Linger On...
Update your bookmarks, folks. I have a newish slate with comments
here.
This is a post that would make my Gallatin professors proud. As for the rest of you, hope this doesn't suck.
I saw "What the Bleep do We Know?" tonight. Where to start... This film is all over the place-- no chance of winning any awards here (if the merit is based on the quality of filmmaking). Waking Life, the only movie I can think of to compare it to, is far more visually appealing, and, belive it or not, has a better plot. The acting in this movie is so bad I don't know what to do, but only a few times does it really try to be a plot-oriented movie. For the most part, the structure is very Reading Rainbow/Bill Nye.
That said, I really enjoy Bill Nye. The most entertaining part of What the Bleep (spoiler ahead) was the post-wedding sequence, which actually combined educational animation (of the hypothalmus and blood cells), entertainment animation (cells with faces and personalities), and live action dance numbers. They had animated (and gendered) cells performing Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love in the style of the music video. That blew my mind more than anything in the movie that was meant to have such an effect.
So to be repetitive, it was very Sesame Street learning-is-fun! The message was also overly redundant, but let's get down to the content. What I appreciated was the high emphasis WtB placed on quantum mechanics. Waking Life touched on this, but here it is the focus. Unfortunately, any explanation of what quantum mechanics actually is was all too vague. I realize it's advanced stuff (any idea how many prerequisites you need to take QM?), but from what I hear, it's actually much simpler than Newtonian Mechanics. In the movie, the experts just start going off about the implications of QM and expect the audience to follow like the suckers we are. That's probably the editor's fault, but like I said, this won't be winning any film awards.
Since the points WtB are making should "shake the foundations of our perception," it was disappointing that the tone was so steeped in Western ideas. While there is positive mention of Zen, and explanation of how the material body and consciousness are integrated, the speakers were still totally drenched in dualism. Right after an interesting "lesson" on how matter is actually ideas and all levels of our bodies are in some way consious, a woman actually said, "It does not matter what we do with our body, but what we do with our mind." Totally missed the point. But that woman really sucked in general. The Platonian fantasy was also evident in the condescending "everyone should devote their lives to philosophy" insinuations.
The point of the movie is basically that we control our destiny. There is an obvious link to spirituality here, but the film dealt with this poorly. The information presented could support elements of Judeo-Christianity, paganism, and/or eastern philosophy, yet primary emphaisis was placed on a Western idea of God. First of all, there is a God, and second of all, He is NOT this, this, or that. Just because you have a PhD physics, neurobiology, or theology does not mean you can tell me about God with any certainty. If you're appealing to my sense of reason with science, why are you suddenly getting all righteous on me?
Major contradictions aside, I appreciate what WtB is trying to do. This kind of stuff fascinates me, and is what got me into physics in the first place (as you might guess, the pre-req's are what got me out). I think there are definite earth-shattering ideas coming out about the ways our bodies, minds and environments are related. And to their credit, it's damned difficult to talk about this stuff without sounding like a New Age nut. But at least I got to see cartoon cells doing a classic music video.
And, leave it to a gay man to make me truly territorial and jealous of another woman. Damnit.
"Thank you for listening to our goddamn pretentious jazz music"
So said Trevor Dunn this evening. But I digress.
Tonight I saw the Melvins, which is probably the closest I will ever come to attending a "metal" concert. And if not, it is almost definitely the closest I will ever come to enjoying one. I've been calling them "art metal," but who knows if that is accurate. I don't know enough about metal, jazz, or punk to classify them. Anyway, damn they are a hideous looking group. Trevor Dunn Trio-Convulsant opened for them, and they played a Duke Ellington ballad with the harpist I saw Trevor play with a month ago. The trio is awesome.
The other trio, the Melvins, were also pretty awesome, interesting to watch and all that. The bassist looked right at me-- and I can be almost certain of this since I was literally right in front of him-- smiled, crossed his heart, then flicked me off. Bastard. Probably knew that I'm only a fan by association. It's odd going to a see a band with a strong following when you yourself are not part of that following. Hey, I have about five of their albums, but I think they have about 15, so that didn't help me much. They did play some stuff from Honky, which made me smile. Apparently-- I just looked this up-- Jello Biafra has been playing with them earlier this week. Unfortunately, JB did not make it to Webster Hall.
After the show, in what I assume was an attempt to get everyone to leave quickly, the sound dude put in a Britney Spears album. Everyone started moshing to Hit Me Baby One More Time. That probably doesn't happen at real metal shows. Ha! If you go to a Webster Hall concert, you get into their Frideay night 80s dance party for free. I just didn't feel cool going from the Melvins to a Jersey girl party, tempting as it seemed.
