Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Benjamin's LiveJournal:

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Friday, July 17th, 2009
1:43 pm	Super short review: Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Joe Hill [I suppose I could use Goodreads for these short reviews, but Goodreads is a site I hardly think about most days. Wouldn't it be better to just have one central homepage/social network?] It's hard to know how much this seems like a Stephen King book because Hill is King's son--a little bite of trivia that everyone seems contractually obligated to mention--and how much it seems like a Stephen King book because King has become short-hand for modern American horror. Something horrible intrudes on an ordinary American life? How Kafkaesque! No, wait, that's not right. How King-esque! It's hard to avoid thinking about King and Hill, especially given the fact that this book is mostly about fathers and sons (though really more broadly about responsibility to others--a fact which many reviewers seemed to miss, even though one of the main villains is not a father, but a mother/sister, and one of the main relationships being examined here is boyfriend-girlfriend). A perfectly fine horror story, not ground-breaking, though I enjoyed the music references throughout. Recommended or not recommended? Recommended, if you like this sort of thing. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
9:06 am	Internet Genre Encyclopedia: The Shorter [First in an occasional series about genres/aspects of writing on the internet.] Let's say you've just read a long article and you want to present a condensed version--not entirely for ease of reading, but primarily to point out that the article's basic ideas are ridiculous or that the article has no real ideas at all. Congratulations! You've just invented the shorter, which has two defining features: its ruthless, occasionally hyperbolic summarizing; and its satiric intent. (You don't "short" a long article that you agree with--you're merely summarizing at that point; and if you disagree at length, then you're not "shorting," you're refuting.) As a recent example from Sadly, No!: Shorter Bill Kristol: Bill Kristol, Washington Post Panicked Over Palin * Maybe Palin will get the GOP nomination for 2012. And, then again, maybe she won't. Notice this example is only a sentence long (the optimal length) and nicely points out Kristol's lack of anything resembling an idea. Also, I've chosen this example because it seems eminently fair; compare this shorter to Kristol's central gem of wisdom: "She'll be able to make the case effectively that she should be the nominee, or she won't." Occasionally, a shorter may seem unfair; the impulse to hyperbole can carry the shorter too far from the article being shorted, into the realm of explication de subtexte. These hyperbolic shorters are still shorters; but I think that the fairer the shorter is, the more useful it is to point out the original's ridiculousness. On the internet, the shorter is almost entirely the province of the left; at least, I've never seen a right-wing blogger present a shorter. Lastly, the shorter has a place in internet meme history: in the comments to a shorter at Lawyers, Gun$, and Money, one commenter tried to explain to another, more confused commenter that this was a "shorter"--that the shorter was not a quote from the original article, but the reduction of the article to its ridiculous core idea. When the helpful commenter noted that the shorter was common on the internet, the confused commenter replied, "I am aware of all internet traditions," which soon became a catch-phrase in some circles. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
8:48 am	Super short review: The Lazarus Project, Aleksandar Hemon This is the story of a Bosnian-American writer who goes to Europe to discover the background of an American Jew shot by the Chicago chief of police in 1908. But it's also the story of the magic of story-telling as a way to know the world; and, ultimately, it's the story of the unknowability of the world. Blah. Recommended or not recommended: Not recommended. (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
12:52 am	A Poll: An "Irish"-style cottage In Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust, someone is looking at a house to rent: The house was cheap because it was hard to rent. Most of the people who took cottages in that neighborhood wanted them to be "Spanish" and this one, so the agent claimed, was "Irish." Here's my question: just based on that quote, do you think this is actually an "Irish"-style cottage? Or is the agent lying to get it rented? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, May 4th, 2009
9:06 pm	What did you learn from your favorite college English class? An investigative report. Or what was it about your favorite English course that made it your favorite course? If you didn't do much in English, feel free to answer for favorite Humanities course. If you have no favorite Humanities classes, feel free to discuss why you had no favorite Humanities course. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
