the chutry experiment

« October 2003 | Main | December 2003 »

November 29, 2003

Academic Blogging at Duke

While tracking down some references for my blogging article, I came across a reference (PDF) to my course blog on a Duke University resource about "academic blogging." Actually, the file is a useful handout that I might return to in the future.

Posted by chuck at 9:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I am an Architect

Winding down for the night, I decdide to take an online version of the Myers-Briggs Personality Test after reading about it on Torill's blog.

I'm a little too tired to analyze the results of the test (and I should probably either be working on my paper or sleeping), but whenever I take this test, my results in the "thinking/feeling" opposition are usually right on the border. No surprise that I'm leaning toward "thinking" right now given that I'm in (almost) full paper-writing mode.

Posted by chuck at 1:56 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Writer's Block

I've been working (somewhat frantically) on finishing my blogging paper, and I'm finding it rather difficult to write about blogging outside my blog. I'm not sure if it's because of the inability to hyperlink or if it's the struggle between the ephemerality of the blog entry against the more solid traditional essay.

I'll get it done, but writing in the essay medium (rather than the blog entry) really changes how I write about blogs.

Posted by chuck at 12:16 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 27, 2003

Happy Thanksgiving!

My life continues to take a turn toward the extraordinarily busy, but I hope that everyone is having a great holiday (those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, that is).

Memorable Thanksgiving image: After a Thanksgiving prayer in which a family patriarch identifed the United States as a Christian nation, my dad, complaining privately to me about the patriarch's lack of historical understanding, says "I thought the US was founded on freedom of religion." Sometimes my dad is very cool.

Posted by chuck at 10:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 24, 2003

The Turing Game

I wish somebody had told me that there is a version of the Turning Game online "here" at Georgia Tech. This would be a great student activity for talking about gender performance on the Internet. Instead, I learned about it through reading misbehaving.net.

Posted by chuck at 10:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Shattered Glass

Just wanted to mention that I happened to watch Shattered Glass (IMDB) the other night when I was taking a break from working. Shattered stars Hayden Christensen as Stephen Glass, the New Republic writer who fabricated details in 27 of his 41 published stories. The low-budget feature (partially financed by Canadian grant money) uses a verite style to convey the Glass story, giving the film a sense of immediacy that seems crucial to the story and leading to comparisons with other investigative journalism features such as All the President's Men.

There is some logic to the comparison. After all, for a significant section of the film, we follow web journalists Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn) and Anide Fox (Rosario Dawson) as they begin to break the story, tearing apart a Glass article on hackers fact-by-fact. But Glass, written and directed by Billy Ray, lacks the earlier film's self-righteousness.

The film is certainly critical of Glass' actions and celebrates the ethical stance taken by NR editor Charles Lane when the charges against Glass were revealed to be true. However, instead of taking the obvious route and pushing for greater ethical scrutiny, Ray's film seems to focus instead on office politics, especially the cult of personality associated with a charming figure such as Glass. During early sequences of the film, Glass is careful to compliment members of the office staff, including receptionists and assistants, and accepts praise for his work with what Roger Ebert calls "bashful narcissism."

Gradually, after beloved editor Michael Kelly (who was later killed while covering the war in Iraq) leaves NR, the mood and focus of the film begins to shift, focusing in part on the Internet journalists who are bringing down the star writer for the major magazine and on the ethical dilemmas faced by the reticent new editor "Chuck" Lane. As the truth begins to emerge, a darker picture of Glass develops. He first plays the office against Lane, using his charm to breifly sustain himself against any kind of punishment; Glass' colleagues speak on his behalf, telling Lane that Glass had been "working too hard," that it was a misunderstanding. In this sense, the film seems to be more about office politics than about journalistic ethics, at least in my reading. At the same time, the film belongs to a very specific cultural moment when web journalism was finally being recognized as a legitimate news source.

