I know everyone likes movies, and for this, I am definitely in the majority. However, there's a certain kind of movie-buff that I'm thinking of. Not the fan of Garden State. Not the fan of genre, or director, or actor. Not the fan of the box-office, or of the made-for-television movie. Not the critic, or the sport's fan who marvels with curiosity at the off-beat. Not the athlete who enjoys sports documentaries. I think the type of movie fan I'm looking for is . . . myself. How original. What I'm saying is, is that there is always something wrong.
Nothing can live up to my exact preference of style and meaning. That's not to mention the fact that I don't bother with what isn't my speciality.
That being said, the type of movie fan I'm looking for is probably my opposite, though I'm not sure. Or-- when you make a decision, everything opens up. The person who has no opinion is not enlightened, but only anxious. I would know. The person who has a dominating opinion, does not make a decision. It's similar to Russell's paradox:
There is a town, where it's required that every man shave daily.
You are not required to shave yourself.
For the people who don't want to shave themselves, there's a barber.
The town's law states: "Those who don't shave themselves are shaved by the barber."
The question is: "Who will shave the barber?"
(I'm infinitely indebted to the graphic novel Logicomix)
***
My point, and I think Russell's ultimate point as well, is that we are all 'the barber.'
(The barber cannot shave himself, for being the barber, it would mean that he is shaved by the man who shaves only those who don't shave themselves."
Also, the barber cannot go to the barber because he would still be shaving himself.)
So, we are all barbers, or ostracized movie-buffs. Or exceptions to the rule. Or paradoxes.
BUT... we love to be entertained. So, going along with Beckett's credo of: "There is nothing to express, and nothing to express with. There is only the obligation to express," (Conversations with Samuel Beckett and painter Bram van Velde) I want to make a new list of my favorite movies:
1) Happiness--The stories of various characters intertwine and relate. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a perversely sexual character. Also, the movie throws in a gay therapist.
2) Miller's Crossing-- An old Cohen brothers film. Seamless dialogue . . . that can be embarrassing at times. However, far-and-away my favorite Cohen brothers film ( above Fargo, Barton Fink, A Serious Man, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, No Country For Old Men) I think that says enough.
3) The Dreamers-- An American student in Paris during the 1960's revolts. The movie is meta-film, and has some incest.
4) The King Fisher-- Robin Williams is a homeless man.
**
So, what have I learned while writing this post? Well first, the Cohen Bros. are very underrated. Second, we are never going to agree, cannot agree, cannot even agree to disagree.
Thus, we come to the axis of my post: a paradox is-- a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory, or absurd, but in reality expresses a possible truth. ( I understand the word 'absurd' to be the definition relating to the 'theater-of-the-absurd' : [plays] stressing the irrational or illogical aspects of life, usually to show that modern life is pointless)
Also, the word 'self-contradictory' : two propositions related in such a way that it is impossible for both to be true or both to be false.
First, sorry for this. Second, welcome to my life. Seriously.
Anyway, so, a paradox is a proposition that seems like [two propositions related in such a way, that it is impossible for both to be true/false] or a proposition that seems like something which stresses the irrational or illogical aspects of life, showing that life is meaningless.
Or. . . A paradox is this 'OR' this. OOKKK, OK dictionary. Paradoxes are absurd--illogical, meaningless. We are "barbers," or men who cannot shave, but who live in a town which requires that men shave daily.
We are breaking the law.
Intuition says that I should end this with the sort of literary technique which I think of as "the-build-up-before-sex-and-calm-cum-afterward" OR "the-sweet-here-after" or "the final 4 1/2 minutes of a basketball game, where the lead changes continually, but the team you're rooting for ends up losing."
*** Everyone enjoys movies. I'm no different. "The previous statement is false." Or, who can know if it's true, or if I really mean it. Am I really no different? Probably. I'm probably no different. Most likely, I'm controlling the conversation, or undermining the girlfriend I don't have, or graduating from a previous life-level. However, you're listening to me, although I don't notice or care. I'm no different than you-- I like Brad Pitt because I think he's an accurate and visceral actor. I believe Mr. and Mrs. Smith was great. I like John Cusack, therefore I liked him in Serendipity.
But, what about my love for literature, my love for women, and my love for sports? What about my love for literature, women, and sports.
I am a paradox, and so are you:
you enjoy the rush of gambling, but despise the feeling when you lose,
you are empty, on and off, throughout the day, during work--even though you are making money, while around other workers. You are not an 'employee.' You are the exception to the rule. You are a paradox. This is not your life until you encourage yourself that this is your life.
What about being an American; a blond hair, blue-eyed-22-year-old; a poet and brother; a son and student?
What about being the man who enjoys movies which fit the abstract criteria of his cross-hairs. What about being empty or full. What about being the person to grotesquely illuminate the paradox of the barber. What about writing with good intentions, but instead, writing into abstraction. What about abstraction? What about you, the voyeur, the reader, who uses his cross-hairs to narrow down my illuminated and grotesque intentions and transform them into failed attempts at something you understand only by intuition.
10 years ago
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