Campus visit and admissions interview in February.

I'm in!

Could you repeat that for our listeners in case they didn't get the recipe?

More fun and silliness here.

Wood people

"They had the appearance of people and they spoke like people as well. They populated the whole face of the earth. The effigies of carved wood began to multiply, bearing daughters and sons. Nevertheless, they still did not possess their hearts nor their minds. They did not remember their Framer or their Shaper. They walked without purpose. They crawled on their hands and knees and did not remember Heart of Sky"

-Popol Vuh 83. (A. Christenson trans.)

Cinemateca

All photos are screen shots from Tarkovsky's Stalker

I'm doing some house keeping on the blog. Here are some of the films I watched in 2008. I got lazy and didn't put every film up. From this short list the films I especially enjoyed or that left a lasting impression are: Crimes and Misdemeanors, Viridiana, The Thin Red Line, The Dark Knight, Lawrence of Arabia and El espíritu de la colmena.

I was introduced to Russian film maker Anderi Tarkovsky this year and I like his aesthetic. I watched most of Solyaris with my dad (I fell asleep, which I later learned is normal for a Tarkovsky film) and I saw Stalker for a philosophy class (I think you would like it Stalker Dad; in the same way you like Dune and 2001, which means you should watch them on the road since mom would hate them). Both films are extremely slow paced and have long curves of continuity. Watching his films is sometimes like meditating or contemplating a painting that occasionally moves. It's an experience similar to watching one of Malick's films. In both cases cinematography is foregrounded and much more important than it is in conventional Hollywood cinema.

Hopefully this year I'll keep my list better updated. I've toyed with the idea of having a seperate blog just to write about film. I'm hoping to start practicing writing movie reviews soon. An old friend of mine that majored in film studies in college started writing film reviews again and I've rather enjoyed reading them. I'll try not to get too technical.

The Science of Sleep (Gondry)
Derrida (Dick, Ziering Kofman)
Il Postino (Radford)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen)
Ghost Dance (McMullen)
Wall-E (Stanton)
Viridiana (Buñuel)
The Thin Red Line (Malick)
The Dark Knight (Nolan)
The Apartment (Wilder)
Stalker (Tarkovsky)
Soldados de Salamina (Trueba)
Minority Report (Spielberg)
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
El ángel exterminador (Buñuel)
El orfanato (Bayona)
El espíritu de la colmena (Erice)
Being There (Ashby)
Bananas (Allen)

Tom Sellecks or "Lo que se siente tener un bigote"

I can't take credit for this, my friend and colleague Paul showed me this brilliant advertisement for the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival. Si no es para vos, you fail the sense of humor test.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. courtesy Wikipeida free images.

This morning after I woke up and started my chores, I remembered that we have a decent stereo system in the living room. What to listen to on MLK Jr. Day while doing chores? Yes, that's right, old U2.

Much of what we do every day is remember things we already know. My thesis explores the notion of the ghost as a function of remembrance, more specifically the ethics of remembering. Today some ghosts from 1984 helped me remember the courage of a man who stood for what he believed to be right. In doing so he changed the way generations would view their brothers and sisters. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Take a listen.

A Living Good-Luck Charm, Feijoada, Svetlana Boym and Lego's

With a title like that you better sit down if you're going to read this post. Relax, cebar un mate, pour a glass of lemonade. EPIC POST!

I have a good friend whom I think is very lucky, here's why. Our university bookstore has a wall with a sign above it that reads "Foreign Language Reference". Under the sign is a bookshelf where they display books used in previous courses that, for some reason or another, they decide to keep and sell at a discount rather than send them off to somewhere else. For the literature student in Spanish, this is Mecca. Most the books that end up on these shelves are novels or collections of poetry or short stories (In many other languages as well). I once nabbed just about everything Mistral wrote from this shelf and paid only 50 cents, wicked awesome.

