by Claudio Pinhanez
Ireland and its people, its stones and green
valleys, guiness and old castles. I traveled 4 days, driving through
its narrow roads, sheep eating grass for the eternity. Two images are
engraved, the library of the Trinity College (Dublin) and the
fortresses in Aran Islands. After going to the (old) library of
Trinity College where the Book of Keels is kept, I start to understand
Jorge L. Borges' and Humberto Eco's mythical fascination with books
and libraries. Now I know what they are talking about. I walked up the
stairs and entered through the middle of the cathedral-like library,
all the feelings and lives behind those old books were going through
my spine. Books were angels, and we were worshiping the writer and the
anonymous copiers. Later on, all those disturbing images from the Aran
Islands, where the world ends in 200-foot high cliffs all around the
islands. A fortress is built as a semi-circle, nobody can climb the
cliffs and attack from behind. I feel like children needing to be tied
to long ropes, the parents scared all their lives that any play can
end up in tragedy. Disturbing, hearty, and sincere, Ireland.
(Mar. 10th 1996)
The Children's Hour, William Wyler's version of
Lillian Hellman's play, really caught my attention last week. A blend
of good acting -- especially Shirley MacLaine, even James Garner has
many good moments -- and vibrant, powerful direction. The last segment
is a master-piece, from the moment Audrey Hepburn goes out, just
before her friend hangs herself, to the walk after the burial. Movie
story-telling, and realistic acting at its best. Hepburn's display of
relief, just before the end, is just perfect, the exact amount of
intensity, a bit more would be melodrama. But why we can find this
movie just in the gay and lesbian sections of video-stores?
(Dec. 27th 1995)
Unspoken thoughts, that's what writing this open
diary has been about. About feelings, ideas, sensual thoughts which I
couldn't find a friendly ear to give to. I deceive myself that voicing
those ideas here lead them to be listened, to touch someone
diaphanously hidden in the cyberspace. Like a wolf howling in the
darkness. With all the loneliness of the desert. No one speaks back.
(Sep. 20th 1995)
Theater in movies, I've just realized how much I
appreciate movies which borrow from the theatrical experience and
knowledge. I'm not talking about filmed theater, but about films which
employ the "suspension of disbelief" present in theater. Some
examples, from a collection of personal favorites, are , "Mishima",
"The One From the Heart", "Council of Love", "Carnaval" (a Spanish
movie), a Jos Stelling's movie about a madhouse (I can't remember the
name, now), "Caravaggio", "Vania on 42nd Street", Peter Greenaway's
movies like "Drowning by Numbers", Prospero's Books, and "The Cook,
The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover", "Raising Arizona", "Jesus of
Montreal", and others. What they have in common is a denial of realism
as a form of expression, without necessarily having a plot occurring in
a fantastic realm. It's not Garcia Marques' fantastic realism, it's
just non-realistic scenario and acting. Like it is always needed in
theater.
(Aug. 16th 1995)
I've just realized I've been maintaining some fan-club
relationships, the kind of friendship where all the attention
and care has basically one direction. It's so easy to get along with
someone and start being stupid, diminishing yourself, caring about
someone's else feelings and desires without counterpart. Like when you
spent hours buying a birthday present for a friend, and he/she simply
forgets, or worse, ignores, your birthday. Or writing e-mails which
are never answered, or replied with telegram-like-long comments. But,
at the same time, I feel always ready to be friendly to those friends,
to listen to their problems. Completely awkward, and inherently human.
Fan-clubs. It seems similar to the relation I'm having with the WWW
readers through this page, like putting my feelings on air without
having answers. Kind of intentional desire or pleasure to be ignored
on purpose.
(Aug. 8th 1995)
Last weekend I went to Provincetown, MA., a
charming city which attracts lots of homosexuals (both men and
women). It's fascinating that you can see homosexual couples all around,
holding hands, giving tender kisses, smiling in restaurants,
etc. Shouldn't be anything so special, but it is because they seem to
be extremely happy that they can act out their love and their
feelings. Unlike most of cities, neighborhoods, and workplaces,
nobody is caring about homosexuality, and the acting out produces a
happiness which permeates the town. The pleasure of walking hugging
someone you care and you are cared by. A honey-moon feeling in the
air, of love, tenderness, sex, and affection finally being acted out.
(Aug. 1st 1995)
If cyberspace is the next frontier , the important
question to be asked is "Who are going to play the Indians?".
Forgetting Hollywood, the conquer of the West was a bloody
slaughtering of the native people of the prairies. I have a feeling
that the closest people to be considered "native" of cyberspace are
the Interneters. We can then continue our analogy further: like Native
Americans, native Interneters believe in communal spirit, in
self-organization, and in meritocracy; they love to chat around
(cyber-) fires; and they don't have (economic) guns.
(Apr. 19th 1995)
Merce Cunningnhan's
Breakers is an
interesting example of how human gestures compose a very particular
language. It is completely "concrete dance", in the same way we have
concrete painting or music: every movement of the dancers is pure
form, without any "figurativistic" meaning associated with it. You
can't recognize fear, love, or a couple dancing: it is just movement,
carefully choreographed such as to completely avoid meaningful
references. It is not easy to watch, and after the thirty minutes you
have the awkward feeling that a story was not told. But the message is
clear, traditional dance (and gestures) cover only a small subset of
the human body movements. There is meaning associated to only part of
our body can do, an important lesson to everyone in the business of
understanding human gestures.
(Mar. 13th. 1995)
Marty died last week. And my most vivid impression, the
moment when I was definitely conquered by him, it happened during last
year's Media Lab Christmas Party. He appeared dressed as Santa Clauss,
giving stickers and candies. A big smile, and lots of surprised smiles in
response. Giving, that's the word to describe him, which I learned
during that special night.
There should be a law against dying young.
(Feb. 10th. 1995)
Movies are talking, at least American movies. It
is great to watch movies with great dialogues, with short, deep,
astonishing sentences which define/break/illuminate characters.
Yesterday I saw "Trust", by Hal Hartley, which is fantastic in its
simplicity, in the way words are said in front of antiseptic
backgrounds. Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" is
another good example of strong dialogues. I also include two movies
made from plays, Fred Schepisi's "Six Degrees of Separation" and Louis
Malle's "Vanya on 42nd Street". Perhaps this is
just some of my bias for theater, I really enjoy good acting and
strong dialogues.
(Feb. 1st. 1995)
Generation X, or my generation. The "X" is not
because it is not clear what this generation is going to be. The "X"
is due to our fear of trying, of experimenting. "X", here, stands for
a variable that we do not dare to bound. We're grown up watching many
of the great experiments of the century failuring: free love, radical
politics, extreme feminism, drugs, communism. And we got scared of
trying, we know how and why things do not work. As individuals, we
have fear of loving, of giving yourselves: we'd rather being stuck in
a relationship, washing dishes behind an apron, than going for a
chance of discovery, of meeting another -- lonely -- soul. We always
think about the next day, during the night before. As for intellectuals,
the result is stagnation, mediocrity, great ideas buried in shy
assertions. Well, I am not sure about the great ideas, we are afraid
even to think big. Not mentioning to act.
(Jan. 26th. 1995)
A soundtrack to "Godel, Escher, Bach", that's a good
definition of Glen Gould's "The Idea of North". I listened a part of
it in the movie "32 Short Films About Glen Gould", and I became
fascinated by the way he turns a collection of voices into a
fugue. Describing it: many different dialogues and monologues from
people living in the north of Canada, mixed together in such a way
that sometimes you basically hear of the dialogues and the others fuse
in the background, exactly like voices in a fugue. I don't believe
this is the immediate impression if you listen to "The Idea of North"
on radio, without having the visual clues that the movie provided. But
a moment of extreme brightness, a glimpse of the man who thought in
terms of fugues.
(Jan. 26th. 1995)
Media
Laboratory. Studying between wonder and stress. Thinking
in info-highway terms, and dealing with constant network
shutdowns. Pretending to be an artist, but leaving in the world of
hackers -- and surviving only if you are one of those. Big floating
egos, and unexpected fantastic ideas buried in piles of hype. Living
on the edge.
