Werner Herzog: 'Grizzly Man' (2005)

It took me ten years to see Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) for the first time; by now I've seen it twice. Didn't like the idea of the main guy and his last girlfriend being eaten by a bear. But it's an excellent documentary, with Herzog shaping Timothy (Dexter) Treadwell's field footage, expanding on it with new material, and providing narration. 

Treadwell, after surviving near death by alcohol ingestion and heroin intake, found a new path in life by camping part of each of his last thirteen years among grizzly bears and foxes in Katmai National Park and Preserve, a massive expanse located at the base of the Alaska Peninsula, which points at the Aleutians. This is a volcanic region, worth noting since Into the Inferno (2016), one of Herzog's upcoming films, focuses on volcanoes. 

Treadwell's thirteenth year, culminating in a last-minute late season stint inside the Grizzly Maze, was not a charm.

A nod to Grizzly Man appears on the promotional postcard for "An Evening with Werner Herzog, August 31, Winspear Opera House / AT&T Performing Arts Center," Dallas, Texas, USA, where I was so happy to hear Herzog speak. On the card, it appears as if a grizzly is sneaking up on him, as in a dream.  

Today's Rune: Defense. 

Vladimir Mayakovsky: 'My Discovery of America' (1926)

In the words of Mickey Newberry, "I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in" (1967): a periodic delving into times gone by. Drop in anywhere and look around: what's different? What's the same? 

For today's time travel experience, let's consider Vladimir Mayakovsky's My Discovery of America, first published in Russian in 1926 (English translation by Neil Cornwell, 2005). Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was a lively Soviet Futurist poet at the time of his 1925 shoestring excursion to Cuba, Mexico and the United States. He traveled mostly by ship and rail (whereas today, one would more likely make the same journey by jet and car). Being a Futurist, he was particularly observant about technology, its impact and possibility. Being a Soviet, he was attuned to class warfare, conditions, and attitudes. A few snippets will give some of his flavor.

He notes of the three classes of passengers aboard the steamship Espagne: "The first class puke up wherever they like; the second -- down on the third class; and the third -- over themselves" (page 6). A vestige of this sentiment can be found  today aboard airplanes, usually divided among but two classes of passengers.

In wandering around the US from poetry reading to poetry reading, Mayakkovsky in 1925 picks up on a segment of American rhetoric that he finds humorous: "There isn't a country that spits out as much moralistic, lofty, idealistic, sanctimonious rubbish as the United States does" (page 68). Comments made by Ted Cruz last night -- in 2016 -- remind us that such hayseed rhetoric still persists.

He sees Havana, Mexico City, parts of Texas, Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago, but his descriptions of Manhattan are the most detailed. This part still rings true, beyond Mayakovsky's astonishment of the widespread use of electric traffic lights (a new development for most of the world in 1925):

During the afternoon work commute in Manhattan, "you can see thousands of cars, racing in six or eight lanes in either direction . . . Every two minutes, the green signal lights up on the traffic lights, so as to let through those tearing out from the side streets . . . Fifty minutes is needed at this time of day for a journey that in the morning would take a quarter of an hour, and pedestrians have to stand and wait . . . deprived of any hope of immediate crossing . . . (page 51). 

There's much more, but there's a taste of it. Traffic hasn't changed a mite in the way it manifests, ninety years later. Mayakovsky is dead, however (suicide at age 36); the Soviet Union came and went. Now we have Putin's Russia, Obama's USA and the internet. Lose some, win some. The human condition remains about the same, I suppose, only with a lot more people scampering around, some livelier than others.   

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Fedor Bondarchuk: '9th Company' / '9 Рота' (2005)

Fedor Bondarchuk's 9th Company / 9 Рота (2005) takes us on a war tour in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, from the perspective of Soviet Red Army troops. It's a fascinating movie. Yes, true, we've seen much of this kind of thing before in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Pork Chop Hill (1959), Go Tell the Spartans (1978), Gallipoli (1981), Heartbreak Ridge (1986),  Full Metal Jacket (1987), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), and so on, but this time it's with Russians and other peoples of the Soviet Union, fighting in Afghanistan in modern times -- where, indeed, even now US and Allied troops are still fighting thirty years later. I am always thrilled to see variations on a typically American theme, done internationally with a few twists.

