Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Ok, I'm beginning to realize that the AFI really only has one criterion when it comes to selection.  It doesn't really matter whether the film is characterized by a brilliant script, visionary direction and riveting performances.  The only thing that really matters is the title.

To be more specific, what seems to matter is what the title evokes in people.  This is a combination of the film's reputation and the niche it fills in film history.  For example, The General, while not a great film on the whole, instantly brings to mind groundbreaking camerawork and silent film slapstick.  Important from both a technical and a historical viewpoint, onto the list it goes.

In the case of Mr. Smith, the title evokes, especially in people who may have never seen the movie, a sense of national pride, of belief in the political system, and especially the knowledge of what a filibuster is for.  In short, it has to some degree affected the political consciousness of the country, and so onto the list it goes.  It's too bad, though, because it is terrible.  From the blunt soundtrack to the flimsy script to the positively incompetent editing, this movie is from beginning to end a stinker.  The first five minutes are all you need to see what I mean, as the entire movie can be deduced from those painfully recited scenes. 

However, if I seem to resent AFI's choice of such terrible material to represent American film, I take solace in the fact that such prisms of unimpeachable quality as City Lights and Apocalypse Now remain on the list.  I'm still stunned by the quality of those films, so best to end on that note . . .

Apocalypse Now

I don't like war films. There always seems to be a lot of "Hoohah!" and "Fuck yeah!" and nonsense about glory and honor and bravery, none of which means very much to me in that context.  To me, there's more bravery and glory in the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning than in taking a machine gun and blowing shit up.  For that reason such favorites as Rambo and Top Gun don't just leave me cold, I actively hate them. Is there really anything enjoyable in that sort of macho nonsense?  Not for me.

Which is why I am surprised to be writing that Apocalypse Now may very well be the greatest movie I've ever seen.  Nothing about it felt affected or pretentious, and that sort of epic often deteriorates into a masturbatory spectacle.  The performances were impeccable, every last one, to the extent that I often wondered if there was even a script at all.  Certain of the soldiers' monologues especially struck me as uncommonly honest.  Of course, Coppola's camerawork and vision were also spot on, and the overall result was an immensely satisfying ambiguity that kept it far away from anything didactic. 

It is a bonus to my marginally literary mindset that it was not only flawless as a movie, but also literate, weaving in elements of Conrad and Eliot without making those things the centerpiece of the film.  I am pressing my mind to think of a "however", some point that was less than perfect, but I have nothing.  It was a masterpiece of film, and of literature.

이문열: 우리들의 일그러진 영웅

미국에서는 Huckleberry Finn이나 Lord of the Flies이란 책 시민의 80% 이상이 읽었으니까 그 책들을 읽어야 미국을 이해할 수 있다.  그래서 제가 한국을 이해하기 위해 친구에게 "중하생들 모두다 읽어야 하는 책은 무엇이냐"고 물었다.  답은 "우리들의 일그러진영웅"이었다. 

그 책을 읽기 시작했을 때는 벙역 없이 약 10%를 이해할 수 있었다.  한국어 실력이 노파질수록 이해하기가 더 쉬워졌지만 오늘 읽은 마지막 쪽을 50%밖에 이해 못 했다.  아쉽게도 중학생의 수준이 아닌 것 같는다. 

그래도 번역 덕분에 이 첵은 한국 사회를 잘 표시하는 지를 알게 되었다.  다른 독자가 다르게 생각할 수 있지만 제 생각은 엄속대가 일본을 비유하며 문제를 해결한 담임선생님은 미국.  전 미국을 존경하기 때문 아니라 오하려 미국은 별로 좋지 않다고 생각하는 만큼 담임선생님의 해결 방법을 승인하지 않는다.  그래도 한극의 해방에 데한 비유로 이 책만 할 것이 없다고 생각한다.

Philip K. Dick: Galactic Pot Healer

I have long held Dick to in my holy trinity of Sci Fi writers, alongside Vonnegut and Asimov, but this books really serves to highlight the ways in which he can't hold his own alongside the other two.  As always, in Pot-Healer he is observant, profound and very nearly clarivoyant, but as in most of his other works the structure and plot are just sloppy enough that it loses something.  In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I found myself giving him that benefit of the doubt that we sometimes grant out of instinct when a book is generally well regarded, and assumed that the inconsistencies or strange, misplaced beats were purposeful and woven into the overall theme somehow.  Unlike in Sheep, however, those moments were so prevalent in Pot-Healer that I can't bring myself to give Dick the same kind of credit here.

