I just transferred a bunch of blog posts from my "infinite number of monkeys" blog on the rotting carcass of Myspace. If you've read them before, enjoy them again. If not, well are you in for a treat!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Service Announcement
I just transferred a bunch of blog posts from my "infinite number of monkeys" blog on the rotting carcass of Myspace. If you've read them before, enjoy them again. If not, well are you in for a treat!
A Classic In Spite of Itself
from July 14, 2008
Review: "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale" By Michael Bamberger
There are some biographies that you love because they are well-written. There are some biographies that you love because you love the subject of the book. This book is neither of those things, and yet it's one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. It's entertaining the way a train wreck is entertaining if in this case the train crashed into Noah's Ark, if Noah's Ark in addition to two of all the world's animals was filled with fireworks, and chocolate pudding and the Cirque de Soleil. There should be a constant Greek chorus while you are reading this book, chanting things like "Can you believe he just wrote that?" and "Who the fuck does M Night Shyamalan think he is, anyway?"
I'm not even sure how to describe this book, it raises such a welter of contrary and violent emotions. It is a clusterfuck wrapped in a fiasco, dipped in hubris and then set ablaze with a sparkler made out of unintended irony. I spent large chunks of the book entertaining the question "Who do I despise most, M Night Shyamalan, or Michael Bamberger?" By the end I chose to be equitable and call it a flat-footed tie of abhorrence.
Where to begin... Michael Bamberger is a hack. That's as good a place as any. Bamberger is primarily a golf writer for Sports Illustrated. Not that that's necessarily damning - one could be a good writer about any subject (see Harvey Penick's "Little Red Book"). But Bamberger is a shitty golf writer, hackneyed, prone to trite underdog stories, and rife with cliches - notable in the world of golf journalism mostly for having pointed out a rules infraction that got Michelle Wie kicked out of a tournament. A shitty golf writer who knows nothing about movies except they're a pleasant way to pass the time on drizzly Martha's Vineyard afternoons. Who better to write an insightful book about the film industry and one of its most enigmatic directors? If you said "anyone", congratulations.
In addition to being a hack, Bamberger is a name-dropping star-fucker. He meets Shyamalan (his friends call him "Night") at a ritzy Philadelphia dinner party. Bamberger makes sure to note that former tennis pro Jim Courier also attended - "Wow! THE Jim Courier?!?" But from the moment Shyamalan makes his "entrance" Bamberger only has eyes for Night. His shirt unbuttoned like vintage Tom Jones, Night casts a spell over everyone he meets - is he psychic or just preternaturally charismatic? Bamberger isn't sure, but he's in love.
What follows is one of the most embarrassingly lionizing pieces of idolatry you're ever likely to read. Bamberger lays out the nature of Night's genius, his meteoric rise from a merely pampered upbringing to enviable affluence with tortured Tiger Woods and Bob Dylan metaphors and florid crush note prose. Bamberger spends the next year or so following after Night like a loyal stray beagle, living in the reflected brilliance of Night's genius and annointed celebrity, nuzzling his hand for validation and burrowing his warm supportive nose into Night's neck when the vagaries and slights of the uncomprehending mundane world bring Night low.
That Shyamalan happened to be creating "The Lady in the Water", one of the most soggy piles of cowflop to ever grace the silver screen (before he set the bar even soggier and floppier with "The Crappening"), during Bamberger's Icarus-like flight only makes the unremarked-upon dramatic irony all the richer. Bamberger lauds Night as a man of the people for allowing his chauffeur, personal chef, and nanny to read his newest opus, then turns around and joins his voice to Shyamalan's own shocked and wounded whimper when Disney suggests they "might have some notes". Night's personal assistant is noted to be remarkable for her ability to not confuse her station with that of her employer, and also her faculty for not going to the bathroom for the duration of the flight from Philly to LA to deliver the script to Disney, as well as her completely justifiable shock and disdain that Nina Jacobsen of Disney chose taking her son to a friend's birthday party over the prompt receipt of Night's "sale script" (to be read not as work, but as a weekend's entertainment) and Jacobsen's offer of "low-carb soup" FROM THE FRIG!
