Spinal Tap

This movie is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I began writing this blog post thinking Spinal Tap was a real band. I thought they were in such a downward spiral they agreed to make this movie for the director. I even looked them up on Spotify. I feel like such an idiot. Haha.

Discography

[edit]Studio albums

[edit]Fictional

• Spinal Tap Sings "(Listen to the) Flower People" and Other Favourites (1967)
• We Are All Flower People (1968)
• Brainhammer (1970)
• Nerve Damage (1971)
• Blood to Let (1972)
• Intravenus de Milo (1974)
• The Sun Never Sweats (1975)
• Bent for the Rent (1976)
• Tap Dancing (1976)
• Rock 'n' Roll Creation (referred to as The Gospel According to Spinal Tap in the film) (1977)
• Shark Sandwich (1980)
• Smell the Glove (1982)

[edit]Actual

• This Is Spinal Tap (1984) U.S. No. 121^[19]
• Break Like the Wind (1992) U.S. No. 61^[19] UK No. 51
• Back from the Dead (2009) U.S. No. 52^[20]

[edit]

Hahaha this is brilliant. I'm still laughing. I can't wait till someone makes one of these about Justin Bieber and Beyonce.

War Stories

I don't believe any military story. None. There are exactly three events in my life that led me to distrust stories like Restrepo.

1. Have you read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien? It's a fantastic book. It's a collection of anecdotes about soldiers in the Vietnam War. According to the author, almost none of it is true. The stories are written to give you the experience of being in the war. I accept that, and I understand that to get at the true essence of a story you have to embellish a bit, but I don't like it. I feel powerless and insignificant. Since reading that book, I have dismissed all war stories and accepted that I will never understand war. All I can do is have compassion for soldiers as I would for any other human being.

2. I dated a guy who lied all the time for such reasons mentioned above, and for others that I still don't understand. He once told me a really cool story about a time when he didn't talk for a whole week. I was super impressed. I made a joke about it later that day and he laughed at me for believing his story. I learned that I'm either too trusting or just not smart enough to figure out when people are lying.

3. My mentor took me to the DoD Worldwide Military Photography Workshop last year. If you look at the Facebook Page, you'll see little Casey in the cover photo, dressed in a purple frilly shirt among a group of manly men in uniform. I just went to hang out, I didn't participate in any of the exercises. I got to meet lots of great people, hear all the presentations, and do none of the work; it was great. I also got a private tour of the military media building. I was surprised by the enormous amount of control and security of military imaging. It's ridiculous. We had to lock our phones in a black box, and one room of employees had to turn off their monitors while we visited. Even if a soldier wanted to tell a true story, the military probably wouldn't let them. Even civilian photographers who are imbedded in in platoons are told when and where and what they can photograph. 

There's no way Restrepo is an honest film. Yes, I understand documentaries are "artistic representations of reality" but I'm sure the military has skewed that reality of the Korengal for us. It's movies like these that remind me why I've dedicated my career to honest journalism.

Taxi to the Dark Side

While watching the film, I kept forcing myself to think about the atrocity of 9/11. I tried to justify our military actions by the crime committed against us on that day. But, it doesn't quite match up. The crime committed against us was a military crime. Yes, it was awful, horrible, atrocious, but understandable: they were crazy. Our cime against the people of the Middle East is not understandable. These people know nothing about anything and are subjected to awful treatment. The crimes committed against them are crimes against humanity, not just against a country. The crime is personal and psychological. I agreed with the person who said we're making more terrorists through this detainment process. Children who are abused generally grow up to abuse their children. Women who are raped are changed forever. These men's lives are ruined. What gives the U.S. Military the power to do that, to ruin people's lives? What gives us the right to detain citizens in another country? We can't ignore the inalienable rights we're supposedly fighting for in the first place.

Overfishing

I eliminated fish from my diet last June. The change was inspired by this series of TED talks that is available on iTunesU.

The speakers helped me understand the effects of overfishing on the aquatic ecosystem, and how fish differ from our other sources of meat. We breed and raise our domestic beef, pork, and chicken to sustain the ever-growing population. We don't do that for fish, yet they are placed in the same category as our sources of meat from domestic animals. But wait, what about fish farming? An article from Time Magazine says:

Close to 40% of the seafood we eat nowadays comes from aquaculture; the $78 billion industry has grown 9% a year since 1975, making it the fastest-growing food group, and global demand has doubled since that time. Here's the catch: It takes a lot of input, in the form of other, lesser fish — also known as "reduction" or "trash" fish — to produce the kind of fish we prefer to eat directly. To create 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of high-protein fishmeal, which is fed to farmed fish (along with fish oil, which also comes from other fish), it takes 4.5 kg (10 lbs.) of smaller pelagic, or open-ocean, fish. "Aquaculture's current heavy reliance on wild fish for feed carries substantial ecological risks," says Roz Naylor, a leading scholar on the subject at Stanford University's Center for Environmental Science and Policy. Unless the industry finds alternatives to using pelagic fish to sustain fish farms, says Naylor, the aquaculture industry could end up depleting an essential food source for many other species in the marine food chain.

