Dispatches from Toronto Sept 2012

Making it Up

I'm an old exotic comedy dinosaur lumbering down Bloor street. It's a nice feeling to be recognized by a young improviser and be invited to do a show because of my ancient age and mysterious reputation as a solo improviser. Eton, Dan, Vanessa, Anders -tonight I do some longform improv with some former Montrealers. It's good to be back in the game and nice to talk shop. It also reminds me how many stories I can create in a night and emboldens me to take the same attitude to writing a novel. If I don't have something to substantial to show you in October then I'll have to restart 2012.

Condoville

I'm petsitting for a friend in the southwest end. There's no community in condoville but they make up for it by having cars everywhere. My commute home is a glorious ride down the Queensway, rising like a missile in a bike lane on a highway. It's an absurd, beautiful image and it was even more stunning when I walked it, carrying a bike with a flat back tire. My friend is in Guelph, blowing things up in slow motion for a film shoot, I hang out with her cat and read her books about serial killers. It's put me in the "Ed Gein" daze. The accounts of officers who were first on the scene, discovering the extent of his gruesome mutilations will be with me forever. On the plus side, there's a sweet computer there that I can use to edit my movie. It's going to be tricky getting this cinematography award with all of my goddam shakey camera work. The trick is to call it my style.

The Elephant in the Room

Went on a rant last night and found the sentiment that will launch me into stardom. It's so obvious and true and necessary to be said. A simple concept that has occured to everyone: if we're going to have this amazing world of iPads, air travel, and velcro, if we're going to keep this consumer utopia then we should accept, openly, that the price we pay is: we have to hate ourselves. If we were content. If we felt whole, complete, and good then the whole consumer wheel would grind to a halt. Our entire capitalist civilization requires us to look in the mirror and feel like shit. Know that our hair could be nicer, our clothes could be trendier, and that we could be more productive. An endless commitment to the insatiable devil called better. So if you see a child in the schoolyard who seems happy, content, and satisfied then undermine their self-esteem for the good of us all.

Thoughts on the New Batman

I watched Dark Knight 3 in a theatre in Munich with a group of high school students. It wasn't as well recieved as the 2nd film. I have some strong thoughts on why that is.

In the 2nd film the villain, Joker, steals the show. It's nice to have a strong interesting villain in a superhero movie.

More importantly, the villain in Dark Knight 3, Bane, has a convulated motivation related to Dark Knight 1. He needed an interesting, thematic motivation. I'll expand on that later. MOST IMPORTANTLY, the film falls flat because Bane's evil plan involves trapping the entire police force underground and Batman rescues them. This, I will explain, made the movie unsatifying for the collective psyche of the audience.

I really loved Bane, his voice, and presence. Well done direction (making him look massive), editing, and character crafting -the intonation, the collar grab -all very nice to me. But in the end his motivation was something to do with the "League of Shadows" which is a silly name. Joker was interesting 'cause he dropped a few lines about the chaos that lies beneath everything and how Batman is trying to keep a thin layer of order. I propose Bane needed a similar philosophical motivation and I propose it be an obsession with strength.

Might makes right.

The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must. This is a theme as ancient as Thucydides History of the Pelopennesian War. It's also Nietzsche's understanding of the cool Romans, the ones who ruled by power and will. That could have been Bane. If you're strong enough to exert your will on others then you should rule. Not some rich ploof who inherited it. The movie could have been pretty much the same. But Bane needs to make it clear that his plan is to start a revolution in Gotham where he invites the strong to rule. So any bully in the city starts looting and beating up the rich. Perfect. Batman, as a symbol, represents using one's strength to protect the weak.

This is where the police come in. They play an important role in the film. First, they are trapped underground. Then, Batman frees them to turn the tide. What a bizarre twist that must have unsettled American audiences. Since when do people need the government's troops to do what is right? Yes, the police are good guys but where are the Americans who arm themselves, form militias, and stand up for themselves when the shit hits the fan? That was what was cool when the Joker tried to show that people are garbage. In the end they chose not to kill one another. Slam, Joker. That's satisfying to our psyche. It's not satisfying to see the cops save us.

What I wanted to happen was Gotham at civil war. The bullies, those ruling through strength, led by General Bane meeting General Batman and his underdog of army of those who use their strength to protect the weak. That would have allowed audiences to put themselves in the film and stand up against evil instead of watch the police save us.

Also, it was kind of awkward for Batman to fake his own death in front of his friends. He lied about the autopilot to them, which was weird, and then let them all know he was fine. It's not like he deceived the public at large. He only told the few people that were there that he was going to kill himself for Gotham and then later revealed to them that he was fine. Sort of a weird thing to do to your friends but also he dresses up with cute pointy ears and hits people he doesn't really know.

Important Things to Me

Time has passed my Great Great Grand.

I lived in Thunder Bay and earned my certification to teach Grades 4-12 in Ontario. I traveled in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal, and India for the MEI Academy. And most significantly, my long term relationship with L. ended last year.

Some of the most important things that I have learned about myself have been tied up in this relationship and I censored myself from writing about them in this blog -since it is public. Now I understand why there isn't a great piece of literature that has been accused of being "too honest". It is is a difficult thing to do. I think a great writer feels a part of something bigger, making it easy to sacrifice comfort now for truth eternal.