Which is a shame, because he managed to put something into words that I really love:

"What do I really yearn for? he asked himself.  That for which oral gratification is a surrogate. Something vast, he decided; he felt the primordial hunger gape, huge-jawed, as if to cannibalize everything around him.  To place what was outside inside."

This is exactly my experience.  I love to eat, drink, kiss, bite, swallow, anything one can do with one's mouth.  And it is exactly as Dick details: the desire to consume, to somehow be bigger and exterior to something else.  I also happen to have the obverse urge as well:  to sing, fart, belch, talk, yell and otherwise put what was part of me outside of myself, to somehow make my nature part of the greater order.  And so I have a blog.

1 Timothy

1:2 In addition to Paul's usual wishes of grace and mercy, he adds a blessing of mercy here.  An interesting choice.  What could have transpired in Timothy's life to make Paul perceive a need for mercy?

1:3 and also what were they teaching in Ephesus, such that Paul felt Timothy's presence there was needed?  His letter to them didn't have the same warnings as certain other letters, and I found it mostly warm and uplifting, rather than admonitory.

1:4,7 His reference to genealogies and law makes me wonder if there wasn't a problem with Judaizers, such as he observed in other congregations.

1:16 Oh, this is elegant.  Paul tiintroduced the idea of mercy ever so gently in his introduction, no doubt with the intention to develop it more fully here--but not as expected! 

1:18 Here's another interesting bit of trivia.  Evidently Paul received prophecies specifically with regard to Timothy's role.  Could they be the very visions that he hinted at in his letter to the Ephesians, thus prompting him to station Timothy there?

1:20 And what does Paul mean by turning these two "over to Satan"?  Simply that he has given up on them, in which case how could he possibly hope that they would "learn not to blaspheme", or is there some more complex metaphysical dynamic at work here?

2:2 Paul's first direction to Timothy is pretty bland.  He asks for prayers that the authorities will leave them alone. 

2:5 From where is Paul quoting here?

2:12 Paul's doctrine here not only grates, but it does not hold water.  He speaks from his own authority, saying "I permit no woman to teach" instead of indicating that the directive comes from any higher source, but the usual source of Paul's authority--his sound logic and theology--does not hold up here.  He cites as his reason that the woman was deceived and not Adam, but does that no make Adam more culpable than Eve?

3:1-13 Paul's qualifications for Bishop and Deacon are interesting, insofar as there is so little space between them.  The main difference is that Bishops musn't be new converts for fear of being "puffed up with conceit".  Is that really the only difference?  Seniority?

3:16 I'm really curious whether Paul is quoting something here, or lapsing into verse.  If the former, from where is he quoting?  If the latter, is it any good?

4:1 And here's the meat of his theology for this book.  The preceding directives are merely organizational in nature, but here he hits on the real point of his writing: that some are adding unnecessary proscriptions to the message.  He calls it hypocrisy, though I don't know if that's accurate unless they themselves are taking wives and forbidding other to.  At any rate, it makes the point of his outlining the qualifications for leadership clear.  In Ch. 3 he makes a point of saying that deacons and bishops are not forbidden to marry, but they should in fact be married--only once.

5:2 This is not the first time Paul has reminded Timothy to remain chaste.  I'm not clear on his standards here.  If Timothy decided to get married, would it not fall in line with the qualifications set out in Ch. 3?

5:9 What list?  The list of "actual widows"? 

5:12 So a widow remarrying is proscripted?

5:19 this is an interesting translation of a familiar verse.  In my upbringing, testimony from two or more witnesses was required in all cases.  In this translation, it is only against elders that such heightened burden of proof is warranted.

5:24 I really like this verse.  Indeed, some people sins (and good works, for that matter) follow them to the grave, others precede them there.

6:16  Wait a minute, hasn't Paul himself claimed to have seen Christ? 

Man, this whole thing just doesn't feel like Paul to me.  The faulty logic, the poetic interludes, the seeming inconsistencies.  I just don't feel the same voice here.

Unforgiven and The Grapes of Wrath

I didn't originally set out to place these two movies back to back, but I watched them in succession, so naturally the parallels stick out in my mind.  To be specific, both movies focus on a likeable, if rough protagonist, who is laboring to deal with his past mistakes in the American West.  Both movies were enjoyable and orth the time, but the successes of Unforgiven made the two minor weaknesses in Grapes of Wrath a bit more clear.