9th Company does the usual trick of bringing recruits through basic training -- here with their "comrade drill sergeant" suffering from post traumatic stress previously garnered "in country" in Afghanistan. He doesn't mince words when there's a problem: "This is a real fuck-up, soldier." By the time he's done with them, they're ready for war. They've also gotten to know "Snow White," a prostitute who works at and near the training camp. One of the soldiers, an artist, calls her "Venus emerging from the sea."  

The next phase of 9th Company is set in the Afghanistan war zone proper. Afghan Army troops ("the greenies") are depicted as not very reliable allies (sound familiar?). The Soviet soldiers face the shock and surprise tactics of "the muj" (mujahideen), including ambush, landmines, and decoys; and their escape tactics, utilizing holes, caves, tunnels, villages, dust and darkness. The Soviet recruits join seasoned veterans, who the viewer may more quickly feel empathy for, because they seem more like fully developed adults rather than dimwitted youth.     

9th Company doesn't sugar-coat the misery of campaigning in Afghanistan, nor the violence of combat.  Definitely worth checking out. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.   

Venus: A Biography (Part II)

One of several biographical-mythological details covered in Andrew Dalby's Venus: A Biography (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005) is the rise of Venus from ocean to Mount Olympus. Her ascendance is -- or seems to be -- paralleled in the arc of Psyche. They are pictured together here by Max Klinger, circa 1881.

Venus challenges Psyche much as Hera had challenged Venus. The latter's son Cupid adds a tryst twist by sleeping with Psyche.

Cupid (aka Eros and Amor) is happy to hook up with Psyche, but on condition that they do so only in the dark. She must not see him in the light! But of course, how can she not challenge this one rule? And she does . . . leading to more adventures, but out in the scary world. Pictured here: Amore e Psiche (1707 to 1709) by Giuseppe Crespi (which can be found in Wiki Commons).

Psyche completes a bunch of tricky tasks, only to let her curiosity upend her one more time . . . But how can she not look inside the magic box retrieved from Persephone (Proserpina), the Maiden, Queen of the Underworld? Wouldn't you? Pictured: Psyche Opening the Golden Box (1903) by John William Waterhouse (via Wiki Commons via Irish Pearl).

Venus and Psyche, Cupid and Persephone -- Wow.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 
   

Venus: A Biography (Part I)

Andrew Dalby's Venus: A Biography (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005) really ties the Greco-Roman Gods and Goddesses together. Connects the dots. The names. The cross-cultural fertilization. 

Like the different worldwide Marian avatars of Catholicism, Venus comes in many guises and equivalencies. Inanna (Sumeria), Ishtar (Assyria-Babylonia), Isis and Bastet (Egypt), Aphrodite (Greece), Venus (Rome), Oshun (Yoruba), Rati and Parvati (Hindu), Xochiquetzal (Aztec). There are others.

Dalby provides variations on the myths and tales of Venus and many of the other deities of "The Before Time."  Venus hooks up with Ares (Mars), God of War, and they have three (or more) children: the twin sons Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Dread and Terror) and Harmonia.  Ares takes his boys off to help whip up a bloody good war among the pitiful mortals basically whenever he wishes. 

All stuff good to know, for it's especially relevant to astrology, astronomy, art, architecture, literature, gender studies, area studies, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, history, politics and chaos theory -- among other things.

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

E.L. Doctorow: 'The March' (2005)

RIP, E.L. Doctorow (1931-2015). An earlier version of this post was published in 2009.

The March (Random House, 2005, 2006).

Ingredients: Take Gore Vidal, John Steinbeck, Walt Whitman, and Toni Morrison. Add freedmen and women, common soldiers (some of them deserters and some of them prisoners), a clinical doctor and his assistants, a photographer and his assistant, an English journalist, plantation owners, some colorful generals, and Abe Lincoln. Blend. Pour into a narrative flow.

Follow Sherman's March from Atlanta to the Sea, through Milledgeville to Savannah (November and December 1864), into South Carolina (February 1865), through Aiken and Columbia and on into North Carolina (March and April 1865) , through Monroe's Crossroads and Fayetteville, Averasboro and Bentonville, Goldsboro and Smithfield, and finally to Raleigh and Durham. Absorb and digest.

