Ken’s Blog

I started watching the wonderfully silly new show “Warehouse 13” on the Syfy channel. For those of you who don’t know, the term “Syfy” is a clever marketing gimmick to appeal to people who like science fiction but haven’t learned how to spell yet.

Ostensibly about the care and feeding of that giant room at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where our government stashed the Ark of the Covenant for safekeeping, the nice thing about “Warehouse 13” is that its treatment of this alternate reality is deliberately silly. In each episode the writers make a point of creating a driving plot premise for that week’s adventure that is so outlandishly stupid and inconsistent, even according to the weird internal “rules” of the show’s fictional world, that the audience can just relax and feel in on the joke.

The fact that such an eye rolling plot howler appears in every single episode – and each time in a different way – makes it clear that we are seeing a deliberate choice on the part of the writers. In this sense, “Warehouse 13” bears roughly the same relationship to the fantasy genre as “Borat” does to the Kazakhstan Chamber of Commerce.

Which is all fine with me. A meta-premise is still a premise, and “fantasy ideas written while falling-down drunk” is a great meta-premise for a show. Besides, the writers don’t seem particularly interested in the fantasy part anyway. They are only using that to get to the real meat of the show, which is the coming together of a surrogate family of loners and misfits. And here is where I think the show goes out of its way to do something genuinely innovative.

To summarize briefly, the main characters on “Warehouse 13” are:

(i) A government agent who is serious, decisive, hair-trigger to action in a crisis, expert with both gun and the marshal arts, and used to being in charge;

(ii) That agent’s partner, who is sweet, intuitive, sensitive, endearing in a childlike way, and loves milk and cookies;

(iii) A mysterious and somewhat aloof uber-boss who rules with complete authority and not a trace of sentimentality;

(iv) The indearingly sensitive and eccentric caretaker of the warehouse, who fusses after the two agents like a mother hen, always dresses in dowdy outfits, frets whenever the two agents are in trouble, and is always sure to give them milk and cookies when they return from an adventure;

(v) A skinny whiz-kid teen hacker in sneakers who is smarter than the geniuses at MIT, faster with a sarcastic quip than Ferris Bueller, plays world-class chess, and is capable of inventing three new technologies in the time it would take Scotty to say “Aye Cap’n”.

Doesn’t seem very innovative, right? But here’s the thing. The genders of these five characters are, respectively: (i) female, (ii) male, (iii) female, (iv) male, (v) female. In other words, the exact opposite of what one would expect for a TV show of this kind. There is simply no way such a deviation from genre conventions could have been an accident – these writers are clearly up to something.

I’m going to keep watching. Maybe I’ll find out just where this is all leading. Of course there’s no way to know for sure – this is a fantasy series after all. They might just end up introducing a third gender.

This evening as I was walking along 8th Street I realized that I was hearing live music. I looked around to see who might be singing and playing the guitar. There was a group of people sitting outside an entrance, and I looked over as I approached to see if one of them had a guitar. But no, they were just sitting around talking – no guitar and no singing.

But when I passed the entrance, I looked inside and saw it was a coffee shop. Way in the back was a guy singing into a microphone and playing his guitar to entertain the diners – not an uncommon sight. Mystery solved.

But then I got to thinking – how had I known it was live music, from clear up the block? The music I’d heard had travelled from the back of the coffee shop out into the street – I was still a good fifty feet up the sidewalk when I first heard it and realized I was hearing live music. And I hadn’t just suspected I was hearing live music, as opposed to a recording. I had been certain of it.

If the guy had been singing without an amp, it would have been easy to explain the difference. There’s all kinds of phase information in live audio that gets flattened, distorted or just plain lost when played back through a speaker. Humans are extremely good at detecting subtle textures in sound, and the difference between a live sound source and the poor substitute of playback through stereo speakers is quite dramatic.

But the guy I’d heard was singing into a microphone. I wasn’t hearing his voice and guitar directly – I was hearing music coming out of an amplifier and speaker. So why was it so obvious, even from all the way up the block, that I was hearing a live performance?

I have some theories, but I’m curious to know if anyone else has any thoughts on the subject.

We were standing around today discussing the moral issues around stolen bicycles. Specifically, what to do should somebody come up to you and tell you that he is the rightful owner of that used bicycle you’ve just bought. Once you know that you are the unwitting possessor of stolen goods, should you give it back to the original owner? Sell it back to him for half of what you paid? It’s a difficult situation because you are both, in a sense, victims.

