Sunday, April 30, 2006
A most delightful march
With crisp blue, sunny skies and a nice cool breeze, yesterday the Grande Enchilada marched down Broadway in what must be the most enjoyable march for peace ever. Luckily my friends and I caught up with the parade at the very beginning (actually we walked right towards it, very cool) and we squeezed in right behind the celebrities (Susan Sarandon, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan and Jesse Jackson). There was calm and quiet, there were people chanting the obligatory silly chants, and there was almost no police presence, (or at least none too abrasive) and so the marchers could join the march at several points along the route and it was truly delightful. I was worried that there would be a cacophony of lefty grievances that would drown each other out (not that anybody's listening) but the consensus was against Bush and against the war in Iraq, so that turned out fine. The only bad moment was when someone decided to start singing Give Peace a Chance, a song so awful and stupid it should be banned from any such event. But soon people realized it was bumming people out (it makes me violent) and they stopped. As we passed Canal St, there is a bit of a hill and we turned back and could see a river of people behind us all the way up Broadway, which was very encouraging. What I like about these marches is that you see all kinds of people, not only the sock, sandal and patchouli crowd which is out there in force, but just concerned, outraged people from all income brackets and all stripes, including Matthew Modine. It was very well organized, beautifully handled by the police and probably useless, but it felt good. I thought that when we got to Canal, the entire parade was going to disperse for dimsum. The thought was very tempting but we finished the march and then went for soup dumplings at Joe's. They tasted like glory.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Mexico: The Amigo Country, At Last
Holy guacamole, amigos! Who'd have thunk that our very Catholic goody two shoes President Vicente Fox would pass a law decriminalizing personal possession of every recreational drug known to man? Wowie! Or is it, yikes!?
This is supposed to end with low level police corruption, but somehow it sounds to me like the President is opening up the lucrative street market to the Mexican drug cartels, so there will be more consumption. Of course possession is allowed but selling is not. I don't even hope to attempt to understand this arrangement. If a good samaritan would explain it to me, I'd be forever grateful.
To begin with, since time immemorial you could be Mother Theresa of Calcutta and if you ran one night into a frisky Mexican policeman he could plant the drugs on you in order to extort money. So what would impede them now to plant more drugs than the personal amount permitted by law? How does this law change anything for the better? According to the NYT:
The good people from AP helpfully decode this for you: the marijuana amounts to like four joints (the issue is are they Mexican sized, which tend to have the girth of stuffed burritos, or American sized -- sad, puny little roaches). Cocaine, give or take about four lines. Jesus, Maria y Jose! That's a lot.
Of course, people in the United States are already tearing their hair out: what's gonna happen to the innocent youth of America?
I must say, I'm the first one to opt for the legalization of drugs, mainly on account of making the suppliers pay taxes and engage in fair trade so the cycles of murder, crime and violence can stop, but somehow I don't have a feeling this law is going to work. Why? Because Mexico is a mostly lawless country anyway. The laws are certainly there, yet with a little hand greasing they can be bent, broken and ignored. The drug cartels are not going to sink into their cushy sofas and watch their profits shrink even a tiny little bit. There are many government officials of all levels in blatant cohoots with the narcos.
So I'd love for somebody to explain to me in Mexican reality terms, not abstract idealized terms like those handled by the pols, if this law really is a step in curbing the excesses of the cartels, or if it's something more mysterious and sinister, with consequences and implications we can't even imagine.
This is supposed to end with low level police corruption, but somehow it sounds to me like the President is opening up the lucrative street market to the Mexican drug cartels, so there will be more consumption. Of course possession is allowed but selling is not. I don't even hope to attempt to understand this arrangement. If a good samaritan would explain it to me, I'd be forever grateful.
To begin with, since time immemorial you could be Mother Theresa of Calcutta and if you ran one night into a frisky Mexican policeman he could plant the drugs on you in order to extort money. So what would impede them now to plant more drugs than the personal amount permitted by law? How does this law change anything for the better? According to the NYT:
Under the bill, it would be legal to have 25 milligrams of heroin, a fifth of an ounce of marijuana or half a gram of cocaine. The bill also makes it legal to possess small amounts of LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, amphetamines and peyote.
The good people from AP helpfully decode this for you: the marijuana amounts to like four joints (the issue is are they Mexican sized, which tend to have the girth of stuffed burritos, or American sized -- sad, puny little roaches). Cocaine, give or take about four lines. Jesus, Maria y Jose! That's a lot.
Those quantities are sometimes eye-popping: Mexicans would be allowed to possess 2.2 pounds of peyote, the button-sized hallucinogenic cactus used in some Indian religious ceremonies. Police would no longer bother with possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about one-fifth of an ounce, or about four joints), or 0.5 grams of cocaine — the equivalent of about 4 "lines," or half the standard street-sale quantity. The law lays out allowable quantities for a large array of other drugs, including LSD, MDA, MDMA (ecstasy, about two pills' worth), and amphetamines.Life in Mexico is already surreal as it is. Imagine now with peyote and x for breakfast, lunch and dinner... (on the other hand, Mexican bureaucrats on speed or coke: it's a thought)
Of course, people in the United States are already tearing their hair out: what's gonna happen to the innocent youth of America?
