Since I just let tear that last post, and the void remains impassive, let me kick it up another notch:
Otto von Hapsburg died at the age of 96, today. July 4th. A distinction he shares with both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. That's amusing.
Why? Because this is the birthday of the Great Masonic Republic, the Whore of the Enlightenment, the anti-thesis of nearly everything that the Hapsburg dynasty represents in historical, theological and political terms. The only thing less "American" in this sense would be the papacy itself.
Now, I never met his highness, who one time pretender to the now extinct throne of the Empire of Austria Hungary, and so also a hypothetical candidate for the post of Holy Roman Emperor if it were still extant. I do have the great honor and pleasure of knowing many of his relatives, personally, though. Indeed, I consider a few of them that I spent some time with to be friends, in that slight but distinct sense that you often develop with people whom you like and share many things in common with.
In common with. Funny. But it's true. I've shared meals and drinks with them, gone to mass and prayed the rosary with them, been to parties and dinners with them, all on a first name basis. Once in a while I would kid one of them, address them as archduke and then tell them with mock sorrow that it was a shame, but that I am a republican and revolutionary..
In a tone of mock sorrow, but not in complete jest. For it's emphatically true: I am a republican and revolutionary.
Because for as much as I like them..
Like them? Yeah. Because they are not at all like the vulgar "noble" house of Monaco, or the tawdry jet- setting Windsors. They're more like the family Von Trapp: very friendly, haute bourgeois in their manner, not at all ostentatious. If you didn't know who they were, you'd never guess.
Still, as much as I like them, I am not about to join the Black Yellow Alliance.
In fact, if we aren't going to bring back the Roman (note, Roman, not Spanish) Inquisition, and support the full triumph of the Gregorian Reform and strive for the fullblown global triumph of the Papal Imperium (see how I've gone Orthodox, and now have come full circle round: accept the authority of the See of Rome all ye schismatics, and repent), then I am with Jefferson, and for the freedoms articulated in the Bill of Rights.
What I'm trying to say is that I am a Guelph and no Ghibelline, then a republican and no monarchist.
Like any of that makes any sense in reality. These last few years I've been thinking about all of this, wondering if I have any politics left anymore.
If it is not time for me to turn inward, for good.
How come? Because in reality, we live in a world where the gnostics have triumphed, in which the nominalists have won full sway. It's all extrapolated numerology and elaborated alchemy, now. The faustians have made their bargain and seized their mess of pottage, in the moment victorious.
Personhood - human dignity - is now held to be synonymous with will and consciousness. The mind is held to be independent of the body, which is to be transcended in the algorithmic triumph of the mind over matter.
The software can be extracted from the hardware, and set loose as a type of "angelic" intelligence to live eternally. The end of the human race, the master stroke of our evolution: transcendence through trans-humanism.
As has always been the case with them, gnostics never tell the truth. They are always hiding their intent, allowing the great mass to wallow, rut and forage, while they seek their transcendence through gnosis.
In terms of this scheme to be a Christian is to be agnostic. For faith is an embrace of powerlessness, a profound humility that recognizes the face of the Lord in that of the retarded, the ignorant, the sinful, the poor. Oneself, and every other human being no matter who they be. It is to renounce any pretension to salvific power over creation, it is to admit our own utter dependance upon and ignorance before God.
For we know nothing about Him that he does not reveal to us Himself. That is to say that all such knowledge is only had by grace.
And grace is not to be had by force, either of intellect or will: It is never coerced but always gratuitously given; like friendship, like love.
Which is to say that a human social order informed by grace would be like a great family in which the weak are borne by the strong.
Not some sort of bizarre hermetic hieratic order in which the masters of numerology lord over everyone else, enslave and force them to do their bidding in return for some contrived unreal abstraction like money.
You know how Orthodox Jews wrap the words of God around their head and right forearm? The will of the One they worship is always before them.
Today, in this culture most of us would put our portfolio and paycheck in the phylacteries if we were to wear tefillin.
That's what you could call a prophecy partially fulfilled. Can I get an amen?
Again, Happy Independence Day Y'all.
---
Monday, July 4, 2011
Thoughts on the Forth
"Natürlich, das einfache Volk will keinen Krieg […] Aber schließlich sind es die Führer eines Landes, die die Politik bestimmen, und es ist immer leicht, das Volk zum Mitmachen zu bringen, ob es sich nun um eine Demokratie, eine faschistische Diktatur, um ein Parlament oder eine kommunistische Diktatur handelt. […] Das ist ganz einfach. Man braucht nichts zu tun, als dem Volk zu sagen, es würde angegriffen, und den Pazifisten ihren Mangel an Patriotismus vorzuwerfen und zu behaupten, sie brächten das Land in Gefahr. Diese Methode funktioniert in jedem Land."
Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
- Interview of Herman Göring by Gustave Gilbert in his cell at Nuremburg, April 18, 1946: Nürnberger Tagebuch S.270
I'm sitting here at Borders somewhere in the urban sprawl of Miami drinking coffee and translating.
Un peu de Français parmi los Cubanos Locos.. A fit exercise for our national fest, I think. We Americans owe the French nearly everything, seeing as how they bankrupted themselves (thereby bringing on their own revolution) fighting in our war for Independence.
So, here's a goutte de café for the Marquis de Layfayette and his boys. Another for the Comte de Rochambeau whose men formed half the forces at Yorktown and a third for the Comte de Grasse whose fleet beat the Royal Navy there.
Our true founding fathers, all of them French.
And now one more for France Gall, France on Gaul singing this charming paean to my home, the only patriotically themed song I will listen to today:
Quand on a rêvé depuis 17 ans d'Amérique..
When you've dreamt for 17 years of America..
J'irai voir le Texas et le Colorado, sans parler du Kansas et de San Francisco.
I will go and see Texas and Colorado, not to mention Kansas and San Francisco.
Au centième étage du plus haut des grattes-ciel pousser les nuages pour toucher le soleil..
To the the hundredth floor of the highest sky scraper pushing aside clouds to touch the sun..
On dit qu'à Broadway brillent les lumières d'Amérique, ah si je pouvais voir le nez en l'air, l'Amérique..
They say that the American lights are bright on Broadway, ah, if I could only see all the rich and famous people there..
Lécher les vitrines des grands magasins d'Amérique, acheter des jeans et des mocassins d'Amérique..
Drooling at the great shop windows, buying American jeans and moccasins..
J'ai vu tous les films et j'ai tous les disques d'Amérique, mais ça ne suffit pas il faut que je voie, l'Amérique.
I've seen all the movies and I have all the records, but that's not enough- I have to see America for myself.
Et comme ce sera trop grand pour mes yeux l'Amérique, j'irai avec toi découvrir à deux, l'Amérique..
And it will all be too great for my eyes alone to bear, I'll go with you to discover America the two of us, together..
--
That's right. I'll take my patriotic mythology, nationalistic aggrandizement and gross materialism in French, thank you. Plus raffinée comme ça. Screw Toby Keith.
