Now that I finally have a moment to breathe, I can post a treat for you. Last Friday I saw Flying Lotus and Dr Strangeloop — an experimental hip hop artist and visual artist (and sometimes musician), respectively — perform a “live musical score to Harry Smith’s 1962 animated avant-garde classic Heaven & Earth Magic” (as the press release put it). The show, which took place at the Michigan Theater, was arranged as part of the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Sadly I didn’t arrive until 7:15, so I not only missed the beginning of the main feature, but also Dr. Strangeloop’s opening performance of “2010: (or) How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Technological Singularity.” I hadn’t heard much about “the Singularity” before the show. But actually, just that afternoon Kaliptus had been talking to me about author Terence McKenna, who it seems was the first to elaborate on the concept. Dr. Strangeloop explains it in the third video below, so I’ll leave it to him.

The first two clips are from the live score performance. It was a pretty wild ride. I’m glad that I was there. As I explain in the YouTube info box, the videos are a bit wobbly and/or crooked because I was covering the viewing screen on my camera. I didn’t want to disturb anyone’s viewing experience. At least you can get a basic idea of what went down. The audience did ask the duo if they intended to release an official version of this performance. It sounds like they’re interested but not sure, although they would consider repeating the live score in the future. For more info on the program, you can view this press release or this tickets page.

I also attended and took videos at the “after party show” at the Blind Pig. But Flying Lotus, or someone purporting to be him, contacted me on YouTube and asked me to take those ones down. He didn’t explain why, and while at first I thought it would be because his new album Cosmogramma doesn’t come out until May 4, later on I realized he’s probably planning on selling a DVD of live performances. Dr. Strangeloop — who is part of Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label — provided live visuals with a midi board and laptop.

Anyway, enjoy the videos below. Just use the left and right arrows to navigate between the three.

Anyway, I’ve been attempting to gain a sense of closure on the decade. But due to complications offline, I haven’t had much chance to think (let alone write) lately. I first struck out to discuss my favorite music of the decade — albums released between the years of 2000 and 2009. So far I have an audio slideshow of my 50 favorite albums, and a PDF of my favorite 200. I intended to provide more explanation, but simply haven’t gotten around to it yet.

On New Years Eve I decided to create a list of my favorite films of the decade. I ended up with 50, so I’ll discuss the top ten here, and then either do an “honorable mentions” post or just let you view the whole list. Now let’s begin…

Phew. Now that I got that out of my system, let me get to the point. I think the long-running appeal of absurdist stories like Alice in Wonderland (based, let’s not forget, on the book by Lewis Carroll) is related to a few themes that aren’t often acknowledged. The Wizard of Oz is a similar example. In each case, a young woman bored or frustrated with her surroundings dreams (or hallucinates) that she travels to a land where things are more exciting and unpredictable, but a land that’s also more dangerous and terrifying. (Also note: the 1986 cult classic Labyrinth, featuring David Bowie and an early performance from Jennifer Connelly).

It’s clear that the characters whom Dorothy meets on her journey bear heavy resemblance to her friends and family back home. But since we don’t see as much of Alice’s life, we can only infer that her trip down the rabbit hole closely resembles Victorian England. Alice still escapes her boredom by traveling to a mystical place, but what she finds is even more defined by madness than the Land of Oz. It’s a madness that she cannot tolerate. She seems to think that people are not only capable of acting logically and responsibly, but they ought to do it all the time. I would argue that our society is more like Wonderland; it’s in a state of constant, rumbling madness. Yet the citizens of Wonderland are convinced that all is well — that they’re doing exactly what they should be doing, and it’s Alice who is acting peculiar.

It seems symbolic that a young girl is the protagonist in each story. It’s a literary device used by the author to express his (or her) own feeling of inadequacy. That’s not to say that little girls are actually powerless — but in the old British sense of “seen and not heard,” little girls are sort of at the bottom of the social structure in terms of who decides what. And of course this isn’t unique to gender or time period. South Park uses the exact same storytelling device with the four young boys. Almost every episode points out how dumb adults can be, as if they were ruled by madness but certain of their sanity. The unfortunate person who points out the truth is deemed to be insane — and, if the reaction is sharp enough, the person is destroyed for their inconvenient observation. (Here Bill Hicks would have called attention to Martin Luther King Jr, John Lennon, etc.)

Aside from the pervasive madness and the young female protagonist, the third important theme or concept is that, when things get out of hand, the main character simply wakes from the dream and is returned to “normal life.” This is such a ripe fantasy that no one even wants to admit that it exists. So many would like to “wake up” from what we take to be reality, saved by some greater force and reassured that this couldn’t actually be how the real world operates. (See: most major world religions)

A.O. Scott recently suggested in a New York Times article that Where The Wild Things Are contains a theme similar to the Wizard of Oz. Scott felt that Max was seeking a place where he could do whatever he wanted, and more importantly, where he’s in charge of his social circle. According to Scott’s essay, Max’s view of reality changed for the better after living with the Wild Things. Max decided that his imperfect life was worth putting up with. (Scott noted a similar theme in Coraline, another well-received 2009 film.) But the message behind Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz is actually quite the opposite. I think a story like Alice has endured because of what it says about the real world, not what it says about the dream world conjured up by the main character.

