Bill Lattanzi’s blog. Pop Culture; joy spreading; information sharing, useful and useless; wordology; and the occasional bump in the road.
Zi Blog
Consuming Kids
Consuming Kids is a book by Dr. Susan Linn, and the inspiration for a new documentary that is the best repudiation of free market
radicalism --- let the markets decide! – possible. It tells the story of the sickening rise in advertising to
kids. In 1980, all restraints were removed, and all the brilliance of Mad Ave
and corporate America was brought to bear on the consumers with the least
powers of resistance. “Anti-social
behavior in pursuit of a product is good,” says one toy exec at a
conference in the film. Ad messages now blanket
kid’s lives in all venues, not just on TV. Branding is now literally a cradle to grave proposition, with screens stuck in front
of infants in cribs. Most
disturbing is the sexualization of younger and younger kids,especially
girls, as the exploitable tween
category moves down to the age of six.
Tony 
Kushner, the Angels in America playwright, said once that if you
imagined a culture that hated children, and described what they would do to make
sure children did not grow up healthy and free, you would be describing a
culture pretty close to ours.
Susan Linn’s book and growing organization the Campaign for a
Commercial Free Childhood is working for change and succeeding in many spots, most recently in getting Hasbro to agree to pull their new Pussycat Dolls doll line aimed at 6-9 year olds. “But isn’t it ultimately the
parents responsibility?” “Isn’t
this a curtailment of free speech?" Enola G. Aird, founder of The Motherhood Project answers by comparing the
situation to a trucking company that says “We’re
Hasbro's Pussycat Dolls dolls
going to start driving 150
miles per hour through kids neighborhoods. It’s really the parents job to keep
the kids off the street.” You can
get all kinds of involved at various web sites linked here, or take a look at
the video. For folks in media, the film is at once a little naïve – “My Goodness,there’s product placement on American
Idol” – and profoundly upsetting.
You’ll wish the budget could have afforded a stylist to prevent all the
warm-and-fuzzy crazy beards and necklaces psychologists from turning off the
slick CNN viewers, but those folks' words are hard to shake. Says Dr. Alan Kanner, "A couple of
hundred years from now, they won’t remember our politicians, but “I guarantee
you they are going to remember Grand Theft Auto and the Bratz dolls."
The whole thing put me in mind of the 5th Century BC Lydians, who were the first to coin silver and gold, and were very successful commercially, turning a buck at every opportunity. One of their free market practices stands out: they prostituted their daughters to build impressive dowries. Is our way of exploiting the innocence of the young for profit really so different?
Zi Culture Week 1: Ballet Jazz de Montreal
It’s Culture Week here at ZiBlog. We’re on a one week recession-induced Staycation, looking
around our home grounds, the Boston area, which reputedly has riches to
spare. First stop, Saturday night
April 18, the ICA. We get a much
cooler class of road shows since the wacky big glass box museum ICA set up shop
on the water, with Obama poster man Shepard Fairey getting arrested last month
possibly to be regarded by future mini-generations as some sort of Boston hipness
tipping point. They run a performance series in the cozy big lecture-hall sized auditorium (most comfortable seats in
town, a lovely shade of orange) and that’s where we saw the excellent Ballet
Jazz de Montreal (now rebranded as bjm, which sounds a little off-putting
unless if you hear it like they say in Mon-royale.. like, bay-jheay-emm, so please play along.)
Two pieces, both upbeat. Incredible performers, mostly in their twenties. If you don’t attend dance much, you’re missing out. The first thing is, even if your worst fears of artiness, pretension, obscurity or even black leotards are realized on any given night, the bodies on display are almost always so beautiful, athletic, supple, and energized that it’s inspiring. It’s just uplifting to see that human beings can look like this, and move like this. Dancers physically look like our most ideal versions of ourselves and our ideas, values, and sentiments, on our best day. Only they are real out there in the physical world, enjoying every step. It starts with sexy and life-enhancing, and moves far beyond that, beyond the reach of words.
So I have few to describe what we saw. Okay, I have some. First up, Aszure Barton, choreographer young hotshot from Alberta, so well anointed that Baryshnikov takes photos for her web site. From a distance, Canadian culture is enviable. It seems like America without the competitive obsession, needy narcissism, and driven neurosis; England without the weight of history; France without the condescension and formality. “Experts to the world,” an online editor cheerfully told me once in Toronto. Maybe so.
