Fear the Walking Dead brings the horror

Fear the Walking Dead delivers some real horror this time around. I'm was impressed by this episode.

The scariest parts of TWD are always the ones dealing with real people, not zombies. the fear, the distrust of strangers is a powerful motivator for Rick and his crew. You simply can't be too careful. Hence, the famous three questions everyone gets asked.

FTWD did a great job tonight of creating some interesting, disturbing characters who could certainly become a problem for our protagonists. First up, what's up with our man Daniel? we learn a lot more about him in this episode, and very little of it is good. Turns out, back in El Salvador, he wasn't only on the receiving end of the torture he had alluded to before. Apparently, he's kind of an expert at causing suffering, and seems very anxious to practice his skills on his daughter's soldier boyfriend.

Then there is the mysterious man in the holding cell, the one that "saves" Nick, the one that reduces another man to an hysterical, blubbering mass using only his words. This strange fellow is tall and well-spoken, and something about the way he dresses and uses his hands suggests he's a magician or a con artist. When Nick thanks him for bribing a guard who was going to remove him from the holding cell, he says, "I didn't save you, I obligated you. There's a difference." then he goes on to give a brilliantly succinct explanation of how the rules of the game have changed. The "frequent fliers" have lost, and will now by a "buffet" for men like himself. He's obviously a bad dude, but at the same time, he seems like someone you want to have on your side during a zombie apocalypse.

Travis has his own run in with a potentially evil character. The Army Sergeant, who up till now has seemed cold and uncaring, but relatively reasonable, starts to get aggressive when Travis demands to know where his friends have been taken. the Sergeant Dickhead's form of torture (sensing Travis's pacifism, no doubt) is to try to force him to shoot a walker. The other soldier's are creeped out, clearing sensing that this man is going off the rails. As it happens, after fending off a zombie attack, Sergeant Dickhead doesn't make it back to the humvee. Funny thing, huh?

what's happening is that things are falling apart. It's the part of the apocalypse where people still think they can be saved, but it's transitioning to the part where only those who realize they are on their own, and are repsonsible for their own survival, have a chance to make it. They are the strong, the one's not afraid to get their hands dirty. As cruel as Daniel is, as sick as his actions are, we find out at the end that he was right. The soldiers have been holding a terrible secret from the civilians they were supposed to protect. It's every man and woman for themselves. Things are about to get ugly.

American Sniper: Myth and Movie

The Chris Kyle portrayed in the movie American Sniper is a patriot and man of great loyalty. He is also a man who lacks imagination and empathy. Sure, he cares for his fellow soldiers. He genuinely loves "God, country, and family" above all else, but he never seems to be able to reconcile all these good qualities with his own nature. He seems unaware of his own darkness.

It's not easy to reconcile the light and dark sometimes. There's the Navy Seal with more confirmed kills than any other sniper in American history. There's the Chris Kyle who spent a lot of time after the war away from his family, drinking and brawling in bars. The guy who wrote in his memoir of the war that he was ready to "answer to God for every shot I ever took." The guy who admitted shooting a woman and more than one boy during the invasion of Iraq but whose only regret was that he couldn't save more of the "good guys," by which he means Americans. The guy who wrote in his book that all Iraqis were "savages" and that he "couldn't give a flying fuck about the Iraqis.”

Having read the first couple of chapters of Kyle's book, I can tell you that Clint Eastwood and his screen writer have taken a story told in a pretty basic, uncritical way, where every event is cast in black or white, and made out of that a pretty nuanced movie. Sure, it might seem like propaganda at first. The old-school "God and country" philosophy is laid on pretty thick, and Kyle seems to believe his own bullshit when he tells his new wife that nothing bad will happen to him in the war. He truly seems to believe that he cannot be killed. I sort of envy the guy.

But what I can't reconcile is how he says his time fighting in Iraq was "fun" and how he'd do it all over again if his family didn't need him. Fun? War is fun? I can only assume he is masking his true feelings here. I've never heard a sane person describe war as fun. Hell on earth, sure. Awful. Terrible. Soul-rending, but never fun. kinda makes you wonder.

But maybe it's more of the braggadocio he talks in the book. The kind the  character displays in the movie, when one of his comrades is shot through the eye. The gist of it is, You're gonna be alright, buddy! You have nothing to worry about! Never admitting the possibility that his friend might be dying. Maybe this was his magic thinking. His talisman. Never admit defeat, never even consider it. And never, ever admit to your own mortality.

When another friend is killed in an ambush, one of his last letters is read at the funeral. The movie's version of Chris Kyle says to his wife that it wasn't the ambush that killed him but the letter; the letter because it admitted doubt and fear, and a feeling of horror at all that is happening in Iraq, to the American soldiers, to the country, to the writer's own soul.

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Recently, Seth Rogen created a stir when he tweeted that the third act of American Sniper reminded him of the fictional pro-Nazi movie from Inglorious Basterds's third act. I admit the same thought crossed my mind, as I watched Kyle take on seemingly endless waves of Iraqi insurgents. However, the huge difference, and what makes Eastwood's movie a work of art and not merely a piece of propaganda (could it be a little of both?), is that following that scene, we find Kyle breaking down, crying, calling his wife and saying that he's "ready to go home." He has finally reached the end of himself, his invisible armor has been penetrated, and he can finally admit he needs help, that he is, in a word, human.

This moment, and several other nuanced ones throughout the film, elevate it from its source material.