Some worried the law would increase drug addiction in Mexico and cause problems with the United States. Millions of American youths visit Mexico's beach resorts and border towns each year. "A lot of Americans already come here to buy medications they can't get up there ... Just imagine, with heroin," said Ulisis Bon, a drug treatment expert in Tijuana, where heroin use is rampant.Hey, knock yourselves out. Boy, between that and the spic national anthem we sure are rubbing the gringos the wrong way this week.
I must say, I'm the first one to opt for the legalization of drugs, mainly on account of making the suppliers pay taxes and engage in fair trade so the cycles of murder, crime and violence can stop, but somehow I don't have a feeling this law is going to work. Why? Because Mexico is a mostly lawless country anyway. The laws are certainly there, yet with a little hand greasing they can be bent, broken and ignored. The drug cartels are not going to sink into their cushy sofas and watch their profits shrink even a tiny little bit. There are many government officials of all levels in blatant cohoots with the narcos.
So I'd love for somebody to explain to me in Mexican reality terms, not abstract idealized terms like those handled by the pols, if this law really is a step in curbing the excesses of the cartels, or if it's something more mysterious and sinister, with consequences and implications we can't even imagine.
Friday, April 28, 2006
O Jose Can't Chu Sí
For once, I'm siding with Bush. Of course the national anthem should be in English, like the national anthem of Turkmenbashi should be in Turkmenbashi. Why are journalists even asking this question? Have they no brains? Are they trying to incite racial divisiveness? Probably nobody really gives a fuck about the immigrants as long as they deliver dinner, but mess with the Star Spangled Banner and all hell breaks loose.
But what is more hideously offensive, what is grounds for death by firing squad is the version of the anthem itself (listen at your own peril). It is so utterly horrendous, so overproduced, so treacly, so disgusting, so vulgar, so shameless, so vomit inducing that I could feel a pustulent rash threatening to erupt on my skin just by listening to the first few bars. The clueless British producer Adam Kidron who came up with this stupid crap should be taken to Guantanamo and be forced to listen to his brainstorm in an neverending loop until he begs for mercy. Then some Reggaeton and the guy will wish he'd never been born.
But what is more hideously offensive, what is grounds for death by firing squad is the version of the anthem itself (listen at your own peril). It is so utterly horrendous, so overproduced, so treacly, so disgusting, so vulgar, so shameless, so vomit inducing that I could feel a pustulent rash threatening to erupt on my skin just by listening to the first few bars. The clueless British producer Adam Kidron who came up with this stupid crap should be taken to Guantanamo and be forced to listen to his brainstorm in an neverending loop until he begs for mercy. Then some Reggaeton and the guy will wish he'd never been born.
Rulfoland
The panel "Homage to Juan Rulfo" at the Instituto Cervantes was extremely well attended, despite the Rulfian fact that the Mexican Cultural Institute sent many people to the wrong address, to a phantom panel that wasn't there. How fitting.
As I arrived late, unfortunately I missed the remarks of the moderator Antonio Muñoz Molina but I was right on time to hear my compatriot Carlos Monsiváis. In his inimitable florid and baroque, almost impenetrable style, Monsiváis captured a lot of what makes the work of Juan Rulfo (all of two magnificent works of fiction) so universal, so Mexican and so entrancing. Everything he said was insightful and smart, but he was much better as he spoke off the cuff, much more endearing and approachable through his sharp wit and considerable intellect.
Then it was Alberto Vital's turn, a biographer of Rulfo. One would think that the biographer of a literary star would have some really juicy and interesting bits to share with the audience. Instead this guy, who reminded me of countless Mexican bureaucrats with cultural delusions, proceeded to put everyone to sleep with a completely incongrous recitation of a laundry list of every edition of Rulfo's work ever known to man. I could not believe my ears. Apparently, for a man who wrote two books (among the greatest works of modern literature) there are a bunch of editions of Pedro Páramo and El Llano en Llamas (The Burning Plain) that we must know about.
One of Rulfo's sons was in hand to be very charming and offer his amazement at the response his father's work still generates in readers.
Fortunately, the Argentinian writer Rodrigo Fresán spoke off the cuff and with great charm, insight and curiosity about his relationship with Rulfo's work, Mexican telenovelas, and the immense relief he gets from Rulfo's spareness of language. His dialogue with Monsiváis was fun and enlightening. Muñoz Molina encouraged the conversation with his good questions. Then there was the obligatory discussion about whether Rulfo is considered to be magical realism or not. I'm glad to report, dear readers, that the collective unconscious seems to be not so enamored of the genre anymore (thanks to all those cheap imitators of García Márquez like Isabel Allende). Yes, no, who cares. To me Rulfo is as real as they come, and so is 100 Years of Solitude. What isn't real, what is phony, is when others give you whimsy without a shred of authenticity.
All in all, it was a very entertaining and interesting panel, because the discussion after pretty much centered in Fresán asking Rulfo's son questions about his dad. Why did he stop at two? Did he feel he had shot his wad? Me, I heard that Rulfo had drinking problems, and I do not blame the son for not wanting to go to difficult personal territory, although Fresan was asking in the spirit of true admiration and curiosity.
Monsiváis, who is a major imp, insisted that Rulfo was a terrible screenwriter, he said that he could talk about Rulfo as a photographer only because he himself had been a subject, and he sported an enigmatic sliver of a smile as he heard Rulfo Jr. gingerly answer something dignified to Fresán's probing, refreshing questions. He must have known a bunch of interesting stuff that it wouldn't be polite to talk about with family present.
