So let’s do it Peter Lawler style by the numbers—

1. I saw Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained today. What I expected is what I saw, except unlike Inglorious Basterds, Django didn’t rewrite the Civil War to the extent that Inglorious rewrote WWII where Adolf Hitler was actually killed during a movie screening in Paris. At the end of Django, two slaves (or two black people), even with emancipation papers in their pockets, are gonna have a hard time, if not an impossible time, making their way toward their freedom. Especially after the destruction they leave behind.

2. Yet Django is like Inglorious in that both end in a transhistorical rewriting of history beyond any possible facts in the hope that one can kill the historical nightmare from which we cannot awaken. Tarantino movies are not effective for those who have memory, but one wonders if, given the bad state of current education, twenty years from now Tarantino won’t be told as truth. The bloody cinematic denouement he makes for his movies levels all violence, conflict, and wars to the same thing—gory B movies. No reason, no honor, nothing worth fighting for.

3. Regardless Django Unchained fits the current understanding of politics as the equivalence of truth and power, i.e., whatever one has the power to do is the truth (is that Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Weber or Foucault?). This movie in its genre spaghetti western/buddy flick is effective in its story of REVENGE. However, it is not as tongue in cheek as most reviewers would have you believe. If its presentation of slavery is exaggerated, then so is its violence—exaggerated even for the violence of the slaveholders. Tarantino deliberately uses incongruous music like Jim Croce’s “I Got A Name” to make a salient point. A whitebread Jim Croce song can fit in with the later bloodbath that serves the purpose of saving one particular slave but not all slaves. Is Tarantino making Django selective like Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation? If so, what is the basis for such selection? Lincoln followed the Constitution, and Django follows his heart. According to Tarantino, both end in bloodiness.

4. Django takes place in 1858, and it has some moving movements—but from watching this movie one would never know of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. In terms of genre, the German dentist who has decided to be a bounty hunter trading in dead bodies is brilliant. He is a trader in dead flesh instead of trading in human labor and dignity, but in order to do so he must deny any dignity to human life wanted dead or alive as he ruthlessly kills named outlaws. But he frees Django for some reason, and he even helps him find his Brunhilde. As Django freely decides to join Dr. King Schulz in his bounty hunting, they both can justify killing as killing those who are allegedly worthy to die. Even if bounty hunting resembles the trade in human beings as slaves, Django can accept his new role as killer as long as it deals with the dead flesh of “bad guys.”

5. Or so it seems.

6. Such certainty of good and bad regarding which person is good and bad is disconcerting, and this movie deliberately presents stereotypes in order to justify its excessive bloodiness. Given the excessive CINEMATIC bloodiness of the movie, it is no wonder that the star, Jamie Foxx, has had some misgivings about Hollywood violence after the Sandy Hook massacre.

7. When Django meets his Broomhilda behind the door at Candie Land, Tarantino has made a truly unironic scene. It is moving when they meet. On this point Tarantino scores some big points as a good emotional storyteller of love.

8. In the movie, the plantation owner Monsieur Candie (Leo DiCrapio) gives a phrenological discourse in defense of holding slaves of African descent, which is a typical simplification of Charles Darwin and George Fitzhugh—and if I wanted to be nasty, I would also say the same of certain current neo-Darwinists. In this way Tarantino is brilliant. But unlike in 1858, today’s science speaks of egalitarianism, but it is an egalitarianism of abstract species being. It’s like Darwin meeting Marx today. One wonders what the science of tomorrow will teach? In this sense, I wonder with Kant regarding the actuality of the a priori synthetic judgment. Is this stuff calling itself science today really science or is it producing the science of the future? Must we wait for history to make sense of it all in the end? Tarantino surely muddies the water on the level of the interpretation of history where all that’s well allegedly ends well.

9. Django Unchained was far too long as a movie, and ultimately it was simply a story of the reversal of the master and slave dialectic. It presented a bad infinity, even if it had some compelling and amusing moments. It was a well-done movie about slavery at the end of history. To paraphrase Nietzsche, we in the audience must at last all blink over and over again in its shocking moments.

10. Django was nominated for best picture Oscar today. It’s not worthy of such an honor, but Jamie Foxx surely was snubbed for not being nominated as best actor in this movie.

11. It would be unfortunate if, in the title of this movie, the greatness of Django Reinhardt (with Stephane Grappelli) were forgotten for an entirely other reason, let alone the greatness of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s homage to Django.

Update:

12. This song from the boring movie Drive is great. The movie may be boring, but that doesn’t mean it is not worth watching.

It pleases me to speak to you all in the passive voice about Oaxaca.

