Welcome, dear readers, to another instalment of 'Stuff wha' I 'ave watched 'n' wha' I faw abaiiii'. And for once - possibly just this once - I'm reviewing something that is actually up-to-date and still in cinemas. Thus, bravely taking the risk of being remotely relevant, let us take a look at Christopher Nolan's trilogy-ending blockbuster, The Dark Knight Rises.
Honestly, I hate to not be more glowing. I wish I could love seven colourful shades of living jelly out of this movie, but it's one of those films that comes with so many niggles as to mar the overall satisfaction of its viewing. I left the cinema in that awkward place between being completely pumped and massively deflated. Spoilers follow, so, you know: SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! Understood? Good.
My main criticisms lie pretty heavily with the final act of the film, particularly the last few shots. But let's begin a little earlier. Let's begin with Batman Begins. I'll say it straight out - honest opinion - this one was the best. As a film, as a superhero movie, as a Batman movie, and as the first in a trilogy, it was and remains extraordinary. What BB did so well was not only tell the origin story of its central hero, but it justified that origin in a context that should have made it unjustifiable. In a gritty, realistic world, an orphan does not seek to avenge his parents by donning high-tech, animal-themed costume clothes and swooping about the city at night. Other incarnations of the caped crusader either sidestep this problem completely or establish the context of their stories in goofy/stylised/comic book ways to allow for this. BB triumphed because it remembered that behind the mask is a man, and a man needs a good reason to take up that mask. Though it played out in what essentially comes down to an hour long training montage, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne actually developed into the role. There were ideas that formed a framework from which The Dark Knight could justifiably rise.
This, I'm afraid, falls apart in TDKR. When Bale dons the cape and cowl in this third instalment, he looks ridiculous. He looks like a man dressed up as a bat, not The Batman. So what changed? For me it comes down to a conflict between spectacle and story. The hints were there from the final act of BB, and it was the major problem of the middle sister of Nolan's trilogy, The Dark Knight. Though it was held together by some terrific ideas, TDK was a string of impressive set-pieces with visible seams. The desire for bigger, more-intense scenes led to clumsier, more-obvious plotholes. Excellent acting spurred the whole thing forward, but could not completely cover the fact that the creators seemed to have forgotten that they were telling a story. By the time we reach TDKR, the justification for Wayne's getup is lost through the lens of "Wow! That jump over thirty police cars was cool, wasn't it?!".
I do not mean to dismiss the action part of the action movie so completely. The chase and combat scenes were exciting and visually stunning. But the best action films make the action part of the story. TDKR failed to keep the story and spectacle aligned. It's a shame, because they tried so very hard. Some might complain that it takes most of the first act for Bale to get back in the suit in the first place. I wish I could defend this, saying that the time was used to re-establish the framework of ideas, as well as the new conflicts, that lead up to (and make significant) Batman's return. But I can't. Michael Caine does his best to lend these early scenes substance, but I didn't feel anything of the same impression, the true spectacle, of seeing Bale take up the suit that I did in BB. The ideas were gone, and so too, therefore, was the seriousness with which I could take the guy in the pointy black ears and heavy eye makeup, speaking like he's been massaging his throat with sandpaper.
It's odd, because every other character, even at their most dressed up, was substantially more 'real'. I loved Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, who (ignoring the inexplicably high-tech goggles that did what exactly?) owned both the character and her catsuit admirably. Tom Hardy's Bane was a commanding villain (though there are problems I will address shortly), Gary Oldman continued to be a wonderfully complex if under-used Gordon, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cottilard both made compelling efforts as new characters who needed establishing and developing in a short time, - though with varied success on the script's part. For such a determined attempt at a 'realistic' Batman, it was the Dark Knight himself who came out looking the most ridiculous, and, therefore, the most out of place in the film.
To continue with Bane for a moment, I have four points to make. 1) The voice was a surprise. I was expecting something as gruff and guttural as Bale's impression of an angry dog; but Hardy's smooth, calm address was beautifully sinister. It was a little too obvious that additional audio work had been done in post-production, especially in the opening plane scene, where immersion was suspended just a little by Bane's voice ringing out clear like it originated outside of his body; but it was still excellent. 2) The mask did the same thing to Hardy as Batman's mask did to Bale. With a limited number of visible features, they were both left trying to act with their eyes (though Bale did have the luxury of a mouth), which led to a bit of unintentional eyebrow comedy. 3) The one-on-one brawl in the sewers was the best action scene in the film. The close, brutal physicality lent it more substance than any number of high-speed chases or big explosions could. It was superbly done. 4) Bane was dealt a massive disservice by his ending.
I'm not going to say that the reveal of Talia al Ghul was obvious as if that reduces the film, because for some it was a genuine surprise, and I'm more interested in the quality of the story than its predictability. I also knew, for example, how the film would end before going in, but that didn't at all stop me being excited about it. No, the problem with the Talia reveal is what it relied on and what it did. It relied on a character who had only just been introduced. It relied on her being established and developed in a meaningful way before the twist. It relied on her story being well-told. Ultimately, it relied on more than the script gave us. It was hollow, and, because of this, Bane's character was unfairly reduced. As a rule, you should only introduce a new Big Bad if they are a BIGGER BAD. The peril must increase. Instead, Bane was stripped of his real power; his threat was substantially minimised for no good reason; and then he was offed in a painfully belittling way, in a manner completely antithetical to the Batman ethos. For shame!
Let's look at the relationship between Batman and Bane in more detail. Bane stands up in the film as a true opposite to Batman. He's callously apathetic when it comes to human life, snapping at least one neck in every scene like a man with an obsessive need to unscrew bottle-caps, and he's physically dominating, easily handling Bats who, though beefy, has to rely on more than his strength to defeat his opponents. Locking Batman in a one-on-one brawl where gadgets and wits are of little use exposes the Dark Knight's physical vulnerability. He's not fit for this battle. And, more importantly, he never should have been.
Though it's understandable that a Batman film needs a certain amount of Batman in it, I continue my previous argument that the return lacked impact. Wayne recovers from his injuries and pops on the suit far too willingly for someone who has retired. It was too easy, and the threat wasn't great enough. It should have been an act of desperation. Gotham really should have needed him. He should have believed that ONLY Batman could help. I argue that the first time he put the suit back on should have been for the brawl with Bane. Underground, secret, hidden from public view. No collateral. No mind-games. Just one force against another. I mean, for someone vilified for killing Harvey Dent, Batman's return to the streets is surprisingly casual. Sure, he gets chased by cops, but, after one getaway, they seem to give up and accept him. Isn't he meant to be a wanted criminal in hiding? The brawl with Bane could have been the moment he was forced back into the suit, hoping that this might be the last time, the final, unseen, unacknowledged rescue. What Gotham needed was its silent guardian - emphasis on the silent. What it got was a show-off with some new toys. And postponing Batman's return until that one fight would have made his defeat even more terrible. For all he had given, Gotham still needed him, but he just wasn't good enough. He was too old, too tired, too hurt, too broken. He entered that fight destined to lose because so much depended on his victory.
And then he'd wake up in that pit with his spirit truly broken. What we got was a second act committed to Wayne's unreasonably fast physical recovery and a lot of pretentious waffle about anger and fear. What we should have had was the crisis of a man who doesn't know if he can be what Gotham needs any more and - in seeing the city tear itself apart - doesn't really know if Gotham is worth saving. The criminally underused ghost of Liam Neeson's Ra's al Ghul should have had a much greater presence. The shadows of Ra's and The Joker and Dent and Rachel should have haunted Wayne, until finally he would remember the ideas that had given birth to The Batman in the first place, as well as his father, so that he could finally pull himself out of that pit - battered, bruised, but not yet broken.
When Batman returns to Gotham, things only get worse with the whole spectacle over story problem. It's all very impressive and thrilling, but the film has truly lost sight of its origins. Though there are little flashbacks of BB, it's as if TDKR has to remind itself that it's a sequel.
And what does Bats actually do when he gets back? He sets up a giant flaming bat-symbol on the side of a building, even when there's a bomb set to go off in a few hours, and then punches Bane a few times until the fellow falls down. Spectacle! WOO! Story? F*boop* that noise! Batman physically dominating Bane makes no sense. Bane is indomitable. That's the point! Batman wins because his will is stronger, his need is greater, and his wits are sharper, not because he's done more push-ups! What happened to the gadgets? Where was the bat call from the first film - you know, the one which would have helped disperse the gangs and cops from the scene, bringing it down to just the two of them again? Did Bruce suffer some serious brain damage or did he just forget that he's more than his muscles?
I'll say it again. It wasn't Batman. It was a guy in a batsuit. And when he finally gets Bane to submit and uses Bane's own horrifying line against him, he's become every part the angry, merciless vigilante he promised he wouldn't be. Having Bane get taken out by an off-screen gunshot and Batman leave the scene without a second glance captures every last speck of integrity lost from the story. Batman is immortal, not as an idea, but because he's a muscleman with a cool cape. Life and mercy and justice mean less to him than getting even and proving he's a tough son-of-a-bitch. Frankly, he's no longer fit to be Batman, and it's for all the wrong reasons. It was a hollow triumph.
'Cheap' is the word that sums this all up best, and I really wish I didn't have to say it, but it's true. For something worth millions of dollars, it was cheap. And the ending was the cheapest part. Super cheap. Really cheap. Hollywood happy ending cheap. Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep.
I can forgive the film most of its plotholes (of which it has many). I can forgive it much of its bad dialogue and general stupidity, a chronic problem of Nolan's. I mean, BB was hardly perfect, but it had humour and charm and intelligence enough to let it go. The same for TDK. But I cannot forgive the ending of TDKR, because it is so thoughtless, and it makes a mockery of any claim that Nolan treats his audience as if they are intelligent human beings.
Wayne survives. And that undoes everything his death is supposed to symbolise. There is no noble sacrifice. No desperate, maybe even resentful, last deed. I for one thought he should have died not as Batman, but as Bruce Wayne. Instead, both live. It's not explained. It's not justified. It's just dumb. (Okay, so it's obviously something to do with the auto-pilot. I mean, they couldn't stop harping on about it. BUT STILL!)