Sons of Anarchy - Enough Already (Season 7: Episode 5)

anyone else tired of watching Jax Teller play the white Messiah? Of getting out of deadly scrapes with his Odysseus-level cunning and brilliant strategies? Of smirking his way through death and betrayal and psychopathic behavior? of always making excuses for his own murderous, black heart?

there, I got that out of my system...

but, seriously, at what point in his wheeling and dealing with every notorious gang leader and Fed in California, yet somehow always mastering them all, just start to seem unrealistic? Sure, i got the first three seasons. Jax is searching -- for answers, for direction, for a father. the club's retribution against corrupt cops and Feds seemed justified. we could buy that the club would be one step ahead, but that's because they had the support of a community, of decent people who just wanted to live their own lives. They had reason on their side; it made for a powerful motivation. Ever since that crazy shit in Ireland and Jax's sinking into the darkest parts of his heritage: gun trading, prostitution and betrayal.

it's interesting in season 7 to watch Jax (disingenuously) beg for his life in front of the Asian gang leaders. they should have their fucking heads examined, even listening to this guy. what interesting about it is the parallel with the scene where his mother begs for her life later in the episode. the two of them are so similar. it's obvious that Jax has not gone the way of his father, questioning himself, doubting and searching. He has become like his mother: doing whatever he needs to do to come out on top. Whether it's betraying long-time friends, hiding the truth from his club brothers or orchestrating any number of murders to feed his own revenge fantasy -- this guy seriously needs a wake up call. take a look in the mirror, brother. you have become what you hated.

maybe it's teh point of Kurt Sutter's epic to watch the young, swaggering and hopeful Jax become such a hardened and duplicitous creature. how can any of his "brothers" trust him at this point? isn't it obvious that he holds no one dear, no one is safe, save maybe his children?

all of this is to build up to the final confrontation with his mother, the dark witch of Charming, CA. the only other player on this stage who is on his level (forget the machinations of gangsters and entire departments of the federal government, they can't even compete). she is the only one who can take him down, or vice versa. It should be interesting.

On Football and Men

This is an interesting time for American Football. The various NFL players who have been accused or indicted on charges of violent crimes seems to have given birth to a national dialogue on such important issues as domestic violence, child abuse and rape. The faces of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson are everywhere in the media now, and a dialogue has ensued about whether or not they should even be allowed to play football. Underneath that mundane dialogue is another, far more interesting, one about what kind of behavior we as a society are willing to accept from men.

Thanks to my daughter’s tutelage, I started learning how to use Twitter over the weekend. I had never had an account before, or at least one I used. I started by following some of my favorite funny people like Steve Colbert and Seth Meyers. Pretty soon, I got caught up in the two big football controversies currently raging. It was interesting to see people’s reactions and arguments and how they escalated. A lot of folks come from a place of outrage over these issues and I get that: a man knocking out his fiancee with a punch is disgusting. looking at the bloody welts on a 4 year old boy’s legs is certainly no fun, especially knowing they were put there intentionally by his father.

Trying to understand the motivations of Adrian Peterson isn’t really that hard. Looking at pictures of him on the internet, you can see that he’s a disciplined and committed athlete. He’s also, apparently, a religious man, who quotes Bible verses and has even started a charity. It appears he beat his son with a switch (a branch from a young tree for those of you not from the South). While he admits he may have overdone it a bit in a text to the boy’s mother, the reason had to do with the boy being disrespectful to a sibling and maybe stubborn about apologizing. He states in the text that the mother should be proud, because the boy “didn’t cry. He’s tough as nails.”

It’s fairly obvious why being “tough as nails” would be important to an NFL running back, whose game routine is to take hits from 200-300 pound men while attempting a touchdown. It’s obvious that we as a society value that kind of toughness, on and off the field. Is our tendency to react so strongly to such cases because we don’t want to face our own involvement in the cult of the athlete and other “tough guys”?

We want men who are tough as nails, nearly invulnerable on the field and in the boardroom, maybe even in the bedroom. We want gladiators who risk injury or worse for our entertainment. And we want role models who value right and wrong, God and country. We want this, yet we haven't really had the conversation about what effect it might have on our boys. About whether there's a downside to how we view masculinity. As we change the way in which we expect men to relate to women and children, we may have to change some of the other values associated with sports stars. And we may have to look within ourselves as well as at our celebrities. 

While it’s great that we’re talking about these sensitive issues, let’s dig a little deeper than we have. Let’s look at our own history: the way we raise children, our religious traditions of “spare the rod, spoil the child”, of sending young men (boys, really) off to war at the age of 18, of valuing strength over sensitivity when it comes to men. Let’s forgo the backlash and talk about how we can help a man like Adrian Peterson learn how to discipline his children without violence.

What Ever Happened to Common Sense?

Where did it go? Why did it leave? And can it please, please come back?

Simple concepts like working at something to get better at it. the idea that a person is responsible for their own actions. That the adults should be in charge of things, not the children.

Please don't think this is some call to go back to the "good old days". It's no such thing. There never were any good old days. But while society has evolved (at least in America) to be more tolerant, I feel like we have thrown the baby out with the bath water.

The culture I live in is heavily politicized and dissected. Everything is broken down into its parts. Getting from A to B has been replaced by the study of getting from A to B. When confronted with a challenge, people tend to think: am I allowed to do this? what kind of degree is required?

Engaging in the world directly and with a sense of accomplishment has been lost for many of us. And we are hurting for it. We lack that sense of getting things done, of figuring things out for ourselves. Instead we ask permission. We think, shouldn't the government be taking care of this?

But so much of the joy of accomplishment is getting through the tough parts, learning the ropes, as they say.

I see it everyday at work. Teachers in a public school will sit at their computers waiting for me to come and show them how to do a simple task, or fix some "problem" that usually they could have fixed for themselves, had they had the will, or more patience, or greater curiosity. the computer is seen as a machine that does certain things for them, not as an extension of themselves and their own exploration of the world. instead, they see it as a "press this button, get this result" kind of thing. Hence, their frustration when the machine doesn't function the same way every time. I guess this is a product of a consumer culture based on the precepts of the industrial age.

The idea of doing something and getting a certain result unfailingly is a kind of post-industrial dream. Of course, what is needed is people who are not afraid to experiment and fail as they learn. Failing and trying again are essential parts of learning. Anyone who has successfully achieved mastery of a skill will tell you that. You simply can't be afraid all the time, whether it's fixing your brakes or doing your own taxes. You have to be able to dust yourself off and start over again.

