Oh yes: Man with a Movie Camera. A movie that is, purportedly, about the joys, boundaries and innovation of filming things. Okay that sounds nice and all I guess but look it better not suck because I’m telling you, movies, this is your last fucking chance.
———- Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Man with a Movie Camera) (Dziga Vertov, 1929)———-
7/18/10 @ 2:01 p.m.: Waiting on line to see a bad movie for the fourth time in as many days. Weird.
7/18/10 @ 2:09 p.m.: Next to the cookie shop, which is always full with people buying three-dollar cookies, is a regular restaurant that never has anyone in it, even though there are 80,000 people out here waiting on line. The future of the human race is cookies.
7/18/10 @ 2:12 p.m.: Today is the last day of the film fest. I have to say that even though every one of these movies has sucked, I’m feeling a bit sad right now. Redolent smells evoke memories more strongly than any other sense. Proust said that. The smell of hot cookies will always remind me of the afternoon sun outside of the Castro Theater. I said that. Waiting here on line with Hip E. and Mrs. T, I have this distinct premonition that sometime in the future– when life seems limited in some way– I will look back on this moment and wrap myself in its warmness. Is there anything more affirming than enjoying something beautiful with your friends? Do you think that the Abbe Faria from The Count of Monte Cristo enjoyed charting the course of the sun or writing the history of Italian unification in his cell, with the knowledge that, quite possibly, he would never find anyone with whom to share his work? Sometimes you feel like you are the only one that thinks in a certain way. For instance, when I see an idiot family, attired in fanny packs and overpriced merchandise from the idiot Creationist store, walk past me and, with drooling aplomb, take a picture of me and smile in affirmation of their (to me) alien ideas, I feel alone. Like at the first two days of this silent film festival. Watching an old John Ford movie with 10,000 Indian attacks, watching an obscure silent film from Italy–I was in a theater full of people yet I felt totally alone. When The Dee-pa arrived on Saturday, it was a breath of wonderful air upon a stagnant landscape. Having her with me at the movie about the skank, and having Hip E. and Mrs. T here with me at Man with a Movie Sun, or whatever, not only affirms everything that is happening today, but baths this whole vacation in the radiance of friendship and enjoyment. I love my friends, I love movies, and I love the world and the strange conglomeration of events that allow it to exist for me to enjoy it. Tomorrow I will return to the museum.
7/18/10 @ 3:35 p.m.: Titties at the 45-minute mark! I repeat: titties!
7/18/10 @ 3:39 p.m.: Man, the orchestra is intense for this one. They just “played” 3 minutes of ambulance sirens.
7/18/10 @ 3:51 p.m.: So I’ve concluded that this movie is about nothing. It’s the Seinfeld of bad silent movies.
7/18/10 @ 3:58 p.m.: Footage-of-a-machine-spinning-something counter now at 70.
7/18/10 @ 3:44 p.m.: Oh and that’s it. Wow. Didn’t see that ending coming because THERE WAS NOTHING TO END. Unlike this weekend. Which, as discussed above, is now coming to an end. Fuck me.
Third day of the festival here I come. What kind of hard drugs are these nerds on who go to every single one of these? Before each movie, there are always groups of guys– always guys– with festival-pass lanyards who each look like one of the Lone Gunman from The X-Files, huddled up outside the theater, nerding-out excitedly about the aspect ratio on that newly discovered Harold Lloyd short. Not sure how they get through three to four of these movies a day. Maybe there’s something to their religious diet of cigarettes and Yoo-hoo? And then there’s those wanna-be bohemian chicks– always in two– often dressed in period-appropriate attire, camping out to be the first in line for the Louise Brooks movie so they can wait in line for two hours to get just as good a seat as everyone else. I mean, there’s nerds, and then there’s metal retards.
——— Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl) (G.W. Pabst, 1929) ———-
7/17/10 @ 5:45pm: Never seen so many scarves in my whole life. They’re really coming out of the woodwork.
