David Lynch: "Mulholland Drive" or "Quinoa"

Howl

Here's a copy of the text:

http://members.tripod.com/~Sprayberry/poems/howl.txt

And the video we will watch in class, if you've seen/heard it already... Can't hurt to hear it again.

Amelie, the experience of the self by doing things for others

First, I want to share this random list of facts and details from this movie. I think it's amazing how much was being accounted for, and how much was completely intentional.

http://www.funtrivia.com/en/Movies/Amelie-8538.html

Also, here's a little blurb to get you going:

Amélie is a shy waitress in a Montmartre café. After returning a long-lost childhood treasure to a former occupant of her apartment, and seeing the effect it has on him, she decides to set out on a mission to make others happy and in the meantime pursues a quirky guy who collects discarded photo booth pictures. Written by Anonymous

Post Here about "Pumpkin"

A blurb from the Variety review to get you going on Banooshing ideas:

The story of a "forbidden" romance between a sorority sister and a handicapped young man, "Pumpkin" begins as though the filmmakers imagine that they're making a daringly anti-p.c. serio-comedy, but long before it's over, the picture is wearing its bleeding liberal heart all over its sleeve. Conceptually a sort of "Harold and Maude" with a mentally and physically challenged kid rather than an old lady repping the taboo object of desire, this American Zoetrope production gets along on curiosity value for a while, but becomes increasingly unconvincing and ludicrous as it staggers endlessly toward the finish line. Impressionable girls and connoisseurs of bizarre-lite represent parallel target audiences for this United Artists offering, which should find more viewers down the line on video than in theaters.

Einstein's Dreams

Here are some things to think about when reading this book, and to Banoosh about right here... This is some questions suggested by a teacher named D. Gende and some from me:

1. Why do you think Lightman wrote his novel in the present tense?
What effect does it have on the reader?

2. What was your favorite vignette and why?

3. Which scenario do you think is most different from the version of time that you are used to and why?

4. How do you think being a Physics professor at MIT shaped the feeling of "real science" in this book?

5. Finally, write some conclusions about the questions or experiences given in your favorite vignette of Einstein's Dreams.

This Week's Movies: "Momento" and/or "Hable con Ella"

Plot Summary of Momento

A memory inside a memory, Memento is a complicated head spinning adventure. Leonard is determined to avenge his wife's murder. However, unable to remember anything that happens day-to-day due to a condition he sustained, short term memory loss, he has to write himself note after note that still don't mean anything after he falls asleep. The film goes back in time to reveal each little bit of the puzzle as he tries to find out the person who killed his wife and makes the audience feel just as confused as he is. The narrative closely follows a phone call Pearce has in which he talks about Sammy Jankis a former client of his who he believed had the same condition. The film takes an unexpected twist as the two characters have a lot more in common than is initially put across. Written by gab_b270@hotmail.com


Plot Summary for Hable con Ella

Marco, a journalist grieving for a love affair that ended ten years' ago, falls in love with Lydia, a bullfighter also on the rebound. Benigno, a nurse, dedicates his life to his only patient, a young dancer in a coma as a result of an accident four years' before; he talks to her, reads to her, holds photographs in front of her closed eyes. When Lydia is brought comatose to the hospital where Benigno works, he and Marco become friendly, and the nurse encourages the journalist to talk to her and hope for a miracle. Marco is Sancho to Benigno's Quixote, and as Benigno's hopes for his patient become fantasies, Marco tries to inject reality. Does a miracle await? Written by {jhailey@hotmail.com}

Comment here for "Abre los Ojos"

