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Bylines Essays: Title/Subject/Author
1) Nonprofit/Anti-Arts Funding/Norm Olson Over the past six months, Minnesota workers have, as usual been hit on by all kinds of organizations that would like a piece of their paycheck pie. Personally, I would prefer to see government taking care of the needs of the very old, the very young, the sick, the disenfranchised and the dispossessed. But since we have chosen to leave huge rents in our social safety net, I suppose that the idea of nonprofit private organizations being funded by tax exempt donations to help those who cannot fend for themselves, is better than nothing....
Stormin' Norman auditions for NPR!
2) Poets Writing/Poetic Vicissitudes/Norm Olson A small press poet and artist would be somebody who wrote poetry and drew pictures and published the results in college literary magazines and oddball poetry ‘zines with a readership of seven. Most people care almost nothing about poetry and art, know vaguely that it is something they should care about and twice a year stumble through the museum of modern art and wonder how stupid they are that they see only a pile of crap on a hardwood floor where others see masterpieces....
Not an ounce of bitterness, I swear!
3) Poetry Manifesto/Surrealism/Laura Winton I do not write poetry to communicate. If you want to communicate something to someone, write them a letter, post a manifesto in laundromats and on telephone poles, or call a talk radio show. More people will receive your message than read your poetry....
Laura explains it all. Don't you hate spoilsports?!
4) Poetry Reading/The Loft/Norm Olson Even though I am a poet and have lived all my life in Minnesota, I had never been to a poetry reading in Minnesota. Back in the early 1970's, I used to read poetry at the open stages at the
Norm Olson: poet, baker, Indian Chief....
5) What Is Art/Art's Function/Dave Okar I'll start with a quote from Gerhard Hauptmann, "Poetry evokes out of words the resonance of the primordial world." Any poem that does not reflect images of the artist's personal unconscious, or those of the collective unconscious, is not worth serious consideration on my part. Why? Because it is through the collective unconscious that we can resonate with the primordial world....
Dave theorizes & proves that even the written word can be mumbled!
6) Dignity/Artistic Blather/Michael Gause I think it is time to begin, again. Poetic critique in this town - for the short 4 years I have seen it - has been less about quality and more about viciousness. Sparring is not done, as in the Shaolin monasteries of old, in good faith to better our skills and that of our "opponents" (who are, in fact, our colleagues). Criticism is carried out with disrespect and with no other purpose than to boost the ego of said critic and belittle said target....
Michael dreams of absinthe & Rimbaud. See if you need more than 10 seconds to figure him out.
7) Western Heroes/Antithesis/Max Herman
In his time off from being Jesus, Max likes to be pedantic.
8) Atheism/Humanism/Marilyn Mason HUMANISM is an ethical life stance based on reason and our common humanity, recognising that moral values are properly founded on human nature and experience alone. Humanists believe that we should try to live full and happy lives ourselves, and, as part of this, help to make it easier for other people to do the same. Humanists believe that you can be good without gods or religious faith....
I'd never have known.
9) On Faith/Zazen/Don Moss In ”The Problem With Faith-Based Funding Is Faith Itself” (Los Angeles Times, 2/18/01) Bart K
Don Moss. REAL serious-like.
10) Forest/Breakfast Memories/Don Moss I'll admit I wasn't then a particularly sensitive human being. I should say "yet" instead of "then," so you won't think that my growing up in Queens excuses or explains my being like that. There are plenty of good people living there, but this happens to be a story about a pimp. When was it? That would be 1983. I finished high school that year....
Don/Dan: Separated at birth?
11) The Walker/Yoko & Others/Dan Schneider This past weekend my wife decided she wanted to go to an art museum. Having previously taken her a few times to the Minneapolis Institute Of Arts (MIA) it was high time she experience the Walker Arts Center. To those outside the Twin Cities area the MIA/Walker difference is akin to that of New York’s Met/MOMA. The Walker is the upscale place where the relentlessly avant-garde hope to be seen & exhibit....
The Chamber of Horrors: In that space can you hear Leslie Ball scream?
12) Poetry/Mass Audience/Norm Olson The other evening, I was at a literary event at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. In the row in front of me, somebody was sitting in a seat that was assigned to someone else. Since this audience was mostly English majors, the two parties were intently discussing the concept of redemption as it related to assigned seating and free will in an unpropitious universe. Well, eventually they both sat down and one made the remark that it did not really matter because "we are all friends here." As the lights went down and the reading began, a very good reading, I might add, it occurred to me....
Is that 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' in the background?
13) Short Shorts/MFA Disgust/Jason Sanford Here's a simple fact: no matter how excellent and mind-blowing a regular-size short story might be, it still takes a half-hour of your life to read it. In this same time you can read over ten mediocre short shorts. So take an educated and overly academic guess as to which genre MFA graduates are flocking to....
Don't you just hate teases?
14) Unreplenished/Star Trek/Dan Schneider Recently, on the UPN television network, the television show Star Trek: Voyager ended a 7 season run as the network’s premier show- although pro wrestling fans of the WWF’s Smackdown may quibble. It was the 3rd television spinoff of the original Star Trek show which captivated 1960s audiences to such a degree that it was canceled after 3 seasons in the ratings basement....
7 of 9. Catsuit. Need more be said?
15) D.I.F./Creativity's Wane/Dan Schneider Paul McCartney’s solo career, Willie Mays’ last season with the New York Mets, Robert De Niro in Cape Fear, William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Monkey Trial, John Ashbery’s Flowchart, Georgia O’Keeffe’s last 10 years of paintings, T.S. Eliot’s plays, & John Glenn’s last flight as an astronaut....
AARP presents....
16) Nothing Strange/Eiseley/Dan Schneider Lately I have been struggling. It has been a multifarious beast that has beset me. It started late last year with the onset of some medical problems, which while not life threatening were natheless vexive; continued through an incredible array of assaults upon my art & person by many small-minded would-be artists who loathed my website & its contents; scurried with several legal scraps resultant from said assaults; survived a car crash....
A Master.
17) Woody Allen/Women & Films/Dan Schneider Not long ago my wife & I took in Woody Allen’s latest film, The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion. I have long been a fan of the man’s work- doubtless, he is the best original screenwriter in America today- if not ever, & in the last few decades only Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorcese, & Francis Coppola can even rival the quality of his output. I have listened often to the plaints of many about the man’s personal distastefulness- even prior to the Soon-Yi scandal. A lot of seemingly intelligent people cannot separate the man from the artist....
Eat your heart out, Mia!
18) Insight/Eiseley Redux/Jason Sanford Last Tuesday morning I was editing this essay when my 3-year-old son, who was watching cartoons on TV, suddenly said, "Building had an accident." Turns out he'd flipped the channel to the attack on the World Trade Center. As I sat with him, we watched the events that followed: the second plane hitting the south tower, the attack on the Pentagon, the collapse of both WTC buildings with thousands still inside....
Master- The Sequel.
19) American Poetry/Queries/Clayton Eshleman 1.Our amplification of Walt Whitman's panopticon phrenology, Egyptology, opera, Hinduism, the poet as reporter and mystic, amative and adhesive, cultured and anarchic) and his "open road": the democratization of the whole person, the liberation of impulse and instinct from involuntary servitude, a new breath line based on vernacular and natural measures. We continue to operate under Whitman's charge....
Seeking ways to evade saying something meaningful? Read on....
20) Scientists & Prophets/Skyway/Dan Schneider Ever since the 9/11/01 attacks on our nation people in the street having been querying themselves: Do evildoers ever receive justice? I can answer unequivocally- YES. Although it may take some time....
This is a FUNNY piece, dammit!
21) Values & Strange Attractors/Theory/Frederick Turner One of our most subtly paralyzing dualisms is the apparently harmless one between order and disorder. The idea of artistic liberation, under which we have labored for so many years, is especially prone to the corruptions of this dualism. For instance, if order means predictability, and predictability means predetermination, and predetermination means compulsion, and compulsion means unfreedom....
Fred Turner. No one ever said anything about the intellect.
22) Neural Lyre/Metrics/Frederick Turner This essay brings together an old subject, a new body of knowledge, and a new scientific paradigm which have not previously been associated with one another. The subject is poetic meter, a universal human activity, which despite its universality and obvious importance in most human cultures, has received very little attention from humanists, except for the studies of a few literary prosodists, and virtually none at all from science. The new body of knowledge consists in the findings of that intense study of the human brain....
I swear, this is a 2nd whole essay- not part 2 of the 1st!
23) Paul Celan/Memoriam/Clayton Eshleman While living in Sherman Oaks, California, in the spring Of 1970, I had the following dream. a man that I recognized as Paul Celan walked to the bank of the Seine in Paris and stepped up onto a stone which I also recognized as the "Vallejo stone.' Celan stood there for a moment- then leapt into the river....
Pretentiousness made easy.
24) More Walker/Art/Norm Olson About three weeks ago, I made up photocopies of several of my large drawings and sent them to the Walker Art Center along with a nice letter asking the Walker to do a showing of my work. I got a form letter back from somebody named Phillip, who was sorry to tell me that the Walker could not show my work because the exhibition schedule was full....
No. No. No bitterness.
25) Ario/Form & Man/Dan Schneider Outstanding. Excellent. Great. These are words Bruce Ario isn’t used to. At least he is not used to them applied to his own person or work. Who is Bruce Ario? you ask. Well, regular visitors to Cosmoetica know Bruce as- next to me- the most faithful attendee of the Uptown Poetry Group. Bruce is also a poet, playwright, & novelist. In this essay I will examine 2 of the 3 aspects of Bruce’s literary life....
Da Man.
26) Sanford/A Looksy/Dan Schneider Some of you may know how dicey it can be trusting 3rd person accounts of things. Well, recently I’ve been misfortuned enough to learn to trust not even 1st person accounts. I relate this merely because the following information on local writer Jason Sanford has come from the proverbial ‘equine labia’. Well, that’s not exactly true- it was not his labia, but an odd manila envelope’s contents. Nonetheless, Sanford- or ‘Sanford’- is solely responsible for its accuracy....
Jason Sanford- known to the members of my cabal as 'The Beastialist' (sic).
27) On Beauty/Thesis/Frederick Turner What is beauty? The very concept is rejected by many contemporary artists and estheticians....
But Fred'll dive right in!
28) Hoptman/Many Faces/Dan Schneider Ari Hoptman has a serious problem- not with being serious; & no, it’s not cancer, nor malformed gonads, nor the unrequited love of an obsessed obese garlic-lover. Ari’s real problem is that he is too good at what he does. By that I mean- well, let me backtrack a bit. Ari Hoptman is a comedian. He’s done standup, sketches, 1-man shows, cabarets, & many festivals. He also is alot better than most other comedians....
Portrait of a lonely, LONELY man. Don't read on!
29) Kruse/Scamp-Tramp?/Dan Schneider Female comedians are generally pigs. No, I don’t mean comedic actresses like Jennifer Aniston, Valerie Bertinelli, Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, or Julia Roberts. I mean true/standup comedians like Brett Butler, Elayne Boosler, Roseanne Barr, Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O’Donnell, etc. Notice a pattern? I mean, notice 2 patterns? The former group can be funny yet also sexually titillating. The latter group- ugh....
If only I weren't married!
30) Jessica/Dylan/Dan Schneider This is the diciest essay I’ve yet undertaken. I mean, how does 1 objectively praise 1’s wife? If I do not do enough of such, marital comity is at stake. If I do too much, snippy snipers will have a field day. I recall a recent rebuke from a thick-skulled fellow who chided me for not realizing W.B Yeats was ‘far above us all’. He felt that no living poet could approach the immortals. On the other hand....
The wife strikes back!
31) Moss/Dominions/Dan Schneider In my years in the Twin Cities arts scene I’ve had the good fortune & pleasure of getting to know two guys whose active brains are refreshingly free from artist schtick. I doubt that either even owns a black turtleneck, and, yes, they each feel, but they also think. Both have had a long-standing association with the Uptown Poetry Group. One of them Art Durkee, I’ll address in another essay. The other is Don Moss....
This long poem needs a publisher!
32) Durkee/Possibilities/Dan Schneider Creativity is a bitch to get a hold of. Not only the thing itself, but what it is. Is it the Demiurge which brinks some to madness? Or is that hyperbolic cliché? In my own experience I have found that the best (truest?) artists are those who’ve shown the most personal growth & maturity. Talent is wonderful, potential is fantastic, but in the end accomplishment is the bottom line. Only those with maturity seem to reach this end goal. Along with myself, I would include a # of the UPG regulars in this lot (thus my recent essays). Among them is Art Durkee. I will tell a bit of his bio....
The worst of the bunch, next to me!
33) Dave Nelson/Surrealist/Dan Schneider Dave Nelson has been a UPG attendee since 1996. In his personalized ‘bio’ sent to me Dave claims that it was 1997 or 1998. The or is important for it forms the tack of this whole essay. That being that Nelson is an odd sort to be hobnobbing around artistic types. I mean he has a sort of mild weirdness. But, it’s like calling a celibate a pervert- while technically true, it’s not what we usually think of as a pervert....
Slowly back away....
34) Xmas/A Plaint/Dan Schneider I am walking in the Minneapolis Skyway on a break today when I notice a strong sun strumming through the glass all about me. Outside the day is bright & a comfortable mid-high 30ºs F. Cascading all about me is what could pass for a mild summer afternoon. Yet Xmas is only a few weeks away. Downtown is bedecked, jolly, & wreathed, yet something is amiss. It simply does not feel like Xmas....
Not yo' mama's Charlie Brown bitch!
