Are they spelling out Help?

The official title for this image on Flckr is “Are They Spelling out Help?”  I have studied the image for longer than I’d like to admit trying to figure out first how the titler got “help” from this picture, and then what words they COULD have been trying for.  Ultimately, I think it’s not a word at all, but a geometric shape they were going for.

“What a mess” by pst (cc licensed)

Grading grading grading grading

grading grading grading.

Grading grading.

Grading.

Grading.

Grading grading grading.

In honor of Columbia’s street art festival, Manifest, here’s a photo from a ballet that looks like something you’d see in the South Loop on Friday.

Margaret Barr’s “Strange Children” [ballet], 1955

Worlds collide in a bad way

I read blogs for a variety of reasons:

• humor – cuz’ I like funny stuff
• academics – cuz’ it’s my job
• Skepticism and Rationality in sciecne – cuz’ it’s interesting
• Freedom of speech (particularly on the internet) – cuz it’s interesting AND it’s my job

In skimming my feed today, I discovered an overlap in which these TWO WORLDS ARE COLLIDING…

The Skeptical OB is a blog I read about the homebirth community and movement.  I stumbled over there from Pharyngula and stayed because Dr. Amy Tuteur discusses the homebirth community and their rhetoric in ways I find particularly interesting (though they’re not really germane to my situation, as we’re done having kids).

Over the last couple months, she’s begun a lawsuit seeking damages over a false DMCA claim from a blogger she wrote about.  It’s strange to see these two worlds crossing in this way, but I’m intrigued to see how it plays out.  Tuteur’s  case is important, because it represents a moment where low-stakes writers can be seriously damaged by DMCA claims, and so her ability to recoup costs or impose sanctions on this blogger who mis-used the DMCA will go a long way toward making sure that speech stays free.  We’ll see what happens.

emusic

• Brian Setzer Orchestra, The Ultimate Collection [Live] – a fine collection of nostalgic big-band swing music.  It’s good, but there’s nothing here that stands out for me, perhaps because it’s too nostalgic.  I am very fond of his rendition of “Summertime Blues,” though.
• They Might Be Giants, Nanobots – TMBG are very good at coming up with the musical version of bon mots.  They have distilled this skill down to a precise and sharp point with Nanobots, in which they craft 25 two-minute songs, each with its own little bit of joy.  Favorites: Nanobots, Lost My Mind, Circular Karate Chop, Destroy the Past, 9 Secret Steps and You’re on Fire.  Winner of the weird award: Darlings of Lumberland.
• Tom Lehrer, 3 songs – “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” is a classic from Dr. Demento so that was familiar and pleasant; “Bright College Days” hasn’t aged well; “The Elements” is great.  I wonder if he can still perform it.

SoundSupply

• HelloGoodbye, Would It Kill You? – I like the pop/rock sound of this band.  They remind me quite a bit of Rodeo Ruby Love in many ways, and of Vampire Weekend in style and vocal timbre.  “The Thoughts Give Me the Creeps” is my favorite, but this album is generally very good. (Oh man, seeing the video, I realize these guys are SUPER HIPSTERS. Oh well.)

Other

• Daytrotter songs (more of the 200 songs I downloaded from Daytrotter last year) – “Alcohol” by Golgol Bordello is a great cover (and has lots of ‘o’s in its name!); “We Ok” by The Very Best has an anthem-y dance-y groove sound that’s reminiscent of slow fun. songs; “Heartstring Freestyle” by Macklemore feels authentic and casual, with a slightly Caribbean feel and a ukelele.
• Rolfe’s MNix tape, a collection of four mini-eps from a buddy of mine – Loin Groove is a ska band from the 1990s and sounds like it: “Numb” is my favorite here; Surahoolies is alt-pop that reminds me a little of Toad the Wet Sprocket: “Buried Stockings” has a delightful Indian beat to it; The Blue Up? is an alt-rock band with female singers, not too dissimilar from 90s era Juliana Hatfield with the vocal stylings of The Pretenders: “Spoons for Seven” has a trippy almost Bjork-ian sound to it; Woodpecker is a guitar and banjo folkie band and my favorite of the four EPs: “Matt & Ben” is an amusing indictment of the indie music scene, “Scrabble Duet” is a nice romantic song, “Nothing Gets Chix Hot Like a Guy Who Cares a Lot” is a funny little peep of a song.

