Mar 20, 22, 25, Apr 2, 3, 5
Heya,
I ran across your blog while trawling for random "100 Things" lists on
Google; of the fifteen or so I checked out, I think I read more of
yours than any of the others.
Anyway, I've blogrolled you on my own blog -- http://www.portapulpit.com
(I generally like to confirm that that's cool with the blog owner when
it's not implicitly understood.)
Nice stuff... I'll keep checking in from time to time, eh?
Take it easy,
Amy
> Hi Amy,
Heya Dave! A pleasant surprise... wasn't expecting a reply. :)
> Thanks, nice to know it's not all just going into the void. The internet's
> like a massive brain with hyperlinks as dendrites linking it all up, the
> more links the stronger the web. I'll reciprocate a link to yours.
Oh, hey, cool... thanks. I agree completely... I'd go mad with isolation
if I didn't have this source of contact with the rest of the world. I
can barely remember how I got around without the internet. (I know,
that's partly a weakness, but a justifiable one I think.)
Had a
> quick look at it, interesting how you say you've gained a political
> consciousness since 2000 (wonder why that year, hmm),
I find I've shedding
> my own apoliticism recently too. Also helped that I abandoned trying to get
> into the NZ film industry in favour of conservation work... 11 Oscars for
> Lord of the Rings hasn't changed my mind. I'm starting some preliminary
> research for a piece of investigative journalism on health &
> safety practices dealing with toxic non-biodegradable materials in the art
> departments. Could be a great party pooper if there's anything in it.
You might well be right... I have a few friends who work in special
effects make-up and various other parts of the art department, and while
I've never heard them talk much about the safety of the materials they
use (they tend to just use 'em and not think too deeply about it), I can
imagine that some of the stuff is a bit unpleasant. I'll be curious to
see what you come up with.
> Isn't Ulysses great? 100th anniversary of Bloomsday this year, not that
> that means anything. Gravity's Rainbow's a serious time investment but well
> worth it. The difference with Ulysses is that that's a very simple story
> told in a complex way while GR is just complex - a lot of fun though. Mason
> & Dixon is Pynchon’s other big one, a bit lighter in tone.>
I am ashamed that I lived in England for three years, swearing each year
that I would get to Dublin for Bloomsday... and I never made it. I
probably even know a Joycean scholar there, and I _still_ didn't manage
the trip. How pathetic is that? (My excuse: I was in film school at the
time, and June 16 invariably fell right in the middle of the summer term
production grind.)
Y'know... your writing is really quite good. (She says, as if she were a
reliable arbiter of such things. But hey, I like Mr. Joyce, and I like
this, so that's a solid compliment, right? ;) ) I haven't had time to
read in depth, but so far, I like what I'm reading. (I'm guessing
you've spent some time on Finnegan's Wake, too, huh? ;))
Anyway, take it easy, regards, etc.,
Amy
> Hi Amy,
Heya Dave,
> Caught you out - you know that Finnegans Wake deliberately doesn't have an
> apostrophe?
Oh dear... there's my literary cred shot to hell. ;)
>Gives more multiple meanings to the title.
Say, have you ever read Stanislaw Lem's "Gigamesh?" (Not Gilgamesh,
Gigamesh... pretty sure, anyway.) It's in his collection "A Perfect
Vacuum"... it's a satire on Joyce and Joycean scholarship, and that
whole kind of Derridean deconstructionist (ha! I can use big words! ;))
postmodern sort of writing and criticism... if you haven't read it, I
know I'm sounding completely wanky right now, but you oughta give it a
look. I have a sneaky feeling you'd get a little bit of entertainment
out of it at least.
God, I must sound like a pretentious fuck... I'm overcompensating for
having buggered up "Finnegans Wake" ;)
I've read bits of
> it and it's brilliant but gives me a headache after a while so I haven't
> been able to take on the whole thing.
> Great that you like NZ films, there are some good ones, personally Meet the
> Feebles is my favourite of Peter Jackson's. He's worshipped as a demigod in
> Wellington these days & it can be a bit tiring seeing him in the newspapers
> every day,
I can imagine. Although he's a cuddly, friendly-looking guy, so maybe it
could be worse.
sometimes hard to remember that he does have talent &
> originality. His big innovation is in not going away to work in Hollywood
> like other major NZ directors, but bringing Hollywood here.
He has balls of steel for doing that... if he'd caved and headed for
California, I doubt we'd be sitting her discussing LOTR now. Wouldn't be
worth discussing, even with Peter at the helm.
Only problem now, of course, is that he's convinced much of the world's
young filmmaking talent to move to NZ, and now they all want to stay (I
don't blame 'em, I would too.) I'd think that would kinda clog up the
industry, though... Mr. Jackson's managed to make it ten times bigger,
but it's still pretty small relatively speaking.
The LOTR films
> I find slightly frustrating though in their mixture of moments of genius and
> moments of appalling banality. So you're a film student?
Well, not anymore... I mean, I guess technically I am, since I haven't
handed in my graduation film yet, but I haven't actively attended film
school for a year and a half now. No, right now, having sailed out
gung-ho into the seas of modern filmmaking, I have hit the traditional
post-film-school doldrums, and now I'm sitting here with a limp sail and
no current. (How's that for a florid analogy?) I did a stint out in LA,
and it went pretty well professionally. Didn't go so well on the
personal level, though, and after three months I had to make the choice
to either head home to Memphis or start living out of my car. Obviously,
I chose Memphis, which is the spiritual equivalent to living out of your
car, but safer.
Now I'm serving on the (unpaid) staff of the Memphis Digital Arts
Co-operative, which is a little filmmakers' collective that gives free
filmmaking workshops for the public, holds screenings of non-Hollywood
films, puts on an annual film festival, makes resources and equipment
available to the community, yadda yadda yadda. I'm in charge of the
workshops. And occasionally we even manage to produce an honest-to-god
film.
And I do other stuff, too... I'm gradually worming my way into the
independent documentary film world. It's a completely different vibe
than the dramatic film world... there are lots of quiet, introverted
types in documentary. Generally I feel quite at home there.
>Where do you want to end up with that?
Wow... that's such a hard question. The simple answer, I guess, is I
don't know. I think we're on the cusp of a major revolution in
filmmaking, and I have a feeling that all of the current models for
"success" aren't really going to apply anymore by the time I hit the end
of my career. At the Co-op, we're all basically DV revolutionaries to
some degree... which isn't to say that I don't value the film industry
as we know it, just to say that I think we're getting to the point where
technology is going to cause huge changes, and I think that's probably a
good thing.
In fact, I've argued before that LOTR is quite possibly the Pinnacle
Film of the film industry as we now know it. In terms of the mass-market
epic movie, I think Pete's about done all we can do in that direction...
which, I know, sounds like one of those sure-to-be-proven-wrong sweeping
predictions, but I think things are going to start moving in such a
vastly different direction in the next decade or so that these kinds of
films will become less important, and I doubt that anyone will top it
before we hit the change.
Anyway, the answer... I don't know, but if I could just make a modest
living making good films and hopefully some small contribution to the
art of cinema, that would be enough for me.
I got
> frustrated with the pyramid power structure of film crews, juniors are
> manual labourers with no creative input while people at the top take all the
> credit. It's a microcosm of capitalist society in general with the majority
> of the money going to a minority of the people.
Yeah... that's what the Co-op's for. We all work on bigger productions
when something comes along, just to pay the bills, but none of us look
at it as a way of breaking into what we all consider an industry on the
wane. The whole point of the Co-op is to put the means of production
(there's a nice Marx reference for you) in the hands of... well, anybody
who wants to make a movie. We try to keep up networks between people who
know their way around various aspects of the burgeoning film scene --
indie distributors, festivals, effects people, etc. -- so that we can
get our stuff seen by as many people as possible, but we've mostly given
up on the idea of breaking into "The Industry" on any level.
Also it helps if you can
> get by on 4 hours sleep per night, which maybe I don't have the constitution
> for. And there's the way people get an overinflated ego... Sorry I'm
> ranting.
And I'm babbling. If you're curious to see what we're doing here, and
you have a reasonably fast connection, you can go check out
http://www.bluecitrushearts.com
This was actually done by fellow Co-oper Morgan, but I did my part on it
as well. Hell, if I remember correctly, BCH actually aired in New
Zealand (only in Auckland, though) as part of some GLBT film festival
thingy.
(Yep, I'm right... here's the listing. BCH is second to last.
http://www.tritv.co.nz/gay.asp )
Looks like there's a fair bit of information about the dangers of
> synthetic materials around - they used vast quantities of polystyrene in
> LOTR, as well as non-water-based paints etc.
Y'all should build a city out of the leftovers; that's pretty much what
Los Angeles did. And if it's polystyrene, when the oceans start to rise
you can all just float away... ;)
> Thanks for vote of confidence in the writing, I tend to get a lot of people
> finding it incomprehensible. I (sort of) know what I'm doing anyway.
I kinda figure that's all any writer knows... it's as good a place to
start as any. Like I said, I think you're quite good... I think I get
where you're going with it, and as a reader I don't object to tagging
along. Now, to turn the question back on you... where do you want to end
up with that?
I'm
> studying journalism this year and part of it's about putting information
> across clearly & simply - the non-fiction provides a balance to the stories.
> I feel like shit today, I'm at home sick. Hopefully it's just a cold rather
> than flu but I'm all clogged up & aching all over. Time to have another hot
> drink and go to sleep yet again...
Damn... spring colds suck, too. Except, it's autumn there, isn't it...
nevermind. Hope you're feeling better, anyway.
> Dave
Take it easy,
Amy
> Hi Amy,
Heya Dave,
> Actually I have read the story Gigamesh (title = very big mesh?) - somehow
> you picked the one piece of Lem that I did know!
> Your co-op sounds really interesting, will have to get around to your
> website next (I'm on work computer here so can't do everything).
It's pretty good... it keeps me sane, anyway. Something to do.
There's a
> no-budget DV scene here in Wellington but it still seems to bring about a
> cult-of-personality thing around the director. I'm sure my problem is that
> I'm slightly bitter about my experiences in the Wgtn film scene, doing a
> bunch of work for free and not getting it acknowledged,
Yep, done that.
and struggling to
> get employment (and then finding it boring once I did),
I've never minded the work -- I even find it fun -- but it's gotta be on
a project that offers me something. Either it has to be something in
which I can invest myself, even if it's not "my" project, or it's gotta
pay (and pay well) in some form -- cash, contacts, reciprocal
assistance, something. Sadly, there's very little of either in Memphis,
especially the latter... professional productions pass through, but
usually in the manner a plague of locusts; they tend to treat local
crewies in exploitative ways, expecting them to work long hours for
nothing, etc.
and of course the
> way it drove my girlfriend & I apart when she got a job & I didn't.
