Burn After Reflecting

the coen brothers are fucking awesome.

i just saw burn after reading. holy shit. that movie was so good, in so many ways. i can't even tell you. i'll start by saying that it is part of my personality (i have noticed) to put things on pedestals and lose a clear objective perspective on things (or people) i admire (or love). am i idolizing the coen brothers too much? am i convinced that the coen brothers are the smartest minds in filmmaking and art and everything that i love? 

no. because tarantino movies are fucking awesome too.

but seriously, my shit is kind of always slanted. someone asked me tonight, "do you really believe what you say?" and it stopped me dead. honestly, i don't know and for all the introspection that (i at least claim in public with possibly not-so genuine motives) i go through, how real and honest and (a word i have grown to love and hate) objective am i really about myself? but wow. we are not really talking about that. we are talking about why burn after reading was fucking awesome.

 

burn after reading was essentially a zoomed-in, stripped-down, hyperrealistic, dark, psychocomedic (apparently not a word. fuck. keeping it anyway.) satire of a medley of startlingly insightful choices of hollywood genres. it went the fuck there. it's really, honestly just operating on a completely different level than most of the cultural food pyramid bullshit hollywood churns out on a regular basis. these guys are fighting the system with this kind of filmmaking. it constantly changes the mental arena you exist and struggle to succeed in when one takes in art. we like to settle into what we're looking at and say, "oh, this is one of these movies." "it's this kind of painting." the coen brothers keep you on your toes. you will get your conception of what is acceptable or customary to appear on "the big screen" beaten in the skull with a fucking hatchet. we're just brainwashed by the big production studios to expect and (more noticeably here) not expect certain things from movies. it sucks. but it's all that much sweeter when someone actually takes notice and crafts such a brilliant and creative fuck you to the system. it works within a system to highlight the flaws of not just the mass media but also of (speaking to the film's actual plot and subject matter) many concerning contemporary topics, including why americans are stupid, why american politcs/ bureaucracy in general is a fucking joke, and (presumably and not necessarily consciously) why everything in the world is kind of fucked. let's be real. we have technology. we have admittedly some great and progressive thinkers out there, but still, the strength of the general human (or let's pump the breaks and safely say american) spirit has been tailspinning for awhile now. and it's only getting worse.

 

so. more or less, that's pretty much the gist of what i took from that movie. what i'd love to do is get a copy of the dvd and write why i thought this moment was genius, and why that moment was brilliant. i won't though. that would get a little excessive. let it be known however, that i could, and kinda was throughout the movie tonight. 

 

oh, shit. it was also fucking hysterical. all that garbage above was just what i realized after i got over how just funny this movie is, and how smart and perceptive the coen brothers are as a writing team. the sharpness of the script makes their actors truly puppets (in a good way) or (if you'd prefer) reflections of the directors' consciousness(es). sigh. i was the same way when i saw fargo, raising arizona, the big lebowski, no country. i won't deny, these guys are able to capture something that i seem to have a really intense admiration and respect for. 

 

so what to do now?

Lights And Darks

First of all, I fully acknowledge and sympathize with any (am I being optimistic with this self-indulgent preface?) groans in reaction to this incredibly pedestrian subject matter. I myself can't believe I'm writing about this... although it was such a meaningful experience!! I'm not however going to do the thing where I talk about what it means that we're finally on our own, with our own responsibilities, and how doing laundry is this great metaphor for the (baby) steps I and my peers are taking every day on our steady collegiate path to adulthood. No. No metaphors. Laundry is fucking laundry. It will always be just laundry. But some funny antics still went down... at least in my mind. So let's get this show on the road because I still have to do my Russian homework. 

As a dude (and self-proclaimed aficionado of appropriate dude conduct), few things give me more enjoyment than witnessing my boys poke their heads into each other's room and ask, "Yo, you do laundry yet?" Professionality is the key to this interrogation. Serious and/or businesslike demeanor is critical to a successful transaction. One motherfucker breaks character and the whole operation is shot to hell. The response is usually a slow head-turn in the direction of the hamper and a weighty nod, followed by something in the general ballpark of, "No." If we're really getting comfortable here, there might even be the follow-up "Are we doing this thing?" You know the answer. What would Bret and Jermaine say? I don't even have to say it.