To say merely that Bamberger lacks the objectivity to notice that anyone who voices the slightest dissent from Night's "vision" is branded a traitor (or that all those voices were proved prescient) is to pardon him for what is in actuality the aiding and abetting of felonious egomania. There is an interesting story going on here, not just between the lines of Bamberger's Gospel of M Night, but behind the scenes of "Lady in the Water", unremarked upon and entirely unnoticed by Bamberger - the story of how success and fame in the arts can so distance one from the real world as to completely neuter that art.
There's an anecdote that's relayed enthusiastically - M Night is in an elevator on the way to a casting call. In the elevator with him is a child actor and the actor's mother. Night tries to engage the youngster, but he is reticent about talking to strangers, and the mother is understandably protective. Night cannot believe that had this child, or the mother ONLY RECOGNIZED him, he could have been their lottery ticket. Oh, the bitterweet irony that HAD THEY BUT KNOWN who Night was (don't they watch American Express commercials?) they could have found the very success they were struggling to achieve at countless casting calls.
That Bamberger takes Night at his word that this episode is a tragically failed attempt by Night at charity and an emblem of his man-of-the-people magnanimity and not rightly as symptomatic of a delusional and grandiose Christ complex says everything you need to know about both the book and M Night Shyamalan.
There are some biographies that you love because they are well-written. There are some biographies that you love because you love the subject of the book. This book is neither of those things, and yet it's one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. It's entertaining the way a train wreck is entertaining if in this case the train crashed into Noah's Ark, if Noah's Ark in addition to two of all the world's animals was filled with fireworks, and chocolate pudding and the Cirque de Soleil. There should be a constant Greek chorus while you are reading this book, chanting things like "Can you believe he just wrote that?" and "Who the fuck does M Night Shyamalan think he is, anyway?"
I'm not even sure how to describe this book, it raises such a welter of contrary and violent emotions. It is a clusterfuck wrapped in a fiasco, dipped in hubris and then set ablaze with a sparkler made out of unintended irony. I spent large chunks of the book entertaining the question "Who do I despise most, M Night Shyamalan, or Michael Bamberger?" By the end I chose to be equitable and call it a flat-footed tie of abhorrence.
Where to begin... Michael Bamberger is a hack. That's as good a place as any. Bamberger is primarily a golf writer for Sports Illustrated. Not that that's necessarily damning - one could be a good writer about any subject (see Harvey Penick's "Little Red Book"). But Bamberger is a shitty golf writer, hackneyed, prone to trite underdog stories, and rife with cliches - notable in the world of golf journalism mostly for having pointed out a rules infraction that got Michelle Wie kicked out of a tournament. A shitty golf writer who knows nothing about movies except they're a pleasant way to pass the time on drizzly Martha's Vineyard afternoons. Who better to write an insightful book about the film industry and one of its most enigmatic directors? If you said "anyone", congratulations.
In addition to being a hack, Bamberger is a name-dropping star-fucker. He meets Shyamalan (his friends call him "Night") at a ritzy Philadelphia dinner party. Bamberger makes sure to note that former tennis pro Jim Courier also attended - "Wow! THE Jim Courier?!?" But from the moment Shyamalan makes his "entrance" Bamberger only has eyes for Night. His shirt unbuttoned like vintage Tom Jones, Night casts a spell over everyone he meets - is he psychic or just preternaturally charismatic? Bamberger isn't sure, but he's in love.
What follows is one of the most embarrassingly lionizing pieces of idolatry you're ever likely to read. Bamberger lays out the nature of Night's genius, his meteoric rise from a merely pampered upbringing to enviable affluence with tortured Tiger Woods and Bob Dylan metaphors and florid crush note prose. Bamberger spends the next year or so following after Night like a loyal stray beagle, living in the reflected brilliance of Night's genius and annointed celebrity, nuzzling his hand for validation and burrowing his warm supportive nose into Night's neck when the vagaries and slights of the uncomprehending mundane world bring Night low.
