It's not a curse!

I'm hired! Unbelievable!

Please tell me it's not a curse

I found this article-- which basically describes one such as myself as the least hire-able person on the planet-- and on the eve of a very big interview, no doubt. This couldn't be more disheartening as this particular moment. Oh, well, put it out of my head...

Let the Fates conspire

I'm heading to D.C. tomorrow to interview for a job! And by job, I mean one that both benefits AND a paycheck! I wasn't sure such a thing existed. So anyway, wish me luck! I'll be back Saturday-ish.

The muscle that controls erections

Last weekend, my friend Jonathan and I went to see Matthew Barney's new bunch of arty movie goo, Drawing Restraint 9. Barney's known mostly for his Cremaster (see title of this post for definition) Series with which I was somewhat familiar when I was in college in New Jersey. During Drew's New York Art Semester, I remember seeing some of Barney's weirdness at the MoMA and thereabouts. So now, he's teamed up w/ Bjork, his main squeeze, for a curious piece about petroleum jelly cured in the manner of ambergris and a Japanese tea ceremony, all happening aboard a Japanese commercial sea-vessel of some sort.

Jim Ridley, in his review for The Nashville Scene, compares the movie to (ha!) The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift. I'm not sure which audience of the respective movies would be more galled by the comparison, but it's amusingly apt. Ridley's point is that they're both purely sculptural, visual films in which plot, dialogue and character development are primarily irrelevant. However, unlike F&F (okay, yeah, I have no intention of seeing it), I must say, that DR9 provided me with a unique experience such as I've never really had in a movie theatre-- that experience being primarily tactile. There is so much goo, so much that is familiarly textural that I could feel this movie on my skin, in my body! How does an artist manage to do that? How does he take film media and fill an audience (me) with so much sensory memory? I mean, the scenes in which Barney and Bjork are flaying each other in preparation for what I gather was their transformations into whales(?), I swear I knew what they were touching as they buried their fingers deep within gashes in each others' legs-- or ate each others' knee-pit flesh. None of it seemed particularly graphic once I realized that the gashes they inflicted upon each other weren't going to bleed but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was my own leg- and feet-muscles being probed. And the parts where the goo sculpture is torn apart, well, reminded me of eating panna cotta. So, really, I've never endured anything quite like that at a movie and I'm basically just glad that stuff like this still exists-- stuff that surprises and grosses out its audience for all its newness. However, for my friends who think Lynch and anything Mulholland-y is masturbatory and merely a self-involved projection of the inside of a why's-he-so-special-after-all sort of artist, well, this is only moreso. Jason, why does your not liking Mulholland Drive make me feel like such a voyeur for getting a kick out of this kind of movie?

Having said all that, there's still a lot I didn't get. What was that white spinal column thing and the rock that melts into a mirror (or lover) of it? The tied-up kid vomiting concrete? The shrimp? The shrimp-and-concrete-vomit mold made from the melting rock? The elaborate wrapping of some ammonites in the opening sequence? Okay, I did make the connection between Bjork's dressing rituals with the gift-wrapping stuff and, man, did I think I was clever for catching that! There is certainly a rather large portion of this film that I simply allowed to sweep over me.

Oh, but Barney's symbol. It looks a little like, maybe, a skating rink bisected by a skinny horizontal rectangle. According to the Cremaster website, it might be gonadal in nature? An openness, a resevoir for projection of your own ideas, perhaps? It's the paper seals with which the packages in the opening sequence are closed. The ship's kitchen staff creats a *delicious*-looking black Jell-o dish of the same shape. The petroleum jelly is poured into a huge mold of the same shape. It's like Barney is stamping his name in every frame of this damn film. However, there is something enigmatic and compelling about the symbol's monolithic simplicity. Perhaps it functions in the way that we recongnize it because it's like when we perpetually bump into and are spun around by images of ourselves in our own dreamscapes. Though, I hate to be so reductive as to concieve of Barney's pieces as though they are merely hallucinatory, merely someone else's sleepy lands. What I mean is that I know he's putting this work out there into the world to get at something other, something more, than his own internal conversations-- but, dammit all, I just can't put my finger on what that "more" is. Other than making me want to take a bath in my mom's creme anglaise. Other than reminding me of that scene in Moby Dick where all the sailors are breaking up the thick parts of ambergris (and getting off on it).

Best analogies of the day

According to some high school sophomore from Maryland:
Happiness has been likened to peeing in your pants. Everyone can see if but only you can feel its warmth.

And from another:
My mom always says, "Procrastination is like masturbation. You're really only screwing
yourself."