35) Hired Guns/On Libel/Richard Kostelanetz Preparing More Crimes of Culture for publication has me thinking about libel. Since the word means "a false statement that damages a person's reputation," no writer respectful of the truth intrinsic in scrupulous documentation should ever worry about libel suits. The principal objection to them is that a liberal secular state should not be in the business of establishing truth and falsity; that authority is strictly for theocracies and other dictatorships....
If you care about the arts- READ THIS ESSAY!
36) Exposure/WWW vs. Print?/Jason Sanford So you're a new writer who just finished a short story or poem poised to knock western civilization onto its butt. Trouble is, you're uncertain what to do with it. In your innocence you go to an online discussion board and ask, Where's the best place for a new writer to get published--in print or online magazines? Suddenly--hell's bells, fireworks and exploding egos. Without knowing it, the new writer has wandering into one of the most argued-about issues in modern literature. Forget debates on first-person present tense narratives or the latest round in the Oprah-Franzen fight....
Takin' it to the streets.
37) Lowest Common Denominator/Pop/Dan Schneider While people stand in awe of great achievements in the sciences, arts, & sports, the truth is we really don’t love them- at least not like the way we want to curl up in bed & read them as we do a trashy genre novel, or doze off to them like some B-movie. Individuals, of course, can break the general stereotype. For example, I love & indulge the classic male American affair with BIG things: dinosaurs, skyscrapers, & astronomy- all sciences. I also love the arts of Erik Satie, Led Zeppelin, Winslow Homer, Salvador Dalí, Renē Magritte, Kurt Vonnegut, William Kennedy, Charles Johnson, Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Hayden, Robinson Jeffers, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorcese, & Auguste Rodin....
What a man!
38)Mothman/Ideas/Dan Schneider This past weekend my wife & I went to see the new Richard Gere film ‘The Mothman Prophecies’. It was supposed to be a supernatural thriller based upon the same-titled classic book of Forteana by John Keel. It was a bad movie, but worse- it was dull. In this essay I’m gonna 1st review the film, then compare it with some of the claims of the ‘real’ incident the film is based upon, & then compare both to each other....
Richard Gere. Still creepy.
39) The Prisoner/Ambiguity/Dan Schneider In his 1989 book called The Selfish Gene, evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins popularized a concept that game theorists had developed & kicked around for decades- that is The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Let me give a vastly simplified & lay approach to this conundrum: TPD is a non-zero-sum game about cooperation & complicity....
The televisionary classic from the 1960s. McGoohan- 'nuff said.
40) The Day/Frontiers/Dan Schneider It will occur with little notice if it happens during a major international crisis. It will not be, exactly, back on page 47 of the newspapers- or whatever mode of morning information-getting we use. It will be a moderately accoladed story when it 1st breaks. It will not be quite as important as the new lover of the starlet whose tryst with her makes all the headlines....
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5....
41) Songstresses/Myths/Dan Schneider Ever just wanna haul off & slap the bejesus out of your local tv news mannekin? Y’know, those newsreaders who pretend to be journalists. Well, as ridiculous as I think those Barbie dolls & Abercrombie & Fitch clothes-displayers are, I am even more annoyed at those who never grow up. To me, the worst example of this is sexagenarian news mannekin Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News. Yes, I know that CBS’s Dan Rather (now a septuagenarian) is awfully wacky & prone to inappropriate homilizing, & I know that ABC's sexagenarian Canucker Peter Jennings is so laconic that mirrors must be held in front of his mouth to prove he’s not some animatronic doll....
Rock babes who put phallic objects near their luscious lips.
42) On Shredding/An Open Letter/William Heyen On July 3, 2001, Nugent Tree Service arrived at my Brockport home—four men, several chainsaws, a truck for chips, and a shredder that I stayed away from, its steel drum studded with downcurving teeth. My wife and I had thought hard and long about having a huge silver maple in our back yard taken down, then went ahead with it for safety and light and space. It took the crew about six hours to complete the job....
He's REALLY earnest.
43) On Translation/Points/Jean Migrenne When I was first asked to translate a few poems for an anthology of American poetry, I did not realize that I had what we call in French un vice caché. That was in 1986. So far, I had spent my life teaching English and, as things went, doing less and less poetry, since even before 1968 literature proper had been superseded by whatever type of prose was deemed didactically up-to-date....
He's REALLY Jean.
44) Pop Fiction/Porno/Jason Sanford On the way to writing this essay, I tripped over a pile of porn. Literally. Or I should so, literary porn. Erotic stories. The truth is that pornography was the farthest thing from my mind when I sat down to write this essay. In fact, my original intent had been to write about my experiences editing storySouth, an online literary journal. I figured I'd talk about how hard it is to read....
Next, Jason tells us how hard it is to go to the bathroom.
45) Capital Punishment/Viva!/Dan Schneider Earth’s green twinkle of life knows little about human politics, if anything at all. Yes, human politicking often has grave consequences for the organic & inorganic residents of this star crumb. Still, it is hard to get worked up over the diurnal minutia that so many individuals lather over. Leftist, rightist- both are extremist & drenched in hypocrisy. Hard to call Ted Kennedy a humanist after Chappaquiddick....
Burn, Baby, Burn.
46) Bob Dylan/Phenomenon/Bruce Ario Writing on the topic of Bob Dylan is for me a pleasure and a privilege. He is a person I have never become bored with which is to say I'm never unsurprised. He has created a hunger in me for his work that I feel I will never grow full from it. On the other hand, he satiates my desires to a point I feel I have just feasted....
Bruce on the loose- take cover!
47) Metropolis/Adventures/Don Moss Just Monday morning, April 22, Marj, guide dog Lana and I answered a 5:00 alarm. We were determined to quickly stuff the last few bags and boxes and us in the small Colt wagon and set off for Indianapolis, over 700 miles away, our halfway point back to Minneapolis. The plan was for “departure by 0600,” as Colonel Pat Locklear (ret.), former Tybee mayor and friend, would say. Our enthusiasm and hope ran high, even though this was our fifth attempt at leaving Tybee early. To paraphrase a retired biologist we know, who habitually drank a tea glass of cheap port before lunchtime....
Don Moss or Lex Luthor?
48) Corruption/Hidden Tolls/Dan Schneider I’m not talking about the law enforcement officer who takes a kickback from a drug dealer, nor the politician who casts a vote influenced by who his contributors are, I’m talking about the many ‘invisible’ threads that systematically ruin lives in thousands of small ways thousands of times a day. It’s easy to point fingers at the Ted Bundys or Adolf Hitlers of the world & see how they have ruined dozens, hundreds, or millions of lives....
Then, again, would a world full of BINGO suffice?
49) Enterprise/Star Trek Update/Dan Schneider Last year I wrote an essay that was skeptical of the future of the Star Trek tv franchise. I also put forth some pretty sound ideas on how to rejuvenate the franchise with its upcoming tv series sequel-cum-prequel called Enterprise; just Enterprise- no ‘Star Trek:’ preface to this show. I advocated that a new series wait a few years, & then try an anthology format. Instead, a prequel was deemed necessary. While it’s been the proverbial mixed bag, & after a slow start, I have to say that the overall show has been a welcome improvement over the 3 other series sequels. In fact, even with 1 season under its belt I would rate Enterprise as the 2nd best ST series, trailing only the original....
T'Pol. Catsuit. Oh, why can't alien abduction tales be real?
50) Peaches/Stephen Jay Gould/Dan Schneider I have long been a fan of good writing- whatever the genre. I have mercilessly attacked the pap that has been fobbed off as good in both poetry & its criticism. & while I’ve not assailed it (due mostly to lack of interest) I could also lob grenades at the crap that passes for intelligent prose (fiction & non-fiction). But 1 genre has had- for the last 3 decades or so- an astounding rise to an absolute Golden (if not Platinum) Era of writing....
A voice silenced.
51) Ethics/Chia/Dan Schneider As I begin this essay on Friday, 6/7/02, it is 11 days since my lovable little cat Chia escaped when my wife, Jess, unfortunately thought she could bring our little girl out to play on the front lawn. Hopefully, in the few days it takes to finish & post this essay we will have retrieved her. The date was Monday, 5/27/02, Memorial Day, about 3 p.m. CDT. I was on the computer working on my website when Jess came running in, screaming that Chia ran away....
On loss.
52) To Be/Hamlet/Jean Migrenne This approach cannot be fully understood unless one considers that languages are systems, based on simple laws, like that of gravity for the universe.
Taking on a classic.
53) Recycling/Scams/Robert Levin Earlier today I received a notice advising me that the recycling program in my neighborhood has been "rebooted" and that I will henceforth risk "serious fines" if I fail to sort and, in the case of jars and bottles, RINSE my garbage before leaving it out. I hate to come off as a bad sport, but I've got to tell you: In all these years I've never once sorted or rinsed my garbage....
Why Bob has no friends.
54) Eclipse/Oh God!/Robert Levin One weathercaster called it a "must-see light and shadow show by the Old Master Himself." But I can't say the recent solar eclipse was worthy of the recommendation. Not even total, and staged (in my location anyway) behind a thick cloud cover that served only to diffuse the vivid contrasts essential to any dramatic effect, the "Old Master" might have been faxing it in from deep space somewhere for all the incandescence it could claim....
End of the world, or end of a bad pizza?
55) Stanley Kubrick/Genius/Dan Schneider Like all of us I have my pet peeves. 1 of my most irksome is the gratuitous bandying about of the word genius. 1st off, I believe individuals may possess ‘a genius’ for some particular task, but I’ve never met anyone whom I would apply that label to. The word, itself, carries a patina of luck & ease- as if someone who is excellent at something is that way without any effort on their part. Part of my aversion to the word, & my preference for the adjective ‘great’ is because a # of times over the years I have had people come up to me, usually at after a poetry reading, & declaim me such....
The man, the obsessions, & Nicole Kidman- NUDE!
56) Creativity/Workplace/Bruce Ario Many opportunities and rewards are lost because creativity in the workplace is absent. Instead of having a productive and stimulating environment, workers are faced with boredom as a result of relentless routine.
Bruce goes corporate.
57) Stupidity/Uses/Robert Levin It’s time to take punitive action against an insidious and rapidly proliferating menace to our emotional well being. I’m speaking, of course, of “service industry” people who are embracing the dumbing down craze too enthusiastically and who, doubtless incapable of even masturbating by themselves any more, regularly perpetrate nerve-rattling, mood-curdling, faculty-numbing and spirit-withering indignities against us....
Bob is seeing someone really 'special' now.
58) On Tragedy/Oedipus/Max Herman When we read Oedipus Rex now, we are reading the best example of Greek tragedy. It can be a very heavy diet, especially for the young and hopeful. Tragedy is not very similar to the average modern mindset. Most people, at least in the U.S., prefer not to worry about the cruelty of fate. And certainly we don't blame our troubles on a tragic law of nature, at least not our average troubles, like getting bad grades, or breaking up with a sweetheart, or really any of the things that enter our lives as challenges. We see ourselves as being able to deal with things....
Max is in a 'very special' place right now.
59) Chia/Schneider Cats/Dan Schneider I am a child on a hot summer morning in 1971, or so. I am watching tv- Channel 13 in New York. PBS. 1 of my favorite tv shows is on: Sesame Street. I am entranced by a short 2 minute or so film. It is a time-lapsed film of a flower opening. As its petals slowly unbud the camera pulls backward gradually. This is not a nature film....
Ah, remembrance.
60) Pop Media/Denise Richards/Dan Schneider 1 of the best media-savvy websites on the Internet is Whatever-dude.com. Started a year or so ago the site has had a number of rotating columnists- usually 20-something brats (in the best sense of the word) who give a Pomo/MTV/askanceness POV on all things pop. Often the articles are laced with humorously sub-captioned photos. The pieces skewer all things pop- from Hollywood to politics....
Further inside Denise Richards than you ever dreamt!
61) Foreshadows/Mickey Spillane/Dan Schneider The Bicentennial summer (of 1976, for you peregrine fools) saw me & my best friend Joey Seewald having many adventures in his grandmother’s country home. The Seewald’s had been retreating to that abode since, at least, the Great Depression. Joey’s Grandma was a thin wiry old bat with a predilection for racist remarks. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our stay. Joey & I stayed up in the attic room & read through an amazing trove of 1940s & 1950s Golden & Silver Age comic books. Here I read of Captain America’s battles....
Monster of the id?
62) Reviving/Baseball/Dan Schneider It is said baseball is a game for little boys & old men. In most ways, that’s true. As I write this, in young middle age- 37- I have to say that the last few years have revived a love in the grand old game that was missing since Reggie Jackson left the New York Yankees in the early 1980s, & the Yanks slid slowly into late 80s-early 90s oblivion. By the time the Yanks rebounded in 1994- the last strike year, the 1 without a World Series- to post the best AL record my interest was revived....
You were expecting George Will?
63) Good Reviews/Poetry/Tim Scannell First, don’t beat-about the bush: a chapbook, zine or broadside is a poetic cowpie, rhinoceros beetle - svelte eland or rose. No Old Testament ‘in-the-beginning’ geneses. Get to the New Testament crux....
Timbo, gone in 60 seconds.
64) Buddhism/Business/Dan Schneider A couple of years ago my then-fiancée (now wife), Jessica, had a visit from a college pal of hers named Angie. Angie visited for a few days & we planned a day trip to the town of Stillwater, Minnesota. This little town is famed for its historic Main Street lined with nice eateries & dozens of antique shops. It is often busy on normal weekends, but on this weekend it had 1 of its 3 or 4 annual festivals. I don’t recall which 1- but I believe we went in spring. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant afternoon....
1 of those 'moment' moments.
