29.7.11
Clearing Out
Whilst tidying up recently I found some items which triggered some thoughts and memories. I immediately decided to write them down. So, I have written some of them down, though now I do not think they are worthy of being written about. But I'm not deleting it now.
- A postcard of a drawing of the Cinque Port Arms pub, in Hastings. On my visit there in 2009, I discovered that the pub, which was built in 1824, then rebuilt a century later after a fire, was originally the spot of a tudor inn. The ghost of one of the innkeepers lives there, and bangs on the ceiling. I had a gin and tonic, which I remember was very nice.
- A postcard of a painting of Brighton's West Pier, with a note from Joy, the artist. She gave me this after a pleasant conversation about my time living in Brighton. Joy worked on Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. When I think of her I smile as she is so colourful in both personality and dress. I have been meaning to buy her a pink cup for ages.
- A Wiener Library newsletter for Summer 2010, which mentions their planned moved (which has now happened) out of its long-term home in Devonshire Street to Birkbeck. No money, no choice. I am appalled that this has happened. I have fond memories of reading in there.
- Programme for Peter Handke's Kaspar, produced by the Aya Theatre Company in 2010 in Southwark. Strange and trying, but very good. The first part was better than the second. One side of the programme opens up into a poster, which has a picture of man a man standing in front of a wall which has spray-painted on it 'I WANT TO BE SOMEONE LIKE SOMEBODY ELSE WAS ONCE'. I remember being utterly impressed at the actor's ability to repeat this sentence over and over. I very much like Handke's The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick and The Left-Handed Woman.
- A birthday card sent to me, written by my niece when she was first able to write, with a drawing of me and x dancing at my party. What strikes me as unusual in this is that my dress has a front door drawn on it.
- Tate Modern programme for season 'Outsider Films on India', where I was able to see Rossellini's very rare film 'India: Matri Bhumi'. Wonderful - and proof that one should always make the effort, even when it rains.
- Small booklet titled 'Quick and healthy breakfasts' which I kept in order to have just that: a quick and healthy breakfast. I have yet to make anything from it, but will keep it just in case.
- Programmes notes for the Philippe Parreno exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, which I went to in February 2011. I liked these films very much, but didn't really understand what was going on until after. But I believe that things can still be interesting and very good even if we have no idea what is happening.
- An incomplete draft of my MA essay on Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. A most enjoyable book to write about, yet the story of my life is that things always remain either incomplete or entirely rushed. Live and learn (though I haven't).
- A note to me from a nice, older gentleman, whom I encountered at Judith Butler's talk on Kafka's archives. Tickets had sold out, but I had a spare to sell. The note is from John Smythe, dated 5 Feb 2011, and reads as follows:
"Dear WENDY
That was so kind of you.
Permit me to tell you about the
FREE Scottish Dancing Classes @ } starts
St. Columba's Church, Pont St. SW3. } 7:15
Worth tracking down."
- My psychological report from when I was tested for various learning difficulties in 2006. The conclusion was that I have a 'Specific Learning Difficulty' which I hate saying. I have largely ignored these results and advice - I'd rather suffer and be stressed than have to spend time re-learning how to learn. I'll stick with my old and trusted, albeit stressful, exhausting and time-consuming method.
As an archivist, part of me wants to throw it away now - it will only be thrown away after my death. I hate the idea of someone else discarding these things. I'll get there first. My difficulty with throwing things away is to do with the fear that I will one day need those items for something, or a feeling of guilt for discarding what is meaningful to another.
(But perhaps these things are more meaningful to me than I realise, as not only have I kept them, but I also share the experience of them with you.)
- A postcard of a drawing of the Cinque Port Arms pub, in Hastings. On my visit there in 2009, I discovered that the pub, which was built in 1824, then rebuilt a century later after a fire, was originally the spot of a tudor inn. The ghost of one of the innkeepers lives there, and bangs on the ceiling. I had a gin and tonic, which I remember was very nice.
- A postcard of a painting of Brighton's West Pier, with a note from Joy, the artist. She gave me this after a pleasant conversation about my time living in Brighton. Joy worked on Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. When I think of her I smile as she is so colourful in both personality and dress. I have been meaning to buy her a pink cup for ages.
- A Wiener Library newsletter for Summer 2010, which mentions their planned moved (which has now happened) out of its long-term home in Devonshire Street to Birkbeck. No money, no choice. I am appalled that this has happened. I have fond memories of reading in there.
- Programme for Peter Handke's Kaspar, produced by the Aya Theatre Company in 2010 in Southwark. Strange and trying, but very good. The first part was better than the second. One side of the programme opens up into a poster, which has a picture of man a man standing in front of a wall which has spray-painted on it 'I WANT TO BE SOMEONE LIKE SOMEBODY ELSE WAS ONCE'. I remember being utterly impressed at the actor's ability to repeat this sentence over and over. I very much like Handke's The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick and The Left-Handed Woman.
- A birthday card sent to me, written by my niece when she was first able to write, with a drawing of me and x dancing at my party. What strikes me as unusual in this is that my dress has a front door drawn on it.
- Tate Modern programme for season 'Outsider Films on India', where I was able to see Rossellini's very rare film 'India: Matri Bhumi'. Wonderful - and proof that one should always make the effort, even when it rains.
- Small booklet titled 'Quick and healthy breakfasts' which I kept in order to have just that: a quick and healthy breakfast. I have yet to make anything from it, but will keep it just in case.