The difference between book learning and knowledge based on experience should be obvious, but it isn't always. I work in IT and I deal with network admins all the time. Most of them have information systems degrees and that tends to make them feel they have the answers, but sometimes a problem is simple and a simple mental troubleshooting list will have it cleared up in no time. When you approach a challenge by thinking about how it should look, you often fail to see how it actually looks in real time.

I give these examples to illustrate the problems with the way we are thinking about problems. Here's a breakdown:

1. We tend to ask ourselves if we have permission to be working with this problem instead of having the confidence to face things head on.

2. we dissect and attempt to fit the problem into a preconceived model instead of starting from the problem ( the inside) and then working our way out.

3. we misread the problem based on bias.

more to come...

Star Trek: The Next Generation series review

Herein lies my effort to rewatch and blog about one of  the greatest science fiction series of all time: Star Treck: The Next Generation.



No doubt the show was, for me, my first intellectual stimulant. True, mine was a particularly  dry environment, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say TNG was at times pretty mind-blowing. Entities existing outside of our three-dimensional reality, questions about alien societies that made us think about our own, time travel and that awesome holodeck... Oh, the holodeck!

Another One Bites the Dust

"We hope Qhadafhi will be killed or captured soon so that you don't have to fear him anymore." -- Hillary Clinton

When talking about the "new" style of totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt said, "...terror is no longer used as a means to frighten and exterminate opponents, but as an instrument to rule masses of people who are perfectly obedient."

What we see happening in Libya now is the end of the old style of totalitarianism, where one man rises through the ranks to rule with an iron fist and an example of the new kind of global totalitarianism, where powerful Western nations police the "third world" and make political choices for the weaker nations, while keeping their own people subjugated through terror. The neo-Cons most blatantly did this with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. They did it with orange threat levels read over the radio daily, along with the weather and UV index. We saw it when our troops found the once dangerous Saddam Hussein (we helped it become dangerous) buried up to his neck in a ditch in back of his family home. And in his televised hanging. And today we saw it recorded on a cell phone, as the bloody body of the leader of Libya for over 40 years, Muammar Gaddafi, was beaten and possibly shot in the head. The UN is investigating.

Okay, Gaddafi was a bad guy, one of the worst. He oppressed masses of his own people. He may have used chemical weapons on them (I'm still researching). Like Hussein, he was a glorified gangster who killed people routinely. He was also almost certainly very nasty to women and fathered this douchebag (hey, what's he doing talking to Hillary Clinton, huh?).

He financed all of this by selling oil to Saudi Arabia, not really know for their strong history of civil rights. Of course Saudi Arabia sells oil to, uh, well if I'm not mistaken, US the United States of America. So, I guess that means oil taken from Libya (sold by an oppressive regime run by a sociopath, then sold to the Saudi gang, then sold to us) ends up in our cars. That means we've been involved, however peripherally, in Gaddafi's oppression.

Certainly, our government and industries have been involved in the Middle East for decades. For better or worse. We pay the consequences of that involvement. One interesting fact is knowing where Gaddafi's guns and bombs and tear gas came from. In this case, the answer is: Europe. Private companies in Italy, France and the UK sold lots of weapons to Gaddafi over the years. Ah, the never-ending intricacies of the Military Industrial Complex.

To paraphrase Charlie Chaplin, death to dictators and all those who make themselves strong at the expense of others.

New York City

[note: I wrote this a few months back in my notebook. I was no doubt responding to some of the pressures that we now see taking center stage in downtown Manhattan.]

New York City has lied to us all.

Early on a Monday morning, as I walk to work, I feel her creaking and groaning beneath my feet, the machinery slowly clicking into gear. When you are on the streets, you feel the rumble under your feet, the buzz in the air. New York City is happening. All day, every day, wave after wave of people going about their routines. From the Guatemalan immigrant who is on his way to work for two dollars an hour in the back of a deli to the self-possessed Wall Street type with his pin stripes and fuck-you grin, NY has it's own morning feel.

However pleasant or unpleasant, grey or sun-filled the day might be. And whether I am filled with purpose or ambling confusedly in search of caffeine, the beginning of each city day fills me with the same dread and wonder -- as if anything could happen, from the dangerous to the banal.

In my country-bred mind, I think of NYC as "a failed experiment." Maybe I'm just jealous of all the people with more money and connections, the beautiful shiny-faced couples, the VIPs. Or maybe it's just that I see the goings on from a different perspective than those raised here. But to my mind, it's an endlessly exploitative loop that illustrates exactly how liberal, Western capitalism has failed to protect its laborers. To my ears, it sounds like the death bell of American democracy. Oh sure, all the appearances are in place: gung-ho cops and firemen who will bravely lay down their lives for their fellow Americans, patriotic Union members with "Never Forget" sewn into their uniforms. The language too gets it just right. Bloomberg talks endlessly about how immigrants make us strong, about how inclusive NYC is, and the ability of anyone to make it here, the American Dream, yada-yada.

But to me, it feels empty. The appearances manufactured. The rhetoric recycled from "what worked before" and cheesy movies. The face of New York has changed much in 100 years, but the underlying structure is the same: the rich few (aka the 1%) exploit the poor many (the 99%). How they do this is so intrinsic to New York culture as to be invisible to those outside. While it may be said that Los Angeles is the city of empty appearances, NYC, the city of Madison Avenue and television, has its own smoke and mirrors in place. Its own mythology.

One of the things I would like to explore on this blog is this mythology of New York City (and by extension, America) and how it is being challenged by economic recession and angry masses of people without jobs. It seems the once fresh and attractive face of NY (as portrayed in movies and television) has a few wrinkles now, the makeup needs a touching up -- and, are those bags under her eyes?

