This New Existence - 2008 In Review

3:20 AM, 1/1/2009, top of Tank Hill, San Francisco, CA

Another year is behind us yet again. For me it was a year of introspection, education, travel, and personal growth. In January of 2008, I stumbled across an audio class on Ancient Greek Philosophy at the San Francisco Public Library. Since then I've adopted other classes in the same series into my every day routine. I feel that the classes overall have given me a new lease on life- made me interested in things I knew nothing about, while stories of the past enriched my own creative narratives. The dialogues and dialectic of Ancient Greek philosophers specifically made me examine more deeply the bigger questions we face as human beings, as well as to think more objectively about my relationships with other people. I am now more prone to listen to peoples opinions and discuss things with them, rather than devolve into the sophism and screaming matches most television programs and online forums have become as of late.

This was also especially helpful throughout the year to see through the smear campaigns of the most important US Presidential election of my life thus far. I have realized that our civilization is built on such a dialectic, and that the most negative effect on our growth as a species has been the conquer and destruction of other cultures- the reset to Year Zero. These include Roman dominance of the Hellenic (Greek) empire, the Barbarian destruction of the Roman Empire, and later The Mongolian destruction of early Baghdad. There is just so much we have lost because of this ugly historical cycle of domination.

In July of 2008, a paper was published in Nature (famous weekly science journal) about what's called the Antikythera Mechanism. The Antikythera was found in an old Roman shipwreck in the southern part of Mediterranean Sea, packed among statues and other items that were looted from the Greek Islands around the beginning of the first millennium CE. From its most current, exhaustive examination, it appears to be the oldest known complex scientific calculator, built by the Ancient Greeks and designed to calculate astronomical positions. This incredible archeological find is at least 2000 years old, and has metal miniaturized gears and pieces, much like those found in the clocks of 1800s Europe.

I am equally amazed and mournful at this discovery. It illustrates how much about the Greeks we do not know, and how much we might have learned had things not turned out as they did. Such is the nature of things, I suppose. The philosopher Heraclitus, who I've gotten to know quite well this year, believes that strife is the natural state of all things, and the constant push and pull in itself creates a worldly harmony, instead of opposing sides establishing some kind of collaborative equilibrium. Now this idea could have been influenced by the very turbulent times Heraclitus was going through in his hometown on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey) around 550 BCE, where wars between different factions of Ancient Greeks were commonplace. Or there might just be a stronger wisdom to the pre-Socratic philosopher's few surviving fragments; that whether or not it is of positive outcome, or whether or not we want them to, things will inevitably change.

It's hard not to feel the change in the world today. Our economy is seemingly correcting itself after a barrage of government missteps as well as some extremely foolish exercises in corporate and personal greed. We have been living above our means for a long time, and are only now beginning to realize the extent of what we've done. I hope that in this next year we can focus on the future, and rather than try so vehemently to exist in the past, we should take note of the things we have learned from it and move on. I am optimistic that the United States alongside the rest of the world will find the strength and innovation to carry us in to the next, truly great era of the human story. We are the children of the Greeks, the Romans, the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. If they were capable of building such a rich cultural past, then we are certainly capable of creating an equally rich cultural future.

My best wishes for a great 2009 to you and your loved ones!

Top Ten Things I Learned (or were reinforced)

in 2008

10. Your job is no replacement for the real life outside of it.

9. There are lots of people who have thought about the things you are struggling with, several hundred if not thousands of years before. At least listen to what they have to say.

8. There are so few honest, helpful physicians, especially in California. Hold on to the good ones.

7. Save, save, save for the dry times.

6. Cafes in Paris, to a foreigner at least, require a thicker skin than I can muster most days.

5. Great Art sometimes DOES need a guide, especially in the Pompidou.

4. "Reseau Sans Fil" means "Wireless Network" in French.

3. In regards to artistic endeavors, Concept and Execution must be balanced. They are not mutually exclusive.

2. Sadie is my rock, and I am hers. I love you baby!

1. Yes, we can.

Top Five Albums I Listened To This Year:

Portishead - Third


song - "Hunter" (.mp3 format) - 3m59s

Don't know where in the hell they have been for the last eleven years, but I am certainly glad they are back. Portishead on their new album somehow is able transcend their "trip hop" roots of the 1990s and reintegrate themselves purposefully into the sound of today, knocking most everything else I heard that was new this year into the gutter. Takes a few listens to get into, but after that Beth Gibbon's siren of melancholy will again resonate with you, whether it's in your car, on the train, or in a candlelit room at night. This is the Portishead I have known and loved all these years, and it has come home to roost once again.

