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doward
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Name: Doward
Birthday: 3/31/1979
Interests: i ride a bike. i read. i watch tv. apparently i blog (sometimes). i like to cook when i have the time, but i'm usually biking. just so you know: team wiess!
Occupation: Research and development
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Member Since:
6/27/2004
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| Apparently Joel and Ethan Coen are now taking on the Cormac McCarthy novel "No Country for Old Men." I don't know about you, but I'm excited. The Coen brothers have successfully run through an impressive portfolio of genre-d movies, always sticking close to their comedy roots, and they've managed to make each movie there own special blend of film.
I've always thought that "Raising Arizona" had a bit of western in it. It definitely had the surface elements of a western, being set in the west, lots of boots and jeans, a mysterious figure (on a motorcycle instead of a horse but close enough for me), the law, the outlaws, etc.
Thematically it even had a very Western feel with people living on the edge of society who create a moral code of their own and struggle to cope with the competitive advantage created by a connection between money and science. (Without going too far into this:) When H.I. and Ed find out that they can't have a baby, and then they learn that this rich couple used artificial means to get uber-pregnant and have a brood all at once, they find it unfair, and create a moral code that allows them to steal a baby like prairie settlers stealing cattle so they won't starve. Additionally, like ranchers settling the plains of America with barbed wire, the rich couple is settling American ranches by building strip mall style furniture stores in the country-side.
Battling moral codes ensue with the eventual victory going to the rich couple who is "taming the West." Along the way though, our heroes are victorious over their oppressors, as we see that their moral code is well intentioned but has no place in a modern society.
Of course, the Coen brothers do end "Raising Arizona" with their stylistically upbeat manner: we feel that good things will come in the future for our bizarre heroes who have learned their lessons along the way. H.I.'s dream of children and grandchildren feels possible. In the meeting between our rich furniture salesman and H.I., we see that both men have a desire for a fair world, with the rich salesman choosing not to call the police and him also suggesting that if science made a miracle possible for his family, then someday it may be possible for H.I. and Ed to benefit from science too.
I think that the Coen brothers new western will be a little more subtle though with these common Coen brother themes. McCarthy tends to be much more terse and brutal. Not callous at all, but what some would describe as a brutal honesty. I expect that this movie will be more like the artsy film noir The Man Who Wasn't There or the rough edged Mean Santa characters that Billy Bob Thorton played. But we'll see. I haven't actually read this McCarthy novel yet, but I think I will soon.
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| in prose you build a story by stringing thoughts together. in poetry, you string words together into thoughts that wrap themselves around a story. a poem about gum is the gum wrapper, wadded up, carried in your pocket, removed, straightened out, and folded into the shape of the gum again.
prose though. prose walks around inside the gum, deciding what flavor it is, what color, what texture, what everything it is to the author. then the author describes it in a narrative. a prose story about gum is the author's chewed gum.
narrative is a construct. it is the author telling you in his or her voice about the thoughts that make up the story and yes, what the reader knows at the end of the story is what the author thought the story was.
in poetry, there is no narrative. we skip around the story, leave it, touch something else, layering loose experiences around the story until instead of the story you get an image from inside the authors mind. you get how the author remembers the story all jumbled up and wrapped in all the other memories.
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| seriously, here's a story about one of those obscure arts organizations that nearly went under but was miraculously saved by donations from institutional, government and private sources: NYTimes Story.
What's the economic argument about art? Where does art fit in the market, specifically, where do obscure and narrowly scaled arts organizations fit in the market, such as, in this case, a small organization that takes it upon itself to keep an American history of choreography?
Bare with me here, I'm not totally sure where I'm going.
Many forms of art, dance being one of them, are immediate and in many ways impossible to accurately capture in a way that they can be exhibited honestly enough to recapture the original artistic moment. I'm talking theater, dance, certain bands where the talent is more of an ephemeral stage presence than actual musical talent . . . there are several art forms that exist only once and then anything we see after is merely an echo of that first time.
An extreme example might be those stories of Nijinsky dancing in Paris and the audience's anger afterwards? I mean, say a modern dancer got into the same costume and did the same dance moves (I think I heard he mimed masturbation on stage) . . . still risky, but not really something to riot about anymore. This example is extreme, but I think it accurately amplifies the sort of loss of life that occurs with recreation of something that was, once, artistically wonderful . . .
So what's the value of art later? With static art forms (such as the novel, painting, etc.) it's a little easier to maintain value because it can be recreated to perfection. I can get you an exact copy of a book or poem, as it was published. But, is a print as well done as a the original? Can the massive overlay of Van Gogh's layers of oil paint be recreated so that the Starry Starry Night actually swims in the print the way it does in the MOMA?
There are a number of poets who argue that a poem is only alive when being read aloud. The beats were a largely lyrical group, and their work has led us to a newer form - the Poetry Slam, where poems are fluid, loud, and border on acting too.
So, is any art form repeatable? Is it capture-able? Can it really have value in the market?
I like to go to multiple performances of theater. I like to see it change as the actors struggle to keep the character fresh. To find new moments in the show. I pay for it. Each night, I watch something different and I feel that the differences were worth the price of admission.
Over time Nijinsky's dancing has been more remembered for the skill that it required than the shock factor that it had at the time. He was a very contraversial figure. It has become something new. According to that Wikipedia article above, (so, yeah, dubious sourcing here, but this is just a xanga entry) revivals of Nijinsky's work have proven very successful and artistic work.
So does art hold value? No, it depreciates, it loses some of the luster that was there in the first showing, BUT, it also recreates value, appreciating for it's differences and the new moments that come with each new showing.
But we have to keep it alive, so the market adjusts and we have charities and whatnot that pay for something as bizarre as the Dance Notation Bureau.
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| i am trying but it's been a busy week where i read about r. kelly's opus, Trapped in the Closet, in the NYTimes and had to turn my head away from art. just a bit. to look at the sky
they say he is a comedian singer who knows more about the scope of R&B than most other R&B artists who croon those ridiculous lyrics which, apparently, we use to get booty
in the house. i watched some Seinfeld this week and laughed, laughed, laughed at the timing. George has his way of stammering and Jerry has his smile. Kramer has animation and Elaine flips her hair
just before the punchline. in art there is a form of something which we all must recognize as ourselves or else we cannot see the art in it. it is just
lines on paper. Read appropriately, a joke comes to life, taking us with it, in our minds, somewhere else where we are the character and the character is us. an out of body experience
where maybe, just maybe, some silly little song about a man and a woman and her husband and a bunch of cameos by actors and actresses i know and trust can make R. Kelly something worthwhile
instead of a guy who peed on some underage girl?
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| i don't have enough time enough time enough time enough time
enough time enough time enough time enough time enough time
enough time enough time enough time enough time enough
time enough for everything
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