I got a couple of days extension for that paper, so, to celebrate, here's a quick update for y'all out there...
(don't expect too much logic or planning in this one though)
1. there's a paper entitled "the camera people" by a chap called eliot weingberger. it is a refreshingly humorous critique of anthropological (and, to a degree, documetary) filmmakers. it reminds me of that short story in umberto eco's misreadings (which everyone must read: very short, very witty, very ... eco) where he writes an anthropology of contemporary italy seen through the eyes of a miscomprehending polynesian tribe... the weinberger piece does something rather similar, though somewhat more researched, and fractionally less unforgiving. fractionally.
you know, it really is a pleasure to read something that is smart, academic, and entertaining.
typical weinberger quote about us:
They worship a terrifying deity known as Reality, whose eternal enemy is its evil twin, Art. ... They accuse each other of being secret followers of Art; the worst insult in their language is aesthete.
(Eliot Weinberger 1992:24)
2. brighton. i've been discussing opening a bar down there lately... i just think that i need some time to sort out a few more things in my head first: a year or two should sort it. but it is so pretty down on the coast: as a friend of mine described it recently, "north london by the sea". quite.
and besides, some of my favourite people live down that way... perhaps i'll pop down in a couple of weekend's time.
3. there've been building works over the road from me for the last couple of weeks. aside from the fucking noise, i hadn't thought much about it... but guess what? THEY'RE BUILDING A FUCKING SAINSBURY'S OPPOSITE MY FUCKING WINDOW. FUCK FUCK FUCKERS. FUCK.
[/shouting]
4. the redchurch has been my local for the last 4 months now. every sunday. a few evenings in the week. i relinquished control of my old cafe after breaking up with the last young lady (we all remember that email now don't we?!). well it turns out that the manageress is best friends with the new young lady that i'm sort-of seeing (damn dangers of language paranoia: that word between simply shagging and seeing... you know the one). queue even more time here.
the redchurch toilet last week:
5. current draft of my conclusive call-to-arms. i can never resist revolution.
If, as David MacDougall suspects, we are in the midst of a new revolution (1990:148), it is no longer one in reaction to questions of representation (a movement already well catered to by numerous filmmakers and academics of the previous intellectual generation), but a revolution against the confines of monodisciplinarity. Where once anthropological film helped battle academic and practical assumptions about those involved in the film process, from subject to filmmaker to viewer, now there is space to continue this revolutionary theme into the deconstruction of assumptions about the very boundaries of the anthropological discipline.
... and, before that, a brief rundown of some of the filmmakers who fucked with my head throughout this course... i thought it was just about filming something you were interested in... pah!
Rouch taught us that the filmmaker is not a passive receptacle of events, and, indeed, that he can even be entirely active, his artistic endevours physically shaping the world from in front of the camera. The MacDougalls, and in particular David, have taught us that ethnographic film is capable of as fine and varied, if qualititatively different, a degree of articulation as any written text. From them, and many of their peers, we have also learnt that the interactive agency of the filmmaker must not be overlooked; that film, being quite so temporal and thus historically specific, can draw attention to social change in a most unique way; that, because it is by necessity a most personal medium with a potentially global audience, film is ideal for the exploration of voice and political power amongst minority and indegenous groups. And Gardner has taught us that the would-be paternal discipline of textual, pedagogic anthropology need not be catered to for the production of truly unique and wholly viable anthropological film. His lessons centre on the personal journey that is filmmaking; on the personal vision that drives the process; and, together with all these other anthropological filmmakers, that rules are there only to be broken.
6. no more heavy text. not till next week, i promise. (but if you're interested in any of this shit, i do recommend trying to get hold of some of these guys' work... fucking, in the words of the youth, a, like.)
i like having a girl around. underwear and handbags... just what my peculiar little flat/retreat was missing.
... that and the resounding sound of a renewed sex life.
i am revelling in this distinctly emergent sensation i have been feeling over the last month or two. after the deaths and the crap and the emotional fragility, i can't help but feel like i have had a lot of bullshit scraped from my heart and mind. slowly, slowly, slowly... it is good to remember that, surprisingly enough, the old man of the mountain was right.
everything is indeed permitted.
and nothing is true. or rather, everything is.
8. request:
distract me, please...
