Brandy Y

Kansas City

2008-04-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

Kansas City falls easily within the bounds of the gangster genre. There’s Johnnie, Blondie, Seldom Seen, a twist at the end, people “offed”, bad gangster imitation dialect, all the things we’d expect, no machine guns, though. Released in 1996, it’s the newest movie we’ve seen. So, it’s easy to see that, at this point, jazz has been canonized but is still squished into the same old types. It is noticeably different in the character of the jazz musician plays only a minor role, almost so small that he is almost lost in the background. We still get a performance by a character identified as Lester Young, but the audience wouldn’t have known this had it not been pointed out to them.
Jazz is, however, distinctly connected to the gang leader Seldom Seen. Most of his scenes are acted within the club or in the back of the club at the gambling tables he oversees. Jazz is still present in the sin filled den of iniquity. I can’t tell if jazz is included to further exemplify the time period, like all the discussion of motion pictures and an entire scene set in a theatre where the audience is watching a Clark Gable film, or if it is some more important part of the characterization of the narrative as a whole. It does seem mainstream, although the movie is supposed to be set in 1930’s.
There is an interesting bit of dialogue where Seldom Seen tells Johnnie he’s still alive because of the music. I can’t decipher exactly what this could mean. But, there’s plenty of talk about race relationships, even politics. In fact, Johnnie gives his race as the reason Seldom Seen should not kill him.
Kansas City is the hometown of jazz greats like Bird, and the soundtrack was heralded as an especially important work of Robert Altman. But, since I don’t know who Robert Altman is, I’ll just have to take that exertion how it’s presented.
Although there is not much call back to the importance of Kansas City to the jazz era, there are plenty of instances where the culture surrounding jazz pops up. There’s swing, gambling, the row of clubs, a cutting contest, and more. There’s plenty of political talk and discussion of race, including a monologue by Seldom Seen that includes the idea that white people are consumed with greed (i.e. they’re good capitalists), kill babies, rape women, colonization culture stuff.
Oh, and there’s the multiple Amos n’ Andy references. I’m sure we’ll discuss them in class.
Adios, guys.

mo better? i don't think so

2008-04-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

Alrighty. this week we take a long hard (hehe!) look at Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues.
I'll try not to repeat anything explored by Gabbard, but I'd like to talk to a few things he has to say. Before we get there, I'll talk a little about what I noticed about the movie.

Title
Mo' Better equals sex, somehow, in the dialogue (before we hear, "it's a dick thing"). So, we watched a film really titled Sex Blues, which makes a lotta sense right? About a little more than halfway through, i just blurted out "These poeple have a lot of sex!" and they do. After I was enlightened as to the real meaning of the title, the movie, and the sex, made more sense. In fact, this translation makes more sense that the title Gabbard tells us Lee originally wanted. The only place Lee’s title comes up is near the end with the quote, the quote that doesn’t really fit within the film at all.

Wordplay
I went back and forth trying to decide whether the dialogue was annoying or signified something more important. The first few scenes where Giant talks to the two guys outside the club that will later beat him up is a good example of at least three people talking at the same time, talking over each other, not really trying to be heard. It was annoying, and I could never understand what anyone was saying. It happened throughout the film.
In the scenes where the audience was allowed to clearly hear and understand the dialogue, usually those between Bleek and his lovers or between Bleek and Giant, it is full of wordplay. No one clearly communicates and says what he/she feels; for a simple “yes” or “no”, we hear anywhere from a few words to a few lines. And everyone does it. It’s not limited to a few characters who have this has a characteristic. We get lots of slang, street talk, stories, to give something as simple as an answer.
Under other circumstances, and maybe in a few scenes from this movie, I would say this is clearly some kind of encoding of signifying. But, I couldn’t clearly tell what was being encoded or signified. But, I guess that’s the point sometimes, right?
These instances did manage to draw attention to those moments when we could clearly understand the dialogue. In them, we hear repeated conversations on “ignorant black men”, various discussions on “love” and “lust”, how jazz is a black American art form but black Americans are not the ones listening to it, conversations about money, gambling, BASEBALL (Gabbard makes some good points about the presence of this American pastime in the film, but I say it existed outside the narrative completely and didn’t really serve any purpose other than saying yeah, black guys are interested in baseball too), etc.
Maybe it was just Lee’s poor ability to write a script, but we’ll talk about his contributions to the film next.

Poor Directing Skills
Wow, not good. In fact, really bad.
It was distracting. In one conversation, the camera actually panned across the room, back and forth, with no helpful interruptions each time a different person would talk. There were lots of slow motion moves; sometimes, people seemed to be floating down halls and toward groups of people- thinking moments. I get it. Oh, and the room spinning in the background. Classic. For what? Mostly, the directing was just distracting.

Misc.

Venue is no longer the smoky den of iniquity; it’s a class expensive joint.

French are still in love with jazz. In this film’s case, Lefty, a bandmember, has French girlfriend.

Okay, more creepy incestuous stuff. Spike Lee’s filming this right? Well, he’s filming his naked sister having sex. Ewww!

Everyone’s a type. Bookee is Hispanic. Club owners are Italian. Black urban boys. Any questions?

This in an impressive cast. Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington, the detective from Sister Act. Did everyone have to do some hard time in a Spike Lee film when they were young? This guy had to have some credentials in the community.

GAbbard
I can buy that the trumpet is a phallic extension of the self in the film. Hell, Bleek keeps his trumpet in bed with him while he has sex, and he undresses a chick with his trumpet. But, Gabbard didn’t have a lot of important things to say outside of what Adorno already proposed.

See all of you Tuesday, six sharp.

