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May. 11th, 2013 05:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* The racist eugenicist who lied about immigrants on that Heritage Foundation "Think" Tank "Study" has "resigned."
* Horrifying Republican Bill to permanently fuck up the National Economy:
* The Empirical Strikes Back - Really Scary Climate Figures:
* "Blade Runner, Terminator, Minority Report and the deliberate sabotage of the Postal Service:" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/05/07/blade-runner-terminator-minority-report-and-the-deliberate-sabotage-of-the-postal-service/
* "Alleged Ce Ce Acoff Killer Charged:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/05/alleged-ce-ce-acoff-killer-charged.html
* "While some are seeking to withhold Communion from pro-choice and pro-marriage-equality Catholics, I have heard no call to withhold Communion from priests and bishops who have engaged in horrific sexual abuse against vulnerable children, nor their enablers.:" http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2013/04/quote-of-day_25.html
* "Transwomen Must Work Four Times As Hard To Be Considered Half As Good:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/05/transwomen-must-work-four-times-as-hard.html
* "Followup: Getting killed by falling objects (pianos, anvils, etc) happens more often than you might think:" http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3105/followup
* I went to see The Great Gatsby. My response to it was deeply personal, because my response to the book has always been deeply personal. This is not so much a review as me talking about the way my response to Gatsby has always been messy and eventually the ways the movie did and didn't play into that.:
I first read the book in High School, like most Americans do. The first time I read it, sure, I made note of the things you need to make note of for lit tests, but mostly, this was the moment when I was like a fish who just discovered the existence of water. By this I mean, I'd been swimming in it, but never really Saw it until that moment. Oh sure, I'd read and reread the Preppy Handbook, trying to understand my enemy, trying and ultimately failing to understand what was being done to me and why, but Gatsby gave me one of the keys that had been missing. (Eventually I realized that no amount of alien anthropology, or book reading, or trying to get in their heads would work because we were too fundamentally alien to each other).
Anyway, I was so busy processing the existence of water to really grasp the aching beauty of the prose, or the characterizations, and the problematic things about it. There were a whole lot of things I simply wasn't able to see that turned out to be really important. By wasn't able to see, I don't mean some emotional trauma thing, but that simply wasn't able to think in the ways I needed to think for them to make sense. To my decades later mind the compliment he pays Jay at almost the end and the thing he says about Daisy and Tom's carelessness are the key to nearly everything. Back then I was too close. It was the tail end of my grim little war and I had only recently decided it might be a good idea to figure out how to be human again, or at least figure out how to pretend to be one until I could figure out how to start being one again. I was still being repeatedly thrust into the gears much to the worse for both me and the institution. I till had a few more years to survive, but most of them really didn't have their heart in it any more and I was oh so good at out waiting the enemy by then. There were a whole lot of ways the exigencies of simply surviving to adulthood limited the kind of thoughts I could have. It's still true, of course. It's true for everyone, but back then I was stripped down to the elements I needed to survive, and I was only just starting to have breathing room for anything else.
Later, I'd reread it, becoming fascinated by the prose. Later, I'd be indignant about the way the women weren't really people and the way the racism wasn't unpacked. Later, I'd become fascinated by the ways it was and wasn't the American Wuthering Heights. Then al I could really see were the things I'd intuited about class put into words where I could poke at them. Fish, meet water.
So the movie. People have been bitching about it being in 3-D. I went to a 3-D showing on purpose. The lavish, over the top, decadence of it in 3-D fit. It just did. Decadence and the ways money fucks with people are structural to the story, so the visuals conveying that worked for me. Also, the vaguely disorienting nature of 3-D worked with all the alcohol, if you see what I mean, and the heightened reality of the film generally worked with the hyper real nature of being young, if that makes any sense at all. The surreal areal shots honestly helped establish place and time. The visual distinction and sharp edges between places really did help orient in a way prose didn't. There were scenes where the 3-D and Baz Luhrmann's style where distracting, but fundamentally, the film worked in a way no previous attempts to film the book have ever worked. To that point, I am very glad they found a way to keep the prose. They not only kept the best of the words in, but occasionally used them in visual ways that enhanced meaning. There is one sequence that reminded me of my favorite e e comings poem, where the placement of the letters were part of the meaning.
I think there is a debate to be had about the way race was used in this movie. I'm not convinced I'm the one to have it, but I would sure love to read and/or listen to that debate.
I think there is a whole lot of debate to be had about whole lot of things in this movie, about the way the choices emphasize certain things and deemphasize others. About the things left out that were in the book and the things left in. I'd definitely like to read and maybe participate in that debate. I think there's room for a whole lot of conversation about how this movie interacts with the current conditions in this country and how the current craze for the 20's in general is doing that. I've been thinking about writing about that for at least a year, but simply haven't figured out how to approach it.
* The Butt is leaving the closet of his own accord for litter and water. He's basically only willing to eat goosh and treats, but not in a quantity that's sufficient to long term sustain life. I've been doing daily goosh, today he got some good pettins, but he's scary frail and making an alarming smell. He's scheduled for the vet next week. I'm not very hopeful. The Butt and Little Miss are Squirrel's first cats. He's spent his savings on the little guy. The thought of him not being here is heartbreaking for me. I can only imagine how bad this is for Squirrel. Update: He perked up a little after we hydrated him, but I'm still seriously worried.