As I arrived late, unfortunately I missed the remarks of the moderator Antonio Muñoz Molina but I was right on time to hear my compatriot Carlos Monsiváis. In his inimitable florid and baroque, almost impenetrable style, Monsiváis captured a lot of what makes the work of Juan Rulfo (all of two magnificent works of fiction) so universal, so Mexican and so entrancing. Everything he said was insightful and smart, but he was much better as he spoke off the cuff, much more endearing and approachable through his sharp wit and considerable intellect.
Then it was Alberto Vital's turn, a biographer of Rulfo. One would think that the biographer of a literary star would have some really juicy and interesting bits to share with the audience. Instead this guy, who reminded me of countless Mexican bureaucrats with cultural delusions, proceeded to put everyone to sleep with a completely incongrous recitation of a laundry list of every edition of Rulfo's work ever known to man. I could not believe my ears. Apparently, for a man who wrote two books (among the greatest works of modern literature) there are a bunch of editions of Pedro Páramo and El Llano en Llamas (The Burning Plain) that we must know about.
One of Rulfo's sons was in hand to be very charming and offer his amazement at the response his father's work still generates in readers.
Fortunately, the Argentinian writer Rodrigo Fresán spoke off the cuff and with great charm, insight and curiosity about his relationship with Rulfo's work, Mexican telenovelas, and the immense relief he gets from Rulfo's spareness of language. His dialogue with Monsiváis was fun and enlightening. Muñoz Molina encouraged the conversation with his good questions. Then there was the obligatory discussion about whether Rulfo is considered to be magical realism or not. I'm glad to report, dear readers, that the collective unconscious seems to be not so enamored of the genre anymore (thanks to all those cheap imitators of García Márquez like Isabel Allende). Yes, no, who cares. To me Rulfo is as real as they come, and so is 100 Years of Solitude. What isn't real, what is phony, is when others give you whimsy without a shred of authenticity.
All in all, it was a very entertaining and interesting panel, because the discussion after pretty much centered in Fresán asking Rulfo's son questions about his dad. Why did he stop at two? Did he feel he had shot his wad? Me, I heard that Rulfo had drinking problems, and I do not blame the son for not wanting to go to difficult personal territory, although Fresan was asking in the spirit of true admiration and curiosity.
Monsiváis, who is a major imp, insisted that Rulfo was a terrible screenwriter, he said that he could talk about Rulfo as a photographer only because he himself had been a subject, and he sported an enigmatic sliver of a smile as he heard Rulfo Jr. gingerly answer something dignified to Fresán's probing, refreshing questions. He must have known a bunch of interesting stuff that it wouldn't be polite to talk about with family present.
Brain Sharpening Part II
One of the panels of the Pen conference was about the use of myth in contemporary writing. It was a great discussion, moderated fabulously by Colum McCann.
One of the corollaries of attending panels where writers speak is that you if you like them, you end up buying their books. I bought a book by Jeanette Winterson, a writer I have never read but whose fierce intelligence seduced me. And I bought "The Myth of Samson", by David Grossman because I was transfixed by his thoughts on the myth of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. I wish I could do justice to his train of thought. His ideas were profoundly revealing to me.
He compares the biblical myth of Samson the strongman, with the State of Israel. He sees certain parallels:
Grossman said that we were a people without power for 2000 years and now we have huge military power and borders, which we never had before. He feels that Israel, like Samson, does not really believe in its own power and therefore tends to overreact, breaking down like a child every time it's threatened. As an example he mentioned the first intifada. There were hundreds of Palestinians demonstrating violently, true, but Israel has nuclear weapons. That's the kind of disproportionate reaction we're talking about. Grossman said that not only are Jews the People of the Book, but that they are the people of the story. We have a special and unique story and we believe it but this story has also isolated Jews and Israel from the world. What he would love, and he should know because he lives there, is to make Israel a less mythological place, more grounded in reality. Less fraught with "The Story", and the Bible and the myth of the chosen people, and a place more normal, more boring, more real. I was deeply moved to hear him pine for a boring, normal country. He said that he wished that Israel realized that it could respond with options other than sheer might. It's a concept nobody ever thinks about. Other options could be explored. How simple and how sensible. How shocking.
Grossman is unapologetically Jewish. He is unapologetically enthusiastic about the Bible and Jewish history. He is smart to point out to his audience that he is a secular Jew, because many people do not understand the notion of being a committed Jew who is not religious. I noticed that as he was explaining how Jews are unique in the history of mankind, a woman sitting in front of me rolled her eyes and fidgeted with her pen in clear discomfort with such direct pointing out of our specialness, despite the fact that Grossman's point was, if I understood correctly, that all this voluntary mythification has another, destructive side, of being isolated and negatively mythified by others.
In general it was refreshing to hear writers like Amis and Grossman, who were complex in their allegiances. It made me realize that the discourse here tends to be not very shaded or nuanced, but that people expect you to adhere and subscribe to every cliched tenet of whatever political persuasion you espouse. So by definition, if you are left of center, you have to oppose Israel, hate Bush, rationalize the islamists, etc. Then you hear someone like Grossman who loves the Bible but hates the occupation and resents those who put his country in danger for biblical reasons, who wants to write another Jewish myth, one not engaged in so much defensiveness, and he does this not out of self-hatred but of proud identification.