The performances were all solid, especially Christensen as Glass, Peter Sarsgaard as Lane, and Hank Azaria as Michael Kelly. The only real "false" moment for me was when Lane walks into the staff meeting the morning after firing Glass to a round of applause (the scene is crosscut with Glass imagining--or maybe remembering--the applause of a high school journalism class), completely vindicated in his moral stance.

Posted by chuck at 12:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2003

Chemistry Online and Off

Jennifer Egan, author of one of my favorite recent novels, Look at Me, has an article in today's New York Times Magazine on the challenges and expectations associated with online dating. It's pretty interesting stuff with references to Spring Street, Match, and Friendster, and discussions of "serial dating" and deceptive profiles.

I've dabbled in the online dating scene a few times (I'm currently taking a break), so I'm always interested in articles that might tell me more about my habits. But I'm most intrigued by her interviews with "Regan," a technical writer living in Atlanta who uses Salon.com's dating service (part of the Spring Street network), in part because I think I may have dated her once. It would have been about a year ago, and there was no "chemistry" (Egan's subtle analysis of this online dating buzzword is one of the strongest moments in the article) so we never communicated after that first meeting. I'm not entirely sure that I'm remembering correctly which probably says something about my terrible memory or about my desire to be immortalized (however obscurley) in the New York Times.

Posted by chuck at 12:32 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 22, 2003

Stay Tuned

If blogging really is like television, then most of you, dear readeres, would be fiddling with the antenna or calling your cable company trying to get a better signal. Or maybe, you'd just change the channel....

The last few days have been incredibly busy with writing an article (and starting a second one), applying for jobs, and grading papers all requiring serious attention and energy, which has left me feeling like I'm neglecting my blog. I know these other things are more important in the long run, but I do feel a sense of frustration when I'm not writing regularly to the chutry experiment. I know the frustration has something to do with feeling conscious of time rushing past and being unable to unpack an idea or even to review a film (not that I've had time to see very many). It may be that my consciousness of time via blogging--my attempt to impose a coherent narrative over something that is decidedly chaotic and random--is at odds with my current experience of things. Or maybe I'm just really tired.

Posted by chuck at 8:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 21, 2003

I Guess Visibility Really is a Trap

Following KF's lead, I was curious to find out what twentieth century theorist I am. The answer may surpise you (it surprised me):

You are Michel Foucault! You wrote groundbreaking
histories of prisons, hospitals, asylums, and
sex. Interestingly, you thought basically the
same thing about all of them. Your historical
accuracy is a bit dodgy, but that was never
really the point. You were very obsessed with
power roles - so obsessed that you frequented
gay S&M clubs, and died of AIDS in 1984.


What 20th Century Theorist are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Posted by chuck at 12:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 19, 2003

Intelligent Life

Just came across a local blogger that I want to add to my blogroll once it's up and running again. Chris, of Intelligent Life, works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) here in Atlanta and frequently writes about film and cultural topics.

Posted by chuck at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 16, 2003

Contact Zones

How weird... After reading Lisa Parks' essay on the Digital Earth project (anthologized in The Visual Culture Reader), I ran a quick Google search for people writing on blogging and Mary Louise Pratt's discussion of "contact zones" and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Patrick, my former student, wrote an essay on the topic in his other freshman writing course. Check out the search results here.

In yet another happy accident, Patrick quotes the very passage that sparked my interest in the first place: Pratt defines contact zones as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other.” Like Patrick, I think Pratt's definition of contact zones might represent one of the best aspects of blogging, allowing these tensions to play themselves out in a productive way.

More later if this approach continues to spark my interest.

Posted by chuck at 11:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Grid Blogging

I'd almost forgotten to mention that I'll be participating in Ashley Benigno's proposed grid blogging event on December 1. He offers a mini-manifesto for grid blogging:

"Grid blogging aims to investigate the potentials of a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes. It seeks to ignite attention on specific topics at set times through variegated voices. A kind of decentralised flash mobbing for the mind, if you like.

Decentralisation is key here. Unlike single collaborative blogging structures that unite discussions under the same URL, Grid blogging is about synchronized guerrilla publishing attacks carried out across a series of online locations. It respects and heightens the individual voice within a media-wise choir. It allows for idea-jamming and mosaics of diverse perspectives to emerge unfettered.

Temporary in nature, the first grid blog is set to happen on December 1. The topic is the "brand". Interpret it as you like, from the comfort of your own blog. As critique, as recollection, as original content, as link-fest or visual interpretation. Whatever. Join in and help us discover where we can lead this dance."

Looks like a cool group of bloggers is planning to participate. Stay tuned.

(Slightly edited from the original...)

Posted by chuck at 12:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Visual Multitasking at the Movies

Julie Talen's Pretend sounds like an incredible film, using multiple frames in a DV format to portray several possible narratives. Here's hoping it makes it to Atlanta in the near future.

Posted by chuck at 11:13 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 15, 2003

Best Directors List

I'm not a big fan of "Best of..." lists, but I found The Guardian's list of the 40 Best Film Directors somewhat disappointing. Established American directors (Lynch, Scorsese, the Coens, Soderbergh...) filled most of the top slots while Asian, African, and Eastern European directors were almost completely missing. Certainly the film industries aren't as strong, but these omissions simply reinforce the weakness of non-Hollywood cinemas. There were several major omissions (among major independents), including Jane Campion, Atom Egoyan, Hal Hartley, and Spike Lee. I was pleased to see Errol Morris listed, and I'm jonesing to see his new documentary on Robert McNamara.

Then again, at least Spielberg didn't make the list (no permalink).

Posted by chuck at 9:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 12, 2003

Maybe I Shouldn't Blog About That Wild Party...

From the Onion: What happens when your mother finds your blog?

Widmar said that the idea of his mother immersing herself in the boring details of his life is just as frightening as the idea of her discovering his misconduct.

"Really, the blog is just a record of what I think about the world and how I spend my free time," Widmar said. "In other words, exactly the sort of information that no 30-year-old wants his mom to have access to."

Brief silence, except for a few crickets chirping in the background follwed by thousands of people scrolling their archives for incriminating details.

Check out KF's entry on the same article.

Posted by chuck at 9:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 11, 2003

Photographing Iraqi Women

War correspondent Kevin Sites is blogging again. Before the war, Sites had been blogging his observations of daily life in Iraq when CNN asked him to stop. Now, he's working freelance for MSNBC, and they've agreed to allow him to continue blogging. The decription of Baghdad as a "colonial" city in one entry was intriguing (I can't find the specific entry now), a sentiment he connects to conversations with Baghdad citizens. He combines photography and personal narratives in a compelling manner, creating a powerful first-person account of things.

In his October 27 entry, he discusses the ambivalence he feels about photographing Iraqi women:

I often end up taking more pictures of men and boys in Muslim nations because women here are conditioned in modesty and don't like to be photographed. But it creates a dilemma for me--for while I want to respect their cultural boundaries, I also don't want to document a society devoid of half it's population.

This ethical dilemma--situated around around the politics of photography and power--is a major question, in my opinion, and the "modesty" associated with the refusal to be photographed may mean something else, perhaps a refusal to allow one's image to be co-opted by the "colonial" power (using Sites' description of the conditions in Baghdad).

A second photograph taken by Sites during a raid of a woman and her daughter also strikes me, especially the young girl who stares (defiantly?) into the camera while her mother covers her face. The gestures have a similar meaning: on the one had, a refusal to be photographed, on the other, a recognition of the apparatus. I'm not making any promises, but given some of the things (especially Marker's Sans Soleil) I've been thinking about lately, these war (or is it a non-war, given the claims of a mission accomplished?) photographs are pretty compelling.

Posted by chuck at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 10, 2003

So I have a question....

Would we be asking so many questions about Francois if he had his own blog? I'm not sure I can add to the range of observations that others have already made, especially this late at night (I'll have to remember to cut myself off caffiene a little earlier tomorrow), but there's something about "blogging from the margins" (to use Matt's phrase) that makes his presence in this blogging community felt so powerfully.

Posted by chuck at 1:39 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Bubba Ho-Tep

Bubba Ho-Tep (IMDB) is one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in a long time. It stars Bruce Campbell, the B-movie king, as Elvis Presley, in his seventies and living in an east Texas retirement home. It turns out that Elvis, bored with life as a celebrity, switched lives and careers with one of his more adept impersonators, and the impersonator died before the "real" Elvis had a chance to get his life (and his substantial fortune) back.

Now, strange things are happening in his retirement home, with several people dying mysteriously, and after Elvis is attacked by a giant cockroach, he learns that the home is being preyed upon by an ancient Egyptian mummy who is cursed to feed off the souls of the living in order to survive. He learns this from John F. Kennedy (played by Ossie Davis). When "Elvis" reminds "Jack" that Kennedy was black, Jack tells him that "they" dyed his skin and reminds him that it is, after all, the perfect disguise.

I could talk about the ways that the film is about the derealized images produced by the cult of celebrity, and that's certainly there, but more enjoyable for me was the sheer fun of the B-movie experience: the playfulness, the sight gags (Jack's bedroom has posters with photos of Oswald), the cheap special effects. I don't want to give away any more of the film's gags, so hopefully, Bubba Ho-Tep will soon be playing at a theater near you...

This is my first visit to the newly renovated Landmark Midtown Theater, which is an eight screen art house theater under new management here in Atlanta. The ATL has suddenly transformed itself into a film mecca (lucky for me!). I was impressed by my first experience there. At the early shows they had an Elvis impersonator in the lobby, and for the midnight screenings (one of which I attended), they had a raffle featuring all kinds of cool stuff (none of which I won--unlucky for me).

Posted by chuck at 1:07 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 9, 2003

Catching Up

I've had an eventful week hence the blog silence lately. The last few days have been devoted to revising and polishing off my paper on Sans Soleil, so I haven't really had the chance to write (or, more honestly, I've been too tired). Also, the power is out in half my apartment (some funky wiring up in the attic), so it's a little spooky in here right now.

There's something about a writing marathon that makes it impossible to concentrate on anything else, not to mention that writing tends to be a solitary activity, so my own tendencies toward solitude are magnified even further, but a few cool things have happened that I wanted to mention.

I had dinner with my family at Noodle, a tasty little restaurant here in Decatur, to celebrate my parents' birthdays (they were born exactly six days apart, which is pretty cool). The food was very good, although I'm still bummed that I forgot to order the basil roll appetizer.

I did rent a couple of cool movies in my spare time. I really enjoyed 28 Days Later..., a postmodern zombie flick filmed in DV by Trainspotting director, Danny Boyle. The film opens with a group of eco-terrorists attempting rescue caged monkeys from a Cambridge University lab. The monkeys are infected with a deadly virus that kills most of the people in Great Britain and transforming countless others into zombies. The self-conscious references to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead are lots of fun, and without giving too much away, Ireally enjoyed the critique of boys-will-be-boys masculinity at the end of the film. And an interesting comparison just occured to me: this film's treatment of eco-terrorists, caged monkeys, deadly viruses, and apocalypse narratives might offer an interesting comparison with 12 Monkeys (both films even have numbers in their titles). Lots of things to like about the film. Maybe soon I'll find an excuse to write a longer paper about it.

[Brief reminder: I've been noticing that I'm much more fascinated lately by horror films than science-fiction or time-travel films. Maybe that's a hint about where I should be taking my writing?]

I also The Quiet American, which I also liked quite a bit. Michael Caine is always fun to watch and Brendan Fraser is an underrated actor. I'm not sure I fully internalized this film, but it's a pretty powerful critique of America's involvement in Vietnam, focusing on the early, secretive attempts to support regimes that might challenge Ho Chi Minh. The film is based, of course, on a Graham Greene novel. I haven't read any of his books, but I've really liked both films I've seen that are based on his work. The Third Man, which I've been planning to watch again for weeks, uses Vienna beautifully, and Orson Welles has one of my favorite "entrances" in film history.

