A nasty thought that I have to get out. Sometimes the world seems like an onion rotted black, one that smells loathsome and stings your fingers when you touch it. But you feel compelled to keep touching it nonetheless, and find yourself tearing off the layers even as the odor and the burning grow worse. And we all know how an onion works; there's always more layers. Until, finally, you find yourself reeking, your hands covered with a foul substance, your mind reeling and your heart sickened from sheer awfulness.

I think that it is at these times that we need a sense of community. For myself, I've found this litany from the Discalced Carmelites of Philadelphia to be helpful. They call it "Night Litany for Our City."

God, our Father, hear us.  We plead before You, O Sacred heart of Jesus, for all who tonight in this great city stand in the most need of Your merciful love and protection.
On souls beset by temptation, have mercy.
On those who have fallen into sin, have mercy.
On those who are given up to worldliness and are forgetful of You, have mercy.
On those who are, at this moment, in danger of losing You forever, have mercy.
By Your agony, save them, Jesus.

On those who carry on wicked trades and profit by sin, have mercy.
On those indulging in sinful amusements, have mercy.
On all who are imperiling their souls by self-indulgence and luxury, have mercy.
On all frequenting haunts of sin, have mercy.
By Your scourging, save them, Jesus.

On all who are out tonight, the homeless, the weary, the starving, those tempted to suicide, the intemperate, have mercy.
On those who are out for sin, have mercy.
To those who are out to rescue others, grant help and protection.
For those who work at night, the police, railwaymen, firemen, those engaged on the stage, soldiers and sailors, sentries on duty, editors and journalists, let Your Presence be with them, Jesus.
For the sick, and suffering and all who are enduring any agony of mind and body, comfort them, Jesus.
For all undergoing surgery, strengthen them, Jesus, and help them in body and soul.
For the sleepless and lonely, be near them.
For those in anxiety, nervous or mental distress, calm them.
For the mentally ill, keep them under Your protection.
For those who care for the mentally ill, make them tender-hearted and compassionate.
For night nurses, give faithfulness and sympathy.
For priests and doctors, called out this night, reward them.
By Your crown of thorns, deliver them, Jesus.

For those who this night must suffer bereavement, visit and sustain them.
For those for whom this will be their last night on earth, deepen their contrition and receive their souls.
For those whom sudden death summons before Your Judgement, have mercy.
For those dying alone without priest or sacrament, have mercy.
For the dying who reject the ministry of Holy Church, have mercy.
On those dying unconscious, have mercy.
On those dying blind to their sin, have mercy.
On the souls of unbelievers who are hear death, have mercy.
On those who are trying to turn to You even in their last hour, have mercy.
For those who are afraid to die, turn their heaviness into joy.
For dying priests and religious, have mercy on them and receive them to Yourself.
For the faithful departed, grant them light and peace.
For ourselves in our last hour, grant the pardon of our sins, our negligences and our ignorances.
By Your holy death, deliver us all, O Jesus.

On behalf of those who have said no prayers today, let us say:  Our Father… Hail Mary…
On behalf of those who neglect to praise God and thank Him, let us say: Blessed be God.  Blessed be His holy name.
On behalf of those who blaspheme and neglect the Blessed Sacrament, let us say: Blessed, praised, worshiped and adored be Jesus Christ on His Throne of Glory and in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

Every hour of the day you are being remembered
in the ceaseless prayer of Carmel. 

I do like the last part best.

 

You know what's tough to do? Conveying to your friends why a work of art leaves you reeling. And God forbid if you react to genre art.

It's hard to understand why, exactly, one reacts to art. Exploring that particular alleyway is ultimately stupid; no matter what you do, the person to whom you speak cannot possibly have the same emotional investment you have.

People are confronted by art constantly, however one defines it. How they react to that art is rooted in themselves, however one defines "self." It is not for nothing that many couples unite based on their shared appreciation of a particular work.  Not that thist happens all that often; rare is the romance based on mutual communication from day one. One might argue that art exists as much for the possibility of communication as it does for the desire to mark one's existence to future generations.

I believe that the best television series ever produced is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is not an opinion shared by anyone I know personally. But since the series ended in 2003, I have watched the various shows in the conversation for GOAT of television series, and my opinion has remained unchanged. While I do love those other shows, for me, Buffy remains the best. And yet many of the people involved with the series struggle to scrape by, both financially and artistically.

So how does one "spread the word?" And more to the point, should one spread the word? I have tried in the past (Buffy's been gone 11 years now), but at this point I'm thinking that the horse is out of the barn. It's not that the show is dated (although I cringe watching the episode where Big Bad Voodoo Daddy plays the Bronze). It's more that the show is no longer novel; people simply no longer expect Spike, Drusilla or Angelus to show up looking for an artistic feed.

If you like, I could list several episodes of the series, and of its spinoff, Angel, that absolutely ripped my heart out. Three episodes in 2001 alone left me reeling, to the point that even now, well over a decade later, I find myself returning to them in the darkest hours of the night.

Which, of course, is not the point at all. As Jubal Harshaw once said, "art is the process of evoking pity and terror." And what evokes those two feelings for a particular person are probably more unique than a fingerprint.

So what do we do? Assuming that we -- for whatever reason, although one hopes the action is rooted in empathy -- want to know what evokes pity and terror in others, how do we reach it?

Ultimately, I think we have to listen to one another. And that ain't easy.

The Disappearing Touchstones of My Youth

It's strange. Eventually you realize that the stability you imagine the world has when you are a child is an illusion. The world dies every day, every second in fact, and any idea of order we ascribe to it is merely a desperate attempt to make something incomprehensible seem knowable.

