The Phrenological Journal & Haunted Typebox Blog

I am still watching American Idol, I’m just not really talking about it much. But here’s the lesson that I’m learning from AI: self-concept is key. The Idol contestants who are succeeding have a sense of themselves, of how people perceive them, of how they can maintain and expand their identities. It’s a good lesson for everyone—know yourself, or at least be aware what your product is. Then sell it. Being a good—or quirky—singer isn’t enough.

And now, how about those books?

I was kind of right, but really I was wrong. The two people that I predicted would do well ended up in the bottom three. And one of them (Alexis) was the loser of the night. This was somewhat heartbreaking, particularly because the judges considered saving her, but decided against it after her last-chance performance. Which is really too bad. I think that overall she’s stronger than Michael Sauber (and a more even performer than Anoop).

What I find truly alarming though, is how I actually felt sad when it was revealed that she would not be saved. This alarm on my part rings of intellectual snobbery, and a falsity of my own intentions. I didn’t start this project to be above it. After all, American Idol is a story, and a pretty long and interactive one at that. If you give it time, it will suck you in.

P.S.: I think Adam’s performance of ‘Ring of Fire’ was dreadful. Randy called it a ‘Nine Inch Nails’ version, but it actually felt more like a histrionic Doors performance. As he squealed: ‘it burns, burns, burns’ I said, ‘yes, yes it does!’ Simon was correct in calling it horrifying.

I can’t talk about Don Quixote today. The actions of the Duke and Duchess are too cruel, almost unconscionable. Even has Pancho shows his ability to govern. 

Instead, I look forward to Grand Ole Opry week on American Idol. Here’s how it should go down:

Alexis probably stands the best chance. She’s got memphis roots, a natural drawl, and her vocal style is probably best suited to country.

Adam will be interesting to watch. While he probably couldn’t lose at this stage if he tried, it’s hard to see him really kicking out the country in any way that feels authentic. He’s dramatic and hyperactive. Though he looks like Ryan Adams. That could help.

Allison should have no problem carrying this category. She’s a rocker, and the roots of rock and country are intertwined. She’s easily become one of my favorites this season.

Anoop’s place in the competition feels the shakiest to me. He’s been uneven and hasn’t shown the best judgement in song choice or delivery lately.

Danny—you know—he’ll deliver. He delivers on everything, he’s affable.

Kris should have no problem here. He’ll strum his guitar, look out of this doleful eyes and still fail to really impress me.

Lil Rounds may not be the most country of the group, but she’s so confident, so poised, and has such vocal power it’s hard to see how she could not do well here.

Matt See Chris, above, but replace guitar with piano.

Megan. I love Megan. She’s said that she fears Country Week, but I do look to her for one of the most original performances of the night.

Michael will either perform MOR country rock or he’ll dig down into his working-class roots and really bring himself into it.

Scott will probably play the piano. And he’ll probably do pretty well, but I see something sleepy, something…

It’s hard to view one’s photography, and photography in general, in quite the same way after seeing Everlasting Moments.  It just so happens I was taking photographs with my digital camera an hour before seeing the film, and a few hours after looking at a book on Jaromir Funke’s photos. And then came ‘Everlasting Moments’, which blew it all away. Every film deserves a warning of some kind, and the one for this one is: you’ll never want to shoot digitally again.

The film’s title is unfortunate, because it seems to indicate a sweet nostalgia. You won’t find it here. The film from Swedish director Jan Troell is easy to blow all out of proportion, to over-glorify in layer’s of synonyms for beauty. Movies about an art form have a way of becoming subservient to the art form, to confuse themselves with the art form (Basquiat, for instance). Troell’s film avoids this by holding back on the camera porn, stringing the moments of artistic beauty between moments of domestic horror. The story is of Maria Larsson, a lower-class housewife in a small town in fin-de-siecle Sweden. Photography is not yet in the hands of the average person. Maria comes by a camera, and finds momentary escape from her abusive, alcoholic husband. If this sounds shmaltzy, it’s not. We take for granted the idea that art transforms lives. It does, but it does so roughly, intermittently, through—and with—a great deal of pain. It’s easy to see how a Hollywood hack would remake this film. You could hang this narrative on the skeleton of ‘Titanic.’ It would be terrible, but it would work.