> The long hours and bullshit pseudo-glamour turned her into an alcoholic
> promiscuous speed-shooting egomaniac... Not that I was in a good state at
> that time either (see story 'Overgrowth' on my website).
Ohhhhh... well, no, that's not good. Not good at all. I suppose, then,
that I'm quite lucky... around here, the most anybody does is smoke a
bit too much, overdo it with the coffee, and maybe get a bit shitfaced
now and then. Pretty pedestrian habits... there's not even much pot
smoking going on. At least, not that I've seen... pointing out that I
rarely do any of the above myself, so maybe they wait til I'm gone. ;)
Morgan, however, can put away vegan tofu nachos like a man possessed. As
for promiscuity... phhht, I wish.
> Anyway the idea of turning my back on film to become a conservationist
> appeals in its perversity. Looking after the natural environment seemed to
> me to be a kind of bottom line, something real as opposed to artificial.
Can't argue with that... you don't get much more artificial than movies.
(That goes double for documentaries in many respects.) What kind of
stuff do you do in your conservation work?
> My first job at Dept of Conservation was writing press releases and a
> guidebook about Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington Harbour, organising
> community events, media liason etc. Great thing about DOC though is the
> chance to do a range of work indoors and outdoors. I like doing physical
> work but get bored if I do nothing but, likewise communications work is
> probably where my skills lie but I wouldn't want to be in an office every
> day. I spent the summer removing exotic weeds from a hillside and growing
> native trees to plant on it. I find it really interesting, the idea that
> human intervention can not only destroy but also manage or recreate an
> ecosystem. It's actually likely to be a 'growth industry' over the next
> couple of decades, especially once climate change starts wreaking havoc
> across the world, not just seas rising but things like changing weather
> patterns, increased fire danger, spread of weeds etc. Trees hold the soil
> together, give a home to birds & insects, extract CO2 from the air etc.
> Educating people about things like recycling and energy saving are
> important.
Gosh... I wish we did stuff like that here. The current prevailing
social climate in the US seems to look at concepts like conservation as
at best quaint, and at worst a foolish waste of time. I've been reading
a bit lately about the energy expended in food production, and it's
really quite staggering how much energy is wasted for really no purpose
at all. But right now, even the most committed people are so overwhelmed
by the more obvious problems that they have little energy left to put
into the rather extreme environmental problems we've got brewing here.
The whole situation is very disheartening.
My big reservation
> about working in the media industry was that I wouldn't have felt good about
> myself if I went to work on ads.
I worked on ads in LA for a while... if you don't pay attention to what
you're doing -- in the karmic sense, I mean --, it's actually pretty
cool. Quick, always something new, nobody's as ego-driven as in feature
films, and -- not to obsess on the money, 'cause it's honestly not a
driving motivation for me, but if you're gonna sell out, you should be
paid well for it. And ads do pay well.
But, in the end, in spite of my desire to go to Hollywood and sell my
soul for $22/hr., it wasn't to be, and I was driven back to Memphis to
live the life of a starving artist/filmmaker. In retrospect, it was most
likely for the best... I got the gratification of knowing I would've
been able to hack it in Hollywood, but now I get to retain my soul and
make an effort at actually contributing something. I don't have any
aspirations to go back to LA... I'm thinking maybe Montreal (Montreal
sounds really, really nice), or back to London for a while if certain
long-range opportunities pan out.
> Mainly though it's my fault for not coming up with a strong original idea to
> film, in which case I probably could have got people to help me. I think
> it's something I'll come back to.
The "Good Idea" (TM) is a fucking hard thing to acquire, though... me, I
tend to be cursed with only parts of a Good Idea, and then have to let
'em simmer for years at a time before I figure out what to do with them.
Documentary is great for this, though... there's stuff going on in the
world that you would _never_ think up yourself, and it's just sitting
there, waiting for you to turn up with a camera. (Okay, it's not that
easy... but the principle is valid.) I still have dramatic tendencies,
but I think there's a strong argument to be made that with so much
frankly fucked-up shit (pardon the language) going on in the world, who
needs to write stories? It's all here already, actually happening all
around us. And when I say "documentary" I'm not talking about wildlife
shows and History Channel bullshit. There's a place for that, and some
of it's interesting; but I'm referring specifically to independent
feature documentary film, which is a different thing entirely.
Working with prose and music seem to suit
> me better for now since the resources needed are a lot simpler.
This is true. Almost everybody I know who's involved on any level has
done lots of other stuff as well... I've known a lot of comic book
artists, lots of musicians, lots of writers, visual artists, and some
people who did all of the above. Some people spend years doing other
things before deciding to go into film; other people get started in film
before dropping it for something else. Film is a special thing (IMO),
but it has some pretty colossal challenges attached to it even on a low
level... and if you don't find the right people to work with, you're
screwed. The right people make all the difference in the world... but I
suppose that's true of just about any creative endeavor, and probably of
life in general.
I'm still
> having this ongoing identity crisis of trying to work out what my subject
> matter is.
Got any ideas? You must be thinking something... we've all got our
favorite themes. I'm a sucker for religious material (a subject that
both fascinates and unnerves me), and anything that explores
similarities between opposites. You... y'know, thinking about it, I can
maybe see what you mean. Bearing in mind that I don't know you, and what
little I have to go on is the small bits of your writing you've made
available, based on that I do have a feeling that there is a common
thread there... but damned if I know what it is. But, c'mon, what do you
think? You know yourself; give me some insight.