And among other words of wisdom:
Love can either make people or break people. (think about it!)

Listy, disorganized... I score it a 2.

Upon request, I'm posting a version of a letter(with my own editorializing) I recieved at work from a source who later disclosed himself (not disclothed, thank god!) regarding an event which I did not exactly remember. The letter, and disclosure of its author, were soon followed with gifts of flowers and jewelry-- which were rebuffed tidily, if I might say. So, here's the letter:

(enclosed in a delightful card w/ a photo collage of sea shells and gulls. Oh, pretty!)
Hi Marjorie,
I'm giving you this because I owe you a clear (yes?), unambiguous (oh, now, I understand what you meant by "clear") statement that ought to calm any suspicions (there were none. now there are! funny how that works) you might have about how I relate to you. I'm comfortable w/ ambiguity (but you just said...), but I know that a lot of people aren't (am I being sensitive or was that accusatory?). I enjoy flirting, and I think it's harmless. It's fun (there was flirting? where was I? surely I must've been there...).
Yesterday I noticed you got this look on your face (stupid, stupid face!) that I couldn't understand, but after I got home and thought about it, I realized you were mad (are you positive I was part of this exchange?) because you thought I was hitting on you. I wasn't. I don't think it's wrong to admire someone's beauty and compliment them on it (surely I would remember the complimenting?). I'm too complex a person to allow two(hyphen)dimensional ideologies or religious systems (it was religious for you? My god! I AM hot!) to dictate the way I respond to people.
It's wrong to impose yourself on people (my, it's stifling in the Irony Room today, isn't it?). When women do that to me (my brain rejects that idea so vehemently that I can't even make fun of it properly), and I'm not at all interested in them, they go away mad (and this is what we call "foreshadowing"). They blame me rather than trying to understand that what they were doing was wrong. I won't do that to you or anyone (wait, who are you again?).
We sublimate our sexuality (Seriously? Seriously! Dated Freudian bullshit? By this point, you've gotta be messing with me!) in "civilized" societies for a reason; it helps us get things done without a lot of conflicts (funny, I always thought we get more done when we're getting LOTS of sex... ugh, Freud...). In Third World countries (,) they enslave women and allow men to act like assholes (They do? Where can I get some of that action?) in order to deal with sexual issues (OK, so, did someone actually HAVE sex with me and I didn't notice? I'm pretty sure I've never been THAT oblivious before). Flirtation is one of those sublime things that can get out of hand (or go completely and totally unnoticed when the flirter is several miles below the flirtee's radar), but you're perfectly safe with me. You can trust me, I'm on the high road (BLIP! BLIP! BLIP! Scary object has suddenly appeared on the radar!!!!).
As Bush 41 might put it (yeah, that's the way to win ME, of all people, over-- quote a Bush! Oh, I'm all aquiver now!), "just to recap", (Crappy punctuation is his. I no longer have the patience to correct it)
1.) Ambiguity (unresolved sexual tension (For the love of Jimmy! I do NOT feel sexually tense around you! But thank you for the clarification. I was lost.)).....Comfortable with it. (I'm thrilled for you!)
2.) Hittin' on ya.... not gonna do it. (Wait for it....) Wouldn't be prudent (oh, yeah, that was so satisfying. Couldn't, in my wildest dreams, invent it!).
3.) Flirtin'.... lots o' fun. Nobody gets hurt (until I crush your wee little, yet strangely inflated and self-involved, ego between my fourth and pinky toes, that is).
Sincerely, (unintelligable scribble that looks like a one-winged bug wearing a hat)

Brentwood Craphole

My dad, who hates Chinese food, has been pestering me for a couple months to accompany him to this ramshackle hut behind the Heritage Cleaners on Franklin Rd that happens to serve Chinese food. Sorta. The lady that runs it has quite the underbite. Her skirt hem was uneven and her blouse only half-tucked-in and, wow, the hair, oh the weird spiky-with-bald-spots hair and she says things like, "sitdownstudythemenudon'tthinkaboutanythingrelax." And to a couple who walked in right after we did, she said, "ohlookatthelovebirdshowromanticsitdownstudythemenurelax." The couple was followed by a wad of assorted boring white guys. They had apparently been there before. They said, "Can we sit down and study the menu? How about we sit down and study the menu?" She said, "sitdownhereatthisothertablebehindthelovebirdsandstudythemenuyesstudythemenu."

I think she is an alien.

My Spicy Bean Curd tasted a lot like barnyard.

day and age

Ever wish there was a weeping/stop-weeping sort of pill or something? Something that would hold the weeping until a more timely moment and then let you release with great abandon? Delicious, yes, I think.

