I Heart Huckabees

I suppose I was unfairly biased for “I Heart Huckabees” going into it for two reasons. First, because Mark Wahlberg has been telling everyone he’s a Christian, and I was interested in what sort of cinematic direction that might take him and Second, because my landlords - typical suburban folk - thought it was weird and difficult to understand. We artsy-fartsies enjoy the swelling of pride we get when we can understand something the hoi-polloi finds obscure. When it was over the second time (I watched it with the commentary from the director and two principal characters) I had to conclude that there were a lot of things to like.

It helped that I have started to really believe what I already figured was true - that there’s no need to expect everyone to talk like mamby-pamby anglo church-people, because language is so cultural it’s often used as the dipstick for cultural identity. The broad spectrum of languages out there is more a symbol of our human inability to really communicate with eachother, soul to soul than a standard of moral rectitude. Language is feeble and imperfect. It works a little bit. Sometimes. (Like in the words of this here film review :) But it’s a poor measure for judging what’s really going on inside a person.

This seemingly obvious lesson is pretty important, since the movie starts out with Jason Schwartzmann’s character walking through the forest doing a mental monologue that goes something like this: “fucking asshole cocksucker fuck fuck fuck motherfucker”. Which, of itself, is a pretty harsh earful. However, he goes on to say some more stuff - how he feels like he’s not making any difference, like nothing he does matters, etc. This sets the stage for the whole movie - a film about man’s search for meaning.

Oh, that, one might say. The question. The BIG QUESTION. Been there, done that, tried it, bought the ice cream. Well, yes. But there’s a lot more here for considering, since it’s projected against the backdrop of an environmental activist group butting heads with the disturbingly-lifelike evil department store chain, Huckabees.

This brings up a lot of great points about the environment, but also about the politics of indifference and the now-almost-cliche story of corporate greed generating a willfully self-deceptive false front and soma-fizing the common folk. I won’t ruin the movie for anyone by going into all the specifics here, but I will just say that there is one scene a brilliant critique of the modern suburbanite (Christian) response to environmental issues that makes the whole movie worth not burning. Good thing we don’t have to judge a worldview by all those who espouse it.

The real meat, bones and potatoes of the thing is wrapped around the BIG QUESTION, and through a fusion (or rejection) of both nihilism/narcissism and atheistic universalism, the main character arrives at a startling conclusion. Are you ready for it? Really? Are you sure you should be taking this so lightly? Because I’m about to tell you what this movie says is the meaning of the universe, and if you hear it and think it’s a load of monkey droppings, you’ll have to start all over again. And that could really suck.

OK. Well, if you’re sure. Then here it is, the meaning of life, as taught by “I Heart Huckabees”, according to Joshua Lawrence Barkey:


— We can find a sense of meaning and peace in the midst of chaos, wrongness and existential angst by stripping away the false layers of constructed self which we have used to protect ourselves from others, and then meeting those others in an honest place with self-bankrupt love. This will allow interconnection to grow from “the manure of human troubles”. —


Hmmm.
Yup.
Well.

OK. So. What you’re saying, Mr. David O. Russell (director), is that life has meaning, but only if you let go of your Self (which is a construct that exists because you are afraid of others), accept that life is painful, and love others without fear. Nifty.

I suppose you, dear reader, expect me to tell you what I think of this idea. Allow myself to repeat.... myself. I’m here on this site to explore - not explain. What pleases me the most about this movie is that it asks important questions and looks at important issues. I’m glad it exists, because it challenges people to think about things that really matter - to look past the narrow scope of this mortal coil. As you may have guessed, getting people to think is something of a hobby of mine as well, so it’s nice to have smart, good-looking people helping out. This movie is funny, interesting, odd, vulgar, and sometimes more naughty than nice, but if you give it a fair chance, it might just get your brain working. Have a smashing day, and feel to write and tell me you think I’m an idiot. Or not.

about time

Now that I've written that title, "about time", I'm not sure whether I should write about how negligent I've been in not updating, or about the actual concept of "time".

Since I don't feel like excusing myself, and to get all philosophical would require me to think while my puppy whines incessantly in the kitchen to be let outside, I think I'll just have to skip all that and write instead about the word "negligent".

Although, on second thought, I'm a better entomologist than etymologist, so I think I'll just tell you about my three favorite insects (they're "insects", you see - not bugs. get it right).

OK. My first favorite insect is a velvet beetle. For sheer creative awesomeness, this one takes the cake. To begin with, its big: about three inches from head to thorax. It has antennae that shoot out forward from its head and then wrap all the way around its body and around its butt. But that's not the half of it - the velvet beetle is covered by swirling red and black patterns formed in a substance that feels - surprise, surprise - exactly like velvet! Frickin' awesome.

Second, we have the tarantula wasp, a black and gold monster that looks like a slow-motion hummingbird when its coming at your head. This spawn of satan mothers in a most unusual way: it attacks and stuns a tarantula and lays its eggs in the inert body. Then it flys away and leaves the poor arachnid to wake up and go on its way, thinking things are fine. They most definitely are not. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the spider from the inside-out, saving the vitals for last so their food stays super fresh. Disturbing? Yes. Nifty? Absolutely.

On to my third favorite insect, which is the leaf-cutter ant. Taken one at a time, they're nothing to shake your hat at: a centimeter long, reddish, and ant-looking. They don't even have a stinger. What they do have is beefy jaws that can cut through crazy-thick leaves. These little munchkins live in massive colonies under the ground. They cut trails through anything green across the forest floor in all directions to trees, which they then proceed to nakify. These small ants cut pieces of leaf twenty times their size and weight and take them back to special underground chambers, where they're then chewed up and used to farm yummy yummy fungus. Sometimes a big ant will even have a little ant hitching a ride on a piece of leaf, to protect it from aphids (nasty brutes). It's almost impossible to describe the experience of watching a bazillion of these buggers going at it, working day and night and absolutely stripping big old trees.

So, that's it then. My favorite insects. Aren't you glad you checked in? I know I am.

By the way, my ebay sales are ending this week. Down with stress!

selling myself

Because of the inherent arrogance of "blogging" (look at me, I have something to say!), every time I make a new entry I feel a gut-pain that somewhere, out there, is someone who'd have read and enjoyed my last entry if only I'd left it on for a second or two more. But I shall plow ahead.

This update is really just that, an update. I'm writing for the express purpose of telling you, my eager reading audience, that this weekend, starting Friday, I will be consecutively releasing four painting to the EBay auction world. I am doing this because I've grown ridiculously fond of eating over the years, so I'm going to expand my patronage-base.

If you care to watch, just go to EBay search for Joshua Barkey.

If you'd care to tell me how EBay is a dark and insidious manifestation of capitalism, make a comment.

me, me, me

The real problem, as I see it, is not the specific consumer choices that I've chosen to poke fun of in some of my more recent paintings, but rather the unspoken, unquestioned attitudes behind these choices. Rampant consumerism is a source (or at least an agitator) of all sorts of problems in our culture. The advertising industry breeds discontent and encourages us to buy our way into meaningfullness. It capitalizes on our baser longings and tells us that posessions will complete us.

This attitude is predicated on a culture founded on "enlightened" humanistic individualism which, while pretending to be all about the "actualization of boundless human potential", in reality is a fanatical religion of selfishness. Everyone is encouraged to do what is right in their own eyes on the assumption that the collective result will be goodness and joy. But you know what assuming does, don't you? It makes an ASS of U and ME!

We are taught, without any further instruction, to look out for number one, and thereby end up living in a way that diminishes even ourselves. Why? Because while we do indeed have the potential for awesome goodness, our predisposition is to be naughty, naughty, naughty all the time.

The solution? Hah! You think that's the purpose of this website - to tell you answers? Oh, you silly, silly person. In the words of my friend Charles, "explore, not explain". Of course, I've got my own ideas, and if you really want to know, you can write me, I suppose. I may or may not tell you.

editor's note: it as come to my attention, via the propagator of the tyao website, that assuming does something beyond that mentioned in the aforead blurb - it also sends a mixed-up emu after your ass).