Well, struggling to keep this thing going weekly. So here's a quick one just to try to get back in the rhythm.
Really not sure what to write about, so I suppose I can take advantage of my still recent role as a father. I'm still amazed by how quickly that transition happened. I imagined an adjustment like any big event life: moving to a new city, going to college, getting married. But becoming a father, it just changed. One day I wasn't a father and the next I was. I wonder if this is something all fathers feel.
The little guy is going to be 4 months old later this month. I'm sure I've come a long way since that first day my son came home. But I never felt like I was learning on the job. Sure, I was bad at it for a while. And I'm sure I have a lot to learn. But I've felt up to the task (even when maybe I wasn't) since day one. It feels like I was reprogrammed. It's magical, which is to say it's amazing and a little scary.
Sometimes social media shows itself to be the strange lens that it is. Lately, I’ve had this experience with Game of Thrones, the popular TV show (I mention for posterity or anyone waking from a coma), where I find that the more people dislike the latest episodes, the more I tend to like them. And this isn’t just people in their free time, but reporters and other professionals laying out elaborate analyses of just how this show has gone off the rails. Many even saying the GoT staff should apologize or, stunt or not, remake the final season.
The fault, dear viewers, is not in the art, but in ourselves. For one, social media gives us the illusion of power to dictate how our media should be made. I say “illusion” here in the hope that we succeed less than we have already. I’m certain that most of the media we consume is made by people imagining how it might be tweeted about. It’s a scary world where art is democratized.
Also, I think the distaste for how Game of Thrones is ending is a symptom of our feasting on the candy of superhero narratives for the last decade. Not that I have anything against superhero narratives. But for the last decade Hollywood has been saved by a constant outpouring of comic book superheroes from our childhood.We’ve grown so soft from these narratives that it seems we can’t recognize tragedy even as we’re watching it unfold.
The story people are coming down from, the Avengers, ended with a guy snapping his fingers and making the world back to what it was. Granted, we are watching fantasy here (both in narrative and in every great hero also having their own great costume designers) but the idea that things can become so terrible and that a magical act of sacrifice will not only stop the worst from getting worse, but will put everything back the way it was before is, well, Disney as it’s always been.
Game of Thrones final episodes works to wake us from this fantasy. (Yes, I am talking about the show with dragons and ice zombies, but at its best—why we all fell for this show—these aspects are meant to show us humanity from a new perspective.)The superhero of GoT is made historically accurate. The Iron Man of the last eight seasons becomes Thanos in the penultimate episode. Daenerys is elevated to such power that she becomes a brutal dictator (the image and the speech clearly meant to hit all the notes of 20th-century fascism/Stalinism).
The only complaint I agreed with regarding this last season is that this turn in Daenerys felt rushed. But with the final episode I see that this transition happening in just two episodes was intentional. Liberators can become tyrants in the blink of an eye. Take your pick from history.
In the end, Game of Thrones, in part at least, wound up being an allegory about absolutism and revolution. The wheel that had to be broken was not just that of kings and rulers seeking power, but of an underclass defeating the ruling class and then becoming the ruling class only to become corrupt and taken over again. Compromise is the message, or at least the political message, of this tragedy.
As painful as it is to come down from this sugar high, thank god we have Game of Thrones to pull us back into balance.
Depth of character does not come in always winning. It comes when we see heroes torn down in their prime, or decay before our eyes. It also serves to remind us that the world is not as simple as good conquering over evil. The decisions we make in life should come with caution, not just a rally cry.
I missed last week. Sorry all. Had a bit of a stomach bug that had me hurrying to get ready for the week of work. But also, I have this week off!
So, I figured now would be a good time to tell the world about Super-Golden Week. This week marks the end of an era in Japan, literally. A new emperor will be named and in the land of 12-hour, six-day work weeks, everyone--well, arguably many people--will have the longest holiday they have seen: 10 solid days off. That is, unless you have any responsibility involving the calendar changes. The year in Japan will be going from Hesei 31 to Reiwa 1 on May 1st. This means there will be countless Japanese IT workers chewing on pens at midnight the way the world did for y2k.
For many people though, it seems a great time to travel, camp and relax. I hope this is truly the case.
