First of all, the racial politics of King Kong are deeply, deeply disturbing. And I cannot believe that no one has commented on this (at least not in any reviews I've read). This notable silence signifies to me that there is a serious delusion prevailing in American culture that racism has been quelled to the point that perpetuating racial stereotypes is all fine and good because, of course(!), everyone understands that stereotypes aren't real and are just used for effect. Sure, the silly portrayal of the Chinese cargo foreman was mostly redeemed by the excellent performance by Evan Parke as Hayes, the articulate, heroic African American first mate (who, of course, dies), but there is nothing in the film that can make me forgive the incredibly insulting representation of the island natives. You know, many civilized early cultures performed human sacrifice rituals. Just because they're giving Naomi Watts to Kong doesn't mean they have to act like psychotic, savage animals, incapable of speech beyond screeching incoherently or mumbling incantations, and with their eyes rolled back in their heads so that only the whites show in stark contrast to the coal-blackness of their skin (which looks, although I can't be certain, to be greased and darkened for further effect). I mean, really. Peter Jackson, what the fuck were you thinking? It's sad to think that the portrayal of the native islanders in the 1933 version--where they're actually capable of having a conversation--is less problematic than their portrayal in 2005.
And while I'm bitching about the island scenes, did anyone else feel that the whole sacrifice mise-en-scene looked a little too much like the castle siege set from The Lord of the Rings?
Okay, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now, onwards...
I thought Naomi Watts was brilliant, and Adrien Brody was pretty good, too, in a quiet, understated sort of way that was refreshing in contrast to all the flashy imagery. Jack Black irritated the hell out of me, to the point that when he first came on screen I thought: Am I really going to be able to sit through 3 hours of this guy? Speaking of length, I know that Peter Jackson is overcome with rapture for his own brilliance and the magical power of special effects, but 3 hours was just too long. Not because I can't sit still for 3 hours--I was more than willing to do so with the LotR trilogy, for example, because the stories warranted the time (for the most part)--but because at least an hour, if not more, of the film was, quite simply, gratuitous, flashy posturing.
After about the quadrillionth time Black and his merry band of expendable anti-heroes was beset upon by stampeding brontosaurs, attacked by excessively large insects or eaten by grotesquely slimly twelve-foot long water worms and about the hundredth time Watts was either carried in one of Kong’s hands as he galloped through the forest (um, all of her bones would be broken twenty times over because of the sheer impact of his knuckles hitting the forest floor with her inside whether he was deliberately squeezing or not) or protected from raging T-Rex’s and other hungry dinosaurs, bats, bugs, etc., I was ready to scream.
It could have been shorter, with less special effects for the sake of special effects and more narrative depth, and it would have been a good remake. Instead, it illustrated the core of what is wrong with Hollywood films today—a concentration on the visual which exceeds even the pretence of an interest in the story—and April and I spent at least an hour after the film bitching heatedly. I can honestly say that I have never come out of the cinema so thoroughly incensed.
On the upside—and so you don’t think I’m anti-special effects entirely (I just think they should be used for a purpose not just because you can)—Kong was a remarkable creation; his features were beautiful and realistic and obviously crafted from actual images of gorillas. And the story was beautiful and poignant in spite of its exceptionally discomfiting, exhausting and ostentatious rendering. But when Black delivered (badly, I might add) the final line—“It wasn’t the airplanes; it was beauty killed the beast”—I had to fight the impulse to jump angrily out of my seat and yell at the screen, “No, you bastard. It was the airplanes, and your fucking patriarchal, colonialist, pompous ass that killed Kong. She could have stayed or even left the island with you and everything would have been okay if you hadn’t decided to drag poor Kong back to New York City for show and tell. Argh!”
