“Has anyone seen this guy”?

A woman’s voice pierced through the scattered laughter and the mélange of music. The voice repeated the question and sounded closer as the minutes past. Raj and his group were around their campfire. Morning was approaching and it past the hour the group had agreed upon for their curfew. They were sipping warm beers and telling the tales of their day. They were a laid-back group and didn’t mind regrouping before the next experience, the next forgotten moment, the next sight you’d-have-to-see-to-believe. Out of their group, many of them had been attending Burning Man for only a few years, but the oldest of them who called himself Faeroe, had been losing his mind at the playa for over ten years. He kept recalling previous incidents that no one really cared about but kept asking him polite questions every once in a while to indulge him. Raj was staring into the embers thinking about everything and nothing at all while the two women sitting on either side leaned over him to gossip about another woman they had spent the day with. He had tuned them out, as well as the voice that kept repeating “has anyone seen this guy?”

“Oh my God!” Scarlet snorted and started choking on her beer. Raj looked up as all the heads turned to see what caused such an outburst from Scarlet. A little woman approached their camp, her short arm outstretched which at the end was a Polaroid. Scarlet was starting to laugh giddily and Raj sidekicked her in the shins and muttered for her to “shh” and to behave herself. Faeroe paused from the yarn he was weaving and addressed the woman in his slow, Matthew McConaughey ala Dazed and Confused drawl.

“Hey, little lady. What’s it that you're looking for?” Silent for a few seconds, she stomped over to him, arm outstretched the entire time. When she neared, she replied, “Have you seen this man? He has my things and I think he might have stolen them.” Feiro casually plucked the Polaroid from her had and took an interested look at it. “Naw,” he said, “Can’t say that I have. When did you last see him?” He passed the picture to the next person who passed it along. “I took off my backpack to get out the brownies and when I turned around, they were both gone. I can’t believe it! I thought this was a community!”

“Hey, man! It is a community and sometimes people in a community steal stuff and are jerks!” Scarlet snickered as she reached for the picture. She was sipping her beer and as she looked down it sprayed out of her mouth. She was gasping for air and was making half-formed sentences involving leprechauns and asking the skies about the location of gold. Raj grabbed the picture as she doubled over her knees in hysterics. The little woman stomped over to where they were sitting, chirring at Scarlet. “Well, er, how would you like it if all your things were gone? No one will help me around here. Unh, well, if see him, let me know.” She snatched the Polaroid from Raj’s hand and clomped off into the shadows.

“Did you see that her? Did you see that picture? It was like a match made in Dublin!” Scarlet said incredulously. “Why did she have a Polaroid? Those have been gone for years! She must have known him from before. Ha! That made my night. Now I can sleep happy!” Bemused, Raj thought for a moment to the last time he saw a Polaroid and agreed Scarlet had a point. His thought did not linger long. It had been a long couple of days and sleep overtook him as the coals replayed his recent memories.

The next morning, Raj was on ice duty. He stood in the long line waiting with an empty bucket for his turn for an overpriced bag of ice. His group didn’t bring many perishable in the way of food, but they didn’t want their supply of beer or beverages to boil in the desert heat, either. As he stood there, he thought of what it must have been like to be at Woodstock 40-years ago. His eyes stopped and gazed over when they reached the garbage. Both the black garbage bin and the blue recycling container were overflowing. Evian bottles lay next to Mountain Dew cans and wax paper wrappers fluttered with a threat to escape every time someone walked by. This was a long way from the 3 Days Peace & Music, he thought. Feeling some benevolent disdain for the trash, Raj made a mental note to not throw his broken toaster oven in the Dumpster when he returned to his New Jersey apartment. He was about to shuffle forward in the queue when the little woman from before dawn suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision. At the same moment, the man from the photo was on the other side of him.

“Booop,” he said in Raj’s ear. Raj was at a lost as to where to focus his attention or what to do. “Excuse me?” Raj asked, unsure if he had misunderstood.

“Booooooooooooooooooooooop booooooooooooooooooooop! I think she loves me!” Raj stood stunned still, even though there was room to move up in line. The man hopped, not unlike a caricature of a rabbit, hands curled underneath his chin to the person in front of Raj. “Boop?” he questioned. The person nervously laughed and the man seamlessly posed with an invisible mic, first holding it to his own mouth, then to his unsuspecting prey.

“Ask me 'what did I learn at Burning Man.'”

“What?”

“Ask me what I learned at Burning Man!” the bearded, bald-headed man asked, his naked-chest almost visibly growing redder underneath the rising sun.

“Uhh, what did you learn at Burning Man?” the person in front of Raj asked. It sounded like a question about a question.

“‘How to hide my single malt from the crazy bitch who decided it was the perfect complement to Mountain Dew!’”

