Egg Nog II

We were over in Dartmouth today rounding up stuff for Hallowe'en costumes and the streets are lined with "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" banners. Then we went to the Superstore to get a pumpkin and they'd already gotten rid of them all. I knew we were in trouble when a guy passed me on my way in with a couple of containers of egg nog in his arms.

Egg Nog!

And Christmas lights! At the Superstore. No joke. I don't know how long they've been there, but as far as I can remember this is the earliest I've ever seen them out. I think their goal is to just have a permanent Christmas aisle — makes life so much simpler.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Welcome to Neverland

We went to see Where the Wild Things Are last weekend, and something's been bothering me about it ever since. Don't get me wrong — I liked it, I think. At least, I mostly enjoyed it. It's very beautiful and fantastic like the illustrations in Maurice Sendak's book for children, and the dialogue and story movement are quiet and spare like the book's text. The complex themes of childhood rebellion and escapist fantasy are covered complexly. You really feel/remember what it's like to be a young, angry child who just wants everyone to be how he wants them to be and to let him be who he wants to be.

I guess what's bothering me is that the book was written for children to relate to, and the movie is obviously aimed more at adults — specifically fashionable young adults who don't want to grow up. The tone throughout is wistful and bittersweet. It's directed by hip rock video and indie arthouse director Spike Jonze, includes many recognizable "intelligent television" stars as the titular wild things, was cowritten by McSweeney's editor and hipster-fiction darling Dave Eggers, and is near relentlessly drenched in an indie rock soundtrack by people from the Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The monsters are all made by Jim Henson's people and the title is written in the Freaks and Geeks font. It's a nostalgia trip for people like me, in other words, and I'll admit I took the bait willingly.

Is there something wrong with revisiting classic children's literature for purely nostalgic purposes? Not necessarily. I often go back to Through the Looking Glass and the Winnie the Pooh books to marvel at some of the more astounding passages, and I could still watch The Wizard of Oz at least another two hundred times. I actually was reading a few chapters of Anne of Green Gables just the other day, reminding myself how well-constructed and touching it is, despite the awful brand it has become since its publication.

But those works were all created for the enjoyment and illumination of children, and when I enjoy or re-enjoy them as an adult, it is on those terms. The children's-story-for-adults, on the other hand, aims to bring out the child within the adult that she has forgotten about, and this can be problematic. It's very easy, if the author of such a work is not careful, to slip into escapist nostalgia whose only point can be to temporarily distract its audience from the reality of the adult world, in favour of a glorified childhood world that never actually existed.

Sure, there are coming of age tales where we are reminded of lessons learned long ago, and how painful those lessons may have been. That format is perfectly valid for reorienting ourselves as adults by reexamining important pieces of the histories that have brought us here, and I guess that's probably the most charitable way to interpret a film like WWTA.

The problem is, though, that the main character in the book and the film doesn't really learn any lessons. He spends the majority of the story in a world of his own imagination, inhabited by characters who obey his own kid logic about how the world should be. Any conflicts that arise are resolved in a purely fantastical way where the childish ego is restored and nothing is learned about relating to real, independent others. It's kind of like a reverse Curb Your Enthusiasm in that way. And while it's a common complaint that Hollywood movies serve only as fantasy for lazy-minded adults, this one goes one step further in being childhood fantasy that is not even realistically appealing to adults except indirectly through the remembering of what their desires used to be, before they found out how the world really works.

As pure fantasy for children, without much in the way of lessons or moral issues raised, the book still works, because it is a beautiful and relatable creativity pump. It serves as a springboard for kids' imaginations, and shows them that it is understood and accepted in this world that they will use those imaginations for all sorts of incredible purposes, selfish and otherwise. They can feel safe, in other words, dreaming their kid dreams and escaping into their kid worlds, and can see that such escapism could eventually lead to a wonderful gift to others, called art, such as the book they are currently looking at.

It's hard to see how creating a film version of the same story for people who have presumably already read this story and learned its lessons, and who are furthermore too experienced in the ways of the world to be given the same kind of license with respect to escapism, could serve the same purpose.

It could be claimed that this movie is not really for adults, but merely includes elements (such as the indie rock soundtrack) that adults would like so that they're more apt to enjoy it with their children. This was the argument our friend Kasia gave in defense of the film immediately after we saw it (which, in retrospect, was not a great time for me to bring up these concerns because it made me sound like I was criticizing my friends for having actually enjoyed themselves, which I definitely was not). She compared the strategy to that of Sesame Street, which we all agree is or at least used to be great. They would often throw jokes and pop culture references in that only adults would understand, as a little treat for the parents who responsibly watched the show with their kids, rather than just plopping them down in front of it.

But I don't quite buy the argument. For one thing, we all went to see this movie — in fact had waited for it to come out with some anticipation — and none of us has any kids. I can't really imagine having the same reaction to a Sesame Street movie, unless it was one of those post-modern, ironic film versions of TV shows that are popular now — the kind that are more a winking reference to the original than a loving re-creation of it. And if I heard of anyone my own age who had no children but made sure to catch Sesame Street every day, I'd probably think he was a little bit creepy.