I'm done with American civil religion. Go wrap yourselves in the flag and make a fetish of it. Conflate love of country with love of state sanctioned violence, and pretend that you really care about "the troops." Yelp that patriotism demands celebration of whatever latest homicide our political leadership orders they commit. Do it all while stuffing your fat gob with barbecue and beer.
I say that when that violence redounds upon us - and it will, sooner than later - that we will richly deserve it.
Not that that event will be understood in those terms. No, the average American has the historical memory and moral imagination of a fruitfly. It will be cynically manipulated and used as another opportunity to incite us to more violence.
So, I have a minor quibble with that Göring quote at the head of the post:
If there's one thing people love it's war that they inflict on others but (and this is the key quibble and point) without any negative consequence to themselves. After sex and money, we're all about war. Sex without negative consequences (disease or pregnancy), money without negative consequences (drudgery), and war without negative consequences (anyone we love being hurt or killed, especially ourselves).
Anything that expresses power and sates us is what human beings want. And war is the consummate act of crushing those whom we despise. When we can't work them to death for pennies, debase them sexually them for pennies, we will blow them to viscera for pennies.
The true genius of the Anglo-Saxon power elite is that they cloak their obvious violence in a moral language that glorifies it, and them. They usually manage to extend that "them" to include "us." But not always - see Vietnam, for example.
Whenever violence can't be ignored, it becomes about virtue and freedom. The Nazis were just too obvious. Their great downfall is that they lacked imagination and were terrible propagandists. Which is merely to say that they actually told the truth about their actual motives too often. See the quote by Göring for proof of that. Neither George Bush would be caught saying that, even though that's exactly what they believe.
You can bank on that. Happy Forth of July.
---
Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
- Interview of Herman Göring by Gustave Gilbert in his cell at Nuremburg, April 18, 1946: Nürnberger Tagebuch S.270
I'm sitting here at Borders somewhere in the urban sprawl of Miami drinking coffee and translating.
Un peu de Français parmi los Cubanos Locos.. A fit exercise for our national fest, I think. We Americans owe the French nearly everything, seeing as how they bankrupted themselves (thereby bringing on their own revolution) fighting in our war for Independence.
So, here's a goutte de café for the Marquis de Layfayette and his boys. Another for the Comte de Rochambeau whose men formed half the forces at Yorktown and a third for the Comte de Grasse whose fleet beat the Royal Navy there.
Our true founding fathers, all of them French.
And now one more for France Gall, France on Gaul singing this charming paean to my home, the only patriotically themed song I will listen to today:
Quand on a rêvé depuis 17 ans d'Amérique..
When you've dreamt for 17 years of America..
J'irai voir le Texas et le Colorado, sans parler du Kansas et de San Francisco.
I will go and see Texas and Colorado, not to mention Kansas and San Francisco.
Au centième étage du plus haut des grattes-ciel pousser les nuages pour toucher le soleil..
To the the hundredth floor of the highest sky scraper pushing aside clouds to touch the sun..
On dit qu'à Broadway brillent les lumières d'Amérique, ah si je pouvais voir le nez en l'air, l'Amérique..
They say that the American lights are bright on Broadway, ah, if I could only see all the rich and famous people there..
Lécher les vitrines des grands magasins d'Amérique, acheter des jeans et des mocassins d'Amérique..
Drooling at the great shop windows, buying American jeans and moccasins..
J'ai vu tous les films et j'ai tous les disques d'Amérique, mais ça ne suffit pas il faut que je voie, l'Amérique.
I've seen all the movies and I have all the records, but that's not enough- I have to see America for myself.
Et comme ce sera trop grand pour mes yeux l'Amérique, j'irai avec toi découvrir à deux, l'Amérique..
And it will all be too great for my eyes alone to bear, I'll go with you to discover America the two of us, together..
--
That's right. I'll take my patriotic mythology, nationalistic aggrandizement and gross materialism in French, thank you. Plus raffinée comme ça. Screw Toby Keith.
I'm done with American civil religion. Go wrap yourselves in the flag and make a fetish of it. Conflate love of country with love of state sanctioned violence, and pretend that you really care about "the troops." Yelp that patriotism demands celebration of whatever latest homicide our political leadership orders they commit. Do it all while stuffing your fat gob with barbecue and beer.
I say that when that violence redounds upon us - and it will, sooner than later - that we will richly deserve it.
Not that that event will be understood in those terms. No, the average American has the historical memory and moral imagination of a fruitfly. It will be cynically manipulated and used as another opportunity to incite us to more violence.
So, I have a minor quibble with that Göring quote at the head of the post:
If there's one thing people love it's war that they inflict on others but (and this is the key quibble and point) without any negative consequence to themselves. After sex and money, we're all about war. Sex without negative consequences (disease or pregnancy), money without negative consequences (drudgery), and war without negative consequences (anyone we love being hurt or killed, especially ourselves).
Anything that expresses power and sates us is what human beings want. And war is the consummate act of crushing those whom we despise. When we can't work them to death for pennies, debase them sexually them for pennies, we will blow them to viscera for pennies.
The true genius of the Anglo-Saxon power elite is that they cloak their obvious violence in a moral language that glorifies it, and them. They usually manage to extend that "them" to include "us." But not always - see Vietnam, for example.
Whenever violence can't be ignored, it becomes about virtue and freedom. The Nazis were just too obvious. Their great downfall is that they lacked imagination and were terrible propagandists. Which is merely to say that they actually told the truth about their actual motives too often. See the quote by Göring for proof of that. Neither George Bush would be caught saying that, even though that's exactly what they believe.
You can bank on that. Happy Forth of July.
---
Vagabond Song
lyrics:
I've been sleeping for some hours,
Just woke up and you were there.
Like the morning, like the flowers,
Sunlight whispering in my ears.
Red tail hawk shooting down the canyon,
Put me on that wind he rides.
I will be your true companion
When we reach the other side.
I will try, I will stumble,
But I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go.
Can't decide which way to travel,
On the ground or in the sky?
All my schemes have come unraveled.
All that's left is you and I.
And I will try, but I will stumble,
And I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go.
Here I go..
Ghosts on the trees,
There's ghosts on the wires.
Asking questions and showing signs..
Shivering with truth, they're lighting fires,
Lighting fires all down the line.
And I will try, and I will stumble,
But I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go..
---
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Pictures of the Day: Key West
Key West does have its appeal:
There's a pretty nice 1840's era fort (Fort Zachary Taylor, now a state park) that was an important bastion during the Civil War. It never fell to the Confederacy, and was an active military installation until after WW II. It has several hundred canon, since the place was too far away to make salvaging them for their iron feasible (which is what happened to most old canons):
One very cool thing that I really like about Key West is that there are chickens and roosters wandering free, all about. It's like what I imagine sacred cows must be like in India: just everywhere, doing their thing, being chickens and pretty much ignoring and ignored by people. I dug them, and wondered if the locals harvest their eggs. They must:
There are iguanas everywhere, too. The iguana is not native to Florida, being a Central and South American species that was brought here as pets and then released by their owners when they get too big. They are now considered a pest, since they have no natural predators here, and tend to eat a lot.. They can reach 6' in length, and are very cool looking, and surprisingly fast moving. I saw this guy at the fort this afternoon:
I've not been taking pictures of myself, really, so I took a couple inane random ones this afternoon. I've never worn sunglasses in my life, I've always disliked having anything on my face or occluding my sight.. But since I'm going blind and it's just so damn bright down here, I've caved. I wore goggles skiing this winter, too. New habits..
