Blog
March 20, 2007
THEATER COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Saw "Journey's End," a WWI play that concerns itself with the ways the different characters internalize the near certainty of their imminent, senseless deaths and with the relationships they are able to forge in the face of this. The play --which takes place entirely in a British military bunker near the German Zone border--would have been merely quite good if not for--SPOILER AHEAD! SPOILER AHEAD!...--a single stunning dramatic moment that elevates it to an exceptionally moving theatrical event.
At the end of the play, we experience the characters running out of the bunker and onto the unseen battlefield above. The lights go out and we hear mortar fire and bombings in the dark--growing nearer and nearer until they build to a deafening crescendo that allows us to experience an acoustic intimation of what one's final moments during battle might feel like. Then the lights come back up and we see the entire cast of characters--whom we've spent the last 2 hours with--posed statue-still in their battle gear--directly in front of a war memorial wall with the names of the dead inscribed upon it. The image hits us with sudden mortal force. What makes it so powerful is that this dramatic revelation of the characters' collective demise is taking place in the theatrical space designated for bows and courtseys. Where actors often awaken from their onstage deaths to appear for their curtain call, here, the curtain call is doubling as a revelation of the characters' deaths. It is a gasp-inducingly powerful inversion. The lights fade to black and come back up--revealing them all still frozen in their posthumous glory. Only after three dips of the lights do they take off their helmets and, still in character, acknowledge the applause of the audience. It's a truly powerful theatrical moment with extra-theatrical--indeed ontological--resonances.
PROPOSED BAND NAME OF THE DAY:
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Vicarious Cheese.
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Analysis of choking: (As in Jana Novotna choking. Not Latrell Sprewell choking or Mama Cass Eliot choking.)
It's the psyche choosing the certainty of self-subversion over the uncertainty of experience. It is a perverse assertion of the primal need for control--at all costs.
IMMODEST UTTERANCE OF THE DAY:
I'm a master of all trades. Jack of none.
HYPOCRISY OF THE DAY:
Bush and Cheney railing against all critics of the administration for possibly jeopardizing our national security in the battle against "the terrorists" all after having themselves leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent to the press. Arggggghh.....
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"You know what I can't stand? The irrepressible human spirit."
ANECDOTE OF THE DAY: (Or anecdotal evidence that cell phones can damage your brain)
I call a friend on his cell phone. We are talking for a bit. Part way through the conversation, I notice that distinct sound (if one can call it a sound) of wandering attention or multi-tasking entering the call from his end, despite my unrelenting wittiness and charm. After about a minute of appreciably diminished conversational presence, he tells me he has to go. A couple of minute later. I get a call back from him.
-You're not gonna believe this. In the middle of our call I started getting distracted because I couldn't find my cell phone!
-You mean the cell phone on which you were talking to me?
-Yes!!!.
-Wait...so you're telling me it then took you another minute of searching after hanging up with me to locate it and call me about it?!?
-Yes!!.
Wow, the conversation had been worth it after all.
IMAGINED EXCHANGES FROM A RE-UNION:
a)
-Well, I've built a thriving private practice, have an appointment at the university, have been married for 20 years to my beuatiful wife Sarah. We have three beautiful children, Rebecca, Jonathan and David. Oh, well I could go on and on...but how about you?
-Well, I bought a new chair.
b)
-Well, I went to law school and practiced for a few years. The I seque-wayed into the business world and became the CEO of one of the smaller Fortune 500 companies. And then I had an epiphany: The fate of the earth is more important than the fate of my bank account. So I quit, got a PhD in environmental science and now run a not for profit environmental think tank in Washington, where I live with my beautiful wife--who is a concert pianist-- and my two kids--the second of whom--wow, I can't believe it!-- just began college. Where does the time go? Hey, how about you?
-Well after college I fell through an unsuspected tear in the fabric of Being, was exiled from life, logos and law and have never fully regained my traction in time. But it's good to see you.
DAVID CARUSO OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
The David Caruso de-liver-y.
