American Fez

Son of Pioneers

What sinister questions squirm in the mind of this shiftless, bowler-hatted character, brooding above roseate ripples in Childe Hassam’s impressionist painting of Beacon Hill and the River Charles?

Maybe our man is planning to burglarize Oliver Wendell Holmes’ house, not far from where he leans against that wooden railing. Although, judging by the brief perusals of his work I’ve made, I doubt that Oliver Wendell Holmes possessed much worth stealing. So perhaps he is merely experiencing some sort of premonition; of how the four-door sedan will one day replace that horse and carriage; that rollerblading will supersede the penny-farthing, and skateboards eventually supplant the unicycle.
Or could he possibly be mulling over the idea of producing a magic-lantern show about the river?

Pleasure Craft

For some reason, the so-called "Salt and Pepper Bridge" that spans Boston's Charles River, subject of my projected film essay, always reminds me of Canaletto's rendering of Westminster Bridge under construction; undoubtedly similar arches and decorative masonry, wooden landing dock and those faint traces of far shore buildings encourage such mental comparisons.

Of course, from Canaletto's day until the very early twentieth century, city rivers provided lightermen, eelers, dockers, ferrymen and assorted urchins of all kinds with some sort of scratchy living, and consequently canvases from those distant times are teeming with water-logged figures and fishy characters. But gaze across the rippling expanse of the river today and you will only witness municipal numbered sailing craft giving lessons, daily tourist trips via "duck" boat or gondola, various university rowing crews and perhaps a canoe or two.
Where have all our mutual friends gone?

(I discovered this photograph of the Salt and Pepper Bridge on Google images, I've no idea who took it, but you can make the visual comparison with Canaletto's Westminster Bridge for yourselves)

Will The Real Max Schmitt Please Stand Up

Max Schmitt appears very apprehensive, doesn't he, glancing timidly over his shoulder, as if he expects to receive megaphoned orders from the river bank to perform his triumphant feat all over again. Shades of Doctor Caligari's stupefied somnambulist: "Listen to me, Schmitt, and do as I say: you will row in a single sculls championship on the Schuylkill River. Those are your orders. Do not fail me."

Or perhaps Max's rather downcast countenance is more akin to that of some sullen virtuoso violinist forced by financial woes to play a note perfect nocturne in the insufferable bourgoise salon of Mrs Philistine, and consequently must stand and smilingly acknowledge the applause of musical imbeciles. Then again, Max was probably just one of those typical droopingly moustachioed Victorian sporty types who were never very much pleased about anything.

Note: This great painting by Thomas Eakins is one of the inspirations for my film

As I Was Saying

If I may paraphrase George Santayana - and I think I may - then those who do not remember their self-aggrandizing conversations are condemned to repeat them until they either bore their listeners witless or are unmasked as inveterate liars. But absent-mindeded braggart interlocutors are not the only verbal jousters embraced by this cautionary apothegm of mine, since those who speak via the medium of cellular telephonic technology must also regurgitate their sentences again and again. Such problems with mobile intercommunication, however, are less entangled in the vagaries of human memory than boastful talk, being more concerned with elemental abberations.
For instance, whenever I make an alfresco call a violent maelstrom suddenly erupts from nowhere, forcing me to stagger down the street desperately clinging to my phone like some sort of pantomime comedian demonstrating the power of nature's fury.
Or, talking while strolling through tranquil scenery, spaghetti streams of gridlocked highways crammed with endless lines of honking, belching vehicles will swiftly spring up around me as if I were an animated character in a 1950s cartoon demonstrating the evils of car exhaust pollution.
Either way, I must screamingly recite my every utterance at least four or five times to ensure that the person I'm speaking with can understand what I'm saying. Annoyed and frustrated, the listener will often hang-up, demanding that I ring back later, although, by then, I will often have completely forgotten the topic that merited my original call. Obviously, at this point, Santayana's quote should be modified to "those who do not place coherent calls are condemned to repeat them."

Domus Aurea

Prolonging my recent rich application of classical allusion and longueurs to this my personal forum, I trust that my treasured citizenship is now entering a golden period as happy as that enjoyed by Romans from the death of Domitian until the accession of Commodus. Here is a short poem to celebrate those magnificant Trajan horses that will speed my chariot from A to B:

The House of Jupiter Triumphant

The hammer reproves the nail.
Ow!
Brick, plaster, wood and steel.
Bend unto the mason's will.
Lo!
The hod of household Gods
Flashes in the rafters
Ooh!
Where is my mortgage calculator?

