Dubliners
James Joyce
Treading Water
Anne DeGrace
TORTILLA FLAT
John Steinbeck
Oil
Upton Sinclair
Now, if I can get at least two of these covered, I'll be golden. Christmases are not known for peace and quiet where I come from.
December 21, 2008
Christmas Reading List 2008
Dubliners
James Joyce
Treading Water
Anne DeGrace
TORTILLA FLAT
John Steinbeck
Oil
Upton Sinclair
Now, if I can get at least two of these covered, I'll be golden. Christmases are not known for peace and quiet where I come from.
December 17, 2008
Movies Await 2008
Here's a list I'm determined to check off. These films all boast good casts and, above all, great directors I admire.
The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood)
The Class (Francois Begaudeau)
Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)
The Reader (Stephen Daldry)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher)
The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood)
The Class (Francois Begaudeau)
Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)
The Reader (Stephen Daldry)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher)
December 14, 2008
Stop Being so Damn Passive
After a semester of crunching out some killer prose, not to mention a paper for Japanese Film that garnered me 100% (I know, I know..no paper is ever that good), I can now sit down and reassess a couple short stories to get them ready for submission. Good teachers this semester, in particular Genni Gunn who was kind enough to be ruthless with her comments regarding my work.
Many Creative Writing instructors don't want to discourage students from writing. Someone submits a heap of horse-shit, wrought with grammar errors, incoherent metaphor, poor narrative arc--all signs of either a) too busy (or lazy) to really buck down and write something of quality or b) in desperate need of criticism. The teacher, upon reading said pile of dung, proceeds to coddle the student for several minutes before daintily suggesting they may want to consider using a spell-checker. Bollocks. A little truth is helpful every now and then. Maybe some people should be discouraged.
Enter Genni Gunn. She read several of my stories, all pretty good--better than anything else I've written to date, and got straight to the heart of the matter. Here's our conversation at the last peer edit session:
I think I've noticed a pattern.
Uh-oh.
All your characters are passive.
Really?
Your language is good, setting is good, metaphor is good. But your characters wander through their stories doing nothing. They allow things to happen to them. They need to be active.
Shit.
Exactly.
It hurt to hear that. I mean, you work so hard on perfecting the complexities of good story-writing only to find out you've bunged up the simple must-do. But I'm glad she just said it. I mean, what serious writer wouldn't want to know what they're doing wrong? I wonder why so many other teachers let this obvious problem slip by?
So Genni, thank you for the A+ this semester, thanks for tearing my work a new a-hole. Much appreciated.
Many Creative Writing instructors don't want to discourage students from writing. Someone submits a heap of horse-shit, wrought with grammar errors, incoherent metaphor, poor narrative arc--all signs of either a) too busy (or lazy) to really buck down and write something of quality or b) in desperate need of criticism. The teacher, upon reading said pile of dung, proceeds to coddle the student for several minutes before daintily suggesting they may want to consider using a spell-checker. Bollocks. A little truth is helpful every now and then. Maybe some people should be discouraged.
Enter Genni Gunn. She read several of my stories, all pretty good--better than anything else I've written to date, and got straight to the heart of the matter. Here's our conversation at the last peer edit session:
I think I've noticed a pattern.
Uh-oh.
All your characters are passive.
Really?
Your language is good, setting is good, metaphor is good. But your characters wander through their stories doing nothing. They allow things to happen to them. They need to be active.
Shit.
Exactly.
It hurt to hear that. I mean, you work so hard on perfecting the complexities of good story-writing only to find out you've bunged up the simple must-do. But I'm glad she just said it. I mean, what serious writer wouldn't want to know what they're doing wrong? I wonder why so many other teachers let this obvious problem slip by?
So Genni, thank you for the A+ this semester, thanks for tearing my work a new a-hole. Much appreciated.
December 4, 2008
Rick Mercer Needs to Form A Coalition
Ever wanted free ring-side tickets to P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth? Well, look no further Canada. Before our very eyes, during what appears to be significant worldwide financial crisis, we get the circus of political posturing. Who knows what this will lead to, but we all know Harper has had this coming for awhile. Bullies never figure out that at some point people fight back. At some point they bare their teeth and scrape at whatever means to make you fall.
Always funny to read Rick Mercer's take on it. Who else can compare Steven Harper to Knut the polar bear?
Always funny to read Rick Mercer's take on it. Who else can compare Steven Harper to Knut the polar bear?
November 28, 2008
David Milch and Language
Taking my cue from Sam's analysis of HBO's The Wire and Deadwood--the two finest shows to ever grace television (along with Rome, a flawed but relatively close third), I found an interview with David Milch regarding his thoughts on creating and writing Deadwood. Incidentally, if you haven't seen any of these shows, you are less of a person. Seriously. There should be a social restriction on when you are allowed to wander freely from your homes.
Deadwood takes top spot for me, in part due to my own nostalgia for Westerns films. What sets it apart from everything else is its dialogue. Milch's use of language is what Shakespeare would have written had he grown up a few hundred years later, in the wide, brutal expanse of America. Profane, artful, and bearing an internal rhythm that rivals Milton's Samson Agonistes. Even if the diction is a little too complicated for legitimate representation of the West in those days, it has to be closer than the strange minimalist responses we've all grown up with.