The books are 20% off as soon as they hit the shelf. The next calendar year they go down to 50% and 90% off the following year. For a long time I've had my eye on these two books:

One of the books originally sold for $140 while the other sold for $110. Ouch. They teach the Fernando Pessoa class in the Portuguese section regularly so the books never reach the 90% discount level. One day I was buying books with my friend when he suggested we inquire as to the discount on the Pessoa books. I knew they had just gone down to 50% so I eloquently said, "Nah". He said it wouldn't hurt, and he was right. The person in the textbook office told us the Obra Poética was 90% off. Nice, I bought one for my dad too. This was a joyous occasion of course. We told our colleagues in the office; one of them got the same discount just before two other friends were denied the 90% off because the employee we talked to "had made a mistake". Oops!

Flash forward a year, I find myself once again browsing the discount section and I remember my friend saying, "It can't hurt". So I pick up a copy of Obra em Prosa and walk into the textbook office with Pessoa and Machado de Assis under my arm. Lamentably the latter was not very cheap, but once again Pessoa was accidentally 90%. I called my friend and he had me pick a copy up for him. Like a Buñuel film, the experience uncannily repeated itself a year later. We again returned to the office to report our triumphant purchase to our colleagues. As before, they were denied the 90% because it was an accident, although a somewhat serendipitous one in my eyes. $250 worth of Pessoa for $25, my friend is a good luck charm.

He came over for dinner tonight, the feijoada was excellent and the cheesebread was light. Unfortunately, I forgot to eat salad. (Segue)

Svetlana Boym wrote a cool book titled The Future of Nostalgia. She's Russian, she speaks Spanish, and she writes about memory, does it get any cooler? Plus, the title of her book could quite easily pass for the name of a good band, a Tarkovsky remake, or a failed Disneyland attraction (does anybody else remember beating Tron?).

Among the many ideas Boym discusses in her text are Creative Nostalgia and Reflective Nostalgia. Reflective Nostalgia tends to be paralyzing, one longs for the past, and does not act. "Creative Nostalgia reveals the fantasies of the age, and it is in those fantasies and potentialities that the future is born" (351). One remembers the past, acts for change, cool things happen. Professor, where are you going? Back to the future man, back to the future.

When I left my parents to come home after the break, I brought my last box of stuff that had been stored at their house. Among the ruins of my memory were many trinkets gathered during my travels, misadventures, and mischief. I also had some cool things my friends picked up on their andanzas. I decided to display my rediscovered stuff along with items already above my desk.

(ITEMS SAVED FORM OBLIVIAN AND ADDED TO THE COLLECTION: Pin from Russian military - Cold war relic; Lighter used to explore the caves below Blarney Castle; Two rocks (one blue one purple) from the coast of County Kerry Ireland; One can Highland Haggis - it was quite good; Mao lighter from China - postmodern communist kitsch (it's not just a capitalist phenomenon); Marching band pin from the Rose Parade; California License Plate; High School Graduation tassel - yes I'm that old; Grand Prize winning Pinewood Derby)

However, the most prized reclamation was my Lego collection. Actually, it is the conjunto of my collection combined with my brother and sister's Lego's as well (If you guys want them back you're more than welcome to them). After dinner I invited my lucky friend to "play Lego's", and play we did. I haven't had that much fun in a long time. I think it was a mix of Creative and Reflective Nostalgia. It was good times. Here are the results of our build.

My freind made the forklift and I made the jeep, which was my favorite kit as a kid. Both have working steering wheels and the forklift mast tilts forward and back so the driver doesn't spill the load, RAD! My daughter even played for a bit and we built a desert island abode with neon flowers and a jail cell, every three-year-olds dream home. Thanks for indulging me man, it was late 80's early 90's fun, which is always more innocent and light hearted than contemporary fun.

We're not done yet. Just so I don't have to post for another month, I would like to announce that my three bookshelves are officially full. Is that a bad thing? Nah, my sister said I could have my parents' old bookshelves when they remodel the basement. Perhaps with some shuffling and reorganizing I could fit a few more books, but for now let's call this omelet done.

 If you're reading this you get a gold star! Thanks for playing along, I hope you enjoyed the EPIC POST. 

home again to the cinema, or, my second naivete

A very playful photo of Paul Ricoeur

Víctor Erice

A shot from El espíritu de la colmena

A friend introduced me to Ricouer's notion of a second naivete. More than just a usefull idea, it is a comfort to me at the moment. I've finished 5 of 7 PhD applications, the final envelope will brave the cold of the mail system this weekend before ariving in Lexington.

