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Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
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3:39 pm
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Here's the monet painting. But the image doesn't come close to doing it justice.
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3:16 pm - Bookish thoughts
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I read. A lot. So, I thought I'd add some comments from time to time about what I've come across that's worthwhile.
First off, the current book. I just started John Irving's Cider House Rules, and I've got to say that I am very impressed. The last Irving I read was The World According to Garp, and that was many years ago. I'd forgotten how quirky he his, and how good. Irving's prose is smooth and has an almost poetic flow, and he understands how one detail-part of a brushstroke-can imply a larger picture.
Speaking of impressionist writing, I've been reading a good bit of Hemingway lately. Like a lot of people, I used to despise him. I viewed his prose as simplistic, and his plots as dull. I was wrong. Hemingway once said that he tried to write like Cezane (sp?) painted. For those of you not familiar with impressionism, Cezane painted in simple strokes that implied a lot more. If you look at any one detail of the painting, it looks amateurish, like the finger painting of a child. If, however, you pull back and see it from a gestalt perspective, you suddenly understand. The picture is there, but it is implied. The viewer is left to fill in the blanks.
So, why do that? The impressionists understood that the traditional forms were limited. They wanted to capture a specific moment-not just a moment, but the feel of it-and realized that the only way to do that was to back off the detail, to paint only what mattered. Monet's Boulevard du Cappucins (again, I'm unsure of the spelling) is a perfect example, and probably my favorite painting ever. It's a Paris street scene. The whole thing is done in shades of blue and black. If you look closely at the people on the street, you'll see that there's nothing really there. They're only brushstrokes. But pull back, and the strokes reify and become people. The scene becomes one of a rainy day. The mood is deep blue. But down in one corner is a splash of pink-balloons. Notice them, and suddenly, everything changes. The painting is not just a visual moment, it's a feel. The rain isn't painted, but if you look, you can almost feel it, soft and almost warm, drizzling down. You can smell it. You are there, experiencing the moment in a way that a traditional painting would never allow.
Now, back to Hemingway. He's deceptively simple. Focusing on a sentence, or a paragraph, will cause the reader to miss the point. It's about what is not said, but only implied.
So, here's an assignment. Go find a short story called "A Clean, Well-lighted place." Don't worry, it's only about 5 pages long. Read it. Marvel at how much is unspoken, but still there. Can you feel the grit on the floor? Smell the stale beer? Give it a moment-look in the old man's eyes. If you give the story a chance, I promise he will be real enough to do that.
That was Hemingway's genius.
But don't take my word for it. Go find the damn story. And stop by your local art gallery to see some impressionists. Boulevard is here in KC, so most of you won't be able to see it. But find what you can-the paintings work best when you are there in front of them. Oil, after all, is about texture, not just color and shape.
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1:32 pm - V for Vendetta
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So, what to gripe about today? Once again, I've been away for a bit. Once again, I doubt anyone really noticed. As a wise man once said, So Be It.
Enough babbling.
I'm actually a bit excited. I have plans to go see V for Vendetta this weekend, and I'm practically bouncing up and down in my chair with excitement. I love a good anti-establishment movie, and an explicitly anarchist movie done by the people who made the Matrix (and the awful sequels, but we'll leave that aside for now. It's enough to know they are capable of greatness) is even more exciting.
But wait-it gets better. The establishment media tyes, specifically the New Yorker and Roger "I look like everyone's grandma" Ebert have been all atwitter about the film. You see, it encourages people to question their government, and that's bad. Blowing it up is, apparently worse, although I can't imagine why.* Any movie the establishment or society thinks is dangerous is good with me. Anyway, I'm pumped as hell to see this. Ohboyohboyohboyohboy.
Next up-some thoughts on the whole anarchist thing.
A hint-I'm a philosophical anarchist, but not a practical one. I'll let you chew on that for a few hours.
Hasta la revolucion!
*Just kidding, DHS guys, just kidding!
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| Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
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5:32 pm - It was a pleasure to burn...
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The thing about being a reporter is that you're never really off-duty. The same is true of being a volunteer firefighter. This applies during lunch hours as well. I was in my apartment, about to settle down to a spicy chicken sandwich when three tones (the "listen up" noise that comes across fire radios) dropped. (Tones never sound...they always drop. I don't know why, but that's the lingo.) Two houses were on fire in the next town. My dept. had been summoned to help with a "large" brush fire about 8 miles away. So, I stopped by the office, grabbed the camera and went.
