bewildered

2007-01-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

It may be that I’m more alert than usual or just more fanciful, but my life seems to have become a constant series of dejavus or coincidences. I had never wanted to use this blog to recount anecdotes or adventures but some stories have to be told and, though I’d usually deny it, others have to be bragged about - this one is both.
While reading Baudolino, a book set during the twilight of the Roman Empire of the east, (a historic period with which, I must admit, I have little familiarity) I was targeted by an unfamiliar talent agency and recruited into one of those mystical operations in which reality is constructed, participating in the partial re-adaptation of Byzantine history. Coming from a country in which the concepts of both independent and commercial media have strong political implications and connotations (especially at a time when the political and media systems were uncomfortably amalgamated), I was for a long time contrary to any involvement with TV commercials. And even though I did work for some and was even featured in a limited amount when I first arrived, I kept telling myself that I knew not what I was getting into and took prided remembering that I had turned down a number of offers coming from conglomerates I considered particularly 'evil', such as Coca-Cola. Yet, knowing I had been associated with Chevrolet, for example, would’ve made some of my friends cringe; this may sound unusual for some, but ever since the 70s, political activism is very much a youth activity and as recent years have shown, politics are still an important part of youth culture.
However, Berlusconi has come and gone and I’ve been away form the motherland for over 2 years - in China, I might add, where concepts recently tend to lose their definitions or wait to be claimed by someone else. All this, along with a new theoretical outlook, contributed to my corruption. So when invited to take part in a scam designed to enable a multinational corporation to co-opt one of my countries most valued culinary traditions, intentionally manipulating history and confounding an entire nation, I jumped for the occasion. The operation was an advertisement campaign intended to induce the population of China to believe that pizza was the accidental result of a meeting between Joaquin Phoenix with Helen of Troy in Constantinople in the days when they didn’t speak good English, somehow crediting Pizza Hut for the discovery. Now I don’t want to take more credit, or blame, that I deserve. My involvement in this conspiracy was marginal and I was neither able to machinate, benefit or observe nearly as much as it may sound. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I was there and may be all over the place before I know it.
About on month ago, I received a call by an anonymous agent begging me to come immediately for a casting session. I was asked to stand in front of a camera and shamelessly shout the words ‘Byzantine Victory”- no punctuation used. As a lamb before its sheerer, I complied and left. About a week later I was called back to the same location where I was asked to repeat my shout, only this time with a bundle of skewer sticks as a sword. I started to get a kick out of it. It turns out I had pushed my way past 48 contenders for the role and had only one more adversary to dispose of. I apparently did so with the same nonchalance I had used with the others.
By the third time around, I was already more or less aware of what I was getting into but the sight of a custom made 5 kg roman amour confounded my vision. After a 3-hour fitting and makeup session, I was as giddy as a child while I whiled my wooden sword. Before I knew it, I had signed the contract.
Three days later we left for Wuxi, an enormous on-location film studio I had already been to while working on the white countess. Having just woken up at 5pm after a nigh of drunken excess, I found myself in a sort of stupor but the thought of the wooden sword kept me going. Nobody seemed to know what was going on.
At for o’clock the following morning, we braced ourselves for what we knew was going to be a long and difficult day. After a lousy breakfast, we were shipped to the set where final touch ups were made to my royal outfit. I was then driven from the warmth of the van and placed between 2 ice-blasting fans, one blowing in my face, the other up my but, and asked to whiled my sword (which by now was no longer wooden but had a glistening new steel blade) and repeat my triumphant proclamation, ‘Byzantine Victory” – the first and most likely last words I’ll ever say in front of a film camera. Soon after, the queen was brought into the picture, a beautiful Canadian model with the unfortunate task of shamelessly repeating time and time again, “I expect you for victory” with a strait face and while looking at my ear on top of it. I tried not to interfere and wouldn’t have minded if ‘history’ would have taken its course, but when they realized it was too much for any sound English speaker to say, they let her use her own words.
Things started to warm up, both literally and figuratively speaking, when the rest of the court arrived: Senators and generals, sacrificial virgins and standard bearers - All present for the to-be digitally recreated triumphant parade. In the mean time, I had met the one to blame for all the profanities being committed: a 24-26 year old cute Taiwanese production designer. It’s amazing how much involuntary influence this harmless girl could have. I just had to stop and once more acknowledge that my, as well as anyone else’s, concept of reality is the accidental fruit of an imaginative mind.
This is when my camera ran out of batteries and I run out of any reliable proof. Form now on my tales may as well have the same value of Baudolino’s, so I’ll just wrap it up by saying that the rest of day went smoothly and coldly. Trumpets sounded (or rather pretended to do so), armies marched, meat was dispensed and I was honored.
I’m actually bound contractually not to disclose any of this information for the next two months, but as mentioned above, some things have to be bragged about and, I may add, the truth has to be told 9whatever that means). But in the end, as much as I’d like to deny it and as wretched as I should feel, I must admit the bizarre experience was most pleasant.

