Creativity

Thanks to my friend, Jon for passing this along:

The Durrrrk Knayyyt!

I'm just as excited as probably anybody else about The Dark Knight Rises. But I'm also probably a little bit more cynical; apparently this is what happens as you approach 30 years old. Christopher Nolan's films are clearly levels above plenty of previous efforts, though I do still hold a special place for Tim Burton's first two films, like anybody around my age. They weren't perfect, but they captured a little era so perfectly you can almost forgive Kim Basinger for basically screaming for that entire first movie.

And now I'll stumble onto something: Why are the women in these movies so awful?

I should clarify: I don't entirely blame the actresses. I do blame Katie Holmes for ruining Batman Begins, even if she was handed some shitty writing, probably written by boys who grew up reading comic books filled with women who were either impossibly voluptuous or pathetically weak and clingy and nothing in between. But that's too easy. I don't care what anyone says, you don't become a Hollywood writer, at least nowadays, with that kind of warped view of what a female is. Which tells me that, especially in the Nolan films, the writers are trying really hard to walk a really fine line between writing the big boobed comic book woman who will sell tickets to young boys, yet not making her totally pathetic, bland, and dumb, and hopefully achieving a somewhat smart and powerful character.

It's a totally noble effort that sort of accidentally ends up becoming chauvinistic, because ultimately the women, to me, end up feeling almost entirely inhuman. Or even if they are kind of human, they're forced to regurgitate some downright awful lines.

So let me just clean up my puke after hearing Anne Hathaway's Catwoman whisper in that new trailer, "There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large, and leave so little for the rest of us."

It's not that the barely hidden income inequality stuff is bullshit or annoyingly topical (if you know anything about superheroes in general, it's that they are always fighting for the less fortunate out there), but that storm metaphor is just gross. It reads like a fucking stump speech. AND she's saying this to Bruce Wayne, the single biggest philanthropist in Gotham; half the plot of Batman Begins was built around the idea that Gotham was spared total economic collapse because the Wayne family gave so much. So if they're moving the plot in the "Bruce Wayne turns into a money-grubbing asshole" direction, I'm going to be supremely disappointed.


Anyway - I'm just scared. Hold me. The end of The Dark Knight where the ferries are supposed to blow each other up but don't because the goodness of mankind prevails....oof. Semi-interesting idea but I could have done without the "HEY! IN CASE YOU MISSED IT THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE MAIN THEME OF THE MOVIE" card dangling in front of the screen the whole time.

Things that went through the brain today

8:35 AM: A woman believes her face is melting. No one seems to notice. She tries to shove her face in the freezer but it won't fit. Too much old meat and pizza. She goes to bed in the tub.

9:17 AM: Can anyone smell that?

9:21 AM: I don't really know anything about copyright law. Also, I don't care that much. A little. Not much.

10:41 AM: Every literary journal likes to "encourage you to buy a copy before you submit" but most won't pay you if your story is accepted. How about I encourage them to buy my story before reading it?

11:19 AM: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2:31 PM: New sandwich guy mumbled "fuck" or "damn" 8 times while making my chicken salad on marble rye.

3:04 PM: Read a story about a 6-foot frog who saves Tokyo from an earthquake.

3:22 PM:  Most times I go to the Huffington Post I feel disappointed. Not sure why. Some of the writing is just fine. Still, something about the site makes it feel like the big place for rich people to complain. The Onion, however, makes the blues go away.

4:47 PM: Remembering something overheard at lunch, spoken in what can only be described as a First Year Resident Voice: "Well if everyone can't see is anyone really actually blind? Like wouldn't the word "see" just take on a different meaning?" I scoffed at this like a true condescending people-watcher and thought "what a dumbfuck!"

4:49PM: Wait, first year resident guy kind of has an interesting point.

I was gone and then I came back. True story.