I'm confident that I could sit down and write a good novel once
> I figure out what it'll be about. So far my chosen form has been the music
> album, I guess I'm still heavily influenced by Bob Dylan among others (mixed
> with noisier post-punk and free jazz elements).
Music has always been something of a mystery to me... I feel its
effects, but I've never been able to get a grip on how it works. It's
reasonable to say music intimidates me somewhat.
I love constructing an
> impressionistic or emotional narrative by putting pieces of music together
> in a certain order... Could go on about this.
Okay... go for it. What the hell, damn the torpedoes... knock yourself
out. I'm curious now, so I offer my inbox as a repository for whatever
it is you care to say.
Take it easy,
Amy
Heya Dave,
Should warn
> you that Gravity's Rainbow gets pretty dense... (& by the way Thomas Pynchon
> makes a cameo in the Simpsons this season apparently)
Y'know, you're the second person to tell me that today... must be
something in the air. I heard he was going to appear with a bag over his
head...?
Anyway, I have picked Gravity's Rainbow up again at your encouragement;
and while the book is indeed dense in places -- Mr. Pynchon wants us to
do a little work, apparently -- to my mind it's an entirely different
kind of dense than Tolkien. Dense I can do; the thing that leaves me
cold about Tolkien, I think, is a certain distant quality to his
writing... it's as if he's watching his characters but choosing not to
get involved. Pynchon stays with us through the tougher bits, which I
appreciate. I always feel like Tolkien is just sitting back and
expecting us to do half his job for him. But that's just me.
> I'm on study break for the next couple of weeks, fair bit of reading & work
> to do but don't have to go to classes. I stayed up til 4am last night
> watching 'Boys from the Blackstuff', a BBC drama miniseries about
> unemployment in the early 80s - pretty intense stuff, families getting
> ripped apart. I always avoided realist fiction growing up, just starting to
> get into it now. British tv definitely puts NZ tv to shame.
To be fair, there is a lot of really bad British television... it just
never makes it across the ocean. (We should all be thankful for that.)
Don't know if
> you know much British tv?
Not encyclopedic knowledge, but yeah, I'm pretty familiar with it. I was
raised on Python, and I _did_ live there for three years. I got a bit
over-saturated in the "Grim Oop North" genre of British drama and so
don't watch it much now, and British SF is more of an occasional
indulgence for me. My love affair with British comedy lives forever,
though... my current obsession is "the League of Gentlemen," which is
absolutely fucking brilliant, sick and black, just like I like it.
A couple of other great miniseries' were
> 'Cracker' and 'Our Friends in the North', which both costarred Christopher
> Eccleston. It's interesting that they've chosen a heavyweight dramatic
> actor to star in the new series of Doctor Who - they must have had good
> scripts to get him onboard so should be worth seeing.
Oh, Doctor Who is so widely respected and revered in England, even the
heavyweights were probably falling all over each other for the part.
> Star Trek has its moments - I thought First Contact was a step in the right
> direction but then the next two movies sucked, and I was impressed by the
> pilot episode of Enterprise but haven't seen the rest. But the British came
> up with Doctor Who, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
Red Dwarf, The Prisoner, Sapphire & Steel, Blake's 7 - all better than Star Trek or Star
> Wars IMHO. As an aside one of the first science fiction books was 'Anno
> Domini 2000', written by Julius Vogel, governor of NZ in the early 19th
> century.
> To be fair to [my ex] she didn't get promiscuous until after she dumped me
> (she was getting a lot of attention from film crew guys and maybe not
> wanting to be restricted to one partner was a factor). I was digging myself
> into a hole at that time so she was right to leave me, but its a pity it was
> such a horrible breakup and we haven't stayed friends.
Well... these things do happen. I think it's incredibly hard to stay
friends after a breakup... I've yet to manage it, anyway, and two of my
three breakups were relatively painless. Anyway, film crew guys are
always trouble... one of the first lessons I learned from the more
senior women at my film school was that while they can make great
buddies, they can't be trusted. I'm sure there are some decent ones out
there, but my personal experience as pretty much borne that out. From
film shoot romances nothing truly good was ever born.
There was a strange
> symmetry between 2002 and 2003 for me, in 2002 I had a great girlfriend but
> was frustrated with unemployment, in 2003 I got dumped and went through a
> lot of loneliness & degradation but also got a great temporary job for the
> Conservation Department which pointed me in a new direction.
Weird... in 2002 everything pretty well fell apart for me, and has
stayed that way since. It's all beginning to look better now -- slowly,
slowly -- but probably fair to say the cycles of my life tend to be more
inclined toward an all-or-nothing model. Either I'm living abroad with a
beloved boyfriend, having a fucking blast at film school with a dozen
close friends; or I'm stuck in Mississippi, alone and frustrated, in a
creative slump, bored and chronically unemployed. Feast or famine, as it
were.
All of which is an oversimplifcation, of course... the boyfriend was
beloved but, frankly, a dick; the friends fell away as soon as the final
term ended; and I do have friends here as well. And while I'm
chronically unemployed now, it has given me a lot of free time to do
other things, and I'm not in nearly as bad a situation as a great many
other people in this country. I'd still rather be living abroad, though.
. I've pretty
> much got my own life sorted out now, I'd rather have a girlfriend than be
> single but I suppose one'll come along when I stop thinking about it
That does tend to be when people turn up. And yet, in a classic
catch-22, if you try to use a strategy of not thinking about it to
attract a mate, that infers that really you are thinking about it, and
so none appears. It's not until you can reach the deep, cosmic "fuck it,
I don't want one anyway" that the magic can work.
