Mr. Hockey

My wheezy old laptop from '98 finally fell apart. That was my "composition" computer. I didn't hook it up to the internet; I just used it for word processing, and that was it. I haven't yet replaced it, so ... you get a picture of Gordie Howe, circa 2001, courtesy of GQ and my scanner. Enlarge and enjoy.


Speaking of hockey, I'm having trouble enjoying the first round of playoffs. The teams I really want to see play each other have another round or two to go, and in some cases they're looking like they might not have it in them to get that far (I'm talking about you, Vancouver).

Leadership You Can Trust — To #*@% You Up

I can't quite shake the feeling that if I don't engage in last night's Leader's Debate, I'm not engaging in my country's political culture. But really, what was there for a viewer to engage in? The three stooges in Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition leveled their accusations against the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister serenely shrugged and said, They're wrong. I gave 'em exactly what they asked for, but they just want to call another election. Those three sad souls, oh me oh my, could only gawp in disbelief and repeat platforms that haven't exactly been selling themselves.

Any elementary school teacher could tell you exactly what's going on here. There isn't a classroom that isn't blessed with the presence of one smug, supercilious little prick (equal opportunists should feel free to substitute the female anatomical counterpart) who wheedles and whines, bullies and cajoles, threatens and presumes, pokes, pinches and gropes anyone of either gender within reach, and in general behaves execrably — in the playground. Back in class, should one of the victims be foolish enough to raise the issue with the teacher, said cretin will don the most innocent look imaginable, and say the same thing over and over again: that's not at all what happened. If you'll just review the facts, you'll see that I'm the one being put-upon here. It's just that nobody likes me because I'm the only one in class who's nice all the time. Everyone in the classroom, including the teacher, wants to string this kid up from the highest limb. At the end of the day, however, most will just give this stinker a very wide berth and manufacture what fun they can from the classroom resources he can't be bothered with.

If there's a weakness in my metaphor, it's in portraying the Opposition as victims. Although there were moments when I felt some pity toward the physically infirm Jack Layton, for the most part the only thing these jokers fell victim to was their incapacity to engage — the Prime Minister and his pathological evasions, or the voters and their very real desire not to let any one of these asshats call all the shots on Parliament Hill. If we have to deal with the people we're given, then we'll accept a minority government, thank you.

But we never want to see the “Who? Me?” kid get his way.

Anniversaries, Stark & Beautiful

I've lost track of who's responsible, but someone tweeted, "Wanna feel old? Kurt Cobain died 17 yrs ago."

Actually, if I ever want to feel old, I'll just take one of my daughters for a ride in the car. The conversation usually goes like this: "Hey, Dad: remember that time you took me to the store, and I did this, and you said that, and I said this? Remember that?"

You lost me at "store," sweetie.

Cobain I remember, of course. The anniversary of his suicide is something I take note of as well -- because he shot himself just a few days before I got married. Now, whenever someone makes a comment like the one that kicked off this post, I think, "That's right! Book the restaurant, buy the flowers, etc." Nasty, perhaps, but true.

Babies were born on March 8, 2011 and on September 11, 2001, for that matter -- any day of infamy you care to name. So it goes. The dire and the delightful coexist, and seemingly require us to remember.

I just want to make sure I don't neglect delight.

Steeping, Composting, What-Have-You

I've been scrambling after loose threads lately, hoping to pull them together for one of my rare Unified Field Theory posts. One thread that keeps showing up is movie-biz guru Robert McKee, whose reiterations of Aristotle's Poetics continue to surface in some of the most unexpected venues. This surprises me, because I wondered if Charlie Kaufman hadn't pulled a George Lucas with the popular lecture-man. When someone takes hold of a teacher so boldly (and, one could argue in both cases, so badly) as Lucas did with Joseph Campbell and Kaufman did with McKee, other disciples of the ubiquitous lecture-man suddenly go into hiding, and claim other influences. At the moment, however, McKee remains very much in the various iterations of the written word.

Here's a link to an interesting mull-over the art and business of story telling, which touches on McKee, by the once-prolific Michael Blowhard. Philip Lopate eruditely tackles the thorny issue of adaptation here. Reading Lopate's thoughts, it struck me that such a subtle cross-pollination has been occurring, not just between the genres of novels and movies, but between many other platforms as well, including . . . video games. Here is some excellent pondering by Michael Mirasol (one of Ebert's "far-flung correspondents") on the worthy influence of video game artistry.

