“Of course there are people who think I’m an asshole,” Jonathan Safran Foer said, “but nobody thinks the argument is wrong.” The argument for ethical vegetarianism drives “Eating Animals,” the critically acclaimed author’s latest book, in which he explores the horrors of factory farming, the meals of his childhood, and the myths we use to justify what and why we eat. On Friday night, Foer stopped by the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union to give us a taste of his first non-fiction work.

Foer has drawn huge praise for his first two novels, “Everything Is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” Writing non-fiction, he said, is probably not something he’ll ever do again. But “Eating Animals” began with a very personal question, one that arose when his wife (novelist Nicole Krauss) became pregnant with their son. Foer, an on-and-off vegetarian since age nine, had to confront a host of questions about feeding him. Should he be a vegetarian too? If so, why? And what did those choices say about our society as a whole? What daunted him, Foer said, was “the prospect of passing on an earth.”

So began the work that informed the part-journalistic investigation, part-memoir. In one excerpt that Foer read aloud, he pointed out the absurd irony that a society like ours, which so readily consumes meat, would never consider eating a dog.

Foer said he wrote “Eating Animals” because books on the topic didn’t exist; to him, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (by UC Berkeley professor Michael Pollan) and “Fast Food Nation” barely touch on it. But he seemed to stop just short of labeling himself an activist. “I think the best way to convince someone is to do it by example,” he said. “I think too much time and energy is spent trying to convince people.”

The author said that when writing fiction, he doesn’t keep an audience in mind. In contrast, he hopes that “Eating Animals” will inspire this generation to take action and ask questions. “The answer is going to come from you guys—young people who can change and will dictate the conversation,” he said.

“Food,” he said, “is more than just what fills us up.”

A good twist can save an episode. Such is the case in “Brave Heart.” With the Dibala drama over, Chase struggles with the fact that he, you know, killed a man, while House believes that he’s hearing things. But the best moment comes in the medical mystery

Plot Summary:

After sleeping on the couch for at least five hours in Wilson’s place, House decides he needs a real bedroom. Wilson gives up the room where he and Amber used to sleep, but when House starts sleeping there, he begins to hear whispering and fears that he is going back into madness. On top of this, he thinks that the case that the team is dealing with is useless. It involves a man who believes that he will die at the age of 40 because his father and grandfather did and who refuses to get to know the son he had with his girlfriend because of his impending death. House dismisses it as coincidence and eventually takes matters into his own, making up a disease for the guy and sending him home with mints posing as pills. Good plan … except the dude collapses a few hours later and is pronounced dead. “What is wrong with me?” House wonders aloud after Foreman relays the news.

Foreman and House get the body for autopsy, and House wants to get to the money shot quickly—he knows it’s the heart. Foreman starts making the incision, but strangely enough, the dead body starts bleeding, which dead bodies aren’t supposed to do. The body wakes up, and it turns out the guy is not dead. The team returns to the drawing board.

House continues to hear voices, and after getting his ears checked out, he tells Cuddy he is quiting, determining he is suffering from psychosis. But he quickly discovers that the whispering he is hearing is real, since Wilson talks to his dead girlfriend before going to sleep every night. Wilson calls House a jerk for bringing it up, but House seems satisfied that one mystery is solved.

Chase is going through mental problems on his own while dealing with his guilt. He ends up in confession, trying to defend his decision to a priest and saying that it was the “right thing to do.” The priest says that the only way to achieve absolution is to turn himself in. Instead, Chase opts for a night of drinking.

House is wracking his brain to find a solution when Cuddy walks in to tell him that she’s signed off on his clinic hours that he needs to get his medical license back. He asks her what is going on between them, acknowledging the strong sexual tension, but Cuddy replies that they should stay the way they are—pushing each others buttons. House has his epiphany moment and realizes that the guy has a berry aneurism—a self-destruct button—in his brain. The man and his son are soon fixed up.

Chase comes home drunk late at night, and Cameron confronts him and says that he’s keeping a secret. He continues to deny it, and she stomps off angrily. The episode ends with House trying to talk to his father before bedtime before yelling, “Wilson, this is stupid!” Wilson smiles and whispers to Amber, “See? I told you he was getting better.”