For another thing, children are apparently not huge fans of this movie. Parents who have taken their young kids to see it report that the latter are mostly bored. Maybe that's more of a criticism of the general state of children's cinema now, with its fast-cut, action-packed sensory overload that leaves nothing to the imagination and spoils young attention spans for quality storytelling. Maybe. Or maybe the two complaints (i.e. 1. adult cinema is taking the concept of fantasy too far, to the point of infantilizing its audience, and 2. children's cinema is making children prematurely unimaginative) are really two sides of the same problem, which is that the line between adult and children's fiction is being erased.

Think about it. We all watch pretty much the same stuff now. How many of the last Pixar animated children's stories were actually made for children? And if they were, why do my friends keep telling me I have to see them? On the other hand, how many of the recent big budget action films allegedly for adults had a story that wasn't so simplistic any five-year-old could easily explain it to you? How many of those were not based on a comic book? Edward Scissorhands was the first movie I saw that gave me this vague, creepy feeling that could be summed up by the question, "Why is the fairy tale format being used unironically in movies for adults?" But it's probably been going on longer than that.

And it's not just happening in movies, either. The Harry Potter books are considered acceptable literature for a receptionist to read on her lunch break. Political satire on television has to be served up in the form of cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park to get anyone to pay attention to it. And on the Disney channel, shows for children are all about preteens trying desperately to attract members of the opposite sex before the actresses who play them have a chance to make a pop record that is as ubiquitous as it is infantile, marketed by posing half naked on magazine covers for the adoration of their prepubescent fans and titillation of those fans' fathers.

Anyway, maybe I just got upset in this case because this was a work I actually cared about, and because, as I said, I mostly enjoyed the film and even found it quite moving in places. I mean, if they can get guys like Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers and even Maurice Sendak himself to play into this line-blurring, and make it into a reasonable stance for thoughtful young adults to take way before they should be duped by nostalgia for their childhood, then how long can childhood as a real, distinct cultural phenomenon have left?

Boy, Was That the Right Decision

It seems someone else is having trouble getting back payment out of Sherman Hines. Sounds like it's a lot more money than what he owes me, but it also sounds like he hasn't said outright in their case that he's not going to pay them. I hope that means they'll eventually get what they're owed. [Oops. I stand corrected. See her Oct. 16 post.] I've got the government working on my case, so I figure sometime within the decade I'll see my three hundred bucks.

All the Clouds Turn to Words

I feel like I have to post something in order to keep everyone up to date, but really, I can't think of anything worth telling you about. Life has been all working days and semi-lame movie nights for awhile now. I think the colder weather is making us not want to do much — it's that time of year where every day is cold and rainy with wet leaves everywhere and you just want to stay inside all the time. Plus our apartment's been kind of cold, so there's definitely some hibernation vibes going on.

We did drive into Wolfville last weekend for a walk on the dykes and to pick out a pumpkin. Alison's got some pictures of that around somewhere... I'll see if I can find them. Oh, here we are.




Acadia's been a real good client for me since I left. Well, they're giving me a lot of work, anyway. The paying part they're not so great at. I had to get a little tough with their accounts payable department. Worked, though. But I've been doing lots of jobs for them, including one big recruitment booklet that had been left unfinished the entire time I worked there. We've finally got it just about wrapped up, and I think it's going to be quite a portfolio piece, if I do say so myself. Everyone's really happy with it.

I think they interviewed some designers the other day to fill my vacant spot, so the work from them will probably soon be slowing down. I'll have to diversify the old client base if I'm going to keep some sort of steady income. This week things are less insane than they have been, so I've been able to work on registering my business and developing a logo. It's going to be called "Focus Design," with the tagline "Be understood." Business cards first, and then I'll have to get some kind of website up, which I've never done before. Should be an interesting learning experience.

Wow, this stuff is super boring. I'm sorry, but it's kind of all I've been thinking about lately. The Lodge have a few shows coming up, including possibly one on Hallowe'en, which could be very fun. And we've also been recording a split 7" record with another band called Bloodsport. Two new Lodge songs. There're a few other new ones in the works too. I wish we could work on rehearsing and writing songs all the time, but we're all so busy it seems we barely even have time to email each other about upcoming plans.

I'm supposed to be working on an album's worth of my own stuff, which I would put out through the same guy who put out the Lodge album, but I seem to have zero time and even less inclination to sit down and throw that together. I'm using drums as the convenient stumbling block (Who would play them? How would I record them? Would we have to figure out the drum parts before recording the rest of the song, rather than recording as I write, which I would prefer to do?) but really I probably wouldn't even need real drums on most of the stuff I'd be putting together, and it's really just a matter of setting aside like an hour a day for awhile to work on it slowly until it's done. Most of what I've been listening to lately is pretty ambient, because it's easiest to work to. I saw a great documentary on Kraftwerk and electronic music, and downloaded (no money for music purchases just yet — the wishlist grows daily) the first Popol Vuh album, which I highly recommend. It's pretty and vastly spacious like their other records, but this one is mostly just Moog synthesizer, rather than the elaborate instrumentation they would later get into. I've been entertaining the idea of putting out a record called Green World that would be a prequel to Eno's Another Green World. That would be a nice restricting creative scenario that would allow me to make the kind of ambient-but-songy music I'd like to work on. I guess there's a fair amount of drums on that record, though... Phil Collins, actually!

Hope everyone's ready for a nice Thanksgiving weekend. We got our Tofurkey and sweet potatoes last night. There were no mushrooms left at the grocery store, though, so I'll have to try and find some today. Now that's what I call a concrete, realistic goal.