Examined Life

I was almost going to make this whole post about eggplant water -- yes, eggplant water. Luckily, before I had a chance to peck out how shocking I found my weeping eggplant this afternoon, I ran into a really inspiring film called Examined Life.

I got myself an Austin Film Society membership recently and the movie tonight was my first event (just 4$ for members!!). Firstly I was shocked that the theater was so packed for such a seemingly obscure movie and on a Wednesday night. The only seats left were in the very first row of the whole theater. I was pleased to see up close how large Cornell West's gap is. We are gap-toothed friends.

So it was nice to see that Austinites love their philosophy. Maybe I am in the right city after all. For me it was a bit shocking to see how young some of the philosophers were: Zizek, Judith Butler, Michael Hardt. She seemed to have a pretty simple premise: asking certain philosophers to speak for a time about ethics and meaning as they pertain to the areas of philosophy these people generally concern themselves. They were all pretty ripe to talk and had no problems addressing the camera -- in fact they were for the most part really charismatic and totally captivating.

Zizek was perhaps a scene stealer. His filming was done at a dump. Heavy machinery is shoveling mounds of garbage behind him (very close to him actually) and it's all very loud. Part of the time he has to shout to be heard. Coupled with his orange vest, beard and real intensity, it would be easy to mistake him for a worker there. What I took away was part of what he had to say about ecology. That we are equipped with rational facts about the environment that should cause us to realize we've got a huge (but slowly building) catastrophe on our hands; yet, because in our daily lives we still see trees and birds and relatively clean air we do nothing drastic to solve this looming problem. I think in part he thinks its because its not in our nature to do so. That maybe we play a part in the reality of what ecology is and has always been -- a series of catastrophic events. He also says ecology is the new opium for the masses. And then my brain was happily overwhelmed. I think we was trying to find a way for us to not feel as sorry for how the natural environment is turning out. This didn't make me feel ok. Oh well, I still can't stop myself from wanting to hear more from him.

Another favorite was a conversation with Kwame Anthony Appiah that took place in an airport as he was changing planes. One question was what it means to be cosmopolitan (which is a general challenge for the ever globalizing world). A cosmopolitan is a 'citizen of the world'. Citizens of the world can embrace and appreciate difference without requiring it to conform to something other than what it is.

Also, for anybody who has ever had creative blockage for fear of making something that wasn't perfect or good, Cornell West has a great little spiel about romanticism and dissonance.

I hope you enjoyed this in lieu of my thoughts on eggplant water. Please try to see this movie if you can. It will come out on DVD at some point and there is supposed to be a book that can be purchased to accompany the DVD that will have the rest of the many, many hours of footage with all eight. I don't know more details about where else it will show in Austin though it is supposedly going to get a pretty wide release across the US. The director is Astra Taylor. On a side note, as I was just googling to find a good link for Astra, I discovered that in 2008 she married Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel? Crazy. Though I don't know either party I feel compelled to say 'it's a small world'.