An argument for watching impenetrable, arty movies

The other night, after I finished watching Harmony Korine's film, Julien Donkey-Boy, Jon and I had a conversation in which we both recollected how much we'd initially hated Kids, the movie Korine wrote on which his whole reputation was built. When this film was released umpteen celebrities (including, if I recall correctly, Madonna) weighed in, acclaiming it as a raw and realistic depiction of high school life in America. It was 1995. Both Jon and I would have been seniors in high school, ourselves. I remember thinking that that film was so far removed from MY high school experience that I couldn't imagine how it was anything other than an alarmist swamp of teenage debauchery.

The film tells the story of Telly, a delinquent brat who runs the streets of NYC, getting stoned and fucking virgins. Oh, and little does he know, but he's HIV positive and therefore, he's gaily spreading late 20th Century plague and pestilence with nary an eye to the consequences. He infects Chloe Sevigny, in her introductory role, and then moves onto a little, skinny, barely post-pubescent Rosario Dawson. And the whole thing culminates in a rape scene involving Telly's friend Caspar and some anonymous catatonic girl in the midst of a post-party conflagration. Yes, this film is depressing as all get-out but it was absolutely seminal as a representation of mid-90s American arthouse cinema.

So, in 1995, I was 18. My existence had, heretofore, been a strange mixture of exposure and shelter. My high school experience had been wholly devoid of both drugs and sex. I mean, I knew a few girls were having sex and I knew a few girls were into weed-- but the general culture at my somewhat schmancy private all-girls' school was that those sorts of activities were a little trashy and those who partook were subject to derision. But somehow, I'd never really felt as though the rougher parts of life had been kept from me. I don't know if it's because I'd debate politics with my dad over dinner or because I intuitively felt that people were always doing self-destructive things all around me, but I never encountered the shock that some of my friends did when they learned that life wasn't so idyllic as one might presume from behind Harpeth Hall's lion gate. But I also remember thinking, if Kids is so "realistic," is it my life, then, that's the fantasy? In other words, I felt very unrepresented in this film that was supposed to be the most accurate representation, to date, of the youth of my generation-- the slackers, the stoners, the fuck-ups and the disease-ridden. I thought the movie got it wrong and I felt alienated from it and therefore, I hated it.

So many years later, after having expanded my frame of reference with regard to how arty movies operate, I think I have a little bit better perspective on what Korine was doing, what he continues to do, and why these sorts of films-- the ones that are misanthropic and uncomfortable to the core-- are worth watching. I still think Kids is an alarmist representation of teen life in America. But I also recognize that it DOES represent the experiences of SOME kids in America. Doubtlessly, my childhood and adolescence were privileged in a way that I could never have understood now in the same way that I do now. And Korine has no interest in telling the stories of the middle class. He's a troubadour of the disenfranchised and the marginalized-- and my 18-year-old self had a lot less patience with such ne'er-do-wells. He's confrontational in his style, as well. He wants his audience to squirm-- not unlike Damon Packard does. Though, I should say here that I find Korine's films watchable, as they are suffused with an extremely understated empathy and lack so many of Packard's sophomoric gags (and gagging).

Julien Donkey-Boy isn't really any more enjoyable to watch than Kids is. It's just barely narrative and the film quality is so grainy that you can hardly tell what's going on in parts. The blurb on my NetFlix envelope says that the main character, Julien is "schizophrenic" but it seems more likely to me that he's autistic or mentally handicapped in some other way. He lives with his pregnant sister, his little brother who wrestles with garbage cans, and his father who slurps cough syrup and wears a gas mask. They are a family of minimal means and no real aspirations to evade their poverty by way of anybody's American Dream. Sooner or later, we learn that Julien is actually the father of his sister's baby... and when the kid is born still, he steals the fetal corpse, runs home, and squirrels it away in his bed. If the implication of incest doesn't give you the willies, surely the image of a retarded kid curled up in bed with a dead baby will. Oh, and that's the final scene, by the way. Uplifting, it's not.

