Wednesday, November 3, 2010
too much of a good thing.
Kat says...
I think the fact that Franzen made it into a casual one-liner on Gossip Girl is…A good thing?
I have put a fair amount of thought into this and have settled, somewhat uncomfortably, on the conclusion that we cannot complain that a great writer featured amongst the chocolate covered stick thin girls, digital printed chiffon and grand piano sex. However I refuse to believe that the Franzen-Glasses-Theft was a shameless PR stunt because then we’d find ourselves in very dark alleyway where ghost-writers and scripted spontaneous interviews mugged us every 7 minutes.
Those cheeky Gossip Girl scriptwriters like to reference only the latest, trendiest elements of pop culture. So we should be grateful that we got Franzen at Blair’s get together. The line could’ve been some quip about where Lady Gaga manages to buy wearable, organic meat or in which bar Miley Cyrus’ Mum drinks away her conscience.
I’m more concerned about overexposure. Franzen’s face has been smiling courteously and wisely at me from all manners of media. I have more or less accepted that we all live and breathe ‘cult of personality’ so I’m not too surprised that Franzen’s heart has been publically stitched to his sleeve by a pretty efficient PR machine. (If I believed in illogical extended metaphors, I would have made that ‘PR sewing machine.’ Just as well I prefer brackets).
It’s not enough to simply have a great actor, singer or author anymore. Us technologically advanced vampires need all the life force too. I have always been relatively nonplussed about knowing every stage of Brad Pitt’s facial hair or where he’ll snaffle his next kid from but I was addicted to any kind of interview associated with Franzen. Past tense used as I have recently decided to go cold turkey. It’s not been easy, but I’ve managed to distract myself by taking up such activities as compulsively googling my own name and, well, stalking other authors instead.
I began to realise that my perception of his latest book ‘Freedom’ was becoming utterly impersonal. Every other line was intrinsically linked to some element of his divorce, friendship with David Foster Wallace or turbulent relationship with his Mother. I know I’m making an obvious point but I’d rather know as little as possible about the author. Even gender. I like my subjectivity to be born out of old fashioned objectivity.
So while I’m relieved that a man of substance found himself at Blair’s party, I’m concerned that this overexposure is the only path to success for any great writer. Although perhaps I’ve just been slow to cotton on, and in fact the literary world has always been like an episode of Californication? So Courtney, to sum up I’m basically at a loss too.
I never, ever thought I’d be so baffled by an episode of Gossip Girl.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
And the world comes crumbling down
Courtney says...
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Seen and not heard, maybe?
OK, so sure she is a vapid blonde who apparently often gets dressed in the dark/as a dare. But hey, I never said I was interested in marrying her. Hell, I don’t even have the energy to like her on facebook. What I’m trying to say is, I’d be more likely to be the one swiping the specs right off Franzen’s face than loitering around the set of Gossip Girl in New York to ask Blake Lively why she hasn’t posted me a thank you card for all those eyelashes I sent her.
I think I’m allowed to have a soft spot for a good looking woman. Am I not entitled to the odd crush based purely on looks, free of morality and logic? There, I said it. And I’ll say it again in my gruffest, vehemently anti-feminist, woman-objectifying voice ‘I like the way she is put together.’
I wouldn’t want to pull a Mad Men-esque January Jones on her, mind. Despite how good her meatloaf (not a euphemism) and old fashioned cocktail making skills might be, I agree, I think I would pull off my own ears if I had to come home to Mrs Blake Lively – Patrick after a long day in the office.
She is the kind of woman I’d like to have at my disposal for say, a school reunion. Yes, that’s right I would like to have her on my arm as I sipped lukewarm, souring white wine and engaged in the most awkward of all social situations – trying to prove major progression since early adolescence. And trust me, going lesbian post All Girls Boarding School guarantees a tough crowd. Anyway if she attempted too much of that annoying ‘talking’ women are so very fond of, I would simply banish her to the Porsche I’d rented for the occasion.
