Quote 8

"A beautiful nap this afternoon that put velvet between my vertebrae."
- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Reflection (7.5)

At the start of the semester my primary concern was combating the intense writer’s block that seemed to seize me every time I faced a blank page. When composing my first theme I stared at an empty word document for forty-five minutes before I could bring myself to write the first sentence; now, I only need five minutes before I can begin to type. My second goal was to create a collection of interesting fragments that I could draw on when writing longer pieces. Of the 31 themes I have penned so far there are a dozen or so that I believe have the potential to become something more. Being able to meet these goals has been incredibly rewarding as has being able to peruse the tangible evidence of my work on my blog.

There have however, been some frustrations. I feel that my writing has not improved significantly since the beginning of the semester and while this was never a stated goal of mine it was a sort of subconscious expectation. During the last portion of the year I would like to use my themes as an opportunity to consciously improve my writing and to continue to amass material for future pieces. Overcoming my initial writer’s block has freed up time that I would now like to spend editing my work. My goal is to write my pieces in the first half of the day and return to them in the evening for a quick ten to fifteen minute edit. My success with my last two goals makes me optimistic about being able to progress and evolve as a writer during the second half of the semester.

Revision (7.4) of The Best Stylist Around (6.1)

Two intruders break a man’s leg with a golf club. But we, the audience, don’t see any of this. We see a swing hidden by a smash cut and a Jackson Pollock splatter of blood land on the television screen in the background. We see, Georg, the man, stumbling, trying to crawl, to walk, to drag himself on his broken leg to the end of hall and now the camera offers us no escape; there are no edits, no pans to the background, only a steady, prolonged shot of a man trying to stand on a shattered leg. This isn’t the cathartic Hollywood blockbuster approach to violence or the hyper-stylized approach of Hong Kong martial arts flicks or even the buckets of gore approach of the modern horror film. This is cruel and measured. This is Funny Games, a film by Michael Haneke.

Haneke “[tries] to give back to violence what it really is: pain, injury to another”. Stripping it of any possible consummation, joy, and excitement, he presents violence as it is in reality: bleak, miserable, incomprehensible. As if this directorial decision did not make his films sufficiently excruciating, Haneke suggest that the audience is implicit in the violence. During a scene in which a serial killer forces a woman to play hot and cold to find her dog’s dead body, the killer turns straight to camera and winks at the viewer. A few minutes later the same man breaks the fourth wall and asks the audience to bet on whether the captive family will survive the night. For Haneke, we, the audience, are a part of this sick game; our presence wills it to happen. In his approach lies a hard, dignified morality: violence is wrong and the audience is unethical for participating. And this severe message makes his films unbelievably difficult to watch; they are penance for all the celluloid sins we have committed.

On Competing Identities in Daisy of Love: the Case Study of 12 Pack/Dave (7.3)

Abstract:

We explore the development of two separate identities in the subject David Amerman, a willing participant in the reality show Daisy of Love. We examine the origin of these competing understandings in order to reveal the differences in externally and internally validated senses of self. The subject enters the television series with a pre-existing self-constructed identity known as “Dave”. Throughout the series a diversity of partially self-directed and fully external influences act to create a second, competing identity known as “12 Pack”. We trace the evolution of the conflict of identity from its origin in the ritual act of renaming participants present in the first episode aired April 26^th, 2009 to its culmination in a lingerie shop in the seventh episode aired June 14^th, 2009. The aforementioned lingerie incident, in which the participant expresses a desire to be identified as “Dave”, results in his being referred to as “12 Pack/Dave”. We investigate the psychological impact of adopting such a fluid, multidimensional construction in lieu of a traditional identity. We find that the participant struggles to reconcile the new combined self-understanding and exhibits signs of extreme emotional duress. Significantly, his peers do not accept the participant’s new designation or merged identity and reject the desire to be referred to by a self-constructed identity that pre-dates the series as emotional weakness. The host Daisy de La Hoya, however, acknowledges the new identity and alludes to the participant as “12 Pack/Dave” even in informal conversation. Finally, we examine the effects of the experience on the participant in the subsequent months and find a return to the more orthodox self-constructed and one-faceted identity known as “Dave”.

The Man with no Future (7.2)

There once was an accountant who lived in the vast, flat suburbs of Dallas. Every day he traveled to a gray, boxy building in the center of a tangle of freeways and worked all day tallying numbers so the good people of Ernest and Young could help other good people capitalize on business opportunities. At night the man journeyed back to his home on the outer edges of Richardson, ate a frozen dinner, watched the channel 8 evening news, and went to bed. The man was very unhappy with his life. He wanted to leave it but felt he could not. After all, the 29 year old accountant was paid a good salary, given good health insurance, and provided with matching 401k contributions.

