My Grandfather’s Rifle Collection

I’ve been spending the last few weeks researching my grandfather’s rifle collection, and I figured that I might as well share the fruits of my labor here, for those interested in history/firearms/collecting things. My grandfather, whom I never knew except as a wee babe before he had a sudden heart attack due to all the fried chicken he ate, was into the whole Wild West thing (my older sisters recall his house—which is now my parents’—adorned with pictures of cattle and the like), and he loved to target shoot, and was a card-carrying member of the NRA. I even have his sharpshooting medals. He certainly knew his guns, and amassed himself a handsome little collection of rifles, extending from the late 1800’s to WWII. 2 of the guns are considered ‘antiques’ (pre-1899, which means that I could UPS them straight to your front door step without any legal issues (kind of scary)), and the rest are WWI-WWII era, which makes them ‘Curio & Relic‘ guns (C&R). He obtained 4 of them through the NRA (I know this because I have his original receipts), and the rest who knows—maybe from when he was a Coast Guard or something.

In any case, I’ve been doing a fair amount of research on them these past few weeks, which have included: 1) an on-line appraisal to get some idea of what I was looking at, as I didn’t even know the first thing about guns or their worth; 2) a trip to a local gun show to talk to dealers and corroborate their info with what I knew from the general appraisal; 3) going downtown to the central library to sift through a Flayderman’s guide on antique guns; 4) scanning through my grandfather’s book on rifles that I had at home, as well as another book on bolt-action rifles I picked up at my local library; and 5) extensive internet googling and wading through the on-line threads of other people’s queries, historical information pages, gun auctions, and other various catalogs, cross-references, and resources that could be plundered for free.

In the process—which has actually been somewhat thrilling in a nerdy sleuthing kind of way—I’ve learned a bit about the history of each gun, as well as learned that almost every little mark somewhere on the gun has some kind of significance which can lead you to more information. Now let’s begin:

1) Remington Rolling Block Military Argentine Contract Rifle

Details: 3 bands; full-stocked; .43 Spanish caliber; Patent dates May 30, 1864; May 7th June 14th Nov 12th Dec 24th, 1872; Dec 31st 1872; Sep 9th Jan 12th March ? 187?; U” on barrel; “R” on stock; no other discernible markings. Over 1 million made.

History of the Rolling Block Rifle: The Remington Rolling Block was one of the most successful single shot weapons yet developed. The “rolling block” refers to the system of a rolling breech block on a pivot backed up by the hammer for centerfire cartridges. According to Wikipedia, the first rifle based on this design was introduced at the Paris Exposition in 1867, and within a year it had become the standard military rifle of several nations. This rifle is also well known for being the rifle that drove the American Bison to extinction in the 1870s-80s.

According to Guns Magazine, July 2005, the rolling block was “universally popular in military circles” because of its “simplicity. The rolling block is a deceptively simple and ragged action with few moving parts and an operation that is self-evident. Any untutored conscript could be taught the manual-of-arms with a rolling block in quick time. One merely cocks the hammer, rolls back the breechblock, inserts a cartridge in the chamber, closes the breechblock and pulls the trigger. In function, the hammer not only strikes the firing pin but progressively cams under the breechblock, locking it firmly in place at the moment of discharge.”

2) U.S. Springfield Trapdoor Model 1873, 3rd model

Details: Serial #: 216xxx; 45-70 caliber; 2 barrel bands. Model 1879 rear sight. Tulip-head ramrod introduced in 1882. Year of manufacture 1883. “U” on barrel bands; VP(graphic of eagle head)P (barrel proof marking) and “R” on barrel; 1882 stamped on stock, with “SWP” in cursive; SWP refers to Master Mechanic Samuel W. Porter who inspected the rifle at Springfield in 1882. (For a picture of Sam W. Porter, scroll down on this page at the Springfield Armory Historic site; he’s the dude in front in the black suit). 73,000 total of all types made.

History of Springfield Model 1873: This is a famous “Indian War”-era rifle, the first breech-loader used in standard military service. It is nicknamed the “Trapdoor” due to the flip-up breech-loading feature, which was first utilized on the Model 1866 to convert the slew of percussion rifles (muzzle-loaders) left over from the Civil War. The Trapdoors were used frequently by the Army against the Native Americans, and vice versa (Sitting Bull and Geronimo were both captured with their Trapdoors in hand). The Trapdoor was also used in the Spanish-American War. Manufacture of all models was terminated in 1893.

3) Winchester Standard model 1906 slide action rifle, Blued-Frame version

Details: Serial #: 642xxx; .22 caliber; 12-grooved pump forearm; “B” on barrel, as well as “P” with circle around it. Manufactured in 1924; 13,562 were produced in that year alone.

History of the Winchester Model 1906: The 1906 (introduced in 1906, of course) was essentially a modification of the most popular pump action Winchester made, the Model 1890, which was mostly used in target shooting. The 1906 was made to be sold at a lower price and available to wider audiences. The 1906 was also very popular, and 731,862 were made until it was discontinued in 1934 to make way for the Model 62.

There were three versions of the 1906: the first model, the .22 short, only accepted short bullets; the second model, the Standard version, was able to shoot short, long, and long-rifle bullets; and the third model, the Expert version, had a better stock and metal. My grandfather’s is a blued-frame version of the Standard.

4) U.S. Springfield model 1903 bolt action rifle

Details: Serial #: 1404xxx; 30-06 caliber. Year of manufacture 1932. Star-gauged barrel. Stock is stamped as a rebuild by Rock Island Arsenal, RIA over FK, inspected by Frank Krack, 1920-1930. Barrel stamped SA (Springfield Armory), with cartouche, followed by 10-30 (October 1930).

I have my grandfather’s original receipt for this gun. Purchased on Jan 13th, 1949 from the San Antonio General Depot for $15.00 + 2.85 S/H.

Signs point to this being a National Match 1903, which greatly increases it’s value, as only 11,000 of these were made and are superior target shooting rifles. However, there were also an unknown number of guns re-manufactured with star-gauged barrels for NRA members. Because of the rebuild stamp from Rock Arsenal, it probably points to the latter.

History of the Springfield Model 1903: According to Philip B. Sharpe in The Rifle in America, this is “one of the finest rifles ever designed and constructed.” This model was officially adopted as a service rifle in 1903, until its replacement in 1936 by the M1 Garand. It was used in both WWI and WWII, and is still utilized even today by drill teams and color guards, due to its superb balance. The 1903 is seen as the successor to the popular “Krag” rifle–the Krag-Jorgensen–which was an invention of two Norwegians.

Each year between 1920-1940, Springfield Armory would make a small quantity of specially selected 1903 rifles for National Match target shooting. These were distinguished only by their “star-gauged” barrels (meaning that they underwent testing to ensure uniformity, and were stamped to display that they passed the test), and the fact that they were selected for superior bolt and receiver quality, with the receiver and bolts made of either double heat-treated carbon steel or nickel steel.

5): Eddystone 1917 bolt action Enfield rifle

Details: Serial #: 376xxx ; Year of manufacture 1918. Barrel: JA (Johnson Automatics) with graphic. Sporterized with Fajen stock.

I have the original receipt. My grandfather purchased this on Sep 11, 1947 from the Red River Ordnance Depot in Texarkana, Texas for $7.50 +1.85 S/H.

History of the Model 1917: The “Enfield” rifle was originally contracted for British use by manufacturers Remington, Winchester, and Eddystone when Britain entered the war in 1914. The Brits then canceled their contract in 1917, as they had enough production ability by then on their own turf. When the US entered the WWI in 1917, the government enlisted these three large manufacturers for help, as they were already equipped for rifle-making. They had to re-design the Model 1914 used for the British to accommodate the .30/06 Springfield cartridge, as well as standardize all the parts for interchangeability and assembly speed. This new design was the Model 1917.

Enfields were made available to members of the NRA in the late 40s through the Director of Civilian Marksmanship for less then ½ the cost of a brand-new gun. I guess my grandpa took advantage of that deal–he bought one for $7.50 in 1947!

6) Remington model 03-A3 bolt action rifle

Details: Serial #: 3881xxx; Year of manufacture 1942; 30-06 caliber. On the stock: “P” with circle around it; RA, FJA with square around it. Remington Arms (RA) followed by the ordnance escutcheon and the inspector’s stamp (“FJA”), presiding inspector Lt. Col. Frank J. Atwood. Most likely a government rebuild from various parts. On the underside of the stock: 14, 22, 69 all with circles around them, and 33 with triangle around it.

I have the original receipt. My grandfather purchased this on Jan. 27th, 1958 from the Anniston Ordnance Depot in Anniston, Alabama for $15.00 + 4.50 S/H.