I saw another film this weekend (no, not that one), but it deserves its own entry....

Posted by chuck at 11:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 6, 2003

Tru Calling

I normally don't watch prime time TV, but I've recently become addicted to Fox's new show, Tru Calling (IMDB), starring Eliza Dushku as Tru, a 22-year old medical student who takes an internship working at a city morgue. Whenever someone dies of "unnatural" causes, their corpse "calls" her to help. Tru is then propelled back in time to the beginning of that day, with just a few hours to prevent their death. Because she has only a limited amount of knowledge of each case (the identity of the dead person, the location where they died, and cause of death), Tru often finds it difficult to prevent the dangerous situations from taking place. I'm pretty much a sucker for time-travel narratives, so I've become pretty much hooked (not that I'd be watching Friends or Survivor anyway).

I really enjoy how the show visually conveys time travel, using what appears to be a quick "rewind" through the day's events, and the show has already dealt with the possibility that Tru might not always be successful is rescuing everyone who calls her. Like many reviewers, I think the show is comparable to Run Lola Run, one of my favorite time-bending movies. Of course, in Tru's case, she knows that she has the opportunity to save people from dying while Lola's status is more ambiguous.

It's certainly not a perfect show: the premise may wear thin, and the Run Lola Run comparisons sometimes point out the show's limitations, but Dushku is fun to watch, and so far, the show has demonstrated some self-awareness: her knowledge that her professor boyfriend is cheating on her with a new student allows Tru a second chance to reject him with just the right amount of strength (of course, the fact that he's an "associate professor" who claims to be meeting with the dean because he's "up for tenure" kind of cheapens the whole thing). I know it's not the most complicated time-travel narrative, so call it a guilty pleasure.

Now I really need to be working on my article.

Posted by chuck at 9:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 4, 2003

Mary Magdalene

Like Eric, I watched the ABC special, Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci, which addresses some of the speculation about the mysterious Biblical figure, Mary Magdalene, who had for centuries been identified by the Catholic Church as a prostitute. More recent scholarship has suggested that Mary Magdalene was, at the very least, one of Jesus's closest followers, and possibly the mother of his child.

The TV series picks up on some of the questions raised by the best-selling novel, The DaVinci Code (DVC), which I haven't read (although now I am mildly curious). DVC suggests that a small sect passed this knowledge down through the generations and that DaVinci was a member of the group and put "hidden messages" in his paintings to convey this knowledge. Part of the novel's success seems to be based on the fantasy of obtaining hidden or secret knowledge, a claim that usually arouses a little suspicion for me, but I'm intrigued by the popularity of the book, especially given the boycotts inspired just a few years ago by The Last Temptation of Christ, which made similar claims about the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus (of course it remains to be seen how people will react to the film).

[Brief aside: when I was in college, a woman I wanted to date asked me to join her at a boycott of Last Temptation, even though nobody at our college had even seen the film. I'm proud to say that even though she was really cute, I didn't go. Of course, my dating life slowed considerably as a result of my principles.]

On the ABC special, I especially enjoyed the interviews with Elaine Pagels, who was an important thinker during one stage of my intellectual development, specifically her observations about the politics of Biblical canon formation. Rev. Richard McBrien of Notre Dame University also backed up the observation that Mary Magdalene would have been considered one of the most important Apostles had she been a man. As Eric points out, the production values of the ABC special (obnoxious spooky music, etc) pretty much sucked, but I was still intrigued that this kind of story could attract so much mainstream attention.

Posted by chuck at 11:47 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack

November 3, 2003

Pieces of Other People's Lives

In his entry, "Pieces of a Life," George briefly lists three experiences and comments that "stitching the pieces together makes a life." Some of these experiences (Halloween costumes in Kansas City, several of his classmates taken captive at gunpoint on a beach in Naples, chipping away at the Berlin Wall) are more interesting than others, but they all contribute somehow to his life narrative. Of course, it's not just our own experiences that we stitch together, but the experiences of others as well.