2007-01-30T21:02:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, as is often the case, I haven’t been able to live up to my intentions – Ulysses, by James Joyce hasn’t gone past the second chapter, and though I still intend (horrible word) on reading it in the near future, I have come to the conclusion that reading on the computer is a dreadful pain in the ass. On the other hand I have just finished another book ‘Baudolino’, by Umberto Eco. I’ll say right off the bat that Umberto Eco has had a substantial influence on my concept of culture and will most likely continue to do so in any forthcoming creative endeavors. Though mainly known as a novelist, what attracted me to him and his work are his reflections and academic publications on semiotics and socio-linguistics. However, he still is a novelist and, as a matter of fact, Baudolino is one of his novels.
The plot is rather long and winding but this is the premise: during the sack of Constantinople, Nikelai, a government official, is saved by Baudolino, a mysterious adventurer. Nikelai is then asked by his rescuer to listen to his outstanding life story. At the same time, however, he warns him that he has a great talent for telling lies. While the city burns to the ground, Nikelai is mesmerized by the intriguing, though outrageous tales told by this self-confessed liar about legendary lands, conspiracies, friendships, wars, mythical creatures and transfiguration. Throughout the book, we cannot but share Nikelai’s distrust for Bauldolino’s tales, no mater how plausible they may be. We are constantly led by the author to doubt what is being told, to the point that we almost no longer believe what we know to be true to begin with.

I believe it was Umberto Eco who once said that a symbol is anything that may be used to tell a lie, and in the book itself he indirectly refers to himself as a greater liar than Baudolino. The book seems to be an entertaining demonstration of how one may use a relatively small number of alleged truths to fabricate an outstanding amount of fascinating lies – lies which end up having a tremendous impact on our own existence and on the entire course of history.
As he sees it, our human heritage is a complex web of more-or-less unintentional falsehood, misconception and ambiguous contingencies. But as Baudolino says, ‘by imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one.’
The process has both political and aesthetic value: while demystifying cornerstones of human experiences such as culture, history, religion and even what we call reality, portraying them as figments of our fallible and gullible minds, Eco elevates them to the realm of the exquisite and the significant - world where everything is relative but at the same time only that which is relative can be meaningful.

A friend of mine referred to the book as verbose, and I have to agree it is at times difficult to read. The narration falls short of being entertaining tout-court. Some pages do make you want to roll your eyes and put down the book. This could partially be attributed to an inadequate or excessively literal translation. Italian tends to have a higher tolerance for elaborated prose. The same doesn’t necessarily hold true for English and at times an unfiltered translation of Italian syntax may be difficult to digest. Coming from an Italian background, I tend to do the same. On the other hand, I also remember an Italian acquaintance telling me he was unable to get thorough ‘the Island of the day before’ - so the books faults cannot only be imputed to the unfortunate translator.

However, in my opinion, anyone who can cleverly scramble religion, politics, divination, science, history, myth, deceit and love, insolently insinuating they are all equally valid attempts to bestow meaning on otherwise vile and senseless human lives, is to be reverenced.

