TRICK OR TREAT! TRICK Japhy Presents the Top Costumes of 2003 The Metrosexual: Put on a mud mask, manicure your nails and wear your favorite Diesel jeans and Burberry jockstrap! Finish it off with some lip glass and a really tight t-shirt and be everybody's favorite media-coopted fashion statement du jour! This costume is not complete without a quintent of nelly stereotypes following you around making catty comments. Deviled Angel: Show that you too understand how binaries are meaningless in our post-millenial world by dressing as both an angel and devil at once. People will stare at your halo and horns with bemused enlightenment as you free them from the chains of moralistic duality. For Couples: Pimp Bush and Ho' Lady Liberty: Um, this one is pretty obvious, right? Elliott Smith: Buy a knife, attach it to your chest. (courtesy of Justin) Falcon Pornstar: Recession hitting you bad? Go naked and give lots of blowjobs to people. Not only will you make LOTS of new friends, you'll save a bundle on your costume! TREAT The scariest movie of all time. Have I got a tale for you. It involves, ghosts, reincarnation, a mysterious necklace, a gentleman's agreement gone horribly awry, death and death again, a push up bra, madness and obsession. It is the obsession that is most terrifying, so terrifying in fact, that it leaves us, and the man caught in its grip, dumbstruck. Can you guess the movie, I'm refering to? If you haven't figured it out, highlight here: It's Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. If you haven't seen it, get thee to a cinema. The following has lots of spoilers in it. More than any monster movie, it is this movie which fills me with terror and dread. Movies with blood and gore are fun, but the whole thrill comes out of knowing that you made it out alive. When this movie fades to black, you aren't so sure. Scotty (James Stewart) is asked by an old friend to investigate the odd behavior of his wife. Scotty follows the woman (Kim Novak) who is, in fact, not who Scotty has been told she is at all. She is an actor, and her audience is Scotty. The rouse is ludicrous and complex, the machinations of a madman, but the result is that Scotty falls in love with the woman, whose fate, literally scripted, is to jump off a belltower, the one place, Scotty, who has a fear of heights, can't go to watch her. And then, after months in an asylum, getting well, Scotty sees a woman on the street who looks like the woman he loved. He doesn't know that this woman is in fact the same woman, but she does, and as she quietly acquiesces to his demands to transform her into the woman she used to be, we find ourselves lost in a dizzying fall into obsession and love, until they become the same thing. What makes this movie so amazingly creepy is that we, the audience are not let off the hook that we are voyeurs to this drama. When Scotty watches this woman, we watch her. His obsession with the image is our obsession. It's primal, it's perverted and there is no release. A nun appears in the last seconds of the film and blesses the woman who has just fallen, a second time, for good, but she does Scotty, and she does not bless us. We are not absolved of the sins we have commited as passive viewers, needing, like fiends, more images, more and more, to satisfy the unsatisfiable: The desire to recreate a moment of truth, that was always, has always been, a lie.

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posted by Japhy at 10/29/2003 02:03:00 PM || #

Blogs Suck. Camille Paglia says, in her new interview in Salon: "Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit. " Read the whole article here. What a breath of fresh air! I have had countless arguments with other bloggers (mainly on LiveJournal) about whether blogs are open to criticism, and time and time again I get responses like, "Well, it's a transcript of my cortex" or "I only write it for my friends." One even told me that I could criticize her content, but not her style; a style clearly enamored with itself, but for no reason I could discern. So that Camile (and the rest of us) don't have to suffer anymore, I present the following: Japhy's Rules of Blogging I, John Q. Blogger do hereby proclaim: 1.) My blog is not a diary. If I publish something, I realize it is for other people to read and that if I only wanted my friends to read what I write, I could always just email them. A blog is a public thing. 2.) I accept that if I publish something on the web, I must accept criticism of it, even if I don't agree. 3.) I will spell check. 4.) I will not simply copy the text of someone elses work and say something like, "Look, this is cool" . 5.) I promise to try to write better each time I write. 6.) The majority of my blog entries will be longer than five sentences long. 7.) I will punctuate and capitalize and do my best to follow the grammatical conventions of my native language- unless I have a damn good reason not to. 8.) I will google the subject of my blog before posting. I will see if someone has already written the thought I have in my head. I do this not only to take part in the online community I am a part of, but also to see if my thought has been expressed in a way which is better than mine. If I can not expand on what has already been said, I will shut my piehole. 9.) I will not be boring. Any bloggers who wish to agree to these rules and emails me will get a swanky "Japhy Rule Certified" banner for their site.

