Matt Cahill's blog
A very good discussion was had recently, prompted by an article on lit-blog Ward Six, called “What makes bad fiction bad?“. Not only does the article itself reveal some very big culprits, but the comment board continues with some interesting add-ons (and yes, I had to chime in, though I am not the first “Matt” post – I can’t get used to typing that. I always used to be the only “Matt” and now I have to share it!).
Enjoy.
I must make an admission.
Even though I’m a writer, even though I work in film and television, even though I take pretty photos with pretty cameras, there is nothing that seeps faster through my skin, as someone who feels for art, as wholly as music. For me it is the ethyl alcohol of expression.
All it takes is a well-played scale in the right key, on the right day, in the right mood, and I’m sold. Here I am, cash in hand! What band is that? Who is that? Some songs attack me unawares with their brilliance, ignobly leaking out of someone’s cheap computer speaker from some streaming internet radio station. It’s like one of Homer’s Sirens, and me without wax to plug my ears or spare hands on the ship’s deck to strap me down.
I remember music with succinct precision and stalk it down, if only for information to complete the missing pieces of the what/who/when puzzle I carry with me. I remember being sixteen and regularly hounding the employees at a large record store in Edmonton, asking if they knew of the existence to the soundtrack for the film Brazil (and each time my enthusiasm was met with a resounding “no”. It wasn’t released until over a decade later, by which time – while thankful for its eventual existence, for sake of people to experience – I was over it, like a scorned lover).
Sometimes there’s nothing worse than falling in love only to be separated without details of who or what it was that caught your passion. In the case of music, it’s doubly hard because you don’t even have the luxury of a face etched in your memory; you are left with something frustratingly abstract: what it sounds like, which by comparison makes paleontology seem straightforward. It’s the rootsy, gypsy-sounding piece with the theremin!
A recent example is the not-so-recent film Kafka, by Steven Soderbergh. As a film, it’s vivid and engaging, though it suffers from Soderbergh’s serial emotionlessness. It was the soundtrack, however, which caught me off-guard. A beautiful piece of work by Cliff Martinez which incorporated Eastern European (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say Western-interpreted flavours of Eastern European) motifs performed on a hammered dulcimer. As soon as I heard that instrument, in that evocative score, my attention was rapped. Done. Thank you. Unfortunately, and not unusually, there was no soundtrack issued (when you consider the type of film it was, released by a major Hollywood studio, and how miserably it must’ve performed in theatres, one can only imagine how the question of “Should we release a soundtrack?” was greeted). On this note, I feel bad for a lot of film and TV composers, or at least the ones whose work transcends the need to only be experienced whilst married to picture and sound effects. If you see a composer on the street, hug him or her. Then ask why the hell they’re not in their studios, holding up the mix, working as they should. I digress…
Yesterday I chanced to search for the Kafka soundtrack again, and to my surprise, on Cliff Martinez’ website, he has released his music cues for various soundtracks which were never commercially available before (for free, albeit with the proviso that they not be used professionally). I couldn’t believe it. I found myself downloading his cues for Kafka in a single Zip file (just under 60 megabytes), and within no time, I’d transferred them to my “portable digital music player”.
I ask what more fulfillment you need when you have a hammered dulcimer, its soft yet briskly percussive tones, reminiscent of a harp, in your headphones on the streetcar.
Bliss.
A slightly bitter-tasting but substantial smörgåsbord for you today, dear reader…
A new documentary, if it can be called that, has been recently released through a limited selection of venues in the U.S. and Canada. I’m not interested in naming it, though a cursory glimpse of recent newspapers will make it clear which I’m referring to. It takes the Michael Moore approach (in other words, disingenuously removing anything which does not conform to a frustratingly partisan point of view) in an attempt to prove its thesis that there is a systemic (nay conspiratorial) effort to discredit scientists who believe in creationism (more specifically, the recently-minted term “intelligent design” or “ID” for short) by those in the scientific establishment who extol the findings of Darwin.
Reading the paper Friday morning, my wife commented on an interview with the film’s host and narrator, Ben Stein. She took note of his perspective on the debate and thought it was interesting. I was less than enthusiastic (if not hostile toward Stein), though to be honest his interview wasn’t that bad (unlike the film, which has been almost universally derided with contempt outside of evangelical circles). What upset me is that I actually think there is a debate to be had (if not owed) between secularists and Creationists.