---
As noted previously by readers of this blog, I have absolutely no sense of poetic meter at all. So, if you intend to sing my poem - as I hope you will - then you'll just have to make do as best you can. Enjoy!

Let Me Speak to the Pilot

As previously stated, the household crosscurrents currently causing turbulence within my personal aircraft cabin as I navigate the skies of life will not disrupt this blog's flight path too much. However, commencement of principal photography upon my film shall be delayed until mid-June at the earliest.
But such a suspension of cinematic activity is a mere trifle compared with two other logistical problems that have arisen, both demanding serious attention:

1. The growth of vegetation: when I was constructing storyboards, I forgot to take into account that some of the scenic vistas I included in my sequences would soon become obscured by leaves and blossoms.

2. People: rollerbladers, cyclists, runners, joggers, drunks, bums, and dogs; they all enjoy promenading along the river bank in the summer months. And I don't want any ugly, sweaty people in my beautiful movie unless they be fishermen, yachtsmen or a champion single scull

Said Pliny to Tacitus

As anyone who could decipher the madness below may have understood, there is currently some slight seismic disturbance occurring at the core of my domestic administration. This means my mind will be fairly focussed upon household machinations until the end of this week. Should these volcanic rumblings continue past Friday, then I shall be trapped in a full-scale re-eruption of Vesuvius and that ashen conclusion of those houses in Pompeii. Hopefully that will not be the case. Consequently, further posting this week will probably be erratic until Monday.
Hail the dictator, Stephenesque Imperator.

The New Suetonian

It was during the consulship of Gnaius Pompous that Cesarian insulted his fellow tribune Weirdo by taking a Gaulish freedwoman named Algorithm for his wife. Observing good omens in the discovery of a brown snail amongst the entrails of a slaughtered ox, Gnaius invited Cesarian to dine at his home on the Palatine in the company of his own wife Cuntia and her pet hippopatamus, and it was upon this auspicious occasion that the arrogant Cesarian coined his famously pithy report of the event: Devouri. Evacuati. Leavei: "Ate. Shat. Left."

Not wishing to be outmaneuvered, Weirdo appeared before the Senate in a toga made of wild boar hide that had been skinned and tanned on the Field of Mars and dedicated to Janus, demanding that Cesarian's half-brother Bonanza should be exiled to the Shittian region of Nowheranum on the banks of the Wobble (now Fairfield, Connecticut). Only Cicero and Cato denounced Weirdo, and only then because they were afraid Cesarian's six legions would march against Rome as they were still loyal to the memory of Bonaza's father, the former dicator Sullen Octopus Bonanzus. Making a note to himself in the new pocket calender of his own devising, Cesarian crossed the palms of the Rubicscubicon's Keeper with silver and entered the Temple of the Vespa Virgins, installing himself as "Protector of the Sacred Scooter." And so began the period known as the Third Confusion.

Not Bad Friday

The oldest wisecracks are often the most amusing, and I'll wager that this one has been invoking mirth in penitent bellies since circa 162AD. But anyway, overhearing some bearded heretic abuse the concept of "organised religion" this Good Friday morning, I enquired of the Ishmael if he then favored the alternative: disorganised religion ....
"Just where the Hell is that bloody Letter To The Ephesians? Probably fallen down the back of the altar, I'll be bound! Somebody really ought to give this Sacristy the once over with a vacuum one of these days, it's like the Catacombs of Saint Detritus in here, Patron Saint of Toxic Waste. What? What's that Brother Magoo? The Veil of the Temple hath been wrent in twain again? Well can't you just nail it back together for now. Jesus Christ! Do I have to do everything around here? And can one of you find a 'caution wet floor' sign, please? Some graceless fool has knocked the holy water over and we don't want the faithful slipping and sliding in the aisles and breaking their necks. Father Felix would crucify me."
... It's the way I tell 'em.

Reduction By Pegs

Whenever a triumphant Roman general was awarded the classical world’s equivalent of a ticker-tape parade, receiving the accolades of his fellow citizens as he swept through the city streets at the head of a long column of caged prisoners and captured treasure, a portentious slave was always selected to share the chariot of honor and assigned the Republic-preserving task of whispering the ego-deflating refrain, “Remember you are human” repeatedly into the victor’s laurel-edged ear.
It seems to me that it would improve our quality of life greatly if this venerable tradition was re-introduced in our current, celebrity obsessed age:
Oscar-winning actors ushered to the podium by bit-part extras who remind them, "Remember you are actually very boring and can't really act;"
Politicians informed "Remember you are merely a puppet of mega-corporate interests and do not hold a mandate from the people."
The commment, "Remember you are just a self-important drone with an internet connnection" posted on every single blog entry of every single blogger.
Ah yes. We still can so much from Roman civilisation ... now, where have those entrails got to.