Self portraits:
Tomorrow, I'll pass through Miami again, and then start exploring the Everglades.
---
There's a pretty nice 1840's era fort (Fort Zachary Taylor, now a state park) that was an important bastion during the Civil War. It never fell to the Confederacy, and was an active military installation until after WW II. It has several hundred canon, since the place was too far away to make salvaging them for their iron feasible (which is what happened to most old canons):
One very cool thing that I really like about Key West is that there are chickens and roosters wandering free, all about. It's like what I imagine sacred cows must be like in India: just everywhere, doing their thing, being chickens and pretty much ignoring and ignored by people. I dug them, and wondered if the locals harvest their eggs. They must:
There are iguanas everywhere, too. The iguana is not native to Florida, being a Central and South American species that was brought here as pets and then released by their owners when they get too big. They are now considered a pest, since they have no natural predators here, and tend to eat a lot.. They can reach 6' in length, and are very cool looking, and surprisingly fast moving. I saw this guy at the fort this afternoon:
I've not been taking pictures of myself, really, so I took a couple inane random ones this afternoon. I've never worn sunglasses in my life, I've always disliked having anything on my face or occluding my sight.. But since I'm going blind and it's just so damn bright down here, I've caved. I wore goggles skiing this winter, too. New habits..
Self portraits:
Tomorrow, I'll pass through Miami again, and then start exploring the Everglades.
---
On Key West
Key West, 4th July Weekend, 2011.
I have no idea how this place was before they put the oversea highway in. Or how much that amazing highway cost. It reminds me of Monterey, California crossed with Vegas. This used to be a working harbor and naval base. Now, it's overrun by fratboys, sorority girls and their families. Middle America, come to pahtay.
That miraculous highway across the sea exists merely to bear these tourists here.
This is what I've spent my entire adult life fleeing. These people, the stench of their middling ambition for wealth, their secure pleasures and sporadic weekend and then once yearly weeklong binge drinking. They may have kids in tow now, but they're still acting like they're on spring break.
Hemingway I think hung out in both Key West and Monterey back in the day. Definitely Key West.. Maybe it was just Steinbeck in Monterey..
Whicheverway, I doubt either one of them would want to hang here (or in Monterey for that matter) today. All the old working fishermen are disappeared. Now we have the besotted technicians of stockbrokers taking their place, NASCAR hats on backwards, Coors light cans in hand.. It's like becoming trapped one giant Kenny Chesney video.
The unscripted, the rough and raw, the unusual, the dissonant, the foreign, almost everything that could complicate and zest the place has been stripped away. It's basically been made like one great Carnival cruise, but without the boat, and no free parking. Cue the Jimmy Buffet, and get yerself a fake tattoo and an overpriced weakly blended margarita.
All of which is merely to say that they've gone made this place in their image: very lame. American wealth always standardizes and plasticizes, pasteurizes and makes things cute, routine and sentimental. That's what this place is: where the CPAs and Rotarians can come and play at being a celebrity sport fisherman for a long weekend.
It's like when they read the cliff's notes to pass that sophomore English quiz on For Whom the Bell Tolls. They're still faking it after all these years.
All of which is merely to note that Key West pretty much sucks.
---
I have no idea how this place was before they put the oversea highway in. Or how much that amazing highway cost. It reminds me of Monterey, California crossed with Vegas. This used to be a working harbor and naval base. Now, it's overrun by fratboys, sorority girls and their families. Middle America, come to pahtay.
That miraculous highway across the sea exists merely to bear these tourists here.
This is what I've spent my entire adult life fleeing. These people, the stench of their middling ambition for wealth, their secure pleasures and sporadic weekend and then once yearly weeklong binge drinking. They may have kids in tow now, but they're still acting like they're on spring break.
Hemingway I think hung out in both Key West and Monterey back in the day. Definitely Key West.. Maybe it was just Steinbeck in Monterey..
Whicheverway, I doubt either one of them would want to hang here (or in Monterey for that matter) today. All the old working fishermen are disappeared. Now we have the besotted technicians of stockbrokers taking their place, NASCAR hats on backwards, Coors light cans in hand.. It's like becoming trapped one giant Kenny Chesney video.
The unscripted, the rough and raw, the unusual, the dissonant, the foreign, almost everything that could complicate and zest the place has been stripped away. It's basically been made like one great Carnival cruise, but without the boat, and no free parking. Cue the Jimmy Buffet, and get yerself a fake tattoo and an overpriced weakly blended margarita.
All of which is merely to say that they've gone made this place in their image: very lame. American wealth always standardizes and plasticizes, pasteurizes and makes things cute, routine and sentimental. That's what this place is: where the CPAs and Rotarians can come and play at being a celebrity sport fisherman for a long weekend.
It's like when they read the cliff's notes to pass that sophomore English quiz on For Whom the Bell Tolls. They're still faking it after all these years.
All of which is merely to note that Key West pretty much sucks.
---
Friday, July 1, 2011
Pictures of the Day: Miami to Key West
Two days in Miami, tonight Key Largo, this weekend Key West:
---
---
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
I Know All This And More..
This has been my roadsong these last few days, inspired by the landscape (snatches of which I gave you below) and my own mood:
lyrics:
This old man I've talked about
Broke his own heart, poured it in the ground.
Big red tree grew up and out,
Throw up its leaves, spins round and round..
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
This little squirrel I used to be
Slammed her bike down the stairs.
They put silver where her teeth had been:
Baby silvertooth, she grins and grins..
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
Take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me
And be there when I feed the tree.
This old man I used to be
Spins around, around, around a tree..
Silver baby, come to me,
I'll only hurt you in my dreams..
I know all this and
I know all this and
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
Take your hat off when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
---
lyrics:
This old man I've talked about
Broke his own heart, poured it in the ground.
Big red tree grew up and out,
Throw up its leaves, spins round and round..
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
This little squirrel I used to be
Slammed her bike down the stairs.
They put silver where her teeth had been:
Baby silvertooth, she grins and grins..
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
Take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me
And be there when I feed the tree.
This old man I used to be
Spins around, around, around a tree..
Silver baby, come to me,
I'll only hurt you in my dreams..
I know all this and
I know all this and
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
Take your hat off when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
---
Pictures of the Day: Jupiter to Naughty Laudy
I vowed to post a daily image from my peregrinations. Only a few days ago now, and I have already failed. I'm not taking many images, and a whole set that I thought I had taken I took without a memory card in the camera.. A couple of which were pretty cool. Just how I roll.
I recommit myself to that pledge, and will do better.
Here are a few random images from the last few days:
First, to the birdwatchers among you, please tell me what this is:
The picture I posted last week of the baby armadillos in the road that I called ardvaarks was jesting, I knew what they were. This, I know is a hawk. Or buzzard. A bird of prey, anyway. I saw it at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.
