On Why Nolan's The Odyssey Lacks A Lot [I already went to town on uTube posts, lol]
The Dawn of Money, an anthropological move away from the inability and unwillingness to value a human life with anything other than another human life (which is still not an equivalent restoration of the loss of a human life during these historic times of human society) toward the ability to value a human life with anything of equal value, including money. One can know nothing, for sure, when it comes to The Dawn of Money.
The Trojan Horse is not the mechanism through which a war was won.
The Trojan Horse itself is the metaphor for the infiltration of money throughout Homeric Greece.
The Trojan Horse hiding Odysseus, the embodiment of money, currency.
Money itself, the ultimate Trojan Horse.
In Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber (I'm only halfway through at this point), he describes the various ways in which ancient human societies organized themselves and utilized "stuff" and "gifts" in relationships between people who are neighbors and people who are strangers, etc. Graeber also describes the way that these ancient societies approached the idea of gifts and transactions. The whole book is an exploration on money and human society. Why do humans use money? When did money become everything? Where was money invented? What was it invented for? In short, Graeber, in talking about Debt, must talk about the origins of money, and he presents a lot of theories from various "intellectuals" who study humans as a culture. And it was within one of the sections of this book wherein he speaks about Homeric Greece and the way that the people of this time were living, and so, it has become apparent to me that, perhaps, Homer's Epic is about the arrival of money in this part of the world.
If so, Homer's Epic is an epic about economics, a loss of what was, traditionally, a thing directly attached to a person, their honor, has now become a thing detached from the person. There's now the man and the value of that man, and the value of that man has nothing to do with his honor. The value of a man is the value of his stuff (this is not about women at this time, but Graeber speaks heavily about women, which is why I'm writing so heavily about his book). Odysseus is not a man. Odysseus is the metaphor of money itself, the thing hidden inside the horse that tricks the people of the coast into this new enslavement to money. Odysseus, as money, is the terrible thing wrecking havoc on the shores, the "sea people" who come and ruin everything about their way of life, their honor-based way of life.
Odysseus has no honor; he's the terrible thing; he's money. The trick of the "gift" (which is a whole other issue of human relations, cause the bastardization of the gift by making it a trick is not the original sin against "Zeus' Law," imho) is that this is how money was presented to people, because that's how money or currency, according to Graeber, enters village-style honor-based life ... The State. According to Graeber, currency (or money) or coin-based currency is easy to distribute throughout a kingdom. All a king has to do is give coins to their armies and then declare a tax of one coin from each subject at the end of the year. Boom, market.
Now a king has literally sprung forth money and a market (and none of this, oddly enough, has anything to do with debt), out of thin air, on a promise that if the villagers give someone in the military something of theirs or something of use in exchange for this coin, the king will accept this coin as the required tax by said villager at the end of the year. Now, as a villager, you know this is a new reality, and so, instead of saving grain, you're hoarding coins. And once humans had a money-based value, what do you think happens next?
If money ain't the definition of getting nothing for something, I don't know what is. Thus, the Trojan Horse is not about military strategy. It is an account, in metaphor, about the loss of honor-based living through the infiltration of money, Odysseus, and because, years later, after all his crew are lost, Odysseus finally arrives home, only to deliver another Trojan Horse, himself, the "gift" of money, and then off he goes, not there to suffer the consequences, just like a good little capitalist (although, we're not there yet, historically speaking). What a missed opportunity for some original story telling, no? Oh, no wait, this is Nolan. He does not do original storytelling, at least not well, not since his first, best film. What a disappointing director he's panned out to be *weeps*
Craft vs. Craftsmanship
When someone participates in "arts and crafts" type craft there is little to no need to know the technical or "correct" way to do things. It's a hobby, essentially. Therefore, it's unnecessary for this type of person to do the extensive work of craftsmanship. This person is enjoying the making of a thing the way they like. There's nobody but them, so there's nobody to communicate with about the things they're creating.
