The Film Noir Experience

Augusta Ada King (nee Byron), Countess of Lovelace as born December 10, 1819. She was the only legitimate child of George Gordon Byron, the 6th Baron Byron. She married William King, the 8th Baron King and the 1st earl of Lovelace in 1838. (Which made her the Right Honorable Countess of Lovelace.) She died in 1852 at the age of 36 of uterine cancer.

Now, why is all of this important?

Its important because those who know who she is (and I didn't until about a month ago) she is known as the "first programmer" as she wrote programs for the analytical machine that Charles Babbage had not yet built.

How awesome is that?

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In No Particular Order (unless otherwise noted):

1. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby: "If you wanted to mess me up, you should have gotten to me sooner." This book was funny, touching, and well written. Gold Star, Nick Hornby.

2. Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson: People have been telling me for years to read Jeanette Winterson, and now I know why. How Winterson weaves this tale between the past and the present is incredibly beautiful.

3. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio. She goes a little hippy a few times, and I could have done without that, but it had some really good ideas on how to get in touch with yourself (pun intended), some wonderful references to solid resources and it was very thought provoking.

4. Sunshine by Robin McKinley: (this one is before Twilight in any order you can possibly imagine.) The main character kicks ass on her own, is a total fucking hero, And she doesn't fall in love with the undead creature, but rather becomes his rescuer/friend. Also, this book made me crave cinnamon rolls like you wouldn't believe.

5. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: I still maintain that this book as the best opening page (I think its actually four paragraphs) ever written. Nabokov is a literary genius, even if after you're done reading all the pretty, pretty words you remember this that you're reading a story about a murdering Pedophile. (And this is why Nabokov is a genius. Only a genius could make you forget what Humbert Humbert is while you're in the story.)

6. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. This book was a little ridiculous, but it was fun. (Although, upon repeated readings, I would have liked more introduction to Alice so that James' revelation meant something.)

7. The Intentional Stance by Daniel Dennett. "...In fact I suspect that you wonder whether I realize how hard it is for you to be sure that you wonder whether I mean to be saying that you can recognize that I can believe you to want me to explain that most of us can keep track of only about five or six orders [of intention], under the best of circumstances. (1987:243)" This is a book about folk psychology. No, its a book about methodology. Wait, its a book about philosophy. Well, its a book in which Dennett explains his theory about the Intentional Stance. Philosophy rocks.

9. Eat Me by Linda Jaivin. Aussie erotinovel. Follows the lives and loves of four friends (before Sex and the City.). And, did I say Aussie? Enough said.

9. Survival at Auschwitz by Primo Levi. Levi's up front about the possible discrepancies between what he's saying and the historical record. But, even knowing that going into it (and, honestly, who can live through what he lived through and bother to remember dates and times.) its a harrowing tale and a testament to the strength of the human spirit. I think its good to remind yourself once a year or so of what people are capable of.

10. The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo: Sure, its fiction. Sure, its about a mouse. But, I repeat: its good to remind yourself once a year or so of what people are capable of. This tale about bravery, luck, love, red thread, revenge, The power of music and literature, forgiveness and soup brought a tear to my eye. It deserves all the praise it can get.

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You Play. You win. You Play. You lose. You play.

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It is true that words drop away, and that the important things are often left unsaid. The important things are learned in faces, in gestures, not in our locked tongues. The true things are too big or too small, or in any case always the wrong size to fit the template called language. --from Lighthousekeeping

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Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room.

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I'm here, in this stupid little flat, on my own, and I'm thirty-five years old, and I own a tiny failing business, and my friends don't seem to be friends at all but people whose phone numbers I haven't lost. --Rob Gordon

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Yes, that sequence of words I said made perfect sense.--Professor Farnsworth in the Futurama episode "The Honking" in season 2.

I don't really have a plan of action for this entry. I am sitting here, ticking things off my list and watching Futrama in Itallian with the subtitles on. I love Italian, its a great language. I had a nice conversation with one of my coworkers today about language and communication. Specifically, about people who aren't from 'round these parts not wanting to speak what's spoken here.