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posted by Japhy at 10/29/2003 01:30:00 PM || #

Come One! Come All! Oh! Don't I feel like Uncle Walt opeing Disneyland right now? I do! It is with deep pride and insincerity that I introduce to you Japhyotype - Portraits and Views 1824-1928, the latest expansion to the Japhy empire. To get there, just click on the "Images" link above. Go my children! Go!

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posted by Japhy at 10/23/2003 05:01:00 PM || #

Adam Superstar I'd like to tell you all a story about a young man named Adam. I have known Adam for a few years now and on the whole, he's mainly irritated me. Adam has an intensity that kind of makes you want to run screaming. He also happens to have a terrible- I mean, terrible, love life, which he wants to tell everyone about. The combination, of course, is just what we want in a *pop star*, which is what Adam wants to be more than anything and he'll tell you this every chance he can get. What Adam does have is a huge amount of drive. I have seen him do just about every shitty job there is to do in the entertainment biz here in New York and he manages to take each job seriously and put all of his commitment into it. He doesn't come from the greatest of childhood's and perhaps what irritates people most about Adam is that he continually believes in his success when it seems that the cards are so ludicrously stacked against him. This is why I admire Adam Barta. This is why, despite his nonsensical IM's about Buffy, I respect him. It is also, in my opinion, the secret to his success: He's never once considered himself, unsuccesful. His single, I Told Her, is now available. Listen to it here.

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posted by Japhy at 10/22/2003 05:37:00 PM || #

What an amazing game! Cop cars are playing their sirens in the streets! Cheers everywhere!

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posted by Japhy at 10/16/2003 09:26:00 PM || #

Waiting for the Goldbergs Though I am no longer a student at NYU's Department of Dramatic Writing, I'm excited to hear that they've received over a million dollars from Rita and Burton Goldberg, specifically for playwriting. As reported in The Times, they've admonished department chair and beret-wearer, Mark Dickerman, to focus the money specifically to playwriting, which I think is just wonderful. As frequent Japhyjunket readers know, one of my problems with NYU's program is that it pushes its students to write for film and TV and in a particular manner. The Goldbergs seem determined to change all that. I would love to see a New York based playwriting program that truly focused on the needs and perspective's of the contemporary theatre writer. I don't believe that Tisch currently is that program, but perhaps under the watchful eye of the Goldbergs it will transform itself into something more than a factory for Aristotilian three-act commercial screenplays. Perhaps they should engrave Mr. Goldbergs words in the hallway of DDW; ""I think that playwriting is about the highest calling that a person could have; I think this is the best way possible to explore the human condition."

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posted by Japhy at 10/15/2003 12:39:00 PM || #

