Digesting a Naked Lunch

Lay off of the bug powder... - Courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

PREFACE
Before launching into my review of Naked Lunch, I’d like to briefly mention the cultural “phenom” called Jersey Shore. I stumbled across this on MTV yesterday and thought I’d give it a look since it’s garnered so much press. Have to say that it was a total waste of time. It was 30 minutes of overly tanned, tattooed 20-somethings swearing at each other. Ronnie was breaking up with Sammie “Sweetheart”, and his total dialog had to be bleeped as he threw her bed and belongings on to the porch. Sammie crouched and cried dramatically when she saw what he’d done. Rivers of mascara flowed, and mingled with the over-applied lip gloss. Every person on the show is a ham who emotes dramatically to the camera every few minutes, seeking audience approval. Jersey Shore is so very bad that it might almost qualify as camp humor – something to watch and laugh at with friends. I won’t give this show any more coverage because it doesn’t even deserve as much as I just gave it. Let’s proceed to the weightier matter of Naked Lunch…

NAKED LUNCH
Being in my middle age, I’ve seen many strange movies in my day. I didn’t think you could really top the coprophagy of John Waters’ Pink Flamingos or the bizarre blue box antics shown in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Imagine my surprise today, when I happened upon Netflix' offering of Naked Lunch -- David Cronenberg’s ambitious 1991 film adaptation of William Burroughs’ famous 1959 novel. I thought that “psycho-sexual” surreality had to be a byproduct of the 1960’s mind-expansion era. It seems that Burroughs cornered everyone, decades earlier with his bizarre, semi-autobiographical “drugalogue“.

Let me speak to a couple of things right at the outset… The book Naked Lunch is so non-linear, strange and impressionistic there is no sane way to capture its essence in a movie. Some in the literati world even figure Burroughs was schizophrenic -- his “rants” couldn’t translate to celluloid. Cronenberg added a rational, almost “film noire” structure to the story making it flow from beginning to end, and he made it a sort of symbolic telling of Burroughs’ life. The story involves giant, talking insects, a conspiracy of intelligent centipedes, typewriters that can morph into cockroaches, and people who ingest exterminators’ bug powder like cocaine. I won’t try to tie all of this together intelligibly -- as I watched the movie I assumed that much of the weirdness was the hallucination from a drug ingestion in an early scene.

When I looked at Burroughs’ life story, I was totally surprised to find that much of the weirdness was true! Burroughs was something of a spoiled rich boy, who became addicted to drugs in the late 40’s before it was “cool”. Much of his writing was autobiographical in nature. He was also an out-of-the-closet gay man in an era where very few Men of Arts (at least in America) were bold enough to do that. He was friends with two other renegade writers of the time -- Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. In the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department, Burroughs really did kill a woman in a gun accident. He really did travel to North Africa and other exotic locales in pursuit of drugs. He really did cavort with gay Germans, who were running from the Nazis. He also did work as an insect exterminator very briefly as a young man. If he had committed his history to paper without the insect imagery, it still would’ve been incredibly strange.

What might we make of the book or the film in 2011? The material is so radioactive, that it remains controversial to this day. The movie has very strong sexual imagery -- talking anuses, giant vaginal-looking orifices, and marauding penises. It has S&M scenes as well as centipedes engaged in an act which is a cross between sex and cannibalism (with a human). It twice shows the main character shooting his wife in the forehead (deliberately?, accidentally?). Apparently the movie has actually softened and quieted the sex and violence themes that permeated the pages of the book.

I did an earlier blog about Marquis de Sade -- I concluded that he was a brilliant, albeit very disturbed man. I have to likewise conclude that Burroughs inhabited a bleak, nightmarish landscape. He’s said to have hated insects, which may have much to do with their prevalence in his book. During his drug forays, and even between, he must’ve felt the unholy presence of creepy, crawly things that unsettle the soul. I hope on a more personal (and less literary) note that Naked Lunch was not a final, real summation of Burroughs' complete life.