Or someone like Martin Amis who despises the war in Iraq and still believes it is a defensive war, and he cannot countenance rationalizing the unacceptable islamist war of terror against the West. As he calls it, we live in an age of multicultural relativism (a term he rolls off the tongue as if it contained bitter poison in it), of which I guess that paralyzing political correctness is a byproduct. Amis and Grossman refuse to engage in this wishywashy, hypersensitive to every culture mindset, they refuse to conform to the cliche, and I salute them for that.
One of the corollaries of attending panels where writers speak is that you if you like them, you end up buying their books. I bought a book by Jeanette Winterson, a writer I have never read but whose fierce intelligence seduced me. And I bought "The Myth of Samson", by David Grossman because I was transfixed by his thoughts on the myth of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. I wish I could do justice to his train of thought. His ideas were profoundly revealing to me.
He compares the biblical myth of Samson the strongman, with the State of Israel. He sees certain parallels:
Grossman said that we were a people without power for 2000 years and now we have huge military power and borders, which we never had before. He feels that Israel, like Samson, does not really believe in its own power and therefore tends to overreact, breaking down like a child every time it's threatened. As an example he mentioned the first intifada. There were hundreds of Palestinians demonstrating violently, true, but Israel has nuclear weapons. That's the kind of disproportionate reaction we're talking about. Grossman said that not only are Jews the People of the Book, but that they are the people of the story. We have a special and unique story and we believe it but this story has also isolated Jews and Israel from the world. What he would love, and he should know because he lives there, is to make Israel a less mythological place, more grounded in reality. Less fraught with "The Story", and the Bible and the myth of the chosen people, and a place more normal, more boring, more real. I was deeply moved to hear him pine for a boring, normal country. He said that he wished that Israel realized that it could respond with options other than sheer might. It's a concept nobody ever thinks about. Other options could be explored. How simple and how sensible. How shocking.
Grossman is unapologetically Jewish. He is unapologetically enthusiastic about the Bible and Jewish history. He is smart to point out to his audience that he is a secular Jew, because many people do not understand the notion of being a committed Jew who is not religious. I noticed that as he was explaining how Jews are unique in the history of mankind, a woman sitting in front of me rolled her eyes and fidgeted with her pen in clear discomfort with such direct pointing out of our specialness, despite the fact that Grossman's point was, if I understood correctly, that all this voluntary mythification has another, destructive side, of being isolated and negatively mythified by others.
In general it was refreshing to hear writers like Amis and Grossman, who were complex in their allegiances. It made me realize that the discourse here tends to be not very shaded or nuanced, but that people expect you to adhere and subscribe to every cliched tenet of whatever political persuasion you espouse. So by definition, if you are left of center, you have to oppose Israel, hate Bush, rationalize the islamists, etc. Then you hear someone like Grossman who loves the Bible but hates the occupation and resents those who put his country in danger for biblical reasons, who wants to write another Jewish myth, one not engaged in so much defensiveness, and he does this not out of self-hatred but of proud identification.
Or someone like Martin Amis who despises the war in Iraq and still believes it is a defensive war, and he cannot countenance rationalizing the unacceptable islamist war of terror against the West. As he calls it, we live in an age of multicultural relativism (a term he rolls off the tongue as if it contained bitter poison in it), of which I guess that paralyzing political correctness is a byproduct. Amis and Grossman refuse to engage in this wishywashy, hypersensitive to every culture mindset, they refuse to conform to the cliche, and I salute them for that.
A brief announcement from the Vatican...
...is a huge deal for mankind. Even the Pope has recognized that the policy of abstinence to fight AIDS in Africa (or everywhere else) is criminally irresponsible.
So now the Catholic Church is thinking of making some kind of dispensation allowing married people to use condoms to prevent an infected partner from spreading the disease. These are extremely important news that will affect the behavior of millions of people in the developing world.
Of course it's not enough to narrow it down to married couples, but the gist of it, that condoms can protect you from death and disease, is extremely significant to huge numbers of practicing Catholics and Christians. Hopefully, even people who are not married will think that if the Vatican says you can use them to protect yourself, your civil status is a technicality. This may save millions of lives.
However, it is the policy of the Bush administration to give financial aid to NGO's that promote abstinence only.
Yesterday, Martin Amis spoke about the perils of Muslim fundamentalism and some people asked about American fundamentalism. To me the obvious response is that we have not started killing people in God's name yet. But then I thought about the abstinence policies of Bush and although we may not be killing people violently, to discourage the use of condoms given the current AIDS crisis in Africa and other countries amounts to murder directly attributed to some cockamamie religious belief.
So now the Catholic Church is thinking of making some kind of dispensation allowing married people to use condoms to prevent an infected partner from spreading the disease. These are extremely important news that will affect the behavior of millions of people in the developing world.
Of course it's not enough to narrow it down to married couples, but the gist of it, that condoms can protect you from death and disease, is extremely significant to huge numbers of practicing Catholics and Christians. Hopefully, even people who are not married will think that if the Vatican says you can use them to protect yourself, your civil status is a technicality. This may save millions of lives.
However, it is the policy of the Bush administration to give financial aid to NGO's that promote abstinence only.
Yesterday, Martin Amis spoke about the perils of Muslim fundamentalism and some people asked about American fundamentalism. To me the obvious response is that we have not started killing people in God's name yet. But then I thought about the abstinence policies of Bush and although we may not be killing people violently, to discourage the use of condoms given the current AIDS crisis in Africa and other countries amounts to murder directly attributed to some cockamamie religious belief.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Literary Rock Stars
My brain feels like it has been honed with the elegant precision of a pencil sharpener. For I have spent these last two days listening to world literary rock stars strut their often brilliant ideas in front of us adoring fans.