Firstly, I had a problem with John Ford's pacing and editing in Grapes of Wrath.  I couldn't tell what was so offputting about his transitions at first, but little scenes like focusing on a sign that said "Welcome to Arizona" for a few seconds before cutting to the next bit of plot development just jarred me.  Would it have been so difficult to just have that sign pass by while we were observing something else?  Did it really need it's own shot?  And he did that sort of thing a lot.  Even the scenes that propelled the plot felt popped out of a kit and lain next to each other instead of fitting together like a puzzle. 

Watching Unforgiven next made me realize exactly what was missing in Ford's equation.  Having observed this fault in GOW, I was watching for it and was surprised to realize that Eastwood did the same sort of piecing together, but it wasn't nearly so jarring.  What was the magic ingredient?  The soundtrack.  The presence of a piece of music lain over a series of potentially jarring scene cuts just made me more comfortable, and my mind was fooled into thinking that there were appropriate transitions.  Which makes one wonder, did Ford just not like using music, or was it not yet the cinematic convention that it is now? 

That minor greivance aside, both movies were well worth their place on the AFI's 100 films list, largely with the help of superb performances all around.  Hats off to Henry Fonda for making a potential didactic character quite lovable. 

한국 문화 77

Paul Nation 언어학자가 효과적인 두번째 언어 습득 프로그렘은 가닥 네개가 있다고 한다.  먼저, 의미에 치중하는 입력이 필요하며, 그다음에 언어에 치중하는 이력, 유창성의 연습, 의미에 치중하는 출력이 순이다.  그 네 가지중에 의미에 치중하는 입력의 부족을 여겨 그 부족을 보원하기 위해 이 쉬운 책을 읽었다. 

의미에 치중 하는 입력이란 세로운 무법, 어휘 별로 없어서 무선 뜻이 있는지에 치중할 수 있는 내용을 말한다.  배우는 게 별로 없으나 유창성, 정확성에 큰 더움이 된다.  따라서 읽으면서 배우는 느낌 아니라 습득하는 느낌을 받았다.  이런 학습 덕분에 한국어 실력이 높아지고 있지 않는가?

Kurt Vonnegut: Bluebeard

Up until the last page of this book, I knew exactly what I was going to write about it.  I was going to say that, in spite of having taken the laziest possible route for an author, vonnegut managed to stitch together something that was enjoyable, inventive,and occassionally insightful.

But that last page.

In it Vonnegut reveals that (although I still feel he did it the easy way) he has been developing to it's logical, glorious conclusion, an idea that he stumbled across years earlier in Breakfast of Champions: that at the core of every human, there is an unwavering band of light. I believe this with all my heart, that something at the core of this sack of meat animates it, and makes it worth more than hamburger.  Something not only more valuable, but more resilient than my meat is inside, pulsing with vitality and light, and furthermore the same is true of every other meat bag out there.  If I could just stop looking at the garbage sacks that they walk around in, and notice the neon tube at the core of every other human, how happy I and they would be!  Oh happy meat! Oh happy soul!  Oh happy Brandon!

Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

I won't bother to write much about this book, partly because Nabovok has said everything there is to say about it, and partly because I have no idea where to begin.  Never before have I read so perfect, so complete a book and am weary that I am only now, in my 36th year of life experiencing it. Every last passage, every image, perfectly reflects the book as a whole, and layered on top of that structural and thematic perfection are incisive descriptions and explanations of human behaviors that, while universally experienced, are so subtle and precise that one would not have thought could be captured in words.  I simply must learn Russian after I have mastered Korean, so I can read the original.

Bonnie and Clyde / Chinatown

I choose to write about these two movies together, not only because I feel a pressing need to catch up on my writing, but also because my complaints about them mirror each other.  As before when writing about an item from the AFI's list of 100 American films, I find myself returning to the question "Is it actually great?", and in these cases to the question "Why not?" 

