campaign strategies from a maverick

i gotta hand it to him, John McCain has pretty good delivery. i think my favorite is "the Forrest Gump."



lolz,
stef

Aladdin from Compton

couldn't resist.

only at Miami and only in Oxford, Ohio...

the students at Miami have been hit by a "crime wave" in the past year. we get electronic announcements regarding the latest in the spree of thefts, break-in's, (armed) robberies, drunken malfeasances. they are "designed to notify members of the University community about a reported crime that may represent an ongoing threat to public safety."

these are, of course, very serious. Miami takes its image and its terrorism very seriously. nevertheless, i couldn't help laughing out loud when i read the following Campus Crime Alert (they've stopped numbering them as they used to, but i think this makes #20+):

WHITE FEMALES!
WEARING BLACK LEGGINGS!!
(= MIAMI GIRLS!!!)

this has the potential for satire written all over it. too bad it's a couple days late, i'd say the administration finally grew a sense of humor and got us with a good Fools' Day prank.

hm... based on that description, they've pretty much implicated at least half of the female student population (happy to say i get excluded from the line-up on two counts: not being white and not wearing leggings since the '80s or since '80s night disappeared from the weekly Balcony lineup).

i suppose if this should be any suggestion of an "ongoing threat to public safety," we best lock and bolt our windows and doors immediately, b/c our sad campus is sadly overflowing with a preponderance of these dangerous criminals. lock 'em up! not b/c they steal laptops or break into ppl's dorm rooms, but just b/c they perpetrate great harm on the human species for their very existence.

it's gonna be a dangerous Spring!
-stephanie

friday night lights

SFS infiltrated the Miami University homecoming parade this Friday, with a beautiful show of solidarity (& it looked like Christmas!!!). we handed out AFSCME balloons and candy, and supplemented these with an informational flyer on our living wage campaign.

the float was a collaborative effort, with students and staff getting together 2 weekends in a row to plan, paint, assemble and build a replica football field, complete with a Sargent Pepper-ed audience of SFS members past and present.


we whooped and hollered, whistled and honked, whirred a siren and clanged a bell, while chanting to announce our arrival:
"everywhere we go-oh, (everywhere we go-oh - it's repeated)
people wanna kno-ow,
whooo we aaaare,
so we tell em:
WE ARE THE UNION!
THE MIGHTY MIGHTY UNION!
working for JUSTICE!
justice for workers!"

it was a lot of fun, and a great way to get the word out on a living wage.

SFS is working on a lot of these this year, finding creative and dramatic ways of inserting ourselves into the school's wider culture. as our activism has been interpreted as counter-cultural in the past, it's fun to play with expectations this year and appeal to a wider audience thru creative means.

-stef

musical zeitgeist

i don't know whether to be sad or slightly amused by some of the recent trends in music i've observed. for example, i admit that i used to possess an unaware appreciation for "emo" music, until i found it had diverged into what my brother and i jokingly refer to as "screamo," a la Fall Out Boy and similarly poseur-esque boy bands.

i used to like Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, until i got fed up with all his whining, and found his music didn't really take me anywhere. i never base an aversion for a singer/songwriter/performer based on genre alone, which is why i feel ok admitting that yes, i listen to Nelly Furtado, and i totally respect Kelly Clarkson for challenging the "popular" music industry and doing her own writing (even though, in general, i strongly despise the girl pop genre).

sometimes i wonder if all culture (and especially pop culture) isn't just a recycling of previous formulas. i get bored to death of hearing the same tunes playing incessantly over the radio. and i swear, even the best indie music is reusing some of its best licks (do i listen to too much music, or does it sometimes sound like musicians are blatantly rewriting their previous hits, or worse, the hits of other artists?)