In our conversation I mentioned a somewhat analogous situation in the art world, when a museum finds itself to be in possession of looted antiquities. Although here the situation is a bit more complex, because museums fairly teem with antique objects of potentially questionable provenance; it is often not in their interest to ask too many questions.

While we were discussing the moral issues surrounding the relocation of ancient treasures from one nation to another, my friend Charles tied it all back to the original conversation by saying “It’s basically the problem of King Tut’s bicycle”.

At which point I completely stopped whatever train of thought I’d been on, because the phrase “King Tut’s bicycle” was just one of the most wonderful and evocative word combinations I think I’ve ever heard. I told Charles he should write a book, and call it “King Tut’s bicycle”. It could be one of those big thought books that ties together current issues of politics and philosophy by relating ancient Egyptian burial rituals to shifting modes of personal transport in the post-Victorian era. Or perhaps a disquisition on the relationships between technology, celebrity and the changing image of childhood over the last thirty seven centuries. The possibilities are endless.

But it doesn’t really matter. Any book with the title “King Tut’s bicycle” is bound to be a best seller. Forget “A Brief History of Time”, keep your “Tuesdays with Morrie”. Because now there’s a new book title in town, and it ain’t messin’ around. You could just print a run of a few hundred thousand, prop some up by the entrance to Barnes and Noble, maybe a hardcover edition with a nice cover picture artfully juxtaposing the eponymous boy king with a bright red Schwinn Phantom, and then sit back and watch the inevitable climb up The New York Times bestseller list.

Imagine the awe on everyone’s face when people show up for that beach vacation with “King Tut’s bicycle” packed between their sun tan lotion and Spiderman beach towels. All of those has-beens who are all still reading “Drink, Play, F**k” (or the hilarious Liz Gilbert parody of that book, “Eat, Pray, Love”) will be green with envy. I suspect you could even market one of those blank books, the kind they sell at the front of bookstores for people who like to avoid the bother of reading, preferring to just fill in their own words. Just slap the phrase “King Tut’s bicycle” on the front of one of these little journals, and you’re golden.

Eat your heart out, Malcolm Gladwell.

Recently I saw “The Apostle”, the phenomenal and disturbing 1997 Robert Duvall film about a deeply religious – and deeply disturbed – southern preacher. It’s a film well worth seeing, with great writing, directing, editing and acting all around, including a truly excellent performance by Farrah Fawcett that will probably change your views on this underrated actress.

The thing about this film though, is that the main character is repellent in so many ways, and yet you feel, as the audience, completely on his side. He is arrogent, abusive, self-defeating, often cruel, frequently violent, and prone to going into drunken murderous rages. Through it all he rationalizes everything by clinging to what he thinks of as a personal relationship with Jesus.

By all accounts we should hate this man. But we don’t – we can’t. We are in his head, seeing the world through the prism of his point of view. And distorted as that prism is, the magic of storytelling makes its unfair claim upon our sympathies, and we find ourselves rooting for him.

I am continually amazed at the power of the protagonist driven narrative. Whether it be Tony Soprano, Stanley Kawalski or Don Corleone, when a great actor allows us to feel a character’s internal state of mind, makes us believe in that character’s inner life, we cannot help but embrace that character as our surrogate self within the narrative, however morally repugnant that character may be.

What is it within us as humans that allows such a transformation – that leads us, with such willingness and abandon, to give away our hearts?

The morning sun smiles
Charmed, I go out, and promptly
Melt like a puddle

Back home, I shower,
Fresh and cool, I go back out
It is a mistake

Night, and we are free
These city streets ours once more
Too lovely for words

This evening a friend told me that Stephen Spielberg just announced a remake of “Harvey”, the classic 1950 Jimmy Stewart comedy. My friend challenged me to think of who might be cast as Elwood P. Dowd, the holy innocent whose best friend is a six foot tall invisible white rabbit. Dowd was played to perfection by Stewart first on Broadway and then on film.

We agreed immediately that even ten years ago Tom Hanks would have been perfect for the role – he essentially was Jimmy Stewart for most of his career. But now it’s a bit too late, unless they were to do some sort of digital replacement technique. If it were Zemeckis rather than Spielberg, I suppose we would end up with “Polar Harvey Express”. Although I suspect it would probably turn out not so much polar as bipolar.

