November 2, 2010 at 12:19 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected.
January 26, 2010 at 11:00 A.M. Last night, at about midnight, my television signal was obstructed. I cannot say how many essays were damaged last night, but at least I was able to reach the blogs this morning. I will try to discover and correct inserted "errors" in these writings during the weeks and months ahead, even as Mr. Wood's essay (examined in this comment) remains incoherent and absurd.
January 25, 2010 at 7:07 P.M. Attacks against my security system will require me to restart my computer. I can never be sure of getting back to the Internet. I will continue to struggle.
January 25, 2010 at 2:50 P.M. Marketing calls will be received at fifteen minute intervals from "Heather." Advertisements have been imposed on this site against my will purporting to come from "Ads by Google."
"Is there a God? Regain Hope, Belief and Faith with Facts from the Bible. Read More! http://www.everystudent.com/ "
Faith in God is laughable to the persons responsible for these bogus advertisements. Jim McGreevey? Can James Wood shed any light on this mystery?
"College for Philosophy. Earn a Philosophy Degree online. Respected. Affordable. Accredited. www.APUS.edu/Philosophy "
I surmise that these advertisements are intended as insults of persons respectful of religion and/or philosophy. Perhaps they are intended to be funny? ("Psychological Torture in the American Legal System" and "How Censorship Works in America.")
January 25, 2010 at 2:27 P.M. "Errors" were inserted and corrected since this morning. Hackers are protected by New Jersey government officials, I believe, and they obstructed efforts to post this work earlier today. I will continue to struggle to make corrections against an onslaught of cybercrime and censorship coming from New Jersey. ("Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
January 25, 2010 at 10:36 A.M. A previous attempt to post this essay was obstructed, spacing was affected in the first draft of the work, cyberobstructions continue to make writing and posting this work difficult. I find it impossible to believe that this attempt at censorship is coincidental. President Obama said: "Those who silence dissent are on the wrong side of history." ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "'Brideshead Revisited': A Movie Review.")
Did the President of the United States of America exclude New Jersey from this comment concerning "silencing dissent"?
James Wood, "Between God and a Hard Place," in The New York Times, Sunday, January 24, 2010, at p. A11. (Disaster.)
Ted Honderich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Philosophy: An Alternative History of Philosophy (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002).
Anthony Burgess, Little Wilson and Big God & You've Had Your Times (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990).
William F. Buckley, Jr., God & Man at Yale (Chicago: Regnery Books, 1986). (Pecatoribus sunt? Sumus?)
January 25, 2010 at 10:45 A.M. My computer's clock -- or my watch -- is off by 40 minutes. I expect continuing sabotage and defacements of this brief essay. I will do my best to keep up with needed corrections. I cannot say how many of these writings have been vandalized overnight.
Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, I find a new scare concerning inept discussions of controversial and difficult theological issues, such as the conundrum concerning evil. ("Incoherence in 'The New Yorker'" and "Is this atheism's moment?")
James Wood (David Remnick? Anne Milgram? Stuart Rabner?) rushes in where angels fear to tread: In the aftermath of the Lisbon earthquake, Mr. Wood tells us, theodicy "which is the justification of God's good government of the world in the face of evil and pain, was suddenly harder to practice."
This is an inadequate definition of theodicy. God does not require "justification." Furthermore, Mr. Wood has clearly been reading Susan Neiman's recent book which begins with the Lisbon earthquake -- I doubt that the author of this op-ed piece read much more than the beginning of Ms. Neiman's book -- while resorting to the most absurd deist proponents of fundamentalist rationales for evil, like Pat Robertson, in order to score rhetorical points against the faithful.
We simple folks are in need of Mr. Wood's instruction, according to Mr. Wood, who offers some astonishing "instructions" in this essay. I suspect that there were insertions of text into this article which is so uneven in tone as to suggest multiple authors. ("David Denby is Not Amused.")
Pat Robertson is not someone I would describe as highly philosophically adept, but then neither is James Wood. Ms. Neiman's full discussion should have been cited by Mr. Wood, who was described in the past as a "Professor of English Literature at Harvard University." Mr. Wood is now listed as a "staff writer at The New Yorker." They got rid of ya at Harvard, huh, James? Mr. Wood is a writer with the "grace" to formulate the following sentence which begins a paragraph: "Or is it?" Say what? Alluding to Mr. Robertson and fellow fundamentalist apologists for the ways of God to man, Mr. Wood writes:
"This repellent cruelty manages the extraordinary trick of combining hellfire evangelism with neo-colonialist complacency, in which the Haitians are blamed not only for their sinfulness but also for the hubris of their political rebellion. Eighteenth-century preachers at least tended to include themselves in the charges of general sinfulness and God's inevitable reckoning; Mr. Robertson sounds rather pleased with his own outwitting of such reckoning, as if the convenient blessing of being a God-fearing American has saved him from such pestilence. He is presumably on the other side of the sin-line, safe in some Dominican resort."
"Or is it?" indeed. In the immortal words of Joan Crawford: "Whom is fooling whom."
Let me run this by you once more, Jimbo. The thing is, kid, that you can't really worry too much about "natural evil" if you believe that everything just "is." The objection that you "seem" to express to calamities, James, such as the Haitian earthquake -- an objection that I share -- implies a moral order in which your feelings and judgments of outrage at waste, suffering, and pain make sense. What is that "moral order"? Why does natural evil offend or bother you? ("Is this atheism's moment?" and "The Wanderer and His Shadow.")
A meaningless universe is entirely without moral qualities. The problem of theodicy exists ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY in theological speculation because it incorporates a tradition of reflection aimed at "explaining the ways of God to man." Thomas Merton, Martin Buber, Islam's mystics -- all agree on this point. Incidentally, capitalizing words for emphasis and to indicate the volume of an utterance may be derided in The New Yorker as a sign of blue collar origins. I will make use of this literary device, happily, to fulfill such expectations from the ASSHOLES in Park Avenue who object to "us guys."
