Not a masterwork but pretty good, The Messenger tells the story of two messengers of the Army's Casualty Notification Service (CNS) – Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) and Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson). CNS officers (acronyms are a shorthand for military perspective in The Messenger) are assigned to tell the news of a soldier's death to the soldier's next of kin (NOK). Montgomery has just returned from a combat tour and was wounded in battle. He is assigned to work with the more experienced Stone. Though somewhat episodic, the majority of The Messenger concerns the relationship between Montgomery and Stone.
Structurally, the narrative of Montgomery and Stone frames a series of smaller narratives. Every time Montgomery or Stone tells a family member a soldier has died, that telling is a small narrative. Each of those smaller narratives is, in a way, contained within the larger narrative of Montgomery and Stone. As a tactic, this narratives within narrative structure allows The Messenger to portray loss of massive scope – news of death comes to many families in many ways, with the narrative of Montgomery and Stone holding everything together. The larger narrative of Montgomery and Stone is engaging, fairly smart, semi-conventional, and extraordinarily well acted. However, the smaller narratives are more forceful. Knowing this, director Oren Moverman allows these smaller narratives to invade the narrative of Montgomery and Stone, and, eventually, the narratives of the wars themselves. About halfway through the movie, while Stone is watching T.V., a single line reminds us that CNS is nationwide: “I think they oughta put every funeral on T.V.” says Stone. But this is not a political movie – this is a movie about loss.
It's also a strangely meta-filmic movie. Montgomery's and Stone's telling of killings is rigidly scripted by the Army, and Montgomery and Stone attempt to perform the script with detachment. Almost all of the performances go somewhat awry – who, after all, could react rationally to the delivery or reception of such news? This self-reference points to the constructed nature of The Messenger. I'm reminded of something the novelist Orhan Pamuk once said - “I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story.” Another, darker, question arises – are Montgomery's and Stone's performances to the families of killed soldiers related to Foster's and Harrelson's – the movie's – performances to us? As The Messenger relates, the actual news of a soldier's death could be related to the family by email or telegram, but a social want has created the CNS and the assignments of Montgomery and Stone. As “Home, Home on the Range” played over the closing credits, I wondered how our society will further process the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as they drag on, becoming more deadly and abstract.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
William S. Burroughs - Thanksgiving Prayer
An all-time favorite. Enjoy the break!
Thanksgiving Prayer By: William S. Burroughs
Seek Perfection | MySpace Video
Thanksgiving Prayer By: William S. Burroughs
Seek Perfection | MySpace Video
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Tree Knees
Here are some pictures of some tree knees (found off the internet). Some of Taryn's forms remind me of them. At Caddo Lake in East Texas they are everywhere...it's almost as if you are surrounded by some sort of mythological creatures...and if you look just right, they'll trick you into thinking they are moving :) But I suppose it's just their reflections in the water.
AC/IC
Hi all. I finally posted the first podcast of Arts & Culture Iowa City on the internets. I'll copy the post here. Enjoy tape-recorded goodness of this month's art walk.
Sara Black (Material Exchange), Visiting Artist
Eric Asboe & John Engelbrecht, Understanding the Understood - Arts Iowa City
Michael Meyers , Musician and Sculptor - Washington & Dubuque
Sean Alexander, Back to the World - Public Space One
Caleb Engstrom, Dia de los Muertos - BS Gallery
Monday, November 16, 2009
For the Record
Goblin Valley is actually in Utah
http://photosandsuch.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/goblin-valley-state-park-the-goblins/
http://photosandsuch.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/goblin-valley-state-park-the-goblins/
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Eileen Myles reading
This Tuesday at 7pm at Prairie Lights, the poet Eileen Myles will read from her collection of art essays, The Importance of Being Iceland. Details here: http://www.prairielights.com/eileen-myles
Thursday, November 12, 2009
"I Used to Call Myself Elvis"
I just received the email below about a talk next Thursday on Indian call centers. Thought some of you might be interested. Jesse, this could relate to some of your investigations regarding work environment. In this case, the employees are required to wear a mask...