And, finally, author Steven Pressfield is an outspoken fan of McKee. The two have reciprocated blurbage -- McKee wrote the forward for Pressfield's War Of Art, a book which underwhelmed me five years ago, but has stuck in my craw discomfitingly enough to force me to rethink my original opinion. I still have difficulties with reading it, but Sunni Brown's visual summaries of the book cut through a heap of that. They're well worth a closer look -- go here, and give it some thought of your own. If you feel like posting your reactions, hit the "comments" below.

Canada! How Does It Work?

I've linked to it on my The Facebook page, but it bears a link here as well. Word for word, Michelle Dean gives the most incisive — and entertaining — survey and analysis of the current Canadian political quagmire, for The Awl, here.

Dean quite properly leads with this photo of our penultimate Conservative Prime Minister, Kim Campbell:

Nick Lowe, Labour of Lust

I was a little surprised at the “hosannas” that greeted the recent re-release of Nick Lowe's Jesus of Cool. I thought it was a tight album, acerbic in the same manner, if not quite as memorably, as his studio compatriot Elvis Costello. The 2008 CD kept the cheeky gatefold intact, and nearly doubled the original album length with extra tracks, few of which sounded like filler. But it took several plays before it made me a nominal believer. I was left with the impression that to really dig this album, the listener probably had to be there when it first came out. And 1978 was juuuuuust a little too early for me.

This year's re-release of Labour of Lust, on the other hand, I can get quite excited about — because I was there, doncha know. Lowe's acidic wit still burns, but Labour's production has a little more shine than Jesus did. It's got bounce and intelligence, but doesn't wear the latter so baldly as to distract from the former — the appropriate balance for any labour of lust, I should think.



Labour of Lust is this year's spring-cleaning soundtrack.

Update: I'm guessing Josh Hurst is a decade or two younger than I, but when it comes to Jesus Of Cool, Hurst is a True Believer. His thoughts on Lowe's ouevre are worth reading. So is his take on Labour of Lust.

Anton Corbijn's THE AMERICAN

Whenever a big-bucks high-profile photographer moves to the director's chair, I'm game to give him some time. At the very least, the movie is likely to be a treat to look at, if not enter into.

Anton Corbijn's The American is quite the treat, starting with the retro movie poster.

Note the black/orange contrast: Hollywood seems to have set the blue/red scale to 10, for some reason. I suspect Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita set the standard. In any case, Corbijn nudges the blue/red scale to 11. And it actually works. Glamor is the business of articulating the unattainable, and heightening its allure via artfully composed contrasts. Corbijn's palette imbues the (chiefly Roman) locales with heightened cool exoticism. To say nothing of eroticism. Since George Clooney is already on board with Irina Björklund . . . . . . and Thekia Reuten . . . . . . and Violante Placido . . .

. . . what more needs to be said?

Oh. Story. Right.

The American is a rehash of the pro-assassin-losing-his-touch motif, and exhausts its capacity for surprise early in the film. Corbijn sets up the trade of assassin/arms dealer as a glamor profession, a premise which, if taken strictly at face value, is laughable (and was played for laughs, brilliantly, in The Matador). However, previous arty films have equated photography with murder, a metaphor well worth stretching in the viewing of this movie.

Glamor photographers and their models engage in a pointedly erotic mutual tease. Yet it is essential they both maintain a cool distance if the glamor is to remain intact. Spoiling any of it with the messy intimacies of, say, a head cold or flatulence or, God forbid, unexpected feelings of compassion for The Other is ruinous for a glamor photographer (well . . . most of 'em, anyway. Not everyone can be Richard Avedon). Can a photographer surrounded by gorgeous women permit himself to be vulnerable and intimate with any of them without throwing his entire game?

That's really as much as needs to be said about this flick, but since I raised the specter of sexual orientation in yesterday's posting, I might as well carry on and declare that, on the Kinsey Scale of Sexuality, The American is lodged resolutely in the Hetero side. Corbijn happily indulges in luscious nude scenes and has a European's lingering appreciation for the rolling enticements of a muscular derrière (which seems to catch the hetero woman's gaze, as well, I'd say).

Years ago, after I'd seen the first Mission: Impossible movie, my wife asked me what I thought. I said, “The movie is a mess that doesn't make a lick of sense. But when it was over, I felt like sprinting down European alleys.” After watching The American, I felt like taking a seat at a European café, ordering a strong Americano, then sitting back and scanning the crowds for the next potential assassin.

Odds are pretty good I'll be watching this more than once.