- Programmes notes for the Philippe Parreno exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, which I went to in February 2011. I liked these films very much, but didn't really understand what was going on until after. But I believe that things can still be interesting and very good even if we have no idea what is happening.
- An incomplete draft of my MA essay on Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. A most enjoyable book to write about, yet the story of my life is that things always remain either incomplete or entirely rushed. Live and learn (though I haven't).
- A note to me from a nice, older gentleman, whom I encountered at Judith Butler's talk on Kafka's archives. Tickets had sold out, but I had a spare to sell. The note is from John Smythe, dated 5 Feb 2011, and reads as follows:
"Dear WENDY
That was so kind of you.
Permit me to tell you about the
FREE Scottish Dancing Classes @ } starts
St. Columba's Church, Pont St. SW3. } 7:15
Worth tracking down."
- My psychological report from when I was tested for various learning difficulties in 2006. The conclusion was that I have a 'Specific Learning Difficulty' which I hate saying. I have largely ignored these results and advice - I'd rather suffer and be stressed than have to spend time re-learning how to learn. I'll stick with my old and trusted, albeit stressful, exhausting and time-consuming method.
As an archivist, part of me wants to throw it away now - it will only be thrown away after my death. I hate the idea of someone else discarding these things. I'll get there first. My difficulty with throwing things away is to do with the fear that I will one day need those items for something, or a feeling of guilt for discarding what is meaningful to another.
(But perhaps these things are more meaningful to me than I realise, as not only have I kept them, but I also share the experience of them with you.)
26.6.11
Overload (Or, A Modern Experience)
Like Hal Hartley's films, David Byrne's 'Report From L.A.' has a detachment between the one speaking and the words being spoken. In ‘The Quotable Gesture’ Walter Benjamin writes, “An actor must be able to space his gestures the way a typesetter produces spaced type. This effect may be achieved, for instance, by an actor’s quoting his own gesture on stage.” This is no easy feat for the actor, yet is undoubtedly achieved in Byrne's performance and in Hartley's films:
Report From L.A.
The Unbelievable Truth
Report From L.A.
The Unbelievable Truth
17.4.11
Asparagus in January
As I have previously mentioned I am very fond of the change in seasons. So imagine my delight when coming across this reading of the season's, or rather, one's relationship to them, in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, when Razumikhin says to Raskolnikov,
"You see, Roddy, in my opinion all you have to do to make a name for yourself in the world is to stick to the seasons. If you don't order asparagus in January, you'll be the better for a few roubles in your pocket."
I am not interested in making a name for myself, but still see Razumikhin's advice as worth following: stick to the seasons.
"You see, Roddy, in my opinion all you have to do to make a name for yourself in the world is to stick to the seasons. If you don't order asparagus in January, you'll be the better for a few roubles in your pocket."
I am not interested in making a name for myself, but still see Razumikhin's advice as worth following: stick to the seasons.
31.12.10
Lines
Amongst the tens of thousands of lines repeatedly typed "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" for Jack's manuscript in Kubrick's The Shining, the employed typist rebels, writing instead "All work and no pay makes me a dull boy".
19.11.10
A Red Hat by Gertrude Stein
"A dark grey, a very dark grey, a quite dark grey is monstrous ordinarily, it is so monstrous because there is no red in it. If red is in everything it is not necessary. Is that not an argument for any use of it and even so is there any place that is better, is there any place that has so much stretched out."
3.11.10
Empathy With The Protagonist
Why do so many people feel that to like a film they must 'like' the protagonist within it? For these people a film is to be rejected if the protagonist shows no weakness, no humanity, no affection, no guilt, and so on. If the protagonist is despicable, and the audience feels they cannot identify or empathise with them, there is a strong dislike of the film, and criticism of the director. Oh, how wrong these people are.
An example of this is Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon'. Barry Lyndon is the protagonist that people cannot tolerate; a reprobate, with whom there is no relief but rather relentless indifference. He goes through his whole life without changing his ways. Perhaps there may be fleeting moments of guilt, but this only makes it worse as they are only fleeting - he is soon up to his old tricks again.
But this is precisely what makes Barry Lyndon a great film. If the protagonist is such that we cannot empathise or identify with them, what a blessing. This is a hard thing to achieve, and I admire the film-maker who manages to pull this off.
I believe that people do not like films with such characters for many reasons, but by and large because
1 - they need a happy ending, telling them that life is always ok in the end (very weak);
2 - they do not like to see traits in these characters which they too possess (the lack of common identity is simply suppressed);
3 - they are simply not very clever or interesting people.
If anyone would like to tell me of other films with such unlikeable characters I am most interested.
An example of this is Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon'. Barry Lyndon is the protagonist that people cannot tolerate; a reprobate, with whom there is no relief but rather relentless indifference. He goes through his whole life without changing his ways. Perhaps there may be fleeting moments of guilt, but this only makes it worse as they are only fleeting - he is soon up to his old tricks again.
But this is precisely what makes Barry Lyndon a great film. If the protagonist is such that we cannot empathise or identify with them, what a blessing. This is a hard thing to achieve, and I admire the film-maker who manages to pull this off.
I believe that people do not like films with such characters for many reasons, but by and large because
1 - they need a happy ending, telling them that life is always ok in the end (very weak);
2 - they do not like to see traits in these characters which they too possess (the lack of common identity is simply suppressed);
3 - they are simply not very clever or interesting people.
If anyone would like to tell me of other films with such unlikeable characters I am most interested.
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