7/17/10 @ 5:55pm: Nudists out in full effect next to the line. Great tans on these gay nudists. I mean, underside of the cack tanned and everything. That’s right, there’s was actually a line for this one. This movie apparently stars a lascivious starlet named Louise Brooks. The nerds seem intrigued. They know there’s no banging in these movies, right?
7/17/10 @ 6:05pm: While waiting in line, met up with The Dee-pa, a delightful young woman that I met in Hayes Valley last night. We talked briefly about the hotness of this Louise Brooks skank before the line started moving.
7/17/10 @ 6:15pm: Remarking with The Dee-pa on the idiocy of paying 3 dollars for a cookie just because it’s hot. I mean, it isn’t that hard to warm up a cookie. Nonetheless, we were glad we weren’t in line in front of the cookie store because that smell is party damn good.
7/17/10 @ 7:20pm Sex with unctuous pharmacist results in baby at the 15-minute mark. Garth, that was a haiku.
7/17/10 @ 7:35pm: Watching a guy milk a cow at the 30-minute mark. I thought this movie was about a hot skank?
7/17/10 @ 7:54pm: Monkey casket at the 49-minute mark. Contains dead baby.
7/17/10 @ 8:15pm: This chick faints when she wants to have sex. Second time now. This movie might actually be about roofies.
7/17/10 @ 8:35pm: SPOILER ALERT: Young skank becomes prostie. Just saved you 17 dollars and an expensive cookie (probably).
-Triceratops with a Saddle
Sorry for the delay in getting the previous blogs posted. I make a lot of dino-typos, so I need time to proof-read. I’m staying at the “Day’s Inn” in Hayes Valley. Quite a place … NOT! (to borrow a phrase from the Irish immigrant in yesterday’s feature) It’s fine though. They have cheap beer at the (I guess you call it a) restaurant across that is attached to the motel. And who am I kidding, I haven’t worn a saddle in days: this is fucking amazing.
———- Rotaie(Mario Camerini, 1929) ————
7/16/10 @ 5:45pm: Today’s 6pm feature is an Italian movie called Rotaie. Hopefully “Rotaie” is not Italian for “Indian raids on railway cars.” I got more than enough of those yesterday evening, and that was with me sleeping through at least two of them.
7/16/10 @ 5:45pm: Big line at the expensive cookie stand …. cookies for $2.50 going fast! I expect better from you non-Creationists.
7/16/10 @ 6:10pm: We’re underway. “Rotaie” means “rails” — Dear Dawkins more trains…
7/16/10 @ 6:27pm: I’ve seen clipsontheyoutube of this director’s 1955 version of The Odyssey, starring Kirk Douglas. It looked pretty good, especially the Circe and Sirens scenes. Unfortunately, I am informed by Allmovie.com that Camerini’s version “pales in comparison to the high-tech, all-star 1997 TV miniseries version.” Oh snap!
7/16/10 @ 6:35pm: Ooh, quick-cut editing to convey the hectic pace of the big city… I’m going to guess that this tactic will be used in later movies.
7/16/10 @ 6:45pm: Love story reaching very high levels of sappiness, for which, as a dinosaur, I have very low tolerance. Just bang already. Wait, is there going to be no banging in these silent movies? Waiter!
7/16/10 @ 6:55pm: Okay, we get it, the city’s hectic, I know: I accidentally took six buses to get here.
7/16/10 @ 7:10pm: It just sunk in that there’s not going to be any banging.
7/16/10 @ 7:25 pm: A nerd next to me just whispered that the interior scenes remind him of “Murnau.” Does “Murnau” mean “sleeping” by any chance? If so, I agree.
7/16/10 @ 7:38pm: SPOILER ALERT: The lovers turn into yuppies. Just saved you two hours.
7/16/10 @ 7:49pm: Well the movie’s over. Thankfully.
7/16/10 @ 7:53pm: It’s a madhouse here outside of the theater and by that I mean that there are actually people here. People awaiting some movie called Metropolis. Appears to be about robots. It’s sold out too. Weird. Anyway, lot of scarves for some reason. Not sure what it is about the Metropolis that brings out people in scarves, but yeah lot’s of scarves here. And nerds too, obviously. Which: let’s just impose a standing comment that, unless I specify otherwise, this place is crawling with nerds at all times.