So here we are. Four dudes. Trekking down the hallway, all simultaneously without speech trying to indivicually decide the best way to carry his respective hamper. Some are whipping the shapeless mesh sack. Others have upgraded to the deluxe foldable hamper. Tension quickly accumulates when an observation is made in my direction - "Dude, we have the same hamper."

I know. I know. I know. I fuckin' know.

"Oh... hey yeah wow. I guess we do." Tension quickly disappears as a brethren halts the pack. An idea has so been had.

"Should we... get a girl?"

WHAM. No one knows what to say. Utter silence. No one in their right mind is going to say that it's a bad idea. But would anyone be willing to take that giant androgenous leap for dudekind and sponser this revolutionary proposition? The perpetrator is quick to justify his suggestion - 

"I mean, she said, like, she would help us when we did laundry." 

This new piece of information elicits grim nods and solemn "mmm's" from the dudes. The decision is made to recruit a neighboring X X chromosome. After the customary hasty sexism accusations are made, our group of five makes the epic elevator descent to what I am now calling the Tide dungeon. 

I didn't even think that was that funny myself.

Boy am I glad we decided to grab a girl -- not only because she was someone who could help answer the ridiculous questions that boys spoiled by years of mommying could come up with -- but also because it must have just been really fun for her to witness such bald-faced domestic naivete. We had nooo friggen clue what we were doing in there (for the most part). Here's a sampling of the shit that we were too stupid to repress in the presence of a female:

 

"Do I put the fabric softener in the washing machine?"

"Do I have to separate the lights and darks in the dryer?"

"What the fuck is perm press?"

"What if it's a striped shirt?"

"Yo, do you have a delicates bag? Ok. Do I need one you think?"

"So I just fill it up to the line?"

"38 minutes?!"

"Do I have to stand here and guard it?"

"Is this a wool sock?"

 

Ah... college. In the end, laundry was a success. I had neat little piles on my bed. They were like my children. Folding laundry is kind of like reverse foreplay, isn't it? Everything all laid out... all the work has been done, but you still need to stand there and fold shit. It's weird. That was kind of a weird connection to make. But yeah, in the end it was a success. I had been looking forward to the shenanigans of dorm life for a long time before I got to college, so if something as by definition lame as doing laundry with other people gets my blood going as it did on that fateful night, then parties/actual socializing will probably blow my face off. People rule. 

P.S. Tide-to-Go -- one product which absolutely requires you to say its name in its entirety. No compromises, no hip nominal alternatives. You're using a specially-designed detergent pen to get that highlighter stain off your shirt. Give in to the corporate enslavement. It's called Tide-to-Go, and it shall always be referred to as such. 

A Hoedown

Last night in the big white tent there went down a hoedown. Our pregaming for this hoedown consisted of dressing up in what we thought would be the most original and spirited costumes we could find - wife beaters and bandanas. And rolled up jeans. And in the case of an impassioned few, imitation stereotypical southern tattoos inscribed in permanent marker. Barefootdom was almost across the board, although one dude wore work boots and for this I made sure to give him daps. Anyway I and the little crew of floormates and such I have been associating with arrived a little late to the hoedown. What I discovered blew my fucking skull. There was a legit Appalachian band - banjos, fiddles, and an old woman playing the stand-up bass who I kinda wanted to party with. For the people who may know what I'm talking about, the frontman for this group who served as the Big Brother voice of the night dictating the dance moves bore a strong resemblance to that really chill conductor on the Hudson Line train... you know the one i'm talking about? The big santa-type fellow with the huge beard. The beard is definitely key. It definitely made the look of the band that much more authentic. Not that they needed to prove they were authentic - this wurn't no spice girls concert. 

