And Joy To All

I hesitate to write this blog. From the beginning of my blogging career I have probably come close to writing this post at the holidays. Most of the times I decide not to for fear of being called that class warrior, humbug. Well, sticks and stones...

I read this article this morning: nytimes

Nothing new here. We should always remember those less fortunate at the holidays, but this sentiment runs abound, and what has it accomplished. People always pay homage to "those less fortunate" at their dinner table prayer around their bouquet of turkey and trimmings.

Not that I can speak for the "less fortunate" demographic, but I am sure they appreciate the thought, and bookending that appreciation is the excalamation: what in the hell are we going to do about it?

Not so simple. Will the masses rise together? Will we re-distribute? Probably not.

Capitalism, by its very nature, institues an underclass. So, accepting this premise could we not elect officials who act as a healthy check and/or balance. I mean the American system already spots the system one point maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to elect someone from the underdogs.

Here comes my Edwards plug (John, you can send my check to Petoskey). John Edwards made a statement at one of his stump speeches in Iowa that his two opponents are both preaching bipartisan cooperation with big business and special interests (primarily in the arena of healthcare reform). He rhetorical quips, "Do you think the pharmaceutical companies are going to give away their money, their profits?" Edwards straps on his Spartan armor and proclaims that the power will not be handed over but that the working class must unite and fight the special interests. That they must band together and violently (not literal, I don't think) and quickly take control....

Generic Authoritative Voice: Mr. Edwards, have you yourself ever been or have you been associated with anyone who is a memener of the communist party?

Okay, so I am suprised John hasn't cought more flack for this, but you know what I applaud him. I mean I am no idiot, I realize that he is a filthy rich trial lawyer, he pays whatever it was for a haircut, but at least he is using his privileged voice to give support and inspiration to those who need it most.

Hopefully, John Edwards has scored the first point of more to come in the ultimate comeback against Team Institution.

Old Joy

It has been some time since I have seen a film so unassumingly poignant.

Old Joy is an exceedingly simple tale of old friends Will and Kurt who reunite to go on a hiking trip into the woods. Will is a soon to be father; Kurt is a...well as far as I can tell Kurt is a free spirit. And, honestly, this two sentence synopsis is the extent of both the narrative and character development of Old Joy. Interested yet?

The power of this film is not in the story that it tells. The power of this film is not in the characters it portrays. The power of this film is actually, come to think of it, not even within the film itself. It is in the familiarity of every moment that occurs between and around Will and Kurt; and, this familiarity originates within the viewer.

With a melancholy pace and a detailed perception of environment the feel of the movie is akin to the feeling of coming home. If you now live somewhere away from your hometown you may know this feeling. As soon as you hit that strecth of interstate where the median and the side roads begin to look recognizable you know you are getting close. The town where you were young is, just like you, older and it, too, has changed. Store fronts have evolved, your friend doesn't live out behind the elementary school anymore, the old man leaning on his cane doesn't stand out in front of the BP. You notice things that were very possibly present when you were a kid that you never noticed then. It almost hurts. This place holds a fond place in your memories; it is a joyful memory. But, its not exactly right anymore, not exactly the same, it's changed. It's an old joy.

Will and Kurt are confronting this phenomenon of a rapidly diappaearing past. Kurt and Will don't seem to connect the way they once did. Kurt even remarks in a hash-induced rant that things have changed between them. Will assures him they are fine. And, they are both right. Yes, things have changed, time does that to people. Friends and family change in your absence, ideals and dreams come and go and morph. The things about your best friend growing up that made him your best friend may wax or wane. But, the thing is, you and your friends and your family are still fine. This is what Kurt and Will find out. They don't have has much to talk about, they both have changed, they both have lives of their own, but they both will always have that old joy to revisit.

Highway Robbery

Yesterday, I was in Symon's General Store, here in Petoskey, MI. I was buying a cup of coffee. There was a man in front of me, he was buying a bag of candy. Assorted candies, to be specific. From behind the cash register the clerk yelled to the back asking how much to charge for the candy. (He worked in the wine cellar, the general store was not his usual gig). From the office a voice returned, "Ten dollars a pound." The man, toting the candies, thusly responded, "Highway robbery!" Then, he dutifully handed over the green.

Admittedly, ten dollars a pound is a bit steep. But, why waste your breath and pollute my soundscape with this incessant noise.

