Nightlife Regimentation and Unscripted Experimentation

The Star.com featured an interesting article today on the city and night life entitled "Longing For Nightlife's Feigned Danger."

'"...since so much of our social and work life has become regimented, a night on the town becomes one of the few spaces that allow personal expression or experimentation with our identities.
The problem is that urban nightlife has become just as regimented as any other part of our workaday lives," argues Grazian. The solution, then, is to ascribe risk where none exists, or "seek out unpredictability in highly scripted ways."'

David Grazian is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of the new book On The Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife.
Personally, I would have liked more analysis and less description. However, since not everyone experiences urban spaces the same way, it is helpful to read documented research from someone like Grazian.
An interesting piece overall. Read more here.
graph per star.com

Charlie Wilson's War: Flawed Man's Journey

I saw Charlie Wilson's War last night and I was moderately surprised. Since it's a Mike Nichols film (Nichols has yet to disappoint me), I had hidden hopes for it.

Other than the sex, drugs, and war motif, Nichols features something else: Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman plays a CIA operative named Gust Avrakotos and he steals every scene in which he finds himself. There are few roles in which Hoffman does not manage to shine; this is not one of them. His screen dynamics with Tom Hanks et al., were appealing and the fast-paced dialog between the two oozed humor and intelligence. Hoffman is the kind of actor who makes all in his presence look bearable, including Julia Roberts.
Overall, I would say Charlie Wilson's War delivers.
Here are some quotes I remember from last night's viewing:

1) Can we just take a moment to reflect on all of the ways that you are a douche bag?

2)You know you've reached rock bottom when you're told you have character flaws by a man who hanged his predecessor in a military coup.

3) Charlie Wilson: You're no James Bond.
Gust Avrakotos: You're no Thomas Jefferson, either. Let's call it even.

“Last Year at Marienbad”

The NY Times has an excellent piece today on the Alain Resnais film “Last Year at Marienbad” which first came out in the early 60's.

I developed a fascination for French cinema from the 60's when I was a junior in college circa 1998. At that time I had no interest whatsoever in getting clear answers from any filmic plot or figuring out a moral to the story. At that time, it was solely and entirely about the literal, movie-going experience. It was all a great text.

Something about the impenetrability of that cinematic experience appealed to me. That, and I truly responded to its awkwardly appealing aesthetic. It must have been congruent with something, I suppose.
If Fellini's and Antonioni's work satisfied my viewing pleasure as a teenager, French film from the 60's took the front seat when I turned 20. I loved all about it. The little black pants, the skinny ties, the decadent dresses, the impeccable hair, the conversations that were always about something else rather than the supposed premise of the film, and the endings, those seemingly incoherent endings.

And “Last Year at Marienbad” is one such example.

Mark Harris of the NY Times observes:

"In January The New York Times had run an article from Paris calling “Marienbad” the “most controversial French film ever produced,” explaining that the dispute was between those who found it “merely an exercise of style” and those who believed that the movie “succeeded in adding a new dimension of the filmmaker’s art — the process of actually portraying the drama that takes place within the human mind.”"

I concur with Harris' take. Marienbad is not about what happens to the characters on the screen, but rather what happens in the mind of the viewer. It's this very introspective journey on which one feels one can go when the lights go out at the movies that appealed to me so when but 20.

The Times article concludes:

"To revisit “Marienbad” today is to glimpse a vanished moment when American audiences drank in European films not because they were universal or “relatable,” but for their otherness, their impenetrability, their defiant contrast to the simplistic and elephantine Technicolor epics that much of Hollywood was then embracing."
Read full article here.

But Google Told Me So...

The verb to google is a high-frequency verb in my vocabulary. And googling is a high-frequency activity as well.
I gmail and basically think it’s the best service I’ve ever had. I’m also a blogger, both services being google-powered.
So, having said that, I think I can comment a bit on what I call ‘googlized behavior.’
In many a conversation, my friend, Liam and I bring up google references. I mentioned to him a while back how quite often I get emails from people who write saying things like, “so, uh, I googled you and this is the email address that popped up. So, uh, yes, how goes it?”
Liam says that at times when he wonders about what certain people he knows are up to, he turns to our friend, the google. And he gets some info. Hence, google plays the role of the reliable friend who almost always has the 411 on everyone and everybody.
However, the google experience is not the same for every onomastic designation. “Try having a name like Maggie May,” says my good friend, Maggie May, when I discuss this new entry with her. “Then a rock song written by a Brit about some other girl named Maggie May takes over. And then it’s millions of entries about some other person/character that pop up. Just where is my own version of ‘Maggie May?’ " she wonders out loud.
The discussion I just had with Maggie on the topic relates closely to the premise of this entry.
Google cannot provide absolute answers. It’s just a search engine. It can enumerate, perhaps, the work and creative activities of one, but it does not contain much else about the true physiognomy of one. Which is what most ‘healthies,’ my term for well-adjusted individuals, have in mind when googling most topics. One needs to have realistic expectations when googling.
I remember having this thought when I read a Time article about patients who are obsessed with über-detailed research about their doctors.
Here are some snippets from it:
“We had never met, but as we talked on the phone I knew she was Googling me. The way she drew out her conjunctions, just a little, that was the tip off — stalling for time as new pages loaded. It was barely audible, but the soft click-click of the keyboard in the background confirmed it. Oh, well, it's the information age. Normally, she'd have to go through my staff first, but I gave her an appointment.
…
Susan had chosen me because she had researched my education, read a paper I had written, determined my university affiliation and knew where I lived. It was a little too much — as if she knew how stinky and snorey I was last Sunday morning. Yes, she was simply researching important aspects of her own health care. Yes, who your surgeon is certainly affects what your surgeon does. But I was unnerved by how she brandished her information, too personal and just too rude on our first meeting.
…
I knew Susan was a Googler — queen, perhaps, of all Googlers. But I couldn't dance with this one. I couldn't even get a word in edgewise. So, I cut her off. I punted. I told her there was nothing I could do differently than her last three orthopedists, but I could refer her to another who might be able to help. A certain Dr. Brown, whom I'd known as a resident, had been particularly interested in her type of knee problem.
Disappointed and annoyed, Susan stopped for a beat.
"You mean Larry Brown on Central Avenue?"
"Uh, yes —" I started.
"I have an appointment with him on Friday. And, Dr. Haig?" she said…."
Read the full feature here.

Ergo, while ‘the google machine’ is wonderful, it has its limits. Google cannot provide the kinds of answers one can only get from face-to-face communication. Sorry, cyber-ites, quite often I privilege the spoken work.
It’s after all a long philosophical discussion that has not yet been resolved. What is primary, the written or the spoken word?
From Plato to Derrida, we have no verdict yet.
So, if I want to know how my friend is doing, I will simply have to call him up even though thousands of links have the 411 on him. The links don’t know that he has the flu and is feeling a bit squeamish this morning.