While I was there, I was fascinated by all the birds. I've always liked birds, as well as animals generally. But I've never been so fascinated before. I stayed there for hours watching them.
After I left I realized: I am now officially old. Next thing you know I'll be wearing adult diapers and a fedora, playing canasta poolside for quarters.
There are worse fates.
This one's for Cousin Mikey. Who I'm sure isn't reading the blog, but if he were would be dang jealous of my just getting naughty without him now in Laudy..
---
I recommit myself to that pledge, and will do better.
Here are a few random images from the last few days:
First, to the birdwatchers among you, please tell me what this is:
The picture I posted last week of the baby armadillos in the road that I called ardvaarks was jesting, I knew what they were. This, I know is a hawk. Or buzzard. A bird of prey, anyway. I saw it at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.
While I was there, I was fascinated by all the birds. I've always liked birds, as well as animals generally. But I've never been so fascinated before. I stayed there for hours watching them.
After I left I realized: I am now officially old. Next thing you know I'll be wearing adult diapers and a fedora, playing canasta poolside for quarters.
There are worse fates.
This one's for Cousin Mikey. Who I'm sure isn't reading the blog, but if he were would be dang jealous of my just getting naughty without him now in Laudy..
---
Monday, June 27, 2011
Film Review: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
I enjoyed this. 4/5*'s, B+ - 96% on the Tomato Meter, 76% audience approval.
This is a documentary by Werner Herzog, who received a unique permission from the French Ministry of Culture (this is their relevant site) to film in the Chauvet Cave, near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the Ardèche Valley near the Rhone in southern France.
They are dated to 40 to 30,000 years old. This is much older than the 20,000-year-old images at Lascaux, France or the 17,000-year-old ones at Altamira, Spain. This means that they are the oldest known symbolic representations created by a human being in the world. The oldest art, perhaps (indeed almost certainly) the oldest human "religious" expression (since the scientists studying it believe they were perhaps created as a part of a "shamanistic" type ritual) in the world.
As art they are absolutely stunning, to equal anything done by the likes of Matisse or the best of Picasso. Very, very beautiful. Most of the images are of animals, but one is (as Herzog puts it in the film) of a woman's sex, basically a depiction of a kneeling woman's rear that flows seamlessly into the head of a bison like animal. The oldest picture of a human being.
Herzog worked under extreme restrictions, only being allowed into the cave twice, because previous experience at sites like Lascaux have shown that even small changes in the atmosphere of such a cave can destroy the images by introducing mold and other contaminants. The cave is also dangerous to remain in for long due to high levels of carbon dioxide and radon that can sicken and kill the unwary.
The entire experience of watching this film is meditative. Nearly everything he shoots and most of the commentary is fascinating. The landscape and cave are in one of my favorite places in the world, and are stunningly beautiful.
This is the Pont d'Arc, the cave is located nearby:
Pretty stunning landscape, really. Thirty thousand years ago it was surrounded by glaciers during one of the recent glaciations that have covered Europe and North America. If you've (say) read Clan of the Cave Bear (one of my Middle School reads, back then I soaked up historical fiction, and stayed up all night one night to finish that book when I was in 8th Grade) or seen a paleolithic Venus, you know will have an idea of what the culture that created these images is all about:
He shot the film in 3-D, and I must say that this is the first 3-D film I've seen where it actually makes sense and adds something to the movie. The walls of the cave, and the cavern itself leaps at you a bit, giving a real sense of how the drawings meld with and use the topography of the wall to convey a sense of motion and depth.
Herzog is the same documentarian who made the film about that idiot Timothy Treadwell, "The Grizzly Man," who got himself and his girlfriend eaten by a grizzly in Alaska in 2003, and the bear who ate them shot by Fish & Wildlife. Treadwell was a total asshole, but Herzog's film about him is fascinating.
So this is the second project I've seen by Herzog who has had a very long career, most of which I've managed to miss despite my love for documentaries. I saw him interviewed by Stephen Colbert, where Stephen strains to be funny (I love his show, but the interview is the least interesting part of the show, while the reverse is true I think of John Stewart.. ) but does get some interesting reactions from Herzog.
I do have to say that Stephen does hit on what seems to me one of the central issues in thinking about things like this: This story is about origins, about consciousness and self-awareness, which means this story has profound religious implications.
"How can the drawings be 32-40,000 years old when the earth was created only 6,000 years ago?" That's a question that strikes to the heart of what 40% of Americans apparently believe, that the universe is only 4 to 6,000 years old, following the calculations of the likes of Bishop Usher and other "fundamentalists" who've done the math for us on the genealogies in the Pentateuch and a timeline of the rest of the Bible.
The radio carbon dating they've done on the drawings indicates that the drawings were created over a span of thousands of years - 40 to 32,000 years ago - in a cave that was never inhabited by humans, only used as an apparent ceremonial site. There is what Herzog and the anthropologists working at the site take to an altar in the cave, where they surmise some sort of ritual or ceremony was performed. The cave was inhabited by extinct cave bears, who left thousands of bones and claw marks all over the cave. At some point over 15,000 years ago the cave was sealed by a great landslide, and then only discovered in 1994 by the explorer who gives the cave its name.
Stephen asks Herzog "Are you making any of this stuff up?" driving at his apparent tendency to embellish his stories. But that question can be leveled at the entire phenomena. All sacred narratives tend to run up against the scientific record in ways that from a positivistic perspective seem to undermine them.
The question of how this cave relates to the narrative in Genesis seems to me to be a valid one. But it's also finally an unanswerable one.
In my last review took a couple potshots at people who seek to reconcile that narrative (or any other sacred mythology) to the latest scientific consensus in a "literal" way. As I say, I think that's vulgar and stupid.
As I said there, I also think that people who think that science has "disproven the Bible" and the existence of God are even bigger idiots.
The debate between the two sides is tiresome and mindless.
I say that the narrative and the physical environment do not need to be reconciled according to our current knowledge, because as one scientist in the film says, we know almost nothing.
The more I live, the more it seems to me that humility and wonder are crucial to not being a jackass.
Which, incidentally is one of the things I accuse myself of being. I have been too often a victim of cognitive dissonance born of my own pride and arrogance, and am still tempted frequently to pass that door..
Then alternately been tempted to rain down judgements and preach, and call people names. Which I think is what I just did.. Again. Ach.
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.
I've decided that needs to radically change. So, when at the end of the film Herzog makes an extraneous editorial comment about the caves by taking us to a tropical terrarium fed by the waste water from one of France's many nuclear power plants near the cave - the water expelled from a cooling tower that controls the heat of a reactor is very hot, and not radioactive - by showing us a pair of albino crocodiles kept there, and opining that we are ultimately no better than they, and that if they saw the drawings they would be unperturbed, implying that the universe entire is just as unknowing and so ultimately meaningless..
I just shook my head and pitied him. He shoots this gorgeous film, full of astonishing things, and still can't help himself from making a statement of chic nihilism to put it all in perspective for us.
What can you say? You look at something so beautiful, and still doubt the transcendence of the human soul?
Poor fellow.