Now, obviously I have no problem with people speaking what they speak. I've said it before and I'll say it again, language is a resource that we utilize in order to communicate. We communicate any number of things from what it is we want to eat when we're ordering food in a restaurant to where we are from and to which groups in society we claim membership. And, sometimes you do that by speaking a language that is different from what is particular to that region. However, this coworker and I were dicussing what's commonly referred to as "language of wider communication" or LWC. The LWC for an area is more or less the Lingua Franca. Its what everyone speaks enough of to get by. It just so happens that English qualifies as an LWC in large swathes of the world these days and that I currently reside in an English-speaking country so it would make sense that the LWC here is English. My coworker and I are both not from here but neither of us have a problem with speaking English. Its just what you do here. However, there is this one guy at work who also not from these parts (but speaks English) who actually prefers to speak French (although, he's not French and he's not French Canadian and he's not from French Africa. French is a second language for him). If he can get away with going an entire shift without uttering an English word, he does. I think that's interesting. I've never worked with this particular chap, but the guy I was chatting with does frequently and it drives him bonkers. As I said before, I love Italian. I speak Italian to myself all the time (often when I'm walking up the road by myself and I don't think anyone is watching. This means that there is probably loads of CCTV footage of me muttering to myself like some crazy person.) And, I suppose if I could get away with it, I may do something like the French speaking guy, because I could. But, I'd probably get bored with it. When I'm talking to myself, I'm generally working something out or thinking through a problem. And, when I reach a solution I stop. The point is, I'm communicating in some way. I can't imagine being in a situation in which I can communicate with the people around me but I'm specifically choosing not to by choosing to use a linguistic resource that is not widely available. That just seems counter-productive. Although, maybe when he's speaking French he's talking to himself and trying to solve a problem or work something out. Maybe he's choosing to do it in a way that not everyone understands so that he doesn't have to admit some embarrassing secret or something.

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"A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place,
but a seed to be planted and to bear more seeds toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea."
~ Henry David Thoreau

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I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.

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"There are many reasons for keeping a diary: to make a note of facts that one considers important; to open one's heart, to give vent to one's feelings, to make confessions; from the instinct of economy which sometimes encourages a writer to make good use of even the smallest crumbs of his life, so that he may have one more book to publish; or again from vanity and self-satisfaction."

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If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
T. S. Eliot

I know everyone else discovered this film when it first came out in 2003; I'm a little behind the curve. It is beautiful and compelling. The story of two Americans trapped in a foreign culture by obligations who become friends, bonding over their inability to sleep as well as their outsider status with both the culture surrounding them as well as their obligations.

The film itself is beautiful, Tokyo seems to be perpetually glowing with a steely, blue light. The buildings all gray and white with people running around in charcoal and navy business suits. While shots of Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson) in temples around Japan are often lit brightly and warmly with a much richer colour palette including rich greens and reds.

So, I know this hasn't been much of a review, honestly I'm a little out of practice. The film was incredibly enjoyable and I recommend it.

How great would it be to start of a Jazz band with Bill Murray?

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For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

What we have control of is really only very small; I keep forgetting that.

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Right now, this conversation is way out of proportion to my interest in it.--Dan Rydell from Sports Night (1998-1999)

God, I love that show.

Posted by Kate at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If one believes in the intrinsic value of art, then--contrary to most contemporary ways of thinking--taste and social construction are of decidedly secondary importance.

This quote is from a piece entitled "Classical Music: Why Bother?" that I read because it was suggested to me by my friend Preston. The piece suggests that our "lack of understanding/like" for Classical Music is actually indicative of a larger problem we have with "Art" (note the Capital A). He suggests, and I agree with him, that Art exists because we get something out of it, because we take something way for the experience and that it is not necessarily there to make us feel good or so that we can draw enjoyment from it.

Preston originally gave me the article as a source of inspiration for a mix CD I was making him at the time. I asked him for a theme, and the article was his response to my request. He wanted not something that he would expect, or something that he would enjoy necessarily, but something that he would give him an experience that we would, afterwards, not want to be without. I think my mix CD fell short of this incredibly lofty aim, but I think it is a good aim and something that should be considered a lot more often, not just of our artistic work, but of work in general.

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When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.

