The Art Snob Archive

California - Feb 23 2007

Thursday night marked the final episode of the OC, the last hurrah for the mind-numbing primetime soap opera. Good riddance, I say! Praise God that four seasons of wasted attempts to create something culturally relevant are over! No longer will a bunch of out of touch rich kids act as role models for the impressionable proletariat! At last, I can praise a new indie band without fearing the response “Hey, weren’t they on the OC?” This is a good day, my friends; a good day for art, a good day for the cultural elite.

Oh, who am I kidding? I can barely hold back the tears. Why Fox, why cancel the only thing that gives my life meaning? What am I going to do with my Thursday nights now? Instead of pretending that I’m staying in “to catch up on my Russian Lit readings” am I actually going to have to stay in to catch up on my Russian Lit readings? Bollocks! How am I going to find out about cool new bands? Am I actually going to have to buy Under the Radar?

This is disastrous; I’ve never felt such a painful loss (at least not since last season when they killed off Marissa). Oh how I’ll miss those warm California mornings with Seth and Sandy eating bagels, those afternoons following Summer down to the beach, those exciting nights at the Bait Shop when Ryan’s anger management issues exploded into the face of some insensitive alpha male. Such wonderful, mindless fodder.

It seems like just yesterday I was cursing Julie’s name, finding myself actually liking Luke, wondering why Jimmy Cooper would lie so much. My heart warms when I think of Seth trying to deal with both Summer and Anna in different parts of the house on Thanksgiving. Oh Lord, we had such fun together.

My dear readers, I must confess: the last episode of the OC does not merely mark the end of a television series, but also the final moment in an important stage of my development. I will be frank with you; the OC was the best friend I ever had.

I’ll miss those nights where Seth and I would stay up late talking about graphic novels and discussing the latest Death Cab for Cutie album. I’ll miss sharing a juice with Marissa at The Thrills concert, and staying in with Summer to watch the newest episode of “The Valley”. I’ll miss being able to rely on Sandy “Eyebrows” Cohen every time I get arrested, and I’ll miss having the liberty of checking out Kirsten’s butt every time she walked out of the room.

I’ll miss having conversations where sighing is an acceptable means of communication.

I’ll miss driving around in SUVs with Ryan, hanging out in Caleb’s massive mansion, and trying to pick up Kaitlin Cooper without anyone noticing that she’s way too young for me. I’ll miss driving to Chino and flying to Brown, I’ll miss visiting Johnny and rescuing Hailey from L.A. strip bars.

(Rufus Wainwright’s version of “Hallelujah” cues in on the soundtrack). What tragedy, seeing such beauty cast aside. Where did it go wrong? Was it that parallel universe episode? Or the one with the Earthquake? Was it the 6^th OC Mix that had Lady Sovereign covering the Sex Pistols? Was it the fact that they based an entire television series on a bunch of spoiled teenagers (played by people in their late twenties) with little room for any plot development? Perhaps…

I cannot bear to think of my life without the weekly overdose of pop culture references, predictable characters, irreverent wit and unexplainable heartache. How will I ever find out what’s fashionable, what’s hip, what’s “so hot right now”? The OC made it so easy for me, I can’t imagine life without it…

Oh my, look at me. I’m sorry for this little outburst, dear readers, truly. Please don’t tell anyone that I did this, I’m so embarrassed, look at me, I’m a wreck, tears everywhere. Let’s just pretend this week’s column was an elucidation of Foucault’s post-structuralism, or an exposure of apocalyptic yearnings in the new Thermals album, or a critical reflection on Man Ray’s Cadeau. I promise, no one will ever know. It’ll be our little secret. Oh dear, I’m going to go listen to Imogen Heap on repeat now…

posted by HLL @ Saturday, February 24, 2007 0 comments

Québécois - Feb 16 2007

What’s the deal with English Canada, anyway? We win the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, control most of the country’s oil, produce Lester B. Pearson, and yet the most successful movie we can create in 2006 is one starring the Trailer Park Boys? I like documentaries, I’ll admit, but that fellow with the glasses was a bit surreal.

It is times like this, dear readers, that I thank God our country balances trepitdatiously on a fine multicultural wire. When our artistic cred is lacking, we can always fall back on the French.

Quebec has benefited largely from its connection to the artistic utopia that is France, land of the Louvre, and in turn profits from my lack of knowledge about the reality of artistic life in the province. The fact that they speak the language of cultural sophistication is good enough for me to make bold all-encompassing statements, such as the following:

I don’t think we realize how lucky we are that Trudeau was able to hold it together during the FLQ crisis. If only more of our leaders were willing to suspend/sacrifice/demolish civil liberties in order to maintain the country’s artistic integrity.