Being
> single gets distracting.
I've found that it evens out eventually. I've been willfully single for
-- jeez, I probably don't want to think about it too much, but let's see
-- approx. two-and-a-half years now. Mostly it's been down to Memphis;
I'm dead set against falling in with a Memphis guy, because I want as
few ties to this city as possible. The first year was rough -- I endured
a gut-wrenching crush (on a film crew guy... apparently I had to learn
the hard way), then a good deal of angst and frustration, but now I'm
feeling really quite peaceful about the whole thing, able to wait with
it however long it takes. Maybe this applies more to women than men, but
I think it's good to spend some time alone and untethered when you're
young.
I did go through some strange kind of burnout last
> year and I'm having to relearn how to write. Also I'd been using marijuana
> to get into a productive headspace and now I've stopped using it - it just
> became a depressant after a while.
I've tried pot a total of four times -- it looks like so much fun, I
wanna giggle like an idiot, too -- but all I've ever gotten for my
trouble is a splitting headache. So I don't really try anymore. (And
anyway, the potential penalities for possession in this country are so
ridiculously severe even a giggly buzz almost isn't worth the risk.)
Another factor is you're definitely
> right about the world being so messed up that inventing stories can seem a
> bit superfluous. My writing options seem to be a) be a journalist
> (restrictive form, not subjective), b) make up fiction (seems slightly silly
> next to things happening in reality), c) continue doing distorted
> autobiographical stuff (seems self-indulgent and unimaginative). I'll work
> something out.
Maybe you're just a nonfictionalist? There's some killer nonfiction
writing in the world...
> Option d is keep doing albums - this has worked for me in the past, I guess
> it's my 'poetic' outlet, a chance to fuse words and sounds and also
> packaging & artwork. Words have always been my main tool but sounds can
> express things that there aren't any words for. There's a theory that
> working within restrictions is the essence of creativity - in my case the
> restriction is that I'm so technically limited instrumentally. I can strum
> a few basic chords and I can understand free-improvised music which has
> complex rhythmic interaction and is usually atonal. I'm not much good at
> melody or harmony though, and I'm verging on tone deaf. I never had any
> interest in learning covers, I don't know how to play any songs that I
> didn't write myself (apart from maybe 'Knockin on Heaven's Door', the first
> one I learned). Sometimes I can get other people to play parts on
> recordings which is a good solution and a way to collaborate. I loved
> having a band last year, Mike the cellist is a genius pretty much but he's
> busy with his own ideas, spending the last six months working on a novel.
> It got frustrating how things ground to a halt over summer just when we were
> going so well (but the band's called The Winter - Mike's idea - so it's
> oddly fitting). Good thing about study break is the chance for me to work
> up some fresh material. Should be a good challenge. But anyway, the albums
> I've made are where my real creative energy over the past few years has
> gone. I can send you some if you like.
That would be great, but you should let me trade you something for 'em
at least. I'm not sure what... we'll think of something.
> Your turn. Any idea what to make films about?
Oooohhh... hmm.
Doc-wise, I've got one important project and a few other ideas that
could possibly become important projects in the future... or maybe not.
None of them are currently moving forward at the moment, for various
reasons. The big one -- which is what I originally came back to Memphis
to do -- is a film about "the South" as a concept. I have a love/hate
relationship with the South, and I've spent a lot of time trying to
figure out what it means to be Southern (both in terms of popular
assumptions and stereotypes, and reality). (I'm referring, of course, to
the southern United States and the particular culture that seems to
exist there.) That one derailed when the political climate began to
change in earnest, and right now I'm just too bitter to make the film I
want to make. So that's on the back burner. I've also toyed with the
idea of a film about Robert Service (English poet best known for writing
about the far Northwest in Canada and Alaska) and the Yukon gold rush,
and another that would be a sort of social history of prostitution. But
the problem with docs becomes not one of what films you should make, but
which ones to set aside. Some of the best docs ever have been about
subjects that sound painfully mundane on the surface... in fact, most of
them are. (The revelation of the mundane as both Truth and Beauty is
sort of the holy grail of documentary film.) And that means practically
anything, on some level, is a legitimate subject. I have some dramatic leanings as well, though.
I don't think I'm going to be doing any of that today, though... I'm in
a lazy, silly mood and not feeling terribly productive. The weather's
turning nice here (for the brief pleasant season before that horrible
thick summer heat sets in), although we're also moving into tornado
season, which invariably makes me a neurotic mess. (I hate tornados...
hate, hate, hate.) But there are no threatening twisters today, so
that's all good. It would be a perfect night for sitting on the porch
with like-minded people and ranting to each other while sipping beer
and/or margaritas, but that seems unlikely... maybe I'll just rent
movies and pick up some Chinese instead and stay up all night watching
'em.
Yeah, that sounds good. I think I'll do that.
Take it easy,
Heya David,
As for your own writing... dunno. On the one hand, if I interpret
accurately which parts are based in reality and which are exaggerations,
it's quite bold... you certainly don't seem to be covering anything up,
which is definitely good. (If anything I get the impression you have a
tendency to be a bit too hard on yourself, although that applies less to
this piece. ) On the other hand -- and this is more about the approach
than your writing specifically -- it's also possible that
self-revelation, done in this way, can in itself be a way of deflecting
the reader's gaze. Because I can't say for sure which bits are "real"
and which aren't, I still can't really see you for the person you are.