Large was right. A whole damn farm had gone up. 300 hay bales were burning, along with all the fields. God, I love it. Brush fires are, for me, as good as it gets in firefighting. There's the exileration of being surronded by fire, but the danger is less than with, say, a structure fire. Anyway, I won't bore you with details. I didn't have my gear, so I hooked up with our guys and rode around in the brush truck, mostly doing the "embedded reporter" thing. That wasn't my choice; the Assistant Chief (a position known as the Ass Chief in every station, everywhere) bitched my out for grabbing a hose and going after some logs without wearing any gear. Still, a better way to spend the day than sitting in the office reading news wires.
current mood:  satisfied
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1:29 pm - V-Day
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Another Valentines day, and more predictable kvetching about it. Is V-Day a bullshit holiday created by greeting card companies? Well, of course it is. However, if you're male and seeing someone that knowledge better not keep you from buying flowers. Even if you're dating the world's most boho, anti-coporate, anti-capitalist, non-conforming person on the planet...she'll still expect something. Flowers may be too conventional. Perhaps an interperative dance, a book of blank verse, or a chainsaw. Something unconventional. Vacuums are never an option.
I do, however, have to say this: displays of affection/gifts/whatever really only work when they're spontaneous. When they're expected, something is lost.
current mood: awake
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| Thursday, February 9th, 2006
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1:05 pm
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Big news: I'm baaa-aack. Back like those spectral indians in Poltergiest. Back like LL Cool J. Back like bell bottoms. Too much? Ok, then, I'm just back.
Since this blog functions as my own personal orgy of solipsism, I'll start with an update.
I'm still on the fire department, and and about 1/2 way through an EMT course. At the same time, a job offer with a bigger paper in a larger town looms on the horizon. I'm not sure if I want it, though. Here, I've got a lot of freedom and control, and do more or less what I want. Also, I don't want to leave the fire department. That job, and the people there, have become a big part of my life, and I'm not ready to leave that. Also, mirable dictu, I've run across a female-type person who can tolerate my company. That's a good thing, since the feeling is mutual.
Beyond that, there's not all that much happening. I aquired another cat a few months ago, and now officially qualify as a crazy cat guy. I still live in the beating heart of Lexington, although I think that heart may be a bit bradycardic.(That's a medical joke, folks. I'll be here all week.)
current mood: awake
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| Tuesday, November 1st, 2005
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10:42 am - Work, or something like it
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I honestly have no idea how I get anything done. Twice a week, I write about 2000 words, take a bunch of pictures, lay all that crap in and send it to the publisher. The problem is, I'm lazy. I spend a ton of time at work "thinking" or "coming up with story ideas." This is technical jargon meaning, "Sitting on my ass playing on the internet."
Somehow, though, the work eventually gets done. I have no idea how this comes about. I think the stories just sort of appear on my hard drive while I'm sipping a Code Red Mountain Dew and staring into space. Or, in this case, posting on LiveJournal.
Ah, well...more staring to be done, and all that.
current mood:  blank
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| Friday, October 28th, 2005
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9:46 pm - On a lighter note..
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I just finished watching Batman Begins. The verdict: pretty damn good. This one was less fantastic (in the sense of far-fetched) than the others, and still held on to the essentially dark feel of the best Batman stuff. No batdance, though-ah, well.
I do have one complaint: the fight scenes were so oddly lit, and filled with so many jump cuts and shifting perspectives that it was impossible to tell what was going on. All I picked up on were shadows on the screen and the sounds of ass beating. Still, a pretty damn good movie, and well worth a rental.
current mood: calm
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| Thursday, October 27th, 2005
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8:37 pm - A cheesy story about a punk kid
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In my first entry, I said that one of the things I wanted to talk about was punk music. Since this is a pretty personal subject for me, I'll just start with the outlines of my particular story:
First, you have to imagine the kid that was: 12 years old, red-haired, short, skinny, and bookish. That kid was actually fairly physically strong-years spend under a militaristic Chung Do Kwan instructor had left him able to snap out fifty or so knuckle push-ups and more than a hundred sit-ups without breaking much of a sweat-but he didn't know it. He did know that he seemed to think differently than other kids. It wasn't that he was smarter; he went to a private school and was surrounded by bright kids. He was more concerned with big, abstract ideas than any kids he knew. And, just in the past year or so, he had started to sense that things were screwed up, and he was starting to be very pissed.
So, that's who I was at 11 or twelve. And I was convinced that no one really felt the way I did. No one looked at the school and saw a place that was focused on instilling conformity and obedience. So, I ended up keeping those thoughts to myself. I feathered my hair, wore Ocean Pacific shirts, and did whatever else would ingratiate me with the cool kids. And, in at least one case, it worked.
My best friend at that time was a kid named Brian. Brian was everything a junior-high kid could want to be. He was blond haired, blue-eyed, athletic, and extremely bright. His parents were well off, even by the elevated standards of my school, and his clothes always seemed a bit newer and nicer than anyone else's. This particular entry, however, is not Brian's story, but a story about one kid and some music, so I'll leave the story of our friendship and its ugly end for another time.
Brian was also a punk. Not in a terribly obvious way, but he was a punker none the less. It was at his house that I first heard Black Flag. Alcoholics often talk about the rightness of that first drink-the feeling of “where have you been my whole life” For me, hearing that music was like that moment. The song itself was among the more banal of the Flag's. TV Party was a throw away song about drinking beer and watching television. While it didn't have the furious lyrics of their other work, the music itself was just as aggressive.