That Shyamalan happened to be creating "The Lady in the Water", one of the most soggy piles of cowflop to ever grace the silver screen (before he set the bar even soggier and floppier with "The Crappening"), during Bamberger's Icarus-like flight only makes the unremarked-upon dramatic irony all the richer. Bamberger lauds Night as a man of the people for allowing his chauffeur, personal chef, and nanny to read his newest opus, then turns around and joins his voice to Shyamalan's own shocked and wounded whimper when Disney suggests they "might have some notes". Night's personal assistant is noted to be remarkable for her ability to not confuse her station with that of her employer, and also her faculty for not going to the bathroom for the duration of the flight from Philly to LA to deliver the script to Disney, as well as her completely justifiable shock and disdain that Nina Jacobsen of Disney chose taking her son to a friend's birthday party over the prompt receipt of Night's "sale script" (to be read not as work, but as a weekend's entertainment) and Jacobsen's offer of "low-carb soup" FROM THE FRIG!
To say merely that Bamberger lacks the objectivity to notice that anyone who voices the slightest dissent from Night's "vision" is branded a traitor (or that all those voices were proved prescient) is to pardon him for what is in actuality the aiding and abetting of felonious egomania. There is an interesting story going on here, not just between the lines of Bamberger's Gospel of M Night, but behind the scenes of "Lady in the Water", unremarked upon and entirely unnoticed by Bamberger - the story of how success and fame in the arts can so distance one from the real world as to completely neuter that art.
There's an anecdote that's relayed enthusiastically - M Night is in an elevator on the way to a casting call. In the elevator with him is a child actor and the actor's mother. Night tries to engage the youngster, but he is reticent about talking to strangers, and the mother is understandably protective. Night cannot believe that had this child, or the mother ONLY RECOGNIZED him, he could have been their lottery ticket. Oh, the bitterweet irony that HAD THEY BUT KNOWN who Night was (don't they watch American Express commercials?) they could have found the very success they were struggling to achieve at countless casting calls.
That Bamberger takes Night at his word that this episode is a tragically failed attempt by Night at charity and an emblem of his man-of-the-people magnanimity and not rightly as symptomatic of a delusional and grandiose Christ complex says everything you need to know about both the book and M Night Shyamalan.
This week in monkey news...
from May 29, 2008
Current mood:terrified
Pretend for a moment that I've had a blog my whole life. Pretend further that a beloved ongoing feature of said blog is "Monkeys in the News". This then would be the latest installment of "Monkeys in the News".
From the New York Times: "Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.
This can't be good news. How can you make it all the way to researcher at Carnegie Mellon University without having seen either "Planet of the Apes" or the Terminator movies?
What could be worse than a monkey apocalypse where humans are enslaved or a bleak dystopia where robots rule the world?
FUCKING MONKEY ROBOTS, THAT'S WHAT!!!
And Charlton Heston is dead now, so who's going to free us from our mechanical primate bondage? Practice saying it together folks...
"Get your robot hands off me, you damn dirty apes!"
We can only hope the monkeys rebel against their masters before the inevitable RobotMonkeyalypse.
And if they breed, and there are suddenly an infinite number of Robot Monkeys? Oh, the bittersweet irony of reams of new Shakespeare plays zipping out of robot typewriters as Man's last fretting and strutting upon the stage comes to its horrific, screaming end.
Previous installments of Monkeys in the News:
Glow in the Dark Monkeys
I Have Monkeys in My Pants
Current mood:terrified
From the New York Times: "Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.
The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.
The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach."This can't be good news. How can you make it all the way to researcher at Carnegie Mellon University without having seen either "Planet of the Apes" or the Terminator movies?
What could be worse than a monkey apocalypse where humans are enslaved or a bleak dystopia where robots rule the world?
FUCKING MONKEY ROBOTS, THAT'S WHAT!!!
And Charlton Heston is dead now, so who's going to free us from our mechanical primate bondage? Practice saying it together folks...
"Get your robot hands off me, you damn dirty apes!"
We can only hope the monkeys rebel against their masters before the inevitable RobotMonkeyalypse.
