Watching "Body of War"

I'm halfway through "Body of War" on the Sundance Channel, and it's a heart breaker, worth the time to watch it. If you don't get Sundance, and you can't find a copy, you can purchase it online (if you purchase it from Pearl Jam.com, and 25 percent of the DVD sale will go to Tom Young, the injured vet who is the focus of the film).

I've got to say that the care with which this is handled is amazing. There's sensitivity and there's even some humor that comes through from those involved. What's most impressive - and distressing - is how elegantly and succinctly group-think worked in regards to the Iraq war. One of the amazing things about the documentary process is the moment where editing shows you just how pervasive the rhetoric was: the President, then senators, then us, repeating the same phrases as though saying them enough, loud enough could make them true.

There's an image that was just shown of a widow keeping watch over the body of her husband the night before his funeral, and it brought tears to my eyes. It's followed by the voice over of the President joking at a press dinner about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction. And then the realization that those who made the call were insulated from its effects.

It's distressing to see just how many times the question "What will it cost?" is asked, and how often the full range of what a war might cost - the costs beyond dollars and cents - was never even part of the discussion.

I won't tell you much more about it, but I do strongly encourage you to give it a viewing.

The Return

After a 6 a.m. flight, giant winds, and obnoxious tourists, I've returned. Waiting for me was a rejection letter from #1 School on my list. To be fair, this feels like progress, as last year I received nothing from them and am only certain they had my materials because I called to make certain of it after not hearing anything for what felt like much too long.

But the trip home was pretty good. I do finally have proof that I have a grand niece, though in form true to my family, I only managed to see her for 10 minutes after a series of events that could be prevented if that segment of the family could only be bothered to live life on this side of the grid long enough to actually know their own address. For those of you who are curious, here she is: my niece Antoinette. Having received a billion cards (okay, maybe seven) from friends with pictures of their kids, this seems fair as it's as close as I'm going to come for the foreseeable future.

I also got numerous discs, the best of which right now (at least overall) was probably Spoon's "Ga ga ga ga ga" (though the best song I've heard is probably Les Savy Fav's "Patty Lee"). I also got halfway through a movie called "Black Sheep" that was embarrassingly funny to the point that the rental DVD stopped working. It should arrive shortly from Netflix.

Now I have two syllabi to write in time for the start of classes, plus the impending start of the book this term. And, of course, I need to sit down and start answering all those e-mails I haven't answered over the break and catch up on blog reading which I entirely ignored while I was away.

My New Blog Game: An Introduction

It's near the end of the term for many of us. And a lot of folks are freaking out about the job market, the holidays, the cost of gas and what not. It is clearly time for a break. And so I'm calling time out for a little brain candy. Tell your friends. It's practically Friday (or it will be by the time most of you read this). Come on over to Curmudgeon's 'cause he's got a new way to pass the time.

But first, some general theoretical buildup by way of a tease.

Recently, I was talking with my students about how interesting I find the study of genre. And I was surprised to see how much they seemed to loathe the topic. Active disinterest, sure, but to actually have to commit to a stance?

Shocking.

Naturally, I tried to explain to them that genre is so interesting to me because it manages at once to show us a formula that we culturally recognize even as we dispute that formula as universal. We know a Western, as they say, but we can't come up with an exclusive list of what movies count or what things make that genre happen (Is it the coloring of the film? Sometimes. Is it gunfights and the horses? Maybe. Is "Firefly" a Western? Depends on who you ask.).

Genre, I said, represents a moment of both cultural agreement and of cultural dispute. When a genre is born, it is almost immediately contested. When we're presented with a genre, we know what to expect and what is expected of us, in turn.

And, perhaps more importantly (and probably more amusingly), once a genre emerges, we can turn the genre on itself. Sometimes we do it to take advantage of particular features (the way "Blade Runner" exploits the film noir formula to do something different with a science fiction story and in talking about man's relationship with machines) or to point out the conceits of the form (the way "Hot Fuzz" does with the buddy cop film).

And some things that have happened on the interweb have had me thinking about genre as well. Just what had me thinking will be apparent tomorrow when I post the second part of the game. To help demonstrate how conceited and formulaic the item in question has become, I have constructed a sample text but removed certain central phrases from it. If I'm right, simply supplying new elements will yield perfectly acceptable results (or at least humorous ones). So be patient for the explanation and indulge me in a game of Mad Libs. In the comments, if you feel like playing, give me the following:

• what your nemesis would title your biography
• the name of a degree or achievement
• a gift you wish you'd been given at graduation
• something you're interested in that no one else is
• a noun
• an adjective
• something you've lost (or at least never found)

Be warned, this is an experiment and may not work perfectly. If all goes well, I'll post your responses tomorrow, and we can vote for the best one (and possibly nominate it for publication).