I do recognise how incongruous it is that as I construct this argument, I am most certainly coming across as rather vapid myself. Courtney, please don’t write your next blog about me. I swear I would never have shopped at supre (ahem) in 2003, nor would I ever glue a dog to my tinfoil dress (this in itself would be challenge, as my dog is a rather large and impatient spaniel.) And while I know my accent can be grating, I promise I'll never spit my C-Hs.
In fact, just like your Blakehatepost, I’m turning this into a cathartic process; I’m getting all my embarrassing crushes out the way. So the most significant and perhaps crucial in my journey out of the closet would have to be Maura Tierney (Abby Lockhart from ER.) I have also been known to admire Jennifer Beals – not in Flash Dance but in the L-word (flashy lesbian televised drama for those not in the know.) Actually I pretty much fancied everyone in the L-Word, just because they, like the cast of Friends, drank coffee together, were babes and pashed each other. I liked the gal from Grey’s Anatomy – Callie Torres I think she was called. I also have an enormous thing for Tina Fey. Less embarrassing, but while on a roll, I’ll confess that my dream girl would have to be Marion Cotillard. Julianne Moore in close second. Oh and of course Joan from Mad Men. Who could resist that sashay?
While on the subject, I’d like to point out that Julianne Moore (note - top 3 babe) is in a film called The Kids Are All Right. I’ve already heard great things about it from those lucky enough to have seen it and I’m pretty excited to see it myself.
Hey, the modern family is fine by me. And don’t panic, I don’t envisage Nate being any sort of donor for the family I (do not, for the record) intend to begin with Blake.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Blake Lively is a vapid blonde stick figure
Courtney says...
Ok, so I feel like this needs clearing up once and for all. You obviously couldn't take the hint when we sat around a table at DOC full of Blake Lively haters (both male and female, all fervently against) as your text last night to inform me that you had somehow (drugs? mind manipulation?) coaxed another person to "admit" they liked Lively (BTW - her surname is antithetical to her personality) proved. So I will have to destroy your dreams in the very public (although I'm pretty sure we only have one reader) forum of our blog. Here goes.
I'll admit I watched the latest episode today - 'Easy J' and this anecdote sums Serena up perfectly.
Blair: "You've got last night's dress with today's shame written all over it."
Serena: "Actually Blair, we just stayed up all night talking." Lies. To her best friend. And she's not even trashy in a funny way.
Blair: "Keep it in office hours, not at his apartment."
Mystery man: "That didn't sound particularly convincing. So come to this party. I'm getting an Eligible Bachelor award."
Serena: (*clicks palette*) "OK".
There is a final anti-Lively strain that lies in the fact that she dates only her co-stars because she can't make intelligent conversation with anyone who tries to understand her as more than Serena, but I'm spent.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Back to Basics
Apologies for the delayed response, but it isn’t easy to construct a retort to a post that essentially ended in bestiality. Even more troublesome than the fact you can find such things on the internet (the discovery of bestiality with a romantic anecdote must have involved a horrifying google – what did they/you ask to uncover that? I don’t recommend speculating, as I just did, ew) is the fact that as I read your ‘subtle’ description an advert for the Hollywood rom-com, based on the story, flashed through my mind. Can’t you hear the voiceover now? “A love that knows no bounds…” etc.
Right, I’m officially putting ‘it’ to rest now.
I’m electing to pick up on your presentation of the internet, as you so very delicately put it, a ‘fucked up place.’ Despite my prudish reaction (English heritage, as ever, at fault) to the F word (both the television show and the profanity) this is probably the best way to describe it. Furthermore as a subject choice for an online blog, I suppose it is a form of virtual metafiction we’re indulging in.
I forget the source of the article now, but a while ago I was reading a review of a recently published collection of letters between a famous author and various friends and lovers. The journalist adopted a nostalgic position remarking that nowadays such a collection would be almost impossible to amass, thanks to the internet. Unless (like me) you obsessively print out and collate favourite emails, articles and images much of our online communication is devoured by cyber space. A few interesting projects could evolve from this; is anyone documenting 50 Cent’s tweets, for example?
