Quill in Hand

While reading a friend's poetry blog, I realised that I've been neglecting my own for a while. I was working at my Masters thesis this year, and now I'm preparing for that oh-so-French ordeal, the agrégation, so I haven't had much time to publish anything lately. The last time I completed a poem was over a year ago. But I haven't been completely unproductive. At the beginning of the year, around February I think, I had an idea for a novel. It partly evolved from a different project which I was working at the year before (see here for a snippet) and which was much too ambitious for me at the time, but most of it is new. I've been thinking it over during the past six months, trying to come up with a few things. I wrote a few scenes here and there. I managed to (mentally) paint the setting. During the summer I concentrated on the characters quite a bit. They are taking shape, coming to life, becoming "fuller", which is a lot of fun. Thanks to that, I've been able to concentrate on the plot more in the past few weeks. Nothing is fixed or definitive yet, of course, but I have an idea of what I want to get at. I don't want to talk about it too much yet, but I suppose you could say that it's a sort of coming-of-age story set around a second-hand bookshop (nope it's not a Black Books rip-off, as fun as that would be!) in a fictitious town in France. I've no idea if I'll ever finish it, or ever dare show it to anyone, but still, it's something which I'm starting to get quite excited about!

PS: this is a small text I'd written with the story in mind, but I've no idea if I'll include it or not.

The meaning of life and stuff

So, what is the meaning of life ?

The question keeps popping into my head these days. It always has, I guess, but it’s been bothering me even more, lately. Frankly it's quite annoying. I mean I’d rather be left alone, left to enjoy eating Fry’s chocolate Turkish delight or drinking tea or beer or listening to the Velvet Underground or whatever, you know ? But no. Hm-hm. The Question won’t leave me five minutes’ peace. Not one single day of respite.

What makes things even more frustrating is that as a christian you’re supposed to have all of your shtuff together, you're supposed to have things more or less worked out, or at least that’s what the more sanctified (sanctimonious?) believers expect of you. You’re supposed to accept that you’re here for a fixed purpose (whatever that purpose might be) and that’s that. But it’s not as simple as that. Nothing ever is. (Except perhaps biting into a chocolate bar.) Because meaning doesn’t only come down to purpose. There’s also the question of identity. Even if you have a purpose in life, you can still wonder who you are, how, and why.

Sometimes I envy the freethinkers. No really. I really do. At least for them, the meaning of life is that there is no meaning – or at the very least, that meaning must be figured out or created out of scratch by oneself. I like that idea, probably because I’m a proud git and don’t like to have meaning shoved down my throat. I also envy the more naïve people (or maybe they’re just people of greater faith?), precisely because of the fact that they can swallow meaning (or truth, or purpose, or whatever you want to call it) as if it was maple syrup. I wish I could. At least I’d have some kind of solid framework. Still, I cross my fingers and hope that if I don’t know who/what/why I am, hopefully a Higher Power does.

Maybe the HG2G super-computer was right. Maybe the answer to life, the universe and everything really is 42.


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The Go-Getter

I'd never heard of the Go-Getter until I checked out Zooey Deschanel's filmography ; it's an indie road movie which was released in the beginning of 2007 and only ran for three days, grossing less than $12,000. Most of the cast (which is quite small), I'd never heard of before. Apart from Zooey Deschanel, the only recognisable face was Jena Malone (Donnie Darko, Into the Wild).
I loved the movie. I mentioned this in one of my last posts, but I'm a sucker for those kind of "indie" films. All the ingredients were there : an introspective anti-hero, a couple quirky characters, understated acting, the classic road movie "drive-by" scenes, and of course the trademark indie folk music (M. Ward, Animal Collective, Elliot Smith, the Black Keys).
Unoriginal, probably. Clichéd, no doubt. But it does the trick.


It's funny how different people respond so differently to works of art, be it painting, movies, music or literature. I don't think it's only to do with upbringing or education or peer influence. I can't help thinking that it has a huge deal to do with personality. I know it has its limits, but I think personality psychology could provide some answers, or at least some clues. (I've been interested in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the "Enneagram" theories lately.) For example, I wonder if certain types prefer to watch (or to work on) certain films. Maybe SP types ("Artisans") prefer quicker-paced, action and sometimes violence-orientated) movies ; and NFs ("Idealists") maybe opt for slower, more introspective films.

Melomania

Got back from Scotland about a week ago, but I'm already back at work, preparing for the upcoming year. I might put some pics up later.
In the meantime, here's what I've been getting my kicks from (apart from shrooms, of course).








Wilco - Wilco















Eels - Hombre Lobo














The Hold Steady - Stay Positive












Kaleidoscope - Faintly Blowing


















Crosby, Still, Nash & Young - Déjà Vu

Sunshine Cleaning

I went to see Sunshine Cleaning yesterday ; I hadn't been to the cinema for a while. I'd missed it. It's so different from watching DVDs. I don't know if it's because of the "collective experience" side to it, or the bright silver screen, or the dusty tattered old seats, but there's definitely something magic to the cinema... A bit like in Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures. The cinema I go to in Reims is privately owned ; it's set in an old opera-house, and it often shows "indie" films and foreign movies, subtitled and in the original language instead of dubbed as in most French cinemas.

I was really looking forward to Sunshine Cleaning. I'm a sucker for all those Sundance festival films. I'm aware that that type of "indie" film isn't original anymore. The humour is often dark, the characters are offbeat, and the soundtrack is always made up of indie pop or folk bands. But I love those films. I go to the cinema for the entertainment, not for highbrow pseudo-intellectual arroganza—I spend enough time reading that sort of stuff for uni, thank you very much. The Sundance films maybe aren't original, but they're entertaining, and more often than not, refreshing.

In Sunshine Cleaning, as in Little Miss Sunshine, all the characters are "broken", they are all "losers". Rose (Amy Adam) is an ex-cheerleader who is now a cleaner-lady, who hasn't the strength to put an end to an affair with her high school sweetheart who decided to marry another girl. Rose's little boy, Oscar, is a gifted but "special needs" child who keeps getting kicked out of school because of his OCD behaviour. Rose's younger sister, Norah (Emily Blunt), is a thrill-seeking immature young adult who can't hold a job, and tries to drown her grief in anything she can. The girls' mother committed suicide when they were very young, and they've never managed to get over it ; their father (Alan Arkin) keeps making promises he never keeps, and, convinced that he has "business acumen", constantly plans new and unsuccessful business ventures. All the characters need redemption, and they find it by helping others. Rose and Norah feel a special connection to the people they clean up after (they start a crime scene cleanup business). Their father takes care of Oscar while they're at work. A one-armed shopkeeper looks after Oscar at one stage during the film. And yet all these "helpers" are never "rewarded" in any obvious way. Rose takes care of the whole immature bunch (son, sister and father) and never gets any recognition for it. The one-armed shopkeeper who seems to like Rose doesn't even get a "thank you" from her for looking after her son. Norah tries to help a young woman by reconciling her with her dead mother, and it doesn't work out ; she even accidentally burns down a house while working alone to let Rose go to a high scool reunion party. The grandfather fails to raise enough money to buy Oscar a gift he promised to give him for his birthday.
None of the characters are "rewarded" in any conventional way. Instead, they find love. Not eros, not romantic love, but agape, unconditional love. They grow closer to one another. They may be broken, and yes, they may be losers in the eyes of the world, but together, they are able to "cope", to live, to find joy.

Burqa or no burqa?

There is a huge debate going on in France at the moment over the burqa, the Islamic headdress which covers women from head to toe, and which conceals the face behind a mesh screen. Should it be banned by the state, or not ?

On one side there's the majority of French people who, in the name of freedom, women's rights and laïcité (the strict separation between religion and the state) argue that the burqa should be banned in public places.
On the other there are a number of Muslims—mostly the women who wear the burqa themselves—who claim that they are exercising their freedom by choosing to wear this garment and that any legislation banning it would be an infringement on their right to practise their religion.
What is interesting is that it has emerged that most of the burqa-wearers are in fact French converts to Islam ; not immigrant Muslims or second-generation "immigrants". In fact several moderate Muslims have argued against its use.
In an important speech in front of parliament this afternoon, Sarkozy proclaimed his opposition to the wearing of the burqa and anounced that he would set up a committee to decide which measures—if any—should be taken to deal with it.

I believe that the burqa is one of the biggest (and worst) symbols of the oppression of women ; of course extremist Islam does not hold a monopoly on the ill-treatment of women, but that's no excuse. Advocates of the burqa have said that it protects women and "liberates" them by preventing men from seeing them as objects. Yet it seems to me that wearing such a garment is just as dehumanising as selling one's body by working as a porn actor or as a prostitute. Just as sex workers and women in the porn industry are exploited—consciously or not—so it is with the wearers of the burqa. And even if some women wear the burqa willingly, by choice, who is to say how many are brain-washed, frightened or even coerced into wearing it? I don't think it's a sign of "cultural imperialism" or Western arrogance to be against the wearing of the burqa. I don't mind the wearing of the hijab (the "headscarf"). It's not something I agree with but I can understand it. But the burqa? That's simply going too far.

Yet, having said that, I'm not sure that banning the burqa is such a good idea. Perhaps for minors, but not for adults. For one thing, on a pragmatic level, I don't think it's a very good strategy. It would almost certainly further alienate the Muslim community. It could foster a siege mentality, and push even more young men and women into the arms of the wahhabists. Besides, if the government wants to fight the rise of religious extremism, it should work hard at addressing one of the root causes of this radicalisation : poverty, ghettoisation and feelings of alienation because of the fact that our consumerist society has only the latest Ipod to offer as an answer to life's questions.
But I'm also not in favour of the ban for another reason : I believe that too much legislating isn't a good thing ; I don't like the idea of a bureaucratic state encroaching on individual freedoms. It isn't its business. I don't have any answers to the problem, but I don't think that creating more laws is the solution.

Sorry I'm Late

I haven't much time to blog these days, but I'll try to get back to it soon... In the meantime here's another cool stop-motion video by Tomas Mankovsky.