---
This is a documentary by Werner Herzog, who received a unique permission from the French Ministry of Culture (this is their relevant site) to film in the Chauvet Cave, near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the Ardèche Valley near the Rhone in southern France.
They are dated to 40 to 30,000 years old. This is much older than the 20,000-year-old images at Lascaux, France or the 17,000-year-old ones at Altamira, Spain. This means that they are the oldest known symbolic representations created by a human being in the world. The oldest art, perhaps (indeed almost certainly) the oldest human "religious" expression (since the scientists studying it believe they were perhaps created as a part of a "shamanistic" type ritual) in the world.
As art they are absolutely stunning, to equal anything done by the likes of Matisse or the best of Picasso. Very, very beautiful. Most of the images are of animals, but one is (as Herzog puts it in the film) of a woman's sex, basically a depiction of a kneeling woman's rear that flows seamlessly into the head of a bison like animal. The oldest picture of a human being.
Herzog worked under extreme restrictions, only being allowed into the cave twice, because previous experience at sites like Lascaux have shown that even small changes in the atmosphere of such a cave can destroy the images by introducing mold and other contaminants. The cave is also dangerous to remain in for long due to high levels of carbon dioxide and radon that can sicken and kill the unwary.
The entire experience of watching this film is meditative. Nearly everything he shoots and most of the commentary is fascinating. The landscape and cave are in one of my favorite places in the world, and are stunningly beautiful.
This is the Pont d'Arc, the cave is located nearby:
Pretty stunning landscape, really. Thirty thousand years ago it was surrounded by glaciers during one of the recent glaciations that have covered Europe and North America. If you've (say) read Clan of the Cave Bear (one of my Middle School reads, back then I soaked up historical fiction, and stayed up all night one night to finish that book when I was in 8th Grade) or seen a paleolithic Venus, you know will have an idea of what the culture that created these images is all about:
He shot the film in 3-D, and I must say that this is the first 3-D film I've seen where it actually makes sense and adds something to the movie. The walls of the cave, and the cavern itself leaps at you a bit, giving a real sense of how the drawings meld with and use the topography of the wall to convey a sense of motion and depth.
Herzog is the same documentarian who made the film about that idiot Timothy Treadwell, "The Grizzly Man," who got himself and his girlfriend eaten by a grizzly in Alaska in 2003, and the bear who ate them shot by Fish & Wildlife. Treadwell was a total asshole, but Herzog's film about him is fascinating.
So this is the second project I've seen by Herzog who has had a very long career, most of which I've managed to miss despite my love for documentaries. I saw him interviewed by Stephen Colbert, where Stephen strains to be funny (I love his show, but the interview is the least interesting part of the show, while the reverse is true I think of John Stewart.. ) but does get some interesting reactions from Herzog.
I do have to say that Stephen does hit on what seems to me one of the central issues in thinking about things like this: This story is about origins, about consciousness and self-awareness, which means this story has profound religious implications.
"How can the drawings be 32-40,000 years old when the earth was created only 6,000 years ago?" That's a question that strikes to the heart of what 40% of Americans apparently believe, that the universe is only 4 to 6,000 years old, following the calculations of the likes of Bishop Usher and other "fundamentalists" who've done the math for us on the genealogies in the Pentateuch and a timeline of the rest of the Bible.
The radio carbon dating they've done on the drawings indicates that the drawings were created over a span of thousands of years - 40 to 32,000 years ago - in a cave that was never inhabited by humans, only used as an apparent ceremonial site. There is what Herzog and the anthropologists working at the site take to an altar in the cave, where they surmise some sort of ritual or ceremony was performed. The cave was inhabited by extinct cave bears, who left thousands of bones and claw marks all over the cave. At some point over 15,000 years ago the cave was sealed by a great landslide, and then only discovered in 1994 by the explorer who gives the cave its name.
Stephen asks Herzog "Are you making any of this stuff up?" driving at his apparent tendency to embellish his stories. But that question can be leveled at the entire phenomena. All sacred narratives tend to run up against the scientific record in ways that from a positivistic perspective seem to undermine them.
The question of how this cave relates to the narrative in Genesis seems to me to be a valid one. But it's also finally an unanswerable one.
In my last review took a couple potshots at people who seek to reconcile that narrative (or any other sacred mythology) to the latest scientific consensus in a "literal" way. As I say, I think that's vulgar and stupid.
As I said there, I also think that people who think that science has "disproven the Bible" and the existence of God are even bigger idiots.
The debate between the two sides is tiresome and mindless.
I say that the narrative and the physical environment do not need to be reconciled according to our current knowledge, because as one scientist in the film says, we know almost nothing.
The more I live, the more it seems to me that humility and wonder are crucial to not being a jackass.
Which, incidentally is one of the things I accuse myself of being. I have been too often a victim of cognitive dissonance born of my own pride and arrogance, and am still tempted frequently to pass that door..
Then alternately been tempted to rain down judgements and preach, and call people names. Which I think is what I just did.. Again. Ach.
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.
I've decided that needs to radically change. So, when at the end of the film Herzog makes an extraneous editorial comment about the caves by taking us to a tropical terrarium fed by the waste water from one of France's many nuclear power plants near the cave - the water expelled from a cooling tower that controls the heat of a reactor is very hot, and not radioactive - by showing us a pair of albino crocodiles kept there, and opining that we are ultimately no better than they, and that if they saw the drawings they would be unperturbed, implying that the universe entire is just as unknowing and so ultimately meaningless..
I just shook my head and pitied him. He shoots this gorgeous film, full of astonishing things, and still can't help himself from making a statement of chic nihilism to put it all in perspective for us.
What can you say? You look at something so beautiful, and still doubt the transcendence of the human soul?
Poor fellow.
---
Comment on my Review of Tree of Life
It occurred to me today that the soundtrack of Tree of Life has a lot of Catholic liturgical music in it. All in Latin of course, and sung by an excellent choir.
For example, during what I understood to be the "resurrection" was accompanied by the Agnus Dei, which of course is from the Eucharistic canon at the mass: "Agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi, miserere nobis.." Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
I also should point out - another thing that occurred to me today - that the "Tree of Life" is also taken in Catholic and Orthodox (and I suppose other Christian traditions) as referring to the Cross. You'll see it for example on diptychs or that lay out the stories of the Hebrew Bible in contrast to their consummation in the Gospel. So the the Cross is the Tree of Life and a counterpoint to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: The first is the instrument salvation and redemption, the second that of freedom and the Fall.
I can't steal this image because it is protected, but it is a mosaic that is an excellent example of what I'm referring to.
I think I'm going to have to watch the film again when it comes out on DVD to parse all this.
---
For example, during what I understood to be the "resurrection" was accompanied by the Agnus Dei, which of course is from the Eucharistic canon at the mass: "Agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi, miserere nobis.." Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
I also should point out - another thing that occurred to me today - that the "Tree of Life" is also taken in Catholic and Orthodox (and I suppose other Christian traditions) as referring to the Cross. You'll see it for example on diptychs or that lay out the stories of the Hebrew Bible in contrast to their consummation in the Gospel. So the the Cross is the Tree of Life and a counterpoint to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: The first is the instrument salvation and redemption, the second that of freedom and the Fall.