One night, the man realized that if he had no future he could find the courage to leave his life. He wouldn’t have to worry about the month’s rent, or the cable bill or his retirement plan. So the accountant put his future out with the trash, and the next morning the city came and collected it. He walked outside and floated away. At first the man was very happy. He flew across all the oceans on warm breezes. He soared across the globe to Kathmandu and Extremadura and Antananarivo. He saw golden beaches, emerald forests and sapphire lakes. But soon the man tired of flying around the world; now he wanted to settle down with a good woman and a golden retriever and start a family. But every time he tried to stop he just drifted away again on the gentle wind. And the former accountant realized that a man’s future is like an anchor that he drags around to keep him from floating away. Without his future he was doomed to float forever.

Quote 7

"Then one day she proposed playing Russian roulette with my sacred automatic; I said you couldn't, it was not a revolver."
- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Titles (7.1)

The Room Full of Dead Birds
On Being and Following
The Eggs, They Were Burnt, and I Was There
On Competing Identities in Daisy of Love: the Case Study of 12-Pack/Dave
The Man with no Future
The Girl who Suspected Postmodernism was a Construct
That Poor Bastard Cabrinovic

The Sawed Off Shotgun

What We Talk about when We Talk about the Jersey Shore

Exploding Cars and Defective Morals

Revision (6.5) of Subcomandante Marcos (5.2)

Original Word Count: 282

Word Count: 188, reduced by (1/3):

The Mexican government asserts that el Subcomandante Marcos is, in fact, Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vincente. They are wrong. He is a man in a black mask with a pipe. At sunrise on January 1, 1994, a small group of poorly-armed Mayan peasants leaked out of the Lacandona jungle in Chiapas, Mexico and, against all odds, took the major city of San Cristobal de las Casas. As the chaos of those first hours evaporated like fog a leader materialized: Subcomandante Marcos. He had no name, no face, only a nickname and a balaclava. He emerged like the peasants from the mists of the jungle, without a history. Since then, the government has attempted to pin him down with facts. He is supposedly Rafael Vincente, a well educated, middle class citizen. He is a philosophy professor at UAM, the Autonomous Metropolitan University, in Mexico City. But Marcos is a man without a past, without a history. He is a blank canvas, an unseen face. He is whoever the Mexican people need him to be. And though his birth certificate may read Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vincente, he will always be Marcos.

Word Count: 141, reduced by (1/2):

The Mexican government asserts that el Subcomandante Marcos is in fact Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vincente. They are wrong. He is a man in a black mask with a pipe. On January 1, 1994, a small group of poorly-armed Mayan peasants leaked out of the jungle in Chiapas, Mexico and, against all odds, took the major city of San Cristobal. As the chaos of those first hours evaporated a leader materialized: Subcomandante Marcos. He emerged from the jungle without a history. Ever since that day the government has attempted to pin him down with facts. He is supposedly Rafael Vincente, a well educated, middle class citizen, supposedly a philosophy professor at UAM, the Autonomous Metropolitan University, in Mexico City. But Marcos is a man without a past. Though his birth certificate may read Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vincente, he will always be Marcos.

My Mind is Going (6.4)

Time wavers and falters, stretching out into eternity underneath this star spangled dome. Burning pinpricks of electrical light poke through the thick, viscous summer night, twinkling, glimmering. The black, wet velvet of the sky blankets me and dewy fingers of smooth grass tickle the back of my arms and neck. The night’s drinks have turned to battery acid in my veins and my arteries buzz like filaments. Eroded, rubbed raw by the steady drip, drip, drip of alcohol, my nerves are exposed, to everything, to the secretive whisper of the wind, to the worn cotton of my shirt, to the deep, earthy, buggy smell of the soil. My mind is going. I can feel it. The slow burning and melting of synapses, the smell of burnt grey matter floating in the night air. Shards and fragments of memories, slippery glass layers of self slowly fuse into a hot, white phosphorescent core; my fragile crystalline brain distends and consumes itself like cheap plastic in blue, super nova heat. My metallic consciousness drips onto the grass and liquefied thought seeps into the center of the earth. Stop. I am everywhere. Atoms disassociate into a mist of being and diffuse into space. Electrons cut themselves on the stars; neutrons disappear, engulfed by the glutinous darkness; protons melt into night. It lasts a fraction of second, a sliver of eternity.  

... (6.3)

“Look I just… I just need a break… from…from you.”

“…”

“I just think it would be better if we stopped hanging out so much.”

“…”

“Can you just say something?”

“ Well, I respect that you feel that way. If it’s what you want, we can take a break.”

“Why are you always like…like this?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“So… I don’t know, good and respectful and calm. Why are you so fucking calm?! I’m telling you we should take a break and you’re all like ‘I respect that.’”

“I don’t know what you want from me. I’m trying to be mature. If you think we need time a part then I respect your opinion.”

“Ok, Nick. This is why we have problems. Because, you always make me feel like an idiot for having any fucking emotions at all. Because every time I’m upset you sit there like…like fucking Buddha and tell me you understand. I’m not your disciple, I’m your girlfriend and I sick of…of… being condescended to all the time!”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be condescending.”