My heart was shattered but in that good way that has shown me that I am built for happiness. That I believe in love now more than ever. And that there is no gain without risk and that I would gladly put my heart on the line to lose harder next time. Hopefully, by being myself, I'll attract someone with the same small town heart. Someone who like to cuddle and can't relate to John Updike's self-destructive characters.

It was instructive to see a friend who was going through a recent break up. I've been so busy being a nomad that I missed her entire relationship. I spoke to her when they had met and now, almost a year later, when it had ended. She was devastated but it seemed like a week to me. Easy for me to lauigh off, I was invested in her as my friend and never saw this guy. It laid it out so simply for me. I'm only interested in what my friends have created. Everything else is the glanced-over bio.

Open and Closed Questions

49 Up is an incredible concept. It's the seventh documentary in a series that visits the lives of 14 British folk since they were children. The film crew has interviewed them every seven years since they were seven.

This is the only one I have seen in this beautiful format and I was surprised to see how many subjects (some of whom have dropped out of the project) reflect on how much they dislike taking part. Every seven years it's a reminder of how their lives haven't turned out the way they envisioned. A confrontation most of us can avoid since, as a whole, humans love justifying their present lives and block out our past in the healthy way a censor would take all of the deaths out of children's book.

I would think the subjects would be aware that they were simply the documented examples of a process that happens to us all. Unfortunately, the director/interviewer has shit for brains.

If you listen to the few times that he leaves his question in the edit you can pick up how many closed questions he asks. I think he should take his camera around during the day to record how many shitty conversations he must have.

The difference between a closed and open question. A closed question has an answer built in, causing the person asked to squirm in the confines of making someone else's choice.

Aren't you happy to be reading this? 


That shitty question implies "happy" as the dominant emotion you should be feeling and you should respond in a simplified "yes" or "no" format, knowing I want you to say yes.

What do you think of what I have written?


This open question allows you to say what you think and feel instead of fit what you think and feel into my shitty closed question box.

Closed questions have their place but to use them in a documentary series about people's personal lives crushes their own spirits and casts the whole project in the mind of the documenter. "Don't you want to be married?" is very different than "I'd like to know if you have any strong feelings about marriage. What does it make you think or feel?"

Sigh. Once again I have proved that every film would have been better if those assholes would get out of the way and let me do it all.

Thoughts on Photography

What intrigues me about a photo is the relationship between the subject and the person behind the lens.

This explains why I find advertisements and models so boring. It's a narrow range of relationships playing out over and over. The subject does their best to look pretty, serious, excited, etc. The photographer attempts to capture a predetermined emotion in order to move product. Certainly, this is an interesting relationship but, due to its abundance, I find it the least compelling.

The purpose of photography is to make a permanent record of a fleeting moment. We desire careful control over these eternal moments, often grinding out anything interesting in place of capturing a banal agreement between photographer and subject that things 'look nice'. I would much prefer photographs of arguments from a child's point of view to a family photo.

I like candid shots in which a photographer captures a subject's spontaneous relationship to something else. Although now we are too wise to the beauty of these images and must plan them as well.

If a photo is a snapshot of the relationship between photographer and subject then what is a "selfie"? Surely, not ourselves through our own eyes but through the eyes of some imaginary photographer encouraging us to add another safely constructed image to the archive.

The Torture of Minnows

Today, as I sat in an ice fishing hut, I watched a young, skilled fisherman use a sharp knife to slice up a pike and a walleye. He sat with a board on his lap as he went about his work in a casual and inviting manner. The two adults nodding with appreciation. The two children were riveted. The four-year old leaned in, inches from the face of the pike, straining to see it's teeth as the father held the mouth open.

When a fish is cleaned the head remains eerily untouched while the rest of its dismembered body stretches out in a sloppy pile. The skilled fisherman cut open the stomach to reveal the sucker minnow used as bait. The other child eagerly scooped it up in his hand.

Not once did the children shirk at the blood or ask a question about the death of the fish. They were content, as were the adults, smiling and eager as they palmed two more minnows from the bucket, pushing the hooks through their bodies and setting the fishing rod back in place.

Hunger Games

I finished reading Hunger Games a while ago and I wanted to reflect on the author's (Suzanne Collins) use of violence. As I was reading the book I remember thinking that Collins' fight scenes seemed amateur. There was something about them that wasn't quite right. Later, I reflected on why her style seemed so unfamiliar to me.

In books like The Lord of the Flies, violence is portrayed as a force that is barely under the surface of civilization, waiting for its chance to boil up and over. The boys are sadistic and wild when left to their own devices. Similarly, the television series Spartacus depicts slaves forced to take part in the gladiatorial games. The characters show no reluctance once on the sand, easily tapping into their "inner monster" for scene after scene of computer animated throat slashing and decapitation.

What I came to realize about Hunger Games was that the author did not present violence as the beast that sleeps within us all. In Collins' story characters fight because of their relationships. All of these stories share the similarity of forcing their characters into a situation where there will be violent conflict. Collins' story proposes that people are most likely to be violent to protect the ones that they love. In contrast, the fiction written by male authors emphasizes the inevitability of the violent beast within us all. Is gender a useful category for analysis here? Are males trained to see violence as inevitable and females trained to see it as a last resort to protect our loved ones?