Posts

Posted on

Mysterious Skin

Though I’ve long been intrigued by trailers and reviews, I’ve failed to see any of Gregg Araki’s movies until “Mysterious Skin.” What I’ve missed in the past is not likely to be as remarkable and utterly affecting as “Skin,” which is easily the best movie I’ve seen so far this year.

Centered around troubled Kansas teens Brian and Neil, who shared a life-changing experience in the summer of 1981, the film leads inevitably towards their devastating reunion ten years later.

As an eight-year-old Little Leaguer, Neil (boldly played by “Third Rock From the Sun’s” Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was lured into a sexual relationship with his coach when he was eight years old. His voiceover narration makes clear that he was always attracted to men and was happy and proud to be so liked by “Coach,” who, remembered purely in flashbacks (it seems the movie was set in the 1980’s purely to salute that golden era for mustaches) is a kindly and likable figure (it’s up the audience to feel conflicted). The experience leaves Neil with a taste in older men that leads to him turning tricks that grow increasingly dangerous.

Likewise abused, Brian (Brady Corbet) blocked out the experience and finds only one logical explanation for his missing time: alien abduction. Whereas Neil grows up to be a jaded loner with self-destructive sexual impulses, Brian becomes a lonely geek with no clear sexual desires. Brian’s efforts to document dreams and repressed memories dredge up details Little League uniforms and another little boy that lead to his encounter with Neil, which brings the film to an abrupt end.

Neil remembers everything and fills in Brian, whose own memories come back in a flood as he recoils into a fetal position on Neil’s lap (Corbet’s performance is affecting). Neil, for his part, in voiceover, expresses regret and remorse that cast his whole narrative during the previous 100 minutes in question and leaves the audience reeling as the credits roll.

Posted on

Archives in the Digital Age

I’ve been asked to speak at Si Gerson’s memorial on Friday. In order to dig a little deeper into the Stanley Isaacs controversy and the Cacchione succession fight, I paid a visit to the Tamiment Library at NYU in order to look through Si’s personal files. The library has not yet had the opportunity to catalogue and file the 15 boxes of files that were donated this Spring, a few months after Si’s passing. Amazingly, I was able to find the files I was looking for quickly and easily.

Like most lefties with a long view, Si kept files for his own reference and for posterity. It’s all filed away by content type (articles, photographs, correspondence) and by subject. He’s got incoming and outgoing correspondence, thanks to the modern miracle of carbon paper. I recall corresponding with Si over CoFOE matters and thinking his typewritten, carbon-copied letters were anachronistic in the internet age. But, then, those letters were easily located, neatly filed away at the Tamiment library, and it’s made me worry about my own archives.

I’ve got so little saved on paper. I’ve regularly forwarded my files to Steve Rossignol, the Socialist Party’s archivist, who passes on material that becomes old enough to Duke University, but most of my files are on computer hard disk. I’ve managed to transfer files from hard drive to hard drive for about eight years now, but some hard drives have gotten lost along the way.

I have kept my computer files in a reasonable order (Free advice: incorporate the date, subject and recipient into the file name – such as 050211newsday_walmart.doc for a letter to Newsday regarding Wal-Mart written on February 11, 2005 – How else are you gonna keep all those Wal-Mart files straight over the years?), but hard drives fail and file formats change. Who’s to say any of this binary code gibberish will have any meaning sixty years hence?

More immediately, I’m concerned about the bulk of my correspondence, which is via e-mail. Beginning in 1998, I began saving incoming e-mails that I deemed important. In 2002, I began saving all outgoing e-mail, and in 2003, I began saving all incoming e-mail that wasn’t about Rolex watches, bigger penises, larger cumloads and moms I’d like to fuck.

The problem with saving e-mail is that you can’t really save it as discrete files (unless you’re completely anal and spend so much time filing correspondence that you don’t actually live a life worth documenting). It just gets saved as a big blob of a file that is forever associated with your e-mail program. For many years, my e-mail program of choice was Netscape, until buggy crashes and a huge archive of saved mail made it my program of no-choice. I’ve recently switched to Thunderbird, but almost wish I hadn’t. No e-mail program worth a damn seems to be able to import these files, and no program seems to be able to properly save and store my correspondence archives.

I’m seriously thinking about buying some carbon paper and dusting off an old typewriter, just like Si would have done.

Posted on

Bigger, Faster, Harder: Organize My Teeming Masses, Baby!

The New York Times has published yet another of its series of articles encapsulating developments in the power struggle within the labor federation. It’s hard to express how disappointed I am in how this debate has degenerated. What started out as an exciting difference of opinion on the way forward for organizing masses of new union members, taking on Corporate America and winning huge gains for working families has wound up being just another acrimonious electoral campaign.

First, there’s John Sweeney, who, as a public speaker may be as electrifying as dirt, but is nevertheless responsible for a minor renaissance that saved “Big Labor” from a premature death in the mid-1990’s, and who would have been looked back upon fondly by historians for sparking the resurgence in labor’s fortunes that we all hope is just around the corner. Though he promised to serve just ten years when first elected in 1995 and even once attempted to amend the AFL-CIO’s constitution to mandate the retirement of officers who have reached 70 years of age, Sweeney, at 71, is actively dismantling his legacy in order to serve one more term (the history of such power struggles suggests that he should have rode off into the sunset and handed the reins to his #2, the widely-liked Richard Trumka). The Organizing Institute will be greatly scaled back. The Union Summer program (one of the only youth-focused union programs) will be scrapped altogether. And 30% of the AFL-CIO’s staff will be “downsized” in a mean-spirited effort to placate the opposition.

The opposition, meanwhile, has backed off their most radical plans for forcing mergers and jurisdiction consolidation. Their newest proposal basically calls for the Federation to do what the Sweeney administration did, but faster and harder, while shrinking its budget by diverting more money to the international unions whose intransigence and selfish agendas have undercut the goals of Sweeney, et. al.

My crude “faster, harder” double entendre is apt since, at the “Future of Labor Conference” at Queens College last Fall, SEIU Exec. VP Gerry Hudson boldly posited that “bigger is better” when it comes to union structure.

Harvard professor Elaine Barnard’s snarky rebuttal that “it’s not the size of the boat, but the motion in the ocean” should be even more appreciated now. While the various union presidents have beaten each other bloody over issues of personality and structure, an opportunity has been lost to wrestle with the labor movement’s strategy and message. Should we engage in large scale campaigns against major corporations to organize low-paid workers? Should we break with the Democratic party? Should we commit resources to the south or focus on improving laws in the northeast? Strengthen and improve international alliances and third-world coalitions?

Or should we replace a bunch of old white guys with a different bunch of not-quite-as-old guys and just keep doing what we’ve been doing, except faster, harder and with less dissent?

Proudly powered by WordPress