I was not accepted into college. Didn’t have the grades to get in. I had planned to go to art school so I focused on my portfolio (sort of), and didn’t care about grades. Then, when I changed my mind about art school during my senior year, I was in a bad spot. Not getting into any school, was humiliating.
During freshman year of college when all of my friends were away, I lived with my father in my grandparent’s apartment in Manhattan, took three classes at Hunter college, and worked for a post-production company in midtown. Economics, Anthropology and a 400 level course on Samuel Beckett. I barely passed the first two, but tackled the Beckett class with enthusiasm and earned a B.
I didn’t understand a lot of what I was reading or what the professor was talking about. But I faked it well enough (I put a lot of effort into faking it.) I’ll never forget studying for the mid-term. I was sitting at the dining room table of my grandparent’s apartment, hand-written notes covering half of the table, when my father’s friend Jim Nolan dropped by.
Jim wore a leather bomber jacket and had the rugged good looks and easy charm of the kind of blue collar hard guy that Gene Hackman or Paul Newman played in the movies. Tough but tender. Funny, but in a sly way. Not an intellectual. Not from New York.
Jim sat down with me and asked what I was studying. I told him about the mid-term and Beckett and everything I had to study. I picked up a piece of paper and said, “Nothing is more real than nothing.” He looked at me waiting for more. “Descartes said that,” I added.
Jim thought for a long moment. “Nothing is more real than nothing.” He considered it some more. Then: “You know what? I wish that guy was sitting right here, right now cause…I’d…like…” Jim thought some more. “…to…punch him right in the mouth. Nothing is more real than nothing. Yeah, I’d like to punch him right in the fuggin face.”
That’s my favorite Jim Nolan story and it jumped to mind last night as I read an article in The New Yorker about Wes Anderson. I couldn’t figure out who I wanted to punch more–Anderson or the guy who wrote the article.
I just got a subscription (a birthday gift) and this was my first issue–I haven’t read the magazine on a regular basis since I was in high school and Pauline Kael was still writing for them. And it serves me right that an over-written and meandering profile of Anderson (with talk about “mood” and “tone”), who I find hopelessly self-absorbed and precious, was there to greet me.
Pow, right in the kisser.
"I put a lot of effort into faking it."
can't.contain.self.....THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.
I thought Bottle Rocket and Rushmore were pretty good, though I don't remember much about them.
The most over-written magazine pieces have to be the coverstories for Vanity Fair. There's ususally nothing worth noting until the 8th of 10 pages. If you ever come across a Vanity Fair piece on a subject you care about, start at the 2nd to last page.
[1] heh
I don't mind long pieces, but this one was part profile, part critical appreciation of Anderson's films. I like the first two okay, just like you, and I appreciate Anderson's skill, but it's all too cloying and precious for my taste. He does get what he's going after and you have to give him props for that. But the article was death for me. Boring as balls.
yeah, I haven't been able to hang with The New Yorker much. They take on interesting subjects but I with they'd take more of a Ramones approach to their storytellng. I like my magazines punchy, straightforward, and visually cool to look at.
Got Ramones on the brain this morning.
beat on the rat
beat on the rat
beat on the rat with a baseball bat
oh yah
The profile says "Rushmore" made Jason Schwartzmann a star. Did I miss something? That kid is a star?
in most crowds he wouldn't count as a "star sighting". He probably gets a lot of the "Look, it's the kid from Rushmore! Yo, Rushmore!" if anything.
"but tackled the Beckett class with enthusiasm and earned a B.
I didn’t understand a lot of what I was reading or what the professor was talking about. But I faked it well enough (I put a lot of effort into faking it.) "
That about sums up what I feel about the current state of literary criticism. Aside from Camille Paglia there is just too much spewing pretentious nonsense. Which is fine for a college freshman, trying to figure it out, but when it is professors and professional critics doing it. . . well maybe it is time to admit that everything worthwhile that can be said has been said.
Jason Schwartzman is Spencer Tracy to people who think Built To Spill are The Beatles
[10] woah woah. Built to Spill is the bomb!
Schwartzman now has a tv series (not very good), I suppose that counts, but don't let's get started on 'stardom' today. Is Tia Tequila a star? What makes Perez Hilton famous? Balloon Boy Father? Please. Schwartzman is at least a working actor.
I'm a dissenter on the New Yorker bashing: find it continuously engaging and still get the experience of starting a long piece on something I have ZERO interest in, and surfacing 15 pages later, having been immersed. A few weeks back they'd all had their nasty pills: FIVE of the reviewers hard after their subjects (from books, to opera, to film, to stage...) ... never saw that group mood before. It was actually funny.
