In the summer of 2002, Mexico became a democracy, again. Via a peaceful transfer of power, the PRI lost control over the executive branch for the first time in 70 years. No such transition can take place without a significant cultural shift: the kind represented by the 2000 film La Ley de Herodes. Though quite dark – it suggests a corrupt society cannot produce reformers – as a political fable it’s quite good. I’d love a sequel about reform. Whether in a movie or in reality.
television and politics
a few weeks ago i wondered if the Olympics would be the environmentalist blockbuster of the summer.
a blockbuster? without a doubt. environmentalist? sorta. last Friday on Korean television i caught sight of not just fake trees around the Olympic stadium but even faked high-rises.* the buildings were real enough but the authorities had set up lights inside each vacant room to simulate occupancy.
over the weekend i watched a few minutes of the marathon with my brother-in-law. as the helicopter followed the front of the pack into a lush urban park he remarked “it looks really nice, so much for the pollution.” never mind that the route and its coverage were planned to create just such a reaction.
to this day we don’t know whether or not Potemkin really did create similar fakes to impress his queen.
but for whom did China put on such a show if not, ultimately, for the Chinese? and by show I don’t mean the fireworks that were pre-taped or any of the other televisual spectacles. I mean our reactions – the world’s reactions – carefully filtered back into China’s national discourse.
Prestige is a complicated thing.
minding the gap
very rarely will i have the kind of nightmare i just had now. a prolonged, disinterested narrative set in a post-apocalyptic city where zombies (they sleep during the day) and vigilantes (there is no law) set each scene in motion.
all dreams are a response to the gaps that form during the waking hours. yesterday, perhaps for as simple a reason as my having skipped lunched, I had become a pessimist by nightfall. (i was unwilling to acknowledge that the glass is not just half-full, it’s continuously overflowing.)
there is no greater cognitive gap than pessimism, especially when it is rationalized. worse, yet, it tries to extend its spell by becoming sadism and/or cynicism.
all of this is well noted in the literature of our civilization, but the vividness of my dream made me wonder how it was that monsters came to walk the earth.
my zombies are my grandfathers’ demons. both serve their purpose; in my case, to dramatize how those who lack empathy lack humanity. and though they are illusions, they are no less a part of our reality.
our eyes lack the physical ability to make out fine details at a distance. instead, our brains fill in the many gaps with narrative. likewise our dreaming mind – or inward eye, as the poets have called it – can show us what our waking mind will not.
if our brains serve any higher purpose, it’s to mind the gaps.
strong women
The 1949 Mexican noir film Aventurera is tightly crafted, progressive, sensational, at times experimental and completely modern.
Related: ¿A Quién Le Importa? by Alaska y Dinarama.
horticulture
While on a garden tour it occurred to me that gardens have four components: sight, smell, temperature and time. Time, because as living organisms, they look, smell and affect the air differently depending on their life cycle.
weeks later: and there’s a fifth element, perhaps. they either contribute or take away from their ecosystem. the invasive exotic vs. the bee garden.
movies
Superbad is the most vulgar movie I’ve seen in a while. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It proudly belongs to a genre that intends to cross the line (the hair gel in Something About Mary, the baked goods in American Pie). But apart from some great acting, I don’t understand what all the fuss was about. Except, that is, for David Goldberg’s drawings at the end of the movie. Those are genius.
Knocked Up was even more underwhelming. Being one-sided or wish-fulfillment isn’t its biggest weakness – it’s just too long.
music
Thanks to a commercial on TV, Ana and I have been playing this song all week long. It’s very well done.
movies
Gone Baby Gone is a chilling exploration of moral reasoning, as sober as the law and as tender as prayer. It poses a seemingly simple question: is it ever just to take the law into one’s own hands? (No.) But in answering the question it pokes holes in every argument tendered, especially the notion that we can serve any one’s interests other than our own.
If the right thing feels wrong then do it. If it feels right, it’s the wrong thing to do.
That may not capture it but it’s as close as I got on first viewing.
television
On the heels of the brilliant WALL•E, another environmentalist blockbuster: the Olympics.
I suppose there’s also a one-percent possibility that the international embarrassment will be a Chernobyl-type stimulus toward truly radical environmental action in China and around the world. But maybe that’s fooling myself too.
politics
Jane Mayer in the The New York Review of Books:
…at almost every turn along the way, the Bush administration was warned that whatever the short-term benefits of its extralegal approach to fighting terrorism, it would have tragically destructive long-term consequences both for the rule of law and Americas interests in the world. These warnings came not just from political opponents, but also from experienced allies, including the British Intelligence Service, the experts in the traditionally conservative military and the FBI, and, perhaps most surprisingly, from a series of loyal Republican lawyers inside the administration itself. The number of patriotic critics inside the administration and out who threw themselves into trying to head off what they saw as a terrible departure from Americas ideals, often at an enormous price to their own careers, is both humbling and reassuring.
politics
New York Magazine via Josh Marshall:
The alternative, of course, is to get on offense, to batter McCain for his gaffes and incoherence, hammer him for his flip-flops, highlight how his maverick status is a thing of the past, and turn him into a combination of Bush and Grandpa Simpson. God knows there are those in Chicago champing at the bit to do just that—not least, one imagines, Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, who can wield the cudgel of negative ads with as much vigor and glee as any Republican. Yet Obama seems reluctant to go there. Tough pol though he is, he’s a conciliator and not a confrontationalist at heart; he seems to believe that once undecided voters know him better, he will have them eating, along with so many others, out of the palm of his hand.
If only we could vote on whether Obama will follow Axelrod to victory.
There is no taking the high road with the ad hoc coalition that has been ruling this country for the last 12 or so years. They’ve blocked that road with kills and blown up all the bridges. They operate in the gutter and that’s where the light of principled political discourse needs to be pointed.
America deserves a healthy conservative movement, not the animate corpse that is the GOP machine.
premises
From a recent post on Slashdot:
…”Batman can’t really afford to lose. Losing means death — or at least not being able to be Batman anymore.”
I had never thought of it before, but, yes, the implicit pleasure in any such masked hero movie is that he cannot lose. Losing means either death or being unmasked which is tantamount to death.
In real life, most people get second chances. Not so for the masked hero. It’s an accepted premise that heightens the tension in every battle. Nice trick.