In Which This Is Not Her First Time In New York

13 Thoughts on the City

by YVONNE GEORGINA PUIG

Cab rides are considered a luxury, but the subway is a much more comfortable ride. These cabs, stop and go, stop and go, make me green.

I watched a man drop a 100 dollar bill on the 6 train without realizing. Everyone sat there for a moment and no one moved. We just stared at the money. Finally I picked it up and looked around for the man but I thought he'd left the train. I was paralyzed by what to do with this money. Could I really pocket it right there in front of everyone? I almost felt we should make change and divide it. Then the guy in a skullcap across from me pointed heroically across the train and said, "He's there!" And the money was returned.

New Yorkers are friendly and the old men who work at diners and call you "darling" and "sweetheart" manage to be endearing and not at all pervy.

I like ordering green beans from the place on 70th and 3rd. I tell the guy, "green beans please," and he nods and says, "string beans," and i say, "yes green beans," and he says, "string beans okay."

Four a.m. is too late an hour for any bar to stay open. Who stays out this late and isn't depressed in the morning?

New Yorkers are open with their humanity. I suppose because they have no other choice. Human moments and conversations are everywhere. One doesn't have the opportunity to study faces in Los Angeles, except in traffic. Vulnerable moments seen in silent profile till the light changes. Here there's this fantastic sense of openness. This is my face, this is it what says, this is me.

It's important to resist the urge to get nostalgic or start projecting here. The beauty of these faces is in their nakedness.

The Neue Gallerie is a wonderful place to sketch. German Expressionism is rich with shapely feathered hats and sunken male cheekbones.

The security guard at the Conde Nast building, upon noticing me pin the visitor's name tag to my shirt, touched my arm and said, "You don't wear that here. Not in this building."

The other day in the park an old man pushed an old woman in a wheelchair to the bench beside me. He wheeled her in front of him and sat down and read a book. She could hardly hold up her head and a handkerchief was tucked beneath her chin to collect drool. The entire time he read, an hour, he held her hand. I was reading "Happy Days" by Beckett. In the play, an old woman putters through her endless bag full of nonsense, blabbering to her indifferent and unlistening husband in order to stay alive. I believe the old man in the park, not Beckett.

The golden velvet curtain at the Met is a work of art. It's perfect, deep swoosh is the embodiment of anticipation in sound.

All I do walking through the Upper East Side is look into people's fancy windows and wonder, did Lily Bart live here? Did Lily Bart live there?

I didn't leave Alex's apartment all day yesterday because it was rainy and cold and I wanted to rest. It didn't go well though. I went mad with thoughts of all the things I wasn't doing.

Yvonne Georgina Puig is the contributing editor to This Recording. She tumbls here. She last wrote in these pages on the subject of her picture appearing everywhere.

"Angel's Harp" - Dangermouse and Sparklehorse ft. Black Francis (mp3)

"Revenge" - Dangermouse and Sparklehorse ft. Wayne Coyne (mp3)

"The Man Who Played God" - Dangermouse and Sparklehorse ft. Nina Persson (mp3)

 

In Which Birds Flying High You Know How She Feels

Tough-Looking Female

by ELISABETH REINKORDT

The portentous opening shots of trains in Wendy & Lucy leave no doubt exactly where Wendy Carroll (Michelle Williams) is headed, but the hour and twenty minutes we spend with her over the few days she spends in an unnamed Oregon town are no less entrancing.

(Un)necessary brief plot synopsis: A 20-something woman named Wendy is en route from Indiana with her dog Lucy in search of seasonal cannery work in Alaska. She's got short hair, wears a blue hoodie, western shirt & cut-off corduroy shorts, drives an '88 Honda Accord, and it breaks down in a town in Oregon. This is one of a few things that do not go well and leave a major dent in the sum at the bottom of the page in the meticulously kept notebook in which she tracks her dwindling finances.


Oh, the beauty of film! Shot on Super-16, Wendy & Lucy is full of impeccable colors, especially in forest scenes, gorgeously done night scenes full of all the grain that results from an optical blow-up to 35mm, and depth of field simply not possible on video.

As Lucy (played by Reichardt's dog) makes friends with a group of crust-punk types around a bonfire and Wendy follows to retrieve her, Reichardt's camera seems to become perspectival, focussing from face to face as if Wendy is gauging trustworthiness.