65) Struggles/Russia/Denise Clark Was the Russia we grew up fearing truly a monster in disguise, or a country struggling through various leaders and methods to find itself? Russian Experiences: Life in the Former USSR and Post-Soviet Russia [by The Raven and Marie Claire ISBNs: 1589391772 (paperback), 1589391985 (hardcover)] is an eye opening discovery of the true Russia. The Russia of the ‘suburbs’; the Russia of the common worker; the Russia of the struggling family. No political grandstanding in this book, no. This is a story of its people. It’s heart and soul....
Ouch, Denise!
66) Middle East/Death/Robert Levin Can we, just for a minute, quit the Elie Weisel hand-wringing crap and acknowledge that the problem Israel and the Palestinians have with one another is actually their mutual solution to the problem of being mortal? Of course to understand what I'm talking about it is first necessary to recognize that it's not love or sex or money that makes the world go around....
Bobby, Bobby, Bobby....
67) Perfect Rock Albums/The Zombies/Dan Schneider This is a new essay series I am kicking off. I am not a music critic, I cannot read music, I am a terrible singer, & I cannot play an instrument. Given that most music critics are wannabes, this will make me an exception. When speaking of the actual music/sounds of a song I will not refer to A, B, F-flats, etc. I don’t know, nor care, what that stuff means. I will describe the music aurally, as best I can, in very lay terminology. Lyrics I will approach with my great poetic eye & ear, granting that song lyrics have a lesser task assigned to them than poems....
1 of the great neglected bands!
68) The Big Lie/Anti-anti-spam/Dan Schneider There is a great threat to our American Civil Liberties that looms greater than all others. It is something that the vast majority of the American public is in favor of. No, I don’t mean President Bush’s xenophobic star chambers. I mean the pending legislations against spam- or unsolicited commercial emails. Most private citizens, & all big corporations support these would-be laws without really thinking of the consequences. Let me restate- that is true for private citizens. The big corporations, however, know fully well what they are doing & why....
If you read only 1 Bylines, READ THIS 1!
69) Perfect Rock Albums/Love/Hate/Dan Schneider Love/Hate was 1 of the GREAT & unappreciated party bands of all time. Unfortunately they never hit the commercial heights of other rock bands from their era: Guns-N-Roses, L.A. Guns, Poison, Bon Jovi, etc. By the time their 1st album: Blackout In The Red Room was released the hard rock of the 1980s was on the way out, soon to be smothered by the grunge of Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, & Nirvana....
Another gem!
70) Foul Shots/Running Wild/Robert Levin Levin clears his files.I've puzzled over it since last year's playoffs and I still don't understand how superstar basketball players can miss so many of their foul shots. We're talking about guys able and positioned to compile humongous career stats--twenty-thousand women, a hundred million dollars--those are Hall of Fame numbers by any measure. So what's the problem? Are they ashamed to be seen cashing in their free throws? They can give them to me. I'm seriously middle-aged, five-foot-seven, myopic, arthritic and usually nauseous. Not every part of my body is still getting a proper supply of blood....
The truth revealed!
71) Political Words/Hypocrisy/Dan Schneider This is the 1st of a series of essays I am writing for submission to the website for my union AFSCME Local 2822: http://home.attbi.com/~afscme2822/ . In them I will discuss things of political interest to, especially, the working class. Whether or not the union decides to post them on their website, or in their newsletter, I will post them here on Cosmoetica. I consider myself a middle-of-the road Libertarian, politically, yet I resent how modern ‘Libertarians’ have co-opted & corrupted the term....
Ripping into more bullshit!
72) Education/Crisis/Dan Schneider Since the dawn of my existence I have been aware of this rudimentary fact- at least every election season: that American schools are a disaster, are in crisis, are in need of more funding, that the next generation is in ‘jeopardy’, etc. Oddly, politicians & parents only focus on this ‘issue’ during the fall elections. Why? Well, probably because the ‘crisis’ does not exist....
More BS. More ripping.
73) Labor's Future/Unionism/Dan Schneider In my working life I have belonged to 4 unions: 8 years as a member of the UFCW (United Food & Commercial Workers) when I worked at Finast Supermarkets, 3½ years as a Teamster working for Ste. Marie’s Gopher News, 5½ years in CWA (Communications Workers of America) while employed by AT&T, & currently a member of AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees) while employed by Hennepin County, Minnesota....
Their own worst enemy!
74) Wellstone's Death/Positivity/Dan Schneider 2 days ago Minnesota’s senior Senator Paul Wellstone, a Democrat, was killed in a small plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, along with his wife, daughter, 3 campaign workers, & the 2 pilots. He was campaigning hard in a fight against Republican ex-mayor of St. Paul, Norm Coleman. Some other minor party candidates were also involved but basically it was a dirty mud-slinging fight between the 2 main combatants....
The little engine that couldn't.
75) UFOs/A Review/Denise Clark The existence of extraterrestrials has long been a subject of heated debate between scientists, scholars and stargazers who've spent many an hour studying the night sky and the universe beckoning beyond. Scientific proof of whether distant life forms and existence are legitimate causes yet an addition bone of contention between UFOlogists and skeptics alike, and while it's easy to make jokes about Area 51 or Roswell, there is certainly a basis for those jokes and rumors....
Earth to Denise, answer your email!
76) Devil Or Saint?/Wellstone/Don Moss My midterm election Tuesday began early by calling the bluff of yet one more Wellstone/Mondale/DFL campaigner. Our house, and every house on Planet Minnesota, had already been door-knocked by, I forget how many, but several before and several since the terrible plane crash. The earlier ones were diverse, with Gays for Wellstone, Women for Wellstone, Welfare for Wellstone....
Jeanne D'Arc/Paul Wellstone: who had nicer tits?
77) Conservative Media/Myths?/Dan Schneider 1 of the great myths of recent decades is that of the ‘Liberal’ media. It has become probably the greatest of all ‘urban legends’. The basic genesis for this nonsense was in the addled crannies of President Richard Nixon’s paranoid mind. Dicky saw demons everywhere- out to savage him. That the media was just as down on his predecessor, President Lyndon Johnson, for both their conducts of the Vietnam War, was lost on the delusional Nixon. Of course, this led pretty directly to the Watergate break-ins....
Peter Jennings: $12 million a year man- flaming left winger!
78) Liberal Hypocisy/Exposure/Dan Schneider In a prior essay I detailed my disgust over the bastardization of such terms as Liberal, Conservative, & Libertarian. My beef was with how the current claimants to those terms bear little relation to the original meanings of those terms. For example, no true Liberal would support Political Correctness, no true Conservative would be against gay rights or abortion, & no true Libertarian would be against unfettering government constraints against corporations....
Beware the Unitarian Scourge! Hunt them, persecute them, shun them!
79) Gilligan, Oscar, & Felix/Classic TV/Dan Schneider While growing up I watched alot of tv- not more than your average kid, but that’s still alot. Some of the earliest tv shows I recall are those my mom & dad watched: The Lawrence Welk Show, The Carol Burnett Show, & other such variety shows. When I hit 4 or 5, though, I started watching shows on my own: Sesame Street, The Banana Splits, Underdog, & other Saturday morning kids shows come to mind. Then there were the repeats I would see in early evening. I believe my favorite hour was the 6-7 pm slot on WNEW- old Channel 5, now a New York City FOX- TV affiliate, but then an independent station. Or, it may have been WPIX- Channel 11- the station that, then, broadcast New York Yankees games. Nonetheless, I recall at 6 pm they would air the old wacky game show Beat The Clock, after which would follow the cornucopia of silliness that was Gilligan’s Island. A year or 2 later I would discover Star Trek....
2 scorned & neglected TV classics get their due.
80) George Wallace/The New South/Jason Sanford Minnesota is Alabama--which explains why shortly after George Wallace dies I'm climbing a tree outside the Twin Cities. Or maybe that doesn't explain anything. Perhaps I should say I'd originally driven up to the Minneapolis suburb of Fridley for a job interview--which is a big deal for a transplanted southern boy who never leaves the Twin Cities. In fact, my knowledge of outstate Minnesota is so weak that only after an hour of rush-hour traffic do I realize Fridley isn't that close to Minneapolis. Still, the money is good and if people from the suburbs can commute an hour to downtown, I can do the reverse. All I want is for the interview to go well. It doesn't. Upon hearing my accent, the jerk of a HR manager asks where I'm from. Alabama. He sniffs up and down, then mimics in a poor southern drawl, "Waaal, ah hear ol' Wallace passed away."....
Takes on an icon- pro & con.
81) Sex Myths/Feminist BS/Dan Schneider Imagine running in to an Anabaptist to who started spieling to you about quantum physics & his plan to build an interstellar starship so that his kind could migrate to a relatively nearby planet & once & all be rid of the bullshit that accompanies modern society. You’d be a little perplexed, wouldn’t you? I mean, 1st off- how could such a person, prohibited by his faith, ever have gotten the knowledge to even mildly discourse on the subject, much less speculate on it? 2ndly you’d ponder where & how he would get the materiel to bring fruition to his dream? & what kind of funding would he have secured- & how? Lastly you might wonder why this person would basically accept all these contradictions....
Andrea Dworkin's testicles are NOT mentioned within!
82) Anti-Anti-Smoking/A Crusade/Robert Levin "Do you smell that? Someone must be smoking in here. IS SOMEONE SMOKING IN HERE?" Yeah, someone is smoking in here. It's me. I'm smoking tenaciously and unapologetically. And the next fool who asks that question within earshot of me, I'm gonna spill his yogurt into his sneakers and scatter his lecithin granules. I know I'm expected to be contrite about my cigarette habit and that the unrepentant attitude I'm displaying is a source of consternation to you. You wonder how I justify it. Could I somehow remain ignorant of the jeopardy my cigarette puts you in? Well, I could remind you that studies from which you draw your ammunition--studies by the National Cancer Institute and the World Health Organization--have been shown to be less than reliable. I could point out that one of these studies was, in fact, deemed fraudulent by a federal court, and that the only certain instance of a smoker killing a nonsmoker was the stabbing of a California waiter who demanded that a restaurant customer extinguish his cigarette. I could get into this....
Bob Levin- Back with a vengeance!
83) Homosexuality/The Biases/Dan Schneider Let me state 1st off that I'm 100% for gay rights- adoption, marriage, military, housing, & think AIDS could've been nipped early on. But, it seems to me that neither gay nor straight people are willing to talk ‘straight’ about the real reasons so many folk- gay & straight- have misconceptions &/or misperceptions about various aspects of homosexuality. & I’m not gonna focus here on the origins of same sex lust & love. I’ve stated before that I do not buy either extreme position on that matter because both ultimately reduce the person in question to a lab rat status, & even the dumbest human is far more complex than the smartest rat. Simply stated, I think the reactionary takes on homosexuality do not wash....
Denuding some manifest fallacies.
84) Mama T & Elie/Evil's Helpers/ Dan Schneider Pop culture almost always does a horrid job of truly explicating the deeper meanings behind things. Too often things & people are thrown up as good or bad, & no real explanations follow. For instance, a Genghis Khan is almost synonymous with wholesale & wanton slaughter- yet the man was probably THE single most important human being of the last 1000 years. Trust me, I shall opine in that vein in a later essay. Similarly, a William Shakespeare is decried a near-deific genius & no real inquiry actually plumbs that assertion’s truth. Oddly, pop culture seems to care whether he was gay, or was himself, more than whether he was the flawless writer of legend. Even more modern icons suffer from the same fate: Adolf Hitler, Ted Bundy, & Osama bin Laden are now synonymous with evil....
A Mother- & a Weasel exposed!
85) Darlene Fife/Memoir/SuZi Small press publishing is more of an endeavor of honor than of financial reward. This is true especially in our current times when large American publishing houses are owned by megacorporations and companies home based outside the country; and whose intent is culture as a whole is one of fiscal profit rather than aesthetic value. So, it is especially noble that the small presses who do chose to continue, to print on paper and run the gauntlets of distribution and marketing, who keep making interesting publications available to those of us who love them; and even more impressive are the presses who publish without the institutional support of some university. Such a press is Mesechabe/The Surregional Press....
