Tyler Weaver's Blog, page 53
January 15, 2019
LIKEWAR
Add the work of P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking in LIKEWAR: THE WEAPONIZATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA to the essential modern library of understanding – alongside Naomi Klein’s THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Timothy Snyder’s ON TYRANNY, Zeynep Tufecki’s TWITTER AND TEAR GAS, Rebecca Solnit’s HOPE IN THE DARK, and Jane Mayer’s DARK MONEY – that illuminate the forces known and unknown shaping our lives.
More invasive and personal than bombs or simple hacking, the concept of LikeWar represents the new frontline of hybridized warfare, a potent cocktail of Cold War propaganda and Taylor Swift delivered intravenously and immediately via our ubiquitous social media networks to take advantage of and weaponize the rampant stateside deficiencies in media literacy (rightly pointed out by the authors as not only an issue of education but one now of national security — though one clearly not in the self-interest of the Orange Malignancy’s regime) and the anger and outrage of those most susceptible to pernicious manipulation (as we are each capable of being; it takes only but a momentary lowering of our bullshit detectors and a single mindless share for the false idea, the false story, to metastasize like the cancer that it is – no matter how much we might tell ourselves otherwise) to rewire the mind of either a single person, a single group, or an entire country and exploit the resultant short circuit for ignoble and sometimes deadly ends.
Indeed, in hindsight and with the understanding provided by LIKEWAR’s terrifying dissemination of the circumstances beind its rise, the surprising thing about The Orange Malignancy’s 2016 victory* is not that he won* or that he replays this victory* over and again, like Al Bundy and his state championship glory days, to anyone within earshot (“‘This war doesn’t end with the last rocket,'” an Israeli activist told the authors), but rather that, given the forces demonstrably at work in the murk, we were shocked by that victory* in the first place – but then again, as Singer and Brooking point out, “…people like to be right; they hate to proven wrong.”
A crucial read.
January 14, 2019
“… All the Time in the World”
The common song and dance when it comes to my favorite Bond film (and one of my favorite films of all time), ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE is that, had it starred Sean Connery, it would have been the best Bond film and that by virtue of George Lazenby’s ascension from male-model obscurity into a single go-round in the role of a lifetime (though perhaps a life sentence), it is automatically not necessarily a lesser Bond film, but rather a conditional one, an exception to the rule.
This assessment is, for want of a better phrase, a crock of shit. Far from conditional, by throwing out all of those “rules” that defined the BOND genre (the series, even just six films in at that point, had already become a genre unto itself, a genre within a genre), OHMSS showed what Bond COULD be, a deconstruction of the myth to paint a cinematic (and no less action-filled, especially once he puts on the skis) portrait of a multi-dimensional human being made possible perhaps only because of the absence of Connery’s post-GOLDFINGER sleepwalkingly iconic portrayal; OHMSS, then, is not an exception to the rule, but rather the exception that should have been the rule.
(But.)
While I am and will forever be unapologetic in my love of Lazenby’s flawed and deeply human performance as Bond – indeed, it’s one of the great crimes of cinema (thanks to a combo of Connery’s frustration with the imprisonment of the role, Broccoli and Saltzman’s manufacturing of the money tree barbed-wire assembly line of the BOND genre, and Lazenby’s own youthful arrogance and short-sightedness) that he didn’t continue on in the role and that we were left with not only a single performance from Lazenby, but a sub-par conclusion to Connery’s tenure in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and, well, Roger Moore – the film’s conclusion left me (in tears, as always) with a question: what if there’s a scintilla of truth to be mined in that aforementioned crock of shit?
What if, by some contractual magic and artistic grit, Connery had been allowed to play Bond in OHMSS not as the charismatic superhero of GOLDFINGER, THUNDERBALL, and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE but as the human being of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE? Would Connery have, if given the chance to do something different with the role and free of expectations, inhabited the Bond that Lazenby gave us? Would his love of Diana Rigg’s Tracy have been so real? Would that final scene been so shattering, so heartbreaking?
