Unimportant everyThings?

I have fallen behind on television and movies. Especially on all the Marvel stuff. I think the last thing I saw was Ant-Man. I haven't seen Civil War. I have only watched 'here and there's on the television stuff. It seems like too much now. I like that it all intertwines and junk, but I just can't commit that kind of time to watching TV and movies anymore. I am less interested in the X-Men stuff. I hear that Logan was 'so amazing', but mostly I hear that from people who live in New Mexico. It was filmed there, and New Mexicans are always all about stuff that they can lay claim to. I'm sure it's a fine flick, but I'm not convinced that I need to free up two hours of my life to devote to it. And the DC stuff? Forget about it. Couldn't even make it through BvS. Didn't even attempt Suicide Squad. They just seem like Johnny-Come-Latelies who are cashing in on the work that Marvel did.

I feel like I was interested in this kind of media when it was at its peak (10 years ago). There was a time when the audience of movies was a separate entity from the people who were making movies. This time is over. The stories that were being told when there was a finite amount of resources to tell stories in that medium were important, they were the stories that needed to be told that way. Now people use their 'short film resume' like a card trick at the bar. It's just a social calling card that says, 'I'm capable of basic creativity.'

But even back when making movies was hard, there was the additional filter of art between the artist and the consumer of the art. The artist had to package their message in a way that the viewer could consume it. These walls are gone now. In very many cases, the audience can respond immediately, and in a very public forum, to anything that they consume. They can oftentimes communicate with the artist. We are involved, and even this change influences the way that art is made and even the relevancy of art that is not aware of a dialogue.

So, I don't understand why people take acting classes or anything like that. Is it to learn to communicate better? I can understand if it is a medium like photography, where there are technical standards that need to be understood in order to facilitate the creation. But acting is just talking and moving. We can all do that. Isn't the solution to that problem just to try? Isn't that what separates an artist from an audience member? Is that the only thing that still does? Everyone is making sloppy art online now (take this blog, for instance). The days of movies that had 'bad acting' are over. Everyone is themselves, their online persona, and whatever character they choose to present at any given moment. Take me again, for instance. I am at times the 'roguish traveling hobo', at one time I was the 'total mess', lately I have been the 'smitten optimist', and today, so it seems, I am the 'opinionated douche'. None of these characters are totally accurate, they are just snapshots of 'me' that I present for general consumption. Take a look at the character that YOU present to the world if you want another example of this kind of performance. Are you being honest? Do you need to memorize lines that someone else wrote and go out on a stage to present it in order to play a part? Doesn't that seem like an unnecessary layer of the onion? We should be moving in the other direction, towards revealing ourselves, not hiding behind masks. That is where the true essence of art lies. "All the world's a stage" has never been a more accurate statement than it is right now. (I think that Michael Bay said that.) It used to be that people had to learn the art of performance, to ignore the camera and all of that. Why do people still pay money for this?

While we're on the topic, I don't really even understand why people even make short films or do plays anymore. It seems like the crossover between art and life has grown beyond that separation. Is there still any need for writer-audience-actor-director roles anymore? Are these just devices that used to reveal hard things about us but are now being employed as a hideout? Are there still people that enjoy standard 'entertainment'? That seems weird to me. Do we still have the necessity for one person to spend a month crafting a 'true' 'character' and then present it to a theater full of quiet onlookers? The last time I tried to do this, I was so bored and felt that my actions were so unimportant that I drank myself into oblivion and didn't even show up for the last performance.

I guess that I could think of it in terms of music. I still like seeing live music. It is a rehearsed performance that evokes emotion and ideas in me that I might not otherwise experience. I suppose the same could be said of an actor's performance. It just seems to me like, at this point, life can do the same things that acting and filmmaking can. It's a lot harder to just walk around singing. This medium still needs a designated space. The human interaction that filmmaking depicts does not.

I mean, I get it if you can still push the form forward because you have an overabundance of means, like money or a fresh voice (hence my continued interest in Marvel, they have both). But beyond that, why make a movie about 'fictional' characters in a controlled setting with stable boundaries and a fourth wall and all of that nonsense? If we're not exploring the destruction of these concepts, I feel like we're behind. I can still watch movies and television or even theater for their nostalgic significance (like, it's still fun to watch Shakespeare in the old fashioned way, but I'm not attracted to it because it's doing anything progressive. If anything, it's a 'we have to see where we've been to know where we're going' situation. But even the thought of spending too much time doing that seems wasteful) and making anything that still mirrors these conventions seems childish to me.

