Categories
Book Reviews

twelve angry men

By Reginald Rose 

When did I become fascinated by titles with lowercase letters, I wonder? I'm not sure that it matters - it's just an observation. I'm sure it has something to do with my bad poetry. Who was that sentence for, I wonder? Am I seeking someone's approval? Where is this introspection coming from?

Twelve Angry Men, the musical was recently being performed at a theater in the Twin Cities. We didn't make it down to see it, but I had a copy of the play in my library. It had been on the shelves for a while now, unread and ignored. That's probably why the men are so angry. Most men don't mind being unread so much, but my goodness! Watch out if you ignore us! We get angry.

I've seen the play before. I've read the play before. This was the first time I took interest in the play out of my own volition. I have not seen the musical rendition. It must be incredible or excruciating. There can be no in between. I don't want to write about the play. I can add nothing to it. Nor can I take anything away from it. It is what it is. Seeing it makes the dialogue come alive. Reading it, while dealing with the limitations of my own inner voice creates some tension, gives the play a greater depth. What, I wonder again, would a musical of it do? Do I really want to find out?

I want to write about the introduction in the edition I have: Penguin Classics, hardback, copyright 2006. I love Penguin books. It is a dream of mine that one day one of my grandchildren will pick up a copy of something I wrote in that famous black cover. I'm less keen on hardbacks - though a short book like this doesn't present the normal issues a large one would. I'm certainly not a fan of 2006 and have no desire whatsoever to write about that year, thank you very much. What caught my eye the other day when I read this particular copy was the introduction by David Mamet. 

I'm going to include large swathes of quotations in a moment. As you read them I want you to picture a glass of water sitting on my desk. Is it half-empty? Is it half-full? As I write (as you read) let's decide together. Rule no. 1 - Don't drink the water before you finish. It will spoil everything. 

"There are, I think, two Americas. There is that which we decry on reading the newspapers. 'Those fools,' we say, of the group not of our political bent, 'how in the world can they believe the nonsense they are spouting?'

This introduction was written sixteen years ago. Newspapers are dead, of course. Just sub out the word 'newspapers' with your favorite Internet news source and it feels very in the moment. Sadly, Mr. Mamet, the fools we have today are not your father's fools. What wouldn't we all give to go back to 2006 and remember how the fools on the other side of the aisle, while still fools, were still someone David Mamet notes we would consider smart. "How can intelligent people act that way?" He asks. "This is the America of 'them,'" he declares.

The America of them. The other, the they. This is the America we know intimately just a short sixteen years later. I wonder if there is an amended introduction out there somewhere. Would David Mamet write the same hopeful introduction? 

"And then there is the America we participate in - that fairly friendly and reasonable group of diverse interest and talents, happy to pitch in, the America of 'us'." Have we lost this America of us? I took a sip of my water without thinking. The glass is definitely half empty now. Is that what happened to us? We got distracted by what we were doing and carelessly ruined everything? Am I just projecting?

"This nonabstract, this real America, is a rather pleasant place. When we are not being actively divided - by religion or politics - we rest here in the default position of unity." I miss the nonabstract America. I miss the diversity in the unity. I miss seeing past the voter, the activist and the unreconstructed reactionaries. I miss the real America of 2006 (not exactly 2006, but you get my point). 

The problem is with everything that has changed in the last sixteen years I'm not sure I share Mr. Mamet's optimism when he notes, "Over time, we see, the reasonable often find a way to unite the seemingly irreconcilable claims of passion." Time has ceased to be relevant these past sixteen years. Now everything is in the moment, a snap, a post, a tweet. Next, we move on to the next moment, snap, post or tweet. From frozen moment to frozen moment we move across the interconnected world. Along the way our hearts grew cold. We stopped going to places where we could see past the voter, past the activist, past the unreconstructed reactionary into the eyes of our fellow American. The eye being a window to the soul we could catch glimpses of what potential America has. Sixteen years ago I didn't mind hearing about what potential I had. America and I have both moved past the age where potentiality matters.  
Categories
Jazz

la la land

La La Land: Justin Hurwitz

Classification: Jazz
Release: 2016

Some day I may get around to reviewing the movie, "La La Land". Spoiler alert, I love it. It's sad. It's sweet. It's bitter. It's jazz and slick and Hollywood perfect. Sure, sure. I'm a sucker, what can I say? My wife is a big fan of Ryan Gosling - I think most wives are. She always seems to have new Hollywood crushes, but Ryan Gosling is one that often comes up in her list of most attractive men. I know this list because she likes to ask me who I think is pretty in Hollywood. I don't think she really wants to hear my answer. I think she wants me to ask the question back.

Since 2014 I have included Emma Stone in my list. This is partially because of Emma Stone, partly because I am forever behind in my Hollywood gossip. There is just too much content these days. People that don't have anything to say should just stop saying it. Hmm. That cuts a little too close. I've stopped including Emma Stone in my lists when Erin asks me the Hollywood question. This has nothing to do with Emma Stone, per se. It has everything to do with Erin's response to my inclusion of Emma Stone in my list. Erin said something to the effect that Emma Stone looks like her sister. There is a vague similarity there, but I wouldn't have noticed it without Erin's pointing it out in ways that made me realize that she had done her homework to prove her spurious point.