The theme of this year's Pen World Voices is "Faith and Reason". Nothing could be more timely or more apt because everybody with a brain between their ears is in mortal fear of the turn towards theocracy and fundamentalism that seems to be gripping the world. And if they are not afraid yet, it is about time they start shaking.
For starters, yesterday night at Town Hall was like the Woodstock of Literature, with writers from all corners of the planet. The one who made the biggest impression on me was E. L. Doctorow and I hope that the amazing speech he wrote for the occasion will be printed and distributed for everyone to read.
He must have made the biggest impression too on Martin Amis and Patrick McGrath since they chose to open their conversation today with something that Doctorow said, something along these lines: Doubt is the great civilizer, not faith, not unshakable absolute conviction. He then went to explain in the most clear, precise and eloquent language why the current trend towards fundamentalism in American political life is anathema to democracy. It is in fact, due to democracy and to the great legacy of religious freedom bestowed to us by the Founding Fathers of the USA.
In this country, people show much too much respect for God and too little for themselves, if you ask me.
I get the feeling that when someone reveals they are atheists, as Nadine Gordimer did in her note read by Salman Rushdie, there is always this weird little hush in the crowd, as if people are somehow afraid to displease or disrespect God, when in fact there should be a growing cheering section with tambourines and tubas. I clapped as I heard Rushdie convey Ms. Gordimer's message and was the only one. A couple brave souls followed suit because Mr. Rushdie kept saying "ain't that the truth" (he is utterly charming).
We needn't be so afraid of God; we need to be far more outraged about other manmade calamities.
I won't tell you the entire lineup of yesterday's event at Town Hall. Toni Morrison and Zadie Smith got the biggest cheers. In my humble estimation, some writers were more brilliant than others. One that made a powerful impression on me, yesterday and today, was David Grossman from Israel, an outspoken critic of the Occupation and an incredibly intelligent guy.
Martin Amis recounted today that somebody once asked his father whether he was an atheist. The answer was (delivered by Mr. Amis with impeccable comic timing) "Well yes, it's more that I hate Him".
Amis said that he was in the atheist fringe of the agnostic, waiting rather impatiently for scientific confirmation that God indeed does not exist. He also said that notwithstanding poverty, injustice, plagues, wars, the endless catalogue of human suffering, the reason why he doesn't believe that God really cares about us is because if he did, he would not have given us religion. And that with belief in a higher power there is no free will. I have always been a huge fan of his sharp, elegant, wit, and now I'm drooling. Today he was impish, brilliant, eloquent and brave and refreshingly politically incorrect. I don't think American audiences are used to listening to people call it like they believe it is, without trying to finesse anybody's sensibilities. Amis claimed that Islamism (not Islam) is irrational and against reason and there were audible gasps from the audience. He has a complex, rational, pragmatic and morally outraged point of view that is much more nuanced than the wholesale USA is Evil and the Muslims are just reacting bullshit. Also, he does not speak out of his ass. He has immersed himself in learning about Islam and seems to know what he's talking about. Besides, he made me immensely happy because he dumped on Jose Saramago, because Saramago said that suicide bombers use their bodies because those are the only weapons they have and all that idiotic crap. God Bless Martin Amis.
There will be further dispatches from my literary groupie stint. But now, I'm going out for a stiff drink.
The theme of this year's Pen World Voices is "Faith and Reason". Nothing could be more timely or more apt because everybody with a brain between their ears is in mortal fear of the turn towards theocracy and fundamentalism that seems to be gripping the world. And if they are not afraid yet, it is about time they start shaking.
For starters, yesterday night at Town Hall was like the Woodstock of Literature, with writers from all corners of the planet. The one who made the biggest impression on me was E. L. Doctorow and I hope that the amazing speech he wrote for the occasion will be printed and distributed for everyone to read.
He must have made the biggest impression too on Martin Amis and Patrick McGrath since they chose to open their conversation today with something that Doctorow said, something along these lines: Doubt is the great civilizer, not faith, not unshakable absolute conviction. He then went to explain in the most clear, precise and eloquent language why the current trend towards fundamentalism in American political life is anathema to democracy. It is in fact, due to democracy and to the great legacy of religious freedom bestowed to us by the Founding Fathers of the USA.
In this country, people show much too much respect for God and too little for themselves, if you ask me.
I get the feeling that when someone reveals they are atheists, as Nadine Gordimer did in her note read by Salman Rushdie, there is always this weird little hush in the crowd, as if people are somehow afraid to displease or disrespect God, when in fact there should be a growing cheering section with tambourines and tubas. I clapped as I heard Rushdie convey Ms. Gordimer's message and was the only one. A couple brave souls followed suit because Mr. Rushdie kept saying "ain't that the truth" (he is utterly charming).
We needn't be so afraid of God; we need to be far more outraged about other manmade calamities.
I won't tell you the entire lineup of yesterday's event at Town Hall. Toni Morrison and Zadie Smith got the biggest cheers. In my humble estimation, some writers were more brilliant than others. One that made a powerful impression on me, yesterday and today, was David Grossman from Israel, an outspoken critic of the Occupation and an incredibly intelligent guy.
Martin Amis recounted today that somebody once asked his father whether he was an atheist. The answer was (delivered by Mr. Amis with impeccable comic timing) "Well yes, it's more that I hate Him".
