Category: Doing

Some Thoughts on Synecdoche, New York

One of the rare plea­sures I had as a video store clerk was being able to enjoy how cus­tomers respond­ed to Char­lie Kauf­man’s work. One such cus­tomer was even eager to check out Don­ald’s stuff after watch­ing Adap­ta­tion! For me, Kauf­man’s scripts were love let­ters to out­siders of all shapes and sizes, for whom the pur­suit of a “nor­mal” life presents a tremen­dous chal­lenge. Yet even when some degree of nor­mal­i­ty is obtained or accep­tance achieved, his pro­tag­o­nists remain just out of step with their peers.

Caden Cotard, the man at the cen­ter of Synec­doche, New York, is no excep­tion. I spent some time read­ing Film­brain’s excel­lent two-part review (part 1, part 2), but felt that Char­lie Kauf­man’s motifs remain the same. In Synec­doche, he con­tin­ues to play with time and space, leav­ing it up to Cotard to rec­on­cile his place with­in them, while strug­gling with infir­mi­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty. Synec­doche, New York finds Kauf­man address­ing the cre­ative process in a way he has­n’t since Char­lie drove him­self to dis­trac­tion in Adap­ta­tion.

It’s hard to say very much about Synec­doche, New York. I was com­plete­ly mes­mer­ized by the sto­ry and the per­for­mances, with­out much more than a pass­ing thought for where the plot might lead. I found it spell­bind­ing. I was com­plete­ly engrossed in the char­ac­ters and what they might do next. Does that make me one of Armond White’s “fash­ion sheep?” Maybe. Do I care? No.

Why? Because part of the joy in see­ing movies made by writ­ers and direc­tors like Kauf­man, Gondry, Ander­son, Reichardt, and oth­ers is that they feel like our movies. Their actors feel like our actors.To me, this cin­e­ma is Gen­er­a­tion X com­ing to grips with a world it has­n’t shaped in any mean­ing­ful way, reflect­ed in Cotard walling him­self off from the war-torn real­i­ty that exists out­side his “the­ater of the real.” There’s an over­whelm­ing sense of inad­e­qua­cy and impo­tence that per­me­ates the movie, and those are two sen­ti­ments that could be applied to Gen­er­a­tion X if you ask me.

This is the sort of movie I’ll come back to again and again. It’s the sort of movie I’d love to see released in a spe­cial edi­tion three-disc set, com­plete with notes and inter­views and doc­u­men­tary footage. There’s no chance that it’ll receive such lav­ish atten­tion when it comes out on DVD, but one can dream.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Joan Didion on Obama

Maybe you weren’t with me when I linked to Adolph Reed Jr.‘s now infa­mous “Oba­ma No” piece from the pro­gres­sive, but you might find Joan Did­ion’s sober thoughts on the Oba­ma pres­i­den­cy more palat­able. From her essay in the New York Review of Books:

No one ever sug­gest­ed that the can­di­date him­self was drink­ing the Kool-Aid—if there had been any doubt about this, his ini­tial appoint­ments laid them to rest. In fact it seemed increas­ing­ly clear not only that he would wel­come some healthy real­ism but that its absence had become a source of wor­ry. “The exu­ber­ance of Tues­day night’s vic­to­ries,” TheNew York Times report­ed on Novem­ber 6, “was also tem­pered by unease over the pub­lic’s high expec­ta­tions for a par­ty in con­trol of both Con­gress and the White House amid eco­nom­ic tur­moil, two wars over­seas and a yawn­ing bud­get gap.” A head­line in the same day’s Times : “With Vic­to­ry in Hand, Oba­ma Aides Say Task Now Is to Tem­per High Expectations.”

What’s hap­pen­ing now is pret­ty much what hap­pened with Bill Clin­ton. Peo­ple thought the rev­o­lu­tion was at hand and then wel­fare was more or less abol­ished. We’re din­ing on thin polit­i­cal gru­el these days, but there are those who call it a feast. It’s time for what remains of the Amer­i­can left to regain its sens­es and active­ly pur­sue a pro­gres­sive agen­da in the face of aus­ter­i­ty. It’s our only hope.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Criterion Delays Blu-ray Collection, Again

Engad­get dropped this lit­tle tid­bit last week about Cri­te­ri­on delay­ing their Blu-ray launch yet again. Do I sus­pect any­thing nefar­i­ous? Not real­ly, but I wish Cri­te­ri­on would recon­sid­er dump­ing mon­ey into a for­mat that will nev­er be adopt­ed in any mean­ing­ful way. I’m hope­ful that their flashy new web­site (pun intend­ed) is an indi­ca­tion that they may be rethink­ing Blu-ray and con­sid­er­ing some sort of HD dig­i­tal deliv­ery system.

With the HD Stream­ing Net­flix on New Xbox Expe­ri­ence blow­ing my mind, I’d hope that they’d find a way to get their con­tent uploaded there to spare the expense of author­ing Blu-ray discs. I have my fin­gers crossed.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Smashing Pumpkins Anniversary Tour

I laughed when I read this at Pitch­fork. They threw a sim­i­lar tantrum when I saw them in July 1996, play­ing 20 plus min­utes of feed­back, alleged­ly because they’d been asked to play longer to avoid traf­fic snarls with the crowd leav­ing a Phillies game. Some things nev­er change, huh?