One wonders how much it is that the rules of grammar play with one’s moods. In Espanol, it’s all about “me gusta” instead of “I like” or even “I love.” There is “te amo,” but you save that for the important moments with the one you are with. Hence, in Espanol it is hard to express one’s deep love in a polite manner when you are as ignorant in the language as I am. That said, I hope my friends in Mexico understand my proper love despite my own ignorance regarding the best translation.

In thought, I like the passive voice of “it pleases me.” Intelligent things can be best said by me when it is said so indirectly. And I needn’t say it between the lines. Okay. It may be still be need said between the lines!

That said, my remarks to all of my friends in Mexico and elsewhere are based upon spending another wonderful week in Oaxaca amongst artists. I mean artists in the fine arts sense (though not entirely). They were painters primarily—and representational painters to boot. That is, I spent a wonderful time amongst these artistic painters, but I had nothing to say due to the language barrier of the passive voice, but also due to the fact I don’t get art—let alone Oaxacan art.

The joke, however, is that art—let alone Oaxacan art—doesn’t get me. My Spanish lexicon is more than decent than it seems, so maybe the confusion was a question of art and not me. Who are the artists who, in their images, know what I don’t? Apparently the Oaaqueno artists speak a language I can’t translate.

So in my Spanglish, I had a wonderful time eating and drinking in Oaxaca with good people. Oaxaca is a pueblo with no obnoxious people screaming when they get drunk. Rather, on the zocalo with thousands of people, children run free because everyone knows it’s safe–despite the fact that you yourself may be drinking mezscal.

I don’t want to romanticize this scenario, but the part about children running around free is true. That’s a good and beautiful thing.

But in Oaxaca, I hung out with artists–so I should show their art here on Postmodern Conservative. Each artist’s story is so idiosyncratic that I could spend paragraphs of text giving context to their art. But I don’t know how to speak of art anyway! So I will just show it.

Maestro Shinzaburo Takeda, and Rolando Rojas, and  Vicente Mesinas are some of the artists I met and know. My good friend—Mayuko Ono Gray (from Texas)—also shows her art in Oaxaca. While I have seen Francisco Toledo on the street, I have never met him. But if you go to Oaxaca you need to go to the IAGO (Instituto de Artes Grafica de Oaxaca) which is funded for the public by Toledo. In this beautifully quiet place you can find sweet solitude in perfect Oaxacan weather. IAGO has a library and garden, and you can sip a good coffee (while trying to read Gadamer in Spanish!)

Yes, after hanging out in Toledo’s library with Platon and Hegel, I realized that there is a dearth of classic American writers translated in Spanish for Mexico. While Latin America loves Whitman, Twain, and Faulkner (how do these writers translate into Spanish?), they don’t read Jefferson, the Federalist Papers, or Lincoln–let alone Tocqueville. I’ve been reading Simon Bolivar in translation, and I think he is one that even Paul Rahe could include as a hero of modern republicanism.

That said I hung out with these artists in Oaxaca, and it was a very fine thing. I don’t know what to say more than this other than the fact that artists are a weird, if brilliant, breed.

Also, there is a great breakfast to be had at La Merced market. I forwarded a photo of it to to Rod Dreher’s blog.

I alos want to remind our readers of the great Los Lobos album, “La Pistola y el Corazon” and the song La Guacamaya. Perfecto!

A bad poet visited me earlier this evening, and like a rhapsode, I have recorded his song.

“Fiscal Cliff at Sunset in Galveston”

Come you and I
To a place, where looking upon this cliff—

At that which would in its necessary counting we can’t
See, but which could determine the fate of important things
With which we never cared.

We know there are no cliffs
Here on the Texas Gulf Coast, where
Everything is flatter than the ignominy of all
Having drunkard fathers and ignorant
Ways of living.

The sunset over the bay
That you and I enjoyed each day
Falls on us equally as an aggregate percentage.
But good faith, now rendered ridiculous, is that which is
Worth taking.

For the common
Good, our stupid efforts need to be
Forgotten. Conversations, no matter how inane,
Lead to deep insights that inexorably lead to others
Laughing

At us. The sun sets with its beautiful
Spectrum of colors, and we sigh and say amen.
A flat world knows no effort
Of greatness or defeat. We find ourselves with good humor, in the midst of
A crisis, enduring.

Yet, you and I were immune
To this cliff—without inoculation. We were better
Than the issues beyond our control or understanding.
We took the cares and troubles with a
Blithe reliance on grace, with which besides
Ourselves we were concerned.

For ourselves, a change,
Without grandiose hope, has led us
To consider things beyond our
Capacity of knowing.

That last drink you served,
With its icy condensation on the glass, is melting in this twilight
In a way that is troubling.

You poured that drink,
And you said it was one for the road. However
Hungover, tomorrow shows that things like the care of
Dear ones, and the necessary work of the day need to be
Attended

To. But who is the one, at this hour, who needs to be
Driving?