In addition David Caruso's creepily empathic "I feel your pain and I want to gently penetrate you pain from behind" vibe, one must also comment on the uniquely cheesy cadence of...his...de-liv-er-y. I would like to do a taped parody of David Caruso reading the pledge of allegiance. Or the small legal print on an ad. Every sentence ending in that absurdly portentous tone--that rhythm of inane epiphany.
TEDDY VEGAS'S OBSESSIVELY LISTENED TO SONGS OF THE DAY:
"I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You" by Colin Hay
"Intervention" by Arcade Fire
SPORT AND SOCIETY COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Rose admits betting on his Reds "every night": report (Can OJ be far
behind?)
You know it's funny. We celebrate a CEO who has the confidence to buy his own company's stock. Why do we condemn a manager who is confident enough to bet on his own team to win? It's not as if he was compromising the integrity of the game by betting against his team and throwing games. He was always betting on his team. Don't get me wrong. I never really liked Pete Rose. Pugnacious little bastard beat up my boy Bud Harrelson. He was ugly and flinty and unlikeable and had the worst haircut of the pre Donald Trump era. But if I'm a team owner, not only do I not mind my manager betting on his team to always win, I downright WANT my manager to be betting on his team to always win. I see absolutely no conflict of interest there. Hell, it should be mandatory.
QUOTE OF THE DAY #2:
"It would be difficult to fill his footsteps"
-Kyle Farnsworth on Mo Rivera:
I'm sure it would have been equally hard to follow in his shoes.
It used to be that athletes were ridiculed for their cliches (See Susan Sarandon's riff in "Bull Durham.") But now they can't even get their cliches right.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He was a passionate believer in the big empty gesture.
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Posted on 3/20/2007
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March 13, 2007
RIDICULOUSLY LO-RES IMAGE OF THE DAY:
Another indoor object in an outdoor setting.
POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY:
Righteous of the Times to make the Libby headline so huge. Finally a liar from the White House who is actually being punished for it. He clearly lied at the behest (whether explicit or implicit) of Cheney and hence the jury's verdict is a conviction by proxy of the Imperial Veep Creep.
After the Libby conviction, Cheney remarked: “As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service” --recalling his tribute to the then recently resigned Rumsfeld (“The Greatest Secretary of State in the history of our nation.”).
I have to suggest that the only thing more damning than a glowing tribute from Cheney is a promotion by Bush.
FURTHER POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY:
There is all this talk of Bush pardoning Libby. Hell with that. Bush should pardon the nation for the crime of being stupid enough to have believed him.
Newt Gingrich admitted that he was having an affair all during the Clinton-Lewinski witch hunt. That's freaking rich. Very rich. That's not just rich. That's Ging rich.
RANDOM SCENARIO OF THE DAY:
A guy leaves his office to do something. He suddenly forgets where he was going, what he was trying to do. He stops and stands there and nothing comes. He says to himself, "Ok, if I go back to my office, I'll suddenly remember what I had left it to do." He goes back to his office and it hits him: “Oh yeah, I have to pee.”
NEW CATEGORIES OF THE DAY:
For the slo-witted or the reflex-challenged: The split-minute reaction and the split-hour reaction.
CHARLIE ROSE INTERIOR MONOLOGUE OF THE DAY:
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Let me act all eager and interested in my fascinating guest when all I really want to do is hear myself talk in the presence of my fascinating guest…unless she is Maureen Dowd…in which case I just want to crawl across the table and lick her.
DESCRIPTIVE FRAGMENT OF THE DAY:
They were gathered together in the shared certainty of wondrous givenness and ineluctable loss.
THEATER ANECDOTES OF THE DAY:
1) My mother and I are at P.S. 122 to see the play “Goodness.” All we know about it is that it's the winner of the Edinburgh Theater Festival and is about the holocaust. As the lights dim, two people on the stage and a few people (now revealed to be actors) sitting in the first row of the theater begin singing a very soulful African folk song. My mother leans over to me and says, just a bit too loud, “That doesn't sound like holocaust music to me.”
I almost have one of those laughing during assembly experiences.