It's made things weird between us. Not between Erin and I (nor between Erin's sister and I). Between Emma and I. There's this disconnect now that wasn't there before. It's me, Emma. Not you. See, that's weird isn't it? La La Land the movie used to be the perfect movie for Erin and I. Now? Well, let's just move on to the album.

There is a stack of folders that I want to edit and put on the blog. Instead I'm sitting listening to La La Land for the fifth time in three days and writing about it. I should have classified this post as a review in the Musicals category. It would have fixed a broken link. So would some of the papers in the stack of folders an arm's reach away, for that matter. It would be dishonest to put La La Land in any other category than jazz. Sure, it's a safer jazz than some of the other albums I've been listening to. Here's looking at you King Tut. It's got that Hollywood slickness about it that something like Head Hunters doesn't have. Still, a duck is a duck whether its in the little pond near our apartment or in the lobby of the Peabody. 

"Are there any words", asked Erin on its second go round the turntable? It was then I knew that it couldn't go in the Musicals category. There are some words, in case you were wondering. Only on City of Stars, which might actually be one of my least favorite tracks on the whole album. Mia and Sebastian's Theme, which runs through both album and movie, has a beautiful piano refrain. I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason hearing the song over and over again I am reminded of Cloud Atlas and its recurring piano theme. 

Now, there's a film (or book) I wouldn't mind picking up again. This is why I can't catch up to the content that Hollywood keeps churning out. I get distracted too easily in deciding what to watch with the overabundance of choices. I wind up returning to the same thing over and over again. La La Land is that type of jazz record: a refuge, a safe return when the plethora of choices seem overwhelming. It is the ultimate tool of procrastination. The stack of folders that need to be edited can wait another day. 
Categories
Tundra

a deus ex machina hidden in plain sight

a note/an interruption of thought
placed here in the middle of the book
(shoulda been at the front)

interruptions are merely continuations when you think non-linearly/that's what we'll say/crooked roads end at the same place the straight ones do:

the end.

the placement of titles is problematic [in the original edition]
of this i am aware

it is more difficult to put the name at the top when you don't know where the poem's ending is/whether the road is straight or crooked doesn't really matter

it makes the whole world go topsy turvy for me in
the end.
Categories
Tundra

ode to midwestern food

pierogi. oofta.
wisconsin anything - cheeseladen
heavy. hearty.
kielbasa+fries+bun+kraut+mustard+beef+pizza+hotdog-ketchup+oldstyle.
chicago.
greatest grubbin in america
(in winter)
heavy. hearty.
heavy...

in indiana:
chicken and noodles so thick it sticks together like to-go chinese rice. 
plop,
on top of mashed potatoes.
oofta.

monochromatic carboloading.

in minnesota:
i saw a fried pie
it caught my eye
labeled as it was:
insideout 
biscuits & gravy.

pierogi.
i have become 
monochromatic and carboladen

delicious/greyish/heartburn

heavy...
Categories
Tundra

lemme go

why so somber, tonight? 
why so forlorn?

why the same?
i retort.

why so full of melancholy?
why so glum, chum?

lemme go, ouroboros.
lemme go.
Categories
Tundra

i drove out to st. cloud today

i drove out to st. cloud today
pop. 68,000

i drove out to st. cloud today
headed back down south
i came this way
i drove this long, lonely road

i drove out to st. cloud today
loaded my mouth
saw where the snow was 
saw the snow unsnowed

i drove out to st. cloud today
just for giggles
ate off a tray
just for giggles
they had no kung pao
no giggles, none
Categories
Journal Entries

july 15, 2022

July 15, 2022 - aka, last Friday. Man, oh man! I lament how I didn't write this on the actual July 15, 2022! I lament! Lo lamento! (It's a fun one to say.) 

We (Erin and I) were on a plane to Cincinnati, OH. My mind was on a plane to elsewhere: some euphoria beyond Cincinnati, OH, a place that transcends the chili parlor that had been opened since 1940 only to close a week before we showed up. Google seemed unaware that this institution of Cincinnati cuisine had died. I have agreed to not disclose what put me on that path to transcendence. I can only say two things. First, it was not the chili that put me on the path. Second, it must suffice that you know that my whole world is in a reorientation mode. Everything is being re-calibrated to match the aim of the unexpected decision that produced the euphoria. 

Even with a week's passage of time the vividness of the revelation that brought about the (overly aforementioned and somehow still underrated) euphoria - it would be much easier to reveal it. I wouldn't have to speak metaphorically. No? OK. No. The build up won't render the 07/15/2022 anti-climatic. I fear it will taint the date with a hint of bitterness. Bitterness or not, I am steeling myself for the work needed to grab the prize at the end of the S.M.A.R.T. goal. A week is a short time when measuring vividness of dreams and hopes. There is always time to hope, until of course, there is not. 