What if, like Lazenby, Connery had suddenly announced during filming that OHMSS would be his final Bond film and imagine that, upon seeing the final film (though it adheres closely to the 1963 Fleming novel), audiences were left not with a pithy quip delivered by an icon of a fading decade but with an icon wholly subverted and broken and visible only between the spider-webbed cracks of the bullet-ridden windshield of his Aston Martin DB5 (not the DBS of Lazenby), cradling his dead bride, his fallen chance for humanity, and telling the policeman, telling himself, that “We have all the time in the world?”
What if?
January 12, 2019
Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
Among countless favorite Dylan songs, my favorite Dylan song from my favorite Dylan album: the melody, the rhythm of his vulnerable and earnest snarl, as though he doesn’t want to admit his capacity for feeling the feelings he pours forth for the 11:16 that constitute this black and white, soft focus, stream-of-consciousness exorcism – “geranium kisses ” / “But with the sea at your feet / And the phony false alarm” / “sheetmetal memory of Cannery Row” … has he ever found such synergy with voice and music and word as he has here, before or since?
January 10, 2019
Extraction
As the frayed copy of the DSM-IV on the bookshelf stared back at me, I scoured what remained of my brain for – and was unable to find – the answer to his final question in my final therapy session, What was it about this process that helped?
Nearly 24 hours and a run and an ankle roll since, I think I have the – or at least an – answer: by interacting with someone willing to take some of the weight of the various fuckeries (not my word, but a pearl of genius found on Twitter, probably, years ago, a pearl I continue to use in the creative commons of myself) in my head off of my shoulders – and to do so not with judgement or by letting it weigh them down, but with an eye towards constructive problem solving – I found the space and the clarity within to step back and see them, the fuckeries, for what they were, bird by bird – to borrow from Ms Lamott – and to synthesize the tools given to me over the last year into a simple and individualized system of choice over reflex by which to extract my head from my ass in almost any situation, real or imagined: it gave me the space to see, to process.
It was a gift.
January 6, 2019
Infinity War
While I want to call INFINITY WAR a great film — the best of the series, the closest we’ve come to an unabashed superhero epic ripped straight from our wildest Saturday morning action figure fantasies, an epic teeming with sprawl, heart, crossover chemistry, and a relentless, multi-dimensional force of universe-balancing antagonism in Josh Brolin’s Thanos (the glossypaper MCU cosmic version of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk) that leaves us with an ending that will invariably go down as one of the great all-is-lost cinematic cliffhangers – I can’t: while INFINITY WAR is undeniably great, an amusement park ride of epic proportions, it’s not a great film. It’s a great start.
Whereas its closest inspiration and main combatant for universe-altering cliffhanger supremacy, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, was both a middle film and a complete film, INFINITY WAR is not: rather, it’s two-thirds (or maybe half, if we’re going with a five-act structure) of a film that represents the apex consequence of the Marvel films being less individual films than components to an endless big picture which feeds on our need to learn something, anything, more; while INFINITY WAR gives us the trick and the turn, the outcome of the prestige – or at least the broad strokes of it – can be seen and gleamed in the cacophony of trailers and news and production slates and independent prognostications of upcoming MCU films. For the how of the prestige, we can be sated only by kneeling before ENDGAME.
I want to believe that this cinematic bifurcation was the only creative option available to the filmmakers as they crafted an apposite curtain call for the first generation of the MCU and steered it deeper into its inevitable period of generational transition and not a cash grab (I don’t envy anyone, not even Disney, attempting to recoup half a billion dollars in production costs in the exhibition of a five-plus-hour film) but, as with calling INFINITY WAR a great film sans qualifications, I struggle to do so.
However, by virture of INFINITY WAR being so good – even if I can’t call it a film, a leap that, for me anyhow, would require a foundational reconsideration of my definition of what constitutes a film in our current (pop)cultural milieux – and that I won’t be able to see it on Netflix thanks to the coming of Disney+, they’ve convinced me to make my first theatre trek since WONDER WOMAN and the first MCU film since WINTER SOLDIER to see ENDGAME in theatres, so mission accomplished, even if I’m not too thrilled to admit it.
Or maybe I’m just bitter that they missed the opportunity for call-back immortality by not playing “Immigrant Song” when Thor entered the Battle of Wakanda; I don’t know.