Needless to say, today was a very bad day. The smaller issues include: My chiropractor was out of the office and the sub couldn’t pop the nasty spot between my shoulder blades, a former underling said some unpleasant things about me on his blog—I’m refusing to allow it to actually hurt my feelings (the brat!), there is no food in my house.

The bigger issue, well…

I suppose most days I feel that the pro-war feelings that are moving shapelessly—or shapefully, I guess that’s possible-and likely-too—are amorphous and somehow very “Other.” The Republican Other. The Military Other. The Conservative White Unstigmatized Male Other. Oh, how I do enjoy turning the Other into the something that is not marginalized but mainstream, something that is merely Other-Than-Me. But come to find out, I work with a man who helped to pull Saddam Hussein from his little rabbit hole. Today, he gave a presentation that made me feel stupid and myopic for forgetting that myopic people like him exist and are, indeed, prevalent.

Among the highlights:

In response to the moanings of a very tired man having his hair pulled, the translator says, “I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq. I would like to offer my surrender.” At this point, a soldier put his foot on Saddam’s neck and said, “George Bush sends his regards.” Many people in our group laughed. I gasped and swallowed hard.

He relayed an “inspirational” story of an Iraqi Christian who he encountered who claimed to have practiced his religion in secret. He used the phrase “smoke and mirrors” when he really meant “cloak and dagger.” This delightful anecdote was then followed by a blessedly short diatribe on American religious freedom, oozing, of course, with superiority.

At the end of the presentation, he unwadded an Iraqi flag. He had stolen it of a building and when 15 or so people noticed him stealing it and began to approach, he, yep, you guessed it, brandished his weapon. Smart little Iraqis back off when their national symbols are being besmirched by cocky Americans. He then offered us a variety of disparaging comments about the flag’s fabric—it was a translucently thin synthetic of some sort. I’m so glad to know that even our flags are just that much better quality.

And then I wonder, how is it the manner of extreme cultural and moral superiority with which this man spoke effect me to the degree to which it did? I have no doubt that he honestly thinks he, his religion, and his way of life are inherently greater, grander, more noble than any ol’ lowly Middle Easterner’s. I mean, I really don’t like crying at work. I feel stupid. How do I let myself forget, as I surround myself with so many likeminded people, that this guy’s out there spreading the American gospel in my name—and that there are so many like him, so many that think he’s in the right.

It’s never a good day when your own returning naïveté punches you in the belly.