An unknown gets the hagiography treatment! 86) Michael Moore/Predictable Pap/Dan Schneider This past New Year’s Day Jessica & I went to see comedian & documentarian Michael Moore’s acclaimed doc called Bowling For Columbine. I left feeling a bit disturbed- not over the supposed ‘gun problem’ that MM (http://www.michaelmoore.com/) seems to think is ruining the USA, but over a greater problem that he shares in- the American problem with telling the truth- or its lack. Don’t get me wrong, the film is potent & GREAT propaganda- as agitprop it’s a 10 of 10, but as a piece of journalism, a true documentary, it’s about a 1 or 2.... All heart, no head, alas.... 87) Pop Babes/Yeowzah!/Dan Schneider After some of the more heavy-themed Bylines essays of late I resolve to, in this piece, go totally fluff. Well….I will start this piece off by stating that loneliness is 1 of the most frustrating of human conditions & emotions. At least when it visits you. When it visits others it can be uproariously funny. Such is the premise of the nationally syndicated TV show ElimiDate. 1 person dates (usually) 4 members of the opposite sex. It takes 3 rounds to 1-by-1 eliminate the 3 losers from the eventual winner, who gets the chooser’s affections. My wife & I started watching this show early last year.... Time for lighter things- like flotation devices. 88) The Hours/Feeding The Beast/Dan Schneider Yesterday Jess & I went to see the much-hyped film on Virginia Woolf, called The Hours, after a 1998 Pulitzer Prize crowned novel by Michael Cunningham. Let me admit I’ve never read VW, know little of her life, did not read the novel by MC, but did like Edward Albee’s play- although VW’s only appearance is in the title. But I was loath to venture to see yet another biopic about the dread ‘suffering artist’. I adamantly refused to accompany Jess a month or so ago when the wretched Mexican painter Frida Kahlo’s life was dramatized on the big screen, & am dreading the upcoming release of the Sylvia Plath film- boy, I’ll bet that will have us guessing whodunit?.... The nose knows very little, indeed! 89) Libs & Cons/More Bullshit/Dan Schneider In a recent essay by Fred Reed called ‘Small Poxes, A Study Of Left And Right’ the pundit tries to put a comic spin on the myopia that is expressed by both the left & right in this country. This sort of a humorous approach to dissecting the actual views of a group is a tried & true, if not trite, approach. Instead of rebutting the article outright, I’m gonna take a bit-by-bit dissection approach.... They never learn. 90) Miguel Piñero/The Truth/Dan Schneider Art should never be solely equated with truth. If it is it is dead. Biography, however, is a form of journalism which should not dicker with the facts. So, how to resolve the dissonance between the art of making a biographical film, & the truth of the subject matter? To see how difficult this is in the written world of biography 1 need only hearken back a few years to the furor over Edmund Morris’s biography on ex-President Ronald Reagan, called Dutch. EM had been lauded over earlier work, yet in Dutch he abandoned the journalist’s POV for that of ‘speculative fiction’- wherein totally made up people & events served as dramatic table setters for ‘real’ events. As apropos as this may have been for a film version of the life of this man who was lost in senile delusions.... Scum apotheosized & denuded. 91) The Cosmos/Opening Up/Dan Schneider In this essay I am going to take a lay approach to some of the basic points about science- specifically cosmology- the study of the cosmos. When I hit upon important terms I will define them. Too often in science essays a science writer will assume the reader knows some basic fact as a given. While I admire the sentiment to not condescend, in certain instances this can lead to a general disconnect between the writer & reader, where the latter merely grins & nods to themselves, in a pretense of understanding. That won’t be a problem here.... Pricking the balloons of the theorists. 92) Magic/Huh?/Ovidiu Bufnila What are we confronting with in the fictional space?! That's a troubling question that any magician with self-esteem should ask you. I've always wondered this. Is the magician a hero? Is he a hero of the imagination or of the reality? While running along this fragile border, I can't help noticing that neighborhoods announce the limit. The fiction game and the game of reality create an unsuspected whirl.... What he said, er, um.... 93) Raelians/Clones/Der Voron The time has come to unveil a mystery of the most recent past: the sect of Raelians. We believe our readers could understand what this sect really represents, a long time ago. If you did, then just don't read further and switch to more interesting stuff. And if you didn't, then I dare to believe that this article is for you.... Ditto! 94) John Sinclair/A Review/SuZi There are those of us for whom the homogenization of culture is an obscenity far exceeding that of taboo language; an offense in the exclusions created by the very marketing forces which promote unelected deities. Not all of us are willing to abide the perverse amnesia insisted upon by the purveyors of our cultural marketplace whose primary interest seems to be mind-numbing numbers of items sold. We live in an art world which, as critic Raphael Rubinstein says, is "commercialized, capitalized and institutionalized" and he says we are encouraged to forget the past.... Annotations galore! 95) Baseball 2003/Predictions/Dan Schneider No need for a lengthy exegesis off the bat. Here’s what I think the upcoming season will bring, as far as standings & playoffs. Then I’ll opine a bit why- in team capsule form.... Who will win? Check back in October! 96) Godlessness/AOK/Dan Schneider Why is it that fear crannies through the nooks of religiot’s every fiber? After all, the grandeur of the real world far surpasses that of any made up 1. Yet, still there is the religiot’s need to suck on the Almighty God-tit, despite logic & rationalism. That said, the atheist point of view is as silly as the theist’s. A negative can never be disproved so most atheism boils down to a childish snit against religion’s dark sway. Fortunately a better choice exists. Most call it agnosticism- literally to deny knowledge of, but I prefer the term irreligious- which implies that such thoughts, fears, & weaknesses have no place in my world. But why religion? The most obvious answer is the search for a First Cause, a Primum Mobile, a Reason, an answer to Why?.... The nipple of the God-Tit lactates. 97) Abortion/The Right Lies/Dan Schneider I was tempted to title this essay The Misogyny Of Anti-Abortionists but that is too obvious a statement. Far more unsettling is their utter detachment from the world of the real- hence the more clinical word- psychosis. Basically, anyone who has seen a fetus up close can attest to the fact that there are not many globs of cells running corporations, or barely formed 2 inch beings who can do a mean soft shoe. After all they’ve not been born yet! We do celebrate birthdays, not conceptiondays. These obvious facts were pointed out to me over a quarter a century ago.... Repeat after me: a fetus is a clump of cells.... 98) Atheism/The Raison/Joe Homrich Atheists are people who do not believe in the existence of gods, demons, elves, ghosts, unicorns or other mythical creatures whose existence is not proven by science or reason. Atheists do not believe that life has an arbitrary meaning assigned by some invisible agent. Instead, atheists believe that people must find meaning and purpose on their own.... God is out- but is all religion ABOUT God? 99) Religion Explained/A Review/Dan Schneider A few months back my best pal, let’s call him Joe, excitedly told me, over dinner, that he was ecstatic over a new book he’d read called Religion Explained, by Pascal Boyer. Actually, the full vitae on the book is Religion Explained, The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought (Copyright © 2001, Basic Books). Joe, who has long been even more anti-religious than I am, is a devout atheist- a point I’ve needled him over because of the stance’s illogic- 1 cannot disprove a negative, & all that. Nonetheless, Joe was rolling- this was after seeing the latest Star Trek film (another pet love of his)- & told me that the basic premise of the book is that this seeming societal need for religion is something pre-programmed in to the human brain.... Religion Explained- NOT! 100) The Dental Nazi/A Fairy Tale/Dan Schneider This past Thursday I went to a new dentist, near work in downtown Minneapolis, for the 1st time since switching jobs last year. Having regularly gone for checkups throughout my life I’ve witnessed the metamorphosis of the profession from late 1960s old-fashioned machinery to the ultra-high tech gadgets of today. Still, last Thursday’s experience was something I was unprepared for. Yes, there have been dental offices I’ve not liked before- but never had I encountered something so bizarre.... The horror, the horror.... 101) American Idol/Recap & Preview/Dan Schneider Late last summer I started to tune in & watch the last few episodes of what was then the hottest show on TV- Fox’s American Idol. Basically, this was a ‘reality’ TV show that harkened back to the many amateur hour contests in TV’s 1950s infancy. It also was a bit like the 1980s Star Search TV show, in that there was voting allowed by the public. AI proved so popular that it paved the way for a # of clone TV shows, including a revamped Star Search. Reality TV is in its 5th or 6th year of popularity.... Still time to hop on the Clay Train! 102) Political Websites/Report Card/Dan Schneider 1 of the most amazing things about the Internet is how such a potentially great medium, for advancing the best in human nature, debases itself. & I’m not just talking about the obvious stuff like porno sites, relentless spam, or the narcissistic blogs that proliferate daily. I mean most of the sites devoted to ‘correcting’ perceived errors in mainstream media sources. Most of these watchdog groups & individuals are often far more biased than their mainstream counterparts have ever been, yet they typically are blind to this obvious point.... Watching the Watchers! 103) Julian Jaynes/Breaking Down The Mind & Religion/Dan Schneider Recently I’ve been delving in to such matters as consciousness & religiosity- prompted by supplications from friends & acquaintances. I was snookered in to reading the book Religion Explained, by Pascal Boyer, by my best friend- an atheist- who longed to hear me praise the fallow & plodding tome. I did not, as my review of the book attests, because although I agreed with many of its takes on religion’s modern place in society, its theory was full of holes, & the writing was too self-congratulatory & dull. In turn, this led to my devoting a recent Omniversica radio show to the subject. During the show my co-host (or cohort?) Art Durkee mentioned a book he felt did alot better job at sorting out religion than the Boyer book did. The book he mentioned (& loaned to me to read) was Julian Jaynes’ The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind.... The man, the book, the in-between.... 104) Heroes & Villains/The AFI List/Dan Schneider Time for some fun. After another run of more deep, probing essays it’s time I have a little pop cultural fun. A week ago the American Film Institute held its 6th annual countdown list on the CBS network. The AFI has done best films, love stories, humor, among others, but this year took on the 100 best heroes & villains- 50 of each. Of course this is really just a 3 hour infomercial designed to drive VHS & DVD rentals & sales, but- who cares. Action superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger hosted the special & was delighted that his 2 turns as a Terminator android was the only character to make it into both lists.... Finger games galore! 105) Jack Foley/Searching For Gene Siskel/Dan Schneider (+ The Tears Of Jack Foley) This is another 1 of those essays where I must, upfront, reveal a small backstory so as to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions as to the verity of my viewpoint. A few years back, perhaps a year or so before I started Cosmoetica, I received 2 solicitations from the same magazine/organization- 1 by post mail & 1 via email. I believe the entity was known as The Temple, or something akin. Both entreaties painted the entity as a haven for your typical Left Wing artiste wannabe types.... Where hath the good critics gone? 106) How To Poetry Books/The Truth/ Dan Schneider Or perhaps I should have subtitled this piece ‘Shoot Me Before I Vomit!’ Breathe deeply, Dan. OK. Last year I picked up a couple of ‘How To’ books on poetry, just as a lark while perusing the used bookstores locally. People ask me- why do you buy bad books- especially of poems? My retort is that to defeat the enemy you must know the enemy. They really do write these types of books- unfortunately. 107) False Accusations/Plagiarism, etc./Dan Schneider A few days ago I happened to check an old email address of mine. I do so once a month just in case some emails of interest show up. Luckily there were a few that had been spam-filtered but retained. Unfortunately they were barely legible as they had been reduced to mainly that Wingding type font & only about a 1/3 of each email’s text was readable. There were no addresses, either, so I could not reply to any of the emails. While most was, indeed, spam, there were 2 bizarre emails- possibly from the same person, & I do not know how recent they were. Given their state I suspect they were filtered out for carrying some virus or bot. 1 just had a heading re: my Gilligan’s Island/The Odd Couple essay, but there was no text, & the 2nd was definitely about The Odd Couple bit. From what I could gather, this individual gave no name, save for pb & claimed I’d plagiarized my TOC essay.... I tattoo a major slimeball! 108) Invisible Forms/A Review/Dan Schneider Here’s 1 of the few positive book reviews you’ll ever read from me- yet it’s a book that celebrates the little noticed aspects of the book trade- things like marginalia, epigraphs, prefaces, 1st lines, etc. It came out in 1999 under the Picador imprint of Macmillan Books, & is called Invisible Forms, A Guide To Literary Curiosities by Kevin Jackson & is 300+ pages of informative & humorous writing.... A nifty little read! 109) The Player/Adaptation/Dan Schneider On a recent Omniversica radio show, indy filmmaker Josh Becker ripped into the recent film Adaptation as an example of a screenwriter really having no ideas & being self-indulgent. Actor/writer George Dickerson & I agreed, but Omniversica producer Dave Wesley argued for the film’s being something more inventive in the medium than he’s ever seen. I disagreed, feeling that this was just some bastard blend of Post-Modernism & Confessionalism, & that a work of art’s self-indulgence & bankruptcy are not obviated by admitting the piece is self-indulgent & bankrupt.... Untwisting Post-Modern BS! 110) Religion/Evil/Josh Becker I've just read the second article in two days about Mel Gibson's upcoming, self-financed film about the death of Jesus, "The Passion," and the controversy it's already causing before almost anyone has seen it. I just want to add in my two-cents' worth before I've seen it, either. In point of fact, I don't give a good Goddamn about Gibson's movie or Mel Gibson, for that matter. I think he's a third-rate director and a second-rate actor who's never had the ability to master his American accent.... The delusions, the visions.... 111) Kobe Bryant/White Lust/Dan Schneider As I write Los Angeles Laker & NBA superstar Kobe Bryant stands accused of raping a white teenager in Colorado. Now, I don’t wanna go into the sordid details that have been screamt out by the media for the past month or so. Either KB did it or did not.... Slap that man silly! 112) HMOs/The Bastards/Robert Levin Want to hear my definitions of "insurance fraud?² I'll tell you anyway. Insurance fraud is when an HMO sells you a policy at an exorbitant rate and then finds all manner of ways to frustrate your pursuit of benefits. Insurance fraud is when an HMO impedes access to procedures.... Ripping the rip-off artists! 113) 5 Films/On The Overlooked/Dan Schneider Recently I finished taping the 8th Omniversica radio show for Sursumcorda in which poets David Alpaugh & Frederick Glaysher read their poems. An avowed policy of mine is to not invite guests I do not think are bad artists. So, I did not read any of their poetry until after the show. Similarly, on the previous show I had not watched any of the films of writer/actor George Dickerson, nor those of filmmaker Josh Becker. After all- if they turned out to be Tor Johnson & Spike Lee, respectively, that would put me in a pickle.... Another gander at some interesting little flicks. 114) Predictions/2003 NFL/Dan Schneider On to the nitty-gritty. Last year the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won their 1st Super Bowl by routing the Oakland Raiders. Will the Bucs repeat? I tend to doubt it- but they could. Let’s, however, do as I did in my essay on baseball predictions & get the regular season & playoff predictions going. Then I’ll do a team-by-team capsule.... Daring the Fates again! 115) Shredd/A Review/SuZi The reaction against the mechanization of western Culture is synchronous with that of the increasing thralldom held by technology--a post industrial manifestation of humanity's peccadillo for tools, to which we are all, like it or not, in servitude. In our
