Talking to the Dog: Checking In On the Local Little Free Library

In my neighborhood, and maybe in yours, there is a Little Free Library. I frequently forget to check it. Based on today, that forgetting may be a fairly bad mistake.

It started fairly innocuously.

(Nothing too terribly exciting here at first glance. Pretty standard stuff, even.)

Okay, Marianne Williamson, no thanks, Anna Karenina, nice...but...wait. What's this Woof book? What's this Grrr! thing? Those are books with titles that are right up this reader's alley! Let's check those ou—

(...oh...oh my...)

Times, as we know, are tough. I don't know where you're at, but my state's on fire, my work is completely unlatched, sickness and infection loom silently and invisibly behind everything I think about, my political enemies are in power, my freshly snaked toilet is backing up again, and I'm frankly finding it very difficult to improve my muscle tone. But...when I see something like this at the Little Free Library...it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry...you will someday.

(Okay, sorry about that last joke there.)

Gamera 2 (1996)

Directed by Shusuke Kaneko.

A Fresh Faced Protagonist

Tenet (2020, Christopher Nolan) is an action movie expressive of a personal style of filmmaking that never gets in the way of its commitment of being an action movie.

 

   You don’t have to think to enjoy action movies. Bunjeeing up a building of high-rise condos, high-speed car chases, or the inversion of time are the kinds of things that make Tenet a great action movie. So are the set pieces. Most great action movies have a standout set piece. Tenet is crowded with set pieces done so well that they hold their own against each other and make it hard to rank any one better than the others—although that’s not entirely true because it’s the freeway chase. And that’s not entirely accurate because which freeway chase? The one moving forward, or the inverted one?

   Along with spectacular feats of adrenaline inducing death-defying thrills, action movies have a battle of good vs. evil. Tenet’s hero, the PROTAGONIST, is pitted against villain ANDREI SATOR. And as action movies go, these two, along with what’s at stake should either defeat the other, fit all expectations.

 

   Allow me to now separate Tenet into two layers. Take the characters. The hero and villain each provide a distinct contrast to one another. To begin with, we have the protagonist. It’s as if he somehow represents the future. He’s cool—young, black and American. He’s got no name, no backstory, no family, no friends. He and his partner NEIL are professionals, and they work well together. The protagonist isn’t wealthy or powerful. But he has fun. He’s also so proficient no one ever makes him sweat.

   On the other hand, Andrei’s stuck in the past. He’s old, white and Russian. We get his life story. He’s got a wife and kid. He and his wife KAT can’t stand each other, and they’re constantly fighting. Andrei is a billionaire, powerful and connected. But he’s miserable. He’s also so stressed he’s constantly checking his pulse on a wrist monitor. The protagonist makes work look fun, whereas Andrei makes being rich look like life sucks.

   Where these two layers merge is what makes Tenet meaningful. The protagonist’s pure action genre along with Andrei’s human drama baggage culminate in something greater than either could be on their own. Cinema needs to look at the past and towards the future at the same time.

 

   Aesthetically, Tenet is as proficient in its pacing, sound, and framing as the protagonist is as field agent. Nolan’s style is sophisticated—invisible cinema. The least subtle aspect of Tenet is the score (and sound design). And that’s a good thing because its music cues are kinetic while traditional in the sense of classic Hollywood underscoring.

   With this much style to enjoy, it’s a treat looking forward to returning to Tenet in search of filling in some gaps that left me scratching my head.

9/06/2020 Plaza Theatre

Atlanta, GA

70mm print

How to Cartoon for Comedy Comma Perfectly

OR:
Fair Use for Fun, for Fun Games, and for Absolutely No Profit

Cartooning is like sculpture: an art of subtraction. By ruthlessly but correctly removing all extraneous elements, this simple blend of text and image can be transcendent, can encompass and convey virtually anything a mind can conceive, with nothing more than lines on paper.

Best of all, cartooning can be very, very funny. Humor can be many things! Mostly humor is thought of as (a type of) an unexpected juxtaposition, though certainly not every juxtaposition is funny, nor are all surprises funny. (Nor is it entirely clear that all funny things will have an unexpected juxtaposition! Theory work is pretty difficult, it turns out.) Nevertheless, it's safe to say that we can expect most funny things to have an element of unexpected juxtaposition. Henri Bergson described humor as the "mechanical encrusted upon the living," which is my favorite definition, because it is so stoned that it is itself funny. Also "encrustation" is a pretty funny word / concept.

When seeking to surprise and delight and amuse—that is, to provide humor—by means of a cartoon, specifically, it is well to break the whole down to its constituent parts. If the cartoon be composed of text and image, then should both the text in isolation and the image as (a) standalone sans texty companion be funny.

Let's examine an example.

Here is a standard—indeed classic—format: three panels, read in order, left to right. Note here that I am using "read" in a metaphoric sense, as there are no words to be read at all! No, merely three images in sequence. Or, more accurately: three funny images in a funny sequence. Bask in the humor. This ... this is a funny cartoon, all by itself.

(When the images are this funny, you really don't even need any text.)

Imbibe the words, next. We see with no ambiguity or uncertainty that, just as with the images, these words are very, very funny words.

(Why even sully text this funny with images?)

We would expect the combination of these words and this text to be funny, even if that combination (read: juxtaposition) is not unexpected [mind-blown emoji]! Just for the sake of completeness, though, let's review the combination.

(Wallow in the perfected comedic whole.)

Remember: funny is as funny does. When you want to create and endure humor, attend to each aspect as though that aspect alone would to carry the entire success solamente, even as, when you attempt cookery, you ensure the flavor of the dish complete is in every ingredient separately. Or, if you have less time, just rip off this cartoon, because it's truly funny stuff.

Couple references: https://iep.utm.edu/humor/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humor_in_Freud
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/.

Greater wretchedness