Monthly Archives: September 2017

Damaged can be fixed.

Broken implies irreparable.

There’s a very big distinction between the two. If you live long enough, you’re going to get damaged.

But you’re not broken until you give up.

We all have different tastes – it’s part of what defines us as humans. We are constantly finding new things that interests us (hopefully), often discovering them from someone else. So the equation for this seems pretty simple – we scan our environment for things that seem interesting, we immerse ourselves in the things we like, and we pay little or no attention to the things we don’t like.

But what’s up with all the hate, condescension, and ridicule spewed by trolls for the stuff they don’t like? News flash – If you don’t like it, waste no more of your precious time on it and move on. But to ridicule someone else because they like something you think is shit is the definition of being an asshole. Really? I think we all know what is this about…

There are plenty of things I love that are so ridiculous I sometimes quietly and humorously make fun of myself – but I still own my love for them. I’m well aware that many of them are an “acquired” taste – and that’s OK. I don’t really care what other people think about my personal obsessions, whether it’s art or culture or just ideas. They’re mine and mine alone. Others opinions are irrelevant (unless there is something to be learned) and to even acknowledge them just takes time away I could be spending on something I enjoy. Somewhere along the way I became impervious to assholes.

But let’s be clear: You’re not fooling anyone. You tear others down because you feel small. Period. The real way to make yourself feel better is staring you right in the face. Do something nice for someone else. Think that sounds corny? Try it – you’ve got nothing to lose.

You can thank me by making it a habit…

Art should be mysteriously timeless. It may be loosely associated with the period in history (or the culture) in which it was created – but ultimately it’s power must transcend everything else.

It lives in its own dimension, accessible to all who care to seek it out and receive it gifts.

And when that connection is made – it can change the course of your life.

I am sitting in the break room of my ER eating the delicious dinner my wife made for me (let me take a moment to give thanks and gratitude to her, something I try to do everyday).

There are six people in addition to me, and they are all engaged in a spirited conversation loud enough to hear over each other. Three conversations in three different languages in a small room. I realize I am reading a book on my iPhone in the middle of this glorious cacophony with total concentration. There is a TV blaring on the wall.

As I leave the room I walk around a corner and pass a stretcher occupied by an intoxicated mentally ill woman I know well. She cheerfully greets me by name and I do the same for her. As I pass she resumes her conversation with the security guard across the hall, discussing the merits of a local Thai restaurant.

NYC is a million small towns rolled into one very, very large city. My ER is one of those small towns.

AGI: Artificial General Intelligence, i. e. artificial human intelligence. The more I read about it, the more I think that the question of when (or whether) AI reaches the general level of human intelligence is the wrong question to ask.

Now god knows I’m no expert, just someone who loves learning and thinking about this stuff. I’m currently reading MIT physicist Max Tegmark’s book “Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” It occurs to me that, like most things in life – this is probably not going to turn out the way we expect. AGI is a deep subject, one that is rapidly becoming a very hot topic among among scientists, business leaders, and the military industrial complex. And for good reason – the advent of AGI will either raise us to the next evolutionary step or will represent a final existential threat for humanity.

Humans have dominated the earth for one reason – we have used our intelligence to adapt, achieve our goals, control our environment, and survive. Intelligence trumps everything. We have never come in contact with anything smarter than us, and the irony appears to be that we will now create that superhuman intelligence ourselves. How it will play out is the great question of our time.

In a nutshell, the great fear (or hope) is the moment in which we have created an artificial intelligence equal to our own. Depending on who you are reading, once that occurs, it will only be a matter of hours, days, or weeks before that intelligence has surpassed us – and this process will be exponential. What happens then? Well, for one thing – we will no longer be calling the shots. So, quite understandably, there is now a lot of discussion about safeguards and strategies for keeping Pandora in the box (I think we all know how that turned out). But here’s my thought – we are going to be looking for one thing, when in reality it is going to be something else. We’ll be on high alert for the advent of AGI – and we won’t even see it happening until it’s too late.