This is what Normon O. Brown was getting at in his Freudian study Life Against Death. In Chapter 2 he references the James Joyce quote, “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken” (p. 15). And while Brown failed to fully answer my questions on this subject, he did make it clear where this points. He said that by gaining a better sense of consciousness, “man would be ready to live instead of making history, to enjoy instead of paying back old scores and debts, and to enter that state of Being which was the goal of his Becoming” (p. 19).

That leads to another conversation entirely — one I’m not going to spoil here, but one I can assure you I will (finally) be able to provide some context on in the near future. For the time being, I’ll just reiterate the three most important — but unrecognized — themes in these tales of absurdist fiction: the protagonist (or author) feels surrounded by madness, completely powerless to change it, and unable to wake from the nightmare.

Now, have you fulfilled the necessary materialistic rituals to prepare yourself for the Holiday Season? Have you been thinking about the themes hidden beneath these worn-out traditions? This is, after all, how we claim to celebrate the concept of annual renewal — regardless of which religious jersey you wear. The more important question is, are you renewed?

The alien subject interests me because of a theory I’ve been developing. It relates to the idea that our alien shows and movies actually say more about the human race than they do about aliens. How we react to or interact with aliens in fiction is a sort of indicator for how far we’ve progressed as a species. This theory was directly inspired by the “Pinewood Derby” episode from season 13 of South Park (original air date 4/15/09), in which an alien arrives in our favorite animated Colorado town. Stan’s dad Randy has just cheated on their pinewood derby race, using some kind of nuclear reactor to send the car into space at light speed.

The alien guest is a criminal on the run after stealing money from the Intergalactic Bank. He demands that the citizens of South Park hide him from the Space Police, or else he’ll kill them all. He also asks that they fix the light speed on his ship, since he’s aware of Stan’s pinewood derby accomplishment. The city of South Park lies to the Space Police, who then leave temporarily. But Randy is too proud to admit he cheated on the derby car, so instead of showing the alien how they did it, they kill him and South Park seizes his Space Cash. They divide it up among the world leaders, but ask everyone not to spend it. Naturally, everyone does. The Space Police return and ask again about the alien and the cash. The citizens deny everything. To make it brief, the criminal alien isn’t dead after all, but is actually working with the “Space Police.” Every time a new planet discovers light speed, they pay a visit to evaluate the species. Human beings have failed their test unforgivably, and are banned from the Intergalactic Alliance forever.

I personally have no trouble whatsoever believing this outcome. As South Park has brilliantly displayed throughout its 13 seasons, people are stupid. By mastering the art of unrelenting satire, South Park has become one of the most important shows of our time. Of course, if aliens ever did show up on Earth, it would be a lot less…well…cartoon-ey. Enter District 9, which, as I later found out, wasn’t actually directed by Peter Jackson. He produced, while relative newcomer Neill Blomkamp directed and co-wrote the film. As the story goes, aliens arrived in South Africa about 25 years ago in an emergency landing. The interaction was peaceful at first, and the aliens actually lived among human beings. But conflicts soon arose, much in the same way that human groups have clashed throughout history. As a result, the aliens are congregated in District 9, a disgusting slum where they’ll be separated from human society.

The film starts as a fictional documentary, with Wikus Van De Merwe leading us through the process of relocating the aliens to a concentration camp disguised as a clean community. The corporation that built the camp is legally obligated to serve eviction notices to the aliens, who most humans refer to with the derogatory term “prawn.” The first hour of the film is extremely tense and at times difficult to watch. To provide another short synopsis, Wikus is contaminated with some fluid biotechnology that causes him to slowly transform into an alien. This makes him a target, because the corporation has been trying in vain to find a way to use the alien weaponry. Only the aliens can use it, since it reacts to their biological makeup. When the company attempts to harvest his body parts, Wikus escapes and flees into District 9 as a fugitive. This is where the film becomes both interesting and, in some ways, even more frustrating. (Here the filmmakers suddenly and inexplicably abandon the fake documentary format for a standard action movie presentation, only to return to the documentary style at the film’s end.)

Wikus befriends the alien who had produced the fluid biotechnology, partly because the alien says he can reverse the transformation. It turns out he is a leader amongst the aliens, and he’s trying to fly his hidden vessel up to the hovering mothership. Then he will travel to his home planet, seek help, and return to save his kinsmen. Wikus agrees to the exchange of services, and helps the alien recover the confiscated fluid from the corporation. But when Wikus discovers that it will be three years until this alien can return and change him back to a human, he basically throws a fit and blows the plan.