Really, though, I bring this up because earlier this week the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television hosted the Genies…and no one cared. This Sunday, however, Radio-Canada Télévision will broadcast La Soirée des Jutra, and the world will be watching.

The “Jutra Awards” (translated into English for the unwashed masses) were established in 1999 to honour Quebec cinema, which has come to dominate Canadian domestic film production since David Cronenberg became “Mr. Hollywood”. English Canada’s interest in the Genie Awards has waned since all the major prizes started going to obscure French films no one had ever heard of, and since many French Canadians seem to have an aversion to any sort of ‘national’ event it only makes sense they would break away and start their own awards show.

The Prix Jutra is named after influential Québécois filmmaker Claude Jutra, who lived the ideal artist’s life by garnering critical admiration for his work (1971’s Mon oncle Antoine, specifically), retreating into indulgent obscurity, and then proceeding to commit suicide. The Award is intended to celebrate this legacy of innovation and artistic self-sacrifice in filmmaking (although self-sacrifice is not a prerequisite of victory).

The Jutra’s real charm in the eyes of an arts snob is the fact that it’s basically a Canadian recreation of the most important category of the Academy Awards: an entire ceremony devoted to the celebration of foreign language films! Of course, French technically isn’t a “foreign” language in Canada, but if they’re going to make such a fuss about being a “distinct society” I’m going to take the liberty of labeling their language as “distinct”.

Quebec Cinema is renowned for its successful adoption of the European-brand of auteur filmmaking. This director-centric approach means that Canadian French-language films are rarely commercially successful, which is a bonus for the cultural elitist. An exception this year is Bon Cop Bad Cop, which made $12 million domestically (although most of it was in Quebec). Luckily, the Jutra’s indie cred is salvaged by movies like Un dimanche Kigali, a drama set in Rwanda, and La Vie secréte des gens heureux, undoubtedly about the secret life of happy people. You see, listen to how intellectual I sound repeating those titles! How delightful!

My dear readers, not enough weight is placed on the artistic importance of Quebec’s union with Canada; the Jutras illuminate this crucial factor. For the sake of culture, for our national integrity, vive un Canada uni!

posted by HLL @ Friday, February 16, 2007 0 comments

The Pynchonian Mad-Lib - Feb 9 2007

In the 1950s, Leonard Stern and Roger Price created “Mad Libs” a word game that requires players to fill in the blanks of a short story with an example of the specified lexical category (ie. a noun or an adjective). The result was a humorous, absurd and often nonsensical short story that broke every rule of the English language. 20 years later, Thomas Pynchon released his epic Gravity’s Rainbow, a dense work of post-modernism renowned for its abstract construction, digressive plot, and general genius-ness. Coincidence? I think not.

In a continuing effort to refine the UW student body into culturally aware and artistically productive citizens of the world, the Art Snob presents “The Pynchonian Mad Lib”, an adventure in post-modern indulgence, hysterical realism, and neo-surrealism. Just fill in the table with your response to the italicised suggestions, plug them into the short piece that follows, and find yourself proclaimed the greatest literary provocateur of the Twenty-First Century. Enjoy!

1. A Dinosaur from the Triassic period.
2. Your Favourite Insect from the 1987 Royal Entomological Association Journal. (plural)
3. Any demon from Eastern European folklore
4. An adverb related to chewing broken glass
5. An adjective to describe the later incarnations of Basil Hallward’s painting of Dorian Gray.
6. An object from your favourite René Magritte piece, preferably pre-WWII.
7. The name of a British officer in the Civil Service during the Colonial Era
8. Derogatory term for an Anatolian as cited by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War.
9. A curse word likely uttered in Civil War-era America
10. A household object that can be used alternately as an insulting term for a human being.
11. A noun, plural, preferably drawn from Victorian slang.
12. A word to describe your emotional state at this very moment.
13. Third World Liberation Movement Leader
14. Your least favourite pan-Arabist.
15. Verb, past tense, indicating movement.
16. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, or, your favourite Restaurant.
17. Name the home stadium of a second-rate soccer team in the German Bundesliga. .
18. Class of Warship from the U.S. Navy
19. Something ancient, something sacred.
20. One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

IF YOU’RE HONEST, YOU WON’T READ THE PASSAGE BELOW UNTIL AFTER YOU FILL IN THE BLANKS. HONOUR, FRIENDS, HONOUR!