I can't steal this image because it is protected, but it is a mosaic that is an excellent example of what I'm referring to.
I think I'm going to have to watch the film again when it comes out on DVD to parse all this.
---
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Film Review: Tree of Life
I liked this quite a lot. 4/5 *'s, A. Tomato meter 86%, audience only 66%.
(This is not the trailer, which they won't let me imbed on YouTube. This link takes you to the official trailer: Check out this great MSN video: 'The Tree of Life' Trailer )
I was initially puzzled why this film isn't being shown in more theaters, seeing as Sean Penn and Brad Pitt are in it, and it has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.. Now that I've seen it, I understand. This film has only the slightest narrative, being a diaphanous stream of images depicting the life of a family living in Waco, Texas in the 50's, cast against a cosmic backdrop. Many people will not enjoy this at all. Think 2001 Space Odessy or Tarkovsky - if you know who he is, and like him, see this film. Otherwise, you may want to stay away.
The minimal story is focused on the eldest son, who we learn in the very first scenes will die when he is 19. The film then cuts to his birth, and begins to show us the dynamic of his family - Pitt plays his father, a man driven to succeed according to the cultural mores of 1950's corporate/upper class America, who clearly loves his sons, but treats them with a sternness and discipline that borders on pathological. His wife, played by Jessica Chastain (who is stunning here) is a much more gentle and non-judgmental personality.
The devastation they both experience at the death of their son is cast against this dynamic, but it is never explained how the son dies - if he commits suicide, if his death is any way influenced by his relationship with his father.
Then, we flash forward to one of the other two younger brothers in the family (it wasn't clear to me which) as an adult working as an architect in a skyscraper in some American city, somewhere like Dallas or Kansas City, played by Sean Penn. He's obviously still wracked by these events years later. Apparently the film is meant to be at least in part a mediation on life from this character's point of view.
Then, we shift into a long series of images beginning with the dawn of time, the Big Bang, the rise of life, terrestrial life, so forth, culminating in images that seem to suggest the end of the universe in fire and darkness.
The film then jumps back to tell the story of perhaps one year in the life of the family, where the relationship of the eldest son with his father is depicted. He is obviously haunted by his father's expectations and feelings of resentment and inadequacy. These drive him to commit some anti- social acts like launching a frog hundreds of feet in the air tied to a backyard rocket, stealing lingerie from a neighbor's house, and some other small acts of cruelty and disobedience that are clearly attempts on his part to react to the pressure of his father's expectations and the growing realization that he is very much like his father in both his strengths and weaknesses. All of this is cut with other impressions of a beautiful family life in an idealized 1950's setting, only with the occasional acts of cruelty or selfishness on the part of the son or his father to mar the idyll.
The finale of the movie (which comes after what seems to be a very long time, which I didn't mind apart from the fact that I saw the film at the Enzain dinner theater and had ordered three pints during the film, a choice which came back to haunt me in the last 20 or 30 minutes of the film, but not enough to actually make a run to the restroom.. ) is an apparent resurrection of sorts, an afterlife in which Sean Penn's character is seen walking along a long beautiful beach with all his family, and a large crowd of strangers.
That's basically the story. Very highbrow, high concept, but not particularly doctrinaire. The director, Terrence Malick, evidently poured himself into this film, and it shows. He's the same guy who directed A Thin Red Line, another great film shot with a very similar visual style, but with more narrative structure, and is a trained philosopher - ABD at Oxford on a thesis dealing with "the concept of world" in Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.. He had a divergence of opinion with his tutor, it seems.
Malick was raised Assyrian Catholic (that is to say Iraqi, or Chaldean Catholic) in Waco, himself, and that is also evident in the film. He also then went to a high class Episcopalian Prep School in Austin.
This film is obviously fruit of all of that study, and all of those philosophical and religious influences, and so is just as pretentious and interesting, as well as alternately staunch and new agey as you'd expect.
The family is Catholic and are often depicted at mass. Their priest is shown at one point giving a homily on the Book of Job in which he hammers home the futility of all worldly things, and the necessity of grace and the salvation of God which is beyond all human understanding: "his thoughts are infinitely above ours.."
The film also opens with a verse from one of my very favorite chapters in the entire Bible, also in Job: "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation... while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" This is from Chapter 38 where God first takes the stage after Job has been sitting on his dung heap being heckled by his friends who have all sorts of opinions as to why Job has fallen on such hard times for the first 37 chapters.
The first 37 chapters are like much Christian discourse in other words: "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." They babble, then leave. It's like one long modern evangelical service, a whole lot of bullshit and preaching, only without any rock tunes. I could never be a low church protestant, getting preached and sung at all the time like that. I'm so glad we have liturgy and generally short homilies..
Anyhow, it's when Job is alone that God shows up and puts a pile driver through things. Job had been a bit upset that all these horrible things had befallen him, and was annoyed at God. But he never took up his so called friends' challenge to simply curse God and die. He kept on keeping on, cranky but faithful to the end, enthroned on his pile of shit.
Malick quotes the perfect line for every jackass who thinks they understand what the Book of Genesis "really" means in "historical" or "scientific" terms.
Where you there? Who are you to lecture me about what I did? You know nothing.
That no mere man may boast before He Who Lives and Reigns.
Malick leaves out - and this is telling, I think - the lines just before this, where God says to Job "Stand up. Gird your loins like a man. I will examine and I will judge you."
Judge. You.
This movie treats creation with such poetic power, and then casts the lives of this particular family against that cosmic backdrop in a way that is neither condescending or gimmicky. The grandeur of the human being, the human person, of our collective consciousness and our love, is as astounding as everything else in time and space - in fact, it is apparently the only thing that gives any of the other astonishing things that are any meaning. Only we contemplate, only we worship. Malick's film is one long testament to that truth.
But despite the proto- Christian themes in the film, and the repeated prayers in which every primary character prays and seeks the intercession of other characters ("I" love "you") in religious language, even addressing God as a person ("I give my son to you") the full blown presence of that transcendent Other is not felt. The film dances around this felt near absence gently, which is why it seems to verge on a sort of "new age" vibe..
The mother (Jessica Chastain's character) also makes a powerful statement at the beginning of the film that opposes grace to nature ("there is the way of grace and the way of nature") where grace is described as being selfless, liberating and free, while nature is described as grasping, controlling and selfish. The mother seems to be meant to be taking the way of grace, while the father and his oldest son follow the way of nature.
While I get the point, and somewhat credit it, I thought to myself that this is not technically true. I think nature is a manifestation of grace, and departing from grace disfigures, and is un-natural. The fall is the deprivation of grace in nature, that is evil, sin and death. Nature itself is good, being created by God (who is the only "super" natural being, even spirits and angels are natural, whether fallen or not, on this point I refer you to Aquinas) and in the Catholic economy of grace redeemed by the Church which is Christ's sacramental action, the energies of God that take on "material" expressions.
That's in a way a quibble (and note that I typed that off the cuff, so my way off expressing it may not be as precise or correct as it should be) but it's an important one.