Now District 9 was far from a clunker; it’s currently #65 overall on IMDB with an average rating of 8.5. And judging by the 8.0 score on Metacritic, professional critics were also fond of the film. I’m not saying I hated it or anything. Even if poorly executed, the topic is still interesting to me. Plus, the special effects were pretty phenomenal. But in terms of philosophical weight, the movie provided little payoff. The lasting effect, in my opinion, was little different than the aforementioned South Park episode. District 9 succeeded most at showing how stupid people are. South Africa does little to help the aliens get back home or make them more comfortable, but instead entrusts a corporation to corral them into a concentration camp. The corporation is only interested in unlocking the power of the alien weapons in order to make a fortune selling them around the world. Wikus is too selfish to wait three years for help, so he tries to sabotage the plan altogether.

What a fucking pathetic race we are. Of course we don’t need alien films to show us that. Just turn on the TV, look at a newspaper, or read the headlines scrolling across your email browser. I’m just not sure if it’s more painful having this stupidity demonstrated in a film inspired more by Halo (yes, the video game) than anything else, or in an episode of South Park. Both leave me with a sunken feeling and the conviction that, if given the chance to enter some kind of Intergalactic Alliance, human beings will consciously reject it. (Somehow I’m reminded of Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground, which I’ve written about here.) People would destroy an alien alliance just to prove to themselves that they could. Humans could never cooperate with aliens until we collectively acknowledge that we’re no different. We are an alien life form with no origin and no destination, and that pisses us off. As a result, we scorch the Earth.

I think you get what I’m edging towards. When we eventually have alien fiction in which Will Smith doesn’t welcome the beings to Earth with a punch in the face, it might be a sign that we’ve finally evolved. What we will evolve into is another question entirely, but until it happens, there’s no way to hide the most prevalent (and embarrassing) characteristics of the homo sapien. And both South Park and District 9 lay them out clearly for all to see.

You can watch the entire “Pinewood Derby” episode online here.

Most of the world was introduced to his wily behavior in Borat, the 2006 film of similar format (and from the same director Larry Charles) in which a TV reporter from Kazakhstan travels to America in order to learn what it’s all about. I was a fan of Cohen’s Da Ali G Show, which HBO has re-aired in recent years after initial broadcasts in the UK. That program featured alternating clips of Ali G, Borat, and Bruno, three characters designed to catch people off-guard, pull them out of their comfort zone, and elicit an outcome that is equal parts humorous, humiliating, and offensive.

So Bruno the character was no surprise to me, but Bruno the movie was. After the stir Borat caused, I couldn’t believe that Cohen could still dupe anyone into signing a filming contract without reading the fine print! I went into it thinking that I’d be one of the few people not offended by the film. I wasn’t totally wrong, but perhaps “offended” isn’t the right word. It’s not that anything offended my customs or beliefs; it’s that I felt extremely uncomfortable at multiple points in the movie.

I wasn’t uncomfortable about the fact that Bruno is a homosexual or because I had to watch a plethora of bizarre, unexpected nude scenes and sexual acts; I felt uncomfortable because watching Bruno was like living through a nightmare. It seemed that I was asleep and had no choice but to process the horror (a feeling that reminds me of an essay I wrote last year). Upon exiting the theatre, I remarked that — whether or not we perceive it on a daily basis — this nightmare is the world around us. And no, I’m not referring to Bruno; I’m talking about everyone that Bruno encountered on his journey through America.

I’m a generally pessimistic person with many strong reservations about American society, and yet Bruno still stirred me out of a general contentment with my surroundings. The film reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, which these days gets a lot of uninspired comparisons to the psychedelic drug experience. Many people gain satisfaction from knowing that they can expose themselves to wilder, more extraordinary sensory stimuli than their predecessors. We can’t necessarily be richer or possess more property or money, but we do have the power to live to greater extremes. Our wealth is our experience and our ability to retell it, to share it with others, to help them learn from it…

But I’m wandering. I thought of Alice in Wonderland even though that comparison isn’t often made to American culture. I usually think of Carrol’s absurdist satire as very specific to that British world of the 1800s. Of course I know America is just as pretentious and depraved, and the American Empire thinks it’s the best at everything. It was still a strange experience having this brought to mind. We don’t like to think of our culture as evil and infected. Even when we do, we usually project it on other groups or places. “The American South is so messed up” or “those west coast people are really strange.” To reference Norman O. Brown’s Freudian study Life Against Death, neurosis is everywhere, and it’s there all the time.

In reality, our world is only as strong as the dumbest, most backwards person around — in other words, the weakest link is the collective weakness. Yes, Bruno provoked people into acting the way they did, but once provoked, they were all too happy to continue behaving that way. That’s because the Mad Hatter is a Dallas talk show host; the White Rabbit is a candidate for the American presidency; Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are cage fighters entertaining in-the-closet gay men struggling to deal with their inconvenient sexual preference (Is that one a stretch? I’ve always said those extreme fighting shows are soft-core gay porn); the Red Queen is…well…a dominatrix at a swingers party in your neighborhood.

I’m disappointed in the professional critics who bashed this film, reporting that it was basically just more of the same from Sacha Baron Cohen. Many also claimed that it shocked for the sake of shocking. Their unwillingness to challenge themselves and their perception of “good filmmaking” is a big reason why people are losing (or have lost) faith in critics.