Character Development:

Chase: Is about to explode. The highlight of his struggle with Dibala’s death (read: murder) comes in the confession booth, where you clearly see him uncertain about whether he made the right choice. The priest tells Chase he can’t just say a few Hail Marys to be absolved of murder; he has to turn himself in to the police. Chase is adamant that he did the right thing, but the priest won’t absolve him. Chase knows what he has to do to clear his conscience. Cameron and Chase have now fallen out.

House and Wilson: We see Wilson is still emotionally fragile from his girlfriend’s death, and House is still a cynic, albeit less of one. While House

Medical Mystery:

Perhaps the most interesting part was the seemingly dead man waking up in the middle of his “autopsy.” But other than that, the medical mystery was very much average. They should dial back on making character development the main driving force of the show and get back to the medicine.

Morning sunshines,

I hope your Halloweens all were spectacular. Me, I didn’t get too much of a Halloween, on account of having to get up at the crack of dawn (4:30am) to drive to the San Francisco Half Marathon. It was fun, but seriously?

Anyway, my column last week was a (for me, at least) loving profile of a person whose view on art online is completely opposed to mine. I’m for art made through community, and she says that community devours art.

It took me quite a few tumblr pages to find everything I needed to write that column. Below, you will find them attached.

Where I started: Kung Fu Grippe

Where that led me: A guy on my side (sorta)

And then to Theremina herself, the source of the argument.

This might help for context: some sort of skeleton

This tumblr thing can suck away lives. Be careful where you click!

When the Kanye West/Spike Jonze collaboration, “We Were Once a Fairytale,” first cropped up on blogs a few weeks back, I was curious but always too busy to watch the ten-minute clip. Then a friend insisted I check it out, proclaiming it proof that Kanye “really is the voice of this generation.”

So I checked it out. And . . . wow. Just wow. Stop what you’re doing and watch it. Unless you’re at work/in class, because it’s a little bit grody.

Thriller this ain’t, but it’s something equally valuable. It’s not a pop star reinventing himself, so much as admitting his foibles. We all thought Kanye was too egotistical to realize he seems like a total prick, right? But no! He basically just executed the best take-down of his own public image that anyone could ever have imagined.  He even posted this video on his own blog (prematurely, in fact, and the video disappeared from the internet shortly thereafter–this YouTube clip may not last long).

Though this odd little number comes right on the heels of Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” I think “Fairytale” is more akin to his earlier feature “Being John Malkovich,” a visually stimulating exploration of celebrity identity. Now all that remains is for Charlie Kaufman to collaborate with Lady Gaga, and we’ll be living in a perfect world.

Link source: YouTube

November 6th presents a dilemma for Bay Area cinephiles, who—due to the annoying fact that people can only be in one place at one time—must choose among three excellent programs at three different theaters. At the Paramount Theatre, a gorgeous Art Deco movie palace near the 19th Street BART station in Oakland, there is a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder” (1954). I recommend getting to the theater early so you can explore the huge, luxurious lobby.

In Berkeley, PFA is screening Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” (1961), one of the most beautiful, confounding movies I have ever seen. The film’s camerawork is stunning: Imagine a precursor to “The Shining,” with the camera slowly wandering through a mostly vacant château’s hallways. What is the purpose of the film? Is it a visual depiction of someone reckoning with her memories? Or is it a truly post-modern work that’s only concerned with surfaces—that is, is it a film without meaning? “Last Year at Marienbad” is rarely screened in 35mm projection, so be sure to check it out.

If you are in a more adventurous mood, visit Oddball Films, a peculiar artist-run loft in the Mission District, which is screening Robert Aldrich’s noir film “The Big Knife” (1955). Oddball Films is completely different from the opulent Paramount Theater: The screening room, which seats only 60 people, places viewers on a few ragged couches so they sit together like family. Two 16mm projections clank behind the audience, instead of in a separate, soundproof booth. It’s a weird but very intimate setting. And the rows of shelves stacked to the ceiling with 16mm reels (Oddball has 50,000 films in its collection) only reinforce the fact that this is a place for die-hard film lovers.