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles


song - "RobertaFlack (Featuring Dolly)" (.mp3 format) - 3m8s

Bought this one on a whim at Amoeba Records from the Employee Picks rack. It has such a cool cover, reminiscent of the giant black beetle from Massive Attack's album Mezzanine. With a name like Los Angeles, this album could have gone so many different ways. It is a city whose name brings up feelings in me that I absolutely abhor, and represents a very dark time in my life. As soon as I popped it in I knew it was not of that place. This album is equally retro-lounge, ambient, melodic, softly rhythmic and noisescape. It makes me think of dust swirling within dimming sunlight, and the quirky, lovable creatures that bumble around in the shadows. It's not any bit shallow, plastic, cheesy, or snobbish, as its name might suggest. It is a work of art that is not quite like anything I've ever heard, and which after many back to back listens never quite gets old.

Dido - Safe Trip Home


song - "Look No Further" (.mp3 format) - 3m14s

Another artist whose return is very welcome in my musical world. This time she's teamed up with producer Jon Brion, well known for his previous collaborations with artists like Fiona Apple and Aimee Mann. An excellent addition to her discography. I really wonder what will happen to her music if she ever actually finds a man that treats her right. Regardless, I hope it doesn't take her six more years to come out with her next album. This is where she should take some notes from the Nine Inch Nails playbook: sometimes you hit the switch, sometimes you miss, but the bigger your catalog is the better (at least to the fans). Of course multi-platinum selling artists I am sure can do whatever they damn well want.

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (Hilary Hahn on violin)


song - "Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 I. Allegro Moderato" (.mp3 format) - 18m6s

As I get more and more into classical - excuse me - ORCHESTRAL music, the more I am able to refine my tastes and pick out the stuff I really enjoy. I came across this magnificent piece within one of my "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" lectures. It is truly fabulous- and incredibly lucky that I was actually able to see it so deftly performed by the great Hilary Hahn with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall in late November. Truly an astounding performance and experience overall. The Violin Concerto of Tchaikovsky (his only one) is a triumphant masterpiece of the Romantic Era. At its more fully orchestrated parts it feels like flying on the back of a mythical creature over the expanse of some undiscovered green countryside, and when Hilary Hahn plays the violin solo interludes, it feels like she's conjuring up great undulating ribbons of fire from the Earth's core. Music doesn't get much more awe-inspiring than this, especially from the Left Side Terrace seats of Davies Hall.

Muslimgauze - United States of Islam, Vote Hezbollah, Sufiq,

and Jaal Ab Dullah

song - "United States of Islam (Pt 1)" (.mp3 format) - 9m46s

Muslimgauze is an old friend, who was first discovered, listed on the cover of the scarcely published Industrial Nation magazine in the summer of 1995, by my friend Dave Stoller. A British gentleman named Bryn Jones is the force behind Muslimgauze, who died mysteriously in 1998, leaving behind over 90 full length albums with 32 different record labels and over 2000 individual songs. With such inflammatory titles like "Vote Hezbollah", and labeled alongside such acts as Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM, one might expect some vocalist with distortion effects on their voice, shouting all kinds of hateful, anti-Western slogans. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Muslimgauze is instead an innovative and mindblowing collage of complex polyrhythms and Islamic chants, converging to make a mysterious blend of tones, drones and echoes. The music is actually very cinematic- it could easily be the soundtrack to a film about nomadic desert tribes who convene at night to display their amazing, hypnotic dances to one another. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. I've been trying more and more this year to introduce this supreme body of work to anyone I can. Don't be at all surprised if a Muslimgauze cut ends up on a yet-to-completed film of my own.

Top Eight Movies I Saw This Year:

The Conversation


clip - 3m56s

Sadie took a class earlier this year with well-respected classical realist painter, Michael Grimaldi. The Conversation is his favorite film, both narratively and compositionally, and the reason we came to watch it in the first place. Given Grimaldi's extraordinary body of work, I now understand why.