On my way out, I noticed I had missed a "Q & A with the filmmakers" for "What the Bleep..." at the movie theater there. I want to see that movie! It looks pretentious as hell, Waking Life style, so it is on my list. The rest of my evening has been spent trying to find people with "up" energy... I mean Jesus, folks, it's Friday night and I'm dressed. Slackers.
Who else's hair cutter comes to their residence and promtly takes off her dress? Ha!
I enjoy my friends.
Here is something I stole from Anthony. Quite Freudian, I think, but entertaining.
This is really quite funny... I had the most postmodern dream this morning. Totally bizarre and somehow making a little bit of sense to me. Imagine an epic of traveling through the west pioneer style while taking dance classes-- well, movement classes-- aimed at rediscovering "authentic" movement. Throw in the threat of human sacrifice, campfire dances, an old ballet teacher of mine who has since had a stroke, STREB, and a totally disorienting timeling. AND musical numbers, with people dressed as geometric shapes. Like, song-and-dance triangles. I love my brain.
Yesterday I played pool with Dan. I hate doing things if I don't do them well. Grrr.
First the twins, now a reality show... this school is a circus. Ah well, that's what I signed up for.
Funny thing happened this weekend: I went to the closest variation of a "house party" one is likely to find in this city. Some Walnuts have relocated to BED STUY and are renting an ENTIRE BROWNSTONE. Anyway, it was beyond interesting... all this skinny white artsy kids (many of them had never even been to Brooklyn) wondering "how much longer?" on the A train, then walking 15 minutes through one of the sketchiest parts of town while talking about Julliard, Columbia, or NYU. I'm really glad no one got raped.
I guess it was a you-had-to-be-there experience, but it was a riot, nonetheless. Walnut gatherings are always oddly surreal to me, very pleasing but generally disorienting. And I'm not talking about contact buzzes.
Oh yeah, and I was called a blonde today (by someone other than myself). That hasn't happened in... who knows.
...in other news, today was the first day I have parted my hair and worn dangly earrings since May.
Last night before I fell asleep I had this brilliant thought, but it needs more turning over. I was thinking that ok, historically (at least in the West) girls and women have been deterred from embracing sexuality. I mean, yeah, you're supposed to make good for your husband and all that, but you aren't supposed to project a sexual image. Historically.
Now, there are those that argue that its a good thing, this deterrent, that female sexuality is shameful and purity is right... that if women went unchecked we'd just tear civilization apart. Then there are those that say we should embrace-- even showcase-- our sexuality in this postmodern paradise, because damnit, men shouldn't have all the fun. I myself, being a true radical moderate (a term I just made up), cannot fully disagree with either side.
So my idea last night was that now that we're all post-sexual-revolution, and there are pictures of models biting each others' butts on billboards, and girls wanting to grow up to take their clothes off on MTV just like Britney, the taboo was actually in place to prevent girls from competing so damn much with their appearance. Think about it: in the fifties girls who wore make up to school and stayed out late were outcast and called sluts by all the other girls. You tried not to present a lustful appearance just to save yourself bathroom harrassment. Now that tank tops and eyeliner (and going "all the way") are socially acceptable, girls are spending-- in my humble opinion-- absolutely ridiculous amounts of time, money, and energy to outdo each other. A girl with some brain and a sexual interest is fucked, because if she pursues the latter, she has to sacrifice a hell of a lot of personal development energy to maintain a desirable status.
I am talking about high school (and middle school, and more and more about elementary school as well). But this all carries over to college and most likely, life until marriage. Probably after marriage, too. We don't just leave our body images behind when we hang those silly graduation tassels from our rearview mirror. Of course, college chicks are/should be "cooler" and "more individual" and not listening to Mandy Moore anymore, but even the "cool" high school girls feel the strain. No matter how confident some girl is with how she looks and presents herself, I guarantee she feels the pressure to compete with the others. Maybe she chooses not to act on that, but that's a different matter.
Also, it is easy to blame men for this phenomenon. They play their part, obviously: if they like the bottled-blondes with purple eyeliner and low rise jeans, then by God, Revlon and Guess will jump on it and their sales will soar. But the point is that now that looking hot is ok, women and girls all think they have to be the hottest. And all the anti-slut energy they spent a few decades ago is going toward out-slutting the other chicks now. I think that's bad. It's just bad for productivity. How many young ladies would take up something worthwhile if they didn't spend so much time studying their female peers, calculating how to improve, and frantically acting on their image? Maybe not enough to change the world, but it would be a big step in the right direction.
So maybe this has been a rant-- I admit it's something that makes me angry-- but it's just my idea. Sounds less brilliant than it did last night, but I'll work on it.
Oh yeah and classes started today. Woohoo!