As a yo-yo like rollercoaster of emotions, trying to measure the swings in a week is a particularly daunting task. Do you measure peak periods? Do you graph them and take the mean, focusing on the outliers that are skewing the average? Just thinking about it is daunting. Doing it would be akin to being tasked with measuring infinitude with a plastic ruler, long parted from its trapper keeper home. The ruler, the task and I are all doomed to a lingering melancholy as we undertake this exercise in Quixoticism. This is the micro-climate into which July 15th crowned.

The macro-climate offers us no less a difficult or neurotic picture. We (You and I) are sitting on the precipice of economic disaster. I don't know about you but I find myself to be in a reflective mood. The January 6th commission, part folly, part farce, part necessary, part a complete waste - all tragedy - dominates the airwaves and my thoughts. If this event, as it really happened, internet meme warriors and all, nearly toppled our vaunted democracy then I have no fear that the next useful idiot, if he can overcome his idiocy for just a few days, will have no problem in dispensing with this haggard old democratic shell we so worship. Whether it is my current melancholy or something else, I feel haunted by the follow up question. Does it matter? 

In the end, most useful idiots outlast their utility. They descend into blathering, bitter and sad caricatures of themselves. Given that useful idiots begin their journey from the already grotesque (or at the very least, on the way to being grotesque) the descent is rapid and the caricature extremely low. I must confess, there is a sick pleasure to be had in reigning down righteous anger at the idiots beneath me. It might not be productive, but it helps me to ignore the big picture stuff that gets in the way of the dreamscapes and other escapism tools I rely on to get me through daily life. 

If all the raindrops were lemondrops and gumdrops, o what a rain that would be! The sickening sweetness would do nothing but make us long for the fresh, cool, good ol' fashioned air that comes right after the summer storm - what a relief that would be! A bottle of pepto would be needed for the lemondrop and gumdrop nonsense that certain weatherman are calling for these days. The negative nancy's on the other side (they flip-flop, re-orientate every four years or so) offer such spicy forecasts that they require tums. Is it any wonder we feel so terrible when one side gives us stuff that requires pepto and the other side gives us crap that necessitates tums? Is it any wonder that I'm sick of it all?

Even in the midst of such macro conditions the feelings around July 15th remain strong. They have attached to my core being, mystically becoming my core. Still, macro conditions being what they are, cutbacks loom on the horizon - even for feelings. Everything in me is realigning itself to serve those new core feelings just as the time of pruning is upon us. Much will be lost. More shall be gained. This is what mysticism teaches me. This is escapism at its most primitive form.

Cut back the nonsense. Cut back the excess. Return to the core principals. Return to the primitive. That is how you survive in times such as these. Nothing superfluous. Just the basics. Without February 24th, there could be no July 15th. Could there be anything more obvious? 

Without February 24th there could have been no July 15th. If there wasn't a February 24th that would mean then that the world ended on February 23rd. February 24th was the day that I moved to Minnesota. It was this very move that made the potential for the July 15th revelation possible. Yet, February 24th makes the goal associated with July 15th much harder to reach. Irony - a flesh wound. February 24 was also the day Russia invaded Ukraine. Perhaps February 23rd really was the end of the world? There is this interesting theory that the Mayan calendar doomsday of 2012 - you know the one that was as dangerous to us as Y2k? The theory states that in spite of the obvious evidence to the contrary, the apocalypse did actually occur. The past decade happened, proponents of this theory state, only it happened in hell because we've all been dead for ten years. It isn't a pleasant theory, but it kind of explains some of current circumstances... 

As we (all of us) sit on the precipice of economic disaster, I find myself still in a reflective mood. It wasn't that long ago that we (all of us, generally; an overpaid university employee and myself, specifically) sat on the precipice of financial collapse. It was pre-2012, but not by much. The Mayans were gearing up for their colossal hoax; or, masterpiece. The bankers were getting their collection plates out. The politicians were begrudglingly opening their wallets, complaining that this operation usually worked in the other order. I was in the guidance counselor's office. 

It was well lit. Furnished as you would expect: leather chairs, bookcases crammed with books, fancily framed diplomas on the wall. It was surprisingly spacious. An enormous desk sat in the middle of the room. A tiny man sat in an equally oversized leather chair behind the desk. Proportionally speaking, the balance was completely off. The office was well insulated. Outside, it was freezing. The economy was on the brink of utter collapse. You could feel none of that from inside its four walls. Let me give you $120,000 worth of free advice.

If you find yourself in one of these well insulated, well decorated rooms, sitting in an expensive and comfortable leather chair, across from a guidance counselor - I use this word, "guidance" here in the most generous and forgiving of manners. If you find yourself such, and the guidance counselor offers you this guidance,: "obtain your MBA. It will allow you to wait out the job market as it tears itself to pieces over the next few years. It will give you a couple more years of loan deferment. It will place you in the pole position for when the recovery comes."

His guidance will fail to mention that it would equip one to retroactively understand how fraudulently limited this line of thinking is, how it catastrophically fails to see the obviously inevitability: a jobless recovery on the other side of the market crash. If you find yourself nodding along to his promises, sit back in your chair for a moment. Take a deep breath. Stand up from the leather chair and punch him in the throat. Walk out of his office quickly. Don't look back. Head to the library or the Barnes & Noble holding up the carcass of your local mall. All the knowledge and experience of the MBA is obtainable there. The $120K piece of paper that adds three letters to the end of your name simply doesn't deliver the ROI it promises.

