An earnest disscussion of the implications of the air quoted lable associated with certain persons in the previous post

Pertaining to the nature of “gay,” I feel that several things must be said. First off, though, we must start with the notion of using air quotes and making them into text quotes must be noted when talking about “that which has many and multitude implications.”

In normal parlance, the temptation—and it is certainly a deep and gnawing temptation—to use air quotes when attempting to dissociate oneself from the words one speaks or writes. The intent is to convey that the words do not derive from the soul of the speaker or writer, but rather that they come from some unspecified societal entity. Who or what might this entity be? It is hard to say as no correct or specific citation can emerge to mark its place in the decimal system of the later Corporal Jonathan Dewy.

And so one places their words far from themselves. And indeed, air quotes or no, those words do remain their own, but only as if with a disguise of sorts, perhaps being fake Emeril eyebrows perched atop that lexicon item.

Now, back to “gay” though. In the previous post by my esteemed travel companion, perhaps alluded to in my introductory post as the holder of the camera, has alluded to the possibility of my being “gay.”

Here I have to pause and in a moment of untoward brevity ask what such an implication may imply. Myself, having taken the virginity of neither man nor woman nor beast, effectively remain somewhere between hermaphrodite and asexual entity. Mostly that comes down to a penchant for describing my personal self in multi-poly-syllabic words.

Lemuel Reilly

Today we talk about The Departed

Did you know that sometimes a rat is a metaphor for people who are not honest? I didn't either, but if you are really smart and able to pick up on subtleties you would have noticed that bit of brilliance that Mr Scorsese chose to end his breakout film, The Departed, with.

Also, did you know that subtitles are hard to read? Because Mr Scorsese figured that out, and said: "why not remake an awesome film, and only change one thing: the language ? Then I will become a successful director, which I never was before because I never won an Oscar but if I win one for this hypothetical film then I will have become a great director."

Scorsese then added: "Okay, so we will steal everything from this awesome Hong Kong film, except for the language, but I still feel like we need to tweak it a little. What else can we change? . . . I know! White people! Who wants to watch yellow people on the screen? We will set the film in Boston and make everyone white! And maybe make them Red Sox fans too. Also, we need to make sure they talk in a Boston accent. That makes it authentic. I will need that to win the Oscar. *sobs* when will the failure end? *composes self* Okay, so we have English and white people. Should we change anything else? . . . Well, I am one of the most skilled directors of my time a failure, so I guess I better not mess with anything else. Except. . . you know what is the one thing the movie that I am ripping off was missing? A way over the top ending that will have the audience laughing at the shear silliness of it all, which will fit right in line with the mood of the film, and then I will have a rat walk on screen, then roll credits.

"Oscar please."


(Lemuel Reilly yelled at me for not block quoting that long one, but I can't figure out how to work the html! Now he says he is going to lock me in the closet for a week. His persona may seem like a homosexual, but he is actually very strong, sort of like those gay people in the Olympics who do all the prancing on that mat.)

Giggles and giggles
And giggles and giggles and
Giggles and giggles.

Lemuel Reilly's Brief Dissertation of Haikus, in which both their brevity and foreign composure mark them as an important poetic form

Most people formally know the haiku as a contained and epigrammatic poetic construction, limited to a first line of five syllables, a second line of seven, and a final third line of five. This form allows the haiku to contain thoughts of multitudinous size, limited in what it can say only by the extent to which its composers are willing to dispense with grammatical encumbrances.

For example, taking the above statements, an example of rich and varied—if rather rotund—prose, and watch their translation into haiku form:

Haiku, the short poem
Of multitudinous thought
Abbreviated.

Notice the exponential increase in profundity that comes with the decrease of syllabic expenditure. This is a wonderful device for poetic thought and should be liberally employed when ideas need a poetic flourish to send them along on the eastern wind.