So what's Korine's point, here? Why produce art that relentlessly skeeves out an audience? And furthermore, why become an audience willing to be skeeved out? I could make an argument about how we spoiled middle-class babies NEED to be subjected to the miseries of the have-nots-- to give us perspective, to inspire our empathy. But that argument, in and of itself, reeks of a superiority with which I'm just not comfortable. But Korine must know that the down-and-out people he describes in his films are not his audience. The simple reality is that people of minimal education and low economic status do not watch ooky, sad, artsy films. So I return to the notion that Korine is making the films so as to challenge my desire (and that of people like me) to look away, to flinch, when faced with stories of derangement and marginalization.

I personally find that experience valuable. And I also find value in engaging with other peoples' artistic obsessions, even if they have little in common with my own. There aren't a whole lot of people puttering around within these little crevices of human experience and because Korine is compulsively scavenging through the scapes of poverty and insanity-- and using the characteristic voyeuristic and low-tech methods of Dogme 95 (the film almost reads as though it's composed of film scraps you found in a dumpster somewhere in the heartlands)-- I'm interested in his work. It's not for everyone. And ever since I saw Reflections of Evil, I'm feeling a little more receptive to moods of the things I consume than I usually am. So, I've felt sad ever since I pulled the thing out of my DVD player. This movie made me want to be hugged.

But ultimately, I feel like people make art so that other people will see it. I may as well be that audience. As may anyone else who cares to go looking. So, we watch weird art movies because they exist. They may move us; we may think they're crap. But they're out there, interesting little experiments or self-indulgent outpourings, either way. And they only exist so long as their audience does. So, I guess what I'm saying is, if we can accept the concept of art for art's sake, why not also embrace the concept of audience for the sake of being audience? The art exists, so why not watch it for its own sake, rather than with an eye to some sort of personal reward? If I approach a film hoping to be affected, rather than entertained, my But ultimately, I feel like people make art so that other people will see it. I may as well be that audience. As may anyone else who cares to go looking. So, we watch weird art movies because they exist. They may move us; we may think they're crap. But they're out there, interesting little experiments or self-indulgent outpourings, either way. And they only exist so long as their audience does. So, I guess what I'm saying is, if we can accept the concept of art for art's sake, why not also embrace the concept of audience for the sake of being audience? The art exists, so why not watch it for its own sake, rather than with an eye to some sort of personal reward? If I approach a film hoping to be affected, rather than entertained, my perspective expands. And this, I like.

I'm totally fucked

Over coffee this morning, I was thumbing through this week's edition of The Week magazine. This week's "The Last Word" topic was all about how shoes are bad for feet. And not just the medieval torture devices that I personally heart so much. Apparently, ALL shoes are much worse for our feet than simply going barefoot, as our feet have been cleverly designed through eons of evolution to distribute our weight, help us balance and grip the ground to highest effect. Not only that, but habitual high-heel wearers often note that switching to flat shoes is actually far more uncomfortable than continuing to wear the stilts. I've noticed this myself-- if I were to, say, spend 3 hours on a weekend day, wearing some sort of athletic shoe while traversing some sort of shopping venue, my arches would be aching MADLY within about an hour and a half. I'd notice only a fraction of that pain, more in the balls of my feet, if I walked around for 3 hours in a heel. Apparently, this is because the foot acclimates to a heel and the tendons shorten. Yay.

Now, I actually do spend quite a lot of time barefoot. I kick my shoes off under my desk at work pretty much every time I get a chance. I kick them off as soon as I put my mail down when I get home in the evenings. And with every vinyasa in my yoga practice, I roll back and forth over the entire surface of my foot-sole, thus stretching out those shortened tendons. But I've also developed some wicked callouses on the balls of my feet from walking on my toes so much. And nary a day goes by when I don't develop a new blister, particularly in the warmer months. I know the shoes are as bad for me as cupcakes. But I'm really not about to give them up. As described in this post, too much of my ego is entwined in the wearing of assorted pairs of fuck-me heels. And, well, my collection thereof also represents something of a financial commitment.