but lately, i've found a ton of terrific new music from abroad, mostly Sweden (um, just to mention a few: Jens Lekman, The Knife, Peter Bjorn and John, El Perro del Mar. and the Field's "From Here We Go Sublime" is practically the soundtrack to my late summer nights). and i've been listening to some non-music, mostly new podcasts such as On the Media and Democracy Now! and comedy albums from funny men Patton Oswalt, David Cross (love!), Paul F. Tompkins, and Scharpling and Wurster. and, i just discovered a fantastic album by a collective of experimental instrumental artists, who've set the words of William S. Burroughs to funked up jazz/techno. thumbs, right?!

anyway, this whole thing was really just some pointless rambling to set up this brilliant clip from MadTV. i love this clip for so many reasons, first because i absolutely HATE the Calling and the song they are parodying. second, because it's absolutely true, music today sounds more and more like itself and the people who came before it, who did it much better. and finally, because i absolutely LOVE this caricature of Scott Stapp:

this is Scott Stapp.

this is an artist's rendering of Scott Stapp.

so, enjoy!


-stef

HARRY POTTER SECRETS REVEALED!

so the 7th book of the Harry Potter series is going to be released July 7, 2007. (the 7th book. on 7/7/07. oh JK Rowling, u so clever!)

and a whole MONTH before that time comes, i've got a huuuuge spoiler for you! yes, that's right, u could even call it... a GIANT spoiler:

SOMEONE GETS DATE-RAPED IN THE FINAL HARRY POTTER BOOK!

what, don't believe me? check out this special report from the correspondents at The Onion:

J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape

wow, i might actually read it now.

enjoi!
-stephan!e


p.s. my 2 favorite parts:

JK: "it was always my plan to have a character date-raped in the final book, but it was just a matter of deciding out [sic] who, or what, the rapist would be..."

Harry Potter look alike [speculating on who or what the rapist would be]: "giants are aggressive sexually"

satire isn't dead!

my faith in the college student specious has been restored! (and College Humor,which until now had always been a sight to avoid, if only b/c it always confirmed my suspicions that the college male had nothing better to do than get stinking wasted at parties and ogle braindead females)

AND the world benefits from an all-too-plausible parody of - get this! - both Hollywood and Facebook!??!! (the other axes of evil)



my day just got a whole lot brighter.
-stephan!e

i want a puppy! (but not that one...)

thank u to all the kind readers and friends who wished me such warm happy birthdays yesterday. my 21st was a blast, but do not worry and do not be alarmed: self-control and dignity were not lost (which is more than can be said for some ppl.) i merely ordered my first drink, a rum ri martini and sipped it modestly at dinner with my family. we ate cake and sang songs and i opened presents. (my family surprised me at the last minute with very kind and thoughtful presents, giving me a stack of DVDs i'd been pining for all year, including MEMENTO, HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN, and AMERICAN BEAUTY (my other favorite movie).

in all, it was one of the best birthdays i've ever had. thank you. :-)

---

speaking of gifts, i've always wanted a puppy and have asked for one for christmas ever since i was old enuf to know i had needs and wants for things (5 was the age i think). well, i didn't get a puppy this year (surprise surprise), but when i went to the new york times website (my homepage), i saw this:now, let's take a closer look, shall we?
hmm. the cute and (read:) iNBRED dog. (read more here.)

apparently, the NYT thot this worthy online frontpage material. makes me wonder if i shld revert to the BBC (whose editors, despite their ostensibly british readership still found Gerald Ford's death and efforts toward peace in Somalia of primary interest. funny, where did we go wrong?)