I am pleased to report that, for the first time, I am not reporting from the intellectually devoid innards of the Creationist Museum. After three straight years of uninterrupted service as the resident triceratops forced to wear a saddle as evidence that humans and dinosaurs co-coexisted, I finally petitioned the union and got a vacation. And while I never actually co-existed with humans, I am now going to see if I can’t give it a try. Since you humans seem strangely drawn to these “movie” things, I figured I would start at the beginning: silent movies. To this end, I am on my way to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, a four-day event showcasing the restoration work of the Silent Film Society and the musical talents of some the area’s best musicians. It could suck.
——- The Iron Horse(John Ford, 1924) ———
7/17/10 @ 7:15pm: The nerds have been camping out all night to see the opening film of the festival, John Ford’s The Iron Horse. Just kidding, there’s hardly anyone here. But the people that are here are definitely nerds.
7/17/10 @ 7:15pm: If you want to read some of my past posts on this blog, they can be found here. I also posted on the old Jo-tel blog, but who knows where the hell those posts are.
7/17/10 @ 7:35pm: Pre-film festivities include: lots of nerds walking around, Dennis James on the “Mighty Wurlitzer”. (Sounds like shit.)
7/17/10 @ 7:43pm: Three minutes into the movie, so far: credits, four introductory title cards, and one scene of herding sheep. Is it too late to sell my festival pass for a plane ticket back to the Creationist Museum?
7/17/10 @ 7:58pm: Wondering why I’m in a movie theater watching a movie with Abraham Lincoln in it instead of at a bar drinking alcohol. Oh by the way, this movie has Abraham Lincoln in it.
7/17/10 @ 8:10pm: You know one thing that’s hard to convey in these silent movies? Talking. Hard to really capture a good conversation with the occasional title card.
7/17/10 @ 8:19pm: Ha! Early version of the Wayne’s World “…NOT!” employed by Irish immigrant railroad worker at the 39-minute mark!
7/17/10 @ 8:23pm: Lawsuit of “Ah Fat Wang v. Union Railroad” referenced in title card at the 43-minute mark!! Wonder if Ah Fat Wang knows that this movie sucks him.
7/17/10 @ 8:43pm: First Indian raid of the film. Indians lose.
7/17/10 @ 8:50pm: The previous version of this movie that I saw at, um … at the Creationist Museum … was tinted. Have to say the non-tinted version looks great.
7/17/10 @ 9:18 pm: Indian attack counter now at 2.
7/17/10 @ 9:22pm: I’m rooting for the Indians at this point.
7/17/10 @ 9:22pm: SPOILER ALERT: The two-fingered, pale-faced Indian renegade is the railroad engineer dude. I just saved you 2 hours and 30 minutes, not including Wurlitzer music.
7/17/10 @ 9:45pm: Indian attack counter now at 3.
7/17/10 @ 9:55pm: Goddammit I’m still watching this movie.
7/17/10 @ 10:15pm: Show’s over, walking out. Even the nerds look dazed.
Turd, teaching his daughter about the birds and the buttsex retard squirrels:
In the beginning, we were all fish. Okay? Swimming around in the water. And then one day a couple of fish had a retard baby, and the retard baby was different, so it got to live. So Retard Fish goes on to make more retard babies, and then one day, a retard baby fish crawled out of the ocean with its…..mutant fish hands… and it had butt sex with a squirrel or something and made this. Retard frog-sqirrel, and then *that* had a retard baby which was a… monkey-fish-frog… And then this monkey-fish-frog had butt sex with that monkey, and that monkey had a mutant retard baby that screwed another monkey… and that made you! So there you go! You’re the retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt sex with a fish-squirrel! Congratulations!
Misleading headline graphic aside, this is an interesting piece from the NY Times. The basic gist of the Dutch physicist’s proposal is that gravity doesn’t exist as a force, per se, but rather it’s the perceived result of a more basic force.
