“Work,” by John Engman, from Temporary Help

image

austinkleon:

“Work,” by John Engman, from Temporary Help

I wanted to be a rain salesman…but…I am paid to make the screen of my computer glow

Mary Karr on John Engman (she excerpted “Work” in her great memoir, Lit):

In prosperous America, the poet’s economic reality usually involves working a crap job while scribbling nightly in a cheap apartment. Before my pal John Engman suffered a brain aneurysm in his 40s, he toiled in such obscurity. He lived in Minnesota, bussed tables, did standup comedy for a while, taught a class or two at a local community center, but only published two books. From his long-time job as an aide in an adolescent psych ward came poems rich in pathos, each tinged with his signature irony.

How Will You Measure Your Life? - Harvard Business Review

link

If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.

How Will You Measure Your Life? - Harvard Business Review

Raging Bull

image

Raging Bull. I expected that boxing would be much more central to this film, but it’s more of a story of jealousy and self-loathing punctuated with fights professional and domestic. Maybe the coolest thing is the use of slow-motion every now and then to emphasize a particular moment or emotional state. Maybe the most annoying thing is Italian-American tough guy/gangster talk – which maybe I’ve just been saturated with before. I wasn’t blown away with this movie – but, then again, I’m really curious how I’d feel if I saw it a second time. Make of that what you will.

Inception

image

Inception. This is a good movie. Worth seeing? Sure. Superlative? No. Interesting ideas and there’s enough ambiguity to puzzle over ‘til the End of Days. Five Ways of Looking at Inception is probably just the tip of the iceberg. The trouble was that I didn’t care much. My first reaction was “Inception: all muscle and nerves, no heart. Interesting but probably at least 48 minutes too long.” It kinda reminded me of the situation where a writer has an awesome essay and then later writes a book on the same topic. This movie was a book where an essay (i.e. short film) might have been a tighter, more engaging experience. Other assorted observations:

  • I think the dark, corporate angle is legit. The idea of executive-level extraction-resistance training is a nice scifi hypothetical.
  • I liked the idea of different levels of dreams operating at different time-speeds. Pretty cool.
  • Lots of explanatory dialogue…
  • Mediocre score.
  • I’d like to see more movies where not everyone is wealthy and skilled.
  • I’d like to see action movies with fewer hordes of incompetent gunmen.
  • Ski chase. Dead wife reappearing. Zero-gravity fights. Old man dying in a minimalist room. I don’t think this is a bad thing, btw.