Image source: DVDBeaver.com
Link sources: The Paramount Theatre, BAM/PFA, Oddball Films

What’s better than reality TV?

A lot of things, but tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m., one very important one will be gliding over heart strings and plucking at souls in Berkeley’s very own Hertz Hall. That’s right, the University Symphony Orchestra will be performing and, from the looks of this weekend’s program, they’ll also be completely ignoring Halloween.

No “Night on Bald Mountain,” for these presumably un-costumed folks, led by conductor David Milnes, who probably won’t be wearing a costume either. But maybe they’ve got a few tricks up their sleeves for Saturday. We don’t know. Maybe Milnes will dress up as a “conductor” and wear like a train driver costume or something. Get it? Like another kind of conductor. Because he’s the conductor. That’d be clever. Right?

Anyway, I digress. The orchestra will play Rachmaninoff’s “Symphony No. 2,” Ernest Bloch’s “Suite Hebraique,” and Bloch’s “Concerto Grosso for strings and piano.” It’s only $5 for students, and even if classical music isn’t really your bag, man, it’s still sometimes fun to go relax and hear something you might not ever hear otherwise.

Rachmaninov - André Previn - Symphony No.2 Mvt.4 (3/3) [YouTube]
University Symphony Orchestra [Dept. of Music Calendar]

Any film whose premise centers on the cultish appeal of kitschy mediums faces an enormous challenge: How can a film be good when it is quite literally about crap? This is the question that went through my head while watching Jared Hess’ new film “Gentlemen Broncos” at the Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema last Monday, with Hess and his wife and screenwriter, Jerusha, in the audience.

Once again, Hess has an awkward, “Napoleon Dynamite”-style protagonist—a young, pulp science fiction writer named Benjamin (Michael Angarano). The film suffers from a lackluster screenplay, but Hess exacerbates its weaknesses by bringing to the foreground the sci-fi genre’s crudest elements. There is no cussing in the film (the Hesses are Mormons), but there are an awful lot of breast, penis and fart jokes, and gags involving shit and vomiting. This is the kind of film that would appeal to viewers who find a snake ejecting a stream of shit all over its nonchalant owner funny.

To be sure, crassness can be hilarious. The problem is that Hess’ sense of comedic timing is simply terrible. Take Exhibit A: Benjamin is preparing to shoot darts laced with rat poison and dog shit at targets (don’t ask) when a cat walks in front of the target. Benjamin misses and ends up shooting a dart into his mom’s breast, and she starts screaming wildly. There isn’t enough of an incongruity, a difference between the cat and mother—they’re both victims—to create humor; the sequence is just awkward and disgusting.

Now take a film like P.T. Anderson’s “Boogie Nights” (1997). It centers on a kitschy medium—pornography—and is set in the late ’70s, one of America’s worst moments, fashion-wise. The difference between “Boogie Nights” and “Gentlemen Broncos” is that Anderson is willing to delve beneath the surface and reveal a world in which porn filmmakers rise above the muck: They are ordinary people who consider themselves artists.

In the Q&A after the screening, Hess insisted that he really loves his characters, but it’s hard to see how. Benjamin gets a predictably happy ending, but as a character he is just awkward and bland and eclipsed by Hess’ shameless adherence to the aesthetics of shit.

Link source: YouTube

I agonized over a pun headline for this post–”Let’s Twit It On,” “You Only Twit Once,” “Tweet Home Alabama,” “Twit Up, Twit On Up” . . . you get the picture. The point is, the Daily Californian Arts Department has its very own twitter!!!!

Follow us, and you’ll find:

• Alerts about events in Berkeley, Oakland and SF
• Live-tweeting of select events (past choices have included Treasure Island Festival  and Michael Pollan’s speech at Zellerbach)
• Movie release announcements
• Pop culture news and commentary direct from the staff to you!
• 140 characters of pure brilliance in EVERY TWEET (except in Kentucky, void where prohibited)
• Links we found and decided to re-post instead of paying attention in lecture!
• . . . and lots more!

What this means in a nutshell is, you can get up-to-the-minute, locally-focused arts & entertainment info, tailored for you! Follow us, reply to our tweets, retweet us! Because if we can’t twitter, we don’t exist . . .