Jason Isaacs as Darling and Hook

In watching Jumanji with my kids last week, I realized (belatedly) that Jonathan Hyde plays both Sam Parrish and the creepy man hunter Van Pelt.  This got me thinking about a similar move made by the creators of the recent live-action Peter Pan film, to have Jason Isaacs play both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook.

In speaking to my students and colleagues about this phenomenon, I was reminded of several things:

• The monstrously bad Disney film Return to Oz uses the trope of having “good” actors from one sequence play “bad” actors in a fantastic world in another sequence. (I would suggest that the 1943 Wizard of Oz does NOT fit this trope, because everyone from Dorothy’s daily life plays roles in the fantasy world, suggesting a different effect than using one or just a few of them.)
• Evil doubles are a common trope of television soap operas, which can essentially double their cast by having actors play two roles.  I believe The Vampire Diaries does this a bit right now.
• The original play, Peter and Wendy, suggests the casting choice I mentioned above.

What I find interesting and peculiar about this specific casting choice is its hermeneutic effect.  Unlike most popular culture, the choice to cast the same actor in two roles so symbolically connected represents an intentional move by the filmmakers to impose secondary meaning on the film.  When you watch Jumanji, they really want you to recognize the parallels between the remote masculinity at work in the modern Parrishes and its viciousness as replicated in Van Pelt’s brutal chase.

Hyde as Sam Parrish in Jumanji

Hyde as Van Pelt in Jumanji

Similarly, the most recent Peter Pan presents the most sympathetic Hook I’ve seen, a man who recognizes his role as villain but also resents what time and maturity have done to him.

Afterthought – In looking for photos for this piece, I discovered that Jonathan Hyde did a run as Captain Hook/ Darling on the British stage (outdoors, apparently) in 2009.  Here’s a bit from an interview by Matt Wolf:

Capt. Hook has always been on my wish list, to say nothing of Mr. Darling since both are really as neurotic as the other. They’re both children. Hook is completely a psychopath, certainly: a mixture of cruelty and sentimentality, which of course marks out most dictators from Mugabe onwards. And there’s a bit of Hook in Darling: the way he boots the dog down the stairs, which he treats as matter-of-fact. It’s the parent as tyrant, of course, particularly the father—the father as tyrant figure. (broadway.com)

I can’t help but wonder if he saw the Parrish/Van Pelt construct as a chance to play Hook and Darling…

Now that I think about it, Robin Williams’ role in Jumanji plays on a lot of similar themes as his Hook.

Afterthought 2 – Just as I was wrapping up this writing, I remembered another doubled-fantasy-father from one of my favorite films as a kid: Cloak and Dagger.  The Dabney Coleman/ Henry Thomas vehicle features Jack Flack, a magical helper who’s a spy and is played by Coleman, who also plays the dad in the film.  It’s the opposite of the Oedipal Captain Hook–Davey’s father is distant and detached, with Jack Flack providing the mentorship and love that Hal is unable to provide.  Looking back on it now, though, I mostly remember the bearded video game shop guy (William Forsythe rocking a beard, if I remember correctly) getting shot in the head and the fact that Davey had a pass that let him run all over San Antonio unsupervised.

Under the Dome

Under the Dome by Stephen King; narrated by Raul Esparza

What would happen in a little Maine town if it were suddenly cut off from the outside world by an impenetrable invisible barrier, a dome stretching across the town and trapping the residents inside?  Things would devolve pretty quickly, apparently.  A few thoughts:

