Quickthink

It is an interesting distinction. But which motivates us? A resonating message from our consumer based culture is that pleasing ourselves is not such a bad idea. And of course, it isn’t. But does it take priority over pleasing others? Are we happier, for example, when we prepare an amazing dinner … for ourselves? Of course not.  It is much more fun to cook for and dine with friends and loved ones.

Then we might ask this more difficult question. Assuming that we get pleasure from others, how much of that is pleasure from giving to them? And BTW, how good are we at giving pleasure? In a way, these are old fashioned questions. They harken back to the era of “service” — where somewhat rigid standards were enforced in the name of satisfying others.

I am thinking, for example, of a 1938 movie called My Man Godfrey.  In the film, formerly rich and still sophisticated Godfrey, played by William Powell, learns the pleasures of being a butler. And while the rich and privileged benefited from high standards expected from servants, they too were bound (at least in name) to serve the higher purposes of society. Leslie Howard was often quite good at displaying this value, for example, in the ending scene of the 1934 film, The Scarlet Pimpernel.

With this background, you can appreciate how jarring the language is in Mark Bittman’s NYT article today about Simon Hopkinson. It starts off like this

There are chefs who cook for notoriety, or for their own gratification, and there are those who cook for the pleasure of others. Those of the second type certainly cook to make a living, but they’re motivated to guarantee that their customers have real pleasure, as opposed to demonstrating their own brilliance.

What! Are there chefs out there who cook just to demonstrate their own brilliance? Gluttons for self-gratification who fail to deliver “real pleasure” to their clients? Well, it is likely not such a black and white thing. And still … one can sense the difference. When one is focused on giving pleasure rather than making demonstrations, one feels comfortable with understatement. And understatement, BTW, is a value that I miss.

FOLLOW -  So what does understatement look like? Well … these days one might be forgiven for confusing understatement with being boring. But check out Toni Bentley’s piece about Fred and Adele Astaire and you get a sense of Fred’s brilliant, understated artistic style.

Men in Black 3 is out and AO Scott gave it a half thumbs up. Charlie Jane Anders at Wired Mag has a different take

 This is a film so empty, it leaves you eagerly anticipating the heat death of the cosmos.

Ouch!  It almost makes me want to see the thing.

Appreciating great craftsmanship is one of the  pleasures of life.  So I loved this review of a new movie from Aardman Animations. It is a great story about great craftsmanship. And here is a quote that might whet you appetite

Much is often made of the handmade attractions of Aardman’s work, of the signature imperfections and literal fingerprints on its creations. These tiny dents and fingerprint whorls are reminders that these movies were made by people who molded clay with their hands instead of only manipulating symbols on computers. But these human touches also give the movies an extraordinary haptic quality — you watch them, but you almost feel them in your fingers too — that can transport you back to childhood pleasures, like squishing Play-Doh and making crooked clay pots for your parents. That’s partly why the movies seem more personal than many computer animations and why, for all its digital flourishes, “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” like other Aardman films, is a wonderful time machine.

Enjoy!

Some Saturday Fun

I just watched the trailer for the Avengers and for some added fun, took in the accompanying fluff piece about the grave challenges the director faced in making the film. It is not really morning reading (too noisy). I much preferred A.A. Gill’s article on London.  But whether I like it or not, the Avengers message has resonated more than Gill’s stroll around the great city. It was supposed to be just fun, but it kept my attention. That got me thinking why.

The first word that comes to mind is ego — supersized ego. In the bad old days, this was expected from aristocrats (or plutocrats in the states). Indeed, it was their role in society to embody and express something better and higher than the rabble (the rest of us) could or did.  So up when the great estates and to work went the armies of tailors, furniture makers and so on. By now, we have forgotten how powerful was the appeal of their life style. The grand houses are far too expensive to maintain. Well, not completely. Now movie actors and actresses have inherited the job of making the rest of us seem small and stupid. And what better way to allow actors and actresses to seem even larger and smarter than by giving them fake “super hero” qualities? Brilliant! The message to the rest of us is that supersized ego is cool.  A rather quaint remnant of the bad old days. Especially if we consider how little actors and actresses actually do to earn the entitlement. Never mind! They wield the keys to the secret pleasure palace. The stuff of dreams. And they are not overweight!