The March is divided into three parts: Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. The swiftness of the campaign, with refueling rests, is remarkable. Confederate resistance in the first two parts is haphazard until North Carolina, when Sherman's columns are challenged by "the regrouped Rebel forces under General Joe Johnston, the one capable general they had." Doctorow's depiction of "Old Joe" Johnston is glowing. I enjoyed that, because he's the main focus of my doctoral dissertation. William Tecumseh Sherman comes off as a man tortured not so much by the war as by life. He spares Savannah, but is not particularly upset when Columbia, South Carolina burns (because South Carolina started the war). He goes out of his way to protect Raleigh, North Carolina, in the wake of Lincoln's assassination. Historically sound assessments and Doctorow deftly emphasizes them. Overall, The March describes tumult well, the madness and also the magnifying lenses of war, specifically the American Civil War, with its enduring social and cultural legacies.

As an aside, Union Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, head of Sherman's cavalry, plays a ready made rogue in the novel, to some comic relief. He also happens to be journalist Anderson Cooper's great-great-grandfather.

Homer & Langley: A Novel (Random House, 2009), Doctorow's revolves around the Collyer brothers, who in "real life" died in 1947 as a direct result of their disposophobic hoarding.

Today's Rune: The Self. 

Of "Tipping Points" and "Black Swan Events"

Started in on Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007, 2010+) and am thinking how it seems to dovetail in some ways with Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000) and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005). Love this stuff. I'm not the only one by a long shot. In San Francisco, for example, had a fun discussion with a shrewd Filipino taxi driver about his favorite book -- Blink.

Initial response. A couple of recent watershed moments seem like the culmination of long slogging culminating in sudden shifts: LGBT marriage rights (in the USA and globally) and the removal of the Confederate battleflag from government buildings in the USA. These are the result of tipping points -- not complete shocks, but still surprising after seeing only incremental change  over many years.

Black Swan Events seem more "out of the blue." Two examples: one, the sudden plunge in gasoline/petrol prices in late 2014 from which such prices still have yet to "recover;" two, the sudden end to a depressing five year drought in Texas just this past May (2015). 

The drop in gas prices was wild. The follow-up question is, how did various people and groups respond to this change? 

The wild spike in rain in Texas was an even bigger surprise. True, climate change models have long suggested wild fluctuations in historical climate patterns, locally and regionally. However, no one to my knowledge could or did predict with any exactness what happened in the large area in and around Texas. Indeed, it was called a "one in two thousand year event" (when in fact, due to climate change, it may become a one in two year event -- maybe). 

Late spring flooding in Texas was a disaster for many, but overall, such heavy rains suddenly providing a dramatic reprieve to drought conditions is worth noting and remembering in the future. Here, it's generally better to have too much "fresh" water than not enough. There is some general prediction that California might also be rained out because of the formation of El Niño, which if it materializes would provide a tipping point against the current drought, if not (because of fairly detailed models) exactly a Black Swan Event. 

Cool to ponder. What other kinds of tipping points and Black Swan Events have people noticed lately?

Today's Rune: The Self. 

Jeannette Walls: The Glass Castle (2005)

I'd love to compare notes about Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005). Have y'all read it? I know closely three people who have, for sure -- four, if you include me. 

The title comes from Rex Walls' detailed ideas for building a Glass Castle, but it also may work to remind readers of that proverb about stones and glass houses.

The book details the peregrinations of Rex and Rose Mary Walls and their four kids: Lori, Jeannette, Brian and Maureen. There is movement and there is place - in the American West, in Welch, West Virginia and in New York City. There are social interactions and there's environment. One can't help but compare and contrast geography, culture and social psychology -- at least I couldn't. Above all, it's an absorbing read. Can you dig?

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Another Film, Another Planet

Continuing from the previous post, I'm happy to report that Alex Gibney promotes not just El ángel exterminador / The Exterminating Angel (1962), but also Luis Buñuel in general, including another one of my all-time faves, his Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie / The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).

Gibney is primarily known for making thought-provoking documentaries ranging from Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) to a study of Hunter S. Thompson, to Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010) and Magic Trip (2011).

A sampling of Gibney on Buñuel's Exterminating Angel: "things happen that are so mysterious and embrace the contradictions of everyday life. You didn't know whether to laugh or cry or get really angry. There was a tremendous sense of irony and mystery, and also the sense of a mischievous filmmaker behind all of this . . . It was a sense of humor that appealed to me, even within this world that was very harshly critical of these seemingly civilized people, who are in fact, in some ways, no better than animals. And animals are always appearing in the film. . ."  From Robert K. Elder, ed., The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors On Their Epiphanies in the Dark (Chicago Review Press, 2011), pages 95-96.

Still from Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie which, as a full-length motion picture, is in color.

Today's Rune: Movement.  

Deepa Mehta: Water (Reprised)

Indian-born Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s Water (2005) is subtly powerful, a gem, a work that I strongly recommend. Water is vivid, one of the most gorgeous looking films I’ve yet seen. Its elements are timeless, seemingly eternal traditions conflicting with modern change. It is compassionate and empathetic to all its characters (a rare thing in film), underscored with beautiful music and cinematography.

There are strong individual stories set within the larger matrix of historical change. Much of Water is seen through the eyes of Chuyia, a lively eight-year old widow who is sent to an ashram to live out the rest of her days among other discarded widows. The year is 1938, and though in India, under British rule, there are legal alternatives to the ancient Hindu practice of sending widows to pasture, tradition remains well-entrenched. Besides living in an ahsram, widows could marry a husband’s brother if he and his family would accept her; or, more drastically, there was the sati alternative: self-immolation on the husband’s funeral pyre. These are obviously cruel alternatives, as even “the best” option, living in an ashram, is like being consigned to a lifelong orphanage for girls and women only.

Besides changes in law, other challenges to the status quo abound in Water. Indeed, the movie itself, simply by showing the marginalization of widows (still evident to a large extent in South Asia), has been taken as a challenge to societal norms. Deepa Mehta’s sets were attacked and burned by angry traditionalists during the first attempt to complete this film in 2000. She resiliently tried again and filmed in Sri Lanka in 2004.













Within the intertwining narratives of Water, widows, religious leaders, the ascendant Gandhi, and Narayan (John Abraham), a Gandhi proponent, all explore peaceful but often radical alternatives to the old ways.

All of the performances are outstanding. Chuyia (Sarala) is wonderful (and I’m not often a fan of children characters/actors) and serves as the perfect character for introducing the viewer to the milieu. Mehta’s use of a moving camera is particularly effective following Chuyia as she runs through narrow streets and alleyways. Madhumati (Manorma) is perfect as the slothful, crabby head of the ashram who pimps out Kalyana (Lisa Ray), one of the more rebellious widows, in order to pay the rent. Gulabi (Raghuvir Yadav), her eunuch pimp, is colorful and creepy, a Felliniesque character.















My favorite character in Water is Shakuntala, a strong, thoughtful, deeply religious Bengali widow played evocatively by Seema Biswas. She, perhaps more than most, subtly undergoes change in her outlook during the course of the film.

Water is the third in a trilogy of Deepa Mehta films. Earth (1998) is set against the backdrop of the partition of India and Pakistan. Fire (1996) involves intense relationships between women. Water (2005) is well-named, as virtually all of the film takes place against the backdrop of the sacred river, the Ganges (Ganga) where it flows by Varanasi (Benares). Metaphorically, of course, water represents a myriad of deep spiritual traditions, dreams, and possibilities.

Today's Rune: Possessions.

Southern Gothic Revisited: Get Low vs. Chrystal

Two Southern Gothic Tales: Aaron Schneider's Get Low (2010), set in Tennessee by way of Georgia during the Great Depression, and Ray McKinnon's Chrystal (2005), set in more contemporary backwoods Arkansas. Get Low provides a comfortable vehicle for Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray and company to do their thing, though the backstory isn't strong enough to support the front story. Chrystal provides a much sharper, darker tale, peppered with mordant humor and with a superb ensemble cast including Lisa Blount (now deceased), Ray McKinnon (the writer-director), Billy Bob Thornton and Grace Zabriskie.

In brief, Get Low can be seen by a wider audience without squirming, but Chrystal is the better (and edgier) movie. With Chrystal, beware of foul language and chillingly dubious situations.

At one point in Chrystal, Billy Bob Thornton sports an enormous beard, as does Robert Duvall in Get Low.

Today's Rune: Initiation.

The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction

After proceeding at a rapid clip through Leofranc Holford-Stevens' The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2005; audio, 2011), it's hard not to muse a little about the nature of time. What is time all about?

Time is gravity.
Time is ever-present.
Time is odd.

Dreamtime and awake time loop around each other, go through each other.

Time is space.
Time is on my side.
Time waits for no one.
We could have a real cool time tonight.
Love you long time.
Hot time on the town.
Time is place.
Time is a Zone.
Time is an Interzone.

Time is a Jumble:
Astronomy. Fate.
Solar, Lunar.
Astrology.
Julian, Gregorian.
Old Style, New Style.
1751/1752.

Time is Light.
Time is an Envelope.
Time is an Antelope.
Time is a Cantaloupe.
Time is a Half-Life.
Time is an Afterlife.