History of the Remington 03-A3: During World War II, the US suddenly discovered that all of its war reserves of rifles was pretty much kaput, as the government had charitably donated most of their stock of 1917s and 1903s to Britain after the Battle of Dunkirk. As rifles were desperately needed, the Model 1903 was resurrected, as all of the tools necessary to make it were in storage at the Rock Island Arsenal. The machinery was shipped to the Remington Arms Co. in Ilion, and they began re-making the basic design of the Springfield 1903, except this time with a few modifications. They made three different versions: the A1 Modifed, the A3, and the A4 sniper rifle. The “A” refers to “Alternate.” The most notable modifications for the A3 was the new rear sight, as well as the fact that since 03-A3s were needed in vast quantities—and quickly–they were modified for mass production, and thus were slightly less superior than the original 1903.

7) Ranger .22 bolt action target rifle

Details: .22 Caliber LR. Has target sights and front sight hood. No other identifying information marked on it. Judging solely by its appearance, it seems like a Savage Model 19 Target Rifle, given that “later production [was] equipped with extension rear sight and hooded front sight” (Gun Trader’s Guide, 9th Edition). These were made from 1933-1946.

History of the Ranger .22: The Ranger was a Sears Roebuck brandname made by various manufacturers. I looked up all the Sears models that I could find, and none seemed to quite match up with the version I had. In any case, this is a quality target rifle, and I’m quite certain that it was gainfully employed by my grandfather.

Update: I since determined that this rifle is in fact a Savage NRA Model 1933.

8 ) U.S. M1 carbine Caliber 30

Details: Serial #: 1895xxx. Receiver marked Quality H.M.C. (Quality Hardware); Stock: “RMC”, referring to manufacturer Rock-ola, with cartouche; Barrel: “Rock-ola”, “P”.

I have the original receipt. My grandfather purchased this on Sep. 4, 1964 from the Tooele Army Depot in Utah for $17.50 + 2.50 S/H.

History of the M1 Carbine: The result of a series of experimental designs for a fully automatic gun by Winchester, which after testing along with other models by the US Ordnance Department in 1941 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, was developed into a semi-automatic gun, which became the US Carbine Caliber .30. Winchester’s engineering department was on an extremely short deadline to design the new semi-automatic gun; 14 days for the first model, and 34 days to perfect that design. The day before the scheduled testing of new models, they had all the parts assembled and complete, but discovered that there was a malfunction with the piston receiving insufficient gas. Pressed with time and sleep-deprived, the engineers took a last-ditch approach—they drilled a larger hole in the gas port, and hoped for the best. This turned out to solve the problem, and the gun outperformed all others during testing.

Large quantities of this new feat of engineering were desired, far beyond the scope of any one gun manufacturer, and a number of other companies were enlisted in the effort: General Motors, IBM, Underwood-Elliot Fisher Co, National Postal Meter Co, Standard Products Co, Irwin-Pedersen Arms Co, Quality Hardware, and Rock-Ola all manufactured M1 Carbines during the war. Not all these manufacturers were associated with guns in any way—Rock-Ola, for example, was best known as a manufacturer of jukeboxes. Due to the large quantities needed, and the difficulties involved with machinery and engineering, not all manufacturers always made all the parts. Rock-Ola and Underwood-Elliot-Fisher mostly manufactured the barrels, which were then supplied to Quality Hardware, Standard Products, and National Postal Meter. My grandfather’s M1 is an example of this: the barrel and stock components are made by Rock-Ola, while the receiver and serial stamp are Quality Hardware’s. From a collector’s standpoint, the Rock-Ola-issued components add a premium, as Rock-Ola only manufactured 3.7% of the 6,221,220 M1s (228,500). They also are valued as collector’s items because of Rock-Ola’s fame as a jukebox maker.

Now for the foreign rifles:

9) Japanese Arisaka type 38 bolt action rifle

Details: Serial #: 82xxx; Caliber 6.5; Series 22; Manufactured by Kokura, 1933-1940. “Mum”is intact.

History of the Japanese Arisaka: The Arisaka is named after the Colonel who oversaw its manufacture in 1897. It is called a Type 38 in reference to the 38th year of Emperor Meiji’s reign. Most Western thought on the Arisakas during and after WWII was that they were inferior rifles and not well-constructed. This was a bias that was quickly debunked by field tests and direct battlefield experience by soldiers. Arisakas are some of the strongest and most well-designed bolt actions ever made.

When the Japanese soldiers surrendered their arms, they ground out the imperial seal on their Arisakas, which is known as the “rising sun” or “chrysanthemum” emblem, in order to preserve the honor of their emperor. Arms which have been captured on the battlefield retain this insignia—or “mum” to collectors—intact. When my grandfather’s Japanese gardener found out that he was trying to acquire these Japanese rifles, he walked away and never came back. Having the “mum” intact may be a boon to collectors—but to many Japanese, it was simply dishonorable.

10) Japanese Arisaka type 38 bolt action rifle, half stock

Details: Serial #: 1990xxx; “S” on barrel; No series marking; Half stock; Manufactured by Koishikawa (Tokyo), which switched from “B” to “S” barrel proof mark in the late 800,000 range. 1906 – 1935. “Mum” is intact.

11) Birmingham Small Arms Cadet Martini Rifle .310 Model 4

Details: Serial #: 290xx; Commonwealth of Australia; Stock: C.M.F., N.S.W. (New South Wales) 13621 8 / 11
Barrel: +310 12-120 *; Kangaroo on top of receiver. Manufactured by the British B.S.A for Australia, 1910 – 1921.

History of the Cadet Martini Rifle: This is a colonial-era gun (known as the “weapon of empire”), manufactured by Greener and Birmingham Small Arms Co, both of which are British; they made this gun for sale to the Commonwealth states. In 1910, the Commonwealth Government introduced a system of universal cadet training, and they were issued the Cadet rifle. This rifle was also popular for small game hunting and target shooting. 80,000 made.

12) Italian Terni manufactured Fucile Corto Carcano model M38 carbine in 7.35 caliber

Details: Stock: 046xx and Terni cartouche; “PB”; Barrel: R.E. Terni, graphic, 1939 XVII, 046xx, stamped over with “6A”

History of the Terni Carcano M38: The Carcano bolt action rifle was adopted by Italy in 1891 as their official military shoulder arm. The Carcanos were unusual in that they are the only military rifle in the world which employed the “gain twist”, in which the rifling starts wider and increases in pitch towards the muzzle. Italy had a problem of supply in terms of arms and ammunition, because they made so many different types and calibers of weapons that they never had enough for any one type of gun. Italian troops often carried assorted ammunition on them that sometimes didn’t even fit the weapons they were using. Reflecting this confusion is the plethora of markings to be found on the Carcano. The dating system used on the Carcanos manufactured during the fascist reign of Mussolini included not only the date, but also the “fascist year”—so on my grandfather’s Carcano, for example, it is stamped 1939 XVII, meaning the 17th year of Mussolini’s reign in the year 1939.

The Carcano is also infamous as being the gun which Lee Harvey Oswald used to assassinate JFK. He obtained his rifle through mail-order.

References

Here is a cursory list of the references I used in compiling the information on my grandfather’s gun collection. I stumbled across an infinite amount of web pages that I didn’t mark—this list serves more as a guide to anyone else who might be doing similar research.

Books:

The Rifle In America, 2nd Edition; Philip B. Sharpe, 1947—This was my grandfather’s—perhaps it was used in determining which guns he wished to acquire. The author is opinionated and All-American.

Bolt Action Rifles; Frank de Haas, 1971

Flayerdman’s Guide to Antique American Firearms, 7th Edition; A good reference for antique appraisal and values

Gun Trader’s Guide, 9th Edition; Paul Wahl, 1981; My dad got this at a Big 5 Sporting Goods store in the 80s when he half-heartedly did his own research into the collection; he gave up and stowed them up in the attic instead. I was surprised at how handy this guide turned out to be in the end, even though it was outdated.

Websites:

Gun Appraisals.com — I used this site initially to get a rough idea of what type of guns I was looking at and their approximate value. The guy doing my appraisal did a really good job given that all he had to go on was some pictures.

Homestead Firearms — This site was useful for specific model and serial information on the Springfield Trapoor and Winchester 1906.

1903A3 Rifle Site — Good site for research into all things 1903A3.

United Kingdom’s NRA Historic Arms site — I found initial info on the BSA Cadet Rifle on this site.

Digger History Info — Great history and background on the BSA Cadet Rifle.

Carcano Info — Excellent information on the Italian Carcano, especially under the Model Identification section.

Cross Reference of Store Brand and Manufacturer — I used this cross-reference in an attempt to identify what model of Ranger .22 I had. Highly useful if you’ve got some identifying markings to work with on your gun, which unfortunately, I did not.

Markings on Arisaka Rifles — Highly detailed and useful information on what the markings on Japanese Arisakas signify.

Pocket History of the M1 Carbine — Concise details on the making of the M1 Carbine, as well as useful statistics on the numbers from each manufacturer.

Military Surplus Rifle page — Quick reference guide with links and specifications for all military surplus rifles.

Springfield Armory Historic Page — Some nice pictures and condensed history of all Springfield weapons.

