Dialogue is a wonderful thing. Since the advent of the pictures that not only move but talk as well, film has taken a turn undeniably for the better. It is the necessary catalyst to the grumbling bass of John Wayne, Icon of Manhood, and the wit and charm of William Powell, the perfect gentleman. Powell could never have risen from a silent villain, nor Wayne have shot Liberty Valence had not they had the simple gift of being heard. A voice bespeaks more than what the character says- it bespeaks the character.
As with anything that defines a person, that which he does not say is as important as that which he says. More specifically, that which he says without words is essential to any man's nature. The true man of few words is not so much speechless as having a higher form of speech. This idea is a lost art in the modern film, where the only pauses in dialogue are parades for sidearms and chainsaws. Gone is the silent genius of Clint Eastwood's 'Blondie,' who can carry entire scenes without so much as a word. Past are the days of Alfred Hitchcock, who carried from the silent to the spoken films the flair of asyllabic storytelling. That, I believe, is the true mark of an actor, a director, an artist. A role is more than the lines assigned.
Recalling Clint Eastwood's care for a dying son of Dixie, or James Stewart's endearing characters, we see a beauty beyond words, quite simply because it is without words. Whether our beloved Mr. Smith expresses a sudden shift in plot and character with the handling of a hat, or Peter Lorre cows generations with a hair-raising smile, the masters show to be more than speakers- they are walkers, they are lookers, they are doers. In a word, they are actors.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
The Case for Shoes
Perhaps the most painful stereotype of the glamor model clique is the shoe, or rather, the shoes. Shoes for today, shoes for tomorrow, shoes for running, shoes for walking, shoes for flirting, shoes for dancing. Shoes to catch the eye, to distract the eye, to redirect the eye, to dazzle the eye, to hurt the eye. Shoes to wear around the house, to the mall, in front of cameras, in the car, on the couch, asleep at night. Women are obsessed with shoes.
Not so with us men. Oh no. We wear shoes only for utility. That's why we have shoes for work, for hunting, for hiking, for marathons, for fishing, for boating, for dancing, for...... oh, wait.
So clearly, we have a cultural fixation with shoes. I'm wearing some right now; Nice looking running shoes. They have a bunch of thorns stuck in them, but that's a result of living in the Virginia countryside. In my closet, I have a pair of work boots(which I have not worn for awhile because my obnoxious feet are too big), a pair of narrow cowboy boots, dress shoes, soccer cleats, and basketball shoes. I think, other than Mass on Sundays, I wear only the ones on my feet right now.
But clearly, I succumb to the culture of shoes.
Often, however, I go barefoot. There's a certain joy you get as a kid squishing mud between your toes that I refuse to give up, kind of like CS Lewis and his fairy tales. Lewis said that as a child he would hide to read fairy tales, lest others think him not as grown-up as he should be, but that at fifty he read them openly and unabashedly. Quite simply, in adulthood we shouldn't shun the natural pleasure of childhood; we should accept and understand them even more. Early this morning, while my toes were freezing off in the most convenient shoes I could grab(someone else's flip-flops) and I passed the fowl going through the woods and the firewood fortress, I discovered that, somehow, the ground was warmer than the floppy things that were protecting my tender flesh. It was softer, too, more friendly and familiar. The obsession with shoes seems to have protected the human foot from all the harsh pleasures and happiness of the raw earth, saving us from the glories of the ground.
Of course, I then stepped on a particularly sharp acorn, and remembered that there are still pluses to shoes.
But what is it that keeps the modern, western adult from permitting any contact with the earth? Granted, I'd wear thick soles over most urban areas, and in any non-domestic building, and, yes, doing anything strenuous outside, but there is happiness of a forgotten age in the dust and dirt. Our Guineas bath with nothing but dirt, and it keeps them cleaner than most animals on earth. (Then, of course, they go and dust-bathe is a pile of ashes, and run around looking like ghosts, leaving a gray cloud behind them. "Fun" is too mild a word for what they were having.)
As with any technology, shoes should not become the Golden Calf, dragging us away from that simple pleasure of the ground.
Remember, O Man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.
Not so with us men. Oh no. We wear shoes only for utility. That's why we have shoes for work, for hunting, for hiking, for marathons, for fishing, for boating, for dancing, for...... oh, wait.
So clearly, we have a cultural fixation with shoes. I'm wearing some right now; Nice looking running shoes. They have a bunch of thorns stuck in them, but that's a result of living in the Virginia countryside. In my closet, I have a pair of work boots(which I have not worn for awhile because my obnoxious feet are too big), a pair of narrow cowboy boots, dress shoes, soccer cleats, and basketball shoes. I think, other than Mass on Sundays, I wear only the ones on my feet right now.
But clearly, I succumb to the culture of shoes.