In the case of Bonnie and Clyde, I found myself reminded of Godard's Pierrot le Fou more than once.  While Bonnie and Clyde, Les Fous did not descend quite into the realm of postmodernism as Godard's more representative work, Arthur Penn's sudden, jarring cutaways indicated a similar discouragement to the natural tendency to build a narrative, or otherwise make sense of the proceedings.  By the same token, the cavalier, almost smirking tone that he seemed to take at times, while portraying explicit sex and violence that were shocking by 1960's American standards, seemed to reveal a Postmodernist refusal to take the matter too seriously, and by all means to avoid anything resembling a message.  All this is certainly significant, and it's very comforting to have an artistic framework within which to consider a film, but significant does not mean great.  To be fair, the AFI has never claimed that its list is of great films, merely of films. But I can't help judge a film by criteria that seem to fall under the heading of greatness:  visionary direction; insightful, sound screenwriting; and astonishing, believable performances.  This film seemed to have none of these elements, and so I wonder why anyone other than a film historian would ever watch it.

Chinatown suffers slightly less by those criteria.  I would call Polanski's direction just sort of visionary, in that he didn't quite pull it all together into something coherent.  Nicholson manages to turn his potentially cardboard gumshoe into one who clearly always has something going on under the hood, and Dunaway draws the audience in to her world in a way that she simply is never given a chance to in Bonnie and Clyde.  That script, though.  Clearly there is something being said about society, and the way the strong prey upon the week and woe are we and all that, but it feels so secondary, as though added in the final act to give it heft, and make Dunaway's demise more sympathetic than her eerily similar one 7 years earlier.  And the final bit about "This is Chinatown", clearly meant to refer obliquely to a running joke about the way Chinese fuck, doesn't seem to relate to the rest of the script. In short, while it is nearly great in some ways, it is in no way significant, while the opposite can be said of Bonnie Clyde.  The only reason I can imagine watching either again is to hone in on and write something incisive about Dunaway's performance, since she's awesome, and I like picking things apart.

2nd Thessalonians

1:1 As this letter is supposed to have been written not long after Paul's previous epistle, it's not surprising that the introduction is the same, again focusing on grace and peace.  It will be interesting to detect and extrapolate from any other perceived shifts in Paul's approach . . .

1:5 One wonders, then, about those who do not suffer quite so much.  Are they unworthy of the kingdom?

1:6 I get the impression that Paul is mentioning something to which I don't have access.  Otherwise, this is a bit of a leap in logic. Never mind the question of how just it is to repay suffering for suffering, something against which the congregation has no doubt been cautioned.  I just mean wher is the rhetorical link with what he's discussing?

1:7,8 Whoa, there, nelly.  This is a departure from his earlier message in the extreme.  I don't recall Paul getting this worked up and brimstoney very often.  No doubt a rhetorical appeal to the Thessalonians' baser human urge for vengeance.

2:3 It would be easy to take this as a prophecy, but it is not altogether clear that Paul means "the lawless one" to be The Lawless One, some sort of archetypal embodiment of rebellion.  He could just as easily have been referring to lawless people in general.

2:4 Okay, now it's clear.  So when does this happen, exactly? Was Paul ever dissapointed that he didn't see anything resembling the fulfillment of his urgent message?

2:6 They may know, but we certainly have no clue. 

2:11,12 I have serious problems both with Paul's logic and with his theology.  By Paul's reasoning, God has purposefully deluded some so that whose who are deluded can be comdemned.  This makes no kind of sense.  It's the "so" that really throws a spanner in it.  Why is this divinely induced delusion a precondition? 

3:6 No doubt a targeted messsage.  I wonder how the intended target felt?  Whether they were ashamed of their laziness, or angered at being singled out.

3:17 Now this is the thing that I find most troubling about this letter.  Why on Earth would Paul see fit to draw attention to his handwriting here, and not in 1 Thessalonians? His opening is standard, and changes little across the course of all his letters.  Why should this closing be so different?  Unless somebody had something to prove. 

Which brings us to the authenticity of this book.  While widely regarded as authentically authored by Paul, there are some who notice the dramatic differences between it and his earlier letter.  I tend to agree with this; 1st Thess. was solicitous, warm and upbuilding in the extreme.  This letter seems violently angry by comparison.  Paul was human, and subject to flights of emotion, no doubt, but these letters just do not feel like they were writeen by the same person.  And would Paul ever be guilty of such sloppy logic as found in 2:12?  Lastly, what about that closing? 

For that matter, do we really care whether the Paul or some associate wrote this letter (possibly going so far as to forge his handwriting)? For those who take this to be the literal inspired word of God, such a question would be of monumental importance and, of course, would never even be supposed.