Amis said that he was in the atheist fringe of the agnostic, waiting rather impatiently for scientific confirmation that God indeed does not exist. He also said that notwithstanding poverty, injustice, plagues, wars, the endless catalogue of human suffering, the reason why he doesn't believe that God really cares about us is because if he did, he would not have given us religion. And that with belief in a higher power there is no free will. I have always been a huge fan of his sharp, elegant, wit, and now I'm drooling. Today he was impish, brilliant, eloquent and brave and refreshingly politically incorrect. I don't think American audiences are used to listening to people call it like they believe it is, without trying to finesse anybody's sensibilities. Amis claimed that Islamism (not Islam) is irrational and against reason and there were audible gasps from the audience. He has a complex, rational, pragmatic and morally outraged point of view that is much more nuanced than the wholesale USA is Evil and the Muslims are just reacting bullshit. Also, he does not speak out of his ass. He has immersed himself in learning about Islam and seems to know what he's talking about. Besides, he made me immensely happy because he dumped on Jose Saramago, because Saramago said that suicide bombers use their bodies because those are the only weapons they have and all that idiotic crap. God Bless Martin Amis.
There will be further dispatches from my literary groupie stint. But now, I'm going out for a stiff drink.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Marketing Killed The Movies
Memo to Lynda Obst: it doesn't take a two page article to come to the conclusion that the reason that people are not going to the movies is because the movies SUCK.
It's not Netflix, and not videogames, and not ADD and not theaters that stink of popcorn farts where you freeze to death in the Summer, and not 500 TV channels, and all the other lame excuses that Hollywood bigwigs find to avoid taking a good hard look at the unspeakable crap they put out. It's rather stuff like this:
Hollywood has lost touch with reality. The reason is marketing. Listen to this:
DUH.
And then a true Eureka moment, by gosh! I'm glad Ms. Obst noticed. What would we do without such keen insight? There are other kinds of humanoids that may want to sit in a dark theater and watch A GOOD STORY unfold. Women, thirtysomethings, fortysomethings: people.
Did Scorsese, Altman, Truffaut, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Coppola, Malle, Fellini, Schlesinger, you name em, make their movies thinking of snotnosed teenage males? Or because they thought the female 18-35 demographic would tell their friends about it? Or they made movies because film is an art form, not an extended commercial for brands, or a formula for morons.
I know that Hollywood needs to make money. But I don't know how these people can live with themselves, rationalizing the violent, pointless, moronic shit they spend millions on with a marketing bromide or two.
It's not Netflix, and not videogames, and not ADD and not theaters that stink of popcorn farts where you freeze to death in the Summer, and not 500 TV channels, and all the other lame excuses that Hollywood bigwigs find to avoid taking a good hard look at the unspeakable crap they put out. It's rather stuff like this:
July brought Stealth, Rob Cohen’s $135 million . . . what, exactly? Thriller? Action movie? Starring Jamie Foxx, Jessica Biel, and Josh Lucas, it opened to a measly $13 million. And October brought Doom literally... Based on one of the most successful video games of all time, it would have to be a blockbuster, wouldn’t it?... If the kids didn’t come to Doom, starring The Rock, we could no longer call anything.Stealth? Doom, with none other than that respected thespian, The Rock? Based on the best-selling video of all time? This garbage should not even be called a movie. If people want to play videogames, why on earth should they pay 10 bucks to watch them passively in a giant screen?
Hollywood has lost touch with reality. The reason is marketing. Listen to this:
We were seated at small round tables with marketing types from the studios (and many ex-marketers; they are the first to be fired when movies flop—i.e., it’s the marketing, dummy! Not the movie!) and assorted producers like me looking to figure out what was hot and what was not, and why. And the gist of what we heard was this: Young men were too busy to go to the movies anymore. They would rather play video games on Friday nights or be on the Internet playing video games with strangers or hooking up or pretending to be hooking up or playing video games with or without the person they had just hooked up with.
As for the baby-boomers—or the “upper-quadrant audience,” as we know them—the movie experience had so deteriorated (bad food, sound, seats, etc.) that they would rather wait for the DVD. They all now had fabulous home entertainment systems, which their teenagers appropriated when they finally felt like seeing the movie they had missed playing video games.So for Hollywood types the world is divided into some sort of humanoid constructs called young male teenagers and boomers. There is no one else of interest. In its obsessive segmentation of the audience, marketing completely forgets to ground itself in real life, missing the forest for the trees. As Miss Obst slowly realizes:
...we spend zillions and gear the products to teen boys—the most easily distracted audience. Not only are they the ones with the most choices on Friday night, but they also know within a second of our holding a preview anywhere in the world whether a movie stinks or not. These guys cannot be fooled by marketing anymore. The harder we hype them, the harder we fall.
DUH.
That year saw the perplexing, terrifying failures of T3 and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and Matrix Whatever. We thought it was about sequels, when it was really about word of mouth.
It's not perplexing to me. Those movies SUCK.
So we can’t put a bad blockbuster over anymore, as in the golden era of 2002, when The Scorpion King could open at $36 million, or Blade II at $33 million. And we have to kill our singular addiction to teenage boys. We need to diversify the meaning of “our audience.” We have a few audiences. Baby-boomers have a movie habit and an IV hooked up to pop culture (look at Inside Man or The Interpreter). You would have thought that Something’s Gotta Give proved that older women were worth making movies for, but one strike with In Her Shoes and we’re out. Young girls, reliable last year, have been rationalized off the screen (their tastes this year considered to be entirely driven by boys).Tell me that this is not Orwellian. Tell me that this language doesn't scare the bejesus out of you. How dare this woman call a Golden Era something that spawned a movie called Blade II?