Sometimes I honestly think we should just let the human race die.
Hip E.:
It’s up to other forms of intelligence to make that decision. Suicide is generally immoral.
Shark:
In theory, I disagree with the Catholic Church in that regard. In theory, if you could chart out the happiness and sadness of your whole life, and the sadness was cumulatively higher over the course of your life that the happiness and if, at the age of 18, you were alerted to that fact, I think you would be justified in killing yourself. However, because that knowledge is not possible, I would never recommend or endorse suicide, except in cases of terminal illness.
As for death of the human race generally, it is obvious that humanity is doing damage to the world and, as consideration for this, we creating a lot of stuff that is only amusing us (art, politics, sports). If we died as a species, the world would be a better place. Of course, there are biological impeti spurring us to procreate and dominate the word, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t out think those basic survival instincts and cultivate what I’ll call “beneficent de-evolution”. This would entail outlawing child birth and letting the human race gracefully die.
Johnny D:
I disagree with this statement. I think that the human race is one of the most objectively interesting things to happen to the earth, if interestingness is measured by complexity. The human race has a ways to go, but death of the human race would be giving up and admitting defeat. I think it would be a universal loss, much the way the extinction of any species is. Stop being so morose Shark.
Shark:
At this point, there is no evidence that (a) another species of sentient beings exists in the universe, (b) that that species has the capacity to travel to Earth to observe humanity, or (c) that, even if so, that they appreciate human complexity (as opposed to other, say, simple life forms). Compare that to the obvious destruction that we are inflicting on the Earth and other species.
For our second anniversary, Patsy arranged a trip to a mystery destination. I was told that it was “far away” and that I was driving. Other than that, the only thing I knew about it was … well … that it was a hotel and the name of the hotel because Kristin accidentally told me twice. But regardless, the name of the hotel– the Madonna Inn– didn’t ring any bells for me when she blabbed it and I had no desire the ruin the secret by looking it up on the Internet. (Where did people look things up before the Internet? Books?)
So 200 miles south on the 101, I still didn’t know where we were going. When we arrived, my first impression was of a quirky Disneyland for yuppies. Patsy was reminded of the Enchanted Forest Motel as described in Nabokov’s Lolita, except that instead of a police convention, replete with Clare Quilty, there was a girl scout convention, replete with gaggles of junior high girls and their priggish overseers. Our room on the first night– well, I’m not sure I would call it a “room”, it more like “rooms”, since Patsy accidentally booked a double room– had a French theme, which consisted mostly of a few picture of idyllic Paris scenes, one of which featured pictorial lanterns that lit up when you turned on the lights. If you laid back on the bed and let your imagination run, you really felt like you were … um … in a room with a picture of France that had little lights on it. It didn’t change my life or anything. Now the toilet, which was a two-in-one toilet/bidet? That changed my life. And let’s face in, on a trip during which Patsy admonished me multiple times that I was not to inquire about the price of anything, I needed that bidet.
Soon after arriving we hit the pool, with bar beers in hand. The “bartender” looked like he was about a day over 18 and, according, to Patsy, did not know how to make a “vodka soda” and, once told how, did not know that it was actually “not okay” to use blueberry vodka when the regular vodka ran out when making one. After about 30 minutes at the pool, the girl scouts arrived. Many descriptors come to mind but I’ll go with ’surreal.’ Soon, the troop made its way to the hot tub, where they created a catty swirl of jets and giggling. I feinted that I was going into the hot tub, so Patsy jumped up and stepped in. I then sat back down and watched as the group of girl scouts proceeded to go dead silent and stare at Patsy as she entered the hot tub. Perhaps it was her tattoos or maybe the fact that she was probably the only somewhat cool looking young person by the pool. Whatever it was, they were transfixed, and huddled on the opposite side of the pool until Patsy left. Later I went with her back to the hot tub, which, I found out was “heated” to approximately “cooling bath” temperature. We hung out with a few adult couples in there, including a beefcake Australian and his fake-breasted girlfriend and a nerdy business type that thought expensive sunglasses were all he needed to look cool.