It’s the true story of one of the director’s own relations (wife’s-cousin’s-brother’s-something). In a way, it’s also the story of my own father, who grew up with a brute of a father with an insatiable appetite for a drink and a tendency to speak with his fists. My dad found his salvation through a photo-development kit from Eastman Kodak. Eventually it lead him out of that dreary and tumultuous situation and into his career. A career he retired from, as digital photography replaced its analogue precedent. He wasn’t bitter about it, but he was tired of being bored in his lab. In his retirement, he shoots exclusively digital now. It’s his anachronistic son who still keeps a supply of film in the fridge.

Idol is starting to get sad. I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense (not the way Simon did when he used it to describe Anoop’s performance). No, it’s sad to see these people go. This means I’m so far gone in this American Idol mess that there’s no other way out then to finish the season. But it’s going to be hard.

Yes, it’s hard to say goodbye to Jorge Nunez, who broke down into a bilingual thank-you speech when he found out he made it into the top 12  13. He’s cute, his voice has a good tone, and he brought genuine emotion to every performance (save the last, he just wasn’t cut-out for Michael Jackson and he floundered when the judges asked him about it). We also said farewell to sixteen-year-old Jasmine Murray, who seemed like one of Idol’s brightest stars. Her R&B vocals should have been able to carry Michael Jackson. Still, she was up against my girl Megan Joy. With her tatts and her love of Bjork, she’s got my heart.

This involvement is unnerving, but let us turn to Don Quixote, because his quest too lacks neither heartbreak nor travails. And suddenly a question of his madness starts to ripple through the book. Volume II is more philosophical and the Knight, in turn, is seemingly more lucid. In fact, it’s a good XXVI (26!) chapters before Quixote enters into unprovoked combat. Whereas in Volume I, he saw enemies in every cart and procession, in Volume II he’s more likely to enter into conversation than to draw his sword. But here is the line which breaks our understanding of Quixote:

“this was the first day he really knew and believed he was a true knight errant and not a fantastic one…”

Actually, this is not the first time. Earlier we learn that the Knight of the Sorrowful Face Lions is said to have retracted a portion of his adventure, claiming he “had invented it because he thought it was consonant and compatible with the adventures he had read in his histories.” So, Sir Knight, how mad are you? Are you just pretending?

It’s a good question and not a question that we’re unprepared for. Twice we are presented with the question of the difference between going mad and choosing to go mad. Quixote presents the argument in the mountains of Sierra Moreno claiming it is superior to choose—his reasoning having to do with the nobility of sacrifice, penance. The Knight of Mirrors makes a similar claim, though on slightly different grounds: “The difference between those two madmen is that the one who can’t help it will always be mad, and the one who chooses can stop whenever he wants to.”

I saw ‘Watchmen’ today, and if I were to boil it down to one quip, it would be thus: Not that good, not that bad, not that necessary. That sounds reductive and flip, but there’s some real insight there. It’s not to say that ‘Watchmen’ is a bad film, or not even worth the time. To be honest, I feel like I had a dream about the graphic novel: some of it is vivid and spot on, and other parts are sparse and ham-handed. A film version of the massive graphic novel poses two questions: one, is it enough for fans, and two, is it enough for those that have never read the book.

I’ve read the book a few a times. The movie is hit and miss. But where it hits, I think it really does. The early part of the film deftly juggles the multiple threads, multiple flashbacks, the voice-over, and a vast array of characters. In terms of the adaptation, it’s hard to point to any place that it goes really wrong (film criticisms later). But even if it was the best damn movie ever, what would it have to offer to the hardcore comic fan? What could we ever want from a film that the graphic novel doesn’t possess? In a sense we’re asking for a trial, not a film. A challenge, not cinema.