As I'm sure many reading this know, those of us here who are not Japanese live a blessed life. Though there are of course certain problems (glass, nay, concrete ceilings, always being an "outsider") for the most part (and I know there are exceptions; and in particular with people newly emigrating from other parts of Asia to do manual labor) we're not expected to pull the crazy hours that our colleagues must.
Some of you not in Japan may have just a sense of how much people work here, so let me clarify it for you. Many white-collar workers in Japan work hours of overtime everyday. Many people with well-paying jobs are expected to work most weekends too; some people I know work 6-days a week every week, others get only a few days off a month. In addition to this, many are also expected to work through part or all of the longer holidays (Golden Week this time around being an exception) and are expected not to take contracted days off work.
People actually die of overwork here. Not suicide due to overwork (although this happens frequently enough) but die of exhaustion.
I don't think this nonstop-work is the case for all workers here, but it is for enough that it seems the norm. And with very little interest from the powers that be to enforce any restrictions, it seems to be a growing trend. It's a hard life.
I worry in particular about having a family here because I think my immunity to working those hours (or, in other words, the fact I have the work I do have) is achievable only that I'm not Japanese. Though my son may grow up to be better than me at the work I do, he'll be expected to preform his duties as a Japanese citizen.
So, for those of you reading this who, like me, have found a way to enjoy these long breaks from work and make a living, let's keep in mind those of our friends, colleagues and family who are still plugging away. Let's help Japan make much needed reform or help our help the next generation find a way away from this country working them to death.
Every so often there's a link to an article on Facebook about a poacher or big-game hunter being killed by some animal. It used to be I'd only see such stories celebrated on Ricky Gervais' page, but just this week I've seen (and I imagine many of you have seen) an article shared from news sources including CBS News and The Guardian about a poacher being trampled by elephants and then eaten by lions. Usually this article is shared with some joke about karma and many people laughing about it.
I find this troubling for a few reasons. But first let me say I am on the poacher side here, but the human side. I find it odd to celebrate the death of some unknown person doing an illegal act that doesn't involve harming other people. I mean if, say, a cocaine dealer was murdered by one of his clients, would we similarly celebrate? Even though this is a person much more directly harming other people? Further, many of the same people I see celebrating animal justice are also fervently against capital punishment. Again, not supporting either position here, but I just find it a strange dichotomy.
Another interesting aspect of this is that many of those so adamantly for the animals in this situation, have never seen these animals outside of a zoo. I, like many of those I see sharing these articles, see lions and elephants much in the way Europeans did hundreds of years ago; they are semi-magical creatures from another content. Although, unlike Europeans of previous centuries, instead of wanting their skins on a wall, I find their lives to hold more value than chickens and cows. That seems obvious I suppose, but why? I've touched cows and chickens, I've never touched an elephant or lion. Perhaps this distance keeps these animals in their majestic state?
But here's the unsettling part: does celebrating the death of a poacher over the death of a criminal whose victims are human place the lives of these animals over the lives of humans? Again, I think those who break such laws (abusing animals, threatening a species, etc) should be punished, but should the punishment be death? And you might say, "Well, this is nature acting, not society," but does that mean we should celebrate it? How far removed is the act of celebrating the death of a poacher and killing a poacher? Are we heading for a world where killing a poacher will be seen as fair punishment? Are we already there?
With this, another question, what is the life of a poacher? How many of us can imagine any likely details outside of killing rare animals illegally for money? Are they rich? Are they desperate? In either case, what do we think these words translate to in their world? That is, if they are rich, what is "rich" to them? I don't imagine them idling they Porsche in front of Starbucks on their day off. If desperate, what is that to them? Like the lions and elephants, their roles in this are also preserved in their distance from ourselves. The poacher too is a semi-magical creature.
Pardon this self-help guru opening, but I want to share a secret with you. This is definitely the most valuable thing I’ve learned in life. Many of you may already know it, but it never hurts to say it again—and I could really use hearing it again. It’s this: that if you want to do anything in life, it’s all about establishing routine. This can be for good or bad, of course, but you can also replace bad routines with good ones. The only hard part is starting. Especially, I find, when it comes to restarting.
I’ve been trying to get back into writing. (Hence, the stuttering restart of this blog.) I feel like I forgot how to ride a bicycle.
