Jule reads: The Hunger Games leave you hungry for more

I am addicted. I bought Suzanne Collins’ novel “The Hunger Games” out of sheer curiosity, as they were being mentioned in a blog that I stumbled upon. I thought they probably belonged into the young adults section for a reason and since they are also immensely popular in the US, I was also more than suspicious. I mean, after all, so is Twilight and every single book that Jonathan Sparks seems to vomit out. However, my misgivings were unfounded as the first of the Hunger Games trilogy glued my fingers to its pages and kept my eyes hastily galloping over the words as I anticipated the next event with bated breath.

We meet the 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen from District Twelve, in a near-post-apocalyptic USA that are now called Panem. While famine and hard labour reign in the outer districts, the Capitol, metropolis of Panem, executes a reign of terror over the districts, invigorating the fear within the population by means of the Hunger Games. This dystopian Battle Royale places two children between the age of 12 and 18 from every district in an Arena to fight till death, until only one survivor is crowned the winner of this bloody façade of a sporting event. Katniss steps in to spare her little sister, who has been picked by the “lucky” draw. Now she must face 23 other contestants, one of which is a distant childhood comrade of hers.

What fascinated me so intensely about this novel was on the one hand, the fast-paced style that allowed the series of shocking events to have far more of an impact on me than any popular Bruce Willis movie, where every other minute a car blows up or someone shoots down a whole gang. Katniss has been made tough by her arduous life in the Seam of District Twelve; she is grown up for her age since she had to take care for her family at an age where kids normally just enter Junior High. She is also torn between her raw instinct of survival and her conscience, as well as her conflicted feelings for Peeta Mellark, the male contestant from her district. On the other hand, there is so much more to worry about than the deadly weapons of the other contestants. The Capitol is Big Brother, watching their every move, steering the game as they please and oppressing every possible act of rebellion against the totalitarian government. The Hunger Games are like the proverbial “Panem et Circenses” that are to keep the population subdued and in fear as well as entertained. It is a measure to ensure that nobody ever feels safe enough to plot against the dictatorship as well as make mischief between the districts which could otherwise easily unite against the Capitol.

The state system presented by Collins is as atrocious as it is realistic. Certainly, the sci-fi elements such as mutated animals that spy on the districts and highly-technological measures of punishment, prosecution and control are highly futuristic and fictional. However, I can’t help but think of states like North Korea, where only Pyongyang has any means of technology and progress and the more rural areas, for the most part, battle with problems like hunger, illiteracy and are completely ignorant of the political ongoing in the capital and believe in absurd Myths about Kim Jong-Il. This adds to the eeriness of the situation in totalitarian Panem, since it is not actually mere fiction, it bears a striking resemblance to the state of affairs in countries in our time.

All these reasons lead me to order the two sequels as soon as I finished the first part. I don’t want to spoil the series for those who might want to pick up the book themselves, but I can safely say that there is more to come. The Hunger Games are not over after the excruciating ordeal of the public exposure in millions of interviews. This over-televised event leaves more than a dent in the lives of the protagonists and I am absolutely certain that Panem will never be the same again.

Pic via

Your Scene Sucks… and anyway, I don’t get it…

Sometimes I feel like I am getting a little old. Back when I was fourteen, I found my grandmother’s remarks about the “youth of today” pathetic, to say the least. Nowadays it’s me who can’t grasp the different movements, groups and spin-offs. Between Cyber-Goth, Emo, Scene or Hipster, I am completely at sea.

Therefore, I was more than delighted to find this little project online where Rob Dobi draws caricatures of the different scene types and crossovers: the “scenesters” on http://www.yourscenesucks.com/ Naturally, this site is used to poke fun at the strict dress codes or behavioural patterns of the different scenes, but it also, in a comical way, shows you which group your counterpart feels he belongs to. This should not be taken to seriously, as it is clearly exaggerated.

It also works as a means of criticism of the uniformity of youth subculture: "Wouldn't it be more of an act of rebellion if you didn't spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? It seems so petty. Stop me if I'm being offensive. You wanna be an individual, right? You look like you're wearing a uniform. You look like a punk. That's not rebellion. That's fashion."

Since I detest being shoved into a pigeon-hole, it seems strange to me how people follow fashion trends like lemmings and nowadays even seem to obey rules as to what music you are allowed to listen to or what use of your language is appropriate. There are even counseling websites that tell you, how to be “scene”.

If you have as little a clue as me, enjoy the colourful caricatures of Rob Dobi and have a laugh at the obscure rules that a subculture can impose on someone (and at the people who are willing to obey them). Maybe this will soothe my fear of growing up a little, if I just convince myself that being a teenager is a nuisance anyway.

Pic via

A guide to future camera operators - How to shoot a dialogue

 

This month’s issue is to illustrate the techniques and methods of how to shoot a dialogue based on the cinematography Roger Deakins used in John Patrick Shanley’s play Doubt (2005) which was turned into a movie in 2008. In this process, the dominant focus will be placed on the camera angle and its potential to display different experiences and emotions.