International Programs and the South Asian Studies Program
Present a free public lecture:
“I Used to Call Myself 'Elvis’:
The Politics of Experience in Indian Call Centers”
Aimee Carrillo Rowe
Associate Professor of Rhetoric, POROI (Project on the Rhetoric
Of Inquiry), and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies
Indian call center agents become estranged from their immediate surroundings
as they stretch their imaginations and identities to meet American customers
in the virtual space of the telephone call. Drawing on interviews with fifty
call center workers, this presentation considers the implications of the
particular demands of their transnational labor for agents’ sense of
embodied being.
Thursday, Nov. 19, 4:00 PM
1117 University Capitol Center
Chai and snacks will be served.
For more information on this presentation or for special accommodations to
attend, please contact Heidi Vekemans, Events Coordinator, UI International
Programs, at (319) 335-3862 or heidi-vekemans@uiowa.edu
International Programs and the South Asian Studies Program
Present a free public lecture:
“I Used to Call Myself 'Elvis’:
The Politics of Experience in Indian Call Centers”
Aimee Carrillo Rowe
Associate Professor of Rhetoric, POROI (Project on the Rhetoric
Of Inquiry), and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies
Indian call center agents become estranged from their immediate surroundings
as they stretch their imaginations and identities to meet American customers
in the virtual space of the telephone call. Drawing on interviews with fifty
call center workers, this presentation considers the implications of the
particular demands of their transnational labor for agents’ sense of
embodied being.
Thursday, Nov. 19, 4:00 PM
1117 University Capitol Center
Chai and snacks will be served.
For more information on this presentation or for special accommodations to
attend, please contact Heidi Vekemans, Events Coordinator, UI International
Programs, at (319) 335-3862 or heidi-vekemans@uiowa.edu
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Reefer Madness opens Nov. 13
My thesis production, Reefer Madness; the Musical, opens this Friday Nov. 13.
All performances are at the theatre building in Mabie Theatre. Tickets are still available, but they are going pretty fast.
There are performances Nov. 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 at 8 PM. There is also a performance at 2:00 PM on Nov. 15.
Admission is $5 for students. For more info, go to http://www.uiowa.edu/~theatre/season/tickets.htm. You can buy your tickets there or at the Hancher Box Office in the Old Capitol Mall.
Hope to see you there!
All performances are at the theatre building in Mabie Theatre. Tickets are still available, but they are going pretty fast.
There are performances Nov. 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 at 8 PM. There is also a performance at 2:00 PM on Nov. 15.
Admission is $5 for students. For more info, go to http://www.uiowa.edu/~theatre/season/tickets.htm. You can buy your tickets there or at the Hancher Box Office in the Old Capitol Mall.
Hope to see you there!
SOFA Chicago
The annual Sculpture Objects and Functional Art Expo (SOFA) took place in Chicago this past weekend, November 6-8. True to its name, only objects were included, with jewelry, woodturning, hand blown & cast glass, and ceramics dominating the show. I went to help my boyfriend, a sculptor, set up and take down a piece included in a woodturning exhibit.
Self-described as “The world’s foremost fairs of Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design” (www.sofaexpo.com), SOFA is primarily known as a crafts exhibition. The range of artists is diverse, however, and while some artists fit firmly within the craft tradition, others are clearly engaged in the language of sculpture, installation, and the fine art tradition. Conversations about art and craft abounded, which is a long-standing debate that I do not intend to solve in one blog post. I am interested in that intersection, however, and was expecting to see cutting edge designs of functional objects. But it was disappointing to see the number of overly decorative objects that did not really question that boundary, or function comfortably in either language. For example, ornate hand blown glass teapots that neither function as teapots nor fine art objects seem purposeless as anything other than coffee table decoration. The result is that the most successful works were usually the traditional objects that retain their function. This undercut the wonderful tension that could have happened between traditional functional work, traditional sculptural objects, and hybrids of the two. So if this is not the point, I had to wonder what the point really is.