Time is a Note I can't Read Even in my Own Handwriting; Time revolves around Easter according to some Christians.

Time is a Season.
Time is a Festival.
Time is a Month.
Time is a Doing and an Undoing.
Time is a Life.
Time is an Epoch.
Time is a Millennium.
Time is a Century.
Time is a Decade.
Time is a Year.
Time is a Month.
Time is a Week.
Time is a Day.

Time is an Hour that's getting Late. Two Riders was
Approaching . . . and the wind began to howl . . .

Time is a Minute.
Time is a Split Second.
Time to go Now . . .

Today's Rune: Movement.

La Movida Madrileña: EL CALENTITO

El Calentito (2005), directed by Chus Gutiérrez (Spanish with subtitles) is a gem of a movie. It revolves around a "girl group" in early post-Franco Spain. The viewer can honestly delight in the exuberance of freedom, observing people as they wriggle free of Spain's fascist legacy. The film also carries a punk ethos; or more precisely, it shows the punk/New Wave music scene refracted through Spanish sensibilities. It's packed with innocent excitement and frenetic energy.

El Cantito (named after the club where the volatile band Las Siux cuts its teeth) has an additional element that other period movies don't: an attempted fascist coup before and during an important gig on February 23, 1981. This historical backdrop gives Gutiérrez's film extra kick.

The "girls" steal the show from the guys as far as viewer attention -- hard to beat their fully outfitted punk charisma. Verónica Sánchez plays protagonist Sara, transforming from sheltered student to vibrant performer; Macarena Gómez plays Leo, the troupe's comedian; Ruth Díaz's Carmen fronts the band (my personal favorite in the movie); Nuria González plays transvestite bar owner Antonio; Lluvia Rojo (Chus) quits the band early but remains on the tightly sprung scene to cause trouble later.

I particularly like how El Cantito avoids the usual Hollywood us vs. them gangs, opting instead to explore the tensions between freedom and play vs. tradition and fear of change. And the atmosphere is pitch perfect -- true in spirit to how the European music scene actually played back in 1981.



Today's Rune: Breakthrough.   (Based on August 15, 2007 post).

The New World

Terrence Malick's new film The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, is in the works, so now is a good time to recommend (highly) Malick's The New World (2005), an evolving masterpiece of cinema. There are multiple versions, the longer the better. See it on as big a screen as possible!  

There's no way I can beat this enthusiastic take by Mick LaSalle:

Terrence Malick's one-of-a-kind film, about the life of Pocahontas and the dawn of American history, contains some of the best filmmaking imaginable - some of it beyond imagining. I have seen it at least five times and have no idea how Malick knew, when he put it all together, that the movie would even make sense. It's difficult to write a great short poem. It's difficult to write a great long novel. But to write a great long poem that's the size of a great long novel - one that makes sense, doesn't flag and is exponentially better than the short poem or the long novel ever would have been - that's almost impossible. Malick did it. With images.  -- "Top films of the decade," Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, January 1, 2010

Shot on location in the environs of Tidewater Virginia and England, cast includes Q'orianka Kilcher, August Schellenberg, Wes Studi (one of my favorites), Raoul Trujillo, Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale, Colin Farrell and David Thewlis. Much attention to detail; superb use of the prelude to Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold from Der Ring des Nibelungen -- a jewel also employed nicely by Werner Herzog.  Come to think of it, the other really great film covering the early contact period (so far as I know) is Herzog's  Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972) / Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1977).

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

The New Madrid Sequence

Let's set aside the recent Californian, Haitian, Chinese and Peruvian quakes for a moment.  Let's remember instead in the mind's eye the New Madrid sequence of four massive convulsions occurring between 1811 and 1812.

These earthquakes spurred Tecumseh and his brother "The Prophet" to galvanize tribal resistance against American settlements just prior to and during the War of 1812; while incidentally, the strongest shakings were felt as far as the budding cities on the East Coast. And New Madrid (which is pronounced New MADD-drid in the States, as opposed to old Madrid in Spain) can blow again at any moment -- just like in Haiti, China, or anywhere else there's a quake zone.

Check out this impact zone and imagine the terrible possibilities.

For much more, see Jay Feldman's When the Mississippi Ran Backwards : Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes (2005).

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).

HBO's Treme Begins

Raucous, hepcat start to Treme. Much less bleak than The Wire, despite the aftermath of Katrina. Makes me want to get back to New Orleans, stat. Anyone else see the debut?

Today's Rune: Defense.