Joseph Campbell lives! RUN! 116) Steven Pinker/The Blank Slate/Dan Schneider About a decade ago I 1st encountered the hirsute linguist Steven Pinker on an episode of the PBS interview show Thinking Allowed. It was a 3-part interview & I tuned in each week- so persuasive & direct were the man’s ideas on the mind & language. I read his later book How The Mind Works, & many other essays written for popular magazines. Unlike a Carl Sagan (who was wont to hyperbole), or a Stephen Jay Gould (prone to putting good science 2nd to poetic explication), SP seemed to strike the balance between the 2.... The hair, the hair.... 117) Dilemma/John Horgan & Buddhism/Dan Schneider A few years back John Horgan wrote 1 of the silliest books to be published in the last couple of decades. It was called The End Of Science. In it JH pontificated about how we puny humans are nearing a total understanding of almost all the major science. No matter that countless others have uttered similar sentiments for eons, that did not deter JH from declamations that this generation is far beyond earlier generations.... As Chicken(shit) Little crossed the road.... 118) Stephen King/On Writing/Dan Schneider A couple of weeks ago the wife came home from Barnes & Noble with several remaindered books. 1 of them was the titular book, which she read (in her efforts to become more pop-savvy, if not a better writer) & thought was good. She then wanted me to read it & review it. I do not share Jess’s enthusiasm for the book. Let’s face it- SK is known as a pulp writer for a reason: he is a pulp writer.... Searching for an editor.... 119) Art/The Questions/Jessica Schneider I have always believed that art, regardless of its form, is about communication. If you choose to remember this, it will (at least for some) make the creative process a whole lot easier. And with the decline of quality in the art world (at least since Postmodernism) most of it can be attributed to the need for people, and artists more specifically, to place themselves into a group. Usually this involves the use of the horrid –ism.... What? Where? Why? 120) Entanglements/Memories/Dan Schneider About 4 years ago I was tooling around the city of Minneapolis on a weeknight evening. The sun had set & I believe it was late summer/early autumn. I forget whether I was on my way home or killing time on the way to meet someone. Nonetheless, I stopped in at the Cub Foods supermarket off of Minnehaha Avenue. I don’t recall whether I was looking to buy something or merely dawdling.... What marks strings leave behind. 121) Euthanasia/Pass the Gas!/Dan Schneider I’ve found that people tend to hate you more when they fairly lose an argument to you, rather than when they feel you’ve somehow cheated. Bizarre, you may think. But chew on this- you’re presumed ‘duplicity’ gives the losing party an ‘out’ to not deal with their own failure(s) because you, after all did not play by the rules. Therefore, they lost not because they were bad at something, but because they ‘wuz robbed’. Of course, this is the essence of the rationalization process.... Is this a no-brainer, or what? 122) Conspiracies/JFK-UFOs/Dan Schneider My friend Don Moss, an excellent writer & poet, once commented to me on the abundance of the terms within & without in my poetry. He felt that I relied to heavily on such, especially in my Le Bestiaré poem series. I tended to agree, but since the poems focused primarily on the differences between the percipients’ inner & outer world, it was a motif I had accepted as part & parcel of that particular series. However, in most of life’s endeavors the real truth of the thing generally does not lie at such extremes, but- rather- lies in the middle- call it Occam’s Area. Of course, most know what Occam’s Razor is- it’s the generally accepted wisdom that the simplest answer that best fits the known facts to a problem or inquiry is usually the correct 1. I’ll delve into this apothegm later in the essay. I start off this essay with this premise because I believe it to be true- especially when used to describe mysteries & conspiracies.... The pros & cons.... 123) Randomness/Consequences/Dan Schneider The other day I was in a bookstore, thumbing through yet another of the endless books on how to get rich quickly, & I was struck by the notion that the real impetus to foist these sorts of scams upon people was not only about trying to rip people off, but to try to assuage people that ‘luck’ or ‘randomness’ is not as pervasive as we all know it to be in our lives. I believe this is also 1 of the pillars of religious nonsense, but the urge to deny or diminish randomness is spread across the whole of modern life.... Roll the bones! 124) Mona Lisa Smile/A Review/Dan Schneider Yesterday Jess & I spent our Xmas going to see what I felt was gonna be an afternoon watching a clits & tits version of the wretched Dead Poets Society. We did. The film was the utterly banal, predictable, & clichéd film Mona Lisa Smile. Like so many of the ‘good teacher’ films that preceded it we have the good- read, free-spirited liberal- teacher battling the forces of evil in the Dark Ages of the Eisenhoverian 1950s. Teacher is beloved by most of the students, hated by the management, eventually changes lives, but pays a price.... All that 'tang, so little twang! 125) Jesus Christ/Myth or Man?/Dan Schneider I start this essay 2 days before Christmas in 2003 A.D. (Anno Domini- literally Latin for in the year of the Lord). It is a few weeks since I posted a major essay detailing the stature of 2 of 20th Century America’s most perduring mythic events- the assassination of President John F. Kennedy & belief in UFO Alien Abductions. The essay has gotten alot of hits- more than just about any other essay or post in Cosmoetica history. To use the cliché- it seems to have struck a chord. In that essay I wielded a very handy tool- Occam’s Razor- to show that an unbiased look clearly indicates a conspiracy in the murder of JFK, while the same sort of logic dictates that delusion is the cause for belief in alien abductions. Now, I will apply the same dictates of logic to the Jesus myth.... Those wacky Christians & the head against the wall thing! 126) Sexual Repression/Britney & Pedophilia/Dan Schneider Britney Spears has recently been everywhere. This nubile, but talent-challenged, lip-syncher- er, singer (& ex-New Mouseketeer), has made more headlines for a lesbo lip-lock with Madonna, her show of more & more skin on every succeeding magazine cover, & her long list of male companions, than any actual show of talent. Apparently, she is the heir to Julia Roberts’, Princess Diana’s, Jackie Kennedy’s, & Marilyn Monroe’s claims to top pop female icon of the world.... Next week- Britney & midget eunuchs.... 127) Chuck Barris/Dangerous?/Dan Schneider I recently stumbled across a used DVD copy of George Clooney’s 1st film as director, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, at a Hollywood Video. I had heard good things about the film, but was wary for several reasons.... The man, the machine.... 128) Atanarjuat/Eskimo Porno/Dan Schneider The other day I watched the DVD of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner I had picked up used at Blockbuster for less than $7. I wasted my money. I bought in to the hype surrounding this very bad 2001 film.... Beyond the Arctic Circle lies....dullness. 129) Unionism/The Problems/Dan Schneider The stereotype of why unionism has for the most part failed in this nation has to do with outdated notions of corruption, Mafia involvement, racketeering (Teamsters & Longshoremen), & radical politics (UMW & Wobblies). This is & is not true.... Not what you might think. 130) Oprah Winfrey/Angel Or Demon?/Dan Schneider As I embark on this essay my wife, Jessica, warns me not to come off as a bully in my rebuke of the mononominally known subject of this essay. I retort, ‘How in the hell can I bully a billionaire who outweighs me by several 100 lbs.?’ As I finish typing the 1st sentence my wife enters, reads it & recants.... The fangs come out when you least expect it. 131) The Butterfly Effect/A Review/Dan Schneider The epigraph to this article is from my poem called The Barber and is an illustration of the butterfly effect. This is a belief that small actions can have large consequences down the road, or- as popularly phrased- ‘A butterfly flapped its wings 60 years ago in Brazil, and today an earthquake hit China.’ This nostrum was first uttered.... Kelso does Bradbury! 132) John Stossel/Great or Grating?/Dan Schneider In the 1970s I recall watching John Stossel as a consumer advocate foe WABC-TV in New York. He seemed to be a less sensationalistic Geraldo Rivera. Oy! What a quarter century has wrought. Now, as one of the mainstays on ABC’s 20/20 JS has become little more than a shill for corporate America. Granted, his network’s news division has become a joke over the last year or 2, what with several ‘news’ specials about a mythic personage (Jesus Christ) and a fictive account of the JFK Assassination last November.... ABC- sinking lower & lower.... 133) Reflections/Hacks/Dan Schneider A few months ago several people urged me to start writing memoirs of my life. In addition they urged me to start placing some prose pieces on websites other than my own Cosmoetica. The reasoning was to widen name recognition for a potential reading audience for the memoirs. ‘Twas sound advice and I’ve taken up the calls for both the memoirs and writing for other sites. In looking about online I’ve been appalled at the utter lack of writing ability.... Strange, very strange.... 134) Website/Ranking Info/Dan Schneider In the middle of last year someone suggested I check out a site called Alexa.com. It was a website that ranked other sites for popularity. The catch was you had to download their toolbar. The toolbar itself is pretty neat.... What the ____? 135) Chick Lit/Oy!/Jessica Schneider I admit that I don’t always match the color of my purse with that of my shoes. No big deal, right? But in a Chick-Lit novel, this is a travesty. I used to think that literarily, we were standing on the precipice of a very large abyss. But after familiarizing myself with the genre known as Chick-Lit, I realize that we are actually at the bottom.... Pass the Grey Poupon. 136) Esteem/On The Job/Bruce Ario When I was growing up, I thought from time-to-time about what I wanted to be when I grew up. What kid doesn’t? There were a lot of variations in what I thought I’d become which corresponded to my changing age. I considered everything from president to pro-hockey player and everything between.... The right way to do things. 137) Osama & Dana Gioia/2 Of A Kind?/Dan Schneider I have dispensed of any opening courtesy for you are an evil & (perhaps even worse) shortsighted man. Would a ‘Dear Osama’, ‘Yo, Big O!’, or ‘Your Most Repulsiveness’ really do in a missal whose import is of such magnitude? You see, I understand you, & your sort- I’ve known killers, rapists, drug dealers, crooked cops, & that ilk all my life.... The King Of The Moslem World & Sugar Daddy Gioia- Together Again!
On to enemy #1....
138) Baseball/2004 Predictions/Dan Schneider Last year at this time my predictions were hit & miss. The only National League team playoff team which was 1 I predicted were the San Francisco Giants, who ran away with the West....
Readying the chaw!
139) Straight Talk/Queer Things/Dan Schneider As a white heterosexual male there are some people who would state that that fact disqualifies me from opining on anything non-white, non-heterosexual, & female. Of course, this obviates any ideas of intellect, imagination, & empathy. Since I disagree, here goes. I want to address homosexuality in a much more plainspoken & less histrionic way than members of the far left & right do....
Moderation is almost always the key.
140) Willful Misreading/The Art Of Jack Foley/Dan Schneider 1 of the most silly things that a person can do when discussing another’s writing is to willfully misread. Of course, misreadings occur all the time- too often it’s in the vein where bad writers are praised, & this is almost always willful misreading because the misreader is trying to be a proponent of the writing- not a critic. The usual reason for this is because the reader is also in the position of being a possible subject of the criticized’s pen at a later date....
The art of reading the misread....
141) Capitalism/Fixing What Ails/Dan Schneider People think too dualistically. There are people who feel that any good things said about capitalism are evidence of a cold Simon Legreevian heart, while there are those that bristle over the pointing out of capitalism’s manifest failures. The truth is that capitalism, as a system, has failed so convincingly that there really & truly are no capitalistic states in the world....
Stating The Obvious So Few Do!
142) American Electorate/Cowardly Bastards/Dan Schneider 4 years ago Americans had a chance to really show that they meant it when they wanted ‘real change’ in politics. The outgoing President was Constitutionally barred from seeking reelection, and the 4 main contenders from the 2 major parties offered striking choices to the electorate- not just between themselves, but within their own party affiliation....
2000 all over again?
143) Condoleezza Rice/National Joke/Dan Schneider Perhaps it’s just me, but after watching National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission I was struck by the fact that despite her impressive c.v. the woman is just plain dumb. Quick funny- What do the Bush Administration & New York City Transit Authority have in common? Answer- They both rely on tokens....
& you didn't believe me?
144) Bush's Woes/Self-Inflictions/Dan Schneider As I watched President Bush’s speech & news conference the other day I was struck by how easily he could have been a character from some Samuel Beckett play. I mean, here the man is 3½ years into his Presidency, a year removed from what is now obvious to all but him & his shrinking coterie as an unnecessary war....
He never learns....
145) A Few Dollars More/A Plaint/SuZi Having relocated residency this past fortnight, it had previously seemed logical to plan for a local sale...logical until the actual handling of possessions in the packing process. The decision to not endeavor to have the domestic goods pawed by skeptical strangers for the sake of a few dollars was born more of exhaustion than any sense of arrogance....
Hitting the heads....
146) The Love Song Of Chester Whitherspoon/Fiction/George Dickerson He was out there now. Out on the ledge. Seated, but teetering four stories up. Drinking a cup of coffee. Waiting for lift-off. At first, it had been a whim. Chester had crawled out to test his destiny....
The Wise & The Weary....
147) The Man Who Loved Butterflies/Fiction/George Dickerson It was a perfect day for a kidnapping. Eric Johnson stood on his balcony and looked out over Beirut. The pall of smoke from burning buildings had lifted. The sun acetylene-torched St. George's Bay. Palm fronds along the Mediterranean shore chattered rumors in the light breeze....
What words roll off....
148) Bush/The Bind/Dan Schneider Sitting Presidents are always subject to criticisms fair and not. Our current President is no different. Usually the charges made by the other party are the standard ones any opposing party would hurl- they have truths and untruths admixed liberally within. Rare is it, though, that the charges are both damning and almost certainly true in toto....
Pass the dunce cap!