박현숙: 오천원은 없다

저자가 한국어를 가르칠 작정이 있었는지 모르겠지만 나한테 많이 도와주는 책였다.  왜냐하면 새로운 단어가 등장할 때는 자주 되풀이  해서 나에게 발리 익숙해졌어요.  그러나 마지막 쪽에도 내가 모르는 단어 몇게 있었다.  아직도 쉬운 책도 유창하게 읽을 수 없어요.  공부 더 열심히 해야 할 텐데 . . .

또는 주제가 진짜 재미있었다.  몇번 깔깔거리거나 신이 났다.  같은 책 널리 읽으면 수준이 얼른 높아질 것 같아요.

The African Queen

I simply don't see the allure of this movie.  Not only does the American Film institute recognize it as one of the 100 most significant American films ever made (although they dropped it to #65 from #17 in the 2007 revision to the list) and did Bogart win an Academy Award for his performance, but my dear sweet Grandmother absolutely loved it.  For my part, I found it clumsy and tedious. 

Most of what I didn't care for came from directorial/editing choices that I felt inhibited the storytelling.  Something interesting would happen, and then the film would cut to some scenic footage, and then back to the characters, where something else interesting would happen.  This narrative structure prevented the different scenes from connecting to each other, and the viewer never really felt a build in the conflict between Hepburn and Bogart, let alone their burgeoning attraction.  When they finally are confirmed in love, it feels as though maybe we missed something.  They go right from at each other's throats to "would you like some tea, dearest?" with out that intermediate recognition.

It also prevented what could have been a real tour de force from Hepburn.  Such a rich character in the hands of such a powerful actress could have become mesmerizing.  Instead, everytime she seemed to be gathering up steam, the film would cut to some hippopotamuses or such, and she would have to start from scratch again the next time we saw her.  If I were the AFI, I would have left this film off the list altogether.

1st Thessalonians

I have a lot of expectation for this book, as it is widely regarded as the first composed of Paul's epistles, and plan to approach it with an eye out for ideas that seem not yet fully-formed.  Perhaps it will yield some insight into Paul's thought process, as well as his theology.

1:1 Working from that assumption, it is worth noting that Paul's salutation does not differ significantly from that of Colossians, written perhaps 30 years later.  His messages of grace of peace thus appear as constants, and one could look to them as a framework for his theology.  Maybe.

1:2-5 likewise, the main difference in his introductory comments is that he has met the Thessalonians in person, and does not seem to have met the Colossians at the time of the writing.

1:6-10 Paul seems less confident than in later writings, and seems to spend a lot of time flattering his audience, and . . .

2:1-12 trying to establish his own credibility.  Either he is gearing up for some serious reprimanding, or he is less secure in his relationship with the Thessalonians than with the Colossians--all the more remarkable considering his personal establishment of the congregation there.

2:16 One wonders what wrath Paul could be referring to.  If the dating were different, I would assume he meant the fall of Jerusalem to Roman armies in 70 C.E., but 1st Thess. seems to predate that.

3:1-4 Another possibility occurs to me, that Paul is really worried about the congregation, due to some intense persecution, and the primary purpose of this letter is just to encourage them.  In which case, I would expect little in the way of theological explication.

3:10 This is the closest he has come to anything resembling admonishment: that he wants to strengthen whatever may be lacking in their faith. 

4:4 Now we get to the dirt: he urges them to be in control of their bodies, and free from lust.  Much different than the lofty, mental focus of Colossians--at least the first 3 chapters.

4:15 Now this is interesting.  It is certainly revealing that this early work contains such a strong emphasis on physical resurrection.  I would be curious to look back and see how much weight this arguably less noble idea gets in his more mature works.

5:6 And this cry for watchfulness, this warning of "sudden destruction", could also be expected to get less page time thirty years later.

5:8 Perhaps a seminal form of the more developed thought found in Ephesians at least 20 years later.

5:23 Paul speaks of spirit and soul as though they are different things . . . or is it just poetic stylizing?

The part of this that I find most compelling is the mention of resurrection in the last half of the 4th chapter, not only because it's the only real theology going on here, but also because it is so blatantly pandering, and so conspicuously absent in some later letters.  It seems altogether likely that messages of impending and sudden destruction would lose their weight after thirty years, and also that as Paul aged he shifted his focus to more noble/lofty things.