It is the fact that this is a female eye (lens) tracing the path of the female protagonist's eye that makes this scene work; were the camera to float away from the person speaking (a drifter played by Will Oldham) to other faces around the bonfire -- including lingering shots on the only other and very tough-looking female of the group -- without the distinct sense that we are engaged in the self-aware nature of Wendy's position as a solo female traveler, this would appear a sloppily edited sequence. In a far more dramatic echoing of the sense in this scene later in the film, I began to think that I had never seen such material shot in that manner before.

There are simply so few women making films that it is hard to make a compelling case that the gaze of the female director is different, but this film makes solid strides in that direction.

Furthering its minimalism, the film eschews a score, opting instead for a repeated theme -- composed by Oldham and played slighlty amplified -- of Wendy humming. The overt pathos of dramatic orchestral elements would ruin the pain we feel, slowly & experientially, for Wendy's predicament. Reichardt lets moments happen. Birds fly by, high in the air, and it is clear from the focus-pulling that this was a shot taken because it just happened. It is downright beautiful.


Reichardt is a gifted, principled director. (The full text of a fantastic interview done by Slant Magazine is worth the read.) A professor at Bard College, she gives solid pushback when the interviewers begin asking questions about how her filmmaking might change with the onset of "success."

Slant: You've talked before about wanting to continue working at these sensationally low-budget levels. Isn't that something filmmakers tend to say and then disregard once they meet with a certain level of success?

KR: Well, what's your definition of success? I find that to be a fucking annoying question, I have to say.

Slant: Why is that?

KR: This constant implication that success has one picture is so limited—and talk about American! I'm constantly asked this, as if teaching is some loser profession, or an uninteresting place to be. I've been out in L.A. for five days with my film, just doing stuff that I've never done before, press junkets and stuff, and I'm like—this is it? This is what everybody thinks is the most special fucking thing on the planet? Are you kidding me? It melts your brain. It's really hard to stay small, actually. That I've been able to make these last two films without anybody paying any fucking attention and just go off and have complete artistic freedom—what are you gonna trade that for? What do you consider success, since you're asking me that question?

Slant: I think I was just suggesting that if you were to raise more, you'd probably spend it wisely. There's no discernable difference between the scale of your films and a Woody Allen film, but he can spend 20 million and the money buys access to more filmmaking tools and sought-after actors and so forth.

KR: Give me an example of a woman who can do that.

Slant: A woman who can insist on creative control and still raise 20 million?

KR: Yes.

Slant: I can't name any, but I have a reason why I can't.

KR: I have a reason too—there aren't any! Okay, forget about 20 million. Name a woman at the level of Gus Van Sant or Todd Haynes. Give me a female example of that.

Slant: Allison Anders. In 1996. I can't think of any on the spot, but in that category I know there are some.

KR: And she wasn't getting 20 million, by the way. She was living off a grant. Please. The idea that we're struggling to think of one that might have existed at some point—maybe that's why that question pisses me off. I'll also say that I can't think of a woman who has this benefit either: Lars von Trier and Terrence Malick can put out films and not have to go out and talk about them. If I want to think about what real success would be, it would be to be able to make a film without anyone breathing down my back and then not have to go out and talk about the film after you've gone to great lengths in your film to not over-explain everything. To not have to go out, that would be true success, but then you're just screwing over your distributor or your investors.

Amen.

Elisabeth Reinkordt is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a filmmaker living in Nebraska, and she writes here.

"It's Always Sunday Around Here" - Lacrosse (mp3)

"We Are Kids" - Lacrosse (mp3)

"Song in the Morning" - Lacrosse (mp3) highly recommended

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In Which We Decipher The Consequences of Lady Detecting

Lady Detectives of the 2009 Period

by ALEX CARNEVALE

There has never really been a series like The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, and I doubt there will be in the ensuing years. Perhaps the show will be of such interest to Africa that it will be profitable, but it seems unlikely that such a Western take on life there would work artistically. Really, the show is for the English speaking world, and no matter where it is actually filmed or written, it is a show about how the West views Africa.

That's not a bad thing. It is better we address our perceptions of other races and people directly; it is a hell of a lot better than excluding them or relegating them to sidekick, ancillary roles.

Africa is a terrific setting to disabuse people of such notions, because it explodes our American perceptions of what 'black' is, and shows us a range of characters, some good, some bad. Sure, the stereotypes still flow, but their effect is deadened among such variety.