Being a newbie to SOFA, and an outsider to functional art, the general atmosphere was of great interest to me. High-rolling galleries pay tens of thousands of dollars for a small booth space, with more well-established and wealthy galleries taking up several spaces to show off expensive hand blown glass and other objects. In fact, to even have an artwork anywhere in the expo, including the juried & invitational’s, the artist must be represented by a commercial gallery. And while there were some red dots indicating sold works, for the most part it seemed these galleries must be taking a loss, especially considering the far distances they travel and ship the works to get to Chicago. Indeed, it seems that the whole point is more about bragging rights for galleries than showing new works of functional art. Being at SOFA shows that a gallery has the resources to ship several dozen valuable and fragile objects and representatives halfway across the country. As it turns out, I think this is the over-arching message of SOFA – which galleries can best keep up the appearance of success, in order to hopefully perpetuate it.
Self-described as “The world’s foremost fairs of Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design” (www.sofaexpo.com), SOFA is primarily known as a crafts exhibition. The range of artists is diverse, however, and while some artists fit firmly within the craft tradition, others are clearly engaged in the language of sculpture, installation, and the fine art tradition. Conversations about art and craft abounded, which is a long-standing debate that I do not intend to solve in one blog post. I am interested in that intersection, however, and was expecting to see cutting edge designs of functional objects. But it was disappointing to see the number of overly decorative objects that did not really question that boundary, or function comfortably in either language. For example, ornate hand blown glass teapots that neither function as teapots nor fine art objects seem purposeless as anything other than coffee table decoration. The result is that the most successful works were usually the traditional objects that retain their function. This undercut the wonderful tension that could have happened between traditional functional work, traditional sculptural objects, and hybrids of the two. So if this is not the point, I had to wonder what the point really is.
Being a newbie to SOFA, and an outsider to functional art, the general atmosphere was of great interest to me. High-rolling galleries pay tens of thousands of dollars for a small booth space, with more well-established and wealthy galleries taking up several spaces to show off expensive hand blown glass and other objects. In fact, to even have an artwork anywhere in the expo, including the juried & invitational’s, the artist must be represented by a commercial gallery. And while there were some red dots indicating sold works, for the most part it seemed these galleries must be taking a loss, especially considering the far distances they travel and ship the works to get to Chicago. Indeed, it seems that the whole point is more about bragging rights for galleries than showing new works of functional art. Being at SOFA shows that a gallery has the resources to ship several dozen valuable and fragile objects and representatives halfway across the country. As it turns out, I think this is the over-arching message of SOFA – which galleries can best keep up the appearance of success, in order to hopefully perpetuate it.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Gretel Ehrlich
Gretel Ehrlich will be speaking this Wednesday (tomorrow) at:
101 Becker Communications Building, 7 p.m.
I was introduced to Ehrlich's writing via recommendation from Jeff Porter, who teaches in the English Department. Her book "The Solace of Open Spaces" is an essay about her experiences living in rural Wyoming. After the death of her partner, she left her career as a filmmaker in New York and decided to work on a sheep farm in Wyoming-- in her writings, she wanders from Western culture and rodeos to the relationships, landscape... You can read more about her here:
http://www.parkcentralwebs.com/GretelEhrlich/bio.asp
101 Becker Communications Building, 7 p.m.
I was introduced to Ehrlich's writing via recommendation from Jeff Porter, who teaches in the English Department. Her book "The Solace of Open Spaces" is an essay about her experiences living in rural Wyoming. After the death of her partner, she left her career as a filmmaker in New York and decided to work on a sheep farm in Wyoming-- in her writings, she wanders from Western culture and rodeos to the relationships, landscape... You can read more about her here:
http://www.parkcentralwebs.com/GretelEhrlich/bio.asp
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Lisa Jarnot online
a selection of poems: http://epc.buffalo.edu/ezines/alyric/jarnot.html
http://jacketmagazine.com/06/jarnot.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182438
and interviews: http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/Jarnot.htm
http://herecomeseverybody.blogspot.com/2004/10/lisa-jarnot-was-born-in-buffalo-new.html
http://jacketmagazine.com/06/jarnot.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182438
and interviews: http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/Jarnot.htm
http://herecomeseverybody.blogspot.com/2004/10/lisa-jarnot-was-born-in-buffalo-new.html
Lisa Jarnot's Ecclesiastical Sensibility
The author of Ecclesiastes begins by declaring that human efforts are to no end--- that, when considered in relation to the vastness and inevitability of the natural world’s cycles, they seem erased.
Because these cycles amount to a seemingly endless process of doing and undoing, neither human vision nor human description can sufficiently capture them (“All such things are wearisome: / No man can ever state them; / The eye never has enough of seeing, / Nor the ear enough of hearing.”).
“There is nothing new / Beneath the sun!” The designation of newness rests upon the impoverished (partial) apprehensions and descriptions of a human subject, inevitably of a broader domain (“Only that shall happen / Which has happened, / Only that occur / Which has occurred;”).
Time is, of course, not only death’s but also song’s first contingency. Lisa Jarnot, in the writing of lyric, anaphoric poems, finds a way of dealing with desire without expressing intention.
In an indexical process oriented by a moving (between the location of the poet’s body, the objects of her direct sight, and a more expansive imaginative sphere) I, the needs and limitations of the body are treated as means (and this index’s sequence determined by sound rather than semantics).
In doing so, this work treats human mortality both as that which separates the speaker from the vast scale of the natural world and its cycles--- ensuring that no person’s vision or speech can ever have a one-to-one relationship with the thing to which it corresponds (Borges tells of an empire that loved map making..)--- and as but one of many things (animals, for example) subjected to the natural world’s cycles of destruction and creation.
Because these cycles amount to a seemingly endless process of doing and undoing, neither human vision nor human description can sufficiently capture them (“All such things are wearisome: / No man can ever state them; / The eye never has enough of seeing, / Nor the ear enough of hearing.”).
“There is nothing new / Beneath the sun!” The designation of newness rests upon the impoverished (partial) apprehensions and descriptions of a human subject, inevitably of a broader domain (“Only that shall happen / Which has happened, / Only that occur / Which has occurred;”).
Time is, of course, not only death’s but also song’s first contingency. Lisa Jarnot, in the writing of lyric, anaphoric poems, finds a way of dealing with desire without expressing intention.
In an indexical process oriented by a moving (between the location of the poet’s body, the objects of her direct sight, and a more expansive imaginative sphere) I, the needs and limitations of the body are treated as means (and this index’s sequence determined by sound rather than semantics).
In doing so, this work treats human mortality both as that which separates the speaker from the vast scale of the natural world and its cycles--- ensuring that no person’s vision or speech can ever have a one-to-one relationship with the thing to which it corresponds (Borges tells of an empire that loved map making..)--- and as but one of many things (animals, for example) subjected to the natural world’s cycles of destruction and creation.
Friday, November 6, 2009
a basic definition
"In its most basic definition, ghostriding the whip involves a car in motion with no one operating it. The closest thing that can come to describing ghostriding the whip is perhaps the Chinese fire drill that was popular back in the 1950s. However, unlike the Chinese fire drill the car remains in motion with no urgency to get back into it. In fact, the driver and passengers will walk next to the car as it casually rolls down the street, with thumping music playing at extreme volumes as the riders participate in free-form dance within close proximity to the car. Often the occupants of the vehicle will climb on the hood and roof, expressing themselves in dance high atop the automobile."
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Open to Reaction
Open to reaction.
A struggle I have personally been facing, and often feel that swarms of other people, who are drifting around or passing through me as time pulses on are also enduring, is the problem of vacancy. By this I am referring to a state of self that seems devoid of personal value or fulfillment of which encourages the daily spontaneity and excitement of existence. It seems, and perhaps I am prescribing my own sense of inadequacy to the emotional tone of the general public in a sweeping self-referential manner, that life has lost some luster in the face of this abject time period. In reflecting on this sullen sense of self I wandered into the rental store to find some solace in a science fiction film that would perhaps portray future humans in some sort of Utopian escapade flaunting happiness in their strides and conversations. Instead I found a film called “My Dinner with Andre”. This movie turned out to be a philosophical entre that caused me to want seconds. I use this sort of pun only because the entire movie is centered at a dinner table in a chic New York City restaurant, where two men are reunited and as they find their way through the layered courses of the dinner seem to also peel off the layers of their own lives and, unintentionally, explore a philosophical folly of their varied experiences while apart. One, Andre, reflects on the nature of his mystical search and attempts to suture the value of a life spent seeking abroad to the potential adventure and excitement of the daily routine of living in New York City apartment. The other, Wally, seeks to find the purposefulness in expanding his scope and questioning the plausibility of living an open and engaged lifestyle in which he might see the world as it is; in other words removing his narrowed blinders in order to allow the expansiveness of life to present itself within the moment.
Now I don’t feel the need to get into too much detail, as I cannot do justice to the transient poetry of this dialogue. So I will instead include a clip, approximately 9 minutes in length, of which you should not feel obligated to watch in its entirety although I would encourage seeing the whole film. For anyone who has posed the question of honesty or contrivance or intention or authenticity of their work, or life outside their work for that matter, I think should find this to be very inspiring, if not at least interesting. Also before I get to far ahead I would like to propose that this introduction to the clip is not intended to set the stage of a dismally gray posting, but instead is the platform for which hope and encouragement and vivacity are given room to perform and defy the sheepish or remote nature of our personalities, where these things seem to be enveloped at this time and perhaps need some insistence to emerge.
A struggle I have personally been facing, and often feel that swarms of other people, who are drifting around or passing through me as time pulses on are also enduring, is the problem of vacancy. By this I am referring to a state of self that seems devoid of personal value or fulfillment of which encourages the daily spontaneity and excitement of existence. It seems, and perhaps I am prescribing my own sense of inadequacy to the emotional tone of the general public in a sweeping self-referential manner, that life has lost some luster in the face of this abject time period. In reflecting on this sullen sense of self I wandered into the rental store to find some solace in a science fiction film that would perhaps portray future humans in some sort of Utopian escapade flaunting happiness in their strides and conversations. Instead I found a film called “My Dinner with Andre”. This movie turned out to be a philosophical entre that caused me to want seconds. I use this sort of pun only because the entire movie is centered at a dinner table in a chic New York City restaurant, where two men are reunited and as they find their way through the layered courses of the dinner seem to also peel off the layers of their own lives and, unintentionally, explore a philosophical folly of their varied experiences while apart. One, Andre, reflects on the nature of his mystical search and attempts to suture the value of a life spent seeking abroad to the potential adventure and excitement of the daily routine of living in New York City apartment. The other, Wally, seeks to find the purposefulness in expanding his scope and questioning the plausibility of living an open and engaged lifestyle in which he might see the world as it is; in other words removing his narrowed blinders in order to allow the expansiveness of life to present itself within the moment.
Now I don’t feel the need to get into too much detail, as I cannot do justice to the transient poetry of this dialogue. So I will instead include a clip, approximately 9 minutes in length, of which you should not feel obligated to watch in its entirety although I would encourage seeing the whole film. For anyone who has posed the question of honesty or contrivance or intention or authenticity of their work, or life outside their work for that matter, I think should find this to be very inspiring, if not at least interesting. Also before I get to far ahead I would like to propose that this introduction to the clip is not intended to set the stage of a dismally gray posting, but instead is the platform for which hope and encouragement and vivacity are given room to perform and defy the sheepish or remote nature of our personalities, where these things seem to be enveloped at this time and perhaps need some insistence to emerge.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)