2007-01-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

I’ve always been of the opinion that one should not be allowed, feel enabled or whatever, to criticize any piece of work without having previously tried a hand, himself in producing something along the same lines – so only after having published a book, however lame, should one proceed to review other books, only after having painted a few canvases yourself should you feel entitled to criticize art. But that doesn’t seem to be the way things work. Usually, once you’ve started producing, you’re not going to be interested in picking on the mishaps of others. That’s when all the ‘wannabes’, ‘could’ve been’ and ‘should’ve been’ come into play. Now I’ve been a great defender of cyber democracy. It is a dream comes true, to some extent. Finally we aren’t subject to the malicious whims to those manipulating Svengalies behind institutional media. We can think freely and produce all the content we want. I’ve found myself in many an argument upholding the noble opportunities we have at our disposal. But I’ve come to realize that it’s just been overcrowded by the bitching and ravings of the motley crew mentioned earlier.
So here I am, bitching about everyone else’s bitching. Mind you, I too have yet to produce something I’m proud of. So now resigned to my status and the sour cynicism that comes along with it, I inaugurate a series of film reviews. I will admit that, though I stand by my initial opinion regarding criticism, I secretly feel entitled to such reviews. I guess everyone else must have some reason that sounds perfectly natural to them as to why they consider themselves apt for such a task and mine probably isn’t any better than theirs, but I still prefer mine.
The reason I chose this film isn’t for any symbolic reason, though I really did enjoy it, but because I’ve already done most of the dirty work in Italian and can easily translate it. It may sound cheap but knowing myself, I could’ve easily waited for the appropriate film with which to begin, as usual, never to make a fucking move.

The film is ‘Shaxia Haoren’ or ‘Still Life’, Jia Zhang Ke’s fourth feature film, the second to be released in Mainland China, and winner of the golden Lion prize in the 63rd Venice film festival. I had been waiting a good four months to see it, even though it feels like a whole lot longer, but it was worth the wait, I personally think it might be his best yet.
Unlike other film directors who switch to big budget commercial productions after an initial positive response to their independent films, Jia Zhang Ke continues to remain faithful to his slow-paced neo-realistic narrative style and aesthetics.
The film follows two parallel tales; both set against the backdrop of the Three Gorges Dam, in Fengjie, a 2000-year-old village soon to be totally submerged by the enormous Project. Han Sanming, a middle-aged miner, has come to find his daughter he hasn’t seen in sixteen years, while Shen Hong, a young nurse, is searching for her husband who hasn’t been home for over two years. While they roam through the dilapidated streets of the eerie village in search for clues, the townsfolk are either helping to tear down the ancient buildings or busy gathering up their most precious belongings before scattering throughout the country.

Without being either confrontational or polemic, Shanxia Houren is able to engage in a powerful social commentary, addressing some of the most significant developments in contemporary Chinese society. Themes such as intellectual property rights, environmentalism or social injustices, are tackled with sharp, though disarming, irony. To some, the absence of narrative links between the two plots and the meager editing, which to be honest could’ve used a few more cuts, may result tedious or frustrating to some but there is a wealth of clever nuances a brisk viewing would completely miss.
However, a simple socially conscious reading would do injustice to its poetic, not to say lyric, beauty – its delicate portrayal of the struggles and sufferings of common folk, determined to keep moving forwards even when their past is literally being washed away.

2007-01-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

I think that by now it's rather obvious that this may be considered a 'meta-blog'. It’s as much about the process of writing a blog as it is about anything else and there doesn’t seem to be any way around it. I am a confessed child of post modern deconstruction so running around in circles biting my own tail is what I do best. The fact of the matter is that for someone who has never terminated anything (now that is definitely extreme, but I like the dramatic effect), a blog is a perfect opportunity, there is hardly a beginning and there should never be an end - ideal. But this phenomenon stretches further back, I think the web has extended the editorial process indefinitely. When I think of the feats great writers of the past were able to accomplish without the aid of the computer, I’m stunned. Writing in a day when paper was precious and mistakes were inadmissible took a sharpness which we cannot fully grasp any more. Now, since computers have gradually estranged us from the difficulties of writing giving us an unfair advantage, it’s all too easy to use the automatic spelling and grammar review commands a well as the wonder of the thesaurus, a lifesaver for me, to take credit for work which has already been done for you. One can write a mistake-ridden piece of shit and sit in front of the screen for no longer than an hour embellishing it with words he hardly knew existed. The final step has been taken by blogcasting. With the blog, as I said, the editorial process has come to stay. Publishing has become irrelevant now that editorial touchups are possible at any given time. And, with some exceptions, the written word has become as volatile as spoken word. We’re now able to take back our word whenever necessary without consequence.
I may come across as sounding apocalyptical but I’m only saying it because I feel I’m taking unfair advantage of the resources at my disposal. Yes, as is probably obvious, I do frequently avail myself of the shortcuts which Microsoft has presented me, guiltily feasting in the fountains of words at my disposal. And if my writing comes across as overwrought, it’s because it is. I’m still getting over how good it feels to write again, it had been a while. Language and words are amazing things (damn I sound like a middle school teacher from my past) and now I can finally indulge my fetish either by looking up the perfect term or by constructing whole segments just to place a gorgeous word. Eventually the excitement will wear out and I’ll be able to write normally again. But the time has not come yet and the urge to toy with words lingers on. By the way, I’d better move on otherwise there’ll be no time for touchups.