Forcing a romantic relationship with Selina Kyle only makes it worse. Her story was about the choice between Gotham's security and her own. Going off with Bruce for a lot of gruff, leather-clad sex undermines that choice. And Bruce's equally-forced and plot-convenient romance with Talia cheapens all of these relationships further, including his relationship with Rachel.
Lastly, and perhaps leastly, I have one personal grievance. I sat through the 164 minute run of this film, waiting with unadulterated excitement to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt ascend to the podium with the suit rising to meet him, and then finish, stood on the highest rooftop of Gotham, fully-clad, with Catwoman beside him and Gordon behind him, the streaming light of the bat signal pouring over their heads into the sky. God. Damn. I. Want. That. Shot. ... please? I guess I'll have to accept that they ran out of budget with all those exploding tanks and cop cars.
With everything I've said, I hope I can still be allowed to say that it was overall a very enjoyable movie. Seriously, it wasn't bad. Not at all. Compared to half the superhero movies that have stained the screens in the last two decades, it was a triumph. So much of it was good, but I just don't think I can say it was great without feeling as though I'm wilfully ignoring huge disappointments. It aimed for epic and succeeded, but it lost sight of so very much on the way.
TL;DR:
1) Was TDKR a good movie? Yes.
2) Was TDKR a good action movie? Yes.
3) Was TDKR a good superhero movie? Yes.
4) Was TDKR a good Batman movie? No.
5) Was TDKR a good sequel? Not really.
6) Was Nolan's trilogy any good? A thousand times yes!
7) Will I be buying TDKR when it comes out? Sure. But BB remains my favourite, and ...
I'mma let you finish, but Batman: The Animated Series was the best Batman incarnation of all time! Of all time!
... I'd best end it there.
Monday, 30 July 2012
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Saturday, 19 May 2012
Thoughts from Places: Southampton University
Today I woke up early and, finding myself with no particular purpose, did what I always do: picked up a book, read for a while, fell asleep mid-sentence, and then woke up again past midday with a powerful need to eat and achieve something with my life.
I read for a while longer. But as there was some welcome sunshine glimpsing through the blinds – a change to the heavy rain that had been plaguing us, not so much endlessly as unpredictably, for the last few weeks – I decided I’d go for a walk.
Of course it quickly wasn’t sunny anymore, so I waited out the afternoon before taking my chances. I could have stayed in, but I had determined myself to the excursion, and, anyway, I had to go into campus to return some library books – for the last time. My final assignments were in, my degree effectively over, and all I had left was to hand back those few borrowed items.
As I walked the streets towards campus, the sun was already starting to grow heavy, glancing its hot rays too close to the ground, casting the suburbs in that thick amber that manages to be invariably uncomfortable and beautiful at the same time. Puddles lay about the place, as well as those dark patches, the shadows of puddles past, stretching out over the pavement: the visible signs of invisible water. Elsewhere, rain pooled and ran like streams along the curbs, migrating south through the city.
I leapt over the puddles and the shadows alike, fearing, as I did as a child, that thick, clinging feeling of moisture that any one misstep might bring.
As I walked, I tried to focus on the houses and the buildings around me. I wanted to take them in, to memorise their shapes and colours. I had never really looked at them before. But as I walked, my mind drifted, and my feet continued steadily, treading the well-travelled paths they knew by habit. That made me think about home, about what homes are and what they mean and how they work. I wondered if home meant a place you could go without thinking, somewhere you knew so well that it didn’t matter how distant or distracted you were, as long as you went, you’d surely find your way. But I knew that if I had taken even the slightest diversion as I walked, I would have been lost. There was still so much of this city I didn’t know, so much I had never seen. It wasn’t my home. It wasn’t ‘my Southampton’, whatever that would be.
When I reached campus, I returned the books, and then I wandered for a while among the buildings. I knew only some of them well. Others were familiar only by distance. I thought about those buildings, how some were old and some were new, and I imagined for a moment being a piece of wood, or a tile, or any single object that makes up a whole. I thought about how each of those pieces eventually wore out, or grew weaker, or fell apart, and how they would all end up needing to be replaced one way or another. I remembered the old saying that you can take a person out of a place, but you can’t take a place out of a person, the idea that home is something you take with you, not somewhere you are or return to or come from, and I wondered if the pieces that passed through this place were changed by the buildings, or if the buildings were changed by them.
When I reached the other side of campus, I kept on walking. The clouds began to dribble, but I’d been rained on enough times in the past weeks not to mind. I walked to Avenue, the second campus, where most of my classes had been taken. As I approached, I wondered whether I had changed, whether I was any different to the boy who had taken those first uncertain steps here three years ago, desperately trying not to get lost. I knew I had learnt things – valuable things – but I didn’t know whether I had truly changed, for better or for worse, or whether the university had at all been changed by me. I figured that the pieces of buildings are made for their purpose, built to fit wherever they end up. But I didn’t fit when I started; it was something I had to learn. So maybe I wasn’t a piece at all.
The rain got heavier, and I took refuge inside for a while, heading to the bathroom. When I entered, I stopped. The walls were newly painted, the stalls done up, the latches on the doors fixed. For a moment I felt as if I were trespassing, like I’d walked into the wrong room. It wasn’t the same. This place wasn’t for me – it was for the new students, the ones who would pass through after me. I felt like I was lingering, like I’d become one of those dark patches: an unpuddle, an unstudent, a shadow reluctant to leave, the purposeless ghost of Avenue. For all the time it had taken to learn how to fit, suddenly there was no longer room for me.
(I should really stop having existential crises on the toilet.)
When I left, I took a different but equally familiar path back through the city. Again I tried to take in the sights and shapes and colours of the streets: the low hanging branches, the mismatched brickworks, the rows upon rows of takeaway restaurants. I knew that none of these things would last forever, and so maybe trying to hold on to them was a misplaced nostalgia for something not yet lost – which is, incidentally, true of most nostalgia. I knew that no matter which streets I took, or which way I turned, they and I could only ever keep on changing. I thought about the buildings on campus, constantly being made and unmade, and I wondered if that’s what I’d learnt, how to go about making and unmaking myself so that I could at least try to pretend to fit, changing and adapting just well enough to remain standing.
As I neared my house, I wondered what university meant for me, and what it means for most people. For many it’s a stepping stone, a way forwards towards other things, something to step on and step over in pursuit of the banks on the other side. And it’s one of many – all the places you go, and the places you come from – just stepping stones. The game is choosing the right stones so you can keep on jumping.
When I arrived, there was a small puddle on the path before the driveway; but, before I stepped over it, I stopped and took in the water for a moment: its shape on the pavement, the glimmer of waning light across its surface, the ripples of stray drops shaking themselves free from above. I imagined my future spreading out before me like a puddle that had become a lake, and, across it, hundreds of stones growing further apart, some of them barely visible, just peeking out of the water, some slippier and less stable than others.
Was little Southampton really just a way forward? Was it really as transient to me as I was to it?
Perhaps. But perhaps that’s not important.
I know that, as I leave this place, I am still the same child I’ve always been, jumping over puddles, searching for a way across. But, as I jump, I hope I can at least try to pay attention, to marvel at the size and shape and colours of the stones and of the water, just for a little while, even as I hop on over, trying - as we all must - not to fall in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Thought from Places' stolen from The Vlogbrothers here.
Stepping stone metaphor stolen from Ze Frank here.
(What? You think I create original content? Please! That's for amateurs!)
I read for a while longer. But as there was some welcome sunshine glimpsing through the blinds – a change to the heavy rain that had been plaguing us, not so much endlessly as unpredictably, for the last few weeks – I decided I’d go for a walk.
Of course it quickly wasn’t sunny anymore, so I waited out the afternoon before taking my chances. I could have stayed in, but I had determined myself to the excursion, and, anyway, I had to go into campus to return some library books – for the last time. My final assignments were in, my degree effectively over, and all I had left was to hand back those few borrowed items.
As I walked the streets towards campus, the sun was already starting to grow heavy, glancing its hot rays too close to the ground, casting the suburbs in that thick amber that manages to be invariably uncomfortable and beautiful at the same time. Puddles lay about the place, as well as those dark patches, the shadows of puddles past, stretching out over the pavement: the visible signs of invisible water. Elsewhere, rain pooled and ran like streams along the curbs, migrating south through the city.
I leapt over the puddles and the shadows alike, fearing, as I did as a child, that thick, clinging feeling of moisture that any one misstep might bring.
As I walked, I tried to focus on the houses and the buildings around me. I wanted to take them in, to memorise their shapes and colours. I had never really looked at them before. But as I walked, my mind drifted, and my feet continued steadily, treading the well-travelled paths they knew by habit. That made me think about home, about what homes are and what they mean and how they work. I wondered if home meant a place you could go without thinking, somewhere you knew so well that it didn’t matter how distant or distracted you were, as long as you went, you’d surely find your way. But I knew that if I had taken even the slightest diversion as I walked, I would have been lost. There was still so much of this city I didn’t know, so much I had never seen. It wasn’t my home. It wasn’t ‘my Southampton’, whatever that would be.
When I reached campus, I returned the books, and then I wandered for a while among the buildings. I knew only some of them well. Others were familiar only by distance. I thought about those buildings, how some were old and some were new, and I imagined for a moment being a piece of wood, or a tile, or any single object that makes up a whole. I thought about how each of those pieces eventually wore out, or grew weaker, or fell apart, and how they would all end up needing to be replaced one way or another. I remembered the old saying that you can take a person out of a place, but you can’t take a place out of a person, the idea that home is something you take with you, not somewhere you are or return to or come from, and I wondered if the pieces that passed through this place were changed by the buildings, or if the buildings were changed by them.
When I reached the other side of campus, I kept on walking. The clouds began to dribble, but I’d been rained on enough times in the past weeks not to mind. I walked to Avenue, the second campus, where most of my classes had been taken. As I approached, I wondered whether I had changed, whether I was any different to the boy who had taken those first uncertain steps here three years ago, desperately trying not to get lost. I knew I had learnt things – valuable things – but I didn’t know whether I had truly changed, for better or for worse, or whether the university had at all been changed by me. I figured that the pieces of buildings are made for their purpose, built to fit wherever they end up. But I didn’t fit when I started; it was something I had to learn. So maybe I wasn’t a piece at all.