This film is nothing like Borat. Obviously the xenophobia has largely been replaced by homophobia. But instead of inspiring laughs and an occasional sneer, Bruno makes us cringe and even infects us with a bit of despair. Bruno is ten levels beyond Borat in every way possible. And let me be very clear: Bruno is arguably a terrible film, but it wasn’t intended to be a “film.”

Even more so than Borat, Bruno is a documentary posing as a comedy. Presenting it as a film was just the best possible choice in terms of distribution. Think of all the oblivious middle Americans who will pick it up from their local Blockbuster store later this winter, expecting an edgy comedy about some idiot foreigner trying to find his way to fame — whether it means moving to Hollywood, feigning charity, or even attempting a conversion to heterosexuality. Every single one of them will have their third eye pried open.

While sex only came up occasionally in Borat (with the exception of that nude hotel fight…), Bruno is all sex, all the time. Likewise, sex is at the very core of what it means to be human. It is responsible for more of our thoughts, feelings, and actions than any of us would like to admit. Sex goes deeper than customs and traditions; it goes deeper than national pride; it goes deeper than religious beliefs. Bruno spanked all our asses, but he was able to do so because of everything we take for granted.

We think we’re so advanced (hell, even the Republicans finally agree that something needs to be done about global warming!). But we have so much more progress to make. Actually it’s not a certain point we need to progress to. It’s that we, as a society, tend to lounge on the couch unless we have a fire lit under our ass. Say what you want about Al Gore’s electric bill — An Inconvenient Truth is the primary reason why our culture is currently obsessed with becoming more environmentally friendly. Environmental destruction is no longer a myth that happens in faraway rainforests; it’s happening in the tailpipe of every car in every driveway in the world.

Again I digress. The point isn’t that people reacted to Bruno’s flagrant homosexuality. Actually I’m not quite sure right now what the point was (apparently the film deserves a quick assessment and additional viewings). As one guest on NPR said last week, there are so many levels to Bruno that it’s hard to be sure who’s getting made fun of, who should be offended, and what we’re learning from the situation. But we are learning, nonetheless, even if we’re not quite sure what the lesson is.

The overall lesson, I think, is that even the most open-minded and enlightened of us still hide behind conventions and institutions. Perhaps this relates to my realization halfway through the movie, that the whole audience was unexpectedly watching a gay love story, and most (if not all) of us were emotionally involved in it.

We are capable of adapting to almost any situation that is forced upon us, so why do we have so much trouble adapting to what arises naturally from our peers and our unconscious? So many humans think of themselves as divine creatures on the path to eternal greatness. We ought to be a lot more aware of the true nature of this world, particularly the cultural world that we alone create. Awareness feeds the inspiration to change, and as we’ve all seen with the Twitter response during the recent Iran election conspiracy, our global awareness is growing at a rate never before possible.

If Bruno accomplishes anything, it will be to further raise awareness about the absolutely horrifying nature of the land we call America. We may be more culturally advanced that some places in the world, but we also have a greater responsibility to advancement. I don’t mean to say that we are entitled in any way, but just that we have absolutely no excuse to give Cohen enough material for not one, but two of these satirical films.

Until the material disappears, I’m so thankful that movies like Bruno exist, and I can’t wait to see what Sacha Baron Cohen comes up with next.

As one critic put it (I forget which one or where I saw it), Soderbergh seemed to be avoiding any of Guevara’s common stereotypes (i.e. – political activist, guerrilla warrior, t-shirt imagery). It did seem that Soderbergh wanted to let the story speak for itself. But 41 years after Che’s death, one wonders if a film should be made at all if it doesn’t dare to take a position on the controversial figure. This is, after all, an extremely important figure in recent history that most American students are taught nothing about (or at least I wasn’t).

According to Wikipedia, Jean-Paul Sartre once “described him as ‘not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age’ and the ‘era’s most perfect man.’ Sartre would also compliment Che Guevara by professing that ‘he lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel.’”

The film does provide at least a basic context for why these people were attempting a revolution in Latin America. Therefore my strongest criticism relates to the lack of insight into Che’s mind. I was surprised to see that the films were based on Guevara’s own writings: Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (Part 1) and The Bolivian Diary (Part 2). Knowing this, I wondered why Che’s thoughts were only revealed during an interview with a journalist that is scattered throughout Part 1. One of Che’s statements stands out from the rest:

“Of course, defeating imperialism is impossible if you don’t recognize its source is the United States of America. In a capitalist system, people live in an invisible cage. For example, they accept the myth of the self-made man. But they do not understand that opportunities for the majority are determined by forces completely beyond individual control.”

The journalist then asks the question, “What is the most important quality for a revolutionary to possess?”

Che responds, “A true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love — love of humanity, justice, and truth. It’s impossible to conceive of an authentic revolutionary without this one quality.”

The paradoxical nature of this statement set off my skeptic alarm. How could a person with great love of humanity seek to change the world through armed conflict? In other words, how could anyone using their rational faculties hope to improve mankind by shooting people with guns? A six-year-old would be able to tell you that that’s not a path to success. It was equally confusing to me that Jean-Paul Sartre would condone this armed conflict. After reading Nausea, I got the impression that Sartre’s existential problems were individual in nature and required an autonomous process of treatment. It’s almost as if Sartre didn’t understand his own philosophy, and that has caused me to lose faith in his writing.