Gun Data.com — Good reference for historical firearms; some of its data actually conflicts with some of the other pages (such as Homestead Firearms), but it seemed more accurate given some of the other data I had acquired.

Project Runway

I’ve never been much of a TV watcher—in fact, I’ve been avidly opposed to the contraption since a teenager, and have done as much as possible to avoid being in its spiritually and intellectually sapping presence since that time. However, my girlfriend has no such qualms, and enjoys reveling in certain select serial programs such as Lost or Rescue Me. I’ve somewhat reluctantly joined in on some of these excursions during periods of extreme boredom or exhaustion, and I can’t say too much favorable about Lost except that the writers are masters of sustaining interest even with the most tenuous and lame of story-lines. However, I have discovered one series which I actually set aside a weekly time-slot for, and even get kind of excited to see: Bravo’s Project Runway. It’s one of those kinds of specialized reality-based competitions (in the line of American Idol, Top Chef, or Top Model), but there’s something different about it. For one, the contestants are generally fairly talented and intelligent, even if strange and sometimes bitchy. For another, the judges are truly critical, and adhere to a rigorous standard of critique and evaluation, which often leaves the (mostly frou frou) contestants sobbing or gushing with ecstatic joy. Thus, the central drama of the series is not simply “ooh, A bad-mouthed B and they’re gonna get in another bitch-fight,” but furthermore “what kind of crazy assignment are they going to give them this week?” There is truly an element of mastery and innovation in fashion design in the show that is kind of intriguing to watch—alongside all of the other nice little dramas of bitchy interpersonal relations that the TV watching world so loves to watch (apparently).

Watching the judges rip into sensitive young talent brings back for me the experience of creative writing workshops in college. These “workshops” were competitive to get into, as they were very small, and every week you would have some kind of assignment that was designed to challenge you and develop your writing ability. Then you would read your creation in front of everyone, and subsequently get critiqued and/or lauded by all of the other students, as well as by the professor. For people unused to having their most intimate creations being picked apart critically, this often resulted in damaged egos or even tears. Hey, maybe that could be Bravo’s next series: Project Quill. Instead of fashion designers, it would be sensitive poets with little berets. Hell, I’d apply to get on it.

Anyway, if you’ve never watched this series before, you might be surprised at how engaging it is. It’s not just about making fun of stupid rich people like most of these shows are. It’s making fun of stupid rich people AND appreciating ingenuity and skill. Thus, there is some edifying critical positivity somewhere in there that is rare for a TV show, in my opinion anyway.

Tip of the Hat to Rahsaan Patterson

I want to give a quick plug for R&B artist Rahsaan Patterson, who did not win a Grammy last night, nor was nominated. However, as we all know, the Grammy’s are a bunch of horse-shit. Anyway, his songs have been some of the most solid R&B tracks on my fully loaded 40 gig MP3 player, providing me with much needed solace during stressful bus rides and noisy nighttimes while on my journey in Colombia. Indulging myself (over and over again) in R&B is one of my many guilty pleasures in life, along with shisha, Chartreuse, and dark chocolate. It always calms me down and makes me feel good. But sometimes I just don’t want to listen to old tracks from D’Angelo or Jill Scott anymore, and even Anthony Hamilton’s greatest tracks get old after a while. Well, not really. None of that shit ever really gets that old, that’s the great thing about R&B. Some tracks are better than others, but you can never get tired of the best of Jill Scott (A Long Walk, I’m Not Afraid, Bedda At Home), D’Angelo (Lady, The Root, Untitled, Brown Sugar), Anthony Hamilton (Charlene, Comin’ From Where I’m From, Pass Me Over), Musiq (solong), Dwele (Truth, I Think I Love U), Lauryn Hill (Ex-Factor, To Zion), Sade (By Your Side, Cherish the Day), or Goapele (Closer).

Anyway, this is about Rahsaan. If you’re an R&B fan, which everyone in their right mind should be, then give this guy a listen. So far, his music just gets better with every CD, and every CD gets better with every listen. Which is to say that there is something just past the smooth surface that draws you in. It’s organic, heady, vulnerable, and sometimes even strange.

To warm yourself up to Patterson, first throw on “I Always Find Myself,” from his After Hours album, and see if you don’t find yourself repeating the chorus. It’s got that live sound, unpolished and joyous, and it makes you realize just how much most contemporary R&B is missing. Then put on the Madonna-esque “No Danger,” from his latest, Wine and Spirits, and enjoy the weird beauty of its synthetic polish. The guy is versatile, playful, spiritual, and has a kind of weird-but-wonderful sounding voice. His tracks won’t draw you in immediately, but with repeated and closer listenings, they grow on you until it dawns on you one day that they some of the best shit out there.

Good Reads

There’s a great website that my friend just introduced me to: it’s called goodreads.com and it allows you to catalog all the books that you’ve read and that you are currently reading, as well as to keep tabs on other books that people are reading. I’ve always wished that I had kept a list of all the books that I had read as a young lad; I used to read voraciously, and unfortunately, I can’t remember most of what I’ve read, due to my recalcitrant memory. So I’ve been attempting to begin cataloging whatever books I can remember I’ve read on this site, and what’s also great about it is that you can just look through other people’s lists, and then remember “oh yeah, I read that one!”

Anyway, so check it out, and if you want to become my book sharing friend, my link is:

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/294130

End of Oil, Beginning of Integral Awareness

I’m currently reading a book called The End of Oil, by Paul Roberts, which details the swiftly approaching demise of easy and cheap oil. And it’s interesting because the book is mainly written from the perspective of conventional economics, which is to say that growth equals profit. But what I’ve been realizing as I’ve been reading this book is that the author is not detailing simply the end of the age of oil—he is also detailing the end of a certain economic perspective.

It is true that there are no means of supporting current and expected future energy demands simply through alternative energies such as wind, solar, carbon captured coal, or otherwise. Which essentially means that we will no longer be able to support lifestyles such as we are enjoying right now in industrial nations. Our economic system, which is completely reliant on hydrocarbons at every level, will seemingly collapse. But here’s where the new economic vision steps in. We can make money, and we can have fulfilling lives, without burning MORE energy and without creating MORE waste. But this doesn’t seem possible according to conventional perspectives of economic growth through increasing supply and demand.

All one has to do is to look at nature to understand that value and resource enrichment does not entail endless growth and expansion. When an ecosystem is developing, then yes, it does expand and grow. But eventually, as in an old-growth forest, it stabilizes and simply replenishes itself through an endless recycling of its own resources. And this is exactly where our economic systems will need to be headed.

So our economy, according to conventional perspectives, is headed for disaster. But if you’re looking at it in terms of a necessary and natural evolution, then it is actually headed for transformation. It is hard for some of us to envision, as it is difficult to completely redefine all that you have known in the old paradigm of growth and expansion capitalism (also known as colonialism). This does not mean that we are not in store for some extreme turbulence. No transformation is easy. There will likely be much more blood shed and a desperate last minute scrambling for resources as politicians and corporations embedded in the old paradigm try to hold onto their sanity and power. But like King Lear, once the paradigm has shifted, they will be left destitute and bitter unless they learn to adapt now, incrementally, rather than suddenly later.

We have been tied to this tired old capitalistic game of endless growth and expansion (even when only self-imagined, ala Enron) for far too long now, and the earth is letting us know, in no uncertain manner, that we have begun breaching the limits of resource extraction and depletion. So it is high time that us human beings learned how to root ourselves in deep and truly live like trees, rather than like Kentucky bluegrass.

Done with Harry Potter

I just finished reading the last Harry Potter book a few days ago, and I feel that sadness that one feels when a good friend has departed, the kind of feeling one always has after finishing up a good read. The Harry Potter books are like crack.

I thought the last book definitely dragged for a while, but that the ending made up for it. I felt quite satisfied by the ending, it seemed to sum up the series satisfactorily without excessive cheesiness. Harry Potter goes on to live out a normal existence (as normal as a wizarding existence can be, of course), to be a family man, sending off his tykes to Hogwarts in turn. And honestly, this felt just right for a lad like Harry Potter, because he never really was much of a messianic figure anyway—he was mostly just like any other wizard kid who just wants to play Quidditch and drink butterbeer and snog in hidden hallways—he just happened to get caught up in extenuating circumstances on a frequent basis, from which his good friends, guardian headmaster Dumbledore, and lady luck always rescued him.

What made Harry special was this personal struggle against the darker parts of his soul, represented externally by Voldemort. Harry’s triumph in the end is not over Tom Riddle, but rather over his own greed, his own ambition, his own desire. I have read criticism (such as in this article in the New York Times by a critic who admits that “I would give a lot to understand this phenomenon [the rampant popularity of the Potter books and movies] better.”) of the character of Voldemort, but I think what is missed in criticizing Voldemort is that he isn’t so much a distinct villainous murderer as he is a representative of the dark gravity of Potter’s own inner demons.

When Harry confront his own urges, and realizes what truly matters to him, he discovers his own true power. And that is a power that even muggle-borns could wield.

