Stark rides the vibe of bliss that comes from being alone among friends. His is one with the wheel, one with the road, one with the night that will pass into memory with him and his carload of castaways in Wichita.
Alpo lies in the backseat, curled up in the corner and sleeping deeply. He's passed out from the beer and a half he drank at the roadhouse. Gene and his girlfriend of the moment, Lucille, or maybe Lilith, occupied the other half of the backseat, limbs in lazy embraces. The late hour and the long night paralyzed their lovemaking. Only half coherent, Gene calls Alpo a cockblocker, an accusation he renews every time he nudges him to stop him from snoring.
Japes rides shotgun. He's giving the monologue again.Tonight it's something about the bus, about the bright colors and laughing girls and vivid sex traveling about in it would entail. Stark syncs his vibe to Japes' rhythm. He interjects an "alright" or "uh-huh" on just the right beats to punctuate Japes' thoughts and keep the poetry going.
Stark really likes these boys. He knows their quest is doomed. He knows all about the desire for experience and the manner of adventure is makes a man seek. He knows the moment the shine dulls, and experience becomes memory, and memory haunts a man. The only exorcism possible for the past is the present. But there's no stopping, no letting up allowed. All your presents are open, and you are surrounded by empty boxes, torn paper, and memories.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Apologies to Bauby
Apparently, I can blog from my Kindle. The tiny keyboard makes this an awkward proposition, though nothing compared to the challenge the author of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly faced. (Between the mountain and the molehill, the molehill gains by comparison.) The trick is to think through what to say before it's said, a talent few ever master.
Friday, November 19, 2010
The Velvet Dream
We were Landsers fighting our way across the steppe through Bolshevik hordes. In our spare time we shot independent films on handheld home-movie cameras. Our films paid tribute to those whose vision nurtured ours: John Waters, Russ Meyer, and Richard Roundtree, among others.
We had the props for action sequences -- guns, bombs, flares, even tanks and artillery. Who knew a chase scene between Kettenraeder could catch the breathless intensity that is the poetry of being? But we soon saw through these flashy vanities. We instead strove for a cinema of the heart and soul. We shot mostly interior scenes. Within sheltering walls -- that's where everyday life gets its texture and nuance! Besides, who wanted to shoot outside with the increased activity of partisan snipers and Red Army aviation? Art tempts death with life, but it's not a suicide pact.
We had a number of crew and extras, including the boys in the SS regiment (14 or 15 years old, if a day), and, of course, our lovely Slav girlfriends. I smile remembering them, strutting in their rouge and lipstick and feather boas, lounging on the old divans lodged in our cramped bunkers. They gave their boyfriends serious, sultry looks in take after take of our cinema verite love stories, and, in unguarded moments, reached into their clothes to scratch at lice. They were the most incredible sweethearts an Aryan boy could get through the classified ads in Stalin-era samizdat swinger magazines.
As the Red Army recovered from the reverses of Barbarossa and Blau, Minsk and Kiev, our art became more desperate. We needed a place less subject to their harassment. The commisars had already infiltrated our sets. At first they just wanted to hang around the studio, so we used them as production assistants. But then they began to insert themselves into production meetings and the screening of dailies. They claimed they had great patriotic and revolutionary duties to protect the workers in our productions. Yes, they claimed this even as they liquidated the shop stewards in the make up and wardrobe departments! Really, they only wanted to exercise artistic veto so they could get laid, the casting couch ensnared in a totalitarian tentacle!
We found ourselves in a Kessel, cut off from the rest of the Wehrmacht by a sea of Soviet motorized rifle divisions newly arrived from the Ural military district. We had to break out. Not just militarily, but artistically. We felt the bourgeoise tastes of our audiences constraining our impulses to pursue our wildest imaginations. We wanted epics of purest shape and light -- symphonies for the eyes! They wanted scene after scene of fat women eating potatoes slathered in butter.
We could have easily broken out to the west, but the Reds would only follow us, all the way back to Berlin, where, in any event, the Reich arts commissioners would likely order an audit of our grants. So instead, we broke out to the east. There, safely behind enemy lines near Collective Farm 17, we found an old drive-in theater, which we quickly occupied ahead of the coming winter.
Once we had established our defensive perimeter and stocked our dugouts with canned goods and cured hams requisitioned at gunpoint from the local peasants, we took a moment to remember our comrades in the boys' SS regiment, still fighting a hopeless rearguard action in the Kessel to provide the distraction we needed to get our girlfriends out. The writers penned the most polished funeral oration they could, despite having to do a final rewrite of the script. We had to cut our mourning short -- principal photography would begin in less than a week.