“Oh my god! What is wrong with you?! …Don’t apologize. Don’t you get it? That’s…that’s the whole fucking thing, you apologizing.” 

“I really don’t know what you want from me. This is the way I am and if you decide you don’t want to be in a relationship anymore the only thing I can do is accept it.”

“Un-fucking-believable.”

“…”

“I’m leaving.”

“…”

Turner State Park (6.2)

It starts at 5 am. Stumbling drowsily through the early morning fog we pile the tents, sleeping bags, camper stoves, backpacks, and coolers at the foot of the U-Haul. Then we watch as Ms. Knot arranges and rearranges the luggage, filling the air with “gosh-darnit”s and “lord”s, until it all fits. Even in Texas, it’s chilly at this hour and the fog clings to us, Girl Scout Troop 1045, like a refreshing blanket. We pile in the car and one by one we fall asleep to the sound of the adults talking from the front seat. When I wake up we’re in Oklahoma, a state that will always be a sad stretch of trailer parks, fireworks shops, and adult video stores to me. When we finally reach Turner State park we unpack our gear into the flimsy screen shelters near the lake. At night, through those screen walls, you can hear the roar of the 77 foot waterfall, the croaks of the bullfrogs, and the sharp cracking of breaking branches underneath the sole of a lone camper walking towards the outhouses. The days are whirlwinds of breathless activity. We climb into the small cave behind the waterfall and watch the sheets of water tumble down in front of us. We run down the rocky trails as fast as we can even though Ms. Knot told us not to. We make pots out of the gritty clay from the river banks. We, Julianne, Emily, and I, find a secret cove and argue about whether or not to tell Katie Lee. We scream with fear and delight when someone finally manages to catch a cricket. And at night we make hobo packets, foil wrapped chicken buried under the coals of a hot fire, and apple peach dump cake. Afterward, tucked into the soft cocoon of my sleeping bag I have the best sleep of my life.

Quote 6

"Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The Best Stylist Around (6.1)

Two intruders break a man’s leg with a golf club. But we, the audience, don’t see this. We see a Jackson Pollock splatter of blood land on the television screen behind them as they are just out of frame. What we do see is the aftermath. We see, Georg, the man, trying to crawl, to walk, to drag himself on his broken leg to the phone at the end of hall. And now the camera offers us no escape; there are no edits or pans to the background, only a steady, prolonged shot of a man trying to stand on a broken leg. This isn’t the cathartic Hollywood blockbuster approach to violence or the hyper-stylized approach of Hong Kong martial arts flicks. Or even the buckets of gore approach of the modern horror film. This is cruel and measured. This is an approach without the relief of moral certainty or the courtesy to spare the audience the bleak, drawn out consequences. This is Funny Games, a film by Michael Haneke, the best violence stylist of modern cinema.

American films are steeped in violence; from the wacky whacking of cartoons to the adrenaline pumped action stunts of box office hits. But all these different manifestations share the same myopic timeline: audiences get the electrifying violence and none of its devastating, depressing consequences. You have undoubtedly seen a limb break in a film but until you see Georg limp towards the phone for what seems to be eternity, you haven’t understood what it means. And this is the genius of Haneke: his ability to engineer violence that offers no joy, no consummation, only pain, reality, repercussions, and misery. And this control and austerity fills his films with a hard moral dignity. They are very serious, cold, unmistakably German works. They are severely beautiful.

Conversion (5.5)

When they climbed to the top level of the parking garage they could see the balding Oklahoma plains that stretched for miles behind the Arlen County mall. It seemed as if great raw gashes cut across the landscape in the places where the yellow scrub had given way to red clay. The hot, dry wind whipped her hair off her face. She could tell that June had thought a great deal about this; the setting, as her words had been carefully selected. She stared at the swathes of clay. The land had been rubbed raw and was bleeding rust colored earth. It was wounded. As her eyes traced the tight line of the horizon she wondered why this always happened to her.  Was it that she seemed pliable, an easy convert? Or did she appear particularly in need of salvation? Perhaps her quiet indifference had been misinterpreted as interest. She caught the meaning of June’s last few words as they lilted upwards in a question: … Jesus Christ into your heart? She stared at the faded white tops of her sneakers and half mumbled a half answer about needing time to think. This was of course a lie. She didn’t need any time to think. What made June think that some poorly-worded, rambling speech on the vague niceties of Jesus would ever convince her of the existence of God? Every day of the last 16 years of her life spoke to a world built of random chance. And now she had to pretend to be interested in this half-baked appeal for religious salvation because….because why? Because she had to spare June’s feelings? The blood pounding through her veins eased just enough for her to smile softly and say, “No, no, really don’t worry about it. I really….I appreciate it, I know it’s just because you care.”