Seduction and failing at it

Among things in my head this morning are the movie I watched last night: Charlotte Sometimes, this book that my friend Jason was reading that I found conceptually interesting enough to pursue despite its plodding, repetitive style and assertion that we’re all manipulative bastards and should embrace that notion as an aspect of selfhood: The Art of Seduction, and another little Japanese novel that I read ages ago and then re-read when I found a copy at Bookman's in Tucson a couple of years ago: NP(by Banana Yoshimoto). So the movie is sort of underwritten in the way that is trying to make the audience do some of the work to answer all the questions it poses but winds up forcing us to fill in some gaping holes and leaves the characters feeling a little underdeveloped. It could be inexperience of the writer/director (Eric Byler) or the fact that he picked at least one (ok, fine, one really hot) soft-porn actor (Matt Westmore) who is really there b/c he's comfortable faking fucking on camera and not so much with the conversation. Still, he is pretty!
But moving past problems of general execution, each of the two women -- ostensibly sisters -- seem pretty easy to type by Robert Greene's (the author of the Seduction book) indicators. Charlotte/Darcy is a Siren and Lori is a Natural. So, ok, Sirens are overtly feminine, appear sexual even when they're not thinking about sex, are somehow both dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. For example, in one scene, all four characters are on the roof of the house and Charlotte chooses to sit straddling the top of the wall that delineates the edge of the roof. It's an unmistakably sexual posture, even though the conversation doesn't pertain, and Lori expresses some concern that Charlotte might fall off -- and there we see the constant underlying threat that Charlotte's "emotional issues" (of which we never learn completely) could drive her to such abandon that she could throw herself off the roof any minute now. It's a very Siren-y sort of moment. OK, so then, Naturals are seducers that attract us in by their undisguised, child-like enthusiasm. They are guileless and adorable and charm us with their ease of existence. Lori's outfits consist of several variations of a hot pink top and matching lipstick. Her bedroom is also painted hot pink. This is not exactly the dignified and enigmatic black that Charlotte wears. Lori wins over Michael, the target of both seductresses, by nuzzling up to him, attempting to sneak up on him, flirtatiously tickling him -- basically, being cute and playing silly games to get his attention.
Both women, however, eventually fall into Anti-Seducer patterns of self-involvement: Charlotte's inner conflicts between her need for detachment and the loneliness that results leave her unable to act upon her desire for Michael when he finally sees thru her various and assorted veneers (she'd been pretending to NOT be Lori's sister). Her insecurities about and discomfort with her ability to be loved as a real person (at one point she says, “Men don’t really want to be with me; they just think they do”) i.e., more than an image of a sexy women, someone who is merely gazed upon, goad her into refusing to have sex with him - well, that and the fact the he phrases his proposal in such a way ("I want to fuck you so hard you scream") that he calls into question how authentic her vulnerability really is. Instead she decides to have sex with Justin (the porn star) who is Lori's boyfriend b/c she knows he's just not smart enough to really see through her seductive ploys. In fact, she even confesses her loneliness to him-- as though she doesn't give him credit for picking up on it already (he hadn't).
Lori, on the other hand, drops her playful cuteness in favor of needy, tell-me-you-love-me sorts of ploys with Justin. He quickly tires of her need for external approbation and, obviously, starts sniffing after Charlotte, who, though complicated and messy, at least behaves like an adult. I find it interesting that the same things that make these women sexy -- and they are -- are the things that wind up making them annoying. Now, the fact the Lori and Michael end up together, I think, is really a major flaw in the movie. They don't belong together -- Lori attempts to adopt some of Charlotte's mystery but Michael remains the most perceptive, if brooding and unavailable, character in the movie. Won't he eventually see through her too? Won't her neediness wind up being left unsatisfied, un-reassured? Oh, the things screenwriters do to inflict resolution upon us, right?
So, anyway, what does this have to do with NP? NP is a story in which there's an awfully casual treatment of an incestuous relationship. The basic story is that a famous writer dies while in the middle of an affair with another mysterious Siren-y sort of woman and then the writer's son begins his own affair with the same woman -- though they all three are at least vaguely aware that this woman was the writer's illegitimate daughter from another relationship. So, is this a thing now? This trading of lovers around within a very tight gene pool? I mean, the presentation of the information in NP is very blasé. Almost like it's supposed to be humorous -- and we're certainly not meant to be shocked by it. Nor are there any serious consequences (that aren't self-inflicted) that visit the characters. And here, in Charlotte Sometimes, we expect the sisters to trade lovers. While there are no overt incestuous moments, the sisters' sexualities certainly play off each other. There is a scene in which the 4 characters play tennis, girls against boys, and clearly, the power of the two women as a unified sexy force overwhelms the two men. Yeah, the girls win. Is there, perhaps, a system of inadvertent sex-tinged relations that colors many family interactions? Hmmm.... this seems a dangerous and fascinating train of thought that I may have to think about further-- The House of Yes, obviously, comes to mind -- but even hopelessly commercial drivel like The Family Stone in which one woman leaves one brother for another while her sister hooks up with the original brother. Oh, is this biblical, perhaps? I mean, when your husband dies, marry his brother so as to not disseminate the family properties? Is that to great a leap?
Well, anyway, on a side note, Charlotte Sometimes is also interesting because of its most unselfconscious manner of presenting its own racial identity. 3 of the 4 characters are of indeterminate Asian decent (one Japanese, two Chinese actors) and the other, we are eventually told, has an Asian mother. Because their racial identity is visually apparent, the filmmaker, thankfully, did not feel the need to offer much exposition on the Asian-American experience but, as a result, the one moment that the topic enters their conversation is incredibly incisive and blade-like. Over a casual lunch in a restaurant, Charlotte asks Justin, "Which part of you is Asian?" and even as Lori chides her for her intrusive question, she asks "So, was it your mother, then, that taught you to use chopsticks?" And Justin's answer gives one of the most brilliant moments in the movie: he says, "I don't actually remember learning." It's as though he feels so comfortable in his racial identity -- as does the movie in general -- that he is able to cleanly and effectively put nosy, rabble-rousing Charlotte in her place by handily pointing out how irrelevant and challenging-only-for-the-sake-of-challenging her questions are. It's a really well-done, subtle moment in a movie that isn't, overall, very subtly acted. All-in-all, not a perfect movie by any stretch, but somehow one that seemed to resonate with some other stuff I'm thinking about right now.
So, has anyone else ever seen this movie? If my dad didn’t buy every weird DVD that comes out, I never would have heard of it.

purposeless, missionless

Do I need a mission? or am I just testing? And why is there no garamond in the "font selection" menu?