(Jan. 24th. 1995)
"The Golden Notebook", by Doris Lessing, from which I
borrowed the citation in the head of this page, is great. I think I
have never read before any author (male or female) with such a
capacity to describe the female universe. Anna, the main character,
appears as a complex myriad of thoughts, feelings, desires to be
satisfied and hidden. I didn't like too much the division of the book
in 4 notebooks, although I am not sure if they are essential to build
the Anna's different dimensions. An extraordinary dive into women's
view of man-woman relationships, especially from my biased male perspective.
(Jan. 18th. 1995)
Dear diary, I dreamed of you. I was talking to a
millionaire in his swimming pool, and he was saying that it could be
too dangerous to expose myself so much. I really have problems
dealing with the fact that some comments here might offend people, and
I hardly resist being very conservative while writing. Writing in
English adds extra worries, I am still struggling with the language,
and there is nothing like the feeling of comfort when using your
native language, knowing the precise variation in meaning that an
exchange of words produces. And, since till now nobody has commented
about this diary, I still feel uneasy about the whole enterprise.
(Dec. 11th, 94)
IVE
, as described in 1962: "I dreamed marvelously.
I dreamed there was an enormous web of beautiful fabric stretched out.
It was incredibly beautiful, covered all over with embroidered
pictures. The pictures were illustrations of the myths of mankind but
they were not just pictures, they were the myths themselves, so that
the soft glittering web was alive. (...) In my dream I handled and
felt this material and wept with joy.(..) [The material] began to
grow: it spread out, lapped outwards like a soft glittering sea. (..)
And now I was standing out in space somewhere, keeping my position in
space with an occasional down-treading movement of my feet in the air.
(...) Then I look and it is like a vision -- time has gone and the
whole history of man, the long story of mankind, is present in what I
see now, and it is like a great soaring hymn of joy and triumph in
which pain is a small lively counterpoint." (from Doris Lessing's "The
Golden Notebook", 1962.)
(Dec. 11th, 94)
We are rediscovering the pleasure of writing, as
Richard Wurman pointed out during his conversation with Robert
Greenberg, last Friday. Internet and e-mail are making a whole
generation much more capable of written expression, although these
effects are clearly circumscribed to a bunch of intellectuals (as ever)
and computer hackers. We are basically back to the end of last century
in England, where letter exchange was a common way to arrange
meetings, social occasions, and marriages. This diary is part of the
process, and I quite like writing on it, knowing that someone,
somewhere, might find a hint of pleasure while reading it, and give me
back an unknowledged smile. Why not?
(Dec. 11th, 94)
Ian Maitland's talk, yesterday at MERL, made me
think about the differences between movies and computer-based
interactive entertainment, whatever it might become. Right now, the
only real examples of interactive entertainment are video-games, and
they seem to break some of the rules of movies. "Street Fighter
vs. Doom" is a good way to put one basic difference, or objective vs.
subjective point of view. Right now, it seems that are space in
video-games for both modes of interaction, while in movies, completely
subjective cameras are normally uninteresting. In other words, a
completely new language must be developed (using, of course, some
knowledge from movie language). However, the language for interactive
entertainment can only emerge together with new genres. There was not
much need for keeping the screen direction before the westerns started
to appear.
(Dec. 1st, 94)
"Vanya on 42nd street", the movie by Louis Malle, was
a blast. Such a long time since I have watched a group of actors
performing a text with so much intensity. Saw it on Sunday, but on
Monday night I was still excited, and couldn't take it from my
mind. Simple shots, no cutting, and great theater. Actors showing the
best of the profession, an step beyond being naturalistic: as a great
performance of an actor or actress is achieved when he/she is able to
include non-natural reactions which tell you all the conflicts of the
characters. Doing that while reciting the long lines of Chekov is
extremely hard, but essential. Magic, pure magic.
(Nov. 30th, 94)
Comments to pinhanez@media.mit.edu