I've started to deal witht the fact that there is a very real possibility of not being accepted to any program. Equally as scary is the possibility of getting accepted to one of the programs I'm very excited about.

Having finished my coursework and soon the applications, the specialty exam and thesis are next, no small task. This week I will of course read, study, prepare notes, but more than anything I will again enjoy films. I'm sitting in on a film and philosophy course this semester with my mentor. So far it's been great and I expect it will only get better. In a way this is a return to my roots.

Growing up 20 miles south-west of Los Angeles, not being a surfer, my weekends were spent at the movies. If we didn't go to the local cinema my friends and I would rent three movies and stay up all night watching them. I would never last into the third film, which was a bummer becasue the first was often a cheesy action movie (read Jean Claude Van Damme - check out his recent film, it's all theoretical and crap. I'm serious...man).

My two best friends were actors by trade, I was mesmerrized by movie music. I wanted to be a film composer. I even went all the way to Boston and got my foot in the door at a place where I could realize my dream. Howard Shore attended the school, he won three Oscars (also a dream of mine at one point).

Since then I've learned a thing or two about analyzing films, my taste has matured, and my love of literature manifest itself as a logical extension of my penchant for a good story. Yet, rather than grow cynical or hard nosed (I do make exceptions for films based on certain vampire novels in which the vampires are vegetarian...come on, please tell me she's joking. Please tell me that people I used to have some respect for didn't read those better as a paper weight piles of stuff.) I've found a second naivete.

The feeling of awe as I sit before the big screen never leaves. The anticipation for the previews and the longing to be lost once again in another world as I walk out the theater doors into the sunlight are still familiar. The film scores allow me to revisit the story in my mind and feel the same emotions. I love film. Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, George Lucas. Spy films, detective stories, cowboy movies, sci-fi. As my taste now tends to lead me to foreign films I continue to love the stories and characters that I accompanied on those countelss summer weekends. To that kid with six dollars and change in his pocket, popcorn and red vines, they were and continue to be real to me.

I always knew there was something hiding underneath those wicked awesome blazers

me diste un corazón

¿Es posible amar a quien no existe?

Cuando el viejo se perdió en sus sueños

en sus espejos

         en sus memorias

en su soledad

lloré.

 Sentí su soledad…su soledad… ¿de quién?

Del mismo autor mientras escribía…

¿Siempre lloraste Gabo? Yo lo amo igual.

Extraño al patriarca en su segundo naïveté

él que conversaba con los fantasmas.

"Una nueva utopía" dices

"donde nadie pueda decidir por otros hasta la forma de morir,

donde de veras sea cierto el amor y sea posible la felicidad […]

una segunda oportunidad".

Ya

me enseñaste a amar.

Sucede que soy Melquíades

recuerdo

               y me recuerden

Vivo

               y viven

Amo

                y son amados

Contamos historias.

                   Lloramos de la risa.

                                     Hacemos remembranza,

yo y los muertos.

(foto Daisy Asher)

"As my eyesight dims somewhat, I think my vision improves"

For some time now I've been thinking about how we over-complicate just about every aspect of our lives. If Thoreau was right, and all we need is food, shelter and fuel, then why all the hubbub?

I think when people ask questions such as, "Why does one spend so much time reading and watching movies? What does one get out of it? Where is the practicality in such and such thingamabob?" I think the real question they are getting at is what is the purpose of it all? Lets be honest, there's nothing very practical about a 9-5 job with two weeks off a year and 1/3 of your time EVERY DAY dedicated to some mundane task which ultimately exists to justify the fact that you make more money than you deserve. I've got my back up against a wall with this argument so I won't give more examples (That was for you Mac).

I recalled a conference address that at the time was a great comfort to me. I was in northern Mexico when this message was delivered to me; life there tends to be much simpler than it is here. The talk has been ingrained in my mind ever since I heard it, "life can be wonderful and so meaningful, but we have to live it in a simple way". This is something that perhaps we have forgotten coming from someone who I hope we haven't forgotten. A ghost, returning to my mind, enabling my memory. Is it ethical to remember?

See the full text here.

Happy New Year From The Farm