author: Dana Spiotta

name: Steev

average rating: 3.48

book published: 2006

rating: 5

read at: 2012/06/28

date added: 2012/06/28

shelves: wishlist, novels, fun, politics

author: Bill Callahan

name: Steev

average rating: 3.76

book published: 2010

rating: 4

read at: 2012/06/17

date added: 2012/06/17

shelves: fun

author: Daniel Gilbert

name: Steev

average rating: 3.69

book published: 2006

rating: 5

read at: 2012/06/08

date added: 2012/06/08

shelves: spirit-self, fun

I just saw this great, weird little film tonight called The Sound of My Voice. It's pretty thought provoking. The film is about two documentary filmmakers trying to make a film about a cult, but they sort of get drawn into the cult themselves, which is led by a woman who claims she's from the future, and it starts not being clear if she's lying or not.

they let you watch the first 12 minutes of it on the film's web site:

Anyway, it's somewhat good timing for me seeing this film now, having just finished reading a great book about Mormons and fundamentalist Mormon cults, and also in the wake of the bizarre and sad events at Diamond Mountain retreat center a few weeks ago - a place where I helped shoot parts of an ongoing documentary about a 3-year Buddhist retreat.

It also brings up a sort of meta-issue, about "weird movies" or more generally, any "weird" art or cultural work. By weird I mean in this case something challenging, whose meaning or "answer" is extremely confusing and isn't easily apparent.  A head-scratcher, something that has you walking out of the theater wondering what the hell actually was going on in the film, and has you talking about it on the way home.

The issue I want to bring up is, why are some people (like myself, for instance) quick to identify some cultural artifacts like this as just purposeful obfuscation, weirdness just to impart the feeling of mystery and confusion, to give you a sort of high from the strangeness and ambiguity, with no real coherent meaning or solution possible? While others look at the same thing and want to spend time to puzzle it out, decipher and debate and discuss and find "the answer"? And which is the more healthy response?

I remember having a similar reaction to all of David Lynch's last few films, starting with Mullholand Drive, and being actually more and more pissed off and angry at him with each film he made after that one, for, I thought (still think?) purposely fucking with us without any hope of real coherent interpretation.  But then recently I read a brilliant and detailed blog post explaining exactly the entirety of Mullholland Drive, written by the genius Film Crit Hulk. I read that and I thought, "wow, it really does make some kind of sense, I guess, explained this way. Well I'll be dipped." Nevertheless, does that mean there's a "solution" to everything? Not neccessarily. 

On one hand, whether there's a meaning/answer or not to one of these kinds of artifacts, it's a waste to spend too much time thinking about it. Right? (I mean, in a world where people are starving or torturing each other or whatever, can't we put off til later the arguing about quirky movies? I suppose this is a sort of  Adorno-esque, poetry-after-Auschwitz response to the problem.)  But, on the other hand, is it a sign of a sort of hopelessness or cynicism (or is it willingness to let go of a desire for meaning?), to assume that something that you can't figure out quickly has to be nonsense, an intellectual laziness chosen over an innocent enthusiasm to explore a fictional world as a pure excercise in entertaining mental puzzle-solving?  What does it say about those that tend to choose the cynical/hopeless path?  What kind of people take the one approach and what kind take the other?

And what kind sit around writing blog posts about it?  Sigh. I wonder what Slavoj Zizek would say... Read more>>>

author: Jon Krakauer

name: Steev

average rating: 3.91

book published: 2003

rating: 5

read at: 2012/06/07

date added: 2012/06/07

shelves: own-it, politics