Fish are wild animals and our reliance on them as a food source damages the ecosystem. When one link is removed, the whole chain collapses: predators starve and prey becomes rampant. That wasn't the case when only small villages relied on fish populations to sustain themselves. Our village of 7 billion people can't rely on fish populations to sustain us. 

But the solution is so simple: inspire people to abstain from buying fish and from going to Seaworld. They're not necessities. As demand decreases fisherman will catch less, and populations will rebound. The families in fishing communities like Taija will learn to earn money in new ways, just as the families of vinyl, cassette, and CD makers did.

Yes, overfishing was not the main topic of the film. But, the species they focused on just happened to be the most sentient mammal other than ourselves. We kill other aquatic species in similarly barbarous ways, and in greater numbers. 

Chip

The financial crisis has never made sense to me, and still doesn't. I'm sorry. I even lived with a financial adviser: my stepdad, Chip.

I think Chip is an amazing person. He is an attractive, soft-spoken Southern gentleman. He loves his dog. He treats my mother like a queen. He does a lot for me too. I can't imagine him acting unethically. But, he probably steals people's money for all I know. I don't really understand what he does. From what I do understand, he helps mega-rich people invest their money. Whatever financial mumbo-jumbo-magic he performs, ethical or not, he makes a crap ton of money. I don't know if his economic status puts him in the same category as the men portrayed in the film though.

After growing up with Chip, it was hard for me to dismiss the "bad guys" in Inside Job as inherently bad people. Once I lost track of the jist of the film, I saw these men through a different lens. I had no idea who was "good" and who was "bad" anymore. To me, they were all just angry, old, wrinkly, overweight men wearing the same suit and tie uniform. The bankers and the attorneys morphed together into this business-man-breed whom I suppose do not act like the people who go home to a family at night.

I think the office environment makes it okay to act unethically. The suit and the tie transforms men and women into barbarians. I think the "bad guys" in the film simply lost contact with reality and their morals. They were so caught up in the game of economics, they forgot to look at the big picture. I don't think they're bad people.

Chip may or may not have his next vacation in mind when choosing investments for his clients; I will never know. But, I do know he got a nice bonus when he left UBS for Morgan-Stanley. He took us to London and Paris that summer.

Sentence Fluency

Before

One account that failed to appear in Herzog’s film, that is mentioned by John Rogers, entails Timothy Treadwell scaring away “major film companies like the BBC [who] came to create documentaries that would educate millions, Timothy disrupted their filming by yelling and charging up and down streams to scare away the bears” (Rogers). While there is zero evidence, it seems to match with the footage of Treadwell’s interactions with the Park Service and hunters that Herzog showed us.

After

John Rogers mentions an account that Herzog failed to include in his film. Treadwell scared away "major film companies like the BBC [who] came to create documentaries that would educate millions, Timothy disrupted their filming by yelling and charging up and down streams to scare away the bears” (Rogers). while the evidence is nonexistent, Rogers' story seems to match with the footage Herzog chose to show of Treadwell’s interactions with the Park Service and hunters.

Art

I was bored out of my mind while watching this film. I was entirely distracted and could not sit still. I caught up on emails and folded laundry while the images danced upon the screen. I didn't feel like I missed too much. I felt the director was wasting my time.
During the film, I began crafting a scathing review about its lack of substance, it's lack of efficient story-telling. I planned on discussing its obnoxious length. I even found this short version of the film that was squished into 5 minutes.

But...

...I found this interview with the director, Godfrey Reggio too. This interview was like an artist statement next to an abstract piece of artwork in a museum.

Reggio seems to be an incredibly intelligent man. I think his experience as a monk gave him a broad, enlightened view of the world that we as humans have created for ourselves.

He says the notion of changing the world is ludicrous. He says we must have "courage to be hopeless about this world, in order to make a more livable world." That viewpoint is refreshing after the many false promises shoved down our throats by politicians activists.

Instead of changing the world, we must understand it and decipher the chaos; I think that's what Koyaanisqatsi and  Naqoyqatsi aim to do.