Raj stared as the woman approached the man demanded that he hand over one of the backpacks slung across his arm. He booped at her in quiet tones and the woman fell silent. She nodded at him as he handed over one of the packs and stood waiting as he booped his way to the front of the line. Raj was close enough to the kiosk to hear the conversation.

“This booping ice melted! It is an injustice to sell water and claim it is ice,” the red-bearded man argued with the attendant behind the counter. The heat was making Raj woozy but it was only a few minutes before the attendant handed over a solid bag of frozen cubes without an exchange of currency. Ice was one of the few items everyone in the camp needed and would pay for. A refund on melted ice? Now he had seen it all. But then, Raj would be damned if the little woman didn’t run over to the man, clasped hands with him and they both paraded away, untwining momentarily to skip around a cluster of people, each dressed in individual colors of the rainbow. The person behind Raj leaned over his shoulder and said, “If there was one thing that I learned at Burning Man, it is not to be surprised at anything.”

Raj made his way back to his own group, hyperaware of the surrealism surrounding him. Every few steps, he looked down at the ground in order not to trip over his own feet. He saw a discarded yellow shirt imprinted with a banana, a CD cover with a dangerous looking mouse on it, and lonesome shoes. Looking up at the sky, the clouds shifted shapes to reveal meanings, only of which he forgot the next day.

(Inspiration was found here, here, here, and here. (And also from a recent text conversation between me and my friend.))

Glamour and Glitz vs. Gutz and Grit

In promotion of Dancing in the Dark Brooke Gladstone and Morris Dickstein discuss the importance of cinema as a cultural reference to the Depression era ("Hard Times," On the Media). To the causal viewer, films of the era may be dismissed as "cultural artifacts," but are really speaking to the reasons why there may have been a demand for escapist films. One does not have to read very hard into Bugsby Berley's Golddiggers of 1933 to see the allure of Hollywood that New York showgirls might have felt or to see political parallels between FDR and the Wizard of Oz (Okay, i never saw that one before but now it seems so obvious!) Their discussion also mentions the juxtaposition of highly budgeted show-stoppers by grittier films, especially those that fall in the gangster genre. While these connection are far from revolutionary, it is an important to know that example cinema is a reflection modern societies and cultures of the times in which a film is made.

As I was walking home today, I was listening to the Filmspotting podcast from April 3, 2009 (you can play the podcast from their blog. Adam and Matty's discussion of neo-neorealism is the first 20min of the podcast). The hosts were discussing Ramin Bahrani's movie called Goodbye Solo. The hosts were commenting on the movie because it was mentioned in an article in The New York Times magazine about "Neo-Neorealism." The Filmspotting podcast and the articles that sparked their discussion all mentioned the "escapist" films of the 1930's.

I'm not an expert on Italian neorealist filmmakers so I will default to wikipedia:

Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors. Italian neorealist films mostly contend with the difficult economical and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, reflecting the changes in the Italian psyche and the conditions of everyday life: poverty and desperation.

Scott says neo-neo realism is a school of American filmmakers that are using similar aesthetics and are continuing the trend of a gritty story that often does not end on the brightside. Often, the characters in the neo-neorealism films are down on their luck and are scrapping together their pennies to be able to seek out better life. Scott's article generated a retort from the movies editor at the New Yorker "About 'Neo-Neorealism.'" Richard Brody said that Scott was a little too ga-ga over these "abstemious" film that are purposely gritty but in doing so are often cutting "off a wide range of aesthetic possibilities and experiences on ostensible grounds of virtue."

Scott mentions that it is obvious that cinema reflects cultural attitudes but sometimes the more "socialminded" films get undermined by escapist films. He mentions huge blockbusters of early 2009 and says that people are diverted but essentially misled from their troubles by happy endings and the glamour of Hollywood just as they were in the Depression Era. His solution is to "counter the tyranny of fantasy" by taking more stock in the social commentary embedded in neo-neorealism films. Brody counters this point by saying Scott is remiss not to mention the gangster films in comparison to the highly budgeted "escapist" films of the '30s. Even though films like Golddiggers were more likely to appeal to the population looking for escape, it is no less a cultural reference of the gritty realism portrayed in gangster films like The Public Enemy.

Dickstien and Gladston finish their discussion by talking about media artifacts that extend beyond the cinema. They mention T.V. shows and novels (I think it is safe to say that new media artifacts as well) are always going to be cultural artifacts - and probably more so in retrospect - no matter how epic or populist they may appear to be in the moment.

“I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say.“

Is a blog an extension of a journal? Is text messaging the extension of a phone call? Is microblogging the hybrid of the blog and a text message? If so, what do these mediums amputate and what do they extend?