Anime and stuff

I watched an interesting anime the other night called The Grave of the Fireflies. This is an extremely depressing movie that expresses profound human sentiment and emotion, all evinced by cute snub-nosed big-eyed anime characters. This can be kind of hard to come to terms with at first. It took me a little bit of processing before I could talk about it. It’s really a deeply moving film. It ain’t Disney. We’re talking cartoons as an art form expressing deep cogitations of war, starvation, and what it is to live.

First of all, in the case that you ever happen to watch this flick, don’t watch it with English voice-overs. Turn on the subtitulos. Watching dubbed movies is a waste of time, whether it’s anime or kung-fu porn. C’mon, you can read. Somehow dubbed movies lose the cultural context that imbues them with any sense of meaning. They just become weird foreign films.

Anyway, I admit to being taken aback by this film simply by the extreme contrast of appearance and content. I haven’t really watched much anime, I’ve only seen some Hayao Miyazaki stuff. The format, style, and methods of anime animation are completely foreign to Western sensibilities. But once you get into it a little, they seem pretty imaginative. Like graphic novels on the rise here in the States, maybe anime will make it’s way more broadly into the Western film lexicon—as in instead of just Hollywood remakes of popular cartoons like Batman and Spiderman, they will actually craft dark, adult, cool cartoons. Or not. Guess there’s always the subtitled stuff.

Autistic Social Discovery

I just read an interesting book by a fellow who is autistic enough (a ‘savant‘) to be able to relate to Kim Peek (inspiration for the ‘Rainman‘) and perform instantaneous and synesthetic generations of arithmetic and visual number-scapes—and yet un-autistic enough to relate his inner experiences to the outer world. The book is simple (I read it in a day), but engaging in its simplicity. Tammet’s discovery of emotion, empathy, and the ability to share his inner world with others is heartening to read, while also giving ‘normal’ people insight into the autistic mind. I think what I found most insightful about it was that Tammet’s development seems to be so dependent on the initial acceptance and patience of his parents in his formative years. He describes them as “his heroes.” Imagine all the autistic children out there who are not so lucky to have patient and unconditionally loving parents. Having this formative basis of support, Tammet has the confidence to use his savant skill of acquiring foreign languages in Lithuania, and break out of his shell by discovering that he is perfectly able to teach and relate to foreigners. (I recall in my childhood relating more to foreign students than to my hometown friends. I ain’t autistic—I’m just saying.) He also discovers that the internet provides a social network that is suited perfectly for the autistic mind—social interactions are straightforward and emotions are graphic and easily graspable :) He discovers love on-line, and subsequently goes on to find ways to use his innate powers to connect to other people through his on-line language school, and through TV science programs (and David Letterman).

All in all, I think a lot is made out of his exceptional savant abilities and autistic inwardness. But the most compelling thing about this book isn’t about how special and intelligent he is. It’s about how truly human he is.

Conscious Food Preparation and Consumption

I just finished a wonderful book a line cook friend of mine loaned to me. It’s called Heat and it’s written about a man’s journeys into discovering what it really takes to prepare food, to know food, from the cutlet to the flame, from the history and tradition to the table. He begins the book quite obviously only with a kind of hobbyist’s interest in his book assignment. But as he becomes part of the kitchen culture, and strives to learn and really understand what he is preparing, his journey takes him from his curious outsider-ness and turns his search within, to discover his own capabilities as a chef.

It begins in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s Babbo New York restaurant. At first, Buford can’t even cube carrots right, and the first portion of the book consists of harrowing and humorous accounts of a succession of humiliations: as he cuts himself, burns himself, and gets in the way of angry chefs in the testosterone, pressure cooker environment of a busy and small high-end kitchen. Then as he moves deeper into ability as line cook, he also explores Mario Batali’s origins as a star and chef, and he ends up drawing inspiration from Mario’s same mentors—and then ends up plunging yet further.

I found the most intimate parts of the book take place at the end, when Buford’s journey takes him finally to a renowned and passionate butcher in Italy. As someone tilted more to vegetarianism than red meat, at first I was somewhat revolted, but increasingly fascinated, by his accounts of learning to butcher and properly prepare various and unimaginable parts of innards and muscles and unseen mysterious pork and beef cuttings. What I found most compelling is when Buford, now capable of some basic butchering skills, buys a whole pig in a New York local farmer’s market and takes it back to his apartment draped over the back of his scooter. Horrified denizens of the city, despite being mostly meat eaters, of course, flash him disapproving looks and scowls. But he takes it back in the elevator to his apartment and slowly butchers it in sections, garnering a total of 450 servings of food at less than 50 cents a plate. That got me thinking: I’ve heard it repeated many times that it is more economical and requires less waste of resources to be a vegetarian. And I think in our modern culture of supermarket items delivered from across the globe to sit packaged and ready to eat on our shelves, this is generally true. But it isn’t always true. Sometimes, in fact, it makes more economical and ethical sense to be a selective omnivore.

Bill Mollison, in his Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, also makes the case for omnivorism: “Only in home gardens is most of the vegetation edible for people; much of the earth is occupied by inedible vegetation. Deer, rabbits, sheep, and herbivorous fish are very useful to us, in that they convert this otherwise unusable herbage to acceptable human food. . . . If we convert all vegetation to edible species, we assume a human priority that is unsustainable, and must destroy other plants and animals to do so. In the urban western world, vegetarianism relies heavily on grains and grain legumes. Even to cook these foods, we need to use up very large quantities of wood and fossil fuels . . . . Omnivorous diets make the best use of complex natural systems; we should eat from what is edible, at any level.”

Basically saying, in other words, that we should eat from what we have available as an economical, local resource.

Buford’s section on butchering also got me to thinking about the fact that while most people in this country eat meat, they have absolutely no connection to the animal which was butchered for them. They couldn’t even visualize where the section of meat they are eating was taking from, nor would they want to. Which leads me to think that everyone should have to kill and butcher at least one animal in secondary school. Then probably we would be a nation of vegetarians. Because if you can’t handle understanding the meat that you are eating is coming from a slice of a once real living animal, and you can’t handle understanding how it was cut and prepared to be packaged and sitting so nicely sterile for you in the supermarket. . . well, then maybe you shouldn’t be eating it, huh?

I admit to being strangely compelled to want to eat some well-cut raw portions of pork after reading the butchering segment. The intimacy with the meat that a butcher and Tuscan meat lover has is far removed from the so-called American meat lover who thinks he loves meat because he eats hamburgers and steak, and yet doesn’t even know what kind of meat a hamburger is, nor what a real steak would taste like (go to Argentina and eat a steak and then maybe you will know).

I think being vegetarian is the healthiest and generally the most ethical food practice in our culture. But I also don’t think that if you are truly conscious and aware of what you are eating that you should have to be revolted by meat. I think the worst form of eating, in any sense, is to have absolutely no connection with where your food comes from.

SES and Permaculture

Some more thoughts on Ken Wilber and SES: I think there is a strong tendency to reject all his theories outright by many people, simply because of the way he writes and the fact that he bases many of his “facts” off of sweeping generalizations. But I really think that it is pointless to completely reject someone’s viewpoint altogether simply because of personality or because of some flippant usage of data. In any attempt to integrate seemingly disparate philosophies and sciences together, there are bound to be discrepancies, because how can you be deeply embedded in any particular one enough to know every facet of that viewpoint? He is taking what he finds useful in the core of each and plotting a map that bares their similarities and binds them together. The end result is a general perception of potentiality. I find that his critics generally pick at his conceptions of science or his interpretations of spiritual philosophers, or even just lambast him personally, and conveniently avoid dealing with the most interesting aspects of his discourse.

When I read something like SES, I am not looking for a definitive explication of what the universe is. I am looking for some ideas on how to live my life better, or how to improve my outlook on the world. And there are a few such ideas contained in that book, and I simply take those ideas and utilize them to cultivate my own perspective, and I leave alone all the confused, egotistical, or simply angry parts of the book that I don’t need. And this is essentially, I think, the process that Wilber himself is using in regards to the sources from which he draws. The main problem, of course, is that he at times writes as if he’s got all the keys to the universe in hand, and so all the kinds of people out there that line up at the door of the latest “guru” immediately fawn at his feet.

In reading any self-proclaimed “integral” philosophizing (as in “i’ve got the world figured out, y’all!), you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt, and acknowledge the subjectivity–and subsequent confusion of definitions–that is involved. I think Wilber himself gets a little confused in this area. But there are a few gems that he pops out, like re-introducing the concept of “holons” into intellectual discourse. Or challenging the reader to step outside of their conventions and re-evaluate their entire worldview. These are worthwhile endeavours, however steeped in heady new-age intellectualism.

As I said, take Ken Wilber as a theoretician, and not as a spiritual leader, and you’ll be doing both him, and yourself, a favor.

As I’ve been reading up more on permaculture, I find that it really seems like the real-world application of the ideas that Wilber is trying to get at. Wilber is trying to replace mankind as the evolutionary culmination of the Kosmos, but without the pathologies of domination, aggression, and environmental destruction. Permaculture harmonizes the creative intelligence and spiritual depth of the human designer with the primal energy and fecundity of Mother Earth. Permaculture is battling against the prevalent view of earth and nature as the slave and bitch of mankind–which results in the current agricultural devastation that we call “agri-business”–and trying to cultivate an empathic relationship with natural processes, to intelligently craft design systems that are sustainable and based solidly on the lessons learned from nature. But this doesn’t necessitate a subservience to nature, as some environmentalists’ viewpoints tend towards. It is a willful harnessing and enlightened acknowledgment of nature’s incredible power, used for the purpose of human benefit. For in the enlightened viewpoint, what benefits the world also benefits you. So you are modeling systems upon nature, but you are modeling them not out of idealism, which is always dangerous in any context, but because you are aware that the best possible design will work with nature and diverse communities, and not against them. This is exactly the kind of outlook that this world needs right now.

Because let’s be honest here: people like Republicans and CEO’s have absolutely no interest in idealism. They care only about one thing, and that’s usually something like themselves or money. That’s obviously a major pathology. But the point is that they won’t listen to any one attempting to moralize with them about their impacts on the environment and society, etc. They don’t understand such idealistic philosophizing. They only want to hear about what directly impacts them. So you have to talk to such people not from the anger and frustration of ethics, but rather from the perspective of what makes things better for them. And the fact is that sustainably designed systems work better for individuals, not only for the environment and communities. You talk too much about communities and the bigger picture, and these people immediately think of communism.

Anyways, enough for now, I’m tired and should have been in bed two hours ago (it is in fact only 9:30 right now but I haven’t slept in 2 weeks, so I’ve got some serious making up to do). What I was trying to get at in writing this whole spew of bullshit is that I am seeing an interesting linkage in the perspectives of SES and permaculture. Like I think that if Wilber took his head out of his books, he would probably be designing permacultural gardens.

Children of Men and Grilled Cheese and Kimchi Sandwiches

I just watched a pretty sweet movie: Children of Men. Yes, I know, it’s a rare event indeed when I actually see a movie in the theatre, but it was just one of those kinds of days. And I just added another reason to the list for not going to the theatres: they turn up the audio way too friggin’ loud. I don’t understand this. Are people progressively going deaf? Last two times I’ve been to the theatre, I’ve had to stuff tissue in my ears so that I’m not cringing throughout the entire movie.

That said, I really liked Children of Men. It took place in the future, except that this imagined future is disturbingly real, disturbingly and eerily relevant to the present. The premise of the movie–revolving around a time when, for reasons unknown, women can no longer bear children–might at first seem far-fetched, but it actually acts as a pointed (but veiled) metaphor for reality now, in that we are actively destroying the future for our children. We’ve lost sight of the importance of human life and continuity, and it is in this continuum of critique that the movie operates so effectively. Every battle scene, every person shot in this movie, feels all too vividly real. The shots of illegal immigrants being detained and forced into refugee camps doesn’t seem outlandish at all. The acts of terrorism, the shoot-outs between the military and dark-skinned people doesn’t seem to take place in the future, but rather to just be a really well shot version of what’s going on in foreign countries at the present.

So put it on your Netflix. In other news from today, I’ve made an important culinary discovery that I think that all of the world should be made privy to: try putting kimchi (preferably spicy) in your grilled cheese sandwhich. Yes, it sounds nasty, but once you taste it, there’s no going back. We’re in a new global century here. We’re movin on from chicken and waffles, and peanut butter and burger, to grilled cheese and kimchi.

As to how I discovered aforementioned combination . . . well, I just like to eat kimchi as a side dish sometimes, cuz I like that shit, and I happened to have a grilled cheese prepared for me, so I plopped some kimchi on the side, and subsequently discovered that it meshed perfectly with the sammich–whereupon I immediately placed said kimchi into the sandwich itself, and was then transported into a new state of grilled cheese chewing bliss.

Some Thoughts on Ken Wilber’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

I’ve been re-reading Ken Wilber’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, and I wanted to give it a thorough going over.

First of all, if you are not familiar at all with Ken Wilber, he is a contemporary philosopher who attempts to unite all schools of learning, from both East and West, extending back to mankind’s origins. He calls this “integral” philosophy. It’s a fascinating attempt, and of course filled with pitfalls all along the way, but he does a pretty damn good job of it, in my opinion. However, let me state immediately that I am by no means one of those Wilberites who fawns over everything the dude says and subscribe to his websites. I’ve got several issues with his approach, which I will get into in a minute. I do think that he will be–or at least should be–considered a seminal figure in post-post-modern philosophy.

The book which best epitomizes his viewpoint is Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. I definitely commend it for your reading perusal, but only if you can handle reading such abstract ramblings as Gravity’s Rainbow. This isn’t to say that he is opaque or overly wordy. But he tends to write as if he were talking, and thus goes off on tangents and repeats himself endlessly. It can get tedious. And this is my first criticism of his work: he never presents it as completely and beautifully as he could–his writing really doesn’t do much justice to his actual ideas. In SES, I feel like he beats his points to death–I continually am thinking, “Alright! I get it! Move on.” But I don’t like skipping ahead because sometimes he will have a good point embedded in the midst of repetitive polemic. So I just wish he would simply present his points and then move on to the next one. He doesn’t need to keep repeating his ideas in different forms. It makes it appear as if he were insecure or that he doesn’t think his reader is smart enough to understand him.

Obviously, that’s not a criticism of his actual philosophy. It’s just something that I feel really gets in the way of his presentation of said philosophy.

What I would like to state now, before I get into more criticisms, are the things which I feel are of utmost value in SES. 1) He drives the nail in the coffin of all that bullshit relativism of post-modern deconstructivism. 2) He takes spirituality seriously and heroically attempts to integrate spiritual insight with scientific objectivity. 3) He presents the most complete cumulative presentation of the idea of evolution thus far. 4) He takes the ecological, activist movement head-on and presents valid criticisms that need to be integrated into their often overly idealistic approach. 5) He gives solid credence to the idea that the most important change comes from within.

For these things alone, Ken Wilber earns the adulation that his devotees bestow upon him.

When I first read SES (when my friend sent it to me and told me that I must read it), my immediate reaction was one of wanting to dislike it. And let me temper that by adding that I have a tendency to immediately dislike things that I know are going to change my outlook. Like the stubborn part of me is fighting the inevitable. For example, I remember the first time I listened to The Orb. We laid down in the dark and listened to Orbus Terrarum, and it was so trippy, so intricately involved, that it actually made me pissed. But some part of me knew that it was amazing, and I eventually grew to love it. So it was with SES. Some part of me was fighting what I knew was amazing about it, so I was simply trying to find things to shoot it down with the first time I read it.

But I knew that there was something about that book. So the second time around, I’m now clarifying just what it is that is mind altering about it, and also what it is that really does piss me off about it.

Here’s my main issue with Ken Wilber: he seems to me to be overly attached to his diagrams and “AQAL” approach (“All Quadrants, All Levels”: read any one of his books or papers and he will outline the AQAL thing). And in order to understand anything of what he is saying, you basically have to accept his outlined approach to everything. But I really don’t think this AQAL attachment is even necessary. I don’t see why he can’t present his ideas without creating a whole new set of terminologies. The AQAL is a useful demonstration of his ideas. But it certainly does not define all of the universe, as he seems to think that it does. He is so attached to this conception he’s developed that he seems to get bogged down in his own terminology. I understand the necessary separation of the “I”, “we” and “it” realms in order to demonstrate how they are united multi-dimensionally. I just find his continuous insistance on using his own self-created terms a little annoying.

He presents his ideas in such a way that it almost necessarily creates one side of readers who immediately write him off as arrogant, and another side of readers who blindly worship him as some kind of genius deity. Look, he’s a smart guy. But he definitely doesn’t have the whole universe nailed down, and even if he does–well, he needs to learn how to present it better.

Here’s another criticism of Wilber that I have. In SES, he continually references future works of his, Volume 2 and 3 of his series on evolution, and he makes it sound as if Volume 2 is already essentially written. It’s been almost 12 years now, and he’s put out a slew of books, but you don’t see diddly squat on these supposedly forthcoming tomes. Which to me really undercuts the integrity of SES severely, because in that book he keeps assuring the reader that he will go more in depth on certain topics that he only hazily outlines there.

He really just gets too scattered and excited about his own ideas. I like his ideas. I wish he would present them with more integrity.

That said, I think the most revolutionary idea I took from SES is the realization that we are indeed evolving, in a spiritual and mental sense in addition to biologically. Many people, myself included, have a tendency to glorify and idolize the past, such as harkening back upon harmonious agricultural societies and one-with-nature natives, and to completely lambast all of mankind’s advances, such as technological, political, and economic developments. But in a more embracing, integral approach, such as Wilber’s, one sees that perhaps these developments present new aspects of the mind, and despite whatever pathologies they may present, we have the capability of utilizing these developments to take ourselves to a whole new level of consciousness.

