DVD Review – The Seventh Continent
So this was the second time seeing this guy. And something
I noticed....
Michael Haneke is interviewed as
one of the bonuses and he talks about he tried to strip any explanation for the
collective suicide in the film out of the narrative. That way, he says, is so
that the viewer can make up his own mind about why this family kills itself.
But the opposite happens. There's only one interpretation
available. They kill themselves because their lives are so boring. By stripping
away interpretations, he leaves only one.
Maybe Haneke's an insipid
director.
***
For
applications I needed a governmental number
So
to an office I went to get my number
And
in the entrance-room I had to take a number
Though
the others there didn't amount in number
To
anything anyone might consider a number
Namely
none but I had to take a 1 as a number
And
the receptionist called a 1 as the number
And
in I went clutching my number
Where
I was told I had to take another number
And
I asked why I had to take a number
And
was told it was to keep the proles number.
***
Monster
It literally happened overnight.
One night I tucked in Trudy.
(She was twelve at the time.)
Then, in peace, some
television and a glass of wine.
I retired, completely unaware of
what was to come.
The alarm went off at the usual time:
I opened the window and looked outside.
Nothing unusual at all.
Coffee first, or Trudy
first?
I ultimately chose to awaken Trudy.
I went into her room.
I shook her.
She rolled over.
It had happened!
She was ugly!
Spotty!
Lumpy!
She grunted at me!
I stepped back!
She sat up awkwardly!
She was adolescent!
***
Why
are you so useless? You're lower than the lowest, if such a thing's possible.
No-one wants you, no-one needs you; there's nothing you can do in an
above-average way. You're a kind of a joke, you know. You have nothing to offer
anyone. You can barely put a thoughtful sentence together. Every day you're
worse than yesterday. I don't know how you can stand yourself. I repeat: you
have nothing to offer. You just get wronger and wronger. But the really outrageous part of it is that
you're proud you're this way; and that's your greatest sin of all.
***
Halfway through our journey, we came upon a thousand men
and boys on a hilltop near
Our leader asked, "What is this business?"
The robed one said, "It's the equinox. The world is
reborn again."
"Mathematics tells us rituals are of no need."
"Kiss me."
"No."
The boys and men all fell and turned to dust with the
exception of the one, who said,
"So much for the touch
football league."
***
A
good question for a grade six English examination
Read
the following passage.
Nel mezzo
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta
via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva
selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel
pensier rinova la paura!
What
can you make of this passage? What form is it? Is there any pattern? Note the
syllable count. Who might have written it, and when?
State
three observations about the lines. You'll be graded according to your
logical processes. Your Italianicity will be
accounted for.
***
-June!
-Pete!
-Hello!
-What're
you doing?
-Huh?
Oh, I'm sending you a text message!
-What
about?
-You
just wait.
-What's
it say?
-I'm
not done yet.
-I'm
right here.
-What?
-Why
don't you just tell me?
-Oh,
that wouldn't be right.
-Will
it take long?
-Can't
talk. Texting.
-Why
not just stop there, tell me the rest of it?
-Because
everything would be out of order. Just wait.
-You
do that fast, but talking's faster.
-Has
to be this way.
-Come
on!
-Almost
done....
-This
is tiresome.
-There!
Send! It's finished!
-Okay,
so, what was it about?
-Oh,
nothing really.
***
Briefer History of the Visible Universe
A unified force containing all matter broke apart and
expanded, creating time. Cosmic inflation came rapidly; all hydrogen and helium
formed; matter became lumpy and stars and planets were formed from plasma. A
sun formed with a disk of matter which coalesced into many planets. Me. This
solar system became unstable from within, swallowing up one-by-one all the
surrounding matter to become a white dwarf, then a black dwarf. Dark energy
became predominant and uniform, and all thermodynamic
activity ceased. There were no longer any forms of any nature anywhere in the
visible universe.
***
I maintain these locks here. These locks I maintain are
just as real to me as the lock at Veurne are to you. I have visitors every week or so, only
at night naturally. They come with their minds and I change myself to suit
them, though I am known only as 'Pierre'. Oh, I have friends in Paris, yes I
do. Some have visited me, some have not. I have tried to send messages from
here, yes. But each message appears to evaporate or turn to dust or snow en
route. Please, by chance, meet me some night.
***
International Sincerity Day
Okay, everyone, it's International Sincerity Day, yeah.
October 5th! Let's hear it for October the fifth! Today is the day, brothers
and sisters, to leave insincerity in the dust, to leave it behind. 'We pledge
to sincerity,' let me hear you say. Forget about all those cynics, all those losers,
who think there's not enough insincerity in the world! Phooey to them.
Here we are, ready to increase the sincerity of the world. See, because when
we're sincere, people have to accept our arguments! About everything! Because
we're being sincere! Sincerely hurt, sincerely offended! No more arguments!
