These Dreams

This all came flashing back to me in the car, when I flipped on a radio station playing, "These Dreams" by Heart:

...so, a long, long time ago, in a faraway place, myself and a friend had a photo kiosk set up in the lobby of a ski resort, where we got $5.00 a head for anyone who might want a polaroid picture of themselves sitting atop a massive life size replica unicorn; and no, not just parents with little kiddies wanted their picture taken; everyone from frat boys to newlyweds to your average drunk on a lark lined up to straddle the mythical beast.  Why am I telling you this?  Because right next to the kiosk was an ice skating rink; and at this ice skating rink they played the worst pop songs of the 80's on a loop, over and over, and over: Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings", Heart's "These Dreams", Jefferson Starship's "Sara", and a few more I think I may have blacked out.  But, imagine if you will, sitting on the same uncomfortable director's chair, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for three months, listening to "These Dreams", while a steady stream of anonymous strangers climb on and off a life size unicorn.  Yep, you're right: you never see the world the same way again.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Anyone familiar with Plato’s Analogy of the Cave will find themselves looking for a way to connect it to Werner Herzog’s compelling new documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  The only connection I could find (based on a single viewing) is a somewhat inverted one: all art is science fiction; all art is intended to be consumed and interpreted in the future; to enlighten in retrospect; to change upon reflection; and returning to the cave, we find the cave-dwellers are casting the shadows for us, the "enlightened" ones.

Midnight in Paris

My stream of consciousness review (with spell check) of Midnight in Paris:

Midnight in Manhattan, er, rather, Midnight in Paris:

“Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion. Eh uh, no, make that he, he romanticized it all out of proportion.”

Chapter Two. He adored Paris...

Midnight in Paris isn't a “sequel” to Manhattan. More like a prequel. The story of a young, romantic writer who is fighting desperately not to sell out; a young writer who is about to marry a beautiful woman, who's smart, ambitious, opinionated, adoring...

But, forces are conspiring to bitterly blight his nostalgic, sentimental view of the writer's life, true love, and The City of Light.

From the opening shots (a breath-taking 2-3 minute tour of Paris from morning to night); a bright, gloriously color photographed cityscape; hardcore Woody Allen fans (they exist!) are transported back to Manhattan, 1979, to a long ago black and white tour of New York City; Gershwin music, whip-smart dialogue, unabashed liberal politics; an appreciation of the finer things in life; like “Sentimental Education by Flaubert... um... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's... Tracy's face...”

While, our current hero, Gil (Owen Wilson) dreams of a Paris where Hemingway and Gertrude Stein rub elbows with Picasso and Dali; where art and artists are revered and beloved; love and beauty abound; Issac Davis (Woody Allen) teetered between hopeless romantic and hypocritical cynic (its a thin line), Gil is still firmly in the grasp of romance. And the audience is all the better for it. Because, while the best Woody Allen films fall into the cynical/realist category (Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Husbands and Wives), when Mr. Allen scores with a sentimental romance, he scores big (he literally invented the modern romantic comedy, for good or ill, with Annie Hall).

Midnight in Paris is so gorgeous to look at, and Owen Wilson is so easy to love, it makes Mr. Allen's keen-as-ever one-liners melt on contact; not to mention his most moving character insight since the wonderful Duck Soup-life-is-worth-living revelation in Hannah and Her Sisters. Of course, for fans, to watch one Woody Allen film is to concurrently watch them all; and to see Gil come to grips with lost love in a bygone era is to once again hear Tracy's advice to a demoralized Issac in Manhattan:

“Not everybody gets corrupted. You have to have a little faith in people.”

Postscript:
Woody Allen's film and public persona had for years been synonymous with New York; jokes abounded about his desire to never leave the island of Manhattan; and its a testament to the power of change, personally and creatively, that Mr. Allen's best films in recent years have been set abroad: Match Point (2005), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and now Midnight in Paris (2011).  Maybe he should consider the possibility of further expansion: Woody Allen goes to Japan; Woody Allen in the Middle East; Woody Allen in Russia (not counting his first trip to Russia, in his comic masterpiece, Love and Death).

Reading Bukowski

Reading Bukowski
makes me think,
about him, like him;
drink like him, too.

I hear the deaf composer
ringing in my ears,
as I stumble through the darkness,
wondering why I’m here,
why I write.

I am in the toilet,
full, bladder and mind;
a single hair falls,
past the golden stream,
resting on the porcelain banks
of the river piss.
I sway slightly left
and then to the right,
staring into the abyss,
mesmerized by the sight:
a jet-black pube
clinging to the white
in the shape of a question mark: ?

Shock Corridor

Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor

"Whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad." -Euripides, 425 B.C.; quotes Sam Fuller in his opening and closing of Shock Corridor; a sentiment that surely could have been the mantra of Fuller's predecessors, Conrad and Hemingway; leading men, equal parts brave and naive, into the darkest corners, in search of something, material and/or spiritual; only to be irreparably damaged.

"The story will write itself", says Johnny (Peter Breck), a writer who enters an insane asylum to uncover the identity of a murderer; a story he is convinced will win him the Pulitzer Prize.  Johnny's stripper girlfriend, Cathy (Constance Towers), expresses grave concerns early on as to whether its safe for Johnny to pose as an insane person.  Does she know something we don't know about Johnny?  Or is she just a bit more aware of how a vulnerable soul can be corrupted?