I believe the experience of working hard and "making it" in NYC offers very little for most of us. Except for the experience of working and belonging to this city, and, more beneficially, to each other. That in itself is the reward offered. The ability to say to outsiders, "I'm a New Yorker. I'm tough and resilient. I can make it there! Even after the 9/11 attacks, I'm still here." There is some spiritual camaraderie in that, I suppose. What gives New York its power, its essence, is not the culture industry or the fashion industry or the endless production of money and beauty for others to consume -- rather, it is the human experience that has imprinted itself on this city. All of us living, working and dying in the City have given it its soul.

Not what is made here. (What real thing is made here?) Not the ephemeral "culture" we export throughout the world. That seems meaningless to me, it withers and dies and more grows up to replace it. It serves for a while to be bought and sold -- and then forgotten. In this culture that reproduces and devalues its own cultural products, what is left for the human soul?

The only meaningful answer, I feel, is to be found in the struggle itself. The fight for the human soul rages on, whether political or personal -- or both. While we may have been devalued, made into interchangeable parts by the crushing force of the market, the struggle for humanity remains the only truly worthwhile struggle left to us.

The trick will be to reclaim public spaces for us -- all of us. To reclaim NY for New Yorkers. It will take a sea change in the way we think about ourselves and our city. It will take a peaceful revolution.

A Rockefeller Square where, instead of Atlas, we see the immigrants who truly hold this city on their shoulders. If they shrug, all of this edifice will come tumbling down. And even Mayor Bloomberg and all his cops and cronies, will not be able to put it together again.

The March is On!!!

Archimedes once said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.” Today he would have pointed to our electric media and said, “I will stand on your eyes, your ears, your nerves, and your brain, and the world will move in any tempo or pattern I choose.” We have leased these “places to stand” to private corporations.

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964

I support the protesters in Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Why? Because they are right? Yes, but more importantly because they are there. Because they have demanded the right to take a stand for what they believe in. The words they use are important.

"Money for Jobs"

"We are the 99%"

"No More Wall $treet Greed", etc.

But the actions are far more important. The right to assemble is being demanded. The right to free speech is being used, actively, with strength and compassion. Old Hippies and angry, Guy Fawkes mask wearing kids are joining in the streets of NYC to protest the fact that while 1% of us worry about profit margins, the other 99% are scared of not being able to feed our families, of living in a world where the near future could very well look like "RoboCop." A world where a few corporations run the world, a lucky few have jobs, and the government exists to facilitate smooth functioning of business models. A place where cops beat people with sticks, spray them with pepper spray and arrest grandmothers. Think I'm exaggerating? Well, I got two words for you. Open your fucking eyes! And then maybe take a look at yesterday's NY Times.

McLuhan spoke about "private corporations" taking over our "places to stand." In a city as corrupt of New York, where we are ruled, I mean, governed, by one of the Oldboys himself, where the name Bloomberg is itself synonymous with Trading and the Trading Floor technology (see the "Bloomberg Keyboard") where the mayor is someone who made his money serving Wall Street and now maintains his power by sucking up to Wall Street -- in this city, the home of Wall Street, is the escalating police violence really a surprise? The private corporations have taken the city over to the point where the only public space safe for the protesters, Zuccotti Park, is not owned by the city at all, but by the relatively small, Canadian company Brookfield Office Properties. Can you imagine these people camping overnight in Washington Square or Central Park? I can't. Bloomberg would have had them out of there so fast, it would have made our heads spin.

Zuccotti Park has become the Tiananman Square for a movement that is all about American greed, but, also, all about the core American values of Free Speech, Free Assembly and Free Press (the last one pointed out by its absence). The Owners are in control of the Press. A few private corporations have swallowed up an appalling majority of American news outlets. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I will add them when I have the time. I am going to write in the coming days about how the Mass Media is handling this event, now that it has become too big to contain and cover up.

Breaking Bad (and Getting Worse)

For those of us who masochistically enjoy following the ongoing train wreck that is the lives of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, season 4 has been particularly compelling. Both characters are developing along the lines established in the first three seasons. Which is to say, they are both becoming very, very bad. Yet, despite the show's moral compass heading decidedly south, both men's decisions are shown as a necessary response to their environment. Yes, Jesse murdered someone at the end of season 3. It's hard to argue, however, that, at that moment, he had any choice. Walt was about to be killed and Jesse was forced to decide where his loyalty lies. For Jesse, Walt still represents, in spite of far he has fallen, a link to a world of middle-class normalcy, a way back up the social ladder towards respectability. He is also the only father figure Jesse has.

Both men are faced with choices about whether to maintain their dangerous course into criminality, or to jump ship and confess to the police. Before the murder, Jesse begs Walter to give up cooking meth and go to the police for protection. It seems an admission of the fact that neither of these guys is really cut out to be a criminal. Walter's ego and Jesse's naivete have pushed them this far, but they are both out of their element. Walter's stone face during this scene says it all. He won't quit, even though he has millions of dollars, his life and his family are in danger, and he is being forced into a life of violent crime. He can't quit, because of his ego, his pride, his machismo -- basically because Walter White has to win, has to be the alpha dog.

In terms of the other characters, the other desperate men and women in this world, we come to understand them a little better too. Even Gustavo, who has been the most opaque character thus far, gets his own episode. Unlike the earlier drug pushers of the cartel, Gus receives a back story. This episode helps to present him as a human being, with painful reasons for what he does. Yes, he is very dangerous, and will do practically anything to succeed, but he has feelings and his own code that he lives by -- just as Walter and Jesse do.

As we head towards the climax of the series, I feel more and more that Walter will get his much deserved comeuppance, yet I still can't help feeling sorry for the guy. He did start cooking drugs in order to set his family up for life. He did this when under the death sentence of lung cancer. In one touching (yet dark) scene, a fellow cancer patient comes to Walter for sympathy. He talks all the self-help wisdom of "accept your fate, let go, don't try to control your destiny." Walter's response, however hubristic, has a certain power. Basically, he says, "Fuck the universe. Until I am told it's over, I'm in charge." It's easier to understand his fatalistic outlook when one keeps in mind his illness and the financial struggles that he has been through.