You are assuming the reality of God, James, and seeking to understand natural evil in light of that God's reality whenever you accept or reject a theodicy. This experience of natural evil is a problem for human understanding in the light of faith. Natural evil can only exist or becomes an issue exclusively for religious persons or as against a religious view of life. Nihilists see only events that occur without objective moral meaning. For postmodernist adherents of meaninglessness, everything "is." Reality is absurd for nihilists.
Existentialists, like Sartre, say that everything "is" then they protest and rebel against this "human condition" of absurdity for moral reasons while demanding a meaning for human suffering. That everything just "is" must be unacceptable for conscience-striken existentialists, whose very protest refutes their diagnosis, as in Kierkegaard's transcendence of "either/or" philosophy. Got it? (Again: "The Wanderer and His Shadow.")
It is important for people to appreciate that, if you are bothered by the "evil" in events such as the Haitian earthquake and cannot help trying to make moral sense of the catastrophe, then you are already within a religious perspective or have accepted what we may call God. ("Is it rational to believe in God?")
You have stepped into very deep waters by invoking the tradition of speculation upon the mystery of evil -- a tradition existing within a universe of discourse in which "rational moral order" must serve as backdrop. What would you call such a comprehensive rational moral order that makes the concept of evil and our discourse about that concept meaningful? Take your time. (Again: "Is it rational to believe in God?")
Mr. Wood confuses the argument: 1) against God from the observed "reality" of evil (which is absurd); with 2) the defense of the reality of God DESPITE accepting the presence of evil in the world (which is legitimate). Whatever other conclusions you accept, the mere formulation of an "issue of evil" is already a commitment to a form of discourse that makes God LOGICALLY NECESSARY. The discussion offered by Mr. Wood of theodicy -- this may surprise him -- is not logically available to an atheist. "Theodicies seek to explain why God permits evil." The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, at p. 870. Time for more "error" insertions?
This argument concerning God and man (not necessarily at Yale) as well as the philosophical architecture demanded to participate meaningfully in the discussion concerning evil is far more elaborate, difficult, and vast than is suspected by this person, "James Wood." Is this person related to Larissa Macfarquhar? Are Larissa and James the same person? "They" (he, she, or it) make identical logical errors, repeatedly. Why is this person published in The New Yorker and The New York Times as my writings are censored, suppressed, altered, then plagiarized? Is this person a politician? Daniel Mendelsohn? Journalistic ethics? Should a journalist assist in the alteration of copyright protected works? Censorship? Suppressions of speech? Who will be next on the list of prohibited writers? ("The Mind/Body Problem and Freedom" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?")
Photographs of the blighted landscape in Haiti featured a crucifix that survived the nightmare as it came to rest amidst rubble and broken bodies. This Haitian crucifix is a most fitting symbol. The crucifix was approached by an aged Haitian woman whose gesture of touching the feet of the dying Christ and then kissing her finger tips gently is what I would call a complete "theodicy." This image that becomes a symbol tells us of humanity's need to share with love in suffering. Love redeems evil. I believe that the photograph of this crucifix appeared in The Economist. ("The Colors of the Cross.") Mr. Wood writes:
"The only people who would seem to have the right to invoke God at the moment are the Haitians themselves, [you can just say, 'the Haitians,' James,] who beseech his [sic.] help amidst dreadful pain. They, too, alas, appear to wander the wasteland of theodicy. [Alas, indeed.] News reports have described some Haitians giving voice to a world view uncomfortably close to Pat Robertson's, in which a vengeful God [sic.] has been meting [sic.] out justified retribution: 'I blame man. God gave us nature, and we Haitians, and our governments, abused the land. You cannot get away without consequences,' one man told The Times [sic.] last week." (emphasis added!)
Mr. Wood did not provide further quotes or references from Ms. Neiman's book. Hence, I will allude to the closing analysis in that fine work by Professor Neiman:
"What allows some of us to affirm life in the face of disaster while the rest of us shuffle between cynicism and despair? You may call the question psychological as long as you remember that the answer may be mysterious; it can be called grace. What will be decisive is also a matter of description: how the world is seen long before it becomes an object of judgment." (Neiman, p. 211.)
"Grace" also implies God. We endure "in the unity of the Holy Spirit." These are metaphors of meaning amidst the agonies of life. They exist in people's lives because they are necessary, not because people are stupid or have not heard of Charles Darwin. Perhaps Mr. Wood will instruct us simple folks? However, I very much doubt it.
"Unless the great concepts which have been traditional to the western world are rooted in a reasoned view of the universe and man's place in it, and unless this reasoned view contains in its orbit a place for the spirit, man is left in our day with archaic [intellectual] weapons [like psychobabble?] unsuited for the problems of the present." (Buckley, p. xlv.)
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
"Shaft": A Movie Review.
January 24, 2010 at 3:11 P.M. Numerous essays have been altered, some have been damaged through the removal of words and sentences. I will struggle to make all necessary corrections as quickly as possible. These crimes are the direct result, I believe, of abuse of government power in a society that criminalizes censorship and lectures to the world concerning tolerance of different points of view. You must decide whether we are sincere about those public pronouncements. Most of the world seems to believe that we are no longer serious about opposing censorship, especially of expressions critical of American power.
January 20, 2010 at 2:06 P.M. Intrusions into my computer have obstructed the updating feature of my security system. I will try throughout the day to update my protection.
January 20, 2010 at 10:53 A.M. Lots of cyberwar last night has persuaded me to profile Nydia Hernandez, Esq. and several Cuban-American lawyers as well as politicians in future essays. "Error" inserted overnight has been corrected.