149) American Idol/The Lowdown/Dan Schneider Recently the Fox Network’s top hit American Idol ended its 3rd season on the air, amidst assorted charges ranging from racism to favoritism. Some of the many charges are true & others are not. I’ll touch upon some as I go along. I started watching the show during the last few episodes of its 1st season when Kelly Clarkson defeated a bizarre Sideshow Bob look-alike named Justin Guarini in the finals....
Simon Cowell as Sugar Daddy!?
150) Slick Willy/Who Loves Ya, Baby?/Dan Schneider A week or 2 after George W. Bush assumed the Presidency in early 2001 I was struck with the vision of a disastrous 4 years that lay ahead. Granted, I did not foresee 9/11 specifically, nor am I claiming Nostradaman talents, but given W’s, well- stupidity....
Rearview blues.
151) Kill Bill, Vol. 2/Heat/Dan Schneider A week from last Saturday was a day of violence in my home. In the early afternoon my wife & I caught a matinee of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Vol. 2., & in the evening I watched the DVD of Heat- Michael Mann’s 1995 crime extravaganza. Unfortunately, both films were underwhelming- not only as works of art but as, well, action films....
A weekend lost to violence.
152) Bob Dylan/Background/Don Moss The genius of B. Dylan that so many, usually, guys, claim, particularly boomers, has always left me wondering where they were during English class, or if they still show people their high school letter in football or track, that sort of thing....
Out of tune but in style!
153) Aural/Ecstasies/Art Durkee Sometimes I think about what people hear, when listening to music like this. Some of this list is ecstatic music, a lot of it pretty out on the fringe (to some ways of thinking), and some of it is soulful. Or all of the above....
From whither?
154) Review/Y Tu Mama Tambien/Dan Schneider I bought a used DVD of Y Tu Mama Tambien (the uncut version) quite a few months ago, but never quite got around to watching it till recently. The 2002 film got generally rave reviews from most critics for being ‘frank’ in its sexuality- with some seeing it as a triumphant coming out story of young homosexuals, while others saw it as a literate sort of Porky’s. The truth splits the difference....
Porky's- Andale, Andale!
155) Review/Lost In Translation/Dan Schneider All men recall a woman from their past that sticks in their mind, not as some drop dead gorgeous goddess nor as some hideous dog that made them want to retch, but simply because they were in some way, however minor, interesting. That interestingness may have been their looks, their quirks, their persona, or some indefinable ‘otherness’. Well, that’s what the film Lost In Translation is- it’s not a bad film, nor nearly as good as its reputation proclaims, but it is unlike just about any other Hollywood or indie film to come down the pike in the last few decades....
Potential not yet realized.
156) Review/Fahrenheit 9/11/Dan Schneider Fahrenheit 9/11, by Michael Moore, is yet another example of a potentially talented artist taking the easy way out. There is no doubt that MM has few peers in agitprop, but he has become a magnificent filmmaker, as well. He understands how to truly manipulate an audience without resorting to the cheese of a Steven Spielberg....
If only he loved art....
157) Review/Spider-Man 2/Dan Schneider The dread franchise film has killed off many a potentially interesting character (Superman, Batman, Ripley, Rocky) & given leases of life to characters that are paper-thin (Indy Jones, Jason Voorhees, Catwoman). The latest franchise film is Spider-Man 2, directed by Sam Raimi. The 1st Spider-Man was probably the best comic book film ever made....
No need for RAID!
158) The Da Vinci Code/A Review/Dan Schneider Dear Dan Brown, I recently finished your mega-seller The Da Vinci Code at the prodding of my wife. I have to be up front- it’s a really bad book- not horrible, merely really bad in the way most off the rack ‘thriller’ books are....
A Dan-To-Dan Letter!
159) Sportswriting/Lists/Dan Schneider Sportswriting is a dismal art. Generally a sportswriter is a bad prosist who relies far too heavily on clichés, unnecessary ellipses….for poorly constructed sentences & paragraphs (a habit started in the early 20th Century by Red Smith, perpetuated by Dick Young, & kept alive by nearly every new sportswriter to emerge in print in the last 25 years), & an absolute tunnel vision re: the rest of the cosmos....
The dismal art?
160) Lipstick Woody Allens/Reviews/Dan Schneider In the last couple of years there have been 2 romantic comedies written by women which evoke Woody Allen’s Golden Era comedies from 1977-1992. The highly praised Kissing Jessica Stein, about a female Jewish New Yorker who takes a crack at lesbianism, & the other almost straight-to-video film Amy’s O....
Angst with breasts.
161) Patriot Act/Pat Tillman/Dan Schneider Since 9/11 there have been all sorts of justifications for the star chamber mentality & duplicity of the Bush Administration. Most often they are boiled down into a canard like, ‘In this post-9/11 era all previous models for dealing with war & civil liberties have to be tossed out.’ This assumes that Moslems are fundamentally different from other humans....
Rambo or Dumbo?
162) Memoirs/Eggers & McCourt/Dan Schneider As I’ve recently been working on my own memoirs, at the behest of others, I have gotten around to reading quite a few memoirs of others. Without doubt, they have been uniformly poor books- either flat-out terribly written or with solid writing, but horribly edited. I have read memoirs that tell others how to write memoir, memoirs about ‘traumatic’ events and lives (read- melodramatic), memoirs about non-traumatic lives (read-dull), and memoirs apparently written for no other reason that a publisher trying to gull the reading public into believing its subject’s, a minor celebrity’s, life is worth caring about.....
Oy!
163) DVDs/Commentary/Dan Schneider Last year I interviewed indy filmmaker Josh Becker on my Internet radio show & he made this cogent point regarding the recently aired tv miniseries about Adolf Hitler. He complained that nowhere in the script was there even an attempt to understand what drove Hitler or- more importantly- what drove the German people to follow him to depravity....
Not too meta-.
164) 'Tis/Frank McCourt/Dan Schneider I finally got around to reading Frank McCourt’s 1999 memoir follow up to his 1996 mega-selling Angela’ Ashes called ‘Tis- which was the last 1 word chapter in AA....
'Twas?
165) Bush/Klaatu/Dan Schneider The other day I bought the DVD of one of my favorite all-time films: The Day The Earth Stood Still. In watching it I was struck by how relevant this sci fi classic from over 50 years ago is to today’s political milieu. In brief, a flying saucer lands in Washington, D.C.....
If only....
166) The Void/Unemployment/Dan Schneider I’ve been unemployed over a year now. Fortunately, my wife secured work a few months back & we are doing ok. Still, there is a great deal of frustration & anger. I get sick & tired of people euphemizing how terrible things are economically. It doesn’t matter if corporate profits are up if there are no jobs- especially decent, if not good- 1s being created....
Turning Bush's 4 corners back to Square 1!
167) Vision/The X Prize/Dan Schneider The Ozymandias Syndrome is what I call people or events that people obsessed with the now indulge in. Basically, many believe that such & such thing is of major import & relevance, yet even with a few years distance things clarify. To use past examples- doesn’t the impeachment of Bill Clinton over fellatio seem utterly silly, now? Even to those who brought the charges against him? Not only was it a waste of money....
When Osama & W are ?'s.
168) Pete Hamill/Filling The Gap/Dan Schneider A few months back a friend of mine mailed me a large box full of books he no longer wanted. Not wanting to let them molder on some old used bookstore’s shelves he felt I could get some use out of them. As I have wended my way through the piles I came upon a slim volume (160 pages) of short stories called Tokyo Sketches, by Pete Hamill. He had bought the book some years earlier....
What fiction should be.
169) Super Size Me/Review/Dan Schneider Morgan Spurlock is everything Michael Moore pretends to be as a documentarian. I recently caught his documentary Super Size Me at a budget theater & hope the DVD will have many features. For those who don’t know SSM is the best political documentary this year....
Michael Moore, eat your- wait, scratch that!
170) John Mack/Dead Since When?/Dan Schneider There’s something unsavory about a person using their credentials in one area of life to leverage power, influence, or respect, in another. The first instance that comes to mind is writer Maya Angelou calling herself a doctor because she has received honorary doctorates degrees from many universities over the years. Don’t get me wrong- this is an issue apart from her horror as a poet....
Elvis has left the observatory!
171) Election 2004/The Debates/Dan Schneider I write this piece the day after the final Presidential debate of 2004. I now know who who’s gonna win the election & who I am voting for. John Kerry. The Green Party. Yes, Kerry won this debate, & the other 2, & Senator John Edwards defeated Vice President Dick Cheney in the VP tilt....
Kerry or Bush?
172) Love Actually/Reviewed/Dan Schneider The good thing about DVDs is that, aside from superior audiovisual quality, the extras that come with them can be engaging, more often than worthless. Usually, the best extras on a DVD are the film commentary tracks, and the making of featurettes....
Airports & Christmas.
173) Val Kilmer/Overview/Dan Schneider Val Kilmer is both one of the best film actors going & one of the most disappointing. In films such as The Doors, Tombstone, & The Salton Sea he shows a depth of character insight rare amongst contemporary actors, yet in films like Heat, Batman, & Wonderland it seems that 1 or 2 little things separate his performances from being great and plunge them into the terrible category....
Lizard King or Batman?
174) Ronald Reagan/The Puppet/Dan Schneider No, not the 1 that he preferred Huggies over Depends- but the 1 about winning the Cold War….Anyway, late last year there was a brouhaha over a telefilm called The Reagans that was to air on the CBS network. Right Wingers were agog that the film reputedly had the audacity to portray ex-First Lady Nancy Reagan as a bitchy domineering shrew and ex-President Ronald Reagan as a senile puppet of Right Wing Masters who did not seem to realize the difference between being the President & acting the President....
Diaper rash did it?
175) Jesus & DSL/Democratic Despair/Dan Schneider A few days after the recent Presidential election I had to bring my 2 cars into a local Kwik Lube to get oil changed and pass the annual auto inspection. Since it would take about a half hour I decided to walk around the neighborhood in this Austin, Texas suburb. As I did, with the sun barely peeking over the treetops, I was struck by several things....
Need I do all the thinking?
176) Full Frontal/DVD Review/Dan Schneider More than any other name brand director Steven Soderbergh switches his style and filmic vocabulary to suit the story at hand that he wants to tell. In no film is this more evident than in his overlooked 2002 film Full Frontal. Filmed on a shoe string between his larger budgeted remakes of Ocean’s 11 and Solaris, this film was almost universally panned by critics. No, it’s not one of the greatest films ever made, but it’s certainly not as bad a film as panned, nor a bad film at all.
In or out?
177) The Kid Stays In The Picture/Review/Dan Schneider The Kid Stays In the Picture is another in a series of stylistic documentaries over the last few years that seems to be reinvigorating the form by using different narrative and filmic techniques in service to a story. In Winged Migration it was an interplay of raising birds from hatchlings, mixing great flying footage with special effects, in The Fog Of War it was juxtaposing a man’s life....
But, can he act?
178) The Fog Of War/Review/Dan Schneider Errol Morris came to fame in the late 1980s with his anti-police corruption documentary The Thin Blue Line, and has spent the last couple decades gracing cinephiles with controversial, yet distinguished, films. Last year’s Oscar-winning documentary The Fog Of War: Eleven Lessons From The Life Of Robert S. McNamara is his best yet, and one of the best films- documentary or not- ever made....
Why must wisdom come so late to many?
179) Social Security/Reform Myths/Dan Schneider Ever since President George W. Bush narrowly won re-election there has been talk of his ‘ambitious second term agenda’. While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (especially) are front burner items, on the domestic front there have been three foci: ‘Tax Reform’- which basically means a call for a more flat, or non-progressive tax (guess what?, favoring the rich), possible Supreme Court nominations- with the fear that Bush will try to pack the Court with myopic ‘Strict Constructionists’, who seem to not get that the Constitution is a document whose very vagueness of wording was to allow for the most liberal interpretation of its tenets, and what is touted as ‘Social Security Reform’- which, like Tax Reform, is ultimately geared to helping out the rich, specifically Wall Street brokers, who have been slavering for decades to get their hands on the poor and working classes’ often only tangible asset- their Social Security trust funds- via privatization....
Truth or dare?
180) Democrats/Image/Dan Schneider The people of America have spoken- and in a de facto landslide. President Bush seems to have been re-elected, winning Florida comfortably, and Ohio, as well. Democrats are pondering why? Putting aside the fact that polls now seem absolutely meaningless, and more people in this country want Bush, Democrats must recognize that more people than not care about distraction issues like Partial Birth Abortion....
The Style Is Substance Gambit!
181) What The #$*! Do We Know/Review/Dan Schneider Recently, on a visit from my mother-in-law, I was surprised that she wanted to take me and my wife to see a documentary film about ‘quantum physics’. The surprise came from the fact that she is far more wont to New Agey beliefs than either of us. The film was called What the #$*! Do We Know? After seeing it I understand why my mother-in-law was interested in this ‘physics film’- because it’s not about physics....
It's all so clear now!
182) Bernard Kerik/The Hero Fallacy/Dan Schneider Since 9/11 there has been the resurrection of a most dangerous myth- that is that all policemen, if not authority figures, are good and heroic. While it’s undeniable that certain cops and fireman on 9/11 displayed heroism the query must be posed- does that mean they were heroes? Were those unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time heroes? If a cop was on the take for years, or beat minority suspects in dark alleys, or police basements, is his slate wiped clean....
Joe Friday, he ain’t!
183) Alone In The Wilderness/Review/Dan Schneider A while back I turned on my tv to PBS and was entranced by a documentary called Alone In The Wilderness, which followed a man named Richard L. ‘Dick’ Proenneke on an odyssey of his to tough it out virtually alone in the Alaskan wilderness. The film was based upon the read journal entries of Dick....