Sadly, what the film brought home to me to me most was that many people, once they catch sight of power or money or fame, will stop at nothing to achieve it. Along the way, they will sacrifice the lives of others for some fanciful notion of adventure or honor or glory that doesn’t truly exist, and they will gallantly destroy “monsters” in the name of the public or the nation or the common good, claiming that they are fighting for everyone, that the enemy is savage, when it really is an enemy of their own design, a monster that they themselves created.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Sunday, January 08, 2006
ten ways of looking at a tooth (or teeth, as the case may be)
For all who are interested (or for those of you who have nothing better to do than read about my dental work), I present the epic chronicle of my wisdom teeth and their extraction (don’t ask why, I have no idea why this struck me as an interesting, or even worthy, topic, but, if nothing else, maybe someone nervous teenager will come across it while mining Google one day for information on wisdom tooth extraction, and my testimony will then be of some use to the general populace…I’m good at making excuses for my oddness, no?):
1. For many years, my dentist and my dental hygienist have been all but pestering me to get my wisdom teeth removed. “They’ll cause you problems,” they said. “They’ll eventually crowd your teeth,” they implored. But, due to a stubborn (perhaps misguided?) conviction regarding not having unnecessary surgery and my father’s counsel (“Dentists have been telling me for thirty years to have my wisdom teeth removed, and they’ve never bothered me!”), I held fast.
[Note about dentists and dental hygienists: they are incredibly maligned. I know many people are afraid of dentists (my own dear girlfriend included), and I really can’t begrudge them for it because there are some very scary and mean dentists out there. But, if you think about it, dentists and hygienists are mostly very well-trained; they have to do hard, thankless work (I mean, really, who wants to poke around in the mouth’s of strangers for hours at a time?); many dentists, especially oral surgeons, have as much training as most doctors and have to be as qualified; and yet everybody hates them. Personally, my dental hygienist, Bonnie, has always been extremely kind, gentle and courteous, and I feel that, at the risk of being an extreme dork, that a shout-out for hygienists and dentists (the good ones, at least) is necessary. I’m also impressed by the technological advances in dentistry, because tooth-aches suck (in short) and I can’t imagine have to chew cloves forever or go to some crazy neighbor with a good pair of pliers (what I fear qualified as dentistry in the past) to have it taken care of.]
2. About a year ago, my wisdom teeth started to cut through my gum line. Every few months, one of them would get a little pushy and start sneaking it’s way towards the surface. The pain was bearable, a little irritating, but it would go away in a few days, so I still wasn’t convinced by my dentist’s advice.
3. A few months ago, I started to realize that my teeth seemed to be shifting (the normal ones) to accommodate the ever-encroaching wisdom teeth (especially the one on the right that was coming in sideways). Ever so slightly, but even so it was disconcerting. And I developed pockets of gum tissue that would occasionally become infected (although I didn’t realize this is what was happening until recently) and I constantly had to be wary lest food get trapped in the pockets. This and the perplexing (and disturbing) shifting of my other teeth frustrated me enough that I decided I would ask my dentist if his offer was still open the next time I came home.
4. A few days before Christmas, I went to the dentist, reported my decision and, by the time my hour-long visit had concluded, I had an appointment for just after New Years with an oral surgeon and a blue referral sheet and panoramic X-ray in hand. They work fast, these dentist people.
5. Two days after New Years, I reported to the oral surgeon with girlfriend and mother in tow. I was very nervous and a bit irritable because I was hungry. I wasn’t supposed to eat anything because of the anesthetic and since my appointment was at 2pm, I had gone the whole morning and part of the afternoon without food or water. I’m sure April and my parents got tired of my whining earlier that morning, but were too polite to say anything--sweet of them, since I was starting to irritate myself (I obviously wouldn’t handle fasting very well).
6. Moments before the surgery, the doctor explained to me the risks of the procedure while April, who was supposed to stay with me in the room during the prep and then leave before they actually began any of the real work, grew paler and paler in her assigned corner. I don’t think she was taking well to the whole dental experience--probably having flashbacks and cringing visibly whenever she would hear a drill from one of the neighboring rooms. Then, she sent April to the waiting room, and the doctor and nurses gathered around me. I had some weird sort of fear of the IV and the fact that they were putting me under general anesthesia, but in retrospect I’m so glad I wasn’t awake. The laughing gas they put me on—I guess to calm me down before putting in the IV and really putting me under—was extremely disconcerting (not amusing at all), but I barely felt the prick of the needle in my hand and moments later I was out like the proverbial light.
7. About an hour later, I began to wake up and April tells me (although I do not have any memory of this) that, waiting in the recovery room, I proceeded to tell her (over and over and over) the same story about the laughing gas and how it disturbed me. Apparently I also had several panicked moments in which I realized my tongue was numb, asked her frantically if she thought that meant something was wrong, instructed her to get the nurse, and then lapsed into a stunned silence only to repeat the whole episode again moments later as if nothing had happened. I wish I remembered all this, but I suppose if I had been fully cognizant, it probably wouldn’t have happened.
8. Around 4pm that day I was cursing and snarling at my family as they rallied around me on the couch. But I was trying to be polite about it. You see, the painkillers hadn’t quite kicked in and the numbness of the local anesthetic had worn off, and my entire mouth—gums, teeth, tongue, palate—seemed to be screeching silently in pain. Everyone was asking me how I felt and if I needed anything and all I could think about was that my face felt like it was going to fall off. But I managed to grind out several terse replies of “Please. Just. Go. Away.” and then apologized later for being rude. I know it’s ridiculous, but I was feeling oddly guilty—everyone was being so nice and I just couldn’t stand to have anyone in the room. When the painkillers (Vicodin and prescription-strength Motrin) blissfully kicked in, I slept for about twenty-four hours (give or take), taking brief breaks to be fed Jello and Naked smoothies, watch television through hooded lids, and to take more medication (every four and every six hours, when my mother would pad into the room and thrust some water and a pill into my hands).
9. A day and a half later, I realized that I am a terrible patient. I can’t sit still. I appreciate the pampering, but I’m not very good at accepting it. I wanted to help pack for our trip back north. I wanted to check my email without my eyes crossing. I wanted to sleep in the same bed with my girlfriend instead of on the couch. I wanted to help my mom with the 3D puzzle I bought her for Christmas or help my dad strap the roof storage container on my car.
10. Now, I’m sitting at home. We made it back to NY safe and sound. I discovered, through dubious but fairly thorough internet research, that I probably have something called dry socket in my lower right wisdom tooth hole. This is basically a failure of the blood clot (which acts as a scab over the wound) to form (or the disruption of an already formed blood clot in the first 24 hours), resulting in, as one site called it, “exquisite pain” because the bone and nerve-endings beneath the gum are exposed instead of being protected by the blood clot. It’s fairly common, and one can treat the pain, but not the actual condition, apparently. I could be wrong—since I’m not really qualified to self-diagnose--but I fit every single one of the symptoms I found on several different medical and pseudo-medical websites. It hurts, but it’s not the end of the world. And treating it myself with clove oil (which makes my whole mouth numb and tingly) and gauze and lots of Listerine and regular doses of over-the-counter Ibuprofen seems to do the trick. That’s where I am right now. But it seems to be getting better incrementally every day (for the first time this afternoon I wasn’t watching the clock to see when I could take another painkiller, so that’s a good sign). [Edit January 9, 2006: I talked to two different nurses today, one who told me I did have dry socket and one who told me that if I had dry socket I would be in so much pain that ibuprofen wouldn't even take the edge of. I'm inclined to believe the latter since the pain's been getting less. Obviously the same symptoms look very different to different people.]
I’m glad I got it done, though, despite the trouble. I have hopes that now my teeth will jubilantly, if slowly in the manner of teeth, spread out a bit to enjoy the new spaciousness of my mouth (it would make flossing easier), and that though my teeth are now in a miniature manila envelope in my jewelry box (they were removed almost completely intact), I will have no want of wisdom in the future.
1. For many years, my dentist and my dental hygienist have been all but pestering me to get my wisdom teeth removed. “They’ll cause you problems,” they said. “They’ll eventually crowd your teeth,” they implored. But, due to a stubborn (perhaps misguided?) conviction regarding not having unnecessary surgery and my father’s counsel (“Dentists have been telling me for thirty years to have my wisdom teeth removed, and they’ve never bothered me!”), I held fast.