Luckily I have the work of Carl Jung to fill the gap. I finally finished reading, Man and His Symbols, edited and co-written by Jung. The chapter by M.-L. von Franz entitled “The Process of Individuation” directly addresses my problem with Che Guevara, evident in the following quotes:

“Fanatical political activity…seems somehow incompatible with individuation” (p. 241).

“…The unconscious is pointing to the fact that today the dreamer should not try, as X did long ago, to free his country in an outer way. Now, the dream says, liberation is accomplished by the anima (by the dreamer’s soul), who accomplishes it by bringing the images of the unconscious to life” (p. 244).

“…In our time genuine liberation can start only with a psychological transformation. To what end does one liberate one’s country if afterward there is no meaningful goal of life — no goal for which it is worthwhile to be free? If man no longer finds any meaning in his life, it makes no difference whether he wastes away under a communist or a capitalist regime. Only if he can use his freedom to create something meaningful is it relevant that he should be free. That is why the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else, and why the process of individuation must be given priority. [...] …If a single individual devotes himself to individuation, he frequently has a positive contagious effect on the people around him” (p. 245).

In the film, Che’s character spoke of building a meaningful life through a communist revolution. But if the film succeeded at anything, it demonstrated the blatant absurdity of Che’s quest. The only thing armed conflict leads to is more death, more destruction, and more tyranny. When Fidel Castro took power of Cuba, he abolished elections in order to remain in power until modern day! Down in Bolivia, Che was executed by a common soldier in a dirty shed, when he could have rejoined his wife and children in Mexico or Cuba. And perhaps worst of all, American imperialism never ended.

It seems that we as a society are far overdue in studying the suggestions of Jung and his colleagues. The only revolution that will ever work is one of individual psychology. But if it could happen on a widespread level, it would change the world. A recent quote by President Obama (albeit in a different context) reflects this idea:

“One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world.”

If our president’s expression of such a profound concept isn’t optimistic enough for you, perhaps (in observation of today’s public funeral) I should also reference Michael Jackson. His song “Man in the Mirror” even has the basic principle down — a fun fact I realized a few years ago when I started getting into literature and philosophy.

I’ll have more on this topic soon. I’ve finally begun a large-scale essay on Jungian Psychology and the need for modern man to learn himself before trying to change anything external. In the meantime, I can’t make any promises about consistent activity on here, but I’ll try my best. I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. I’m truly sorry for that — times have been tough.

Second was the news summit “In Search of a New Journalism,” hosted by the MSU J-School on Monday, May 11. I had hoped to attend, but my car broke down on the highway near Jackson. Luckily they’re hosting “on demand” video from the event on their website (turn on the player, click “On Demand” at the bottom, go to “Journalism Department,” and you’ll find “Rethinking News” parts 1 and 2).

I’ll try to provide a brief synopsis of State of Play without giving away too much. Russel Crowe and Rachel McAdams play a veteran reporter and blogger (respectively) at an established D.C. newspaper (a fictionalized version of The Washington Post). A few murder cases end up connected to a political scandal, and they work together to uncover the truth of the matter.

The movie was excellent, and yet, after the fact, I can’t say that I especially liked Crowe’s character or the outcome of the story. All throughout the film, I kept thinking of a saying from my Journalism Ethics class. I don’t remember it exactly, but I can paraphrase: “Journalism is kind of like making sausage: the more you know about the process, the less appetizing the final product seems.” (Some of you may have seen me reference this in my essay about journalism published on Supraterranean in Sept 2008).

Crowe’s journalist goes way beyond what might be called ethical practices while researching and reporting the story, but for the majority of the film, his actions do seem somewhat justified. Unfortunately, it was one of those films where the last five minutes determined my opinion of the entire movie. I don’t mean that it was a let down. It has more to do with the portrayal of the journalists’ actions. I felt that they hadn’t accomplished as much as I had expected them to, or as much as the filmmakers made it out to be.

It seemed like they were trying to create a modernized version of All the President’s Men. That was a 1976 film starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman that documented the reporting efforts of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in uncovering the Watergate Scandal. The real journalists were primarily responsible for Nixon’s resignation. And according to my Ethics professor, the film was responsible for the biggest wave of student enrollments in university journalism programs up to that point in time.

The main difference between SoP and AtPM, though, is that the latter was based on true events, events that had a concrete effect on and meaning to our country (and probably the world). SoP, on the other hand, is based off a British television series and — as far as I can tell — is fictional. There have been events, companies, and newspapers like the ones in the film, but that’s irrelevant to my point.

Without ruining the ending, I’ll say that the journalists do accomplish quite a bit, but not as much as I wanted them to. But that was by no fault of their own; it was (I would argue) indicative of a fundamental flaw in journalism. Metaphorically, even if the “sausage” tastes yummy, it still requires the messy butchering and grinding — and most of the time the indigestion it brings overrules the enjoyment of eating it. Literally, the personal grief, ethical dilemmas, and organizational struggles hardly ever amount to the kind of payoff that is needed. What I mean is, the “Nixons” usually get off without a resignation.