So unless you want to fall into the dementia of nostalgia, you learn to abandon the touchstones of stability from your childhood. Or at least make the attempt. But it's hard to see the clear evidence that you were right to do this, and even harder to see one of those touchstones disappear. And the older you get, the harder it gets to endure such a loss, even of a person who you never met and whose work you never really liked all that much.

So this is a long way of saying that Shirley Temple's death hit me harder than I thought it would.

Yes, I'm a bit ashamed. And I also know that her loss is far more personal to her family and friends. Adulthood does teach you that the world is not just about you. Still, I'll never get used to seeing one of the landmarks of my childhood disappear. And it does seem harder to deal with the older I get.

JFK, John XXIII and Prints from a Time Long Gone

     Forgive the length of the post.
     When I was a kid, many of my older relatives, as well as the Catholic schools I attended, had framed prints on their walls. It's not something that families do that often these days outside of the African American community, where you'll still see pictures of Martin Luther King or even Barack Obama displayed prominently in places where people will see them. One of my professors at Gettysburg co-authored a book (which we had to buy, of course) on earlier examples of this phenomenon from the Confederate "Lost Cause." There used to be quite the industry devoted to this sort of thing, so I found it fascinating that examples of it could be found in the community in which I grew up.
     The prints I saw when I was young were variations on the same theme: John F Kennedy and John XXIII, presumably together in eternity. Sometimes they'd be joined by Christ; others showed them walking away from the viewer. My high school had one of the latter variety, sowing a field of wheat as they passed.
     1963 was a rough year for Irish American Catholics, and although I didn't show up until a few years later, the shadow of that year still darkened the world in which I grew up. So I've been surprised to see that it is very hard to track down images of the JFK/John XXIII prints online. You can find images of commemorative medals, and even plates, featuring the two, but the prints themselves remain elusive.
     So I'm curious to see if anyone else remembers this. Part of growing up, of course, is realizing that the sense of permanence one ascribes to traditions and institutions is an illusion. Things change, and at a grander scale than we realize. Still, I'd like to see if these prints left an impression on anyone else.

The Hazards of Applause Inflation: Modern Day Concertgoing

So I'm at the Tower Theater on Saturday night, waiting for the Decemberists to start their set, surrounded by a palpable air of anticipation. Then the lights dim, and the crowd -- a mixture of oldheads and hipster doofi -- starts cheering wildly. Jenny Conlee's muted organ introduction to The Hazards of Love begins but nearly founders, overwhelmed by another wave of applause. A spolight illuminates Conlee at her keyboards; hysterics ensue. The cheers then come at regular intervals as the rest of the band assembles, and when Colin Meloy shows up -- well, you can imagine. The crowd had shouted itself hoarse almost before Meloy had sung a word.

I'm not, of course, singling out the Decemberists, who put on a great show Saturday night. But how did we reach this point? What drives the concert audience to shower praise onto performers before they've actually done anything?

It is safe to say that this is a new phenomenon. We're not, after all, that far removed from vaudeville, which featured audiences that demanded entertainment and were not shy about showing their displeasure to the acts that failed them. Today's Apollo Theater audience is probably the closest approximation to the old norm, and even there no one tolerates throwing things at the stage.

But one does not need to go that far back. If you want to get really startled, listen to some of the live albums from the '60s and '70s. I'm thinking of two in particular: House Full: Live at the LA Troubadour from Fairport Convention and the Who's Live at Leeds.

House Full features two virtuoso musicians, Dave Swarbrick on fiddle and Richard Thompson on electric guitar, battling each other to see who can play the best and the fastest, all the while anchored by as professional a rhythm section as rock has ever seen. And all that the crowd gives them back for their efforts is about ten seconds of golf claps. Granted, House Full is the product of the first American tour an electric British Folk act, so I can see why some may say that this is not the best example. But you won't hear much more applause in Live at Leeds, perhaps the most ferocious live album of the rock era.

So why do we cheer so vigourously? My guess is that it represents some latent insecurity, where our need to show our affection to a performer actually overwhelms the desire to listen to the performance? But that is a guess. All I wish to point out is that, if a concert audience actually wants to hear a great performance, they would be better served to sit on their hands at the start of the show and make the performer earn the applause.

The joys of a well crafted fight scene: Dollhouse, Episode 11

Minor spoilers ahead (but not the Big One) . . .
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
There. I would have subtitiled this "Ballard vs. Langton" if it wasn't for the spoiler issue. And now that I think of it, non-Dollhouse fans may want to skip the next two paragraphs. Mostly, I want to write about a really good fight scene, but I feel compelled to note how well it works in the context of the season. So if, for some reason, you're not interested in the series, by all means, skip ahead.

Anyone who has been watching Dollhouse this year knows that this has been coming. Joss Whedon and his subordinates have been building up Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) and Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) as the supreme hard asses of the show, sans peur et sans reproche. Neither of them has even come close to losing a fair fight yet. Hell, they both won most of their unfair fights. So, sooner or later, they would have to meet.

But the fight was not just a contest between the two toughest kids on the block. Both Ballard and Langton have settled on Eliza Dushku's Echo/Caroline as the chief justification for the sorry life choices that they have made. Ballard torched his FBI career to save Caroline; since Patton Oswalt's character dissected Ballard's motivations far better than I could in "Man on the Street", I'll leave that aside. But Langton isn't much better. He's never been shy about his mixed feelings about his gig working (and then running) security for the Los Angeles Dollhouse. His way of compensation? Develop a myopic concentration on saving Echo. A more productive neurosis than Ballard's, of course, but still a neurosis. And a neurosis that puts him at cross purposes with Ballard.