And if they breed, and there are suddenly an infinite number of Robot Monkeys? Oh, the bittersweet irony of reams of new Shakespeare plays zipping out of robot typewriters as Man's last fretting and strutting upon the stage comes to its horrific, screaming end.
Previous installments of Monkeys in the News:
Glow in the Dark Monkeys
I Have Monkeys in My Pants
Adventures in Philately
from April 9, 2008
I just got a letter that had just about the ugliest stamp on it that I’ve ever seen.
I mean I like Linus Pauling as much as the next guy - only person to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize, doncha know? - but what the fuck is up with this stamp?
Linus Pauling’s swollen melon being bombarded by what appears to be raspberry danishes or kidney pies? I understand it’s hard to convey the important work he did on chemical bonds and protein structures, but what about his career would lead an artist to depict Linus sitting there smugly while urinal cakes fall from the sky? Was he sitting underneath a strawberry donut tree trying to understand the tetravalent bond when he got hit on the head and said, "Eureka! Suddenly I’ve discovered orbital hybridization?"
My apologies to those who clicked on this because they thought it was going to be about blow-jobs.
I just got a letter that had just about the ugliest stamp on it that I’ve ever seen.
I mean I like Linus Pauling as much as the next guy - only person to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize, doncha know? - but what the fuck is up with this stamp?
Linus Pauling’s swollen melon being bombarded by what appears to be raspberry danishes or kidney pies? I understand it’s hard to convey the important work he did on chemical bonds and protein structures, but what about his career would lead an artist to depict Linus sitting there smugly while urinal cakes fall from the sky? Was he sitting underneath a strawberry donut tree trying to understand the tetravalent bond when he got hit on the head and said, "Eureka! Suddenly I’ve discovered orbital hybridization?"
My apologies to those who clicked on this because they thought it was going to be about blow-jobs.
A Barrel of Monkeys
from December 5, 2007
As I was walking home from the store this evening, it occurred to me that there are a disproportionate number of people named Cooper, which led me to wonder - were there really that many barrel makers in the Old World, or did barrel makers just really like to fuck?
Tire Tracks
from November 18, 2007
I was driving home from work the other day, driving behind Maggie down Hollywood Boulevard, when my phone rang. It was Maggie.
"Do you see the Scion next to me?"
"Yeah."
"Can you see who's driving?" I could only see a silhouette of a man's head with long hair, and white-clothed shoulders.
"No."
"It's Jesus!" exclaimed Maggie. "Pull up closer, you have to see."
The traffic cooperated, and soon I was alongside the Scion. I looked over.
It was Jesus! Not a guy who kinda looked like Jesus, but Jesus - White robes; beard; Son of God; King of Kings; Lamb of Lambs; Emmanuel; the Alpha and Omega; water into wine; for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life; He descended into hell, on the third day he rose again, He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, He will come again to judge the living and the dead; Jesus Christ Superstar do you think you are what they say you are? capital J Jesus!
I thought that I had lived here long enough that I had seen everything Hollywood Boulevard had to offer - Spider-man lugging his laundry, Willy Wonka hitting on Cat Woman, homeless ventriloquists, the "need money for kung-fu lessons" panhandlers, fake hurricanes, a thousand people lined up behind barricades hoping to catch a glimpse of Rob Schneider - every bit of strangeness and oddity that comes when the delusional, desperate and depraved collide with tourism, commerce, and a certain Flying Spaghetti Monster cult all within an eight-block radius - but seeing Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah returned and driving the all-new, sporty, fuel-efficient Toyota Scion in nautical blue metallic was still a pleasant surprise. I had almost forgotten I was on the phone.
"Wow, that really is Jesus!"
The traffic in our lane slowed and Jesus put the sandal to the pedal and pulled ahead. I talked to Maggie for a couple more moments and we both got distracted and lost track of Jesus (isn't that always the way?). When we got to the next light He was gone.
"Where did he go?" I asked.
"I don't know," Maggie answered. "I think He must have turned onto Highland. I looked away for a minute and He was gone."
"Don't worry," I replied. "Where you only saw one set of tracks on the road, that's when He was driving you."
"Do you see the Scion next to me?"
"Yeah."
"Can you see who's driving?" I could only see a silhouette of a man's head with long hair, and white-clothed shoulders.
"No."
"It's Jesus!" exclaimed Maggie. "Pull up closer, you have to see."
The traffic cooperated, and soon I was alongside the Scion. I looked over.
It was Jesus! Not a guy who kinda looked like Jesus, but Jesus - White robes; beard; Son of God; King of Kings; Lamb of Lambs; Emmanuel; the Alpha and Omega; water into wine; for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life; He descended into hell, on the third day he rose again, He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, He will come again to judge the living and the dead; Jesus Christ Superstar do you think you are what they say you are? capital J Jesus! I thought that I had lived here long enough that I had seen everything Hollywood Boulevard had to offer - Spider-man lugging his laundry, Willy Wonka hitting on Cat Woman, homeless ventriloquists, the "need money for kung-fu lessons" panhandlers, fake hurricanes, a thousand people lined up behind barricades hoping to catch a glimpse of Rob Schneider - every bit of strangeness and oddity that comes when the delusional, desperate and depraved collide with tourism, commerce, and a certain Flying Spaghetti Monster cult all within an eight-block radius - but seeing Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah returned and driving the all-new, sporty, fuel-efficient Toyota Scion in nautical blue metallic was still a pleasant surprise. I had almost forgotten I was on the phone.
"Wow, that really is Jesus!"
The traffic in our lane slowed and Jesus put the sandal to the pedal and pulled ahead. I talked to Maggie for a couple more moments and we both got distracted and lost track of Jesus (isn't that always the way?). When we got to the next light He was gone.
"Where did he go?" I asked.
"I don't know," Maggie answered. "I think He must have turned onto Highland. I looked away for a minute and He was gone."
"Don't worry," I replied. "Where you only saw one set of tracks on the road, that's when He was driving you."
The affect of gamma rays on man I have no clever ideas for this blog title
from November 6, 2007
If there can be a downside to only having a 15 minute commute to work in the morning, it's that there isn't enough time to get a good think on, which I discovered when I got stuck on the 101 the other morning. It was just a short (in LA terms) traffic jam and consequently only a few mini-epiphanies (miniphanies?), but I was left to wonder what things I might conjure if I had to drive my ass out to the Valley every morning, especially since I haven't had a workable bathtub for a while, thereby losing my previous greatest source of inspiration.
The miniphany was this: U2's "Bad" was playing on the radio, and I was singing my heart out a little, when I wondered, not for the first time, what the hell the song might be about (susbsequent research has indicated that it's about heroin, which I guess I should have assumed, - I knew "Running to Stand Still" was about heroin because it has the word needle right there for the lyrically challenged - but that's all really beside the point).
I had never before been able to put into words why U2 had been such a seminal part of my adolescence, how they were the yearning, anguished soundtrack of my years 12, 13, 14, and 15, but here it was - other than the obvious message songs like "Pride", "War", and "Sunday Bloody, Sunday", etc., I never knew exactly what Bono was singing about, but my god was it important! It had to be, as passionately as Bono was belting it out, like the entire fate of the western world hung in the balance betweeen Tracks 7 and 8.
I didn't know exactly what it was that he had found, just that he'd been looking for it for a long time. I couldn't imagine how you'd get around in a city where the streets had no name (and was this city the Red Hill Mining Town?) just that when Bono goes there with you, it's all he can do! I had no idea who Jara was (or even that his name was spelled Jara) but man his song was a weapon and HIS BLOOD STILL CRIES FROM THE GROUND! That has to mean something very important, right? And if I could just figure out what, maybe the rest of life would make sense too.
So the parallel for the first time became clear - U2 was a perfect analogy of adolescence - being really upset about something, just not exactly sure what, but you can feel it building, rising up from your stomach through your throat until you want to yell at the top of your lungs! Yell! Yell, well, I'm not sure what to yell, BUT IT'S REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT! Clumsily stumbling toward meaning, not sure where to find inspiration - maybe it's religious, maybe it's political, maybe it's an Indian summer sky, maybe it's tripping through someone's wires, probably it's heroin.
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