2) Later in the same week, I find myself seated at "A Chorus Line" where I have taken my father for his birthday. Despite the pleasure I take in seeing how much he is enjoying the show, I am bored out of my skull. I keep reworking my fantasy hoops line-up for the week in my mind and keep checking the songs on the song list--checking off the ones we've suffered through like things on a gruelling "To Do" list. I am extremely myopic and, at this point in my life, I really have to take my glasses off to read small print. The reason I mention this is that at one point, after taking off my glasses to see how many more songs were left, I discovered that in my uncorrected myopic state, the thin singing creatures on the stage become these puffy fuzzy blobs with tiny arm-like extensions. I am so delighted by this trippy discovery that I watch the rest of the musical in this manner and even sort of enjoy it. Suddenly the songs are sort of pleasurable when pouring out of a blurry little Thalidamide ball of light. Indeed, without my glasses, "A Chorus Line" became one of the most entertaining theatrical events of the season!
EXPERIENCE-ENHANCING PRODUCT IDEA OF THE DAY:
At the theater in which "A Chorus Line" is playing, they should hand out distortion lenses for people who don't have the gift of severe myopia.
BRIEF MOVIE COMMENT OF THE DAY:
(A propos of The Black Dahlia)
Everything in Brian DePalma's movies --from the dialogue to the perfomances-- is fascinatingly false.
PRODUCT IDEA OF THE DAY #2:
Deep Tissue (tissues with profound quotes written on them..from Lao-Tzu, The Bible, Plato etc.)
CONCEPT OF THE DAY/BAND NAME OF THE DAY:
Radio on Mute.
As in he liked to listen to radio on mute. Actually, this came out of a less glibly Stephen Wrightean paradoxicial line of thought. I was thinking about how there are few auditory experiences more pleasurable than that of a baseball game on the radio. It is the soundtrack of summer. Eternal in its subtle rhythms, its long lulls and sudden spasms of excitement. But I was thinking how sad it was that I pretty much can't stand most of the baseball radio announcers on the air today. I was thinking it would be great if you could mute out the live announcer and continue to hear the ambient sounds of the game. But alas. Technology has yet to become that gloriously customizeable and user friendly.
ART COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Impressions from an exhibit.
Saw the Gordon Matta Clark exhibit at the Whitney. Matta Clark's work for me has an inherent nostalgia. It evokes an age of radical and essentially optimistic exploration, a time (the sixties and early seventies) when things still seemed possible. I was very much impressed with his work but still prefer his contemporary conceptual artistic pioneer and fellow premature fatality Robert Smithson. Smithson, in his earth works, ultimately is governed by aesthetic concern. The spiral jetty--for all its conceptual rigor and commitment to process-- is first and foremost (or, at least I should say, ultimately) pleasing to the eye. Same with his scattered glass installations. There is a geometric simplicity to them --an elemental fascination with shape and pattern--that is very closely aligned with my aesthetic sensibility. Matta Clark on the other hand is primarily committed to radically redefining the phenomenology of domestic space. Certainly, he is governed by aesthetic concerns as well, but they seem subordinated to his curiosity about how the perceptual field can be tampered with, expanded, re-oriented, transformed. He is interested in boggling the mind more than gratifying the eye. He is --ultimately--more interested in experience than in beauty.
Certainly it might be argued that his commitment to something beyond mere beauty makes him a greater artist than Smithson. Perhaps. But you like what you like.
In one of the alcoves of the exhibit, they showed a documentary about the making of one of his projects. Watching a bunch of shirtless 20 something guys (one of them Matta Clark) power sawing through a house in order to radically rearrange it, I couldn't help but think how the time of innocent and earnest artistic exploration that allowed for this kind of endeavor was over in America: An effort like this today would no doubt be turned into a reality TV series and cobranded as a sexy quasi pornographic Abercrombie catalogue.. the imagery of pure artistic undertaking lending the brand it's vital aura of authenticitude.
(HYPER) CRITICAL COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Speaking of this bygone era: The next morning I read an article in the NYT Magazine about Susan Sontag and her contempt for American conformist consumerism and her nostalgia for the nobility of European intellectualism, I could not help but remember how, as a young man, mired in Heidegger, Derrida and Blanchot, I thought of her and even her eurpoean heros (Arendt, Sartre etc.) as intellectually second tier and, truth be told, sort of still do. But that said, it is striking just how far American critical discourse has fallen
since the 70s. What would have been a run of the mill socially acceptable critique of American hegemony, moral hypocrisy and anti-intellectualism in the 70s, was considered in the post 9/11 world (right before her death), a radical heresy verging on the treasonous. ( I speak of a much vilified piece she wrote in the New Yorker after 9/11.)