So we get to the big tent and I see just lines of people going at it. And already I kinda feel like I'm a tool for dressing the way I was. I should have gone with the western shirt thing. A No Country/Brokeback combo if you will. Last night made me realize how much of a costume party college can be, especially on a small campus like this. When I come back from T-gives break I'm definitely bringing up some of my more third-party getups. Where else are you gonna wear that kind of stuff? Rice paddy hat? Check. Leather vest? You better believe it. I'm making a list.

I'm also getting sidetracked. I was just standing there to the side wanting so badly to square dance with someone but not being able to just grab somebody. This is also me right after coming from a sex/improv/comedy/educational show, so I was totally telling myself I need to be more confidant take more risks stop being a bitch eht setterah eht setterah. I was thankful when my FYC grabbed be and we just started getting sucked into the mob of people running through rows of people and do-see-doing and swinging your partner and just clapping and hopping around when you couldn't figure out what you were really supposed to do. 

The next big step in the evening was getting into an actual square. That means four couples. You can imagine the darting eyes and the nervous glances that had to be filtered out before everyone got settled. I actually found myself in a group of people I had never met, having been pretty much given the boot when i tried to poke my head through a couple of my floormates' shoulders. But this was good for me in the end. It's hard to describe the feeling of what a hoedown is. Well, actually an imitation hoedown. It was weird. There's obviously the realness of the band and the dance instructions being shouted out. But we're all a bunch of college freshmen in Vermont. I would say a good number of us went to prep schools. We don't know shit about real live hoedown culture. So it was kind of a satirical hoedown [It's weird that hoedown has an "e" in it. I checked it out on wikipedia and it is indeed the right spelling.]. But this is what I learned. This is also where I start ranting.

1) People are way too fucking guarded. So many people are afraid to just let go and be a part of something totally foreign to them. I'm definitely part of that group, but I'm trying to fight it every day. People need to commit to something and not just constantly remind themselves that this is a silly dance during orientation week. Because...

2) I don't know exactly why I'm doing the numbered list thing but to continue that ellipses above, it's because there is a whole different kind of fun to be had out there. We are so jaded and attached to our ideas of what a "good time" is that we reject things that are old-fashioned or unconventional. We're also obsessed with creating our own identity and shaping our own societal comfort zones, but why not look to the past a little once in awhile? They had fun back then, right? Because a hoedown is nostalgic by definition at this point. It's quirky and not something a young person of this generation (generally speaking) would actively choose to do for fun. But it IS and it CAN BE...

3) The music of a hoedown is also really interesting. It's just this simple pulsing bassline with these wholesome repeating riffs, but you can really get lost in it. It's really interesting to zone out to. 

4) Speaking of zoning out, I tried something that kind of relates to the whole guarded thing. While I was linking arms over shoulders with these three other people I had never met and just spinning around to the music, I let my eyes just glaze out. I tried to focus less. I tried to let my body just go with it. And it was a stark difference to the way I usually feel in life. And I don't really understand it very much at this point but as Toby said at casino night, I'm gonna chase that feeling.

5) OH. I was so fucking pissed at one point during this hoedown. The bearded frontman who was probably pushing 65-70 was shushing our bratty asses for a good seven minutes. I could not believe people weren't shutting up!! I felt so terribly. It's so fucking disrespectful to this man and his profession to just keep talking when he is just trying to do his job. And his job, in case you hadn't noticed, was to entertain YOU and to provide a good time for YOU. He's not doing this for his own good. I wanted to run on stage and give those motherfuckers a piece of my mind. Sure enough though, when beardy finally got the instructions out and the dance finished, the applause was tremendous. It was a different kind of applause. For a second, the people who had really been into it released all that energy and you could really feel that there was something awesome going on.

6) This hoedown got me thinking also about a word I so often use: "ridiculous." It's right in the fucking title of this blog. It's totally a defense mechanism though. It's designed so that when you say it, you feel like you're more grounded and centered than all the shit that's going on around you. You = stable and level-headed. Shit happening = craaaazy. Don't get me wrong though. Some things are actually ridiculous. And you could argue that a bunch of college kids swinging arms under a tent with lights around the edge is kind of ridiculous. But sometimes I just want to say fuck ridiculous. I should just go with it. Live in the mooooooment.

Maybe I should go to a rave sometime.