Well hey blog, you're still alive. So am I! Nice to see you after all these months. I've, um, sort of been writing elsewhere. And then I kind of decided to take a break and sort things out in the ol' brain for a bit. I never stopped loving you, I just needed time away to be my own manboy, which lately has meant playing A LOT of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

How have you been? Hold that thought, gotta potty.

love,ralsh

And, lo, they all tweeted their grief

So, let me start by saying that I don't think there's anything inherently wrong or bad about using Twitter as way to express grief or pass on condolences, and I do have to admit a healthy serving of ignorance when it comes to Twitter -- I don't have an account and have no real interest in having one. Maybe it's just because it's called "Twitter" and everybody's little messages are "Tweets" it comes off sounding so lame. I bring forth exhibit A, which is anyone's use of the sentence"I just tweeted." Though the whole thing's really no different than when I clogged the Internet in the late 90s with AIM away messages, and then switched into Facebook & Gmail in the 2000s to spout little "hey look at me!" messages. (Hey, uh, Melvin? Twitter also ain't too different from this here blog you be writin' on.) So yes I know I'm being a little hypocritical. We all want to be noticed.

But.

When really profound events like prominent deaths or natural disasters happen and some of the first things you see are things like So-in-So tweeted this bit of sadness, and that-other-person tweeted his condolences -- I saw an article about Nate Dogg's death that wasn't really an article so much as a catalog of celebrity tweets. Is it incredibly cynical of me to imagine a publicist who has no idea, really, who Nate Dogg was but tells a client that his/her quiet grief isn't enough, that everybody's using this Twitter thing, and that he/she must tweet something really special to stay relevant? -- so when all this happens at once, don't you just feel so...empty? Am I alone in this feeling?

It could be that it's really the events themselves that make me sad, and I'm just taking out my sadness/anger at said events on the messenger, Twitter. But this time taking it out on the messenger does seem somewhat appropriate. It's like getting told by some bro in flip flops and a backwards hat that your gramma just died, but hey man just have a beer and click on this sweet link about cats. I think there's something deeper here that's a little bit harder to confront, and even harder to understand. Really it all just begs a lot of questions. Like, why are people expressing their grief with this technology that limits all expressions to just 140 characters? Why do some people make their grief public while others do so in private? Is there a difference between 1 million tweets of grief and, say, the 20-30,000 humans who grieved together in Liverpool when John Lennon was killed? Does a GriefTweet (I think I just made that up) make someone feel better? And here's a weird one: is it easier to grieve online than it is out in the 'real world'? Oh god, and that brings up another line of questioning: are there people out there who think the Internet isn't really the 'real world'?

I'm not even all that sure what I'm getting at, other than that Twitter smells really intensely like the kind of thing we're going to look back on in 20 years as occasionally useful but mostly just sort of profoundly dumb. Especially when you see a page full of Tweets -- it looks like bathroom stall graffiti. Is that really where you want to grieve?

God I feel old. And cranky. Maybe I should go post on Twitter.

Big time music day

Lots of new releases/leaks of some of my favorite artists over the last day or so.

Two new Panda Bear tracks:

The Preakness
Surfer's Hymn (I got my 7-inch order in, did you?)

New Flaming Lips/Neon Indian 12-inch**

Is David Bowie Dying?

**Just a heads up for all ya'll savvy Internet users out there: there is a vinyl-mp3 rip of the full 12-inch floating around the world wide web. Grab yer surfboard and find it; you can do it, I believe in you.

Lookout! It's Spidey, man

It's amazing to see so much attention paid to the city of Richmond and my alma mater UR. Though, I find it pretty odd that article doesn't once mention that a Spider team in January 2004 upset a then-ranked No. 12 Kansas team in Kansas, snapping a 52-game home winning streak KU had against unranked teams. I was studying abroad in Ireland at the time and was following the game on ESPN's gamecenter thing on this crappy dial-up internet service, literally just watching the numbers change. I was alone in my room and went batshit when the words "Dobbins jumper...good!" came up. That photo of KU's Keith Langford watching UR players celebrate on his home court was pretty much the coolest thing at the time. Then the next day I found some pixely video that took a hundred years to load on the shitty dial-up service but it was still incredible, Tony Dobbins' little spin move and fade away just in front of the free-throw line. Ahhh. That team got an at-large NCAA berth that year, I think a number 11-seed, and actually led a very good Wisconsin team by 13 or so points before completely shitting the bed and getting eliminated in the first round.

Anyway, maybe it's just me but that kind of info seems pretty relevant, you know, considering Richmond is playing Kansas again for the first time since that game. But, hey, you know you could instead just spend several paragraphs writing about local sports bars with really deep quotes like "That would be great!" or "I so want that to happen!", meaning a VCU or Richmond Final Four berth.

