A heart of Joe and a cup of gold, I think you’ll find if you examine the facts.

If I remember correctly, this movie was marketed as The Ultimate Romantic Comedy when it first came out and that’s what it is. It throws in every possible romantic comedy cliche to the point where it almost becomes a satire of the genre. A light-hearted, non-mean-spirited (at least on the surface) satire, sure, but still a satire. Watching it, I got the impression that Richard Curtis had some pretty conflicted feelings about the work he’d done to earn his fortune and that maybe this movie came from a place of… uh… self-loathing is too much. Self-discomfort? Something like that. If you take it that way, it reveals a certain contempt of the audience, the way he so obviously hits all the emotion-manipulating beats and with such success, as if it’s just too fucking easy. Although I guess the “success” of the emotional manipulation is subjective… but the movie made enough money and is beloved by enough people that I think it’s fair to say that Richard Curtis is pretty good at pulling people’s emotional strings. I’m getting off topic. I forget where I was going with this. In conclusion, rhubarb pie.

No, in conclusion, I like the movie best if I view it this way. If I thought it WASN’T conflicted about what it was, if I thought it was earnestly proselytizing (that’s the first time I’ve ever used that word, I think. It feels good) like a religious zealot, rather than just deftly going through the motions of earnestness like a master salesman with a knowing twinkle in its eye, I would be deeply creeped out by it, as I am by most romantic comedies. It’s nonsense and it knows it.

Beautiful movie. So good, so pure, I don’t know how he can top it. Time to exit gracefully via sideways bullet, Charlie Kaufman.

Just kidding. Don’t do that, Charlie Kaufman.

I’m pretty sure there’s no way Charlie Kaufman is ever gonna read that first bit. But I’d feel horrible if he did.

Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is one of my favourite movies of all time, right up there with Seven Samurai. Don’t kill yourself, Charlie Kaufman! You have yet to top Seven Samurai!

Live! LIVE!

LIVE YOU BASTARD! GODDAMN YOU, LIVE!

Interesting. You think too much. I think too much too, so high five.

That’s a bit flippant, because I don’t honestly believe it’s possible to think too much. I think that too many people think far too little and that the world would be a better place if more people thought too much. But in this case, I’m not sure that thinking too much goes anywhere other than mental exhaustion.

I like the Smiths and Morrissey too. I’m not such a fan that I even know what racist things Morrissey has said – apparently multiple times – in the past. If I DID know what he’d said, I’d probably put it down to his mostly subconscious desire to be a Proper Romantic English Gentleman, which is my impression of him. I think he wants to be appreciated as a Romantic in the same vein as Byron and Shelley and Keats – who all had their eccentricities and tragic tales – but he also seems kinda infatuated with Proper England, for lack of a better term. I mean, he obviously despises it in a lot of his songs, but I think he also craves Proper England’s approval. Again, just my impression.

So if I were going to apologize for his racism, I’d be tempted to suggest that his views are a kind of confused melange of these two impulses which – to me – are evident in his music. But I’m not gonna apologize.

Obviously, there are a lot of theories and schools of thought as to how much the artist’s personality or intent matter to the understanding of a work of art. I don’t think they matter much at all, for the same reason Mans stated. I only know Morrissey or any artist through their works. Whatever picture I construct of them from those pieces is more a picture of myself as revealed by the work of art than it is a picture of the artist. Or, to put it another way, whatever idea I form of the artist as a person reveals more about me than it does about the artist in question.

So, to sum up my doctoral thesis here, what I’m saying is, if there are works that any given artist has produced which touch you or mean anything at all to you, it seems silly to me to feel conflicted or guilty for being touched just because you’re not part of the same hive-mind as the artist. Ultimately, our opinions are unimportant (not completely irrelevant, but they are not the most important thing). You don’t learn very much about anyone by arguing opinions with them. Art communicates on a deeper level of understanding than opinion, at least when it’s doing what it’s supposed to. So let it do its thing and don’t worry too much about it.

This doesn’t mean you should be an empty, appreciative receptacle for every piece of pop culture garbage thrown in your face. I hope that’s obvious. I’m just talking about things that mean something, for whatever reason.