Johnny Depp is a possibility, although he seems to have entered his Robin Williams stage – the phase when a once fine player starts to overact and do a kind of “I’ll be your host for this weird movie” thing. It was sad to see it happen to Pacino and Hoffman before him, and I think poor Johnny may have become infected. I believe there is still hope for him, but who can tell? My friend says she thinks Leo DeCaprio would be good, but I can’t see it. There is nothing tortured about Elwood P. Dowd, and Leo simply does not do untortured.

I told my friend I was worried they’d give it to Will Smith – an obvious choice for box office success. But Smith has nothing of Stewart’s deep sweetness and sincerity – you can always tell that Will Smith is acting in a movie, as entertaining as he is, and you can’t get away with that in “Harvey”.

We asked another friend, and she immediately said “Steve Carell”. OK, I can see that, but it would be a shame. You really want a leading man for this role – a genuine movie star with the kind of sexual magnetism that Stewart had – someone you can’t take your eyes off of. And come to think of it (speaking of magnetism) Paul Giamatti would be perfect. But Spielberg would never take the risk.

I wouldn’t feel so bad if they gave it to Brad Pitt – he has the ability to rise to the occasion when given the right role. And he has certainly earned the right by now to play quirky eccentrics (actually he earned that right back in 1995 when he hit one clear out of the ballpark in “Twelve Monkeys”).

Does anyone have any ideas? I’m sure if we put our heads together, we might be able to help out Mr. Spielberg. If not, then my vote goes to the movie actor who might very well be today’s best answer to Jimmy Stewart – Anne Hathaway.

On a random walk today around YouTube, wandering through highlights of pop culture from decades past, from off-the-wall Spike Jones to early Rosemary Clooney ballads to lovely scenes of Jean Arthur at her comedic best, I came upon a gem of pop culture at its most sublimely weird that stopped me in my tracks. What happens when you cross the inimitable Betty Boop with an utterly politically incorrect celebration of drug use? You get something like this.

Yes, I know it isn’t right to celebrate drugs. And of course we should all tell our children not to try this at home. But after a week of watching generally far too literal minded computer animation, of work that overly focuses on the merely commercial – on mere realism for its own sake – I find that the sheer lunatic inventiveness of this little film delights me and gladdens my heart. It brings me back to the ground truth of animated art, and reminds me why this is a medium like no other.

After watching it, you may never again look at a laughing typewriter in quite the same way.

The last day of a conference is always a bittersweet experience.

On the one hand everyone is happy to have gone through such a positive and cathartic experience – an entire week of heightened reality, with everyone representing what they have been doing for the past yea, entire months of preparation going into single twenty minute presentations. In some sense everybody – for one week – becomes an embodiment, a sort of living avatar, of what they have been doing for the previous year, as everything comes together in one intense apotheosis, an affirmation of why we do what we do.

On the other hand the last day has an elegaic quality. Old friends, people who matter to us both personally and symbolically, will soon be going home, perhaps in just another few short hours. It will be another year until we all gradually build again toward such a crescendo of concentrated energy. We hug, we say goodbye, we promise not to wait an entire year to keep in touch.

And now each of us will recalibrate, will renew our own vows to our chosen profession. In the coming year there will be new mountains to climb, entirely new challenges to throw ourselves into.

But first, it would probably be a good idea to get a little sleep.

At a conference this week in New Orleans, I’ve now spent time with two different friends who had originated from these parts. Both now live in northern California. There were some striking similarities to their respective tales of emigration. Both say they left because of the weather – they could not spend the rest of their lives in a place so relentlessly hot and muggy. After spending almost a week here I completely understand this sentiment.

But the other thing they had in common was that both were the only members of their respective families who had never had the New Orleans accent. One of them, in fact, who speaks with something not that far from a generic middle American accent, told me that when he was a child growing up in a small town near New Orleans, people would ask him what sort of accent he had.

So is it possible that children know, subliminally, that they are one day going to leave a place when they grow up? And knowing this, do they subconsciously adopt the accent of the larger world to which they long to escape?

I realize that two data points do not a statistical trend make. But still, it is intriguing.

Wow, I guess I had forgotten that people actually read this blog. Apparently I’ve somehow ended up becoming the voice for the Obama generation. You’d never guess I’m a fan of many (though certainly not all) of the views of Barry Goldwater. I’ll have to be more careful who I make fun of in the future. Elephants have very thick skin, but people don’t. 🙂

On a somewhat less politically fraught note, the answer to the mystery from the other day: The song I hear wherever I go, in restaurants, shops, train stations, and just about everywhere else in seemingly every city of every country around the world is Jobim’s “Garota de Ipanema”, better known in english as “The Girl from Ipanema”.