The MBA obsession that took shape in the 80s and reached its fevered apex right before the whole world's economy went to pot (the last time, not this time) pushed tons of people like me into a degree that isn't worth the prestigious price tag. Tons of people like me, recent graduates, fairly intelligent, extremely bored and still naive enough to look for guidance in corrupt, albeit well-maintained academic halls, obtained MBAs. Our very possession of the prestigious three letters behind our names tarnish the prestige of the MBA. The debt that came along with this diminished status symbol - I treat this as a blessing in disguise. It is the only escapism that works.

Perhaps, it is me who is obsessed with an MBA. If this is the case then it only proves my point. I am the living embodiment of things that took shape in the 80s and reached a fevered apex right before the whole world's economy went to pot (the last time). I am convinced this is a blessing because it is through these visible chains that we can see all the invisible ones. The MBA has a "ooooh" factor to it. It's an advanced degrees. Advanced degrees inspire confidence among those who don't have them. This is a misplaced confidence, I can assure you. I really did obtain my MBA. 

We imbued a magical, authoritative quality to the MBA. Imbued, people with MBAs set about putting the education they obtained to use. They built the new economic system that we are living in, which as broken as we might like to claim it is, actually works perfectly fine. It was designed by MBA's to achieve MBA's ends. The politicians do well in this system too. That shouldn't surprise us. The useful idiot needs to feel important in order to be useful, especially when they are in fact, so unimportant. American consumerism became a cultish worship, its ceremonies and rituals surrounding the depraved minds of the absolute monopolists (all of whom hold MBA's, prestigious ones to boot!) In that transformation, capitalism became a grotesque figure. 

The protesters who rail against all her evils shout and scream at a lifeless corpse, dressed up like it's Weekend at Bernie's. The defenders of capitalism, the duped devotees of the absolute monopolist's religion of selfishness fight against the lefties and the commies who hate this country. They defend the corpse, lovingly caressing the dead in a perverted remake of Weekend at Bernie's. It's even worse than Weekend at Bernie's II. There are certain movies that just don't need sequels. Still, I have to give credit where credit is due. Do we really think that a Hollywood Studio would make a movie out of a Jorge Amado story nowadays? No MBA would sign off on that. The risk-reward calculus would be off. Even if an MBA signed off on it, the lawyers would stop it. Oh God! Don't get me started on the lawyers! I've got enough difficulty with the MBAs.

This is the primary problem with the MBA. The system that the MBAs put into place are wildly successful for the limited few, the MBAs and their useful idiots. The MBAs (and their useful idiots) pushed the system too hard. They blew the bubble and then burst it. But, being MBAs they looked for the opportunity in the danger and found a lucrative business model. Guidance Counselors, Provosts and University Presidents suddenly became useful idiots. Inflating someone's sense of importance is a particularly effective tool in converting an idiot into a useful one. The MBA was packaged as the ticket to the next wrung of the social ladder - some might even climb multiples through motivation, grit and smarts. 

It was not mentioned that much of this social upward thrust had more to do with connections than motivation, grit and smarts. I should have read the fine print, I know. I know. The MBA business model has a tendency to produce bubbles. Bubbles have a tendency to pop. The post-2008 disaster zone limped into the jobless recovery of the Mayan apocalypse. The job market was awash saturated with seekers with new, online MBAs and no connections. The useful idiots inside the halls of academia retain their utility. The seekers with $120,000 pieces of paper retained their idiocy. Laugh all you'd like, Guidance Counselors, Provosts and University Presidents, even presidents use their utility.

A major positive to this soul-crushing financial imprisonment is the emergence of the support group MBAnonymous. It's a group of idiots that meets twice a month to talk about all of our regrets. We talk about the positives too - but that is very rare these days, what with the financial cliff and all. It's a bit of a trigger for us. Just the other day I was looking up Graduate Degrees in Literature and Philosophy. We talk about all kinds of things, sharing our unique circumstances and shared sense of being sold. It is a decentralized organization with no real structure or defined aim. This fact, along with the seething, burning rage that is palpable in the meeting rooms, makes it difficult to outline the general feelings of the group. I think, though, it would be safe to describe the general consensus amongst us in this manner.

The various MBA programs from where we all got that expensive piece of paper that sits in framed form somewhere in attics, basements and closets all provided some value. They taught us great deals of common sense. They gave us critical thinking tools and models through which we can measure and weigh the world with. Having been given the prestigious diploma with its attendant debt right as the bubble burst we were painfully made aware that the prestigious diploma, its attendant debt and the lack of connections made through the online coursework provided us none of the advantages that sold us on the course in the first place. We all have this mystified feeling now that we see the picture so clearly. Having had the business and political world demystified for us through our overpriced education we have dispelled with the naive notion that business leaders and their attending political tools are special because of letters attached to their end of their names. It was an expensive lesson, but I think we are all better for it having paid the price. 