Note: All of the above pissing and moaning can be rendered moot and INFINITY WAR viewed as a complete – and great, even, – film if – and only if – one looks at Thanos as the primary protagonist, which may have been the point all along and I’ve only just realized it now.
January 2, 2019
Workflow Boogie / Dark Mode Legal Pad
In a recent post, developer and cyborg rights activist Aral Balkan sang the praises of the Boogie Board, a cheap, liquid crystal paper (like a Kindle) digital writer / tablet, a device I had encountered and dismissed as little more than a $40 Etch-a-Sketch during my innumerable boredom-inspired forays into the Staples pen aisle of my heartlandic existence; thankfully, Balkan’s thoughtful praise gave me pause to grant the Boogie Board more than a dismissive glance and consider its potential to be that oft-quested mythical workflow unicorn.
In my short time with its 8.5×11 iteration ($40-), I’ve found it to be an absolutely transformative addition to my workflow: it brings a tactile feel akin to writing on a dark mode digital legal pad with a pen / stylus that happens to be one of the most perfectly balanced writing implements I’ve found (could they please make this an actual ink pen?), most useful not as a vehicle for long, handwritten passages, but as an extension of typing and working within short assignments: it is invaluable in making my tendency to switch back and forth from typing to writing to typing, often starting something on-screen then moving to scribbles and scrawls from which to mine more depth before returning to the screen once I find an approximation of its rhythmic flow, even more rewarding; it’s like turning a screw with your fingers until the screwdriver of the keyboard is the only way to make it stick and enter that flowstate, boogie-ing back-and-forth towards the utility of thought and/or the absence thereof.
(Another potential usage in the absence of thought department: a way to bring morning pages back into my practice, to exorcise some of the mental pablum and reach, maybe, the nitty gritty of the right rhythm and the right words.)
All of this praise can’t absolve the Boogie of a few gripes that bear mentioning here: one, as an inveterate southpaw, I digitally “smudge” all over the place: it’s like writing with a soft pencil or on a dry-erase board (and I have little interest in learning to write backwards, again, on here); the exact-erase function leaves much to be desired; and the (free) companion app is fairly useless and I can’t figure a reason I would use that extra step when, devoid of OCR capabilities, I could simply snap a photo, should I want to save the scrawl, and Airdrop it to my main Mac – which might defeat the whole purpose… but at that price point what more could I ask for?
In the absence of a better ending, I’ll simply add that my wife also bought one, the smaller version ($30 +/-), as a quick note-taking (not note-losing, like scraps of paper) device to bring a bit more organizational sanity to her schoolteaching day; as for bringing sanity and a new middle way to my writing day and workflow, the Boogie Board has already more than earned its keep. I’m sold.
December 28, 2018
Deskspace
The feeling of moving beyond the boundaries of my deskspace, a hallowed-to-me place comprised of a coffee-stained footboard and the flipside of a broken and duct-taped checkerboard splotched with brown exterior paint / stain from its previous life as a palette for the first pergola painting resting atop a bookshelf crafted by the hand of my wife’s grandfather, a dented Target file cabinet (from when I lost the key and was in a mad search for my VHS copy of the 1943 MASKED MARVEL serial that I was, for some reason or another, certain was hidden within (it wasnt)), four Time-Life hardbacks to make up the height difference on one end and two towel-wrapped bricks from the out-of-doors atop the other “leg,” a set of drawers crafted by the hand of my great-grandfather brimming with the assorted detritus of distraction and fidget spinners and cast-aside drafts of The Work… the feeling, but nothing to replace it with – but why would I ever want to?
December 24, 2018
Status 24Dec2018
December 23, 2018
Favorite Albums, 2018
While I make no presumptions that this list comprises “The Best” it does, nevertheless, represent, in no particular order, my favorite albums of the year. Happy listening.