So that's the backstory, characterwise. Now for the fight itself, which largely takes place in the penultimate segment. Whedon fans, of course, should be quite used to fight scenes by now, which have largely been very well done. Many stand out, too many to mention, really; my three personal favorites are Connor's fight with the Beast and the Angelus/Faith wire fight (both from Season Four of Angel) and (God help me) the scene from the Season Two Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "What's My Line, Part One" where Buffy malarchuks* a demon assassin. What makes the "BriarRose" fight stand out is how intricately it is choreographed.

Granted, any self-respecting drama will take care when staging a fight scenes, which almost always serve as the dramatic climax to a film or episode. Does anyone remember anything from the series Dynasty other than the Joan Collins-Linda Evans confrontations? It remains a mystery to me that neither the Oscars nor the Emmys (nor the Tonys, for that matter) do nothing to honor fight choreographers. Say what you will about the MTV Movie Awards, but they at least do something to recognize how important a fight is to a film's ultimate value.

One needs only look at the Ballard-Langton fight to see how much work goes into designing these fights. At one point, Langton has Ballard dead to rights, holding a gun on him while Langton lies crumpled on the Dollhouse steps, by now shattered by ealier stages of the combat. Ballard knows that he has a deadly opponent by this point; his only chance is to attack Langton in a way where reflex overwhelms control. So he throws a piece of the shattered bannister at Langton's gun arm. Langton involuntarily flinches, and in the second that action gives him, Ballard kicks Langton's gun out of his hand, then moves to press his advantage. The amount of storyboarding, rehersals and camera shots it took to develop this scene, or put more simply, the care put into this scene, simply beggars the imagination.

I could rattle off any number of films or television series with iconic fight scenes: Errol Flynn vs, Basil Rathbone in The Adventures of Robin Hood; Marlon Brando vs. Lee J. Cobb in On the Waterfront, James Caan vs. Gianni Russo in The Godfather (OK, better known as "Sonny wailing on his brother-in-law with a trash can lid"), the "He ain't pretty no more" fight in Raging Bull (along with Sugar Ray Robinson's final shot against Jake LaMotta), and the first Darth Vader-Luke Skywalker confrontation in The Empire Strikes Back. But what I think of most when I think of the Ballard-Langton confrontation is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. There is a fight early on in the film (very ably described here) between the two main characters and a man who tried to cheat them out of a very small payday. This is not a fight between immortals; rather, it is a sloppy fight where the combatants pay for their many mistakes, winnning through endurance and guile rather than any clear supremacy. In other words, it is like the fights, real or rhetorical, that we ourselves endure throughout our lives.

Kevin Murphy once described fight scenes in the old Repubic Serial Commando Cody this way: "Cody and his pal Ted get beat up by Clayton Moore and his sidekick, taking twice as many direct, bare-fisted punches to the jaw as George Foreman has in his entire career, with no apparent damage or injury."** This fight scene is essentially the opposite of that sort of fight. Two equally matched opponents go at each other, earning every advantage through blood and cunning, where ultimately the fight is determined, not by the clear superiority of one over the other, but by the intervention of outside forces.

* Don't click on this link unless you have a very strong stomach. I'm still not sure how I feel about trying to create a verb out of Clint Malarchuk's near-tragedy (oh, BTW, he did live, and even got back to the NHL)

** To be precise: The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, page 12.

Worst Ensemble Cast Among MST3d Movies

OK, I'm a little desperate here to reinvigorate my posting discipline, so here's my recent post to the MST3Kinfo website's Weekend Discussion on the worst ensemble casts in the annals of MST3K:

I’d like to break this category down to distinguish between the five types of movies that wind up MSTed:
1)Movies with professional actors;
2)Movies with community theater actors;
3)Movies who draw their actors from their investors;
4)Movies where the director puts so little faith in his/her actors that he/she hires voice actors to dub the dialogue;
5)Movies where the director doesn’t trust the actors, but is too cheap to hire voice actors, so he/she (oh, who am I kidding, he)dubs the dialogue using his own voice and maybe his wife’s.
I think that we can all fill in the blanks here with the worst performances in each category. But here are my choices for each:
1)Hobgoblins. Stretching the definition of “Professional” here, but I can’t forget that Duane Whitaker was in “Pulp Fiction” (dishonorable mention: “Riding With Death”);
2)The Dead Talk Back. “Teenage Strangler” would be an acceptable alternate, but at least some of that cast was photogenic;
3)The Skydivers. Hard to leave “Red Zone Cuba” off here, but all of the “actors” in that were in this as well. And correct me if I’m wrong, but the “the Scotchman” did not show up in “Cuba”;
4)The Creeping Terror. Although I should give points for the very articulate and engaging narrator;
5)Manos, the Hands of Fate. Since I’m not one to pile on, I’ll be silent here.

Whedon and the Tabula Rasa: Thoughts on the "Needs" Episode of Dollhouse

Caution: Minor spoilers ahead

Many people have expressed variations on the same thought when it comes to Joss Whedon's new series Dollhouse. While his fans are happy to have Whedon back on the small screen, the show's premise creeps them out a bit, and on several levels.

And no wonder. Whedon presents his audience a world where a shadowy organization can erase the personality of a person and imprint a new one drawn to the specifications of a client for a specific task. Once the task is complete, the new personality, along with any memory of the "task," is itself erased, with no consequences to the client (apart from the fee) or the organization. We are assured, of course, that the "actives" (as the victims of the process are called) volunteer for the duty, and that one day they will have their original identities restored. Of course.