© 2011 blogSpotter

Just the Robinsons' Affair

Benjamin, bring me my purse - Courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Last Sunday, I was bored with Netflix’s suggested movies ... think they’ve misread my cinematic tastes – I don’t want to sit through Shakespeare in Love ever again. I decided to explore their different categories and was delighted to see 1967’s The Graduate was available to view. Have seen this movie 3 or 4 times and it seems I never grow tired of it. I actually watched it with my Mom when it came out; I was about 10 years old, pretending to understand nuances that were a little beyond me.

The Graduate is rated 7th on AFI’s list of greatest comedies and it’s easy to see why. Comedy writer Buck Henry (who has a bit part as a hotel clerk), poured all his 60’s-inspired, acidic and laser-accurate humor into the screenplay. The graduate is about a recent Ivy League graduate, Benjamin Braddock, coming back to live with his well-cushioned parents in LA. The handsome young man was editor of the college paper and something of a “phenom” – he must now grapple with the future. Will it be grad school or maybe a career in plastics?

Instead, he stumbles into the web of Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father’s law partner. Played by the beautiful Anne Bancroft, Mrs. Robinson snares Benjamin in one of the most hilariously acted seductions ever on film. Serious complications arise when he later becomes enchanted with the Robinsons’ daughter, Elaine. I won’t do a detailed account of the movie but would like to discuss it in general. We have 1927’s Jazz Singer as the first movie with sound; we have 1934’s Becky Sharp as the first movie in color. And we have 1967’s The Graduate as the first no-bullshit movie that lays us over the head with people and sexual situations as they actually are.

I think that up until the late 60’s, Hollywood didn’t just avoid reality, it was actually a coconspirator in our stifling, comfortable numbness. In 1950’s movies like Summer Place or Tea and Sympathy, sex is treated as a dark malevolence – keep it contained and speak of it obliquely. Such movies couldn't deal with sexual topics frankly. Neither could they really take on society-at-large. In 1957, the idea that a lot of “successful men” were in fact waspy, materialistic brown nosers would’ve been heretical (albeit true even then). By 1967, it was pretty well established, but not so much on the movie screen. Not until The Graduate came out. The Graduate blew holes through much of our phony-baloney world of trophy wives and cardboard platitudes.

There are many things to love about The Graduate. The songs of Simon and Garfunkel are absolutely spell-binding and now enduring classics. The camera angles are inventive and artful. There are many wry, clever “easter eggs” to borrow from software lingo. As Ben and his father walk downstairs, the camera lingers on a clown picture, inviting you to wonder if that hints at anything or anyone to come. Mrs. Robinson tosses the car keys into Ben’s aquarium, thus starting their dalliance in murky, fishy water. Mr. Braddock gives Ben a scuba outfit which serves as a perfect metaphor – a hot, suffocating enclosure that leaves Ben with labored breathing. The parents are mostly booze-addled careerists who have blinders on – Mr. Robinson keeps identifying Ben as a scotch drinker when Ben has told him at every turn he prefers bourbon. It may not have been any deliberate statement, but Ben and Elaine use a cross (the ultimate symbol of WASP allegiance) to jam the church doors closed. Lastly, and best of all, Ben keeps calling Mrs. Robinson “Mrs. Robinson” despite the fact that they’ve had a summer of intimate trysts.

The Graduate gave us Alice Ghostly and Norman Fell in small but hilarious doses – the casting of this movie was excellent. Interesting side note – Doris Day was initially sought to play Mrs. Robinson. She turned it down, but it would’ve been fascinating to see America’s favorite, blonde sweetheart play against type. The movie gave us phrases like “plastics” and “something.. different” to work into our own conversations when apropos. Roger Ebert praised The Graduate when it came out in 1967 and then dissed it as dated, 60’s tripe when he re-reviewed it 1997. Sorry Ebert, thumbs down to that. The Graduate is a timeless classic, and Buck Henry’s acerbic truths stand as tall now as they did in 1967. See this wonderful, landmark film the next time you get a chance.

