Stockholder's Quarterly Report

I thought it would be nice, for those of you who read and support my work (thanks, all two of you!) to write a little reflection on what has been a busy semester - though you wouldn't know if from the lack of posts on here. Sorry!

My main pursuits have remained academic, of course. This semester marked the halfway point of the coursework section of my PhD, meaning that I am now 1/4 of the way done with my program. Assuming I finish on time, of course, which always happens in humanities PhD programs. Always.

I had a fun but busy semester, which included my first work as a TA, learning Danish, and writing a master's paper, on top of work for three classes (not to mention life, which includes three young children -- one an infant -- plus all sorts of other goodies). All that work meant I wasn't able to give quite as much to each task as I would have liked, but things turned out alright in the end. Here's a brief summary of the four papers I wrote this semester, each of which I liked in its own way.

For my Master's Paper I had to take a previously written seminar paper and expand it from 20 to 30 pages. I took the paper I wrote for my class on Joyce's Ulysses -- about reading that novel through the lens of the Old Testament, rather than Homer's Odyssey -- and added in a theoretical framework based on the ideas of the great French critic Rene Girard. It would have been better with more polish, but it turned out alright.

For my Book History class I wrote about this odd series of books, the Childhood of Famous Americans (a stack of which I just happened to have sitting in my house from my own childhood). I tried to read them alongside the Progressive Education movement of the Early 20th Century. It was an odd, stretching experience, but I was mildly pleased with the end result.

For my class on the Literature of World War I I wrote a paper examining the idea of aristocratic comedy of old age in certain WWI-adjacent texts. I looked primarily at Joseph Roth's monumental novel The Radetzky March, but also Jean Cocteau's novella Thomas the Impostor, Robert Graves' memoir Good-bye to All That, and the Soviet comedy film Lieutenant Kije. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I thought it turned out pretty well.

Probably my favorite paper, though, came in my American Film Genres class. I looked at two films that seem pretty unconnected on the surface: Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Raoul Walsh's gangster film White Heat. I tried to argue that they represent different stages in thinking about the problems of technology, with Jesse James representing the fear that technology will inhibit freedom of movement, while White Heat moves on to consider the problems of technology that constantly monitors movement. It was a blast to write, and not half bad.

In the midst of all this academic work I managed to crank out a few other things as well. My work as Film Critic for the Columbia Daily Tribune continued apace, in what turned out to be another great year for film. My top ten list will be up just before New Year's; if I have the time, I'll do a supplement here to fill in some gaps (performers and such) that my limited word count for the paper necessitates.

I also had a big first for me this semester, actually a double first. I had my first real, legitimate book review published, and that occasion also marked my first print appearance in the pages of Books & Culture, a magazine I greatly admire. The review's been out since November in print, but due to the nature of the magazine, it has yet to go up online. It should be up in the next few weeks, and I will make sure to link to it. On top of that, I wrote an online only piece for the Movies section of Christianity Today in which I wrote some reflections on laughing at characters in documentaries. 

So that's a wrap for my fall, from a writing perspective at least. But there are some exciting coming projects that I want to tease a bit. First off, I'll be doing a book review for a really cool publication of a book by someone I really admire, so we'll see how that goes. It won't be out until the Summer, so hold your breath until then. Or don't. Probably don't.

Most exciting at the moment, though, is a duo of articles I will have coming out in January at an online only publication that I have loved for many years. I can't say more than that at the moment, but I'm excited by these pieces, and the prospect of writing more for this particular publication. 

Though I make no promises, I'm also hoping to put up a few pieces here in the next few weeks, things I don't think I can sell to anyone but want to write, regardless. On top of my film piece, look for the following this holiday season: my second annual list of the worst pop songs of the year (definitely happening); a review of a new album by a friend of mine (that will NOT be making an appearance on the worst pop songs list! (almost definitely happening); and a list of my 10 favorite symphonies (happening, assuming I can finally narrow that sucker down).

God Bless you all in this season, whatever you happen to be celebrating. Thanks for reading. As an early Christmas gift (or a very late Chanukah one), here's some culture I've consumed this fall that I've loved:

Books:

Joseph Roth - The Radetzky March. One of the great novels of the 20th century, I now firmly believe. Hilarious, heartbreaking, wistful, wry; all in equal measure. Simply stunning.

Martin Amis - The Information. Just finished this, my second novel by the acerbic Englishman. It's rip roaringly good: biting, laugh out loud funny (in a literal, not metaphoric way), and utterly insightful into the life of writers.

Muriel Spark - Memento Mori, Territorial Rights, The Bachelors, Girls of Slender Means. Spark is quickly becoming an obsession of mine, and each of these shows why. She has the wit of Wodehouse and the depth of Graham Greene. Of the four, Memento Mori is the best, an absolutely daft romp through old age and conceptions of death. But Girls of Slender Means is not far behind. So, so good. 