"Abre los ojos" Plot
An imprisoned man hides his face behind a mask is telling his story, as a flashback, to a psychiatrist: his name is César, he is an orphan but he had inherited a fortune from his parents, and he used to live in a luxurious house of his his own. He was also very handsome and a renowned womanizer. His best friend, Pelayo, was jealous of César because he was not very successful with women. But one night, Pelayo showed up in one of César's parties with a beautiful woman named Sofía. When César met her and talked to her for a while, he began to feel something he had never felt before: love. And, although she was supposed to be Pelayo's girlfriend, he tried to woo her, spending that night at her home. But Nuria, with whom César had his last affair, was very jealous; she went to pick him up in her car the next morning, and committed suicide by crashing into a wall. César survived the crash, but his face was hideously disfigured, his handsome looks gone. Doctors said they couldn't help him. He was very depressed and still in love with Sofía. One night he went out with her and Pelayo, and he felt that they were very uncomfortable with his presence. But the morning after, his luck seemed to change completely: Sofía came to him, saying that it was he whom she really loved, and the doctors called him and told him that, with a revolutionary new technique, they could rebuild his face, which they did. César was happier than ever, but that's when the really strange and scary things started to happen...and César found out that the real nightmare had only just began for him....

Welcome, Nooshers

Assignments for Thursday, September 18: Watch "Abre Los Ojos" - be prepared to 'Noosh. Purchase "Einstein's Dreams."

Course Control Numbers-

1 unit- 78262
2 units- 78010

Introduction to Panooshing as an Environment

"Meaning is in its use." -Wittgenstein

The meaning of Panoosh appears directly through its use; thus, it would be useless to try and outline "what is IS." Because it's everything, and it's nothing.

Words, gestures, expressions come alive only within this Language Game- this culture- this Environment.

Why do we say Panoosh is a "made-up" word? Aren't all words made up in correlation with concepts and things in external reality?

Communication is impossible lest we all agree to agree on certain topics, like colors.

Enter another country and you will experience different customs and laws governing interactions. Upon Panooshing, you agree to operate under the local laws of Chance, Cut-up, Re-invention, and Knowledge Expansion.

Wittgenstein has discussed "private knowledge," in reference to forms of communication only understood by the private users.

Picture a solitary individual, born and raised isolated from the laws of language- how would he/she invent a language? As with Cavemen, inventing one would involve inventing MEANING- and that's exactly what they did.

Or imagine a man who wrote "S" in his diary every time he felt a sensation. This sensation has no neutral expression, and "S" cannot be defined in words. The only judge of whether "S" is used correctly is the inventor of "S."

Panooshing is a sensation, an activity, an experience, and a way of moving about life. Each Panoosher holds a different idea of what it means to Panoosh; but overall, we can agree that its function (as a verb) is to help reconcile the complex outer world with our inner creativity and desire to break out of the general laws (passed down to us through convention/society) and create our own.

Of course, even as I write, I am making use of agreed-upon concepts, but what if I...
pause, stop
destruction of a sentence as it happens
speak in pitter p a t t e r
sunglasses high upon head,
smiling, with poetry in eyes
moving above the clouds and landing back in the sentence I just left off at.

That is to say, Panooshing is not mere "randomness," but rather a purported, directed effort to jump out of the language and laws that entangle us - even if for an hour and a half - and return to society with a greater appreciation of one's own essence.

To put it bluntly, what counts is not what is "true" or "right" (or independent of humans in some universal form), but instead what we can get away with - or get others to accept.

What does Panoosh mean to you?

In the upcoming class, the boundaries of language do run deep, so a majority of our time will be spent doing only body movement as a form of expression.

To rest upon Schopenhaur for a bit- Art is an attempt to communicate to an audience a certain existential angst. Panooshing is the acknowledgment of this angst, but the artful destruction of everything that commonly causes that angst.

Vague city?

Perhaps.

You see, a lot of living can be fundamentally frustration-filled: a mind game with yourself- painful, and confusing. Panooshing seeks to multiply the spontaneous, playful, and unique parts of ourselves that lie dormant underneath a rhetoric of JOBS, FUTURE, PLANS, LABELS, GOALS, STABILITY, and PURPOSE.

Will it be successful? YES, according to your SUCCESS label. Or NO, if you keep your shades comfortably on.

What if the purpose is that there is no purpose, but then even then that is a purpose, so instead we say Cheese.