---

in other dog-related news, i've been enjoying this satirical view of the long-befuddling comic Marmaduke.



and i thot i was the only one spending my sunday mornings endlessly frustrated by the seemingly guileless and unamusing shenanigans of an overgrown terrorist canine, but apparently Joe Mathlete is providing some necessary and not-easily-divined answers. yay for satire and comic relief!

ruff woof,
stephan!e

on the brink of my 21st birthday (or, how to interpret a myspace-esque self-portrait)

less than one hour until the apocalypse known as my 21st birthday, and i want to remember how i feel in this very moment (for i will never be on the brink of 21 again).

what i was obviously thinking in the fractioned second it took to take this picture:

the 21st year of my life shall mark the beginning of the era henceforth known as 'the emo years' (woe, indeed...)

the holy daze hath blanched my complexion...

feeling more self-conscious than usual about my facial proportions, i decided to crop half my visage from the picture, only to provide the Beatles poster as a frame of reference, to which one might remark, 'hark! what a prodigious forehead!' foiled again! blast!

i'm looking somewhat bloodshot and dry.

progressively creepy, and increasingly close.

this is your face on aderol.

i've replaced Paul in the resurrected Beatles. and i'm grateful (if not a little stunned) for the honour.

i'm just as shocked and crestfallen as you should be to learn that Sufjan is gay.

"i am the most great female hypnotist of the world!"


in summary: i am only slightly more indifferent than usual.


seesons greatings.
-stephan!e

they're zombies!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!

<--- a typical day on a Miami street...

oh, it's that time of year again...

miami kids are experiencing the first flush of finals week anxiety, and you can already notice it in their empty stares.

nothing i like more than knowing half the people i see on the street probably don't see me. it creates an invisibility that could be really powerful, if one makes use of it in the right way. when no one sees you, you can play all sorts of non sequitur tricks on them, like intentionally standing in their way on the sidewalk, or faking a seizure mid-stride en route to class. or, if i feel the need to wake some people up: grabbing my bullhorn and reciting the pounding monologue from NETWORK from the steps of an academic building, or on the ledge of a bell tower. tho, on second thought, probably not a good idea. i hear it's bad to wake up a sleepwalker... i wonder if that also applies to the living dead?

anyway, i have several papers, exams, and group presentations to do these next few days. but it's all looking bright because as of tomorrow evening (Wednesday) at 10 pm EST, i will officially be done forever with social entrepreneurship and will never ever step foot in another business class again! no more thoughts of Bono haunting my darkest mind, and no more insipid business papers to write! i will be done and will immediately move on to more invigorating projects. i'll probably spend the whole of that evening celebrating and re-fortifying and replenishing my soul and spirit. (so call/email/write/telegraph/telepath a congratulatory note on Wednesday! remind me of those dreams i once had and spur me on to enjoy my life again!!)

finally, my Satiric Film professor is leaving Miami after this week and i am deeply upset, because she is the most brilliant person i've ever met at Miami. how do i know this? because she's the only one with enough grit to quit this place and leave to pursue real goals. as someone with a shared sense of heterotopian longing, i really admire the ability to abandon safety nets in the interest of pursuing an ethereal dream.

in a semester of worthless droning classes, her class sparked that fire i used to have burning in me, that passion that made me happy to learn and write and do things. it's funny, because i took her class on a lark, thinking i'd fill my schedule with something fun. not only did it prove to be deeply enjoyable, it opened my eyes to a way of enjoying my work again, and loosened me up to the possibility of dreams.

it's not so much a class as a way of reinterpreting my approach to classes and to schoolwork in general. it's made me active in a way no other class has, because i am not only engaging with the course material and the texts and ideas in a purely theoretical way, but i am wanting to put these passions into practice. and isn't that what school should be about? taking education beyond a thinking level to a doing.

so while i should be freaking out about this business paper i haven't started yet, i'm relishing the small revolution my apathy is taking.

and while all my peers are studying furiously for their meaningless finals, writing papers that don't matter to them, i'm smiling sideways at them, imagining the stress the SHAUN OF THE DEAD final must be giving them (which is ironic, since i bet Joanne gets such giggle kicks from having such fun playing with people's expectations and student habits. SHAUN is a satire of consumerism, and our silly bourgeois habits. Joanne's class is a satire of the school system and formal education, and those rote student behaviors we learn in school. people may get the satire in SHAUN, but i bet they still fall into the zombie-like steps when it comes to school. so hahahahaha)

-stephanie

independent television is chock-full of satire

especially when you get creative scottish types, such as these:

"Thank you Bono, for completely confusing all of the issues and saying we are helping Africa by privatizing it! Thank you Bono!!"