Even in Ferguson, NC, the heart of hillbilly North Carolina, I heard the infamous highway robbery decree. My mother used to own a little country store, a gas and grocery out in Ferguson. Some called it, affectionately, Kim's Shit 'N Git. The store has man yregular patrons. One of these patrons was the bent and graying Bob Eller. Every single day Bob Eller would come in around 2:00 in the afternoon and get a tin of Vienna Sausages for lunch, with a complimentary pack of saltines.. And, every single day Bob Eller would claim that we were comitting highway robbery when we told him that they were $3.95. He would then proceed to tell us how he could buy the very same can of Vienna Sausages in town at Food Lion for $1.95.

Then, one day Terry, a man hired by my mom to run the store from time to time, who was very well acquainted with the land up there, as well as subtle intricacies of conversing with its inhabitants, responded to Mr. Eller. I guess the daily protests from Bob had suddenly become too much for Terry to handle. As soon as the last syllable of "robbery" left Bob Eller's lips Terry responded, "Bob, why in the hell don't you go to Food Lion and get your god damned wieners!" Bob never questioned our pricing from that day on.

In order to save the employees of Symon's the same daily onslaught I came very close to telling the candy shopper the same thing. Alas, it would not have gone over quite as well. There are no Food Lions in Michigan.

All I Want For Christmas

Not often have I been this excited for a movie. But, this Christmas I am hoping that Santa will get me a ticket to see Todd Haynes' new film I'm Not There. (P.S. Santa, I also would appreciate a stocking stuffer ticket to see The Golden Compass, thanks).

I'm not a Dylan fanatic. I am a visionary fanatic. Dylan was a visionary, disregarding formulae and covention and using his art to inspire, provoke, and define an era. Simultaneously, the clips I have seen of Haynes' film also suggest an artistic vision well-developed and pulsing with juiciness. In the film a series of vignettes (I am not sure it is vignette style, but it is separate stories from non-synchronized moments in Dylans life) take us through moments in the life of Dylan, many of the moments are exaggerations, embellishments, fantasy, and some are indeed fact. Four different actors play Dylan throughout the movie, one being Cate Blanchette. Needless to say it promises to be some variation to the cinematic landscape.

Please watch the trailer.

Man Push Cart (2006)

In Greek mythology Sysyphus was a king who was punished by the gods; his punishment was to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll down again, then repeat, for eternity. This legend was the inspiration for Ramin Bahrani who wrote/produced/directed the film Man Push Cart. This film, shot over the span of three weeks, is a neo-realist romp through the days of a working class New Yorker who spends most of his working day before most city-dwellers greet the day with
their doubleFrappucino.

The story is of a Pakistani man who once knew fame as a musician in Pakistan. After choosing the woman he loved over his career he moved to New York City and made a living with a push cart, selling tea, coffee, and bagels. We join Ahmed (the
aforementioned protagonist) a few years after his immigration. His wife has died and her embittered family does not allow him to see his son. It should be noted that these bits ofback story are conveyed in almost a minute of screen time. Drama and narrative are relinquished to small cameos in this film.

Most scenes are of Ahmed lugging his cart through the city streets and doing
what he has to do to make a living. A possible love interest rears its ugly head but tragically it can not be because for this working man getting by and trying to make a living so he can one day have his son is a full time job.

It is ironic that an ancient myth was the inspiration for this type of film which I would claim is a signpost toward new cinema. Innovation in movies will not come fromCGI and it will not come from new ways to blow shit up. It will come from movies
that do not rely on narrative to pull their audience through a film. Man Push Cart uses its minimalist aesthetic to simply hint at an emotion. Eventually,from frame to frame, the hints register in the mind of the viewer. They begin to create their own narratives and perspectives. Watching this movie makes you remember the people you
once bought coffee from, the person who sweeps the sidewalks you walk,the man who picks up the trash you throw out.

Of course this is only my opinion, but the true art of film resides in the hazy arena
where meaning is revolving and evolving. This is not the perfect example of what I am referring to as new cinema (the best of which are coming out of Iran and Taiwan). But, regardless of any pretentious claims I may make as to a hierarchy of movies, Man Push Cart is a solid film and something different that has meandered unnoticed through the city streets of commercial film.

For You To Read. By Way of My Father (who was not Einstein, but rather just sent this essay to me via email)

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...."

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible."

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."

"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling."

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

Albert Einstein

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