1964: The winds of change are literally sweeping through the tight-knit religious community. Sister Aloysius (Streep), the notoriously strict and discipline-loving principal of a Catholic School in the Bronx, comes to suspect that the school’s charismatic and progressive head priest Father Flynn (Hoffman) may have developed an erotic interest in the school’s first African American student Donald Muller (Foster II). The distrustful nun Sister Aloysius begins circling Father Flynn, propelled by the tentative suspicions of young and naïve Sister James (Adams) who, with her doubts, gets caught between the feuding pair.

Doubt is a movie of little physical action which has to count on its actors to convey the unbearable air of paranoia in its war of words. Meryl Streep acts remarkably with intoxicating energy and, yes, comedy as a righteous nun on a personal crusade to hunt down child molestation. Her adversary, the ostensible leader of Christian faith Father Flynn, played brilliantly by Philip Seymour Hoffman, juxtaposes with Sister Aloysius’s cold and disciplined austerity.

Nevertheless, not only the characters had placed the movie on numerous critics’ lists of the best films in 2008, its camera work, especially in the dialogue scenes, contributed to a great extent to the movie’s tense atmosphere and the unpleasant accusation.

The movie’s several dialogues are beautifully punctuated with the camera angle, which affects how the viewer perceives the action. In the first dialogue between Sister Aloysius and Sister James the hierarchy is not only displayed by their positions within the school or the religious order, but also by the camera angle. The low-angle shot used when Sister Aloysius speaks separates her from the other nun and shows her predominance. Sister James however, is portrayed with a high-angle shot, which makes her seem vulnerable and powerless due to the lower position. Her inferior standing clearly indicates that she is talking to someone on a higher level. In the fierce discussion with Father Flynn a lot of scenes are shot as point of view shots to include the viewer in the battle of words. By showing the antagonist through the protagonist’s eyes, the camera work creates the impression as if the characters are addressing the viewer directly. The continuous alteration between leading actor point of view shots and over the shoulder shots between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn demonstrates and leaves the viewer in an undecided state of mind with constant doubts of which side to pick. The Dutch angle used sparingly throughout the movie, portrays the psychological uneasiness and unstable tension of the character in an ostensive way as it is used in the climactic discussion at the end of the movie. The lopsidedness of the pictures is employed to express that the world is off its hinges.

John Patrick Shanley choreographed the dialogue scenes almost like a tennis match where the viewers have to turn their heads continuously from one side to the other in order to keep track of the exchange of blows. By that he propels the viewer to decide which side to take for their own, for he gives no hint of who actually did wrong, neither in the plot nor in the camera work. All other scenes appear slightly uninspired, almost boring in contrast to those highly creatively conducted ones.

Initially I feared that such little physical action, in comparison to the amount of talking, could lead to a certain long-windedness, but the film itself is not boring at all. On the contrary, it grabs the viewer’s attention at least after the conflict is revealed and never releases it until the very end and even beyond that. This thought-provoking spiritual drama about faith is a brilliant movie for all of those, who can stand the uncertainty of a possibly wrong witch-hunt. At the open ending the viewer is left alone with his personal doubts about what is wrong and what is right. Only one thing is made absolutely certain namely, that life is not black or white.

Short(?) Story: The Swan

“Please Sir, smoking is not allowed in our pub. “ What the hell, can an old man not enjoy his cigar in peace in Ireland? Only out of exhaustion I give in, it was a tough journey from my sheep farm in New Zealand to this shabby pub in Dublin. “Well, I’ll have another Famous Grouse then.” Very well, Sir, said the waiter in his annoying overfriendliness. What am I doing here anyway? After Gertrude’s death even the whisky seems to taste like motor oil. Where did those awful Irish people learn to make whisky? I should have stayed home; I’m going to miss this week’s sermon. “Waiter, I’ll have another one.” What if an animal attacks the sheep at night and I’m not there to shoot that bastard. I hate this town with all its pubs and shops and people buzzing in and out as if there is no tomorrow. My pals from the communist party would throw me out if they knew where I am at the moment. What the devil does this waiter take so long? CHRASH “Oh damn! Hey young girl, you will have to pay me for that whisky.” To my surprise this extremely clumsy example of the female species smiled at me and seats her rudely at my table without asking permission, bumping her big glass of a brownish liquid on the surface. “Why don’t you try one of these, grandpa?” I would have never allowed anyone, especially not a woman, to talk to me in that way but the numbing feeling of the whisky, I didn’t even like, makes me mumble “Whatever you like” to my own surprise. Louder than I wanted I hear myself shout bring me one of that and don’t spill it, you idiot. The girl opposite me sways heavily while sucking at her straw in an obscene manner. I’m Lila, she purrs under her breath. I can smell the alcohol on her breath. She had been drinking more than that glass, I am sure of that. As that prick of a waiter finally brings my order, I am half quenched with thirst from the stifling air inside so I gulp down half of it at once. The girl starts moving nearer to me placing her hand inappropriately on my leg, but I can’t get my tongue to utter a single word. My head feels all dizzy and the floor sways violently whenever I release my grip from the edges of the table. “Drink up old man, I take care of you”, she says forcing the half empty glass in my hand. I can’t collect any strength to stop her, my mind seems to be out of order and my body takes orders from anyone but me. She grabs my hand leading me out of the door. The cold and fresh air outside gives me the rest. This staircase is not ascendable. She puts her hands on my back and pushes me upwards. While the world around me spins like a merry-go-round on a playground. Absolutely out of breath, I collapse on the bed. Blank.