The Love of Japan Entirely There are We! America loves Britain. We love the tea, we love the accent, but most of all we love their constant disdain for us "Yanks". We like to see each other as allies. While Barbados and India still chafe under the banner of post-colonialism, the original rebelling colony has moved on. We're a country of free-spirits and independent thinkers- we don't hold a grudge against Great Britain, at all. Bollacks, I say. Even cultures have a subconscious. America reveres Great Britain. We have emulated its traditions ever since we managed to spank them off the Continent like an abused child longing for the lash. It continues to this day: The New Yorker reported last week that Britain's famous black cabs may be coming to New York as an upscale alternative to our own, yank-yellow taxis. We revere the British as the last bastion of true culture, and see ourselves as the trashy loudmouth cousins of a more refined, tea- swilling branch of the Familia Anglica. Which brings us to the Akihabara district of Tokyo. Nicknamed "Otaku Town", Akihabara is a maze of neon, internet rooms and shopping malls dedicated to Japan's "geek culture". Fifty-eight years ago, the U.S. dropped two nuclear bombs onto the Land of The Rising Sun, and after a post-war rebuild by the U.S., a new generation of Japanese have become obsessed with all things American. Pepsi in garish neon, game shows with insane propositions, Levi's, Jordache and Catholic schoolgirls have all been Sinofied into brilliant, glossy life. As Americans, we can't but help but looked on in bemused horror. Welcome to the Funhouse of Mirrors known as globalization, where every culture is a reflection of someone else's. Of course, the mirror bounces back. It is unlikely Great Britain will ever find itself in the throes of U.S.-mania, but, almost so improbably that it's inevitable, the 21st Century Empire is finding itself in the thrall of its first great colony. America is going Japan-Crazy!!! In Rockefeller Center, Takashi Murakami's Reversed Double Helix was just one more assault by the superflat artist on the American psyche. His glorious mutated eyeballs have been spotted on everything from gallery walls, Grand Central Station and Louis Vuitton handbags. The "Andy Warhol of Japan" is the hottest artist in America. The two most critically acclaimed films of the Fall season are Lost in Translation, Sophia Coppola's tale about two lost Americans spending a week inside a Tokyo hotel and Kill Bill, Quentin Tarrantino's ode to chop-socky films and the warrior code. In Lost in Translation, this tale of romance, not only introduces America to the cultural mash that is modern Japan, but also introduces them to a storyline that seems to mirror the style of Japan's top novelist (and America lover) Haruki Murakami (no relation to Takashi). The final scene, in particular, seems to echo a motif of Murakami's: A girl running away through a shop market, pursued by her lover. Kill Bill, for all its gore and violence, actually, because of all its gore and violence, it clearly reflects the great tradition of samurai myths. The anti-hero, an American invention, is nowhere in evidence in Tarantino's slick, iconic masterpiece of storytelling. Instead, Uma Thurman's character, known only as The Bride, has more to do with Zen tales of heroism, in which action is all and overthinking is a good way to get your arms lopped off. The latest trend in sportscar driving is "drifting", which involves skidding the car so that it rides side first up or down a hill. The trends origin and home of the first semi-professional league? Japan. There has always been "The Japan kids", Americans obsessed with Japan, but the cultures seem to be spilling into each other- a potent signal that the America of tomorrow has less to do with tea and crumpets and more to do with sake and otaku. From 1786-1793, Thomas and William Daniells traveled extensively through India, then under the direct control of Britain through the East India Company. They brought back to the mother country a huge number of watercolored drawings of the Indian subcontinent, now on view at the Yale Center for British Art. The vast majority of these drawings consisted of two types: beautiful traditional shrines and tombs and images of the newly erected British neoclassical government buildings. How the British must have marveled to see their own graceful architecture amid palm fronds, elephants and rickshaws. How exotic the temples and palaces must have seemed. There is nothing more alluring than seeing ourselves as the exotic; for the master to delude himself into thinking he is the outsider. The result can be fatal, not just to empire's now gone, but also empire's that are just beginning.

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posted by Japhy at 10/14/2003 04:07:00 PM || #

Death of a Blog My deepest sympathies to Ms. Modern Age for being voted by The Village Voice, "Best Scenester of 2003". How cruel of the Village Voice to essentially damn what was a wonderful site with such a destructive title. You'll see now that The Modern Age is in ruins. Since, if any of her cadre, I'd be the one most likely to be Elton John, I'd like to pull out my sunglasses, sit by the piano, and sing a little song to you: *ahem* Goodbye, Modern Age I sang with you up on the roof Loved your photos of Jack White and Travis and sometimes Bowie too And it seems to me like you lived your life Like a perfectly sane rock girl Singing in the next room a party of just you and I would have liked to see The Modern Age on MTV make fun of Carson Daly and show that music's not just industry But it seems to me like you ran your site Simply for the love of it. You think if I called The Voice and told them how you like to sing showtunes, they'd take it back? So I could have you back- Ms. Modern Age. Thank you. Goodnight.

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posted by Japhy at 10/12/2003 09:39:00 PM || #