She is the closest thing America has produced to a serious intellectual in a long time--at least according to the European ideal. So my lingering low regard for her as a serious intellectual is a bit ungenerous and self-damning. (Note to self: "What the hell have YOU done?!?--Arrogant, judgemental, blog-scribbling turd!!")
I would not be surprised if The Gap comes out with a clothing line soon called SONTAG--linked with some focus-grouped, consumer-pre-approved cause du jour. SONTAG. Not critique but the illusion of critique. Not commitment but the illusion of commitment. Now availaible in 100% natural fibers.
Despite my misgivings about her status as a serious thinker, I would no doubt express my solidarity with her in perpetuity by refusing to buy more than one or two items from the line.
Unless the stuff was really nice.
TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:
To be, suddenly, out of the reach of feeling. Of the people and poems and songs that once, without reflection, claimed you heart and soul.
CARTOON WITHOUT ILLUSTRATION OF THE DAY:
“If you want to diminish the experience by calling it a disco ball, fine. But I prefer to think of it as a cosmic event.”
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He spent a lifetime waiting for his magnum opus to write itself.
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Posted on 3/13/2007
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March 06, 2007
IMAGES OF THE DAY:
Theme: Interior objects in exterior locations.
CLARIFICATION OF THE DAY:
In case it wasn't clear and in case it matters, the image above is a refrigerator door lying horizonally on the sidewalk (as if the identification of the thing truly answers any fundamental question about its being.)
IRONY OF THE DAY:
Has anyone noticed the irony that, in consecutive days' headlines, Cheney has been associated with a leak and a clot?
HEADLINE OF THE DAY/WEEK/MONTH/YEAR/DECADE/CENTURY/ MILLENIUM/GEOLOGICAL EPOCH
Swiss Accidently invade Liechtenstein.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_fe_st/mistaken_invasion
Again, the real world making a mockery of one's attempts to parody it. Put 1000 Onion writers at typewriters for 1000 years and they'd never come up with that one.
OTHER CURIOUS HEADLINE OF THE DAY:
Anna Nicole Smith funeral to be private, “over the top.”
Private and over the top are not descriptors one usually thinks of as being apposite.
NEW OSCAR CATEGORY OF THE DAY:
In addition to Short Features, there should be a category for Not Short Enough Features.
MUSICAL DESECRATION OF THE DAY/MUSIC VIDEO CONCEPT OF THE DAY:
I am in a bar and I hear this hip hop dance remix based on a “sampled” theme from the “Moonlight Sonata.” I envision the accompanying video to be this: We open on a gravestone that says “Ludwig Von Beethoven”. The camera travels six feet down to find Beethhoven twitching in his grave…in time to the rhythm of the drum machine that sullies his lyrical opus.
CONCEPT OF THE DAY:
Mensch Manque.
Yeah, he was a bit of an asshole. But deep down he really wanted to be a good guy. Used like professor manquee. A guy who was meant to be one thing, but never got around to it. A guy who missed his calling.
LINGUISTIC POLITICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
War on Terror. Instead of Terrorism. War on the Democrat party. Instead of Democratic Party. Bush’s inability to finish words seems emblematic of his inability to finish thoughts. To think things through to their logical ends. A linguistic and cognitve short shrifting that has gotten us into the mess we’re in with the environment and with Iraq.
Half words reflecting half thoughts…
Worse. There is a swaggering contempt for the act of speaking or thinking something through. Thinking about the consequences of continued abuse of the environment…that’s for all the hand wringers and thought thinkers. Not for Mr. Faith-based, shoot-from-the-gut Jesus Cowboy. Thinking about what will happen after we win the military phase of the war in Iraq? Again. My mind just won’t to go there. That’s for fact-based, hand-wringing, word-slinging, thought thinking liberals.