Long rant, most likely on the subject of politics to follow.

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If I were a John Cusack movie, I would be High Fidelity. I'm that snarky, closed off yet absolutely in love with living and my little life person in the world that spends their afternoons rearranging matches and telling you things about the world and about me in the form of top five lists.

For example: Today's Top Five Fuck-Ups.

1. My hotmail account not receiving an email from my Korean boss
2. My boss and the secretary sending me the same book 4 times
3. The student I needed the book to teach cancelling because of technical problems.
4. Misplacing a book with important visa-related notes
5. Only getting five hours of sleep last night

Okay, so that isn't a very exciting list, its certainly no list of historical figures with whom I'd play Risk. But, you get the point. I was thinking today about High Fidelity and all of the joyous and quotable nuggets in the film. Quotableness I now share with you a quote by main character Rob Gordon (although it more likely penned by Nick Hornby or the screenwriter D.V. DeVincentis):

what came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Posted by Kate at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Freak Scene Dinosaur Jr
In An Operetta The Magnetic Fields
32 Flavors Ani DiFranco
Ain't Misbehavin' Duke Ellington
When You're Around Motion City Soundtrack
There's Gotta Be A Change Jonny Lang
No Missing Link Dan Bern
Fragments. Shades. Sketches. 3:09 Aaron McMullan
All I Want To Know The Magnetic Fields
Silly Goofball Pomes Juliana Hatfield
Truth Hits Everybody Motion City Soundtrack
10:45 Amsterdam Conversations Funeral For A Friend
Tiger Woods Dan Bern
Abstract Truth DJ Abandon T
What Do You Do With A B.A. In English/It Sucks To Be Me Avenue Q
Gone (Live) M83
The Modern Things Björk
Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse The Mars Volta
Forty Six & 2 Tool

This one is still in test drive mode. A friend of mine's birthday was earlier this month, and I've been trying to tweak it to be perfect for her, and it just seems like its missing something. It has a double dose of both Dan Bern (whom you just have to love) and the Magnetic Fields, although I'm thinking about replacing one of the Magnetic Fields songs with a Gothic Archies tune (iffin' I can get ahold of them). It has the current requisite dose of Welsh with Funeral for a Friend I am also thinking about tossing in some New York Room (as I am currently obsessed with them.)
I know I've already said this, but its missing something. A theme? Some kind of dialogue? Maybe it just needs better sequencing...Obviously, I will have to figure this out.

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" First of all we've got to get rid of these voting machines. These electronic voting machines that can be hacked. It happened in Ohio. Its happened all over the country and they are unreliable. And we've got to get rid of them. We've got to insist that our public officials get rid of them. we've got to, you know. This is a battle that is a the equivalent of the American revolution. We've gotta get the vote back and if we don't get the vote back, if we don't insure the intergrity of our voting system we are going to lose American democracy"--From the Politically Direct Podcast from June 4, 2006.

This quote came from my data set, so if it looks oddly puncutuated or sounds wacky and out of rhythm, that might be my fault or it might simply be a constraint of speech. There are things you can do in print that are awful hard to duplicate when speaking, like anything involving a semi-colon. But, that's another story for another day.

Even though its just a midterm election that is coming up, I thought it would be appropriate to get a little political. This may not be the most elegant way of putting it, but Mr. Kennedy was certainly speaking in earnest and I think he makes a very valid point. If we can't trust in the system with which we elect our public officials, then we can't trust the governing body as a whole. And without that trust, without faith in the ability to elect public officials and indeed without that ability at all (as in the instances where fraud has taken place) there is no democracy. In the last several years we've seen some astounding things in relation to the franchise and it has to stop.

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"The business of transcribing speech is hugely time consuming." --From Smooth Talkers.

You don't have to tell me that. Monday. I can't wait until Monday when I take my thesis to the binders. I'm also scared as hell of Monday. John volunteered to take it because he will be working in that area of town, but I'm not sure that'll work. I might just have to do it on my own.

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"Even if routines have a constituent structure, they are not necessarily generated by grammar."--From Conversational Routines in English: Convention and Creativity.