There's a lot of layers to this, many aspects that one could discuss, most of them very unsettling. So why did Whedon decide to explore this sort of territory? Perhaps the eigth episode, "Needs" offers a clue.

When not out on assignment, the actives are normally kept in a sub-childlike state where they spend their time eating healthy, exercising and resting. In "Needs," however, five actives wake up as themselves. While they have no memories of their previous lives, they apparently are who they were before joining the Dollhouse. The remainder of the episode spins off of this change, as the newly aware actives take steps to reconnect with their identities.

What is telling about "Needs" is that Whedon has used this trope before -- specifically, in "Tabula Rasa" from the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ; and "Spin the Bottle" from the fourth season of Angel (not to mention a significant chunk of that series' fifth season). Both contrive situations where the main characters forget who they are so they can interact unencumbered by the residue of their experienences. But the audience willingly overlooks the contrivance because of the sheer joy of watching characters they love freed from their pasts. And let's face it: if you live in Whedon's universe, you're going to have a nasty past.

Whedon has always been at pains to make sure that the actions his characters take have consequences. In his shows, characters do not wind up where they were at the beginning of the episode. Perhaps, as the son and grandson of television writers, he has a better grasp of the double edged nature of serial character development. The television series format, just like radio before it, allows -- demands, really -- for a writer to create characters that evolve over time. The best shows sustain themselves by focusing on this potential.

For a good discussion of this, one should seek out Melvin Patrick Ely's landmark work on popular culture, The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy:A Social History of an American Phenomenon (University of Virginia Press, 1991). Amos 'n' Andy spent forty years on the air in part* because it let some of its characters change into different people. Amos, especially, moved on from his original characterization as the good-natured but weak-willed second banana to the comically scheming Andy. By series end, he had asserted independence from Andy, established a successful business, married the love of his life and became a doting, loving father.

But as Calvin's dad once remarked, "We all know how funny good role models are." By the time Amos had turned into such a shining citizen, the Kingfish had supplanted his role as Andy's comic foil, shunting Amos into the background. That, of course, is another way long running series sustain themselves: by developing new characters without the emotional baggage of the original ones. But audiences will only accept so many new characters; in the end, a show can survive as long as the audience still reacts to the factors that drew them in the first place.

I often think of Ely's description of Amos 'n' Andy when I think of Buffy's seventh season. For one thing, Xander Harris' path closely parallelled the path that Amos had tred sixty years before. But even for the other surviving Scoobies, contending with life on the Hellmouth had taken its toll. Buffy and Giles both allowed the burdens of their responsibilities to suck all the joy out of their lives. Willow, meanwhile, spent the bulk of the seventh season recovering from her actions in the sixth; only in the final episode did she show any of her old spark. In short, the main characters were used up. Whedon could not remain true to his characters' integrity and continue to produce an entertaining show.

It should, then be obvious why Whedon would be attracted to the Dollhouse premise. Here is a show where the main characters will always remain true to who they are because they can't remember the consequences of their actions. The major problem with this approach is that it asks the audience to care about characters who have no apparent emotional core. And it is precisely this problem that "Needs" addresses.

*Yeah, I know. But this is not the place to talk about that.

Why Does Art Affect Me?

Why do we expect art to affect us rationally? Art exists outside the realm of rationality, so why do we expect to react to it rationally? Perhaps, as rational creatures, we cling to the notion of a rational world that reveals itself to those with the patience to examine it.

But the world is not rational. Rational thought helped us move out of the trees and, eventually, let humans conquer the world. But it does not explain what drives us, any more than an understanding of the seasons helps us understand what drives the birds around us. Because they are attuned to the mechanisms of the world (if not the motivations underpinning those mechanisms), birds are free to react to the impulses of the seasons. Humans, who live in defiance of those impulses, can not understand them at any level beyond the intellectual.

". . .the hardest thing in this world… is to live in it." The line is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the feeling comes from the depths of human experience. If humans lived in concert with nature, then we would have never left the trees. We live in defiance of the imperatives nature imposes on us. But at what cost? Does life in opposition to the divine plan deny us any hope for a contented existence? It may be that it does. Perhaps in the next world we may come upon something that satisfies our longing, but we have no assurance of this in this life, baring the grace of divine knowledge that some of us experience.

As it happens, I have experienced the grace of divine knowledge. But it would be hubris to expect others to take my word for it. Some of the greatest saints have experienced spiritual aridity, so to expect others to take my word for the experience of divine knowledge is obviously a fool's errand. For whatever reason, I have been blessed. All I can say is this: I believe that there is something beyond what we can experience. Take that as you will.

Things that Shouldn't Be: Rock Edition

I heard from a friend of mine who went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York over the weekend that the gift shop featured an obscenely expensive Led Zeppelin shot glass. Now consider for a moment the sordid end of John "Bonzo" Bonham, who consumed as many as forty shots of vodka the day he choked on his own vomit. Should Led Zeppelin shot glasses even exist? Obviously, no.

And yet they do. So indulge me for a moment as I try a free form writing experiment to see how long a list I can make (without research) of rock and roll memorabilia that the Hall of Fame might want to keep off its shelves:

• Sid Vicious Ginzu knives;
• Lynrd Skynrd air sickness bags;
• Janis Joplin hypodermic needles;
• Marc Bolan gear shift knobs;
• the phone number for the "Hells Angels Crowd Control Service;"
• Lou Reed's copy of the book" So You Want to Make Electronic Music;"
• The lyric sheet to the Spin Doctors' song "Cleopatra's Cat"
• Rick Wakeman ice skates;
• Jeff Buckley water wings;
• John Denver "Build It Yourself" plane kit (oh, wait, that might exist for real);
• A facsimile edition of Duane Allman's copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance;"

Well, that's enough for now.