The rain got heavier, and I took refuge inside for a while, heading to the bathroom. When I entered, I stopped. The walls were newly painted, the stalls done up, the latches on the doors fixed. For a moment I felt as if I were trespassing, like I’d walked into the wrong room. It wasn’t the same. This place wasn’t for me – it was for the new students, the ones who would pass through after me. I felt like I was lingering, like I’d become one of those dark patches: an unpuddle, an unstudent, a shadow reluctant to leave, the purposeless ghost of Avenue. For all the time it had taken to learn how to fit, suddenly there was no longer room for me.
(I should really stop having existential crises on the toilet.)
When I left, I took a different but equally familiar path back through the city. Again I tried to take in the sights and shapes and colours of the streets: the low hanging branches, the mismatched brickworks, the rows upon rows of takeaway restaurants. I knew that none of these things would last forever, and so maybe trying to hold on to them was a misplaced nostalgia for something not yet lost – which is, incidentally, true of most nostalgia. I knew that no matter which streets I took, or which way I turned, they and I could only ever keep on changing. I thought about the buildings on campus, constantly being made and unmade, and I wondered if that’s what I’d learnt, how to go about making and unmaking myself so that I could at least try to pretend to fit, changing and adapting just well enough to remain standing.
As I neared my house, I wondered what university meant for me, and what it means for most people. For many it’s a stepping stone, a way forwards towards other things, something to step on and step over in pursuit of the banks on the other side. And it’s one of many – all the places you go, and the places you come from – just stepping stones. The game is choosing the right stones so you can keep on jumping.
When I arrived, there was a small puddle on the path before the driveway; but, before I stepped over it, I stopped and took in the water for a moment: its shape on the pavement, the glimmer of waning light across its surface, the ripples of stray drops shaking themselves free from above. I imagined my future spreading out before me like a puddle that had become a lake, and, across it, hundreds of stones growing further apart, some of them barely visible, just peeking out of the water, some slippier and less stable than others.
Was little Southampton really just a way forward? Was it really as transient to me as I was to it?
Perhaps. But perhaps that’s not important.
I know that, as I leave this place, I am still the same child I’ve always been, jumping over puddles, searching for a way across. But, as I jump, I hope I can at least try to pay attention, to marvel at the size and shape and colours of the stones and of the water, just for a little while, even as I hop on over, trying - as we all must - not to fall in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Thought from Places' stolen from The Vlogbrothers here.
Stepping stone metaphor stolen from Ze Frank here.
(What? You think I create original content? Please! That's for amateurs!)
Monday, 30 April 2012
Review: The Wicker Man
Welcome, dear readers, to the first of a brand new series here at Oliver Cooper writes ..., 'Stuff wha' I 'ave watched 'n' wha' I faw abaiiii'. Originating from a collaborative video project I participated in some time ago, it is reborn here for your reading pleasure as a series of reviews for that ever-fine assortment of audiovisual media: film and television.
So: how'd it get burned?
That's right. I'm kicking off1 with one of the most infamous movies to come out of Hollywood, and to my mind one of the best, worst, average films in existence: The Wicker Man (2006), directed by Neil LaBute, and starring the incorrigible Nicolas Cage.
Let me begin be saying that it’s an interesting experience.
I’m not going to go into the fact that it is a remake of the significantly better regarded 1973 British film of the same name. Nor am I going to focus too entirely on Cage’s acting and put the entire blame for this dimdraster of a movie on him. No, if we want to get our greasy monkey paws on the hidden corn kernel of truth that lies at the centre of this steaming mass of faecal whatthefudgery, we're going to have to dive in a little deeper. Gloves on? Let's go!
The film opens in a diner, where our protagonist, Edward Malus, is looking at hypnotic self-help tapes that make for a pivotal plot point in the narrative. I say 'pivotal' because, given the spiralling mess that is to follow, it would be nice to have something to hold on to. So remember the tapes, my naive, little screen-monkeys, because the film certainly won't. Why Malus is looking for self-help tapes in the first place is never explored. I guess we are just to assume that he’s not all too happy with himself. Poor fellow.
In the first few lines of dialogue, there are already hints of poor acting run a-muck, but who am I to say it won’t get better? And maybe the tapes aren't important. Let's get to the action.
Nicolas – whom I will hereafter refer to as ‘acts-like-he’s-still-reading-his-lines-off-a-page’ – Cage ends up party to a terrible road accident whereby he fails to save the lives of a young girl and her mother. This is handled acceptably (it's almost exciting) and offers what might be an interesting development for the central role - a police officer made to deal with grief, loss, and maybe even guilt for the accident.
This, I'm afraid to say, isn’t what follows. Off-the-page Cage gets a letter from his ex-fiancé telling him he has to fly out to help find her missing daughter. Gallant Cage travels to a remote island where the mother and child live as part of a matriarchal nature cult, separated from outside American society. "Interesting," I hear you think2, "maybe this film comments on gender hierarchies and cult behaviour, or commercialism in modern American urban/suburban lifestyles." Oh ye of too many English classes! Put away your copies of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, for The Wicker Man does not attempt to do anything with this potential, though it has the gall to make promises throughout. No. What follows is an hour and a half of mind-chewing craptackery.
Now, I get the idea here. The film is intended to be scary – mysterious – there are no easy answers for Malus. Everyone seems to be conspiring against him, and he is driven increasingly more paranoid by the people and their actions. Great. We're meant to be confused. Yet, at every turn, the sensation we feel is not a shared sense of desperate uncertainty; just unengaged, unsatisfactory bewilderment. I mean, what the seven honey-coated hells is going on here?!
When you create a mystery narrative, there need to be pay-offs. Even in a film where I imagine the point is for our protagonist to descend into a state of pathological fear and a lost sense of reality, the film has to make sure you’re with the protagonist in that confusion. Perhaps you notice that he takes medicine to control his nightmarish hallucinations. Well-spotted, but the film does nothing with this. You remember those self-help tapes? Well they go missing fairly early on and are never remarked on again. I like to imagine a film in which the central figure’s psychological instability is relevant to their development, and such props are not just thrown out to make room for more cringe-worthy dialogue and drawn-out scenes in which either nothing happens or something happens but you feel like you've not progressed anywhere. In truth, the film-makers didn't seem to know what they wanted. Is The Wicker Man supposed to be disturbing or surreal or comic? It jumps haphazardly and uncontrollably from one poorly-explained scene to the next, joined only by lots of monotonous running about, plummeting quickly from a potentially interesting but badly made beginning into complete shote-shovelling chaos. And we still don't know how it got burned!
My main complaint is that the film chronically hints at interesting directions but fails to follow any of them, leaving us, the audience, asking why these things were included in the first place. Flashbacks, visions and dream sequences all suggest symbols and themes; but nothing is developed well enough to communicate anything. Too much is mysterious, when in reality it is just absurdly and lazily unanswered. Was there ever really a car crash? How did the doll get in the grave? How did Nicholowsy’s character spend an entire night almost completely submerged in water without developing hypothermia? What’s the deal with the bees and his allergies? How’d it get burned?! And did they really expect to make the jump between Cage running around the island, stumbling upon countless, unjustified, clichéd set-pieces to him running around the island in a bear suit right-hooking every woman he comes across without getting some kind of laugh? Accidental comedy is one of my guilty pleasures, but this is so painfully and inconsistently ridiculous that I can’t even enjoy it for that. The laughs I had were snorts of disdain that didn’t heighten the film to B-movie triumph, but exposed it for the pitiful farce it is.
The script was apparently adapted from the British original, so I justly declare that whoever did that adapting jobby needs to have their computer privileges taken away and their fingers periodically broken to the sound of Rage Cage repeating "How’d it get burned?!" to the backing of Beethoven’s Fifth3. I appreciate that St Nick of the Wooden Perfomance wouldn’t know how to deliver a good line anyway, but the lines really weren’t worth delivering at all. The supporting cast offered nothing to fill the aching void of my dribbling brainspace. I can only assume they were overwhelmed by the sheer gumphucstacy of the script and were suffering from the same insidious headrot the audience had to suffer trying to work out what in the great, bear-suited car crash they had just watched.
The Wicker Man is interesting, if only as a course in how not to do mystery, horror, suspense, fantasy or *insert genre or filmic aspect here*. It does nothing right. It doesn’t even do getting it wrong right. And for that reason, I can't recommend it4; though I am more than willing to give the original a try. I mean, it's got to be better than this, right? Hell, I might even find out how it got burned.
All in all, I give The Wicker Man a "meh" and a "huh?" out of 5.
Till next time, Screen-monkeys. Watch out for bees.
1 Sports analogy. *shudder* I apologise.
2 Don't worry, readers. I don't really have prophetic, inter-computational telepathy. ... Yet.
3 Now brought to you by The Internet.
4 For a 3-minute version of the film that makes just as much sense but is at least 170% funnier, click here.
So: how'd it get burned?
That's right. I'm kicking off1 with one of the most infamous movies to come out of Hollywood, and to my mind one of the best, worst, average films in existence: The Wicker Man (2006), directed by Neil LaBute, and starring the incorrigible Nicolas Cage.
Let me begin be saying that it’s an interesting experience.
I’m not going to go into the fact that it is a remake of the significantly better regarded 1973 British film of the same name. Nor am I going to focus too entirely on Cage’s acting and put the entire blame for this dimdraster of a movie on him. No, if we want to get our greasy monkey paws on the hidden corn kernel of truth that lies at the centre of this steaming mass of faecal whatthefudgery, we're going to have to dive in a little deeper. Gloves on? Let's go!
The film opens in a diner, where our protagonist, Edward Malus, is looking at hypnotic self-help tapes that make for a pivotal plot point in the narrative. I say 'pivotal' because, given the spiralling mess that is to follow, it would be nice to have something to hold on to. So remember the tapes, my naive, little screen-monkeys, because the film certainly won't. Why Malus is looking for self-help tapes in the first place is never explored. I guess we are just to assume that he’s not all too happy with himself. Poor fellow.
In the first few lines of dialogue, there are already hints of poor acting run a-muck, but who am I to say it won’t get better? And maybe the tapes aren't important. Let's get to the action.