6:44 pm	How to Mess with Texas and Live to Tell About It Actually, I have no guidelines to offer on how to mess with Texas and live to tell about it; perhaps the secret is not to mess with it in the first place--just approach slowly and make no sudden gestures, as you would with a strange dog. Austin, TX: Sarah (girlfriend, not sister) and I flew into Austin last Wednesday. We stayed in a very inhospitable Travelodge: no clock, no bedside lamps, a stained blanket, keycards that stopped working every day, and a hotel clerk that remagnetized our cards for our rooms without asking for any identification at all--just our room number. But the Travelodge was the low-point of the time spent in Austin, as the rest of it was spent going to friend-recommended restaurants and coffeeshops, and going to see shows. It would be hard to pick out the highlights of those three days in Austin, since we went to so many good restaurants and saw quite a few shows, but for some reason Sarah and I started reviewing just about everything we ate; so I can check my little notebook and say that Chuy's was amazing, with the South Congress Cafe being also pretty incredible (though a rather different crowd). For best shows I would have to include the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, partly because it was a private party that Sarah's friend Liz got us in to (Liz was there doing promotion for Saucony--they had sponsored a roller-skating rink with music that we also dropped by); and the Von Bondies and We Were Promised Jet Packs show, partly because it was kind of incredible that these bands (and many others) were playing in the backyard of this pizza place. I've always been told that Austin was a place where things just happened, and it was pretty great being there watching things happening. I especially liked this Linklater-esque moment where I got to talking to a guy about P. K. Dick. Comfort, TX: Sarah and I drove out Saturday morning to get to my friends Nate and Jennifer's wedding, but first we stopped off at Hamilton Pool, which is a very nice little state park. The hiking is very rocky but not long, and the pool itself is very cute; if it had been later in the day, we would have stayed for swimming, but the water was still a little cool. We didn't get to see much of Boerne (where we were staying in a La Quinta that was objectively nice and, compared to our Travelodge, subjectively palatial) or of Comfort, where the wedding was. But the Riven Rock Ranch (where the wedding was held) and the wedding itself were both very nice; if I have one complaint, it's that the food, which was very good, went away too soon. Also, since we were worn out by the wedding--oh, and also, by the fire alarm that went off at 3 am at the Travelodge--we didn't try to get into the hot tub at the La Quinta, which was doubly disappointing when we learned that our place in San Antonio didn't have a hot tub. San Antonio, TX: Sarah and I drove to San Antonio on Sunday, after going down into Cascade Caverns near Boerne, which was fair as a cavern, though not as much as a hike as I would've liked; and while we still had the rental car, we hit up one of the Missions (Mission San Jose) in San Antonio. Then, with both SXSW in Austin and the wedding in Comfort behind us, we settled down to relaxing. And I'm sure I would've enjoyed relaxing in San Antonio, too, if it only weren't that San Antonio is pretty boring and pretty transient--they have these huge hotels that fill up for conventions, but it doesn't look like much else goes on there. So, instead of the smiles and warmth I got used to in Austin, San Antonio is mostly made up of packs of guys in suits who just came from a meeting and of people who look like travel is a terrible burden. The Riverwalk is a nice area for a meal or a boat-tour, but the Alamo is a snoozefest, and both the Riverwalk and the Alamo are full of guys in suits and tourists who look put upon by the very idea of having to move. While in San Antonio, we also walked to the library and to a small, punky vegetarian/vegan restaurant named Green; and on this walk, we discovered that a few blocks away from the giant hotels, you get into some run-down looking neighborhoods. We flew out of San Antonio on Tuesday. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 16th, 2009
9:33 pm	Rebecca Harding Davis and Mark Twain This is me claiming to have discovered something that no one has ever discovered before, which is simply a remarkable echo between Rebecca Harding Davis' pioneering realist novella Life in the Iron Mills (1) and Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (2). (1) "I tell you, there's something wrong that no talk of 'Liberte' or 'Egalite' will do away. If I had the making of men, these men who do the lowest part of the world's work should be machines,—nothing more,—hands. It would be kindness. God help them! What are taste, reason, to creatures who must live such lives as that?" He pointed to Deborah, sleeping on the ash-heap. "So many nerves to sting them to pain. What if God had put your brain, with all its agony of touch, into your fingers, and bid you work and strike with that?" (2) If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience. It is one of the most disagreeable things connected with a person; and although it certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot be said to pay, in the long run; it would be much better to have less good and more comfort. Still, this is only my opinion, and I am only one man; others, with less experience, may think differently. They have a right to their view. I only stand to this: I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I know it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else I started with. I suppose that in the beginning I prized it, because we prize anything that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so. If we look at it in another way, we see how absurd it is: if I had an anvil in me would I prize it? Of course not. And yet when you come to think, there is no real difference between a conscience and an anvil -- I mean for comfort. I have noticed it a thousand times. And you could dissolve an anvil with acids, when you couldn't stand it any longer; but there isn't any way that you can work off a conscience -- at least so it will stay worked off; not that I know of, anyway. An interesting echo--but what does it mean? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