I’m not a religious person. I was raised a quasi-Catholic, but found myself too interested in other streams of thought to figure that any one system of belief – secular humanism being one in a series of legitimate choices – had the copyright on truth. I’m very comfortable calling myself Agnostic, though these days wary of those who would have the public believe that Agnosticism is simply a less-assured branch of Atheism. I respect Atheists. I just wish more Atheists would respect Agnostics.
For me, Science, Art, and Religion are the same; they each aim to spelunk the chasm between knowing and not knowing. To investigate the disparity between the I and the not I in the universe. I’ve never been prepared to declare that there is or isn’t a higher intelligence/level of consciousness at play in the unfathomable orchestration we find ourselves surrounded by, whether it exists only for mankind to perceive or something more holistic and all-embracing.
I’m frustrated that, in this age of elaborate misinformation, the only time an interesting perspective is given publicity it’s usually loaded with so much subjectivity and partisan half-truth that it’s tainted with suspicion before it even comes to the table of debate. And this is my problem with this documentary. The dice of its argument are so loaded from the start that it negates intelligent discussion from the start.
One cannot talk about this without referring to previous unsuccessful efforts by the current United States government, endorsing “intelligent design” to be taught in science classrooms as a legitimate alternative, and that the theory of evolution be referred to as a “current theory”. The problem being, procedurally speaking, there’s nothing remotely scientific about “ID”, whereas Darwinism and the theory of evolution are demonstrable, regardless that there are many disagreements on the details. As a result of this meddling on behalf of the Bush administration, scientists across America took to the streets (or the web, at least) denouncing the idea, aided by the burgeoning Atheist movement, driven by the likes of Richard Dawkins.
In other words, the water in this wading pool is poisoned.
The question of Darwinism’s compatibility with the idea of a higher intelligence/consciousness, if such a thing exists, is not a zero sum game. One does not, theoretically, eliminate the other’s existence. I would love nothing more than an open discussion on the subject, if only to highlight the limits of understanding in both Science and Religion and perhaps find perspectives which intelligently respect opposite approaches. Unfortunately, given the current climate, this isn’t likely to happen outside of a university campus, and in the case of the documentary released last week, the prospects of we – the intelligent public, of which I include you, dear reader – being treated to such a thing without the deck being stacked by partisan ideologues of either side of the argument is slim.
I was explaining to someone last week – a female friend who was stressed about a commitment she’d made, only to find afterwards that it was impossible to fulfil even though it was very important – how I would approach the problem. Yes, to be fair, I was drinking, just in case you think I speak this freely/condescendingly in general.
“There’s a thing about guys. Some, not all. But, when men are under pressure, we immediately think we’re U-Boat commanders.”
“What?” she asked, understandably perplexed.
I explained what U-Boats are, particularly within the context of the classic German WWII film, Das Boot. You see, once a man over the age of 25 has seen that film (or, for that matter, similar films such as The Hunt For Red October, or quite frankly any movie involving a submersible military vessel with men yelling at each other inside of it) he has a perfectly tailored example which appeals to our testosterone-laden imaginations.
And thus, when men find themselves under pressure, it’s easy for them to transpose the tense life/death struggle they’ve seen onto their comparatively mundane situations.
I told her that, as a U-Boat commander, your first responsibilities are to your country and your crew. This meant sacrificing one’s honour, if need be. That, for the greater good (i.e. posterity) it would probably be best to own up to her inability to satisfy the terms of her commitment and either state this immediately to the other party, or, better still, come up with a ruse that is so ingenious that it fools everyone and saves both honour and embarrassment while preserving the integrity of country (you) and your crew (your reputation).
So, as a breezy aside, next time you find yourself being metaphorically torpedoed (whether by others or yourself), remember the stoic lessons of the heavily burdened U-Boat commander. Or, at the very least, run out and rent Das Boot or Master and Commander for inspiration.
[I’m finally picking up a thread I started a few years ago, eventually posted here, it being the third in a long series of posts which became this blog. -ed]
kludge or kluge
n. Slang
- A system, especially a computer system, that is constituted of poorly matched elements or of elements originally intended for other applications.
- A clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem.