• I’ve always thought Stephen King is a good storyteller, but not a great writer.  This book reinforces that perspective for me.  King does an excellent job building characters you can love and characters you can loathe.  He knows how to make them dance and make you seethe.  People act foolishly in ways annoying and somehow realistically.  But his use of language is pedestrian and unmemorable.  Consider, for example, how his writing compares to James Lee Burke’s skillful use of language.  That said, I liked Under the Dome quite a bit.
• One of the main plot points is the rise of the second councilman, an ambitious scumbag with a mean streak and a hypocritical view of the world.  King gives him the same method of rising to power as Hitler, and just as you’re starting to notice the similarities, members of the community notice it themselves and start referring to his helpers as brown-shirts.  It works well.
• King is also very good at making horrible and horrifying things happen in his tales.  We don’t know exactly what will happen, but we know no one is safe from the bloodshed that weaves through his books like a snake.
• All that said, I’d like to think things wouldn’t devolve into chaos so quickly the way he suggests they might.  But we saw what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and I hate to think how long it would take people to lose their shit in my town if we got cut off.  None of us would have generators, and the people per acre count is far higher, so we’d run out of supplies much more quickly.  Yikes.
• Most challenging about King’s work are the ultimately malevolent and terrible causes that he eventually provides for the horrors tracking through the stories.  This was true in The Regulators, in Desperation, in Dreamcatcher, and in Under the Dome.  There are bad things out there in the night and we don’t have much hope against them.  It’s a grim view of the world.

Raul Esparza does a good job with the book, creating creditable distinct voices for the different characters and keeping the pace reasonable.  However, I listened to the first half on CD and then absent-mindedly returned it to the library without finishing it.  When I was able to get it again, it was on a piece-of-shit MP3 player.  The sound quality was TERRIBLE and I will encourage my library NEVER to buy any of these pieces of junk.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

What would happen in a little Maine town if it were suddenly cut off from the outside world by an impenetrable invisible barrier, a dome stretching across the town and trapping the residents inside?  Things would devolve pretty quickly, apparently.  A few thoughts:

·         I’ve always thought Stephen King is a good storyteller, but not a great writer.  This book reinforces that perspective for me.  King does an excellent job building characters you can love and characters you can loathe.  He knows how to make them dance and make you seethe.  People act foolishly in ways annoying and somehow realistically.  But his use of language is pedestrian and unmemorable.  Consider, for example, how his writing compares to James Lee Burke’s skillful use of language.  That said, I liked Under the Dome quite a bit.

·         One of the main plot points is the rise of the second councilman, an ambitious scumbag with a mean streak and a hypocritical view of the world.  King gives him the same method of rising to power as Hitler, and just as you’re starting to notice the similarities, members of the community notice it themselves and start referring to his helpers as brown-shirts.  It works well.

·         King is also very good at making horrible and horrifying things happen in his tales.  We don’t know exactly what will happen, but we know no one is safe from the bloodshed that weaves through his books like a snake.

·         All that said, I’d like to think things wouldn’t devolve into chaos so quickly the way he suggests they might.  But we saw what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and I hate to think how long it would take people to lose their shit in my town if we got cut off.  None of us would have generators, and the people per acre count is far higher, so we’d run out of supplies much more quickly.  Yikes.

·         Most challenging about King’s work are the ultimately malevolent and terrible causes that he eventually provides for the horrors tracking through the stories.  This was true in The Regulators, in Desperation, in Dreamcatcher, and in Under the Dome.  There are bad things out there in the night and we don’t have much hope against them.  It’s a grim view of the world.

My experience with this book was pretty mixed, as I had to listen to half of it on a piece-of-shit MP3 player from a library.  The sound quality was TERRIBLE and I will encourage my library NEVER to buy any of these pieces of junk. 

Jumanji

The Croods

In case you haven’t seen the films, here’s a brief summary.  Jumanji tells the story of a magical board game that releases violent and mischievous denizens of the jungle around the people playing the game.  When one of them finishes the game, everything will go back to normal.  The players are two pairs of children, one who began the game in 1968 and the other who began in 1991.  The Croods follows the adventures of a family of cavemen (Neanderthals?) driven from their cave by some sort of massive tectonic disruption.  They find help in “Guy,” a modern-looking human (Cro-magnon?) who helps them learn to enjoy the world and adventure their way across the land ahead of the disaster.  It’s not a great movie, but cute enough.