Max Frisch: I'm Not Stiller

In my post on Frisch's play Andorra, I indicated that it didn't seem to justify its existence, and that it would have been better served as a novel or short story.  As it happens, I'm Not Stiller is exactly that.  It addresses the same ideas as Andorra, namely to what extent we are our own creation and to what extent the creation of others, in more depth and in a way that plays more to Frisch's strengths.  His prose is so much more beguiling than his dialogue, one wonders why he felt compelled to revisit the theme seven years later in such an inadequate way.  Perhaps there was some aspect of it that he felt remained unaddressed, but for my money I'm Not Stiller is a definitive statement on the subject, and Andorra a lame aftershock.

Which is not to say that it gives a conclusive answer to the question of the extent to which our identities are simply social constructs; merely that it opens the dialogue and pinpoints a few of the pivotal elements.  According to Frisch's model, the self is obscured by myriad things, many of which we mistake for self.   One of the less influential of these obscuring influences is that of so-called society. Anything we have received from literature, art, philosophy, or discussion of the same with friends, is manifestly not us.  The eponymous hero asks,

How the devil am I to prove to my counsel that I don't know my murderous impulses through C.G. Jung, jealousy through Marcel Proust, Spain from Hemingway . . . and all sorts of other things through Thomas Mann? It's true, you need never even have read these authorities, you can absorb them through your friends who also live all their experiences second-hand (158).

And even if the stories that seem to comprise our identities are not received in the above way, they may well be constructed.  Frisch leads the reader to believe the narrator's assertion that he is not Stiller, partly through the painstaking detail of his narrative, only to pull the rug out when he admits that he was simply "too tired to make up another murder story" (53).  For the rest of the novel, one continues to wonder what to believe, and is never fully satisfied.  As the reader becomes invested in the narrator, every question one asks of him one asks of oneself as well: "To what extent can I believe my own version of events?

Frisch thus systematically deconsructs the identity of the Narrator, and allows him to serve as a nameless (as advertised by the title) proxy for the reader.  Having peeled away the obviously unreliable sources of identity--society, narrative, perception, associations--he proceeds to identify the ultimate, and ultimately inescapable, culprit for the unreality of our identities: language. "You can put anything into words, except your own life" and "I have no words for my reality", the narrator laments, to cite two of the more clear examples (53, 70).

Which does not mean, by Frisch's model, that there is no such thing as identity, simply that it requires an extraordinary amount of bravery, clarity and self-reflection to perceive it.  This, sadly is a task that so-called Stiller (this reader remains unconvinced that he is indeed the man in question) seems to fail.  The narrator comes to the cusp of clarity, but retreats out of fear.  This affects those around him, for "if he took [Julika's] love really seriously, he would be compelled as a result to accept himself--and that is the last thing he wants" (216). For this reason, he is unable to know the other central character of the book: Julika.  We as readers never come close to knowing her, since "Stiller"'s version and Rolf's are at odds, and it is certainly for this reason that neither of them really come to know her either.  The book's title takes on a rather sly note, for one realizes by the end that the Narrator may or not be Stiller, but the book was never about him to begin with, but rather "the picture of a being who was dead and had never been recognized by anyone when she was alive" (377).

이문열: 두겹의 노래

삶은 쓸쓸하다.  또한 쓸쓸하지않다.  한국 작가는 이렇게 바로 분명히 시작하기 마련인지 모르겠지만 확실히 분석 쉽게 하는 시작이다.  이문열은 황홀하고 놀랄만큼 퉁명스러운 산문으로 사랑의 사실 또한 광계의 사실을 정확히 포착한다.  다른 사람이랑 아무리 친한다고 생각해도 광계는 욕구와  간격의 무서운 조합인 말이다.  이런 환경에서는 마음이 어떻게 살아남을 수 있을까?

Brian Rappatta: To Sift the Sacred and other Fantasy Stories

It's always a bit strange approaching a book written by an acquaintance in this manner.  On the one hand, I am inclined to cut a lot of slack to the book because it doesn't seem to be putting on any airs.  A professionally published, mainstream book has a certain obligation to the reader, to be well written, thoroughly edited, and in general not a waste of time. A book written by a friend just doesn't seem to make the same demands.

Nonetheless, as an English major one develops the habit of reading critically, in the quite literal sense of noticing things that are wrong.  In this case, I suppose I could sum up by saying that the author's ideas are quite astounding and creative, but I'm not quite taken in by the writing itself, which seems a bit pedestrian.