Ms. Barton is not above entertaining the audience. Jack in the Box has bjm’s incredible crew in catholic school white and grey… minis for the women, white shirts and one red tie for the men. There’s a little “I initiate a movement, everybody follow,” and there’s no end of the fun mix of music. It starts with high mass piety, and dives headlong into high schoolers party after hours. All manners of mood, all manners of music, seemingly sparked by a single pointed finger. The exuberance concludes with a mass cheerleadery line-up, and a single voice, saying, “yes, we can.” Heard that somewhere.
Separated at Birth?
e second piece, Rossini Cards, choreographed by Mauro Bigonzetti, rejoices in embodying and satirizing the popular notion of Italians as insane anarchists. Costumes in black this time, built around a demented ballerina, hands clawed like Martha Graham with horror-movie arthritis, her tutu and top ravaged and askew with bodice not at all covering her breasts. This and a solo built off shrugged shoulders by a dancer who may be named Audrey Van Herck, but who appeared as a dead ringer for the young Isabella Rossellini… only happier, in that radiant Canadian way. (NOTE: Looking to confirm the identity, I found Ms. Van Herck's facebook page, looking even more Rosselini-ish; and 174 stock photos of her as "The Happy Woman." wow, typecasting.)
For today's cultural ingest , I voted for British bad-girl singer Lily Allen, who’s
in town at the House of Blues, another vote for Boston cool. But ZiSpouse aims higher up the
cultural ladder; we’re off to Symphony Hall, to hear operatic soprano Renee
Fleming. Beware of ventures requiring
nice clothes. High Notes report tomorrow. 
left: Mauro Bigonzetti
Into the Mystic with The Shaboo Inn
NPR has some kind of “Places that are gone now but live on
in memory” thing going, and the Shaboo Inn, where you could see legendary music
acts on the odd night, popped up
in my brain. Open from 1971-1982,
it was run by a hippie named David “Lefty” Foster and a band of like-minded
communards, somewhere in the middle of the woods in Willimantic, Connecticut. As a teenager, I saw Muddy Waters there from the front
row. He wore a suit and I remember thinking, “Weird, he’s wearing a suit. And he’s so old. And it’s so loud.” And Tom Waits, on his way up. “Nice town,” he said. “I like the surf.” I didn’t know any of the details about the
Shaboo, except the idea of Miles Davis playing there just seemed impossible and a jazz fairy tale, although it was true. It's hard to explain how remote musicians were then with no MTV, and Rolling Stone a newspaperish cool kid rag out of San Francisco you could only sometimes get. I never drove, never heard
about the concerts until a friend would make the arrangements. All I knew was there was this place you’d arrive at in a clearing in
the woods in the dark after driving approximately forever. It was magical, a lot like going to Oz to see the Wizard.
Freshman year college, this kid next door from Hartford told me that he went regularly. He had gone to see the folkish duo act with the ridiculous name of “Batdorf and Rotney,” (Now there’s one for the 70s time capsule) and they had cancelled, and so the adoring crowd with the hand-stitched roses on the shirts stayed home. There were only six people in the audience, who hadn't heard the tragic news. Since he'd come all that way, my friend decided to stay to see the warm-up act, this crazy, super-energized New Jersey band with that acted out muggings on stage, West Side story-like gang fights between the massive black sax player and the skinny white singer. They played deathless rock n roll for hours.
He really liked this Bruce Springsteen guy, and was able to find his first album. He let me borrow it. He thought the guy was going to be big.
One time a buddy and I decided to go to the Shaboo without asking who was playing. Maybe Bruce would show up. Or Miles. We got entirely lost on the way, and the one hour trip took three. We toured Connecticut.
We got there and no one was playing. The Shaboo appeared to be a completely
different place, shape-shifting. A pool table had
appeared. The bartender first looked at us with a kind of, "How dumb can you be" look, and then said that
if we had come all this way, they might be able to get a local band to play for
us.
The Shaboo Inn: It was like the 7 Dwarfs Cottage in the Enchanted Forest. It’s floating out there somewhere still, I’m sure, in a parallel universe.
Here’s a piece about the reunion they had a couple of years ago:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/ghs-newsservice/entertainment/music/x225119369
10 Ways of Looking at the Red Sox
I’m reading my fourth Geoff Dyer book in a row. It’s called, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (spoiler alert: hot literary sex scenes contained within). Early on, he says that “the thing about
Venice was that it was impossible to say anything about Venice that had not
been said before, including this statement.”
And that st
atement turns out to be a quote from Mary McCarthy. That’s what it’s like to go to Fenway Park on a cold April
morning, Patriots Day, with your 14 year-old son.