Because perhaps there won’t ever be AGI – instead something else will develop that will surpass us. It won’t be a case of “Now computers can accurately model our brains and ability to figure things out.” No, instead AI will create a new form of thinking, of intelligence. One that works by its own rules…

File this under “transcendentally weird cinema” – my first (and subsequent viewings) of the film I am about to discuss gave me the stunned “WTF?” reaction I treasure so dearly. After you’ve been around a while, it gets harder and harder to experience this reaction, if only because you’ve seen and heard so much already. This is probably why I’ve grown to love foreign cinema so much – I get to see stories told through the lens of another culture, and I can’t always tell where things are going. This allows me to watch these films (almost) as though I was a child, which is the absolute best way to experience art. I first saw “This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse” around ten years ago when I stumbled on it during a Halloween movie marathon on PBS of all places…

Where do I even begin? First of all, this is a black and white low budget horror film made in Brazil in 1967. José Mojica Marins is the auteur who wrote, directed, and starred in this masterpiece. The language was the first thing that threw me – when I initially saw it, I didn’t recognize it was Portuguese. This alone made the whole thing seem unique and other worldly – I really had no frame of reference for understanding what was going on, and I couldn’t tell what country it was made in. It turns out that José’s previous film “At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul” (1963) was marketed as Brazil’s first horror film, but I digress…

The movie is really low budget, but quite effective at building a mood. What exactly is that mood? Well, let’s see… Marins plays a character called Zé do Caixão, which roughly translates to Coffin Joe (!) in English. He is an undertaker who wears a black cape with a top hat and has really long fingernails, who is constantly shouting long metaphysical diatribes about how there is no god and how most men are pathetic, inferior creatures. Atheism is a core part of his ethos, so respect to a poor Brazilian filmmaker who decided to build a horror franchise around this concept. He carries himself almost as if he were superhuman, and even though he is not a large man, all of the simple villagers are afraid of him. He has a hunchback assistant who doesn’t seem quite human, and his quest is to find the “perfect” woman to have his son, which will make him immortal. As you might imagine, finding this woman is not easy, so a few get killed in the process.

There are no sets to speak of, so the outdoor scenes are actually filmed in the village. We get to see Coffin Joe walking along a dirt road lined with shacks in full regalia in broad daylight, filmed in grainy black and white 16 mm. It’s so surreal that it is hard to describe, almost like you are watching Nosferatu take an afternoon stroll in a small Brazilian village… This is probably a good time to ponder José’s influences – clearly he had seen the Universal horror films, and probably Nosferatu. But his vision is so completely unique that it’s really difficult to pin down what his touchstones were. The character of Coffin Joe seems like it’s straight out of a graphic novel, except they didn’t yet exist. It seems to be marketed to the Brazilian equivalent of drive-ins, but I really have no idea what kind of distribution this film had or where it was shown. And who makes a low budget Brazilian horror film in 1967 about philosophy, atheism, and surrealism – and then markets it to the poor working class? José Mojica Marins, that’s who!

But I’ve saved the best for last – nothing can prepare you for the surrealistic color sequence in hell that happens three quarters of the way through this fever dream. It really has to be seen to be believed – when I saw it the first time I watched it wide-eyed and slack-jawed, like I was seeing something for which I truly had no frame of reference, and my brain was desperately trying to rewire itself to integrate this new reality.

To say that this isn’t going to be for everyone is probably a bit of an understatement. But if you have any interest in the wild and fascinating history of international horror cinema or outsider art, you owe it to yourself to watch this with an open mind. This is a great example of an artist who is completely committed to realizing his personal vision. What a great inspiration. Bravo and well done, Mr. Marins!

Nothing serious.

Carry on.

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I try to do the right thing.

Sometimes I fail.

I feel terrible.

I think about what I did wrong.

I reflect on how to do better next time.

I forgive myself for being imperfect.

I get back up and move on.

Life is hard, but this is how you get better.