When, however, someone decides to participate as a craftsman in a craft, it is absolutely necessary that one learns the technical or "correct" way of doing things. This methodology has nothing to do with supremacy or elitism or whatever other buzz-words are being utilized to explain inequality, etc. Not that technique has never been used to create supremacy and elitism, it has, but the point of learning technique is for the magical thing we call communication.
Technique is just a fancy word for vocabulary. When you go to school, for anything, what you're learning is vocabulary. You're learning how to "speak the language" of this that or the other. And so, when your goal is to become a master practitioner of something, a craftsman (&please don't harp on me about "craftswoman;" i have zero qualms with being referred to as a craftsman, despite my vagina), then one ought to have enough respect to learn the language of your craft so that you may then communicate, well, with others who practice your craft.
If a certain technique has a term, but you call it, "you know, the wiggly one," that's so rude. Now you're putting the work on me to learn your "quirky terms" (aka you're making me as ignorant as you, and you're wasting my time) instead of you taking the time to learn a term that we can all reference when working together. Cachai?
Five-Star Cast, sure, but Three-Star Production, at best.
There's some new trend happening with the way that television is being produced, I can tell. I, obviously, have zero insight on the way that the entertainment industry works or operates, cause who cares, but I am a curious person, so I always try to at least understand the way things work, especially if that thing is something I consume.
For instance, I do, in fact, watch B-Movies from time to time. Since I am curious about how films (movie, television, documentaries, whatever) are made, I enjoy lower-budget productions, because you can see the seams, cause the people who are working these crews are not the best that money can buy, you know? It's not that these productions are bad; it's that these productions are cheap.
And so, this is what I'm seeing. I am seeing an entertainment landscape that is off-setting the cost of production through cheaper production crews, while still spending the money on the "talent." And it's creating a weird juxtaposition within the final product.
I think that Jennifer Garner is a really smart white lady. I don't know it for a fact, but I know it's true. I lump her in with other white ladies like Kathryn Bigelow, Reese Witherspoon and who's that one, I always forget her name, Elizabeth Banks. There are others, but I don't want to try to make a comprehensive list, cause I'll inevitably forget someone really important, so I'm merely showing you the ball park. The problem, for me, is that I can see the seams in her production. The exciting thing for me, is that I can see the seams in her production. And again, this is not about trying to shed this in a "bad" or "good" framework. This is simply an observation, along with one "bad" thing that I simply don't like, cause I'm a human person with feelings.
The seams are apparent, cause the lighting seems to be all-natural, all the time. I cannot imagine that the indoor scenes are all as-is-lighting, but it is set up to make it seem as if it is, which is the first weird thing. In B-Movies, the lighting is the number one giveaway. If you have a tight budget, lighting is expensive. So, that was the first thing I noticed. Natural light (or the attempt to seem like only natural light is being used even when maybe a bounce-board or two are used) is everywhere. Like I said, it seems like the entire show was shot in it. Nevertheless, the lighting was good. It was obvious that it was natural, but it wasn't bad lighting by any means, but it seemed off, almost cheap, when considering the premier cast.
And then, the general framing of each shot. It's all so boring, cause it's all so textbook. Oh, using the thirds, making sure there's enough depth, all the shots are shot from very straight-forward angles; there's no personality behind the camera. Again, none of these shots are "bad." It's all just very technical.
But set against the acting of the cast these sorts of seams don't matter, except when they pull you out of a moment, and this is where I can see the logic behind, what I have to assume is, Garner's whole approach to film-making. She's cut cost in the production, cause if you hire really great actors, the actors themselves ought to be able to act well enough to gloss over any of the seams that might take you out of any given moment. She bet big on this idea. And it looks like she was right.
The other thing I thought was that in this new-age of entertainment as things shift, are threatened, and new ideas are being invented, as we speak, it's an almost backwards system of creation. My guess is that Garner knew which streaming platform she'd stream on before they even started production. Peacock is not HBO, and HBO is not Disney, etc., etc., etc. Each streamer hits a price-point. Each price-point, I'm sure, correlates with certain demographics. If you understand the demographic reach of the platform upon which you will stream, you are now making such pointed content that you can even calibrate the level of production (aka its cost), as long as you still have actors who can pull off the scene.
