WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MOVIES?

When I was a kid, I loved the movies.

I loved John Wayne, and Lauren Bacall, and Humphrey Bogart, and Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton, and Burt Lancaster, and many others, too many to name.

I used to walk to the Tower Theater, in Wichita, KS, and see the Saturday afternoon matinee. It was wonderful.

I remember getting old enough to go with a buddy on the bus downtown to see double features, and going early so we could see them twice.

Wow, what movies. I learned much of what I "knew" about the world, and love affairs, and adventure, and how to be a man from the movies.

But now? Who even goes to the movies now-a-days?

Who has even heard of these movies? "The Beaver"? Is that what I think it is? "Thor"? What? It makes me thor to say it. "There Be Dragons"? Huh? Isn't there a word left out?

The last movie I saw in a theater was "Black Swan," which I thought was powerful and memorable, a tour de force piece of film-making.

The movies started to lose me about ten years ago, and it's been a long slow downhill slide. Maybe part of it is that I'm an old fart. I have seen too much, and been too many places, and loved too much, and lived too much life to feel that there are many things to learn or many things I haven't already experienced in real life.

Most of the time, I'd rather read. There's never enough time for books. You can always find good writers, but you can't always find a good movie.

I don't know why that is.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

FREE AI WEIWEI

Don't forget to write to the Chinese embassy and ask them to free the famous and widely admired dissident artist Ai Weiwei.

Here is the address again:

chinaembpress_us@mfa.gov.cn

I'm trying to e-mail them once a day, so they don't forget.

Thanks.

-- Roger, aka, "Ai Weiwei in the USA"

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

I'M AI WEIWEI

Remember that scene in "Spartacus," the 1960 movie starring Kirk Douglas, where the vicious Roman general says he will spare hundreds of slaves if they will give up Spartacus, leader of the slave revolt?

Of course, we know they are going to kill him.

Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) stands up and says, "I'm Spartacus."

Another man stands up and says,  "I'm Spartacus." And another. And another. Pretty soon all 200 of them are shouting the same thing.

Here is a link to the scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h_v_our_Q

Every time I watch it, it makes me cry.

Well, that's what I think every artist and writer in the world should do.

I'm Ai Weiwei.

If you are Ai Weiwei, or if you have seen him, or if you think he should be released, please report your sightings or plead for his release by sending an e-mail to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.:

chinaembpress_us@mfa.gov.cn

Please be respectful.

Thank you.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

WHO IS AFRAID OF AI WEIWEI?

I think I spotted the famous Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei today in downtown Culver City, at Ford's Filling Station, a chi-chi restaurant near the Kirk Douglas Theater.

Or at least I saw someone who looked very much like him. I was sure it was he, even though I had never seen him before in person.

Then I saw this same person later at the old Culver Hotel, and later yet on the 405 Freeway headed south toward Orange County.

He was riding the biggest Harley Davidson motorcycle I had ever seen. He looked a bit like Santa Claus.

It was amazing to me. He must have escaped from Chinese detention, where he has not been seen in public since April 3.

He must have gotten out. Perhaps he escaped. Or more likely he is capable of transporting himself through time and space.

I think that explains it. These artists can do almost anything. Once they set their mind to it.

I would guess that Ai Weiwei is everywhere, and there is more than one Ai Weiwei out there. Maybe they are clones or even identical twins.

My guess is that he can replicate himself, perhaps using a giant holographic photocopy machine in 3-D.

I would suggest that everyone keep an eye out for Ai Weiwei and report your sightings of him.

I hope we will all be lucky enough to see an Ai Weiwei soon.

Here's to Ai Weiwei. Bless him and protect him. May he live long and prosper.

I look forward to seeing him again. He seems like a kind and lovable person. 

Why would the Chinese detain him? Who is afraid of Ai Weiwei?

-- Roger

(Watch this:)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ai-wei-wei/

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

MILES AHEAD? OR BITCHES BREW?

I noticed today that the Jazz Bakery in L.A. is going to have a birthday tribute to Miles Davis, on May 26. He would've been 85.

When I was young, I loved Miles. Kind of Blue. Sketches of Spain. Miles Ahead. Bitches Brew. God, I loved that mellow trumpet and those artistic arrangements. Super cool, I thought. Powerful, too.

But some years later, in Irvine, CA, I saw Miles live. He was into his beep-squeak phase. God, I hated that music. To me, it was offensive, not even music.