More positive reflections and insights from SES will be forthcoming.

Happy Family Holidays from NYC

Here’s another thing that I find interesting about New Yorkan lexicon: when they join a line of people waiting for something, they say that they are getting “on line,” as opposed to what I am accustomed to, which is saying that I am getting “in line.” Also–and this may just be my girlfriend’s family and not symptomatic of the tri-state region itself–I have heard people referring to “turning off” candles, as if they were electrical appliances. And of course, you gotta love the accents, like how “orange” is pronounced as “aah-range” as opposed to the West Coaster’s “ohrange,” or how “god” is pronounced “gaad.” I even find myself slipping into a Bronxian accent at times, as I have a tendency to imitate the speech of others.

I just saw a weird ass Chinese movie, The Curse of the Golden Flower. It’s an orgy of nobility, incest, and death, like Shakespeare mixed with Oedipus Rex and opera. One thing I’ve noticed about this line of Chinese martial art/visual ballet movies (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/ Hero) is that the women characters, when evincing overly dramatic passion and pain, must mouth breathe at highly audible levels, as if they put a microphone right up to the actresses’ mouth to capture it (probably dubbed in by some industry gimp whose specific role is to mouth breathe the actresses in all of the top Hong Kong hits). The queen in this movie, Gong Li (who has got quite a bosom on her), mouth breathes such that the theater literally quakes with it basically throughout the entire film (there’s a lot of dramatic passion going on here). There’s also a plethora of quivering bosoms in this movie, and it’s kind of a sub-plot delight, to observe the various bouncing bosoms in different lighting and horse riding and ninja battling scenes. So if you’re into copious amounts of heavy mouth breathing and jostling Chinese bosoms, this movie is for you.

New York has been treating me well, I’ve been eating mass amounts of good food and spent a Puerto Rican New Yorker family Christmas, replete with gigantic presents and pernil and rice and beans and a bunch of people shouting at each other to converse. It helped remind me why I no longer care to “celebrate” Christmas, i.e. buy a bunch of junk for my own family members that they don’t need. C’mon people, if you are really into the holiday season, then realize that it’s all about spending time with your family, not spending money. Cut out the whole giving of presents (except to the kids, who of course need to be indoctrinated into our capitalistic consumer culture) and just hang out with your family, share a nice meal, talk, drink spiced wine. Remember when there was that whole Pentagon ad campaign a few winters ago, where they equated buying consumer products with fighting terrorism? It’s ironic, given that we are actually encouraging terrorism (desperate poor people fighting to be heard and empowered) by contributing to mindless products made in “third-world” countries for the profit of corporations.

Anyway, hope you had a good time with your family, as human beings rather than consumers.

La Dolce Vita

I just watched Fellini’s La Dolce Vita the other night, and man, that shit was long. It wasn’t quite the powerhouse film I had assumed, but it was definitely interesting. My first thought upon finishing it had been that it was a “weird” movie. As time has passed, I’ve found myself going back and thinking more on it, and liking it more the more I think on it. It is a movie that made me realize how most cinema these days regard film merely as a medium of entertainment, rather than a powerful medium for exploration and philosophical and spiritual musing. Even the most intelligent films that come out now always have a slick veneer of hip-ness and mass production. If a film is not immediately understandable, or provide some tangibly conventional emotional pay-offs, or at least some cool action sequences, then audiences will shun it. Which is why I think my first reaction to La Dolce Vita was “what the fuck was that?” But over time, I’ve come to appreciate the subtle and circumspect narrative of its womanizing protaganist, Marcello.

The last scene in the film now seems to make a kind of poetic sense to me. When the “sea monster” is pulled up onto the shore, and the hip, world-weary party-goers flock around it and awe at its strangeness, Marcello seems to feel a kind of affinity to it. He says something about its eyes, how it still views the world, and the camera takes a second to linger, close-up, on the glassy dark eye of the unknown sea creature. Next, Marcello sees the young blonde girl, Paola, who symbolizes innocence and purity in the film, standing across the beach, waving and gesturing to him. He cannot understand her and he cannot hear her. He finally is gathered back with his decadent friends to return to the house party. Paola’s smiling face is the final image. To me, these final shots contrast the alien sea creature and Paola, and demonstrates to which Marcello is most closely aligned. He can relate more fully to the alien monster from the depths of the sea than he can to a girl who is uncorrupted (described by him as an “angel” when he meets her earlier in the film). The only way he can relate himself to women and to beauty is by the endless quest for fleeting sensual pleasures, which grow ever more desperate and unfulfilling. The divide which separates him from Paola is uncrossable. He might have been able to hear her once upon a time in his life, but no longer.

Another scene which demonstrates Marcello’s detachment from love and depth of feeling is revealed when he has the long distance conversation in the castle with Maddalena, and she tells him through the fountain that she wants to marry him and love him. He plays along with this game, even seeming to believe in it, as he grows excited and declaims his undying passion for her and his desire to marry her. She then declares that she is a whore and begins to make love to a young man, as Marcello searches for her unsuccessfully. This seems to be the closest he has ever been to declaring any kind of steadfast love, and it demonstrates just how far he is from even knowing what such love might be. Both he and Maddalena are incapable by that point of separating physical passion from deeper love.

There is much more to explore in this film, of course, from Marcello’s friend Steiner’s contrasted internal struggle for meaning while locked in a life of domesticity, to the lifestyles of the rich and famous as depicted in the film’s many party scenes, and on and on. But those two scenes above were the ones that struck me the most in terms of elucidating an underlying purpose to the film. I don’t know if I could say that La Dolce Vita was a film that I loved. It seems almost more of a film to study than to simply watch. But it does give me hope for cinema as an art form as opposed to consumer trash.

V for Vendetta Viewing

I just watched V for Vendetta–I know, I’m a little slow in keeping up with popular culture–and thought it was a fairly daring movie, given the implications and thought generating subversiveness underlying its comic book violence and romance. It’s like Batman–the mysterious masked crusader with a sweet bachelor pad–except now the hero is a terrorist. The Watchowski brothers take conventions and stretch them to where they become disturbing enough to be questioned. The hero of the movie kills, lies, and blows up buildings in order to serve his purpose. By stringing together a series of parallels to current and past government/military excess, we become sympathetic to the cause of V, and thus, to the cause of violence.

This is where the genius of the film lies, I think. It draws us into the story and into the action–but we are confused, because we begin to question whether or not we should really be “rooting” for the protaganist of the film or not, or whether we should be rooting for anyone at all. Or whether we are even aware of what it is, exactly, that we are rooting for. Is it freedom from oppression that we cheer onward in action films? Or is it simply the urge to side with the side that wins, the urge to see some good old bloody action, the urge just for your basic need to be entertained, comforted, and reassured that all will turn out well?

However simplistic or conventionally executed, this film does raise some deeper questions. You have to ask yourself whether or not you really side with the protaganist of the film, who is never viewed as anything but a superhuman mask, and who is essentially a terrorist, even if a rather well-versed and literate one. Of course, he is terrorizing a corrupt government and its minions, and not innocent people, and so thus we can go along with it and enjoy him killing evil-doers. But there is always an element to the film where the scenes of “the people” awakening to their dire situations and cheering onward this fearless crusader seem rather shallow. The darker implications of the film, to me, is that even though the people apparently awaken at the end and remove their “masks,” it took the violent and perfectly coordinated and acted plans of a somewhat messianic individual to get them there. Same thing going on behind The Matrix movies as well. That extreme individualism thing. Where some special person is going to press the right buttons or whatever to change the universe. And of course, that individual is YOU, is the message, which is great, but really what comes out of it is that you had better be pretty damn good at karate and able to withstand multiple bullets from semi-automatics in order to do it.

In any case, I have to say that aside from some bickerings I have with the presentation, I did enjoy the political questioning and pointed subversiveness of this movie, from its parallels in the prison scenes to Abu Ghraib to the parallels drawn between the modern day political climate and the rise of Hitler. Like all good movies, the deeper questions and connections are left up to the viewer; the movie just provides the action and gloss to lay out the possibilities.

Onibus 174

I watched an interesting Brazilian documentary called Bus 174 last night. I’m not sure that I would recommend it for viewing, necessarily, because it isn’t the most pleasant and light-hearted movie in the world; however, it is an incisive look into the structure of Brazilian–and by extension, all–society. It concerns an event which took place on a bus in Rio, where a street kid held all of the people on the bus hostage for several hours. On the surface, it’s just another crime in the city, another sensationalized piece of terror on the nightly news. You normally would have been watching the event and commenting on what kind of sick individual would hijack a bus. You wouldn’t have known that sick individual’s name or life story, where he came from and what brought him to the point of violence. This movie provides all the background, all the societal settings which led to this event. And by the end of the movie, you come to realize that it is not just that individual who is sick–it is society itself, with its inevitable populations of homeless and prison-bound and destitute, that is sick.