And then a true Eureka moment, by gosh! I'm glad Ms. Obst noticed. What would we do without such keen insight? There are other kinds of humanoids that may want to sit in a dark theater and watch A GOOD STORY unfold. Women, thirtysomethings, fortysomethings: people.
Did Scorsese, Altman, Truffaut, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Coppola, Malle, Fellini, Schlesinger, you name em, make their movies thinking of snotnosed teenage males? Or because they thought the female 18-35 demographic would tell their friends about it? Or they made movies because film is an art form, not an extended commercial for brands, or a formula for morons.
I know that Hollywood needs to make money. But I don't know how these people can live with themselves, rationalizing the violent, pointless, moronic shit they spend millions on with a marketing bromide or two.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Honk if you hate the Decider
Is this the way to go about handling the oil crisis? By easing environmental rules on oil production? Is this a responsible policy, or another one of Bush's farkakte schemes to protect his cronies in the oil business, which consists, among others, of his entire freaking family.
I'm not a maven in this category (I can't know everything, y'all). But this sounds like really bad news. It just allows oil companies to neglect their environmental responsibility to pump more oil out of the earth. Is it too much to ask the President to tell people to consider modes of alternative fuel and transportation? It won't happen in a day, but this country needs to start taking a good hard look at its criminally wasteful energy habits.
But no, in Houston, new freeways were being built to accommodate more cars as far as the eye could see. It's not only the car manufacturers or the oil industry's fault or the fact that efficient, clean systems of public transportation cost taxpayer dollars (oil companies should pay for them. Aren't their profits up like a zillion percent?). But it's also the drivers' mentality. People who are stuck in satanic traffic in those cities cannot conceive of abandoning their car cocoons for anything. Their cars are such an extension of them that God forbid you ask them to take a train instead. But I imagine a light, clean, comfortable conmuter rail system connecting all of LA County and alleviating the traffic, the pollution and the road rage. Am I nuts?
Meanwhile in New York, I'd vote to ban all private car traffic in Manhattan and just allow cabs, delivery vehicles and bicycles (and rollerblades, if they behave). There is no reason for anybody to use a private car in this island.
I'm not a maven in this category (I can't know everything, y'all). But this sounds like really bad news. It just allows oil companies to neglect their environmental responsibility to pump more oil out of the earth. Is it too much to ask the President to tell people to consider modes of alternative fuel and transportation? It won't happen in a day, but this country needs to start taking a good hard look at its criminally wasteful energy habits.
So this is what he proposes:
People mention fuel made of corn, hydrogen, dog farts. Is anybody considering providing people with better public transportation systems? Take, for instance, Houston, Texas. Or Atlanta, or LA, or any of those sprawling urban centers that are mired in bumper to bumper traffic. They could be ripe candidates for a good conmuter rail public transportation system, because the only other thing they have besides endless freeways and traffic jams are bus systems that probably takes people a day and a half to get to their destination.He also said the country needed to expand its domestic refining capacity by making it easier to get permits for building new refineries or expanding existing ones. No new refineries have been built in the United States in the past 30 years , he said, urging that Congress adopt legislation that would limit the permit process to one year.
But the ultimate solution, he said to an appreciative audience of the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington, was to reduce the nation's dependence on imported oil.
"The long term strategy is to power our automobiles with something other than oil," he said. Although he spoke today about the importance of using ethanol, which is produced from corn and other agricultural products as substitutes for oil-derived fuel, he has suggested in earlier speeches that other methods be tried.
But no, in Houston, new freeways were being built to accommodate more cars as far as the eye could see. It's not only the car manufacturers or the oil industry's fault or the fact that efficient, clean systems of public transportation cost taxpayer dollars (oil companies should pay for them. Aren't their profits up like a zillion percent?). But it's also the drivers' mentality. People who are stuck in satanic traffic in those cities cannot conceive of abandoning their car cocoons for anything. Their cars are such an extension of them that God forbid you ask them to take a train instead. But I imagine a light, clean, comfortable conmuter rail system connecting all of LA County and alleviating the traffic, the pollution and the road rage. Am I nuts?
Meanwhile in New York, I'd vote to ban all private car traffic in Manhattan and just allow cabs, delivery vehicles and bicycles (and rollerblades, if they behave). There is no reason for anybody to use a private car in this island.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Heavyhanded left hand
As I get ready to march with the sock and sandal crowd on Saturday, I suddenly remember this little tidbit that really pissed me off. It's just one of those things that do not endear those pesky liberal lefties to me. I get a sense that some of the people who get so bent out of shape over humanity are not that great as individual humans themselves.
I wanted to get tickets to David Hare's agitprop drama "Stuff Happens". I had put my name on the waiting list at the Public Theater box office. The Public, as its name implies, should be a paragon of unpretentious treatment of its patrons, the public. That it ain't.
Grievance Number One:
The woman who was at the box office of the Public at around 4 pm that Tuesday is one of those people who feels a frisson of satisfaction when you are in dire need for theater tickets and she does everything in her power not to help. She was extremely discorteous as I asked questions about the waiting list policy. When I arrived before the play (I clearly saw I was second on the list and thought it would be a cinch) she told me with a smug, self-satisfied smirk that she had given away my tickets at 4:40. I could almost see her chest puff out when she put my name all the way at the back of the list, half an hour before showtime.