So, for whom was this show produced? It wasn't me, that's for sure. They're too old for me to be their target audience. I'm not white, like the main character. I'm not a career professional like all her friends. I definitely don't summer. And as an asian, the one character with whom I may identify is the "other woman," like so fucking annoying to make the asian character the sex role. But whatever. I already know the way that white women view asian women, and if the story somehow is actually a story about women who are there for each other, then great, but an asian was still cast as the sex object who stole away some white man from some white woman. So, forgiveness or not, the perpetuation of the hot threatening asian woman is alive and well. But I mean, Gemma Chan is the reason why I even gave the show a chance, lol, cause FACE!
By Contrast but yet, with the exact same ick.
I loved me some Rooster with the same, obvious caveat that I hate the, again, but this time only asian-passing, white-man stealing whore *vomits* Why? White women are this threatened? I mean, I probably stole my white man from some white woman, from her pov, lol, but seriously? Get over it.
Rooster, I know for a fact, was a show written for me as their target audience. As a failed writer, this show is my porn, absolutely *one-hundred* It's nearly perfect in every way (minus the asian-passing whore character). Steve Carell is the world's leading actor to play asshole characters, because we are all so confident that he is not an asshole. At least, we all still believe that he's not-an asshole, whether this is the truth, we will probably never know until he does something crazy. Anyway, Carell plays the character that all us failed writers can hate. He's just some guy, who wrote some stupid stories and is incredibly popular for it. He's the embodiment of what every "serious writer" hates ... mediocrity. Not only that, he's being given opportunities off of this mediocrity, because he's popular.
Aside from the plot of the show, the show, itself, is produced really well. It's an HBO show *hair flip* The camera work has a personality. Why is the depth so shallow? Why is it so dark and gloomy? It's a comedy, but it's gotta bit of dark humor to it, cause the premise is incredibly dark (and heavy to those who care), but the script is comedy, and the cinematography reflects this.
Deep vignette, an underlying darkness, the premise is heavy.
Shallow depth of field, this is commentary on life today; we can only see one thing in focus at a time.
The person in focus, is lit brightly, almost hot, sometimes too hot.
A lot is being said through the decisions being made with the camera. It's an HBO production, there's a higher-standard of quality. HBO has a sort of budget-floor, one imagines, which also, one imagines, maybe makes it more difficult to make more woman-led productions, cause like, I get it, Carell is supposed to embody the mediocre man who fails upwards, essentially, and so, while it's nice to see the real-world of academia portrayed so accurately and satisfyingly resolved, it's still a story about a man.
Your hands, including the wrists, are the groin of your independence
One week while jobbing at my old job, sometime in March before I quit, I was hanging tags, like I did, and I had this thought, and it was simply about how grateful I am for my hands. And I thought about how much I needed them for my life, not just living it but for my dream.
On Socials | A Medium
If the Medium is the message [Marshall McLuhan], then it is social media, itself, the idea of it, the thing itself, the technology behind it, that is the thing that we need to understand. So what is social media? The why of a thing hardly matters. Doesn't matter why it was created. Why people use it doesn't matter as much as that people use it, and so, when people talk about how "people use social media," what is social media? Is it an app? Is it a place? Is it a community? Okay, great, what is an app? What is a place? What is a community? And so on and so forth.
Fuck you, Marvel
We are strongly considering a seoul-trip for korean-style IMAX (cause whata movie-theater shit-fest is it here, boo) in December for Doomsday. Once I realized that this is what we were discussing, what the fuck? So, now we're thinking a Colorado trip (there's a big-boy imax there, not korean-style, but good enough), cause we've gotta lotta congratulations to deliver, and I have other stuff I need to get up to The Valley, and I have a bestie or two in the Denver-Metro area who need some love. So, ya, but so much is still in the air for us, on a daily basis rn, that it's a bit too premature to make any plans, but at the same time, we are both mutable, lol, nevertheless, we've been such responsible adults *vomits* that spontaneous trips are a thing of our past. Perhaps it's time to circle back around to those young, irresponsible, risk-tolerant, thrill-seeking kiddos who got us here.