When I first came to Japan some 10 years ago, I was a marathon writer. (I suppose it helped to reset my entire life by picking up and dropping myself off on the other side of the world with two pieces of luggage and pretty much no knowledge of the local language.) I used to go to a cafe after dinner and spend 2 hours every night working on my poetry. I even had the days down to a routine. First, I would read some poetry by some real masters of the craft, ideally works and voices that were in tune with what I was working on at the time. After about 30 minutes of that, I would try starting a new poem. This sometimes just led to some journal writing with a few images, or at other times would pick right up into laying out lines and stanzas. After finding a stopping point there, I would begin editing poems I had started and preparing them to be put into submission packs.
This worked really well. While I wasn’t spending long days on single works (like during my MFA days) I was steadily producing decent work. Some of it not so great, but some of it really good. Without a doubt this was when I was getting the most readership I had had.
Then, as happens, the system broke down. There were some factors that led to this. Success definitely lowered my own standards on myself, and possibly those of editors I was writing to. Also, I feel that I was beginning to try to write poems that were more like the ones that were being excepted into journals. However, it was when I broke from this that I found I was publishing less. Then again, at the same time I was trying to publish is harder markets at the same time, so of course I was publishing less. In the end, actually, rejections probably were what wore me down. I was still writing, but only occasionally. And it grows more and more difficult to move through the medium and to find that flow.
Over years of only occasionally coming back to it, I’ve decided to give the routine another go. I know expecting the same level of work from myself now as at my peak would be a brutal attack on myself. Maybe this is why it’s so much harder to come back to something? That you can’t help but compare yourself now to who you were? No matter how fast it comes back, stumbling through what was once effortless (well, relatively effortless) can be enough to kill any effort.
Anyway, the plan is to keep this blog posting thing up on a weekly basis and then start putting in a couple hours a week for more creative writing ventures.
In conjunction with this, I’m thinking to post up some of the poems I’ve written more recently that haven’t found a home in any journals and maybe along with some comments on them. I know this is not really what poets do usually. But I watched Bill Knott put his work out there at a furious pace in his blog back when I was spending my nights at cafes. He would post several times a day, replacing drafts with markings and comments and posting full volumes of his work. It was something special. I am not the master Bill was, but I think what he did should not be seen as taboo. The internet has altered all communication, it’s up to us to make those changes for the best.
Another delay, but I think next week will see some chance to get a rhythm going.
I just finished this huge project that ate up these last 2 weeks. Not sure how much I can say about it, but I think I can say that I spent many hours reading mostly terrible translations of Japanese phrases into English. There were some really good ones as well, but even those were 99% of the time clearly off the mark.
I really don't know why Japanese businesses are seeking out Japanese people to translate Japanese into English. As I've learned in studying Japanese (and heard from others who are more proficient in the language than I), translating into a second language is a recipe for disaster. There are a few people that can do it without many errors, but there will always be errors. Perhaps in languages with a common root it's not so bad, but when you're going from something as broad as the East to the West or the West to the East, you need native fluency on your side.
I've thought about this a lot lately (especially after reading this article). With all that Japan is doing to prepare for its cosmopolitan debute in 2020, hopefully they'll realize that when they want to communicate with the world, breathe out with Westerners, breathe in with Japanese.
After many years of trash talking language-proficiency tests of all kinds, I finally decided to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (the one and only JLPT) last year, and I'm currently studying to take it again this summer.
The reason I hated--and in many ways still hate--such tests, is that I feel they often aren't used as a measure of one's skills, but as a method of studying to reach a level mastery. The fatal flaw in this, of course, is that studying for a test only makes you more proficient at that test.
Or at least so I believed over these last few years. Friends had told me, though, that having a goal really kicks your studying into gear. And they were right. Before I signed up for the JLPT last summer, I was mostly reviewing material I had been trying to bring into my everyday conversations and occasionally adding new material but with no real system to it. It was like I thought some word or phrase was interesting or useful and I'd try to memorize it. But after signing up, I began studying the test material and adding new words, grammatical structures, and reaching up with my reading at an intense rate.
I definitely improved my vocabulary and reading ability. However, I know that in this time and as I continue to study my speaking ability is getting worse and worse.
This is something I often see in my students of English as they begin to study for English proficiency tests. My youngest students become more and more comfortable conversing in English, but when the testing begins, they stop talking and start memorizing.
