Monday, December 31, 2007
Barack Obama, New Jersey, Bill Kristol and a Lemonade Cleanse: New Year's Revolutions
My gut feeling is that 2008 is going to be a great year for everybody. 2007 was, heretofore, the absolute zenith, but I gained a lot of weight. As a 167.8-lb. walrus, my vast gut now possesses the predictive powers of ten tweens' fingers on an Ouija planchette. So my prediction is that Dakota is totally a retard, and 2008 is going to be a great year for everybody.
If the Iowa caucuses sustain their ridiculous, inegalitarian and anticlimactic role as kingmaker (fully ten months before the actual election), President Obama will be there at some point next year signing single-payer health care into law. I don't care that he has sort of flirted with a universal health care system that incorporates existing HMOs and Big Pharma or that his insipid and anti-intellectual bromides that constitute his message of hope and change make use of right-wing talking points to distance himself from actual progressive grassroots. What I care about is that one of the whitest, most rural states just picked an urban African American senator as the recipient of its delegates and disproportionate media largesse--over Hillary. That's a sign of progress: that a wealthy, educated biracial man can shunt a borderline-elderly, wealthy, educated woman of privilege into third place.
Universal health care will of course mean that thousands of creative young people dependent on their menial day jobs for the health insurance they provide will soon be able to ditch them and go freelance without fear that a staph infection or a broken arm can decimate their financial futures. It would be naive to say that will translate into some golden age of artistic production. But it will certainly reshape the job market in favor of people who can barely tolerate working in an office.
As far as Mike Huckabee goes, I'm delighted to see Mitt Romney's attempt at purchasing victory thwarted and look forward to the ensuing civil war within the Republican party as the evangelicals who now expect to course to victory try to wrest control from the corporate-types who always regarded them as useful idiots. Take that, Mitt, with your stupid fucking rich-boy name and your gross Paulie Walnuts temples and your asinine and grossly unhistorical contention that freedom requires religion.
Huckabee is not the only conservative on the rise. Bill Kristol, who might be the shittiest of all television gasbag pundits (read Glenn Greenwald for a list of malevolent and foolish statements) has now been hired as an Op-Ed columnist by the New York Times. So now we can enjoy our terminally liberal media with a nice injection of fear-mongering and imperialism from a man who thought the Iraqi occupation would take a few weeks. He also looks like Rutger Hauer.
I don't think you can tell the difference. Bill Kristol is a neocon replicant hitchhiker, but without a bird of prey.
Subject change. When did New Jersey become one of the most progressive states in the country? California may be trying to address climate change by suing the EPA over its ridiculous refusal to permit higher auto emissions standards in the nation's largest car market--to which New Jersey and even New York State and our colossal disappointment governor have signed on--but New Jersey has made the gay equal, abolished the death penalty (first state to do so since its 1976 reinstitution), and now might allot its electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. Plus the Democrats now have a good chance at picking up one or two seats there--maybe three. Honestly, it's becoming a model state. UPDATE: New Jersey has now formally apologizedfor slavery.
***
While I want to count among my New Year's Revolutions the desire to double Guantanamo, triple the murder rate (to halve the rent!) and quadruple my carbon footprint, the conclusion is: Sadly, No.
I would like to publish my novel (through a literary agent), learn enough graphics skills to make a living off of it someday, blog more frequently, be a better dog owner by taking Dudley to McCarren Park more, bike to work whenever possible, watch 200 films and read 50 books, eat at a great restaurant at least once a month, take yoga classes, wax my excess body hair and continue my pursuit of reaching all fifty states by age thirty (only two years and two months to get to the remaining eighteen).
In order to achieve the energy level necessary to accomplish these things, I’m going on the lemonade cleanse with Elliott. For two weeks. This entails laxative tea at night, followed by a gruesome saltwater flush each morning (two tbsp. uniodized sea salt in a quart of water, which cannot be absorbed by the blood or the kidneys, so instead of pissing it out you shit it out). Then, six to twelve times a day, you mix half a lemon with a tablespoon of Grade B organic maple syrup, a dash of cayenne pepper and 10oz warm water.