***
What is Superdeterminism?
It's well-known that particles are probabilities but it's
also known that particles almost magically communicate with one another over
vast distances. One going up causes another to go down, for
example. So there appears to be something constituting the particles,
keeping them all accounted for. So why can't we detect this order? It's because
any particle we care to examine, no matter how distant, has its state
determined by our own particles. So the only conclusion we can reach is
that the universe is not a throw of the dice. And this is what some call
superdeterminism.
***
James came into the study.
"Another
piece of fan-mail, sir."
I took it with a "Thank'ye," opened it, and read.
"For how long precisely
have you been disgracing the earth with your presence? I can't believe I'm
wasting precious moments even writing to you! The horrible things you have
done—they make me want to puke! How can you live with yourself, you talent-less
hack? You're a scumbag, you're a douchbag, you're a cancer in literature (if one is idiotic enough to
call it that). I hope you die painfully."
"Acceptable
fan-mail, sir?"
"Nearly. You misspelled 'douchebag'."
"Duly
noted, sir."
***
HUMAN NATURE Trapping is that where it started? Which started by analogy maybe on human relationships the
cleverness the ruse of offering something for nothing or nearly nothing.
A mating strategy extended to squirrels or even bears. Reel them in if you can
it's easier than chasing them. Make a little loop with a bit of string and see
what gets caught. This is how it works so if you can't do the former well
forget about doing the latter well enough to live. Sometimes putting the cart
before the horse is the only way to get to your destination.
***
Up
here—way up here—in my lonely weather station, I've become more masterful—not
in an entirely good way—of astronomy than I had ever hoped for or envisioned
myself—I knew the theory but was daft on practice—to be ever capable of
becoming. Now I time my actions of the moon—the big ol'
moon—because it's more reliable season-by-season than the sun is. Thus—this is
solitude's allowance—I'm asleep every twenty-two hours. I think—lots of time
for that—that I pause a lot to make up for the difference between lunar and
solar cycles.
***
I got schooled by Smookler a
couple weeks ago. I said the film Gravity was "very unique." Smookler said "you can't use that adverb with that
adjective." He could have gone on to say—but didn't—"Either something
is unique or it's not. It can't be fractionalized like some colour."
I thought about it, and I stand, corrected. The film may
be unique, but uniqueness's meaningless unless
opposed to some homogenous field.
By the way, this from a guy who encourages me to keep
writing because he actually believes that one day I might create something
worth more than shit.
***
"It
dulls the brain, lets slip the tongue, forecasts the dotage of all, increases
desire yet decreases tumescence, allows one to see twicely
that upon which one sets a desired gaze, causes grace to be readily apparent,
gives new meaning to stable and secure objects, reveals that which one should
not reveal, does wonders for the cleanliness of the kidneys, causes dancing,
allows the phlegm to be ascendant regardless of your humour, cures insomnia,
initiates unrealizable projects, ameliorates the aches and pains of gross
mortality, makes music and its absurdity far more tolerable, and increases the
revenues of Ma Bell."
***
From the
Next phone number.
A 416.
A man.
Connection made, identification passed.
Now.
"So, you're thirty-five days past due."
"Oh my goodness! I'm terribly sorry about
this, how much do I owe?"
"The minimum payment is $30."
"That's all? How much all
together?"
"Um, $538.63."
"I'll pay that."
"Are you closing your account?"
"Oh, no, I just want to keep up with things."
He paid the bill immediately online, and they said
goodbye.
Brenda disconnected. She made a note of the phone number.
***
Thank
you for the rain that makes the flowers grow, and
thank you for the evaporation that makes the clouds puff up and break. Thank
you for subatomic particles without which nothing big or small could be. Thank
you for sleep that washes away pain. Thank you for making us appreciate
poetry and music. Thank you for your kaleidoscopic fragments of love thrown
over all this. Thank you for helping us with the bacon. Thank you for the
gravity that melds us all together down here. Thank you for the whole earth,
with all its languages and its million words.
***
He was, simply speaking, the perfect guy. He was head of
his class but not proud about it. He became a leader of men in industry and the
government. He married a nice girl. They had four healthy kids. He devoted his
weekends to them. His innovations influenced the standard of living for all the world's people. He appear
to be incapable of doing wrong. He won all the prizes, even a Pulitzer for his
book on statecraft "Dedicated to Peace."
But death didn't care, and the devil as usual will not
comment on a case that's before the courts.
***
We watched the Canadian film Cube last night.
One of the actors, I thought, reminded me a whole lot of
Helen. Same face, nearly the same personality.
About two-thirds of the way through, the character's name
is revealed. Helen.
Now that was kind of a co-incidence, wasn't it?