Dick Proenneke- a real man’s man!
184) Discourse/The Decline/Dan Schneider Many years ago I would, in my pre-teens and teens, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, watch the occasional debates on tv that were aired on PBS. This was long before cable tv rose to prominence and C-Span broadcast such things as political fora. My favorite such show was the William F. Buckley Firing Line debates, not because I agreed with Buckley’s views....
E Pluribus unum?
185) Difference/Indifference?/Jean Migrenne Over the last decades, distinguished scholars from Universities both American and European have regularly met, often at the Sorbonne, to discuss issues related to African American literature and culture, in a transatlantic context. Always pertinent, extremely well-documented, often challenging, their papers fly high above personal, individual experience unless when related to famous names in the fields of art, music or literature....
The cases or causes?
186) Edward Hirsch/Swallowing?/Dan Schneider Edward Hirsch is 1 of those, at best, mediocre poets that has ensconsed himself into a position of some power in the small, incestual world of poetry. The Demon And the Angel is a book that claims to query into the reason for the Muse- or, as its subtitle proclaims, Searching For The Source Of Artistic Inspiration. The problem is that someone as EH is utterly clueless as to such provenance since he’s never displayed a hint of its acquaintance in his own work....
Bend or shake?
187) Desert Solitaire/Edward Abbey/Dan Schneider In 1968 Edward Abbey wrote a memoir, Desert Solitaire, A Season In The Wilderness, that would instantly be hailed as a nature classic, as well as his bestselling work. While familiar with EA’s name the only work of his I’d read up to this point was a woeful collection of the man’s ‘poetry’. Believe me, when I say there’s a definite reason for the quotes around the word poetry....
The man or da man?
188) Memories/Anime/Dan Schneider I had long suspected that the American geeky infatuation with Japanese animation (aka Japanimation or anime) stemmed from the same impulses that veered Western Intellectuals into the Eastern Mystical religions. To me, anime was merely the new name for the poorly animated cartoons that proliferated in this country back in the 1960s wave of cartoons....
More than Gigantor!
189) Big Fish/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Tim Burton is such a predictable director of films that even when, on the surface, he seems to be stretching himself, he’s actually merely distorting art towards his own relentlessly immature aesthetic. In a sense he’s the dark filmic counterpoint to Steven Spielberg’s gauzey light pabulum....
What lacks?
190) Moral Politics/Book Review/John Birkbeck If you've read Professor George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives" and seen the companion DVD (both available as BuzzFlash premiums), you'll want to read the second edition of the seminal book that laid out his premise for the "framing" strategies he is now recommending....
Good, bad, & ?
191) Capturing The Friedmans/DVD Review/Dan Schneider This documentary film by Andrew Jarecki, founder of Moviefone, is simply one of the best ever made. It does everything a documentary should- ask questions, provide insights, and allow a viewer to draw their own, if differing, conclusions. The film started out as a short film on New York City clowns, following the lifestyle of Silly Billy- played by David Friedman. During the course of filming Jarecki found out that Friedman’s brother and father, Jesse and Arnold Friedman, were convicted pedophiles- which makes the viewer wonder about David’s chosen profession....
Smiles or tears?
192) I Am Legend/Review/Dan Schneider For some reason I’ve never been able to get the image of Vincent Price out of my head, especially from his role in the 1964 Italian film called The Last Man On Earth, based upon the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend. Yes, seven years later another film, The Omega Man, with Charlton Heston, was made from the book, but the Price film is both better and more faithful to the source material. Here is how I described the images of Price in a sonnet called Vincent Price In The Drapery Folds....
Great novel.
193) The Mayor Of Sunset Strip/Review/Dan Schneider Alchemy tries to get something from another thing, magic tries to get something from nothing. These ideas stuck in my mind watching The Mayor Of Sunset Strip- a documentary about a cipher of a man named Rodney Bingenheimer, and his coterie of even less significant hangers-on. Rodney’s a famed DJ at Los Angeles radio station KROQ, credited with discovering acts such as Blondie, No Doubt, and Coldplay. However, he seems a dinosaur in his field, reduced to just one two-three hour gig on early Sunday mornings....
Oh, Rodney!
194) Iraq/The Couch Potato's Burden/Dan Schneider War is horrible, among the worst of all human actions, yet there are times it is just, called for, and necessary. In American history the Union cause against the Confederacy was just, ennobled by the drive against slavery. So were the Allies in World War II, against Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Fascism. However, not many wars can claim to be relatively clear cut as those two. There are Southern apologists who cling to the myth ‘State’s Rights’ caused for the Rebellion, and those who mitigate Axis aggression by citing the harsh Treaty of Versailles as ultimate catalyst....
The Boy Who Cried Wolf- GAGGED!
195) House Of Sand And Fog/Review/Dan Schneider Having watched old-time movie serials and pro wrestling for most of my life, as well as soap operas for the last quarter-century I have become something of an expert in the forms of drama and melodrama. The primary difference between the two is that drama is fairly serious and straightforward, and the narrative unfolds over the real reactions of well-developed characters to given situations, whereas melodrama tends to rely on stereotypes, archetypes, and caricatures, and forces climaxes at certain points in a narrative- which is always propelled by the stupidity of the characters....
Pass the paper bag!
196) Spartan/DVD Review/Dan Schneider For some reason David Mamet has been wildly overpraised as 1st a playwright, then a filmmaker. This is not to say that he’s not good, & better than typical playwrights & filmmakers, just that he’s not nearly as good as others think he is. Spartan is a good example of typical Mamet- better than your typical thriller, yet still missing something....
Gray away!
197) Dirty Pretty Things/DVD Review/Dan Schneider You know a film is in trouble when, while listening to the DVD commentary track, the director admits he hasn’t got a clue what the title means. That’s exactly what director Stephen Frears admits on the commentary track of the DVD for Dirty Pretty Things, an oddly overpraised film from 2003....
Urban Legendry!
198) Life Of Pi/Review/Dan Schneider Having been raised by Great Depression Era parents I was steeped, as a child, in that greatest of all sins- waste. This sin is most noticeable in contemporary writing. I have railed for years against the prose broken into lines that passes for poetry these days, not stating it’s prose merely because it lacks music, but because it goes counter to the notion of concision as a poetic ideal- the most said in the fewest words. Of course, real prose is not immune to the sin of waste. Contemporary memoirs, such as Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius go on for hundreds of pages when they lack the well written paragraphs and actual story to fill even a ten page short story....
Root for the tiger!
199) The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The 1950s were the Golden Age of schlock sci fi films- ranging from films so bad they’ve become classics- Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Robot Monster, to some better than expected films like The Brain From Planet Arous, and Them. It’s the first set of films that is taken aim at by the film The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra- replete with actors playing bad actors, who recite intentionally bad dialogue, that’s repeated ad nauseam, as well as bad special effects and a determined ‘humanitarian message’. This spoof of such films was written, directed, and starred in by Larry Blamire....
I sleep!
200) The Cooler/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Maria Bello is 1 of the sexiest & most interesting actresses around. She’s not a superstar, but consistently delivers the goods in films not worthy of her talents. Perhaps the only vehicle I’ve ever seen that did her talents justice is the cult tv series Nowhere Man- where she appeared in an episode as the lead character’s love interest. In The Cooler, she portrays Natalie Belisario....
Maria Bello- yummy!
201) Major League Baseball/2005 Predictions/Dan Schneider Having recently seen the steroid scandal brought before Congress I can say that nothing can cure the game like a great season, after the shame that a number of baseballers- most notably home run kings Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire- have brought it....
Steroids and more!
202) The Village/DVD Review/Dan Schneider I’m weird. I seem to be the only person who recognizes how poorly written M. Night Shyamalan’s films are. Is it because I’m a Hitchcock aficionado? No. I just have an ability to read narrative arcs and see where things are going. It was obvious that Bruce Willis was dead in The Sixth Sense, that Samuel L. Jackson was the bad guy in Unbreakable, and that, well, Signs sucked altogether....
Oooh....scary....NOT!
203) Mystic River/DVD Review/Dan Schneider It is a truism in the world of soap opera (the purest form of modern melodrama) that the characters must always do the dumbest possible thing to propel the story forward. While this is not egregious in melodrama, it is so in drama. Yet, a large portion of film today is pure melodrama. I think of highly lauded films like Michael Mann’s Heat as melodrama incarnate....
Clint and jazz- huh?
204) City Of Glass/Paul Auster/Everett Goldner You’ve heard the name Paul Auster. Even if you’re not familiar with any of his novels, the movie Smoke should ring a bell. He was a poet until he was thirty-five (producing two books that you won’t find anywhere but used bookstores or by ordering them), and at times made his way by translating French novels into English, and vice versa. He then became a novelist....
Noir, like yeah?
205) Melinda And Melinda/Woody Allen/Dan Schneider Woody Allen was a big star. Radha Mitchell will be a big star. The two- nebbishy New York intellectual and gorgeous blond Australian actress- are the two essential ingredients in Allen’s latest film, Melinda And Melinda, which just opened in Texas last week. While not at the level of the greatest Allen films from his Golden Age of 1977-1992 it is a significant step above his last few meager outings....
Same old- yet not.
206) Dubliners/A Review/Dan Schneider Many years ago I got into an argument with a drunken professor over James Joyce. My contention was that no scholars had ever looked into the role that Joyce’s syphilis had in the breakdown of his narrative abilities. Most have taken for granted that all of the dashing of Joyce’s style from Dubliners, his first published fiction, through Finnegans Wake, his last, was by choice....
Erin go....bah!
207) Cathedral/Raymond Carver/Dan Schneider I first encountered Raymond Carver’s writing as a poet many years ago and was singularly unimpressed. In truth the writing was merely bloated prose descriptions of banal things broken into lines. Having seen much of this in contemporary published poetry I consigned him to the nether regions as another writer whose contemporary reputation far exceeded his corpus’s worth....
Not just a touch of the grape....
208) Girl, Interrupted/Susanna Kaysen/Dan Schneider My wife was recently going through old books of hers she wanted to sell back to used bookstores and asked if I wanted to read some. I told her to put them on my TO READ pile. One of the books was Susanna Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted, about her several year experience before, during, and after her stay in a famed Massachusetts mental institution....
Surprisingly good.
209) Getting Mother's Body/Suzan-Lori Parks/Dan Schneider Formula for praise in the PC World of literature (especially if a hack)- rip off the ideas of a better, deader writer, fill it with baggage from more modern times, & try to pass it off as an homage. While, in reality, it’s a sure sign of creative bankruptcy, if you’re a woman or minority....
Not surprisingly bad.
210) Black Virgin Mountain/Larry Heinemann/SuZi Once upon a time, when people still picketed, a populist slogan proclaimed "the personal is the political"; it was as much a declaration against isolation and narcissism as it was a koan of compassion. Our times now know much about what Jane Goodall (in Reason for Hope) called "the materialistic and often greedy and selfish lifestyle […]in the western world" and even the spiritualist shill is, as one habitual criminal said "all about the dollar." Altruism is expendable, folks....
Pulitzer worthy?
211) I Was Amelia Earhart/Jane Mendelsohn/Dan Schneider There’s an old Warner Brothers cartoon that spoofs opera wherein Bugs Bunny tortures Elmer Fudd through a series of misadventures, including one where they are married in an absurdist moment. Elmer rages and one almost expects a bodice-ripping type end....
Da Wabbitt's fault?
212) A Tree Grows In Brooklyn/Betty Smith/Dan Schneider I only recently got around to reading Betty Smith’s 1943 memoir-cum-novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, mainly because it had a reputation as an Oprah Winfrey sort of book, meaning I thought it must be one of those tomes filled with good intentions but short on literary merit....
The classic.
213) Touching The Void/Film Review/Dan Schneider The simplest of words can sometimes convey far more than the most elaborate action scenes. This runs counter to the whole ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, yet is nonetheless true....
Whew!
214) Touching The Void/Book Review/Dan Schneider Having recently watched the DVD of the film version of Touching The Void my wife decided she needed to read the book, so ordered it online for a buck or so. Now, the nostrum that applies in such cases is generally that the film is never good as the book, because books go into more detail, and the pictures painted in the mind are rarely matched on film....
Whew! Deux!
215) American Idol/The Remedy For What Ails/Dan Schneider Last week the top rated tv show in America crowned its fourth American Idol- Carrie Underwood. I am now going to tell you how that came about, and why it was a bad choice, although not a bad choice by the American public, as I will be essaying this past season by referring to the weekly notes I kept. I will summarize each week’s action, do the same for the finale, divine what is wrong with the show, and prescribe the best ways how to fix what ails the show, which is now bordering on quiz show scandal ground....
Kill Paula Abdul, please!
216) The Triplets Of Belleville/DVD Review/Dan Schneider When The Triplets Of Belleville won the Oscar for best animated film last year I have to admit I was a bit skeptical of its worth as a piece of art. After all, most American animation, considered renascent since 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, is banal Disneyesque pabulum- at least that mainstream stuff more than 17 people nationwide know about. Don’t even get me started on animé, & how boring, overrated, & predictable most of that is. So, it was a pleasant surprise when I picked up this film’s DVD in a mark down bin at a local video store. What was most striking was how original the animation was- not the warmly glowing American sort, nor the still creakily motioned & melodramatic animé. The film makes considerable use of grotesques & bizarre situations....
Ooo-la-la!
