Dread

In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift imagines a race of beings who are immortal. Gulliver is astonished to hear this news, and imagines that they must have the utmost happiness and prosperity since they have overcome that most basic human problem: death.

Swift reverses this formula however: the life of the immortals is one of continual agony, pettiness, and boredom. To cut to the chase, Swift's essential insight is that death is not the problem, life is. (This is why, in a recent examination, I attempted to argue that, along with 1984, Gulliver's Travels is a fundamental anti-utopian text. That is to say that these texts are not dystopias warning of some nightmare version of the future, but instead they represent a reproach to the very idea of utopia. Swift's indictment of existence is but one aspect of his attack on those who would propose utopian solutions, but it is the bedrock that supports all the rest.)

A common thread to many of the thinkers I regard highly (Cioran, Schopenhauer, Hamlet) is this belief that existence is the true source of dread, and not a fear of death (as thinkers such as Heidegger maintain*). Suicide is, as Cioran said, too late. It is best to not be born at all:

Life is pain. And life persists, obscure,/but life for all that, even in the tomb...Suicide is unavailing. The form/is changed, the indestructable being endures...There is no death. In vain you clamour for death,/souls destitute of hope.

*It occurs to me as I write this to consider the bold final movement of The Thin Red Line, a film that has been described as cinematic Heidegger. I have argued in the past that the final moments of the film's main character represent a victory over death through personal sacrifice, and despite my differences with Heidegger I think this is still probably the best description of what happens. Considering what I wrote above, it is perhaps possible to see it as victory over fear, a victory that the character himself wishes for at the beginning of the film (he asks for a sense of "calm"). In this sense he conquers the dread of existence through a passive acceptance of death. A moment worth thinking more about...

Before Sunset


If the first film (Before Sunrise) was about the fantasy of Romantic love, something so intoxicating that it compells the characters to foolishly give themselves and their happiness over to chance in keeping with the spirit of the moment, then this film is about an attempt at a recapturing of that moment.

It's been written that one of the dissapointments of life is the inability to capture a moment as it is happening, to preserve it, and so even the greatest moments of joy or love that we experience are immediately tinged with loss and regret.

Pain and frustration are the keynotes for much of this film, but in a wonderful final act the Moment presents itself, and as it does so the film fades out, taking away even as it gives us so much.

Indisputable and conclusive proof that we live in the best of all possible worlds.

Elephant

A slow and studied observation of the life of a high school occupies most of the movie, and it is at times very beautiful. Van Sant shoots the corridors of the school like The Shining, and the overlapping narrative, whereby we experience the same moment in time through different perspectives, creates a strange feeling, almost as if these characters are ghosts doomed to repeat themselves. The film is essentially structured as a build up and release, but catharsis eludes us.

Pointless But Fun

Original list here. I've eliminated questions I know nothing about.

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?
Gotta go with Kelly--I prefer his athleticism. (Note: this marks me as having poor taste I know, but I'm gonna try to be honest here.)
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises?
Gatsby, obviously. Tragic and beautiful.
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington?
Ellington. Though really Miles Davis! Swing can go to hell!
4. Cats or dogs?
Dogs, narrowly.
5. Matisse or Picasso?
Matisse, Picasso is overrated!
6. Yeats or Eliot?
Yeats. Nothing tops the Byzantium poems or Meru.
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin?
Keaton makes me laugh, Chaplin doesn't.
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca?
I can't remember if I have seen the first one or not, but I'm sure I would like it better than Casablanca!
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning?
A quick google image seach reveals that de Kooning is infinitely more interesting than Pollock.
11. The Who or the Stones?
The Who by a thousand miles.
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald?
Holiday.
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy?
Well. This is tough. Dostoevky is just about as genius as it gets. Tolstoy is sublime. Dostoevky by a nose.
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair?
The Moviegoer!!!!!!
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers?
Cheeseburgers. Failing that, hot dogs.
19. Letterman or Leno?
Letterman certainly.
20. Wilco or Cat Power?
Cat Power is the clear choice here, come on.
21. Verdi or Wagner?
Wagner.
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe?
Geez this is almost as tough as Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky! I think Monroe had arguably more screen presence. Kelly was transfixing, however. Kelly.
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash?
Cash, because I dont know Monroe. I'm no fan of Cash though.
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis?
Kingsley even though I haven't read him!
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando?
Mitchum Mitchum Mitchum. One of the best ever.
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt?
Geez, both are gorgeous. Vermeer.
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin?
Chopin. Tchaikovsky can be overwrought in the wrong moods.
29. Red wine or white?
Red
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity?
High Fidelity
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev?
Prokofiev for Alexander Nevsky alone!
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo?
Searchers obviously. Rio Bravo is pretty great though.
36. Comedy or tragedy?
Tragedy. (Tragedy can be funny, but I'm not sure comedy can be tragic!)
37. Fall or spring?
South: Fall. North: Spring.
38. Manet or Monet?
Manet.
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons?
Simpsons. Sopranos is as overrated as the Godfather! Besides I don't accept any Simpsons as real Simpsons past 1998.
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James?
Conrad.
42. Sunset or sunrise?
Sunset.
44. Mac or PC?
PC, Macs are useless.
45. New York or Los Angeles?
New York
47. Stax or Motown?
Motown for Stevie Wonder.
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin?
Van Gogh
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello?
Dan
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine?
Depends on the blogger.
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier?
Gielgud's voice alone wins this contest!
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde?
It's Chinatown.
54. Ghost World or Election?
Election. Ghost World is crap.
55. Minimalism or conceptual art?
Minimalism.
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny?
Daffy. Bugs is a horse's ass
57. Modernism or postmodernism?
Modernism
58. Batman or Spider-Man?
Spider-Man
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams?
Emmylou for being on a Bob Dylan album.
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity?
Out of the Past!!!
66. Blue or green?
Green. No wait, Blue.
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It?
Dream, it's so weird.
68. Ballet or opera?
Ballet
69. Film or live theater?
Film
70. Acoustic or electric?
Electric!!
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo?
Vertigo. Please.
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma?
ugh, neither.
75. Sushi, yes or no?
YES
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones?
Jones at least puts me to sleep. Krall is tedium
82. Watercolor or pastel?
Pastel. this is close tho.
83. Bus or subway?
Subway
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg?
Stavinsky.
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter?
smooth.
87. Schubert or Mozart?
i actually really like schubert. Mozart is mozart, but in the end i'd rather listen to schubert.
88. The Fifties or the Twenties?
50s!
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick?
tough. moby dick because it is just as funny and ultimately has more to offer.
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman?
I really like both to be honest. Whitman ultimately for Leaves of Grass
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill?
I find this one a bit mystifying. I think Lincoln had the harder task in the end.
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann?
Liz Phair definetly.
95. Italian or French cooking?
Italian.
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord?
harpsicord damnit!
97. Anchovies, yes or no?
no
98. Short novels or long ones?
short, please god
99. Swing or bebop?
bebop
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"?
The last judgement is really a stunner, so it wins just based on the wow factor.

"Philosophy has been sought in vain because man has sought it by the path of science rather than the path of art."

-- Schopenhauer

"Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial--out of profundity. And is not this precisely what we are again coming back to, we daredevils of the spirit who have climbed the highest and most dangerous peak of present thought and looked down from there? Are we not, precisely in this respect, Greeks? Adorers of forms, of tones, of words? And therefore--artists?"

--Nietzsche