We had the best seats I think I’ve ever had, courtesy of the extraordinarily kind Catharine Uyenoyama of DGA Productions (the best-kept secret in Boston production). Third base line, out in what sun there was (“It’s 10 degrees warmer down here,” somebody blocking the aisle shouted at one point), better even than the Red Sox wives’ seats we’d shared once as part of a ZiSpouse charity event.
So, 10 notes on attending a Red Sox game already, no doubt, observed, experienced and noted by others:
1. Every game echoes every other game, leading to the easy passing of oral history from one generation to the next.
“Back in ’78, me and my buddy were way up there in the bleachers for the day that Don Zimmer decided to start a rookie named Bobby Sprowl, who had never even pitched in the major leagues, in the most important game of the year against the Yankees. He walked the first five batters and the score was 5-0 after one inning.”
“Don Zimmer? Is that the guy Pedro Martinez flipped to the ground in that brawl?”
“That’s him.”
“I didn’t know he managed the Red Sox.”
2. It’s a nice experience again at Fenway – the sound system is better, less blaring between innings. Not the same as the organ and the drifting conversation of old, but still.
3. The corridors and walkways under the stands still suck.
4. It’s a joy to follow the flight of the ball.
5. Large masses of people are way too tied up in the fortunes of the Red Sox for their own good.
6. The majority of people move to their seats with two beers, one in each hand. This leads to clogged aisles up at the start of innings and clogged aisles down at the end of innings as same fans hit the head and then return with two more beers.
7. Premonitions: Predicting the next pitch is a dark art, but when successful, it is experienced as magic. Witness the statement, “I’m seeing the ball hitting high off the wall,” followed immediately by David Ortiz’s first triple of the season, which hits high off the wall.
8. Singing Sweet Caroline at the end of the 8th separates new Red Sox fans from old Red Sox fans. Neil Diamond is no better 30 years on.
9. Walking a mile to escape the crowd and waiting for “Mom” to come pick you and your son up is one of the great underrated pleasures of fatherhood.
10. Once home, life resumes quickly.
Lily Allen vs. Renee Fleming
ZiBlog is ingesting Staycation culture this week at such a dizzying clip that it’s hard
to find time to process. Day 2 saw
a failure to join the throng making pop pilgrimage to the House of Blues to see Lily Allen.
A little dispassionate research, ahem, finds Ms. Allen appearing of the cover of Q The Music magazine with panthers, and a listen to her combo of throwback sweet 50s tone, and nasty anguish suggests the flip side of the Amy Winehouse coin. And somewhere in Chicago Liz Phair is waiing, "I invented this, where's my check!"
Meanwhile, back In the real-world, ZiSpouse and I did attend perhaps the polar opposite in the world of vocal
art/entertainment: Renee Fleming, the friendly, approachable diva, at ancient but acoustically gorgeous Boston Symphony Hall.
At high-aht events like these, I always feel a little apart, an observer from another world, that gets let in on a secret. I try to minimize the cynicism of “Oh, God, the man in the tweed jacket is ordering two tiny bottles of Veuve Cliquot” at intermission, and enjoy.
Compare and contrast to Ballet Jazz de Montreal: there we were in the comfy second row,
Symphony Hall we were all the way at the back on hard 
seats. BJM was loud, joyous, sweaty, breathy,
bodily, and of the moment. Fleming was quiet,
ethereal, the voice in the wind, aiming to raise a delicate spirit within… ah,
I see, Veuve Cliquot is the perfect accompaniment.
The program was all 20th century. The first piece announced the agenda: those hearing amelodic, “pling – plong – BLEHHH!” when they think 20th century music would have their prejudices confirmed by Andre Previn’s opener. Yet, God, what a voice. The program quoted the phrase “liquid gold” and I’m not going to do much better.
Then there was lots of German stuff. Richard Strauss, her favorite, occasioned anecdotes/information, about the Great Man in his Bayern aerie, composing while looking out on the German mountains and mist. It’s a very different kind of beauty/aesthetic pleasure, that High German thing. It was good to experience it a little better, but it’s the cheap, Italian stuff that still gets my vote.
Springsteen-like, Fleming gave 5 encores, communed with the audience, was a fan as much as a star, got a sing-along going on “I Could Have Danced All Night,” sang a “Summertime,” that messed with the melody and rhythm like Rickie Lee Jones, and then, when she had us firmly in her lap, gave us one more Richard Strauss (“The music that is closest to my heart,”) an art song called “Morgen” so beautiful it seemed like it came from another, better world. ( I realize now that this is like saying to a Dylan fan, "he played this song called, "Visions of Johanna," that was really pretty good, but what can I say?)
No panthers, no heavy mascara, no nasty lyrics. Just a thin high wire of beauty to carry along through the week.