I woke up with a thud. Eggbert had run into my bedpost again. Since I had ceased to get really bad headaches after heavy drinking, he had come to visit instead – obviously a welcome change. Also, when I don't wake up alone, such as today, nobody ever takes notice of him, which is convenient as well. This morning my new special friend from last night was still sleeping. God, he had told me so much at that bar: that we was from New Zealand, his name was Shaun, he was a farmer, he loved his sheep, his wife had kicked the bucket recently and blah blah... I don't even want to know why I always get attracted to men like him, you know, twice my age, fat and with bushy beards. As a girl I always fantasized about being raped by Santa Clause on Christmas Eve and that he would kidnap me with his sleigh. Not such a bad thought still. Anyway, I smiled at Eggbert and greeted him good morning, but for some reason he didn't smile back at me.

It’s not easy being an egg. Imagine all you have to protect your fluid inside was a fragile shell when you actually have the eyesight of a mole. Plus, I don’t have ears, so I really should be getting contacts but I’m afraid no optician would ever take in an egg. Unfair, right? My name is Eggbert and I am an egg on a mission. Like the swan egg I am, I’m naturally set out to become a beautiful, white swan one day, like my brothers and sisters. Damn you, witch, for cursing me! Now I have to find two people I can reunite so the curse will be broken. Not that easy when you’re an egg with bad eyesight. Sometimes I think I’ll never make it. I will never be able to spread my wings and fly like the other swans. Depressing, right? But whatever, I’m doing my best and that has to be rewarded, right? I have this friend called Lila whom I meet every now and then. Actually, I meet her quite often. She is tied to the bottle, that gal. Whenever she’s in really bad shape after her last binge, we meet up and have a little chat. You see, Lila is really special to me and, since only she can see me, I suppose that I am rather special to her, too. Oh right, I totally forgot: Only Lila can see me because I am a hallucination. Wicked, right? So we are kind of close, the two of us. I even told her about the curse and she knows that I have a plan for her. Lila is going to be reunited with her long-absent father. And the happy counselor is going to be yours truly: Eggbert the egg hallucination. That’s me, reuniting families and bringing happiness to my friends. I pop up in Lila’s bedroom and instantly bump into the bedpost. Frickin’ eyes! My eyesight might be bad, but I can clearly see the shocking scene right before my eyes. Just when I want to tell her that finally her daddy is in town (don’t ask me how I know, I am a hallucination, remember?), I find her wasted out of her mind, butt naked in bed with a fat old man with a bushy white beard.

“You fool”, he said. “Do you not know what you have done?” Apparently I did not. He on the hand started to fuss and swear, which was rather unusual for dear old Eggbert. “Now I shall never become a swan”, he lamented.  Ah, this again. Well, I suppose I should tell you that Eggbert in fact was an egg. Well, not an egg like you would eat for breakfast of course. He was a swan egg to be precise and he was like a meter or so tall and had holes in his shell for his eyes and his mouth (now and then he even smoked, but he said it was a bad habit and that he would have to quit). Also he wore a straw head, striped pants and yellow shoes, but that is not the point. Anyway, he had been talking quite a while now about how he had come to realize, that his goal in life was to reunite me with my father. ‘Cause that was what it would take him to become a swan. He was a swan egg, you see. A witch had cursed him and he had to do a good deed in order to reverse the spell. Sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? Maybe I shouldn't have told him about my father and that I never knew him after all. But well, he had become a good friend over time and I had come to look past that. You know, just like you look past the nostalgic ramblings of you beloved grandmother or the unhealthy eating habits of your best friend.  “Ah, come on”, I said. “It'll be alright, you are not jealous, are you?” Of course I knew he wasn't jealous. Eggbert never was jealous. I just wanted to tease him a bit. “Argh, you don't understand, you stupid bitch”, he cried and stamped his little feet. “That walrus you fucked last night was your father – YOUR FATHER!!! Now I'll never become a swan...” At first I simply continued to smile at him, dazed and confused. But the smile faded as soon as the truth of Eggbert's words dawned on me. Eggbert was usually right in matters such as these. Hell, he was always right.

It's not just any man, this guy who looks like Santa Clause is her dearly-missed daddy. I start yelling at her, just to let off some steam. “You fool, what have you done?” This mindless, idiotic… “You slut you dumb bitch! You ruined my chances to ever become a swan. Do you want me to stay in this egg form forever? Why for God’s sake do you have to fuck your own fucking father?” She starts to say something about me being jealous. Is that bitch delusional? She is still sleepy but by now my words start to register with her. Lila seems to slowly get a grasp of what is going on. First, she is really furious with her old man and she yells at him like a mad woman. Then she realizes just what she has done. “He’s my father? Eeww, now that is just gross. Wait… Daddy?” She starts shaking his shoulder to wake him up. When this doesn’t create any responses, she takes her leftover drink from the nightstand and spills it into his face. “Daddy, it’s me! Wake up, it’s me, Lila! I’m your daughter; I’m your little girl!”

I turned around hastily. “How could he not have told me? That pervert. This is disgusting. Maybe he didn't know? But, he must know. He's my daddy”. When a rough shake wouldn't wake him (it seldom works with drunk, old men, trust me), I simply poured what was left of last night's drink on his face, all the while screaming “Daddy, Daddy”. All of a sudden I was overwhelmed by the deep-seated need to be loved by this man, to be loved by a father. My god, I thought I had been past that for years now, but no. With all the love I could give him as a daughter I hugged and kissed him. I told him everything, how much I had missed him over the years, how I had longed for him and how we were going to be a family now. If we could get mum off the valium that is, but together even that seemed possible.

Suddenly I feel a bit of hope returning to me. Maybe I can still unite them after all. Nobody said that you can’t have a great father-daughter relationship just because you accidently had sex once. I could still succeed. I could still become a swan. A glorious, beautiful, white swan. I would spread my mighty wings and rise to the sky in the sunlight. Everything would be alright, I would no longer be blind and clumsy but graceful and… A sudden noise brings me back into the scene.

Holy crap, what is this annoying feeling as if my brain bumps into the inside of my skull. What the hell, someone had just splashed something in my face; my head is aching like mad. It feels as if my tongue has been swapped for a dead animal. A shabby looking girl smelling like alcohol, what is she talking about? My mind is not capable of handling the sound she utters. Daddy? Daughter? Girl get a grip on yourself, I don’t know you. She is all freaked out. “Shut up you stupid bitch. I don’t have a daughter; you’re just the stupid cow that got my drunk last night. Get off of me, you filthy girl. What did you do to me anyway? If I had a daughter, she surely wouldn’t be such a slut like you.” She is completely mad. She won’t calm down. I have to leave, if only my head would stop to spin. “Wait, what are you doing, you dumb cow?” She jumps onto me hitting my head with a telephone. “Ahhrrrg!” the pain is blinding. My eyes start to water and my head feels like it is cracked open.  She won’t let go off me. “No, don’t do that.” I can’t see what is going on. Where is that freak? “No, take it off.” She wraps something around my neck.  As she pulls tighter, my field of vision starts to get smaller. I can’t shake her off. Blood thumping in my ears. Air supply is choked off. Dizzy feeling. Almost fainting. Oxygen. A cloud rolled over everything. Blackness.

His reaction, though, was like a smack in the face. That smelly old bastard chose to believe otherwise. He simply refused to recognize me. He denied me. My own father. Can you believe it? After all those years. It was simply too much. From behind my bed I seized the receiver from my old, black phone that I keep beside my bed and, you know, slammed it down on his head with full force. Again, again and again. Hello, anybody there? Please hold the line, you will be connected soon. Your call is important to us. But shortly I should realize that the receiver was no match for that thick skull of his. So I planted the telephone cord around his throat and pulled it tight. It didn't take long to choke the air out of his lungs. It was all over before it really began. Very fast. Anger does that to you. When all colour had left his face and his eyes grew dull, I finally felt at ease. I had never felt so, so alive before, actually, up until this very moment. Unfortunately this state was meant to last for very long, but for one glorious moment I felt as one.

Apparently I have missed some crucial event, because Lila is suddenly pulling on some thick black phone cord that is wrapped around her father’s throat. Shaun is slowly turning blue and the noise I heard is the constant gargling from his twitching mouth. As he tries to push away Lila, his movements become weaker until he stops stirring altogether. This rattles me from my stupor. I can’t believe this. “What have you done, Lila?! You killed him! He’s dead! Gone! I’ll never become a swan, you stupid bitch!” My rage seems to propel me towards her and I smack her in the face with the momentum of my entire body. I don’t even think about my fragile shell. Anger does that to you.

Then it hit me. Like a ton of bricks. Under furious cursing, Eggbert sprang at me and crashed right into my face. I can't really remember, I have to say, but I believe I heard a muffled crack, like an old tree being pulled down. Who would have guessed that an egg would be so fast and so fierce? Well, and so heavy. As I fell, I felt like I was buried under tons and tons of steel. At the same time I hit no solid ground. I just fell and fell and kept on falling. And what shall I tell you, I still do today.

“Crack” is all I hear. I must have smashed Lila’s skull, because there is blood. Blood everywhere, on the wallpaper, on the sheets, the headboard. Her brain seems to be forcing its way out of her left eye socket. Lily is just laying there, a puppet with cut strings. My Shell! Suddenly I realize that my own shell is cracked. Naturally! I’m an egg. I’m fragile. This is going to be my end. There was no reunion, just blood and violence and total chaos. I carefully pat my shell to check for my insides leaking out. But there is not a squirt, no leak. Strange, right? I’m not dying? Another loud crack shakes me violently. There are feathers poking out of my belly. FEATHERS! Soft, white, beautiful feathers. Eggs don’t have feathers. Swans have feathers. How is that even possible? Then it strikes me like lightning. They are united, after all. Obviously, they are no longer alive, but having died together, they are united in death. A mad giggle escapes my ragged shell.  With a creaking sound the top of it begins to crumble. My new head slides out of its white cage. A long, elegant neck stretches underneath it. With a piercing cry I rise and gracefully try to spread my newly acquired wings. They don’t move. I cannot raise my wings, they seem to be glued to my torso. I start to panic and fidget around to free myself. All of a sudden, a calm voice calls me: “Deary me, Mr. Swanson, why are we so agitated today? Don’t worry, the doctor will be ready for your treatment in no time.” White, everything is pearly white and so bright, that I have to close my eyes at first. Whiteness all around me, the walls, the ceiling, the uniform of the nurse and her brilliantly ivory teeth as she smiles at me soothingly and pushes the white wheelchair towards a white door at the end of the bright corridor. She pats my shoulder and as I follow the movement with my eyes I see myself, beautifully clad in a spotlessly white straitjacket. “It’s all going to be perfectly fine, Mr. Swanson, no need to be alarmed. I think you will feel much better after today’s therapy.”

Dani
Johannes
Jule

Fake Palindromes - here we go again!

After a few hours of intense brain-racking, here is my second attempt an analysis... this time with focus AND a conclusion. 

“Fake Palindromes” by Andrew Bird

The song „Fake Palindromes“ by Andrew Bird does not represent a coherent story but rather a series of conflicting emotions and images that evoke a deliberate feeling of ambiguity in the listener. The structure of the song is rather unorganized and strengthens the impression of a confused mind that is narrating. The song contrasts very dark and violent ideas with images and emotions connected to innocence and love. 

In the first stanza, the narrator addresses a “dewy-eyed disney bride”, a beautiful, naïve an innocent girl. This effect is strengthened by the use of imagery like “bright pair of shoes” and “knee high socks” in the second stanza. 

This innocent girl however has a dark secret to her, since she has distracting red lipstick on and is using the socks to hide signs of physical abuse (“what to cover a bruise”). This is only one part of the dark and eerie atmosphere that surrounds the positive images within the song. Already the second verse of the first stanza introduces the idea of “swapping blood with formaldehyde”, which means that the girl should have been murdered, even though the attempt failed. The narrator threatens the girl by saying that she should have died with “the monsters that talk, […] that walk the earth”, like she herself is some kind of monster. 

The second stanza underlines the fact that the girl is not as innocent as she seemed as first, since with the “old death kit” that she had wanted to use, she possesses a sort of weapon with which she had planned to kill someone, out of rage: “she has blood in her eyes for you”.  This rage and the planned homicide refer back to the fourth verse of the first stanza were “whiskey-plied voices cried fratricide”, which suggests that there has already been a murder of her brother to begin with, which was blamed on the girl. 

The third stanza begins with a completely opposing idea, that of maddening love, which is full of confliction emotions. Here, “singles ads” is a synonym for the search for true love which can be an emotional up and down: “they run you hot and cold”. However, the love is also strongly negatively connoted since it is followed by the imagery of having to bite on a towel to suppress one’s cry of pain from unrequited love and a broken heart. 

The last stanza picks up very concretely on the “single’s ads” by listing generic, average information that would appear in a lonely hearts ad. Again, this normalcy does not last long, because the ultimate aim of the advertiser is to “tie your wrists with leather and drill a tiny hole in your head”. The cruel, murderous intentions appear in almost every stanza and therefore dominate the whole atmosphere to a threatening and uneasy but still ambiguous overall picture.

The fact that the title “Fake Palindromes” hints at a deceit of the reader, who is expecting a hidden meaning that is not actually present, strongly suggests, that there is no clear message in Andrew Bird’s song. It evokes a feeling of unease in the listener due to its conflicting choice of vocabulary and topics as well as the irregularity of the rhyme scheme and the structure of the stanzas. It suggests an emotionally unstable narrator, who switches from addressing his victim directly to talking about her in the third person and even confuses vocabulary: “a rheostat, I mean a thermostat”. The song seems to mirror the dark and disturbed mind of the narrator which evokes a feeling in the listener that is comparable the unease of hearing a mad person’s thoughts. The only constant image is that of murder, death and pain, who are only connected to the other topic, love, because of the intensity of the emotions involved. 

Pic via

A Softer World

"In the caves behind my house, I found a softer world. They understand what I had to do for love. They don't believe in restraining orders."  

 Since we have been discussion the notion of "what is art" in greater detail, I felt that it was time to introduce piece of art that touches my heart every time I look at it. Joey Comeau and Emily Horne have created a web comic that combines beautiful, ordinary, extraordinary photographs with texts. 

 The format is always the same: three little boxes, filled with pictures that either create a whole together or that reproduce enlarged versions of the last box. The boxes are also filled with words. Comeau knows how to use words. He makes observations about the world we live in and twists them until they are ironic, hurtful, mean, intoxicatingly sweet, lovely, funny or nostalgic. They can make you smile, laugh uncontrollably, cry or nod in agreement. 

 

 Joey and Emily are funny people, indeed. “A Softer World” is their side project, their hobby, into which they pour all their heart. Or as they call it: “A Softer World is a comic that was created by Emily Horne and Joey Comeau so that people would recognize them as important artistic geniuses.” The twist in Joey’s little texts is always unexpected and portrays a heap of black humour that can also be found in his other literature.

 "A softer World” may well be the most poetic web comic out there; at least it has the wittiest, most unusual words combined with seemingly unrelated pictures that depict everyday life in its most casual form. The juxtaposition of these pictures of everyday life with the texts that create surreal situations makes the comic (which is less a comic than a photo-collage-story) remarkably different. In a good way. 

 

Check out A Softer World !

"Blood in my eyes for you"

Well, Jule, you got me looking for the fake palindrome, and I think I have spotted it - the line "blood in my eyes" apparently alludes to a song covered by Bob Dylan and originally performed by the Mississippi Sheiks in the 30s. Here is a link to the lyrics:

I've got blood in my eyes for you

And here is a cover of the song:

Cover by Mitchell Wilson

No doubt about “Doubt” – A Review for www.tbajournal.com

         

„What do you do when you are not sure? “ Uncertainty or doubt may have followed each of us at some point in their life, but the kind of doubt that we are dealing with here, is no to be compared with our petty everyday-problems.

Sister Aloysius is certain that Father Flynn has an improper relationship with one of the students at their catholic school, even though she doesn’t have any proof. Sister James, a dewy-eyed and naïve novice, wants to believe that the charismatic and liberal priest only has noble intentions. If there is no proof, how far can you go to pursue your beliefs? This is a highly topical question since the accusations of pederasty in catholic schools have accumulated drastically within the last year.  The problem is, that such accusations, even if not true, can destroy a person’s reputation and life completely, which is why one has to be careful before uttering them.

John Patrick Shanley, Author of the play from 2005 and director of the film “Doubt” from 2008 has taken into account every possible point of view. He offers a world inside the catholic school or outside, in the Bronx, where twisted camera angles disrupt the natural order and create an uncertainty in the viewer that can only be compared to a roller-coaster-ride. At the beginning one notices the little hints that something might not be normal about the relationship between Donald and Father Flynn, even though his open-mindedness and warm-heartedness, as opposed to Sister Aloysius’s strict, cold and heartless handling of educational matters, make him the sympathetic figure. At other times, you see a glimpse of concern and love in the behaviour of Sister Aloysius, who is usually bigoted and iron-gloved, that repeatedly show that there is no such thing as black and white and that make all characters ambiguous.

The breathtaking performances of the actors Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are the reason why this film got five Oscar-nominations. Streep plays the shrewd and draconic headmistress so perfectly realistic that one might think she actually occupied a similar position at some point. Her facial expression is so frozen and cold that she could freeze over the Kalahari Desert and her fierce demeanour makes Attila the Hun blush and giggle like a schoolgirl. Hoffman manages to move the viewer when he hugs Donald so far as to make them hope, wish, beg that he is innocent, that this is really just platonic affection. The combination of the two headstrong characters who are constantly battling for position and engaging in vivid and excoriating discussions makes for jaw-dropping scenes that still leave the viewer at see as to who is right and who is wrong.  

In my opinion, it is a gross nuisance that this film did not receive a single academy award despite the brilliant script and cast. Possible, the topic was still too much of a taboo for the Academy. A sad fact, especially since the difficulty in “Doubt” arises especially from the tabooing child-molestation in the first place. However, the film was set in the 1960s and one should think that society has moved on since then. If you want to see for yourself what the Academy has missed, how doubts can tear a person and a whole community apart, and how outstanding actors can heighten an already extraordinary play to perfection you must go and see this film.

tba is the students' event guide and literary journal of the University of Hamburg

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Catholic Fundamentalist Quarterly

Christian Cinema Monitor: “Doubt”

It is common knowledge that accusations of child abuse within the Roman-Catholic have been the weapon of choice in an atheist smear campaign during the last years. So it is of little surprise that this topic even found its way into the mainstream film industry. The 2008 movie “Doubt” by John Patrick Shanley however chooses a refreshingly accurate approach.

Set in a Catholic school in the Bronx of the 1960s, “Doubt” tells the story of the falsely accused priest Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his struggle for justice against the paranoid principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). The film carefully illustrates how the vague suspicions of the fragile young nun Sister James (Amy Adams) in the hands of the vile headmistress transform into a very real threat to the popular Father Flynn, who warm-heartedly looks after the school's first black student Donald (Joseph Foster). Sister Aloysius uses this very warmheartedness against Father Flynn, who has ever been an anathema to her, because of his progressive ideas. These are very same ideas that have transformed our beloved Catholic church into the flawless, modern religion lacking any need for further bettering, that we have today.

In a touching sermon Father Flynn compares the nature of doubt with feathers, that fly from a cut-open pillow on a rooftop – you can never take them back once they have been spread. But Sister Aloysius remains unmoved and continues her campaign. In the end Father Flynn tragically has no further options but to leave the school and abandon little Donald to his isolation. It is not before the closing scene that Sister James finally realizes her manipulation and speaks up against her principal. In the end Sister Aloysius admits her wrong doings and the film ends with a well-deserved nervous breakdown.

In addition to its important statement the film features some outstanding acting by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Hoffman convincingly embodies the clever, witty and charming Father Flynn and everyone can see his honest hurt as he is cornered by the vicious Sister Aloysius. Her role on the other side is greatly acted as well: Meril Streep succeed to portray the bitter old woman, who tries to appear caring, but repeatedly fails to hide her stinging irony. Even when she cooly admits that she is “moving away from God” in her behavior and blackmails Father Flynn with her bitter lies, her face remains unmoved and stern – a brilliant personification of a character corrupted by her inner doubts.

The message of the film however is free of any doubt: We must not let the doubts and suspicions of single poisoned minds destroy the reputation of honest men and tear apart our great Catholic church. Thus I will end with quotation from the bible that tells everything we need to know about doubt:

Mark 11:23:

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.”

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Childhood Reads - Part I

Last Saturday I found myself in my mother’s basement helping her tidying up the mess that had accumulated in the past few years. While we were deciding what to keep and what to chuck away, I came across six large cardboard boxes filled with all my children’s books. I opened a few of them to have a look at what my mum was guarding like a lioness from being discarded. We have an understanding that all these books are to be kept for a possible next generation, because I always wanted to pass on the love for books that I had had as a child and still feel strongly in every fibre of my body.

Why do children read? Even though the media tries to make us believe that children these days have been completely usurped by television and the internet, when I was a kid, there was nothing I loved more than a good book. From the time when I would read the books out loud to myself, following the text line by line with the tip of my finger, I would get sucked into the world that was hidden between these pages. I could get lost in the stories of remote countries, fantastic worlds and lives that were so completely different from my own. I could never name the one book that influenced my childhood the most, since there were just too many marvelous pieces of fiction that I loved and read over and over again. However, I’m trying to regain a piece of my own childhood by recapitulating which of my favourite books I could still read today.

Like every other child I was a huge fan of anything by Astrid Lindgren but not, like most kids, obsessed with “Pippi Longstocking”. If I had to name my all-time-favourite by Lindgren, it would be “The Brothers Lionheart”. 
The books deals with the two brothers Jonathan and Karl, called “Krümel” (crumb), who are as different as two brothers can be. While Jonathan is strong, valiant and good, his little brother Krümel is chronically ill and spends most of his time in bed. He knows that he is going to die soon, so his brother Jonathan tells him the story of a magical land of adventure, campfire and storytelling days called Nangijala, a place you go to after your death.

When a fire breaks out in the house of the family, Jonathan takes Krümel onto his back and jumps out of the window to save him. Jonathan dies in the attempt, Krümel however survives the accident but dies soon after from his unnamed illness (hinted to be tuberculosis). All these events would make the story a tragedy and probably not suitable for children. But as we know Lindgren, this is not the end. Krümel does indeed wake up in Nangijala and is luckily reunited with Jonathan in the fairytale-esque Cherry Valley where Krümel is no longer sick but can roam freely with Jonathan and experience adventures.

However, there are problems in Nangijala and together with a resistance group, Jonathan and Krümel fight against the evil dictator Tengil and his ferocious dragon Katla who are terrorizing the Thorn Rose Valley. They free resistance leader Orvar from Katla’s cave and help the people of the valley dispossess Tengil. Sadly, Jonathan gets hurt by Katla’s fire which will cause him to become paralyzed and die slowly. Jonathan tells Krümel about the land that awaits them beyond: Nangilima. This time it is Krümel’s turn to pick up Jonathan on his back and jump, this time into the abyss of the mountains between the two valleys. The last words of Krümel, who believes every word of his brother’s story, are: "Oh, Nangilima! Yes, Jonatan, yes - I see the light! I see the light!"

The topics that Lindgren touches in her book are difficult to convey in a manner that children can grasp and process: Disease, death, tyranny, betrayal and rebellion. Especially death is a topic that is dark and scary for most children, however, it is not in “The Brothers Lionheart”. Of course, as a child, I cried my eyes out each time Jonathan and Krümel jumped, but I knew that they would be together once they reached the other side, even though I was never quite sure that the second land, Nangilima, actually existed. Even though the book deals with a sad story and has no definite and clear happy ending, I must have read it around twenty times. The ideals presented like loyalty, love, hope, courage and pacifism seem to have spoken to me. I loved they way none of the brothers would ever leave the other, how they fought for their friends and freed everyone in the end. I loved the thrill of the danger that approached when Tengil blew his horn to command his dragon Katla or when he pointed his finger at someone who was then instantly moribund. I loved Jonathan who says he would never kill, not even to defend himself. If I ever have children, this will certainly be one of the books that they will read.

A very moving fact that wikipedia revealed to me: “Vi ses i Nangijala” (“See you in Nangijala”) is sometimes used in Swedish obituaries.

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"Fake Palindromes" - An Attempt at an Analysis

The song "Fake Palindromes" by Andrew Bird is by far one of the most peculiar songs I have listened to in the past months. The meaning of it is hard, if not impossible, to pin down and therefore I greatly exceeded the 300-word limit. Before I destroy all my eloquent ideas in the shortening process, here's the entire version.

For a definition of fake palindromes or "Famlindromes" check: http://falindrome.com/, the page of Amir Blumenfeld, who is posting a new falindrome each day.

Listen to the song on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U7xpGi5SsU

"Fake Palindromes" by Andrew Bird

My dewy eyed, Disney bride what has tried
Swapping your blood with formaldehyde
Monsters, whiskey-plied voices cried fratricide
Jesus, don't you know that you coulda died?
You should have died with the monsters what talk
Monsters what walk the earth

And she's got red lipstick, and a bright pair of shoes
And she's got knee high socks, what to cover a bruise
She's got an old death kit, she's been meaning to use
She's got blood in her eyes, in her eyes for you
She's got blood in her eyes for you

Certain fads, stripes and plaids, some singles ads
They run you hot and cold like a rheostat I mean a thermostat
So you bite on a towel, hope it won't hurt too bad
My dewy eyed, Disney bride what has tried
Swapping your blood with formaldehyde
With the monsters what talk, monsters what walk the earth

She says, I like long walks and sci-fi movies
You're six foot tall and East coast bred
Some lonely night we can get together
And I'm gonna tie your wrists with leather
And drill a tiny hole into your head
And I'm gonna drill a tiny hole into your head

   The song Fake Palindromes by Andrew Bird evokes confused and uncertain feelings in me that I can’t quite pin down.