–we are driving over the cliff.

So for some reason my YouTube is not working. I wanted to watch Fr. James Schall’s final lecture, but my computer won’t read it. It has nothing to do with my usual tastes because I was able to see Jurgen Habermas on the idea of ritual at the Berkley Center, but I couldn’t see Fr. Schall’s last lecture for whom I was looking to hear.

I know something is wrong with my computer software because I wanted to link the Beatles’ song “I’m a Loser” from For Sale or Beatles ’65. I wanted to prick a balloon in Carl’s take on the pre-Revolver Beatles, in that with “I’m a Loser” the Beatles recognized the ambivalence of their fame and their own loserdome pretty early on. Talk about camp becoming kitsch speaking truth. I was able to link, but I was unable to see. So I’m flying blind here.

Since I have your attention, let me say why you should not waste your time with the movie Ted. A movie made by Seth MacFarlane, you may as well expect asinine humor, but unlike the ridiculousness of his TV show—The Family Guy—this movie has to be one of the worst comedy movies I’ve seen. Imagine silly Family Guy narrative non sequiturs extended for a 90 minute movie engrafted onto the usual romantic comedy where the guy smokes too much pot and can’t commit. Seth MacFarlane, Marky Mark and the lovely Mila Kunis couldn’t have wasted more money had they tried. But they did. Yuck.

On Facebook I expressed my contempt for Ted, and I received the most remarks I’ve ever received for a Facebook post. My friends felt it important to speak up in defense of that movie. In my remark about how bad that movie was, I also mentioned that Ted was so bad that I would almost rather be watching a TED talk. I also heard it from my friends that TED talks are “awesome.” I don’t like Ted and TED, but apparently these are important things. So apparently I don’t share much with my Facebook friends.

In order to be less contrarian, let me recommend a sentimental movie that Peter earlier mentioned. The Way—directed by Emilio Estevez, and starring Martin Sheen—this was an entertaining, but typical, journey. It was typical but entertaining. That said, movies are getting boring what with the HD “realism.” They look like 1970s TV shows. I’ve already seen Barney Miller.

I know I sound like Leonard Maltin in my movie recommendations, but that’s because I’m waiting for the release in 2013 of De Palma’s Passion.

I wish I could link to The Kinks’ “Nothing to Say” too.

So even if I can’t see it. I’ll link it!

Driving home from Dallas to Houston after a family Thanksgiving dinner is a task. I don’t mean the traffic, but I mean the effort itself. A Thanksgiving dinner tradition my late grandmother established over thirty years ago still holds (in its bare bones) today. So four hours from Houston to Dallas in a car, and four hours upon return must make it worthwhile in order to hold up a thirty some odd years tradition.

When, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, my older cousin takes the kids to his Texas “ranch” near Honey Grove to feed his black Angus cattle, the trip seems worthwhile. The kids—my niece and nephew—love it. But outside of this trip to the “ranch”—i.e., the nice meal on Thanksgiving with nice people and turkey and stuffing—it makes one wonder of the significance of the overall effort of driving to get there.

My elder cousins take it seriously, but then despite their immense personal efforts, they never seem to take anything seriously. In their personal success, they are experts at the art of wry comments of one’s own failures—an art form with which I could never respond to other than the appropriate level of keeping up appearances. Yes, I could respond to their humor with mean one liners to shut them all up for good, but if I did so, I would never return. So I generally laugh along and have nothing to say seriously with my own family. My brother in law, in his success too, only wants to talk business—24/7. So this is my Thanksgiving—nothing to say to family members in a way that seems important, and that, in the memory of my grandmother, I will hopefully continue to next year.

I say all this for the radio I listened to on the drive home. I was listening to satellite BBC, and there was an open forum with John Lydon (“Johnny Rotten”). What luck! I had something entertaining to listen to between Fairfield, TX and Madisonville, TX on I45—a most boring drive. But that said, it was an unsatisfactory radio event. Why? Well, Lydon both claimed to be a nationalist and a cosmopolitan, a monarchist and a republican. He made political statements while claiming to never have been political. He was angry that people took him to be taking the piss out of things when he truly meant what he said, but then again he wanted to have his ironic side too. He was angry when the audience made a big deal about the Sex Pistols, but then he claimed to be the emblem of the most important thing that had ever shown itself in popular culture through the Sex Pistols. While he was a big promoter of humanity and the importance of love in general, he also wanted the audience to know that hate too was important. In other words, Johnny Rotten was as deliberately confused as he ever was. His band PiL had a new album, and the BBC played a song. Despite Lydon’s talk of exploding all forms, it was a reggae diddy with the typical PiL sound—which ain’t bad.

But Lydon came across as a caricature of himself on the BBC, whining about the ways in which the BBC distorts the reality of which he thinks he speaks. He wanted to have it both ways, and still be taken seriously.