A few thoughts about both films:

• Though these are ensemble casts, both films have an adult man as one of the central figures (perhaps even the crux of the narrative).  Both are played by men whose star was higher in the 1990s than it is now (Robin Williams in Jumanji and Grug in The Croods).
• Both films feature deadly plants: The Croods has a field of sentient meat-eating flowers, Jumanji features vines with hungry yellow pods.  Also: both have mischievous monkeys.
• Neither film passes the Bechdel test.  The Croods gets as far as two women having a conversation without a man, but I believe they spend it talking about Cage’s character.
• Both films hinge the emotional development of these men on fatherhood.  Grug has to learn to shift from his primary role as protector and worry-wart into the father of an adult child free to make mistakes. Allan, the boy who spends decades in the Jungle, has to face his own unresolved issues with his father and learn to survive in the real world.  And in case the father issues weren’t clear enough in the story, the same actor plays the hunter Van Pelt and Allan’s stern father (he also played J. Bruce Ismay in Titanic.
• The Jungle also becomes a stand-in for a wild, untamed place of both wonder and danger in both films, though there are far more dangers in the Jumanji jungle.

All in all, Jumanji holds up pretty well, with its kid-centric adventure story keeping the Robin Williams antics to a minimum and its terrible CGI looking only sort-of bad.  The Croods would be a fine movie to rent–the finale was actually very touching to me as a father–but probably not worth theater prices unless you’re also looking for an outing on a cloudy/cold day (like I was).

Which makes this summer a bit daunting.  Jenny and I are planning a brief tour of Poland and the Czech Republic to follow my trip to the International PCA conference in Warsaw in July.  Neither of us has any Polish or Czech, so I expect the trip will be disconcerting, in a good, growing kind of way.

I had a brief glimpse of that this morning as I called the hotel to make reservations.  The desk clerk answered in Polish and I replied in English — “Hello.  Is there anyone there who speaks English?”

“I hope so.” She replied, and I was very relieved.  The next few minutes, despite her fluency, were tense for me.  I suspect I will spend the whole trip abroad with a similar confusion.  I’ll have to get hold of polish and czech phrase books, and practice up my slow shouting.  You know, from the Amazing Race:

“Where is the bathroom?”

“i nie mówią po angielsku”

“Where … is … the … bathroom?”

“i nie mówią po angielsku”

“WHERE IS THE BATHROOM?”

It’s gonna be a fun trip.

• Two more weeks of Spring semester, which means I’m entering three weeks of grading hell.  Already did a bunch this morning and am almost done for the day, but it won’t let up for a while.
• Nearly finished some financial reporting I had to get done for the PCA/ACA, so I can take a breather on that end a bit.  After a false start two weeks ago, Monday will begin the death march toward finishing my book.  Goal: end of June, end of manuscript.
• I don’t have a screen in my office window, and I’m now constantly paranoid that the cat will jump out.  All I need is a cat on the roof.
• One more week until the OPRF synchronized swimming show.  Anyone in town should absolutely go to that.  That means this week is a blur of busy busy busy time, as Jenny has practices and stuff every evening.
• Oh, and I have a forty hour trip to DC for a seminar on Friday.  It should be really interesting, but also in the midst of a very busy time.
• Our bike pump went missing, so I bought a new one the other day.  I’ll be working with the kids to get their bikes ready to ride today.

I hope your weekend goes well.  Mine looks like it will be hectic, but fun.

As they talked about the experience, the actors discuss the joy of being in the place, of letting the work guide them and following their instincts about what to say.  As I listened, it occurred to me that their method is, for better or worse, a big part of how I teach.I prepare each class with a set of discussion ideas and objectives, usually more than we would have time to cover, with the idea that we will do as much as we can.  But I’ve also become attuned to the interplay of ideas that flows when interested people get together and share ideas.  As a result, it’s not uncommon for me to have one or two classes per course that use roughly half their time on something outside what was on the syllabus for the day. Part of me cringes when I reflect back on those days, as the rule-following responsible guy says we didn’t do much to advance the course-specific learning goals at that time.  But another part of me believes strongly in the larger intellectual and philosophical goals at the heart of liberal arts education — thoughtful inquiry and shared exploration of ideas.  I also love letting curiosity run wild, of seeing where interest takes us and what topics will emerge.I wonder what a general course built around the TJ and Dave model would look like.  It might be an interesting thing to explore.

Birds in springtime use tenders to get in and out of port.

One way to feel like a bird in springtime.