January 19, 2010 at 2:20 P.M. A complete scan of my system revealed that the updating feature of my security system has been blocked. I will continue to run scans throughout the day in an effort to provide updates of my security system. I surmise that this attack is a message that, regardless of who is sworn-in as "Governor in New Jersey," cyberwarfare will continue. I will continue to struggle. A previous effort to reach this site was obstructed. I received the message: "Blogger cookies disabled." ("Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey" and "How Censorship Works in America.")
January 19, 2010 at 11:20 A.M. "Judith Butler and Gender Theory" was vandalized, while this essay was also defaced overnight. I cannot say how many other writings have been altered or damaged. Perhaps this wave of attacks is a protest against the swearing-in ceremony for Christopher Christie in Trenton. The Mafia is not thrilled at the election of Mr. Christie. ("Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless" and "Anne Milgram Does It Again.")
More sabotage, "errors" inserted, obstructions of access to the Internet and my sites. Many essays vandalized. I am struggling. Perhaps I struck a nerve with my identification of Senator Bob and a shady Secaucus Construction firm. August 8, 2008 at 2:51 P.M.
This essay was plagiarized by the consummate wordsmith, Manohla Dargis. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
"Shaft," Gordon Parks (Director), starring Richard Roundtree, co-starring Moses Gunn, screenplay by Ernest Tidyman and John D.F. Black, based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman, music by Isaac Hayes. (MGM, 1971-1973, Director's Cut DVD http://warnervideo.com/ ). The soundtrack by Issac Hayes is highly recommended.
The early seventies was a dark time in America. The sixties' revolution was incomplete. A mood of despair had set in as the hopefulness of the "Summer of Love" decade crashed into the grim realities of recession, oil crisis, high crime rates and visible collapse in Vietnam. The African-American struggle entered a new phase as the idealism of Dr. King faltered against political corruption and the illegalities of the Nixon Administration's war on the Constitution. Culture was an underappreciated battleground. American identity was reinvented in ways that people did not appreciate at the time.
As a teenager during the seventies, I remember the decade well. This cultural transition (from "peace and love" to "black power") is evidenced by an important and neglected American film, Shaft. This movie ushered in an era that would have seemed impossible only five years before it was made, an era whose contributions to our national and global imagination go a long way towards explaining Senator Barack Obama's real chance of becoming the first African-American president in our history. (This essay appeared before the election of President Obama, but not before I bought my "Obama" t-shirt.)
Why do I say that? Shaft was the first movie to appropriate American archetypal images, recreating the options for African-Americans and (even more importantly) everyone's imagination of American political-mythic forms. Everybody -- certainly all of my friends -- wanted to be "John Shaft." I had the hat, the outfits, platform shoes, even mastering Richard Roundtree's walk.
Before you laugh, remember that the President of the United States is a Jungian archetype associated with the earliest images of heros in Western civilization, from Odysseus to Philip Marlowe. Many of these archetypes may be traced to ancient African civilizations, not only Egypt. Recall President Kennedy's funeral procession and the ancient rituals of Greek and Persian heros associated with the riderless horse. This ritual signals both the loss of the hero and his continued presence among his people. This is an important point to remember on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. ("Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Philosophy of Science" and soon, "Dr. King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail.")
Shaft appeared only a few years after the King and Kennedy assassinations. Heros were desperately needed then. They are even more vital today -- and far more scarse.
In 2008, it is finally possible for the U.S. Presidency to be filled not only by an African-American man, but (alternatively) by a woman. These candidacies are, partly, a result of cinematic reimaginings of our collective subconscious language that are nearly forty years old. Jane Fonda's strong iconic film presence must exist before you will see someone like Senator Hillary Clinton as President of the United States.
In 2010, I think that President Obama merits high marks as U.S. President, despite inheriting a catastrophe from the previous administration. Much depends on what transpires over the next few years.
John Shaft was a hero in a genre that was already familiar to audiences and, therefore, non-threatening -- private eye, Noir mysteries -- in relation with every iconic film in this much-loved American tradition, from "Farewell My Lovely" to "The Big Sleep," to "Blade Runner" and, in a way, "Something Wild." American detectives are distant cousins of Europe's knights on horseback. There must be a John Shaft in the American imagination before there will be a Barack Obama Presidency in the United States. Incidentally, both Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton have loyal supporters in the Latino community, as they do in every other community.
I will review Shaft, a film which made many non-blacks in America wish to be African-Americans -- maybe for the first time in the nation's history -- ushering in a society in which previously excluded people became heros and idols for the young, especially for young men of all colors and ethnicities. I also thought it would be great to be Bruce Lee. Shaft made a lot of non-blacks rich. More African-Americans should share in the proceeds of classic films from another era, made possible by their talents but not contributing to the artists' enrichment. I alternated between wanting to be Walt Frazier and John Shaft -- ideally, a combination of the two.
Shaft is a great B-movie, transformed into an A-movie by its political and cultural significance in terms of America's racial history. Many B-movies have become classics, including a touchstone for Shaft and the greatest Noir film (in my opinion) "Out of the Past."
Shaft gestures at several great movies in the American canon, while pointing at the hard realities of city life "seen" through its images, establishing visual references to admired directors' works, from Orson Wells director and performer ("Citizen Kane"/"The Third Man") to John Huston ("The Maltese Falcoln") -- all are glimpsed in Shaft.
Among African-American film heros, my favorites include: Sydney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, Denzel Washington and (any resemblance to me is coincidental -- Chris Rock), Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby and in direct continuity with Richard Roundtree's "John Shaft," today there are African-born Djimon Hounsu and Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, and especially Will Smith as all-American action hero. By the time, Will Smith is an action hero with global appeal in the fine sci-fi movies "I Robot" and the mythic-political "I am Legend" -- carrying multi-million dollar movies to a nice profit -- it has become possible to elect an African-American president.