Nicolas – whom I will hereafter refer to as ‘acts-like-he’s-still-reading-his-lines-off-a-page’ – Cage ends up party to a terrible road accident whereby he fails to save the lives of a young girl and her mother. This is handled acceptably (it's almost exciting) and offers what might be an interesting development for the central role - a police officer made to deal with grief, loss, and maybe even guilt for the accident.
This, I'm afraid to say, isn’t what follows. Off-the-page Cage gets a letter from his ex-fiancé telling him he has to fly out to help find her missing daughter. Gallant Cage travels to a remote island where the mother and child live as part of a matriarchal nature cult, separated from outside American society. "Interesting," I hear you think2, "maybe this film comments on gender hierarchies and cult behaviour, or commercialism in modern American urban/suburban lifestyles." Oh ye of too many English classes! Put away your copies of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, for The Wicker Man does not attempt to do anything with this potential, though it has the gall to make promises throughout. No. What follows is an hour and a half of mind-chewing craptackery.
Now, I get the idea here. The film is intended to be scary – mysterious – there are no easy answers for Malus. Everyone seems to be conspiring against him, and he is driven increasingly more paranoid by the people and their actions. Great. We're meant to be confused. Yet, at every turn, the sensation we feel is not a shared sense of desperate uncertainty; just unengaged, unsatisfactory bewilderment. I mean, what the seven honey-coated hells is going on here?!
When you create a mystery narrative, there need to be pay-offs. Even in a film where I imagine the point is for our protagonist to descend into a state of pathological fear and a lost sense of reality, the film has to make sure you’re with the protagonist in that confusion. Perhaps you notice that he takes medicine to control his nightmarish hallucinations. Well-spotted, but the film does nothing with this. You remember those self-help tapes? Well they go missing fairly early on and are never remarked on again. I like to imagine a film in which the central figure’s psychological instability is relevant to their development, and such props are not just thrown out to make room for more cringe-worthy dialogue and drawn-out scenes in which either nothing happens or something happens but you feel like you've not progressed anywhere. In truth, the film-makers didn't seem to know what they wanted. Is The Wicker Man supposed to be disturbing or surreal or comic? It jumps haphazardly and uncontrollably from one poorly-explained scene to the next, joined only by lots of monotonous running about, plummeting quickly from a potentially interesting but badly made beginning into complete shote-shovelling chaos. And we still don't know how it got burned!
My main complaint is that the film chronically hints at interesting directions but fails to follow any of them, leaving us, the audience, asking why these things were included in the first place. Flashbacks, visions and dream sequences all suggest symbols and themes; but nothing is developed well enough to communicate anything. Too much is mysterious, when in reality it is just absurdly and lazily unanswered. Was there ever really a car crash? How did the doll get in the grave? How did Nicholowsy’s character spend an entire night almost completely submerged in water without developing hypothermia? What’s the deal with the bees and his allergies? How’d it get burned?! And did they really expect to make the jump between Cage running around the island, stumbling upon countless, unjustified, clichéd set-pieces to him running around the island in a bear suit right-hooking every woman he comes across without getting some kind of laugh? Accidental comedy is one of my guilty pleasures, but this is so painfully and inconsistently ridiculous that I can’t even enjoy it for that. The laughs I had were snorts of disdain that didn’t heighten the film to B-movie triumph, but exposed it for the pitiful farce it is.
The script was apparently adapted from the British original, so I justly declare that whoever did that adapting jobby needs to have their computer privileges taken away and their fingers periodically broken to the sound of Rage Cage repeating "How’d it get burned?!" to the backing of Beethoven’s Fifth3. I appreciate that St Nick of the Wooden Perfomance wouldn’t know how to deliver a good line anyway, but the lines really weren’t worth delivering at all. The supporting cast offered nothing to fill the aching void of my dribbling brainspace. I can only assume they were overwhelmed by the sheer gumphucstacy of the script and were suffering from the same insidious headrot the audience had to suffer trying to work out what in the great, bear-suited car crash they had just watched.
The Wicker Man is interesting, if only as a course in how not to do mystery, horror, suspense, fantasy or *insert genre or filmic aspect here*. It does nothing right. It doesn’t even do getting it wrong right. And for that reason, I can't recommend it4; though I am more than willing to give the original a try. I mean, it's got to be better than this, right? Hell, I might even find out how it got burned.
All in all, I give The Wicker Man a "meh" and a "huh?" out of 5.
Till next time, Screen-monkeys. Watch out for bees.
1 Sports analogy. *shudder* I apologise.
2 Don't worry, readers. I don't really have prophetic, inter-computational telepathy. ... Yet.
3 Now brought to you by The Internet.
4 For a 3-minute version of the film that makes just as much sense but is at least 170% funnier, click here.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Obligation Day pt. 2 [29/02/12]: 'Proposals and Performance'
If you were not aware (and I know I wasn't, largely due to the onset of stinking illness and a general 'drooziness' which is currently making it hard for me to read the date properly) today is February 29th, the leap day of this leap year1. There is a part of me that is very fond of this date, both for its novelty and its evidence of humanity's delightful ability to make things up and then stick to them. I realise that there's probably some very clever mathematics behind it, but I like to imagine that the leap year conversation was something akin to:
"Great Scott! We're running out of time!"
"What?"
"The years are getting ahead of themselves! The calendar doesn't line up properly!"
"Oh, well, we'll just add another day then."
"Can we do that?"
"I don't know."
"I shall ask Science!"
*asks Science*
"What does Science say?"
"Science says 'Go for it!'"
"Excellent."
"Man ... Science is such a cool dude."
"Isn't he just?"
"Smashing."
"Quite."
"Yes."
"Indeed."
"Hm."
"Spiffing."
"Quite."2
... but I digress.
On leap years, 'tradition' seems to be the word of the hour (or day), and with that word is what may be considered its counter, 'transgression'. But what, I wonder, are we to do on a day that seems to hold with both? What do we make of a tradition of transgression?
I am talking, of course, about the tradition of women being allowed to propose to men on February 29th. (It used to be that women could propose on any day of the leap year, but it was later brought down to just the single day. There's progress for you!)
I must begin by instinctively questioning the wording here. Women are 'allowed' to propose. That is to say, they are given permission. "By whom?" I ask. And I can only infer from this statement that women are not allowed to propose any other time.
As a result of this, a woman who proposes to a man on the 29th is, I can only imagine, made very conscious of the weight of her transgression, whether the reaction be positive or negative. The man is equally likely to feel this weight. More often than not, he is expected to feel, by becoming the proposee, emasculated. And one doesn't have to look hard to find comments each leap year about men hiding from their girlfriends or locking themselves away from women (as if they are such irresistible, marriageable specimens). Plenty of newspapers chime in, too, sporting headlines such as "Watch out gents, it's a leap year!" - a nice, big, bold, warning that the predatory female is come to get them.
This anxiety isn't a new one. A few images of early twentieth-century satirical postcards (as well as other images of women proposing) can be found at the wonderful Vagenda blog here. I could examine these images at length, but the idea is pretty evident. Though the leap year tradition promises an opportunity to forego traditional limitations, it almost certainly in practice edifies them. It is a tradition of highlighting transgression, but not challenging that definition, because, ludicrous as it may seem, stigmas don't just go away if one day in every one thousand four hundred and sixty-one there's a quaint change.
It's hardly liberating.3
Now, I have already mentioned fear of emasculation, and I'd like to comment on that a little further. Even in school, the idea that the boy should always be the one to ask the girl out was pretty concrete. Traditions of gender roles are cemented at a young age, and the word literally used towards someone in an instance of their girlfriend taking the romantic initiative was "weak". I don't believe that fear of female proposal is really any different. Nor, as it happens, is it any less mistaken or pathetic. I'd like to put this simply: If you believe that the order in which people express their affection in a relationship is more important than the quality and substance of that affection, you're doing it wrong. Seriously.
And, yet, I think there's a lot more to this proposal problem. There's a problem with the whole event of it that goes beyond gender. It is, I fear, our old friend, obligation.
Just take a moment to think about this. A man decides to propose to his partner, and so he buys a ring, maybe some flowers or other gifts, arranges the day, organises everyone he wants to be there, prepares what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, collects up his courage, and is finally ready to do the deed. He may do all this weeks or months in advance. His partner, perhaps unaware that all this is going on, gets about five seconds to make a decision. Real fair, no? Now, I realise that this is not always the way it goes. Some couples have the sense to talk about the prospect of marriage at some length before a proposal is made. Others at least try to lay hints and suggestions so the proposee is not completely in the dark. (This of course has led to many painfully predictable rom-com scenarios with false signals galore. If I may quickly address an open letter to Hollywood: STOP.)
But generally speaking, aren't proposals supposed to be a romantic surprise? Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, dear reader, but surprises are actually kind of awful. Not all of them, that is. Just the awful ones. A surprise cupcake when one returns home is lovely. A surprise visit from an old friend can be super. A surprisingly positive response to an essay you struggled writing, that's grand. The problem with the proposal surprise, however, as well as surprise birthday parties and other such events, is that it is all about conspiring to leave someone out of the loop. And when it comes to asking someone to marry you, I can't help feel that it's something they should have just the teeny-tiniest say in.
Put quite literally on the spot, the surprised proposee is obliged to give a response in an instant. Even if they say yes, doesn't that seem a little inconsiderate? And it gets worse. The proposer more and more these days feels obliged to make an event - a stunt - out of their proposal. We've all probably seen people proposing in restaurants, at sports games on big monitors, surrounded by all their friends and family, or otherwise very much in the public eye. Proposing has become a competition, and everyone is watching. Now, I don't mean to say that one's gestures cannot be elaborate, but would you want to be asked to make a major decision while dozens/hundreds/thousands/millions of people - possibly all strangers - watched and judged your reactions? I know I wouldn't.
There's plenty of footage of these extravagant proposals being turned down and people being publicly shamed as a result. But it's not just the proposer. Think about the proposee. They are transformed into that horrible person who didn't even play along and say yes just because the cameras were rolling. (Excuse me while my head explodes from the stupid of this.) Even in intimate settings with family and friends, the surprised proposee feels obliged to say yes. If that is not cruel obligation, I don't know what is! It has zilch to do with the affection and intimacy between the couple involved, and everything to do with the audience watching. How romantic! I think I'm being kind when I call the people who perform these surprise public proposals inconsiderate ba*boop*rds.
And I don't think it's too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that some men quake at the idea of being proposed to less because of traditions of gender roles, and more because they wouldn't want to be put in the same horrible position of pressure they would inflict on their partners - and they even get to know in advance which day it could happen!
The whole business of marriage proposals is steeped in obligation, from the gender roles to the actions involved. Question: what's with the getting down on one knee thing, anyway?4 It's tradition at its worst, because it transforms what should be a personal, intimate expression between people into a pressuring mass of prescribed conventions. The same, I believe, can be said of weddings.5
At no point in any of this do I mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with proposing. There's nothing wrong with rings and flowers and one-knee-bending-down-upon-ing. There's nothing wrong with extravagant gestures. There's nothing wrong with any of the traditions. But only as long as the focus is on you as a couple and the genuine affection between you. It should have nothing to do with anybody else.
Whether one person proposes to the other, whether that person be male or female, whether it takes place on any given day, whether you invite people to witness, that is all for you as a couple to decide. Perform your own gestures. Use your own words. Make your own traditions. Because, in the end, the proposal and the wedding are just events. They signify the continuation of your relationship; and it is not for anyone but you to decide what that relationship is or how you express it.
tl;dr:
1. Don't be an inconsiderate ba*boop*rd.
2. Propose if, when, and however you please.
3. ????
4. Profit!
1 A leap year can also be known as an 'intercalary' or 'bissextile year'. I for one know which name I find the most entertaining.
2 I confess, most of the imagined conversations in my head end like that, and an astonishing number involve Science being a pretty cool dude. Also watch this for that much-wanted hit of leap year knowledge.
3 This whole thing becomes even more ridiculous when one considers non-heterosexual relationships. Should a lesbian also have to wait four years for a specific twenty-four hour window to ask her partner to marry her (if indeed she could [as she should be allowed to] do so)?
4 This is called 'Genuflection'. How romantic!
5 Giving away the bride. Liberating, much?
"Great Scott! We're running out of time!"
"What?"
"The years are getting ahead of themselves! The calendar doesn't line up properly!"
"Oh, well, we'll just add another day then."
"Can we do that?"
"I don't know."
"I shall ask Science!"
*asks Science*
"What does Science say?"
"Science says 'Go for it!'"
"Excellent."
"Man ... Science is such a cool dude."
"Isn't he just?"
"Smashing."
"Quite."
"Yes."
"Indeed."
"Hm."
"Spiffing."
"Quite."2
... but I digress.
On leap years, 'tradition' seems to be the word of the hour (or day), and with that word is what may be considered its counter, 'transgression'. But what, I wonder, are we to do on a day that seems to hold with both? What do we make of a tradition of transgression?
I am talking, of course, about the tradition of women being allowed to propose to men on February 29th. (It used to be that women could propose on any day of the leap year, but it was later brought down to just the single day. There's progress for you!)
I must begin by instinctively questioning the wording here. Women are 'allowed' to propose. That is to say, they are given permission. "By whom?" I ask. And I can only infer from this statement that women are not allowed to propose any other time.
As a result of this, a woman who proposes to a man on the 29th is, I can only imagine, made very conscious of the weight of her transgression, whether the reaction be positive or negative. The man is equally likely to feel this weight. More often than not, he is expected to feel, by becoming the proposee, emasculated. And one doesn't have to look hard to find comments each leap year about men hiding from their girlfriends or locking themselves away from women (as if they are such irresistible, marriageable specimens). Plenty of newspapers chime in, too, sporting headlines such as "Watch out gents, it's a leap year!" - a nice, big, bold, warning that the predatory female is come to get them.
This anxiety isn't a new one. A few images of early twentieth-century satirical postcards (as well as other images of women proposing) can be found at the wonderful Vagenda blog here. I could examine these images at length, but the idea is pretty evident. Though the leap year tradition promises an opportunity to forego traditional limitations, it almost certainly in practice edifies them. It is a tradition of highlighting transgression, but not challenging that definition, because, ludicrous as it may seem, stigmas don't just go away if one day in every one thousand four hundred and sixty-one there's a quaint change.
It's hardly liberating.3
Now, I have already mentioned fear of emasculation, and I'd like to comment on that a little further. Even in school, the idea that the boy should always be the one to ask the girl out was pretty concrete. Traditions of gender roles are cemented at a young age, and the word literally used towards someone in an instance of their girlfriend taking the romantic initiative was "weak". I don't believe that fear of female proposal is really any different. Nor, as it happens, is it any less mistaken or pathetic. I'd like to put this simply: If you believe that the order in which people express their affection in a relationship is more important than the quality and substance of that affection, you're doing it wrong. Seriously.
And, yet, I think there's a lot more to this proposal problem. There's a problem with the whole event of it that goes beyond gender. It is, I fear, our old friend, obligation.
Just take a moment to think about this. A man decides to propose to his partner, and so he buys a ring, maybe some flowers or other gifts, arranges the day, organises everyone he wants to be there, prepares what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, collects up his courage, and is finally ready to do the deed. He may do all this weeks or months in advance. His partner, perhaps unaware that all this is going on, gets about five seconds to make a decision. Real fair, no? Now, I realise that this is not always the way it goes. Some couples have the sense to talk about the prospect of marriage at some length before a proposal is made. Others at least try to lay hints and suggestions so the proposee is not completely in the dark. (This of course has led to many painfully predictable rom-com scenarios with false signals galore. If I may quickly address an open letter to Hollywood: STOP.)
But generally speaking, aren't proposals supposed to be a romantic surprise? Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, dear reader, but surprises are actually kind of awful. Not all of them, that is. Just the awful ones. A surprise cupcake when one returns home is lovely. A surprise visit from an old friend can be super. A surprisingly positive response to an essay you struggled writing, that's grand. The problem with the proposal surprise, however, as well as surprise birthday parties and other such events, is that it is all about conspiring to leave someone out of the loop. And when it comes to asking someone to marry you, I can't help feel that it's something they should have just the teeny-tiniest say in.
Put quite literally on the spot, the surprised proposee is obliged to give a response in an instant. Even if they say yes, doesn't that seem a little inconsiderate? And it gets worse. The proposer more and more these days feels obliged to make an event - a stunt - out of their proposal. We've all probably seen people proposing in restaurants, at sports games on big monitors, surrounded by all their friends and family, or otherwise very much in the public eye. Proposing has become a competition, and everyone is watching. Now, I don't mean to say that one's gestures cannot be elaborate, but would you want to be asked to make a major decision while dozens/hundreds/thousands/millions of people - possibly all strangers - watched and judged your reactions? I know I wouldn't.
There's plenty of footage of these extravagant proposals being turned down and people being publicly shamed as a result. But it's not just the proposer. Think about the proposee. They are transformed into that horrible person who didn't even play along and say yes just because the cameras were rolling. (Excuse me while my head explodes from the stupid of this.) Even in intimate settings with family and friends, the surprised proposee feels obliged to say yes. If that is not cruel obligation, I don't know what is! It has zilch to do with the affection and intimacy between the couple involved, and everything to do with the audience watching. How romantic! I think I'm being kind when I call the people who perform these surprise public proposals inconsiderate ba*boop*rds.
And I don't think it's too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that some men quake at the idea of being proposed to less because of traditions of gender roles, and more because they wouldn't want to be put in the same horrible position of pressure they would inflict on their partners - and they even get to know in advance which day it could happen!
The whole business of marriage proposals is steeped in obligation, from the gender roles to the actions involved. Question: what's with the getting down on one knee thing, anyway?4 It's tradition at its worst, because it transforms what should be a personal, intimate expression between people into a pressuring mass of prescribed conventions. The same, I believe, can be said of weddings.5
At no point in any of this do I mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with proposing. There's nothing wrong with rings and flowers and one-knee-bending-down-upon-ing. There's nothing wrong with extravagant gestures. There's nothing wrong with any of the traditions. But only as long as the focus is on you as a couple and the genuine affection between you. It should have nothing to do with anybody else.
Whether one person proposes to the other, whether that person be male or female, whether it takes place on any given day, whether you invite people to witness, that is all for you as a couple to decide. Perform your own gestures. Use your own words. Make your own traditions. Because, in the end, the proposal and the wedding are just events. They signify the continuation of your relationship; and it is not for anyone but you to decide what that relationship is or how you express it.
tl;dr:
1. Don't be an inconsiderate ba*boop*rd.
2. Propose if, when, and however you please.
3. ????
4. Profit!
1 A leap year can also be known as an 'intercalary' or 'bissextile year'. I for one know which name I find the most entertaining.
2 I confess, most of the imagined conversations in my head end like that, and an astonishing number involve Science being a pretty cool dude. Also watch this for that much-wanted hit of leap year knowledge.
3 This whole thing becomes even more ridiculous when one considers non-heterosexual relationships. Should a lesbian also have to wait four years for a specific twenty-four hour window to ask her partner to marry her (if indeed she could [as she should be allowed to] do so)?
4 This is called 'Genuflection'. How romantic!
5 Giving away the bride. Liberating, much?
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Footnotes are officially a thing!1
1 There isn’t really a point2 to this post, but, seeing as one of my readers3 expressed their delight that footnotes are a thing, I decided to make it official.
2 But there are some points in this post, including periods and the little dot above the ‘i’s.4
3 The aforementioned reader will not be named.5
4 The little dots are called ‘tittles’ by the way, which it goes without saying6 is a delicious7 name.
5 Well except by his parents.8
6 It’s astounding how often the phrase ‘it goes without saying’ is preceded or proceeded by the thing that is ostensibly not needed to be said. Seems somewhat self-defeating.9
7 That is to say that I find the word pleasing, not that it is literally tasty. One cannot taste a word10, nor, in this case, the thing to which the word11 refers.12
8 Of course it is not that they will name him. They have already done it13.
9 I am waiting to see an occasion where someone genuinely begins, ‘It goes without saying’, and everyone gets it14.
10 Except metaphorically, or perhaps as a result of some kind of synaesthesia15.
11 The word being ‘tittle’.
12 Although technically one could argue that the point of an ‘i’ can be made with ink16 and then licked.17
13 By ‘it’ I mean naming. Sorry if that was ambiguous.
14 ‘Gets it’ meaning ‘understands’ not ‘tangibly receives’. The ‘it’ here is yet undefined.
15 Which is one of my favourite words18.
16 Or other appropriate substance for leaving accurate shapes on paper19.
17 But then aren’t you licking the tittle and the thing on which the tittle is written?20
18 ‘Synaesthesia’, that is. Keep up.
19 Or other appropriate object or surface.
20 And aren’t you merely licking the substance that makes up the tittle, not the tittle itself?21
21 Is it ever possible to truly lick a tittle?22
22 Big questions here on Oliver Cooper Writes....23
23 This is the last one24.25
24 By which I mean ‘the last footnote’.
25 I promise.26
26 I lied.
2 But there are some points in this post, including periods and the little dot above the ‘i’s.4
3 The aforementioned reader will not be named.5
4 The little dots are called ‘tittles’ by the way, which it goes without saying6 is a delicious7 name.
5 Well except by his parents.8
6 It’s astounding how often the phrase ‘it goes without saying’ is preceded or proceeded by the thing that is ostensibly not needed to be said. Seems somewhat self-defeating.9
7 That is to say that I find the word pleasing, not that it is literally tasty. One cannot taste a word10, nor, in this case, the thing to which the word11 refers.12
8 Of course it is not that they will name him. They have already done it13.
9 I am waiting to see an occasion where someone genuinely begins, ‘It goes without saying’, and everyone gets it14.
10 Except metaphorically, or perhaps as a result of some kind of synaesthesia15.
11 The word being ‘tittle’.
12 Although technically one could argue that the point of an ‘i’ can be made with ink16 and then licked.17
13 By ‘it’ I mean naming. Sorry if that was ambiguous.
14 ‘Gets it’ meaning ‘understands’ not ‘tangibly receives’. The ‘it’ here is yet undefined.
15 Which is one of my favourite words18.
16 Or other appropriate substance for leaving accurate shapes on paper19.
17 But then aren’t you licking the tittle and the thing on which the tittle is written?20
18 ‘Synaesthesia’, that is. Keep up.
19 Or other appropriate object or surface.
20 And aren’t you merely licking the substance that makes up the tittle, not the tittle itself?21
21 Is it ever possible to truly lick a tittle?22
22 Big questions here on Oliver Cooper Writes....23
23 This is the last one24.25
24 By which I mean ‘the last footnote’.
25 I promise.26
26 I lied.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Initial reactions: or 'How to be a bad writer and get away with it'.
In continued efforts to waste your time with contentless content, I'd like to remark on the pleasantly positive response I have received thus far for this blog. Oh, how very far a little shameless plugging can get you!
Sincerely, I would like to thank those whowasted took the time to read my posts and comment on them. You're very kind. This blog remains relatively new and I wish I could promise you a certain type of content so that you could decide for yourselves whether you would like to continue stroking my ego reading. As it stands, I have a lot of ideas, all wildly different, so I guess we'll be finding our feet as we go. I promise I will try to make this more than just a place for rants concerning the key dates of our calendar year, but experience should have taught you by now not to listen to any promises I make.
To respond to one reader in particular who remarked that they could hear my voice in these posts, I am very sorry. That news is troubling on two accounts. 1) This means that my writing is as hideously ineloquent as my usual spoken diatripe1. 2) It means that those accustomed to my special brand of monotonous drooling will have to put up with hearing it more often than they normally would. For this I can only apologise. If it helps, we can all try to pretend that my written voice is something far more appealing: a smooth, golden legato, like the trickling of warm treacle, underscored by a smoky husk, like the cracking of wood in a dying camp fire. That or you can imagine that this blog is penned by Morgan Freeman2. It's up to you.
If you haven't yet been made aware (and I don't blame you; I appear to have made an art of defying clarity) I am a writer, and one of the things I would like to attempt is a series sharing my thoughts on the practice, the craft, and the business of writing. You can expect the first of these posts soon.
I will preface, however, with the candid acknowledgement that I'm not actually that good at writing, and yet, somehow, I've managed to convince a lot of people that I am. (Top Score! The disguise is working!) The truth is that I am as susceptible to typographical errors and blatantly erroneous comments as everyone else. I spend a lot of time writing and I'm a darn sight better at it than I was three years ago, or even three weeks ago; but, as much as I strive always to improve, I am not perfect, and I am thankfully not foolish enough to claim so.
There's a certain charm in knowing that the first comment ever made to this blog was to point out a frankly glaring typo. A lesser me would be annoyed that people aren't reading for the content and being nit-picky. The better me recognises that at least that means people are reading; and, if I strive to create the best content I can - which I do - I must embrace criticism and correction - which I do.
The key to being a good writer, I find, is to surround yourself with good people who are aware and honest and who are more than happy to point out how wrong you are whenever possible. I am delighted to have my little crack team of typo-finding crack typo monkeys, and I hope they will continue to help me make my content as good as it can be, so that I can continue taking all of the credit. Thanks guys.
The particularly observant of you (or those foolish enough to have read it more than once) may have noticed that my previous post has already undergone a few edits for clarity. I would like to bridge these two posts by adding one additional comment, stating that, as far as I'm concerned, the value of a thing lies in how we create it and what we do with it. Nothing of value is an end in itself, whether that thing be romantic love, or money, or a shamelessly self-referential blog post. We have an obligation only to what we create, given the time we have, the resources available to us, and the people with whom we are creating.
With that said, I intend to keep working at what I write here, as I will with everything else, untilsomeone starts paying me to do something better I can be happy that what I produce is at the very least not terrible. That, for now, seems like a pretty good goal.
tl;dr:
1. Write poorly.
2. Get friends to fix it.
3. ????
4. Profit!
1 That typo was intentional. Calm down, Monkeys.
2 I stole this suggestion from a friend. I am entirely without shame.
Sincerely, I would like to thank those who
To respond to one reader in particular who remarked that they could hear my voice in these posts, I am very sorry. That news is troubling on two accounts. 1) This means that my writing is as hideously ineloquent as my usual spoken diatripe1. 2) It means that those accustomed to my special brand of monotonous drooling will have to put up with hearing it more often than they normally would. For this I can only apologise. If it helps, we can all try to pretend that my written voice is something far more appealing: a smooth, golden legato, like the trickling of warm treacle, underscored by a smoky husk, like the cracking of wood in a dying camp fire. That or you can imagine that this blog is penned by Morgan Freeman2. It's up to you.
If you haven't yet been made aware (and I don't blame you; I appear to have made an art of defying clarity) I am a writer, and one of the things I would like to attempt is a series sharing my thoughts on the practice, the craft, and the business of writing. You can expect the first of these posts soon.
I will preface, however, with the candid acknowledgement that I'm not actually that good at writing, and yet, somehow, I've managed to convince a lot of people that I am. (Top Score! The disguise is working!) The truth is that I am as susceptible to typographical errors and blatantly erroneous comments as everyone else. I spend a lot of time writing and I'm a darn sight better at it than I was three years ago, or even three weeks ago; but, as much as I strive always to improve, I am not perfect, and I am thankfully not foolish enough to claim so.
There's a certain charm in knowing that the first comment ever made to this blog was to point out a frankly glaring typo. A lesser me would be annoyed that people aren't reading for the content and being nit-picky. The better me recognises that at least that means people are reading; and, if I strive to create the best content I can - which I do - I must embrace criticism and correction - which I do.
The key to being a good writer, I find, is to surround yourself with good people who are aware and honest and who are more than happy to point out how wrong you are whenever possible. I am delighted to have my little crack team of typo-finding crack typo monkeys, and I hope they will continue to help me make my content as good as it can be, so that I can continue taking all of the credit. Thanks guys.
The particularly observant of you (or those foolish enough to have read it more than once) may have noticed that my previous post has already undergone a few edits for clarity. I would like to bridge these two posts by adding one additional comment, stating that, as far as I'm concerned, the value of a thing lies in how we create it and what we do with it. Nothing of value is an end in itself, whether that thing be romantic love, or money, or a shamelessly self-referential blog post. We have an obligation only to what we create, given the time we have, the resources available to us, and the people with whom we are creating.
With that said, I intend to keep working at what I write here, as I will with everything else, until
tl;dr:
1. Write poorly.
2. Get friends to fix it.
3. ????
4. Profit!
1 That typo was intentional. Calm down, Monkeys.
2 I stole this suggestion from a friend. I am entirely without shame.
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Obligation Day (14/02/2012)
Today is, of course, that very special of days on which we celebrate the Tine of Valen1. It is a day, indeed, that proposes the celebration of romantic love, and I for one think that’s just super. Romantic love is pretty swell and I’d go as far to say that I’m a proponent of it. So allow me to join the jolly fray and say, “Here’s to romantic love! It’s all right!”
Now, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to explain why Valentine’s is insipid, insincere and, worst of all, irrelevant.
Let’s begin by clearing some existing arguments.
'Valentine’s is about corporations and money.’ This I cannot disagree with, but it is not the reason Valentine’s irks me. Corporations monetise on every holiday they can – always have – always will. It isn’t unreasonable for companies to desire to profit on the boosted sales of cards and presents. It is business after all. That’s not a problem. But there is a problem here. Consider this: if no one bought into holidays at all – in fact, if no one bought into just Christmas – our economies would most likely collapse. The financial well-being of our nations depends on the success of holiday expenditure. We need holidays. And that sad fact hints at the problem I wish to make clear.
Next: ‘Valentine’s only exists to make single people feel bad.’ Again, there is some truth in this, or rather the truth that, even if it is not the reason of its being, Valentine’s certainly does a very good job of it. Those without romantic partners are more often than not made to feel isolated, incomplete and generally unhappy. Even the most staunchly single cannot entirely avoid an insipid pang of self-doubt or self-pity when Valen’s Tine rolls around. Now, perhaps I am biased, considering that m’colleagues have labelled me the living embodiment of the internet meme, Forever Alone; and yet, however happily my future self may be significantly othered, however much I may long to celebrate my love by yawping it over the rooftops of the world, Valentine’s has always bugged me and I predict always will. I don’t think Valentine’s purpose is to make single people feel bad. Nor do I think the celebration of romantic love should be anathema to those who do not currently experience it. Yet, on Valentine’s Day more than any other day, the unashamed, narrow, worth-destroying mentality that pervades our culture rears its ugly, ugly head highest and strikes.
Here’s the problem. As it stands, the only love that counts worth a damn it seems is romantic love, and you don’t just want it – you need it. If you don’t have romantic love, you are incomplete. You are not a whole you. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that to be single is to be inherently unhappy, unfulfilled, and less than good enough. Even the words we use play to this fallacy. ‘Single’ – on one’s own. We don’t use the word for people who don’t have any friends, or family members, or work colleagues. We only use it for someone who doesn’t have romantic love: ‘have’ being a word of ownership, by the way. Love is a commodity – it is a product – the product - and if you don’t have it, you’re not one of the cool kids. The message is that being yourself, one singular being, is something to be embarrassed about, ashamed of, and something you must fix.
The advert is all around us. Literally, almost every advert on television, on the radio, on billboards, in newspapers and magazines, is pushing this idea. Buy our product and you will get love – or sex, which is often synonymous with romantic love, a problem I will tackle another time – and by extension, happiness. It is inescapable.
Has someone ever asked you and a friend if you are “together”? And if you’re not in a romantic relationship, you’ll most likely answer something akin to “Oh no. No. We’re just friends.”
Just friends.
Oh, how we disown and disvalue our friends with that phrase! How we discredit our love for them and their value to us! Just friends. As if friendship could never possibly be as rich and varied and fulfilling as romantic love. As if it is always less. Not only less, but worthless. Because you can’t even use the word ‘together’, no matter how close and how loving you may be. You can be physically adjacent, but you can never be ‘together’.
The result of this awfully limited way of thinking, this obsession with love, is a culture that imagines itself without complexity. What matters is not the richness and quality of one’s relationships, but whether or not you’re in one, and only if it is romantic. It is an obligation - a compulsion. And on February 14th, every year, we have a day where if you aren’t celebrating romantic love with the giving of gifts no one wants or the sharing of words you would never yourself use, you can just go on feeling sorry for yourself. But how sincere, I ask, can loving gestures really be, when one feels obliged to perform them? How meaningful can love be when it is so narrowly prescribed? Some would argue that it is important to remind yourself to appreciate the people you love. To this I quote the words of John Green: “If you need to be reminded to like your romantic partner, you’re doing it wrong.”
Valentine’s, beyond all its insipid, worth-crushing mindlessness, is a needless holiday. Celebrating romantic love is fine, but romantic love is, at the very least, over-celebrated. If ever I manage to form a romantic friendship with someone (heaven help their poor soul!), we will have Halloween on Valentine’s and Valentine’s on April Fools. (Incidentally, these are all holidays I enjoy and rue in equal aspect.) And on said Fool's Day, the insincerity of our gestures can be appreciated appropriately as a kind of bad joke.
Simply I ask that we take a moment to remember the less-loved love in our lives, whatever form it may take. Show appreciation to those with whom you wouldn’t normally be so open about your affections. And instead of celebrating love for love’s sake, consider acting upon your affections in meaningful ways – ways which cannot be conveniently transacted – ways which don’t rely on it being a certain day of the year to make manifest - ways which communicate that you, singular person, love as an autonomous entity, happy to create and be part of a plural us.
To my friends, close and far; m’colleagues; my classmates; my housemates; my family (to whom I owe apology for not making more frequent contact); and to all the strangers who have shown fleeting kindness, to whom I hope I have shown something of the same; I love you all, one way or another. And that, I think, is pretty swell.
“Here’s to love. It’s all right!”
1 Hank Green tells the tale of Valen's Tine. (Starts at 0:35)
Now, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to explain why Valentine’s is insipid, insincere and, worst of all, irrelevant.
Let’s begin by clearing some existing arguments.
'Valentine’s is about corporations and money.’ This I cannot disagree with, but it is not the reason Valentine’s irks me. Corporations monetise on every holiday they can – always have – always will. It isn’t unreasonable for companies to desire to profit on the boosted sales of cards and presents. It is business after all. That’s not a problem. But there is a problem here. Consider this: if no one bought into holidays at all – in fact, if no one bought into just Christmas – our economies would most likely collapse. The financial well-being of our nations depends on the success of holiday expenditure. We need holidays. And that sad fact hints at the problem I wish to make clear.
Next: ‘Valentine’s only exists to make single people feel bad.’ Again, there is some truth in this, or rather the truth that, even if it is not the reason of its being, Valentine’s certainly does a very good job of it. Those without romantic partners are more often than not made to feel isolated, incomplete and generally unhappy. Even the most staunchly single cannot entirely avoid an insipid pang of self-doubt or self-pity when Valen’s Tine rolls around. Now, perhaps I am biased, considering that m’colleagues have labelled me the living embodiment of the internet meme, Forever Alone; and yet, however happily my future self may be significantly othered, however much I may long to celebrate my love by yawping it over the rooftops of the world, Valentine’s has always bugged me and I predict always will. I don’t think Valentine’s purpose is to make single people feel bad. Nor do I think the celebration of romantic love should be anathema to those who do not currently experience it. Yet, on Valentine’s Day more than any other day, the unashamed, narrow, worth-destroying mentality that pervades our culture rears its ugly, ugly head highest and strikes.
Here’s the problem. As it stands, the only love that counts worth a damn it seems is romantic love, and you don’t just want it – you need it. If you don’t have romantic love, you are incomplete. You are not a whole you. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that to be single is to be inherently unhappy, unfulfilled, and less than good enough. Even the words we use play to this fallacy. ‘Single’ – on one’s own. We don’t use the word for people who don’t have any friends, or family members, or work colleagues. We only use it for someone who doesn’t have romantic love: ‘have’ being a word of ownership, by the way. Love is a commodity – it is a product – the product - and if you don’t have it, you’re not one of the cool kids. The message is that being yourself, one singular being, is something to be embarrassed about, ashamed of, and something you must fix.
The advert is all around us. Literally, almost every advert on television, on the radio, on billboards, in newspapers and magazines, is pushing this idea. Buy our product and you will get love – or sex, which is often synonymous with romantic love, a problem I will tackle another time – and by extension, happiness. It is inescapable.
Has someone ever asked you and a friend if you are “together”? And if you’re not in a romantic relationship, you’ll most likely answer something akin to “Oh no. No. We’re just friends.”
Just friends.
Oh, how we disown and disvalue our friends with that phrase! How we discredit our love for them and their value to us! Just friends. As if friendship could never possibly be as rich and varied and fulfilling as romantic love. As if it is always less. Not only less, but worthless. Because you can’t even use the word ‘together’, no matter how close and how loving you may be. You can be physically adjacent, but you can never be ‘together’.
The result of this awfully limited way of thinking, this obsession with love, is a culture that imagines itself without complexity. What matters is not the richness and quality of one’s relationships, but whether or not you’re in one, and only if it is romantic. It is an obligation - a compulsion. And on February 14th, every year, we have a day where if you aren’t celebrating romantic love with the giving of gifts no one wants or the sharing of words you would never yourself use, you can just go on feeling sorry for yourself. But how sincere, I ask, can loving gestures really be, when one feels obliged to perform them? How meaningful can love be when it is so narrowly prescribed? Some would argue that it is important to remind yourself to appreciate the people you love. To this I quote the words of John Green: “If you need to be reminded to like your romantic partner, you’re doing it wrong.”
Valentine’s, beyond all its insipid, worth-crushing mindlessness, is a needless holiday. Celebrating romantic love is fine, but romantic love is, at the very least, over-celebrated. If ever I manage to form a romantic friendship with someone (heaven help their poor soul!), we will have Halloween on Valentine’s and Valentine’s on April Fools. (Incidentally, these are all holidays I enjoy and rue in equal aspect.) And on said Fool's Day, the insincerity of our gestures can be appreciated appropriately as a kind of bad joke.
Simply I ask that we take a moment to remember the less-loved love in our lives, whatever form it may take. Show appreciation to those with whom you wouldn’t normally be so open about your affections. And instead of celebrating love for love’s sake, consider acting upon your affections in meaningful ways – ways which cannot be conveniently transacted – ways which don’t rely on it being a certain day of the year to make manifest - ways which communicate that you, singular person, love as an autonomous entity, happy to create and be part of a plural us.
To my friends, close and far; m’colleagues; my classmates; my housemates; my family (to whom I owe apology for not making more frequent contact); and to all the strangers who have shown fleeting kindness, to whom I hope I have shown something of the same; I love you all, one way or another. And that, I think, is pretty swell.
“Here’s to love. It’s all right!”
1 Hank Green tells the tale of Valen's Tine. (Starts at 0:35)
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Online Presence: Like a Voice in a Storm
To continue as I started, with contentless, metaphor-riddled drivel concerning the nature and being of this blog, I will tackle the idea of 'web presence'.
It is pretty universally acknowledged at this point that if you want to be anything, you must find a place to be it. There are two points to this. 1) In a world of individual fame and the figure-heading of one to stand for a body of all, success is measured and created by public awareness. No one achieved anything if they couldn't be patted on the back afterwards - preferably by millions of strangers. 2) For a long time, there has been a right and a wrong place to present and publish oneself. Though the blogosphere may seem so much more impartial, one's setting is still very much everything. Where you are on the internet is a big deal. Or rather, where you are in terms of connection to elsewhere is a big deal.
There are those stories about great writers and artists and whathaveyous1 only being recognised for their achievements after death. Van Gogh is perhaps the go-to guy on this front. So here's the question: would Van Gogh have fared any better if he had started with a flickr or a Tumblr or any other blog or website carrying a seeming vendetta against the letter 'e'? How would greater public awareness, even on a small scale, affected the overall reception of Vincent's work pre- and post-mortem? And would his current standing of 'greatness' have been heightened or diluted, or maybe even revoked by the frame with which his presence was formed?
Now I am not going to ignore that there are still artists discovered and revered after their deaths catching media attention today. And I'm not going to suggest that there are not artists who make their way without having to tweet and tumbl and blog. Nor am I suggesting that there is anything wrong with these internet practices. What I'm exploring is just what effect the sheer ease of access for most people has had on the reception of created goods. Anyone can get a blog. Anyone can use it to promote their art. Anyone can sell that art to anyone as long as they both have something resembling internet access. It's pretty incredible. But at what point are there too many voices? At what point does the cacophony become so great that, for any person who has been told they need an online presence, the best they can hope for is to become a dull murmur in the audience, waiting vigilantly before the stage? And oh that stage looks pretty, but I wonder how beautiful it looks from upon it.