I guess when I encounter the great wits of my family, I feel like Johnny Rotten too. I want to be critical, but for thirty years I have gone out of my way to suffer their wit—a wit I do not feel the equal too. At least we go to Honey Grove and feed the cows, and a good time is had by all.

It is something to be thankful for. That, and also going to the community of Bug Tussle, Texas.

So here are some (this time) abstract thoughts on Skyfall which assume you have already seen the movie. I was helped by the thoughtful comments to my earlier posts, but I went in another direction. Hope you enjoy these remarks because they are the last (for now). I know–too much on a popular movie. Enough! Who the hell am I?! Etc.

This time with spoilers. Here.

Here.

I’m an a**hole, but such as we can see only by starlight I like to think I have something to say. So says the Smashing Pumpkins with which Carl would immediately say is stupid, because he is the go to guy on anything regarding music. Even if his historicist nonsense should not be called out. Despite his distinction between “rock” and “rock ‘n roll,” Carl has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. It is simply a distinction that allows for papers published in naïve journals, and I’m tired of reading this bulls**t. Okay maybe I’m being too harsh. Carl just needs to listen to the music! But he won’t.

But then what the hell does Carl Scott know about music? I’m tired of reading his “song book!” Give me a break! He really needs to give it a rest–especially when he links to his own prior posts as providing insight to the meaning of the music of which he speaks. He speaks of nothing. It is a Peckinpah dead eye nothing–to extrapolate the Smashing Pumpkins of the ‘90s music that Carl hates. Carl has dead eyes for the great big

I admit Carl loves music, but he needs to tamp down on the knowing pretension. His judgment (while knowledgable)  is partial, and he hasn’t yet seen the whole. So I boldly advocate for some caution on Carl’s part. But what the hell do I know, like Cathy Griffin to Jerry Seinfeld, Carl will use this post as more ammo. Or he will blithely continue with the insufferable song book. Enough.

UPDATE: I don’t think that Carl need to deal with the New Order song which denies divinity, but  he makes living to get high as the end. Check out this song.

What if I told you that you could get free money? If such were actually the case, you would think I was crazy, or stupid, or a charlatan. Well I could have been all three, but I have no such promise in this post. Yet, if you have ever had insomnia and found yourself watching late night/early morning television you probably have seen this guy interviewing fine looking models about how to get something called free money.

There is this guy—let’s call him a fox—who speaks of something called free money. On TV, he interviews people who have enriched themselves with his methods. This man is telling you that you can make money by simply sending him money. What if I told you that a man can make a living on late night television selling such snake oil? You would laugh and be shocked, but put yourself back in the mid 1980s. It happened all the time, as it still happens all the time to this day online.

Of course, you may think who would ever have been snookered by such an obvious set up? Think of your own great grandmother back in the day. As a widow, she lives in a small town with only a landline. She receives a phone call on her landline without caller ID. On the other end is the voice of responsibility telling her that there has been a problem with the computer at her bank. The voice says that his name is, “Steve Johnson, Chief Account Officer at ****** Bank.” She says, “Oh Lord, I understand. I hear those computers have problems.” The voice responds, “Yes Mrs. Presnall, we are doing our best to protect your account, but you know how computers are. Luckily we’re here to protect your money.” She says, “Well I’ve known the teller Jimmy at the bank for last ten years and he has always helped me.” The voice says, “Yes Mrs. Presnall, Jimmy is one of our best employees, and he says hello. [Pause] But Mrs. Presnall, we’ve had some computer problems and we need to make sure that your account is secure. We need your account number to fix this technical computer problem. You know how it is.” She responds, “I don’t know about this.” The voice says, “Mrs. Presnall, we are trying to keep up with the latest in finance. We have hired a nice young man with a degree in finance from SMU—Ralph Jensen—and he knows how to make your money grow in a safe way. We’re using the computer to make sure your money is more secure. But we are having a small computer glitch. [Pause] Mrs. Presnall, you are one of our most important customers, and we value your years of loyalty to our bank. We like to think of you as one of our gold star customers.” [Pause] She says, “Okay, let me get my bank book.” A minute passes, and then she says, “Okay. You need the account number?” The voice says, “Yes Mrs. Presnall. If you please.” She says, “It’s XXXXXXXXX.” The voice says, “Thank you so much Mrs. Presnall. We will fix the problem and ****** Bank greatly appreciates your loyal business. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call. You know our number—don’t you? [Pause] We are open tomorrow.” She says, “I have a card. I know to call the bank.” The voice says, “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call us. We hope to get on top of this computer problem immediately.” She says, “I understand.” The voice says, “Next time you come in be sure to ask for Steve Johnson. And have a blessed day Mrs. Presnall.”