Linotype: The Film
February 7, 2012
Last week I enjoyed the chance to see the premiere of Linotype, Doug Wilson's new documentary about the automated typecasting machine that revolutionized the twentieth-century printing industry.
I have been fascinated with the Linotype for years, ever since I had the chance to use one briefly at the Firefly Press (whose proprietor John Kristensen makes an appearance in the film). When I first got wind of this film, however, I couldn't help but wonder how they would a) find a market for it, and b) make an interesting story out of an antiquated machine that has long since outlived its usefulness.
As to the first question, I was pleased to see a full house for the screening at SVA, including host Steven Heller who conducted a Q&A with the filmmakers afterwards. A roomful of type geeks may not a blockbuster make, but at least these guys found enough of a following out there to get the film made (apparently with a substantial boost from Kickstarter). Here's hoping that momentum continues to build for them.
As to the question of interestingness, the film more than surpassed my admittedly modest expectations. Wilson wisely avoided the stultifying conventions of traditional historical documentary, focusing instead on interviewing a handful of living, often gloriously eccentric modern Linotype enthusiasts: the 85 year-old deaf typecaster in Iowa, the hipster typecaster in Brooklyn, and the self-taught son of a junkman turned founder of the only Linotype school in the country. The film makes a compelling case for these artisans as artists, toiling in noble anonymity just as their predecessors did for the better part of a century, bringing the printed word to life for generations of readers.
The breakout star of the film may just be Carl Schlesinger, the retired New York Times Linotype operator who had the foresight to shoot some footage of the last day of the Times' Linotype, ultimately released in the late 1970s as a documentary called Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu (and the source of some invaluable footage for this one). Carl attended the screening, and afterwards joined with the other retired Linotype operators in attendance to receive a long-deserved standing ovation.
"Linotype: The Film" Official Trailer.
Crazy Wisdom
December 16, 2011
Earlier this week I finally had the chance to see Crazy Wisdom, Johanna Demetrakas' long-awaited documentary about Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, attending a screening at the Rubin Museum followed by a Q&A with Robert Thurman.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should acknowledge having made a couple of small financial contributions to this project while the filmmakers were trying to get it off the ground. And having spent a fair amount of time in and around the Shambhala community, I can hardly claim to be an impartial reviewer. Like countless other people, I have been captivated by the depth and profundity of Trungpa Rinpoche's teaching. That said, I have never felt obliged to tow any particular party line about some of the more controversial aspects of his legacy: the prodigious drinking, sexual escapades and the sometimes cult-like atmosphere that sprang up around him. And so I have often found myself wrestling with this film's central question: How could an ostensibly enlightened being act this way?
Alas, anyone approaching this film hoping to form some kind of solid judgment about Trungpa Rinpoche will likely come away disappointed. And I suspect that's more-or-less what Demetrakas intended. While the film certainly veers towards presenting Trungpa Rinpoche in a favorable light - I think the Times was probably right to opine that it "loves its subject too well" - it never descends into outright hagiography. And I was glad to see the film doesn't shy away from addressing some of the troubling aspects of his life, although it does perhaps skate past a few of the more shocking episodes (the Great Naropa Poetry Wars come to mind). Then again, it probably would have been easy enough to gather several films' worth of outlandish stories about Trungpa Rinpoche, without ever getting to the point of explaining why he really mattered: namely, his teaching.
The film does a wonderful job of capturing Trungpa Rinpoche at his luminous best in some of his early lectures; I only wish we had seen more of him in the act of teaching. Instead, the film leans heavily on the present-day recollections of his close students, who of course tend to remember him fondly; it certainly would have been interesting to hear at least a couple of dissenting views. For the most part, however, Demetrakas manages to steer clear of the pat explanations that one sometimes hears around the Shambhala community: that every single thing he did was enlightened activity, that such a realized master cannot be judged in terms of conventional morality, or that he somehow took on the neuroses of his students. While there might well be some truth to those perspectives, they also strike me as suspiciously lazy arguments.