Please be our friends!!

Image source: Headline Shirts
Link sources: Twitter, YouTube

At what point to historical relics become art? For this post, the word “art” as I’m using it means something that is worthy of thought, an appreciation for the time and place in which something is produced, and acknowledging the care with which it was executed. Under this definition, a doodle you scribbled with a Crayola in your fist at age three or the lampshade your grandmother decorated with seashells and glass to sell at a souvenir shop in lobster country have the potential to become a work of art.

I was inspired by this notion when I paid a visit to Sherman co-op this weekend. Amidst a whirl of warm color that otherwise covered the mantle above the fireplace, my eyes zeroed in on two clear-cut figures occupying a black and white photograph, housed by a Lucite frame. “Who’s that?” I asked my hostess.

“No one knows. It was in the pile of free stuff.” She indicated the cozy clutter on a bed filled with jeans, bike helmets, teddy bears—whatever had been rejected by the inhabitants of Sherman. “You can have it if you want.”

Because I’m a sucker for all things vintage, I snatched it before I thought about how weird it was to own a photograph of people I don’t know. The photo was too good to leave behind. It’s a relic of the 1960s—a time I sometimes wish I had been a part of.

It’s a wedding photo. Sure, I’ve seen plenty of wedding pictures of my parents and their friends, but they’re mostly from the ’80s. These frequently boast extreme perms and power shoulder pads built into the wedding dresses. Instead, the only things dating this photo are the sleeves with round, cookie-cutter flower appliqués on the bride’s draping peasant sleeves made of a fine mesh and the Lucite frame.

The frame is made of prismatic cubes of plastic, arranged so that they reflect off one another for an eternity, playing in the light even through the grime that has accumulated for the last four-ish decades. In any other decade it might have been viewed as a little bit tacky, but with the mood of the Swinging ’60s, it sparkles delightfully as the epitome of class. The frame literally frames an era and a single story that happened during it.

Within the frame’s bounds stands a woman leaning on the lapel of her new life mate, her chin brushing his carnation boutonnière. Her white veil and dark hair smoothly flow to one side, framing her gorgeous grin. The groom has a small smile of pure happiness. My favorite detail is the man’s silhouette gently casting a shadow on the side of the bride’s face; it lends the photo a delicate intimacy. Their eyes gaze downward as they clink champagne glasses. The light catches the liquid in the glasses and the wedding band on the bride’s hand, her nails left unpolished, but still groomed and long. The bride and groom balance each other nicely: They don’t crowd or overwhelm the frame, but they provide the overall aesthetic with a sense of fullness, and assert the fact that this is their photo, their story.

The photo looks utterly effortless and flawless. It achieves this delicate balance between timelessness and period commentary. The story of the couple is one that has probably been around since the dawn of time—two humans that fall in love and proceed with legitimizing the bond ritually, and yet here they are in the photo, looking totally groovy, baby. This result—and not even in the age of digital photography, when you can snap two hundred photos until you get it right! It’s a private moment, captured for the public good via an old point-and-shoot. If this photo’s combined technique, preservative narrative and aesthetic aren’t art, I don’t know what is.

Link source: The Daily Californian

Little-known fact: best-selling author Jonathan Lethem used to work at Moe’s Books. Now a celebrated novelist and noted Philip K. Dick fanatic, Lethem wrote his first novel while working at the beloved local shop, according to the Moe’s website.

Later this week, he’ll be returning to his old haunt for a reading (and maybe a signing?). Stop by the store on Thursday, October 29, at 7:30 to hear him read from his new novel “Chronic City.” This one’s set in New York, and he’s a New York writer by reputation, though his first couple of novels are set in NorCal. “Gun, With Occasional Music,” which I’ve been meaning to read for some time, takes place in SF and Oakland, according to Wikipedia.

I’ve seen Lethem speak before–on C-SPAN 2, oddly enough, not in person–and he’s engaging and clever, so this event should be fun. Besides, when was the last time you went to a reading?

More info on the Moe’s Readings & Events Page here.

Image source: Onion AV Club, photo by Peter Bellamy.