Indeed, the notion of the “eastern-ness” in haiku should not be quickly forgotten because to be eastern implies the strange and distant, an “other” that persists today even in our more rapidly circulating globe. The very foreign-ness of the haiku is directly imbedded in its name, which means nipple blossom, and for its oral peculiarity marks any composer as a cosmopolitan with appropriate taste. Indeed, to say “I have composed you a haiku” has an air of education far brisker than “I wrote you a poem” because one: you have demonstrated the knowledge of a specific genre of poem, and two: you have shown that your artistic reach can grope the distant shores of inspiration.

But, one may stop and say that the foreign is ugly and frightening. Ah, true enough and true forever, but the foreign of the east has the special property of being a particularly distant foreign, not the imposing monster that gnaws bones in your bedroom closet, but rather the smoke-nostriled dragon that slumbers worlds away, licking coals and gouging screams that evaporate after the tip of a tongue gives such fantasies air. The eastern foreign is a spectacle of the sublime that we can handle safely because the core of its power is insulated by the rolling pacific, rolling and rolling and rendering our fears to soft and pleasant rock and sway, that takes us away to wonderful and far dreams,
As such, haikus are
Distant, sublime, and juicy
Nipple blossoms.*

* here, we count the period as a “full stop,” functioning in the meter as a syllabic beat that can fill in for the missing syllable and allow the most succinct re-emergence of the profoundly appropriate, four-syllable, definition of haiku.

A Vision, from inaugerated contributor Lemuel Reilly, Taken from the Museum of Modern Art in the enlightened providence of New York, New York

Dear listeners, greetings and nods to your respect and deference. I come here humbly, waddling my way to the podium to propose a vision that late came to me.

Now, hold now. For moments and implorings I understand the right-held skepticism that so folds the creases in our time. “Vision?” you scoff. And more, you say, “Who can claim to be the heir of vision? Nonsense and foolery. He should set that power back on the alter from which it was stolen.” And so you then sit and wait to hear me lie.

But vision, dear listeners, when it comes, cannot long be silent, and it refuses deference. My vision comes on shallow wings, not so much glowing from above, but rather sort of tattered and rolling along the sidewalk, rather like a bird, coughing down its last worms, with its talons caught between the pavement. It was, long before, a lofty vision, as any of the loftiest of birds, but lately it comes in its most low and penitent form.

The vision which I propose came in the galleries of art, landing a pilgrimage away in the distant reaches of New York. My younger wanderings had brought me there with all the electric mind of a jitter-hearted sparrow, bursting with eyes that groped for vision. And what better place to get such vision than at said gallery, the place of looking to see and subsequent, abundant inspiration.

And first, in the galleries of geometric wall-wear, I paused and pondered at the curious shapes and colors, free of narrative and tutored in the most obscure of symmetries that transposed and rotated common kindergarten math practices into the intricate and beyond the sublime. And again, at first I, eager looker, was calm and complete to look on and survey. But slowly, a disquieting notion passed between the pieces, stranded there, somewhere, in those white-walled spaces between. It seemed to me that as looking on, I was nothing more than a looker, just a seer of things to be seen. But simply looking? There is no vision in that! No, there is always more to grasp, if only we can seize it for our own fists and hearts and minds. So, turning to my travel companion, I ordered the camera and arranged for his hand to record my presence.

The picture was composed as follows: the piece of geometry, still except for tilting in the camera’s uneasy pixels, bobbled with red and blue and gold and black in iterations of an uneasy pattern whose brilliance boggles along the eye. But more, in the fore-space of the piece, was me, with a pleasant smile and a raised hand, waving to my travel companion and, by extension, waving to all other picture-viewers who would grace my recording.

And, as the picture was taken, there were visions bursting in my sparrow’s heart, visions of wonder jabbering through the wide nature of seeing. Yes, these were visions on seeing, and they followed something as such:

“As man, and woman, and child, take it upon themselves to see Art, that largest ‘A,’ we find ourselves treading the narrow paths of museums tread many and over a time after time. Indeed, one must only look down to the floor and see the scuffs of the treaders that have come so long and many before. And look down on those marks, mark them well, see that they are not of the most random and strange sort, no, they rather have the look of a patters, measured and calculated, if only you would look to the edges.

I shall explain my meaning more clearly:

"Imagine for a moment the floor of a museum, taken from its low and trampled ground and hung on the wall. Then, see what you will. I suspect you will notice the pollockian patters of scuff and rough and maybe even the most faded lick of a dropped lemonade (snuck past the security guards and sipped with the most guilty of surreptitious sips). And there, for all its intricate record, an Art piece alone and entire. But look more, what other patter is on our suspended master piece? There along the border inches, notice where the marks and scuffs are less numerous, almost non-existent, see that practically pristine floor. Is it simple inconvenience that keeps these scuffers and walkers away form the extremities? Are they, in that big ‘A’ American way, grown so bulbous that their dollops of girth hold feet at a distance from the wall? I say no, it is nothing of the sort. Rather, think you for a moment about the art that lined the walls when our piece was formerly a floor. The art of this floor’s walls cocooned the edges of the room in intangible gravitas that subdues and suggests our distance and reverence. How low for thinking and wonderment. There is no vision there for art, so insulated from our scuffed and common feet.

So, I, in a fit with broader-than-average vision, took the camera as a tool to collapse said space in an instant. There, in the photograph, a flat image places only the illusion of space between my friendly form and the abstract picture behind me. Indeed, a photograph is fit for flattening such space and showing that me, a man of flesh and feeling, can indeed congress with art, that biggest ‘A.’”

And so, my piece of purely unique brilliance was had, and a nod and pat warmed my gut with agreeable vision. Pure brilliance, as such that only a lofty, podium-minded fellow might occasion.

And yet, strolling and satisfied, scuffing the floors as I went, I saw the many other walkers of the museum, they too standing and picture-taking their bodies along with the art of all around: everything from simple smiles to exaggerated poses of pointing and thumbs-up and silent gasps. Indeed the abstraction of the surrounding art seemed begging to be something of a backdrop, and the vision so grandly conceived in my own conceit must have soon dissipated to the millions around. See them wonderful and flocking over the grand podium I would have had all my own entire. And such the sparrow comes down to cough its worm, heart a-flutter, if not its wings.

Andrew's America, part two

As we discussed last time, American cinema is one of the many things Americans have to be proud of. Another is racism. Only the greatest nation in the world could do so well to put an end to racism. Sure, we made mistakes as a country in the past (we were teenagers and everyone was doing it!), but by now we've certainly righted the ship. And I guess there may still be a few chinks in the hull (ha, chinks.... like Asian people.... I can say that because we aren't racist here), but we are not so proud that we cannot admit to them. Or I should say, had some chinks in the hull, because those chinks all went away with the release of Academy Award winning film, Crash. In what other country than the greatest best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth could we address such a huge, looming problem with a single movie, and then that movie solves the problem and then we give the movie an award because we are sooooo self aware it's not even funny (however, chinks in the hull is still hilarious, as well as being not racist).

Crash is an awesome movie for lots of reasons. I won't even get into its dramatic moments, because what more can be said, I mean, when the guy thought he shot the little girl and the sad music started playing, but then I was like, oh my god, she bought her dad blanks, man if we all did that do our crazy gun wielding uncles there would be no more crime, and that guy was a crazy terrorist, oh no wait, we aren't racist any more he is just a guy who was in a bad situation, and now everyone knows that because we aren't racist anymore because Crash came out and that's why I'm writing this blog. Yeah. So in short, the movie was super great because the music made me feel really sad because the stuff that was happening was really sad but then it was uplifting and happy sort of too in the end and that was happy and super great. So good drama, and you might think by my last post that I only like explosions (I do like explosions and there was even a great one in this movie but I don't want to spoil it too much!), but I also like good drama.

