TMR: An Interview with George Saunders

~ Mark

meaghano:

George Saunders in a wonderful, wonderful interview.

Success is nice because then you don’t have to worry so much about having been unfairly robbed of your very richly deserved success. Success is bad because momentary good fortune can temporarily hide the fact that you are still, despite your success, full of shit.

So much good stuff here:

Interviewer: So much of your fiction is charged with social import. Given our recent political upheavals, have you ever thought of writing overt political satire?

Saunders: I’m not very interested in that kind of satire because it works on the assumption that They Are Assholes. Fiction works on the assumption that They Are Us, on a Different Day.

And:

Any mastery you can achieve in writing is totally personal and incredibly nuanced. It’s a sort of antimastery, feeling comfortable with being unsure.

And also:

One of the wonderful benefits of energetically pursuing a writing career is that I’ve come to understand the staggering limitations of my abilities. […] So one way I cope with this humbling state of affairs is via a little mantra: If I just stay fully engaged in whatever has presented itself, things will be fine. That is, I try not to think about things like: Next, I begin MY NOVEL!

TMR: An Interview with George Saunders

Humpday

~ Mark

Humpday. I thought this was a really great movie. One on level it’s a sort of male bonding tale with a tone that is somewhere between the melancholy, awkward (and excellent) Old Joy and the goofy, chummy I Love You, Man. There’s bro love and macho one-upsmanship and adventurousness there, to be sure. But one thing that it shows–the wholly improvised dialogue probably helps here–is the halting, roundabout way that caring people make space for each other and test new emotional waters. A refreshing reminder of how surprisingly thoughtful people can be. Alycia Delmore is especially good.

And on a whole different level it’s about the call of art and the challenge of performance. “We’re doing this because it scares us more than anything else.” Also, I have a new crush on writer/director/producer Lynn Shelton. Worth seeing.

~ Mark

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

That’s attributed to Socrates, but who knows? Nonetheless, mental note. It pays to keep a healthy skepticism of how you spend your time, busy or not.
~ Mark

Where I live is culturally neutral. If I lived in New Orleans I’d have to embrace the local culture because it’s so good. In California you can be your own person.

Richard Thompson, in the Financial Times.

communicatrix:

After listening to an interesting interview with Richard Florida on the “personal economics” of location, I’m not sure this is 100% why I feel so comfortable in L.A. I suspect it’s more a perfect stew of things—the autonomy/anonymity provided by a large metropolis, the proximity to likeminded souls, the insane cultural diversity and, hey, let’s not forget about the exceptional quality of Western light. But yeah, Chicago? Seattle? Portland? (Which would be a strong contender, except for that pesky light thing.) All distinctive. And maybe a little oppressive, because of it.

Warrants thought, anyway. Or maybe I’m just nuts, and really like thinking about shit like this.

[via]

“Cultural neutrality” is just the phrase I’ve been looking for. It’s one of the reasons Atlanta has really grown on me as I’ve been able to compare it to other cities.

Unforgiven

~ Mark

Unforgiven. This is a very, very good movie. There’s so much psychological fodder here: regret, revenge, greed, vanity. Beautifully shot and edited. A killer starring cast and a deep bench of side characters that round out the town life. My favorite part is the subtext with the biographer W.W. Beauchamp and his parasitic/symbiotic relationship with the narcissistic, murderous men in the film. He’s the everyman, fascinated and terrified of the violence, jotting down every detail while pissing his pants. Eastwood dedicated the movie to Don and Sergio.

~ Mark

The toy is the child’s earliest initiation into art, or rather for him it is the first concrete example of art…

Charles Baudelaire, “A Philosophy of Toys” (via) cf. “[Making art is] practicing a physical activity with a certain state of mind. It’s similar to a kid who is absorbed in deep play. A kid with a toy is in a relationship with that toy. The toy is playing with him just as much as he’s playing with the toy.” – Lynda Barry (via austinkleon)