There have been enough 'classicly trained, brilliant Shakespearian actors'. Why would someone try to do this anymore? Just because it is attainable? That seems like a reason NOT to do it. I'd much rather put my energy into being a Treskidiganarian. I just made that word up, but it seems more exciting to figure out what that is than to be an 'actor'. I already know what that is and what my limits are for that label. I suppose I could expand my idea of what that term can mean, but I'd rather just explore a new label that doesn't already have boundaries in my mind. Or no labels at all.
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The best movie I've seen lately was Get Out. It was entertaining, fresh, paid homage to the genre it was existing in AND pushed that genre forward. It had something to say but said it in a way that was not pushy or overstated or preachy. And it left room for discussion. It was good art.

I also watched Dave Chapelle's new stand-up special. It's odd, as much as I like Chapelle, his time is over. He is old and not as relevant. There was a whole section where he was bitching at 'young people'. It was funny to me because I'm not that far behind him, but I was laughing at my own deterioration. I guess we both were, me and Chapelle. I ALSO watched Jarrod Charmichael's HBO special, 8. If you want a fresh, interesting voice in comedy, that is where you should look. His style is calm and even, his delivery unforced and confident. It's almost soothing to listen to him. He is young and he is a good spokesperson for his disillusioned generation. He is entertaining in expressing his awareness of the dance between his own curiosity and confusion and apathy.

Then we've got written art, my chosen canvas. There are lots of things happening here that are interesting but tricky as well. We are living in an age where the flow of information is faster, more complex, and more confusing than it has ever been. Is the written (or, should I say, typed? Swiped? Auto-corrected?) word even an effective method to consume art or news or entertainment anymore? Em deals firsthand with this every day. Even just 'factual' news is a hard concept to pin down, let alone anything that intentionally brings in artistic elements.

Em and I just started reading Infinite Jest together, and a big part of why I want to read it again is to see if it's still necessary. Is the novel still a relevant art form? Does it fit in with the fast-paced over-information age that we live in? With access to as much information as we have, should we still devote the energy required to explore a subject as deeply as a novel is capable of doing? I work in a bookstore that contains thousands of novels that I will never read, how do I choose where to put my energy? (On a related note, the biggest and most popular room in the bookstore is the Romance room. Now THERE are some dedicated readers.)

Additionally, how do I expect anyone to choose to put their own energy into the art that I make? Is quality important? The craft of the art? Or is the key in progress? Pushing the bounds or the form past the point that mere education can take us? Or is it a combination of the two? And if so, how do I find this balance? Am I even capable of it? This is why I'm so bad at self-promotion. Mostly I think that people should read Infinite Jest before they read anything that I write, and they should definitely do both of those things before they watch Suicide Squad. The only argument that I can make for reading anything that I write over someone like Wallace is that maybe mine is shorter, more concise, and it has my own progress on top of my experience of having read Wallace before writing it. I suppose it all gets back to progress.

It's funny, after discussing all of this, after feeling how much energy and dedication it is taking to be a member of the artistic community, after realizing what it will take to stay in a place where I feel that any art that I produce is worth a shit, this week I very nearly ditched out on all of it, went back to a dreary, depressing setting that I have already escaped from and grown beyond, and took on hard, thankless work that was not a step in my path of growth or within my realm of former experience. I would have literally been a writer that decided to shovel shit instead.

I didn't do it, and in doing so I feel like I have dodged what could have been a major misstep on, and therefore turned into a great step towards, the road to understanding. So, whether or not we 'make the right decisions', 'waste time and energy', 'consume the proper medium or the proper, relevant form', 'have better things to do', or 'just want to watch some shit get blown up', it's all good. We're doing fine. Life is good and there are no mistakes. There is something for everyone to do, there is art for everyone to consume. I shouldn't qualify it or say that anything is better or worth more than anything else. I should just be glad to be a part of it. I suppose that's the point. It could be argued that the 2+ hours that I just spent writing this blog were 'wasted time'. I could have been doing a hundred other things that were 'more productive'. But I'm not going to make that argument. It was the best way that I could have possibly spent that time because it IS how I spent that time. And it was fun to boot. Remember, that's important.

(See, there's that 'smitten optimist' I was talking about. He always comes back, and I am grateful for that.)

Update: Emily and I watched Eraserhead the other night and it reminded me that film can be exciting and it can push the bounds of art. She said she thought the flick was 'ahead of its time' and I think she's right. It still has things about it that I feel are lacking in a lot of art I seen now. It helped me to be enthusiastic about searching out new and interesting art.