So, as a film? As a stand-alone entertainment, does it work? There are some bad choices in the film, the use of pop music chief among them. And while some performances are excellent, such as former Bad News Bear, Jackie Earle Haley, as Rorschach, some are not. Malin Akerman’s line readings as Laurie are really just line readings. It’s too bad because because she’s every inch the sexy super-heroine, but a lot of the plot pivots on her, so it’s too bad she’s not a better actress.  The violence is gruesome, but the fighting comes strait from the ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ school of fight choreography, a tired vernacular of slow-mo running kicks and body-flipping punches that makes the film (set in the mid 80s) feel  anachronistic at times. Yet the whole thing feels a little flat by the end. Then again, I feel that way about the graphic novel too.*

At its best, the film provides fluid quotes from the graphic novel, tableaus that are formed into the simultaneously dense and sprawling storyline. The storyline is what makes ‘Watchmen’ problematic and unlike the other superhero movies. While the creators of the Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Hulk, Iron Man (who am I missing?) films have the luxury of picking and choosing from the mythos to make their narrative, ‘Watchmen’ is about recreating a storyline. These are not the alternative adventures of the Watchmen. Because of that the film probably falls flat for fans of the comic (it’s too reductive), and probably also fails those who haven’t read it (it’s too complex, somehow too niche-y).

*There’s something about the ending which I’ve always found disappointing, perhaps because the book’s main strength is the way it deals with the personal. The ending is suddenly universal, more theory than the dark secrets of the faded super hero.

Lest there be any doubt that I am watching ‘American Idol’ here is the proof. And not just watching, not some detached analyses about the spectacle where I remain aloof about the results, but actually participating! These are the notes my wife and I have been keeping. And not that ‘Idol’ is  some kind of judgement on the viewers—no! it’s about the contestants—our favorites have been making it through. Last night’s wild card round did us right: pop cutie Megan made it in and, in a last-minute, heart-lifting expansion of the final group from twelve to thirteen (not since Mackie was pardoned by the Queen was a last-minute judgement so inspiring), so did Anoop.

As the Ingenious Knight Don Quixote makes his way across Spain, the Idol hopefuls continue to sing their way into the hearts of Americans. I don’t know that this is really a parallel relationship. But it is an introduction to a discussion of last night’s Idol proceedings. For the first two-thirds of the evening, it was pretty hard to pluck out a winner. We had perfectly affable performers doing capable renditions of songs, but nothing stellar. Predictably, the stand-out performance came at the end (if this aint fixed, it’s at least programmed) with Lil Rounds ’slaying’ some modern pop song (Keyes? Blidge?). It really was good. I guess that’s how I judge Idol: If someone can impress me in a genre I despise.

Still, and I know this is completely politically incorrect, last night’s Idol was ’special.’ By which I mean, you had the gay guy, the Spanish-speaking guy, and the blind guy. The last two are shoe-ins, both for the aforementioned characteristics, and their performances (and for Jorge’s tears and Spanish-speaking appeal to the voting public). It’s gonna be Lil, Jorge, and Scott. 

And what of the Knight of Rueful Countenance the Sorrowful Face? Quixote confronts a troupe of costumed actors and—surprisingly—takes them for a troupe of costumed actors. For Quixote, everything is transmogrified into an element of his fiction, except this element of honest  illusion (actually this brings to my count two things which are seen as they are, the other being the fulling hammers).

And now Quixote has met his mirror…

One shouldn’t write or even think too much about ‘American Idol.’ To be honest*, one probably shouldn’t even watch it. But I’m committed to doing so this season. And all the attendant thinking and writing as well.

First, let it be said that I am involved. ‘American Idol’ tells a story, and unlike other reality shows it does so in near real-time. I’m not so cynical as to think that the voting is rigged. No, I believe in the power of a single telephone vote to affect the careers of 36 individuals. That being said, the show has been on the side of Danny Gokey since the beginning. And how can it not be? Still, I think it was unfair to put him on at the end. We knew it would be a barn burner; he doesn’t need the bump of having his voice be the last we remember.

‘Unfair’? I am involved.

* ‘To be honest’ is one of Simon Cowell’s trademark phrases.