-at the 2005 G8 summit protest in Edinborough, Scotland.

bark n run,
stephanie

p.s. this clip is from a chicago indymedia episode of their independent TV program, which i worked on this past summer. it's pretty much the sweetest thing i've ever done in front of a camera...

speaking of satire...

(old post i've been saving for a week now, enjoy!)

wow, you could not ask for more serendipitous circumstances in terms of real-life satire.

i mean, there's nothing to say here. this takes care of itself...

TV star faces reality on Oxford street

By Joe Giordano

Staff Writer

Thursday, October 12, 2006

An MTV reality TV star (<- this is what got me. "reality TV star." haha, too funny.) was a victim of road rage after a retired Miami University administrator pointed a handgun at him Wednesday morning at an Oxford residence.

Police say a man in his 70s aimed a small handgun at 24-year-old John DeVenanzio, a cast member of MTV's "The Real World: Key West." A traffic violation appears to have sparked the armed confrontation.

According to police, DeVenanzio's girlfriend crossed a double yellow line to pass a Cadillac crawling southbound on McGuffey Avenue at approximately 10 a.m. The Cadillac then tailed the former Real World star and his girlfriend, who is a Miami student, a few blocks until they reached a Quail Ridge Drive residence.

As DeVenanzio's girlfriend pulled her Dodge Neon into the driveway, the Cadillac followed behind blocking the Neon. When DeVenanzio approached the car, he told police the elderly man reached into his glove compartment and pointed a handgun at him. The reality TV star then retreated to his girlfriend's vehicle and called 911. DeVenanzio was able to get the car's license plate, which led officers the an elderly man's residence.

When police questioned the man at his home, the former MU administrator said he flashed the gun for his safety.

"The driver stated DeVenanzio approached his vehicle in a threatening manner, and he pulled out the gun for his protection," Oxford police Sgt. Jim Squance said.

Police found the gun, which they describe as a Derringer. The elderly man possessed a permit for the handgun, which he says was not loaded during the confrontation. Police have not filed any charges against the former MU administrator. A university spokesperson said he retired in 1984.

Authorities are not releasing the man's name until the investigation is complete. Squance said they are currently speaking with the Butler County prosecutor about the case.

"We're going to complete the investigation and present it to the Butler County prosecutor," Squance said.

Police believe the next course of action will be sometime next week.

Contact this reporter at (513) 523-4139 or jgiordano@coxohio.com.

exposing the human animal: a review of BEST IN SHOW (2000)

so, it's midterm week, and i definitely stayed up ALL NIGHT writing three papers, two of them being film reviews.

here's one of those labors of love now...

-stephanie


BEST IN SHOW (dir. Christopher Guest, 2000)

