On Understanding Changes
You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel like writing about music today. It’s a cold and rainy Saturday morning, about the usual I would expect from a Pittsburgh fall, but in light of the past few days’ events, I can’t help but feel uneasy. Sure, there’s been that overwhelming sense of doom since all the helicopters, barricades, and “less lethal” weaponry started arriving, but now it’s that calm period, that waiting to see when it’s all going to be over and we can have our city back. A little while ago, I was reading David Foster Wallace’s essay published in the early ’90s about the then-new David Lynch film Lost Highway. As he discusses various reasons why this film is (going to be) awesome, he mentions an aspect of why Lynch’s films are also really unpleasant to watch. “We need to believe,” he writes, “that our own hideousness and darknesses are secret.”
We’ve all had that experience reading a book or watching a movie and suddenly it’s over and you feel absolutely miserable and hopeless about this whole “being a human” business. I had this reaction most strongly while watching the latest Batman installment, The Dark Knight. I saw this movie three times in the theater, and unlike other movies where once you know how it ends you become less responsive, I became increasingly more upset each time I saw it. Part of what was frustrating about this experience was not being able to put my finger on what exactly it was that troubled me so much. A good friend of mine went with me every time to see the movie and had a similar reaction. For months, neither of us could figure out what it was about The Dark Knight that was so upsetting. At different points along the way, we made small progresses — something about the capacity and affinity in all of us to be violent and destructive, the mirror between Batman and the role of the United States, the idea of there being nowhere safe and no one to trust — but for the most part, the only thing we were ever really certain of was that the movie seemed to pull something together for us, even though we weren’t sure what that thing was.
So all week I’ve been thinking about The Dark Knight, and I have that same feeling I did each time I left the theater, taking the long road home, lying in bed and thinking about how quickly everything can be turned on its head. We know that something big has happened; that something has been set into motion that cannot be taken back. And maybe I’m being melodramatic about this; maybe by the time you are reading this Monday morning, Pittsburgh will have returned to its regularly scheduled programming. But my guess is that something’s changed, even if, like The Dark Knight, it’s going to take me a while to realize what exactly that means.
-M. Callen
Recent Posts
Archives
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- October 2022
- September 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- August 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- June 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006