Dear diary,
Is there anything more pleasant than falling asleep during your boss’s lecture?
What I did just now is the opposite: I awoke mid-bosstalk; for I had been dreaming. My boss, in the dream, was telling me all the right things to believe and the correct way to conduct oneself in this world, and amid a long list of so-so advice he said “We should not arrange the economic system so that all creatures benefit—I’m sure you agree, for this is one of those points that no sane person questions.” And I perked up and raised my hand to interpose, but then I awoke. It was the same sudden end that usually happens when I’m about to die in a dream: right at the instant, bam!—I find myself lying in bed, and the room is dark and silent.
Is it common to dream that you’re in the very room where you are sleeping? I’ve had that happen a lot. I dream that I’m in bed, not yet asleep; and some human form opens the front door of my apartment, and I hear this form creep down the hallway toward my bedroom, and it stands in the doorway with obviously murderous intent, and I try to rebuke the form, but my words come out as an inarticulate howl, and I wake to find myself whimpering like a dog. I am in the same room, the same bed where the dream was taking place, but the light is different: it’s darker—for in my dreams, the light is always lime green—and of course there’s no invader standing before me.
Dreams are always SO goofy that the weirdest dream I can imagine would be a totally bland one: a dream where nothing abnormal occurs: you just get up and eat your dull breakfast and go to work and pretend to stay awake at your desk. I think the same about motion pictures. Why does there always have to be a sensational killing, or a passionate love affair, or a plot to steal Matisse? In real life, no one ever gets killed or falls in love or nabs an artist. Someone should make some movies where people just shuffle to their day-job and mope thru work. THAT would strike me as thrilling. The first time I saw Bubble (2005), I thought I’d met my perfect movie; but then it got marred at its midpoint by the remarkable incident (I am trying to avoid a spoiler alert, by being vague). I still love that film, but I think it’d have been better for the “regular people” and their “humdrum” existence, which set the tone, to have carried the show: after establishing the mood, just let it ride; forego the supposedly central event, surf the typical: let your story dissolve into the quotidian. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I prefer The Birds (1963) without the birds: everything about Hitchcock’s movie is GOLD to me, except the “main attraction”. I want a bird-free Birds.
Again, I stress that I still love that last film as it is; & I acknowledge the impossibility of answering my prayer with the existing footage alone, via re-editing: in fact, you’d probably have to re-shoot the entirety, and, in the process, lose all the magic—for I’m sure the appeal of that peculiarly birdless normalcy, in those scenes that I love, stems from the fact that all the actors are anticipating the action that lies ahead and are thus subduing their performance so as to enhance the dynamics of the climax—therefore I’m aware that I’m desiring something unfeasible, irresoluble, unattainable. Nonetheless, please make it happen.
On second thought, the inexplicableness that would result from all the “jumps” or “gaps” in the story, if you were indeed to use nothing more than the existing footage and simply re-cut The Birds, could be interpreted as a strength rather than a weakness. Yes, I would view this new edit as a masterpiece.
Often a “director’s cut” of a film will be released. Someone should allow ME to make MY OWN edits of films, just because it would be fun. You could call the series Bryan’s Cuts. “Have you seen Bryan’s version of so-and-so’s latest? God, that film is actually watchable now!” the surrealists would say.
What about fans’ projects, fans’ remakes of films? Not interesting. Why? Because they’re not me—only Bryan’s Cuts are interesting, because I’m the only one with the genius to know how to SUBLIMATE each picture. I’m the only one who knows that you must remove the birds from The Birds, or the focal point from Bubble. All my versions would be super short, too: less than half an hour. No movie should last longer than the effect of the alcoholic beverage that you consumed to hunker thru it.
Now think: What if the biblical writers would have had cinema? What would they have filmed? Or if the people in the stories that they were telling had had access to cameras: Would they dare to film God? Would God even show up on film? (As a vampire, God might prove to be photo-resistant.) You might have to capture God when he’s not suspecting it. At first he’d be angry and curse your quadpod by removing one of its legs (thus resulting in all cameras having to be mounted on tripods, to this very day); but once he saw how good his performance turned out, he’d sign a release:
A legal release is an instrument that acts to terminate any liability between the releasee (Moses the filmmaker) and the releasor (God). The form is signed by the latter; as in the Book of Exodus (31:18), “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, written with the finger of God.” Releases are routinely used by photographers, in audiovisual production, by documentarians, or by biblical scribes when they photograph, film, or record the voice of the LORD, to be sure that the deity consents or will not later object to the material being used for whatever purpose the prophet wishes. This helps in insuring that the copyright owner has a clean chain of title for any artistic creation, such as a poetic tale or scripture, in case it later becomes an organized religion.
Yet, the above, however soul-stirring, is not the reason I originally called you here today: that’s all just a tangent spawned by my initial remark about dreaming. I really wanted to ask if you’ve noticed how advanced the artistic movement of Modernism seems, even tho it’s so ancient. All its practitioners are dead—that’s how old the period is already, despite its name. But I wonder if the name is apt after all, because, when you look at the stuff that’s been made in the wake of so-called Modernism, it seems less sophisticated, less daring, less accomplished, less wise, less humane—it’s as tho the more recent artworks are a prelude to the past, like we’re working backwards from the climax point on Freytag's Pyramid of dramatic structure, and eventually we’ll reach our exposition.
Apollinaire; Gertrude Stein; James Joyce; Rimbaud; Kafka; Fernando Pessoa; Hart Crane; Picasso; Cézanne; van Gogh… I just grabbed the first few names that struck me, from the encyclopedia, among millions bespangling the article that I glanced at—one could go on for hours just listing the geniuses of that interchange.
But when I say that our time, this present age, is falling away from that greatness, I am only partially serious. I’m mostly modeling a thought-stance, to see if I like it; the way you’d test-drive a vehicle that you’re thinking of purchasing; or the way you’d try on a dress and pose before the mirror and ask your image “Does this go better with glass or ruby slippers?” I mean, I wonder if our own generation is producing as many fine minds as the recent past. “Don’t compare your achievement to others – each soul is unique and has its own pace and bloom.” That’s what the devil’s advocate tells me. So I should take my epoch like I take my soul, and say: Let it develop in accordance with its natural unattractiveness; at least you don’t have to live in it forever.
But maybe my disparaging attitude about this present era, this rerun of the Middle Ages, is due to my misunderstanding of its excellences. I don’t understand the language of its accomplishments, perhaps. For plenty of the now-famous artists from the Modernist period were despised in their day, and many remained unknown or ignored till their death.
Also it’s hard to locate our time’s art; it’s hard to reach the artists who might be offering up the strange new thoughts: the good stuff. It seems that everything’s passé; I mean, all the traditional forms of distribution are outdated. If you’re a painter, museums are passé; the present public could not be shocked into a state of alertness by another Armory Show, even if such an incident were repeatable, because only the Happy Few now frequent museums. (I’m not lamenting this fact too much, by the way—I’ve long been suspicious of museums and rather doubted than believed in them; at best, I see them as a necessary evil.) And if you’re a composer of music, live-orchestra concerts are passé; even audio cassettes and vinyl records are eclipsed by the rise of digital media, which in turn renders the concept of an ALBUM passé because people would rather listen to…
The worst tragedy is that sitcoms are passé, since TV is passé. Not that I’ll miss sitcoms, but I was hoping that we’d get to see that genre sublimated by some burgeoning intellect, the way that George Lucas brought the myth-wisdom of Joseph Campbell to the old clunky sci-fi serials. Or what Roy Lichtenstein did to comic books, etc…
P.S.
I ran out of time but here’s another old rap:
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