Woodward and Bernstein were the exception to the rule, and that’s why they’ve been glorified throughout the years. In reality, journalism is a very limited practice, albeit a noble one. I would argue that knowing the limitations of journalism can help one bridge beyond it (but that takes me back to Hunter Thompson’s claim that fiction is capable of being more “true” than journalism).

As this digital age progresses, journalism is undergoing a strange transfiguration. Last year the newspaper industry all but folded. Many organizations have built respectable websites, but the ad revenue isn’t always enough to be sustainable. In my opinion, these are all signs that journalism will have a non-profit future or no future at all.

Many disagree with me. Still more wonder if journalists are even necessary anymore. It’s painfully obvious that citizens using Twitter and other social media can distribute information to the public faster than any traditional media organization. This brings me back to the “New Journalism” summit. I watched the video footage, and one recurring theme (introduced by John Bebow of Mlive.com) was that the public can now handle four out of six primary functions of journalism. Regular citizens are perfectly capable of disseminating the who, what, when, and where. That leaves the why and how for journalists to handle.

Meanwhile the journalism industry is going through a panicked ego-frenzy as they try to reestablish a sense of control over their vocation. They feel that they know better than the public how to handle information. They think it’s possible to get people to pay subscription fees to get access to content, in exchange for professionalism and trustworthiness. They claim that publishing can regain its foothold if they only figure out the perfect marketing and PR strategies. They are unmistakably wrong on all those fronts.

They’re wrong, but they’re not useless or unnecessary. What it all comes down to is control. Media organizations can no longer control the flow of information, no matter how much they want to — and they want to very badly, especially the big players in the content industry like News Corp. Their ability to control, interpret, manipulate, and spread news and information was a key component of their power. Now their control has been relinquished, and (because of this and a few other main reasons) their power is draining.

What I’m getting at is bigger and more complicated than just the death of the print industry. It relates to the decentralization and dissolution of power in general. Power should never be too concentrated because it breeds corruption. And no matter how silly you think Facebook and Twitter are, the primary truth is that they are open public forums, directed, predicted, censored, and controlled by no one.

At one point in the news conference, MSU J-School professor Dave Poulson exalted the wisdom of the crowd. An opposite point could be made (in fact it has been made throughout the history of literature and philosophy), but that doesn’t discredit the idea, especially when talking about information and not opinions. His more interesting claim was that the chaos of the crowd is extremely exciting from a journalistic perspective. His reasoning was that journalists must step in to mediate the discussion and make sense of the madness — in other words, to fulfill the need for the why and how.

Poulson’s suggestion mirrors my own feeling, but while the idea is new and uncomfortable to many print traditionalists, it really suggests what journalism has always tried to be. Its primary function is to provide citizens with the information they require to be free and self-governing. Now, journalism will achieve its purpose more than ever before, and I believe we’ll all be better off because of it.

Here’s the official trailer for State of Play:

As you can see, the film starts with the controversy surrounding the mash-up artist Girl Talk — real name Greg Gillis — who has been growing in popularity (or notoriety) since the release of his 2006 album Night Ripper. His albums feature hundreds of samples of copyrighted music that Gillis never got permission to use.

Audio: “No Pause” by Girl Talk, from the 2008 album Feed the Animals.

What’s not seen in the trailer is the four-point manifesto which provides a basic outline for the film. Gaylor calls this “A Remixer’s Manifesto”:

1) Culture always builds on the past.
2) The past always tries to control the future.
3) Our future is becoming less free.
4) To build free societies you must limit the control of the past.

The moment I saw this manifesto, I knew it must have been directly inspired by 1984. (Sorry to sound like a skipping record, but clearly Orwell is an important figure in all these issues.) The quote in Orwell’s book: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” It’s such a simple statement, yet it encapsulates so much about the world. You may need to see the film to completely understand what I mean. Another resource I’d suggest is a website I made in grad school called Connected to Creativity. It’s still hosted on my personal website, and it contains a lot of valuable information about how the Internet is fostering incredible creativity, while the current application of copyright law is dangerously stifling it.

To illustrate the problem, I’ll use an example that relates to the duration of copyright protection. When copyright was first made a law in 1790, it lasted 14 years from the date of creation. This was changed many times over the next 200 years, and the most recent alteration came in 1998. Now copyrighted works are protected for the author’s lifetime plus 70 years. But the term “author” is a slippery one here, because copyright law has been transformed to benefit corporations much more than any individual creators. Copyright law was instated to protect the economic rights of the creator and the fair use rights of the public (fair use says it’s okay to use copyrighted works for certain purposes). But now the vast majority of copyrighted content in the world is controlled by a handful of media conglomerates: Disney, News Corporation, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS.