Maybe not. The film was made in
How impossible would it be that the writer and director Vincenzo Natali, born in 1969,
about ten years after Helen, had known her somehow?
***
Firstly,
Alex, Patricia, Pete, Jayne, Don, and Cecelia gathered in a room with a
telephone.
Secondly,
they telephoned for a cab, train tickets, airplane tickets, ferry tickets,
another cab, and rentable bicycles.
Thirdly,
they went to the store and bought bread, cheese, olives, grapes, butter, and
anchovies.
Fourthly,
they packed shirts, pants, shoes, hats, socks, and underwear.
Fifthly,
they fed the cat, cancelled the newspapers, pulled out all plugs, unhooked the
phone, closed the blinds, informed the neighbours, and locked the doors.
Sixthly,
they went by cab, train, airplane, ferry, cab, and bicycle.
Seventhly,
they had an orgy and slept.
***
Though it is unconscionably déclassé to bring to a
feast the second course of a very very long
long-planned meal while the first course still sits hot—barely touched and
unknowably appreciated—in front of one's dinner guests, I am sending you—for so
it was bidden—a new story based upon my recent travels to Kingston and Savannah
mixed with melodrama and even a ghost. I merely had it sitting around,
untitled, this morning, when I, through my typically chuckleheaded musing, hit
upon an oddity of language; so that's what I've decided should be the title. For the nonce.
***
False Story
I hear the word story a lot. Even when someone is
talking about something that is not fictional, they still call it a story.
That is, people use story as a synonym for true story.
I however think there's a big difference. I hear story,
and I think, you know, fictional story. But what am I to do? I'm just
one guy, and I can't get everyone to agree with me.
There's here something you never hear. False
story. Why don't I make it clear? Since story cannot
differentiate fact from fiction, I'll call my stuff false stories.
***
"I went on the red-eye to see Tiresias
of Thebes.
"He wasn't up to much, so he invited me in.
"'Tiresias, please, can you
make me a woman-'
"'Sure.'
"'I'm not finished! Can you make a woman
retroactively?'
"'I think I need a good reason for that.'
"'Go back in time to earlier this night.'
"'What happened?'
"'I got drunk with a woman, and we had sex.'
"'So ... you want to make it Lesbian action?'
"'No, I also want you to change her into a man.'
"'Heavens, why?'
"'So she can't charge me with
rape when she has regrets.'"
***
He awoke to find himself ... outside only.
He was the bed, he was the walls, he was his house, and he
was his quarter acre of suburbia.
He was his wife beside him, he was the kids in the next
room, he was the cat, and he was the mice.
He was the car in the driveway, he was the driveway, he
was the street, and he was the street-signs.
He was the neighbourhood, he was the suburb itself, he was
the commuter line, he was the whole city.
He was all the entire cosmos, but he wasn't inside.
***
The Shadow said, We cannot sstand to be ridiculed in thiss
way. Thiss man must be sstopped.
But Your Highness, the common people will instantly note
the absence of such a brilliant phraseologist.
What do you ssugesst?
Your court is lacking a fool.
Yess.
And we could press it that he has been in Your employ for some time.
Yess.
For You contain everything and
multitudes including enemies.
Yess.
You will always and eternally forwards and backwards have
power over him.
Yess. Draw uss a contract for thiss sscribe. Sstart hiss ssalary at mine--less one dollar and eleven centss.
***
At Our Last Meeting
nothing lasts forever
goodbye
see you later then
never again will we see this moon
goodbye, goodbye
goodnight
I'll call you tomorrow
well, this is it; good-bye
there's nothing more to say, is
there
what? too
late oh well
are you really saying goodbye? hello?
last call
til tomorrow
be careful there
it's going to end soon
o dad, dad
you'll be better soon
is there nothing to be done
then? nothing?
let's let chance by our guide
I'm so tired
be careful with that
so long
do not be afraid
later
turn out the light
***
Footnotes from the Id
1Good
news! All male
2Isn't
complaining about being flooded out in a place called
3Isn't it
outrageously hypocritical to say that an anthem used in the war against
4To
complete installation, please restart your computer, sucka.
Then say a prayer, sucka.
5How
mortified do you think Eleanor Catton will be when
she reads that one of the Man Booker Prize judges--Robert Macfarlane--actually
thinks that Henry James wrote 'big baggy monster novels'? By how much will she
think he has discredited the entire process?
62013's
classified information leaker is 1983's mass rampage
shooter.
7What
kind of vitamins did it take to turn last season's Mike Duffy--fat, stupid, had
to take his pants off to fart--into this season's Mike Duffy--Greatest Canadian
Ever?
8Attention everyone. Due to the Reverse
Mussolini, no letter of recommendation or reference can ever again be printed
on anything but white, unembossed, unletterheaded, 8½x11, 20lb. paper.