OK, what does that mean? Does it have something to do with being true to yourself?  

I always think that you have to be true to yourself, that you should follow your own lights. Screw everybody else's ideas of what you should do. Follow your own ideas.

OK, great, so far.

But what happens if you are in show business, as Miles was, and you lose your audience?

How important is that? How much attention should the artist pay to his audience? To his bread and butter?

Of course, it is nice if you can be true to yourself and still get rich.

I knew a woman once who was (and still is) a famous mystery writer. Twenty years ago, she was making a million dollars a book. That was real money, back then.

Wait. What am I saying? That is real friggin' money, right now.

Anyway, she said, "I never think about the reader."

What? I don't believe that for a minute. Everything she wrote, she wrote for the reader. Here is a line I remember, because it is one of the worst lines in all fiction:

"Wedges of fear drove themselves into his groin."

Ah, lord, how painful that must've been. Painful to experience and painful to read. Of course, I have no idea what a wedge of fear is, or where it came from, or how it drove itself into his groin. The line was complete BS, I thought.

But do you think that wasn't for the reader? Of course it was. Who was supposed to react to the line? Who was supposed to feel the fear? Who was supposed to get jacked up?

The reader, of course. For Christ's sake.

People create certain myths about themselves. She believed in her own artistic purity. I myself believe that I am 22 years old and play basketball professionally in the winter and volleyball professionally on the beach in the summer.

You see me out there, don't you? Well, I do too. In my mind's eye.

Meanwhile, back to Miles Davis, one of the great jazz musicians of all time, no doubt. I prefer John Coltrane and Charlie Mingus and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, but still Miles is great.

Do you think Miles should have paid more attention to his own artistic tradition than to his new music? Or more attention to my taste than to his new ideas? Or more attention to the rest of his audience? Who should he have listened to? Me? You? Or should he have followed his own lights and told the rest of us to flake off?

If you go too far one way, you sell out and become a hack. If you go too far the other way, you edge over into obscurity. That is what Miles did, I think, with that beep-squeak music.

As Napoleon Bonaparte said, "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."

My answer is that you have to find a way to stay in touch with your audience. After all, the work doesn't come to life if it's totally obscure, if the novel sits in a drawer, or if no one listens to the music.

You want to shock 'em, but not run them away. It's one of the problems of being an artist. Find a balance and bring your audience along with you, if you can.

Sometimes you cannot. But you should try. At least, that's what I think.


-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

BORGES vs. CORMAC McCARTHY

This is truly a clash of titans. It never occurred to me before to compare Jorge Luis Borges and Cormac McCarthy.

They are very different writers, but I think it might be interesting to compare their minds. That is what you engage when you read.

Borges's mind is like an infinite palace of countless rooms. Some rooms are libraries filled with unforeseen books by myriad authors. Other rooms hold chests of jewels, like those you imagine pirates once buried in the Caribbean.

All in all, Borges is a magical and transcendent experience. How did one man contain so many mysteries?

It is impossible to conceive of such a writer, to understand him all at once. Reading him is like living in New York City. You could live there a thousand years and go out every day and every night and still not see everything.

Cormac McCarthy, on the other hand, is different. He is like going on a long voyage by ship. He reminds me most of Herman Melville. Reading him is like living "Moby Dick" over and over again. You become the whale, and you become the harpoon. And you die over and over.

I don't know how to explain what I mean. 

Both writers offer profound experiences of the imagination. At the moment, I prefer Borges. Perhaps that is because I am stuck in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," an annoying and tedious story that is apocalyptic, episodic and bleak, to say the least.

Both are great writers, and I recommend them both. But not every book by each.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

ON 'THE ROAD' TO HELL

I am still trying to slog through "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

Parts of it are well written, but I don't believe any of it, and I think it's self-indulgent and without any clear moral purpose.

I believe that fiction should have a higher moral calling, a reason to exist, a theme, an insight into human nature and an insight into the world.

This doesn't work like that. The theme seems to be, "We're all stupid and we'll die," like that line from "Blade Runner," the great sci-fi movie that's part L.A. noir and part future vision.

I am having a hell of time trying to read this stuff.

So far, I don't see the point.

BTW, I do recommend several other of his books: "Blood Meridian," "Suttree," and "Cities of the Plain" (up to the Epilogue).

"Blood Meridian" is way and away the finest novel by any living American writer, I do believe.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle