The second (eccentric) grandmother arrived twelve minutes late in a car that I didn't recognize. After denying me the right of helping her, she trucked her twelve bags into the house, ignored the slippers we'd bought for her, and handed us a twelve-pack of sparkling water. Eventually, the small talk began to bore her and she launched into an update of her home's renovations, which she described as if relating the procedural steps entailed in a lobotomy.
Before long, the topic of dinner was introduced. We mentioned that the turkey would be ready around 6.00. She balked. Her response to our inquiries as to her reaction: "I have a date at eight."
Did I mention she's sixty-six?
And at eight she went.
Friday, November 23, 2012
It's All About the Grandmothers - Part the First
The first (actress) grandmother was scheduled to arrive at two o'clock.
The first (actress) grandmother was scheduled to arrive at two o'clock, but arrived at three.
A small, Asian lady in the essential small, Asian mode of transportation (the Toyota Camry), I stood watching in the window as she parked in the driveway. I also stood watching in the window as she did not exit the Toyota Camry, but sat placidly for over a minute. Finally, she exited, and proceeded to walk down the street in the midst of snowfall.
Did I mention she's seventy-four?
When she returned ten minutes later, I opened the door and attempted to take her bags. She unleashed a broken English harangue in which I was repeatedly reprimanded for not immediately throwing the door open upon her crossing of the driveway threshold.
The actress grandmother had made her entrance.
The first (actress) grandmother was scheduled to arrive at two o'clock, but arrived at three.
A small, Asian lady in the essential small, Asian mode of transportation (the Toyota Camry), I stood watching in the window as she parked in the driveway. I also stood watching in the window as she did not exit the Toyota Camry, but sat placidly for over a minute. Finally, she exited, and proceeded to walk down the street in the midst of snowfall.
Did I mention she's seventy-four?
When she returned ten minutes later, I opened the door and attempted to take her bags. She unleashed a broken English harangue in which I was repeatedly reprimanded for not immediately throwing the door open upon her crossing of the driveway threshold.
The actress grandmother had made her entrance.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Political Cartoons
http://www.cagle.com/2012/11/bye-bye-birdie/
This political cartoon, wittily titled after the wretched 1961 musical, is a humorous commentary on the 2012 presidential election. The cartoon depicts the Sesame Street character Big Bird driving a car, to the top of which is strapped a kennel containing Mitt Romney. During a presidential debate, candidate Romney said that he would cut funding for public broadcasting, despite the fact that he loved Big Bird, a comment which raised almost as much ire as it did eyebrows. The point of the picture is to put a comical spin on Romney's loss of the election, showing Big Bird as the victor with an imprisoned Romney.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Political-Cartoons/Seceding-From-America.htm
In this cartoon, the various post-election secessionist movements are lampooned in the figure of an overweight tricorne-wearing idiot exiting a house labeled "America" whilst shouting the valediction, "Don't beg me to stay, I'm seceding!" Those inside react with the murmur, "Quick! Change the locks." The cartoonist is satirizing those who wish to secede from the union in reaction to Obama's victory by portraying them as unwanted dolts believing they are making a massive statement in leaving a group who can only be thrilled by their absence.
This political cartoon, wittily titled after the wretched 1961 musical, is a humorous commentary on the 2012 presidential election. The cartoon depicts the Sesame Street character Big Bird driving a car, to the top of which is strapped a kennel containing Mitt Romney. During a presidential debate, candidate Romney said that he would cut funding for public broadcasting, despite the fact that he loved Big Bird, a comment which raised almost as much ire as it did eyebrows. The point of the picture is to put a comical spin on Romney's loss of the election, showing Big Bird as the victor with an imprisoned Romney.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Political-Cartoons/Seceding-From-America.htm
In this cartoon, the various post-election secessionist movements are lampooned in the figure of an overweight tricorne-wearing idiot exiting a house labeled "America" whilst shouting the valediction, "Don't beg me to stay, I'm seceding!" Those inside react with the murmur, "Quick! Change the locks." The cartoonist is satirizing those who wish to secede from the union in reaction to Obama's victory by portraying them as unwanted dolts believing they are making a massive statement in leaving a group who can only be thrilled by their absence.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Dumbest Generation
was written by the most frustrating author. In particular, while the argument is fairly cohesive overall and supported by backbreaking quantities of evidence, I found that it was organized in a spectacularly strange manner. While each chapter was a neatly synthesized brick of information, I found the finished piece lacking in the structural elements necessary to piece the argument together. In particular, the book lacks much in the way of a conclusion, instead substituting a historical and literary rant that quotes Thoreau, Lincoln, and Emily Dickinson, all which the author uses to bemoan the sad state he has described in his book without really tying anything together. Bauerlein also fails to return to the motifs he used at the argument's outset, and the whole segment of the younger population as described in the introduction, a problem which Bauerlein himself calls "no less disturbing," have apparently, with the exception of the collegiate political organizations which he endeavours to discredit, disappeared into oblivion, obscured behind the two hundred pages of statistics he has carefully assembled. His argument may be a profound one, and his points may be sharp, but it has been lost in a swirling ocean of numbers and facts which neglect to align themselves with the overarching theme of the treatise, and which are thus only significant if the reader chooses to make them so. Regardless however well supported and truthful, an argument that structurally unsound will always collapse.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Hallowe'en
Although I regrettably have no pictures to show for it, I distinctly recall one Hallowe'en in my younger years where I was determined to dress as the Headless Horseman, with whom I was obsessed. This was a short-lived endeavor, however, as no one opening the first five doors I went to showed any recognition at the sight of a headless body holding a jack-o'-lantern. I went home. That's how a lack of culture on the part of my neighbors ruined my Hallowe'en. That's also how I suffered from a candy deficiency for the rest of that week.