Today was day one. It’s 4:00 and I’ve had four glasses of lemonade and untold quantities of water. The salt water gave me incredible diarrhea, somewhat akin to Angel Falls during the rainy season. It reverberated throughout the ACLU like an audio beacon of terrorist-coddling. Yesterday I ate only fruit and the day before that fruit and salad, and I won’t be eating any actual food until January 19, because you need to drink orange juice only for a day as a sort of cool-down, followed by vegetable soup and probiotics.
So as of the afternoon of day one, I’m pretty hungry and can’t really concentrate on anything. On Fridays at work we have “brown bag,” where everyone eats together in the library and NYCLU pays for some cookies, crackers, brie and pretzels. Even though it was unbearable to be around people eating fragrant things like Indian food on top of the delicious junk, I used it as an occasion to self-righteously boast about my new crusade to shed my 2007 muffin top to what I assumed would be sympathetic co-workers, in order to generate possible social pressure to hold me accountable. A couple of people agreed in principle and one person has actually done it (for four days) but there were some stares. Well, fuck you too, I’m going to be svelter than thou! I'm going to be a big old head with a stick for a body! Zero weight for '08!
If the Iowa caucuses sustain their ridiculous, inegalitarian and anticlimactic role as kingmaker (fully ten months before the actual election), President Obama will be there at some point next year signing single-payer health care into law. I don't care that he has sort of flirted with a universal health care system that incorporates existing HMOs and Big Pharma or that his insipid and anti-intellectual bromides that constitute his message of hope and change make use of right-wing talking points to distance himself from actual progressive grassroots. What I care about is that one of the whitest, most rural states just picked an urban African American senator as the recipient of its delegates and disproportionate media largesse--over Hillary. That's a sign of progress: that a wealthy, educated biracial man can shunt a borderline-elderly, wealthy, educated woman of privilege into third place.
Universal health care will of course mean that thousands of creative young people dependent on their menial day jobs for the health insurance they provide will soon be able to ditch them and go freelance without fear that a staph infection or a broken arm can decimate their financial futures. It would be naive to say that will translate into some golden age of artistic production. But it will certainly reshape the job market in favor of people who can barely tolerate working in an office.
As far as Mike Huckabee goes, I'm delighted to see Mitt Romney's attempt at purchasing victory thwarted and look forward to the ensuing civil war within the Republican party as the evangelicals who now expect to course to victory try to wrest control from the corporate-types who always regarded them as useful idiots. Take that, Mitt, with your stupid fucking rich-boy name and your gross Paulie Walnuts temples and your asinine and grossly unhistorical contention that freedom requires religion.
Huckabee is not the only conservative on the rise. Bill Kristol, who might be the shittiest of all television gasbag pundits (read Glenn Greenwald for a list of malevolent and foolish statements) has now been hired as an Op-Ed columnist by the New York Times. So now we can enjoy our terminally liberal media with a nice injection of fear-mongering and imperialism from a man who thought the Iraqi occupation would take a few weeks. He also looks like Rutger Hauer.
I don't think you can tell the difference. Bill Kristol is a neocon replicant hitchhiker, but without a bird of prey.
Subject change. When did New Jersey become one of the most progressive states in the country? California may be trying to address climate change by suing the EPA over its ridiculous refusal to permit higher auto emissions standards in the nation's largest car market--to which New Jersey and even New York State and our colossal disappointment governor have signed on--but New Jersey has made the gay equal, abolished the death penalty (first state to do so since its 1976 reinstitution), and now might allot its electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. Plus the Democrats now have a good chance at picking up one or two seats there--maybe three. Honestly, it's becoming a model state. UPDATE: New Jersey has now formally apologizedfor slavery.
***
While I want to count among my New Year's Revolutions the desire to double Guantanamo, triple the murder rate (to halve the rent!) and quadruple my carbon footprint, the conclusion is: Sadly, No.