I was left wondering about Malick's deeper agenda, whether he was thinking in terms of the Kabbalic or ancient Egyptian "Tree of Life" or other variations of that idea, and how much those ideas may have impacted his film.
I incidentally bought a beautiful papyrus of this depiction of the Egyptian mythological Tree of Life when I was living in Cairo, which I gave to Rich & JD. They've framed it beautifully, and it looks fantastic:
I really like it, and may need to go back to Cairo to pick up a few more.
The thing about this movie though is that while this is definitely affirming of the immense beauty and dignity of the individual human person, it sort of goes vague on the ultimate source of that personhood.
More unitarian than trinitarian in the final analysis, it seems to me. Not that that is a bad thing. I'm merely observing for the record.
Final word: see this film if it sounds at all interesting to you.
Just stay away from that third pint. It'll mess you up.
[Footnote: I just watched the video about the casting of the film that I post at the head of the review.. I apparently misunderstood what happened entirely, in that I thought the eldest son was the one who died, but apparently it was one of the younger ones. Sean Penn depicts the eldest son as a middle aged man.. i leave my review as is, because thaat confusion is a testament to the discursive, non- linear style of the film. I normally don't get confused by movies, but this one was unusually indeterminate. ]
---
(This is not the trailer, which they won't let me imbed on YouTube. This link takes you to the official trailer: Check out this great MSN video: 'The Tree of Life' Trailer )
I was initially puzzled why this film isn't being shown in more theaters, seeing as Sean Penn and Brad Pitt are in it, and it has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.. Now that I've seen it, I understand. This film has only the slightest narrative, being a diaphanous stream of images depicting the life of a family living in Waco, Texas in the 50's, cast against a cosmic backdrop. Many people will not enjoy this at all. Think 2001 Space Odessy or Tarkovsky - if you know who he is, and like him, see this film. Otherwise, you may want to stay away.
The minimal story is focused on the eldest son, who we learn in the very first scenes will die when he is 19. The film then cuts to his birth, and begins to show us the dynamic of his family - Pitt plays his father, a man driven to succeed according to the cultural mores of 1950's corporate/upper class America, who clearly loves his sons, but treats them with a sternness and discipline that borders on pathological. His wife, played by Jessica Chastain (who is stunning here) is a much more gentle and non-judgmental personality.
The devastation they both experience at the death of their son is cast against this dynamic, but it is never explained how the son dies - if he commits suicide, if his death is any way influenced by his relationship with his father.
Then, we flash forward to one of the other two younger brothers in the family (it wasn't clear to me which) as an adult working as an architect in a skyscraper in some American city, somewhere like Dallas or Kansas City, played by Sean Penn. He's obviously still wracked by these events years later. Apparently the film is meant to be at least in part a mediation on life from this character's point of view.
Then, we shift into a long series of images beginning with the dawn of time, the Big Bang, the rise of life, terrestrial life, so forth, culminating in images that seem to suggest the end of the universe in fire and darkness.
The film then jumps back to tell the story of perhaps one year in the life of the family, where the relationship of the eldest son with his father is depicted. He is obviously haunted by his father's expectations and feelings of resentment and inadequacy. These drive him to commit some anti- social acts like launching a frog hundreds of feet in the air tied to a backyard rocket, stealing lingerie from a neighbor's house, and some other small acts of cruelty and disobedience that are clearly attempts on his part to react to the pressure of his father's expectations and the growing realization that he is very much like his father in both his strengths and weaknesses. All of this is cut with other impressions of a beautiful family life in an idealized 1950's setting, only with the occasional acts of cruelty or selfishness on the part of the son or his father to mar the idyll.
The finale of the movie (which comes after what seems to be a very long time, which I didn't mind apart from the fact that I saw the film at the Enzain dinner theater and had ordered three pints during the film, a choice which came back to haunt me in the last 20 or 30 minutes of the film, but not enough to actually make a run to the restroom.. ) is an apparent resurrection of sorts, an afterlife in which Sean Penn's character is seen walking along a long beautiful beach with all his family, and a large crowd of strangers.
That's basically the story. Very highbrow, high concept, but not particularly doctrinaire. The director, Terrence Malick, evidently poured himself into this film, and it shows. He's the same guy who directed A Thin Red Line, another great film shot with a very similar visual style, but with more narrative structure, and is a trained philosopher - ABD at Oxford on a thesis dealing with "the concept of world" in Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.. He had a divergence of opinion with his tutor, it seems.
Malick was raised Assyrian Catholic (that is to say Iraqi, or Chaldean Catholic) in Waco, himself, and that is also evident in the film. He also then went to a high class Episcopalian Prep School in Austin.
This film is obviously fruit of all of that study, and all of those philosophical and religious influences, and so is just as pretentious and interesting, as well as alternately staunch and new agey as you'd expect.
The family is Catholic and are often depicted at mass. Their priest is shown at one point giving a homily on the Book of Job in which he hammers home the futility of all worldly things, and the necessity of grace and the salvation of God which is beyond all human understanding: "his thoughts are infinitely above ours.."
The film also opens with a verse from one of my very favorite chapters in the entire Bible, also in Job: "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation... while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" This is from Chapter 38 where God first takes the stage after Job has been sitting on his dung heap being heckled by his friends who have all sorts of opinions as to why Job has fallen on such hard times for the first 37 chapters.
The first 37 chapters are like much Christian discourse in other words: "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." They babble, then leave. It's like one long modern evangelical service, a whole lot of bullshit and preaching, only without any rock tunes. I could never be a low church protestant, getting preached and sung at all the time like that. I'm so glad we have liturgy and generally short homilies..
Anyhow, it's when Job is alone that God shows up and puts a pile driver through things. Job had been a bit upset that all these horrible things had befallen him, and was annoyed at God. But he never took up his so called friends' challenge to simply curse God and die. He kept on keeping on, cranky but faithful to the end, enthroned on his pile of shit.
Malick quotes the perfect line for every jackass who thinks they understand what the Book of Genesis "really" means in "historical" or "scientific" terms.
Where you there? Who are you to lecture me about what I did? You know nothing.
That no mere man may boast before He Who Lives and Reigns.
Malick leaves out - and this is telling, I think - the lines just before this, where God says to Job "Stand up. Gird your loins like a man. I will examine and I will judge you."
Judge. You.
This movie treats creation with such poetic power, and then casts the lives of this particular family against that cosmic backdrop in a way that is neither condescending or gimmicky. The grandeur of the human being, the human person, of our collective consciousness and our love, is as astounding as everything else in time and space - in fact, it is apparently the only thing that gives any of the other astonishing things that are any meaning. Only we contemplate, only we worship. Malick's film is one long testament to that truth.
But despite the proto- Christian themes in the film, and the repeated prayers in which every primary character prays and seeks the intercession of other characters ("I" love "you") in religious language, even addressing God as a person ("I give my son to you") the full blown presence of that transcendent Other is not felt. The film dances around this felt near absence gently, which is why it seems to verge on a sort of "new age" vibe..