Next up: Red Sox Patriots Day game, and an in-store reading my current rave/fave author, Geoff Dyer, an event that is to me, what a U2 concert is to others.
Unbrand My Heart: Panormous
Pizza hut:
Panormous. I first saw this
ad watching sports in January. I thought it was on the Super Bowl, but a check reveals it wasn't, at least nationally. (btw, is this not the promise of the information superhighway fulfilled? The ability to check in an instant what commercials ran on every Super Bowl?) Part of the disturbing thing about being exposed to 4,000 ad impressions a day, as the average American is, is that the ads form a kind of constantly running subconscious dream life in the movie theater in the back of your head, and trying to sort out what's what, and where it came from is a little like trying to identify a particular cupful of water as it rushes down the Colorado River. At any rate, it’s back for spring, it seems. Interesting idea. Take Jesus’s loaves and fishes
miracle, where he fed a huge and unexpected Woodstock-size crowd with just a
couple of pieces of bread and sardines (AN Wilson says he just got everybody to
share, but that’s a whole other story), a lovely parable about living in a
community…. And make it about pizza.
From Pizza Hut. The miracle
of eating pizza, that, Christ-like, never ends, at a party with your buds. And your Bud LIghts, I suppose. “We’re never gonna finish,” say young Buck at the end. Interesting that it was -- ahem -- resurrected -- on Easter/Passover week. I know you're supposed to make your product appear magical and all, but the chains certainly seemed to have moved downfield toward the apocalypse on this one. And that the only online
comments are to the effect that it’s not truth in advertising. The pizza runs out. Sometimes I worry for us.
More Food for Film
Woody Allen, Sleeper, 1973
Overwhelming response so far on Facebook to request for favorite food scenes in film. While I'm working on FB integration, here they are, thanks everyone, preserved for posterity, keep them coming. I'll be working on some sort of ideational superstructure to provide enough excuse to watch scenes like Woody Allen in Sleeper beating a man senseless with a strawberry. As we used to say at Nova.... only one thing is certain... more research is needed.
Marcy Strickler McCreary at 9:01pm April 9. young frankenstein. when teri garr says to gene wilder, "you haven't touched your food," and he puts his fingers in his food and says, "there i touched it." a close second is the "sexual" chicken eating scene from tom jones. third, john belushi in animal house going down the cafeteria line.
Beth Hoppe at 9:06pm April 9 There are soo many! The whole movie Big Night. When Harry Met Sally - the orgasm scene in the diner isn't exactly about food, but it is punctuated with "I'll have what she's having. "Food Fight!" in Animal House. or "I'm a zit. Get it?"I'm just scratching the surface...'
Ellen Berman Murphy at 9:11pm April 9 easy...Chocolat, the movie!! I remember being entranced with the many scenes of Juliette Binoche mixing the velvety chocolate in her store, and making the beautiful treats, which worked like a magic potion on the irritable citizens of the town.
Jon Goldman at 9:19pm April 9 what about the most disgusting scene with food. Life of Brian? (ed. Meaning of Life?) ( one of the Pythons eats til he bursts. Literally. and then there is "come up to the lab and see what's on the slab...( Rocky Horror-- meatloaf gets- ahem- eaten) But the most beautiful is Babette's feast.
Lisa Mozden at 9:25pm April 9 ray liotta freaking out while making the sauce in goodfellas, and what about the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover?!
Marcy Strickler McCreary at 9:27pm April 9. like water for chocolate -- if i recall, food as replacement for sex because they couldn't be together.
Marcy Strickler McCreary at 9:28pm April 9 when tom hanks eats the little corn on the cobs at the company christmas party in Big.
bl: Cagney giving (damn, who?) the grapefruit in the face in ... public enemy? the tom jones parody in bananas. the ugliest dinner ever in "cache" "you've outdone yourself." oh, eating raoul. and "Soylent Green... is PEOPLE!" Age of Innocence overhead table tracking shot.... Tampopo homeless guys teach kid to make a perfect omelet...
Marcy Strickler McCreary at 9:38pm April 9 Parents. a B-movie send up where the son suspects his parents are cannibals, and they ARE! The scenes of Jo Beth Williams cooking are creepy.
bl: jennifer jason leigh baking the REALLY BAD lemon pie for alec baldwin to see if he's lying about how good it is in Miami Blues. Arsenic and Old Lace. brownies in i love you alice b tolklas. pastrami sandwiches in bway danny rose... come to think of it the frozen tv dinner in there for thanksgiving. sniff. that was sweet. the pies in Waitress. and twin peaks. oh! and katie pre-crazy holmes in Pieces of April, not cooking tgiving dinner for her folks
Lisa Mozden at 10:00pm April 9 jack nicholson-five easy pieces-chicken salad sandwich, hold the chicken
Maria Daniels at 10:35pm April 9 Raising Arizona - budweiser and chicken and biscuits - "think about it, H.I."
Noah Smith at 11:02pm April 9. Beth took my top choices. Add many scenes from "Diner," mooching food and of course the popcorn box. "Two hard boiled eggs" are a key part of the state room scene in "A Night at the Opera." "Ratatouille" has some good stuff -- the best being when a bite of the title dish sends the critic into a flashback. "Willy Wonka" comes to mind. "Be Our ... Read MoreGuest" from "Beauty and the Beast" involves food. The hard boiled eggs from "Cool Hand Luke." Steve Martin asking the waiter to get the snails off Bernadette Peters' escargot in "The Jerk." It's perhaps not the highest brow stuff but the dinner scene with all the flatulence in the Eddie Murphy "Nutty Professor" is damned funny (and that brings up the beans scene in "Blazing Saddles"). I suppose "Silence of the Lambs" kinda counts. And, since no one else has mentioned it -- the food+sex scenes in "Last Tango in Paris" and "9 1/2 Weeks" ... and the parody of the latter in the first "Hot Shots."
Don Hamerman at 11:36pm April 9 I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! d d lewis there will be blood not my favorite, but memorable
Noah Smith at 12:54am April 10 There is the "leave the gun, take the cannoli" scene in "Godfather" (and I guess Vito dies while eating oranges) but the food's pretty secondary. It's not a great movie, but Jeff Bridges as the president in "The Contender" uses food well, like ordering a shark sandwich to intimidate someone. That movie also has Gary Oldman trying to get ... vegetarian Joan Allen to try some steak. Nice moment in "Castaway" where Tom Hanks is back home and looking at the giant crab legs at his welcome home party. Some good food stuff in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" ("He don't eat no meat? Okay, I'll make lamb!") -- yeah, I know the movie doesn't hold up, but you didn't say they had to be really GOOD movies ... "Better off Dead" has that claymation fast food sequence, and "Fast Times" has Judge Reinhold's fast food jobs. Great moment in "Blues Brothers" where Elwood orders dry toast and Jake orders four chickens and a Coke.
Andrea Cross at 4:19am April 10 Breakfast at Tiffanys. Stand By Me pie eating contest (ugh!) Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom (living food)
Don Hamerman at 9:04am April 10 hello, my name's forrest, forrest gump. you want a chocolate? (just saying) /// there's a great scene in ?? Suspicion -- closeup of a poisoned glass of milk being taken to Ingrid Bergman...
Marcy Strickler McCreary at 9:13am April 10 "whatever happened to baby jane" - betty davis serving the dead rat to joan crawford!
Melanie Wallace at 10:23am April 10 what about eating in the movie Chocolat?
Scott Ferson at 10:41am April 10 has anyone said lunch in "The Breakfast Club"? High school cliques defined through food
bl: gordon gekko presenting charlie sheen with a lunch of raw red meat in wall street.
Andrew Clarke at 12:39pm April 10 Anthony Hopkins preparing some Ray Liotta sweetbreads in the Silence of the Lambs sequel. That 3 minute, no dialogue omelette scene at the end of Big Night.
Janis Henwood Khorsi at 1:39pm April 10 How about this wonderful little film, "Passionada", filmed on location in New Bedford, MA in 2002? A quirky love affair with the most amazing seafood/pasta/veggie smorgesbord ever! I loved how "passionate" the characters were about love, secrecy, and food simultaneously!
bl: mystic pizza...oh my god, the 80s
Kim Anton Myatt at 10:35am April 11. A little late on this, but I was just remembering last night how much I *love* the mutton eating that goes on in Errol Flynn's Robin Hood. =)
Kevin Jones at 6:00pm April 12 La grande bouffe, every frame of it. A bunch of wealthy Parisian men decide to commit suicide by over eating, overindulgence in a variety of ways. There's a fart scene that can only be described as heroic.
Murakami Runs, Loses Cat
Haruki Murakami is sort of the Japanese Kurt Vonnegut. He's got a huge youth following even though he's pushing 60; he's written a whole lot of books that are really similar to one another, and collectively create a strange just slightly imaginary world that vibrates at its own unique frequency. He's not entirely happy with his homeland. And, like Vonnegut, he's regularly derided by critics, yet also wins lots of literary awards. This didn't seem to bother either of them. "I'm no artist," he says --- that's Murakami, not Vonnegut, in the book I just finished reading/listening to, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running."
Murakami's been distance running on and off for 30 years. If, like me, you like to run a little, you're middle-aged, and you're a writer who's looking for inspiration to go the distance, you're a Murakami fan, and, also, bonus, if you run in Cambridge, Mass... I have a book for you. (ed's note: the word 'run' when applied to me should be adjusted in the mind to read, 'trudge.' )
Er, or half of it is. I read a review in the NY TImes that basically said it was the worst piece of drivel ever committed to print -- I exaggerate, a little. But it'll keep you goin' around Fresh Pond.**
Two stories from it'll give you the feel. And maybe even a feel for why a) he's derided, b) he's got a huge Grateful Dead like following, and c) every blogger who reads a Murakami book ends up blogging about him. (google search "Haruki Murakami post" and you get 340,000 results... well, okay, 103 if you put all three words together, but still there are more than one blog that's titled "shovelling cultural snow," which is what an HM character calls reviewing pop culture... I know because I considered it for the title of this blog ).
This is the true-life story of how Haruki Murakami started writing novels. He was a layabout pretty much, enthusiastic about only jazz, and maybe his pet cat. (More than two of his novels begin with a guy who is a layabout pretty much, who seems enthusiastic only about jazz and his cat. When the cat goes missing, he sets out to find it... and Murakami-world starts to unfold). His father-in-law (in real life now) sets him up to run a jazz club, and he makes a big success of it. Settles into routine.... work all night, smoke three packs a day, drink, eat, go home at 3 am, sleep all day. This goes on for several years. Then, one night off, he's at a baseball game. Big fan. And then, depending on which version of the story you've heard, and I'm going with this one, this American player hits a double... lands, bounces up and hits the wall, the fielder grabs it as it falls, turns and throws to second. And Murakami instantly thinks. "Hey. I could write a novel." He starts that night and writes every night for six months. Sends the finished product --- written in pen on loose leaf sheets, the only copy - to a publisher and goes back to work. Six months later, book is published, wins best first novel award. And he's off.
He figures he'd better get in shape if he's going to be a novelist, so he reverses his life, sleeps all night, writes all day.... and runs.
Second story: a raft of Harvard undergrads blow by him running on the Charles. Murakami is competitive and doesn't like this much. But he's a writer, so he exacts his revenge through observation: he describese their identical blonde ponytails, their air of confidence, the suspicion that they have passed many... have been passed by few. "Middle-distance runners," he says. They're fast, but you can't keep that pace up. They won't know what to do when the hard trouble hits. Distance runners will muddle through. They know how to manage with the limited skills they have. They know how to work.
Okay, that's the first half of the book. The second half is pretty much being stuck with a guy at a cocktail party who details his triathalon training, his results, and his inexplicable detestation of spinning class.
But his novels are ummm.... intoxicating. Start chasing that cat.
*ZiNOTES: food for film hasn't gone away... it's cooking. nyuk, nyuk.
**In adding the link, I've realized that the scorched earth review was written by Geoff Dyer. I've just finished reading pretty much everything Geoff Dyer has written so far, as I'm planning a post on him later. So, okay, don't sit Dyer next to Murakami at the imaginary dinner party.
***Question. This Murakami post is a little random, off the food/film course. Is that a pleasant thing for a reader or an irritation? I'm experimenting with the blog for a while, trying to figure out what works best, what people enjoy, so let me know. Trying to be useful here, used to revising based on reader interest. lemmee know.
Twitter and Pizza Night at M.I.T.
or, 140 Characters Talk About 140 Characters.
Last eve was invited by the impressive Rena Greifinger, Harvard School of Public Health grad student, to attend “The 140-Character Mission: Social Media & Entrepreneurship.” Sponsored by the global TiE pro-entrepreneur group (everybody join), it featured a panel discussion with Joe Waters from Boston Medical Center; Ken George from WBUR; Graydon Tripp from Social Media for Social Change; and Brian Halligan, from the more profit business-oriented HubSpot, who will help your business build a killer community. The gist of it was how to use the web and social media to build awareness – ahem, raise money - for your save-the-world cause. It was one of the smarter crowds I’ve been in, and I really appreciated how everyone just got to it, and didn’t make a lot of bad jokes, which then people laugh too loudly at for complicated and perhaps unknowable reasons.
The advice was straightforward and had a few nice wrinkles. 1) build killer blog. 2) develop huge following, and community around your site. 3) the money will follow.
How to do you #1, Create “remarkable content?” Create stuff people will remark about. This is the part that reminded me the old Steve Martin routine, “You can Be... a Millionaire! ... and Pay!.... No! .. Taxes! …. First, get a million dollars.”
So, okay, you’ve got your remarkable, unique content employing words, audios, video, you’ve “expertised” yourself (wordologists sigh, groan and grumble here), and great SEO (search engine optimization, as I have learned to say) words that make you show up on Google. That’s your foundation.
2) link to everybody; leave messages everywhere; live in the blogosphere… your site isn’t just your site, its facebook, flicker, it’s all of it… you are now your 2.0 self.
- now you are the center of a vast community that knows and loves you. You
- have enriched our lives by adding value, by creating a site that is not one to
- one to many, many to one... but many to many.
- Many follow you on twitter, you are part of their lives… now you can…….
- Sell….Them… Things…. Like good causes.
So, this is great, and I kind of loved it and I’m taking notes, and signing up for the site problogger.com and the 31 Day Blog Challenge, so that I, too, can be a Personal Superbrand. So why is there the littlest bit of queasiness?
Cuz in the end it’s all selling. “My goal is not to make money,” said the charming, likable, apparently brilliant, and very commonsensical Brian Halligan, “my goal is to create a community.” And then… make money off of that? I saw the CEO of AOL once, and he said the company’s mission was to make people happy. I told that to the brilliant Owen Williams, who commented.... “oh barf.”
The key is to be a human being and engage. So is that so different from a car salesman? Does it make the web one big marketing tool? Does it bring the somewhat alienating frame of economic exchange (the cash nexus, Thomas Carlyle called it) down to the level of everyday “How’s the weather?” human exchange? Well…. I dunno.
It’s like when I read about people volunteering to plug products in their everyday lives… buzzagents? Do they still have those? I’m going to think about that while I go out for my run in my new Saucony Grid Fusions.
Food for Film
Audrey Hepburn has
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Got an interesting call from my pal, the
so-dryly-witty-sometimes-you-laugh-out-loud-five-seconds-later Peter Gilbert,
the august head of the Vermont Humanities Council. Their annual two-day conference will be in November this
year, and the subject is food.
They’ve asked me to talk on Food and Film. That woke me up. I asked my facebook group for
their favorite scenes, and they poured in: When Harry Met Sally; Cool Hand Luke; Babette’s Feast (which
I suspect almost no one – including me – has actually seen); Like Water for
Chocolate, Chocolat; Tampopo; Big Night, Animal House, and on. I hope to
transfer them here and keep the conversation going, and, with any luck, the
enable comments button worked, so you can add to the list below. So, it’s pretty clear that food is a useful tool in the
filmmaker’s toolkit: sensual, the
perfect object charged up with meaning…. To what end? Is it just a tool that be used in a zillion ways, meaning-neutral, ready to stand for lust, love, aggression, commitment, hate, violence,
duplicity depending on the need?
Probably so. Still the balance tends toward the family togetherness thing. My two favorites off the
top of my head are both Thanksgiving meals: Woody Allen serving frozen turkey TV dinners to his
surrogate family of loser show-biz types in Broadway Danny Rose. And Katie
before-she-was-kidnapped-by-a-pernicious-and-litigious cult she fell in love with Tom Cruise Holmes,
in Pieces of April, meeting all her neighbors for the first time since her stove was broken and failing to
get the family meal on the table.
Both go at sentiment my favorite way – by acknowledging the tawdry hypocrisy of it all, and finding the real sentiment kicked to the curb, but still intact. Happy Ecumenical Springtime Welcoming Holidays. Eat! Eat! And tell me a favorite food scene in a movie and why.
Opening Day Poem for Bob Sheppard
Wrote this a few years ago in response to the local NPR station’s call for poems about baseball. They had me on to read it, which was fun and nervous-making. Bob Sheppard is 90 something, and started announcing Yankee games in 1951. He’ll open the new Yankee Stadium, but this is the first year he won’t announce. btw, the stunning pic of the wrecked baseball is from photographer Don Hamerman. You can read an interview with him here and buy some prints cheap, too, to hang in your classy bar.
BOB SHEPPARD
Transmigratory birds -
Orioles, Jays, Cards
In town one day, gone the next.
Our cities connect by rail by bus by train
By plane, by wire and less.
We move.
Born in the burbs, 90 miles from your
Calm, Bob Sheppard:
"Now batting. The Centerfielder. Number 7. Mickey Mantle."
And you were old then. Doing your crosswords,
Looking up at just the right moment, never
Missing a line. Your P.A. voice sitting
kindly between the squawk of the Scooter and
the Ol' Redhead, wised up, seen it all.
We migrate and grow by rail and plane and
PF Flyer - running faster, jumping higher -
Now we're minutes from Fenway, and
Sox fans, too. Proof that peace is possible.
It's all a game. And with my sons
We sit, ghost of my Dad and we and them and watch
Rootless and rooted, rooting,
And listen for you, Bob Sheppard, 92, I think you are, still there,
In between clever McCarver and professional Buck.
Look up, Bob. Look up.
"Number 2. The shortstop. Derek Jeter. Jeter."
The game goes on.
LOST like that
There’s a lot that’s laughable about LOST. The “dun-dun-dun” lines (“You were right about me…. I am a killer…” BANG!; “Hello, Ben. Welcome to the Land of the Living.” “Why would I work for a genocidal maniac? – pause – “I did.”); the amazing coincidence that pretty much every woman ensnared in the island’s web is either Gap quirky-beautiful or an international fashion-model-level stunner; the Star-Trek like metaphorical plots and ridiculous alien killers like the smoke monster; the complete disregard for the basics of explaining the source of the food, fresh water and the endless supply excellent skin and hair care products; and of course, the convoluted plot line, spiraling deeper and deeper into intricacies Talmudic scholars would be hesitant to parse. So why does it have a hold over so many, me included? Why do we find ourselves wondering about time travel, fate, reason, the end of humanity, God, and which perfectly coiffed female will wind up with which perfectly unshaven male at the end.
Part of it is the fun of all of the above; part of it is the lush Hawaiian green, so comforting to see in the gray New England winter; and some of it, I am convinced, is that we just don’t know what’s going on. Kind of like life that way. (dun-dun-dun!”)
There seem to be two main schools of thought among the Losties. First is the time loop theory, which posits the island located on the other side of a wormhole that leads to the past… or various places in time, able to be shuttled about from year to year by turning a frozen donkey wheel, which serves like the crazy op-art Time Tunnel of the 60s tv show with the guys in the turtlenecks. The tortuous ins-and-outs of this theory was brilliantly brought into the show itself last week, when lovable Hurley and irritating Miles had a conversation lifted directly from the blogs as they tried to understand the plot of their own lives, and failed.
The second theory, more complicated but more intriguing to me at least, is the mirror matter theory, which suggests that the island is made of dark matter – mirror matter – and what’s right handed in the real world is left handed in the mirror world, and that the island is an invisible moon, orbiting directly through the earth’s interior and out again. It’s sorta kinda based on advanced physics no one can understand, except for a singular popularizer, an Australian named Robert Foote. The theory guesses that the mysterious foot monument on the island is a sly tribute to him.
None of these satisfy. And while the creators say they will explain all in the end, it’s the lack of explanation that makes it work. It’s an amazing trick really. A series running for five years so far, on the basis of information withheld. The lack of exposition makes it work.
Imagine if we knew.
“There’s this really cool series about this island that’s lost in time.”
“There’s this show about the parallel universe.”
Groan. Any sports on? It’s the mystery, the possibility, the wondering that makes it work. And that makes it match this moment in the culture, when absolute answers to all questions are increasingly viewed with suspicion, as the dangerous road to violent fundamentalism on the one side and George W. Bush’s “no doubt” presidency of disaster.
And aren’t we all like Hurley and Miles? Trying hard to understand the plot of our own lives, and failing in the end? Religious faith might be right. Pure science might be right. The Buddhists might be right. And then again, no. Lost is the perfect metaphor for our agnostic moment, a possibly healthy embrace of poet John Keats’s “negative capability.”
Keeping two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time; resisting conclusion or explanation. Lost… like us.
SPARK, Zambia and Me
Zi Creative’s first international adventure is under way. We’re putting together a training tape for use in Zambia, called “Play with a Purpose.” The idea is for clinicians working with children to look for developmental milestones during their medical exams. Taking note of age appropriate grasping, baby talk, crawling, walking, talking skills in children from infancy to age five, it turns out, can be a huge
diagnostic key to
spotting HIV/AIDS and other medical problems, and can be a great no-cost weapon in the fight against AIDS in developing nations.
The project is a collaboration of ... ready? The International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment at Columbia University (ICAP); the SPARK program at the Boston Medical Center; and the Pediatric Center of Excellence in Lusaka, Zambia.
We’re working with a production company in Lusaka called Elixur with a gent named Fred Phiri, and he’s terrific. Production turns out to be an international language.
btw, there’s an editorial in today’s Boston Globe about the SPARK program, which serves some of Boston’s most vulnerable children, and happens to be headed up by Zi Creative spouse and Advisory Board Head, Dr. Martha Vibbert.
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