The forms of communication mentioned above are ways in which we tell narratives in our electronic global village. W. Terrance Gordon notes that McLuhan starting point in media analysis “is always the individual, because media are defined as technological extensions of the body.” The human body is a social animal and we feel the need to relate to others and by telling our narratives, we can connect and build communities. The introduction of digital communication has proved many ramifications on culture and society, though not necessarily all good or bad. Through a blog, we can read an unknown person’s intimate thoughts, we can instantly tell someone we are thinking of them without saying a word, or let a whole group of people know what’s on our mind. These mediums are our message – we are telling the world we have something to say, we can say in instantaneously, and we can say it so the whole world hears it – we are digitally enhanced.

With all the immediacy in which we can – and do – tell narratives, there is something that may be detaching us (or amputating as McLuhan would say) from realistically connecting with each other. These brief moments in which we share narratives are a cool medium; that is to say there is much we can fill in and sometime that we need to fill in to understand what is being said. Sitting down at the computer to read a blog, as insightful as it may be, provides little information about the author or the subject. Yet this medium can instantly become a hot medium when we read the ‘about me’ section, click on a link, view a picture, or leave a note. The line between virtually and actually communicating in the digital age is blurred. I don’t know if this is good or bad or nondescript.

It remains, though, that the way we communicate has changed drastically in the last 20, let alone 200 years. John Carey has stated that we can look the culture of communication is just as much through the ritual model as a transmission model. Communication is just as interesting when we think about the technology that we use – packets, sound waves, cyberspace - but the routines and procedures and what becomes of storytelling and traditions is what is behind the sociology of communication – and what makes the history of how we got to this point so damn interesting. As McLuhan notes, it is “what drives home the message.”

Listen to the Ballad of of Marshall McLuhan

Rewriting (of a Kind)

Writer/director Michel Gondry is known for his visually stylistic music videos, advertising spots and films. He will often shoot stop-motion, but rather than using animation, he will use miniature sets made from different art media such as Legos. He has also written and drawn his own comic books. Through his website, Michel Gondry.com, you can purchase a personalized portrait sketched and autographed by him. Clicking the appropriate links from his site, a user is rerouted to Flickr.com and can view the numerous sketches of he made of his fans.

Gondry shot his film Be Kind, Rewind, in two weeks in the town of Passaic, New Jersey. The notion behind this film was to make a low-budget film using the scenery and the people of this town, as well as make a social commentary on how history is often overlooked but is essential part of a community. By using a narrative plot in which the two protagonists have to remake numerous films after the VHS in a rental store have been accidentally erased. As the demand for these quirky remakes escalates, the two men solicit help from members of their community. As the plot thickens, the community assembles to help save the site of the rental store, which itself is the historic landmark of jazz musician, Fats Waller (information which Wikipedia claims to be untrue).

The films are dubbed as “Sweded,” as in “they are a rare type of video that comes from a faraway, expensive country.” Since the protagonists are filming these remakes themselves, there are a limited number of movies that they can shoot in one day. Even the hardest of the town’s thugs enjoy these movies and end up watching films they wouldn’t have otherwise seen and, naturally, learn life lessons from these narratives. When the Sweded project grows too large, the protagonists encourage the community to Swede their own favorite movies and to make an original biopic of Fats Waller’s life in a meaningful story of their town.

Sweding (the act of making a Sweded film) is a way of inviting a fan into the authoring of a pre-existing narrative. First of all, Gondry is paying homage to the original film narratives by including them in his film. Secondly, the film sets up specific guidelines when a character wants a film Sweded: it has to be low budget, the film has to be made within the last 30 years, and it has to be kept between eight and ten minutes in length. Herein lies the opportunity for fans of Be Kind, Rewind to create their own Sweded film. As a promotional tie-in to the movie, there was a website in which fan-made Sweded movies were hosted. Even though this site is no longer active, this concept of Sweding has produced a YouTube channel dedicated to Sweded television shows, various websites hosting Sweded films, and an annual Sweded Film Festival held in Fresno. Some of the sites that host Sweded movies are swededcinema.com, swededfilms.com, and swededmovies.org. Gondry has also made a book, You'll Like This Movie Because You're in It: The Be Kind, Rewind Protocol, that discusses " the appropriative and participatory practice 'sweding,' which is to say, 'putting you into the things you like'" (quote from editoral note on Amazon).

While the actual film, Be Kind, Rewind is a comedy, Gondry is also making a social commentary about the media industry in large and how, in this era of digitalization, it is hard to keep the fan at bay and by doing so, effectively eliminates today’s audience – which is an interactive one. Retelling/co-authoring and re/co-creating narratives is a way in which to keep storytelling interactive and even if it is something as silly as Sweding a film, it creates a space for community, human interaction, and the exchange of ideas.