It's like if I give you a toolbox and a hammer and a screwdriver, then teach you how to use those two tools, you'll get comfortable using them. When you see a nail you'll think "My hammer can handle that." But then one day I come and give you a hundred tools and say, "Okay, I'm going to teach you how these work this week," after that week you see a nail and you begin thinking, "Um. I think the hammer could work this. But I also have this claw, this mallet, oh and that finishing hammer." So after a few moments of panic, you decide to just leave the nail hanging out there.
Still, eliminating such tests is certainly not a solution. But I think language learners, especially young learners whose parents haven't mastered a second language, must be careful not to lose balance between gaining knowledge of a language and gaining use of a language. Too often the tests win out. It's far easier to praise a grade then it is to praise one's ability to accomplish tasks in a learned language when those opportunities are so limited when the language is not the local language.
Anyway, as I said, I've decided to take this test again. I'm hoping that having it on my resume will help me make a move into some new fields of work, but I also hope that studying for this test will also improve my writing and reading comprehension. But I'm definitely going to spend less time buried in books this time around and be sure to get out and speak to people more. What use is learning a language if you all you can do is take it in? Keep that output up, folks.
And, hey, that goes for all this messaging and social media stuff too. Knowing how to talk and knowing how to read a book are very different things than talking to people and reading books. If we don't use it, we'll certainly lose it.
Well, that's enough rambling from me. Sorry for the lack of editing on here. Hope you enjoyed the read! Email me!
A little behind on my weekly promise, but I have a good excuse. On February 19th my wife gave birth to our son, Alexander.
It was a wild couple of weeks, but in the end we're all home safe and sound.
Alex really digs his sleep, so we're also blessed in that way, too. Forgive me for sparing you all the baby pictures, but my wife and I have decided to keep Alex off social media until he's old enough to know what the Internet is and whether he'd like his image all over it or not. It is hard not to splash him up for the world to see (as far as babies go, he is indeed among the cute), and I have of course emailed photos to friends and family that are just too far away to see him. But I can't help thinking back to my own childhood, and really my life now. That no one reading this can simply search and find my baby photos is a very nice thing to know. Privacy is a treasure, and giving it away (as I often do with my life as an adult (case in point)) comes with its own rewards, but I feel that giving away his privacy (well, the privacy of the person he will become) is something I don't have the right to do.
So, if you want to see pictures of my son in varying states of sleepiness, you'll have to catch me in person.
For now though, I'll be happy to describe him to you! (Feel free to skip to the next section if the description of a baby doesn't strike you as an exciting read.)
Well, he came into the world at 10 pounds and 22 inches long with a full head of hair, big ol jowls, and a thespian's range for facial expressions while defecating. His eyes are lightening from the nearly-black brown they were at birth as he gets some sun. He loves staring out the window. A lot of his day he spends looking at the sky. He rarely gets fussy outside of diaper and feed-me time, but when he does he usually just wants to be carried around and rocked a bit. The only hard part is he fights off sleep when he's being held so unless he's exhausted it's nearly impossible to get him to sleep this way. When he gets a belly full of milk though, he'll be out for four hours easily.
I wonder if all that is maybe worse than a photo or two? Well, here's to the old gods of print.
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As for the poetry I've been thinking about sharing here, I'm still thinking about it. I've since placed one of them with a blog (liveneudepoems.com) and I'm still thinking to share a few here. Maybe even with some commentary if I feel I might get some readers. So, watch this space.
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In other news, there were a couple of incidents that occurred over these last two weeks that really got to me that I'd hate to taint this post with, so I'll leave them for another entry. Next week!
For starters, I doubt most of those links to the right work. And much has happened between now and when I started this blog, so apologies for any inconsistencies. I've considered giving a quick recap on my life, but I figure it will all come up eventually. Any questions, please refer to the email that should soon appear where those links are.
But in the spirit of cleaning up, I've been thinking about how this blog first came to be and how it came to slip away. I meant this to be a vehicle for my poetry, which I was publishing pretty regularly back then. Well, more so then than now. This got me thinking of how did this happen, this production freeze?
I've come to think it has a lot to do with the pace of the world versus the pace of publishing and really the state of publishing. That, or the state of my poetry.
Most of the poetry being published in magazines today, or at least what gets my way, I just don't get. There are some fine magazines out there, though, and great collections, which lead me to great magazines (through their acknowledgments). However, I haven't found much luck with these places lately. Part of it may be due to the overwhelming challenge of the slush pile, but I think a big part of it is that my work is just not up to that level yet.