This has been partially and somewhat tragically actualised in the form of a book. ‘Twitterature’ residing within the traditional bright orange, penguin classic hipster packaging are famous novels broken down into tweets. The interpretation of Dante’s inferno: ‘I’m having a midlife crisis. Lost in the woods. Should have brought my iPhone’ is what my Dad would call witty, sure. It’s a mildly good and albeit depressing giggle, as it’s hard to ignore that reducing one of the world’s greatest books to a few one liners is akin to google imaging the Taj Mahal and subsequently feeling as though there is no need to actually go.
It’s true. I’ve developed a middle aged disdain for the internet’s ability to replace genuine experience with various online versions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as hypocritical as the next fake-glasses-wearing hipster and I recognise some benefits of the virtual world. Crikey, these days I can even eliminate the worst social interaction of all. Ordering takeaway. When completing this activity, it’s a blessing that human contact is now rendered defunct and I can do it online. You’d be surprised how much the posh English pronunciation of the phrase ‘92% extra cheese’ is misunderstood over the phone/at the drive thru. As with most good things in life, however, there is a curse to the blessing. The curse, of course, is that now I get all the extra cheese I want. In many ways I’m strangely proud to be heading for a Henry VIII ‘lift’ onto my steed.
Right, I’m off to Wikipedia existentialism.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Super Hero Super Swans
A horse is not a home
Kat says…
Models and fashion are generally somewhat beyond me, unfortunately. It’s tough to be critical of an industry that innately must combine so many terrifying elements to succeed (money, not gaining weight, not getting old.) Besides I don’t think I’m entitled to much of an opinion as I wear man-shirts, make others feel uneasy when I walk in heels, wear cycling shorts (with aforementioned man-shirts) in the summer and own a pair of tie-dye trousers that could only be described as what MC Hammer might have thrown on when nipping out to buy milk on a Sunday, or if he’d become a hippie. Which is definitely a possibility considering his financial ruin. He’s probably in a sect somewhere odd, drinking organic carrot juice with Annie Leibovitz.
In tandem with the disturbingly accidental philosophical enquiry into perfection (as is so consistently well articulated by the fashion industry) Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is currently debuting around the globe. Set in the world of the New York ballet, it sees Natalie Portman’s character worked psychologically loose by the pressures of her art. Plus (slight spoiler alert) at one point she makes out with Mila Kunis, so you know, I’m excited. The trailer looks superb. I’m pretty sure the film will make it to NZ cinemas in at least 3 years, so nothing like generating a long term buzz. Thanks youtube.
In response to your earlier post - the idea of Daniel Radcliffe anywhere near a horse (even if the horse in question had recently replaced SJP on Sex and the City and acquired some sort of celebrity status) makes me a little queasy. Although such a statement would infer that I might be comfortable with somebody else, other than Daniel Radcliffe, getting up close and personal with a horse. Which, I would like to clarify, I am not. I’m now starting to sound like Bill Clinton. So for the sake of not digging my own grave, I’ll happily move on.
I say move on, but actually the idea of famous horse just triggered a memory. Last year I watched a bizarre animated Belgian film with the very modern name of A Town Called Panic, in which a horse is the central character. While it is really quite long and not particularly ground breaking it does keep you pleasantly entertained. I’m not helping my case much but it a favourite scene is the one featuring a horse-falling-love-wearing-a-scarf. With, ahem, another horse. I’d like to make that very clear.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Modelizing
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The Unbearable Thought of a Horse as a Sex Columnist
One of the girls
The Sex and the City movie sadly pulled a Frankenstein on female empowerment. A series that started out as a relatively good idea eventually became a horrific monster. Unfortunately SATC seems to have done for feminism what Alanis Morissette did to the meaning of irony. As their conversations about sex got louder and louder (I always felt sorry for the other people trying to enjoy their brunch as Samantha worked her way through every single possible way to say penis) the notion of the ‘independent woman’ became so lost in clichés that the only possible way for the series to end was for it to implode in a desert. I’m not necessarily suggesting that a car chase involving Germaine Greer would have been a better alternative, but a copy of The Female Eunuch on a bedside table here and there wouldn’t have been amiss. Even, ironic. Whatever that means.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Horses, Horses, Horses
Thursday, October 7, 2010
On further examination of the image, I’m curious as to the two apparent cosmopolitans he has managed to put away. Considering this and the shirt he is wearing, I’m making a wild guess we were enjoying a casual after work catch up with him and Carrie Bradshaw (or Oprah.) Until he made some quip about consumerism and she dashed home to cry into her Mac book and write about how shoes are like men, are like shoes, are like dogs, are like shoes, are like men, are like New York in the fall.