'round about movie

2008-04-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

This week, we watch 'Round midnight. It's round about plot weaves between the bromance of a sax player and his French number one fan. I heard this word, bromance, from an article that discussed the straight couple from Scrubs, the Turk and J.T. characters. A "bromance" is when two straight men are engaged in a relationship together that would, under usual circumstances, be viewed as romantic in nature. I think it's fairly clear that Dale and Francis are a bit more than friends. Francis documents their relationship, watches the film obsessively, ignoring his daughter and gazing into the image of the sax player. He moves Dale in, finds a nicer, better apartment, even leaves his daughter and work to escort Dale back to New York.
Although the plotline consists only of a climax, Dale's death, and includes no rising or falling action, there is a few really lovely cinematograhic moments. The home movies that Francis shoots of Dale are moving, full of emotion, and simply human. They remove Dale from the performance of the Blue Note and its atmosphere. Outside of that environment, where he is incapable of caring for himself, we see him misplaced into a simpler world where he cares for Francis' daughter, playing with her on the beach and buying her treats.
But I kept asking myself why is this little white frenchman taking care of this adult man? Especially since I could never really define for myself why Dale needed to be taken care of. He did display symptons of a recovered/recovering alcoholic, sneaking drinks when Buttercup wasn't looking, wanting the drink that worked the fastest, i.e. the one that the guy had that fell out at the bar ( alittle dramatic, eh?). He talks once about noticing that he had bled on his reed after playing. He is also admitted to the hospital almost everytime he drinks, even if it's only a few beers or two glasses of wine. The only thing I could come up with was maybe stomach ulcers, if drinking so little causes so much of a problem that he admitted every time. As far as bleeding on the reed, that could be from stomach ulcers or it could be that he busted his lip while playing. He also talked to a mental health physician at one point, but the guy seems convinced that Dale is ok.
I don't know. I'll be happy to hear how the rest of you interpretted things on Tuesday.

I felt like I spent the whole film trying to figure out the things I discussed above. And, because I was trying to rationale what was happening, I couldn't really see the whole picture until the movie was over. But, hey, I'm still not saying that I get the big picture.

The language and voice of the film was hard to understand too. Gordan's voice was lovely, interesting, and original. It had tons of character. But it was not easy for me to understand what he was saying. I wanted the whole movie to be in subtitles, not just the sections of conversation that were in french. Gordan's voice did remind me of Louis Armstrong's performance voice, though. And, " I cover the Waterfront" was playing in the background of one of the scenes. It was sung as straightforwardly as ever, definitely not a jazz version. Hearing the mainstream version really made me realize the beauty and originality in Armstrong's voice, the command, the ups and downs, the emotion. It changed the song into a new animal for me, an interesting animal.

Even though I couldn't always understand the voice of Gordan's character, I was drawn to his acting. He was this lovable grandpa figure, telling stories of yesteryear (both uplifting and enlighteningly sad), sneaking drinks, still seducing young good looking women. He seemed like a lot of fun. He held himself in the most wonderful way. You could see his weariness in the slump of his shoulder, the way he laid himself on the bed, in the waving of his hand. The evident change in his posture around Francis' daughter showed the effect of youth on him.

But, it was still hard for me to justify his place in the film. Just by the time allotted him onscreen, he seems to be a more important character than Dale, but it his Dale that the story opens up on.

Last week we watched Space is the Place. I was prepared for it because of the setup of the articles, the repeatedly used adjectives like crazy, nutty, wacky. But, the narrative of Midnight was something new. It was trying at documentary with things like the plot simply reflecting a section of a life and the images of the film shot by Francis. But, we don't know what finally kills Dale. We don't know what he struggled with before the film; there's just no context.

That's all for now, I guess. Talk at cha later.

Sun Ra's Mythmaking

2008-04-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, guys, I'll try to keep it short because I can already see that end-of-semester weariness setting in everyone's eyes.

Our selection for this week, Space is the Place, could have easily been categorized in the nutty crazy section if not for the illuminating ability of Lock. I was also pretty disgusted with the general atitute toward women in the film, i.e. all women are hoes waiting for a good pimp, even women who go to school to become nurses will gladly undress themselves and their sistas' for a good pimp man. But, because I was generally impressed with Sun Ra's philosophy as explained by Lock, I did a bit o' research and found that we were watching the 2003 director's cut of the film. The original of 74 or so deleted the bitches and hoes scenes, with the director calling Ra "prudish". I think Ra's philosophies make a helluva lot of sense. And, how huge! He attempted to rewrite history. Unfortunately, he didn't succeed. But I sure as hell wish he did. The whole call back to Moses thing of slave songs and stories never made sense to me. A call back to Egypt as the mother land, the birthplace of humanity sounds so empowering and a beautiful way for the black community to unite in a new way. It's too bad it wasn't picked up during the civil rights movement. Judeo-Christian worldview was repeatedly used to keep slaves enslaved, to keep blacks on the low end of the social hierarchy. Traditional West African religions, by anyone's standards, more closely resembles what we know of ancient Egyptian religion and worldview.
And, hey, Sun Ra's from my hometown. Yeah!
Alright, that's it.
yip.
summary: awesome readings; movie doesn't give Ra the credit he deserves as a visionary

Holiday's Jazz Biography

2008-03-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
I hope the spring "break" went well for everyone. (I know, for most of us, it's never really a break. There's either crazy and/or loud family or a to do list.)

I thought Billie Holiday's memoir was a lovely way to get back into the groove of things. I didn't know that it was in fact a memoir and not a critical piece. I hadn't really looked past the cover and the cd on the back. So, when I started reading it, I was pleasantly surprised to hear what we hadn't heard yet - a written voice from the artist. And, goodness, to get to hear Billie Holiday's. It was strong and personal, full of character. I loved getting to hear about her life, her trauma, the wonderful and interesting people she knew. It was so wonderful to hear about Judy Garland coming to hear her sing. I've thought Garland was wonderful for years. I absolutely fell in love with her in Wizard of Oz. Then, Rhett Butler comes to Billie's roadside rescue. And, she only recognizes him when he punches a guy for insulting her. Fab-u-lous. And, of course, we get to hear a different perspective on the folks we've been introduced to this semester. Lena Horne welcomed her back after she been in prison. Ethel Waters was mean to her. Armstrong was cool. She even discusses Charlie Parker. I felt like, after hearing her voice describe this world, I had a new and better understanding of it, an understanding that I haven't been able to experience in the same way through the removed criticism and film. Holiday's memoir was raw and human, really lovely.