Here is where the consensus breaks down a little. Having arrived at the self-evident and indisputable truth that those in power only work to enshrine their own power us members of MBAnonymous split off into one of two camps. There is the camp that often ends the meeting by weeping in the corner. Then, there is the cynical camp where the beauty of the system that trapped us is actively admired. The beauty of the trap lies in the simplicity of the details. The cultish monopolists made a mint in taking over education through the commodification process. They marketed it and sold it to easy marks: the seekers, wanderers and the desperately aspirational. We took on the debt in good faith that the degree they packaged would lead to good paying, upwardly mobile and most importantly, meaningful careers. They sold the debt in bad faith, knowing that the model they were using was going to crash and burn. They had just learned that it was unstable by crashing the housing market. The model was not flawed; it was designed to crash. 

Economics 101. The Basics. Supply and Demand. The MBAs intentionally oversupplied the market with fresh MBAs, devaluing the very MBA that they were selling so aggressively. The beauty of the design comes out when the reality becomes clear. The workforce now has glut of highly educated workers to do the monopolists bidding at a lower price. Have you ever wondered why there seems to be a plethora of entry level jobs on indeed with three pages of delineated duties, a starting pay of less than a third of the MBA degree that is required to apply and is probably just a way of capturing your data to be sold to a big tech firm? This might not be a consensus of our weekly meetings, but the question is being asked with enough regularity for me to include it here. The cold hard fact is that a decade into whatever hellish age the Mayan's called post-2012 is one where we are no closer to breaking off the visible chains of the last financial melt down. The plan was as devastating as it was beautiful.

The meaningless of the debt forces us to search for meaning in other ways. Chained to the system as I am for the foreseeable future, I am going to seek my sanity in the glow of that flight to Cincinnati. I am going to bask in the irony that no one in the halls of power or the boardrooms on 5th Avenue can take from me. My possession of the prestigious diploma diminishes the MBA every day it doesn't lead me to the promised land. I am going to bask in this irony because no one in the halls of power or the boardrooms on 5th Avenue care about this diminishing. They've already made their money off of me.

The problem with the world designed by MBAs (and lawyers) we live in is obvious. When everything is subject to commodification everything trades its intrinsic value to one that is assigned and then fluctuates based on market conditions. Happiness has no value at all if it is stripped of its intrinsic meaningfulness. Happiness has no place in this system. That alone should be enough to have every one marching in the streets, dragging our visible and invisible chains to use in the ultimate battle for freedom. This is the only way to bring down the curtain on this nightmarish Mayan doomsday we are living through. We won't do this, of course. We know that. They know that. Instead, we will rise up until we are distracted by some form of entertainment. 

There are these business conferences that take place in small towns from, "Tulsa to Tippecanoe." Nearly two decades ago, I went to one in Muncie, IN by the name of Yo, it's Tony. He told us fledgling catechists all the great things that come out of the monopolists' religion. The evening's focus at Yo, it's Tony focused on the act of stepping back and taking stock. I'm piling on now, but my wrath has a good frothiness to it that I'd like to see to its natural conclusion. Everything in Yo, it's Tony's world (the world that Tony was unsuccessfully trying to be allowed into) was commodity-centric. Tony went on and on about stepping back and taking stock. He had seven points - none of which I remember. What I do remember is thinking that this guy has totally turned the art of procrastination into a money making endeavor. This bullshit cost me $25.

This rant is the confluence of the micro and macro climates in which I am working to reposition myself. What was once the art of procrastination is now the business model of Yo, it's Tony. It is a sad world we live in, but we must live. It is time for me to paint for you the picture of my procrastination. It is time for me to be like Tony, take a step back and take stock. Where are you looking to go, Tony asks? How will you get anywhere if you don't know where you are going? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But, which direction should you step? Tony was probably my age now in 2003 when I attended his conference for extra credit in my Accounting course. I desperately needed the extra credit. I desperately want to do anything that keeps me off the Tulsa to Tippecanoe circuit. Desperate enough to finally try and get some ROI on that $25 bucks.

There exists a S.M.A.R.T. goal associated with July 15th. To write it out would give it away and be a breach of my promise. These are the tools I have to achieve the unspoken S.M.A.R.T. goal: a typewriter, a filing cabinet and this blog. Though the essay you are reading may argue otherwise, that last sentence was written without mordancy. I guess there wouldn't be any harm in sharing the "T" part. T-minus three years and counting. 

Priority A 

These are the points of emphasis, the projects that will get us to specifics of July 15: note, assume the sale.

Project #1 - The collage as literature take on Charles Dickens' masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities. My Dickensian deconstruction, literary collage at its most literal. (Unstarted as of yet)

Project #2 - The Hercules Project (Untitled as of yet)

Project #3 - Minnesota Facts, Folks & Happenings (The Real Magic of Magical Realism, working title)

Project #4 - Les Parisiens (Les Sketches) 

Priority B

Every once in a while something in my head is going to rattle around and demand my attention. These are the things I hope won't push my timeline back.