I prefer to think of Trungpa Rinpoche's life as a kind of koan, one that doesn't lend itself to easy answers or fixed views. So I was glad to hear Pema Chodron and Diana Mukpo's frank admissions that they found him inspiring and, at times, baffling. This is more-or-less how I feel about him myself. And while I felt the film could have struck a more even-handed note, nonetheless I admired the way it managed to leave his legacy open to contemplation rather than trying to solidify around a particular interpretation.
In the follow-on Q&A session, Robert Thurman rose to a daunting occasion, expressing his admiration for Trungpa's gifts in no uncertain terms - singling out Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
In response to a question about whether Trungpa Rinpoche may have fallen victim to "self-deception" in his relation to alcohol, Thurman met the elephant in the room head-on, saying that he felt Trungpa Rinpoche may indeed have deluded himself about his alcohol use. He also suggested that some of his students may have borne some responsibility as enablers, arguing that students sometimes have an obligation to "go beyond" the guru yoga practice of viewing the teacher as an enlightened being to recognize the earthly needs of a fellow human being in danger (in fairness, the film did point out that a few of his closest students pleaded with him repeatedly to curtail his drinking). He likened the situation to letting the Dalai Lama get behind the wheel of a car: the student would be foolish to assume that his teacher's bad driving amounted to enlightened activity, and in fact a truly devoted student would probably have an obligation to intercede.
There was an interesting back-and-forth with one of Trungpa Rinpoche's former students in the audience, who asked whether it was perhaps necessary for him to die young (like his close friend Suzuki-roshi) in order for the teachings to fully blossom in the West. Thurman acknowledged that possibility, but also likened that argument to the rationale you sometimes hear that the Chinese did the world a favor by invading Tibet, because it triggered the spread of Tibetan Buddhism to the West; he challenged that perspective, suggesting that Tibetan Buddhism might well have found other routes to the West without Tibetans having to pay such an excruciating price.
Another questioner asked whether Trungpa's drinking could be seen as a lesson in accepting and even embracing one's own human frailties. While acknowledging the Buddhist point of view that we are all in some sense already enlightened, Thurman took exception to the "I'm OK/You're OK" interpretation of Buddhism, claiming for a moment to speak on behalf of Trungpa Rinpoche when he told the student (and I'm paraphrasing here): "Yes, you're perfect, and you could also use a little improvement."
Amen to that, sir.
Winnebago Man
October 22, 2011
On a Friday night Netflix whim, we punched up Winnebago Man, Ben Steinbauer's 2010 documentary about Jack Rebney, the famously pissed-off RV spokesman whose outtake reel attracted a devoted underground following among the film school set and, more recently, across the Intertubes.
What seems like a thin premise for a documentary - tracking down the real life Rebney, twenty years on - turns out to be a surprisingly engaging journey into one man's search for authenticity.
When Steinbauer eventually finds Rebney - living far off the grid in a mobile home near the foot of Mount Shasta - the old man presents himself as a kind of forest yogi, leading a simple life with his dog named Buddha and speaking in tranquil, reflective tones as he looks back with bemused detachment on his former self.
Ben goes away disappointed, wondering whether the oddball character he had hoped to find was just a phantom of his YouTube-fueled imagination.
Just when the film seems on the verge or petering out, it takes a refreshing turn for the weird. Jack calls back to make a confession: he was faking the whole peace-and-love bit. The real Rebney, as it turns out, is every bit the crochety old sonofabitch that Steinbauer imagined. Ben returns to get the real story, and Jack in turn sets out to make his would-be biographer's task close to impossible. As Jack gets more and more difficult, the movie gets better and better.
There's a Buddhist saying that if one wants to progress quickly on the spiritual path, it's best to study with a wrathful master. Steinbauer seems to have found the perfect teacher in Rebney, whose initial attempt at projecting a Yoda-like facade of peace and calm stands in sharp contrast to the authentic pain-in-the-ass that manifests in the second half of the film.
When the story culminates with Rebney making an appearance at a film screening in San Francisco, he rises to the occasion. Bantering with the crowd, he comes across as endearingly pissed-off, like everyone's cranky grandfather. He seems to have found a way to befriend his anger, not by suppressing it but by inhabiting it fully, and inviting everyone to enjoy the spectacle. And the crowd loves him for it.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's once suggested that the sure
sign of realization is the willingness to make a fully display of one's neuroses. By that standard, the Winnebago Man may just be a true yogi after all.