But the larger issue at stake here is that each of the stories contains a thoroughly thought out and engaging miniature world, and the short story format doesn't come close to doing any of them justice.  I feel like, with the exception of "Goddamned", every one of the stories could bear the weight of a longer narrative.  So much thought has gone into each of the stories that the world feels fully formed within only a few paragraphs.  It almost seems like a waste to let such a vision live for only 20 pages or so.

City Lights

Here's a rare example of a time I agree with the AFI's revisions to its list.  In the original 1998 list, this charming number was ranked 76th, but in the 2007 revisions it was, I think rightly, moved up to number 11.  I had never watched a silent feature length film before, so my expectations were low, but I was captivated throughout.  City Lights is everything a romantic comedy should be: by turns hilarious, suspenseful, socially astute and deeply moving.  While Chaplin's comedic chops are the obvious star here, I think he deserves even more credit as writer and director for accomplishing without words (without spoken words at least) what all the Matthew McConaugheys and Cameron Diazes and Nicholas Sparkses in all of modern cinema can't do with scores of well-paid writers and technicians.

Sometimes, out of habit, I judge a piece of media by its "teachableness", by which I mean whether I could show it to a class of low socioeconomic status students (I am thinking of a specific class from my fourth year of teaching), and have them learn something from it without being bored to tears.  I would love to show this movie (or part of it) to such a class, and watch their minds expand a little.  At first they would roll their eyes and groan at the prospect of watching a black and white movie--let alone a silent one.  I can hear it now "What the fuck, Payne?  Do you hate us or something?"  Then they would self-consciously repress a giggle when Chaplin's pants get caught on a  statue.  After about five minutes, one of them would break the ice and give a full belly laugh, probably when the blind girl throws water in his face.  It would be all smiles from there, and at the end of the class, one of them would begrudgingly say, "I didn't think old shit could be that funny . . ."  Although I enjoyed City Lights immensely, especially the ending, I'm aware that my enjoyment alone does not make a great movie.  To have soften the hearts and open the minds of a group of juvenile delinquents is a much better measure.

Liveblogging the Bible: Colossians

1:1 One can't help but wonder what exactly Timothy's role was in the composition of this letter.  Was he simply an amanuensis? An editor?  A co-contributor?  Or simply a comrade who wished to add his greetings to Paul's? 

1:3 The use of the plural here seems to suggest that Timothy's role was more substantial than one might think, which raises theological questions.  Paul has yet to indicate that this letter is directly inspired (as he does elsewhere), an omission which does not stop some from taking this as the literal, word-for-word transmission of a divine message.  If one chooses to take it thus, is Timothy also inspired of God?

1:7 Was Epaphras, therefore, the originator of the congregation in Colossae, if it was from him that they first heard the message?

1:9-14 Paul's wishes here are interesting, more for what is not included than for what is.  He wishes them to have gifts of wisdom/knowledge/understanding, and strength/endurance patience.  His mention of forgiveness and good works are results of these other two elements, not independent of them.

1:15 Appositive referent problem.  Is "the firstborn of all creation" meant to refer to Christ, or God?

1:20 In what way are those things in heaven in need of Christ's redemption?

1:23 This is a quid pro quo that is incompatible with common understandings of salvation.  The audience here is saved "provided that [they] continue securely established and steadfast . . ."  And if they don't, what becomes of that salvation?  Some would argue that those who do not continue were never saved, but that would render Paul's argument invalid.

1:24 And what could possibly have been lacking in Christ's afflictions, such that Paul has to suffer them for him.  Seems like a bit of poetic license, rather than a point of doctrine.

2:1 This confirms the suspicion in 1:7

2:3,4 Again this focus on knowledge.  Paul is far to canny and conscious of his audience to have done this offhandedly.  He is clearly writing for the purpose of purifying their doctrine, and specifically to root out some unknown "plausible arguments" that are not in sync with the party line.

2:6 One could try to infer then, what exactly he is trying to correct about their doctrine, by seeing what gets the bulk of his time.  In this case, it seems to be the idea of the ransom, and of Christ's headship of the congregation.

2:11-15 This is Pauline rhetoric at its very best.  He appeals to the Colossians on multiple emotional fronts, all while giving his case a sound logical underpinning.

2:18 and this confirms that Paul's goal is primarily to focus their attention on Christ, and deter them from developing a sort of pantheon, or an independent order that subscribes to harsher standards as an expression of piety.  Both of these are things that Catholics are guilty of in abundance, naturally.