I was talking to my father tonight on the phone, and he was telling me about his recent trip to Birmingham, Alabama, to attend a reunion at a church he attended when he was a child. Naturally the weekend of seeing old friends and family left him feeling reflective, and he began telling stories about some of the people I knew.

He then mentioned that one of the church members told him that he (a family friend) had heard the explosion of the bomb that killed four young African-American girls on September 15, 1963. The two churches were just blocks apart, but in ways, there was, no doubt, a greater distance. My father has mentioned on several occasions his experiences growing up in the south during the Civil Rights movement and his frustration at the violence (both physical and emotional) committed by many whites at the time. A few years later, my father witnessed some of the rioting in Washington, DC, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

While I didn't experience these events directly (I wasn't even alive during either event), I imagine they must have shaped my life in some way. Both events are inaccessible to me in the way that History itself seems inaccessible, but they also must have had a profound effect on the life I lived, if only because they shaped my father's values in some way. I wonder about the powerlessness he and others must have felt when they saw the riots or heard the explosion. I wonder about the choices or decisions they must have made in those crucial moments. I don't want to reduce these events to my personal narrative, but I know these experiences must have overwhelming power for those people who lived them.

I had been planning to blog about this conversation tonight when I read George's entry, and I found the connection between the two entries too coincidental to avoid mentioning George's observations, even though my encounter with "History" is mediated by my father's fragmentary narrative and my partial memory of it.

Posted by chuck at 12:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 2, 2003

Milk Plus

Just a quick "link and comment" to point out an interesting collectively-authored film review blog, Milk Plus. I came across it while doing a quick Google search on Chris Marker (I'm now polishing off my article on Sans Soleil, more details might be forthcoming), and I'm impressed by the range of interests and the depth of analysis. I'll definitely be going back when I have more time.

Posted by chuck at 9:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Prey for Rock & Roll

Prey for Rock & Roll (IMDB) opens with a series of close-ups of Jacki (Gina Gershon), the lead singer of an all-girl rock band, as she gets ready for a concert in a dirty dressing room backstage at an LA music venue. She snaps on the requisite black bra and puts on way too much eyeliner, and the cheap lighting makes Jacki appear old and exhausted. We soon learn that Jacki is about to have her fortieth birthday, and she's about to give up on her dreams of rock-and-roll stardom. Of course, playing in a rock band is the only life she knows, and after one of her concerts, she gets a phone call from a promoter who might offer a recording concert and some good gigs.

I really enjoyed the film a lot, and I'm struggling with finding why I responded to it. In part, I think I simply needed a movie, particularly one that celebrated the escape from daily routine that rock music can offer. The shots of Jacki, wearing her rock-n-roll clothes in her mother's middle-class home convey her distance from that world.

The plot itself felt forced in a few places, especially the melodramatic elements, especially Tracy's self-destructive use of drugs and alcohol and a sequence dealing with the rape of one of the band members, but in general the performances carry the material pretty effectively (band members Gershon, Drea De Matteo, Lori Petty, and Shelly Cole were all very good), and the film wisely de-emphasizes the romance between Jacki and "Animal," the ex-con brother of one of the band members, focusing instead on the women practicing and playing together, on rock-n-roll itself.

The film was based on a play by Cheri Lovedog, a musician based in LA, who also wrote the music performed by the band, and her enthusiasm for rock-n-roll provides the film with its power.

Update (11/2, 10:15 PM): I think that one of the things I enjoyed most about Prey was the ability of the film to engage with the politics of rock, least on a superficial level. The critique of the exploitative music industry wanna-be is pretty effective, and the band's music consistently reinforces a critical edge. I think, more than anything, I enjoyed seeing interesting actresses (Gershon and Petty are among my favorites) in interesting roles. I liked the energy of the film, plus it gave me an excuse to go back to my favorite movie theater.

Posted by chuck at 1:16 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack