Open Bar 2

A test of ze emergenzy pozting syztem.

Seems to be a bit squished or cropped a bit.

Can’t entirely tell. No black bars on the top or bottom though.

Which is nice.

Life of Y?

Just file it under, can you fuckin’ believe this guy?

The novel will be “an allegory—this time about the Holocaust—involving animals,” the follow-up to Martel’s surprise bestseller and Booker Prize-winning, ‘Life of Pi.’ The article explores Martel’s career, including frank comments from the author about Holocaust writing and his agent about the shifting publishing landscape. GalleyCat has reported on Martel’s one-man book club and possible adaptations of “Pi.”

Here’s more from the article: “Mr. Martel also declined to discuss his advance, but said, ‘Frankly, with all the years it took to write this book, if you amortize it out, it’s not as much as one would like it to be.’”

So, let’s see the math. Story about animals + overtread guaranteed Oscar bait. Hmmn. Easy. Where did we hear that before? Way to exploit a market man. “One” seems to have pretty high fuckin’ standards. Good luck with that. I hear genius takes time.

Notes on Visual Style

First year film class at U of T; one of the concepts they discussed with us was something called “invisible style”. All films have style my professor explained, all shooting has style; different choices of where you’re putting the light; where you are putting the camera; how often you cut; what type of music you use, even how your actors look. All these are stylistic choices. There’s no one version of these choices which is without style.

However there are certain sets of choices you make which are closer to what we as viewers are most comfortable with; which are less jarring; which either as something do with our natural way of interpreting the world as a series of cuts or just as we’re used to as a rhythm we’ve become familiar with over the years through a lifetime of received visual storytelling. And it is this, ’style with no style’ which fades into the background; and allows a viewer to immerse themselves in an experience; that allows a director or storyteller to calm, to coax, to lull their viewers into their vision, their fantasy.

Now. This can be done to create a seamless effect of immersion; or for subversion; a sense of a calm before the storm, before something more shocking, jarring, or powerful both narratively or stylistically. Does such a thing exist in comics?

Maybe it does… the simple box… the panel grid… Brubaker and Cameron Stewart et al use it to some effect with a ‘tv’ style frame throughout their Catwoman run, which is busted open by the dramatic fight sequences; blowout layouts, shatter panels; blast through pages. But if there are more stylistic pages done throughout; more unusual layouts; more ‘visible style’; there is less a sense of the unease. The breakup on the breakout. Do you see what I mean?

In terms of video or film, this is one of the appealing virtues of the mockumentary form; as documentaries have a set of conventions; then the subversion of it is all contained to the subject matter within the shooting style and format. Which is funny. It’s set up, you know the conventions of your picture; it’s the actual content contained within the box, whether its Spinal Tap or David Brent that becomes so shocking so unconventional.

So if you want to make something work through style, you got to be ready to play and subvert it. Everything is style. Even when it’s invisible.

Songs of the New

Well well we’re back again. Too much time I think spent by ourselves, but that’s what you get when you work as a freelancer.

So what’s going on? Discovered Platform by Michel Houellebecq.  That’s some hard writing. Damn.

I’d read his book on HP Lovecraft and found it really convincing. The subtitle was “Against the world, Against Life”, the philosophy within could be those who enjoy reading do so as an alternative to participating in life or society, or well pretty much at the exclusion of anything else. The life of imagination, being antithetical to the world outside, which is pretty much the conclusion by the end of the book.

Anyway, Platform. Never knew that such a risible contempt for pretty much everything could be so entertaining.

Kind of like Fight Club, but replacing fighting with fucking, and instead of taking on America, it’s taking on the whole world through the lens of global tourism and sexual politics.

If you can imagine that. Seriously good writing. Powerful ideas. Frightening conclusions. And some hot fucking.

And they say there’s no good sex in literature these days. And this guy won the IMPAC!