The writers of Breaking Bad are careful to show us how these character became so desperate in the first place, just how they were driven to such violent extremes. And that is why it's the best show on television.

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[Spoiler Alert]

Season 4 Finale

The perverted sense of humor of Vince Gilligan and his crew are once again at play in the season finale in the form of the title "Face Off." Gus finally gets his, in spite of his sociopathic brilliance. Yes, it could have been Walt and/or Jesse getting their comeuppance, but it seems that Walt was a few steps ahead of the drug kingpin himself. It's a flawless ending to a brilliant season, and sets us up perfectly for the final season, as it will surely pit Walt versus his young prodige.

Gus's Achilles heal is revealed quickly at the beginning of the episode, and I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before. His hatred for the elderly Salamanca is the only thing that causes him to go outside of his safety zone. His trip to the old capo's nursing home puts him at the mercy of Walter, and, this time, our hero doesn't screw it up. The triple murder is a bit of criminal master-mindedness that ties up the more than one loose end for Walt. The man who threatened his family is dead, as is the last remaining member of the Mexican drug cartel.

We even get a shot of Walter gloating as he looks at Gustavo's abandoned car, with a close up of its Pollos Hermanos air freshener. That and the final scene, as Walter utters to Skylar, that he has "won" prove that his ego is intact after all of the lies and murders, the threats to his children, and general horribleness of the last four seasons. The major conflicts remain the same: Walt versus Skylar and her sense of (need for) middle-class respectability, and, of course, Walter versus Jesse, his only true partner and friend, who will have to decide if he really needs Walter.

Walt has played the role of Jesse's figurative father throughout the series, teaching him sometimes, even saving his life, but, on the other hand, limiting and denigrating him. Will Jesse find the strength to strike out on his own now that Gus is out of the picture? The very important clue to this upcoming conflict is the morning glory plant. We end on a close up of that plant, sitting square in Walter's backyard. Did he poison Jesse's figurative son just to save his own hide? Or did Gus really need to go? The wild card here is the only other father figure left for Jesse: Mike. Will Mike let Gus's death go without retaliation? It seems that he would, but, still, I can't see him working for Walter. The tangled web that has been woven throughout the show seems certain to catch its major players.

30 Minutes or Less

One thing I thought was original and fun about this buddy flic (or that dreaded word, "bromance") was that we get to explore two different pairs of buddies. The good guys have a relationship that goes back to childhood, but so, it appears, do the bad guys. And, in fact, the relationship between Dwayne and Travis (the villains of this silly but fun story) actually grows through the course of the film. So now we have not only interesting bad guys who are actual human beings but also get to have a friend that's more than a sidekick to, you know, kick around. Travis, the less confidant but ultimately more sane of the two, actually develops enough to stick up for himself and to stop Dwayne from doing something really bad.

What was fun about watching Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) and Chet (Aziz Ansari) together was their strong chemistry as friends. You can believe that these guys actually care about each other. You can also understand why Chet would be fed up with the listless Nick (a much darker, more depressive character than the sunny one played by Eisenberg in Zombieland).

Anyway, the two pairs of buddies get caught up in bad plans and much posturing and all hell breaks loose, only to be very neatly wrapped up with an acute moral sense. The whole tone of the movie captures the vulnerability and testosterone of male adolescence very well, even though the characters are older than that. Like the likable losers of Step-Brothers these four guys have somehow managed to squeak through their thirties without much being demanded of them. However, when the rubber meets the road, they are loyal to their friends. Men around the world who have much more complicated lives will breath a sigh of relief.

Osama is Dead

Osama is dead. But I can't get over the feeling that he won.

The world is a darker place than it was 10 years ago. We have less privacy and less dignity as human beings, even in America, yet as a culture our anxiety has worsened. I'm not a psychologist or a statistician but does anyone doubt it?

We seem closer than ever to an Orwellian future -- a future that doesn't seem all that "futuristic" anymore. Movies and books about near apocalypse states of being (World War Z, Children of Men spring to mind), much of their satiric bite comes from the fact that they refer to stuff as it actually is, right now.

Like the amber waves of our prairies, I watch as waves of fascism rise and fall around the world. In our media, in our systems of authority, in our religion, in our government, in our own bodies.

As perverted as it is, Osama sacrificed his life for what he believed in. This does not make him a hero, because he was evil. However, his does make his narrative attractive to many of dispossesed of the world, Muslim or not.

Theodor Adorno wrote in one of his essays, "The [current] hero no longer makes any sacrifices but now enjoys success. He does not come of age and assume freedom through his deeds for his career is simply the revelation of his conformity." Some of these "heroes," according to Adorno, are the banker and the career politician, "terms of abuse, even in the United States." They are hated for their arrogant assumption of moral and financial superiority. We, as Americans, are hated for those things now. The name "American" has been tainted and is considered inherently oppressive now. Reclaiming the concept of the "good American" will be an uphill battle and we cannot wage it while occupying other nations without legality or common sense. What the world thinks of us is important, even what poor and weak nations think of us is important, because, at the very least, it will impact the security of our children and grandchildren.

The Good America was built on the values of inclusion and tolerance, and, most importantly, respect for the individual and his and her right to make a life for themselves without having the system stacked against them. This is what capitalism and democracy are meant to achieve for humanity; otherwise, why bother?

Our economic system in this country has become predatory. It is fair to say that it is no longer democratic, because it favors a tiny financial elite. This is the "Judas Economy" (one that favors capital over labor) discussed by William Wolman and Anne Colamosca. It's clear to many of us that this has negative effects throughout the globe, and this is the true source of the resenting of Americans by so many. That and the many illegal and ill-considered wars since World War II.

Last year, many American banks saw an increase in profits, major increases, as it happens. JP Morgan/Chase Bank saw an increase of 40 Billion dollars. Its CEO (his name is Jamie Demon, I mean Dimon, and he wants to punch you in the face) pocketed nearly one percent of that, the rest shared in the typical upside down pyramid style of Corporate America. I think its safe to say that janitors and computer technicians and administrative personnel are not making more than they were a year ago, or even five years ago. Even such well-known beneficiaries of American corporate charity as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs almost doubled his pay to $18.6m for 2010 "in spite of a slump in profits."

