Postcards from the Imagination

This morning, reading Bertolt Brecht's Mann ist Mann (in translation), it struck me that Jean-Luc Godard may have taken the title as inspiration for the title of his film Une femme est une femme (one of my favorites). A quick Google search couldn't confirm though, so I'll have to ask someone. Anyone reading this know?

It's a small thing, but it reminds me how disjointed my entire education feels--how everything has seemed to drop into my lap in accidental pieces which hint at much larger pieces that I hope to get to "some day." I guess that's why people specialize, but my own curiosity is disappointed that I can't drop everything right now to focus on the relationship between Brecht and Godard. And it's like this all the time--question after question tucked away for a later that never seems to arrive. In my fantasy of winning the lottery I never play, I wake up in a clean, comfortable home with a stack of books chosen according to my curiosity and have no papers, deadlines, or other obligations to prevent long hours of reading. I do other things too--for instance, travel extensively--but the books are the primary thing.

Oh, well...back to the real world.  

P.S. I watched Fellini's 8 1/2 for the first time about a week ago, and worry it may have ruined me for other films. I mean, damn! Truffaut's Jules et Jim, on the other hand, was not so impressive. Though I was oddly beguiled by Oskar Werner's portrayal of Jules, I felt the "bad woman" storyline was fairly conservative, even to the point of misogyny. And the consequences of the trio's bohemian lifestyle seemed to suggest no possibility for life outside traditional family structures. Not what I'd expected at all.

P.P.S. Thanks to each of you for the kind comments below!

P.P.P.S. The Rushdie visit was amazing. I'll have more to say when I get my hands on the photos and find some time to write about it.  

Posted by Ginger at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Quick plug for a really good book I just finished today: Greg Hewett's The Eros Conspiracy (Coffee House Press, 2006). Wish I had time for a proper review, but alas...

Posted by Ginger at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anyone who knows me well, and is aware of the many parallels between my own life and that of Bridget Jones, will be amused to learn that for a few hours on Thursday I'll be breathing the same air as Salman Rushdie--author of not one, but two of my all-time favorite novels. Fortunately, being a Not Very Important Person, I suspect little, if any, poise or eloquence will be required of me in this case. O sweet obscurity! Should I be mistaken, however, I'm sure you'll have something hilarious to read about on Friday. ;-)

As for the new haircut, this is the best I can do until I remember to buy batteries for my real camera:

Posted by Ginger at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

As in, if you don't get the story you want, manufacture one. The second "Latest News" headline from the top at CNN.com reads "Gore's prize splits opinion" as though the media company is simply reporting worldwide responses to the Nobel committee's decision. But when you click on the item, you read, "CNN.com asked readers to share their thoughts on the Nobel Prize, global warming and Gore's selection. The response was overwhelming..." after which CNN reprints entries from its own comment stream "edited for length and clarity," giving the first two slots to readers who said, " What a disgraceful choice..." and "I can only imagine how upset Bill "looking for my legacy" Clinton is that he didn't win it."

And this is where millions of voters will turn for "information" about the candidates in next year's Presidental election. Ugh!

Posted by Ginger at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Would make a far better President than any of the current Democratic candidates likely to win the nomination. I wish he'd run. He's experienced, compassionate, intelligent, and probably the only political figure we've got who can think beyond winning elections and still win.

Posted by Ginger at 05:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With no one around to love me less for it, I finally cut all my hair off! Well, not all of it--but about a foot and a half. What used to reach the middle of my back is now a pageboy that falls just below the chin in front and an inch below the hairline in back, with short, choppy bangs. I effing love it! I loved it when I sat back in the chair and didn't accidently pin my head still. I loved it when I put my purse on my shoulder and didn't catch my hair under the strap. I'm going to love it even more when I get out of the shower tomorrow and don't have to spend 20 minutes combing the tangles out.

My daughter, who has never seen me with short hair, is going to freak out when she gets home from school. Photos to follow.

Posted by Ginger at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

...in film can transport the viewer to different times and places, either within or without the narrative, instantaneously. How the hell does one do that with words, specifically poetry? That's what I'm thinking about at the moment. Simple disjunction doesn't do it, because a single visual image conveys far more sensory and semantic information (I think) than a single word or phrase can.  And once the linguistic structure grows larger than a word or phrase, there is (I think, again) a significant loss of momentum versus the jump cut in film. Simple disjunction doesn't do it, because while jump cuts may be momentarily disorienting, they don't entirely (or sometimes at all) resist the production of meaning. In fact, the foregrounding of authorial intent is what makes the Godard films I've seen so interesting.

I'm leaning toward the idea that achieving the effect in a poem means striking the right balance between orientation and disorientaton--in part by ordering the appearance of 'information' to mirror the sequences of perception and understanding through which cinematic jumps are processed. I'm also leaning toward the idea that these sequences aren't universal, but vary according to context. That is, if there's a monster in the room, one's going to notice the monster before the shade of paint on the walls--and how one notices the monster will be a product of whether an infant, or a vampire, or a meadow full of daisies appeared in the previous shot. Gross oversimplification, but I've never formally studied cinematic techniques and am feeling my way through.

And that's all the time I have for thinking/feeling through since my daughter's home from school for European World Domination Day. 

P.S. This October heat wave (it's 80+ degrees in Ithaca) is disturbing if not entirely unpleasant. 

Posted by Ginger at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by Ginger at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)