So, basically even if it looks like something could be broken up into smaller things...like nouns or verbs, that doesn't mean it is broken up into smaller things. As it turns out we can store quite large strings of things in our brains. Thank God for that, since without it my thesis would be pointless speculation.

Posted by Kate at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"The social world is a pervasively conversational one in which an overwhelming proportion of the world's business is conducted through the medium of social interaction." --From Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology by John Heritage (1984, Polity Press: Cambridge).

Ethnomethodology is the study of how people within an ethnographic group go about their daily activities as members of the group. So, ethnomethodologists study what it means to be a member, how one functions as a member, how one recognizes other members, etc. While not really my bag, ethnomethodology certainly has its benefits and ethnomethodologists have contributed much to such fields as sociology and linguistics. I like this quote because its pretty much true the world over. We talk. We talk to create bonds between us. We talk to define ourselves. We talk in order to, just generally, get shit done and then get the hell out of Dodge. (Or, we talk in order to avoid getting shit done so that we can continue to stay in Dodge just a little bit longer.)

Posted by Kate at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Firefly dialogue from episode 1       Joss Whedon    
Tiger Woods        Dan Bern    
Hang 'Em High        My Chemical Romance            
I Am Mine        Pearl Jam    
Pachuca Sunrise        Minus The Bear        
Phrase That Pays (Nashville Version)        The Academy Is...    
WE WROTE THE WORLD        Aunt Bee Overdrive    
Should Have Known        Bleed The Dream    
Where's The Devil...When You Need Him?        Th' Legendary Shack Shakers    
Voodoo Man        Voodoo Organist    
Well Well Well        Ben Harper & The Blind Boys Of Alabama    
Workin' Man Blues        Merle Haggard    
Skips On The Record       At The Drive-In    
Today Is The Day        Apollo Sunshine    
I Do Believe You Are The Devil        Aaron McMullan    
That Was My Veil        John Parish And Polly Jean Harvey    
Shy       Ani DiFranco        
I Got My Mojo Working        Muddy Waters    
Toybox       The Geraldine Fibbers    
My Assassin        The Bled    
Killbot 2000        Murder By Death        
When you're Dead        The Blackfoot Brothers   

The original thought behind this playlist was, well, to create some sort of cowboy themed mix for my mate Georgia's birthday (who is from Thesaloniki, hence the title.)  It descended rather quickly into a bluegrass-y, alt.country-y mix.  I've found it to be enjoyable; I haven't gotten to speak to Georgia yet so I don't know what she thinks of it.  I'm pretty much in hermitville working on my thesis at the moment. 

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Although I have not yet managed to add anything to my word count today, I have set a goal for myself. My goal is 11,000 words. Now, you might think that is a huge number for it would mean that I'd be adding 2,000 words to the paper today. And, you would be correct. It is in fact an enormous number. But, I like to aim high.

But, I feel I am capable of accomplishing such a feat. Plus, I have no other plans for today, or for the rest of the weekend or indeed the rest of the week so I might as well put my shoulder to the grindstone and plow ahead. Wish me luck.

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Steve over at thesneeze.com has this feature that he calls, Steve, Don't Eat It!  Its absolutely wicked and full of nuggets of glorious text like today's quote:

I almost want to say it was like a freshly douched pork chop. But I won't. Why? Because I'm a fucking gentleman.

Good on you, Steve.  That had me giggling for ages.  And, as you may know, giggling is like carbonated approval.  Or some shit like that.  I don't know, I go a little mad after more than eight hours of thesis-writing. 

Posted by Kate at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"[Speech] informs sometimes...but much of the time its aim is to cajole, persuade, entreat, excuse, cow, deceive, or merely to maintain contact." 

This is from Dwight Bolinger's classic Intonation and its Parts. I want to say it was originally published in the '70s but Amazon has a copy from 1989. 

Basically, academics everywhere concur that mostly, we don't talk to actually exchange information but for a variety of reasons, like to get you to give me that biscuit.  No, the one of the left.  No, your left.  That one with the big piece of white chocolate on top.  Ya.  Thanks, dude.  So, when your Mother said, "Do you think I'm talking to hear myself speak?"  she very likely could have been.

Posted by Kate at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)