At some point we will have to admit that stealing from the working people of America in order to maintain the current system is as flawed as supporting dictators in other countries to maintain the global status quo. It was this sort of thinking that got us involved with people like Osama bin Laden in the first place (back during the cold war, when he was our friend).

And we will have to question our own economic and foreign policy. How can we promote good in the world? What is is to be a good American? It is not blithely assuming power that was not earned, or making the shareholders happy, or increasing profit margins at the expense of human margins. True heroism involves sacrificing one's own comfort in order to accomplish what is right and good for one's family and the world beyond it. Smart Americans know this. Americans like the best of the grunts in Afghanistan right now, the kind of people who do their job and try to do as little harm as possible. Interestingly, these Americans tend to be against the war when they return, if not before. These people put their lives on the line for very little pay (enlisted men start out at less then $20,000 per year). Meanwhile, at home, their families are stuggling to pay both the heat bill and the car payment this month while navigating the obscure rules of their HMO -- in other words, dealing with the same crap as the rest of us, but with the possible death of their spouse looming over their head.

Tonight, I will raise my glass not to America and her past glories, or the death of one evil man, but to these true heroes.

True Grit

Somebody's gonna win an Oscar, people! Maybe the young actress who plays Mattie Ross, maybe the Coen Bros. themselves. Jeff Bridges is not allowed, because he won last year, but he may get a nomination for his performance -- one I enjoyed a heck of a lot. I found the movie in general to be a beautifully produced, well-acted take on the classic story.

I must admit I've never seen the 1974 version. Strange, but somehow it's just one of those movies that slipped under my radar. However, this made for a real treat when I went to see the new Coen Bros. version, as I was only familiar with the story in the barebones sense.

I thought the Coen Bros. managed to capture a world and its language with exceptional brilliance. The story is a simple one but compelling. A daughter's revenge sets in motion a set of events that pit good versus evil, and each of the characters must choose which side of that moral divide they want to be on. While avoiding some of the darker elements that might have been addressed when a girl of 14 wanders into the wilderness with the drunkard Rooster Cogburn and the strange Mr. LeBoeuf (a self-effacing and effective Matt Damon), I found it enjoyable to see how basic human decency, however flawed, can slometimes prevail over evil.

TRON:LEGACY and the Good Father

There are two fathers in Tron: Legacy: the Zen and kindly father as played by an appropriately aged Jeff Bridges and the scarily young and aggressive one played by a digitally altered version of the same actor.

The good father is concerned for the young James Flynn, and can see the ways in which he has failed as a father to prepare him for their predicament. Then there is the over-confident and competitive Clu. A digital Narcissus, born of the elder Flynn’s need for a partner and, perhaps, someone as smart as himself to help him set up the “perfect system”, one which will help to revolutionize an ailing humanity (certainly no argument there). However, Clu turns out to be too good at creating perfection; he cannot understand the value of the new creatures which spawn in the Tron-verse, the Iso Algorithms, or Isos. Their presence upsets Clu, who organizes a genocide against the innocent creatures. Whether or not this is successful is an important part of the plot of the new Tron movie.

The interplay between the two fathers, and the challenges that James faces, along with his sprightly female friend Quorra, make for an interesting movie. The best part for me, however, was, toward the end, when Kevin Flynn realizes that he is both the wise Flynn and the ambitious Clu, and must somehow manage to combine the two sides of his personality without destroying his son in the process.

The Revenge of the Big Face

Review of Inglourious Basterds


Tarantino has made a big film about cinema and World War II and the anger of the oppressed. And the revenge of not only the oppressed but also of every young American man who has watched thousands of movies, relished in thousands of acts of murderous revenge, and placed himself on the screen during each one of them. The kind of person who has essentially lived through cinema a thousand lives he would otherwise have had no chance to live.

To say it is ambitious is to miss the point. While it is ambitious, and certainly takes liberties with history that we are not used to seeing in a WWII movie, its steadiness of tone and commitment to the values of cinema make it an important movie. By that I mean it should be watched, more than once, and mulled over and talked about. The fact that it brings together a combination of elements that is still odd and new enough to seem unorthodox and perhaps unseemly only proves that Tarantino is a true artist, in that he will not abide by the procedural boundaries of movies, whether art house or Hollywood. He does not make movies for a specific audience or for critics. He makes movies for those who love them. Chief among them, himself.

But what is he trying to say with this history-twisting movie about revenge? This fuck you letter to reality from the movies? Is he saying this is how things should be? Should Americans go around the world setting wrongs right, giving no attention to the rules? Or is "Inglourious Basterds" only meant to be a good night at the movies?

Tarantino's pacing grabs our interest. His trademark long scenes of dialogue with slowly building tension are punctuated by intense moments of violence. Violence that is ugly and clumsy and over quickly, like real violence. Much of the violence in IB goes by so fast, we barely have a chance to register what has just happened and find our minds trying to piece together the event while watching the next scene.

However, the heart of the film lies in the link between Baine's Apache heritage and the Verboten Jewishness of his "basterds." This is the best part of the American love of freedom and the underdog. Then, there is the dark side. The film has pathos but no real moral sense. The somewhat simplistic characterizations made me uncomfortable at times and had me wishing for a bit more thoughtfulness on Mr. Tarantino's part when dealing with such powerful themes.

Ah well, who knows? Maybe if Hollywood had been in charge of WWII, this is how it would have went down.

Academic Plan

Through the work done this semester, I have gotten a better idea of what I want to do. My literature review about the dialogue between post-modernism and Zen Buddhism helped me to think about the issue of language and its limits. My interest seems to be in understanding what is on the outside (or inside) of language. What cannot be expressed in language. And the kind of faith we need to be effective thinkers and speakers. Not faith in a traditional religious sense, but in an everyday sense. My feeling is that we all use this kind of faith to live our lives everyday. It takes faith to communicate something successfully, to make that leap in thinking that allows one to believe one human being could truly understand another.

