all the news that print will fit.
|
|
| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
|
|
Tuesday, February 15, 2005 np: glen phillips - "my own town" how little attention has to be paid to go off into your own land? i have watched students of mine in the past year and a half go nearly an entire semester without knowing the names of whole handfuls of students who share the classroom with them. i noticed today that one girl, in a class of only 26, called a boy, simply, "dude." and i could tell by her intonation and delivery that she just honestly didn't know his name. despite having heard me say it any number of times over the previous 5 weeks. how long does it take to learn something like that? is it a sign of being wrapped up in ones own self that they don't seem to latch onto anyone outside their immediate area? or am i expecting too much? i swear i remember knowing all the people's names in my classes in high school. at least by a certain point in the semester. but i've become frustrated with a severe lack of live and let live mentality. of course, my days were no golden age. this is where people who've known me can tune out. in my practical law class in high school, i defended the rights of gay couples to garner common law marriage rights and other such things. this wasn't the most popular stance in the class and when upon being asked (somewhat non-sequitoriously) if i would go out with a guy if asked out by one, i replied: "if i were gay, sure," all the males in my general vacinity made a large scene of jumping up and moving away from me. as if i'd make out with them. please. i have better taste. -- congrats to steve earle on winning the best contemporary folk album grammy for his album the revolution starts...now! this award is quickly becoming known as "the only grammy to which i pay any substantial attention." any award routinely won by people like tom waits, lucinda williams, bob dylan, etc. is alright with me. but i do have to say sorry to kanye west. you deserved better, my man. -- i saw hotel rwanda this weekend and the whole experience left me feeling hollow, much in the way other great pieces of art have done to me. i was 13 at the time the rwandan genocide was taking place. it had to be one of the most brutal i've ever read/heard about, especially that it happened within my lifetime. nick nolte's character sums up the way the rest of the world seemed to react fairly well: "You're dirt...we think you're dirt. You're not even a n-----...you're African. and it still feels like that's going on. every day. and we wonder how this happens? remember my kids who don't know the name of the kid across the room? they're the same ones who couldn't tell me what continent rwanda was on...connection? you be the judge. posted by J. Neas | 2/15/2005 10:19:00 PM
Comments:
Although I really truly love Hotel Rwanda and think it is really a great movie, I have my reservations about something, and I'm not sure I'll be able to put it into words, but I'll try:
Post a Comment
I think movies (or any art) that deals with subjects like genocide or really terrible acts - I think it risks something, and I can't quite put my finger on it. I don't believe it's exactly as Adorno said, subjugating the event to the aesthetic, necessarily, although that might play a part....More just, I feel like when we see Hotel Rwanda or one of the billion Holocaust movies, or The Killing Fields, or we read poetry by Paul Celan - it's just - I think we feel better about ourselves. We sit there for a few hours and watch this film or go to a museum and see this peice of art and we pat ourselves on the back and think we have done something good, or I believe there's that tendency. But the truth remains, whether or not we saw the movie, we haven't done shit. A million people got hacked to death with machetes, and our seeing that movie doesn't change it, and it doesn't stop us from sitting back and letting it happen again in the Sudan or God knows where else that we're not hearing about. I don't know if that made any sense, and I don't really know a solution, but I thought I'd throw it out there. |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