So the article linked above makes reference to a pretty cool company that's an offshoot of the English shoe company, Clark's. This company, Terra Plana, is doing some interesting things with minimalist shoe design, so as to more nearly approximate the unshod gait of a human. And they're doing it with recycled and/or sustainable materials and minimal waste. Most of the shoes are a little too granola for my taste, but some of them are actually kinda cute. And their heart is certainly in several of the right places.

Regardless, I'm still not ready to donate all my sexy shoes to The Salvation Army. Perhaps I'll just have to restrict myself to wearing them only when I can rest my calves on someone else's shoulders. And hope that one of those pairs of shoulders will be generous enough to help pay for my podiatric surgery when I'm old and crippled.

all quiet in the online community

I've been watching for some --any-- of the sex worker-bloggers to post commentary on the suicide death of DC's own Deborah Jean Palfrey. But there's really nothing. I found this, via Fleshbot, but it's fairly perfunctory.

What gives? Is this not a case in point wherein a woman in the sex work industry suffers the ultimate while her very clients continue to make laws whereby they get themselves off scott free? Is this not worthy of some small mention from those more knowledge-equipped than I?

It's a strange sort of silence.

Release/redux

I'm supposed to be boycotting Amazon. They've just recently adopted a really awful policy by which they're taking all the teeny indie print-on-demand presses who publish all the great poetry monographs that I like to buy and read straight to the cleaners. According to this policy, if these presses want to sell their books on Amazon, they have to use a subsidiary of Amazon to have their books printed. This particular subsidiary is notorious for both its low-quality books and its exorbitant fees. However, if these presses want any to have any serious distribution of their books, they must sell through Amazon. Therefore, Amazon has concocted a brilliant plan by which it's ripping off this little cottage industry that publishes all this great experimental work and first-time authors -- and even plenty of more established poets as well. The people who run these presses do so as a labor of love and they most certainly do not turn profits. Everyone knows that only poets buy poetry and there aren't enough poets (and contemporary poetry enthusiasts like me) out there to really support this art form in any substantial economic way. Hence, this policy of Amazon's is really just bullyish and monopolistic.

However, a buttload of notable poetry monographs have been released in the last couple months and it's just plain cheaper to buy them off Amazon than it is off of Barnes&Noble.com. Amazon offers most books coming out of big industry publishers at a 32% discount off of retail. When I worked at a bookstore, my employee discount was only 30%... so I still got plenty of stuff for a little cheaper off Amazon than I did in my own store. And I buy such a volume of books that it's really hard for me to justify to my often-cranky bank account why I'm going to pay full price for a book because I'm so damned "principled".

Hence, I must manage my Amazon expenditures extremely carefully.

Here's a list of some of the cool new releases:

1) C.D. Wright, Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press)
2) Jorie Graham, Sea Change (Ecco)
3) Marie Howe, Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W. W. Norton) -- Regarding this book, Brenda Shaughnessy (who's first book, Interior With Sudden Joy, I loved completely) says, "Marie Howe's books of poetry materialize once a decade and are big news and cause for celebration." And it's true. It's always pretty darn exciting when Howe publishes something new.
4) Brenda Shaughnessy, Human Dark with Sugar (Copper Canyon Press) -- I'm all atwitter to read this sophomore effort, too, actually.
5) Jane Miller, Beverly Pepper (illustrator), Midnights (Saturnalia) -- Jane's got at least 6 brains and I was lucky enough to have her as my manuscript advisor while I was getting my own MFA. And even if she hadn't been, I'd still be interested to see this collaborative work.

