Todd Levin

From now through July 15th, regular site duties will be suspended. Please do not expect updates for the duration, and please do not smash things when your inappropriate expectations are not met.

I will be communicating (probably on a weekly basis) with the “TREMBLE 2000” mailing list. If you have already subscribed to it, I’ll speak with you soon. If you have not, it’s easy enough to remedy that. Have a lovely summer movie season.

Yesterday, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer announced, “the Iraqi regime is gone.” This could be the work of looters.

[ok, let’s try that again]

Today, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer announced, “the Iraqi regime is gone.” Fleischer, however, predicts the regime will not be gone for long and expects it to show up on ebay in the coming weeks.

[oh, forget it.]

I am glad I attended “Entertaining the Young” last saturday afternoon. The show, which was hosted and produced by an acquaintance of mine, featured song and dance performances from entertainers who were all well into retirement age. There was hula dancing! And one of the most sincere, least hammy renditions of “On Broadway” I’ve ever heard. The performers were enthusiastic, easy with a compliment (a skill i do not share yet, in my unadvanced age), and adorable beyond reproach. I had the good sense to bring a camera, and I will send a few of the photographs to my mailing list later today.

I also took several pictures of the host, and found myself growing increasingly excited about the posture of stand-up comedy. There’s something very expressive about the body as it tries to squeeze laughter out of you, and everyone’s body does something entirely different to accomplish this. Patrick, who became the subject for the first series of photographs, has an extremely laconic style and his body language follows suit. (as does his actual suit.)

I saved a few of the comic images as a screen saver, which is viewable to anyone blessed with an Apple computer, an Internet connection, and Mac OS X. I’ve done this before, and the instructions are here. Here’s a sample from the series:

Every once in a while (every single day) an incredibly foolish thought creeps across the baby-smooth surface of my brain and I just cannot repress it. I had a roommate in college – one of the most naturally funny people I’ve ever known – with whom I could share these thoughts knowing they would implicitly be understood by him. I performed the same role for him, in fact. (i will provide one of my favorite examples. i was lying on the floor of my room focusing, trying very hard not to hate, and he walked in to tell me he’d written a joke. when i encouraged him to tell it, this is exactly what he said: “i’d like you to meet my new guidance counselor. his name is cobra commander.” i laughed for a full week, until my body went into shock.)

The problem is, I think, these giddy notions are ensconced in a kind of geek fashion that doesn’t translate well across social borders and is better left inside my skull if I ever want to french someone again. That’s why I am well aware that no one (except my old roommate, todd, perhaps) will have a nice laugh when I say this: I have been wandering around my apartment this evening, throwing air punches at my cats and declaring, with authority, “Liu Kang wins. BABALITY!!!”

I hope Todd reads this site because now, officially, no one else does.

OK. So what if I had this terrible idea? An idea so insidious that any sane man, any marginally responsible citizen, would lock it away in the darkest recesses of his psyche and pray to God every single night that, upon waking the next day, the idea would have vanished forever? And what if I didn’t really care what “sane” men thought?

I know images elicit very specific emotional responses in the viewer. And I realized recently that one could adjust the context of an image easily, without necessarily even making broad strokes, and yet still completely manipulate the intended response. You can push buttons in the viewer and, by getting inside his head with certain shorthand signifiers, ultimately making him liable for his new reaction.

I will shut up now. Instead, allow me to introduce the first-ever Tremble.com Experiment in Poor Taste and Guilty Conscience. Allow me to apologize ahead of time.

I’m thinking of changing the tag line of this site from “SEMPER LAZY” to “SEE HOW NICELY I’VE HIDDEN ALL THE GOOD CONTENT” Or maybe I’ll just use my original choice – “MY STONE FISTS ARE MAKING YOUR FACE DEADED!” Good bye forever.

I’m working on a freelance job, writing for an anti-drug advertising campaign. Because who better to police teen behavior than the advertising industry? Actually, I often really enjoy this type of work. It’s hard to talk to teenaged kids without feeling the exhausted roll of their eyes on you, so when you do a good job it’s especially satisfying.

As a result of this assignment, I’ve been reading a lot of facts about pot. Did you know excessive pot use can cause memory loss, compromised physical coordination, and even anxiety? And, worse than all of that, it can seriously impair your judgement when evaluating the awesome-ness of drum solos. And 45% of habitual pot smokers have, at one time, used a ballpoint pen to render a pot leaf in the pages of their school notebooks, or on the knee of their jeans. It makes me so sad.

I’m a bit busy lately, so today I thought I’d leave you in the hands of a marvelous thinker – the late founding father of the Ralston Purina company, Mr. William Danforth. This passage was taken from his extraordinary self-help book, written in 1931, and still every bit as relevant to the travails we face today, I DARE YOU!:

I am on one side of the table. You are on the other. I am looking across and saying “I dare you!”

I Dare You, young man, you who have come from a home of poverty – I dare you to have the qualities of a Lincoln.

I Dare You, heir of wealth and proud ancestry, with your generations of worthy stock, your traditions of leadership – I dare you to achieve something that will make the future point to you with even more pride than the present is pointing to those who have gone before you.

I Dare You, young mother, to make your life a masterpiece upon which that little family of yours can build. Strong women bring forth strong men.

I Dare You, debutante, to be a queen. Make life obey you, not you it. It is only a shallow dare to do the foolish things. I dare you to do the uplifting, courageous things.