So, here (for about 4 years since my last publication (big thanks to Richard Peabody and Gargoyle; a great magazine and my highwater mark)) I've been stuck.
I have recently, though, been thinking of how to get unstuck. I'm thinking to just self publish this old chapbook I've been shopping around for ages. And maybe put up some of my works that never found a home on here. I wish I could find them a home with a magazine I admire (and I might yet) but I feel that they are finished and have been for some time. More than that, I think they're of my best work. This might be delusional, but this feeling keeps me tied to them and tied down.
So, keep an eye on this space of me. You might get to read some of my latest works, and maybe some new works to come.
Of course any advice or comments (or anyone interested in reading my chapbook to be) please email me at steven<dot>breyak<at>gmail<dot>com.
Had the funny idea of starting a blog. Was racking my brain for ideas and suddenly remembered, hey! I have one of those! And it has a pretty decent name, too!
Can't write much at the moment as there is a lot going on, but consider this a little preliminary post to let everyone know I'm still alive.
The goal here is to stop giving my longer posts to social media (looking at you, Facebook) and just linking them here instead.
So, please keep an eye on this space. More to come I promise. Trying to set aside time weekly to write about whatever comes up. Anyone still out there?
I can't believe that I've been too busy this year to take 5 minutes for this 5-minute blog. Then again, actually I can. 2013 was murder on the hour-to-hour.
Here's to a less busy 2014. A 2014 that started out with me seeing of Montreal, getting a picture with Kevin Barnes, then hanging with Bennett Lewis and Rebecca Cash in Osaka for the rest of the night. All this while managing to be just drunk and starstruck enough to only make a mild ass of myself. Well, I hope mild. A great night with great people.
2014 looks like it will be a kickass year. And I'm more than ready to move some of this work from the income pile to the output pile. Time to dust off the notebook and get back into the poetry world. Speaking of which, watch for my poem "The Gunman" in Gargoyle #61 this summer.
Anyway, here's a picture of something to make this seem official.
to myself and whoever might be still reading this. I thought I could just keep posts simple and shoot em off. But I have a way of making the simple difficult, either before acting or while. In any case here's a new post and a list some of what's been keeping me from the blog in no particular order:
Been on a Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart kick lately after some chance run-ins with these old favorites in a few places. One of my favorite run-ins thanks to a friend of a friend and a really really old friend we all have in common.
Reading a lot of fiction lately. Trying to get used to following more than one book at a good pace instead of my usual habit of starting a few books and diving into one. Murukami's 1Q84 has run ahead of the pack, but Rushdie's Midnight's Children has remained a great (though at times bewildering) bedtime book. Both have stopped me halfway through RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. So it seems I'm up to two books at a time; gotta start somewhere. Speaking of which, I highly recommend reading on your iPhone. I used to want a tablet for reading, but I've come to love reading from my old 3GS. I've read about 6 novels on it over the last year, fairly big ones too, and it's a wonderful operating system for reading, especially if you're like me and occasionally (or often) need to look up a word or two (iBooks comes with a dictionary) and if you like to highlight and write the occasional marginalia (habits of mine that have sadly become less habitual in recent times, but I suppose it looks better than my old books where I basically underlined each word as I read it).
Also, quitting my job to get back to my writing. Love teaching the kids, but damn it takes a lot. I'll miss it though. Amazing the bond you can make with children when you see them everyday. I feel like I have 16 6-year-old children. Graduation will be tough, but then it's back to teaching adults and the old challenges of that racket. Still, will give me time to write and study Japanese. Hopefully get around to some translating in 2012.
Going to continue this list in visual form for kicks, mine and yours. Thanks for reading along.
Ah, Europe!
Well, going to leave it at that for now to get to the latest on the list: my new addiction to Justified.
Oh I lied. Also wanted to share this fascinating (to me at least) email I'd received in response to my bellyaching over my New Yorker subscription showing up sporadically. I'm going to copy and paste it below just because I think it's an amazing bit of history that most people know nothing about, and it's also the best customer-service experience I've ever had.