[Note about dentists and dental hygienists: they are incredibly maligned. I know many people are afraid of dentists (my own dear girlfriend included), and I really can’t begrudge them for it because there are some very scary and mean dentists out there. But, if you think about it, dentists and hygienists are mostly very well-trained; they have to do hard, thankless work (I mean, really, who wants to poke around in the mouth’s of strangers for hours at a time?); many dentists, especially oral surgeons, have as much training as most doctors and have to be as qualified; and yet everybody hates them. Personally, my dental hygienist, Bonnie, has always been extremely kind, gentle and courteous, and I feel that, at the risk of being an extreme dork, that a shout-out for hygienists and dentists (the good ones, at least) is necessary. I’m also impressed by the technological advances in dentistry, because tooth-aches suck (in short) and I can’t imagine have to chew cloves forever or go to some crazy neighbor with a good pair of pliers (what I fear qualified as dentistry in the past) to have it taken care of.]
2. About a year ago, my wisdom teeth started to cut through my gum line. Every few months, one of them would get a little pushy and start sneaking it’s way towards the surface. The pain was bearable, a little irritating, but it would go away in a few days, so I still wasn’t convinced by my dentist’s advice.
3. A few months ago, I started to realize that my teeth seemed to be shifting (the normal ones) to accommodate the ever-encroaching wisdom teeth (especially the one on the right that was coming in sideways). Ever so slightly, but even so it was disconcerting. And I developed pockets of gum tissue that would occasionally become infected (although I didn’t realize this is what was happening until recently) and I constantly had to be wary lest food get trapped in the pockets. This and the perplexing (and disturbing) shifting of my other teeth frustrated me enough that I decided I would ask my dentist if his offer was still open the next time I came home.
4. A few days before Christmas, I went to the dentist, reported my decision and, by the time my hour-long visit had concluded, I had an appointment for just after New Years with an oral surgeon and a blue referral sheet and panoramic X-ray in hand. They work fast, these dentist people.
5. Two days after New Years, I reported to the oral surgeon with girlfriend and mother in tow. I was very nervous and a bit irritable because I was hungry. I wasn’t supposed to eat anything because of the anesthetic and since my appointment was at 2pm, I had gone the whole morning and part of the afternoon without food or water. I’m sure April and my parents got tired of my whining earlier that morning, but were too polite to say anything--sweet of them, since I was starting to irritate myself (I obviously wouldn’t handle fasting very well).
6. Moments before the surgery, the doctor explained to me the risks of the procedure while April, who was supposed to stay with me in the room during the prep and then leave before they actually began any of the real work, grew paler and paler in her assigned corner. I don’t think she was taking well to the whole dental experience--probably having flashbacks and cringing visibly whenever she would hear a drill from one of the neighboring rooms. Then, she sent April to the waiting room, and the doctor and nurses gathered around me. I had some weird sort of fear of the IV and the fact that they were putting me under general anesthesia, but in retrospect I’m so glad I wasn’t awake. The laughing gas they put me on—I guess to calm me down before putting in the IV and really putting me under—was extremely disconcerting (not amusing at all), but I barely felt the prick of the needle in my hand and moments later I was out like the proverbial light.
7. About an hour later, I began to wake up and April tells me (although I do not have any memory of this) that, waiting in the recovery room, I proceeded to tell her (over and over and over) the same story about the laughing gas and how it disturbed me. Apparently I also had several panicked moments in which I realized my tongue was numb, asked her frantically if she thought that meant something was wrong, instructed her to get the nurse, and then lapsed into a stunned silence only to repeat the whole episode again moments later as if nothing had happened. I wish I remembered all this, but I suppose if I had been fully cognizant, it probably wouldn’t have happened.