I think this applies to the current situation in our culture, where people often have a hard time communicating. In the mainstream media, dialogue can often be stifling, as it sometimes works not to open new possibilities but to polarize the disparate camps of thought. To a lesser degree, Academia seems caught up in this too. I have found Derrida and post-modernism to be an interesting way to clarify our understanding of this problem. To work towards strengthening our perception and asking better questions, to open up new ways of understanding problems, whether they be intellectual or otherwise, seems to me to be very important work right now.

I think this work applies to all languages and media. The difficulty people have in adapting to new media seems to me to be a metaphor for the difficulty found in understanding and opening to the Other. My interest in this is not, I hope, abstract, but rather continues my interest in the language of symbols and in cultural metaphors as a whole. Where this will lead me is still somewhat uncertain.

Certainly, there is a lot going on in even the most unsophisticated of movies and video games that is worth looking at closely. A look at the ontology of video games would be an interesting project, given the medium’s use of first and third person perspectives and its use of non-linear and player-directed narratives.

But what about money? I have a job right now, but it is not very satisfying. I get to use a limited set of skills in print and Web editing, but it certainly is not enough to satisfy my creative side. Will I work in production someday? Quite possibly. Perhaps on some PBS show, a non-fiction show with a small budget. And then we’ll lose funding and I will attempt to sell my skills wherever I can. Ah well…

Plans for the Immediate Future

I plan to broaden my skills. I want to learn to design things, whether on the Web or elsewhere. I would like to continue my writing and perhaps work on a screenplay. Will I be able to synthesize my interest in semiotics, movies, and video games? It will be a challenge, but I look forward to it.

I enjoy writing and telling stories (mainly to my kids) and I will take a course in screenwriting at some point in this program. My plan is to write a thesis exploring some of the themes I have written about this semester. I will continue to take six credits per semester, as I will still be working full time and busy as a father of two children. I plan on taking “Media Practices: Design,” “Cinematography: Art and Technique,” and a video editing course. Next semester, I will be taking “Cinema Theory and Analysis,” along with “Media Practices: Concepts.”

As I think my visual abilities have gone somewhat untapped in my life; it will be exciting to see if I can tap those now, whether in screenwriting or some other visually rich field. I am most excited to get a chance to do my own design and video work in the “Concepts” class. I would like to make some short video pieces dealing with some of the themes I mentioned earlier. I enjoy some of the more experimental videos on YouTube, especially those that mix the spoken word with interesting visuals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xmqz38QtSU

I also find short animations very inspiring, like this one from two of the animators from “South Park.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4&feature=related


I will take design and short film and video classes to augment my understanding of this type of work.

Right now, for my “Ideas” class, I am working on a paper concerning Heidegger and McLuhan’s views on technology. I find this topic to be extremely interesting. Heidegger has this concept of technology as “revealing.” But what is being revealed? This type of question seems to be worth asking, as we are in a bind with technology in western society. To think about media in its social, political, and spiritual implications makes a lot of sense to me. How can we improve our use of it in this culture? Why is McLuhan’s “global village” the site of so much intolerance and bloodshed?


I have a sense that my emphasis on signs and language could be an attempt to understand why it is that members of the same species are so intent upon destroying each other. Why it is we cannot understand each other, the Other, on so many levels. Despite our technological and scientific “progress,” we as a culture are far more violent, cruel, and perverse than any primitive culture could imagine. An inner journey is needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SnfxItXe7s


While at times it seems as if combining the theoretical and the practical in my work will be difficult, the challenge is worthwhile. And I think I am in the right place – as combining theory and practice is the aim of this program.

My intellectual journey is taking me more and more towards a synthesis of the different kinds of thinking I have learned to use during my life. I'm not quite sure what this will be like. I am still developing the skills I need and a stronger sense of theory. I do know that I am interested in a critical understanding of media and of the culture we live in.

The first words I ever heard that had something transcendent about them came from the pulpit of the Bible Baptist Church in my hometown. Our preacher had a deep, rich voice and he liked to intone his sermons slowly, putting emphasis on the important words. While I understood nothing he said, I responded to the sound of his words, and the silence of the congregation. This silence spoke of respect for both the man and the message. And it spoke of power. The power to make others silent, to make them listen.

So, awkwardly, I began my own studies of the Bible. I started to read the Bible through when I was about 10 years old. I plodded on, as difficult as it was at times with its genealogies and lists – and the occasional burst of anger and violence. The god of the Old Testament seemed cruel and oddly blind to the suffering of his chosen people. I managed to get to the Book of Jeremiah, and then gave up. A few years later, I read the New Testament. I found its message of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation much more inspiring than the hopelessness and anger of the Old Testament.

From that point, I moved on to modern Christian apologists like C.S. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge. This afforded me an entrance into English Literature and I began to learn what good writing was. Crisp and clear, language used with grace, humor, and pathos. You have to understand that I was always striving to understand my place in the world, while staying within the limitations of my world, as defined by fundamentalist belief and fear. Then I read “Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton and my mind graduated to the next level of awareness. Or, as Henry Miller put it, “another layer of the onion was peeled.” Now I was in the land of the transcendental, the land of the poet. This was a place where words mean more than they mean. The land of the metaphor. In this world, I was free of the restraints of my reality.

So, language, and specifically the higher language of metaphor, was the freeing of my mind from fundamentalism. Things and actions didn’t always mean what they equaled in the concrete sense. This realization delivered me mentally from the harsh dialectic of belief and fear that I knew from church and home.