- adsx
(don't expect too much logic or planning in this one though)
1. there's a paper entitled "the camera people" by a chap called eliot weingberger. it is a refreshingly humorous critique of anthropological (and, to a degree, documetary) filmmakers. it reminds me of that short story in umberto eco's misreadings (which everyone must read: very short, very witty, very ... eco) where he writes an anthropology of contemporary italy seen through the eyes of a miscomprehending polynesian tribe... the weinberger piece does something rather similar, though somewhat more researched, and fractionally less unforgiving. fractionally.
you know, it really is a pleasure to read something that is smart, academic, and entertaining.
typical weinberger quote about us:
They worship a terrifying deity known as Reality, whose eternal enemy is its evil twin, Art. ... They accuse each other of being secret followers of Art; the worst insult in their language is aesthete.
(Eliot Weinberger 1992:24)
2. brighton. i've been discussing opening a bar down there lately... i just think that i need some time to sort out a few more things in my head first: a year or two should sort it. but it is so pretty down on the coast: as a friend of mine described it recently, "north london by the sea". quite.
and besides, some of my favourite people live down that way... perhaps i'll pop down in a couple of weekend's time.
3. there've been building works over the road from me for the last couple of weeks. aside from the fucking noise, i hadn't thought much about it... but guess what? THEY'RE BUILDING A FUCKING SAINSBURY'S OPPOSITE MY FUCKING WINDOW. FUCK FUCK FUCKERS. FUCK.
[/shouting]
4. the redchurch has been my local for the last 4 months now. every sunday. a few evenings in the week. i relinquished control of my old cafe after breaking up with the last young lady (we all remember that email now don't we?!). well it turns out that the manageress is best friends with the new young lady that i'm sort-of seeing (damn dangers of language paranoia: that word between simply shagging and seeing... you know the one). queue even more time here.
the redchurch toilet last week:
5. current draft of my conclusive call-to-arms. i can never resist revolution.
If, as David MacDougall suspects, we are in the midst of a new revolution (1990:148), it is no longer one in reaction to questions of representation (a movement already well catered to by numerous filmmakers and academics of the previous intellectual generation), but a revolution against the confines of monodisciplinarity. Where once anthropological film helped battle academic and practical assumptions about those involved in the film process, from subject to filmmaker to viewer, now there is space to continue this revolutionary theme into the deconstruction of assumptions about the very boundaries of the anthropological discipline.
... and, before that, a brief rundown of some of the filmmakers who fucked with my head throughout this course... i thought it was just about filming something you were interested in... pah!
Rouch taught us that the filmmaker is not a passive receptacle of events, and, indeed, that he can even be entirely active, his artistic endevours physically shaping the world from in front of the camera. The MacDougalls, and in particular David, have taught us that ethnographic film is capable of as fine and varied, if qualititatively different, a degree of articulation as any written text. From them, and many of their peers, we have also learnt that the interactive agency of the filmmaker must not be overlooked; that film, being quite so temporal and thus historically specific, can draw attention to social change in a most unique way; that, because it is by necessity a most personal medium with a potentially global audience, film is ideal for the exploration of voice and political power amongst minority and indegenous groups. And Gardner has taught us that the would-be paternal discipline of textual, pedagogic anthropology need not be catered to for the production of truly unique and wholly viable anthropological film. His lessons centre on the personal journey that is filmmaking; on the personal vision that drives the process; and, together with all these other anthropological filmmakers, that rules are there only to be broken.
6. no more heavy text. not till next week, i promise. (but if you're interested in any of this shit, i do recommend trying to get hold of some of these guys' work... fucking, in the words of the youth, a, like.)
i like having a girl around. underwear and handbags... just what my peculiar little flat/retreat was missing.
... that and the resounding sound of a renewed sex life.
i am revelling in this distinctly emergent sensation i have been feeling over the last month or two. after the deaths and the crap and the emotional fragility, i can't help but feel like i have had a lot of bullshit scraped from my heart and mind. slowly, slowly, slowly... it is good to remember that, surprisingly enough, the old man of the mountain was right.
everything is indeed permitted.
and nothing is true. or rather, everything is.
8. request:
distract me, please...
- adsx
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
Having a good day? I'm trying to decide how everything should work in my website. Quite a lot to think about. I'm tired now.. I've been inside too much this week. Hopefully the weekend will mean some more outdoor activities...