But at least they're writing about the two teams at all - both teams and schools deserve way more recognition. GO SPIDERS

J. Tillman - Year In The Kingdom

This album haunts my dreams. I have a love/hate relationship with writing about music; if I have to read one more adverb-laden sentence about "achingly beautiful melodies" or "crushingly epic guitars" I will eat a child. I really envy those who can do it well, but even the best music writing is trumped by simply shutting off your brain and listening, more importantly: feeling. And that's what this album is all about. Put your life on hold for just half an hour or so and listen to something else other than the whirring of your own brain.

Here's a live version of the first song (the title track) and some discussion about one of the overall themes of the album. He's an interesting person with what seems like a wry sense of humor, but I think he just an honest soul who is incredibly passionate about what he does, which often is tackling the kinds of themes most of us would rather not confront.



Western Vinyl is out-of-stock of the vinyl, but Insound has some and I really strongly suggest purchasing it. It's one of my favorite albums, ever.

How for to make spell the name of the guy

I have seen Muammar or Moammar. I have seen Gaddafi, Khadafi, Gadhafi, Qaddafi, el-Gaddafi, al-Gaddafi, el-Khadafi, and I think others that I can't even remember.

So?

Interesting stuff

Also for a while the NY Times couldn't figure out how to spell "protester," which I know was causing my former University of Richmond journalism professors some indigestion. Looks like they pretty much have it sorted out by now, though.

And if you really want to be a total grammar snoot (or snootlet, per DFW, for the very young nerds) just head over to ESPN.com. Make sure to be alone in a dark room while you laugh because no one else is going to care. Except me, of course.

Engine Down

Been going back to these guys a lot lately -- they used to play all around Richmond when I was in school and are now no longer a band, and I miss them.

New bass drum stencil!

It didn't come out perfect, but not too bad at all for a first try. Let thine inner nerd shine!

Workin' on a new chapter, here's a little snip

Matt was in his front yard firing forearm-sized foam arrows at imaginary targets, targets that became real when Danny and his Mom rounded the corner of Market Dr. and proceeded downhill to his house on Faun Lane. The arrows could go surprisingly far; one needed to slide the hollow arrow over a very phallic part of the plastic bow, pull back a lever simulating pulling a bow-string, and then force the lever forward to expel the arrow with compressed air. Depending on trajectory, wind, and how much force he exerted, Matt discovered that he could make the arrow fly anywhere from nowhere to 30 or 40 feet; or, to give you a better idea, the distance up the sidewalk from his house to the corner Danny and Mom had rounded just in time for a yellow, forearm-sized arrow with blue Nerf feathers on its rear to smack unsuspecting Mom on the forehead just below her hairline, making the kind of dull pock that tennis balls make when hit with poorly strung rackets. Matt also liked to sing “Nerf Bow and Arrow!” – in what can only be described as a deaf person’s voice – to the tune of “Pop goes the weasel!” anytime he succeeded in hitting someone.

The best part about Nerf was that nothing ever hurt. And because it should have hurt but didn't, and instead almost always made this silly noise, getting hit with one of the things was always a funny experience. For adults it would be somewhat like having the ability to shoot each other with real guns/bullets without any of the Thanatoptic consequences. Though this begs the question: Why is pretending to kill each other so much fun?

Feeling like an asshole?

I've had my 2000 Chevy Impala for about six years now, given as a graduation gift from my excellent parents, and it's got these daytime running lights. When you turn the car off, the lights stay on for maybe 10-15 more seconds before shutting off automatically. No big deal, right? I could probably turn the setting off but I kinda like it, especially if you're in a weird place at night. It doesn't happen very often, but once every few weeks I'll park the car somewhere at night and go walking into, say, the grocery store and some kind person will inform me that I've left my lights on. My response used to be a simple, "Oh they turn off automatically in a second, but thanks," and it never fails that the person gives me this rebuffed look of like "Sheesh, I was just trying to help, dickhead." And I don't get it! Seriously, this happens every single time someone let's me know the lights are on, and I really don't think I've acted like an asshole - so I always wonder what's going through these folks' heads. So now I've amended the end of my response to include "but I really appreciate that you were looking after me," which I think just makes me sound condescending. So I can't really win. I'm almost to the point where I'm gonna just go, "oh shit, thanks so much!" and run back to the car and fake turning the lights off.