But as I said, since I don't really know you anyway, my interpretations
are inherently subjective to my own life and reality, and I could be way
off the mark all round.
Which, I guess, is a roundabout way of saying that while I can
kinda-sorta see you in this, it's a bit like looking at a person through
frosted glass... it's still unclear. But maybe that was your point. It's
not like knowing the author has much to do with the act of reading his
work, anyway... although it's nice. With a couple of your stories under
my belt, I think I'm starting to get a feel for the way you use words...
it's good. I like.
> "His coffee spillage rate is getting rather high these days. He is fast
> forsaking his original imperative drive and he needs one more cup of coffee
> (Bob Dylan reference) and the ways in which Beefheart Captain’s chosen brand
> of weed must have been so much stronger than Dylan Bob’s and he pretends to
> interact with the society through journalism and the having to make stuff up
> simmering down to a burnt-out urge, and the darker and more intense the
> sun’s burning blackness gets that he finds himself gazing at some afternoons
> as he sits in his room and writes, the narrative urges to make one’s self
> the bad guy, by comparison to the 'ye son r in the army', note the cool and
> contemporary use of text-messaging shorthand, and the ways in which he gazes
> down on the words and burns the lil muhfuhs out and he finds himself banging
> his head quite often against the table and his clothes are mostly brown from
> the amount of coffee that he spills into them each day.
> One day pretty much resembles any other. The political climate worsens."
>
> - from 'Overgrowth'. Written shortly before breaking up early
> last year, which seems to be a turning point in my life as a lot of things I
> thought I knew about myself got seriously challenged. The story's obviously
> exaggerated, but was how I felt. My lifecycle in 2002/03 was more of a
> yin-yang model than boom/bust. 2004's good, I'm out of that loop and the
> period is more in perspective now. Seemed like the end of the world at the
> time.
Yeah... that's the too-hard-on-yourself stuff I was talking about. (Like
I'd know, right? ;) )
I found it
> interesting that Douglas Adams struggled with writer's block after he got
> famous, and then came out with a non-fiction book Last Chance to See about
> endangered species. Pity he didn't write more in that line, it's quite
> good.
I was waaaay into Douglas Adams through late elementary and middle
school... read Hitchhikers numerous times (even "Mostly Harmless,"
though it was really rather crap by comparison), and was a big fan of
the two Dirk Gently books as well. I've even got a signed copy of "Long
Dark Teatime of the Soul;" my dad let me skip school one day and took me
to the SF bookstore in Houston (where we lived at the time) to have it
signed. Douglas was _hugely_ tall, and he had a very, very large nose.
He chatted to us for a few minutes -- there weren't actually many people
at the signing -- signed my book, and shook my hand... and even though I
haven't read his stuff much lately, I was heartbroken when he died. It
was just one of those painfully unfair deaths, the kind that makes you
question the value of a world without someone. More recently, I felt the
same way about Spalding Gray's death.
> Non-fiction has its advantages, I'm finding it a hell of a lot easier to get
> published than fiction anyway. Ideally I'd like to do both. With the
> fiction I like to get into odd juxtapositions and sentences that aren't
> quite grammatically 'right', and I also find it difficult to have much in
> the way of plot movement. I guess Ulysses would be the big influential
> masterwork here, I like the idea of looking at one small thing (eg a day in
> the life of) through a microscope - the mundane as truth & beauty right
> there. I loved Joyce's quote that if his writing doesn't appear to make
> sense, read it aloud and it will.
This is true! One day while I was listening to the radio (NPR... the
subsidized stuff that's actually pretty good), they were doing a bit on
some audio archives in England... I can't remember which archive it was,
but one of the big national collections. And among the pieces they
played was an extremely rare recording of Joyce reading a little of
Finnegans Wake (no apostrophe that time ;) )... it was absolutely
gorgeous! It was MUCH better than if I read it out loud myself... it was
incredibly poetic, even musical. And actually, after hearing it I felt
almost robbed... his writing suddenly had so much more life in it (even
more than before), but I felt as though I'd never be able to hear it the
way it was meant to be heard. Joyce's writing was so auditory that it
was almost as if the perfect reading had died with him... who but Joyce
himself would know how it was intended to be read, and how unfair is it
that he died before it was possible to capture his intentions
completely?
There's a definite analogy with my music,
> since melody equates to plot in some ways. I'm not much good at that but I
> do understand texture and dynamics. As I said making albums works for me as
> they have a dynamic or emotional arc without having to be based on a plot or
> characters. There is a structure at work, which I intuitively understand
> but wouldn't want to analyse excessively (kill the goose that lays the
> golden eggs). Happy to trade stuff, I guess if you have some film work
> that'd be cool but I only have a DVD player not a video. Or if it's not too
> crass I'd be happy to sell you some (I'm not out to make a profit, but have
> to cover the costs of reproduction & packaging and postage).
I don't have much video to send right now anyway... a few months might
make a difference, but no point in hanging around waiting for that to
happen. I should probably use the favorable exchange rate while the US
dollar is still up on _any_ world currency... let me know what you're
asking and I'll sort it out.
> Interesting the choosing to be single, I think young women in general have a
> different life experience from young men. Problem a lot of women seem to
> have is ending up with dodgy partners while guys have the problem of getting
> stuck with no partner at all. Seems to have a lot do with social rituals &
> masks and so guys who can play those games can score more easily but by the
> same token the people who can put up masks often don't have much
> underneath... I'm deeply cynical about this kind of stuff.