In Praise of Tracy Morgan

Tracy Morgan possesses a rare gift: the ability to say with a straight face anything, no matter how ludicrous. Judging by today's comment page at hulu.com, many still do not appreciate this. But really, in today's comedy world does anyone do a better deadpan than Morgan?

I had hoped to post a link to the final sketch of last night's Saturday Night Live, where Morgan playing the director of a family film called "Rocket Dog," displays a somewhat cavalier regard for the lives of the dogs (and actors) under his charge. Hulu does not have that sketch up yet, unfortunately, so instead I will ask you to remember how much Morgan brings to 30 Rock (the link goes to last week's show; I'm thinking mostly of the bit starting at about 2:10). Like a good left tackle or a solid bass player, Morgan is so good at what he does that you don't notice what he does, but everything else would not (could not) work without his contribution.

Plus, who else can just sit passively in a chair in a shirt made out of money?

Worst Moviegoing Experiences (from Onion AV Club): Ang Lee's "Hulk"

Although I have not seen Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" since 1996, I can still recall the scene where Kate Winslet stands dumbfounded at both her love's infidelity and her rival's contempt, while Emma Thompson, knowing that each second her sister stands exposed will expose her to more scorn from London's scolds, desperately whispers into Winslet's ear trying to convince her to leave the room. Lee, therefore, had won a place in my heart even before "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," so the prospect of him directing a new version of the Hulk seemed promising. So good, in fact, that I ignored a major warning sign: Lee had pointed a camera at Jewel during "Ride With the Devil" and expected her to act.

Normally, being a cheap bastard, I don't walk out of movies. I sat through many films that I detested -- "Cocoon," "National Lampoon's European Vacation," "The English Patient" and "Synecdoche, New York," to name a few. in fact, the only movie I ever walked out on was Lee's "Hulk."

Part of this was not Lee's fault. I watched the film in a very poor multiplex screening room, with odors and poor soundproofing. Moreover, someone in front of me had ignored the movie's PG-13 rating and brought in far too young a child. When the intense violence began, the kid naturally became disturbed, and the parent began aggressively disciplining the child. In a theater it is hard to tell what an adult does to a child, so I took no action. I may have erred in this, but I do not think so, and in any event this did not make for a pleasurable viewing experience.

But even aside from this, it is hard to see "Hulk" as anything but an absolute failure. All of the action in the film is predicated on someone, when confronted by a difficult choice, to use his or her imagination to find the worst possible course of action and then follow it to hell or high water. All of the major characters quickly learned that making Bruce Banner angry led nowhere good. Nevertheless, over and over again a character would decide to see what would happen if he or she provoked Banner. Surprise! Bruce turns into a green CGI blob, and watching that blob bounce through desert terrain like a Pong ball invoked as much Existential despair as anything Sartre ever wrote. Add to this Nick Nolte's horrific performance as Banner's father -- really, it looks like Lee just pointed a camera at Nolte and printed everything he said, including random bellows -- and "Hulk" becomes an indictment of one's way of life. Can one really justify one's existence if one rationally chooses to spend two hours of one's life watching such a monstrosity? So when Nolte, apropos of nothing, bellowed near the end of "Hulk," that was my cue to make for the door.

I am willing to give a pass to an artist whose work I have admired in the past over an utter failure. So I did not, thankfully, let "Hulk" keep me from seeing "Brokeback Mountain." But the experience of "Hulk" has added a certain wariness to the choices I make. The fact that this runs counter to what I ideally seek in film experiences makes "Hulk" the worst experience in movie going I have ever had.

On Listenig to Trout Mask Replica

It is amazing how art can really and truly affect you. One benefit of my job is that I can listen to music all day doing it, and for the last week or so I've listened almost exclusively to Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's 1969 magnum opus. Trout Mask Replica invariably winds up on music critics' lists of the best rock albums of all time, and as a sucker for those lists it was only a matter of time before I bought a copy. At this point I don't remember if I had any expectations (although obviously the cover does lead one to certain conclusions), but learning of Frank Zappa's involvement did little to raise them. Listening to it for the first time quickly devloved into a chore. Blaring saxophones, shifting rhythms and odd time signatures -- not to mention Beefheart's, shall we say, nontraditional vocal approach -- made for quite a change from the traditional country and Southern rock I'd been listening to recently. So on the first listen I didn't get it.

But I kept at it. Obviously Beefheart designed Trout Mask Replica to be heard more than once, and its very opaqueness started to seem like a virtue. Plus I sometimes find myself revisiting works of art, culture or entertainment that do not work for me, but nevertheless have a large following. For the most part this has been unproductive (I've spent far too much of my life watching The Brady Bunch and Family Guy), but for whatever reason I could not stop listening to the record. And I still didn't get it.

Until I realized that the whole point of the album was to point out the fallacy of trying to "get" art. Trout Mask Replica indites the whole notion that artistic expression must adhere to the same logic that governs rational thought. What makes art work generally has roots outside the realm of logic, whether the artist consciously intends this or not. Beefheart deliberately draws from an extensive knowledge of different musical genres to create his dense melange, something that defies understanding but that nevertheless communicates with his audience.

And because of this work, I finally have an understanding of what modern artists of all stripes try to accomplish. To paraphrase von Clausewitz, art is continuation of communication by other means.