Often, however, I go barefoot. There's a certain joy you get as a kid squishing mud between your toes that I refuse to give up, kind of like CS Lewis and his fairy tales. Lewis said that as a child he would hide to read fairy tales, lest others think him not as grown-up as he should be, but that at fifty he read them openly and unabashedly. Quite simply, in adulthood we shouldn't shun the natural pleasure of childhood; we should accept and understand them even more. Early this morning, while my toes were freezing off in the most convenient shoes I could grab(someone else's flip-flops) and I passed the fowl going through the woods and the firewood fortress, I discovered that, somehow, the ground was warmer than the floppy things that were protecting my tender flesh. It was softer, too, more friendly and familiar. The obsession with shoes seems to have protected the human foot from all the harsh pleasures and happiness of the raw earth, saving us from the glories of the ground.
Of course, I then stepped on a particularly sharp acorn, and remembered that there are still pluses to shoes.
But what is it that keeps the modern, western adult from permitting any contact with the earth? Granted, I'd wear thick soles over most urban areas, and in any non-domestic building, and, yes, doing anything strenuous outside, but there is happiness of a forgotten age in the dust and dirt. Our Guineas bath with nothing but dirt, and it keeps them cleaner than most animals on earth. (Then, of course, they go and dust-bathe is a pile of ashes, and run around looking like ghosts, leaving a gray cloud behind them. "Fun" is too mild a word for what they were having.)
As with any technology, shoes should not become the Golden Calf, dragging us away from that simple pleasure of the ground.
Remember, O Man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Heinlein to Helprin, Heaven to Hell
I've been told by a handful of people that I should be a blogger. That information, unsolicited as it was, left me with the odd impression of being unable to tell if they resembled more a Greek holding hemlock telling me I should be the next Socrates, or a king holding a belled hat telling me I should be a fool.
Slowly I have let myself get dragged into the communication medium over the internet, more and more each year. First it was email, so convenient. Then came Facebook, with all it's pictures, gadgets, and forgotten friends. And now I have finally succumbed to the idea of a blog.
Now, the question is, what do I do with this thing, this blog, this behemoth from the virtual deep?
Naturally, I am expected to write on subjects wide and varied, bestowing those bits of wisdom I possess (whatever they are) upon those to whom I am close and who influenced me to begin with. Problem is, I doubt anyone will want to take credit for influencing me, at least after reading this. Further, it leaves me staring into that bleak and terrible black void whence I must pull the wisdom of the ages, dissecting, directing, dicing and slicing, preparing, and presenting those thoughts to be absorbed by you, by all-important reader, in manageable doses. (I shall have to watch the lengths of my posts- the surgeon general says I'm not harmful to your health in small doses, but he refused to comment on excessive exposure.)
The question is, of course, on what should I write? I doubt you have any interest at all in what I have to say, and, if for some reason you do, you are either delusional, misinformed, desperate, or a priest in a confessional. Thus, since I haven't the desire to talk about myself, I can use this for one of my favorite things; talking about others. Yes, I have a tendency to do that. Sort of a nosy habit of mine, like checking to see what food you're saving in the fridge. I tend to enjoy talking about good people, like Patton, or great people, like Roland. (Incidentally, I would love to have dinner with these two, both at once. Talk about crazy conversation.) I like to talk about the bad, like Smerdyakov, and the brilliant, like Lawrence. Further, foremost, and final, I like to talk about those who I have no clue what to do with. (Ivan Karamazov, for example)
Preferably, I write in response to stimuli. Thus, if you have a great thought or quote you want to talk about, I will jump at the chance. (I would also jump at the chance to talk to anyone who understands the name of this blog, but that's for another post. There, I've already committed one of the blogging cliches, putting things off 'for another post.')
To scratch my mental itch(it's kind of like lice of the brain, you get these little things crawling all over your mind that you can't catch and don't really know how they got there, and all you can do is scratch), I get to try something I've never tried before- define what I read.
Heaven help me.
To begin with, I've always loved fantasy(as well as science fiction) of the first degree, namely, that uncorrupted by a focus towards the fantastic for the sake of the fantastic, but, rather, for the sake of the true. I defy you to hold up a Paolini book and equate it with, say, the saga of Beren and Luthien. So too do I fell towards the million of Star Wars or Halo books next to Lewis' Space Trilogy, or Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers.' In this light of their purpose, I would say 'Science Fiction' is one and the same as 'Fantasy,' not separate, not even a subset. (Just try, please, and pick with which of those two you would classify the Space Trilogy) As Lewis so eloquently puts it, "sometimes fairy stories may say best what's to be said."
Further, I love the old. Generally, that which is a thousand or more years old survived for us to read simply because it is worth reading. (Maybe not correct, but worth reading.) Whether it is Beowulf or Cicero, I'd be more than willing to read it. I can then note that Roman tabloids from the dying empire aren't that great, and Cicero sounds a lot like (surprise, surprise) a politician and a lawyer, albeit a bit more eloquent. (Alright, a lot more eloquent, but he was sure a pain to translate.) Beowulf? I reread it all the time.
The not so old, but old... well, I like to read most of it yes, from Marx to Metternich, but I'm wary of their thoughts. Not that the general writing was worse, it just so happened more of it got saved. But then again, Shakespeare can't be beat, unless just maybe by Dante. And throw in Goethe's 'Faust' for good measure. Dostoevsky puts in a damn good voice from mother Russia, as well.