I think a lot of women -- even most women -- remain stuck in the trap of
judging their own worth based on whom they're with... the worst possible
outcome of which, of course, is to end up alone, thus explaining the
bastards they tend to attach themselves to. And I do know what you mean
about masks... it often strikes me as tragic that so many people think
they have to appear to be something other than what they are to be
loved, but at the same time I don't have a whole lot of patience with
the practice. Trying to relate to a set of poses and defense mechanisms
in an attempt to make contact with the living human being underneath is
just too frustrating to do for very long. (And often as not, as you say,
once you dig through the facade there's not enough going on under the
mask to make it worth the effort. You do get lucky now and then,
though.)
In any case, I kinda had some single time coming. I got started on the
relationship thing pretty early -- I met #1 when we were both 16, we
started living together when we were 17, and stayed together til we were
22, and then that led pretty directly to relationship #2 which lasted
over two years. So by the time I was in my mid-20s, I'd already spent
the best part of a decade in long-term relationships. And that was cool
and all... but a few years on my own (to make up for the ones I missed)
seemed like a good idea.
Of course, the life of the single woman does have its frustrations...
but I guess you can't have everything.
> I was a late starter with relationships, got my first & so far only
> girlfriend shortly before I turned 23. It lasted just under a year and a
> half. I found it greatly preferable to being single, although it went kind
> of sour towards the end. There's also the social politics crap, the
> boyfriend of a desirable woman is resented by other guys.
Are they? I didn't know that...
I found when I
> had a girlfriend I could concentrate on my writing more easily, it's
> something to do with priorities. First air, then water, then food, then
> shelter etc, when the urgent needs are satisfied then you can concentrate on
> the less urgent ones and so on.
I think it has something to do with energy as well... the other big
reason I don't date around much is because it seems to blow a lot of
energy that I'd rather be using on other pursuits. Having a steady
partner is a great compromise (assuming one is fairly content with one's
S.O.), keeping your frustration to a minimum while freeing up all that
energy for other things. (Hell, even a bad partner can create a lot of
aggressive energy for channeling into one's work.)
> It's a real bummer that George W is so backward looking when it comes to
> environmental matters.
It's not just backward-looking... it seems the guy is hell-bent on
fucking the environment up as much as he is humanly able. The fucker was
giving people _tax breaks_ for buying those big fuck-off Hummers... the
ones that get like 8 miles to the gallon. That's not just backwards,
that's fucking Satanic.
I'm swearing a lot, aren't I? Hmmm... no blushing flower me, I guess. (I
do it a lot more when I'm talking politics, though.)
Conservation should be more not less of a priority
> for governments everywhere, it's actually becoming quite urgent. Pollution
> is a major negative tradeoff for 'progress', in a lot of ways technology
> takes us backwards. Food is an interesting issue, as genetically modified
> crops contaminate organic ones. Until very recently there was nothing but
> organic food, now it's so expensive that only the rich can afford it.
> Ironic since GM is cutting edge technology while producing food 'naturally'
> is now elitist. It's part of why I grow a vege garden, free of pesticides
> etc, though it only gives enough food to supplement my diet. Things like
> vege gardens, marine reserves, solar water heating, using public transport
> instead of cars could improve the situation of the planet considerably, the
> challenge is getting people to adopt them on a mass scale. Making it
> financially preferable to be clean is a good start. Or maybe we'll just
> write off the Earth and move on to Mars and beyond. In NZ the thing with
> DOC is that they have a limited budget so have to concentrate on priorities
> like endangered species, while a lot of the less urgent work but with
> long-term benefits eg trapping forest predators and native bush restoration
> gets done by small community groups. There must be an American equivalent?
Oh yeah, there are many dedicated, passionate groups in this country as
well... but given the government they have to deal with, it's a bit like
pissing in the desert. The cancer in the American system is
corporatism... how can we ever encourage mass transit, or even cleaner
cars, when the people in power have a vested interest in the oil
industry? I think the US is facing a potentially catastrophic weakness
in our dependency on oil... as a nation we are nearly crippled without
it, our economy would collapse without cheap fuel. And yet cheap fuel
also undermines our future economy, our current security, and
everybody's environment. Not to mention the small point that the cheap
gas isn't going to last forever... right now a gallon of gasoline costs
around $2, and already people are talking like it's the end of the
world. They anticipate that later this summer it'll climb to $3 -- which
is still laughably low by the standards of most industrialized nations
-- and the impact that has could be quite profound. On the one hand, I'm
glad to see prices going up (perhaps it will inspire some of our more
irresponsible citizens to use the stuff more carefully), but at the same
time it will have the worst effect on the poor, and much of the money
will end up in the hands of those who need it the least.
Anyway, I finally downloaded your mp3s from your website, and I'm going
to try to say something intelligent about them now, even though -- and
this is no comment on you -- I feel somewhat at a loss. I can
instinctively sense that the relationship between your writing and your
music makes sense, and I wish I could respond to the music the same way
I can to your stories. The more structured one -- forgive me, I don't
have the title in front of me, but I think its the topmost one on its
respective webpage -- actually got a bit of attention around the
Co-op... people were asking what it was, and they seemed to be digging
it. I found it more accessible, as well... hell, I'll be bold, I even
enjoyed it. ;) (Really, I did, honest.)
As for the others, I listened to them very closely -- I wished I could
understand what you (I assume it was you) were saying, it was so quiet,
but maybe that was the idea. I'm actually hesitant to say anything for
fear of sounding foolish or dense... but what the fuck, I'll ask the
obvious dumb question anyway, because I'd want you to ask me if the
situation were reversed. And it is genuinely meant... I don't
understand, but I'd like to. So, here's the obvious dumb question:
What is it?