That's but a small sampling of my current Amazon wish list (which, by the way, I've whittled down and now contains only 91 titles! )

And then I think I mentioned a few posts back something about Harmony Korine's newest film, Mister Lonely, coming out this month. Right now, I've got an older release (Julian Donkey-Boy) sitting on my coffee table awaiting my attention, but I'm quite intrigued by this new film, which is apparently populated almost entirely with characters who impersonate celebrities. For my Nashville readers, I hope to encourage some of you to attend some portion of this "Directions" event at the Belcourt. Korine himself will be in attendance and I would give my right tit to pick his brain in a Q&A. Perhaps I can send someone as my proxy? I'd at least let you hold my right tit for a while...? Appealing? No?


And one final list of other stuff I'm boycotting for political reasons (much more on what those reasons are later, I hope... if I recover from an entire week's worth of insomnia at some point this weekend):

1) All Coca-cola products
2) All Pepsicola products
3) All Nestle products (including all bottled water under an assortment of very common labels, including Deer Park, Perrier, Pelligrino, Zephyrillis and bunches more)
4) feedlot beef
5) corn

None of these 5 are really huge sacrifices for me as I haven't regularly consumed any of that stuff in some years. But boycotting Amazon is hurting my heart -- er -- bottom line.

spasms and sandpaper

Poor Chelsea. This is a pain I, myself, know all too well. Is it some sort of divine retribution that we girls who embrace our inner sluts seem to get smote by this particular affliction all too often? Maybe god really doesn't like fornicators after all?

Her description of the misery is pretty accurate. Except she forgot to mention the sensation that your vagina is lined with sandpaper. And she forgot about the part wherein your entire abdomen convulses and spazzes out in the most all-consuming manner whenever you even attempt to pee. And she didn't really mention the "you know what causes this, don't you, you dirty, dirty, filthy whore" glare you get from your doctor. Sheesh. You may as well go in there bimonthly with recurrent and alternating cases of crabs and syphilis.

OK, OK... having your doctor think you're a whore is a *little* bit satisfying...

(Having anyone think you're a whore is, you know, kinda satisfying.)

UTI factoid/UPDATE: E. Coli is the most common bacteria found in the urine of women with UTIs. That's what grows in fecal matter. It's really incredibly poor evolutionary planning that the orifices that produce fecal matter and urine are so close to each other. It's just a recipe for, if not disaster, deeply problematic discomfort. Furthermore, as I continue in my reading of my stolen copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma, I'm learning much about this industrious little bacterium. Here's a little gem I've gleaned from Michael Pollan's research (for context, I'll tell you that at this point in the book, he's hanging out in one of the most godforsaken landscapes to be found in this existential plain: the commercial cattle feedlot):

One of the bacteria that almost certainly resides in the manure I'm standing in is particularly lethal to humans. Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a relatively new strain of the common intestinal bacteria (no one had seen it before 1980) that thrives in feedlot cattle, 40 percent of which carry it in their gut. Ingesting as few as ten of these microbes can cause fatal infection; they produce a toxin that destroys human kidneys.

Most of the microbes that reside in the gut of a cow and find their way into our food get killed off by the strong acids in our stomachs, since they evolved to live in the neutral pH environment of the rumen [the multi-chambered stomach cows have that allows them to digest grass, their natural diet]. But the rumen of a corn-fed feedlot steer is nearly as acidic as our own stomachs, and in this new, man-made environment new acid-resistant strains of E. coli, of which O157:H7 is one, have evolved--yet another creature recruited by nature to absorb the excess biomass coming off the Farm Belt. The problem with these bugs is that they can shake off the acid bath in our stomachs-- and then go on to kill us. By acidifying the rumen with corn, we've broken down one of our food chain's most important barriers to infection. Yet another solution turned into a problem.


Fantastic. Be prepared, fair readers. I'm on the verge of one of my semi-annual freak-outs about the world's food and water supply. Once I get this effin' antibiotic out of my system (yes, I'm REALLY feeling Chelsea's pain), I might have to fast again. And remember what fun that was last year? (See most of my posts from May 2007 for remembrances of food deprivations past).