Month / June 2008

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Errol Morris

Errol Morris appeared on The Bat Segundo Show (#205). Morris is most recently the director of Standard Operating Procedure. (There is also an accompanying book written by Philip Gourevitch.)

Guest: Errol Morris

Subjects Discussed: Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the Torture of Others,” the American cycle of photographing physical abuse, finding out what we’re looking at before drawing conclusions, the differences between a still image and a moving image, reenactments, guiding the viewer’s ability to map reality, Comte de Lautréamont, misinterpreting Crimean War photographs, the milkshake toss in The Thin Blue Line, basing an illustrated montage on a line from an interview, Sabrina Harman’s thumbs-up gesture, Harman and the Cheshire cat, Paul Ekman, perceiving the bad apples, what makes Morris angry, little guys taking the blame, Morris’s fondness for pariahs, extending understanding, whether flying subjects into Cambridge creates truth, Shoah, and Werner Herzog.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: I actually want to bring up your most recent article for the New York Times, in which you delineated the difference between a single image and a moving image, in the sense that a moving image involves trying to create a map of reality. Because you’re not paying consistent attention to the actual moving image. But here you are with a film that has reenactments as well as interviews. And so I’m wondering: to what degree do you guide the viewer’s sense of mapping reality? Or is this a kind of cinematic device that is similar to, say, for example, the writings of Lautréamont in which he has this narrator who guides the reader and this is your effort to help out the viewer through the reenactments and through the juxtaposition and through the editing?

Morris: I think it’s both. I’ve never been compared to Lautréamont before. Here’s what I would say. There’s a movie. A movie is a movie. But you can also ask what is behind the movie. Was my intention to investigate the story? Was it my intention to find out new things? It’s self-serving of me to say so, but I would say yes! I mean, what’s the idea here? The idea is there is this set of photographs. They’ve been shown all around the world. Hundreds of millions of people have seen these photographs. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. But do we really know what we’re looking at? Has anyone talked to the people who took the photographs? What actually was going on in the photographs? I’ll give you an example. One picture that Susan Sontag remarks on is the picture of Sabrina Harman with her thumbs up. Smiling. The body of an Iraqi prisoner. Al-Jamadi. A lynching? I would say yes. But who is responsible? You look at the picture and you think, Ugh! It’s the woman in the picture. The smile! The thumbs up! She’s the culprit. She’s implicated. We come to find out. Wrong! Wrong! So this is an ongoing problem that I have with how photographs are interpreted in general.

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by Edward Champion

In Praise of Blah Blah Blah

Despite constant MySpace page deletions, Blah Blah Blah, not to be confused with the Iggy Pop album, is the real deal. As far as I can tell, this East London trio has been kicking around for the past three years, busking by day and playing gigs by night. (The video above sees the band performing a funny song called “Christmas Caravan” as part of a 2006 acoustic set.) Blah Blah Blah has a policy of never turning down a gig, which has led to a deranged touring schedule that has included wakes, weddings, and even a septuagenarian’s birthday party. (They even busked in front of the Wireless Festival, playing next to a burger van after being kicked out for stealing a megaphone.)

And yet, amazingly, there doesn’t appear to be a Blah Blah Blah album.

There is, however, a single that was only released on vinyl — an iconoclastic rocker called “Death to the Indie Disco,” that can be listened to here (along with three other songs). This song, which recalls the sardonic quality of early Kinks lyrics, could very well be Kryptonite for the insufferable irony now plaguing contemporary pop music. For this band has offered an irresistible hook, something that one can’t help but dance to, and included lyrics like, “You look right a prat when you pose like that / I don’t want to be one of you wankers on the dance floor. (The backing vocals: “It’s just a niche parallel.”) Thus, we now have ironic irony. And with the two conditions canceling each other out, there’s no longer the need for anyone to preen like a hipster.

I can only prognosticate (or rely on dodgy YouTube videos) to determine just how good Blah Blah Blah might be live. But my initial online investigations unfurl a band that’s certainly a good deal of fun, primed to give the indie music scene a much-needed kick in the ass.

(Also, Esser has some potential.)

by Edward Champion

Borderline Irresponsible Publicists

Paul Constant: “One publicist in the Macmillan booth spots my name tag and yells at me for a negative review of a memoir by Mike Edison—the former editor in chief of High Times and publisher of Swank —called I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, that Ari Spool posted on The Stranger‘s music blog, Line Out. ‘You really hurt Mike’s feelings,’ she exclaims, and continues, ‘And I think it’s borderline irresponsible journalism for you to be running things like that.’ A couple other publicists step in and try to defuse the situation with humor—’Oh, imagine that, someone didn’t like Mike Edison, ha ha!’ Ignoring the fact that Spool’s post was fairly evenhanded, this has never happened to me before, and I’ve written reviews with the express intent of pissing off publicists. The mood of sales reps and publicists in the majors’ booths usually tends to be bored aloofness; this year, they seem aggressive, neurotic, and strung out.”

Funny that. As it so happens, this same publicist has tried to pull similar shit with me. She even unfurled one of those predictable “You don’t exist in my universe” routines last Friday night. Meanwhile, publicists who are friendly, inquire politely without pestering, return phone calls and emails promptly, exhibit a sense of humor, pay attention to the kinds of books I like, and who go out of my way to understand the website and my scheduling requirements often get their authors onto The Bat Segundo Show. Imagine that!

Incidentally, the Ari Spool review is hardly that harsh.

[UPDATE: I’ve spoken with the publicist in question and it appears that there was a misunderstanding on Friday. I should note that the party’s atmosphere was considerably cacophonous, which could have easily created the social impression that I divined. My policy with all publicists is that, no matter where things stand, I am always open to communication. Even those who loathe what I do.]

by Edward Champion

Your Myopia’s No Good Here

The American Scholar: “But it isn’t just a matter of class. My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class. I was given the unmistakable message that such people were beneath me. We were ‘the best and the brightest,’ as these places love to say, and everyone else was, well, something else: less good, less bright. I learned to give that little nod of understanding, that slightly sympathetic ‘Oh,’ when people told me they went to a less prestigious college. (If I’d gone to Harvard, I would have learned to say ‘in Boston’ when I was asked where I went to school—the Cambridge version of noblesse oblige.) I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.”