Overlooked, overshadowed, under appreciated, is Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 masterpiece, produced between Godfather I and II. Gene Hackman stars in this San Francisco drama about a man who struggles with the morality of his profession as an elite contract surveillance agent. Excellent acting performances all around, especially Hackman, and a surprisingly scary appearance by (a very young) Harrison Ford. Top-notch sound design and cinematography that will absolutely knock your socks off.

Paris, Texas


clip - 2m53s

This past November Sadie and I hosted a 3-film, Wim Wenders "Director's Festival Weekend." I had never seen any of Mr. Wenders' films previously, so it was a treat to watch them with no specific expectations, except for perhaps the knowledge that he is German, and a renowned independent filmmaker. We watched Wings of Desire (poorly remade in the US as City of Angels in 1998), Buena Vista Social Club (documentary on the making of the famous hit album), and Paris, Texas (1984).

Paris Texas is one of the most refreshingly original films you will ever see. It's startling to see how many filmmakers, including the great David Lynch, have borrowed so heavily from the narrative and visual style of Wim Wenders. The similarity between even the most current independent films and this one, now almost 25 years old, is undeniable. The story evolves slowly over its nearly three-hour running time. It begins by following the main character Travis (a spot-on performance by Harry Dean Stanton), who wanders silently over the plains of South Texas before collapsing from dehydration in a bar. In subsequent scenes we learn that Travis, over the last few years has experienced a severely traumatic personal incident- one that he himself has caused, and must now come to terms with. A wonderful, even historic film, that I can't recommend highly enough.

Iron Man


clip - 9m11s

I think many of us can agree that the superhero genre at this point resembles a dead horse, beaten so much that its body is near flush with the ground. Spider Man and X-Men rekindled this genre about six years ago, and the flood hasn't stopped since. The Batman and Superman reboots, Fantastic Four, several failed attempts to revive the Incredible Hulk- all movies I've unfortunately either directly worked on, or from which I was a mere one step removed. Iron Man was different, and that's for one very simple reason. Three words: Robert, Downey, and Jr. I don't know if you could call it his comeback role, but the man is a treasure trove of talent like few others in the business. It's great to see a him bring such humanity and more importantly HUMOR to what could have been an extremely dry, hollow role if it were played by anyone else.

Oh the actual movie? Yeah, that was decent too. Jeff Bridges plays a great villain even if his and Iron Man's "final fight" was pretty uninspired. The film also asks some interesting philosophical questions, about how much responsibility we should accept when the things that we create fall into the wrong hands. Is it the technology itself that is evil, and its user becomes naturally drunk on its power, or is the user inherently evil, and the way that the technology is put to use a reflection of their true character? Am I digging too deep here? If I am, oh well- at least it was a damn good action superhero film.

The Dark Knight


clip - 5m50s

Batman Returns of 2005 showed us a new, darker vision for the caped crusader, resuscitating a franchise that the public had flatly dismissed not 10 years prior. For the second installment of the reboot, Batman takes the back seat, as the infamous Joker gets his own makeover. Heath Ledger, rest his soul, brings a fire to the part that is at once hilarious, disgusting, moving, and wholly frightening, while starkly different from his predecessors.

When an actor plunges himself so deeply into such a dark existence for a part like this, I suppose he would naturally come across the character traits of this new version of The Joker. The Dark Knight's vision for the Clown Prince of Crime is not your traditional villain. Gone is the power hungry, scheming, shaking his fist at the good guys when he loses in the end villain. He is, as he himself says in the movie, "an agent of Chaos" who does as he pleases, without any kind of concrete plan or thought about the repercussions of his actions. If one of his diabolical exercises is foiled, he throws up his hands like "oh well" and just deals with the consequences. In fact, he LAUGHS at them.

Beyond all of the sociopsychological games The Joker plays throughout the movie as he terrorizes the residents of Gotham City- the bombs, the assassination attempts of city officials, even the nonchalant murder of his own criminal associates- I think we as moviegoers actually admire the Joker and what he symbolizes- true freedom. Freedom from emotional baggage, from moral obligation or regret, from all responsibility and loyalty, from fear of capture, and ultimately from pain or even death. He is truly a transcendent being, as ugly a thing as that may come to represent in this case. No wonder he laughs maniacally while he sets fire to a ten foot high pile of stacked $100 bills. He doesn't need it. He is completely free. Batman? He sits around and sulks all day. Who needs that?

Very pointed commentary about how much we actually are able to separate the dark side from ourselves, to become human beings of pure truth and justice, and the final answer that is revealed: we can't. Where so many superhero genre films try to answer this question- Spiderman 3, the Incredible Hulk... The Dark Knight succeeds at last.

Cloverfield


clip - 1m50s

I'm sorry to say it, but if you are prone to motion sickness, you do indeed need a Dramamine before watching this film. When Sadie and I went to see it on the last week of its theater run, that's exactly what I did, and let me tell you- it is SOOOO worth it. This movie rocked. You hear the premise - a giant anonymous monster comes to wreak havoc on New York City, and all of the sudden you're like me- having flashbacks to 1998, to Roland Emmerich's abysmal Godzilla, and how much the ads got you so excited and then the movie TOTALLY let you down. This is NOT that film. This is as visceral and raw an experience as you can ever get watching a movie. Simultaneously entertaining and terrifying, Cloverfield straight up delivers. I don't want to give away too much if you haven't seen it, but I can tell you that to me, this is the essence of what truly great film entertainment is. Producer JJ Abrams knows his shit.

Wall-E


clip - 1m43s

Perhaps I'm a bit biased on this one because I got to see it AT PIXAR STUDIOS in Emeryville, just across the Bay from San Francisco, courtesy of our good friend Neil Blevins who works there and worked on the film itself (he modeled many of the scavenged treasures in Wall-E's trailer). This film nullifies all previous Pixar films. It truly sets the bar for a whole new generation of animated movies; a movie whose computer generated characters are so full of subtlety and nuance, they resonate with even the deepest of human emotions. Don't get me wrong, this is not a ponderous, heavy film, but it does redefine what we believe animated films to be- not just kids' cartoons, but fully blooming works of art.

I commend director Andrew Stanton for understanding what it took to tell this story, and taking a big risk, allowing his main character (Wall-E) to be a robot that speaks with mostly electronic blips and squirks, and who is completely alone for the first large chunk of the film. His only interactions are with his surrounding environment, a desolate version of Earth made up completely out of trash, as well as a lone friendly cockroach. One day, a sleek and much more technologically advanced robot named Eve arrives from outer space, and everything changes- Wall-E falls in love. When Eve is suddenly forced to leave, Wall-E has no choice but to follow her, involving himself in a much bigger drama, which ends up being a pretty brash commentary on the way that we as consumers squander our natural resources, and waste our lives and bodies away with sugary food and mindless entertainment. The Wall-E vision of the future sees a human race, living together but driven apart by the technologies we ourselves create, while at the same time inspiring hope that some of those same technologies will be inadvertently what saves us in the end. Reminiscent of the great silent films of the early 20th century, before we became obsessed with hearing ourselves talk, Wall-E is somehow able to inspire far more wonder than Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny could ever have hoped to.

Juno


clip - 0m53s

Ellen Page has good things coming to her if she can play every role with as much charisma as her character in this film. Juno, a high school junior, gets unexpectedly pregnant. After giving it some thought she decides to carry her baby to term and give it up for adoption, and answers an ad from the classifieds section in the local paper. She meets Mark and Vanessa Loring, played brilliantly by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, a young couple who is not exactly on the same page in regards to the genesis of their own nuclear family. Some phenomenal characters and performances in this, while brimming with great comedic situations. Definitely a feelgood movie, but luckily not one that requires you wash the cherry-bubblegum syrup out of your mouth afterward, if you get what I mean.

Synecdoche, New York


clip - 6m02s

Every time I see a movie with his name on it, I am increasingly more impressed with Mr. Charlie Kaufman. From Being John Malkovich to Adaptation, to the totally far out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he's been writing completely original, insightful and thought provoking screenplays for awhile now. Synechdoche New York (say that five times fast) takes it to an even deeper level, where he explores themes of existence and the journey of Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) through the difficult times in his life. At first Cotard seems like just your run of the mill, over-emotional, over ambitious playwright on a mission to create the perfect stage play- one of realism, emotion, and authenticity. He's pleased with what he's made so far, but life takes a turn when he wins an award for his work as a playwright, and consequently a huge sum of money for him to further pursue his artistic endeavors. Meanwhile his family life is falling apart at home. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener), who seems wholly disconnected and disappointed in how her relationship with Cotard has turned out, abruptly packs up and leaves with their young daughter Olive to take a gig as a conceptual artist in Germany. As time wears on and he realizes they don't intend to come back, Cotard moves on with his life, as much as he can, never quite breaking his mind away from his relationship with his daughter.

What ensues borders on the absurd- a play within a play about Cotard's own life, where reality simulates reality simulates reality to an almost intolerable recess of informal narrative. This is a story about a man living out his life as though it were an elaborate theater piece. As an exuberant priest says to a simulated funeral procession late in the film, that as each and every person lives out their own drama, they couldn't care less about the individual narratives that others are carrying on. "So fuck everybody!" he quips. "Amen!" the crowd responds. Absolutely a brilliant, funny, and original piece of work, albeit a bit harrowing to someone who thinks seriously about the ideas of existence, what our lives on this Earth are, and what they mean. Certainly the most introspective film of the year, and where it hits the right notes, will make you belly-laugh and sob simultaneously.

Books I Read (at least parts of) This Year:

Thank you San Francisco Public Library!



Reconciliation - Benazir Bhutto (may she rest in peace)
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Princples of Screenwriting - Robert McKee
The Art and Thought of Heraclitus - Charles H. Kahn
Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick
Emergence - Steven Johnson
Sync - Steven Strogatz
The City in History - Lewis Mumford
The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs
North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula - Paul French
The Music of Pythagoras - Kitty Ferguson
Republic - Plato

Audio Classes Completed:



This year I became addicted to The Teaching Company's Great Courses series. I HIGHLY recommend them if you are at all interested in cracking your mind wide open. Here are the classes that I completed this year.

Introduction to Greek Philosophy (24 lectures)
History of Science: Antiquity to 1700 (36 lectures)
The Great Ideas of Philosophy (60 lectures)
Chaos Theory (24 lectures)
How to Listen To and Understand Great Music (48 lectures)
No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life (24 lectures)
Ancient Greek Civilization (24 lectures)

Memorable Quotes of 2008:



"There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres."
"Everything is Number."

-Pythagoras

"Eyes and ears are poor witnesses for men if their souls do not understand the language."
"A man can never step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man."

-Heraclitus

"In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."

-Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States

"Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow."

-T.S. Eliot

Favorite New San Francisco Restaurant: Shanghai Dumpling King



3319 Balboa St at 34th Ave, Outer Richmond

My friend Mr. Jon Fischer strolled by this place after a screening at The Balboa Theater, the Outer Richmond's only vintage independent movie theater. He later let me in on the secret, and it has since become my favorite cheap-but-amazing Chinese restaurant in the city.

Of the things I have tried, I recommend the Spicy Wontons with their punchy sauce, the soup-filled Shanghai Steamed Dumplings, and the Soy Braised Lion Head Meatballs, which comes in a portion of three huge pork meatballs. All of the dishes that I have tried have been excellent- even the standard hot tea that they serve is great. The SDK is a perfect choice if you want to stuff yourself with some of the best Chinese food in town, especially before or after you catch a flick at The Balboa.

Favorite New Drink of 2008: The Godmother



Equal parts vodka (the more premium vodka the better) and amaretto.

While many a bartender may give you a crooked look at first, if the weather is right you might just have half the bar drinking them by the end of the night, as happened many a time in bars throughout San Francisco and New York City this year. This drink was brought to Sadie's and my attention through our friend Kyra Kaszynski, as she explained to us that a friend of hers named Midge had passed a couple of years back, leaving behind the remembrance of her favorite cocktail, The Godmother, most popular in the 1930s. Kyra's speech at Midge's funeral, which explained the legacy of this fabulous drink, set off a contagion of drink orders at the funeral reception, and has since spread like wildfire.

This is not a drink to be taken lightly, as it is completely alcoholic, with perhaps the exception of melted ice. Three or four of these babies and you had better have pre-arranged transportation home, kid- something that doesn't require you to operate any kind of mechanical device at all, perhaps even a cell phone. Beware the Godfather also, which replaces the vodka with whiskey, and packs an even stronger punch- a few rounds of these set Sadie off into the spins on one particular occasion this year.

So order a Godmother and run the damn bar out of amaretto.

Thank you, Midge. Thank you, for my new favorite drink. Here's to you.

A safe and happy 2009 to you all!!!

-Nowell