Anyway, hope your studying is going well... god, I don't miss that part
of academia at all...
I'm continually puzzled & bemused that more people don't immediately click
> onto my music since to me its so natural & obvious. It's just something I'm
> having to get used to... One of the reasons I got into writing stories is
> that people read them who refuse to listen to the music - though not so many
> vice versa. It's basically about words and particular sonic textures, and
> extending the singer/songwriter genre. There's a definite post-punk slant
> but it's 'noisy' rather than 'noise'. It's all done with instruments rather
> than samplers or turntables or whatever, a lot of my aesthetic is about
> going for the 'real' rather than the 'artificial' - part of why I'm so bad
> at social games maybe. I love guitars, there's the idea of the acoustic and
> electric guitars as yin and yang. Bob Dylan and Neil Young are two big
> influential oldies who articulated this, Dylan choosing to alienate his folk
> music audience by playing rock in the mid sixties (and then challenging the
> rock audience by dropping out of the scene and making the minimalist
> acoustic album 'John Wesley Harding' when everyone else was getting into
> 'Sergeant Pepper' and Jimi Hendrix), and Neil Young alternating between
> countryish acoustic stuff and heavy electric extended jamming with Crazy
> Horse. These two also have an aesthetic of looseness, being open to
> spontaneity, mistakes as starting points for new ideas etc which greatly
> appeals. Rather than going for perfection all my music is deliberately
> imperfect, casual. It's a reflection of me as a person - my room's usually
> messy too.
I suppose my question is -- and your room is likely a good analogy if
it's messy in the same way mine is -- is there an underlying logic? For
example, if somebody else steps into my room they'll see low-level
chaos, which for some of them is intolerable. I'd never ask anyone to
find anything in my room. However, if I step into my room, I see a
casual kind of order... it reflects the inside of my own head, and so
makes perfect sense to me. I could probably even sit down and explain it
to people if I had to -- over here by the closet, this is where I'm
usually so impatient to snuggle down into my bed that I could care less
about the hamper, so my clothes are all over the floor. On this side of
my bed, this is where I write and work, so there are some empty glasses
and all my CDs there; on the other side is where I sleep, so that's
where all my books are. Makes sense to me, even if it looks like the
antithesis of organization to everybody else.
So... is that how your music works? Or am I completely missing the
point?
I found it interesting that Joyce apparently wasn't into
> modernist developments in the other arts. He disliked the avant-garde music
> of his time and just kind of shrugged when taken to a Picasso exhibition.
> Whereas from an historical perspective all that stuff fits in together, and
> also ties in with the way science in the 20th century got suddenly more
> complex with the theory of relativity and the splitting of the atom etc. So
> how does 21st century art reflect the scientific and political climate?
Fuck if I know; I'm completely frustrated with art right now. Everything
I see is complete crap. Nobody seems to have any guts anymore.
It may be because I'm so entrenched in the internet and other
direct-access media right now -- blogging, forums, DV film, striking up
email conversations with complete strangers on the far side of the globe
-- but after the marginalization and isolating effects of the mass-media
age (which I do believe is in its decline), I sense a kind of tentative
groping-towards-each-other going on. A lot of people are still sucking
at the great glass teat, of course -- and okay, whatever, I'm not going
to judge that -- but lots of other people are starting to look around
and notice that they're not alone in the room. If the 20th century was
about breaking reality into its respective parts, both real and
artificial -- isn't that arguably what postmodernism was based on? --
then perhaps the 21st is about finding commonality, locating where
things meet up, seeing how they're connected on an integral level.
>
Not to continually drag the conversation back to film -- I do have other
things in my life, I swear -- but as I read it I found myself really
wishing I could show you what we're doing in film here; I think you
would find it more hospitable than what you've seen in the past. I
don't want to sound presumptuous, but it sounds to me like you fell in
with a film scene that's just not right for you, and that maybe the baby
industry in Wellington is experiencing some badness in any case. I wish
I could introduce you to some of the people I've known, and say, "look,
see, it's not like that everywhere."
We had a really great workshop at the Co-op last night. Six local
filmmakers (of which I was one) just talking about their perspectives on
the whole process... Morgan, who's into direct action techniques, Dogme
95-esque stuff, and a kind of spiritual introspection; Brandon, who's
all about personal expression; Ben, who makes these crazy, iconoclastic
shorts that often as not don't make any narrative sense but are
entertaining as fuck; Joel, who's all about magical realism; Tim... I
don't know what Tim does, but it's like he shows up and unassuming
little miracles happen wherever he points his camera. And then me,
obviously. I wouldn't venture a guess as to what I do. But there's no
hierarchy, there's no who's-fucking-who bullshit, and really very little
competition... just people using sounds and images in whatever ways
please them. The point is, I think your approach to music and our
approach to film have a great deal in common. Which isn't me imploring
you to go back to film... I'd just hate it if you went away from film
thinking that what you'd experienced was universal and inevitable.
Your writing was pretty damn good for a first draft, though... really
solid opening paragraph, kinda eases you in without compromising the
tone of the piece.
> Speaking of blogs, how about we just post our correspondance as a joint
> entry? It covers a fair bit of ground so far...
Yeah, sure... if you like, feel free. Is it cool if it lives at your
house? I don't think I have room for it on my blog.
Anyway... take it easy,
Amy