We had the props for action sequences -- guns, bombs, flares, even tanks and artillery. Who knew a chase scene between Kettenraeder could catch the breathless intensity that is the poetry of being? But we soon saw through these flashy vanities. We instead strove for a cinema of the heart and soul. We shot mostly interior scenes. Within sheltering walls -- that's where everyday life gets its texture and nuance! Besides, who wanted to shoot outside with the increased activity of partisan snipers and Red Army aviation? Art tempts death with life, but it's not a suicide pact.
We had a number of crew and extras, including the boys in the SS regiment (14 or 15 years old, if a day), and, of course, our lovely Slav girlfriends. I smile remembering them, strutting in their rouge and lipstick and feather boas, lounging on the old divans lodged in our cramped bunkers. They gave their boyfriends serious, sultry looks in take after take of our cinema verite love stories, and, in unguarded moments, reached into their clothes to scratch at lice. They were the most incredible sweethearts an Aryan boy could get through the classified ads in Stalin-era samizdat swinger magazines.
As the Red Army recovered from the reverses of Barbarossa and Blau, Minsk and Kiev, our art became more desperate. We needed a place less subject to their harassment. The commisars had already infiltrated our sets. At first they just wanted to hang around the studio, so we used them as production assistants. But then they began to insert themselves into production meetings and the screening of dailies. They claimed they had great patriotic and revolutionary duties to protect the workers in our productions. Yes, they claimed this even as they liquidated the shop stewards in the make up and wardrobe departments! Really, they only wanted to exercise artistic veto so they could get laid, the casting couch ensnared in a totalitarian tentacle!
We found ourselves in a Kessel, cut off from the rest of the Wehrmacht by a sea of Soviet motorized rifle divisions newly arrived from the Ural military district. We had to break out. Not just militarily, but artistically. We felt the bourgeoise tastes of our audiences constraining our impulses to pursue our wildest imaginations. We wanted epics of purest shape and light -- symphonies for the eyes! They wanted scene after scene of fat women eating potatoes slathered in butter.
We could have easily broken out to the west, but the Reds would only follow us, all the way back to Berlin, where, in any event, the Reich arts commissioners would likely order an audit of our grants. So instead, we broke out to the east. There, safely behind enemy lines near Collective Farm 17, we found an old drive-in theater, which we quickly occupied ahead of the coming winter.
Once we had established our defensive perimeter and stocked our dugouts with canned goods and cured hams requisitioned at gunpoint from the local peasants, we took a moment to remember our comrades in the boys' SS regiment, still fighting a hopeless rearguard action in the Kessel to provide the distraction we needed to get our girlfriends out. The writers penned the most polished funeral oration they could, despite having to do a final rewrite of the script. We had to cut our mourning short -- principal photography would begin in less than a week.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Logorrhea Unbound: A Dedication
Dear Reader,
At your insistence I have begun this blog. It is a humble, though auspicious beginning. Who can say they started a blog with a guaranteed audience? If providence smiles, then perhaps you shall soon have company, dearest reader. So let this be my dedication to you.
But here comes the fine print. (Since changing the font size frequently speaks of mental derangement, let's let this be a metaphorical, devil-in-the-details sort of thing.) Everyone has some responsibility for their own amusement. This is yours: you have to read whatever mediocrities I post, but you have to chastize me for them.
At your insistence I have begun this blog. It is a humble, though auspicious beginning. Who can say they started a blog with a guaranteed audience? If providence smiles, then perhaps you shall soon have company, dearest reader. So let this be my dedication to you.
But here comes the fine print. (Since changing the font size frequently speaks of mental derangement, let's let this be a metaphorical, devil-in-the-details sort of thing.) Everyone has some responsibility for their own amusement. This is yours: you have to read whatever mediocrities I post, but you have to chastize me for them.
Book Orbits
I am utterly promiscuous about the books I read. I have standards, mind you. It's just that I can't -- won't -- commit to a single book once I've cracked it open. In the course of the evening my moods might change. I'll put down one and stick my face in another. It's a happy life, but it means I have no simple answer when anyone asks what I'm reading.
I prefer to think of books moving in orbits around the gravitational pull of my interest. Those books in the tightest orbit are those I have to hand, the ones I've begun reading and haven't given up on. Even though I like to juggle my reading, I tend to stay committed to the books I've started reading. I usually, eventually finish them. I am faithless, but tenacious.
Farther out are the books on the bedside shelf. I may or may not have read snippets of these, but they're all books I find intriguing enough to put on the shelf where they can tempt me with dreams of the unknown pleasures that await within their covers.