Craig & Me Update In which Craig Newmark shows his love for the little guy Earlier this week, I wrote craigslist founder, Craig Newmark about a problem I was having regarding Craigslist, which he has described as " a place for people to get a break". I placed an ad for a casting call and offered one dollar as renumeration (in addition to a video tape/transportation and food) to fufill the craigslist requirement that all jobs be paying jobs. My ad was refused. What I wanted to know: What's the minimum amount needed to get me on Craigslist. I never got a satisfactory answer and wrote an entry (see below). Craig saw it and wrote me back. What follows is the whole email conversation, unedited, between me and craigslist founder, Craig Newmark. Craig writes: I'm not entirely happy with this [ie: the entry I wrote] , since it's very unfair, but I don't know how to show you otherwise. are you actually listening to either Geoff or myself? our policies are based on what thousands of people have told us. You seem to think that your priorities are more important than everyone else's. What am I missing? Japhy writes: Well, see, that's rather the whole point. I asked Geoff what the policy was. The policy on the craiglist board is that it must be a "paying" job. I offered a dollar. I was then told that it was "minimum wage", but the vast majority of paying jobs are not minimum wage at all. All I really wanted was a clear answer as to what the policy was. The film/TV/theatre community is an odd duck. People work for reels or doughnuts all the time and do so willingly. Not all payment is cash- it's contacts and networking. Look at a copy of Backstage or any casting paper and you'll see "reel" as payment. Craigslist COULD be a great resource for these kind of jobs, but instead if you peruse the film/tv/ section it's all ads for various softcore porn stuff. This still isn't the point. All I want to know is how much does craigslist consider to be a minimum? Why can't I get a straight answer? I think it's unfair to tell someone, even if it's a free site, that if they aren't getting the help they need, they should "just wait a few days"...it seems antithetical to what craigslist is about. Craig writes: Japhy, get serious, $1 is not paying. You got a straight answer. How about getting reasonable. Japhy writes: So- then I ask again, what is "pay"? I'm a frikken college student trying to cast a student film and you're essentially dictating to me how much I have to pay my actors when I know that they'll work for a reel. I'm not trying to screw anyone over- talk to anyone in the entertainment industry. Regardless, tell me how much Craig Newmark wishes me to pay my actors and I will list that amount so I can get an ad up on his board. Craig writes: I think Geoff already answered that, please review, or ask, nicely. Japhy writes: Dear Mr. Newmark- I am a teensy bit confused as to craigslist definition of "pay". While you mentioned that Geoff has already told me what that policy is, I simply can not seem to find it anywhere. If it is "mimimum wage" then why are there so many other ads up that do not offer it? I know you are a busy man, so all I ask is that you answer this one simple question: "How does craigslist define what 'pay' is?" Sincerely, Japhy Grant Craig writes: Japhy, how about using some common sense? That works for millions, literally. If there are problematic ads of any sort, please flag, or post the URLs in Feedback. Japhy writes: Dear Mr. Newmark- Thank you very much for refusing to answer my question. I would also like to thank you for insulting me. Repeatedly. I am writing to tell you that I have decided to place an ad, which I will pay for, in Backstage magazine for my Lesbian Love Tragedy version of Othello. I will, as many filmmakers, not offer any payment to my actors, but will provide a reel of their work and transportation as is the custom in my clearly non-common sense oriented world. It is a shame that I could not use Craigslist to place this advertisement. I stand by my belief that if you offer a resource to the public, you are responsible for their questions and inquiries regarding it. That I have asked the same question now, fifteen times (I counted) and not recieved an answer is not a sign of my lack of common sense, but yours. -Japhy Grant Craig writes: Japhy, I'd sure appreciate either 1) if you'd commence an honest approach, or 2) approach this as an adult. Craig Japhy stops writing and contemplates starting Japhyslist. To top it all off, Craig recently wrote this on his blog: "We're not sure what people usually do various business situations, so we plunge ahead. Sometimes we do get into trouble, but usually, it works out well for all concerned. That is, we try to do the right thing, and it works for everyone, particularly as part of the "culture of trust" that's very important to us. "

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posted by Japhy at 10/12/2003 09:12:00 PM || #

LAST DAY TO REGISTER!!! Hey New York! Tommorow (Friday) is the last day to register to vote and switch your party affiliation if you want to vote in the Democratic primary on March 2nd! The forms are available here. In NYC, drop off the forms at: New York County Board of Elections 200 Varick St. New York, NY 10014 Phone: 212-886-3800 Serioulsy, y'all, don't go putting down "independent" cuz it's cool. Register Dem and get the criminal out of office.