And the New Yorker is Woody Allen's home in print, too. (The Twenties Memoir gig is in print in GETTING EVEN, which is wonderful. Woody is too prolific to be consistently good, but some of his short writings were flat-out brilliant.)
rbj: after her doctoral thesis, SEXUAL PERSONAE, Paglia is in the vanguard of the nonsense brigade. That was a useful, if erratic book, but since she's 'putting a lot of effort' into being another celeb. Also, your comment is way too universal. Not everyone writing about literature is pretentious or bluffing. I agree that the tenure system encourages hivethink and formulas, but in EVERY field excellence and originality are rare. Academia is no exception, that's all.
Now back to our regularly scheduled anticipation of game 1. Rain forecast tomorrow, I gather.
[6] You left out a "b" ... Did I miss something?
[7] Compare how well-known he was before and after that film. Let's call him an "indie star". No he's not George Clooney.
I like all Wes Anderson's movies. I could see how people could find them cloying or whatever but I don't. I find other movies along those lines to be so but not his. I get the impression he might be a little pretentious but he's Texan so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and/or a pass.
I'm trying to think of something I found too precious to watch. It happens quite often but I can't think of one.
I really wish someone would fix it so this site would display properly on Safari/Macs. Or on mine - whatevs.
Oh I know: That show Pushing Daisies. There's one.
I go back and forth on Anderson - I genuinely love Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and even The Royal Tenenbaums. That said, I couldn't bring myself to even watch The Darjeeling Limited. The increasing preciousness and twee-ness is just getting to be too much to stand. I am amazed at how he can create an alternate universe from whole cloth for his movies - as Alex noted, he gets what he wants. What I find frustrating is that all his movies show genuine emotion and substance at their core, fighting to get out past all the hand-drawn wallpaper and luggage. I'd love to see him do a stripped down flick, ala Bottle Rocket.
I'd say he's also really very funny, but perhaps that came from Owen Wilson and not Wes, and then his mostly excellent casts (Hackman, Murray, et al).
Oh, and I have to say I enjoy Schwartzmann's TV show (Bored to Death, on HBO). In fact, this past Sunday's episode was pretty hilarious.
[7] et al - I went to college with the guy who's parents' house was the house that Rushmore was filmed in. Even he thought it was a pretty silly movie, as cool as it was for him to see his house in a movie.
[13] The wife and I loved "Pushing Daisies" - it had a snarky-cuteness that we both enjoyed. And pie - you can't go wrong with pie!
[13] nah, you didn't miss anything. My old roommates used to sing it without the b.
[14] It's so weird - I can't stand anything twee, and I still like The Darjeeling Limited. Maybe its not twee though. I thought it was a lot better than the one that preceded it in that regard anyway, the one with the David Bowie songs in Spanish. The Darjeeling Limited is pretty rough at times, actually but I think all his movies have that element where there is some real darkness at some point.
The Fantastic Mr Fox looks potentially annoying.
Yeah, you know, I thought I would hate The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and I wound up liking it. I think it was mainly due to the cast. Murray is one of those performers I instantly like when he comes on screen, and I liked Dafoe and Huston, Blanchett , Bud Cort and Goldblum in it as well.
It was basically a goof, once again on Anderson's favorite theme of fathers & sons, but it made me chuckle.
bottle rocket and royal tenenbaums are pretty funny. i never really liked rushmore and didn't know what everyone else liked about it. i haven't seen darjeeling limited, but i did see the free download short that i guess has something to do with it, "hotel chevalier." that was one of the stupidest, most pointless things i've ever seen.
You know, I loved, loved, LOVED Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and especially the Royal Tennenbaums. So it has been a long, hard process for me, realizing that Anderson is kind of a jackass.
I do love the New Yorker though. Not so much for cultural criticism, but real in-depth news articles like last week's piece on Predator drones or the Gladwell article on football and brain injuries from the week before. You don't get that from many places these days.
I'm a dork. What does "twee" mean?
[23] Overly precious/cute. Think "Amelie".
[23] Oops, I meant [22], obviously. (And no offense intended to those who liked Amelie. Some of my best friends liked Amelie, but even the trailer makes me twitch: http://bit.ly/N0hur)
[23] BARF there's another one. Think of more and I'll back you up almost every time
I think I liked The Darjeeling Limited better than Royal Tenenbaums. Lots of times it has to do with the mood you're in when you watch though.
I'm with Matt, I think Bored To Death is hilarious.... maybe because I identify with the illustrator friend who we see dressed in a hoody with no pants.... Isn't that how everyone who works at home dresses? Remember the Ted Knight Show? His illustrator character would dress in an oxford shirt and cardigan sweater to draw Cosmic Cow at his bedroom drafting table. Who does that?
BTW, Love the Levine Drawing
Levine and Al Hirsfield=GODS
[26] I saw three episodes and I enjoyed it. Not great, but pleasant.
My father never finished 9th grade, went into the military, and later was a very small scale contractor that built some cool houses and was always right there breaking rock with the rest of them - I grew up working on job sites from the age of five. Later, I went got into an Ivy League college and later got a graduate degree and have been reading the New Yorker pretty much cover to cover for well over half my life. Some rich family whose daughter I was dating where I grew up (no where near New York), used to hand it off to me when I was in high school. I doubt they read more than the culture listings and a couple of "talk of the towns."
I tear out, staple and mail my father an article from every other issue, and he really digs them, writes back long, grammatically questionable (we're immigrants) letters on Swiss tunneling or Great lakes barges or Roger Angel on spring training, or John Mcphee on geology, Abu Ghraib was broken there. I used to send him the whole magazine and almost got him a subscription, but he would get so pissed off by some of the articles that I thought someone would get hurt. So now I select, and it's his favorite reading.
I don't know what that means for you, Alex, but try just reading the good pieces. It's worth it.
In my opinion, for the most part, the language, the accuracy, and the depth is unmatched anywhere else in any publication at any price (I happen to work at the largest library in the world so the serials collection is pretty good).
Yankster. Great stuff. Yeah, I didn't mean to paint such a facile view of the magazine. Clearly, it's heavyweight stuff, and has featured some great writing throughout its history. Pauline Kael was a goddess to me growing up. Angell, a god. The long Kenneth Tynan profiles in the late 70s, especially the one on Mel Brooks, were dynamite. I loved most of the cartoons, especially the stuff by George Price.
You know me, though. I love to have something to hate. LOL
p.s. Kael was a horrible over-writer but one of her best reviews was a one sentence job on "Steel Magnolias."
"Nails screeching along a chalkboard for two hours."
[30] Oddly, the culture writing in the New Yorker can be really bad. You'd think that's where the best would be called on. Also oddly, of the culture coverage, the architecture pieces are the best.
On Andersen - it's embarrassing but as much as I hate the preciousness there's no way I'm missing one of his movies. The ladies in the movies are always intelligent/hot like Nathalie Portman or Gwyneth Paltrow or Cate Blanchett and the colors and set design are at least interesting. The wilsons I could do without.
I worked as an apprentice editor on Woody Allen's movie "Everybody Says I Love You." And I had a crush on Portman, who was jail bait at the time. Woody's assistant gave me a still from the location that showed Portman standing under a sign that said "Do Not Enter."
LOL
Alex, I just read the Anderson profile and -- I agree, it is remarkably vacuous, trying-to-puff-him writing. Uncharacteristic for those pieces. As if the concept was pitched (probably around the Mr Fox movie) and the writer was either over his head or realized he didn't have as much to work with as he'd thought. Boring and forced. But any mag that focuses on the writers will have hits and misses. I agree about Kael, Angell (still, the Mo of baseball writers!), McPhee. I think the current film guys are both interesting and not-with-the-herd and I do - as Emma and Yankster do - enjoy the New Yorker more than any other mag I get.
I'm dreaming of Angell summarizing a WS win later this year, and discussing the brilliance of A Rod and CC. Make it so.
[32] hilarious
[23] I always liked Amelie, though I think just a little edge would have made it a classic; i.e. the garden gnome was stalking her father instead of sending vacation pics from abroad, but then I suppose that would have made it the French version of Family Guy. Audrey Tatou has yet to live down the preciousness that movie made of her career, but I still have hope.
Of course, as an antidote I think of Le Femme Nikita, when Jean Reno as The Cleaner is sitting in the getaway car outside the embassy and the officer walks up and and taps his window...
whirrrr... POP! wump! whirrrr... >;)
I actually loved Amelie. It's the rare example of a romantic comedy that has brains and an appealing lead.
I like the New Yorker too, thankfully my sister mails them to me every few months. Usually skip the fiction and just read one or two articles per issue, but it certainly keeps me interesed.
No idea of anything about Wes Anderson, though I thought "The Royal Tannenbaums" was funny, and Gene Hackman particularly hysterical in that. He's always been an under-rated comedic actor.