Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Slow down

This is really speaking to me this morning. I haven't got the hair but I think I can find some weapons. A sack of lit mags, maybe. Or flaming rejection slips. Years of self recrimination.

Oh, yes, I'm ready.

***

I tried watching a bit of Death Wish yesterday. The print of the film is appropriately beat to hell; a remastered Death Wish would be missing the point. The film takes place not so much in New York, or even Planet Earth, as it does on 70's World. New York is Dantean, a "toilet" as referred to by a crazed gun-loving, environmentally conscious Arizona cowboy land developer who gives Charles Bronson a gun as a gift. Bronson's an architect grieving the murder of his wife and rape of his daughter by an alarmingly young Jeff Goldblum led bunch of thugs.

And that's about as far as I got. It has a strange mix of uncomfortable exploitation common to that period in movies and a kind of fable-like simplemindedness. The tensions of the era, race, crime, urban blight, are broadly sketched so that they now seem almost quaint in their datedness. And yet there are moments of ugliness that would never fly in a movie today: the punks who assault Bronson's daughter spray paint her bare ass. Right there on the screen. I was a little taken aback. I can't think of anything I've seen that approaches that in anything current.

I might try to finish it today. Or not.

***

I've been slogging through job applications. Yay, shoot me in the face, please. I've little faith much will come of it. Which is one of a few things weighing on me of late. For whatever reasons, I'm not a popular flavor. I'm like basashi, the Japanese horse-meat ice cream. That's me, want a scoop? No? Imagine that.

To that end, I've been thinking about heading back to school. I'm not sure what else to do. My options are, how you say, severely limited.

9 comments:

Josh Hanson said...

A gang led by Goldblum... Hm.

Scary. I guess.

Anonymous said...

You're funny.

Have you seen this:
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2006/061005_mfe_November_06_Fiction_1.html

Anonymous said...

i pay you fifty dolla to be me personal poetry mantor.

cK said...

How 'bout this deal: If you choose a bad job, and if that bad job chooses you too, I'll go back in time with that bitter cat you posted above and THEN I'll shoot you in the face.

But only after I've spray-painted your ass, man. And it's going to be one of those crappy Greek jobs that do on the rock outside of the Rec Center at SIUC. Iota Eta Pie. Maybe Sigma Alpha Tau. Something like that.

My favorite graffiti there was a Parent's Weekend, circa 1995. Painted on the rocks that Saturday morning was the word RIMJOB.
-cK

Anonymous said...

Chris Kelsey is a frightening young man!

Hey, Paul!

Erin Elizabeth said...

I vote school. It's where the hot babes are. Mainly me. But really, once you reach the pinnacle, it's all downhill. (And while Master Guest is cool, Dr. Guest sounds way more chick-magnent-y

Neil Aitken said...

I'm facing the same set of decisions myself. While I've sent out some applications, being in Canada puts a serious damper on my options. I suspect the PhD route will prove more productive in the short and long term.

And yes, Dr. Guest does have a certain ring to it.

Anonymous said...

I've seen that mullet-head before, in some official capacity I suspect, but also in my high school yearbook, where he was me, and if we could go back in time-- you and I and Kelsey--we would shoot him in the stomach with a beanbag cannon, but in any age--the mullet head and I, and Kelsey too I presume--we would give you a poetry related (rim)job. Why not school?

--Matt G

M. Shahin said...

That advertisement is off the wall. Thanks for the laugh - I needed it :-D