I would like to publish my novel (through a literary agent), learn enough graphics skills to make a living off of it someday, blog more frequently, be a better dog owner by taking Dudley to McCarren Park more, bike to work whenever possible, watch 200 films and read 50 books, eat at a great restaurant at least once a month, take yoga classes, wax my excess body hair and continue my pursuit of reaching all fifty states by age thirty (only two years and two months to get to the remaining eighteen).
In order to achieve the energy level necessary to accomplish these things, I’m going on the lemonade cleanse with Elliott. For two weeks. This entails laxative tea at night, followed by a gruesome saltwater flush each morning (two tbsp. uniodized sea salt in a quart of water, which cannot be absorbed by the blood or the kidneys, so instead of pissing it out you shit it out). Then, six to twelve times a day, you mix half a lemon with a tablespoon of Grade B organic maple syrup, a dash of cayenne pepper and 10oz warm water.
Today was day one. It’s 4:00 and I’ve had four glasses of lemonade and untold quantities of water. The salt water gave me incredible diarrhea, somewhat akin to Angel Falls during the rainy season. It reverberated throughout the ACLU like an audio beacon of terrorist-coddling. Yesterday I ate only fruit and the day before that fruit and salad, and I won’t be eating any actual food until January 19, because you need to drink orange juice only for a day as a sort of cool-down, followed by vegetable soup and probiotics.
So as of the afternoon of day one, I’m pretty hungry and can’t really concentrate on anything. On Fridays at work we have “brown bag,” where everyone eats together in the library and NYCLU pays for some cookies, crackers, brie and pretzels. Even though it was unbearable to be around people eating fragrant things like Indian food on top of the delicious junk, I used it as an occasion to self-righteously boast about my new crusade to shed my 2007 muffin top to what I assumed would be sympathetic co-workers, in order to generate possible social pressure to hold me accountable. A couple of people agreed in principle and one person has actually done it (for four days) but there were some stares. Well, fuck you too, I’m going to be svelter than thou! I'm going to be a big old head with a stick for a body! Zero weight for '08!
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Francis Ford Crappola
Elliott and I saw the newest Coppola film, Youth Without Youth at the Paris Theatre this week, and before getting into I'm going to lavish considerable time and attention to the accoutrements of the theater-going experience. First, it's a sincere pleasure to sit in a theater with only one screen, even if you have to go to 58th Street to do it. (Seriously, it was dark and snowing up there and they have an FAO Schwartz; that's how far north it is). Some budding soft-drink company called Tava was giving their shit away for free. Rich or poor: everyone loves free. I hadn't eaten dinner and reconciled myself to getting reamed up the ass for popcorn that makes your lips burn, but downstairs in the concession they were handing out free bags of popcorn plus gourmet cupcakes. When something has dulce de leche all over it, I'm going to take two, even if the item in question is a vagina dentata. But gourmet cupcakes will do.
Even though I can't fit into my pants anymore, I totally had popcorn, soda and three halves of three cupcakes for dinner.
Now the part about the movie. Coppola came out, age sixty-eight, to plug his latest film with a disarming level of earnestness. It's the first since The Rainmaker, which came out in 1997. While disputing his introducer's claim that his production company, Zoetrope, was "on hiatus," he ticked off a list of things his daughter Sofia was doing as proof that his own creativity hadn't sputtered out completely. Kudos, nepotist.
After plugging his wine label, he wryly referred to his desire to be a "young, independent filmmaker" before popping a Cialis with the Weinstein brothers. Then it was time for the worst film I've seen in the theaters so far in 2007. In short, it's the story of a scholar (Tim Roth) who at the age of eighty is struck by lightning and heals into his forty-year old self, with time to complete his magnum opus on the origins of language. His accrues supernatural powers and falls in love with a woman who's the exact double of his first love, and they travel the world together as she falls victim to various trances and altered states, speaking in tongues and brushing ever closer to the primeval language of man.
As an screenplay adapted from Mircea Eliade's story of the same name (a Jorge Luis Borges copycat), it was essentially dead in the water from the get-go. Imagine trying to remain faithful to the story about the king who commands his cartographers to draw increasingly detailed maps of his domain until they eventually create one that's exactly its size. To that, add a horrifically bland performance by Tim Roth with assistance from a bevy of high-pitched Eastern European doctors and academics who are seemingly motivated by pure beneficence.