INSPIRED SIGNAGE OF THE DAY:
I see a poster on the subway for:
Black
History
The B and the H are in black print over a white backgound and the rest of the words are in white type over a black background, so what one reads is:
lack
istory.
Lack of an iStory? Lack of a single organizing narrative of self? This is a predicament I can relate to.
Speaking of which...
BELATED BLACK HISTORY MONTH HONORARY ACT OF THE DAY:
On my fantasy basketball team, I traded a guy named DeShawn for a guy named LaMarcus. I'm also thinking of changing my name to LaTeddy. Digital Napkins by LaTeddy Vegas. I don't know about you, but I'm sort of feeling it.
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
I just received an invitation to my aunt's gallery opening. After leaving painting for a spiritual community, she is back to painting. In the end, some of us discourse most deeply with God or His absence alone.
(BTW: I really like her paintings.)
FAQs of THE DAY:
How was your flight?
Did you get a haircut?
When is it due?
Has that always been there?
How are the kids?
Do you really expect me to believe that?
No, no no...I mean when is the last possible day I can get it to you?
Do I look like an idiot to you?
LFAQs of THE DAY:
What is the bare minumum amount of chicken that has to be in soup for it to be legally called chicken soup?
Is it by design or accident that the three notes sounded by the closing subway cars in NYC are the first three notes of "There's a Place for Us" from West Side Story?
If, for a day, all signage were in the font and color of Dunkin Donuts, would people eat more or at least crave more donuts?
Are gat teeth sexy in women because they suggest secret interiorities and hence penetrability?
Would Howie Dye be a great name or what?
Pat Riley-Michael Douglass: Separated at birth?
RANDOM DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DAY:
Laughter: The sound of logic imploding.
Crying: The sound of worlds dissolving. (Or: Trapped presence within the self being ecstatically released and allowed to re-enter the present.)
LYRICS OF THE DAY:
I'm just a great composer
and not a violent man
bit i lost my composure
and I shot Ferdinand.
Cry it's all well and kosher
to say you don't understand
but this is for Holland-Dozier-(Holland)
his last words were:
We don't know anything, you don't know anything, I don't anything about love.
-Stephen Merritt/Magnetic Fields "The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure" on 69 Love Songs.
COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Amazing--and, I would suggest, irresponsible-- that the AMA has not officially endorsed whiskey as a treatment for coughs, colds and flus. Sure it doesn't last. But what in this mortal life truly does?
REFLECTION OF THE DAY:
My first 20 trips around the sun, i was led only by my heart. It dragged me blindly behind it. I had no choice. Oh to be so blindly feelingful again.
FRAGMENT OF THE DAY:
The kind of horrible unnavigable incommunicable space that can open up between a man and his life.
CRY FOR HELP OF THE DAY:
I found myself in a bar at around 6:15 watching Pardon The Interruption with the TV on mute.
CLARIFICATION OF THE DAY #2:
Pardon the Interruption is a sports talk show where two unattractive guys basically yell at each other for 30 seconds at a time about a given sports topic. The point being, there is not much point in watching it on mute.
SPORTS REFLECTION OF THE DAY:
Fantasy hoops has been so consistently stimulating (relevant news coming in at 30 second intervals every single night) that I am actually considering my upcoming annual trip to Las Vegas as something of a lull in the action.
MUSICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY:
1) Bruce and Bono: Big meat hearts. True believers in search of redemption through the gospel of rock and roll.
2) "You're beautiful, so beautiful and i don't know what to do...cause I'll never be with you" landed that delicate quavering romantic singer Petra Nemcova--arguably the world's most beautiful woman. Maybe we should all try being quavering-voiced romantic losers. Or at least being really rich and famous and good looking.
3) "New Slang" by The Shins truly is "The Only Living Boy in New York" (by Simon and Garfunkel) of the aughts...a hymn to youthful freedom with a mournful joy radiating from the heart of it. It is almost impossible to listen to that song without feeling a soaring gratitude for the achingly beautiful gift of being alive.
It is no surprise that the two songs are both on the soundtrack to Garden State. They are sonic-spiritual doppelgangers; mytho-melodic twins two generations apart.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He made Rainer Maria Rilke seem like Attila the Hun.
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Posted on 3/6/2007
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