8. Around 4pm that day I was cursing and snarling at my family as they rallied around me on the couch. But I was trying to be polite about it. You see, the painkillers hadn’t quite kicked in and the numbness of the local anesthetic had worn off, and my entire mouth—gums, teeth, tongue, palate—seemed to be screeching silently in pain. Everyone was asking me how I felt and if I needed anything and all I could think about was that my face felt like it was going to fall off. But I managed to grind out several terse replies of “Please. Just. Go. Away.” and then apologized later for being rude. I know it’s ridiculous, but I was feeling oddly guilty—everyone was being so nice and I just couldn’t stand to have anyone in the room. When the painkillers (Vicodin and prescription-strength Motrin) blissfully kicked in, I slept for about twenty-four hours (give or take), taking brief breaks to be fed Jello and Naked smoothies, watch television through hooded lids, and to take more medication (every four and every six hours, when my mother would pad into the room and thrust some water and a pill into my hands).
9. A day and a half later, I realized that I am a terrible patient. I can’t sit still. I appreciate the pampering, but I’m not very good at accepting it. I wanted to help pack for our trip back north. I wanted to check my email without my eyes crossing. I wanted to sleep in the same bed with my girlfriend instead of on the couch. I wanted to help my mom with the 3D puzzle I bought her for Christmas or help my dad strap the roof storage container on my car.
10. Now, I’m sitting at home. We made it back to NY safe and sound. I discovered, through dubious but fairly thorough internet research, that I probably have something called dry socket in my lower right wisdom tooth hole. This is basically a failure of the blood clot (which acts as a scab over the wound) to form (or the disruption of an already formed blood clot in the first 24 hours), resulting in, as one site called it, “exquisite pain” because the bone and nerve-endings beneath the gum are exposed instead of being protected by the blood clot. It’s fairly common, and one can treat the pain, but not the actual condition, apparently. I could be wrong—since I’m not really qualified to self-diagnose--but I fit every single one of the symptoms I found on several different medical and pseudo-medical websites. It hurts, but it’s not the end of the world. And treating it myself with clove oil (which makes my whole mouth numb and tingly) and gauze and lots of Listerine and regular doses of over-the-counter Ibuprofen seems to do the trick. That’s where I am right now. But it seems to be getting better incrementally every day (for the first time this afternoon I wasn’t watching the clock to see when I could take another painkiller, so that’s a good sign). [Edit January 9, 2006: I talked to two different nurses today, one who told me I did have dry socket and one who told me that if I had dry socket I would be in so much pain that ibuprofen wouldn't even take the edge of. I'm inclined to believe the latter since the pain's been getting less. Obviously the same symptoms look very different to different people.]
I’m glad I got it done, though, despite the trouble. I have hopes that now my teeth will jubilantly, if slowly in the manner of teeth, spread out a bit to enjoy the new spaciousness of my mouth (it would make flossing easier), and that though my teeth are now in a miniature manila envelope in my jewelry box (they were removed almost completely intact), I will have no want of wisdom in the future.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
um...ow
It's certainly been an interesting week. New Years was a political and intellectual extravaganza, really fascinating and engaging. And currently I'm sitting here in a Vicodin-induced haze trying very hard to focus my eyes on my computer and ignore the lingering pain in my jaw. I spent yesterday afternoon getting my wisdom teeth removed, which really needed to be done but wasn't a particularily fun experience (especially after spitting blood for eight hours afterwards and sleeping probably for the past twenty hours, on and off). April and I were hoping to drive back home tomorrow (from my parents' house), but now I think we're going to have to wait till Friday. I'd love to be back by tomorrow evening, but I just don't have the strength to pack right now. Luckily, she seems amenable to waiting for another day and both she and my parents are being very sweet. I'm really not a good patient. I'm not good at letting people take care of me. Yesterday, I didn't mind so much because I was mostly sleeping and dazedly watching television while being woken up every few hours to take another painkiller, but today it's been hard to just lie here because I'm while I'm more alert, I still can't stand up for more than a few minutes without feeling dizzy. Sigh. Maybe I'll try weaning myself off the Vicodin tonight (and just continue taking the triple-strength Motrin the doctor also gave me); I hate the way it makes me feel.
That all said, I love you all and I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and New Year! I'll be back to my old self in no time, I'm sure. :)
That all said, I love you all and I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and New Year! I'll be back to my old self in no time, I'm sure. :)
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