2007-01-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

Picking up where I left off last, proving to myself and to the world I am able to finish what I start, would’ve been the better choice I’m sure, but I’m all too eager to leave all that metaphysical introspection behind for the time being. So I’m just going to take myself out of the spotlight and act as if nothing ever happened.
At the same time, though, I’ve recently come across an amazing discovery which has encouraged me to implement a new year’s resolution I was to lazy to take seriously. It turns out peer-to-peer file sharing networks can be used to download texts. I know that this wouldn’t come across as a surprise to the average Joe but seeing that I am relatively new to downloading, I had never put two and two together. I don’t want to address the issue of piracy; this will be dealt with in depth in later posts, as it is one of my pet vices. I just want to say that unlike audio-visual content which I eagerly pirate, I like books; not only their content, I mean the paper, binding ink and everything else and I’d rather buy them than download the text. But n China books are difficult to come across and the ones you find are overpriced. I have friends who would probably disagree with the previous statement, but the point is that since I’ve come to China my book consumption has plunged. Then a few days ago, a random search on e-mule revealed that there is a wealth of books to be illegitimately downloaded in the shortest time. Within a few minutes i had half a dozen texts streaming in, most of which have been successfully downloaded. I now have no more excuses and can resolutely avow that over the next year I will read one book a week. This may seem like a miserable amount but I am an incredibly slow reader and considering that last year all I read no more than 8 as far as I can remember. Actually I’ll make it 3 books a month but I’ll throw in a review of at least 2 of the three on this blog just for old times’ sake.
I know I’ve declared my devotion to un-canonized creativity, but life is full of contradiction, so I’ve chosen a book that could not be any more canonical and to top it off, the reason I chose it was because of its status. The book in question is Ulysses by James Joyce. I just felt that I could never actually become an authority post-modernism if I wasn’t aware of what it was up against and replacing.
But enough babbling, the week has begun and time is ticking - I’ve got a rendezvous with modernism.

2007-01-03T08:02:00.000-08:00

I had planned on combining Zeno's paradoxes to concoct an elegant explanation for my indifference towards finalized work. However, as I reread the four paradoxes individually, I am haunted by the word ‘motionless’ which obliges me to acknowledge that my devotion to the 'sublime' has often spoiled any creative intention I have ever had. If, as they say, the road to hell is paved with Good intentions, I must be building myself a highway. The paradoxes themselves are called ‘arguments against motion’ and I can’t deny that a hefty amount of fear has kept my own creative life practically in a coma. I do however think that a poetically licensed reading of the arguments, especially the Dichotomy, would depict my idealized conception of the creative experience.

‘To reach completion, a creation must first reach the midpoint B1 between points A and B. However before this can be done it must reach the midpoint B2 between points A and B1. Likewise before it can do this, it must reach the midpoint B3 between points A and B2, and so on.’

The conclusion I reach, and the one I'm awkwardly attempting to induce, is that the perfect and complete work of art doesn't exist. For me, creativity is an endless life cycle which is only formally interrupted for conventional reasons.
In the beginning, a work of art is bursting with potential and countless opportunities but as it approaches conclusion, it testifies to the death of all the other possibilities, and its own completion, in a way, sentences it to death - or at least castration. I'm pleased to see that I've successfully, though unintentionally, managed to sexually connote every entry so far. Equally unintentional, though less gratifying, is my tendency to leave things incomplete…I could most likely carry on babbling about the qualities of unaccomplishment untill i've painted a complete picture, but then again, why wrestle against nature. To put it nicely, I stoically stand by my flaws and impertinently leave before having made my point.

