Momentary Language

Films as staged tableaux vivants - Automat: the films of Michaël Borremans

The Kestner Foundation in Hannover is currently showing the films of Michaël Borremans.  I've only seen stills from the films, like this one, from "Taking Turns" (2009):

Even viewed as still images alone, however, the work is incredibly arresting.

Gay marriages will save the economy?

I'm not sure gay marriage can avert the impending economic doom, but "Prop 8 - The Musical" is pretty funny nonetheless.

"I love the loneliness of it. Love the language in it - the frank language."

There's a great interview with Matthew Weiner, the creator of AMC's excellent Mad Men, here.

There are so many nuggets offering insights about the show that you just have to read the whole interview yourself, but -- to cite merely one example --  I was struck by how unsurprising many of Weiner's cited influences were, how clearly those influences are reflected in the show:

I love John Cheever.

...

There’s a lot of movies. There’s a movie called ‘The Best Years of Our Lives," which was made in 1946, about the reality of soldiers. It won the Oscar that year. It’s a very unflinching look. The audience had just come out of the war and so had the characters in the movie. I love "The Apartment," obviously, very important. It was very much of its time – very topical, trying to get it right. Not a period piece but trying to make it seem exactly as people’s lives were at that time.

...

"Catcher in The Rye" has got to be at the bottom of the entire show. It's the first book I ever completed reading. I read it many times. I fantasized about living in New York. I loved the WASP-iness of it even though it’s got these Jewish undertones to it. I love the loneliness of it. Love the language in it - the frank language.

David Foster Wallace, Dead at 46

The initial report is here.

(Update: the first, more considered, reaction in the NYTimes is here.)

Proof that the USA in the '70's was another country ...

The profound differences between Europe and the United States are, as Tony Judt has put it, "nowadays asserted with increased frequency and not a little acrimony on both sides of the Atlantic."  I've often thought that we in the US squandered an opportunity, most particularly in the 1970's, to become a different country -- one more like Europe (or Canada).

Musical proof of that thought is this performance by Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street in 1972.  It seems so alien to what could be produced now -- particularly on children's television -- that it's like the breathtaking, brilliant, but utterly foreign product of some lost civilization.

Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

Norman Mailer, author of -- among other works -- "The Naked and the Dead," "The Armies of the Night," and "The Executioner's Song," died today at the age of 84. (The NY Times obit is here.)

I can't escape the feeling that I was born too late to appreciate Mailer's impact as a public figure adequately: one could make a compelling argument that, from the mid-1950's, when he was one of the co-founders of the Village Voice, until the late 1970's, when he championed the release of Jack Henry Abbott from prison, Mailer's life was at least as significant an outlet for his artistic expression as his writing, not least because his life so often found its way into his literary output during those years.

What was he thinking?

I always thought Crick was the smart one. This proves it. (Here is a link to the Times of London, to which Watson first made his remarks.)

Out of my e-mail, quietly mocking ...

Obviously moved by my memorial to Rorty, one of my colleagues, Jen Talarico, sent me the following e-mail:

When I began watching TV seriously in the early 1980's, my introduction to contemporary science was Mr. Wizard -- particularly Mr. Wizard's World on Nickelodeon.

His breezy, seemingly superficial conversational style ... and, perhaps more significantly, his low-key excitement about what he perceived to be the magic and mystery of science ... made Herbert, in many ways, well-suited to be a popularizer of basic principles in science, especially the physical sciences like chemistry and meteorology. Furthermore, those very traits made for work that was always engaging, unfailingly provocative, and often brilliant.

As reported by the Mr. Wizard Studios Home Page, Herbert died on Tuesday, June 12, 2007. His voice will be missed.

Rorty as the mirror of philosophy (1931-2007)

When I began reading analytic philosophy seriously in the early 1990's, my introduction to the contemporary scene was Richard Rorty -- particularly his books Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity and, more importantly, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.

His breezy, seemingly superficial conversational style ... and, perhaps more significantly, his hard-won hostility to what he perceived to be the aridity of philosophy in the analytic tradition ... made Rorty, in some ways, ill-suited to be a popularizer of contemporary work in philosophy, even of philosophers whom he admired, like Quine or Davidson. Nevertheless, those very traits made for work that was always engaging, unfailingly provocative, and often brilliant.

As reported by Todd Gitlin, Rorty died on Friday, June 8, 2007. His voice will be missed.

[See also the discussion of Rorty at Waggish, here. Now they tell me ... the NY Times has finally posted an obit here.]

A radical House cleaning?

So Dr. House loses all of his Baker Street Irregulars with one fell swoop? Thank goodness, I say! The show was hemorrhaging interest; an extreme move like this might be just what it needs to bring its dead heart back to life.

P.S. Did you notice House's address? 221? Remind you of anyone else?