Project #5 - A Cornish Mess (Needs Overhauled, less than half-done)

Project #6 - Arrivederci, Signore (Really early, barely there)

Project #7 - Joseph Flanagan. Joseph Flanagan is the project that is probably closest to a "finished" point. The problem is that it exists in a sealed manila envelope within my filing cabinet. Inside the manila envelope are all kinds of works that revolve around Joseph Flanagan. I don't have an irrational fear of manila envelopes, but Joseph Flanagan is an old project, roughly 2008-2012. It will take a singular focus to put me back into the world of Joseph Flanagan. I'm simply not ready for the commitment. 

Project #8 - Bedlam at the El Rio Grande. Minnesota Folks, Facts & Happenings turned out to be a per-requisite for writing Bedlam. I haven't mastered the art of chopping and changing my own timeline yet.

Project #9 - Jeffersonville, IN. I can't remember what Jeffersonville, IN is supposed to be about. This is an even older unfinished project than Joseph Flanagan. It has something to do with Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, OH. Beyond that I have no recollection and no motivation for opening up its manila envelope. This project is likely dead, but for now it can hang out with Schrodinger's cat.

Project #10 - Urtsiul. A syncretic myth. It will be interesting one day to open this up from one of the terrifying envelopes in my filing cabinet to see my early forays into myth making. With recession on the way that day is not scheduled to happen in the next three years. Perhaps I do have an irrational fear of manila envelopes.

The Diversions

Artwork with Typewriters, Collage as Literature, Encyclopedia Christanica, Journal Entries, Poems and Reviews. These are the things that will serve as escapes from the ultimate escape. These are the building blocks of procrastination itself! Yo, it's Tony would never end his spiel with a piece of self-deprecating humor. Therefore, neither will I. Yo, it's Tony would tie it all together in ridiculous fashion. He would ask, are diversions really diversions? Then he would solve this paradox through gratuitous usage of buzz words. No, he would say. Diversions are the daily acts of typing: the masonry of the mansion you are building. Now, grind, baby. Grind.





Categories
Americana

johnny bravo blues

Dollar bin find! I love the gnarled cover. The back even has a collage as its theme. The collage was laying the foundations in me long before I was aware.
The Barry Goldberg Reunion

Classification: Americana
Subclassification: Blues
Release: The Barry Goldberg Reunion, 1968

I feel confident in designating this as blues. It could have fit into Classic Rock with its garage rock vibes at times. In a way, it would have fit in with Oldies for that same reason, but 1968 is a little late for an Oldies classification, isn't it. Vocally, I can hear the influence of Bob Dylan. I can also hear how Barry Goldberg might have had an early influence on Elvis Costello. I like Elvis Costello; I'm ambivalent about Dylan. I recognize his musicality, his artistry and his importance. That said, I would listen to The Wallflowers over Dylan all day. Sorry, Bob. Sorry, Dad. 

This was starting to feel like a real album review. It felt like I was laying the foundations for a philosophy of music. Where does taste fall in the hierarchy of importance to rating music? There must be some objectivity in regards to assessing music. Otherwise, the sound that your child makes with a metal spoon on an upside down brass pot would be as good as that Phil Collins drum solo. You may love your child with all your heart, but I don't want to live in a world where his anti-climactic banging equates to the greatest drum solo of all time. It felt like that was where this was going. Then, I heard the voice of the muse whisper in my ear, "too literal". The music could be rock, could be blues, could be gospel, could be something else. It is a muddled mess. "This is your quest," the spirit whispered. How does one express this strange, muddled stew of everything that is the Barry Goldberg Reunion. 

Music experienced is a magical thing. I sat and listened to the record twice, back to back. After, I wrote the bones of Johnny Bravo Blues. It'll show up some day, probably in The Orphans. Until then, just know that Johnny Bravo and his blues stopped me dead in my tracks when trying to write the review of The Barry Goldberg Reunion.
Categories
Other

Birdman

Birdman: Movie
Release: 2014


I came to the computer with high hopes, ebullient. I was ready to write this review, cross over another deadlink on the website. Is it anachronistic that I have a physical to do list of currently deadlinks on a website? It is handwritten, not typed. I'm not always so pretentious. But the French popped my bubble a little bit. I failed the first lesson. I have a very difficult time saying, "un homme et sa voiture". To be fair, I believe the voice recognition has difficulty registering my vocalization of the word, "un". I freely admit to the slaughtering of the innocent word for car. Still, c'est mon amie, no? I must admit that after passing the next two lessons I was starting to gain a little bit of momentum. The final bit of today's lesson featured a little boy walking up to a teacher clearly not eating an apple asking are you eating an apple? When the woman replies with the obvious and easily translated answer he retorts, "qu'est-ce que tu fais?"

Something clicked in that moment. It was cosmically significant. I stared and looked at the screen for a moment in disbelief. The universe was slowly beginning to bend to my desires. It was as clear of a sign as I can hope to get. The woman who was not eating un pomme held up a pad and a pen. "J'écris," she said. J'écris. J'écris.