3:16 pm	Michael Crichton = Jules Verne At first glance, Crichton's science fiction might seem more alarmist than Verne's, but we should remember that science in Verne is often a neutral force used for not-the-best purposes. (Remember what Malcom says in Jurassic Park: genetically recreated condors > recreated dinosaurs. So it's not that science is awful, it's that people don't always use it well. It's similar in Verne: that submarine and that flying airship are pretty nice--if only people stopped using them for piracy!) Structurally speaking, both authors tend to stick with contemporary settings with one slightly-advanced new thing that tends to get ejected or contained by the end of the story. Of course, in both cases, neither outright destroyed their wonderful new thing--the dinosaurs still exist, the Nautilus may have survived. Perhaps that might be to allow the possibility of wonder to go on, but it could also be to allow them to revisit those proven money-makers--both Verne and Crichton being (very successful) professional writers. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
10:05 pm	C. S. Lewis approves of waterboarding Okay, maybe he doesn't exactly approve of waterboarding per se; but there's a scene in Out of the Silent Planet where the all-knowing and god-fearing Oyarsa of Malacandra (read: archangel of Mars) orders the satanic Prof. Weston repeatedly dunked in cold water (off-scene), which is close enough for jazz. It's slightly less comedic than the similar scene in The Magician's Nephew where Uncle Andrew is planted and watered like a tree, but it makes clear one of the reasons I never liked C. S. Lewis: His ideal characters tend to be bullies, and he stacks the deck so hard for them that it's hard not to root for the Satanic underdog. He's like Milton (secretly on Satan's side, as Blake said) crossed with a UK football hooligan. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 15th, 2009
2:19 pm	Fail: National Review's list of the 25 Best Conservative Movies FAIL? I think this list of the 25 Best Conservative Movies might even achieve EPIC FAIL levels. If you can't bear to click on the link, here's a quick rundown of what 25 people think the top 25 conservative movies are (in my rundown, I don't bother to mark the names of most of these ersatz critics, thinking it charitable to let them distance themselves from this nonsense): The Lives of Others (2007)--except for noting that it takes place in Communist East Germany, the critic never tries to connect this movie to conservatism, and seems to have forgotten the neocon/Bush connection to surveillance. The Incredibles (2004)--it's all about a society that doesn't appreciate the unique talents of exceptional individuals, says the critic, which makes it conservative--like, remember when that liberal Inquisition burned Giordano Bruno at the stake in 1600 for proposing multiple worlds. Metropolitan (1990)--the film that teaches us, according to the critic, "what is admirable and necessary in the customs and conventions of America's upper class" (emphasis mine)--because its really the upper class that is the bastion of conservatism, and please ignore our previous denigration of the elite New Yorker. Forrest Gump (1994)--no, wait, we take back our pardon of the figure of the elite New Yorker--the real heart of conservatism is dumb Southerners, and look how good that turned out for the country. (To be fair, I can see why this movie is listed as conservative; I only want to point out a) that if you mistake the real world for Hollywood, you'll end up with a president who almost chokes on a pretzel; and b) the incoherency of this list that first celebrates upper-class New Yorkers and then celebrates lower-class southerners. I guess that's not a bug but a feature--a big tent takes all kinds.) 300 (2007)--the critic twice states that the strength of the Spartan is in their commitment to the law, which is of course what the NR has always said about conservatism. FAIL. (Zizek makes a smart observation that a movie about a small army of insurgents fighting off a larger invading army with amazing technology maps better onto Iraqi insurgents and American techno-military power, rather than vice versa.) Groundhog Day (1993)--take it away, Jonah Goldberg: "For the conservative, the moral of the tale is that redemption and meaning are derived not from indulging your 'authentic' instincts and drives, but from striving to live up to external and timeless ideals." Oh, that Groundhog Day--I thought you were talking about the other movie. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)--I didn't see it, so won't comment. Juno (2007)--every time someone has a baby in the movies, a conservative angel gets its wings. (Seriously, Knocked Up is in the honorable mentions for best conservative movie.) Blast from the Past (1999)--apparently, even though mom has a drinking problem and dad is obsessed with an imaginary threat, this is a celebration of the 50s, which is why Brendan Fraser decides that the outside is where he wants to be. FAIL. Ghostbusters (1984)--the villain is from the EPA, and the solution is from the private sector: QED, a conservative movie. Also, the villain is a white male and the heroes are a multi-ethnic group of egghead PhDs, so it must be a liberal movie. The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003)--the know-nothing ease with which this critic directly compares war with Sauron to war with Iraq makes me wonder if he thinks the trees should've been recruited into the coalition of the willing. The Dark Knight (2008)--you've all heard this before: Batman's surveillance is illegal but necessary (except not really), his torture is illegal but necessary (except it's actually detrimental to his program), and he pushes the limits of the law--wait, but I thought conservatives were all about the law? FAIL, but a compelling FAIL because he seems to misunderstand how this movie critiques his positions. Braveheart (1995)--apparently, liberals hate Gibson because of this movie, and not his politics and his occasional alcohol-fueled rant against Jews and homosexuals. (I didn't even know that liberals hate Gibson--I thought we wished he got back to making good movies.) Once again, this is a movie where insurgents fighting for their homeland are held up as heroes. (Also, the fact that this movie won 5 Oscars is mentioned, meaning, what? That the Academy is also conservative?) A Simple Plan (1998)--I don't think Jonah Goldberg's eyes work right, since he doesn't seem able to see the same films as other people; maybe it's a gift. In any case, A Simple Plan is special, he argues, because it shows that morality is always the best, which, of course, is significantly different than every other film that's ever been made. (In Jonah's world, there never was a Hays Code.) Red Dawn (1984)--now, I know you think this is getting into the realm of self-parody on the part of the National Review, but here's the thing: when it comes to the NR's brand of conservatism, there's no such thing as self-parody. Or, in other words, Wolverines! (Also, the conservatives who love this film conveniently forget the subplot involving a very human Russian commander who realizes that war is not the way.) Master and Commander (2003)--I can see this as a conservative movie much easier, since it's a celebration of a certain form of nautical stability founded on custom and semi-tyrannical rule--which, you know, might be cause for a more reflective mind to stop and consider how the ship in the movie differs from a democratic ship of state. But on second thought, Wolverines! The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005)--Again, I can see this as a conservative movie, though hardly a movie to convince people that conservatism is actually the best way to approach real-life problems, though the critic notes that this movie shows that we can't deal with the White Witch through "land-for-peace swaps." Glad to know that that's off the table when we're dealing with fictional characters. Now how do you feel about the Palestinians? The Edge (1997)--money quote: "Some have interpreted the film as a Cold War allegory because it features a menacing bear." FAIL. We Were Soldiers (2002)--didn't see, won't comment. Gattaca (1997)--a film that warns us that we need the ideal of universal human equality to balance our increasing power over ourselves and others--which is a conservative standpoint if you think eugenic fantasies are always liberal-progressive. Heartbreak Ridge (1986)--haven't seen, so I won't comment on the movie; but the review nicely points to how war is compared to sports in the movie, with Grenada being the win after "a tie in Korea and a loss in Vietnam." Brazil (1985)--Before you read this quote, I want to remind you that this is from a conservative journal/website that has wholeheartedly supported Bush: "Terrorist bombings, national-security scares, universal police surveillance, bureaucratic arrogance, a callous elite, perversion of science, and government use of torture evoke the worst aspects of the modern megastate." EPIC Editor FAIL. (Or maybe this is a transcendental success: someone somewhere may realize that the neoconservatives in the Bush administration abandoned a lot of conservative values.) United 93 (2006)--didn't see, won't comment. Team America: World Police (2004)--again, you may think this choice is self-parody ("America, Fuck Yeah"), but apparently this movie was brave enough to tell the truth about the greatest threat to our way of life: liberal celebrities. Gran Torino (2008)--now, whereas Braveheart won Oscars, proving that it was good, this film has been ignored by the Oscars, which proves to the critic that it's a good conservative film. Didn't see, so won't comment--except to say Wolverines!. (23 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
10:19 pm	Sf in the 19th Century, redux Have done more thinking, reading, cutting, planning of my syllabus (now with small presentations planned for the students to do): ( syllabus omnibus after the jump ) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
9:54 pm	In an attempt to get away from politics... Roleplaying! If money, time, and space were not obstacles (how redundant: time & space are one thing, and time=money), what would be your current dream roleplaying game? I don't mean what would be your all-time desert-island top five rpgs. I mean, right now, what do you want to be playing? (I think first of tabletop games, but computer and videogame wishes also welcomed.) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