Films:

I won't pick any 2015 films here (you can just wait for the list like everyone else), but here are a few older films I discovered.

Leo McCarey - The Awful Truth, Make Way for Tomorrow. Somehow McCarey has been lost a bit in film history, overshadowed by other studio directors like Hawks and Capra, but he's an absolute master. Take these two films, very different from each other. The Awful Truth is a corker of a screwball comedy, with Cary Grant and Irene Dunn in top form. Make Way for Tomorrow, meanwhile, might be one of the saddest films ever made, a mortgage melodrama that clearly served as inspiration for Ozu's more heralded Tokyo Story (which you should also see, if you haven't). I always attributed the genius of one of my favorite films, Duck Soup, primarily to the Marx Brother's manic energy, but I've clearly been giving short shrift to McCarey, who directed it.

Preston Sturges - The Palm Beach Story. Speaking of screwballs, this has to be one of the best, most bizarre examples of that genre ever put on film. Crackling with energy, bursting at the seams with invention, it's Sturges on top of his game.

Bruce Robinson - How to Get Ahead in Advertising. After seeing this, I commented that it was the most me film ever. Two months on, I stand by that comment. Here's a film - part satire of modern business, part body horror - that manages to condense most of my philosophical preoccupations into one uproarious film. A must see.

Once more to you: peace! Stay safe, and do good work.

On Fort Apache, The Iliad, and Complexity in Art

First off, this is not a post about trigger warnings, or free speech, or any other potentially thorny hot button issue. This is a post about how we see, and our tendency to close off experience too quickly.

Among the many problems that arise from a mode of thinking focused on quick moral categorization rather than slow, reflective judgement, one of the most fundamental undermines the whole exercise from the get go: the arrogance of assuming that we can swiftly and thoroughly understand what a work of art is "about". Does it conform to our rigid understanding of what art should do and what social change it should enact - or at least gesture towards? In the increasingly hectic world of online evaluation, the easiest way to know what culture to consume is to examine what boxes it checks. Amy Schumer sketches? Anti-patriarchy, so good (except when she's maybe a little racist, in which case, bad). 

The list goes on and on. And maybe, for something short and uncomplex like a TV sketch, this rubric works acceptably. But what can we make of big, sprawling works, novels or films that contain Whitmanian multitudes? Does gathering a list of the ways in which Moby Dick is problematic tell us anything about whether it's worth reading? I would suggest that a move away from making things problematic and toward opening up problematics (matrices of evaluation) would do a lot to further our understanding of works of art.

I'm in a film class at the moment on American genre films, which allows me to make a start on filling in holes in my least viewed genre: the Western. This week's film was John Ford's Fort Apache; not among his best known films, but a striking one in its own right. Throughout the film I could not help but wonder what modern online trendsetters and language policers would make of this deeply conflicted film. On the one hand, it reenacts the archetypal Western plot of cavalry versus Native Americans, in ways which definitely conform to its period (immediately after the Second World War). On the other, it presents a subtle but damning critique of the Army's treatment of Native American tribes, essentially laying full responsibility at the feet of the government. Geronimo, that specter haunting so many Westerns, appears here as a minor character just getting his start; that he witnesses the betrayal of his tribe by the Army clearly connects to his status as full blown outlaw by film's end.

Then there's the film's coda, which makes the already dusty morality of the film even more complex. John Wayne's York, who has taken over command of the fort after the death of Colonel Thursday (Henry Fonda), gives a rousing speech to some newspapermen about the courage of the men of the cavalry, their willingness to sacrifice and keep marching. Then the troops march out, flags waving, to a stirring anthem.  On the surface this ending contradicts what Ford has laid out before, and it's easy to read the ending as Ford losing courage and backing down in favor of mindless patriotism. In other words, problematic.

But watch the ending a little closer. Witness Wayne's extreme discomfort as he tells the men how brave and wise Colonel Thursday was. For those willing to accept dialectic complexity, another reading of the ending emerges. York, caught between his private admiration of the Apache and his need to fulfill his duty, chooses to lie about what has gone before. To shatter the illusion would be too much for most men to bear, so York absorbs the burden of his own hypocrisy instead. On this reading, the ending has a striking resemblance to the famous ending of Heart of Darkness, where Marlowe lies to Kurtz's fiance in order to preserve her vision of Kurtz as a noble man. It's a bitter choice.

Or take The Iliad (which we've been reading in the class for which I TA). It's the most famous paean to violence ever, with death scenes that would make Eli Roth say "Whoa, Homer, take a step back and chill". It's full of easily condemned parts -- not just violence, but misogyny and other troubling aspects. What's it still doing in the canon, anyway?