24 Idiocy

after watching this week’s episodes of 24 on hulu.com I must confess to a total loss of faith in the series. Let us leave aside the presence of Jon Voight -- an actor I cannot stand -- slurping Chinese food into his maw. And also ignore the mortal danger to two characters I like, Aaron Pierce and Bill Buchanan. At this point, the quickest way to get me to drop this series would be to put a bullet in Pierce’s brain (despite the fact that I do find his charge, the President’s daughter, hot enough to take the paint off the walls).

Do I really need to tell you why I find this latest plot twist so ridiculous? Suspending disbelief is one thing, but come on! We live in a world where Constitutional rights do not apply within a mile of a Vice-Presidential Candidate!!!!! I have long argued that we spend far too much money, and sacrifice far too many of our civil liberties, to protect the President’s life. No one holds a gun to the heads of Presidential aspirants, and the Constitution spells out the terms of Presidential succession well enough for the country to endure an assassination. But the shield around the President is there, and anyone who has even a casual acquaintance with the Presidency knows it is there. The producers of 24, then, do a great disservice to their audience by pretending that this attack would get anywhere near the President.

Santorum=Jackass

You know, I hesitate to post this link ("The Elephant in the Room: In Praise of Catholic Priests Who Dare to Preach and Enforce"), because it suggests that I'm insisting that people read an article written by Rick Santorum (albeit more likely one of his proxies), but fairness constrains me. Now I have not bothered to fact check the article, assuming that people usually treat any factual statement from the emphatically ex-senator from Pennsylvania as gingerly as a dog turd. But a few random observations comes to mind:

1) It takes a man of great character to question the quality of the person who so resoundingly thumped him in a recent election, knowing that lesser mortals might accuse him of sour grapes;

2) I've noted in the past that John Paul II knowingly gave the Eucharist to a pro-choice politician in Italy, so I won't go over how ridiculous this whole issue is. I will merely point out that a priest is in no position to know the heart of someone coming up to receive Communion, so really, he should just do his job and give out the sacrament. Not to mention that recent events have shown that the Church might want to review how it handles background checks;

3) Santorum brings up Justin Cardinal Rigali, at whom I am a bit miffed right now. Rigali is not as overtly confrontational as Bishop Joseph Martino, the main object of Santorum's praise. But he did allow himself to be photographed with Bush in 2004 and McCain in 2008, and yet somehow was not available for their respective opponents. After that, he had very carefully couched letters read at Mass the Sundays before the election, and then put out the FOCA post cards out the Sunday after Obama's inarguation despite the fact that the bill is not currently under consideration.

I met Cardinal Rigali last year, as part of a group introduced to him during a pilgrimage. When we learned that we would meet him I was torn as to what to do. This is hard to explain to non-Catholics, but even seeing a Cardinal, let alone meeting one, is something special, akin to seeing a rock star. But up to that point Rigali had come up short in every measure I have for high Church members. The question, then, was whether or not to make a scene. As the moment neared, however, I backed away from the idea of any confrontation, and soon I just hoped to avoid aping Mr. Bean when he met the Queen. Which I did manage, BTW, although verbally it was close.

Do I regret not speaking to power when I had the chance? Not really. It is true that some of the great saints of the Church have openly confronted high Church members whom they thought had deviated from the path. Catherine of Siena often signed letters to Cardinals "without reverence," and she's a Doctor of the Church now. Rigali should be told that he does his Archdiocese no favors by using sophists' tricks to manipulate it against politicians he does not like. But many people do tell him this, if he chooses to listen, so I am glad I showed respect to the people who allowed me to meet Rigali by not calling him to task. But if I meet him again . . .

Lenten Discipline: Post entries daily

OK, I've been lax, I know. But that is what Lent is for, to nudge us back towards what helps us. So my Lenten pledge is to make sure to post something every day. Hopefully this will work as an intellectual emetic. So we will see.

Facebook "These are a few of my favorite things" music post

As an eternally frustrated ex-college DJ, I'm always looking for opportunities to get music out there. Not a comprehensive list, although I did do 30. The order is utterly random.

1)Johnny Cash At San Quentin: An obvious choice, but a good one. Prefer this to Folsom because of "A Boy Named Sue;" a distant cousin of mine did an oral interpretation of this song at a family reunion in Ireland about ten years ago;

2)Sam Phillips Martinis and Bikinis: Anything Ms. Phillips does is worth a listen, even the Christian music she later disowned. This one's a slew of well-crafted Beatlesque pop songs dealing with how difficult straddling the line between the spiritual and temporal can be;

3)R.E.M. Life's Rich Pageant: Sentimental choice from the fall of '86. Hard to go wrong with any R.E.M. album, of course; "Accelerate" is also worth a listen, despite being the most recent one;

4)John Prine John Prine: Prine fell into the Marshall Crenshaw trap with this one by making a debut album so impossibly good that he could never top it. No one has ever drawn such richly developed characters in so few phrases;

5)The Pogues If I Should Fall From Grace With God: How do you pick one Pogues album? Simple. Pick the one featuring the duet with Kirsty MacColl, and then mourn the injustice that took her voice from the world;

6)Various Artists Troubadours of British Folk: Volume 1, Unearthing the Tradition: Speaking of Kirsty MacColl, this album features her father Ewan singing his song "Dirty Old Town." Rhino did a good job with this largely acoustic album, featuring most of the major early lights: Donegan, Carthy, Jansch, Briggs, Collins. Plus, if you ever wondered who yelled "Judas!" at Dylan during "The Royal Albert Hall Concert," there's a good chance that person listened to some of this music;

7)The Stooges Raw Power: "Menacing" is a word you don't see in too many music reviews outside of Rock. If you want to hear menace in its purest form, listen to this;

8)Martin Carthy Shearwater: A compelling album from one of the greatest British Folk artists, his return to acoustic guitar after a two album flirtation with electricity as part of Steeleye Span. Carthy believes in it and he knows how to do it.

9)The Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America: the album that restored my faith in rock;

10)The John Coltrane Quartet Africa/Brass: I'm not a jazz guy; the reason I latched onto this is because I read the Byrds were listening to it as they wrote "Eight Miles High." There's no linear link between the two that I can hear, and I never did hear the classical Indian influence on the album, but it is strangely compelling;

11)Various Artists Alan Lomax: Popular Songbook: Field recordings of many songs that would later become rock standards: "Midnight Special," Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad," "Rock Island Line," "Sloop John B." and others;

12)The Beatles Revolver: Almost certainly the best album I've ever heard;

13)Fairport Convention Liege and Lief: And if it ain't "Revolver" it is this;

14)Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Murder Ballads; Hard to top Nick Cave's voice, especially when he's intoning a certain twelve letter word;

15)U2 War; The album I memorized in high school. Growing up without consistent access to a good radio station or MTV, I would save up my money, scan album reviews in magazines and newspapers and buy anything I could find that a reviewer said came from the same influences as "War";

16)Iris DeMent Infamous Angel; She truly has her own voice, and she writes songs worthy of it;

17)The Who Live at Leeds: The most ferocious live album ever recorded, featuring some of rock's best musicians at the height of their powers;

18)Original Cast Album, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling: Combines two of my favorite things, show tunes and TV. Plus it gives one a good intro to Joss Whedon: the character to whom the prettiest ballad is sung has just utterly betrayed the singer;

19)The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole; Accessible, compelling electronic DJ music. Plus, any recycling of "Tomorrow Never Knows" is always valued;

20)Anne Briggs A Collection: A compilation, but hey, she only has recorded thirty-odd songs to date. I still occasionally listen to her A Capella version of "She Moves Through the Fair" on continuous repeat. It sounds like she just restarts the song, over and over again. If that's what Heaven is like and I make the list, I won't complain;

21)Drive-By Truckers The Dirty South: Again, hard to pick just one DBT album. I go with this because Jason Isbell is still in the band at this point, and he does have the best singing voice DBT ever had. Great stories, good guitar, and that sense of Southern Gothic menace that no one does better;

22)Various Artists White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s: If you get a chance, read the book to which this is a companion, Joe Boyd's memoir of his early career. I'm only aware of one person, Al Kooper, who worked with a wider variety of musicians. But the album works even without the book.

23)Lucinda Williams, Lucinda Williams: PopMatters recently cheated in a review of Williams' last album, saying it was her best album since "You know the one." Readers would either instinctively think Car Wheels on a Gravel Road or this one. I go with the latter; having ears, I like Car Wheels, but Williams indulges her "write a song where a friend of mine dies" muse a bit too much on it. Really, who has a longer life expectancy: a friend of Lucinda's or a Spinal Tap drummer?;

24)Neil Young and Crazy Horse Weld: Neil touring in support of a strong album (Ragged Glory) with opening acts strong enough to push him (Social Distortion and Sonic Youth), and in the middle of the Persian Gulf War. Not much more you could ask for. Plus this is one of the few shows I actually saw;

25)Patty Griffin 1000 Kisses; with the '00s ending, I've been trying to think of the best albums of the decade, and so far nothing beats this one. A virtuoso singer who chooses restraint over self-aggrandizing vocal acrobatics except when the song demands it. Plus, a hell of a songwriter;

26)Talking Heads Remain in Light; I don't know enough about African music to judge how original this album. All I know is that, if I need music to help me focus and move quickly, on foot or behind the wheel, I'm popping in "The Great Curve";

27)Nick Drake Pink Moon: Musical heroin for depressives;

28)The Decemberists Picaresque: Colin Meloy gets mucho props for his literary songwriting skills, which are very evident here. But he is a very evocative vocalist as well, and really, he has to be to pull off his songs. Plus, Jenny Conlee is probably the Garth Hudson of her generation;

29)Sarah McLachlan Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: It took me several years to figure out that "Possession" was essentially written from the perspective of someone who stalked McLachlan, which I think says all I need to say about the power of this album;

30)Richard and Linda Thompson I Want to See the Bright Lights: I've read that Richard Thompson denies that his songs reveal a bleak worldview, saying that he always leaves room for redemption at the end. Maybe so, and certainly "Night Comes In" is as ecstatic a song as one is likely to find. But that was after he converted to Sufism. On this album, one gets the closing tandem of "The End of the Rainbow," which makes Roger Waters' later work sound like the 1910 Fruit Gum Company, and "The Great Valerio," which stomps on the possibility of romantic love as a salve. On a lighter note, the reissue features the most blistering live version of "The Calvary Cross" available right now.

OK, that's it. As always, thanks for your attention.

Fifteen Years Too Late for the Borovnian Fair

Did you ever get something you dreamed about long after you imagined it? I mean really long, like a decade and change. Growing up in an area without an established revival film circuit, I can remember wishing that I could go back in time and see movies that TV stations, for whatever reason, did not show. That era, of course, is as dead as the antebellum South; nowadays people expect access to nearly every film still in existence with almost no delay. And in large part, they get that access. The idea of waiting, say, for a TV show to rerun an episode has become nearly as anachronistic as a hat blocker.