I Dare You, freshman, to make the varsity team.

I Dare You, young author, to win the Nobel Prize.

I Dare You, young researcher, to become a Microbe Hunter.

I Dare You, barefoot boy on the farm, to become a Master Farmer – A Hunger Fighter.

I Dare You, man of affairs, to have a “Magnificent Affair.”

I Dare You, who thinks life is humdrum, to start a fight.

I Dare You, Bigfoot, to make yourself seen. Shine on and inherit that which was always yours.

I Dare You, Frankenstein’s Monster, to touch fire and embrace it. Fire give life. Fire not bad!!

I Dare You, cloth merchant, to sell double your cloth this month. And triple the next!

I Dare You, obese twins, to climb aboard that pair of tiny matching motorized scooters and ride around in circles for a bit while my beautiful family laughs and cheers. You are clown princes, and the world is your court. Now pedal!!!

I Dare You, whoever you are, to share with others the fruits of your daring. Catch a passion for helping others and a richer life will come back to you! I Dare it!

Now ask yourself: are you up for the dare???

I had two semi-ordinary experiences in the last 24 hours which, when linked, provide an interesting insight into the way average consumers have adopted the language of well-trained arts critics. On thursday evening, a strange man cozied up next to me (and my naked penis) at the urinals beneath the Times Square Virigin Megastore, and began relating his unsolicited opinion of Road to Perdition. “I liked that movie, but it was a little slow for me. Not a movie for women. Not much for women in there. It’s a story of a father trying to make his son turn out differently, you know. Not like him. Nice penis. Road to Perdition! Good night.”

Then, the following night, seemingly apropos of nothing, a woman caught me through the revolving doors of an office building just to tell me how she felt about The Hours. (again, she was a total stranger to me. and again, my penis was out, and looking very nice.) “There’s a movie you can miss! I felt the story just sort of fell flat, you know. Oh, but the cinematography was beautiful!”

Both of those movie reviews were borderline articulate, even though they might have sounded informed to the speakers. They didn’t help me at all. Instead, they were like a polite assemblage of critical points one might read in a hack journalist’s review. Story – check. Acting – check. Cinematography – check. I also think many people’s diplomatically stated opinions of films can be a complex short-hand for their real opinions – and the ones I’d prefer to hear. I have always favored unrehearsed passion to bland civility, even though I’m not drunk enough to practice it most of the time.

Here’s what I believe people mean when they channel the voices of newspaper film reviews:

When You Say: “The movie was slow.”
You Mean (male): “There were surprisingly few scenes involving people being shot in the face or balls.”
(female):“There were surprisingly few montages of women frantically trying on a series of ridiculous outfits before a big date, set to bubbly 60s pop songs.”

When You Say: “The movie wasn’t so great, but the acting was excellent.”
You Mean:“Al Pacino was in it.”

When You Say: “I don’t see how this would appeal to women.”
You Mean: “There were exactly enough scenes of people being shot in the face or balls, as well as one scene that takes place in a strip club.”

When You Say: “I don’t see how this would appeal to men.”
You Mean: “Colin Firth is in this film.”

When You Say: “I don’t see how this film could have been made.”
You Mean:“Andie MacDowell / Dana Carvey / Tim Allen / Kevin Costner / Terry Bradshaw / a breakdancing chimpanzee / any combination of two or more of the previous is in this film.”

When You Say: “It was very quirky, and not as funny as I’d expected, but I think I liked it.”
You Mean: “Wes Anderson directed it.”

When You Say: “It was too quirky. I hated it.”
You Mean: “That asshole who directed Pi directed it.”

When You Say: “It was Kevin Smith’s most mature film to date.”
You Mean: “I finished one year of college.”

When You Say: “It had great cinematography.”
You Mean: “I know I should have liked this film, but I honestly didn’t get it. Please don’t hold that against me. I’m sure I can find some reason to recommend it.”

When You Say: “It was just pure escapism.”
You Mean: “Some day you will be stuck on a cross-continental flight and be forced to watch this shitty film, made even shittier by having the swear words edited out.”

When You Say: “Definitely Oscar material.”
You Mean: “Someone acts very, very retarded in several scenes.”

And that’s the Civilian Movie Critic bit!!!! HA-CHA!

Last week, my web host did something technical and fancy which purportedly improved their service. However, for individuals like me, it was sort of annoying. In the process, they lost the most current version of my site and reinstalled it with a backed-up version from a few days prior. (without ever letting me know. slick!)

I think I’m OK with losing a few rushed thoughts, posted on tremble, though I must admit I was disappointed in the loss of one entry in particular. That’s what made it so nice to receive an email today from one of my readers. Apparently, he’d seen that post when it was up (ever so briefly…) and even bothered to copy-paste a passage from it into an email to his sister. Having this little scrap is kind of fun, like finding a discarded page from some moony teenager’s embarrassingly frank post coital letter to her boyfriend. Well, not entirely like that. But here, without context, is what was sent to me today:

“In the middle of my onilne research for babies – I was thinking of buying one – I discovered something interesting at web sites like babycenter.com. Here’s what I learned: people love babies. Most mothers also seem to agree that it’s difficult for other people to understand how much one can love a baby until they own one, too. Babies are kind of like TiVo in that way.”

It’s not much, but it’s nice to see it again. If anyone happens to find the rest, in their browser cache, or pressed with wildflowers between the pages of an Internet scrapbook, feel free to send them along.