217) Alien Hunter/DVD Review/Dan Schneider What is it that separates stars from also-rans? For example, in all the films that I have seen with Tom Cruise and James Spader I can conclusively say that Spader is better looking, a better actor, and exudes a charm, and depth on-screen that the mannekin-like Cruise never does. Yet, the dwarfish dark actor is a sex symbol, who opens at least one blockbuster film a year, and has been nominated for the Academy Award....
Let them come!
218) Nowhere Man/A Tribute/Dan Schneider Back in the mid-1990s the United-Paramount Network (UPN) made its debut, the same season as the Warner Bros (WB) Network. It was less than a decade since the upstart Fox network challenged the Big 3 networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), whose dominance was nearly three decades old, since the demise of the old DuMont network in the late 1950s. Both of the netlets (as WB and UPN were called) hoped to follows Fox’s lead....
Who?
219) Beyond The Mat/DVD Review/Dan Schneider One of the oldest filmic clichés is that there’s nothing sadder than an old boxer, a washed up pug. To that I might state that only an old wrestler is sadder. After all, wrestling is not a true sport- it’s a violent theatrical production, and there is not much at stake for the viewers. As for the wrestlers, themselves….
Slammin'.
220) The Vote/Neo-Nazi or Anti-Christ?/Dan Schneider In some ways, and to some folks, it seems as if the titled question of this piece is the debate of the millennium. It is a battle between toe density of Left Wing Looney Extremism and Right Wing Radical Asininity. Recently I was made aware of two attempts to paint me with a broad brush by two ridiculous fringe folk, of the sort who unfortunately dominate the Internet, and one seeming moderate....
You decide!
221) In America/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In America was a highly regarded film that was released in 2003. I found a DVD copy in the rental store’s bargain bin and bought it on that reputation. While not a bad film I again must wonder why is it that critics tend to rave about merely, at best, competent films? Yes, most films, books, CDs, etc. are utter crap...
Aach!
222) American Splendor/DVD Review/Dan Schneider American Splendor is one of those films that gets overpraised not so much for what it is, but for what it is not- i.e.- another in the mind-numbingly dull pieces of pabulum spewed out by Hollywood. The film is part-surrealism, part-documentary, part biography....
Existential gray.
223) Stranger In A Strange Land/Review/Dan Schneider Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land is one of those books I’ve had on my need to read list for nearly twenty years. The problem is I’ve never been a big sci fi fan, at least in terms of writing. Due to the power of image over word sci fi is the one genre where the nostrum of the film never equaling the book is untrue. The prime example of this is 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Arthur C. Clarke’s book, while arguably great, pales to Stanley Kubrick’s film, even though both works evolved collectively....
Grok this.
224) Embers/Book Review/Dan Schneider Perhaps as critical as the production of great art and literature is the ability to recognize it, and then promote it. Over the years the massive weight of bad literature- poetry, and especially fiction (for it’s far easier to write prose than poetry)- gets more daunting with the tens of thousands of books released every year by writers whose transparent lack of talent makes one question the very motives of the editors, publishers, and critics, especially considering most of the bad writing is also manifestly incapable of being a bestseller due to its subject matter or style....
Honor, or else.
225) The Atrophied American Imagination/Essay/Dan Schneider I have written in the past of the effects of the Lowest Common Denominator on assorted aspects of modern life, but perhaps the most damning exhibition of its deleterious nature comes in contemporary published literature. It is part of an overall arch in American life that seems to want to dull true creativity, and even worse, the little bit of imagination required from art’s audiences. And, I don’t just mean in poetry....
The solution is here.
226) Sanctuary/William Faulkner/Dan Schneider Ok, so everyone has for years told me how great a writer William Faulkner was. So, I read As I Lay Dying- mediocre at best, and no real strengths at characterization are revealed. Instead, a bunch of yokel stereotypes. So, I mark that off as just one of those things. Then I read his Collected Stories. Atrocious! Nothing but stereotypes....
Buzz-buzz!
227) John Updike/Raymond Carver/Dan Schneider Let me state- both men were bad poets, but this piece is about their prose, ok? There, I said it. Now on to the raison d’etre: I recently picked up my first piece of John Updike fiction- the short story collection Problems And Other Stories, after years of hearing his name bandied about with that of John Cheever, Saul Bellow, and Norman Mailer as a giant of what would be called Dead White Male writers....
Battle Royale!
228) Idlewild/Nick Sagan/Dan Schneider You know you’re in for not too good a reading experience when the only real words of praise a book can muster is being compared to a film, and having the author’s lineage trotted out. In the case of Nick Sagan’s first book, Idlewild, the film was The Matrix, and the lineage was his famed father, pop astronomer Carl Sagan. Unfortunately, the film his book is compared to is not exactly a masterpiece to begin with....
The Matrix meets Cosmos?
229) Infinite Possibilities/Robert Heinlein/Dan Schneider For my birthday my wife bought me a book that consisted of three Robert Heinlein juvenile novels. The book was called Infinite Possibilities, and she did so because she knew that I had though Stranger In A Strange Land, his most well known book, was good. I had a sneaking suspicion, though, that Heinlein was one of those authors who was a one hit wonder....
How 'bout this one? Into the garbage can.
230) Philip K. Dick/Stories & Things/Dan Schneider Let me start by debunking three of the critical myths about Philip K. Dick: 1) He is in no way shape nor form as great a writer as Franz Kafka....
Meschuganeh, no?
231) A Canticle For Leibowitz/Walter Miller/Dan Schneider Having grown up watching 1950s sci fi I was familiar with many of the Doomsday tropes from such films as The World, The Flesh, & The Devil, & On The Beach. Most were fairly pessimistic. So, I was a bit surprised when I picked up & read Walter Miller’s A Canticle For Leibowitz....
Apocalypse then?
232) King Arthur/DVD Review/Dan Schneider If I proffered these four words to you- Keira Knightley in leather- is there any way in hell a reasonable man would think that the film that offered such could be bad? No, no way, no way in hell! But, it is- really bad! And that film is 2004’s King Arthur, and the utterer of those sentiments is me, a well-known Arthuriana buff- in fact, I was once contracted to write an epic poem on that subject.....
Leather, Keira- what went wrong?
233) A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain/Robert Olen Butler/Dan Schneider I had heard the name Robert Olen Butler before, mentioned as a Southern writer, which generally connotes a certain way of approaching writing- especially short stories. But, it was as a novelist that I heard his name, this time and the people mentioning his name were not enamored of his novelry....
P-ew, or not?
234) Ten Little Indians/Sherman Alexie/Dan Schneider Here is what any decent, self-respecting critic should do whenever he comes upon the work of someone he knows- be up front about it. Such is the case with Sherman Alexie’s latest book, Ten Little Indians. That said, I was never a bosom buddy of Alexie’s, but I did meet him several times in Minneapolis, when he was in town for several events sponsored by the reprehensible (or perhaps abominable, evil, or dread?) literary organization The Loft....
Good or bad Sherman?
235) Lost In The City/Edward P. Jones/Dan Schneider Synchronicity is, more or less, a random event that seems to have more than a random meaning. Such it was when I read Edward P. Jones’ short story collection Lost In The City directly after having read Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians. The reason was that Alexie’s book showed off everything that’s wrong with PC Elitist art and literature....
Take a ride.
236) Some Kind Of Monster/Metallica/Dan Schneider The documentary film Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster is an example of a not so good piece of art about a subject that is not so good. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Metallica fan, and not one of those morons who refuse to grow up and believe their early thrash songs that sound all alike are somehow artistically superior to their later songs with melody and lyrics with a little more depth....
Intended irony?
237) Girl With Curious Hair/David Foster Wallace/Dan Schneider David Foster Wallace is one of those really bad writers who decided, long ago, that he would hide his lack of talent, acumen, and skill behind a blizzard of words, then laugh at anyone unwilling to engage them as not understanding his genius. This is a symptom of what is known as Postmodernism....
The horror, the horror....
238) Nine Stories/J.D. Salinger/Dan Schneider J.D. Salinger is the Terence Malick of the writing world, save that his art is not as productive and not as qualitatively good as Malick. Both men are acquired tastes to most, both are notoriously reclusive, with Malick readying only his fourth film in a third of a century this year, while Salinger has managed to only proffer three readily available literary works in his nearly sixty year long career....
Really, about two or three good ones.
239) Collected Stories/Richard Yates/Dan Schneider During the time I was reading The Collected Stories Of Richard Yates I happened to come across a review of the book in a book of reviews by Joyce Carol Oates, which proved that she is as clueless about writing as she is about painting. Of course, given the three books she started and completed the week she wrote that essay it’s a wonder she actually even was able to recall his name. At least she spelled it Yates, not Yeats....
More than two or three good ones!
240) The Songs Of Distant Earth/Arthur C. Clarke/Dan Schneider Recently, I decided that I needed to read some classic sci fi writers to air out my mind after many months of intense memoir writing. I got some sci fi short story anthologies, some classic novels in the field, & hope to see some links in the ‘big themes’ that the best of sci fi engages like ‘literary fiction’ of the past used to do. Among the books I got were Arthur C. Clarke’s The Songs Of Distant Earth & Childhood’s End. I read the former yesterday....
Tuneful....
241) Childhood's End/Arthur C. Clarke/Dan Schneider Childhood’s End is 1 of the earliest novels in the oeuvre of Arthur C. Clarke, & 1 of his best. 1 of the interesting things about reviewing very successful works long after their debut is how their very success can sometimes make the work seem less than it originally was. This is because the success of its themes, images, or narrative become so copied that they become clichéd. Such is the case with CE’s opening. Giant spaceships arrive at earth, hover over the major cities of the world & issue ultimata. Is it the film Independence Day? Is it the tv miniseries V? No, but now you know where they got their openings....
Puberty's a bitch!
242) Hunted Past Reason/Richard Matheson/Dan Schneider I hate being right almost all the time. For example, after reading several dozen of the piss poor and predictable short stories of Richard Matheson, many of them literally the basis for Twilight Zone episodes, and the rest written as if they were, I became convinced that his masterwork, I Am Legend, was just one of those freak examples of a writer getting whispered to by the Muse....
Oy!
243) Beat/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ask yourself- if there were a film about a bunch of no talent losers who do stupid thing, but without any humor, would I want to watch it? If you say no, good for you. For that is the sum of what the film beat is about. The losers are Beatnik charlatans William Burroughs (Kiefer Sutherland), his wife Joan Vollmer (Courtney Love), and their pals Allen Ginsberg (Ron Livingston) and Lucien Carr (Norman Reedus). Ok, Ginsberg at least had talent, but anyone with a brain knows he pissed it away. This is a really bad film, and its poverty starts with aimless direction by Gary Walkow, and a script that is utterly devoid of energy, spark, and wit....
Enough already!
244) Winged Migration/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Who amongst us has not dreamt of flying under our own power? Despite a century of airplanes there is still nothing akin to winging off into the blue, crannying through small openings in trees, scaling sheer cliff faces. Never before has the idea of real bird-like flight been so perfectly expressed on film as it has in director Jacques Perrin’s masterful documentary film Winged Migration. Naysayers have decried the film is not a documentary because many of the birds were raised from birth, then trained to obey humans, bonded to them for they were the 1st things the birds saw after birth 9called imprinting), so they’re not ‘really’ wild animals. Another objection is that the film, on several occasions, intersperses computer graphics with the ‘authentic’ documentary sequences....
Pure art!
245) Immortality/Milan Kundera/Dan Schneider Immortality is probably the last novel by Kundera that shows him at his best. This book, translated by Peter Kussi, released in 1990, is the last of a trilogy that includes the great The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting, and The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. While Immortality is not a great book, and not in the class of those other two books, it is certainly a good book that continues Kundera’s metafictional ride through the 20th Century....
Last gasps?
246) Slowness/Milan Kundera/Dan Schneider There comes a time when every writer should know when to hang it up, for they have run out of fresh ideas and are merely left aping their former selves, and better works. That time, it seems, came for Milan Kundera with 1995’s Slowness. It is a terrible little novel, or novella, for it is a small-sized book of 156 pages, with large font....
No gasp.
247) Ernie's Ark/Monica Wood/Dan Schneider Ernie’s Ark by Monica Wood is not merely a great book, but great literature. I state this to differentiate this fact from the typical lower case ‘great’ that adorns the book covers of every piece of schlock the publishing world wastes pulp on. The great I state is with a capital G. That this book ever got published, by Ballantine Books, must be a testament to randomness, for I seriously doubt the author’s agent, editor, and publisher knew what they had, and, if one can read between the lines on the author’s website, and an interview printed in the book, after the work, neither, perhaps, did the author. More on that later....
Greatness lives.
248) Strictly Ballroom/DVD Review/Dan Schneider I recently watched the first film in the noted Red Curtain Trilogy by Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, Strictly Ballroom. This 1993 indie classic preceded its more well known and more highly budgeted siblings, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge. While I enjoyed the twists to modernize Shakespeare in the former and the non-stop rollercoaster of the latter- and I am notoriously averse to musicals....
A good musical?
249) Incident At Loch Ness/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Incident At Loch Ness is one of the best mockumentaries ever made. While not quite there with This Is Spinal tap, it is a cut above many of the other contenders. The reason for this is because its star is German filmmaking legend Werner Herzog (who could be a Teutonic doppelganger for Gene Hackman) of Fitzcarraldo fame....
The Blair Witch blows!
250) Skins/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Skins is director Chris Eyre’s follow up to the 1997 Native American film Smoke Signals. Like the first film Skins is a comedy drama that has moments, and is a sound film, but could have done a bit more, and often settles into PC preachiness. One would have hoped Eyre would have matured as a filmmaker in the interim. The main character is Rudy Yellow Lodge (Eric Schweig), a reservation cop on the Pine Ridge Reservation....
Pow-wow and how?