Mary Halvorson, CODE GIRL
Eels, THE DECONSTRUCTION
Mélissa Laveaux, RADYO SIWÈL
Khadja Bonet, CHILDQUEEN
The Necks, BODY
Aqueduct Ensemble, IMPROVISATIONS ON AN APRICOT
Witch Prophet, THE GOLDEN OCTAVE
Angelique Kidjo, REMAIN IN LIGHT
María Grand, MAGDALENDA
Mitski, BE THE COWBOY
Cut Chemist, DIE CUT
Gurrumul, DJARIMIRRI
Medeski, Martin, and Wood, OMNISPHERE (feat. Alarm Will Sound)
Janelle Monáe, DIRTY COMPUTER
Danish String Quartet, PRISM I
Brad Mehldau, AFTER BACH
Cécile McLorin Salvant, THE WINDOW
Moby, EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT
Sam Wilkes, WILKES
Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, MUSIC FOR SAXOFONE AND BASS GUITAR
Moontribe, MOONTRIBE
St Vincent, MASSEDUCATION
Fred Hersch Trio, LIVE IN EUROPE
Ambrose Akinmusire, ORIGAMI HARVEST
Wolfgang Muthspiel, Ambrose Akinmusire, Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, and Eric Harland, WHERE THE RIVER GOES
Peter Gregson, BACH: THE CELLO SUITES – RECOMPOSED BY PETER GREGSON
Protomartyr, CONSOLATION – EP
Esperanza Spalding, 12 LITTLE SPELLS
Maki Namekawa, PHILIP GLASS: MISHIMA
Kelly Moran, ULTRAVIOLET
Jonny Greenwood, PHANTOM THREAD (SOUNDTRACK)
Kim Kashkashian, J.S. BACH: SIX SUITES FOR VIOLA SOLO
Rosalía, EL MAL QUERER
Charles Mingus, JAZZ IN DETROIT / STRATA CONCERT GALLERY / 46 SELDEN
Andrew Cyrille, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smih, and Bill Frisell, LEBROBA
Jean-Guihen Queryas & Alexandre Tharaud, BRAHMS: CELLO SONATAS & HUNGARIAN DANCES
Lubomyr Melnyk, THE DREAMERS EVER LEAVE YOU – THE LAUREN HARRIS BALLET MUSIC
Miles Davis & John Coltrane, THE FINAL TOUR: THE BOOTLEG SERIES, VOLUME SIX
Brian Eno, MUSIC FOR INSTALLATIONS
Nine Inch Nails, BAD WITCH
Brad Mehldau Trio, SEYMOUR READS THE CONSTITUTION!
Bruckner Orchestra Linz & Dennis Russell Davis: PHILIP GLASS: SYMPHONY NO. 11
Lubomyr Melnyk, MELNYK: FALLEN TREES
Skee Mask, COMPRO
Cat Power, WANDERER
Jack White, BOARDING HOUSE REACH
Typh Barrow, RAW
Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, AWASE
Lera Lynn, PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
December 22, 2018
Onslaught / Aftermath
“And in a word, he watches himself as if he were an enemy and lying in ambush.” – Epictetus, ENCHIRIDION, XLVIII
Through the cracks in the fortifications of I the invaders within lay siege to the weary wasteland of my mind, exploiting that moment of greatest impotence against their onslaught, each fire arrow more fantastic, more important than the last and more impossible to catch and to stop and there is nothing there but that which circles and circles and circles and the more I fight it the more it takes hold and I tell myself that I am not my thoughts and I tell myself and I tell myself but my thoughts have other ideas. They impale, they possess; they submerge my feet in cement and hurl me off the rickety docks into the murk and the muck and leave me without the energy to swim back to the surface until at some point, maybe seconds, maybe hours, maybe days later, a ladder of frayed rope breaks through the surface and its breeze passes across my clenched eyes and I open them and and I find, bit by bit, step by step, that I can, from some unknown somewhere, call forth the energy to climb its uncertain rungs, with bruised and battered and bleeding hands and feet encased in cement, casting off its weighty imprisonment with each step towards that path back to myself, exhausted but vigilant of the shrapnel strewn above and stepping carefully with atrophied feet as I survey the aftermath and rebuild, plugging the heretofore unseen cracks in the fortifications of myself and building new ones in preparation for the next time because the only truth is that there will be a next time: the invaders never really leave; they are always there, with me, part of me, waiting at the gates of myself with arrows at the ready; such is life, again and again, forever and ever (amen, maybe / oh, man).