I recently attended a cocktail party wherein I attempted to make something rhetorical out of Hallowe'en by bringing a grave-shaped box labeled "The Tea Party" in which I spun a top labeled "William F. Buckley". Buckley, a truly intellectual conservative, is thus spinning in his grave due to the actions of the Tea Party.
I recently attended a cocktail party wherein I attempted to make something rhetorical out of Hallowe'en by bringing a grave-shaped box labeled "The Tea Party" in which I spun a top labeled "William F. Buckley". Buckley, a truly intellectual conservative, is thus spinning in his grave due to the actions of the Tea Party.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Network
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad, They're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get MAD! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
There's a reason this speech is #19 on the American Film Institute's list of the best movie quotes of all time. This speech is rather novel in comparison to other movie speeches, as it is delivered by a television personality on live broadcast. As a result, there is no particular character or set of characters that it is meant for, and it might just as well be addressed to the film audience as it is to the audience in the film.
Often has it been said that the television is a propaganda machine illustrating the fact that if anything is said often enough and loudly enough, it will be believed. Repetition, then, is both the act and the counteract in this case, as the character delivering the speech uses it in protest of the current state of affairs, as portrayed through media propaganda. By repeating the phrase, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore," he successfully drives home the point of his fury at the lack of efficacy of the general populace.
It must be remembered, however, that this speech is the collective ramblings of a half-crazed maniac, Howard Beale, who is broadcast only for shock value. Still, the exploitation of his words by the institution he wishes to destroy only makes his diatribe all the more poignant. Indeed, what starts out as an impassioned, but articulate speech on the dire state of world affairs gradually descends into an incoherent tirade, repeating the same sentence. This repetition is equally powerful when used in this way, as it apparently overtakes Beale himself and becomes him. The character is the phrase and the phrase is the character, an attitude which is never really dropped for the remainder of the film.
There's a reason this speech is #19 on the American Film Institute's list of the best movie quotes of all time. This speech is rather novel in comparison to other movie speeches, as it is delivered by a television personality on live broadcast. As a result, there is no particular character or set of characters that it is meant for, and it might just as well be addressed to the film audience as it is to the audience in the film.
Often has it been said that the television is a propaganda machine illustrating the fact that if anything is said often enough and loudly enough, it will be believed. Repetition, then, is both the act and the counteract in this case, as the character delivering the speech uses it in protest of the current state of affairs, as portrayed through media propaganda. By repeating the phrase, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore," he successfully drives home the point of his fury at the lack of efficacy of the general populace.
It must be remembered, however, that this speech is the collective ramblings of a half-crazed maniac, Howard Beale, who is broadcast only for shock value. Still, the exploitation of his words by the institution he wishes to destroy only makes his diatribe all the more poignant. Indeed, what starts out as an impassioned, but articulate speech on the dire state of world affairs gradually descends into an incoherent tirade, repeating the same sentence. This repetition is equally powerful when used in this way, as it apparently overtakes Beale himself and becomes him. The character is the phrase and the phrase is the character, an attitude which is never really dropped for the remainder of the film.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Darkness
I have a friend that had his right eye partially stabbed out in a rather absurd accident the summer after his eighth grade year. Sticks and sensory organs generally do not mix well, but the doctors put on their Merlin hats and conjured up an artificial lens through which he can now see. Except that he can't. He reads with his right shut and his pupils are unable to dilate or constrict, meaning that he has to close it when he walks into bright sunlight, as well. However, this means he can see very well in the darkness.
For some reason or other, I adjust very slowly to the darkness. Maybe my eyes can't dilate quickly enough, but I stand blinking long after everyone else has started running hurdle races at dusk. For an actor expected to run offstage as soon as the lights black out, this can be a problem. My friend, also an actor, were in a show together last summer and found a solution to this problem. Whenever the lights would go out and everyone rushed into the wings, he'd find me and the one-eyed invalid would lead me offstage. How I love irony.
For some reason or other, I adjust very slowly to the darkness. Maybe my eyes can't dilate quickly enough, but I stand blinking long after everyone else has started running hurdle races at dusk. For an actor expected to run offstage as soon as the lights black out, this can be a problem. My friend, also an actor, were in a show together last summer and found a solution to this problem. Whenever the lights would go out and everyone rushed into the wings, he'd find me and the one-eyed invalid would lead me offstage. How I love irony.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)