And now, finally, we reach the chaos of the modern, the new. What does one do with the plethora of books that now clog the shelves of used book stores? I've learned the mark of a good book is one you can read many times, gaining more pleasure each successive reading. That tends to knock out those books that get read once and donated to the shop around the corner. The greatest of the new (say, the past few decades) can be spotted easily using this rudimentary criteria. So I say thank you, Helprin, Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, Waugh, Shaw, Rommel, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, and many others for countless hours of enjoyment and growth, for me and my friends. I wish I could have you post on here (Helprin's still around..... who knows?), for you could say things far more clearly, concisely, and eloquently than I.
Though I can't get you to say something new here, I can have you say what you have already said. And for this again, I thank you.
And I promised myself I wouldn't ramble.....
Slowly I have let myself get dragged into the communication medium over the internet, more and more each year. First it was email, so convenient. Then came Facebook, with all it's pictures, gadgets, and forgotten friends. And now I have finally succumbed to the idea of a blog.
Now, the question is, what do I do with this thing, this blog, this behemoth from the virtual deep?
Naturally, I am expected to write on subjects wide and varied, bestowing those bits of wisdom I possess (whatever they are) upon those to whom I am close and who influenced me to begin with. Problem is, I doubt anyone will want to take credit for influencing me, at least after reading this. Further, it leaves me staring into that bleak and terrible black void whence I must pull the wisdom of the ages, dissecting, directing, dicing and slicing, preparing, and presenting those thoughts to be absorbed by you, by all-important reader, in manageable doses. (I shall have to watch the lengths of my posts- the surgeon general says I'm not harmful to your health in small doses, but he refused to comment on excessive exposure.)
The question is, of course, on what should I write? I doubt you have any interest at all in what I have to say, and, if for some reason you do, you are either delusional, misinformed, desperate, or a priest in a confessional. Thus, since I haven't the desire to talk about myself, I can use this for one of my favorite things; talking about others. Yes, I have a tendency to do that. Sort of a nosy habit of mine, like checking to see what food you're saving in the fridge. I tend to enjoy talking about good people, like Patton, or great people, like Roland. (Incidentally, I would love to have dinner with these two, both at once. Talk about crazy conversation.) I like to talk about the bad, like Smerdyakov, and the brilliant, like Lawrence. Further, foremost, and final, I like to talk about those who I have no clue what to do with. (Ivan Karamazov, for example)
Preferably, I write in response to stimuli. Thus, if you have a great thought or quote you want to talk about, I will jump at the chance. (I would also jump at the chance to talk to anyone who understands the name of this blog, but that's for another post. There, I've already committed one of the blogging cliches, putting things off 'for another post.')
To scratch my mental itch(it's kind of like lice of the brain, you get these little things crawling all over your mind that you can't catch and don't really know how they got there, and all you can do is scratch), I get to try something I've never tried before- define what I read.
Heaven help me.
To begin with, I've always loved fantasy(as well as science fiction) of the first degree, namely, that uncorrupted by a focus towards the fantastic for the sake of the fantastic, but, rather, for the sake of the true. I defy you to hold up a Paolini book and equate it with, say, the saga of Beren and Luthien. So too do I fell towards the million of Star Wars or Halo books next to Lewis' Space Trilogy, or Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers.' In this light of their purpose, I would say 'Science Fiction' is one and the same as 'Fantasy,' not separate, not even a subset. (Just try, please, and pick with which of those two you would classify the Space Trilogy) As Lewis so eloquently puts it, "sometimes fairy stories may say best what's to be said."
Further, I love the old. Generally, that which is a thousand or more years old survived for us to read simply because it is worth reading. (Maybe not correct, but worth reading.) Whether it is Beowulf or Cicero, I'd be more than willing to read it. I can then note that Roman tabloids from the dying empire aren't that great, and Cicero sounds a lot like (surprise, surprise) a politician and a lawyer, albeit a bit more eloquent. (Alright, a lot more eloquent, but he was sure a pain to translate.) Beowulf? I reread it all the time.
The not so old, but old... well, I like to read most of it yes, from Marx to Metternich, but I'm wary of their thoughts. Not that the general writing was worse, it just so happened more of it got saved. But then again, Shakespeare can't be beat, unless just maybe by Dante. And throw in Goethe's 'Faust' for good measure. Dostoevsky puts in a damn good voice from mother Russia, as well.
And now, finally, we reach the chaos of the modern, the new. What does one do with the plethora of books that now clog the shelves of used book stores? I've learned the mark of a good book is one you can read many times, gaining more pleasure each successive reading. That tends to knock out those books that get read once and donated to the shop around the corner. The greatest of the new (say, the past few decades) can be spotted easily using this rudimentary criteria. So I say thank you, Helprin, Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, Waugh, Shaw, Rommel, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, and many others for countless hours of enjoyment and growth, for me and my friends. I wish I could have you post on here (Helprin's still around..... who knows?), for you could say things far more clearly, concisely, and eloquently than I.
Though I can't get you to say something new here, I can have you say what you have already said. And for this again, I thank you.
And I promised myself I wouldn't ramble.....
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