There is trouble in the city as cool private eye, John Shaft (played perfectly by Richard Roundtree) establishes an independent relationship with the police. He can't help them. They're on their own. The cops are usually clueless about what is going on. No African-American screen persona -- with the possible exception of Sydney Poitier in the classic, "In the Heat of the Night" -- establishes such a dismissive attitude to the authorities as John Shaft. The cops and old time mobsters, Vic Androzzi (Charles Cioffi) and Ben Buford (Christopher St. John), are throwbacks to a different era, a time when they could still "muscle a guy and get him to talk."
I don't advise you to try that rough stuff with John Shaft. It isn't only that he'll kick the cops' asses; worse, his lawyers will sue the city in the morning. References to the "Young Lords" will mystify the kids. The Young Lords were a Puerto Rican and Latino political organization and, some say, street gang, in the early seventies that were like the Black Panthers for the African-American community. The Young Lords did a lot of good work in New York.
New York is a much more dangerous and sleazy city in this movie than it has become since. Had anyone told me that Disney would open a store on 42nd Street in 1975, I would not have believed it. And I would have been horrified. I am appalled at the loss of the "colorful" element that filled mid-town during the seventies. Most of the street people have become attorneys and moved to New Jersey. No one can explain to those who weren't here what it was like walking in the West Village, at 3:30 A.M., after a night of club-hopping and a little "tea party" at an (allegedly) underground afterhours club. "You gotta check your weapons." I expected more "errors" inserted by now. You guys in New Jersey are getting old.
The person sitting next to you at such an establishment might be Lou Reed or Debbie Harry. Harlem and the Bronx were exploding with the music everyone would be listening to during the next decade in America. Great things are happening now, today, not only in the Bronx and Manhattan, also in Brooklyn and Queens, where many artists have found affordable places to live in order to create their work. "If it's not happening in New York," the message is still true, "it's not happening."
Shaft is asked by the "Big Boss" to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter. It's always a beautiful woman to be rescued and a dragon or two that the "knight of sound heart" must slay. We are immediately reminded of everything from "Farewell My Lovely" to "The Glass Key," Arthurian "Romances" (a capital letter is deserved) and film versions of Scott's "Ivanhoe." A cultural earthquake is taking place as an African-American man is stepping into the archetypal hero's journey, centering himself and all African-Americans in the universal language of forms and images in the United States. This is powerful and important, politically and aesthetically.
The scene where Shaft is waiting naked for his love's return to an apartment that was very chic and daring for the early seventies -- a "pad" that now resembles a seedy dentist's waiting area -- could not have been played by white actors at the time. Today it would be a challenge for all but a few suburbanites. If it were me in that undressed condition, I'd wear the hat and platform shoes and nothing else -- except, perhaps, for the big shiny belts that were much favored during that era. "Horror show," you say?
The casual encounter between Shaft and a white woman of "easy virtue" as they used to say -- promiscuous men, like Mr. Spitzer, are rarely described as being of "easy virtue" -- was also breaking new ground. Yep, I definitely wanted to be John Shaft. No wonder all of my fellow students at high school suddenly made a dramatic transition to Shaft-inspired clothing and hummed the theme by Issac Hayes. Don't say anything about the word "Shaft."
Somehow, life rarely immitated art. Women at the time seemed to have a recording to play when approached by men at parties: "What is wrong with you?" ("Richard and I.")
Men commiserated with one another, even as they purchased more hats and platform shoes. Two scenes in this fast-paced film stand out: 1) the shot in the telephone booth, at night, as Detective Shaft walks away from the viewer is both a tribute to Orson Wells and Graham Greene in "The Third Man"; and 2) the shoot-'em-up on the stairway at the building where Shaft is to effectuate the rescue is a gesture in the direction of everything from Clint Eastwood's spaghetti Westerns to Bogey and Cagney, as well as the action genre to which Mr. Parks is contributing, the gangster flick. Mr. Parks is clearly a fan of "Public Enemy" and other thirties' gangster movies, choreographing action sequences with ironic camera distances and a smile.
Mr. Parks is playing in this movie. This explains his achievement. Mr. Parks -- like most African-American directors -- is saying to white critics, "I know the format and tradition." It is necessary for African-American film-makers to do this because people will assume that they do not know their traditions, taking it upon themselves to explain the obvious to someone who is clearly a master of the art form.
I recall an interview with Spike Lee where the young director mentioned a critic who pointed out that a shot of two people talking was cut off at the knees. It will not occur to mainstream critics that such an angle may be DELIBERATE. The director may be using this camera angle as a technique or comment on the scene: "The characters are in knee-deep," for example. An African-American director will be assumed to be making a mistake in such an image from an unusual angle; a white director will be hailed as a genius for including the same scene in his movie. Now you know why "errors" are inserted in my reviews, especially when they are better than what you will find in the mainstream media. Time for another inserted "error," Ms. Milgram?
I have experienced this sort of cretinous reaction to things that I have written for years. This is especially true in discussing philosophical matters. Persons with a tiny amount of knowledge of the subject, will presume to instruct me -- even when it is clear that I have read dozens of books dealing with the issue whereas they have not. Shaft is one of the films that makes this sort of condescension impossible in cinema. I hope. However, directors like John Singleton ("Higher Learning"), do not receive the big money opportunities that MUCH less talented people seem to get. By the way, I have no desire to direct or act, only to write. ("How Censorship Works in America.")
Think of a remake of a classic Noir film, say, "Out of the Past." Get Singleton to direct it. The ambiguous "dark" hero (Robert Mitchum in the original) is Djimun Hounsu; the female lead as a sinister femme fatal, is Christina Ricci (Ricci loves to be evil); the loving and good woman is Scarlett Johansson; the Big Boss in the criminal world is Michael Douglas, playing his father's role in the original. Beef up the Mexican scenes. Salma Hayek gets a part as an F.B.I. agent (of Mexican origin to get the Latino dollars) tracing the goings on south of the border.
You'll hear the cash register ringing. The movie can be brought in under budget without pricey special effects.
I am looking forward to seeing John Singleton's remake of Shaft, which I will review separately, along with a few other films by this director. Singleton works really well with Mark Whalberg, who would be great in a Western opposite Thandie Newton, co-starring Russell Crowe. The chemistry between those actors will be great. "Fort Apache"? As for John Shaft, "he's a bad motherfu ... only talking 'bout Shaft."
January 20, 2010 at 2:06 P.M. Intrusions into my computer have obstructed the updating feature of my security system. I will try throughout the day to update my protection.
January 20, 2010 at 10:53 A.M. Lots of cyberwar last night has persuaded me to profile Nydia Hernandez, Esq. and several Cuban-American lawyers as well as politicians in future essays. "Error" inserted overnight has been corrected.
January 19, 2010 at 2:20 P.M. A complete scan of my system revealed that the updating feature of my security system has been blocked. I will continue to run scans throughout the day in an effort to provide updates of my security system. I surmise that this attack is a message that, regardless of who is sworn-in as "Governor in New Jersey," cyberwarfare will continue. I will continue to struggle. A previous effort to reach this site was obstructed. I received the message: "Blogger cookies disabled." ("Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey" and "How Censorship Works in America.")
January 19, 2010 at 11:20 A.M. "Judith Butler and Gender Theory" was vandalized, while this essay was also defaced overnight. I cannot say how many other writings have been altered or damaged. Perhaps this wave of attacks is a protest against the swearing-in ceremony for Christopher Christie in Trenton. The Mafia is not thrilled at the election of Mr. Christie. ("Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless" and "Anne Milgram Does It Again.")
More sabotage, "errors" inserted, obstructions of access to the Internet and my sites. Many essays vandalized. I am struggling. Perhaps I struck a nerve with my identification of Senator Bob and a shady Secaucus Construction firm. August 8, 2008 at 2:51 P.M.
This essay was plagiarized by the consummate wordsmith, Manohla Dargis. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
"Shaft," Gordon Parks (Director), starring Richard Roundtree, co-starring Moses Gunn, screenplay by Ernest Tidyman and John D.F. Black, based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman, music by Isaac Hayes. (MGM, 1971-1973, Director's Cut DVD http://warnervideo.com/ ). The soundtrack by Issac Hayes is highly recommended.
The early seventies was a dark time in America. The sixties' revolution was incomplete. A mood of despair had set in as the hopefulness of the "Summer of Love" decade crashed into the grim realities of recession, oil crisis, high crime rates and visible collapse in Vietnam. The African-American struggle entered a new phase as the idealism of Dr. King faltered against political corruption and the illegalities of the Nixon Administration's war on the Constitution. Culture was an underappreciated battleground. American identity was reinvented in ways that people did not appreciate at the time.
As a teenager during the seventies, I remember the decade well. This cultural transition (from "peace and love" to "black power") is evidenced by an important and neglected American film, Shaft. This movie ushered in an era that would have seemed impossible only five years before it was made, an era whose contributions to our national and global imagination go a long way towards explaining Senator Barack Obama's real chance of becoming the first African-American president in our history. (This essay appeared before the election of President Obama, but not before I bought my "Obama" t-shirt.)
Why do I say that? Shaft was the first movie to appropriate American archetypal images, recreating the options for African-Americans and (even more importantly) everyone's imagination of American political-mythic forms. Everybody -- certainly all of my friends -- wanted to be "John Shaft." I had the hat, the outfits, platform shoes, even mastering Richard Roundtree's walk.
Before you laugh, remember that the President of the United States is a Jungian archetype associated with the earliest images of heros in Western civilization, from Odysseus to Philip Marlowe. Many of these archetypes may be traced to ancient African civilizations, not only Egypt. Recall President Kennedy's funeral procession and the ancient rituals of Greek and Persian heros associated with the riderless horse. This ritual signals both the loss of the hero and his continued presence among his people. This is an important point to remember on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. ("Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Philosophy of Science" and soon, "Dr. King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail.")
Shaft appeared only a few years after the King and Kennedy assassinations. Heros were desperately needed then. They are even more vital today -- and far more scarse.
In 2008, it is finally possible for the U.S. Presidency to be filled not only by an African-American man, but (alternatively) by a woman. These candidacies are, partly, a result of cinematic reimaginings of our collective subconscious language that are nearly forty years old. Jane Fonda's strong iconic film presence must exist before you will see someone like Senator Hillary Clinton as President of the United States.
In 2010, I think that President Obama merits high marks as U.S. President, despite inheriting a catastrophe from the previous administration. Much depends on what transpires over the next few years.
John Shaft was a hero in a genre that was already familiar to audiences and, therefore, non-threatening -- private eye, Noir mysteries -- in relation with every iconic film in this much-loved American tradition, from "Farewell My Lovely" to "The Big Sleep," to "Blade Runner" and, in a way, "Something Wild." American detectives are distant cousins of Europe's knights on horseback. There must be a John Shaft in the American imagination before there will be a Barack Obama Presidency in the United States. Incidentally, both Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton have loyal supporters in the Latino community, as they do in every other community.
I will review Shaft, a film which made many non-blacks in America wish to be African-Americans -- maybe for the first time in the nation's history -- ushering in a society in which previously excluded people became heros and idols for the young, especially for young men of all colors and ethnicities. I also thought it would be great to be Bruce Lee. Shaft made a lot of non-blacks rich. More African-Americans should share in the proceeds of classic films from another era, made possible by their talents but not contributing to the artists' enrichment. I alternated between wanting to be Walt Frazier and John Shaft -- ideally, a combination of the two.
Shaft is a great B-movie, transformed into an A-movie by its political and cultural significance in terms of America's racial history. Many B-movies have become classics, including a touchstone for Shaft and the greatest Noir film (in my opinion) "Out of the Past."
Shaft gestures at several great movies in the American canon, while pointing at the hard realities of city life "seen" through its images, establishing visual references to admired directors' works, from Orson Wells director and performer ("Citizen Kane"/"The Third Man") to John Huston ("The Maltese Falcoln") -- all are glimpsed in Shaft.
Among African-American film heros, my favorites include: Sydney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, Denzel Washington and (any resemblance to me is coincidental -- Chris Rock), Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby and in direct continuity with Richard Roundtree's "John Shaft," today there are African-born Djimon Hounsu and Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, and especially Will Smith as all-American action hero. By the time, Will Smith is an action hero with global appeal in the fine sci-fi movies "I Robot" and the mythic-political "I am Legend" -- carrying multi-million dollar movies to a nice profit -- it has become possible to elect an African-American president.
There is trouble in the city as cool private eye, John Shaft (played perfectly by Richard Roundtree) establishes an independent relationship with the police. He can't help them. They're on their own. The cops are usually clueless about what is going on. No African-American screen persona -- with the possible exception of Sydney Poitier in the classic, "In the Heat of the Night" -- establishes such a dismissive attitude to the authorities as John Shaft. The cops and old time mobsters, Vic Androzzi (Charles Cioffi) and Ben Buford (Christopher St. John), are throwbacks to a different era, a time when they could still "muscle a guy and get him to talk."
I don't advise you to try that rough stuff with John Shaft. It isn't only that he'll kick the cops' asses; worse, his lawyers will sue the city in the morning. References to the "Young Lords" will mystify the kids. The Young Lords were a Puerto Rican and Latino political organization and, some say, street gang, in the early seventies that were like the Black Panthers for the African-American community. The Young Lords did a lot of good work in New York.
New York is a much more dangerous and sleazy city in this movie than it has become since. Had anyone told me that Disney would open a store on 42nd Street in 1975, I would not have believed it. And I would have been horrified. I am appalled at the loss of the "colorful" element that filled mid-town during the seventies. Most of the street people have become attorneys and moved to New Jersey. No one can explain to those who weren't here what it was like walking in the West Village, at 3:30 A.M., after a night of club-hopping and a little "tea party" at an (allegedly) underground afterhours club. "You gotta check your weapons." I expected more "errors" inserted by now. You guys in New Jersey are getting old.
The person sitting next to you at such an establishment might be Lou Reed or Debbie Harry. Harlem and the Bronx were exploding with the music everyone would be listening to during the next decade in America. Great things are happening now, today, not only in the Bronx and Manhattan, also in Brooklyn and Queens, where many artists have found affordable places to live in order to create their work. "If it's not happening in New York," the message is still true, "it's not happening."
Shaft is asked by the "Big Boss" to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter. It's always a beautiful woman to be rescued and a dragon or two that the "knight of sound heart" must slay. We are immediately reminded of everything from "Farewell My Lovely" to "The Glass Key," Arthurian "Romances" (a capital letter is deserved) and film versions of Scott's "Ivanhoe." A cultural earthquake is taking place as an African-American man is stepping into the archetypal hero's journey, centering himself and all African-Americans in the universal language of forms and images in the United States. This is powerful and important, politically and aesthetically.
The scene where Shaft is waiting naked for his love's return to an apartment that was very chic and daring for the early seventies -- a "pad" that now resembles a seedy dentist's waiting area -- could not have been played by white actors at the time. Today it would be a challenge for all but a few suburbanites. If it were me in that undressed condition, I'd wear the hat and platform shoes and nothing else -- except, perhaps, for the big shiny belts that were much favored during that era. "Horror show," you say?
The casual encounter between Shaft and a white woman of "easy virtue" as they used to say -- promiscuous men, like Mr. Spitzer, are rarely described as being of "easy virtue" -- was also breaking new ground. Yep, I definitely wanted to be John Shaft. No wonder all of my fellow students at high school suddenly made a dramatic transition to Shaft-inspired clothing and hummed the theme by Issac Hayes. Don't say anything about the word "Shaft."
Somehow, life rarely immitated art. Women at the time seemed to have a recording to play when approached by men at parties: "What is wrong with you?" ("Richard and I.")
Men commiserated with one another, even as they purchased more hats and platform shoes. Two scenes in this fast-paced film stand out: 1) the shot in the telephone booth, at night, as Detective Shaft walks away from the viewer is both a tribute to Orson Wells and Graham Greene in "The Third Man"; and 2) the shoot-'em-up on the stairway at the building where Shaft is to effectuate the rescue is a gesture in the direction of everything from Clint Eastwood's spaghetti Westerns to Bogey and Cagney, as well as the action genre to which Mr. Parks is contributing, the gangster flick. Mr. Parks is clearly a fan of "Public Enemy" and other thirties' gangster movies, choreographing action sequences with ironic camera distances and a smile.
Mr. Parks is playing in this movie. This explains his achievement. Mr. Parks -- like most African-American directors -- is saying to white critics, "I know the format and tradition." It is necessary for African-American film-makers to do this because people will assume that they do not know their traditions, taking it upon themselves to explain the obvious to someone who is clearly a master of the art form.
I recall an interview with Spike Lee where the young director mentioned a critic who pointed out that a shot of two people talking was cut off at the knees. It will not occur to mainstream critics that such an angle may be DELIBERATE. The director may be using this camera angle as a technique or comment on the scene: "The characters are in knee-deep," for example. An African-American director will be assumed to be making a mistake in such an image from an unusual angle; a white director will be hailed as a genius for including the same scene in his movie. Now you know why "errors" are inserted in my reviews, especially when they are better than what you will find in the mainstream media. Time for another inserted "error," Ms. Milgram?
I have experienced this sort of cretinous reaction to things that I have written for years. This is especially true in discussing philosophical matters. Persons with a tiny amount of knowledge of the subject, will presume to instruct me -- even when it is clear that I have read dozens of books dealing with the issue whereas they have not. Shaft is one of the films that makes this sort of condescension impossible in cinema. I hope. However, directors like John Singleton ("Higher Learning"), do not receive the big money opportunities that MUCH less talented people seem to get. By the way, I have no desire to direct or act, only to write. ("How Censorship Works in America.")
Think of a remake of a classic Noir film, say, "Out of the Past." Get Singleton to direct it. The ambiguous "dark" hero (Robert Mitchum in the original) is Djimun Hounsu; the female lead as a sinister femme fatal, is Christina Ricci (Ricci loves to be evil); the loving and good woman is Scarlett Johansson; the Big Boss in the criminal world is Michael Douglas, playing his father's role in the original. Beef up the Mexican scenes. Salma Hayek gets a part as an F.B.I. agent (of Mexican origin to get the Latino dollars) tracing the goings on south of the border.
You'll hear the cash register ringing. The movie can be brought in under budget without pricey special effects.
I am looking forward to seeing John Singleton's remake of Shaft, which I will review separately, along with a few other films by this director. Singleton works really well with Mark Whalberg, who would be great in a Western opposite Thandie Newton, co-starring Russell Crowe. The chemistry between those actors will be great. "Fort Apache"? As for John Shaft, "he's a bad motherfu ... only talking 'bout Shaft."
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Outline for a Novel.
Writings in a Torture Chamber: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel.
OUTLINE
Introduction.
Chapter I: "I am born."
Chapter II: "I am transported to America."
Chapter III: "Visit to a Small Planet."
Chapter IV: "The Infinite Library."
Chapter V: "Go Not to Wittemberg."
Chapter VI: "The Law is a Jealous Mistress."
Chapter VII: "Relationships, Contractual and Otherwise."
Chapter VIII: "Achilles Among the Women."
Chapter IX: "Judges and Prisons."
Chapter X: "America From the Bottom Up."
Chapter XI: "Love and Marriage."
Chapter XII: "The Memory Thief."
Chapter XIII: "Paris and Rome."
Chapter XIV: "The Nightmare Begins."
Chapter XV: "Torture Chamber."
Chapter XVI: "Ethics and Struggle."
Conclusion.
I expect that chapters will be about 20-25 pages long, including introduction and conclusion. I further expect the manuscript to come in at a hefty 450-500 pages, then to be cut down by about 100 pages. 5 drafts before professional editing -- if I am lucky.
OUTLINE
Introduction.
Chapter I: "I am born."
Chapter II: "I am transported to America."
Chapter III: "Visit to a Small Planet."
Chapter IV: "The Infinite Library."
Chapter V: "Go Not to Wittemberg."
Chapter VI: "The Law is a Jealous Mistress."
Chapter VII: "Relationships, Contractual and Otherwise."
Chapter VIII: "Achilles Among the Women."
Chapter IX: "Judges and Prisons."
Chapter X: "America From the Bottom Up."
Chapter XI: "Love and Marriage."
Chapter XII: "The Memory Thief."
Chapter XIII: "Paris and Rome."
Chapter XIV: "The Nightmare Begins."
Chapter XV: "Torture Chamber."
Chapter XVI: "Ethics and Struggle."
Conclusion.
I expect that chapters will be about 20-25 pages long, including introduction and conclusion. I further expect the manuscript to come in at a hefty 450-500 pages, then to be cut down by about 100 pages. 5 drafts before professional editing -- if I am lucky.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Saying Goodbye to Giuseppe Di Stefano.
January 4, 2009 at 7:40 P.M. Numerous essays have been altered by hackers. I am struggling to make the necessary corrections. An advertisement was imposed on this site:
"London Theater Tickets, ... http://www.londontheaterboxoffice.com/ ..."
Somehow, I do not think this advertisement is genuine.
Jonathan Kandell, "Giuseppe di Stefano, a Tenor Whose Career Flamed Out Too Early," in The New York Times, March 4, 2008, at p. B6.
If I were to select only one singer as the greatest Operatic tenor of the twentieth century, I would choose Giuseppe di Stefano. His death on Monday in Santa Maria Hoe, north of Milan is deeply distressing to me. I feel it as a personal loss. I say this although I have only enjoyed recordings of this singer's incredibly emotional, beautiful, and true renditions of Operas and arias. This man was a great actor, a brilliant interpreter of librettos, who was blessed with a voice of such astonishing beauty and communicative capacity as to defy description. I envy anyone who heard this tenor live in a theater.
The gold and blue colors in his voice during his early career have not been matched by any singer since ("the sunshine of Naples is in his voice," Callas said). Di Stefano's emotional richness has been equalled, perhaps, only by Pavarotti and Carreras at their best. Carreras said that Di Stefano was the most exciting and poignant interpreter of Operatic texts that he ever heard. Domingo was a close friend of Di Stefano's, who assisted with Deutsch Gramophone's final recordings and learned a great deal about phrasing from the Sicilian tenor described by Mr. Domingo, always, as "the Maestro." Pavarotti spoke of Di Stefano with the same reverence. There are a few singers for whom the only appropriate word is "magic." Di Stefano is one of them. (Either "Di Stefano" or "di Stefano" are acceptable, I believe.)