Even farther out are the books in my library. These are the books that I've acquire and might want to read someday, but not necessarily any time soon. Though I have too many books to be bothered with cataloging them, I allow that I might have more books than I can read in the rest of my life. I certainly have more than I can put on my shelves. No worries. Books stack; I have high ceilings. My public library also allows me to create lists of books in their holdings that I want to read.
In the deepest orbit are the books on my radar screen. These are books I've heard enough about to occasion some interest. I usually don't act on these blips of curosity, except that if a book comes up enough times on that radar, I will draw it into a tighter orbit.
I prefer to think of books moving in orbits around the gravitational pull of my interest. Those books in the tightest orbit are those I have to hand, the ones I've begun reading and haven't given up on. Even though I like to juggle my reading, I tend to stay committed to the books I've started reading. I usually, eventually finish them. I am faithless, but tenacious.
Farther out are the books on the bedside shelf. I may or may not have read snippets of these, but they're all books I find intriguing enough to put on the shelf where they can tempt me with dreams of the unknown pleasures that await within their covers.
Even farther out are the books in my library. These are the books that I've acquire and might want to read someday, but not necessarily any time soon. Though I have too many books to be bothered with cataloging them, I allow that I might have more books than I can read in the rest of my life. I certainly have more than I can put on my shelves. No worries. Books stack; I have high ceilings. My public library also allows me to create lists of books in their holdings that I want to read.
In the deepest orbit are the books on my radar screen. These are books I've heard enough about to occasion some interest. I usually don't act on these blips of curosity, except that if a book comes up enough times on that radar, I will draw it into a tighter orbit.
Some Thoughts About Neuromancer
Despite a wayward youth given to such dissolutions as listening to industrial music, using lots of recreational drugs, and playing Cyberpunk 2020, I never actually read William Gibson's seminal novel. Just yesterday I finished reading it. So what of it?
The conventional wisdom about Neuromancer is that, however poorly its vision of the future has aged, it was visionary for its time. So much so, it actually influenced the subsequent development of the technologies it depicted and the way we think about them. It also gave us a number of neologisms, including the old chestnut (and, yes, it's been around long enough to become an old chestnut) cyberspace.
The conventional wisdom has it correct, but Neuromancer shows just how much our present shapes our vision of the future. Gibson was writing in an industrial age, trying to imagine an information age. Neuromancer's landscapes are littered with the artifacts and detrius of an industrial age: video arcades, pay phones, tank wars. Everything is covered in rust, but no blade of grass dares find purchase in the cracked asphalt.
Neuromancer also shows that a science fiction novel can be critically and financially successful even if it has serious literary flaws. For example, Case, the POV character, is superfluous to the story. He's there as an involved observer to draw out details of the setting, but his actions have no real plot consequences.
I was also struck by Neuromancer's agnosticism about technology. Some science fictions lauds it. Most science fiction consists of cautionary tales about it. But Neuromancer envisions a world where technology penetrates the fabric of daily life, but does very little to change human nature, whether in our motives or actions. Case, Molly, and the rest act out of greed, revenge, curiosity, and so forth in familiar ways. For better or worse, technology won't change who we are, but just let us be ourselves all the more so.
The conventional wisdom about Neuromancer is that, however poorly its vision of the future has aged, it was visionary for its time. So much so, it actually influenced the subsequent development of the technologies it depicted and the way we think about them. It also gave us a number of neologisms, including the old chestnut (and, yes, it's been around long enough to become an old chestnut) cyberspace.
The conventional wisdom has it correct, but Neuromancer shows just how much our present shapes our vision of the future. Gibson was writing in an industrial age, trying to imagine an information age. Neuromancer's landscapes are littered with the artifacts and detrius of an industrial age: video arcades, pay phones, tank wars. Everything is covered in rust, but no blade of grass dares find purchase in the cracked asphalt.
Neuromancer also shows that a science fiction novel can be critically and financially successful even if it has serious literary flaws. For example, Case, the POV character, is superfluous to the story. He's there as an involved observer to draw out details of the setting, but his actions have no real plot consequences.
I was also struck by Neuromancer's agnosticism about technology. Some science fictions lauds it. Most science fiction consists of cautionary tales about it. But Neuromancer envisions a world where technology penetrates the fabric of daily life, but does very little to change human nature, whether in our motives or actions. Case, Molly, and the rest act out of greed, revenge, curiosity, and so forth in familiar ways. For better or worse, technology won't change who we are, but just let us be ourselves all the more so.
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