Christopher Guest’s film BEST IN SHOW (2000) delivers provocative caricatures of several different subcultures, inspiring critical reexamination of their follies, as any successful satire should. The film’s “mockumentary” style is particularly effective, as it allows the actors’ endearingly quirky exaggerations to be interpreted as near-truths. The artistic direction and photography mimic the aesthetic of film documentaries, making the audience feel that what they are seeing is merely a version of the truth. And indeed, it is. The film’s characters and situations are exaggerations, but these slightly hyperbolic depictions reveal underlying truths about the absurdity of human nature.
As the film tackles the conventions of professional dog shows, it highlights our assumptions and stereotypes of the people who participate in them. While we may initially laugh at the comedy and irony at the surface, deeper down, BEST IN SHOW works at exposing our assumptions and stereotypes of the crazed pet owner, and reveals a deeper understanding of the tragedy of middle-class America and a criticism of consumer culture.
Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock evocatively portray the foibles of the yuppie subculture in their roles as contestants Meg and Hamilton Swan, respectively. We are first introduced to the Swans in the middle of what appears to be a family therapy session, where the Swans are discussing what we assume to be their misbehaving child. However, as the camera angle slowly changes to reveal, we are witnessing a puppy therapy session, and the patient, the focus of the characters’ (as well as our own) attention is actually the Swans’ dog, Beatrice. We are immediately struck with the absurdity of the situation: We know that therapy is expensive, even ineffective. Therapy for dogs, then, would just be a waste of money and time. But no matter, here are the Swans, talking about every awkward moment of their private intimate lives with a therapist, while their precious Beatrice reclines in human fashion on her own couch, listlessly falling asleep despite their goading.
The Swans don’t necessarily need to take Beatrice to a therapist. Certainly the money being spent on her therapy sessions could be better used to buy toys or kibble. But this kind of reasoning would not work on yuppies such as the Swans. After all, these are people who consider themselves lucky to have “grown up on catalogs,” who spend their free time poring over J. Crew magazines and sifting through the newest additions to the L.L. Bean collection. The Swans are people whose romance began when their eyes met across the street from different Starbucks, who met for the first time while sipping soy lattes and working on their “Macs.” They are the discontented wealthy, the delusional consumers, the disconnected people who put their trust and faith in brand loyalties and seek happiness and comfort in expensive purchases. They revel in the joy of catalog shopping because “you don’t have to talk to anyone.” Even with each other, they communicate more in their conspicuous consumer choices than they do in actual conversation.
And as the film suggests, these are people who are tragically boring and unhappy. Their neutral-toned clothes, save for the occasional splash of “merlot,” suggest they have very in the way of personality. They lack excitement, and we can’t help but feel their sex lives are equally dull (as Meg says early on in the film, “[they] got a book, The Kama Sutra…” Only a haplessly out-of-love couple would need a book to teach them to love one another). Indeed, we see them as a nonsexual couple, and Beatrice as their surrogate child.
And as such, Beatrice falls subject to their crazed “stage parent” antics. The Swans’ manic behavior comes to a peak in the moments before Beatrice takes to the stage. Upon finding that Beatrice’s toy “Busy Bee” (a character almost in its own right) is missing during the ritualistic pre-show preparation, Meg storms off searching for a new one. “Raised on catalogs,” with apparently minimal experience or skill in face-to-face human interaction, Meg struggles to communicate with the store manager, only to give up and return with the “wrong” toy. Posey’s performance is particularly derisive, and exposes the absurdity of our consumer culture: such is the state of society that anything we could possibly want is available for us to buy. Even toys for our dogs are available in multiple varieties and colors, and still, it’s never enough, and we are never satisfied.
When Beatrice eventually buckles under the extreme pressure of the Swans’ ceaseless “freak-outs,” they discard her (perhaps put her down?) in favor of a new dog, Kipper, who they gush about at another one of their therapy sessions. Again, the Swans are depicted here as falsely believing they can control their lives with the things they buy. If the dog doesn’t work, get a new one. If the clothes don’t fit, get a new wardrobe. Fittingly, the Swans are shown in their epilogue wearing a rainbow of bright and pastel colors, reflecting their re-energized spirit and enthusiasm for their new pet.
When Meg and Hamilton are frantically trimming Beatrice’s whiskers, brushing her coat, and giving her pep talks, like the other contestant couples around them, we see the human condition with all its follies on display. These are people who probably pay exorbitant fees to send their dogs to pet spas, who just might buy ridiculous outfits for their dogs so that they can more easily pretend they’re people.
The film is humorous and effectively satiric, because it reminds us that these are dogs, and that their misguided owners are human. Prolonged shots of the owners with their dogs show the dogs looking indifferent and unaware. As was probably the case in filming, so it is with dogs in shows: they may “sense the tension,” as the commentator suggets, but they are no more cognizant of the importance of the show to their owners than their owners are willing to acknowledge the dogs’ indifference.
The film reminds us that the contestants and their animals are participating in a dog show, a sadistic competition created by pet owners to take their extreme abuse of their canine companions to an obscene level. Dogs are animals, and naturally have no need for plush insect toys or trimmed whiskers. Yet who comes out looking more rabid, the humans or the dogs? In the end, the human characters are understood to be the irrational ones.