At a MET voice competition, Michael Fabiano sounded, to me, so similar to Di Stefano and Domingo in his early days that I hope to enjoy Mr. Fabiano's singing for many years to come. There is hope Opera fans.
Di Stefano was a lyrical-spinto tenor, who came to the great dramatic roles at the end of his career -- a career marred by flirtation with danger (safaris, race cars, beautiful women), delight in life's exquisite pleasures (wine lover, gourmet and chef, lover of many women -- including movie stars and divas, like Callas). I trust that the astute reader will appreciate my Nabokovian parentheses. Please be worthy of them.
Di Stefano was spared almost certain death by an Opera-loving doctor in his unit during World War II, which must have given him a feel for the priceless value of every minute of his existence. Hemingway was a friend, so was Picasso. Critics were not popular with this tenor. On one occasion, he said: "Let the critics sing and we criticize them!"
I recommend the Callas/DiStefano/Gobbi Tosca if you want to experience genius in triplicate. Domingo/Price/Milnes in the same Opera are on an equal level. Otherwise, it is slim pickings. No cast today can match those performances, in my opinion, anywhere in the world. Two recordings that must be in every Opera lover's collection are Decca-Dolby update of early arias recorded by Di Stefano, including "Cielo e' Mar" from La Gioconda and "Colpito qui m'avete ..." from Andrea Chenier.
No recording by anyone that I have heard of those two arias surpasses Di Stefano's achievement. The late Deutsch Gramophone collection, including his beloved interpretation of "Or son sei mesi ..." from La Fanciulla del West -- which is a very poignant aria for me that often features in my shower singing -- is not to be missed. Passion and musical intelligence were Di Stefano's fortes. My phrasing in singing this difficult aria by Puccini is influenced by Di Stefano. Naturally, the profound interpretation of the work is entirely my own.
Di Stefano's death was the result of an attack at his home in Kenya. Di Stefano fought off his attackers, despite his great age, while suffering a head wound that caused him to lapse into a coma that proved fatal. Di Stefano's finale was worthy of Manrico.
Bravo. Molto bravo.
"London Theater Tickets, ... http://www.londontheaterboxoffice.com/ ..."
Somehow, I do not think this advertisement is genuine.
Jonathan Kandell, "Giuseppe di Stefano, a Tenor Whose Career Flamed Out Too Early," in The New York Times, March 4, 2008, at p. B6.
If I were to select only one singer as the greatest Operatic tenor of the twentieth century, I would choose Giuseppe di Stefano. His death on Monday in Santa Maria Hoe, north of Milan is deeply distressing to me. I feel it as a personal loss. I say this although I have only enjoyed recordings of this singer's incredibly emotional, beautiful, and true renditions of Operas and arias. This man was a great actor, a brilliant interpreter of librettos, who was blessed with a voice of such astonishing beauty and communicative capacity as to defy description. I envy anyone who heard this tenor live in a theater.
The gold and blue colors in his voice during his early career have not been matched by any singer since ("the sunshine of Naples is in his voice," Callas said). Di Stefano's emotional richness has been equalled, perhaps, only by Pavarotti and Carreras at their best. Carreras said that Di Stefano was the most exciting and poignant interpreter of Operatic texts that he ever heard. Domingo was a close friend of Di Stefano's, who assisted with Deutsch Gramophone's final recordings and learned a great deal about phrasing from the Sicilian tenor described by Mr. Domingo, always, as "the Maestro." Pavarotti spoke of Di Stefano with the same reverence. There are a few singers for whom the only appropriate word is "magic." Di Stefano is one of them. (Either "Di Stefano" or "di Stefano" are acceptable, I believe.)
At a MET voice competition, Michael Fabiano sounded, to me, so similar to Di Stefano and Domingo in his early days that I hope to enjoy Mr. Fabiano's singing for many years to come. There is hope Opera fans.
Di Stefano was a lyrical-spinto tenor, who came to the great dramatic roles at the end of his career -- a career marred by flirtation with danger (safaris, race cars, beautiful women), delight in life's exquisite pleasures (wine lover, gourmet and chef, lover of many women -- including movie stars and divas, like Callas). I trust that the astute reader will appreciate my Nabokovian parentheses. Please be worthy of them.
Di Stefano was spared almost certain death by an Opera-loving doctor in his unit during World War II, which must have given him a feel for the priceless value of every minute of his existence. Hemingway was a friend, so was Picasso. Critics were not popular with this tenor. On one occasion, he said: "Let the critics sing and we criticize them!"
I recommend the Callas/DiStefano/Gobbi Tosca if you want to experience genius in triplicate. Domingo/Price/Milnes in the same Opera are on an equal level. Otherwise, it is slim pickings. No cast today can match those performances, in my opinion, anywhere in the world. Two recordings that must be in every Opera lover's collection are Decca-Dolby update of early arias recorded by Di Stefano, including "Cielo e' Mar" from La Gioconda and "Colpito qui m'avete ..." from Andrea Chenier.
No recording by anyone that I have heard of those two arias surpasses Di Stefano's achievement. The late Deutsch Gramophone collection, including his beloved interpretation of "Or son sei mesi ..." from La Fanciulla del West -- which is a very poignant aria for me that often features in my shower singing -- is not to be missed. Passion and musical intelligence were Di Stefano's fortes. My phrasing in singing this difficult aria by Puccini is influenced by Di Stefano. Naturally, the profound interpretation of the work is entirely my own.
Di Stefano's death was the result of an attack at his home in Kenya. Di Stefano fought off his attackers, despite his great age, while suffering a head wound that caused him to lapse into a coma that proved fatal. Di Stefano's finale was worthy of Manrico.
Bravo. Molto bravo.
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