Aha, I see. I thought those upright structure things (I’m guessing they’re streetlamps) were other hookers. Your version is makes more sense, and it’s definitely funnier. “Jack the Ripper just STABBED someone! LOL!”

Piedmont vs The Grand Pandas

“He is the only one of us who has learned to speak Humanese, O venerable Pong whose eyes outshine the sun,” said Ping the Grand Panda.

“That is true, O nimble Ping of the swift claws,” said Pong the Grander Panda. “But consider this, O snowy Poing, may the dew of your wisdom continue to drip from the tips of your every hair: he no longer believes that he is one of us. Ever since he discovered the Golden Bamboo Elixir through the lost, arcane rituals of Tao Chiao which he claims came to him in a dream, he has been -”

“I have heard of this, O loyal Pong, the rod upon which I lean in my whitening years,” said Poing the Grandest Panda. “The Golden Bamboo Elixir… it confers immortality, or that is the rumour whispered by the wind’s fleet wings. Is it true?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” asked Pung, the Least Grandest Panda, in a rhetorical fashion.

“What is a pope, O Pung?” asked Ping the Grand Panda.

Pung mumbled something under his breath but Poing’s ears were sharp in spite of his age.

“Fetch us some green tea, O Pung, and remember that a tree falling alone in the woods does not always go unheard. Learn to mind your tongue, and reflect on the generosity of spirit menial tasks encourage.”

“Three green teas coming up, O wizened Poing, may your bald patches remain immaculately combed-over.”

Pung had only taken the job because his mom had leukemia. In real life, he was a poet, but renting a decent tree for his mom’s Sun Therapy cost a lot of bamboo sprouts. Of course he’d tried to talk her into just moving away from the other pandas and finding a quiet tree with all-day sun exposure somewhere out in the country but she’d refused. The bitch. “Wah wah leukemia wah wah,” that was Pung’s mom. “Wah wah do I look like a hillbilly to you wah wah.” Goddamn filial piety.

His exit was a masterpiece of aggrievement, his shoulders humped up, his back claws scraping. He even contrived a limp.

“Why did you hire that guy, O aged Poing of radiant warmth?” asked Pong the Grander Panda. “He is a dick.”

Poing sighed. “He has much to learn, O stalwart Pong, your spine never bending. That is true. But let us put the subject of Pung to one side and let us abandon the green tea I have sent him for. The making of it was the purpose anyway, not the imbibing of it. I feel that time is growing short. We must convince this Piedmont to aid us. We must remind him that, Golden Bamboo Elixir or not, he is still a panda.”

**********

“Wee, O me!” cried Piedmont, spinning around the top of his tree, balancing on a creaking branch and hanging on with one claw.

“Be careful up there!” called Eric Stoltz from below.

Piedmont slowed his spinning enough to focus on the source of the voice. “Oh, you. Who are you?”

“I’m Eric Stoltz. I was in that movie Mask. I was the deformed guy. I’m in Caprica now.”

“Cool. I’m Piedmont.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” A pause. “I’m sorry, what were you saying, O weary Eric Stoltz, whose eyes conjure both laughter and sadness?”

“I was just saying, be careful. You looked like you were drunk before. Then.”

“I am drunk. You are very perceptive, Eric Stoltz. And I thank you for your concern. I will now pluck a single hair from my chest area and gift it to you, float it on down to you, it’s right there, catch it, CATCH IT! You missed it. It’s right there! Right there. Do you not see where I’m pointing? See, this is what I’m talking about. Fucking Eric Stoltz.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you. Now go away. I have more spinning to do.”

“See ya.”

“Wee! Fucking Eric Stoltz.”

**********

To be continued (maybe)

So is the centipede/dog thing with the beak and the curly parenthetical antenna supposed to be Vivian Vagicorn? If so, this one’s about Vivian Vagicorn getting hit in the head with a throwing star, right?

And in this one he/she/it is a hooker in Whitechapel getting stabbed by Jack the Ripper?

As Dana Carvey as Johnny Carson would say, “That, that is some weird, wild stuff.”