I won’t go too in-depth into the movie, as you may want to watch it–but I found it an enlightening approach to a criminal act. Rather than casting blame and simply labelling the criminal as a monster or drugged up or crazy, the movie takes the time to humanize him, to examine his personal history, to examine the world that he lived in. And through this process it becomes evident that there is no such thing as an individual apart from the world–even when that individual is one of the “invisible,” one of the street kids who have no identity apart from hustling because they are given no place to be themselves. Sandro’s act of holding people hostage is then seen as an attempt at empowerment, to make himself heard and seen to an audience that normally wouldn’t look twice at him.

Violence of all forms is, I believe, at root level a desperate plea to be known and understood–it is all of the words and thoughts and emotions that had never before been released. If you are reading this blog right now, then you are obviously articulate and literate–articulate with technology and able to read and write. Imagine if you were illiterate, and that you had no forum in which to give voice to your thoughts and feelings, that in fact the environment in which you lived would not allow you to give voice to your feelings except through the mediation of drugs, social workers, or TV. So you’ve got this whole world inside of you, needing to be shared, but finding no cathartic outlet–only in short bursts, fragments. Eventually it build to a point where it is seething, explosive. It is at that point that a gun becomes a twisted substitute for the pen.

Seen through this kind of light, where one attempts to understand a criminal and an act of crime from the point of view of empathy, rather than anger, fear, or hatred, violence is understood then as a kind of tipping point, of which there are warning signs and pressures–and always a chance of finding a resolution, rather than allowing it to explode. Which means that the violence of the individual is a symptom of the larger body of society. Which means that when some random guy in Wisconsin, or Colorado, or wherever it happens to take place next, walks into a school and shoots random kids–this is an event which should concern all of us. Not only as a media spectacle, but as human beings attempting to relate to other human beings. What drives people to do such things? What sickness is there in society?

Station Agent

I watched a pretty good movie the other night called The Station Agent, and I would recommend getting it on Netflix. This is probably one of the only movies out there where the protaganist is a dwarf. It is also one of the only movies out there in which a dwarf is not presented as humorous spectacle or oddity. The main character, Fin, is a terse and surly fellow who has withdrawn into himself and latched onto the obscure subculture of trains to devote his hermit-like existence to. When he moves from the city into an old train station house in the boondocks in New Jersey, he is befriended by some unlikely characters. The real poetry of the film is in the unfolding of these friendships, as Fin opens up and discovers his own beauty and selfhood in relation to others. It was wholly refreshing to see an American film that delves into truly unique characters and their relationships without being trite, easy, or stereotypical.

I think my favorite part in the movie is when Fin drinks himself into a bitter rage in the bar and stands up on his stool, throws up his stubby arms, and shouts, “Alright, here I am! Take a good look!” He waits for the hisses, laughter, catcalls, jokes about his stature. But the rest of the “normal” bar denizens simply look uncomfortable and glance away. The fact is that they really don’t care all that much about his dwarfism, past the initial shock of the first sight. The perception of his difference, as throughout the rest of the movie, is often projected by Fin upon himself. Another example is when he is eating lunch with his new strange friends, Joe and Olivia. Joe, a talkative and earnest Cuban from Manhattan, peppers Fin goodnaturedly with questions. One of his questions is regarding fellow railroad obsessives like Fin. “Let me ask you a question Fin,” Joe says, “Do you people have clubs?” There is a pause fraught with underlying meaning, in which both the observer and Fin thinks that Joe is referring to his dwarfism. “What do you mean?” he responds guardedly. “You know, like a ‘Train of the month’ club,” Joe says, innocent of the previous moment’s peril.

The way the characters of Joe, Fin, and Olivia interact is continually surprising not only to the characters themselves, but to the viewer–it is surprising because they keep reaching out to each other and making connections, however tentative and awkward. They find that they need each other, and that beyond appearances and stereotypes and personal histories, there is warmth, love, and laughter. This reaffirmation of humanity, of our ability to get beyond surfaces and forge deeper relationships, is the narrative gem of this movie. At times the movie perhaps draws dangerously close to being Disneyesque (the ‘cute’ friendship between the chubby young black girl and the reticent dwarf, for example), but even at such times it feels real and human enough to simply let the critical mind go and enjoy the good intention behind it. I heartily commend the movie.

Zen Industrialized

I once used to be addicted to buying CDs. Any extra money that I ever made in college went to Rhino Records, which was probably something like a 6 mile walk from where I lived round trip–I recall starving for 2 weeks once when I spent all my money on CDs and then didn’t have anything left to eat with. I ate 75 cent muffins out of the dorm vending machines. My musical horizons were expanding exponentially, I was devouring Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Keith Jarrett, Terje Rypdal, and a whole other slew of amazing music that all seemed eventually interconnected as somehow there was always a musician on one set who had played with another musician who played . . . I developed a love and appreciation for the sound and aesthetics of the ECM label. It was not unusual for me to come back from the used CD aisles with 5-10 CDs clutched in my paws. I was always able to dig up some good shit that was probably too weird for its previous owner.

Those days are long gone, and it’s rare that I purchase a CD anymore, which is mainly due to the complete lack of any kind of adequate music stores in South Lake Tahoe. The last time I was in San Francisco, I went to Rasputin Records on Telegraph, and of course I had to buy some friggin’ CDs, the old CD addict in me was jolted awake like a coke fiend with a speedball. I managed to limit myself to only 2 CDs, which I was pretty proud of. These items were Cheikh Lo’s latest, Lamp Fall, and John McLaughlin’s latest, Industrial Zen. At first, I was slightly disappointed by each. Lamp Fall, because it is over-produced. Industrial Zen, because it’s got cheesy synthesizer sounds. However, with repeated listenings, both of these recordings develop depth and intricacy and warmth, and reward the listener who is willing to invest some effort in them.

I’m going to focus on McLaughlin’s Industrial Zen here, because it is the harder nut to crack. Let’s be honest: John McLaughlin has never been about accessibility or easy listening. He is a highly intelligent, virtuostic, and intensely spiritual musician who makes music on his own terms. I think what has always attracted me to his guitar playing is the sheer ferocity and ingenuity of his lightspeed licks. He is uncompromising in his ability, and he is similarly uncompromising in his songwriting as well, unhesitant with atonality, Indian influenced rhythms, and playfully dabbling in artful mixes of alternate beauty and chaos. His name is synonymous with the word ‘fusion.’

Unfortunately, to me, McLaughlin also has a fascination with high technology, with synthesizers and electronic drum kits and the like. I have nearly every album of his, from Extrapolation (1969) to Thieves and Poets, and now, Industrial Zen. And McLaughlin certainly has a cheesy streak running through him, I won’t lie. Albums embedded deeply in the 70s such as Visions of the Emerald Beyond and Inner Worlds attest to that. I love these albums, don’t get me wrong. But there’s definitely some cheesiness going on there. And I can dig it, I like a little cheese now and then, as I can openly admit being someone who owns just a little too many Dream Theater albums. The problem of cheesy, with John McLaughlin, is never a great danger, because he is just too good a musician for it ever to get in the way of his music. That said, I still have a hard time swallowing albums like Adventures in Radioland, when McLaughlin gets too much synthesized sound going on. It’s not that the music is bad, it’s just the sound that is hard to get past. And unfortunately, that synthesized sound is just abounding in all it’s glossy glory on Industrial Zen.

So when I put on the first track from Industrial Zen, the first thing I hear is that annoying synthesizer sound. And much of the remainder of the album is similarly drenched in the sound, and dammit, it just sounds cheesy. Goddammit, John, stop fucking around with the goddam synthesizers! But I’ve kept forcing myself to listen to the album (attempting to do it when no one else is around to ask me what the fuck I am listening to), and I have to admit, that over time, the album is beginning to grow on me.

Perhaps McLaughlin is aware of the effort of concentration and willpower which is required to get past the surface of his new album: it is called Industrial Zen, after all. One must essentially be a Zen master to shut out the annoyance of the Industrial synthesized sound effects. But with some effort, as always, McLaughlin’s music rewards. It is complex, virtuostic, and challenging. Not bad for an old man, really. He could just sit back and fart and play ballads on his acoustic, but instead, here he is again, pushing boundaries and sensibilities just like he did in the 70s with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. And his guitar playing is still rocking, even while immersed in synthesized sound.

I wouldn’t recommend this album for the faint of heart. But if you’re willing to be challenged, McLaughlin delivers. He’s still fusing the hell out of everything he lays his fingers on.

On Grizzly Man

I watched Grizzly Man the other night. It really is an interesting tale, of a man with a lot of issues who can’t find peace in human society or within himself, so he pretends to be a “friend” of grizzly bears, and even to be a grizzly bear himself. He records nature, the bears and other animals, as well as uses the camera to explore himself, relentlessy. His use of the camera is of course first and foremost an extension of a tool of the naturalist, recording and cataloging the behaviors of his subjects. But he himself becomes a subject, as he vents, raves, and discusses his reasons for being with the grizzlies, posing as a hero, a protector of the bears.