In another day and age, I was a ____________.(1) Every day I would wake to feed the ______________ (2), only to find myself being bothered incessantly by the neighbourhood ___________ (3). _____________ (4), I chased the __________ (5) creature around the _____________ (6) until I was rudely interrupted by ____________(7), who thought it inappropriate that I harm the poor ____________. (8) “__________” (9), I exclaimed, pushing the ____________ (10) into a conveniently located pile of _____________ (11). Now that I was feeling right ___________ (12), I set off on my chase with great speed, imagining myself a modern-day ____________ (13) pursuing the elusive ____________ (14). The object of my pursuit ___________ (15) effortlessly, and I began to worry it would lose me past the ________________ (16). Passing ___________ (17), I grabbed my trusty _______________ (18) and hurled it forward. My aim was off, and, missing the target, the projectile collided forcefully with the ___________ (19). At that moment, _____________ (20) appeared on the road and I knew my chase was over. “_________” (9), I repeated, and turned to head back home.

posted by HLL @ Tuesday, February 13, 2007 0 comments

Black History Month - Feb 2 2006

The beginning of February, my dear readers, marks the beginning of Black History Month, a welcomed break from the eleven-month cycle of White History. It is a time I use to brush up on my Bell Hooks, to review the proposed policies of Jomo Kenyatta, and to refrain from taking any milk in my coffee.

February presents a chance to “expose the harms of racial prejudice and cultivate black self-esteem”. Now, a single month is obviously an inadequate response to the exclusion of important African-American narratives from larger North American histories, but still, it provides a good incentive for white people to rent Alex Haley’s Roots and claim they “understand”. Personally, I thought LeVar Burton was much better in Reading Rainbow.

As a bit of a history buff myself, Black History Month at least gives me an excuse to depart from my routine study of crusty old European men (which, admittedly, can get a bit tedious). There are only so many stories of colonial exploitation and racist oppression you can read before having your faith restored by the heroic stories of Black activists such as Stokely Carmichal and Harriet Tubman.

Sometimes I worry, though, dear readers. I fear that Black History Month may be sinking into clichés. After all, everyone from DJ Williams (of Stomp the Yard fame) to George W. Bush is sending “shout-outs” to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. We must ask ourselves, how long can we allow the Civil Rights Movement to dominate our appreciation of Black History?

Yes, I understand the Civil Rights Movement was probably the most important event in North American Black History, and yes I understand that Civil Rights Leaders have been deservedly elevated to Saint status, so please don’t send me hate mail just yet. As a member of the patronizing, overeducated cultural elite, however, it is my duty to tell you that Black History Month has much more potential. It needs to acknowledge the bigger picture, to address a historiography that encompasses so much more than just social activism. Within Black History, after all, there exists a powerful cultural legacy that deserves to be celebrated.

It is time to recognize, for instance, the historically supported fact that behind every successful white artist, there is predictably a much more creative Black man or woman. And I’m not just referring to Justin Timberlake; this is a tradition that stretches back centuries.

Black History Month should work to lift the more financially endowed and historically “market friendly” White cultural behemoth from its place on top of the suffocating Black artist. Give credit where credit is due. The serious art snob, of course, already sees the Melvin Van Peebles behind the Quentin Tarantino, the Nina Simone behind the Feist, but unfortunately not all North Americans are so enlightened.

It is the responsibility of Art Snobs to always know the Ur-text, to be there at the birth of the next scene, to dig beneath commercial bastardization to find the independent roots. Black History Month emerges as an excellent opportunity to discover and celebrate the cultural innovations of Black artists and writers that have had such an effect on the larger project of Western Civilization. Everyone already knows the names of Malcolm X and W.E.B. Dubois; it’s time to add some Black artists to the February pantheon.

It is the 21^st century, after all. How much longer can we deny the relevance of painters like Raymond Saunders and Jean-Michel Basquiat? Is it just to ignore the brilliance of Little Richard and James Brown? Or even J Dilla and Talib Kweli? Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston made pioneering progress in American literature, but where are their shout outs in fictional step dancing movies starring Ne-Yo? Innovation has characterized Black History as much as social progress, and Black History Month should reflect this. It’s only fair.

Admittedly, society has labeled me a ‘white dude’, but you cannot deny that somewhere, back at the beginning of time we were all children of Africa, and so this is technically sort of my fight too. Okay, it’s really not. But please, if you’re only going to get one month to celebrate Black History, make it count. Godspeed.

posted by HLL @ Thursday, February 01, 2007 0 comments