I guess because I thought the memoir so wonderful, I just couldn't feel the same about the film. In dramatizing Holiday's life, the producers/directors/etc. changed the things I felt were so wonderful about Holiday. Instead of the strong voice of independence and perseverance we hear in the book, we get an unstable drug addict who can't even stand on her own two feet. In the book, Holiday addresses her drug abuse, but she does it head on, repeatedly. At no time, from the narrative, did I feel that Holiday was unable to care for herself or be functional. She was an addict, but the addict portrayed in the film and the one in the memoir were differnent, way different, almost polar opposites. I recognize that we are hearing from Billie and her coauthor in the text; whereas, in the film, we "should" be getting a broader vision of her life from outside herself. But, I feel like, if Holiday had lived to see the film, she would have again felt disowned by the public. I felt that the film was intentionally dramatized, even overdramatized, to make her life more sensational. The really beautiful human moments were either completely removed or so vague that they could have been glossed over or misunderstand by those members of the audience unfamilar with the memoir. For example, we get a clear chronological, psychological narrative following when she was raped at age ten. We have a rational understanding of the things that happen later in her life. The punishment she receives at the hands of society and the catholic church, the "punishment" of spending the night locked in a room with a corpse, both of these instances allow us a greater understanding of her actions later in life, namely each time she again comes in contact with a dead body along with her self proclaimed abstinece. These are just two of the many instances that rationalized Holiday's life in the book but were strangely missing completely from the movie. Another lovely moment that I was upset to see deleted was the moment that she felt her mother's ghost behind her. Her mother's hand on her shoulder was such a beautiful, strong image. It was replaced in the movie by a bullshit scene of Ross trying to get high in her dressing room, being selfish when the hospital was calling. The Holiday of the memoir stood by her mother, helped her mother, worked at making her mother's dreams come true more so than her own. The Holiday of the book was calm about it; Ross' character was snotty annoying mess. Pl-ease.
Okay, I guess that's enough bitching about that for now. No, wait.
I couldn't stand that the film character was completely controlled by men when the character of the book was unaffected by men to a large extent.
I did have one issue with the book. The last sentence really bothered me for the same reason. We end on "my man", which may or may not have influenced the movie. Who knows.
Okay, on to Harlos and Jazz Autobiography.
The idea from page 132, that jazz musicians and writers weren't sympathetic to one another. This, along with the really unknown roots of jazz, contributes to this whole idea of jazz having no master narrative. This lack of a bigger picture seems to influence, wholly, how we see individual artists. The nature of jazz itself is blurry and almost undefinable, much as a black and white discussion of an individual artist, like Armstrong for example, is impossible. The important element of jazz that is definite is its changing nature. No song played the same more than two nights in a row is what Holiday said. To perform in this way, it only makes sense that the artists performing would be everchanging too. I also think that it seems reasonable, but unfortunate, that writers and jazz artists would be asympathetic. Another important element of jazz is that it is an unwritten form. It's improvisation, it's on the spot and emotional. Writing is defined by the fact that it is a written form. It is mulled over. It is revised and edited, many, many times. Even experimental writing is planned out and thought over. I think it makes sense, then, that, when jazz musicians do sit down to give us a written record of their life, it is a mosaic, a montage of moments and memories jammed together in much the same seeming chaos of a jazz set or jam.
I was especially upset, but did expect, Harlos discussion of Holiday's "memoir" (p146-7). It's a complicated setup, a complicated relationship. But, like I said, I expected it, especially with our discussions of performance and control of performance in films, star quality, star power, etc. Harlos assertion on p. 149, that jazz autobiography is a collective form, seems right. I also felt that written narratives, biographies, of jazz musician's lives are directed toward a specific audience. Holiday's "memoir" seemed directed only at her fans, and the Holiday we see characterized in the pages is one even new fans can love.

Gabbard, Sweet Love, & Bird

2008-03-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Since you will be reading this either going into or recovering from Spring Break, I'll try to be brief although the reading for this week was especially useful in bringing together many of the movies we've already looked at as well as the movies being interesting all on their own.

So,
Gabbard posits to us that white folks and black folks are strategically placed around one another in jazz films. I'm not arguing with this. It seems ovbious in what we've watched so far. But, it seems that, with Sweet Love and Bird, we've come into a new era. Indeed, these movies are much closer to us in time than the others we've watched. I think that they show a more contemporary view of race relations. Sweet Love comes closely after the Civil Rights movement. Bird is a bit more removed. But, there seems to be a change of tone in both these films. Black folks might just be people too. They are treated with humanity, tragic humanity, but humanity nonetheless. And, humanity shines brightest at its bitterest, right? At least with creative types. There's also a change in tone towards the music, the way it's talked about. In both films, the musicians take time to articulate the details of their trade, explaining chords, etc. to wannabes and appreciatives. Oftentimes, these folks are white. We also see a realistic treatment of interracial relationships. Gabbard lends interesting perspective and knowledge about both Bird and Sweet Love. And, in his discussion of the other films we've watched this semester, he raises many of the discussions we had in class, shout out to Nancy with the phallus talk, and adds to them with information about the criticism and technical aspects of the film. I thought Gabbard was helpful in a more expansive understanding of what we've been talking about. He brings it together and shows correlations.
I gotta say, though, it did get on my nerves that Gabbard kept linking films by date, in the same words. but, hey, at least it's not the ultimate or whatever phrase Strasbaugh kept using. Good ole Strausbaugh.
Much of what Gabbard discussions about race relations was also talked about in the two films and was nicely played out in the scene where Eagle's white buddy deserts him and leaves him to the police.
Okay, we'll hit all the many more important points when we get back to class.
Be safe everyone.

Sweet Smell of Death

2008-03-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Spring break approaches. I know we all have our to-do lists for the "holiday". But, we're not quite there yet.
Even though we didn't have any readings this week, I gotta say that watching The Sweet Smell of Success could easily be compared to reading an Eric Lott chapter. I wasn't really sure what was going on until I was able to look back at the film. It seems to want to be psychological in nature, but didn't get us close enough to any of the characters to be able to fully understand their psychology. Or, it might have been that there were just too many. Characters, that is.
Even if it is sucky in the way of stars awarded, it does a few things for us, within the context of this class.
The film seems to want to be modern. Almost every scene takes place outside of the home. The city always looms in the background, dark and foreboding. The traffic is suffocating, sometimes hurtful. Poor Sydney gets burned by a muffler and gets his fingers caught in a car door. The city is the setting for the entire movie, New York City, the city to trump all cities.