This is the sort of interpretation that emerges when we assume that depiction equals endorsement. To be fair, it's very easy to assume that Homer endorses the violence of the epic, strewn as it is over nearly every page, in lovingly crafted detail. Dig a little deeper, though, and the poet clearly betrays a troubled attitude toward the ravages of war. In Book 6, for instance, he includes this chilling encounter between Hector and his infant son:

In the same breath, shining Hector reached down
for his son -- but the boy recoiled,
cringing against his nurse's full breast,
screaming out at the sight of his own father,
terrified by the flashing bronze, the horsehair crest,
the great ridge of the helmet nodding, bristling terror --
so it struck his eyes.

In one brief moment, Homer radically subverts the text of his own poem. War is not a glorious march for glory: it is the machine that transforms men into monsters. If we have eyes to see, it becomes clear that Homer struggles throughout The Iliad with the ravages of war and what it means for soldiers and their families, and indeed all of society. Yes, if you are faint of heart it can be difficult to wade through all the violence, but without it Homer could not build to the most heartbreaking ending in all of literature, the meeting between Achilles and Priam. And who, having read that, would wish it unread?

When we are willing to trust works of art, to move beyond simplistic division into good and bad, we can encounter a rich dialectic ground where ideas struggle with each other and open up new interpretive possibilities. When we approach works of art not in a spirit of fear or of asserting ourselves against them, and instead let ourselves be borne along by the currents of their complex inner logic, we end up changed by the encounter.

Welcome to My Site, or Why I Am Not a Controversialist

"Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, 'In this world, Elwood, you must be' - she always called me Elwood - 'In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.' Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me." -Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmy Stewart), Harvey

Since this post marks the first bit of actual writing on my new writer's site, I wanted to take the opportunity to set forth one of the important aspects of my personality that shapes the way I think and write about culture. Namely: I am not a controversialist.

In the rough and tumble world of Internet culture writing, this predisposition puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage. Controversy sells, almost as well as sex, and rage remains the primary fuel of the clickbait economy. I could probably double my readership overnight, from 4 to 8 people, by tackling the issues of the day with a loud voice and a snarky style. To do that, however, I'd have to fight against every impulse that guides me as a critic. 

Not that I shy away from having strong, offbeat opinions. I will never miss an opportunity to blast the films of Quentin Tarantino, or praise mega-flop Speed Racer, if given the chance. But I'm not the sort of person to go out stirring up trouble, picking fights about films or books or politics. While I don't hold myself up as some sort of superior being for this trait, and I think controversialists have their place in society, I want to lay out a few reasons I shy away from heated debate, especially on the Internet.

I Just Don't Have the Personality For It

Some people love debate. It energizes them and clarifies their thinking process. They like nothing more than shooting out little sallies of opinion and having them batted back. That's not the way I work. I think much better internally, when I have a chance to lay things out piece by piece. If debaters are like blacksmiths, honing their points through repeated blows, I'm more like an architect, assembling daring structures through careful planning.

Additionally, I am mortally afraid of offending people (there's a history there - more later). In a personal encounter, it is easy to regulate and make sure that your conversation partner follows your train of thought without taking what you say personally, but online this becomes a tricky proposition. I can be a very sarcastic person, but I have resolved to refrain from using that sarcasm as a weapon - for me, this means staying away from situations where I will be provoked to use my words to score cheap points.

Forget the Right Answers - People Don't Even Have the Right Questions

This is where I disabuse you of the notion that I view myself as some sort of moral saint in a parched landscape of evil. A large part of the reason I avoid online controversies is that, well, I (arrogantly) find people to be poorly equipped to talk about issues they way I think they need to be talked about. Largely this comes from my eccentric history of reading, wherein I have consumed all sorts of strange notions about the way society works (see the influences page of this site).  

Essentially I believe that all debates about contemporary issues take for granted larger questions of the functioning (or dysfunctioning) of society under democracy and capitalism. I tend to want to make every question a meta-question, when people really just want a soundbite about why they should hate the other side. I fully realize this makes me at times an insufferable conversation partner; just ask my wife. It's no fun to ask a "simple" question about, say, my views on technology, and have me launch into a diatribe about the printing press. So I tend to keep my mouth shut.

My Personal History Makes Me Wary

I try to live life without too many regrets, but one piece of my past that has always bugged me involves the dissolution of a close friendship over the course of my high school years. One of my dearest friends and I gradually grew apart thanks largely to our penchant for yelling at each other, often via blog posts, about issues we found scintillating. He became a fervent atheist, indebted to Dawkins and his ilk, and I reacted by trying to overcompensate for the perception of Christians as slack jawed yokels. This led to a lot of preening and harsh words on both sides. We eventually reached a truce, but we never regained our original closeness, and I still feel sad about that. 

What I learned out of that experience is that I never want to place winning in front of loving others. I never want to make people pawns in a game of feeling good about myself (at least not in that way - I do this in other ways every day, unfortunately). And so I try to sit off to the side, playing by myself. I'd rather build a snow castle than throw a snowball. So join me, if you will. Grab a shovel. Let's make something beautiful - together.