   First of all, its rhyme scheme is unusual since it has a rhyme at the end of each verse in the chorus: “formaldehyde”, “fratricide”, “died”, but also within the first verse:  “-eyed”, “bride”, “tried”. This adds to the general feeling of confusion and eeriness.

   The vocabulary used conveys a dark, negative picture. This is contrasted with the of the „dewy-eyed disney bride” which might refer to a corruption of innocence through violence.  Swapping the blood of a human being with formaldehyde can be seen as a reference to death following the aforementioned killing since it is common to preserve corpses with formaldehyde.

   The “monsters that talk, monsters that walk the earth” are, in my opinion, humans. They are monster-like in their character traits but appear to be normal on the outside since they talk and live like normal human beings but are evil on the inside and as scary as monsters.

   The next stanza is talking about a woman that is not directly spoken to but only mentioned as “she”. This woman is using make-up and clothing to hide her “bruise”, possibly a metaphor for hiding one’s hurt feelings under a façade of some kind.

   The “old death kit” that this woman wants to use could be a weapon of some kind, maybe to get revenge on a partner who left her for whom she has “blood in her eyes”, which means she is shedding blood instead of tears, another dark and obscure image. 

   The fact that the narrator seemingly addresses some other person could also stem from the fact that another person is narrating here and maybe talking about the “dewy-eyed disney bride” from the chorus as “she” and the “you” might be the narrator of the chorus. If one follows this line of interpretation, the last stanza is told from the same perspective, since it talks about this “she” as well and also a “you”, but it includes the narrator as a third person who wants to kill one or both of them by drilling a “hole in “your” head after tying the wrists of either “you” or “you and her” together, it is not entirely clear who is meant here, but the confusion it creates is deliberate. The listener gets lost in a feeling of unease, danger and violence. Death threats appear twice in the song as well as an allusion to torture: “so you bite on a towel, hope it won’t hurt so hard”. 

   The song does not seem to tell a coherent story, it rather offers a series of strange and threatening emotions, mostly negative ones. These emotions are lost love and hurt feelings that are combined with motives like homicide, torture and corruption of innocence.

   Maybe the title “Fake Palindromes” already points the listener in the right direction, since palindromes are words that can be read forwards and backwards. In this case the palindromes are fake, so they only appear to be readable from both sides. This means that the reader is being deceived because he assumes the given words to be a palindrome and oversees the minor differences. This might imply that the song doesn’t actually have the meaning one wants to see in it, maybe it has no meaning at all but rather conveys certain emotion without actually spelling out a theme behind the words. 

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The National – Fake Empire

The song “fake empire“ by US indie rock band The National was published in 2007. While first listening to that song, it conveys a feeling of happiness and melancholia at the same time.

For me, the song offers a great potential of being interpreted in different ways. Although an interpretation towards a disenchantment of the idea of America is equally possible, I decided on looking into the theme of finding a new love.

The song evokes a purity in the feeling of happiness that you only feel if you have freshly fallen in love with somebody. This is the time, in which you feel like children together, forgetting about everything else and “stay out super late tonight”. You do not care what you do as long as you do it together, like “picking apples, making pies.”

“We’re half awake in a fake empire” shows nonetheless, how you know that the real world is out there and approaching. Your regular lives are not as fun as what you are experiencing when being together. Therefore, your dream world is only a “fake empire”.

When in the state of early love, you are not worrying about what others think about your public displays, you “do your gay ballet on ice.” The second stanza could allude to the “The Wizard of Oz” (“shiny city” and “diamond slippers”), in which the “empire” of Oz was built on the Wizard of Oz who turns out to be a “fake”. The “bluebirds on our shoulders” have a clear Disney-esque happiness to them, but it also accentuates the delusion of the lovers, because it is not their own world, but one surrounded by hyperbolic happiness. You are trying to lie to yourself that you can stay in this cheerfulness, though you know you cannot, you are “half awake”.

You are in such a natural high, in which you postpone the inevitable, you try to ignore it with “no thinking for a little while”. You consciously make an effort not to rush or label things because presently, things are great and the feeling has just begun (“let’s not try and figure out everything at once”). Thus your isolated, bittersweet world is only a “fake empire”.

The use of positively connoted words in the stanzas in contrast with the negatively connoted chorus clarifies the pleasing emotions in the beginning which are disrupted by a subconscious presence of reality. Although love is wonderfully thrilling at first, the song gives a sad prospect of love. The initial feelings diminish after some time as reality urges into one’s consciousness and the daily routine begins.

Stay out super late tonight

picking apples, making pies

put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us

we're half-awake in a fake empire

we're half-awake in a fake empire

Tiptoe through our shiny city

with our diamond slippers on

do our gay ballet on ice

bluebirds on our shoulders

we're half-awake in a fake empire

we're half-awake in a fake empire

Turn the light out say goodnight

no thinking for a little while

lets not try to figure out everything at once

It's hard to keep track of you falling through the sky

we're half-awake in a fake empire

we're half-awake in a fake empire