Many topics in the film were inspired and informed by the Creative Commons movement and Lawrence Lessig’s 2004 book Free Culture (which I covered here in July ’08). In both that book and this documentary, Walt Disney is discussed at length. Disney himself was a sort of remixer, because many of the first animated films produced by his company were based on stories in the public domain. In other words, they were adapting stories that weren’t protected by copyright anymore or never had been protected. Think Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Fantasia, and on, and on, and on. But when Walt died, the Walt Disney Corporation took a turn for the worse, and they’ve now become a force of evil in this war.

Creative Commons, on the other hand, are the foremost source of good, and over the past two years I’ve supported them however possible. One way I do that is by licensing all content on Supraterranean.com with a Creative Commons license. Like the founders say in one of the informational videos on their site, they’re laying the framework for an entirely new world culture based on sharing, collaboration, and progress.

As I left Michigan Theater when the film ended, I said to my special lady friend that it was the first time I felt proud to live in Ann Arbor (hey…give me a break…I’m a Spartan to the core). I felt surrounded by people who understood the importance of remixing, free culture, and net neutrality. It became clear that these ideas are at the core of all my work, even if I’m still figuring out how to express my thoughts and feelings. I felt a surge of emotion while watching footage of children in Brazil’s poorest neighborhoods remixing music and art, or dancing together instead of getting mixed up in gang violence. I couldn’t help but imagine what the world could be like if we continue down this brave path.

It seems like a new philosophy is shaping itself, a living philosophy that cannot be invented by any one person. Gone are the days of the dogma; we have no use for that anymore. Now there is only life — how to understand it, build upon it, make it better. Copyright law has prevented humans from being what they should: emergent and symbiotic. Our culture has become stale and rotten, but technology is setting us loose. We’re figuring out new creative ways to expend our life energy, and realizing that this is a far better option than the destruction that human history has seen thus far.

I see a future coming that will belong to no individual; instead, it will belong to all individuals. As time goes on in this new digital culture, we will all own an equal share in the past. And like Orwell wrote, “who controls the past controls the future.” Now we just need to take over the present. Lessig is working on that, too, through efforts to reform Congress and the American lawmaking process. Furthermore, most literary and philosophical genius I’ve encountered (especially surrounding Existentialism) has suggested turning attention to self-discovery, the creative struggle, and free expression. As emphasized in A Remix Manifesto, the creative process has now become more important than the finished product.

Remember this saying? “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Well, Gaylor has taken that advice literally. As announced at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, he has already twice invited other filmmakers to remix this documentary, and some of that material has been worked into the final version of A Remix Manifesto. We were reportedly the first audience to see this third cut. Gaylor also started a website called Open Source Cinema, where anyone can further remix the film. He’s hoping to build it into a platform where filmmakers can remix and collaborate using their own material. Even if you’re not ready to start remixing, you can currently view all chapters of the documentary on the site.

For more information on Creative Commons, here is an intro video from their site.

However, Lebowski isn’t the reason I’m writing this post. I want to discuss Burn After Reading, the Coens’ seemingly overlooked 2008 film. I’ve seen most of the Coen Brothers’ movies (like Fargo, Raising Arizona, No Country for Old Men, etc), but I didn’t start to develop a theory about their craft or style until after Burn. There are certain themes or kinds of events that appear throughout their work. For one, people usually steal things. In Raising Arizona, it’s a baby; in Country, it’s a bag of drug money; in Lebowski, it’s a rug. In fact, the act of theft or crime is often what spurs the overall plot.

In Burn After Reading, two gym employees happen to find a copy of a recently fired CIA analyst’s memoir-in-progress, which they mistake for top-secret government documents. The gym workers try to hold the disc for ransom, but – naturally – everything goes wrong. Meanwhile, the otherwise unrelated characters cross paths via adultery and Internet dating, until each is in over his or her head, and the whole pile of shit explodes.

The storyline makes the viewer wonder, “Don’t any of these characters realize how idiotic their decisions and actions are, and how empty and pointless their lives have become?” Well, I’m pretty confident that the Coen Brothers realized this. Actually I think that was the main reason they made the film. The only concrete evidence I have came in the form of a few CIA agents – the ones who did the firing near the start. They catch wind of the misplaced memoir and the drama it inspired, and they try to keep the mess from spilling out into public view.

Since the story isn’t really told from a single point-of-view, we can depend on the neutral perspective of these two bystanders, who react to the events from within the CIA. Around the middle of the film, when the agents hear about the ransom situation, they start asking big-picture questions:

OFFICER: “So we don’t really know what anyone is after?”

AGENT: “Not really, sir.”

OFFICER: “Keep an eye on everyone, see what they do. Report back to me when, uh…I don’t know, when it makes sense.”

Then at the end of the film, a similar scene provides a sort of wrap-up – and some much needed comic relief:

OFFICER: “What did we learn, Palmer?”

AGENT: “I don’t know, sir.”

OFFICER: “I don’t fuckin’ know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.”

AGENT: “Yes, sir.”

OFFICER:”But I’m fucked if I know what we did.”

So what did we do? Well, we had a good laugh, for one thing. And maybe, when things get this confusing, that’s the best we can manage.