This is not a whimsical film. Its flirtation with magical realism adheres strictly to its conventions as a plot device, without any interesting explorations of the themes that would, you might think, leap to mind immediately once you'd heard a one-line synopsis. The way in which Roth's "girlfriend" ages while he remains eternally youthful isn't boring because it's a common cliche; it's boring because it's like Dorian Gray with the decadence drained away. It doesn't even make sense. You never really see any hint of what Roth is working on, nor does the film clue you into why it matters. He's merely focused. There is an undeveloped allegorical theme of Romania through the middle third of the twentieth century, and the unrealized promises of all its abortive governments, but no amount of newspaper front page montages can sustain such scattershot connections.
While many of the individual shots are beautifully composed (including the titles), the film is painful. It's essentially one large, ponderous, slow-moving fiasco. It's like a demigod orchestrated the collision of two galaxies over the course of an eon and expected us to be enthralled as stars missed each other by light-years and only a few stray asteroids banged together. Coppola wants to be a young filmmaker, but the ability to conjure up a budget that must have lurched into the tens of millions doesn't come from small-scale viticulture. He's an old man who tapped decades worth of favors to disgorge this shitty meditation on recuperated youth, and like Roth's hidden monograph, it's irrelevant.
Even though I can't fit into my pants anymore, I totally had popcorn, soda and three halves of three cupcakes for dinner.
Now the part about the movie. Coppola came out, age sixty-eight, to plug his latest film with a disarming level of earnestness. It's the first since The Rainmaker, which came out in 1997. While disputing his introducer's claim that his production company, Zoetrope, was "on hiatus," he ticked off a list of things his daughter Sofia was doing as proof that his own creativity hadn't sputtered out completely. Kudos, nepotist.
After plugging his wine label, he wryly referred to his desire to be a "young, independent filmmaker" before popping a Cialis with the Weinstein brothers. Then it was time for the worst film I've seen in the theaters so far in 2007. In short, it's the story of a scholar (Tim Roth) who at the age of eighty is struck by lightning and heals into his forty-year old self, with time to complete his magnum opus on the origins of language. His accrues supernatural powers and falls in love with a woman who's the exact double of his first love, and they travel the world together as she falls victim to various trances and altered states, speaking in tongues and brushing ever closer to the primeval language of man.
As an screenplay adapted from Mircea Eliade's story of the same name (a Jorge Luis Borges copycat), it was essentially dead in the water from the get-go. Imagine trying to remain faithful to the story about the king who commands his cartographers to draw increasingly detailed maps of his domain until they eventually create one that's exactly its size. To that, add a horrifically bland performance by Tim Roth with assistance from a bevy of high-pitched Eastern European doctors and academics who are seemingly motivated by pure beneficence.
This is not a whimsical film. Its flirtation with magical realism adheres strictly to its conventions as a plot device, without any interesting explorations of the themes that would, you might think, leap to mind immediately once you'd heard a one-line synopsis. The way in which Roth's "girlfriend" ages while he remains eternally youthful isn't boring because it's a common cliche; it's boring because it's like Dorian Gray with the decadence drained away. It doesn't even make sense. You never really see any hint of what Roth is working on, nor does the film clue you into why it matters. He's merely focused. There is an undeveloped allegorical theme of Romania through the middle third of the twentieth century, and the unrealized promises of all its abortive governments, but no amount of newspaper front page montages can sustain such scattershot connections.
While many of the individual shots are beautifully composed (including the titles), the film is painful. It's essentially one large, ponderous, slow-moving fiasco. It's like a demigod orchestrated the collision of two galaxies over the course of an eon and expected us to be enthralled as stars missed each other by light-years and only a few stray asteroids banged together. Coppola wants to be a young filmmaker, but the ability to conjure up a budget that must have lurched into the tens of millions doesn't come from small-scale viticulture. He's an old man who tapped decades worth of favors to disgorge this shitty meditation on recuperated youth, and like Roth's hidden monograph, it's irrelevant.