Sidney is a new kind of capitalist. He is not confined to the workday or the office or factory. We see him at work in the bars, on the streets, in the telephone booth. He has a home office, but it's not your stay at home mom selling Mary Kay cosmetics. The front is a unit, the back a bedroom. All the types of the caucasion world come into play. Women are either cigarette girls, secretaries, prostitutes, dates, or pawns. They're blonde and have children's voices or no voices at all. The men are go-to guys, satiated with/or the want of power, control, and money. Sydney is described as a "prisoner of fear and ambition". The rich are more subtly wealthy. We don't see their mansions and their expensive cars. We see their cleancut, fashionable hair. We see their fur coats and their luxurious hair.
But, the guy at the top of the hierarcy is a radio star. Although we are never privy to his show, I think we are to understand that he is quite a different kind of celebrity than the meager artist of the jazz band that his sister is in love with.
In fact, Sydney is completely outside the main story, a Caraway for our Fitzgerald. Sydney just seems to be all over the place which allows the audience to be there with him.
As for jazz, the band is headed up by this white musician who is unsuitable for the successfull Hunseker's sister (although she gets treated like sister/mother/lover, gotta love the incest of the first half of the century here in our great nation). The band has a token African-American. He seems to be well liked and as respected as anybody else in the band. The drums are prominent during songs. And, of course, the band is situated within a club, this time the Elysian. It's full of whites, which is a bit different from the context of the other films we've watched. It's the same situation in DOA. Are we to take that, by the 50's, jazz is not just viewed as an African American art form, but one good ole upper middle class white folks like to listen to to? I think so. But, I think it's still also clear that jazz is still considered a part of secular and/or questionable society.
After all, in DOA is the first time we see white women drink, even become drunk. And, it's withinthe context of the jazz club. So, with that understanding, the film still seems to make a clear statement that links jazz to corrupted morals, even within white society.
In DOA, it's Frank's presence in the bar that allows him to be poisoned. You could say it was jazz that killed him.
I don't know much about the film noir genre, but I gotta say it was more interesting to watch than Smelly just because the plot was easy to follow, and there weren't so many main players that they became confusing.
I thought it was interesting that Frank didn't like the noisy jazz bar, that he wanted to leave. It was almost like the moral compass being present.
And, the jazz band in this jazz club is viewed hella differently than any we've seen before. There are closeups on each of the band members' faces, some multiple times. Women are described as "jive crazy". In fact, Frank consistently refers to anything outside of himself or his liking as "crazy". The music drives him crazy. It drives the music lovers crazy. The band's movements are wild and a prominent part of the performance.
Somewhere after the viewer can no longer see the band, a woman's voice takes the place of the band leader and continues in the background throughout the film. The voice becomes more and more haunting as our main character gets closer to his death.

Alright, there's plenty more to talk about, but let's call it a night. See you all tomorrow.

Cabin in Disguise

2008-03-03T20:11:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
I am happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed both the readings and the film this week. Yip a dee doo da.
Both Naremore and Knee, but especially Naremore, were informational, even engaging. No old testament genealogical type lists of critics here. And, they both point out interesting things about the film and the context of the film that I didn't notice before. Although, after reading the articles, they make perfect sense and bring a greater understanding of the film.

The film, oh what a difference about ten years make. We get a story and a perspective. We get some introspection into the characters. In fact, It's easy to point out that the characters, although still types, are more fully developed than the one dimensional ones we've seen thus far.

Okay, well, I don't want to sing praises, in a voice not half as awesome as Waters or Horne.

I'm doing the presentation this week, so I'll only cover a bit here and hope, from my discussion questions, that we can cover alot of the other really interesting stuff that the film and readings bring up.

I noticed that modernity itself was a flag for evil within the film. The only modern conveniences, telephones, electricity, air conditioning, were in hell, as were jazz. In the club, Paradise, one of the nice dichotomies and dualisms that Knee discusses, is the only place in the film where men and women interact in an accepted way. Within these spaces is where we find both Ellington and Armstrong. When Petunia enters the modern space, characterized by both jazz and the Afro-centric modern art of the murals on the walls, she becomes opposition to good. She even wears a foreign headress to further seperate herself from her religion. Back at the homefront, the unused automatic washing machine sits on the front porch, an emblem to all - none of that devilish electricity here. We don't see Lil' Joe in a car until he has turned "evil" when he is let off at the entrance to the club. In fact, once all of the modern elements of the club Paradise are destroyed by "god" and his tornado, it becomes a Christian view of paradise, a place where the folks wear white robes, talk to god's own associates, and hit the steps to heaven.
Even from the title song (and a tiffany or debbie gibson, I think, song from the eighties), heaven is a place on earth. But, not just any place, it's the good clean place, uncorrupted by the evils of telephones and air-conditioning. It's the rustic cabin, the dirt yard.

But, I found it interesting that, even when modernity was wiped out, capitalism still stood strong. The reverend/god's messenger didn't look for Joe's name in the book of life. He looked for it in god's ledger, telling Joe he was "in the red". He owed God. And, the messenger pointed out to Joe that God didn't bargain. This ain't no flea market where you can trade for what you need; it's straight capitalism. Pay up or pay the price.

It's interesting that the movie clearly says modernity bad, capitalism A-OK.

I don't want to ramble about every little thing I found interesting. I will say, however, that it's interesting that we are supposed to think that the elements of this plot are only existent in an all black world. Instead of dealing with race issues, the white folks responsible for making this film ignore them altogether. I think it hearkens back to all the seperate but equal politics that come to a head a bit after the film is made.

I look forward to discussing more of these exciting findings on Tuesday.

Check, Double Check, Triple Check, etc.

2008-02-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, so, I figured I'd approach this week's reading and film separately. I'm sure there's overlap between the two, but I leave that to class discussion.

I have to say that, before this class, I was almost completely unaware of the racism towards Irish immigrants. And, hey, I've got plenty of Irish roots. I should have been a redhead (like lots of others in both sides of my family). The extended quote on page 104 of the longshore were especially poinant to me. I remember studying the post civil war South, the stories of poor whites hatred for black folks. I remember thinking that socio-economic class has to trump color, that the poor whites and the poor blacks should have realized that they had so much more in common than they had in differences. Their day-to-day lives certainly matched more closely than poor whites did with middle class or upper class whites. I guess that's why I really loved that quote - "Let's go after the white bastards." That's what I'd wanted my ancestors to say.

I think that Lott has plenty of points that are simple and ring true. The working class did take the rhetoric of equality seriously. Whites impersonating blacks did bring blackness toward the main stream. Capitalistic societies do manufacture the popular. I just don't think there's much to argue with Lott's assertions.

Now for the ol' Amos N' Andy tagteam.

The comedy itself, for the average viewer who hasn't been trained to view critically, seems fairly traditional. The "dumb" guy paired up with the "smart" guy is evident even today with SNL's Will Ferrel and Chris Katan in A Night at the Roxbury. The "dumb" guy ends up being smart. The "smart" guy is actually just a showoff who's not especially useful for anything.
Here, Andy is our Dandy. He puts on airs, pretends he's important, that he has more power as "the boss" than Amos. But, we quickly see that he just shys away from work and cowers before anyone with any real importance in the community, like the Kingfish. Amos is caricatured as the Jim Crow; he misses his ole massa in de south. He wears patchwork clothes, does what he's told, stutters into the phone, is, seamingly, easily duped by Andy. But, we see quickly that Andy is duped by others in the community (10% ring a bell?). And, Amos ends up being the one with the smarts and ability to execute a plan to bring about the happy ending of the story. Go Amos.

Anywho, there's the setup; so, I'll just breeze through a few things I noticed about the film.

Animal cruelty wasn't shown, as the child abuse of The Jazz Singer wasn't shown. I guess it tells us abit about the cultural moment of the film, what was exceptable to be seen even when beating your child was still considered a cultural norm.

The montage in Harlem was telling and had quite a different tone than the one we find inside the taxi office. There was an element of truth in the montage that was evidently lacking in the blackfaced pair. And, it seemed intentional. The young boys shining shoes, playing baseball in the grassy alley, the mother carrying the baby all rang true to life, to a real life.
The office of the taxi company is altogether differnent and sticks out in the Harlem backdrop as different. The letters of the sign were backgrounds. The language inside seemed forced and unreal. It's interesting to me that Amos and Andy are situated within Harlem when they seemed an obvious juxtaposition. In Harlem, it was easy to see they were just caricatures.

I also noticed, I guess as a writer, the convenience of plot. Amos and Andy just happened to run into the man's son who they "worked" for in the south. Oh, and he was akindly master. The blackfaced duo got quite choked up when they hear about his death and remember how he "raised" them, and wouldn't shared his last loaf of bread. quite convenient.
They go well out of their way to catch Richard? before he gets on the train. He never calls on them as he said he would do. What do they get for their trouble? A piece of the cake, literally. I did notice, however vague the reference to "working" for the old master, as slaves, as hired help, that the white folks in the movie did seem to talk to them as equal humans, as though even the characters were aware it was simply the black face mask talking and not a black man.

Harlem is talked about as the bad part of town, a place to be extra cautious in, a place not safe for a white man to go after dark.

There were obvious and nicely detailed differences between the poor world of the blacks and the upper middle class world of the whites. It seemed even the images themselves reflected this. The white world is glossy, opaque, uplifting. Harlem is dark and dirty; rain falls there. You must shield yourself against it.

And, of course, Duke Ellington and cotton club orchestra. One would have never know if you didn't read the credits. There are no close ups of Ellington. He remains seated with his back to the audience through the rather short interludes where the orchestra plays a simple love song that only the way Richard can tell the girl his feels. And the girl is just a girl, not important enough for me to even remember her name. I remember more about her mother who was much less important to the plot.

Oh, well, see you all tomorrow.

The King of Jazz?

2008-02-18T21:09:00.001-08:00

Since there are no readings this week to anchor and contextualize our readings, I feel that there's no real lense through which to view this week's film. The last few weeks, I feel that the readings gave me a place from which to watch the movies, a place to start, a vision to work the movie into. So, this week, I'll just mark a few things I thought noticeable, probably most of which the rest of the class, you all, will also probably remark upon.
The first, and most obvious, has, of course, to do with the very different definition we find of jazz within the film, The King of Jazz. Looking with the clearer vision of almost a century now, we are able to easily categorize music, jazz included. It exemplifies an era to us postmodern types. It's a people, a place, a type of clothes, a hairstyle, the way a tie is tied. It's a jazz hall; it's both the music and the instruments played. It clearly definable, clearly distinguishable from other kinds of music, or emotions, or times. But, within The King of Jazz, the producers, director, actors, etc. all work from an obviously different definition, one that exemplifies for us the context of the time period. The film was created much closer to the beginning of jazz as a type. They were so close, in fact, that the form and style was not a neatly categorized type. It was still a blurry amalgamation of what was considered "other" in America. It was music from all places, as characterized by the last big scene, the melting pot. It was music of England, Holland, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Russian, even the American revolutionary drums of the marching soldiers. It was the cowboys of the wild west, the East Coast flappers, the sailors of the ports. All these places and people were shown to us through their costume, their instruments. Bagpipes and plaid skirts, Violins, harps, lutes. Salsa dancers, sombreros. All the nationalities that made America the melting pot. This was the vision of Jazz, the blurry, uncategorized notion of Jazz of white Audience to a white audience, the Whiteman's scrapbook that were the pages we gleamed through the various scenes and sections of the show, The King of Jazz.
Through these postmodern eyes, the film looked more like a show from the sixties with family singing troupes and comedic interludes of boys in overalls with sticks of hay in their teeth. It didn't seem like it was meant to be taken seriously; it's singular purpose seemed to be to entertain. But, it was obvious that some extravagance had been allowed in costumes and sets. The revolving main bandstand, the various costumes, the piano big enough for five to play and an entire orchestra to inhabit. This calls for a bit more than lavish entertainment, maybe. Maybe.
These were just a few things.
I'd be interested to know the context of this film. Who watched it? Where was it advertised? It what cities was it well and not so well received?
I think the film was useful in the purpose of studying film. It showed a lot of things we hadn't seen before. The fade-ins, the fade-outs, the shadowing, the lighting (colored and black and white), the intentional use of these new film techniques, like the ghost bride procession and the picture that came to life. They were new and interesting moments.
I'm sure we'll cover many of the other things I noticed in class. Look forward to hearing what you all thought.

Short Films/Performance/the Star

2008-02-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

The short films I found most interesting were the two Louis Armstrong pieces, A Rhapsody in Black and Blue and I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You. The first piece was interesting for the elements we've already talked about in class, that Armstrong is a sort of jungle king, and the bookends of the story. We get to see what life is like on the inside of a black household. But, even inside the household, the characters are types. From the domestic context, the couple seems like either a husband and wife couple or a mother and son couple. With the sexual ambiguities, the familial eroticism we discussed in class last week seems within the context of this short film also. But, there is no physical affection between this couple in the way that we got to see in The Jazz Singer. The man does refer to the wife as honey. There also seems to be a bit of an age difference. If anything, the action itself gives us this impression. The mother or wife, in full mammy fashion, is full breasted and aproned up for housework. She is also dressed in a simple house dress with a common pattern. Maybe from "honey", they are married, and we are supposed to assume that the life of hard manual labor has aged her a bit faster than her Jim Crowish counterpart. The Jim Crow character is obviosly a production of his type. He is first on the scene, grinning big, banging on pots and makeshift instruments. And, he's listening to jazz, Louis Armstrong. He's avoiding the mopping his mother/wife figure is adament in demanding that he does. He, however, is not interested in work. We accompany him in a daydream of sorts where he is a king, dressed less like a monarch in traditional robes and more like the leader of a marching band, complete with headdress and uniform. He goes to heaven where clouds bubble similarly to the mop bucket and Louis Armstrong and his band play for him in attire that is, I suppose, intentioned for us to take as traditional African attire. I think that the obvious articles that could inform these images are the Goffman and Dyer pieces, but the Carlson chapters also, to a lesser extent, inform. According to Goffman, Armstrong has to, somewhat, believe in the image he is presenting as his character. Opposingly, Dyer would have us believe that he has more power over his image because of his "star" quality, his ability to influence because of his popularity. I think that both of these pieces come into play by emphasizing that this short film came early in Armstrong's career. Because of this position in the chronology, we can possibly assume that Armstrong has less of the influence of "start" power that he will have later in life which means that he has less control over the characteristics of his parts. With this in mind, he may have been less concerned with the image he was portraying and more concerned with the fact he was getting paid and could add this to the publicity that would allow him to attain more "star" power.
Besides these things, I think it's important to notice the nature of the heaven that we see a Jim Crow type envisioning. This may or may not have influenced this image, since we know that most who were doing minstrelsy and film careers had little actual contact with South, but slaves were taught that the highest heaven they could acheive was a kind of black heaven. If they were loyal and hardworking for their masters, they could go to a heaven that was lower, hierarchically, than the heaven of their white masters and mistresses. With this in mind, it is interesting to see that there are no whites in the heaven of the Jim Crow. It's simply leisure, music.
Interesting.
I don't want this to be too long, so I'll quickly visit the second film, I'll be Glad When You're Dead You rascal You. There's a few things that quite obviously stick out as cliches of this genre. The white chick gets kidnapped by the local "savages" who are characterized as grinning cannibals, a commonly held assumption at the time. But, I think the fading between the face of the singing Armstrong and the disembodied head of the thick lipped and animal like tongue of the "savage" is quite interesting. Not only are we supposed to assume that the "savage" and Armstrong are not just similar but the same, but the movements of lips and tongue of the "savage" and armstrong are almost in sync, which pulls this image and juxtaposition of this image.
Anywho, I'll sure we'll discuss this more in depth during class. I'd also like to see what people have to say about the Bessie Smith short film as well as how these readings play off and inform each other.
That's all folks!

The Jazz Singer/Catchup Readings

2008-02-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

Because we had so many different readings, I will try to just hit on what was interesting to me, and, hopefully, we can discuss lots of other stuff covered in class.
I was really interested in what Lott had to say about capitalism and blackface. I was sad that the chapter on the working class was missing. (Although, don't get me wrong. I felt overwhelmed by getting caught up on the chapters and articles of the coursepack this week, well, few days.) It got me thinking that slavery would probably not, might not, have happened if our country wasn't so strictly capitalist and anti socialist, both those things. In fact, what I found myself thinking through our few class discussions thus far was that the actors of vaudeville and blackface were completely controlled by the fact that they were making money doing blackface, and, to live as a member of a capitalist society, one has to make money to simply live. As we learned fromAnn Douglas' Black Manhanton, that possession of money changed the way people lived their lives. There was an especially potent line from her, something about the number of alcoholics in the white and black communities during the Harlem Renaissance. Two out of about ten black literary types had been alcholics; whereas, only two of about ten white literary types had not been alcoholics. I think this bit of statistical evidence tells a helluva lot about both white and black people. The burden of capitalism, having to make money to be able to survive, is trying on the soul. There was another line, I can't exactly remember which reading it was from, may Douglas again, that Hurston? didn't find any nurishment for her soul among the white community. I can really see this; it rings true to me because the white community has a longer history of capital investment than the black community ( as far as I know, which might not be right. I'm not sure how capitalism figured in a traditional west African setting.)
This following is a sort of aside. I believe it's okay to do a bit of rambling in the blog setting, right?
Anywho, my girlfriend made a comment this week that really brought my attention even more so to this subject. She moved here about a month and hasn't yet found a job. She's been listless, unhappy, moping about meaninglessly in the house. At first, I thought it was because I did the horrible thing of letting her move to Lubbock. But, we talked about it, and it's because she doesn't have a job. And, I thought about how her and most of America 's (especially your traditional bring home the bread sort of masculinity) meaning and purposefullness in life is mixed up in how much capital they are able to provide for themselves and their families, how much money they make. It was really disheartening.
And, I heard these same sentiments in how Douglas discussed those Harlem Renaissance writers- how they, unlike their white counterparts, could not make a living off a literary endeavor. Hell, we know it's still hardly possible today, whether one's white or black. In fact, it might be argued that, because of the revival of the cannon, it may be more possible to make it, i.e. make enough money to live off, being a black writer. That argument could easily be disputed by simple statistics of black college goers.
Okay,
I was also glad that a few of our readings noticed the seductive and romantic quality of Jak and his mother's relationship. When he kissed her on the lips, I was uncomfortable. When he did it again, I just thought it was weird or some cultural difference I didn't quite understand. But, the oedipus complex makes a lot of sense for me here. This makes Lott's ? discussion of how Freudian theory could mostly not be applied to African American families even more interesting.
I don't want this to be too long, so I won't go into the things I noticed about The Jazz Singer. Some of them were covered in our readings, and I'm sure that others in the class noticed some of the same things I did it.
I would like to say that, in my copy of the Jazz Singer, there was a Plantation act, vaudevillian in nature, of Al Jolson and a cartoon that I thought would be helpful for all of us. The Plantation act was discussed in Blackface, White Noise, but, still, it's something to see. His unsuccesful dialect was just hilarious. The whole picture was absurd. There was a cotton field in the background. there were chickens around his feet. His outfit was a plaid shirt and overalls. I think all of us should see it.
Anywhoooo, see you all tomorrow.