In the Web of 2.0

In the 1930’s, Vannear Bush had an idea of a “device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.” His essay, “As We May Think” delved into the concept of “associative trails” that would link common thoughts and themes together so that when someone would go to use a Memex, they could follow the trail to retrieve additional information. If one chose, they could let others use their personal Memex machine and link their own associations to another’s store of information. Even though this device was never seen into production, Bush’s was conceptualizing was the internet and hypertext.

One of the flaws of the Memex was that the associative trails could not be widely published. These trails would stay on the deskbound device. The invention of ARPANET and sequentially, the internet as we know it today, allows users to publish “associative trails” through hyperlinking, tagging, bookmarking, “liking,” sharing, and all the other ways Web 2.0 can help tell the story of the human race at large. At the end of this video, the author notes “Web 2.0 is not just linking information… Web 2.0 is linking people.”

When comment or “like” someone else’s post on a social networking site, blog, or even an NPR story, I am telling everyone that “this means something to me; this is part of who I am.” I am leaving a part of my personal narrative. Of course, Web 2.0 could not work without the technology supporting it, but likewise, the narratives we are accessing in the digital age rely on understanding the analog narratives and their mediums that have come before. Many of us run to the computer to gather more information on something we have heard on the radio or find the background story of a film and its actors. The narrative of stories, fictional or not, is obviously no longer linear but do I think that the traditional narrative is still and it is integral that we continue to understand both to understand the world at large. Perhaps Web 3.0 is how we access the network of communication and information in both digital and analog forms?

If these walls

............

The light from my alarm clock is glaring at me, marking each minute i lay here about to burst at the seams of my existence. The walls are whispering of things they’ve seen and heard although it happened one night far way and long ago. Their murmuring gossip passes behind coats of paint and reminds me of little old ladies early in the morning with their coats and shawls and empty baskets over their arms waiting to be filled. The walls and these old birds choose to speak of what they’ve never dreamed of and fill the emptiness in their lives with nonsense and chatter about the choices i’ve made that fulfill my life.....

All of this is rather none of their business, but walls will be walls and continue to provoke me, making me long for a sound-proof, light-proof box to sleep in. For a minute, this box is my coffin, a bed of feathers where i am weighted down by bricks. For a minute, I am dreaming so vividly i know it can’t be real but i enjoy it so much, my dreaming self feels it must be wrong and so i create people to save me and pull me back to reality. I want to stay with the vampires in my dreams and they want me to stay with them. They invite me to a ceremony where I am pulled in by a sweet song and when my monomythical saviors think I may fall for their tricks, I strain to keep these notes within me. I am chasing my monster down street after street clogged with grass, rain, ice, snow and grass, rain, ice and snow.....

As my breathing and thoughts become heavier, so do the walls continue to breathe their thoughts to each other and ebb and flow dangerously close to my body. The pen beside my bed grows larger and larger and i want to scrawl dirty words on the walls, to call out the unmarked space, to give them something to talk about once and for all. If i mark their empty spaces as my own, perhaps they would not be walls any more, but become art or graffiti and therefore have no right to hold my darkest secrets against me. These are my stories to tell, to draw out and create. I am afraid of sleeping for fear that as soon as i doze off, my secrets will spread like wildfire amongst these walls that keep me contained so i lay awake, marking each minute of my existence with words that are bursting at the seams of this notebook.....

weekends

I remembered my past about a stroke past midnight. I was a gypsy and he was my lover. All the memories that had past had suddenly come up to remind me love does not last nor is it anything to write home about.

“Do not ask me to spend eternity with you,” she whispered with one closed eye. “otherwise else we are only going to see half of anything for the rest of our lives.”

She saw her future, muted. Silenced by jogging, running, being a drone in front of the t.v., or listening to everything… remixed. It was not original but it could never be. This is she. She saw it unfinished in her thirties, just like that one show that everyone talked about fictions so long ago but she had no idea of it would be close to reality. This is the end of the twenties. Fighting for the place on the next rung, everybody killing to the great unsung song. What is life? what is the future? Here are we and we do not want to mature.

“I want you to tie me up against a tree, to rape me, to let me know who is in control. This is my fantasy and it is breaking my soul.”

Reality is what i am afraid of. This typing and making characters out of nothing seems all that is what of life made of, but, perhaps if i make spelling mistakes, it will not come true. Who knows? Who knows that it hasn’t all been said before, that i am not knocking on the same closed door which never lets myself in? Is it because my antecessors sinned? I hope to Allah it is not, i fight for what i’ve got and to make a new future for me… without great apathy or great regrets may be the only outlet.

However, it was once said that the mountains love me, that they are calling my name: “away we go,” they cry, “here is your infinity.”

Running, walking, watching t.v. in the hum that all else calls oblivion... working, drinking, pretending my friends are my own. These are the things that keep me awake, that keep me preserving. Perhaps if i feel nothing for ever, so that nothing i can forsake.