And now, a word from Jack:
A Week in Mailer Country
June 28, 2011
Norman Mailer once described Provincetown as "the wild west of the east." And while the town has doubtless changed much in the sixty years since Mailer first roamed the dunes - drinking, brawling and screwing his way around town, while completing some of his best work along the way - the place still retains some of the loose, wild energy that has long attracted artists, writers and other misfits to its looping shores.
This was my first time here, so I felt particularly fortunate that my introduction should come by way of the Norman Mailer Writers' Colony, where I've spent the past week participating in a workshop on historical narrative with the brilliant and gregarious Charles Strozier.
Having admired Mailer (warts and all) for many years, I enjoyed spending a week in his old living room in the company of other writers, working out our various kinks while sitting caddycorner from the bar where he used to drink his single-malt scotch looking out over the panoramic views of the bay.
In the workshop we explored how to weave historical context into a story, with Mailer himself providing the context for the week (grounding our discussion in Armies of the Night
It's been four years since Mailer passed away, but the man's presence felt as pervasive as the sea air drifting in through the windows. Mailer's biographer Mike Lennon joined us on the first afternoon to share stories of his 40 year friendship with Mailer, walking us around the house where his books were still on the shelves, his paintings on the walls, and his piles of notes sitting on his desk just as he left them.
Mailer distrusted technology, and his attic study reflects that conviction: with no sign of a computer or even a typewriter (though he did have a perfunctory fax machine in the back of the room). Nor did he allow himself an air conditioner even in the sweltering summer heat (Lennon explained that Mailer disliked air conditioners as much as he disliked word processors, preferring to "sweat it out" while he wrote everything out in longhand).
On the last night we gathered for a cocktail party on the deck overlooking the bay, followed by a late dinner at Shay's, one of Mailer's longtime haunts. Over beer and lobster we had the good fortune of meeting a server who had waited on Mailer's table for some two decades. She shared her recollections of the man, who in his later years apparently developed a rabid fondness for oysters, as a tonic for the once-Priapic novelist's shrinking member. She told us how Mailer and his wife Norris would pore over the oyster shells after they ate them, as though reading tea leaves, looking for the likeness of faces in the shells. When they found an auspicious shell, they would take them home and collect them in a glass vase back at the house, where they sit to this day.
The waitress also told us how Mailer got crankier as the years went by, in the way that old men do. One had the sense of someone describing a beloved but cantankerous old uncle: a man she clearly admired and yet often found exasperating. Which, come to think of it, is about how I feel about Mailer too. The man was a near-genius capable of prophetic revelation. Yet, like Henry Miller, he was also capable of incredibly bad writing and susceptible to moral lapses. His greatest successes were often followed by painful personal failures. As Lennon put it, he lived in close contact with his contradictions, always in touch with what he called "the minority within."
Perhaps this why I have always felt so drawn to Mailer. For me, he provides the context of a writer who embraced his imperfections, sometimes transcending them, sometimes flaming out in spectacular fashion, but always persevering, sweating it out to the end.
84000
June 13, 2011
For the past several months, I've been working with a team of talented volunteers to launch 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, a new global initiative to translate the Tibetan Buddhist canon into English.
Given the widespread popular interest in Buddhism in recent years, I was surprised to learn that fewer than 5% of classical Tibetan Buddhist texts have ever been translated into English. With the continuing decline of classical Tibetan in the wake of the post-1959 Tibetan diaspora, there is a real risk that some of these powerful teachings may be lost to posterity unless we act quickly to preserve them.
This project stemmed from an international translators' conference, convened in 2009 by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Since then, an extended team of teachers, translators and scholars have been working hard to get the effort off the ground. The current Web site is just the first step in a more ambitious untertaking to build an online "reading room" that will allow Web visitors to peruse the collection of translated texts as they become available over the next few years.
There's much more to be done, but thanks to my fellow volunteers (with a special shout-out to the folks from Milton Glaser's office and Hot Studio), I'm happy to report that the project Web site is now up and running:
84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha
GLUT:
Mastering Information Through the Ages
NOW IN PAPERBACK
“A penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on the information age and its historical roots.”
—Los Angeles Times