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posted by Japhy at 10/09/2003 02:24:00 PM || #

Craig & Me Japhy's brief encounter with the Craig Newmark: craigslist founder, geek politico and chill guy. In my Inbox this week: An email from Craig Newmark. Any semi-savvy young metropolitan knows about craigslist, the free community meeting ground where you can meet the love of your life, get a new apartment together, find a free bed to shag on and then find jobs to get away from your new found love. Craigslist has cultural cache up the whup-ass, partly because it's free, partly because it' so "community-oriented" and partly because there's no ads and almost no design (in fact, Japhyjunket's design aesthetic stems from craigslistian utilitarianism) and so it goes without saying that the "craig" in craigslist, Craig Newmark, is a pretty important guy. He's also been sued by Hollywood. This all begs the question: Why is he writing me? I had tried posting a casting notice for my Othello video project in the film/TV/radio classifieds on craigslist, which seemed a pretty good place to put it. The site warned that only paying jobs would be accepted, so I listed the compensation as a reel of the shoot to use on auditions and $1.00. Five minutes later I get an email from Geoff Flemming (geoff@craigslist.org) telling me that I can't put up non-paying jobs, but try again if you think there was a mistake. I try again. No luck. I write Geoff and ask him what the deal is. He writes back, "If you are paying $1.00 then you man [sic] *NOT* post this here." I write back to him and ask what the minimum amount is and why this pay minimum is not listed. Geoff replies: "Minimum wage. It's the *LAW* We shouldn't have to list it. It may be the industry standard not to pay people, but it is NOT acceptable in our[sic] job categories." I then write him back explaining that in the theatre/TV/film industry nobody works on an hourly wage rate. It would be cost prohibitive to do so and that offering a reel is kind of a standard student film thing to do and point out a similar ad on the same board I am trying to post to that offers the exact same thing, except with a $25.00 fee attached. I ask again what the minimum is and if I can talk to someone besides him. Geoff replies: "Japhy, I will respond one last time to your email. We do not accept unpaid jobs in th ejob [sic] categories. We are not talking about any other post but *YOUR* post. You are welcome to post in the artists category. If that's a problem then I suggest seeking out another FREE resource for your ad. Thanks." Now, I'm a little miffed. This bozo still hasn't answered my question and he's being pretty haughty about it. Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"? I'm even more miffed because this is craigslist, a community striving ever towards greater perfection. Partly I just wanted to get my classified up, but I also thought the wording on the site was vague, and like a good democratic craigslist member, I wanted to improve the system, but here I was being harassed. I reported the whole incident to abuse@craigslist.org. Five minutes later I get an email fro, you guessed it- Craig Newmark. "Japhy, I have complete trust in Geoff, and I suspect you might have been overly persistent. Is that a possibility? Craig" Amazed as I am that the Craig Newmark has written me it's not quite what I expected, so I email Craig the whole email exchange between Geoff and me and add that I only bring it up because of how utterly pleased I am with craigslist usually. A minute later, from Craig: "Japhy, thanks, but I'm no big deal. It looks like Geoff was really patient to you, particularly considering we're all very badly slammed. Maybe wait a day, ask him again, patiently. thanks! Craig" Now I'm sitting here at my desk and thinking, "Craig Newmark is a communist". My illusions are so utterly shattered. I had always imagined craigslist as this mutual community and Craig as a deist deity watching over us all. I had to fight off my Gothamite urge to sneer at what seemed to me an utterly flaky San Franciscan thing to say. "Maybe wait a day, ask him again, patiently."? Was there really so deep a cultural divide? New Yorkers are always accused of being rude, but I was simply trying to get an answer and Geoff kept using ALL CAPS and *asterisk* around his words. He made it a totally emotional issue and Craig seemed to agree. Are New Yorkers from Mars and San Franciscan from Venus? The other question raised by this whole encounter is exactly what are Craig Newmark's responsibility to craigslist. Sure, it's free and he created it, but it's become such a staple of the internet, like Google, that the question arises: How much accountability does Craig have to those who use his eponymous list? Is craigslist really Craig's or does it belong to everybody? Robber baron's once invited workers to their mines with the allure of opportunities and created whole villages for the workers to live in, and yet, they had no voice in public affairs or even what kind of bread they could buy ("You will buy Westinghouse bread!"). Craig Newmark has, for far more altruistic purposes created a community that now reaches across the globe. What has made craigslist great is not Craig Newmark, but the people who have posted on the site. Does the town belong to the people or to the mayor, even a feel good San Franciscan like Craig Newmark? For such a New Economy kinda guy, Craig's list sure looks like a company town.

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posted by Japhy at 10/09/2003 12:02:00 PM || #