reaction to The Critical Eye

2008-01-28T21:04:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I don't really know what to say about this text. It was fairly straightforward this is this and that is that, almost didactic.
The things that I didn't have a clear idea about, distribution, funding, marketing, I still don't have a clear idea about. I liked the history section, The American Industry. It was interesting to better understand how intricate Hollywood is linked to our societal image.
I think that, since we are critical readers, we approach everything in our lives critically. It's a curse really. Sometimes, I'd just like to watch bad tv without noticing the predjudices present or how men and are portrayed or how whole groups of people are missing from the mainstream picture. Because we are critical readers, I think that most of what the editors/writers pointed out were things I already acknowledged. There were a few interesting facts by and by. I didn't know there was a sort of transgendered acceptance within some Native American tribes that had been portrayed in a movie, especially during the era it was produced. The section on editing highlighted things I knew, but had never consciously or seriously considered. I liked how the editors/writers consistently paralleled moviemaking and writing. I saw that myself within the descriptions of the craft. If anything, the book helped me to put together a whole picture of American moviemaking.
Hopefully, you guys will have a bit more indepth analysis of the book.
later, pardners

On Black like You

2008-01-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

Strausbaugh's first few chapters were almost enough to, in any other context, make me discredit the book and put it down as not so useful. Some of the "facts" seemed not so factual and sometimes plainly used out of any educated context. (An early example of this is when, on page 39, Strausbaugh says that the soon to be enslaved West Africans saw Western sails as "demonic". Any study of traditional West African wordview and religion will clearly state that West Africans neither believed in demons or the traditionally evil vs. good protestant worldview. For West Africans, good and evil worked hand in hand to create a balanced society. Evil was just as useful as good, and "demonic" as an adjective, if used, would not have had a negative conotation as it does in the western world.) Besides this, and even after finishing the book, I don't think that Strausbaugh had a decidedly identifiable audience. The book was much too generalized and unannotated to be aimed at an academic audience, but it also assumed too much retractable knowledge of specific names and types, the hotentot for example, to be aimed at a more general public.
These things aside, there was no evidence of a real organizational strategy. I kept having to look back at the titles of chapters to remember what it was I was supposed to be reading about. In the Afterword by James, he says that Strausbaugh is "explor"ing blackface and minstrelsy. Yeah, he's exploring in an unlit room with arms outstretched.
These couple of three aspects of the book were so alarmingly distracting so that I was only able to concentrate on the content of the book by the third or so chapter. From that point, I tried to ignore the instances where the above discussed showed up.
So, the thesis is I don't know. Americans are mutts. Got it. Contemporary social issues and music have a history. Duh.
I did find interesting the reoccurence of queer theory within the text, given more time in the afterword. But, there was never any real connection made between all the various topics explored. It's interesting stuff. I look forward to seeing how it came together for you all. Oh, and I do have a thing or two to say about how he approaches southern dialect. Yep, that's all folks!

The End of Composition and a bit on technology

2007-09-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

Blog Prompt: What is the "End of Composition"? How do we get there? What are the principles of good writing instruction that will get us there?

Before I get to the above copy and pasted question for this week, put there for my old feeble mind and so I don't I have to look back and forth everytime I forget what I'm talking about, I'd like to talk a bit about Rickly's take on tech.

Well, I gotta say, I like it.
I'm an anti-technology person at heart. (I didn't know how to do an attachment to email until a publisher insisted. I was sure I would handwrite my novels in ms form. etc, etc. Oh, the list is long.) I'm pretty comfortable with that, honest even in inhospitable atmospheres, like this school. But, Rickly's position was new to me and appreciated. We should use technology, not let technology use us. We should use technology as a helpful tool. We should not change to meet technology. We should allow it to help us. I don't think I've allowed that. I think I've fought it at every step, every juncture.
I think this is at the heart of why I hate technology. I've always felt that I had to change to meet it, to use it, to "integrate" my classroom. I'm sure that stems from that fact that I've never (or very seldom), beforehand, planned an activity or assignment or anything that involved the use of technology as a helper, as a tool.
I guess I had it backwards. Thanks for the lightbulb, Rickly, I appreciate it. It's an important misunderstanding on my part. Hopefully, this'll change how I approach technology in the future.
Damn it, I know it will.
Well, that was my moment.
Let me just copy and paste that prompt again.
Blog Prompt: What is the "End of Composition"? How do we get there? What are the principles of good writing instruction that will get us there?
Alright.
Oh, one more sidenote. I hate blogging. I hate myspace. I hate facebook. I hate it all.
But, I've actually come to appreciate the less formal nature of this academic interation.
Anywho.
The end of composition, in a general sense, I guess, is to improve student's writing or perhaps to give them the foundation on which they can build their own ability to write.
I think we get their in a lot of different ways. Ways specific to the individual. We get to that end by formulating our own end, by implementing our personal philosophies of teaching and composition. I'm not going to go into the basic principles. It seems to me that the people who know a helluva lot more about this topic have done a good enough job of publishing those ideas that any one of us could find them. But, I will say that I think it's important that each of us come up with our own list of important fundamentals.
peace out,
brandy y