[From ironic use of earlier kluge, smart, clever, from spelling pronunciation of German kluge, from Middle High German kluc, from Middle Low German klōk.]
(citation)
We all have serviceable jobs. However, from a worldwide perspective, only a very (very) tiny portion of us make a living which converges with who we really are and what we really believe in, whether this be political, spiritual, therapeutic or what have you.
What we (the majority “we”) want to do outside of the constricts of these so-called irreconciled longings – what we really want to do with our lives, in other words – turns out to be a cliché when you look at it from a rather cool, pragmatic point of view.
I want to be a stock investor.
I want to be a painter.
I want to have my own business.
But it’s a serviceable cliché. Clichés are the kludges of creative logic. We plug something into our jury-rigged formula which sounds derived and worn, and yet it’s necessarily there because without it our goals would be vulnerable without a better substitute in the short term, and let’s face it, even a better short term substitute would still be a kludge. Everything we do to substitute the wisdom of experience in order to find an intelligent, if temporary, solution to an existential problem (whether it be driven from an agnostic, partisan, or ephemerally creative impulse) is a kludge. Get used to it.
During the hey-days of the late 90’s/early 21st century “dot com” stock craze there became a rather fashionable meme* on the website Slashdot which continues today, mind you in a more cynical context which is meant to demonstrate the shortsightedness of wishful thinking. An example of which is:
1) Create automobile out of plastic bags
2) …
3) Profit!
Which is to say, when it comes to what we really want to do with our lives, we have the idea and we have the motivation, but quite often we know sweet nothing about what happens in between them.
When people who aren’t writers (let alone novelists) think about writing a novel, they are essentially thinking:
1) Hey, I got a good story in my head.
2) …
3) Fame!
Trust me. I speak from the perspective of someone who has heard this in many frightening ways.
However, lest I appear to cast scorn unduly upon a tiny fragment of people (or even a single profession), this situation applies to anybody who wants to get involved in anything they have absolutely no experience in, yet which they feel inexplicably motivated to follow: plumbing, tango dancing, astrophysics.
The trick is to fill in the “2)” with something which works enough so that when you know better, you can revise it. So, if step 2) on the path of someone who wants to open up a bistro is “find a storefront”, you can be sure that it will be revised soon after they make the commitment with the likes of “…and get a bank loan, find a contractor, file permits with the city, draw a floorplan, tell your wife you won’t be seeing her for several more hours a day for the next year…”, etc..
Not only does the kludge which glues the first and third items together (as a plan, dream, goal) expand and contract the more we involve ourselves in the initial commitment, the goal itself (whether it be fame, fortune, or a more Buddhist sense of completeness) is informed and thus evolves as the task itself expands and contracts through the process. In other words, aside from the initial idea, everything after it is but a temporary placeholder, marking time until such a point where we can re-evaluate the situation.
Kludges, aside from their current and (rather too) strictly technological definition, are substitutes for the reality of experience: wisdom. And yet kludges never totally disappear, regardless of how much we accomplish or evolve through the process. We refine them as our initial naiveties are refined. As a result, the kludges become smaller, less detrimentally crutch-like, and less embarrassingly round pegs in the otherwise squared holes of knowledge.
[* I want it noted that I’ve gone 2 years and 227 posts without using the much abused term “meme”. It is my hope, however, that “kludge” will be saved from a purely technical threshold of meaning -ed]
“The thing is, Morris dancing and incest aside, it’s hard to criticise something unless you’ve tried it.”
– Jay Rayner, restaurant critic, on his week-long vegan diet
I did it. I ordered it. My first medium-format (6×6) camera: the Iskra (or искра in Russian, meaning “spark”). I wait for it. Info on this camera here and here. It was reasonably priced (I swear) and since I was looking for an introductory medium-format camera to work with I figured it was the best.
From J. M. Serrano’s site:
This extraordinary Russian folding 6×6 rangefinder medium format camera, fundamentally inspired on the formidable elite camera Agfa Super Isolette, made between 1954 and 1957 (known as Super Speedex in United States), owes its name to the underground newspaper founded by Lenin in 1900, whose letters in cyrillic characters appear engraved in red colour and in a prominent size on the front of the camera, just on the block constituted by lens and bellows.
A total of 38,722 units were made between 1960 and 1963.