Dear Steven,
First, let me say I am sorry for all the problems that you have had over the last couple of years. The problem lies with the service that we use for distribution into Japan. The service is called ISAL and stands for International Surface Air Lift and is a product of the USPS. It was launched at a time when the airline industry was very much different than it is today. At the time the airlines were looking for ways to "ballast" their half empty or nearly empty planes as they flew them around the globe. The USPS had millions of kilos of flat, dense heavy material in the way of magazines and mail and a partnership was formed in the service called ISAL. For a discounted rate, the airlines would charge the USPS to move this material anywhere on the planet it needed to go. It was the 1970's, magazine publishing was exploding, air travel was skyrocketing, they couldn't build new aircraft fast enough to keep up with demand and transit times for mail was days into most places. Needless to say, it aint' that way anymore and although the ISAL service remains, there is no available space at times to move their material. Keep in mind that we are in Chicago. Not Los Angeles or NewYork so the number of direct flights to Japan are fewer than if we were on either coast. You probably notice service problems in the summer and at this time of year. That is because passenger travel peaks during those times of year and the cargo holds are full of luggage. This is also why you receive two or more issues together or out of sequence. They move what they can when they can. Sometimes that might be two shipments or sometimes this weeks shipment gets pushed back because it is larger than the shipment that just came in.
All I can do is try and reroute your copy via another method. One would be via USPS first class air. It is basically the same service as ISAL except first class mail rides no matter what becuase it is generally only a bag or two whereas the ISAL shipments are often several hundred kilos or more so obviously they have to wait. But with that guaranteed service is an incredibly high price. Average price for a copy of The NewYorker to go first class airmail to Tokyo is around 7-10 dollars. So, before we go down road, I am going to try to re route you through Paris as priority airmail. Since you are missing copies anyway, I will send you a few using this method and see how it goes. Is this o.k. with you? Are you still missing all the most recent issues or have some of them surfaced? Please advise as to what you have missed. I will send you one of the missing issues via La Poste and DHL the rest so you have them before the end of the year.
Again very sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused you. Hopefully this email helps you understand the obstacles we face in the distribution industry. incidentally, the reason that prior emails have been met with an almost robotic lack of compassion is because you were contacting the NewYorker customer service desk and not the distributor which would be Pitney Bowes. I work for Pitney Bowes. The NewYorker customer service desk deals mainly with subscription renewals, gift subscriptions, address corrections for DOMESTIC subscribers. They know absolutely nothing about foreign distribution or how to even investigate a foreign complaint. They have only just recently started forwarding these to me and I am a department of one. So I am sorry it took so long to get back to you. I will do my best to correct this problem going forward. Let me know what you are still missing.
Kind Regards,
<Really intelligent guy giving you hope that the business of shipping magazines is in capable hands>
Hope my American friends' got their winter holidays off to a proper start. I read this nice little Adam Gopnik essay (see below) on the day we had a little Thanksgiving here in Osaka. Every year a dear friend manages to pull together expats from allover along with Japanese friends for a taste of America. Like everything that enters Japan, it takes on traits of Japan. The vast table always includes some sushi as well as seasonal Japanese fare. And of course the Kiwis bring lamb and an Aussie gives a cornbread recipe a go.
Anyway, this Gopnik essay made me again realize how much this holiday (especially in its current form out here) means to me. Of course, the essay is way bigger than my little world. But much like the holiday we recently enjoyed, I think there's a potential here for Americans, and all people of the world, to see in themselves. Here's to hoping we can keep the dream.
Watching Tree of Life on Saturday I was constantly reminded of how much I enjoyed this film for many of the same reason I couldn't stand Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3. I wasn't sure why I kept thinking about Barney's film, which I hadn't seen since 2002. But now I think it has to do with 3 points:
1. Both films deal (to some degree) with progeny, particularly patriarchs.
2. Both films rely heavily on metaphor and symbol
3. Both films are considered (perhaps because of point 2) difficult and "artsy"
I also feel that these films share point 2 (and perhaps 3 as well) with a lot of poetry I like and dislike. (Ok, this sounds really complicated now, but I think it will get easier now that that's out of the way. Bear with me.)
To start with, let's look at Malick's Tree of Life. Now my interpretation of the film is that it is about trying to understand why God has made the world as it is, a conflicting place of love and strife. If God loves us, why put us through pain? Why allow us to cause others pain? In the end, (again my interpretation) Malick suggests it is so we may experience mercy. So that we may have gain grace by understanding and choosing it. Not a new interpretation of the Old Testament, but new way of showing it and conveying his feelings on it.
Malick chooses a complicated metaphor to surround this story of a family dealing with a death: the birth and death of the universe. A challenging, but fitting metaphor. First, we see the birth of the universe as something grace and the birth of life (nature) as something violent. Life devouring life to evolve. Then there is this long scene of the two dinosaurs meeting on the river. The predator pins it's weak prey. (Survival of the fittest: his prey buddies got out of there while he slept.) But the predator waits, seems to think and doubt, then walks away. I think this is meant to be the first act of mercy, and the beginning of a new image of life. (Hence the destruction of the dinosaurs; destruction as a form of evolution, not of a species but of life.) Later, as the movie closes, we see the Earth being devoured by the Sun as it grows into a red giant. Again, destruction is the only response to evolution, but with the promise of life renewing.
Now as complicated as Malick's Tree of Life is, his images and metaphors (the above mentioned as well as those involved with the main plot of the family) are chosen and shaped to revolve around a center, the conflict and the emotional response the artist is trying to share with his viewers. The metaphors and images of the film are used as tools to make the viewer feel. Reading the above paragraph is not moving, but watching this film attentively is very moving.
Barney in Cremaster 3 (according to fans I've spoken to who have read the viewers guide to the film and to my own interpretation) deals with evolution from one generation to the next. Barney overtaking his father among other powers overtaking a predecessor. Now, Barney's film is not very loving compared to Malick's--it is violent and the victor is often the one willing to lose something of grace (i.e. cheat, destroy, etc.)--but that is not important. Both concepts are sound and can be moving, whether to sadness or fear or anger; art is meant to make one feel, but what it makes you feel is up to the artist. But what I find troubling in Barney's film, is that he chooses his images not to create a center, but to confuse the observer. One example that comes to mind is the car fight scene, you can find it spread out in scenes of the video below:
Now the center car, as best I remember, is a model that was built the same year Barney's father was born, and the surrounding cars were built when Barney himself were born. So they are supposed to represent, I suppose, the child rebelling. And the dead woman returning to life inside the old car? Apparently, therise of Japan as an industrial superpower. Now, what is one supposed to feel here? All I really get, from a raw take and after conversing with Barney fans, is confusion. The symbols and images are chosen to be obscure and codified to not only an educated few, but an educated few willing to research the Barney's choices outside of just watching the film.
I guess in what I'm trying to say, in what's become a pseudo-review (and very hastily thought out at that), is that complicated art can be beautiful. But to complicate your art on purpose (to choose complication not as a way to more fully express your vision, but as a means of "muddying the waters" of it) has no place in art.
I think watching this video can give people an idea of how it was perceived in '78 and how Baudelaire was perceived in 1857. Particularly love that we have some cowboy hats here.
I've seen a few of these videos before I realized it's a fast growing artform. I love it: the strange feelings it gives seeing glitches made into a new piece of work; the mix of past--be it old video footage (my current favorite) or the exploitation of what was once a common error in an earlier Internet and earlier browsers--and the obscure. Have a look. (Warning: the video below really shouldn't be seen by children. Obviously--from the still--there is some sexual content, but the visual effects themselves would have freaked a younger Steven Breyak. (I was pretty sensitive.))
It's like visual hip-hop. With a lot of psychedelics going on. If you like, check out Youtube, and please share some thoughts here.
Today, and not for the first time, I heard an amazing poem read through the amazing voice of Garrison Keillor. This radio program has been essential to me as a writer and a person. Not only for its often wonderful choices in poetry (both well-known and young writers) but also its fantastic scope in its daily history report. Here's the poem I heard today that made me realize I haven't given Anne Sexton enough of my time. If you are new to Writer's Almanac, bless you. Have a look; have a listen. Subscribe to the podcast.
Although in the past, I've disagreed with some of their political biases--which seem to have cleared up since the Bush era ended--they often put together an amazing few minutes of beauty.
Really not sure what to write about, so I suppose I can take advantage of my still recent role as a father. I'm still amazed by how quickly that transition happened. I imagined an adjustment like any big event life: moving to a new city, going to college, getting married. But becoming a father, it just changed. One day I wasn't a father and the next I was. I wonder if this is something all fathers feel.