critical distance: how woody allen's fear of getting close draws us closer

hello hello.

i've decided: i am going into film! it's the only thing that brings joy to my life now. i love watching and critiquing and thinking about film. i want to write and direct. maybe even act.

until i get there, i am content to write about films and film technique.

and here's one of those now: a review of woody allen's ANNIE HALL...

(this appeared previously as an assignment for my satiric film class, but what the hell. the internet can stand one more review by a non-authority (yet) on the subject...)


ANNIE HALL (Woody Allen, 1977)

Voice-over is a frequent satirical device, in that it creates a critical distance between the viewer and the subject matter. With this distance comes the freedom for critique, and the opportunity to consider the follies or foibles of the characters depicted.
This critical distance is perhaps especially important when dealing with matters of the heart, and particularly, love. We are, as Woody Allen might say, schmaltzy to a fault. We too easily lose ourselves in romantic narratives and find ourselves hoping for happy endings, wishing the two main characters would just give in to Romantic conventions and fall in love. Unfortunately, relationships don’t always work out, and life is miserable and short.
And in ANNIE HALL, Allen doesn’t try to convince us otherwise. Rather, Allen would have us believe that we are witnessing the most miserable of individuals, Allen’s on-screen persona Alvy. He is unlucky in love and unluckily in love. Endearingly neurotic, self-deprecatingly funny, and irritatingly brilliant, Alvy is at once so idiosyncratic that he pushes everyone around him away.
What results is a film of dissonance and distance, removal and remoteness. Not only are the characters alienated from one another, they exude their isolation outwardly, such that the audience is removed from the narrative just enough to appreciate Allen’s satirical view of human relationships. While the characters Annie and Alvy are falling in and out of love, the audience is being drawn in and pushed away by Allen’s unconventional style.
As the audience soon sees, Annie and Alvy’s relationship begins to fall apart as they fall away from each other. When Annie is denied her ritualistic grass before going to bed, she becomes removed. We watch as her inner self floats out of her body and takes a bedside seat, literally, physically, and visibly apart from the Annie with whom Alvy is in bed. Interestingly, Allen’s Alvy is then aware enough to look up and notice what has happened, to point at Annie’s inner self across the room and remark, “now that’s what I call removed,” and then proceed to ask her to give herself in her entirety, rather than just her body. It is a poignant scene, and a familiar one to most waning love stories, the acknowledgement that your significant other is merely going through the motions, while you believe you are in love. In reality, such a realization would bring cause for remorse, but in ANNIE HALL, it draws laughter, the impossibility of the situation (the physical impossibility of Annie’s split self) underscoring the impossibility of the relationship itself.
It further reinforces critical distancing. While Annie literally splits and removes herself from the bed, we are forced to remove ourselves as well and take a critical glance back at the two characters and their relationship. Allen’s use of innovative film techniques (switching to cartoon, incongruent and distracting subtitles, split screens, and direct address, to name a few) are so jarring to the film’s flow that the audience is forced to suspend their complete immersion into the story. Rather than become lost and invested in the characters and their relationship, the audience is consistently reminded that they are watching characters on a screen. Allen’s use of innovation in the visual medium has the effect of spectacle, resulting in surreality, separateness from the reality on which Allen comments.
This creates a detachment of the viewer, enabling us to enter into the narrative only so far as to criticize the characters and to turn our attention to satiric elements. Whereas a romantic film would allow for a happy ending with an escapist/idealist resolution, the characters’ awareness and interactions with the viewer create commentary on Allen’s subjects without becoming lost in the narrative and lost to Allen’s message: that life is miserable and short. And love is no exception.