Botswana was the setting of Alexander McCall Smith's mediocre series of books upon which the movie-length pilot, directed by the deceased legend Anthony Minghella, and the ensuing series is based. But as bleh as the books were, there was always the opportunity for more. The characters and setting offer a multitude of possible stories, whose ultimate resolutions could offer real surprise in their outcomes.

Unfortunately the series isn't as devoted in tweaking our perceptions of the mystery genre as it might be, but that's OK. The real draw are the deep characters and relationships that are unique both to Africa and the West.

Start with the show's protagonist Precious, portrayed by Jill Scott.

The erstwhile R&B singer has never looked better. She's one of the hottest women on television, and since her character Precious is single, the romantic interplay on the show is one of its most exciting elements. Camryn Manheim and Christina Hendricks just get raped on office floors for their trouble, but the fearless Precious should be able to have a much more exciting (and safe) sex life through the course of this show.

The premise is very simple, since the show's creators obviously felt the Botswana setting was enough to get the show's viewers acclimated to. Precious' inspiration, her dear old Daddy, passes away and gives her a substantial number of cows that she sells to move to the city and open a private detective agency.

Her backstory prominently features being raped by her ex-husband and losing her child, so she doesn't exactly escape the curse of the Big Boned, but she's strong as hell.

Precious' morals are a little differently constructed than the majority of TV protagonists. She sometimes lets bad people off the hook and squashes others like bugs without much difference in  their respective moral culpability. It is what substitutes for a different way of thinking in a strange place.

The difficult climate and openness to invaders has turned the beginnings of human civilization into a hard place with a unknown future.You can't help feeling that this is how the West views Africa - constantly unable to decide whether it is best closely monitored or left alone.

Bush gave more money to Africa than Clinton, and we can suspect that our current president, having ancestry in the region, may cause still more money to be spent. Whether this is good or bad is hard to know, but the memories of our inaction in the Sudan still make all people of conscience tremble. Leading intellectuals on both sides of the aisle had trouble calling for action in the dual genocidal cleansing grounds of Kosovo and the Sudan, and while you can respect their lack of appetite to send American troops into places they don't fully understand, it was our moral obligation and duty to prevent the slaughter of innocents.

jill scott & anthony minghellaAlthough this choice is now behind us, it's unlikely that we will not be forced to face it again. It is interesting to watch this show, slanted as it is, and think of what might have been worth saving, and what a more powerful interventionist agenda could have accomplished. The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency is a rough allegory for the potential success of such policy-making.

The Botswana of The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency is in some ways modern and prosperous, but in other ways it lacks a rule of law we take for granted here in the States. Coming from a decrepit small village to the busier metropolis, Precious sticks out like a round thumb. She finds herself hiring the number one graduate of the local secretarial school, puts off the sloppy advances of a local mechanic, and generally makes her way in the world.

The world is Botswana, a Democratic republic with a strong government whose behavior with respect to the local diamond industry has been a model for other nations with similar resources. Still, for the Western observer, Botswana is a stark place, more brush and dirt, landlocked and dry to the touch. They call everyone by sweet familiars, and they bake in the heat. It is no wonder that life here was harder for its residents, warm as it is.

The cars, the dress, and the landscape is more familiar than foreign. It is Africa remade as the United States of the 1960s, in fact: a hilarious gay friend, an old, rattling car, a floral printed shirt. It is difficult to fashion a mystery in the post-information age, but information in the Botswana (of this show at least) is harder to come by.

Parts of the show are conventional, even boringly so, but other parts offer a freshness of vision. There is a simple delight in watching a mechanic's mischievous employees dance around before singing him Happy Birthday, or the agency's youngest employee, Wellington, scampering around to hand out fliers. It is a part of the message: that it is about living together, or dying alone.

Botswana is a nice model, and a safer place than most in the third world. The challenges that less fortunate peoples face in Africa are numerous, and the problems of disease and malnutrition in the people, and disease and corruption in the government loom large. Ultimately, this is a place in the world where we can make a difference by helping citizens rather than government. And that is sort of the point of any well-meaning detective agency, isn't it?

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbles it all here.

"Atlantis to Interzone (Black Sessions version)" - Klaxons (mp3)

"The Bouncer (Black Sessions version)" - Klaxons (mp3)

"Two Receivers (Black Sessions version)" - Klaxons (mp3)