Timothy Treadwell obviously had a lot of issues. But I was just thinking of the similarity of his endeavor to that of any creator or artist–to go into the “wilderness,” to find material in extreme solitude, even while almost narcissistically recording and play-acting to an invisible audience. I do the same with this very blog. To create a new version of myself outside of the bounds of my society.

I wouldn’t want to compare myself any further to Treadwell, as he was obviously pretty bonkers, but I wanted to try to find a way of understanding him rather than making fun of him. His relationships with animals and the grizzly bears were on the level of a child–pretending to understand the animals, to be one himself, and idealistically believing that they are nobler than humans. And in this idealistic and child-like way, he indeed came closer to the grizzlies than anyone probably in human history, just as he claims on his own footage. Although of course the question is raised in the film: perhaps grizzlies should simply be respected and left at a distance, rather than tried to be related to ourselves. That Timothy lived alongside grizzlies as long as he did attests not only to his craziness, but also to his ability to really understand them quite accurately.

It is unfortunate that Treadwell couldn’t put this ability for intelligent empathy to use on himself or on his society. I was thinking that instead of going into the wilderness and becoming one with the grizzlies, how much more interesting of an endeavor might it have been for him to take his camera and camp out downtown with the homeless, and interview them and record their lives and show his footage to children in classrooms as he did with grizzlies–and thus to humanize and make relatable the lives of the homeless to that of ordinary people.

By that, I’m not saying that I don’t think grizzlies are important nor deserving of understanding. But Timothy Treadwell’s reasons for going to the grizzlies were not simply because he loved bears–he was attempting to escape himself, to escape his society, to escape humanity, as it were. And it’s fairly apparent from his footage that he does none of this. All of his problems he takes with him. He uses the bears to give his life meaning, he uses their danger and wildness to feel alive. And so eventually, they take his life. Because not bears, not cameras, not the wilderness can save him from himself. The greatest of battles is within. When you can truly understand yourself, then there is no need to become a grizzly bear.

A Trip to the Cinema

I went out to the movies last night, something I haven’t done in a long time, and I subsequently remembered why I hadn’t in a long time: movies are a rip-off. Nine dollars and fifty cents to see a friggin’ movie! I ain’t old, and I can distinctly remember when movies were 5 bucks. I suppose the reason to go out to see a movie is not only to be the first to see the latest piece of Hollywood blitz, but to enjoy the fruits of surround sound, huge visuals, annoying strangers talking throughout the movie, etc. Speaking personally, I don’t watch a movie because the effects are cool or because the sound is neat. I watch them (when I do ever watch movies, which is pretty rare in any case–although this is soon to be changed, as I just signed up for Netflix for the first time the other day and my first movie should arrive . . . today: Grizzly Man, in case you were wondering. Then Dave Chappelle’s Block Party.) because I want to gain a new perspective, because I want to see a good story that can open my mind, I want to understand the characters and relate myself to them. I could give 2 shits about the special effects, unless it is one of those Pixar films where everything is essentially a special effect.

So, in other words, why would I waste 10 fuckin bucks to go see a movie in a theater? I’m quite content to watch a movie on a tiny ass laptop screen. It’s 10 bucks per month to sign up for Netflix and get 1 movie sent to you whenever you want. As opposed to 10 bucks to blow your load on one potentially bad movie in a theater. That seems like a good deal to me.

Anyway, so the movie I saw was A Lady In The Water, a movie by M. Night Shyamalan, which was actually a pretty enjoyable flick, I thought. Not enjoyable enough for $9.50, of course, but worth sitting through. This is one of those kinds of films that critics are nearly guaranteed to dislike. It’s full of nonsense and myth, but if you are willing to suspend your disbelief (beginning with the ridiculous opening sequence), it leads you along a child-like twisting and turning imaginative thriller. The whole thing feels quite heart-felt, and perhaps this is why the writer and director himself casts himself in a central role. I think Shyamalan is trying to take us back to the very thing which I was just saying above: story-telling. This film has all the visual tricks and special effects of other Hollywood productions–except that behind it all is something extremely quirky and different. It is a children’s tale told to adults. This isn’t a slick production or a plot twisting narrative–it’s just a creative yarn, with a heart, showing off gleefully it’s holes and failures. Just when you think it’s going to collapse on itself, it touches you.

I can’t say I’m a great fan of the director or anything. I thought Sixth Sense was cool, just like everyone else. The only other movie of his I saw was The Village, which I just thought was weird. But what I think is interesting about A Lady In The Water is that there is a kind of self-consciousness from Shyamalan, like he’s trying to break free from the Hollywood whirlpool that sucks all life and freedom out of ingenuity and creativity.

So this isn’t a movie that I recommend to go see. But I would wholly recommend getting it on Netflix when it comes out on video.

Thoughts on Harry Potter

Due to several friends’ insisting, I’ve been reading the Harry Potter books, which I had ceased to continue reading a few years ago when I was working in a high school. Man, these books are like crack, they’re fucking addictive. I’ve been sitting down for several hours at a time, finishing the books in a couple of sittings. At first, I was looking for a reason to dislike the books, due to their overwhelming popularity. And the fact is, they aren’t exactly great literature, and the imaginative world that Rowlings creates is nothing special compared to Tolkien or CS Lewis, or the Dark Is Rising series of childrens books. But they are undeniably compelling, and I’m trying to put my finger on what it is, exactly, that makes them so immersive.

Part of it seems to be that Rowlings has an ability to grow along with her characters, and avoids ever settling into too much habitual stereotyping. The books do, indeed, grow increasingly complex and more adult as they progress, and Rowlings inserts subtle jabs at the media and government and society at large.

Sometimes I think part of the genius and efficacy of these works is not that Rowlings is creating anything entirely new, per se. The magical universe that she draws upon has been fairly established already (giants, wizards, witches, goblins), she simply embellishes it with wonderful quirks and details. The magic that Rowlings possesses is in her ability to put everything old and new together into a comfortable and imaginative mix, to combine various elements into a fast paced narrative with plenty of plot twists to keep it surprising and engaging. At some level, the Harry Potter series is a bit like those children/teenage social books (Sweet Valley High, The Hardy Boys) that function as literary soap operas. Harry Potter, after all, is a post-post-modern creation, able to draw upon pop culture just as well as it draws upon myth and magical lore. Harry Potter is the star of the series, humble and fairly well-balanced, and we always want to see him and his Gryffindor house triumph. But by the end of the 4th book, we do get a feeling, perhaps, that Harry Potter has been too lucky and victorious in all things for his own good. Rowlings senses this, too, and in the 5th book Harry is allowed to give vent to his darker, hormone infused angst and baser aspects of character. It is this sensitive character development that sets Harry Potter series apart from most other series of anything, in that usually the first couple of books are the only ones worth reading, and the last ones are desperate affairs sucking all of their energy from the inventiveness of what came before. Harry Potter books, on the other hand, grow as they are written, they develop along with their characters and the depth of the universe they are creating. In other words, they keep getting better.

Also what seems to set them apart is their establishment in a contemporary world that feels relevant to our world now. Many fantasy books such as Lord of the Rings and The Narnia books seem to have a tendency for pure-blood and noble birth idolatry, making all of the enemies into “dark” creatures and the good characters into light haired, blue eyed people. There is none of this subconscious racism in Rowlings–in fact, she deliberately infuses her stories with side universes of slaving house elves, “pure” and “mixed blood” taunting by other students at Hogwarts, and tidbits about goblin rebellions and bigotry against werewolves and giants by the wizarding community. She never preaches about such things–simply presents them as facets of the wizarding universe, and it is an embellishment which serves to make it more real, more relatable to our own universe. And yes, she throws ethnic diversity into Hogwarts as well. But it is never in a way that feels as forced as the PCness of a Star Trek Next Generation episode, for example. It feels, well, the way it did going to college or high school. We live in increasingly ethnically diverse communities these days. We think it’s perfectly normal for a character to be named Padma or Cho, just as normal as it is to be named Ron or Percy. Rowlings ability to interject these characters and issues into her novels without making anything of it is part of the beauty of the Harry Potter series. All of the flourishes and embellishments of the imagined universe never get in the way of the story and the characters–they enhance it.

Permaculture

I have just acquired a book which may change my life, and I strongly recommend checking it out for yourself if you have any interest in the following:

* realizing practical and attainable changes that you as an individual can enact to better the world and stop it from completely going to shit as it’s current trajectory forecasts.

* becoming as self-sustainable as possible.

For those of you who are proselytizers of Ken Wilbur’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, I would suggest this book as the logical follow-up. It contains enlightened philosophy, but more importantly, it demonstrates and depicts real-life solutions and practical applications of such philosophy. As important as Wilbur’s understanding and explications of spirituality and vision-logic may be, I am much more excited about the concepts related to Permaculture. The shamans understood intricately plants and the power and medicine contained therein. I am rather excited by Permaculture: A Designer’s Manuel because it seems to combine everything that I have been thinking about in relation to my own life and what I can do to change it. As I read through it I will probably post more thoughts on this topic.