10:30 pm	The Armpit--"a hugely undertheorized zone"--and Armpit Studies In "Reading Like an Alien," Kelly Hurley notes that the armpit is "a hugely undertheorized zone," a throw-away comment that surely raises the question: what would an adequate theorization of the armpit look like? To that effect, some notes on what Armpit Studies might look like: It's easiest to imagine Armpit Studies following a cultural studies model, meaning that it would concern itself primarily with the cultural articulations surrounding the armpit, from the history of deodorant to the representations of armpits in literature.1 It is, however, possible to imagine a biological component to the field; so, in addition to studying the historical shift in deodorant, one could study the evolutionary shift in the armpit itself, or the shift in the armpit-ecology as different microorganisms colonize or die off. (The biological underpinnings of the armpit would be interesting from a medical-historical standpoint as well, since the glands under the arm have had a number of diagnostic roles to play, as in the buboes of the Black Death.) As Armpit Studies centers a number of disciplines on a particular area, it offers a new avenue into the discussion over the construction (both cultural and biological) of the human body and the subject by an exhaustive study of that area. Why the armpit, when more work has already been done on other parts of the body (cf. Freud on oral/anal stages)? In part, armpit studies is needed because it has been an often ignored area and because of its formative role in the construction of the subject. (Instead of saying "The boy is father to the man," we could say that "The armpit is father to the body." Or, to put it another way, who doesn't remember the first time someone said "you smell"?) Given its wide approach and the prospect of synthesizing a number of disparate disciplines, it would be impossible to say beforehand what the methods or objects of study would be for Armpit Studies; that is, close-reading of texts as well as close-reading of DNA sequences would be useful, as would cultural anthropology's seriation charts and historical econometric's statistics (to figure out when different deodorant technologies came into use and how fast they spread). Now: am I joking? 1 For instance, one could study the armpit-injector/mouth of David Cronenberg's Rabid (1977); though I'm more drawn to comedic references, like Nathanael West's joke in The Dream Life of Balso Snell about Saint Puce, a flea that lived in the armpit of Jesus Christ and who was the first to drink of His blood. Works Cited Kelly Hurley, "Reading Like an Alien" in Posthuman Bodies, Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston, eds. Indiana University Press, 1995. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 31st, 2009
1:32 pm	Should the elderly be allowed to vote? Disenfranchisement is a serious matter, not to mention a serious word, but I was thinking about it this morning in the shower--well, that's actually where I do most of my serious thinking. I thought, if we set a minimum age for voting, how difficult would it be to set a maximum age, and would it be beneficial to do so? (It bears mentioning that the 26th Amendment sets the maximum minimum age for the states--that is, the states cannot set the minimum age higher than 18, but they can go lower. Which raises the question: could a state lower the voting age so as to attract minors (cf. Wyoming and women's suffrage) and what would be the rationale for so doing?) I don't want to disenfranchise the elderly per se, but I was thinking of how it might be possible and possibly beneficial to limit voting rights to those who are aware of their surroundings. Should senile dementia be a disqualification for voting? (Or is it already? As I said, I started this train of thought in the shower, and my shower is not (yet) set up with a wi-fi enabled computer, so I couldn't look it up then.) If senile dementia could be a reason for disenfranchisement, what about other types of dementia, or other types of unawareness about one's surroundings? Can you see where I'm headed with this? You may have heard of John Ziegler, who has a documentary on how the media distorted the facts about Obama. (The evidence is unpersuasive: did you know more people knew about Palin's wardrobe issue, which happened during the election, than knew about Biden's possible plagiarism, which happened in 1987 (and which only happened once, when he didn't cite the original speech, which he had done several times before)? Therefore, ohmygod, the media must be in the tank for Obama, who is really a Kenyan Indonesian Muslim Marxist!) Now, Ziegler is not very persuasive (David Foster Wallace wrote an article on him years ago pointing out the strange mix of ideology and entertainment that makes up the political talk show host), and his explicit argument is that the media didn't do its job in investigating Obama; but he may be right on one issue: people don't always know the truth. Given that people don't always know the truth, and that we can't fix the media to ensure that the truth always gets reported, can we fix voting rights to exclude those who really don't know enough? There is, after all, a test that goes along with acquiring citizenship--should there be a test that goes along with practicing citizenship? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