The mother (Jessica Chastain's character) also makes a powerful statement at the beginning of the film that opposes grace to nature ("there is the way of grace and the way of nature") where grace is described as being selfless, liberating and free, while nature is described as grasping, controlling and selfish. The mother seems to be meant to be taking the way of grace, while the father and his oldest son follow the way of nature.
While I get the point, and somewhat credit it, I thought to myself that this is not technically true. I think nature is a manifestation of grace, and departing from grace disfigures, and is un-natural. The fall is the deprivation of grace in nature, that is evil, sin and death. Nature itself is good, being created by God (who is the only "super" natural being, even spirits and angels are natural, whether fallen or not, on this point I refer you to Aquinas) and in the Catholic economy of grace redeemed by the Church which is Christ's sacramental action, the energies of God that take on "material" expressions.
That's in a way a quibble (and note that I typed that off the cuff, so my way off expressing it may not be as precise or correct as it should be) but it's an important one.
I was left wondering about Malick's deeper agenda, whether he was thinking in terms of the Kabbalic or ancient Egyptian "Tree of Life" or other variations of that idea, and how much those ideas may have impacted his film.
I incidentally bought a beautiful papyrus of this depiction of the Egyptian mythological Tree of Life when I was living in Cairo, which I gave to Rich & JD. They've framed it beautifully, and it looks fantastic:
I really like it, and may need to go back to Cairo to pick up a few more.
The thing about this movie though is that while this is definitely affirming of the immense beauty and dignity of the individual human person, it sort of goes vague on the ultimate source of that personhood.
More unitarian than trinitarian in the final analysis, it seems to me. Not that that is a bad thing. I'm merely observing for the record.
Final word: see this film if it sounds at all interesting to you.
Just stay away from that third pint. It'll mess you up.
[Footnote: I just watched the video about the casting of the film that I post at the head of the review.. I apparently misunderstood what happened entirely, in that I thought the eldest son was the one who died, but apparently it was one of the younger ones. Sean Penn depicts the eldest son as a middle aged man.. i leave my review as is, because thaat confusion is a testament to the discursive, non- linear style of the film. I normally don't get confused by movies, but this one was unusually indeterminate. ]
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160 Parks in Three Years? Am I Supposed to Be Impressed?
So, the big news this Sunday is that my parents made their local paper, the Villages Daily Sun ("The Only Paper in North America with a Growing Subscriber Base! The Villages: The Internet? No one here knows how to use any technology developed after 1975!"). They're featured as the Villagers of the week. The Sun does weekly stories on Villagers with nifty hobbies ("He has every single Frank Sinatra album ever cut embossed framed and mounted on the walls of his house!" or "She collects ceramic cows, look how there's no open shelf or counter space in her home!")..
Somehow the newspaper found out that my parents have been visiting Florida State parks these last three years, and that they finally visited their last park this past week.
This is the result:
This last Monday I actually accidentally ran into my Dad at Lake Griffin State Park in Lady Lake (the park closest to my parents' house) as he was finally dropping off his "Passport" booklet with all the stamps from each park in it. I was ironically and serendipitously there to pick my own passport booklet up. I'd decided (inspired by them) to use the parks as interim destinations in my road trip to discover Florida this summer.
It was Monday, July 20th.
This past week I've been to 13 parks. When I was in Orlando (for three days) I only visited three, but these last three days I've been to nine. I have to admit that with only one exception I've basically blown through them, only spending about 20 minutes driving around, getting out of the car to walk around for five or ten minutes then leaving. That's because they've all been dedicated to camping and RV sites, fishing, hiking, nature walks. There've been a couple with horse and mountain biking trails trails, too. One park, Payne's Creek, is a historical park centered on the site of a Federal fort built in 1849 during the last Seminole War. I spent an hour there in the museum and walking around the location the blockhouse had been built.
The one park I spent a bunch of time at, actually going there twice and staying for hours, was Wekiwa Springs, which is a first magnitude spring that is the source of of the Wekiva River, which we - my parents and Aunt Mary Jo - went canoeing down a year ago. We saw this 20+ foot alligator, and a bunch of smaller gators on the river, which is separated from the swimming hole around the spring where all the juicy people (hundreds of them on a summer day like we've been having) are frolicking by a net and a row of floating logs, I think. I didn't examine the anti-gator defense that closely, but it didn't seem all that formidable.. Nothing 20' of hungry primordial lizard couldn't probably blow through if he really wanted..
Anyway, this coming week I'm going to go to all the parks between here and Key West. They're all along the ocean, and most have good beaches, so I'm going to spend more time at these ones..
Then, I'm going to turn north through the Everglades and head toward Tampa. Then, I'll go to the St. Augustine and Jacksonville area, then cut west toward the panhandle and Pensacola.
This will take maybe a month, month and a half.
What I'm saying is that I am going to get every single park stamp in my Passport booklet in less than 2 months, hoss.
All visited by August 20th, 2011.
That's right. I'm throwing down.
Watch me now. Watch me roll. It's hammertime.
---
Somehow the newspaper found out that my parents have been visiting Florida State parks these last three years, and that they finally visited their last park this past week.
This is the result:
This last Monday I actually accidentally ran into my Dad at Lake Griffin State Park in Lady Lake (the park closest to my parents' house) as he was finally dropping off his "Passport" booklet with all the stamps from each park in it. I was ironically and serendipitously there to pick my own passport booklet up. I'd decided (inspired by them) to use the parks as interim destinations in my road trip to discover Florida this summer.
It was Monday, July 20th.
This past week I've been to 13 parks. When I was in Orlando (for three days) I only visited three, but these last three days I've been to nine. I have to admit that with only one exception I've basically blown through them, only spending about 20 minutes driving around, getting out of the car to walk around for five or ten minutes then leaving. That's because they've all been dedicated to camping and RV sites, fishing, hiking, nature walks. There've been a couple with horse and mountain biking trails trails, too. One park, Payne's Creek, is a historical park centered on the site of a Federal fort built in 1849 during the last Seminole War. I spent an hour there in the museum and walking around the location the blockhouse had been built.
The one park I spent a bunch of time at, actually going there twice and staying for hours, was Wekiwa Springs, which is a first magnitude spring that is the source of of the Wekiva River, which we - my parents and Aunt Mary Jo - went canoeing down a year ago. We saw this 20+ foot alligator, and a bunch of smaller gators on the river, which is separated from the swimming hole around the spring where all the juicy people (hundreds of them on a summer day like we've been having) are frolicking by a net and a row of floating logs, I think. I didn't examine the anti-gator defense that closely, but it didn't seem all that formidable.. Nothing 20' of hungry primordial lizard couldn't probably blow through if he really wanted..
Anyway, this coming week I'm going to go to all the parks between here and Key West. They're all along the ocean, and most have good beaches, so I'm going to spend more time at these ones..
Then, I'm going to turn north through the Everglades and head toward Tampa. Then, I'll go to the St. Augustine and Jacksonville area, then cut west toward the panhandle and Pensacola.
This will take maybe a month, month and a half.
What I'm saying is that I am going to get every single park stamp in my Passport booklet in less than 2 months, hoss.
All visited by August 20th, 2011.
That's right. I'm throwing down.
Watch me now. Watch me roll. It's hammertime.
---
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