I had intended to work on Exercise No. 2 of my dialogues after coming home from work, having sketched it out on my lunch break. It's not terrible, its insufficiently self-aware for the grandeur of its aims. It lacks the air of humility needed to pull off such highminded bullshit with a straight face that it captures the curated world of the 21st century. It lacks a je ne sais quoi. The humor needs to dry out a bit. It is a little bit cliché. I came home in the mood for some method writing. It was an excuse to drink to intoxication of the nectar of the gods. Not only was it an exercise in dialogue, it was an exercise in narcissism. Inevitably there will be the penance, the self-flagellation. The mortification of the flesh by word will come. Humility will follow. Tonight was the to be the night of the Dionysian ecstasy. Erin suggested a movie.

We spent a couple of slices of pizza discussing movie genres. I love to flip channels, scrolling through Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Tubi, YouTube TV and Amazon Prime produces the same level of frustration, but it lacks the sanctifying scourge of good old fashioned channel surfing. Eventually the movie was picked based on my mood for a quirky comedy. Birdman was then selected from a dozen title or so. Erin opted to Google search instead of using my preferred method of selection. There is something to be said about her method's efficiency, though it lacks the cinematic elements and romance found in even the shallower neo-channel surfing available to me for what would be more than the price of cable were it not for the shared accounts. Don't worry Netflix, it isn't you. 

There was a time when I would not watch something because it was popular. As I have aged I find that I will still often not watch the popular things. This is because I have fallen behind on movies and television shows to such a degree that I find the to-do list (mental not physical) daunting to tackle. To escape the pressure I often wind up watching reruns of Seinfeld, Law & Order and independently produced YouTube history specials. I was already in this more mature hipster phase when 2014 unleashed this gem. Eight years passed before I watched this movie. Eight years passed  before j'écris Exercise No. 2 where I meander through Hemingway, memory, fatherhood, sonship, political crises, bloated self-importance and the eternal struggle for meaning, Eight years and I watch and I j'écris on the same day. I believe we have stretched the joke to the breaking point. I will pick up this thread elsewhere once I have consumed enough more to say something significant. Or, I won't.

In the piece I struggle with the structure of what modern literature should look like. In reality this struggle is not really one of literature as a whole. I am egotistical, but I hope that when it is refined it will be obvious enough to readers who don't know me in the flesh that modern literature really refers to something much more finite and insignificant, my literary voice. The aggrandizing is meant to rise to the level of absurdity. I am working on how to make that shine through in obvious ways that aren't obvious. I'm trying to nail down the correct balance. I'm also trying to discover what are the limits to my interest in things like quotation marks, punctuation in relation to quotation marks and my commitment to uniformity in usage of both quotation marks and the punctuation rules entailed within that use, disuse or misuse of quotation marks. It is an odd obsession at the moment. Suffice it to say that I am at the point of the Young Man as an Artist in the Joyce timeline. 

That was grand, but as I look at my naked wrists I have a vision, a memory of something more tangible than the experience. I picture myself wearing a WWJD bracelet? It is enough for a disciple to be like his teacher. Let me break down the parable for you. I am not at the point of Joyce when he wrote wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Far from it. I'm not even at the point where he came up with the idea for Stephen Hero. The student is not above the teacher. What I am saying is this, I am young in my literary experiments. I will mature and that will change things.

These reviews are not meant to be the normal reviews you get for movies, books or albums. There are enough of those in the world already. They are more exercises of the moment, meant to capture the relative feelings associated with the experience of that which is being reviewed. To put it arrogantly, it is a study of not just the art or the artist, but the interaction between the observer and the art with the aim of seeing if that interaction between observer and object d'art will break the barriers to allow for interaction between the artist and the audience. As such I needn't say things like, spoiler alert. Besides that, most movies that I will review here will be nearly a decade old. If you haven't watched them before me you can't blame me for spoiling them. You and I are equally culturally irrelevant. Edward Norton might not be likeable as Mike, but he isn't wrong when he rants about Hollywood committing cultural genocide. It may not be the worst thing to be behind in consuming the fast food equivalents that Hollywood is churning out these days.

Exercise No. 2, working title: the search for significance in the face of modern bread & circuses talks about capturing the dissatisfaction of modernity. It doesn't accomplish it fully, but I think it shows flashes. In the discussing process through an allegorical jeremiad on America I trey to convey the brokenness and hopelessness of modernity. It drives one to megalomania and the megalomania drives one mad. Funnily enough, Birdman seems to touch on that too. Exercise No. 2, working title: (discarded) the absolute freedom of pessimism, or, a conversation I had with an anonymous Senator's aide last week. The handwritten edition was rawer, more vitriolic, more in keeping with the mean-spirited vibe of this present age. Birdman is a kindred spirit to literary collage. Birdman ends in suicide, consumed by the flames of hyperreality. It is high tragedy. Collage as literature attempts to operate in the realm of post-tragedy. To steal from Žižek, my collage to be its truest self, must become a farce. 