In the article, transcribed from a live interview at Bartos Theater with David Thorburn, Milch explains his emphasis on obscenity as follows:
As for the obscenity in Deadwood, I was trying to identify what organizing principles exist in a place without laws. Because Deadwood was a criminal community, built on land that had just been ceded to the Indians, they didn't want to pass any laws, since allowing law to exist would undermine their claim to the town. Language therefore had to serve two functions: to beat down any expectations of civility, and to show how words generate meaning through the context and emotion with which they're used. This is how one word can bear the weight of an entire story if the emotions and the context are there. In Swearengen's scene with Wu, I wanted to show how even with all the stereotypes about Asians, and the language barrier, a kind of order could develop.
And his use of profanity:
The guardians of the classical movie Westerns were offended, and asked me to prove that the language was accurate. The great Westerns were made under a strict moral code that prohibited obscenity, since the Jewish immigrants who ran Hollywood didn't want to rock the boat. There was a period in the late 'teens and early twenties when films started to become racy. They developed the Hayes code, which strictly regulated the language used in the films. When artists are faced with those kinds of strictures, they can either choose not to participate, or to find a way to internalize them in a way that serves the story. The image of the laconic cowboy was the result of the Hayes code; a character that not only used no profanity, but few words of any kind. The stoicism invoked a set of values. When people bond with works such as films, the works take on a kind of reality, so people don't say “I like Shane, ” they say “That's not how they talked in 1870.” That's not my problem. I did my research, and from what I read, in the West, obscenity was used to establish dominance, like apes beating their chests. With no law, any question could have lethal results. Language developed as an alternative to law.
Go out and find these shows, people....
Deadwood takes top spot for me, in part due to my own nostalgia for Westerns films. What sets it apart from everything else is its dialogue. Milch's use of language is what Shakespeare would have written had he grown up a few hundred years later, in the wide, brutal expanse of America. Profane, artful, and bearing an internal rhythm that rivals Milton's Samson Agonistes. Even if the diction is a little too complicated for legitimate representation of the West in those days, it has to be closer than the strange minimalist responses we've all grown up with.
In the article, transcribed from a live interview at Bartos Theater with David Thorburn, Milch explains his emphasis on obscenity as follows:
As for the obscenity in Deadwood, I was trying to identify what organizing principles exist in a place without laws. Because Deadwood was a criminal community, built on land that had just been ceded to the Indians, they didn't want to pass any laws, since allowing law to exist would undermine their claim to the town. Language therefore had to serve two functions: to beat down any expectations of civility, and to show how words generate meaning through the context and emotion with which they're used. This is how one word can bear the weight of an entire story if the emotions and the context are there. In Swearengen's scene with Wu, I wanted to show how even with all the stereotypes about Asians, and the language barrier, a kind of order could develop.
And his use of profanity:
The guardians of the classical movie Westerns were offended, and asked me to prove that the language was accurate. The great Westerns were made under a strict moral code that prohibited obscenity, since the Jewish immigrants who ran Hollywood didn't want to rock the boat. There was a period in the late 'teens and early twenties when films started to become racy. They developed the Hayes code, which strictly regulated the language used in the films. When artists are faced with those kinds of strictures, they can either choose not to participate, or to find a way to internalize them in a way that serves the story. The image of the laconic cowboy was the result of the Hayes code; a character that not only used no profanity, but few words of any kind. The stoicism invoked a set of values. When people bond with works such as films, the works take on a kind of reality, so people don't say “I like Shane, ” they say “That's not how they talked in 1870.” That's not my problem. I did my research, and from what I read, in the West, obscenity was used to establish dominance, like apes beating their chests. With no law, any question could have lethal results. Language developed as an alternative to law.
Go out and find these shows, people....
November 22, 2008
Kurosawa is Overrated (Japanese Culture Through Film)
One of the highlights of this semester, if not the past year or so, has been sitting in a classroom, watching Japanese films--for bloody credit. Supplemental readings and lectures are provided too, but it's the films I find the most remarkable.
Director Akira Kurosawa garners a lot of attention in North America. He's influenced the likes of Sergio Leone, George Lucas (king of crap), and Spielberg, so maybe that's why. I haven't seen all of Kurosawa's work, but I shit you not, what I have seen pales in comparison to the other Japanese films viewed this semester. What makes Kurosawa films sub-par, in my mind, is their inability to present their themes or moral compass with subtlety--something I think can arguably be considered Western influence. Unlike Miyazaki, who infuses his themes directly into the story, leaving the viewer to draw from the scene what he or she can, Kurosawa beats us over the head with heavy-handed dialogue and obvious imagery. The films are entertaining, sure. But so is Bloodsport--and there's nothing great there by any stretch of the imagination.