Reggio says you must "stare at [the world] until it begins to look strange."  He wanted to "make the background, the foreground" in his film and open the audience's mind to the world of technology that we exist in.

I appreciate the film now, but I couldn't watch it again.

Balance

On a recent plane ride back from visiting my dad in Texas, I had the pleasure of sitting next to a flood insurance claims adjuster who was on his way to Long Island to work on the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. He was a seasoned professional, in his fifties, a real Texan too. He talked with a twang about his family, his ranch, Republican politics, and most importantly: his job.

I asked him, rather frankly, if he believed in global warming. He replied quickly, "Yes, without a doubt." That Texan insurance man spoke in detail about the frequency and severity of recent storms. He said he's been doing this for twenty years and has never seen such intense storms at such odd times of the year. He spoke about the devastated families he has consoled in his work and about how poorly those families treated him, with utmost disrespect. He told me about the horrors of Hurricane Katrina too.

*Dramatic reenactment 

That plane ride with that Texan insurance man was enough proof for me. It was enough proof to validate my career choice. Al Gore's film was simply another great reinforcement. Although, as an Environmental Studies major, I'm embarrassed to say this was my first time viewing An Inconvenient Truth. 

The documentary was rhetorically successful and I think has the power to sway any non-believer. Gore is an excellent public speaker and a very passionate man. He used great visuals and pristine logic to present his ideas. The concept that still lingers in my mind is presented below. Before Gore provided his opinion, I accepted the illustration as normal symbolism. Gore could've moved on and the image could've been lost forever in the dark corners of my brain. Instead he pointed out the blatant absurdity of the symbolism presented in this image. The gold comes from the earth.

Science Doesn't Prove Anything

At first, the line in the movie, "science doesn't prove anything" stirred my pot up a bit; the global warming statement read by the radio show host made me livid; Levi's mother made me want to feel nauseous. But, I calmed down and found articles online about Evangelical environmentalism and decided to discover why those claims evoked such a passionate response in me.

 (Articles about Evangelical environmentalism)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_environmentalism
http://www.christianpost.com/news/majority-of-evangelicals-believe-global-warming-is-man-made-and-dangerous-65837/
http://nae.net/lovingtheleastofthese

I decided that science does not actually prove anything.  It takes an equal amount of faith to believe in squiggles and scientists as it does Jesus and the Bible. Like we said in class, Levi seems to be very intelligent and an interview with him at 20 years old verifies that. He's capable of reading a science textbook and I'm capable of reading the Bible. We simply choose to perceive one as truth and one as fallacy.

I never questioned my teachers, just like Levi doesn't question his mother. It's no different. I put a lot of faith in what I believe about space, weather, geography, and history. I've never been to mars or met the president, but I believe they're real. Levi has never been to Jerusalem or met Adam and Eve, but believes they're real.

(How are the Bill Nye videos any different from the video Levi was watching about creation?)

We're all brainwashed by our parents. That's how we learn and grow as a person. That's how we have culture. Extreme religious faith is nothing new in the world. It only made a good documentary because they're speaking English and living in Kansas.

It's up to us individually to decide which truth verifies our existence. It doesn't matter if that's God or Bill Nye.

The following quote form Ayn Rand often helps me get back on track. It's been on the wall next to my bed since my sophomore year of high school.

As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown. - Ayn Rand

Kind Warrior

While watching the film, a theme of dichotomy consistently caught my attention. It was once explicitly mentioned in Herzog's narration when he said nature did not favor harmony but instead chaos, hostility, and murder. I think a similar dichotomy exists in his personality. Consequently, I interpreted Herzog's representation of Treadwell's personality as a metaphor for nature.

Treadwell referred to himself as a "kind warrior." In one scene he scolded a grizzly bear for coming too close, and even showed physical agression. He then followed the rebuke with praise by saying, "I love you. I love you."

He was meticulous and yet brash. He repeated takes excessively and constantly fixed his hair, yet succumbed to passionate fits of anger, and even had mismatched buttons at one point. In one shot there is a wild fox sleeping by his side, in another he's screaming profanity about the Park Service.

After I shut my laptop, I sat there and was forced to rethink my attitude towards nature and the environment. Are humans and animals really that different now? Timothy Treadwell spent a large portion of his life immersed in the natural world and he still didn't overcome his anger and his arrogance. Are those negative qualities therefore now inherent in us as humans? Do those qualities fill the void where "wildness" once was? Do other qualities, perhaps beneficial ones, fill that void as well?

Grizzly Man definitely gave me more questions than answers.