McInerny on Gatsby

Fitzgerald conflates Jay Gatsby's act of self-invention with the promise of the new world, with the dream of a fresh start upon which the nation was founded: "And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes – a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate with his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of the dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it." 


 To some, including many British readers over the years, this may seem like a lot of weight for the love story of a bootlegger and a southern belle to bear. But it seems to speak to a collective self-image dear to many American hearts – in spite of its unhappy ending. It's possible we Americans are not entirely rational about The Great Gatsby. Gatsby becomes fabulously wealthy, but he doesn't care about money in itself. He lives in a beautiful mansion and dresses beautifully, but everything he does is for love. He invents a hero called Jay Gatsby and then inhabits this creation, just as we hope to reinvent ourselves, some day, any day now, almost certainly starting tomorrow.

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I hate Facebook

Sure, everybody hates Facebook these days.


But here's the deal: I just saw one of those unposed, candid shots of a woman I used to know. One that she has not chosen, and one that will not earn the comments of a her girlfriends telling her how fierce she looks in that ensemble.


A few decades ago, she was pretty. She broke hearts. She ruined herself by involving herself with a ravening vampire twice her age.


And now: She simply looks like hell. There's no particular shame in that. Most people look less seductive after they hit 40. Women, sadly, -- or  justly -- age worse than men, perhaps because they were so beautiful to begin with.


I didn't need to know that this particular woman has deep lines that look as if they were cut into her face by a rake. I didn't need to see that time has ruined her and destroyed the perfect oval of her face and the cameo like beauty that was never destined to last, anyway.


We all know that time is a ravening, hungry bastard that destroys cities, murders manuscripts and eats small children for fun. We all learn that we're not immune; we learn it slowly.


But having the photographic evidence of this slow rot constantly in your poor face is just too much. It's as if some cool machine is laughing quietly, saying, yes, meat puppet, this is your destiny, and this is the destiny of everyone you ever slightly cared about. You, sad fellow, are ruled by decay.  By Shiva.


You can practice all the philosophical detachment you want to, but to see your friends slow destruction at the end of your fingertips is a particularly modern cruelty.


Thanks, Facebook. Thanks a lot.

This weekend.

This one goes out to Tanya

Comedy and Harmony

GO: Aren’t all your movies comedies?


HK: Yeah, I mean, I find them way more funny than I do tragic. I mean, I always think that they’re always more comedic than probably anything.

GO: Some of them have really tragic and dark elements, but it always seems to be kind of at a distance a little bit.

HK: Yeah, it’s hard to say, because for me I think certain things are funny that obviously other people don’t. I always think I’m wrong about the reactions from audiences. I always think something is going to play a certain way and it’s usually much different than the way it’s conceived. Which is kind of interesting because I kind of like that too. But I’m always thinking like this movie will play in the shopping malls, or that it’ll be like the most commercial thing… I never really thought of myself as an independent filmmaker, whatever that is. I always thought I was trying to make films more commercial or more mainstream. I wanted to be a commercial director, but I guess I just didn’t understand the public’s taste. Even with Trash Humpers I thought maybe it would be the type of film that Miley Cyrus or something would like, you know, or like the Jonas Brothers. I could imagine them watching it and getting behind it, but then you show it to other people and they say that’s not the case. So it’s hard for me to gauge.

GO: When I worked on Downtown 81 we would screen a cut of it, and from audience to audience people would laugh at completely different places…never the same pattern. It’s very hard to predict.

HK: Yeah, you never know. I’ve never really done test screening so usually when I’m close I’ll show it to some friends. More like pacing issues and things, but I’ve never really done test screening so pretty much when a movie premieres is the first time I’ve seen it with a real audience.

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Showgirls at the Copacabana

photo by Stanley Kubrick

"When someone fucks with you . . . "

Here’s something else I’ve learned this month:

When someone fucks with you – assuming, to steal some legal terminology, you’re the “reasonable man” – your initial reaction, provided you don’t strike back right away, will be to seek out advice from rational people. You’ll explain your situation to these rational people, and most times, they’ll advise you to “handle things professionally.” This typically entails keeping your mouth shut, ignoring the problem, and getting your work done. By staying above the fray, at least in theory, you’re demonstrating far more by your actions than your words.

This advice, I can tell you from experience, is absolute shit.

You’re being fucked with. Someone is doing something to you that negatively affects your job and your life. You listen to your rational friends and do nothing. You keep quiet, you say nothing, and you simply go about your day in a professional manner like nothing’s wrong. This goes on for a while until you eventually get engrossed in something else and forget you’re being fucked with. You get used to cruising above it.

You know what this approach does? It gives the guy who’s fucking with you a several week head start. It also gives them the impression that you’re not going to do anything back – which, in turn, gives them license to be even more audacious in how they fuck with you. Seriously, if you fuck with someone, and the guy doesn’t do anything back – and you’re still at a point where you haven’t gotten his attention or anyone else’s – it’s human nature to want to escalate things until someone takes notice and you start getting your way. Of course, that’s not how grown men operate, but that’s not the group I’m referring to here, obviously.

My advice, after having this happen to me, is to go the opposite way. You can’t keep your mouth shut. I knew this perfectly well going into my most recent situation because I’ve been fucked with before – by people who are professionals at fucking with other people. When you’re dealing with amateurs, however, it’s very easy to feel a false sense of security and assume nothing’s going to come of it. Don’t fall into this trap, though, because it’ll drag you straight into their fucking morass of bullshit – especially with amateurs, because they get sloppy and go for broke after a while. They’re too stupid and impatient not to.

The lesson here?

When someone fucks with you, particularly with regard to your money, you need to make it stop. Immediately, especially when you’re being fucked with by stupid, talentless people who don’t understand the consequences of what they’re doing.

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Why you will fail to have a great career

Edward Dimsdale

photo by Edward Dimsdale

Two choices

"You have two choices here: live your life according to what some snarky chick in HR may or may not think of you — or do what you want."

--Susannah Breslin

Wyndam Lewis: How to acquire the potentiality of six men

In A Code of the Herdsman (1914), Wyndham Lewis wrote:


“Cherish and develop, side by side, your six most constant indications of different personalities. You will acquire the potentiality of six men…A variety of clothes, hats especially, are of help in this wider dramatization of yourself. Never fall into the vulgarity of being or assuming yourself to be one ego.”

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