Quick Notes on Hotel Chevalier
Posted at 9:46 AMWomen in Wes Anderson movies are typically soft spoken, unforgiving and unattainable, whereas men can be uncomfortably straight-forward and crude. This dynamic is pretty consistent: Ms. Cross and Mr. Blume/Max Fisher in Rushmore, Etheline and Royal in the Royal Tenenbaums, or Steve and Eleanor Zissou in The Life Aquatic. (I’m not counting Bottle Rocket since that was more of a prototype, but even Inez fits the role to a certain extent.)
What makes Hotel Chevalier hold a special place in Anderson’s films is that these archetypes are reversed, Jason Schwartzman plays the typically female role, and Natalie Portman plays the typically male role.
She is curt:
Portman: “What the fuck is going on?”
He is unforgiving and soft-spoken:
Portman: “If we fuck I’m going to feel like shit tomorrow.” Schwartzman: “That’s okay with me.”
An interesting note about the role reversal is that Schwartzman’s character is more flawed (an vulnerable?) than any other female character in the archetype, save Margot Tenenbaum, and more importantly he is attainable by Portman, the male archetype.
Perhaps because of gender expectations, both characters in Hotel Chevalier seem stronger to me than in their previous incarnations. Because they are defying how we expect a certain sex to behave they seem more forceful and more alive, or just more interesting. Oh, and the movie is beautiful.
Mark Elliot Cullen Wes Anderson’s Hotel Chevalier→
Wes Anderson’s short Hotel Chevalier is available on iTunes… for free! Apparently it’s a short shot as a prequel to the Darjeeling Limited, which is due out this fall.
The Utopia of the Commodity: Revolution by Proxy→
Dr. Sinthome:
It would seem that what we are consuming when we consume the commodity, is not so much the commodity itself, it’s “use-value”, but rather its symbolic-value. Part of this symbolic-value is … the prestige that it confers. But another part of this symbolic-value is … rather the commodity as a proxy for utopia…
In consuming the product we also give voice to our utopian yearnings by proxy, in absentia, as a supplement or remainder… But in such a way as to not change this present, this world, but in the fullest sense of a supplement: as something that intervenes in this world to render it tolerable without risking the disappointed [sic] of failed attempts to change this world….
Perhaps when Zizek or Jodi Dean evokes the values of sacrifice to revolutionary politics, this sacrifice should not be thought as a necessary sacrifice to throw a wrench into the mechanisms of capitalist production, but rather the sacrifice of a desire based on supplementarity, where the future is always deferred, and desire desires through the surrogate.
I recommend reading the main article, if just for the remarks on the iPhone.
Bryan Klausmeyer Errol Morris on Susan Sontag→
Errol Morris writing for The New York Times:
“You mean to tell me that you went all the way to the Crimea because of one sentence written by Susan Sontag?” My friend Ron Rosenbaum seemed incredulous. I told him, “No, it was actually two sentences.”
The sentences are from Sontag’s “On Regarding the Pain of Others,” her last published book.
A really interesting “deconstruction” of Roger Fenton’s two “Valley of the Shadow of Death” photographs, taken during the Crimean War.
I have mixed feelings about Tetuzi Akiyama, the japanese minimalist guitar player. Part of me finds his variations and repetition exciting, and I’ve enjoyed listening to two of his albums, but on the other hand, is he boring? Granted the idea of just a guitar and a simple riff to move around is exciting, but my attention is tattered after years of television. After a minute or so I find my mind wandering. Which makes it great background music, but not something I could just lay back and enjoy like Exile On Main St. or Stravinsky. I need help, my mind parts aren’t willing to contribute a decision to my conscious– what do you think?
My SAT analogy breakdown:
Rock : Experimental Jazz :: Fiction : Philosophy
UPDATE
Akiyama:
My focus is much more on their tone they make, the sound of the beautifully distorted electric guitar. So some time, maybe twenty years ago, I came to an idea to make solo rock guitar work, to focus on the tone and wildness of the instrument. Also, I wanted to make a new genre, because no rock guitar players have not made this kind of totally solo guitar album which is more common in jazz, classic, avant-garde scene. I wanted to prove there can be “solo rock guitar” on very much bluesy manner. It is based on my ego, so for me, it is comfortable to do it.
(Via Austinist .)
Ugly Pants→
New J. Crew clothes made their debut online today. These are the ugliest pants in the world.
They look like the floor of a casino.
Indian Outsourcing Comes Full Circle→
The New York Times:
India is outsourcing outsourcing.
…
In a poetic reflection of outsourcing’s new face, Wipro’s chairman, Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this year that he was considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to Georgia, to take advantage of American “states which are less developed.” (India’s per capita income is less than $1,000 a year.)