Case in point, after viewing Sanjuro and Yojimbo, I decided to try of Kurosawa's more recent films, Dreams. Experimental in comparison to the linear story-lines of his Samurai epics, Dreams tells eight chapter-like tales through the form of dream sequences. Sounds inventive, I know. And to a certain extent is is. I mean, what other form for story-telling is so unrestricted? To a degree, Kurosawa uses this to his advantage. Visually speaking, this film is astounding. Each scene is careful and lush, drawing metaphor from setting as much as from the story nuance (what little there is). Why then does the director insist on falling into what I like to call the Spielberg trap?
Spielberg weakens a lot of his own films by assuming his audience is stupid and spoon-feeding them the "just in case you didn't quite get it" explanation at the end. Watch Minority Report and tell me otherwise. Great film right up until the last half hour or so. Same with A.I. In Dreams, Kurosawa goes the same route. A beautiful village, along a river dotted with water-mills, is a useful enough metaphor for pastoral elegy without having a protagonist lectured to about the perils of modernity by an old wise man.
There are exceptions. Two of the chapters are simply gorgeous. Kurosawa's indictment of war, told though the eyes of a soldier confronted by the ghosts of all his dead comrades, is a work of art. So is the following chapter where an artist steps literally into the world of Van Gogh's paintings, walking through their landscapes and conversing with the artist himself (played by Martin Scorcese). So it's not like Kurosawa doesn't have the knack. He's just too influenced by Western stupidity. His films embody what is wrong with American cinema.
I'm not saying avoid Kurosawa. Far from it. All of his films have something redeemable about them. But you can't consider yourself reasonably knowledgeable about Japanese film-making until you've sampled from the truly great. Directors like Ozu or Takehashi. Try the following films and see if you disagree:
Twenty-Four Eyes
The Taste of Tea
Always: Sunset on Third District
Early Summer
Spirited Away
Save This Page
Director Akira Kurosawa garners a lot of attention in North America. He's influenced the likes of Sergio Leone, George Lucas (king of crap), and Spielberg, so maybe that's why. I haven't seen all of Kurosawa's work, but I shit you not, what I have seen pales in comparison to the other Japanese films viewed this semester. What makes Kurosawa films sub-par, in my mind, is their inability to present their themes or moral compass with subtlety--something I think can arguably be considered Western influence. Unlike Miyazaki, who infuses his themes directly into the story, leaving the viewer to draw from the scene what he or she can, Kurosawa beats us over the head with heavy-handed dialogue and obvious imagery. The films are entertaining, sure. But so is Bloodsport--and there's nothing great there by any stretch of the imagination.
Case in point, after viewing Sanjuro and Yojimbo, I decided to try of Kurosawa's more recent films, Dreams. Experimental in comparison to the linear story-lines of his Samurai epics, Dreams tells eight chapter-like tales through the form of dream sequences. Sounds inventive, I know. And to a certain extent is is. I mean, what other form for story-telling is so unrestricted? To a degree, Kurosawa uses this to his advantage. Visually speaking, this film is astounding. Each scene is careful and lush, drawing metaphor from setting as much as from the story nuance (what little there is). Why then does the director insist on falling into what I like to call the Spielberg trap?
Spielberg weakens a lot of his own films by assuming his audience is stupid and spoon-feeding them the "just in case you didn't quite get it" explanation at the end. Watch Minority Report and tell me otherwise. Great film right up until the last half hour or so. Same with A.I. In Dreams, Kurosawa goes the same route. A beautiful village, along a river dotted with water-mills, is a useful enough metaphor for pastoral elegy without having a protagonist lectured to about the perils of modernity by an old wise man.
There are exceptions. Two of the chapters are simply gorgeous. Kurosawa's indictment of war, told though the eyes of a soldier confronted by the ghosts of all his dead comrades, is a work of art. So is the following chapter where an artist steps literally into the world of Van Gogh's paintings, walking through their landscapes and conversing with the artist himself (played by Martin Scorcese). So it's not like Kurosawa doesn't have the knack. He's just too influenced by Western stupidity. His films embody what is wrong with American cinema.
I'm not saying avoid Kurosawa. Far from it. All of his films have something redeemable about them. But you can't consider yourself reasonably knowledgeable about Japanese film-making until you've sampled from the truly great. Directors like Ozu or Takehashi. Try the following films and see if you disagree:
Twenty-Four Eyes
The Taste of Tea
Always: Sunset on Third District
Early Summer
Spirited Away
Save This Page
November 7, 2008
Rhubarb Publication
Months ago I sent a short-story to Rhubarb magazine for consideration. Got the rejection email to prove it--ha ha. However, the editor happened to stumble upon my other blog and asked to publish a few of the entries instead. Of course I agreed, being the whore for publication that I am. So, if you're out and about and happen to see this little magazine gracing a book shelf somewhere, pick it up and give it a read-through. Patrick Friesen, Elsie K. Neufeld, Robert Martens--all in there too. A far better reason to read it, if you ask me. I feel rather privileged to be paged alongside them.
If you're curious which blog posts of mine made it in there:
A Man Amongst Women
Music as Metaphor
Two samples of the five they chose.
If you're curious which blog posts of mine made it in there:
A Man Amongst Women
Music as Metaphor
Two samples of the five they chose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)