Friday, December 27, 2002

Sure, you're wondering why I go on and on about movies, when I clearly know nothing about them, have no critico-historical base in which to ground my musings, etc.  I don't know why either, except that I've been watching an awfully lot of them lately.  I've probably seen more movies in the past week than I've seen all year.  Think of it as vacation, a wholly-purposeful shedding of the day-to-day, an immersion in worlds that are completely and absolutely other, if that helps you understand.  Of course I, being who I am, have to come away from that world and mentally worry the images and themes of things seen a bit, as I do all other aspects of my affective life.  I watched Aguirre, Wrath of God last night.  I started to fret - as I always do after making such definitive statements - about referring to it as my favorite movie (as I did in my 12/23 entry).  But I was right, its great and I loved watching it again, although I've seen it a half-dozen times. The shot of the ship, high up in the tree, was as breathtaking, and horribly sad, as ever.  One of the great things about Herzog's films, for those of you who haven't seen them, is knowing that the cast and crew really did all the things presented on film.  Ride a poorly lashed-together raft down Amazonian rapids, with a horse or two on board?  Put a boat in the top of a tree?  Hoist an entire ship over a mountain?  There are no special effects here, gentle readers - they really did that stuff, often at great personal risk.  There's a nice moment in the documentary My Best Fiend, where Werner Herzog is looking at a still photograph of Fitzcarraldo's ship being lifted over the mountain.  Herzog says, "That is such a beautiful metaphor.  I don't know what it is a metaphor for, exactly, but it is beautiful nonetheless."  Contrast this to Peter Greenaway's ham-fisted glass-munching scene (see 12/25 entry), if you will.  Herzog gets it - the mystery that must necessarily reside at the heart of any metaphor. I, for one, found his unwillingless to autopsy his lovely metaphor for some terminal meaning very beautiful indeed.  I've read books, too!  I mentioned earlier that I'd received, as per usual, a bunch of bookstore gift certificates for Christmas.  Well, I've been shopping for books, and I've purchased a few things.  More importantly though, the receipt of the gift certificates took me back to my bookshelves, to uncover any lonely text I'd purchased, shelved, and forgotten.  There weren't many (I'm pretty orderly about books, and have an elaborate and arcane filing system that my girlfriend finds highly annoying), but I did unearth a few real gems: The Kangaroo Notebook, by Kobo Abe.  So, this Japanese gentleman awakens one morning to discover his legs have begun to sprout radishes.  This unlikely turn of events takes him to perhaps the world's most frightening dermatology clinic, and eventually on a hospital-bed ride straight to hell.  Oh, I could go on - the author really piles on the surrealistic details, while never losing grip of his protagonist's fear and wonderment.  I read this last night in one long sitting, in the bathtub, repeatedly refreshing the hot water until the tap ran cold. The writing rewards attention  - I really liked the protagonist's comment that his "veins were like earthworms," for instance - and the translation (often a real liability with modern Japanese fiction), by one Maryellen Toman Mori, is very lively and crisp . In keeping with my notion of metaphor's inherent mystery, I'll refrain from belaboring you with my interpretation. I will say that this book is really ripe for that sort of close reading, if that's what turns your crank (it certainly turns mine).  I'd read Abe's Woman In The Dunes early last year, enjoyed it immensely, and purchased this soon after.  I liked this one even better than Woman In The Dunes.  After that, I unearthed a copy of Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows.  I've been reading lots of essays lately - I knew I had this lying about, and was kind of holding it in reserve (I'd read two of his novels, The Makioka Sisters and Quicksand, earlier in the year).  This essay is very deservedly famous, so I can dispense with the criticism, and simply quote a paragraph I found particularly lovely, and finely observed: And surely you have seen, in the darkness of the innermost rooms of these huge buildings, to which sunlight never penetrates, how the gold leaf of a sliding door or screen will pick up a distant glimmer from the garden, then suddenly send forth an ethereal glow, a faint golden light cast into the enveloping darkness, like the glow upon the horizon at sunset.  In no other setting is gold quite so exquisitely beautiful.  You walk past, turning to look again, and yet again; and as you move away the golden surface of the paper glows ever more deeply, changing not in a flash, but growing slowly, steadily brighter, like color rising in the face of a giant.  Or again you may find that the gold dust of the background, which until that moment had only a dull, sleepy luster, will, as you move past, suddenly gleam forth as if it had burst into flame. Really, this was one of those books; so consonant with my sympathies and thinking that reading it was almost pure enjoyment. I felt no need to engage my disputational faculties, and was therefore able to relax and truly immerse myself in the flow of Tanizaki's thoughts and feelings.  That's a rare pleasure - I've been reading Borge's Collected Non-Fictions as well, and fighting with him every step of the way.  Oh, don't worry - the old man and I are still friends; I've been dipping into this book for weeks and have had, over the course of that time, many pleasant dreams in which he and I roam the aisles of some distant and dusty Argentinian library, put our heads together, and laugh.  He clearly pisses me off so much while awake that I feel I must reconcile with him in dreams.  Perhaps those that love me and hold me dear will do the same, and visit me in their dreams, when I am but a ghost.  That's a nice wish, so I will wish it for you as I do myself, gentle reader.  I will wish for us both, as well, that our time-as-ghost lies in some very distant future. And, since I seem to be detailing every piece of media I put in my eyes or ears during my two-week vacation, here's what my CD-changer spun up during the writing of this essay: Low, Trust; Mogwai, Rock Action; Thelonious Monk, Brilliant Corners; Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz To Come; Charles Mingus, The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady; Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation.    3:47:30 PM

Get your Kissinger On. 7:56:09 AM