…
Such is the new outsourcing: A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles away to supply it with Mexican engineers working 150 miles south of the United States border.
Ahmadenijad Speaks At Columbia→
This is an interesting live blog (or at least it was live during the event) of Ahmadenijad’s speech at Columbia. I’ll leave the opinions to the comment section, since I haven’t had time to form any yet.
The Pirate Bay Attacks→
Following the huge news that nearly 700MBs of MediaDefender’s internal emails were leaked to the public, The Pirate Bay is planning on using the media giant’s own tactics against them: by taking them to court.
I love the guitar, very chunky R&B sound.
Fright Night 2007
Posted at 9:53 PMA little bit more than a month early for Halloween, but I’ve come across two things that are horrifying in different ways, and now YOU will decide which is worse.
Scary-Item #1
Yeah, the guy was being a little disruptive, but that’s no reason to go in and attack him like that. Eh, cops love their tasers.
Scary-Item #2
Why, yes, that certainly DOES look like Gold Medal winning boxer Oscar De La Hoya in really creepy drag. His reps have denied the authenticity of the photos, but you can see the entire set here and judge for yourself.
Zach Cullen 
Jack White Takes Bob Dylan Further Into Uncharted Territory→
What special hold does Jack White have over Bob Dylan? The other night the White Stripes frontman got Dylan to play his Blood on the Tracks gem “Meet Me In The Morning” for the first time ever live, at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. And last night, White joined Dylan onstage for the big man’s first ever live performance of “Outlaw Blues,” from Bringing it All Back Home; White also got Dylan to play “One More Cup of Coffee” (one our personal faves, from Desire) for the first time since 1993.
Excellent, everything is going according to plan. Now the real question is: Will Jack accompany Bob to Pittsburgh? Seeing Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, and Jack White all in one night– now that would be something!
Also, I think there’s some torch passing going on here from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan to Mr. White. Jack White has taken roots music to new heights without being confined by expectations or genre, not unlike Bob Dylan or Woody. Maybe Jack will make his way onto a new Traveling Wilburys album? Maybe someone will drop a million dollars off on my doorstep too…
EDIT: A YouTube video is available, but be warned: the quality is not great.
David Bowie: Harbinger of Racial Justice→
As many of you may already know, there’s a big uproar in the media about a rather heinous case of racial injustice in Jena, La.. The time line of events is somewhat complicated, but suffice it to say that some white high school students hung nooses on their “whites-only” tree and only got off with a suspension, so some black students beat them up and are charged with attempted murder. Another happy day living in modernity.
But I think what makes the incident really interesting is that David Bowie has intervened:
The rock star David Bowie has gotten into the act, too, by saying he would donate $10,000 to a legal defense fund for the accused black teenagers, who have inevitably come to be called the Jena Six.
‘’There is clearly a separate and unequal judicial process going on in the town of Jena,’’ Mr. Bowie wrote Tuesday in an e-mail statement to The Associated Press. ‘’A donation to the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund is my small gesture indicating my belief that a wrongful charge and sentence should be prevented.’’
So, only one truly important question remains: Advanced or Overt?
Jack White and Bob Dylan→
White shocked the crowd at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium last night when he joined Dylan for the first ever live performance of the Blood On The Tracks gem “Meet Me In The Morning.”
So Jack White has nothing scheduled for the next few months and I have tickets to the Bob Dylan show in October. Here’s to hoping for a continued collaboration…
Confessions of a Vulgar Marxist: Kanye vs. 50 Cent
Posted at 12:00 AM
If you’re as tightly integrated into today’s pop culture-fabric as I am, then you’ve no doubt heard of the clash of the rap titans, Kanye West and 50 Cent, both of whom debuted their latest albums on September 11th, 2007—about a week ago. However, what magazines like Rolling Stone won’t tell you is that, underneath the grit and glamor of epic battles such as this, there’s a fairly obvious vulgar Marxist explanation. It should be immediately apparent to any decent journalist (which probably rules out all of today’s journalists) that the entire “battle” was engineered by the corporate thugs over at the RIAA and Universal. With declining album sales, how else do you reinvigorate consumers to buy overpriced products (most of the profits, of which, go to the record companies rather than the artists)? You propose a ridiculous stunt such as this one.
The undeniable, immutable facts:
- Kanye West’s Graduation is produced (in part) by Geffen Records.
- 50 Cent’s Curtis is produced (in part) by Aftermath Entertainment.
- Geffen Records is a subsidiary of Interscope-Geffen-A&M.
- Aftermath Entertainment is a subsidiary of Interscope Records.
- Interscope Records (in both the former and latter cases) is owned by Universal Music Group.
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