© 2011 blogSpotter

Pondering Pakistan

Pakistanis protest the Ugly American - Courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

PREFACE

Let me say I'm very happy that Bin Laden was apprehended and dispatched by Navy Seals last week. The skill, the risk-taking and meticulous execution of the “hit” will probably be the stuff of legend – discussed by historians and military buffs for many years to come. This preface is also a segue into our “real” topic du jour …

PAKISTAN IS OUR FRIEND

The reader must have picked up the fact that the subtitle is dripping with sarcasm – Pakistan is not our unqualified friend. I have an instinct to pile on with conservative GOP congressmen who want to withdraw all funding to Pakistan – for the odious fact that Pakistani military intelligence very likely sheltered Osama Bin Laden for 8 years. For the past 5 years, Bin Laden lived in a conspicuous, large modern compound in Abbottabad, near a military camp. For 3 years prior to that, he lived almost as conspicuously in a small town near Abbottabad.

Pakistan's ISI claims they had no idea of Bin Laden's presence. They would have to be lying or grossly incompetent – either situation is somewhat terrible. To flesh out the total picture, it helps to look at two fairly extreme viewpoints ... Salmon Rushdie, the controversial Muslim dissident author, has described Pakistan as an “enemy state”. He stated in a recent interview that Pakistani contacts told him years ago that the ISI was sheltering terrorists. At the other extreme is ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She declared in the last two days (since Bin Laden's death) that Pakistan is our unimpeachable, most valuable ally. Well which is it? Why can't we call it as we see it, and how is it that two fairly respectable people have such divergent views?

It's because Pakistan is a patched-together ethic house of cards. Sixty different languages are spoken and many competing strains of Islam are present. The government is officially secular, but that status is continuously under threat by such groups as the vociferous Pashtuns. This ultra-conservative group comprises 15% of the population and reveres Bin Laden as a hero. The fact that Bin Laden has the blood of @ 5,000 people on his hands (including many Muslims) is dismissed as the collateral damage of jihad. Some US military analysts speculate that if Pakistan had openly ratted out Bin Laden, it would've destabilized an already unstable regime. It's further speculated that last week Pakistan looked the other way when Navy Seal helicopters invaded Pakistani airspace to conduct Operation Geronimo. Hear no evil, speak no evil and certainly – see no evil.

Thus Pakistan was almost neutral in the final tally. They didn't disclose Bin Laden's hiding place, but like Edgar Allen Poe's purloined letter Bin Laden wasn't very much hidden. They didn't “notice” our helicopters but asked us to please not do that again. They didn't protest too much. This takes the spotlight over to another place entirely... Why was Uncle Sam AWOL in all of this for 9 years.

The W. Bush administration was right in publicly claiming Pakistan as an ally. We need the secular arm of the Pakistanis to give access to air space and air bases. We couldn't have conducted the Afghan war without Pakistan's help. But the dreadful reality comes clear -- W. Bush and his immediate advisers must have really thought that Pakistan was our unequivocal ally. They must have thought that this 3rd world nation riven with assassinations and unrest would tell nothing but the truth and always serve the purposes of the USA. I hope that it was colossal naivete because the other alternative would be the dark, disturbing aspect that someone on the USA side was also hoping to shelter the mass killer.

Whatever the case may be, the fault is not Pakistan's. They are a nation in continual identity crisis. That their police and military force would be peppered with Bin Laden sympathizers should have been no great shock to the United States. That we went nine years floating on a myth about caves in Tora Bora is sadly pathetic on our part. Pakistan is what it is – a sometimes-USA-partner in a world crazed by religious extremism. Their every move should be inspected and evaluated, even as we politely smile and nod agreement. Not even Canada or Mexico is totally on board with the USA in its every move – why on earth would we think Pakistan is?

BlogSpotter thinks that there are other shoes that may need to drop out out of this whole affair. Suspicions and alternate theories run rife. For now, I will finish my Starbucks coffee. I will then do like W. Bush – look for some other diversion and hope that none of these awful things could be true.

© 2011 blogSpotter