More Than Herring

First, introductions are in order.

Allow me to start with origins of the blog's title. When I began to set up my blog, I tried to enter a title. It got rejected. I tried to enter another one. It also got rejected... Oh, you probably wanted something more meaningful than that (or I at least wanted to imagine an audience that wanted something more meaningful). Both of these titles, which I absolutely had to have at the time, but which I have since forgotten, had some oblique reference to film. So does the current title, except this one was clearly meant to be, so I will remember it forever, or at least as long as I can see it at the top of the page. As with most manifestations of artistic forms, there is something in film that must be artificial even as it simulates what the artist perceives as a reality. This tension between life and art, and trying to reproduce the one in the other, is nothing new, but I rarely tire of it, and since a blog is all about unsolicited musings, you (whoever you are) will likely see a lot of it on this page.

Friends have frequently told me that I should be a film critic, which has generally been their way of saying that I pick at films the way a finicky six-year-old picks at a poached fish filet. Coincidentally, the effect of my film-picking on those around me also parallels the effect of the six-year-old's negotiations on those at the table - somewhere between running away and holding him down to cram the fish down his esophagus (a little mullet down the gullet, if you will). I generally reconstrue my puzzled observers' comments as complimentary so that I can continue to live and behave as I please and still remain shocked that no one wants to be in my presence for long periods of time.

I would introduce myself here, but you likely don't care and I don't particularly enjoy talking about myself in front of a pretend audience. If you are going to pretend to listen to me, you should need to put some effort into it (eye contact, carefully placed acknowledging utterances, etc.) to be at all convincing.

I will, however, reference my motivation for finally beginning my own blog.

The title of this entry, "More Than Herring," is a reference to one of my favorite comedies, Woody Allen's Love and Death. Boris's unrequited love, Sonja, who is herself desperate to find a husband, settles instead for Leonid Voskovec, the herring merchant. (The fact that I didn't have to look up any of that should give you an idea of just what a film nerd I am.) Later, she expresses regret for her marriage to a man who "reduces all the beauty of the world to a small, pickled fish." I wish I didn't see that everywhere. In my life-experience, I have spent time around very religiously devout people who evaluate every film they watch almost exclusively for the presence of traditional values, and I have traveled the halls of academia (often entering the classrooms as well), where the pressure to focus on a pinstripe-narrow topic through a highly filtered theoretical lens is just an accepted part of the process of graduate study - one in which I am currently engaged, so I will try to moderate my comments... some other time.

Nevertheless, it seems that all of us finite bi-peds have a little Voskovec in us, but what I find troubling is our apparent self-assurance in that narrowness. The Christians regard themselves as recipients/instruments of grace, which would be a lot easier to believe if they were quicker to see evidence of that grace in the world, as opposed to a kind of culture-wars dualism that can completely overlook some amazing spiritual ideas. (If you would like an example of the kind of limited view to which I am referring, check out a few reviews at this site.) Likewise, many allegedly tolerant students and professors mock, deride, and alienate anyone who would even open-mindedly inquire about a point of accepted orthodoxy. I understand that the perception of widespread chronic silliness can be frustrating, but if the intellectual elites are engaging in rejection-without-refutation, what is to become of the rest of us?

With that said, I am willing to accept the criticism that even a perspective like this one that implies its own breadth might, ironically, represent some form of parochialism. If you find that to be true, introduce yourself and your view.