6:43 pm	Super short review: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, or, Emo Lo-Fi High Fidelity I ended the last post with the idea that Zack and Miri's romantic relationship gets created by porn: Zack first realizes that he and Miri really do love each other when he watches himself and her on film. In a less literal, but perhaps more pervasive way, Nick and Norah's relationship is also mediated--in this case, not by film, but by music and recording technology. That much is clear from the trailers, with Norah falling in love with Nick before she meets him for his mix-cds with the handmade designs. (Those "handmade designs" on the cds are maybe all that sets Nick apart from Rob of High Fidelity, except it doesn't so much mark a character difference as a historical difference--the change from mix-tapes to mix-cds: Rob was a late-punk (second wave, New Wave, No Wave), with a late-punk's celebration of ugliness and blockiness, which matches the mix-tape, which is an ugly thing with very little smooth surface to write on--it's blocky and machinic, not aerodynamic at all, and keeps its secrets on the inside; Nick's aesthetic is the post-punk affectation of ugly, with the high silver chrome of the cd entirely covered in Sharpie-squiggled circles--unlike the tape, the cd is very aerodynamic and doesn't have any secrets, which is the shiny lack that Nick covers up with his OCD markering.) What makes this film more interesting than it might seem at first trailer-glance ("well-off white kids have adventures in the city" might as well be the distillation of everything I hated about DMZ) is that the romance between Nick and Norah isn't love-at-first sight--she may love him for his mix-cds before meeting him, but once she meets him, she realizes that, like Rob before him, he's kind of a jerk--in a Michael Cera way--who needs music to separate himself from and connect himself to people. Which is why it makes a sort of sense that Nick and Norah's love, after all their fighting, is registered in the film as the volume meters on some studio recording equipment going into the red as Norah has an orgasm--which may be a way to get around the censors, but is also a reminder that underneath Nick's handmade squiggles, there's a machine at work here. Recommended or not recommended? Recommended, particularly if you believe that NYC is the best C ever. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 26th, 2009
2:41 pm	Super short review: Zack and Miri Make a Porno, or "no man can be friends with a woman" Seriously, is it so hard to imagine men being friends with women without sex being a problem? I guess I shouldn't expect much more from Kevin Smith, considering how large bromances loom in his movies--Dante and Randal in Clerks, T.S. and Brodie in Mallrats, Bartleby and Loki in Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob in all of those movies and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: in the Kevin Smith world, guys can be friends--guys have to be friends because women can't be. This film has a few bromances in the wings, with the minor characters bonding, but unfortunately the central romance between Zack and Miri remains as vague as the relationships of the minor characters. There might be a few laughs in the film--and it's depressingly easy to imagine the cast of Clerks trying to make ends meet by making porn even after the massive success of that film--but there's not much else. Zack and Miri Make a Porno ultimately can't figure out how its protagonists should get into a relationship, which results in an inability to figure out how to end the movie. Maybe there's something interesting about the fact that sex destroys the relationship between Zack and Miri--until, that is, Zack watches the video of them having sex. That is, the only way to bring these two people together is through the mediation of porn, but the film doesn't seem to understand how weird this is as a solution. Recommended or not recommended? Not recommended (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
6:25 pm	We will now return to our regularly scheduled program... well, not now, but soon I was going to post about how unsatisfying Zack and Miri Make a Porno is; and how Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is infinitely sad; and I was going to describe, (partially) tongue-in-cheek, what the discipline of Armpit Studies would look like, if such a thing existed; and I was going to talk about two modes of stealing from the East, as exemplified by The Matrix movies and Avatar: The Last Airbender; and I was going to say a few things about my hopes for "Muscular Democrats" (on the model of late Victorian muscular Christianity); and I was going to say a few words about what I discovered by re-reading Poe recently and of my experience guest-lecturing a first-year class on Poe. But I'm still adjusting to President Barack Hussein Obama. And I'm really, really trying to avoid checking the right-wing blogs. More to come, after the adjustment. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
12:50 pm	Nathanael West vs. Woody Allen Maybe it's just me, but this bit to me sounds like Woody Allen's writing, especially in the final twist from the mathematical metaphysical to the mundane: "If you desire to have two parallel lines meet at once or even in the near future," he said, "it is important to make all the necessary arrangements beforehand, preferably by wireless."--from Nathanael West, The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931) (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 1st, 2009
1:19 pm	Happy New Year! Happy New Year, everybody! Do you have any plans or resolutions for the new year? (Comment on this)
Friday, December 26th, 2008
1:47 pm	Look on my works, ye Mighty: Graham Cracker Holiday Edition Last time on "Look on my works, ye Mighty," I showed you how I made whatever it was I was making at the time--was it my LED firefly honey jar light? This time I'll show you one of many photos of the finished gingerbread (graham cracker) house my s.o. Sarah and I made this past week for her mother. If you ever lived in Hyde Park, Chicago, you might be able to recognize-- THE ROBIE HOUSE (If not, feel free to look on my works and despair anyway.) (3 Comments |Comment on this)