One key experience was seeing Glenn Gould play the piano on television. I describe that experience elsewhere on this blog. Another, visual, influence would be Orson Welles. I was excited as I watched Citizen Kane for the first time. Up to that point, my movie watching had been pretty mainstream, simply consisting of the occasional movie at church or school, including a movie I have loved ever since, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. But mainly I had looked at movies as a form of entertainment, a way to pass the time, a bit like television. Citizen Kane was not like that. This movie had a vision; everything mattered, visually, aurally, in the narrative. But mainly, this movie had a maker. Orson Welles had put his mark on every aspect of the film, had stamped it with his identity. I had never seen a movie made in that way. It was as if Welles felt as important to his work as any great novelist of the 19^th century did; he was the author of this movie and demanded to be known by his audience. I saw several of his other movies and read a number of books about him.

It was exciting to think something this specific, this “artistic,” could be done in the medium of film. I was used to accepting images as they were, without any sense of who was making them. I think this was the first step towards a critical visual sense where I was aware of what the filmmaker was saying and thus could begin to do more than merely accept his values and aesthetics. I could think and talk about them, analyze them and then see how I felt about the subject. I began to think about how I would tell a story in the medium of film. I remember how as I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy I kept imagining how I would shoot this story as a movie. I thought about actors, tone, style of editing, etc. I was a bit upset when the Peter Jackson movies came out, though I enjoyed the first one greatly. The next two movies looked so different from my own vision that I found them hard to take, though out of jealousy more than an informed criticism.

I also had a period of fascination with David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, which may have been more of an adolescent crush on both the maker and the actor Peter O’Toole. Leaving one’s boring home, the “fat people of a fat country” as described in the movie, and having life-altering adventures, while nearly bringing freedom to an entire people -- it seems like a respectable adolescent myth to me now. I also found something of Lean’s aesthetic “clean” in a way similar to Welles and Gould. It was an approach to art made free of any filler (that’s the way my adolescent eyes saw it). These artists shared a formal precisions. It seems interesting to me now that all of these artists have at times been accused of being obsessed with the form of their craft.

********************************************************************

Fast forward 10 years: I go to a small liberal arts college in Vermont. There I take a class in Greek and Roman Classics taught by Jim Doyle. A short, wiry man of Irish descent, a troubled yet committed Catholic, a man of great brilliance, humor and feeling. He becomes the only mentor I have had up to now. We mostly communicate through my papers and his corrections. I pull, trying to remain within my constructed world, and he pulls back, trying to draw me into reality. We read The Iliad, Sophocles, Aeschylus. He talks about faith and meaning, metaphor, death, escape, silence. He screams at us for our lack of feeling for what we are reading. He makes sharp jokes. He sometimes plays a whirling bit of Beethoven on the piano. The fact that he is recently diagnosed with terminal cancer informs every word he says.

When I leave that school, I go through a period of great change in my personal life and have to take some time off from school. I eventually finish with my Bachelor’s Degree and move to New York City. There I start work as an editor at a small publishing company and read Marshall McLuhan. Something clicks and I decide that Media Studies at the New School would be the right place for me.

Early Inspiration

I first saw Glenn Gould playing piano on Channel 6, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Living in the hinterlands of Vermont, near the Canadian border, had its perks. I was about 13. I was immediately swept up in the intensity and emotionality of his playing. I had never seen anyone so completely at one with what he was doing. It was as if the piano was an extension of his body. There was no trying, no straining, just absolute confidence; it seemed effortless.

Of course, it wasn't effortless. But Gould had risen to such an advanced level technically that all that was left for him was expression, and this expression happened spontaneously. As he swayed his body, sometimes lifting one arm to conduct the playing hand, he seemed to be in a state of, well, ecstasy.

I was literally rapt with attention throughout the entire performance of Beethoven's Cello Sonata in A major, with Leonard Rose on the cello. What I had always found odd and vaguely unmanly was now fascinating to me. I had watched bits of the Sunday arts show that the recordings were played on, but had always been bored with the classical music, especially the piano styles and flamboyance of the wankerish virtuosos who I would see from time to time. But with Gould I was swept up into it; the beautiful melodies of the mid-period Beethoven didn't hurt.

Before long, I had purchased Gould's recording of The Goldberg Variations. Hearing him play Bach was a revelation. His speed and clarity of tone were perfect for this piece. I could hear each line of the piece with total balance and symmetry. And yet, it wasn't all about the technic. Once again, I found his playing to be almost unbearably beautiful. As restrained as his style with Bach could be, there was always the same emotional intensity that you heard in all his playing. It sounded like someone who was restraining very powerful emotions and only letting them seep out in the slowest, smallest way possible.

Though I would go on to buy many of his records, it was always these first encounters on CBC television that inspired me the most. I think it was the visual aspect. Here I was not only hearing gorgeous sounds, but was seeing their expression by a beautiful young man, who, it seemed, was caught up in his work like, well, a young saint of the piano. His spirit I could only compare to mystics I have read about like Francis of Assisi. It was as if Gould was seeing God. And I, watching him see God, was sharing in that experience.

Resume

Jayson Sargent
jaysonsargent@msn.com


City University of New York, Hunter College, graduated 2003
B.A./English

Areas of Concentration: creative writing, ancient history.


Skills
CompTIA A+ Cerification in Computer repair; PC & Mac repair; laptop repair; hardware and software upgrades; data backup & security; Proofreading; copy editing in several fields; writing; Mac and PC literate; Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint; HTML; internet research; digital photography; photo research, Web editing, Blogging.


Experience
Redemtech, Bronx, NY
Computer Technician
Repairing computers for refurbishing and recycling company. Earned CompTIA A+ Certification during this time. 2010-2011

Assistant Editor/ Thirteen/WNET, Educational Publishing,
New York, NY
Proofreading teacher’s guides. Writing copy for guides.
Extensive databasing for outreach projects. Photo research.
Web editing using WordPress. 2007-2009

Freelance Editor/ worked for Society of Neuroscience, Washington, D.C., Thomas Publishing, NYC, etc.
Editing the “Short Courses” science journal. 2004-2006

Copy editor, office assistant/ New York Academy of Sciences
New York, New York
Copy editing scientific journals; office duties. 2002-2004