After the initial introduction of cartoon caricatures bouncing off rubber walls, Fuller fleshes out some of the crazies, and Cathy's concerns prove prescient. Rosco P. Coltrane, or Stuart (James Best) is one of several witnesses Johnny gets close to in order to solve the murder mystery, comforting Johnny after he is sexually assaulted by the most rabid group of nymphos this side of Sex and the City.

As only a filmmaker with limited resources can, Mr. Fuller brilliantly uses color stock footage to tell the witnesses' back stories (Fuller also makes each witness a symbol of social and political strife).  But, of course, the lucidity of the witnesses will be Johnny's biggest challenge, as each time he is within a breath of hearing the killer's name, the lunacy returns to consume them.

Fuller compounds the tension, when he places his hero in the most frightening of scenarios: shock therapy; which will lead to a great climax; including a stunning set piece wherein Johnny's state of mind is symbolized by a tumultuous rain storm within the halls of the asylum.  The shot is amazing, partly because it is simply beautiful filmmaking, and partly because it is jarringly unexpected in a low-budget "B-movie".

Will Johnny be able to solve the mystery before going crazy himself?  It's quite a compelling drama.  The story writes itself.

Changing

If everything that has happened, to you and around you; if everything you have done and said makes you who you are: an incomplete, baroque, rather raggedy human being; like an uneven novel or movie: if you could go back, what would you edit or revise?

If you could go back in time and change one thing; one event; one happening; What would it be?  Something you did?  Something that happened to you?  Or something that happened outside your peripheral life?

Would you change the course of human history, or personal history?


By the way, these are purely rhetorical questions, for my own edification.  I beg you not to divulge any personal information.  I really don't care.  Christ, I'm not Oprah.  Though, Oprah may be Christ.

Favorite Films of the 80's

Bret Easton Ellis, or Patrick Bateman, I'm not sure which, Tweeted that he believes Something Wild and Blue Velvet to be the two key films of the 1980's.  As I've said before, Something Wild tops my list as well; and it got me to thinking abot my other favorites.


These films aren't necessary the best films of the 80's (though a couple arguably are); these are the films I think best represent the essence: the look, the feel, of the decade.  And more importantly (to me anyway), these are my favorite films of the 80's:


Something Wild
Repo Man
Valley Girl
The Decline of Western Civilization
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
After Hours
Roger and Me
Do the Right Thing
Blue Velvet
Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The Tin Man v. Scarecrow

Why did The Tin Man want a heart? Its nothing but a pain in the ass! Crying and rusting up his armor. The Scarecrow had it right. A brain! The brain expands and grows forever; a limitless cup to fill. The Heart is a broken record. It feels good; it hurts; it feels good; it hurts...

R.E.M., Woody Allen, and The Coen Bros. Collapse Into Now

After my first listen to R.E.M.'s new album Collapse Into Now, I thought, oh well, another uneven effort; a disappointment after their excellent previous release, Accelerate. And I thought, R.E.M. may be the Woody Allen of modern rock; artists who at one time could do no wrong; but lately, oscillate between mediocre and good.

I listened to R.E.M.'s Collapse Into Now several times during my drive to Florida and back; and it just got better and better with each listening. At first, the songs are so obscure and confounding, with flashes of grandeur, the album just seemed frustrating. But, once the beauty and complexity soaked in, I remembered, this is exactly the kind of stuff that made me so fanatical about them 25+ years ago.

Collapse Into Now is a great, frustrating, indefinable, complex, lovely album; on par with some of R.E.M.'s best efforts, like Out of Time and Murmur. And I thought, maybe R.E.M. is not Woody Allen, but, The Coen Bros.; after watching a Coen Bros. movie, sometimes you sit there and think, I love all their movies, but, what the hell was that? Until several viewings later, you realize, you just saw a masterpiece.

Money

I never liked "Money" by Pink Floyd.  Until, Christmas 1985.  I had just finished a two-month job working for a friend, when he asked me to drive his Corvette from Nashville to Knoxville.  My friend had just paid me a large amount of money; jammed in my jean pockets, two big wads, bulked heavier by a lot of one dollar bills. Having never driven a Corvette, or any car that cost more than a thousand dollars, I was too petrified to take my eyes off the road or my hands off the wheel, even to turn the station when a song I didn't like came on.  So, I listened to "Money" for the first time from beginning to end; and speeding through traffic at close to 90, I remember thinking, "Money" is actually a pretty deep song.  

A Modest Acknowledgement

I was honored and thrilled to receive a nice comment yesterday by award winning writer Christopher Dickey, son of the late, great poet James Dickey.  Though it may seem silly to boast about a modest acknowledgment, for a writer who receives little compensation, financially or otherwise, the simplest praise from a writer of such stature feels very nice indeed (also, it's pretty cool, Mr. Dickey shares some personal reflections on the piece).

Here is the article on James Dickey's poem, Adultery:

http://www.suite101.com/content/adultery-by-james-dickey-a110136

And here is Christopher Dickey's website:

http://christopherdickey.com/