That night we went back to our room and banged and then got ready to go to dinner. The restaurant was ornate to a garish fault and contained a well-behaved band playing Big Band music. The dinner was fun. I had a Manhattan, which is my new fancy drink of choice because it is more exciting than a vodka soda and not really sweet at all. We returned to our room, where Patsy indulged in a poop followed by an engagement of the bidet, whose commencement was met with a surprise scream. As we were both falling asleep, I gently turned on the loving strains of the last two minutes of the Lakers/Suns game followed by extensive TNT recap. Patsy was so excited about the Lakers’ victory that she fell immediately to sleep
The next day we went to Hearst Castle. On the bus rid up the hill, I thought about all the soul-searching that the State of California probably had to go through before accepting the I guess generous donation from the Hearst family. I mean, it definitely came with a bunch of strings attached like: “can’t talk shit about our dad” and “Orson Welles is not allowed to visit ever ever”, and likely took away California’s right to openly criticize Hearst’s tendentious and fleeting catering to the middle class, fabrication of the Spanish/American for his own profit, and whole-sale purchase of the then-fledgling actress Marion Davis (for further information regarding the foregoing, please see Kane, Citizen). But on the other hand, the place is cool and California’s making bones on it so whatever. Anyway, the best part about Hearst Castle is the indoor pool, which they smartly leave for the end of the tour. Basically it’s a tile room designed so that the floor and pool bottom are the starry night sky and the roof is the sea. One can almost lose themselves imagining the Hollywood stars of the day frolicking there late into night. Apparently Cary Grant once commented on the utility of the pool by saying it was a great way to “get to know someone a little better,” which is basically codeword for “bang starlets”
On the second night, instead of the French riviera, our room was a cave. When we came back to our cave, we watched Rear Window, which I believe to be Hitchcock’s best film, although who really cares, there’s a bunch of great ones. Just do me a favor and don’t miss out on The 39 Steps, which is, in my opinion, the best of his British films. I mean, there’s a scene in The 39 Steps where they have herring as a late night snack. Herring! [FN1]
And then that evening, as I was brushing my teeth in my rock sink, I got an idea for a short film. But due to Patsy’s being asleep I wasn’t able to film it until the next morning. Here it is:
We decided to drive up Highway 1 on the way home. That drive is inspirationally pretty; it makes Hearst Castle look like a Long John Silvers drive-through. [FN2] I used the inspiration upon returning home to drink two whiskey sodas and complete my adaptation of Twelfth Night. We will perform it in September.
-Shark
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FN1: http://www.intriguing.com/mp/_sounds/hg/herring.wav
FN2: All along the way I was forcing Patsy to admire the view. If I spied her out of the corner of my eye and she was not “enjoying the view” I would admonish her. She started to deploy canned responses, touting her breathless appreciation for the landscapes and views. “That’s more like it!” I thought.
Our friend Nick checks in from Germany, where apparently he’s turned into Anne Frank.
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germany is good so far. the germans are super nice! they’ve given me and some others our own nice area where we can all live together, and they even gave us awesome new jackets with this cool yellow design on the sleeve. we’re not allowed out sometimes, but i’m sure it’s just because they want to keep us safe from the dangerous german streets. i’ve heard we’ll be moving somewhere even better soon, and that the move will be on a train. i’m excited to see some more of the german countryside and to experience their famous rail system.
I wish I had never figured out that you, spindley haired beast of your lair, had never truly known love. My mirrored shield didn’t even protect me from your armoured hubris and, as a result, you proved too snakey for me, your snakes just slithering there on your head like a perm. And I sat there balanced on my shield, watching you preen hasps from your crown; your minions were great but they just sat there. I touched one of them gently with the butt of my sword before turning to cut your head off.
Oh yes: Man with a Movie Camera. A movie that is, purportedly, about the joys, boundaries and innovation of filming things. Okay that sounds nice and all I guess but look it better not suck because I’m telling you, movies, this is your last fucking chance.