2007-01-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

Honestly speaking, the uncensored erotic utopia previously described is too simplistic an explanation for my partiality towards the early phases of creativity. There are other less flamboyant and more subconscious reasons but I'll still waste the next 2 entries uncovering them.
First of all, I have a soft spot for lost causes. In a world where survival is reserved for the fittest, I root for the looser. I'd say it is determined more by anthropological indiscretion than philanthropy.
The evolution of culture is subject to those same laws of survival that living organisms are subject to and has just as many tragic casualties. As the weakest puppy of the litter dies, so do a great deal of forms of culture, and oddly enough, these are the ones I am intrigued by. Continuing in the previous metaphor of the orgy, we are likely to find a clueless idiot who stumbles clumsily around the room attempting to partake in the action only to find himself sodomized by a well endowed superior specimen who has already spread his seed and has plenty left to spare - this is the guy I'd be the most interested in. Our unsung hero will most likely never get to generate any offspring; in fact the trauma may be so great he might just step in front of a bus. So it is with countless forms of culture. However, unlike biological evolution, society and culture are chaotic and unpredictable, viciously ruled by near-arbitrary laws which make its observation a far more intriguing sport - and looking at a finished piece of work or drooling over the latest fashion, which by the way i also do, isn’t necessarily going to tell you about all the runner-ups that might’ve been.

2006-12-31T23:07:00.000-08:00

I sigh with relief to see that no wandering soul has stumbled across the rantings of the precious post. I trust that before anyone ever does, it will have become ancient history and so will this new entry. Nevertheless, I will try to set things straight. The goals this blog has set itself are both lofty and conceited but for the time being I prefer to leave them as such until I manage to get a sharper prospective of the direction in which it is headed. However, as mentioned, or better, proclaimed in the previous post, amongst the various manifestations of culture, I’ll favor those which still are in their early stages. This doesn't exclude more established forms of expression and communication but I secretly hope that this will eventually be dedicated only to their early stages of development. The reason for this is that I find something provocatively sensual and trasnsgressive about the process of generation and regeneration of meanings - those exquisite orgies which produce the bastard forms we have come to love. These, in turn, will then seduce and rape other forms and meanings in the X-rated saga of sex and violence which has shaped the history of culture. In other words, it will be the hybrid and bastard forms of human creation which will be featured in the hopes of seeing them through to their legitimization. However, I don’t think we’ll be able to keep up the erotic edge of this entry but I do hope to follow this course with the eagerness of a pubescent teen who has just uncovered his father’s secret stash of porno magazines.

2006-12-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

This post is a hopeless attempt to atone for my inpardonable lazyness.
I must shamefully confess this blog was conceived as a journal no less than 2 years ago. Along the way, the concepts and ideas have turned stale or have fermented leaving me to wonder if they ever made sense. I think they did at the time and some might still, but the intoxicating fumes of their decay seem to have disorientated me to the extent that I am no longer quite aware of where we, that is to say the aforesaid decomposed assumptions and I, stand.
Initaially I had the grandest intentions of recording the deconstruction of my preconceived ideas regarding China when I first arrived 2 years ago. Subsequently, this was meant to be an in-depth analysis of various pop matters. However, the most ambitious was probably the desire to monitor the various phases of a film project on the manipulation and co-option of alternative culture. Oddly enough, the recent abandonment of the project might the reason I’ve finally brought myself to begin writing. One may find it easy to say that from its ashes, lilies will grow… but that would be wishful thinking.
As of now, I cannot say for certain what will come out of these rambling. Yet, I can safely say the leitmotif will be my interest in the process of generation, contamination and fabrication of culture. I admit this self-inflicted compulsion to merge with the sea of egocentric and conceited bloggers may just be an elaborate excuse for indulging my appetite for pop-culture - if so, please humor me. As I feared this seems to be turning into an exercise self-commiseration and digression. Though plenty of both is yet to come, what lies ahead is hopefully a dive into the unpredictable and perilous sea of culture where meanings materialize, collide, merge, separate, fornicate, die and resurrect. Now, having confounded you to exasperation, I retire, leaving you enough time to browse other equally useless blogs or to enrich your own while I congratulate myself for this recent debut of mine before going back to racking my brains in search for my purpose in pop-society.