Grizzly Man

Lost
Originally uploaded by Theorris.

lis of the famed Asertively Unhip recently discoursed on the film Grizzly Man directed by Werner Herzog. While some (see comments at AU) find the protagonist annoying or bothersome because of his behavior, I found myself not so much deep disturbed by the subject matter an the person portrayed, but disturbed by Herzog's technique. Now disturbed is probably not the right word because it has negative connotations. I was distrubed in a good way; kind of like one is disturbed in Act III of Much Ado About Nothing when Shakespeare refuses to show the scene that most other characters witness in the play that supposedly proves that Hero is faithless and carrying on an illicit affair with Borrachio, a character who is in league with the play's bad guy, Don John. In Grizzly Man Herzog, taking mostly footage that Timothy Treadwell, the aforementioned annoying protagonist, shot and spun it together in such a way that you get a far better sense of the man and the bears he proclaims pretty much every time he is on the screen have saved his life.

Herzog plays with the irony here: that which Treadwell claims to have saved him ultimately kills him in the most gruesome way most humans can imagine--to be eaten alive. Herzog does this through narration at times, but more so through how he edits the scenes together and what he decides to let run on in the film. Ultimately there is a lot of discomfort with the editing in that where you (and even Treadwell) expects to be cut to another scene, Herzog leaves the scene alone. This is most evident in Treadwells many solioquys where he talks about his life and the bears and who he is. Where you expect a flashy cut to another scene or a cutaway of bears, Herzog leaves it alone, forcing the viewer to come to terms with Treadwell's mania.

Such editing is not new for Herzog, in The White Diamond an equally uncomfortable movie, Herzog carries on filming his subject (a man who is developing a blimp to study the rainforest canopy--the titular white diamond) even when that subject is seemingly done talking. Because Herzog asks no other questions, but keeps the camera on, the man often continues on with his narration of his life and why he is doing what he is doing, and by doing that shows something to the viewer that perhaps he did not want to show: a dark obsession to complete this project no matter what it takes. He needs to complete this project not simply out of a desire to conduct research, but seemingly to assuage himself of guilt he feels from his first attempt years before where his friend and well-known camera man died because of a failure of his blimp. Like Grizzly Man Herzog refuses too to show the death scene, but the film is saturated with the moment. You see the reaction that people had to the event, but not the event itself.

The choices that Herzog has made in this film caused me to step back from it more aware than ever of our obsessions and our endless need to make peace with some unknown past. Treadwell does that over and again throughout the movie--never quite getting there as he mugs for his camera. Yes he is in it for the bears, but he is also very much in it for himself. I'm fascinated how Herzog by making the film that he made, forces us into that confrontation as well.

[The land of lost notes] Note 24

Getting all political on your asses

I sent this email to a colleague today

Aren't those [Utah] legislators doing a bang-up job! Whew, now I won't have to worry about being descended from a monkey and I can put a giant billboard in my backyard and my neighbors can just fuck off!

Snipe. Snipe. Snipe.

Aren't you glad I don't rant about politics more often? In any case it looks like the monkey bill will probably fail and the zoning one is being retooled since even its sponsor admited that it went too far.

Oh well, cheap shots are just as good as expensive ones, I suppose.

Stuff that dreams are made on

For about a week now I've been having dreams that feature my childhood. I am a child in them. They are not really memories as I am fairly confident that the events did not really occur in my childhood. They are more like an impression of what my adult self thinks my childhood was.

Nevertheless it takes me a moment to decide when I think back on them whether the dreams are real memories or are just a dream. I suppose, after a while, if I kept having the same dream I could be convinced that it really was a memory. That is kind of like how some people who repeat a lie to themselves begin to believe the lie has basis in reality. The human mind is so malleable and fallible, and states of awareness of "reality" is just one tiny aspect of the difficulties the mind presents. Among others there is perception problems, sensory confusion, chemical imbalance, schizophrenia--hell just break out the DSM-IV to see all the myriad ways the human brain/mind can be fucked up.

We really are a couple of synapses shy of a full load as humans, aren't we?

Lesson 3.A: Two String Mambo

In honor of the new Multipurpose Room (christened Da Bone Yard in honor of its former occupant), I am teaching myself to play guitar. Somewhere along the way we picked up an electric guitar that I discovered in the closet of the Jones Memorial Shit Pile (the former creative arts now guest suite). Its origin is uncertain and its owner is unknown, so I've decided to torture it a bit by learning on it.

The instruciton manual that I picked up is trying to be funny and trying to keep the process of learning the world's most frustrating musical instrument (well aside from the violin which must be a bitch and a half to learn) light and entertaining. The book is quite enthusiatic at times, and seems to have a rather musically obsessed teen with self-esteem issues in mind: "Take a break," it suggest on page 15. "Get some sleep, maybe some breakfast." It is also well-aware that its simple songs are not going to be well-received by the average teen: "WARNING: With only two notes, this excercise is rather boring. Hang in there..."

If I weren't so damn old I'd think that the book was trying to be like my dad trying to be cool. Right now I kind of want to buy the book a beer. It is masochistically cheery and must need a few after having to listen to all us wannabes try to play.

Driven over the edge

Utah's Own - Life At Its Best...: "Currently food delivered through the national chain stores uses 17 times more fossil fuel and releases as much as 20 times the emissions to deliver us the very same items that may be available nearby. If just 10% of our food came from sources within Utah, we would save hundreds of thousands of gallons of fossil fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by millions of pounds. “Cheap” imported food has a very large price tag beside its purchase price. It places a hidden tax on your food."

Having grown up on a farm right here in the good old SL Valley, I am stunned at how much farm land we have lost over the last 20 years and how unsustainable our community currently is. Basically we do not have the food production here in Utah to support our population. A good deal of our arable and, more importantly here in dry Utah, our irrigable farm land has been sucked up into cheaply-made, built-in-obsolesence-ready subdivisions where the chief produce is malcontented or prescription-drug-addled teenagers, philandering spouses (yes this happens quite a lot in our fake-clean little state), and Kentucky blue grass.

I would rant on, but that's certainly not working towards a solution. What are the solutions? How about a little more common sense in planning? My hell the Mormon pioneers survived out here by planning. Planning is not the enemy, nor is cooperation. The enemy is everyone thinking they can sit in their own little castle, never looking even as much in their front yard, and ignore the world.

Meh.

Wook and the Family Stone

Wook and the Family Stone
Originally uploaded by Theorris.

When we lose a housemate, the other ones and I seem to take over their previous space to make a creative arts room. Wook and his crew found a space in the former Bone Yard.

I turned the old music room study into the new guest room. It is an exciting adventure to be a guest at the Wilhelm. You should give it a try some time. We even have a climbing wall nub, a broken snowboard, a Chinese hat and plenty of shelf space and a furnce in your guest suite.

My academic garb has been transfered, and I sit here typing away in my full regalia* listening to posh music and using words like posh while Wook and the Family Stone cheer me on with my view to the south--the same direction that the on again mostly off again camera that I don't remember the link to (but you can find it in the archive) looks out on (Never mind here is the link to the Wilhelm Cam with lashings of great joy.)

Ah the joys of domesticity.

Fuck that shit, I need a beer.

*I wore my regalia once as a great costume for Death (I manufactured a sickle out of my old old apartment's stair rail--I wonder why I didnt' get my deposit back) and it still has the white face make up all over it. That shows you how much I wear that freaking thing.