So along with good drama Crash was also very important because taught us that racism is bad and we can solve it! That is a good message! What Crash is basically saying is if we are all just a little more understanding and if we help black people out of burning cars (even if those black people don't like us and were uppity to us once) then the racism will go away (whoops, belated spoiler alert) (No I take the spoiler alert back if you haven't seen this movie I will just assume that you suck and are America's last racist.) (And racist people suck!) (I'm not going to worry about spoilers anymore to spite the racists, they deserve it! hahahaha). Or if we take a bunch of Asian people who were shipped overseas in a crate and release them in chinatown rather than killing them (didn't you think the black guy was going to kill the asian people? I did, but I can't put my finger on why!) then racism will go away. Or if we... wait, what happened with the lady from the speed movies? Did she die in Crash and never get a chance to apologize for getting the lady fired wrongfully? This is so embarrassing that I forgot about what happened with that part of the movie, but it's okay, because I'm not racist anymore so the movie did its job for me (bubblegum tears!).

So Crash showed America that it just had to do a few things right and bingo! racism would be gone. And guess what? WE DID IT!!!!!!!! Hooray! We stopped calling black people niggers (to their face) and we also told black people that they can't use that word in any situation either because it's always a dirty word when you say nigger while you're by black people, so of course it's dirty if you are black because it's by definition said by a black person. So we started by getting rid of racism like that. And also we made sure that policemen didn't leave black people in cars that were about to explode (BOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahaha that was the best scene ever!), and that's how we solved racism. Some people say we haven't solved racism because black people still have a hard life, but that's not racism's fault obviously. First, because racism is gone since we don't call blacks niggers anymore, and second it's because any blacks that are doing bad are doing bad because of their culture. I mean, if a black man can be elected to lose to John McCain how can you say we have racism? We stopped calling them niggers and leaving them in burning cars, now it's up to them to meet us half way and change their culture and be more like white people. And let's not worry about the crappy black schools, or media representation, or welfare policy, or health care policies, or any of that stuff because we made a movie called Crash that ended all that, so we are the greatest best country god has ever given man on the face of the earth. And Crash won an Academy Award. Because we are a self aware greatest best country god has ever given man on the face of the earth, who also doesn't have racism.

The End, God Bless America.

A new feature: Andrew's America (or: Why America is the Greatest Best Country God Has Ever Given Man on the Face of the Earth)

What makes America great? Many things. But one of them is obviously Hollywood. After all, it is well known that the terrorists hate Hollywood because it shows them all of those awesome things they don't have in their countries (like explosions!). And anything that terrorists hate is therefore awesome by the laws of logic. And we can see that American movies are awesome by highlighting two contemporary classics, which I will cover in my new feature, Andrew's America. The first of these films is the Micheal Bay directed cult classic, Transformers.

Transformers is, simply, everything that is right about Hollywood cinema. After all, many films have tried to encompass every cliche in the book, but none up to this point have ever hit them all. Transformers did it. Shall we list them?

1- beloved 80s cartoon (check)
2- explosions (check)
3- army people acting like bad asses (check)
4- army people being surprised that there are things more bad ass than it in existence, which is throwing them for a loop, so they need to employ the help of some teenagers (check)
5- explosions (check)
6- attractive teenage girl who is with the jock, but deserves better because she is hot and therefore deserves better (because she is hot) (check)
7- nerdy guy who doesn't really look so nerdy but is sort of awkward in an endearing way and was the only remotely enjoyable thing about the whole movie (check)
8- that nerdy guy has a crush on the hot chick but it's because the hot chick has a good personality (check)
9- see how deep this character development is going! (check)
10- explosions!!!!! (check)
11- nerdy black guys (they are not racists!) (check)
12- I remember there was some other girl I think and I'm sure she was some sort of awesome character with a lot of depth in the role but I cannot remember right now because I am hopped up on energy drinks and I think I want to watch transformers again wooooowoowowow!!!! (check)
13- BOOM!!! (that's the sound of an EXPLOSION!) (check)
14- subtle product placement that is so subtle you are wondering why they were not also cross promoting the Simpsons movie that was due out the same month you know they could have had Clancy Wiggum rolling down a hill in a beer costume and then the costume could have.......... EXPLODED when it hit a tree at the bottom of the hill.
15- I need to buy a ford mustang (I think that was... EXPLOSIONS!!!! ...what was I thinking about? Do I need a parenthases here? MORE BIG EXPLOSIONS!!!!


I am bored with writing now. I think I will watch Bad Boys 2 now.