I will bask in the glories of this self-satisfying scribble for only a few minutes longer. It is late. I am tired. I must still shower and it would appear that some mortification is necessary for a good night's sleep. I think I will read some Joyce before going to sleep.  
Categories
New Wave

mesopotamia

Mesopotamia: The B-52's
Classification: New Wave
Subclassification: None1
Release: Mesopotamia, 1982

The B-52's hold a special place in my heart. I think that is one of the many things about me that does not make me unique. Uniqueness is overrated. It's early days yet on this blog, but it would appear that we are on a direction that appears to be a retrospective of the hipster. Dirk's Gently has a driving strategy that I often apply to my life. "I follow," I'm paraphrasing here, "I follow someone who looks like they know where they are going. Then, I often ended up where I needed to be, even if where I needed to be wasn't where I sat out to go." I like that philosophy. It meshes with one of the notions of collage as literature. As the author, I am in the same boat as the reader - I have no idea how this will end. This shared nonknowledge is so liberating, isn't it?

To be unique is not a bad thing, per se. It is the obsession with uniqueness that is unpalatable. To be unique for the sake of uniqueness is a disease - it kills the soul. There is a word that I have grown to loathe over the years. It isn't the word's fault, per se. It is the obsession with the word that is unpalatable. Words have power - but, like our democracy those words are fragile. When they are overused or misused to the point of nausea their power morphs into something awful - it kills the soul, just to hear it. With that rambling caveat, the desire to be unique for the sake of uniqueness is a toxic trait of hipsterdom. Like all toxicities, the obsession with uniqueness kills the obsessed, content to only maim those in the orbit of the aforementioned obsessed. 

I refused to listen to The Shins for ten years after watching Garden State. After my decade long feud with Zach Braff (he had no idea about the feud) I realized that I was only hurting myself. Besides, New Slang and I had those three years before that movie came out and ruined everything. Forgive me, readers. Forgive me, Zach Braff. To be unique for the sake of being unique is to choose isolation, to choose alienation. We are nearer to the dread than we have ever been. It is OK to get lost in staring at the abyss. It is OK to break down to tears, to revolt with no hope of winning the revolution. It is OK to laugh at the absurd (this is my preferred strategy, though I am not dogmatic and like to mix in a whole bunch of corollaries to even out the stuffing in my strawman). Go Churchill on the meaningless of it all, fight it on the beaches, on the streets, in the sheets - never, never surrender to whatever this evil this metaphorical paragraph warns against.

Now you may be asking yourself something at this very moment. I know this because I am asking myself something at this very moment. This very moment (the moment you are reading and I am writing) is unique because it is shared extradimensionally. Our moment together exists outside of spacetime - it is eternal. You are asking yourself as I am asking myself - both of these questions must be either rhetorical or some kind of metaphysical chess game by mail. I'm asking myself rhetorically, but I am sure that if you are not then I will at some point sense it and we shall share another moment where your question will be answered. What does any of this have to do with the B-52's Mesopotamia? 

Nothing. We must be OK with that. That's the joke that helps us transcend the absurd. Lifted up, we are rarefied. We transcend unto absolute eternity, together. Victorious over the absurdity of the meaninglessness that we walk through - alone in our every allotted day. Those days will come and go; but our victory over the alienation is forever, eternal. Eternally linked to the unique sounds of the B-52's Mesopotamia. What a unique experience we have just shared, down by the third pyramid. 

1. It will sound odd and inconsistent with my confessed obsession with categorization and classifications that such a large portion of my record collection will fall under the rather mundane sounding "New Wave" without any sub-classifications or categories. It sounds odd because it is odd. I would venture that about 40-50% of my records are in this genre of music. While my current focus is on expanding my jazz collection I do not see this figure dipping to below 35% of my overall collection. There just always seems to be an album that I come across while digging through sales crates that catches my eye that is a new wave, post-punk type album. Why then would I choose not sub classify this pivotal section?

There are two reasons, one spiritual and one practical. The spiritual reason is obviously more lofty, more embellished and more curated. That does not imply that it is less valid or less weightier in my estimation. In fact, the opposite is true. I think the spiritual reason is more valid, more weightier in my estimation. I will have to really do some soul searching to find out if I live by these words. I fear I do not. The spiritual reason is that I think the modern world is so hopelessly fractured that we will never be able to overcome the prison of isolationism that we have purchased for ourselves from the various corporations. True or not, this late 70's through 80's genre of "Alternative Rock" in its many guises of punk, post-punk, new wave, sound wave, pop art, art rock, college rock, experimental rock, indie pop (not 21st century indie pop, which would rightly be called neo-indie pop or indie pop revival, but that's unimportant), synthwave, electronic wave, dark wave, French cold wave, noise pop, progressive rock (2nd or 3rd generation), pub rock, etc., etc., and so on, forever and ever, this decade give or take a little on the edges represents to me the last time that we, collectively, were able to produce something and have it grow without being subservient to some corporation. It was not the last time that bespoke existed, but the last time that bespoke was affordable. That's a strange thing to come to grips with in the Internet Age. That is the spiritual reason.

The practical reason is that I could so subclassify this genre in so many different ways that I would (given my obsessiveness on this sorting issue) find that I have no time for anything else. I would just be constantly shuffling records around, creating spreadsheets on excel to track my many different ways of sorting. That doesn't sound very fun, does it?