Bear with me through the the remainder of the segue. A few weeks back I missed an episode of The Simpsons. This was a disappointment to me, since I had been told that it took inspiration from the Chronicles of Narnia. But tonight I remembered Hulu.com, and when I pulled up the episode in question my interest increased ten fold. Here's how Hulu describes it: "Lisa meets an equally academic and creative new friend named Juliet." It took me about five seconds to realize the full implications of this statement.

At this point, I should note my mid-1990s obsession with the film Heavenly Creatures, which documents (well, sort of) a real life occasion where the meeting of two "academic and creative" girls set off a chain of events that ended in a horrific murder. You can guess the name of one of the girls involved: Juliet. Granted, this is pretty icky territory, and perhaps not something that a sitcom should ideally do. But really, The Simpsons gets a pass in my book.

Or at least it used to. Now, I don't know, especially in the wake of this episode. Heavenly Creatures came out in 1994, and despite the subsequent success of its stars, screenwriters and director, remains obscure. While movie references and parodies form a significant segment of The Simpsons' humor, fifteen years is a stretch. But what is more disturbing is that the writers pulled back from the most disturbing aspects of the case. Granted, part of this may be do to maintaining the integrity of Lisa's character; she's not one who normally strays too far away from reality. But this itself brings up a disturbing thought: why did the writers jackhammer the plot of an obscure movie onto a character who does not really fit the profile? Unfortunately, Occam's Razor suggests that The Simpsons writers room is so bankrupt of ideas that it will piece together an episode out of anything.

So I've drifted into Comic Book Guy territory. But I think that this is evidence that the party has finally come to an end in Springfield.

Mexico 0, USA 2: "America, F--K Yeah!!!!!!"

That's the most I've enjoyed a U. S. soccer game in quite a while. They actually looked like a top-flight side in Columbus tonight: one touch passes, working the trap, forcing errors and making the other side pay for its mistakes. Sure, finishing could be better (really, what else is new?), but the USMNT showed that they believe in themselves. And really, that is when historically they have produced.

Some may hesitate to look for positives in the 2006 World Cup, but at least one can be found: it lowered expectations for the USMNT. Personally, I think that 2006 could have gone worse -- remember, no one else got a point off of the eventual World Cup champion that year (not even my beloved Les Bleus), and they did draw a tough group. Still, the team played tight, clearly uncomfortable under the weight of expectations. Well, 2002 is a distant memory, and the high FIFA ranking (whether deserved or not) has fallen by the wayside. No one expects anything out of this team now. That may not explain everything about tonight's performance, but it did not hurt.

And I suppose one could argue that so many years under Bruce Arena had let the team go stale. Personally, while I was glad to see Arena go at the end, I prefer that situation to the coaching merry-go-round that Mexico endures. Maybe I've read too much Gregg Easterbrook, but at this point I have to wonder if the stability the USMNT enjoys at the head coaching position has helped them surpass Mexico in CONCACAF. Sven-Goran Eriksson's lackluster resume may not inspire too much confidence, but at least his former employers gave him a chance. Since 1991, the USMNT has had 4 coaches, while Eriksson is number 14 for Mexico, and may be out after tonight.

Why Mexico has not done better on the world soccer stage remains one of the most debatable sports questions out there, but really, there's no excuse.They've hosted two World Cups, rank 11th in world population and have no sport nearly as popular (unless I've underrated the appeal of competitive walking). Plus, Mexican players regularly play for the top teams in the world, while (aside from goalkeepers) Americans have trouble hanging onto roster spots in the top four leagues. But despite all of Mexico's advantages, they've never gotten farther than the World Cup quarterfinals. Yeah, I know its unfair to point this out, but the USMNT reached the semifinals in 1930. After tonight, it is hard to imagine Mexico matching that accomplishment in 2010.

But rather than be negative, I'll enjoy the now. Good times for the USMNT.

Use your Allusion

OK, I'm over-thinking this, which usually leads me to do absolutely nothing, so I'll take a different approach. Here's something where I do not have a fully formed thought before I compose the post. Hey, this is ultimately a writing exercise anyway, so all roads must be explored.

Anyway, I've been reading my posts and noticing how often I make allusions. There are worse literary devices, but nothing endures overuse very well, so why do I keep going back to them? If one takes a dismal view, allusions often are the hallmark of intellectual laziness. An author hijacks the emotions evoked by an event or a work of art for her own purposes. Or it could be exclusionary, something designed to cut out the squares from the audience; if you don't get the reference, you have no business being here.

But let us take the more charitable view. I throw allusions out as means to strike a commonality with readers. Even with people one knows well, communication is problematic at best; we try to organize the chaos in our minds into something that language can convey, say our peace and hope for the best. In that context, all bets are off, and anything that can simplify the process should be in bounds. Really, shared experiences make up the foundation of any relationship merely by making it easier to talk to each other. All an allusion does is make it possible for people who might not know each other well to find common ground.

Star Trek: The Next Generation ran a very good episode near the end of its run where Picard was stranded on a planet with an alien starship captain played by Paul Winfield. At first Picard found communication with Winfield impossible until realizing that Winfield's culture spoke in nothing but allusions to their culture's foundational Creation story. Now obviously, this premise does not bear close examination, unless one can imagine a nuclear physics textbook written wholly in allusions. Only actors as skilled as Patrick Stewart and Paul Winfield could pull this off. But the scene where Picard bridges the gap by telling the story of Gilgamesh shows the power of allusions to bring people together.