In a century's time, this place will be a graveyard of ghostly voices, calling out from the past, a monument to the interconnected, disconnected murmuring of people trying to find a place, trying to invite the deaf and the blind to watch and listen. And the gravestones are already popping up from this once fertile land. How long ago did you delete that Myspace account? Or is it still there, echoing in silence from the past?2
Why, I wonder, do we all do it? What is it you, dear reader, explorer and stranger, want from your blogs and your tumblrs and your little corners of little spaces in the big rooms of a big house? And who will be the Van Goghs in a hundred years? Which of the disembodied voices in this graveyard of mutters will be drawn out and put on display beside their work, like the glass-encased love letters of old poets? Will it be the ones that muttered loudest, longest or proudest? Will it be the ones that muttered sweetest? Or will all this muttering fall behind as the cacophony surges on, and, as always before, only the art remains?
1 I once tried being a 'whathaveyou'. It didn't work out. I didn't have enough thumbs.
2 Molly Lewis got their first.
It is pretty universally acknowledged at this point that if you want to be anything, you must find a place to be it. There are two points to this. 1) In a world of individual fame and the figure-heading of one to stand for a body of all, success is measured and created by public awareness. No one achieved anything if they couldn't be patted on the back afterwards - preferably by millions of strangers. 2) For a long time, there has been a right and a wrong place to present and publish oneself. Though the blogosphere may seem so much more impartial, one's setting is still very much everything. Where you are on the internet is a big deal. Or rather, where you are in terms of connection to elsewhere is a big deal.
There are those stories about great writers and artists and whathaveyous1 only being recognised for their achievements after death. Van Gogh is perhaps the go-to guy on this front. So here's the question: would Van Gogh have fared any better if he had started with a flickr or a Tumblr or any other blog or website carrying a seeming vendetta against the letter 'e'? How would greater public awareness, even on a small scale, affected the overall reception of Vincent's work pre- and post-mortem? And would his current standing of 'greatness' have been heightened or diluted, or maybe even revoked by the frame with which his presence was formed?
Now I am not going to ignore that there are still artists discovered and revered after their deaths catching media attention today. And I'm not going to suggest that there are not artists who make their way without having to tweet and tumbl and blog. Nor am I suggesting that there is anything wrong with these internet practices. What I'm exploring is just what effect the sheer ease of access for most people has had on the reception of created goods. Anyone can get a blog. Anyone can use it to promote their art. Anyone can sell that art to anyone as long as they both have something resembling internet access. It's pretty incredible. But at what point are there too many voices? At what point does the cacophony become so great that, for any person who has been told they need an online presence, the best they can hope for is to become a dull murmur in the audience, waiting vigilantly before the stage? And oh that stage looks pretty, but I wonder how beautiful it looks from upon it.
In a century's time, this place will be a graveyard of ghostly voices, calling out from the past, a monument to the interconnected, disconnected murmuring of people trying to find a place, trying to invite the deaf and the blind to watch and listen. And the gravestones are already popping up from this once fertile land. How long ago did you delete that Myspace account? Or is it still there, echoing in silence from the past?2
Why, I wonder, do we all do it? What is it you, dear reader, explorer and stranger, want from your blogs and your tumblrs and your little corners of little spaces in the big rooms of a big house? And who will be the Van Goghs in a hundred years? Which of the disembodied voices in this graveyard of mutters will be drawn out and put on display beside their work, like the glass-encased love letters of old poets? Will it be the ones that muttered loudest, longest or proudest? Will it be the ones that muttered sweetest? Or will all this muttering fall behind as the cacophony surges on, and, as always before, only the art remains?
1 I once tried being a 'whathaveyou'. It didn't work out. I didn't have enough thumbs.
2 Molly Lewis got their first.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Set sail! Set sail! We must set sail!
Greetings, Journeyman, Journeywoman, and/or Journeyother, whoever you may be.
On a cold, dim, quiet day, this 28th of January, 2012, I created a blog, but until a matter of moments ago, I didn't really know why. Perhaps I felt bored with my previous writing outlets. Perhaps I didn't feel like they were really outlets at all. Perhaps I was drawn to the idea of a fresh, new, shiny beginning - like a blank page patiently waiting for the first pen prick of ink. Maybe I had listened to the advice of friends and professionals and realised that a web presence is a must if you want anyone to pay any attention to anything you do. Maybe I wanted to compile and rebrand the messy, fraying threads of my past ventures into some recognisable, and yet all-together uniquely different, whole. Maybe I just wanted a little corner in a little box of a big room in a big house to call my own, somewhere secret, all to myself and the rest of the world.
I intend to explore all these options, and I won't deny that they are all true, but, as it turns out, the reason I made this blog is far simpler than any of them. You see, dear stranger, wayward traveller, explorer and wanderer of virtual seas: I felt like it; and, as it turns out, feeling like something - a writer, a musician, an architect, an artisan, a creator, a blogger - is a vital part of becoming that thing. If you can fool yourself into pretending long enough, you might just accidentally become your disguise.
I wear a lot of disguises, though they may often look similar. Yesterday, I felt like dedicating three hours of my time to being hunched over a laptop keyboard, desperately pleading with an uncompromising sentence to organise itself in a fashion half-respectable. A week ago, you may have found me - if you had been so bold to appear in my bedroom uninvited - struggling to find the missing sixth of the final chord of the verse progression of the song I was composing. Recently, I've felt like collaborating with others to write a tabletop RPG from scratch. It was the desire to try my hand at article writing that recently inspired the instigation of a collaborative editorial project on Facebook. I've dabbled with online video, bustled through the hectic streets of public journals, taken to the stage, and taken to the page, and all because, at the time, I felt like it.
Right now, I feel like blogging, and so, whatever it is that I am inspired to create here, I will become that creator, the blogger, to do so. I must wear that disguise. Some may consider this a capriciousness practice, for what use is a pair of hands that flit from one half-made object to another? What use is an 'I' that does not know how to be one thing? But it is not fickleness that leads the wayward traveller. It is feeling. Like a fuel, it drives you on, turning thought into idea, and idea into form - form into shape, and shape into substance. And every new venture and every new idea comes with its own feeling, strong and undeniable.
The beginning of all things is with a step. So we must all set sail. We must, or never take the voyage at all.
But I will return to my song when the feeling takes me again, and I shall spend yet more hours on that uncooperative sentence, and bit by bit, these objects will verge towards completion, as, bit by bit, new ones join them.
This blog is a map, and, like a dotted line, I will mark out the uneasy steps towards making manifest my imagination. Here I will muse on the making of things.
Into the blogosphere - that inimitable cacophony of voices - I set sail, nurtured by the voices of all those creators who have sent their work out into the world, like ships onto the sea, hoping one day to sail them home1.
1. Yes, that is a rephrasing of Danny DeVito's voice-over narration during the library scene in his adaptation of Roald Dahl's Matilda. I'm glad you noticed.
On a cold, dim, quiet day, this 28th of January, 2012, I created a blog, but until a matter of moments ago, I didn't really know why. Perhaps I felt bored with my previous writing outlets. Perhaps I didn't feel like they were really outlets at all. Perhaps I was drawn to the idea of a fresh, new, shiny beginning - like a blank page patiently waiting for the first pen prick of ink. Maybe I had listened to the advice of friends and professionals and realised that a web presence is a must if you want anyone to pay any attention to anything you do. Maybe I wanted to compile and rebrand the messy, fraying threads of my past ventures into some recognisable, and yet all-together uniquely different, whole. Maybe I just wanted a little corner in a little box of a big room in a big house to call my own, somewhere secret, all to myself and the rest of the world.
I intend to explore all these options, and I won't deny that they are all true, but, as it turns out, the reason I made this blog is far simpler than any of them. You see, dear stranger, wayward traveller, explorer and wanderer of virtual seas: I felt like it; and, as it turns out, feeling like something - a writer, a musician, an architect, an artisan, a creator, a blogger - is a vital part of becoming that thing. If you can fool yourself into pretending long enough, you might just accidentally become your disguise.
I wear a lot of disguises, though they may often look similar. Yesterday, I felt like dedicating three hours of my time to being hunched over a laptop keyboard, desperately pleading with an uncompromising sentence to organise itself in a fashion half-respectable. A week ago, you may have found me - if you had been so bold to appear in my bedroom uninvited - struggling to find the missing sixth of the final chord of the verse progression of the song I was composing. Recently, I've felt like collaborating with others to write a tabletop RPG from scratch. It was the desire to try my hand at article writing that recently inspired the instigation of a collaborative editorial project on Facebook. I've dabbled with online video, bustled through the hectic streets of public journals, taken to the stage, and taken to the page, and all because, at the time, I felt like it.
Right now, I feel like blogging, and so, whatever it is that I am inspired to create here, I will become that creator, the blogger, to do so. I must wear that disguise. Some may consider this a capriciousness practice, for what use is a pair of hands that flit from one half-made object to another? What use is an 'I' that does not know how to be one thing? But it is not fickleness that leads the wayward traveller. It is feeling. Like a fuel, it drives you on, turning thought into idea, and idea into form - form into shape, and shape into substance. And every new venture and every new idea comes with its own feeling, strong and undeniable.
The beginning of all things is with a step. So we must all set sail. We must, or never take the voyage at all.
But I will return to my song when the feeling takes me again, and I shall spend yet more hours on that uncooperative sentence, and bit by bit, these objects will verge towards completion, as, bit by bit, new ones join them.
This blog is a map, and, like a dotted line, I will mark out the uneasy steps towards making manifest my imagination. Here I will muse on the making of things.
Into the blogosphere - that inimitable cacophony of voices - I set sail, nurtured by the voices of all those creators who have sent their work out into the world, like ships onto the sea, hoping one day to sail them home1.
1. Yes, that is a rephrasing of Danny DeVito's voice-over narration during the library scene in his adaptation of Roald Dahl's Matilda. I'm glad you noticed.
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