The guitar was the first thing that got me. Greg Ginn, the Flag's guitarist, was not technical or precise, but his riffs had a furious, burning intensity that more than compensated. Even without lyrics, his playing seethed. When I heard that first song, my response was sub-rational. As I said before, the words were banal. But the emotion seemed to encapsulate everything that had been going through my head. Whoever was playing that song was even angrier than I was.
Brian made me a copy of that song, but since my mother was on her way to pick me up, that was the only song I had time to record. Still, I listened to it over and over. This was near the end of sixth grade, and I didn't see Brian again until near the end of summer. By that time, he had made me a copy of the Repo Man soundtrack, which had songs several of the other seminal punk bands: the Circle Jerks, Fear, Iggy Pop, and a couple of others.
The next album I picked up was Black Flag's “Damaged.” that did it. The cover itself spoke for the whole album. It was a photo of a bald-headed man driving his fist into a mirror. The man's image was shattered, but the blood running over his fist was clearly visible. When I got the record home, the first song I heard was, perhaps, the ultimate punk anthem: Rise Above. What I had heard in the guitar was now expressed in the lyrics:
Society's arms of control
Rise above, we're gonna rise above*
Think they're smart, they can't think for themselves
*rise above, we're gonna rise above*
We..are tired..of you're abuse.
Try to stop us, but it's no use.
That was it. That was what I was thinking in a nutshell. Now, we're going to to move forward a bit. Remember that skinny, bookish kid in the preppy clothes? He went away. Picture him now, still skinny, but with spiked hair, wearing a Suicidal Tendencies T-shirt. His shoes and jacket are both covered with hand-drawn band logos and slogans. The kid who sometimes hung out with the teachers at recess now loudly mocks them in class. Getting tossed out of the classroom is a daily occurrence. At home, he spends him time listening to music at full-blast, and reading over what he thinks is truly revolutionary literature. His friends are also punkers, and they spend their time engaging in the sort of petty crime they think is real punk: they roam hotel hallways stealing miniature liquor bottles, the shoplift cigarettes, and they look for real trouble to get into. And all of them think our red-haired protagonist is getting a bit flaky.
I'll say this for Brian: He tried to warn me. He sat me down and told me about his sister, who was brilliant, but was now drifting in and out of serious trouble. She had been a good kid, too, before she discovered punk. Brain told me that she was so far into the whole ethos that she began writing the As in her name as Anarchy symbols. You can probably guess what I took from that conversation. I too, started using anarchy symbols for As.
From there, things went bad quickly. This is not the place to go into details, but I will say that at one point, I found myself in more trouble than I could have imagined at that age.
I didn't stop listening to punk after that, or even stop being a punk at heart. I still pulled out those albums from time to time, and have continued to do so in the intervening years. Always, though, there's been the sense that I needed to tread carefully. As someone once said, “That way lies madness.”
I just said I was still a punk at heart, and I guess I should explain that. To me, it was never about the music per se, and it certainly wasn't about the hair or clothes, or any of that shit. It was about questioning everything, and viewing abstact institutions like society or the system with a healthy skepticism, if not outright loathing and terror. Years later, when I read One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest, I understood immediately what Chief Broom meant when he talked about the Combine. It's out there, and it does want to make you small.
When I say I'm a punk at heart, that's what I mean. I don't trust institutions, I don't trust authority, and I will always try my best to do my own thinking, thank you very much. Sometimes, pulling out an old Minor Threat or Dead Kennedys album helps me remember that youthful sense of anger and instinctive rebellion. That is, I suppose, the same reason I got a Black Flag tattoo several years ago. It's not about the band itself...It's about remembering.
current mood: artistic
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| Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
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9:32 pm
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By the way, 'unmutual' is a reference to the television show The Prisoner. Check it out if you've never seen it.
current mood: awake
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7:14 pm - An introductory bit of blather
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It occurred to me that what the world really needs is another blog. More to the point, the world needs my wit and wisdom. Millions can benefit from my nearly omnicient musings about whatever.
No?
OK. This blog, like most others, is an exercise in solopsism. It is not a place for my more formal writing. Most of my posts here will be of the more personal variety. I'm not sure what I'll put up here, but some subjects I want to talk about at some point include:
Punk music
Rebellion, and what an essentially unmutual type of person does when faced with the horrific prospect of age, the need to make a living, and the necessity of maintaing some sort of respectibility.
Cars. I like 'em.
Books. I like those too.
By now, you're probably wondering who I am, and want to hear all about my life and all that Holden Caulfield crap. I'm the son of rage and love. No. I'm the kid your parents thought was a bad influence. Closer. I supose I'm a lot of things. Rather than write up some deep bio, I'll just post a non-inclusive list:
A small-town journalist
An aspiring real writer
Yes, an old punker.
A drummer and a half-assed bass player
A former Marine
A current Air Force Reservist
A volunteer firefighter
An avid cyclist
An armchair philosopher
All this and more. At anyrate, stay tuned for occasional outpourings of..well, whatever.
Mark
current mood:  Just show me a windmill..
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