These 90’s reunions would be much more appeal­ing if the bands could seri­ous­ly get their acts togeth­er. I’ve skipped Stone Tem­ple Pilots and Smash­ing Pump­kins sim­ply because I expect­ed both to be dis­as­trous, not to men­tion that it feels too soon for these reunions. (I’m look­ing hard at you too, Pavement.)

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

I Ran the 2008 Philadelphia Marathon

Marathon shoes, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by Black­mail Is My Life.

23 weeks of train­ing came to fruition yes­ter­day as I com­plet­ed the Philadel­phia Marathon in 3:13:33. I ran through three pair of Puma sneak­ers, the last three I had from my Philebri­ty Fit Club win­nings. They served me well. I ran over 750 miles in the past six months, and they were with me every step of the way.

Want some high­lights? Of course you do!

  • It was crazy cold. I’ve read that it was 27 degrees at the start, but 19 with the wind chill. For con­text, con­sid­er this: the air horn that would’ve sig­naled the start froze! May­or Nut­ter had to count­down the start.
  • I ran most of the race behind a man who wore shorts, no shirt. Need I say more?
  • That crazy cold made for some crazy con­di­tions. The water was freez­ing on the street at the water sta­tions, mak­ing a dif­fi­cult run treach­er­ous. I tip-toed through them gin­ger­ly, fin­gers crossed. I did­n’t fall, so that tech­nique clear­ly worked.
  • The course map was wrong! I think peo­ple had an idea that we would­n’t be run­ning up South St. as it’s been torn up. We ran up Spruce instead, which meant run­ning across some Bel­gian block. How quaint! Sprain an ankle in a colo­nial style!
  • There are cars parked on the course. Peri­od­i­cal­ly the Clif pace run­ner would call for fans to step back off Chest­nut St., which would real­ly help, except they were actu­al­ly pro­tect­ing us from the cars parked on the course. I did­n’t see any­one wipe out on a hood of a parked vehi­cle, but it was def­i­nite­ly possible.
  • Speak­ing of wipe­outs I did­n’t stop to watch: I was run­ning in Fair­mount Park when sud­den­ly the pack part­ed and I saw a white flash in my periph­er­al vision. I iden­ti­fied it as a shoe. Its own­er was in hot pur­suit, div­ing back for it against the oncom­ing run­ners. Like I said, I did­n’t wait to see if he was tram­pled. I hope not.
  • The Clif bar pace guy was great, but: he ran the first half of the marathon behind pace, and then made up the dif­fer­ence in the sec­ond half. This was a dis­as­ter for a run­ner like myself, who needs to stick to one pace and run like a human metronome.
  • A half-marathon is a piece of cake. Every­one should do one. I was­n’t crow­ing like this in Sep­tem­ber when I ran my first, but now I think it’s safe to say that 13.1 miles just isn’t that far. It seems far, but if you take the time to pre­pare your­self, you can total­ly run this dis­tance. Think about it.
  • Run­ning fans make fun­ny signs. The fun­ni­est I remem­ber read­ing read: Bet U Wish U Taped Ur Nip­ples Today. I did­n’t, but I laughed any­way. I need­ed to laugh. I just fin­ished run­ning Lemon Hill.
  • Speak­ing of hills, Philadel­phia isn’t as flat as every­one says. It’s hard to visu­al­ize just where the course takes you, so the lit­tle hills here and there real­ly catch you by sur­prise. Fair­mount was tough; Lemon Hill was tougher; and that last lit­tle over­pass into Man­ayunk was the worst.
  • Every­thing you hear about the last 6.2 miles is true. I ran 20 mile train­ing runs three times. I was con­sis­tent­ly able to dig in and run the last four miles up to 20 sec­onds faster than my work­out pace. Not so on Sun­day. I sput­tered to 8 minute miles by mile 22. Should I have eat­en anoth­er gel? Maybe, but there was­n’t much left in the tank anyway.
  • Hav­ing said that, I think that I went out too fast. The adren­a­line was flow­ing and I felt great in those first sev­en miles. I cranked out a sub‑7 mile some­where in there. Did­n’t mean to, but I did. Did it hurt me? Prob­a­bly, but I still man­aged a 7:19/mile aver­age on the run.
  • Any­thing else? I’m already look­ing for­ward to next year’s marathon. I real­ly want­ed to qual­i­fy for Boston and I just missed it this year. I don’t feel bad­ly about it; I only spent six months train­ing for this one and I near­ly did it. I plan to rest, recov­er from this run, get some new sneak­ers (pos­si­bly Pearl Izu­mis), buy a run­ning jack­et, and stay frosty this win­ter. I hope I see you out there!
  • Last, but not least: I want to extend a spe­cial thanks to Ross and Bryan from Philadel­phia Run­ner. I can’t say enough how great these guys are and how wel­come I feel every time I walk into their stores. Their sup­port and encour­age­ment were won­der­ful. Ross even hand­ed me a water along the course!
Posted on by J T. Ramsay 8