* Horrifying Republican Bill to permanently fuck up the National Economy:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* The Empirical Strikes Back - Really Scary Climate Figures:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* "Blade Runner, Terminator, Minority Report and the deliberate sabotage of the Postal Service:" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/05/07/blade-runner-terminator-minority-report-and-the-deliberate-sabotage-of-the-postal-service/
* "Alleged Ce Ce Acoff Killer Charged:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/05/alleged-ce-ce-acoff-killer-charged.html
* "While some are seeking to withhold Communion from pro-choice and pro-marriage-equality Catholics, I have heard no call to withhold Communion from priests and bishops who have engaged in horrific sexual abuse against vulnerable children, nor their enablers.:" http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2013/04/quote-of-day_25.html
* "Transwomen Must Work Four Times As Hard To Be Considered Half As Good:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/05/transwomen-must-work-four-times-as-hard.html
* "Followup: Getting killed by falling objects (pianos, anvils, etc) happens more often than you might think:" http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3105/followup
* I went to see The Great Gatsby. My response to it was deeply personal, because my response to the book has always been deeply personal. This is not so much a review as me talking about the way my response to Gatsby has always been messy and eventually the ways the movie did and didn't play into that.:
I first read the book in High School, like most Americans do. The first time I read it, sure, I made note of the things you need to make note of for lit tests, but mostly, this was the moment when I was like a fish who just discovered the existence of water. By this I mean, I'd been swimming in it, but never really Saw it until that moment. Oh sure, I'd read and reread the Preppy Handbook, trying to understand my enemy, trying and ultimately failing to understand what was being done to me and why, but Gatsby gave me one of the keys that had been missing. (Eventually I realized that no amount of alien anthropology, or book reading, or trying to get in their heads would work because we were too fundamentally alien to each other).
Anyway, I was so busy processing the existence of water to really grasp the aching beauty of the prose, or the characterizations, and the problematic things about it. There were a whole lot of things I simply wasn't able to see that turned out to be really important. By wasn't able to see, I don't mean some emotional trauma thing, but that simply wasn't able to think in the ways I needed to think for them to make sense. To my decades later mind the compliment he pays Jay at almost the end and the thing he says about Daisy and Tom's carelessness are the key to nearly everything. Back then I was too close. It was the tail end of my grim little war and I had only recently decided it might be a good idea to figure out how to be human again, or at least figure out how to pretend to be one until I could figure out how to start being one again. I was still being repeatedly thrust into the gears much to the worse for both me and the institution. I till had a few more years to survive, but most of them really didn't have their heart in it any more and I was oh so good at out waiting the enemy by then. There were a whole lot of ways the exigencies of simply surviving to adulthood limited the kind of thoughts I could have. It's still true, of course. It's true for everyone, but back then I was stripped down to the elements I needed to survive, and I was only just starting to have breathing room for anything else.
Later, I'd reread it, becoming fascinated by the prose. Later, I'd be indignant about the way the women weren't really people and the way the racism wasn't unpacked. Later, I'd become fascinated by the ways it was and wasn't the American Wuthering Heights. Then al I could really see were the things I'd intuited about class put into words where I could poke at them. Fish, meet water.
So the movie. People have been bitching about it being in 3-D. I went to a 3-D showing on purpose. The lavish, over the top, decadence of it in 3-D fit. It just did. Decadence and the ways money fucks with people are structural to the story, so the visuals conveying that worked for me. Also, the vaguely disorienting nature of 3-D worked with all the alcohol, if you see what I mean, and the heightened reality of the film generally worked with the hyper real nature of being young, if that makes any sense at all. The surreal areal shots honestly helped establish place and time. The visual distinction and sharp edges between places really did help orient in a way prose didn't. There were scenes where the 3-D and Baz Luhrmann's style where distracting, but fundamentally, the film worked in a way no previous attempts to film the book have ever worked. To that point, I am very glad they found a way to keep the prose. They not only kept the best of the words in, but occasionally used them in visual ways that enhanced meaning. There is one sequence that reminded me of my favorite e e comings poem, where the placement of the letters were part of the meaning.
I think there is a debate to be had about the way race was used in this movie. I'm not convinced I'm the one to have it, but I would sure love to read and/or listen to that debate.
I think there is a whole lot of debate to be had about whole lot of things in this movie, about the way the choices emphasize certain things and deemphasize others. About the things left out that were in the book and the things left in. I'd definitely like to read and maybe participate in that debate. I think there's room for a whole lot of conversation about how this movie interacts with the current conditions in this country and how the current craze for the 20's in general is doing that. I've been thinking about writing about that for at least a year, but simply haven't figured out how to approach it.
* The Butt is leaving the closet of his own accord for litter and water. He's basically only willing to eat goosh and treats, but not in a quantity that's sufficient to long term sustain life. I've been doing daily goosh, today he got some good pettins, but he's scary frail and making an alarming smell. He's scheduled for the vet next week. I'm not very hopeful. The Butt and Little Miss are Squirrel's first cats. He's spent his savings on the little guy. The thought of him not being here is heartbreaking for me. I can only imagine how bad this is for Squirrel. Update: He perked up a little after we hydrated him, but I'm still seriously worried.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-11 06:57 pm (UTC)