So I have an idea for the farkakte Public Theater waiting list policy. Get people on the list and ask them to be back at the theater at a specific time of your choice and start giving out the tickets after that time. And consider putting someone at the box office who feels no contempt for the humans on the other side of the partition. In protest, I will not get in line for tickets for Macbeth with Liev Schreiber in Central Park. (Not).
Grievance Number Two:
The reason why I was looking for tickets that night was that Amy Goodman from Democracy Now was conducting a panel after the show with Sydney Schanberg and an Iraqi journalist. I thought it would be interesting to hear a discussion of the play afterwards.
Since my name has not been called and the play is about to start, I see a guy who came in with Amy Goodman has several tickets in his hand, and ask him if he has tickets to spare.
"They're sixty dollars each", he tells me.
"I thought they were fifty five at the box office".
"I'm a producer for Democracy Now. This is for fundraising".
"Ah, well then it's for a good cause" I say, my arm duly twisted into a pretzel.
So my friend and I start fishing for cash, trying to scrape together for the tickets. We were like ten dollars short.
"It's allright", he finally says, "give what you can".
After I fork the money out, and we show them to the usher, I look at the tickets, which are thirty dollars each. Am I crazy or is this nisht sheyn (not nice)?
My point being: the guy could have been straightforward and said, they are $30 each but we're fundraising and we urge you to contribute. I think the way he handled the whole thing was tacky and mildly abusive. The word entitled springs to mind. These people feel so embattled by their own quixotic fight against the establishment and what they call the corporate media, that they think they are entitled to a very wide berth. My friend thinks I'm being unfair because they do noble work with puny budgets. Good for them, but I still think it's not right. I expect good manners, even from pinkos.
In any case, the panel left much to be desired. There is something about the solemn, long-suffering tone of Amy Goodman that really makes me cringe. Sydney Schanberg (The Killing Fields guy) made some interesting points about how we have not been asked to make any sacrifices for this war, and then went on a rambling riff about WWII that was way off the topic. The Iraqi journalist was a very interesting young man, and most of the audience wanted to know more about him, but he wasn't particularly articulate.
All in all, my few experiences with these lefty kumbayas are for the most part disappointing.
I find the cliches very irritating, the wallowing in common misery self-indulgent and humorless.
And I am a liberal.
I wanted to get tickets to David Hare's agitprop drama "Stuff Happens". I had put my name on the waiting list at the Public Theater box office. The Public, as its name implies, should be a paragon of unpretentious treatment of its patrons, the public. That it ain't.
Grievance Number One:
The woman who was at the box office of the Public at around 4 pm that Tuesday is one of those people who feels a frisson of satisfaction when you are in dire need for theater tickets and she does everything in her power not to help. She was extremely discorteous as I asked questions about the waiting list policy. When I arrived before the play (I clearly saw I was second on the list and thought it would be a cinch) she told me with a smug, self-satisfied smirk that she had given away my tickets at 4:40. I could almost see her chest puff out when she put my name all the way at the back of the list, half an hour before showtime.
So I have an idea for the farkakte Public Theater waiting list policy. Get people on the list and ask them to be back at the theater at a specific time of your choice and start giving out the tickets after that time. And consider putting someone at the box office who feels no contempt for the humans on the other side of the partition. In protest, I will not get in line for tickets for Macbeth with Liev Schreiber in Central Park. (Not).
Grievance Number Two:
The reason why I was looking for tickets that night was that Amy Goodman from Democracy Now was conducting a panel after the show with Sydney Schanberg and an Iraqi journalist. I thought it would be interesting to hear a discussion of the play afterwards.
Since my name has not been called and the play is about to start, I see a guy who came in with Amy Goodman has several tickets in his hand, and ask him if he has tickets to spare.
"They're sixty dollars each", he tells me.
"I thought they were fifty five at the box office".
"I'm a producer for Democracy Now. This is for fundraising".
"Ah, well then it's for a good cause" I say, my arm duly twisted into a pretzel.
So my friend and I start fishing for cash, trying to scrape together for the tickets. We were like ten dollars short.
"It's allright", he finally says, "give what you can".
After I fork the money out, and we show them to the usher, I look at the tickets, which are thirty dollars each. Am I crazy or is this nisht sheyn (not nice)?
My point being: the guy could have been straightforward and said, they are $30 each but we're fundraising and we urge you to contribute. I think the way he handled the whole thing was tacky and mildly abusive. The word entitled springs to mind. These people feel so embattled by their own quixotic fight against the establishment and what they call the corporate media, that they think they are entitled to a very wide berth. My friend thinks I'm being unfair because they do noble work with puny budgets. Good for them, but I still think it's not right. I expect good manners, even from pinkos.
In any case, the panel left much to be desired. There is something about the solemn, long-suffering tone of Amy Goodman that really makes me cringe. Sydney Schanberg (The Killing Fields guy) made some interesting points about how we have not been asked to make any sacrifices for this war, and then went on a rambling riff about WWII that was way off the topic. The Iraqi journalist was a very interesting young man, and most of the audience wanted to know more about him, but he wasn't particularly articulate.
All in all, my few experiences with these lefty kumbayas are for the most part disappointing.
I find the cliches very irritating, the wallowing in common misery self-indulgent and humorless.
And I am a liberal.
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