3:5 This is a lovely job of wrapping worship of lesser deities and self-abasement in the same cloth as fornication and wrath, in that all of them are of earthly concern.  A nice taxonomy, that brooks no argument, especially as nice as Paul has set it up in the preceding chapters.

3:17 And if he stopped right here, I would have no argument with him . . .

3:18-25 But he didn't. After all of the beautiful and sound rhetoric of the preceding chapters, he loses his way here.  He has just convinced his audience to focus only on spiritual things, that everything physical has no real meaning.  Yet here he brings it back to the physical realm again, and loses some of his credibility.

4:1 And of course, I see no way to justify this by Paul's own logic.  It has no place in a treatise on distancing oneself from the physical realm.  Not to mention the fact that it is morally repulsive.

4:12 Evidently their own founder, Epaphras, was with him at the time of the writing, no doubt mentioned tactically.

4:16 And is this letter to the Laodiceans less inspired, such that it has been lost?

4:18 Well, that lets Timothy off the hook as an amanuensis.  And he could scarcely have been mentioned just as a way to tender his regards, insofar as somehow Timothy's contribution to this letter deserved greater mention than these others named here.  Which leaves the other two possibilities . . . I can't help but wonder if that section that seems so out of place with the rest bears his mark somehow.

Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Stories with Selected Essays

This incredibly dense volume has taken me a year to muddle through, partly due to my own easily distracted nature, and partly due to the fact that every time I tried to get through a chunk I fell asleep after a few pages.  In fact, after this happened a few times, I took to reading a bit of Poe whenever I was having trouble falling asleep.  My mind often races, causing me to lie awake, but this has proven to be the easiest over-the-counter cure for that I have found.

There are those who will be incensed by this declaration, but I mean it in earnest.  No other author can put me to sleep the way Poe can.  He just tries so hard to prove himself--that he's smart, or avant-garde, or of a poetical nature.  His word choice and condescending tone consistently leave a bad taste in my mouth.  It is no wonder that he met with but little recognition in his own time.

What is a mystery is that he has such devout followers in modern times.  What is usually familiar of his body of work is often limited to the three or four stories that are not tediously self-conscious.  One that I was pleasantly surprised by was The Mask of the Red Death, which I had read before, but the lovely symmetry and well-crafted structure of which I had not fully appreciated at the time.

And if  his prose is unbearable, his poetry is even more so, containing, as he admitted, "Nothing of much value to the public, or very creditable to [my]self" (Poe, 1845).  This is, of course, an exaggeration.  Certain of his poems have become deservedly famous, but the vast majority are clumsy, unfinished, and boring.  To use his own words again,

...the writer of these lines
 in the mad pride of intellectuality
maintained "the power of words"--denied that ever
a thought arose within the human brain
beyond the utterance of the human tongue ("To Marie Louise" 1-5)

It is exactly this mad pride of intellectuality that infects all of Poe's work, including the few examples from his essays included in this collection.  This is a terrible shame because that cloying frosting of pseudo-intellectualism covers up the ideas behind Poe's work, which, when they peek through, are visionary and poetic in the highest degree.  I just wish he had an editorial-minded friend who could have sat down with him and extracted those things.  I wish some of the truly lovely passages and turns of phrase were not nestled in such glutinous dishes as Poe served.  Some of my favorite examples:

Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call
"Silence"--which is the merest word of all.
All nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings

and

Up!--shake from your wing
Each hindering thing:
The dew of the night--
It would weigh down your flight;
And true love caresses--
O! leave them apart!
They are light on the tresses,
But lead on the heart.

Both of these sections are from "Al Aaraaf", which, with a little direction, could have been one of the greatest poems ever written.  Instead, it's a bit of a mess with some lovely pieces poking through, and Poe is definitely remembered for the tidier "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven".

Of course, perhaps is it because of all this, and not in spite of it, that he has found such an audience.  Perhaps it is not even Poe's work that people are drawn to, but his spirit, that of one with deep, even visionary things to say, who couldn't quite seem to get them across--certainly not in his own time.  Who would bother to pick through the work of a living writer to find out what he means, after all?  More's the pity, because many indeed are they who can relate to his sentiment, summed up perhaps best here:

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were--I have not seen
as others saw--I could not bring
my passions from a common spring--("Alone")