The second word that comes to mind from the trailer is rage — explosive rage.  The trailer is full of it. And not just from the super empowered bad guy. Our super heroes relish the opportunity to go on rampages themselves. The Hulk seems especially prone to this. A visitor from outer space watching the trailer might conclude that humans nurture a secret desire to trash cities, cars, whatever.  Rage as a form of artistic (higher) expression? Rage as art? This is not cool. Why? Because psychologists tell us that expressions of rage make us stupid. And rage is a sticky emotion. It doesn’t go away so easily. And being stupid conflicts with our ego building project.  Not cool dude.

That’s it! It was this odd internal and self-defeating contradiction in the message that stuck in my mind.  Well, what does one expect from a comic book? So if you are entranced by the challenges of managing supersized egos and explosive rage, the Avengers is for you. Go for it dude! Otherwise, enjoy a thoughtful stroll through London.

Some Saturday Fun

While Poles may be falling in love with zakasakas (see below), the US clings onto a very different type of cultural artifact — the comic book. The film, The Avengers, is its most recent expression. According to Movifone, the pre-release tracking reviews are positive. Great! It will be a hit! And comic book lore lives on! Batman, Superman, Spiderman, The Hulk, and others have all been awarded multimillion dollar film budgets and gone on to entrance US audiences. Now it’s  the Avengers’ turn.

What is behind it? Well, it is American love for silliness. Camp. Remember the TV version of Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward? Here they are, all dressed up and almost ready for action

Well, who could not chuckle at this? And it was supposed to be fun. Full of

.

Here is another great image.

From CBSG Archive

Again, this is not supposed to be serious. It is an inside joke that pop art took to a higher level, with for example Roy Lichtenstein’s work. From Forty Four Sunsets

But here is my quick question. This is still just entertainment. Silly stuff. Right? But has the style lost its sense of humor? Before you answer, check out this image of poor Heath Ledger trying to give some gravitas to the role of the Joker.

From Newsarama 

What do you think? If I go see The Avengers — a 50/50 proposition— I will be looking for fun. For the sense that the film does not take itself too seriously. I crave that sense of humor. Not just weird costumes with a lot of blood, gore and suspiciously heavy breathing.

FOLLOW - If you yearn for trailers, check out comingsoon.com

No deep comment here. But for reasons that I won’t go into just yet, I began thinking about a film made by Michael Pressman back in 1996 called “To Gillian on her 37th Birthday“. It is not a great film, but there are certain storylines there that are worth remembering. I will post about this later.  You can see it on Youtube, BTW, here.

I liked Marx Brothers films as a child. They were fun. But I didn’t think much about them. They were just one of many films that would pop up on the TV movie channel. Then when I was in university, I got into a discussion about who were the greatest comedians of the 20th century. One of my housemates said that without a doubt Groucho was the greatest of them all. What?

That got me thinking about Groucho. And over the years I have come to realize how talented and different he was. BTW, if you want to learn more about Groucho and his unique gifts, check out Dick Cavett’s piece about two new Groucho books.

But the conversation had a second effect. It got me thinking about the relative value of comedy and comedians in our modern society. Again, something I had taken for granted as a youngster. And that too has stuck with me for quite a few years. It got me into trouble a few years ago in a pub conversation about Woody Allen. I said that Woody betrayed his comedic genius when he went “serious” and “European”. He decided that it was more important to be smart than funny. My friends thought I was over the top.  But I stuck to me guns.

What are weekends for?

Sometimes it is hard to predict what will grab your attention on the weekend. Yesterday, for example, I suddenly got the urge to make coq au vin rouge.  Where did it come from?  Who knows. And I couldn’t shake it. So out came the cookbooks with stern reminders on what to do and what not to do. Julia Child, for example, has words of wisdom on blanching the bacon for your lardons. And I found this rather helpful internet resource. Though I do think that the recommended overnight marinade is overdoing what is already a somewhat involved process.

Oops! No bacon. Oops! No cognac. Ooops! No pearl onions. Thank the Lord for Harris Salat. Suddenly, his chicken sauteed with garlic started to sound very good indeed. And doggie got the left overs while I munched on some dark chocolate with a dram of Jamesons. Now that is good living!

FOLLOW -  Truth be told, I might have gone for some very simple tomato soup. 101 cookbooks has a nice recipe. But sadly, I was out of coconut milk too.

2d FOLLOW - Ah the good and simple life! Sharpe found it at a Normandy farm with his beloved Lucille … errr … before Napoleon interrupted things.  I like the opening scenes of the episode that lead to the great battle at Waterloo. Check it out at the above link. But was Silly Billy really that silly? He is played by one of my favorite actors, Paul Bettany. You might remember Paul as the eloquent gambling addict Geoffrey Chaucer, in A Knight’s Tale.  Was  Chaucer really a gambler? Who cares.  Now I can’t think of him in any other way.

And that dance scene? Also hard to forget. Here it is

Some Saturday Fun

Something happens in the mind when one says the word “Venice”. Instead of producing facts and data about a location — and after all, Venice is just a place, right? — the mind conjures up magic. It is magic that is connected to a specific place, but that takes us much further, nurturing our feeling of connection and possibility. The water in the canals is not just any water, and the sun shimmering on the water is not just sun. They are food for our dreams.

You resist? Ok. Try an experiment. What happens when you say the word “cabbage”? Feel any magic? I doubt it. I would gladly take the chance to go back to Venice once more, where dreams await.

But for some Saturday fun, we can feel a bit of magic from both words. An article from Saveur about eating cicheti in Venice gives us what we expect from that special place. The article is safe and classic travel writing. And then a surprisingly fun article and video about cooking a sexy New York Cabbage. Damn! I fell in love with a cabbage!

Enjoy!

FOLLOW -  The final, dramatic line in my post is inspired by that fantastic scene in the Hitchcock film, Notorious, when Claude Rains confesses to his very Nazi mother, “… I have married an American agent.” And a very fetching cabbage she was, that Ingrid Bergman! Just for fun, here is a nice image from the Hitchcock Gallery of the dapper Claude, in character

A Sunday Ramble

It is sad that kids on the street hustling drugs would feel that they are “due for a miracle”. Jay-Z’ says

… The truth is that most kids on the corner aren’t making big money … The kid on the streets is getting a shot at a dream. The dream is that he will be the one to make this hustling thing pay off in a big way … they’re working because they think they’re due for a miracle. …

We might disdain this choice of life style, but for better or worse,I think we all share the idea that we are “due for a miracle”, at least now and then. That merely because we are people, alive at the present moment, we are entitled to something beyond what is expected. The presumption (that in our more controlled moments, we call fantasy) highlights an essential aspect of ego - that sense of individual worth or specialness. It is the entitlement to shape our future. And we give up believing in this entitlement at our peril.

There is another core idea that we can squeeze out of the phrase. By  introducing the notion that a miracle is “due”, the phrase captures the rather droll nature of our actual day to day existence — that we need to transcend. Paraphrasing Monty Python, we ponder if the new paper clips have arrived, while we dream of savoring universal mastery. We are destined to live in both worlds — the sacred and the mundane.

Some might resist chatting about their fantasies and this is understandable. But assuming for a second that we fantasize about miracles, what kind of miracle do we want most? Perhaps the miracle is to be taken to a special place. A place where truth is revealed. As in Tarkovsky’s room in the film “Stalker”. Or is it the gift of great feeling. To feel appreciated by the masses. On a pedestal like Caesar in his triumph. So great the adulation that we need constant whispering reminders that we are still human. Or is it to be swept up in a great purpose. Like re-creating our future via education. Hmmm? … Well, if that is not what education is for, why do we bother? That is the essence of Jay-Z’s thought (see link) and I find it hard to disagree.

FOLLOW -  For the doubters among you, yes I did watch the film Stalker once. It was in London back when I was a student. I fell asleep at least there times, much to the annoyance of my date. It seems there was a snoring issue. Then she fell asleep too  and all was well. I woke up in time for the room sequence and was totally mystified. I was still a bit groggy but even in that state I suspected that this was Tarkoovsky’s intention. I am glad to find out many years later from Hoberman’s review of Mr. Dyer’s new book about the film (see link above) that my suspicions were well founded.