Goes well with my rant against popular democracy. Movies sometimes are scarily close to life. Wag the Dog was such a case. Had “Idiocracy” been released today, I am sure people will associate it with Sarah Palin. Particularly after she failed to answer what paper she reads–being a journalist major and all that.

1. Just watched the movie “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels“. Pretty funny, particularly towards the end. Very witty. Everyone performed wonderfully.

2. Still haven’t figured out whether the Riviera town we visited was Villefranche-Sur-Mer or not?

3. A new word learned: MacGuffin. According to Wiki:

a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise.

Don’t I wish many things in life are MacGuffins!

为什么政客们亲那么多Baby不会得病，我亲一个就病得摇摇欲坠?!

When one is physically ill what does that do to one’s mind? I had many hours of sleep but dreaded the dreams. It was the day time stress and anxiety repeated over and again. I was making arguments that at once seemed to make perfect sense and no sense at all. Just like my paper… Early in the morning, I didn’t want to go back to sleep just because I didn’t want to go back to the dreams. But when I was at 39c, it wasn’t always up to me.

While sick, I had time to watch some TV and to read from New Yorker:
1. Watched the Indy Race in St. Petersburg on TV, I think the cry “it is green flag racing!” is very sexy!

2. Watched Carman the opera: I always enjoyed listening to Carman. After all, the Toréador Song was what got me into classical music to begin with. And I watched the opera couple of times before. But this time it was different. Something clicked. Micaëla’s solo in the Gypse’s camp is the most moving: not only the music beautiful, but perfectly encapsulates the obsession of Jose and the power of Carmen. Although Don Jose’s possessiveness is pathological, Carman’s free-will almost justifies one’s total admiration: she is woman worth dying for.

3. Watched One Flew over Cuckcoo’s Nest: It is more Owellian but definitely not Foucaultian. The antagnistic nurse Ratched is NOT how mass society works today. Rather it is the elaborate weddings and ceremonies that David Brooks talked about in the Bobos in Paradise. However, the movie is superb at portraying the tension between the subjected and the privileged once the sensation of being free is discovered and the pursuit of liberation is on.

4. Read Eric Alterman’s “Out of Print” on NYKr. I am certainly in Lippmann’s camp. For a while, I thought that is what Alterman’s argument too. But that is just not progressive enough, uh? This article deserves another entry. But in summary, I do think politics and governance are becoming too complicated, too nuanced to be decided by the general public.

I remember a skit from SNL where a weekend party is going on in a loft apartment somewhere. That was right after 9.11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. Suddenly a guy rushes in and says, “the Northern Aliance just took Jalalabad!” and everybody raises their glasses and cheers.

The moral of the joke is that the world is just too complicated. Alterman seems to be finding hope in the newly burgening phenomenon of “participating” journalism, or a mixture of opinions and leaks and rumors. He is well aware of the ptifalls of such a development: the degradation of journalistic integrity. And more importantly, the polarization of public opinions. But strangely, he seems to say this is actually good for democracy: the reason that more Europeans voted than Americans is because they have so many tabloids.

Of course, his musing stops right there. No further reasoning offered why these two are even corelated! That is rather ridiculous for a serious article (or posting, should I say). But he has several good points, for example, that the “veneer of neutrality” is becoming increasingly unsustainable. And the very effort to stay “above the fray” may render print journalism cold and distant.

5. By the way, just saw my old boss Dan Hesse on TV in a Sprint commercial. I was such a fan of his while at Terabeam. I still think he is a heck of communicator and salesman.