This post changed tack quite rapidly. Franzen Fantasies will do that, I suppose. As will a lingering hatred of Carrie Bradshaw.
Sight and oversight seem to be haunting the poor fellow. Trust the Brits to publish an uncorrected Freedom, a bold new move in our passive aggressive chapter.
THIS IS REALLY WHY WE STARTED A BLOG
When Corrections was released, Jonathan Franzen was charged with saving the Great American Novel. His new release may just do that by discounting everything Americans hold dear.
Take nine years to write a novel. Sell 2.85 million copies. Take a further three years to develop the main protagonist of your follow-up. Become the sixth writer of all time to appear on the cover of Time Magazine. It’s not the customary route for a novelist, particularly in this technologically progressive age, but Jonathan Franzen doesn’t think much of this age. In fact, in How to be Alone (a collection of essays) he had this to say: “For every reader who dies today, a viewer is born, and we seem to be witnessing the final tipping balance.” If Freedom is anything to go by, he doesn’t think much of said viewers, either.
When everything, from website-to-blog-to-Facebook-to-Twitter, and including the novelist, is downsizing and specialising, Franzen has released two 600 page novels in a decade that are all-encompassing beasts, nothing less. They develop inherently realistic characters – likeable or not, often not – with histories and flaws and birthmarks and rituals and mistakes. These characters are then placed in a socio-political context that their character is a product of as much as the world they live within is. This is often a source of conflict.
It’s not helpful to talk about what happens in a Franzen novel, because everything happens and nothing happens. Rather, why, when everything and nothing happens does one veraciously turn the page? How does Franzen make a small encyclopaedia about one middle-American familys’ issues entertaining?
Firstly, the socio-political bent, an important part of the American landscape and a source of incredible division for its people. In Freedom there is an inherent Liberal V Conservative thematic countenance, but the decisions the characters make, to sit on either side of the D.C fence are so inherently influenced by their circumstances, and so objectively argued by Franzen that one can’t help but feel sympathetic towards a Conservative ranch owner attempting to de-forest government land for mining. Similarly, some of the Liberals (of which category this writer would consider herself) are downright annoying. Did someone say patronizing?
Secondly, every sentence is a fortune-cookied piece of philosophical advice, even if it doesn’t seem like it, even if the characters do not heed their intelligent inner monologues.
Finally, nihilism. Yes, in true Franzen fashion, everything falls apart for many of the characters in the end. And it’s heartbreaking. You have followed these people throughout their entire life; you know that they hate sex because they were raped in the High School locker room at 16. Or that they are vehemently Conservative because their parents were the aforementioned patronizing Liberal Democrats who put more onus on their relationship with politicians than their children.
But at its heart Freedom is honest. It is a very detailed snapshot of America and Americans in all their contradictory, ‘Land of the [supposed] Free’ glory, and moreover, a snapshot of human nature.
And if, as Franzen notes, people viewed less and read more, said image of human nature mightn’t be quite so harrowing.
3-Dimensional Killer Animals
Blame the parents
But having said all this, I recently watched Dogtooth. A great Greek film centred on the notion of children, driven into states of derangement by their parents. Highly recommended. It is stunningly shot, disturbingly controlled and would give Freud a heart attack, or at the very least make him quit his day job and start a glam rock band.
The dance scene (second link) is like nothing you’ve ever witnessed. It generates the same emotions I’d previously assumed could only be felt upon discovering an ex secretly collects doll heads; a combination of (enduring) love, fear and cat killing curiosity. I never thought I’d see myself type it with such sincerity, but I wish there was a 3D version. There, I crossed over. Hello dark side. Better go and buy Avatar I suppose. Maybe start a discussion about blu-ray and HD with the salesperson. I think I’ll be able to pull it off if I just keep repeating the phrase ‘fresh perspective.’
Anyway, have a watch.