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September 19, 2003
Volume 36: Norah Jones cool, or...
There was this woman I knew online, christ, seven years ago now, and like the fella in Citizen Kane, I bet not a month goes by that I don't think about her. I feel even now that we could have been great friends, but, she could not be friends with my friends. She was feeding Uncle Dynamite, from whom I was separated then but not yet divorced, some line about her being a little old lady. I knew she was my age, and Uncle didn't like her to begin with, and the joke curdled, and I got annoyed, and set it all straight. She stormed off saying I should have backed her. I only ever saw her once again after that, when she wanted to hang out provided neither I nor Uncle (who can still be found on the mud a few times a week despite that we've been divorced four years) talked to her. I suggested this was foolishly impolite in any medium, so again, she left. You might think I could've handled it better, particularly if I cared about her, which I evidently still do. However, stress amplifies allergic reaction, and my allergies are bad and profuse, so if you stress me out, I'm going to have to get rid of you. Whether you're family, whether we're married, whether I like you a lot, if your stress in supercedes the joy out, you better shape up or fuck off.
Jen wanted to control an audience she didn't gather. She was a coward. I have a love/hate take on cowards because there have been so many days when I was too sick to face anything at all. My undergrad degree started at 13 and still incomplete, and other such things that I think about whenever I'm equilibrious enough to do a little mental strength training, to make sure I'm not crushed by them unaware in a moment of exhaustion. I understand the desire to splice together the parts one wants to show, with the quality of editing — the seamlessness — dictating how successful the eventual screenings will be. One leads to another, since nobody builds a theatre for only one movie. So now you're showing something else on another screen, and another, and another.
The usual problem is, you can't permanently keep the audiences from encountering critics and wanting to see what was reviewed in the theatre next door. Uncle Dynamite's first fiance was atypically good at keeping them apart; she wandered the internet, carefully showing herself in small enough doses to different groups to make sure they always pumped her full of attention and control. Then she overreached; she accused one guy from one group of having raped her, told Uncle Dynamite she was pregnant with their baby and so he proposed, then she suddenly married somebody from theatre 6...
This other woman I knew, involved with one guy who moved from Africa to be with her, while she was having netsex with a friend of mine. She fed a semi-complicated story to her boyfriend but neglected to let me know I was supposed to verify it, so I was caught flat, and very annoyed, because I didn't like her screwing around to begin with and was progressively uninterested in being remotely acquainted... She married the boyfriend, and we don't talk anymore.
I remember the women mostly because I'm not even closely acquainted with that many, and it seems like all the ones I do know are constantly pulling dumb shit and expecting me to jump in after them. I imagine there's less of this, proportionately, on the internet now, because there are now about the same number of women as men. I do recall a guy whose fiance was cheating on him over the internet, and he knew, and married her anyhow, and later cheated on her, online first, then in person.
I think these people would have behaved antisocially no matter what the medium; they just filmed and showed their movies digitally instead. I don't think medium matters that much if you're really interested in understanding people. Some people are perceptive of particular cues and others, like me, get hard to quantify gestalt impressions from anything: phone, written word, physical presence, etc. But I digress... Though I aggressively dislike this behavior, I am often peculiarly oblivious to it, partly from the aforementioned sympathy, and partly because I see things from such an unorthodox angle that sometimes I don't realize what I'm seeing. I'll wander in partway through dubbing, or stumble into the cutting room, or critique the plot to the annoyance of my fellow watchers and end up leaving early.
Even though I'm extremely detached, I'm still susceptible to moviemakers. The motivation for making and showing one is so alien to me that I can get drawn in simply because I'm curious and baffled as to why anyone would possibly do this. I do not like large amounts of sustained attention. I like it to be small and asynchronous and to contain enough useful criticism that I can improve. I do not like getting empty fan mail. I find it distracting. It's distracting — and corrosive — of the moviemakers also, but they like it that way. They made their whole life with clever sliding panels and strategic veils and Chinese finger traps.
Moviemakers are ultimately exhausting to deal with, because I'm most interested in conveying a maximum of reality with a minimum of artifice, and moviemakers are naturally otherwise. I'm constantly having to ask them, what do you mean, how serious is that, what do I hold on to, where are you? I usually end up close enough to them that I'm seeing multiple screenings at once and trying to process N different plots and eventually realizing none of them truly jive. Normally ultra-perceptive about the fundaments of character — the same techniques I use to determine if something is physically acceptable to my health — my snap judgments are usually solid. Moviemakers are tough though, fundamentally manipulative, so they deflect a lot of my normal tactics. They may not lie, but they are liars. When I do catch on, though, I am gone, and you may whistle for me... You know how to whistle don't you, darling? You just put your lips together and blow.
They are probably happier than I am, and my purpose is not to anathematize but anatomize. They probably find my choice in lifestyle equally peculiar — that I would reject conversation — which Emerson says is a game of circles to begin with — with anyone I can't trust. Regardless of how delightful moviemakers might be. In their craving for control and attention, they are usually intensely fascinating and charming — another reason they escape initial rejection, I must grudgingly admit. I gotta go with Gibbon though: conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius, baby.
Posted by gtaylor at September 19, 2003 12:11 AM
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