philosophies of teaching and composition

2007-09-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

The philosophy of teaching and composition affect everything that happens in the classroom. The philosophy is the lense through which the teacher plans everything, sees everything. If the teacher believes strongly that writing is a process, the classroom activities and writing assignments reflect that. An in class activity might be to freewrite. An assignment may be made of up multiple parts: a predraft, a first draft, a second draft, a final draft. Class time might be spent on developing ideas and exploring the thought process behind editing and drafting. Grammar exercises would probably be worked in as problems in student writing arises. The emphasis of the class would be focused around the philosphy that writing is a process. And, only good writing can be arrived at after the process is completed. If a class's or teacher's emphasis were on grammar and writing "correctly", class time and asssignments would be geared towards the mechanics of writing. When does one use the five paragraph essay? How does one expand upon it, etc. Grammar exercises might be mandatory in this classroom. Grammar mistakes might carry a heavier grading weight.
I have a creative writing background. Because of this, I approach rhetorical writing in much the same way as creative writing, but I emphasize the differences between the two. I use exercises in class similar to those found in a creative writing classroom to help students open up and find confidence and voice in their writing. I also emphasize the process. I try to keep my classroom as open and supportive as possible. I encourage students to start writing from wherever they are in the maturation process. I want students to become better writers, beginning at whatever starting place they come from. I encourage an atmosphere of equality and supportiveness and try to maintain that atmosphere in conferences, class presentations, commenting on turned in assignments, etc.
It is important to me that students find their own way. I try to direct that as much as possible.

mass tech chaos

2007-09-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

I don't feel that I am a facilitator of anything besides mass technical chaos problems. Every email I've received from students, except for ONE singular email, have been about tech probs with either topic or the grammar diagnostic. I was so happy to deal with the one email, though. I knew how to handle it. I knew what the answers to his problems were. All I had to do was explain the difference in a summary and a paraprase and address some oraganization problems. I was so happy!
As for our second question, I see the argument that can be made- that graders are "tutors", but I've got to call bullshit on this.
I worked as a tutor in a writing center for a year. And, I can say that it's a hella different experience to sit across from a student who is struggling with an assignment than it is to sit at the topic interface and hope my wireless doesn't go out in the middle of grading a paper.
The conversation that happens when a student sits across from you, has saught you out because he/she would like to improve, even if they are only focused on their grade, is much more fulfilling to me as a teacher. I get to connect with them on a personal level. I'm not some nameless type at the front of the classroom that they feel they have nothing in common in. They become a real person to me, and I sometimes get to become a real person to them. I always end a session by asking something about their interests. Oh, you're a biology major or whatever. And, we have just a minute or two talk about what's going on in their lives. And, they leave with a smile, usually. Because I treat them like a person instead of a printed name on a list of assignments I have to grade.
I could go on about this for hours. Hopefully, we'll come back to this (all important) question in class.
brandy y

answer to this week's question

2007-09-02T13:08:00.001-07:00

I think, for me, that the three most important keys are those which allow the atmosphere of the classroom to be that which is most productive for the most number of people. And, it should also be one, of course, that is successful for you as the teacher. These three things are important to all classes taught in the humanites; they may be even possibly important, in varying degrees, to classes taught outside of the humanities. At the top of the list is equality. A teacher who nurtures an atmosphere of equality within classroom also nurtures equality outside the classroom, in conferences, in groupwork, while grading papers, etc. Equality allows those students, who are often found in first year comp classes and freshman classes in general, that experience some discomfort in either the academic atmosphere or in a group setting a little extra unsaid push of support to verbally express their ideas to others. This initial verbal expression leads the way to a criticially analyzed thought and, possibly, a well written record of that thought. The teacher can create equality in the classroom in a number of ways. I have set students up in the humanities round for discussion. This disspells any hanging feelings that those students in the back of the classroom are somehow less intelligent or less hardworking than those in the front. I also give verbal support. I often reinforce with each student that I experience the sharing of their ideas. Or, I explain to them how their comment helped to move the discussion along. I think that an important to be remembered while trying to foster this equal atmosphere is that it is more important for some learning to be done than for the teacher to always feel that he/she is in complete control of the classroom. Some of my most satisfying teaching moments have come when the students took control of the conversation and bounced ideas off of each other with me as a mere spectator, but a content spectator. Flexibility is tied in closely with equality. The classroom is a place where big changes take place. Students and teachers come to realizations that are often life altering. I have often seen a workshop or a discussion be verred away from a lightbulb by a teacher who suddenly felt insecure about their position inside the discussion. I think, before we teach, it's important to combat our own feelings of inadaquecy, whatever they may be (writing, place in the academic hierarchy, place in the social hiearchy, etc., etc.). Before I entered the classroom as a teacher, I took a class similar to this in which I heard many voices saying that because of my sex, my color, my size, and other characteristics, that I would have a hard time "controlling" my classroom. I'm still dealing with those voices when I teach. Now, I wish I had never heard them. I say, be willing to go wherever class needs to go that day and worry about establishing that all important control later. The third concept I'd like to talk about is closely linked to flexibility which is closely linked to equality. I not sure of the best way to phrase it but, Don't be afraid to try new things. Teaching strategies you're not sure you'll be good at but you know Johnnie on the back row who hasn't said a word all semeser will respond well to. Often, I've done things I'm uncomfortable with, and I find that it's an activity I should have been practicing in a classroom more often. I try to remind myself that a single classroom is made up of individual human beings that learn best in their own unique ways. I try to schedule activities that invite different kinds of learners, not just verbal or hands on, but things outside those established boundaries.
allright, enough unorganized ranting, see you guys Tues.
brandy y