Once In Evening Dress

Tuesday concluded with the relatively enervating news that I have been asked to judge a beauty contest. I have always possessed an especially discerning eye for the female form divine, and so I am pleased that this critical faculty will finally be employed for healthily competetive rather than lustily lubricious purposes.
However, the organizers were somewhat taken aback to learn that I intend to award marks for originality of appearance. For I am no fan of conventional conceptions of womanly comeliness, nor orthodox notions concerning feminine glamor for that matter ... and besides, since the contest is billed as "Miss Fried Dough 2006," I don't think the chicks will be up to much anyway. So what the Hell!

Utility Futility

Keyspan Energy, in possession of the local gas fiefdom, have wasted my entire morning. Apparently their maintenance schedule is as ephemeral and gaseous as the product they supply. It had been arranged that one of their shadowy functionaries would replace my gas meter today a some point between 0800 hours and 1300 hours, with the provisio that I would be at home to meet him, but such a will-o-the-wisp in oily overalls never appeared and so my precious time has been callously evaporated never to be lived again.
As you may have surmised, I am one of those restless people who can do nothing else while waiting but sit, pace and wait; watching the clock circumnavigate itself again and again without discovery or reward.

Alexander The Fete

Everybody ignores a parade these days, apparently; unless, of course, there happens to be a Saint Patrick inspired drinking 'seissun' at the end of it; or an alfreso gay disco is promised; or inflatable Disney characters are involved. Fried dough, tortured peanuts and sugary drinks obliterate all cultural bounderies at these events: "And lo, the Croatian candy apple did lay down with the Bosnian bubblegum. Roll up, roll up."

This past Sunday, however, celebrating their independence with a parade along normally busy Boylston Street, Boston's Greek communtity was profundly snubbed.
I've seen more people lining the streets to get a glimpse of fourth-rate celebrities when it's raining out.
The reason for this lack of interest is undoubtedly because, still dominated by its Orthodox Church, expatriot Greek culture offers nothing to the American consumer.
If I may play the Devils' Advocate: there is no heavy drinking involved; there is no techno music played; there are no Hallmark "Happy Saint Papadoupolous Day" cards to buy and no "Kiss Me I'm Macedonian" t-shirts for sale. Instead there is a solemnly black-bearded Patriarch marching behind a brass band while someone dressed like an extra from a B-feature "Jason and the Argonauts" lumbers on afterwards. There are children attired as if they belong in an eighteenth-century orphanage and men in white frocks and curly shoes with scarlet pom-poms stitched on the end of them. It could be scene from "Rocky & Bullwinkle."

But all this stoically superannuated pomp and circumstance, of course, is what makes the Greek festival, unlike so many others that cater to the lowest common ethnic denominator, truly unique, enjoyable, and worthwhile.
I shall return next year, even if I am the only non-Greek there.

Achieving Madness

My regular - and kindly indulgent - readers will be wondering why I am suddenly making a film. Well, I've examined methods of posting video clips to the web and found them all either technologically unsatisfactory and aesthetically unacceptable: the degree of compression required is too great; the variations of color reproduction are too extreme; even streaming internet video very quickly becomes stagnent. This is why I have chosen to shoot and edit my film in High Definition: paraphrasing Turner in Performance: "I don't want some washed-up couch potato watching my beautiful movie on their unfashionable and outmoded NTSC or PAL home theater system." In other words, I'm a control freak and a snob.
The film itself will probably be boring. It's about the fact that my city river, the Charles, no longer flows into the sea. But the quality of tedium involved need not concern you, since you won't be able to watch it anyway unless you have HDTV access.
Meanwhile, here is a list of fine musical moments that I have lately been lending an ear to while re-writing pages of script and assembling elegant storyboards. An imaginary soundtrack, if you will, that plays some role in creating the film's construction:

1. "Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin
2. "River Man" by Nick Drake
3. "My Silks and Fine Array" by Julie Covington
4. "Starless" by Acid Mothers Temple
5. "Farewell, Farewell" by Fairport Convention

Storyboarding

With reference to this and this I have compiling digital storyboards for my film, provisionally entitled "Downstream." I intend to commence shooting in early May, and I am desperately hoping that errant foliage will not obscure any of my chosen vistas. These still shots, taken from the river bank this morning, are from the "Pyramids of Boston" section of the film.

Boston's skyline is dominated by those twin edifices of Insurance, John Hancock and the Prudential. That ominous pyramid above is actually the top of a child's climbing frame with the Hancock Tower brooding in the background.

Above: the neon Citgo sign in Kenmore Square looking very Edward Hopperesque, if I say so myself. The melancholia of advertising become treasured landmark.

Above: a veritable Tomb For Vacationers: the Hyatt Hotel on the Charles.

Above: "The Athens of America" was once built along the banks of the Charles. What are they building now? The pyramid here is a sort of visual ellipsis, as you can plainly, er, see.

Whitney Perennial

I spoke with a huddle of RISD students who had recently returned from viewing the 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York. They had hated it. The reason? "Too much boring video art."
One wonderful boon bestowed upon us by the explosion of desktop digital video is that it has become very easy to produce quality videos with reasonably inexpensive equipment. The advent of DV cameras, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Flash animation and so on mean that anybody who knows how to work a computer can make interesting motion pictures. The process has been demystified and, in the eye of the non-curatorial beholder at least, meritocracized. Alas, those wild-haired, isosceles-bearded pseuds who select artworks for display are still in love with bad chroma-key feedback and tedious loops of over-exposed and grainy news footage shot off the artist's living room television. Most normal people now realize that this particular genre of video art is not only stylistically defunct, but also stone-age technology. In the world of science, once an experiment has benn done it is either classed a failure or a success and then the scientists move on. In the realms of art, unfortunately, so-called experimental work tends to be interminably repeated and repeated year after year; it still remains 'experimental' long after the experiment has been judged a failure by everybody but the artists and their obsequious curators.
You can read a proper review of the Whitney 2006 show here

Come On Down (and Down and Down and Down ...)

Contemporary advertising, of course, mostly only advertises itself. The traditional thirty-second spot has become a jumble of uncoordinated and disassociated images eventually resolving themselves into an Odor Eaters logo. Consumers no longer purchase a particular tooth whitening product because it bleaches dentures more effectively than its competitors, but because trendy agency Rippov Plaigarist & Hack Worldwide created the ads. Indeed, the casual observer is forced to conclude that the most successful re-branding of all has actually been the profession of Advertising Executive who has been morphed from the evil and insidious grub of yore into a cool and creative butterfly; the indie filmmaker of the commerical sector.
Fine artists, 'alternative' musicians and a-list celebrities now rush to lend their considerable names and talents to television commercials and printed promotions in a manner that would have been considered almost unthinkable ten years ago. Feature film directors used to direct TV spots for the money; now they do it for the hip factor. And why not? Ads are not only the best things of television, they are quite often the best moving pictures anywhere.
My least favorite ads are the iPod billboards: a rastafarian silhouette jiving against a color field of deepest purple erected beside another iPod poster featuring a hippy-chick 'shaking her junk' on a blue background erected beside another iPod poster featuring ... and on and on like a depressing hall of mirrors reflecting the most mindless lifestyles conceivable.

Blossom Dearie

Spring is the Doris Day of seasons. What's a cute little bud like you doing in a place like this?
Ah yes. Eostre’s irresistible conga line of colorfully flowering plants celebrate the generous gifts of Germinal at the April Hop.
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
So I took this picture yesterday on Commonwealth Avenue.

Quotation comes from T.S Eliot, of course.
Eostre is the Saxon goddess of Spring, whom the modern festival of Easter is named after.

Poohcasting

As a witty and fun alternative to tediously technological mp3 downloads and expensive, trendy digital personal audio devices like iPods, I am extremely proud to announce that this blog is now available as a Poohcast.
What is a Poohcast? Well, to put it in a nutshell, I record this blog into the voice box of a cuddly Winnie the Pooh Toy that talks when you pull the string hanging out of its neck so you can hear it in the comfort of your own gym or office.
If you subscribe to my Poohcast service, every day I will send you a brand new cuddly Pooh Bear with my latest American Erewhonist blog encoded inside it. All you have to do is pull the string! Not only do you get to hear the authentic voice of this blog, you will also build an unrivalled collection of Winnie the Pooh dolls! All for only $45.99 a day!
Why not sign up now!