These scenes are so funny because they arrive around the time that the audience is asking themselves the same questions. But in another way, it’s almost as if these two characters represent Joel and Ethan themselves, and they’re asking one another, “What the hell is this trash we just created? We should have burned the script!” I’m glad they didn’t though. If my opinion hasn’t shown through, let it be known that I think the movie is hilarious, and I recommend it – especially to Coen fans (and even more so to Lebowski fans).

There’s another increasingly obvious factor I’ve noticed in their films. Coen movies have always showcased some very despicable human behavior, while somehow (usually) managing to find humor in the madness. But with Burn and No Country, it’s almost as if the Coens have totally stopped considering the reactions and opinions of their audience. Now characters die randomly, sometimes off camera – and viewers are left to pick up some rather jagged fragments. This total disregard for the audience might reflect their overall pessimism about the human race, like saying, “Usually we can find something to laugh about, but we can’t escape the nagging suspicion that our species is a mistake from start to finish.” I don’t know if they actually feel that way, but their stories certainly reflect that sort of notion.

It’s that same disregard for the audience that made me hate The Departed. But in that case, I felt that Scorsese was both lazy and uncreative. He had developed a rather interesting scenario of criss-crossed good and bad guys, but then didn’t know how to find climax or resolution. His solution: randomly kill characters that the audience has likely become very invested in, thereby ruining any chance that the film could hold significance beyond a dull mob shooter film. (Sorry I couldn’t contain my opinion of Scorsese, but apparently I’m one of the few people who thinks he’s a no-talent hack.)

Burn, on the other hand, has its redeeming qualities, but it’s probably a love-it-or-hate-it affair.

Seeing the picture is exhilarating because, stated simply, I support the shoe-tossing Iraqi journalist. I’d like to chuck a rubber object at Bush’s head too. So you can imagine then why I find this AP story headline a bit humorous: “Bush’s Iraq-Afghan farewell tour marred by dissent.” The headline makes him sound like a rock ‘n roll star playing concerts around the world, only to receive some unexpected (and undeserved) criticism. It occurred to me that we haven’t heard many stories about Bush receiving dissent first-hand. I think that says something about the extent to which “Dubyah” has been hiding from the public lately. The Administration doesn’t give the public a chance to air their grievances, especially not if it could create such a racy photo opportunity.

The AP headline also implies that Bush deserved a warm welcome in Iraq, which I find ridiculous. The idea that the American government might be supported or praised in Iraq in late 2008 seems absurd to me because I’ve seen the 2007 documentary No End In Sight, directed by Charles Ferguson. The film is a prime example of why I’ve been turning to documentaries for in-depth information with perspective and credibility — the kind that mainstream media just cannot provide. The documentary is rich in its sources; those include veteran soldiers, military officers, American government officials, journalists, etc.

The source that sticks out most clearly in my memory is Ambassador Barbara Bodine, whom the film introduces as the person “in charge of Baghdad for the U.S. occupation.” Naturally, she speaks from a very unique position, and she effectively illustrates exactly what has gone wrong there over the past seven years. The most important point is that she was not given the appropriate resources or power to act. She felt more like a puppet, while Dick Cheney and his cohorts controlled the situation from Washington.

What’s worse, the film’s sources collectively suggest that Cheney and friends purposefully made the situation worse in Iraq so they would have an excuse to continue the occupation indefinitely. In other words, the Administration wanted a fortress in the Middle East, and this was the easiest way to obtain one. I’d be more skeptical of the film if more of the sources were from outside the American government. But across governmental branches and departments, everyone gives the sense that the White House ran the show consistently, and also that they ran it terribly. At the same time, every source that criticized of the Bush Administration also seemed to feel helpless towards the situation. Bodine’s story is particularly painful. To know that an American Ambassador could have maintained order after the removal of Saddam Hussein, but who was prevented by the likes of Cheney—that’s such a source of anger and remorse.

Now you might see why I also found the shoe photo humiliating. We’re still an object of worldwide hatred. We’re viewed as the world’s dopey bully who steals lunch money and gives wedgies. The Bush Administration will bear most of the humiliation as Obama transitions into office, but common citizens around the world won’t be too rapid to change their opinions of us. The fact that the Iraqi journalist threw a shoe and not a rock or a grenade (if we assume he could have gotten such an object into the press conference) also deserves attention. In a way, the shoe was more powerful than an actual weapon. The journalist essentially said that Bush was worth less than the dust below his shoes. And that’s an especially strong sentiment, if I remember that aspect of Iraqi culture correctly.

While most of us will never get a chance to inflict our own humiliation on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and others who have furthered the deterioration of America’s reputation, we can take this chance to educate ourselves on exactly what happened from 2000 to 2008. Watching No End In Sight is a good start. We should all be reflecting on what went wrong, at home and abroad, and thinking of how to prevent such atrocities from ever occurring again—not only in a broad political sense, but also on an individual basis. To reverse the wrongs that have occurred, it’s going to take a collaborative effort involving all concerned Americans. We’ve all been chucking things for a while. Hopefully in the future we won’t have to quite as often.

No End In Sight Official Trailer: