How much is an idea worth? How about a kernel of an idea? What about a friendship? Those are just a few of the questions asked and to some degree answered in David Fincher’s new film, The Social Network, a quasi-historical account of the founding of Facebook.
I was skeptical when I first heard about this project for a number of reasons. First of all these events barely qualify as capital “H”-history since they happened just seven years ago and the true impact of Facebook remains unknown (although there is an interesting scene where Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s anti-hero founder, is attending a lecture given by Bill Gates where he talks about the challenges of creating BASIC and you realize that in the internet age, Microsoft hails from an entirely different epoch than Facebook; the difference between the two isn’t so much Ford and Toyota as it is the horse-drawn carriage and BMW). Second: how do you effectively dramatize a bunch of kids coding in their dorm rooms and sniping at each other through lawyers over intellectual property theft? The answer in cheeky hindsight is that you get Aaron Sorkin to script it and David Fincher to direct.
Somehow this was more compelling than watching a guy age backwards--go figure.
Sorkin, perhaps best known for his work on the much lauded The West Wing (which I’ve never seen--an admission liable to get my liberal-pass revoked), springboarding from Ben Mezrich’s book, “The Accidental Billionaires” has crafted a beast of a script. All the characters speak with the type of wit and humor that generally comes to us long after a conversation has ended if ever. He sort of inverts the rule of less is more: why say in five words what you can say in fifty? Most of the actors employ a rapid fire "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" delivery that keeps the film humming. This technique gives the movie a kinetic verve that's quite impressive to behold (keep an ear out during the first meeting with Sean Parker: pure fireworks).
The opening scene is the aural equivalent of Saving Private Ryan's brutal Omaha Beach invasion. Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg hanging out with his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend speaks with growing ardency about the infamous Harvard Final clubs, places that only allow the elite-est of the elite. It soon escalates into a verbal sparring match that culminates in both sides launching volleys of insecurity-seeking missiles. Later that night, the jilted Zuckerberg in a drunken hissy-fit creates a website that inadvertently leads to the creation of Facebook.
The film's perspective comes mainly from Eduardo Saverin, the somewhat hapless but well-intentioned co-founder of Facebook played with dewy-eyed innocence by Andrew Garfield. We watch as he gets slowly excised from the increasingly lucrative enterprise after providing the seed money for Zuckerberg to get it off the ground. If the film has a weakness, it's that it doesn't really take the time to establish how close he and Zuckerberg were before impending fame and fortune tore them apart. From the outset Zuckerberg just treats him with so much passive-aggressive vindictiveness, we wonder why Saverin is friends with such an obvious tool.
Granted there are ungodly sums of money involved in the dispute, but the film does an excellent job of conveying the idea that it wasn't ultimately about the money. After a certain point, tacking on zeroes becomes like gaining the high score in a video game: you’re just looking to distance yourself from the competition and leave them in awe of your prowess. None of the film’s characters' great-grandchildren will ever have to worry about money, specifically the litigants who felt Zuckerberg screwed them over.
No what these people are fighting over is something beyond money. Zuckerberg believes he’s invented something that will profoundly impact life in the 21st century. He’s not thinking jackpot; he’s thinking legacy: Gates, Rockefeller, Ford, Vanderbilt, men who left an imprint on the world. He starts off as a kid determined to infiltrate the exclusive social circles of the world’s most prestigious university. Mark wants entree into the inner sanctum of the wealthy scions and aristocratic jocks for reasons never fully explored (validation? recognition? coolest parties?). As he begins to realize the potential of Facebook, he sets his sights higher, much higher.
Jesse Eisenberg deserves a ton of accolades for his portrayal of Zuckerberg. He just looks physically tight as if he finds the world itself a constricting and discomforting place. He only ever relaxes when sitting in front of a computer monitor. You believe him as this awkward genius who despite his verbal dexterity is unable to connect with people in a normal way. The cast is uniformly excellent, especially Armie Hammer who with some technical wizardry plays...ah, I don't wanna spoil it, but it's a nifty trick.
The real revelation here is Justin Timberlake. While he’s never embarrassed himself on screen (he had some decent turns in Alpha Dog and Black Snake Moan, not to mention his stints on SNL), he’s also never threatened to hijack an entire movie as he does with his portrayal of Napster co-founder Sean Parker, the erstwhile Silicon Valley prodigy turned flameout. Timberlake delivers an atropine shot to the film every time he’s on screen. His Sean Parker is possessed of an almost preternatural charisma that ropes in the audience as much as it does Mark Zuckerberg. As my friend said on the way out, "One day this guy is going to win an Oscar." In the words of Antoine Dodson, "You can run and tell that!"
Of course you can't do a movie about Facebook without showing it. Kudos to the filmmakers for how smoothly they managed to integrate it into the film. There are a few scenes that rang pretty authentic to me like this exchange:
"How come your status is single on Facebook?"
"What? That's what it was when I started and I don't know how to change it!"
"You're telling me you're the CFO of Facebook and you don't know how to change your status?"
"Yes, you should look at that as a sign of trust that I'd even admit that to you!"
At its core, The Social Network is about class and the upheaval the Zuckerbergs of the world are creating in the upper stratosphere. He doesn't just represent "new money," but a sort of regime change. There's a particularly cutting line of dialogue in the film where Zuckerberg is telling his lawyer that the blue blood twins who are suing him are only doing so because, "for the first time in their lives, things aren't going the way they want them to." Individuals like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, Sergei Brinn and Larry Page--they are the new masters of the universe. They control the gates now and they're letting they're friends inside. And the old elite can't stand it. At least that's what the movie seems to drive at.
The Social Network makes a perfect bookend with another film about American capitalism: P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood. In Anderson's film the ferocious oilman Daniel Plainview embodied the ruthless spirit of early 20th century capitalism. Zuckerberg isn't the 21st-century equivalent of Plainview, at least not in this film. But as depicted on screen, he does embody a new class of entrepreneur, one for whom ideas are the most valuable commodity one can possess. After all, the difference in form and function between say Myspace and Facebook is a matter of degree, but one is worth about ten times the other.
It should be noted that the real-life Zuckerberg is probably a far more fascinating character than the fictionalized one. Here's a kid who at twenty-three had a cold enough pokerface to not even bat an eyelash when Microsoft's Steve Ballmer offered $15 billion dollars for his company in 2007. One day I hope to see a movie about that guy. Until then, The Social Network will more than suffice.
Extraneous thought, tangentially related: As a Facebook user, I kept thinking how the application had become a part of my life and that of my friends. I’m still not sure what it is. It’s as pervasive as the cell phone at this point and has probably done more to shift an entire generation’s views on privacy than anything else. When people talk about Facebook, it's an organic thing integrated into their lives like television or Starbucks. Several times in the movie, Zuckerberg and company talk about how they've invented this "cool thing," but have no idea what it will/can become. I think we're all still trying to find that out.
A few months ago a close friend of mine asked if I’d be willing to join him and a small group on an expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro. At the time I only had a passing familiarity with the place. I knew Kilimanjaro was in Africa, but I had no idea where. Discovering it was in Tanzania didn’t really help since outside of maybe a dozen countries the continent was an unsolved jigsaw to me.
International geography like history is one of those subjects we get exposed to before we might find it really interesting or useful and then we're never directed towards it again. Thinking about it, I’m rather embarrassed at how limited my knowledge is regarding where things are located in the world. Looking at a map of the region, I'd completely forgotten the Indian Ocean existed. Figure I need to spend some time with my old friend Carmen Sandiego.
I’m a bit lackadaisical when it comes to preparing for trips so, despite having several months lead time, I didn’t get the bulk of the recommended equipment until two days before I left. A bit of advice for anyone interested in mountaineering: it ain’t a cheap hobby. Kheiry, our trip's organizer, provided a novella-length checklist, a procrastinator's nightmare.
I’m indebted (in gratitude and coin) to the wonderful salespeople at Tent and Trails in lower Manhattan. Their assistance was indispensable. They made sure I had everything I needed down to the skivvies (tagline of the brand I bought, Ex-Officio: "17 countries, 6 weeks, 1 pair of underwear"--the clerk made a point to let me know these were under no circumstances returnable; apparently this had been an issue in the past).
After I filled the third basket, I stopped mentally calculating the damage, but the cashier told me to take a deep breath and brace myself before I looked at the receipt. As has been noted, beware all enterprises that require new clothes.
From Prada's 2011 Darque Continent Collection
The trip’s biggest selling point was that it would provide my first foray into Africa. I've thought of going many times, but the continent is so vast that I had no idea where to start. Kilimanjaro solved that problem for me quite nicely.
The trip would go a long way towards chiseling away the stubborn idea of Africa as a monolithic entity. It's never been a collection of homogeneous nations, but we often discuss it that way ("The problem with Africa..."); I've found myself falling prey to that tendency in the past. My visits to Beirut and Dubai helped break that habit with respect to the Middle East; I figured a trip to Tanzania would have a similar effect.
Stepping onto the tarmac at Kili International Airport the first thing I noticed was the quiet. Transported a million miles from a single electronic billboard, there were no herds of passengers simultaneously scrambling for their cellphones, no talking heads incessantly droning on from flatscreens, no skyscrapers illuminating the skyline in the distance. The constant assault on the senses that city dwellers become inured to after a while had ceased. Instead darkness and calm spread in every direction. It was like coming off a drug.
From the moment the immigration agent saw my passport, I heard a question that would arise countless times:
“What part of Africa are you from?”
“No, I’m from America.”
“Oh, what part of Africa are your parents from?”
“Um, Detroit?”
I tried to explain the origin of my name in the simplest terms. I’m not sure it made sense to them. Whenever I struck up conversation with one of the tour guides, he would always have a puzzled look on his face after I told him I had no family in Africa as far as I knew. That line was bifurcated a few centuries ago.
I explained that I'd have to do genetic testing to trace the tree back that far. Slave owners weren’t the best bookkeepers unfortunately. If it was too expensive, one guide told me I'd be better off using the money for another vacation perhaps to the West coast of Africa; I at least might run into somebody who looks like me. The guides also tried to parse the meaning of my name and came up with “No people.” In Swahili: “Si” – no, “Watu” – people. I found this mildly perturbing.
I will spare readers the details about how comfortable our group became discussing the particulars of certain bodily functions. I’ll just say we spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the regularity, color and consistency of our “ones” and “twos”—usually over meals. And it seemed perfectly natural like talking about how things were going at work. The wilderness does strange things to a person.
What follows are observations, thoughts and reflections on the climb and my trips into the city of Moshi afterward. If nothing else, I hope the pictures are interesting.
Day One – Dressed to Kili – Camp Simba, elev. 2650m
All hail the porter! Earth's mightiest heroes!
We spent more time driving than hiking the first day. Kheiry had chosen the Rongai route which would require five-and-a-half days to summit the mountain and one day to get back down. In order to get to this route, we had to start on the side of the mountain near the Kenyan border, a four-hour drive. The long drive allowed us to get acquainted with the Kilimanjaro community.
Villages sprawled across the lower region of the mountain. We passed countless homes, shops and schools. All the shops had the exact same sign--a young caramel-skinned woman with wavy hair in profile swigging a Coke. The names varied, but every store used that same sign. I really wanted to go to the store that sold those signs. Human traffic streamed up and down the sides of the roads as we drove past, mainly school children in color-coordinated uniforms and women carrying impossibly balanced cargo on their heads: bushels of corn, clothes, wood, supplies, etc.
One of my companions decided to shout “Jambo!” (‘hello’ in Swahili) in an amiable manner at all the people we passed. He got about a 90% response rate complete with waves and smiles. I hate to generalize about an entire country of people but I have to say, Tanzanians, in my admittedly limited experience, are some of the most unfailingly polite and genuinely helpful individuals I’ve ever met. They do expect tourists to tip for pretty much everything imaginable, but even in this the people I dealt with were never pushy or overly aggressive.
Camping was not a part of my upbringing. The last time I’d been in a tent was probably during middle school when my friends would sleep over in the summer. We’d tuck a sheet into the plastic frame of my box fan, turn it on and voila! instant tent. I have no recollection of ever sleeping outdoors in the wilderness, not even in the backyard.
In the city you might briefly mistake the wing-lights from an outbound plane for a star, but out in the wild you're beneath a canopy of brilliant constellations. Sure New York can be magnificent, but our relatively blank skies are still a sharp reminder of how tightly cocooned we are. There is something oddly comforting about sleeping outdoors. One of my travel mates said we'd miss it when we got back. I could see that.
Presidential Suite @ the Kili Hilton
Our chief guide looked to be in his late twenties, early thirties. His name was Joseph, but he went by Photo. This nickname came from his profession before he was a guide. He made a living taking pictures at weddings and graduations. I never asked if he still did photography as a hobby. “6:45, we will wake you up. 7:15, warm water for washing. 7:30, breakfast. 8:00, finish packing. 8:30, we get moving.” He would repeat this list to us every morning.
If someone tried to force him to skip ahead, he’d balk, staring at you silently for a moment before restarting his list from the beginning. His monotone recitation reminded me of the automated voice-recording we used to call in order to get the time. After a while it became one of those things that was simultaneously endearing and nerve-wracking.
Mawenzi peak, 3 days travel time
Day Two – A Time To Kili – Second Cave Camp, elev. 3450m
Day two set the routine for the trip: get up early, eat breakfast, hike for roughly three to four hours. Arrive at a new camp, eat lunch, hike to higher altitude for acclimatization purposes, eat dinner around 6-6:30, attempt to sleep by 8 or 9 at the latest. That may seem early, but your body is so exhausted you’ll want to collapse right after dinner. The biggest difficulty was forcing ourselves to stay up a bit later so we didn't wake up restless in the tar black pre-dawn. Thank god for Uno.
We'd come during the dry season. Our feet kicked up billowing clouds of reddish-brown dust as we hiked along the trail. You couldn't avoid the stuff. By the end of the day, I felt powdered head-to-toe like a doughnut. I could taste the grit in my mouth and my nose turned into a coal mine. I would have gladly donned one of those white masks the germaphobes wear when there's an exotic flu outbreak.
The first day we walked through rainforest, but by the second day the landscape had become far more rugged with sparser vegetation and lots of rocks. We were entering the desert portion of our trip which meant...even more dust. Yay.
Nice camo
Day Three – Kili Me Softly – Camp Kikelelwa, elev. 3600m
I felt a cold coming on. My nose was quickly becoming a faucet and a source of constant aggravation. We trekked through the alpine desert, much of the terrain blanketed in a thick mist. As we pressed on, the fog lifted and the contours of the mountain became visible. The vistas were magnificent with valleys and peaks stretching as far as the eye could see.
One of the first phrases we learned in Swahili was "pole, pole" (pronounced po-lay, po-lay) which means "slowly, slowly." It was our guides' favorite phrase and apparently a national catchphrase as I saw it on a bunch of merchandise later. Our hikes were always to go "pole, pole" for two reasons. The first was that they didn't want us to exhaust ourselves since we'd be hiking for more than a quarter of the day. The second was that we had to give the porters time to get ahead of us and set up camp.
The porters would always overtake us at the outset of our hikes. They moved effortlessly somehow mounted with a ton of provisions and equipment. Most of the men had been up the mountain more than eighty times. They had grown up around the mountain so they were pretty acclimated to the altitude and all of its various terrains. Here I was in expensive hiking boots and some of these guys were wearing trainers. Unbelievable.
Day Four – Brokeblack Mountain – Mawenzi Tarn Hut, elev. 4330m
The head cold was taking its toll. During the second hike for acclimatization, I found myself a bit wobbly and generally depleted. All I wanted to do was sleep. One of the guides named Kareem had taken to looking after me; he kept me from falling on the way back, taking me by the hand and guiding me over some of the steeper embankments. Being sick on a mountain combines all kinds of awful. I wanted a hot shower and a bed with a comforter and a shot of Nyquil.
The jagged peaks of Mawenzi were climbable at some point, but the rock was too porous to withstand the repeated use of more invasive mountain-climbing gear. The Tanzanian government has prohibited climbers from even attempting to climb past a certain point for some years now. I hope this allows the peaks to be preserved for many decades to come. They are quite breathtaking.
The intrepid Dr. B
The one thing I was quite thankful for was the food. Every day we received three square meals. Breakfast usually consisted of a healthy variety of fruits: mango, tangerines, oranges, watermelon, etc. followed by fried eggs and sausage with piles of toast. We also got porridge which everybody else thought was too watery, but I quite enjoyed. Reminded me of Malt-o-Meal. Almost every day we got a hot lunch: fried fish, chicken, stew, rice, beef and a host of other dishes.
Every dinner began with a surprisingly delicious soup. I had no clue there was a such thing as cucumber soup or that it could actually taste amazing. I usually had three or four bowls of whatever the soup du jour happened to be. A couple of times we got the national dish, a "vegetarian" stew (as Kareem hilariously described it once) with plantains, potatoes and beef. Other nights it was pasta with meat skewers or rice with a rich meat sauce. I ate better on the mountain than I had in months.
Day Five – Through the Black Gates of Mordor – Kibo Hut, elev. 4700m
The previous night I made the mistake of taking a half-dose of Diamox, the drug used to treat acute mountain sickness. I hadn’t been experiencing any negative effects from the altitude, but somebody recommended it as a preventative measure. I’d also taken a Thera-flu-like medication to help me sleep through the night without waking up to constantly clear my sinuses.
I didn’t realize the Diamox was a diuretic which completely defeated the purpose of the other medication. I ended up scrambling out of the tent no less than three times that night in the freezing cold to relieve myself. Suffice it to say, this did not help my condition. Lucky for me there would be only one hike scheduled for the day—Kibo Hut, the highest elevation we’d be stationed at before the ascent to the summit of Kili. One three-hour hike I could manage. Once we arrived I could rest, at least for a few hours. We were scheduled to begin our ascent around 11:30pm.
Kheiry gave us a final talk during dinner about the summit climb. He explained that the height we were ascending to (nearly 6,000m) would trigger unpredictable physical responses. The oxygen levels are significantly lower and you’ll feel your body working that much harder. So far, I’d only noticed an increased heart-rate. Symptoms to look out for included nausea, dizziness, vomiting and shortness of breath. Kheiry let it be known that this would be ten times harder than any physical endeavor we’d ever undertaken, mentally and physically.
Statistically speaking, one or more our band of seven wouldn’t make the peak (40% of people don’t summit Kili). More straight talk than pep. Reminded me of those medical school dramatizations where they tell everybody to look to their left and right, because one of them wouldn't make it through. Photo was a bit more encouraging explaining that due to the longer acclimatization we’d undertaken and the fact that we’d all made it this far boded well for an attempt to reach the summit. He did mention that puking three times was within the realm of acceptable; beyond three though and they might escort you back down the mountain. Three times?
We were roused from our various states of rest at a quarter to eleven. I’d been dressed since dinner, so I didn’t have much to do. It was less cold than I anticipated, but that could have been the tremendous amount of layering I’d done. I had on a windbreaker, a soft down shell, a fleece, a long-sleeved shirt, a polyester t-shirt and a thermal top along with windbreaker pants, hiking pants, thermal bottoms, liner socks, extra-thick socks, a balaclava, a skullcap, and thick-padded gloves. I felt like a Russian nesting doll.
The full moon illuminated the mountainside. We wouldn’t need our headlamps. The shimmering blue and gray surface was made up of a material called scree: a mixture of crushed and pulverized rock. During the day, the scree has a sand-like consistency making it very difficult to traverse vertically. The scree freezes in the frigid night clime, making it compact and easier to gain traction. With each measured step you could hear the stuff crunch beneath your boots as you zigzagged your way up the mountain.
It would take about six hours. The whole time I looked at my feet and the boots of the person ahead of me. You couldn’t really look anywhere else lest you trip over an errant rock or miss a turn. Also if you stopped to look up, you could get discouraged as the mountain seemed to extend forever into the sky. The trail of headlamps snaking their way towards the top above and below us was quite mesmerizing though.
Day Six - Last Night a DJ Saved My Life – Summit, Uhuru Peak, elev. 5895m
I’m not sure how everybody else dealt with the monotony of the climb, but I thank Steve Jobs for my sanity. I created a playlist of a few hundred songs on my Nano; I figured I’d run out of mountain before I ran out of music. I plowed through a few Radiohead and Nirvana albums, mellowing things out with a bit of Tricky and Bjork later on.
When we had just one hour left to go and I felt myself mentally and physically ready to succumb to the rigor of what we were trying to do, I knew I could only turn to one man for help: Gucci Mane. Who else could generate enough mind-obliterating ignorance to annihilate my ability to form coherent thought? I needed to be on total auto-pilot.
Sunrise on the roof of Africa
We reached Gillman's Point, the penultimate summit at 6:00a.m. roughly, right on schedule. Kareem acted as a human crutch, pushing and prodding me to the first checkpoint. Each time my step felt unsure, he was there to brace me and guide me upwards and onwards. The hour-and-a-half trek to Uhuru, the true summit, I gutted out with Kheiry and Kareem at my side. We were the first three from our group to make it to the tip-top.
When we finally reached the summit at Uhuru, I dropped my poles and turned to hug Kareem. He seemed as happy for me as I was. My eyes welled with tears and I was overwhelmed. I told Kheiry that I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to punch him or kiss him.
I am not a religious man. So I've never quite understood the idea of feeling humbled yet elated in the presence of a higher power. Yet I felt something very akin to that when we reached the summit. Standing on the top of the mountain, it started making perfect sense.
Perhaps it was the combination of exhaustion, relief and the lack of oxygen, but I was overcome with a profound sense of joy and humility that brought me near to tears several times. The world felt so enormous and I felt so small and fragile. I thought to myself no matter how insignificant I may be in the scheme of it all, I'm still a part of all of this somehow and that left me speechless. It's not every day you have a profound experience.
The scene was surreal. Around me people were either smiling deliriously with tears in their eyes or looking as though they’d just been dragged from the grave. I also passed a few people retching their guts out. How terrible that must be since you still have to climb down the mountain to get your body back to normal. I wanted to go over and tell them as long as that wasn't the fourth time, they'd be okay.
It’s practically another world up there. You see glaciers banded with brilliant hues of blue and white in the near distance and on the other side a vast crater reminiscent of Mars. Kili is a dormant volcano and the whole time I'm glancing down the side of the rim thinking how easy it would be for me to tumble down the side. If this were in America, they'd have to install handrails to avoid lawsuits.
The glaciers used to be even more massive, but global warming...
The descent proved to actually be fun as we literally slalomed down the face of the mountain, our feet gliding over the scree rock. In the distance clouds of dust from other climbers headed down billowed up. I still had to stop every twenty or so minutes to catch my breath. Kareem kept admonishing me not to sleep as I would close my eyes for the briefest of moments when we sat down to break. By the time I made it back to camp it was 10:00a.m. It took about two hours to get down. I peeled off my boots and fell asleep before my head hit the packed sleeping bag that served as my makeshift pillow.
Me and Kareem - "There goes my hero!/He's ordi-na-ree!"
Day Seven – Harombo Camp, elev. 3700m
Seven hours of trekking lied between us and civilization. The descent took us through terrain we’d not experienced yet on the trip. The tropical rainforest was unlike the one from the beginning of the hike. On both sides of the trail there was lush dense forest with all kinds of colorful flowers that begged to be admired. There were also a series of small waterfalls scattered along the way. I wish I hadn't been so tired coming down or else I would have taken more time to document it all. As it was, I could only think: "Just a couple of hours until running water..."
Hey, hey we're the Monkees!
Day 8-9 - The Quiet American
After bidding my companions a bittersweet farewell as they departed for the recovery portion of the trip in nearby Zanzibar, I made my way into town to get a feel for Moshi. It was a leisurely half-hour walk from the resort complex to the city proper. All I had to do was follow the train tracks. There was a road, but the dust was too much. Every now and again a truck or van would come tearing up the unpaved road creating a cloud that blotted out everything. You couldn't escape the stuff.
Once in town, I suppressed my natural impulse to haggle with the shopkeepers as if I were back home shopping on Canal Street. Sure you could get a merchant to knock off a few thousand shillings from the first price offered, but what they end up losing far outweighs the paltry savings I earn. A few extra dollars stay in my pocket, but it may mean eating well for a week or more to the family of the merchant.
During my first trip into Moshi, a man named George took it upon himself to escort me around with the stipulation that I check out his curio shop. George was a clean cut, congenial young man perhaps in his mid-twenties. He spoke very fluent English. He told me about the obstacles towards owning his own tour business, particularly the cost of the license: $2,000 USD. When you adjust for the cost of living, that'd be like having to shell out fifty grand.
He was planning on becoming a guide; porter work was too strenuous and paid practically nothing. As we crossed a busy street, he joked that the traffic laws were different in Moshi than from the states. As in they don’t seem to have any. I think Lebanese drivers would fare well.
The main marketplace
George was of great assistance and I did return the favor by making a few purchases in his shop. He told me things were progressing in the country, but there was still a long way to go. Politically things were fairly stable. There were no internecine religious or tribal struggles threatening to tear the country apart. And they didn't have pirates.
They just needed to industrialize more so that they weren't so dependent on tourism. After we concluded our business, he asked if he could friend me on Facebook. God, I love technology. It's changing the world in ways we can't even comprehend right now.
Chinese Grocery. The name is just to differentiate it from other grocery stores.
Walking back to the resort, I took note of the surrounding neighborhoods. The houses had painted concrete walls, topped with corrugated tin roofs, brown with rust and dirt. They didn't seem to be shanties exactly although I did spy a number of ramshackle houses that looked susceptible to a strong gust of wind.
The only distressing thing was watching the children play barefoot in the dirt. They seemed oblivious and happy, but it just looked like abject poverty to me. I think about the resentment African immigrants in the states sometimes seem to have towards African-Americans descended from slaves. There is a sense that we've wasted the opportunities a country as rich as America has afforded us. Of course this elides a great deal, but if I came from a place with living conditions such as those in Moshi, I'd probably feel the same way.
Sandals made from used tires
When I first arrived, one of my traveling companions asked if I felt a connection to the land. I can't say I felt a kinship with the land or its people. That would be too strong a word, although there is a vague sense of recognition. Instead I'm struck with a strong desire to know the history of the place.
There is so much I don't know. What was the continent like before the Europeans divvied the place up? Everyone knows Egypt, but what of the dozens of other countries. Were they even countries or are most artificial creations like Iraq, disparate groups bound together with the stroke of a cartographer's pen? I don't even know where to begin. I suppose that's the next expedition I'll need to embark on.
The other night I dreamt that I was at Madison Square Garden attending a Coldplay (?!) concert. I found myself in line at a concession stand buying a hero. The total came to something like $18.25 (without a drink or fries!) and I gave the cashier a twenty. She told me that she didn’t have any change, so I started to take my order and head off. Then it struck me that on second thought I should just stick around until she served enough customers to get my dollar and change I was still owed. She didn’t take too kindly to this and became progressively more irritated as I kept hanging around. Of course I became more exasperated because I couldn’t understand her aggravation with me. I was owed the money after all. At some point I just decided to cut my losses and walk away before I missed any more of the beatific crooning of Chris Martin. Troubling stuff.
I only mention this to bring up a point about dreams: they can oftentimes be prosaic, comprised of the most banal details. Dreams don't have to be weird (although the more pedestrian the dream, the more perplexed I am by it). An obvious point no doubt, but I raise it because one of the bigger criticisms of Christopher Nolan's new film, Inception, is that he just doesn't get dreams. Sure he can explain concepts like dream-state temporal compression and the logistics of "inception", but he doesn't get that like dreams are strange, man.
Click pic to enlargify
I think the films detractors would have loved to see this material in the hands of say a David Lynch, Terry Gilliam or even David Cronenberg: all directors who embrace the fantastic, illogical and downright creepy aspects of the world both in and out of dreams. Nolan is too much of a structuralist to allow his dreamscapes to get messy. He's not one to color outside the lines. Some have a problem with that and to be fair it's completely understandable. Yet that strikes me as an argument that refuses to address the film on its own terms.
I don’t think Nolan set out to make a treatise on the metaphysics of dreams or a meditation about the nature of reality. The film lacks enough ambiguous space for that to happen. More likely he endeavored to make a mature high-concept action film with some radical visuals. Nolan, best known for shepherding the triumphant revival of the Batman franchise is one of the most respected commercial directors working. His films are rigorously plotted and demand the viewers full attention. In short, he makes entertainment for grown-ups. Inception, harks back to the days when movies like Total Recall, Robocop and Aliens were standard summer fare. These were all smart action films that didn't pander to the lowest common denominator in order to inflate box office receipts. Sitting in a screening of Transformers 2, I had doubts whether such films would ever exist again in the mainstream. I'm grateful that Inception even exists to be honest.
At its core, Inception is a heist film with a sci-fi skin graft. To compound the conceit, the object of value isn't being stolen, but implanted deep inside the mark's subconscious. If I were sitting in a bar and someone described Inception's plot, I'd probably be telling them how brilliant they were. As far as high-concepts go, this definitely gets an “A” for effort. I applaud the studio for having the stones to put a couple hundred million dollars behind Nolan's vision. Even with DiCaprio starring, on paper it doesn't exactly scream box office smash. Nolan's ambition is unassailable. It’s the execution where one finds room to quibble.
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The film spends an inordinate amount of time setting up the third act. I can't say I was ever bored, but it raises the ante for the resolution of the main subplot, a subplot that doesn't have enough emotional resonance for the audience to be truly invested. That wasn't much of an issue for me, because I enjoyed spending time with Nolan's characters despite their lack of depth. They reminded me of a more brainy and serious version of the Ocean 11's crew. One thing I'm starting to notice about Nolan's characters through all his work is that there is a "what you see is what you get"-quality that has started to become problematic. Ambiguity in a character creates space for tension. Inception would have been greatly enhanced if the characters were a bit tougher to read.
Another gripe is that Nolan could have employed the soundtrack more judiciously. The score, constantly welling up in the background, doesn’t seem to complement the on-screen action so much as attempt to engineer an emotional response from the audience. Music pretty much always works this way in film, but when it’s as blatant as it is in Inception, it translates to flop sweat. It's as if the director doesn’t trust that his material is strong enough to stand alone. There is one clever little bit with respect to the music which involves Edith Piaf's "Non, je ne regrette rien" and a portentous music cue that wells up occasionally throughout the film. Nolan is a clever little devil, I'll give him that.
Nolan approaches his material deathly serious. This has been great for the Batman films since they had veered beyond the point of self-parody under Schumacher. Still, I feel a bit of levity would have gone a long way in Inception. The few moments we do get make the team feel more realized and less like vessels for Nolan's intricate plot. Also I wish he’d cast someone else in the lead. DiCaprio is a decent enough actor given the right role (I found him pretty convincing in The Departed). Here he’s supposed to be conveying a man who’s been left debilitated by loss, emotionally compromised, a man who no longer trusts himself but still tries to project confidence and control. I think a Clive Owen or Ralph Fiennes, even Colin Farrell would have been more suited for such a part. DiCaprio is thirty-five, but his face still has a callowness that betrays any attempt at evincing the world-weariness that the story calls for. He just comes across as deeply annoyed or at best aloof most times. That said, he's not shabby in the role; he's just miscast.
The rest of the cast includes a couple of Nolan regulars, Michael Caine and Cilian Murphy. Murphy does great work here as the ambivalent scion of a dying energy magnate. His character's denouement ends up being the most effective in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the guy who everybody should be hailing as the next great actor of his generation, does quality work here as DiCaprio's right-hand man. Tom Hardy finds room to give his character a bit of soul despite being saddled with as much expository dialogue as anyone else. Nolan knows how to cast a film. It's just that the film ends up feeling less than the sum of its parts.
I don't want to sound as if I didn't like the film. I thoroughly enjoyed it actually. I'd rank it between The Prestige and The Dark Knight. It's not the mind-f##% the first trailers seemed to promise, but it is a mature action film that takes great pains to respect its audience. There's no shame in that.
I have heard this question from almost every Lebanese person with whom I’ve talked to on my two visits to Lebanon. They ask in the nervous manner of an amateur chef inquiring about a meal he has just prepared for you. They await your response with what is sometimes literally breathless anticipation. There is a deep-seated self-consciousness about how foreigners perceive their country. This is a generalization to be sure, but I’ve made this observation to a number of Lebanese. They've all agreed with it to some degree. Relax, I feel like saying. You’ve got a lovely country. Please, breathe easy.
The wedding reception. Restaurant @ Le Gray Hotel
I suppose the anxiety is warranted considering most American (if not most Western) views of Beirut are grossly distorted. The name Beirut conjures images of the city circa 1984. That Beirut is preserved in amber, engulfed in perpetual civil war. People in the states, when I tell them I’m headed to there, invariably ask, “Is it safe?” Their minds no doubt conjuring visions of men running from building to bullet-pockmarked building armed with Kalashnikovs, avoiding mortar fire. It’s lamentable that we’ve been at war in the Middle East coming upon a decade and most of us Yanks couldn’t pick out Iraq on a map let alone be bothered to understand the basic regional dynamics.
After-hours party at BO18
Granted I’ve made my visits here under the best of circumstances: accommodations in a nice apartment in the solidly middle-class Hamra district near the university, all expenses pretty much covered by my maddeningly gracious hosts, but I find the city incredibly hospitable. Everyone I've met has made me think the Lebanese are a naturally gregarious bunch. You step foot in a place and find yourself amidst strangers offering smiles and warm embraces, eager to chat me up about anything and everything from the World Cup to local politics.
Baalbek
It probably doesn’t hurt that some of the most beautiful natural landscapes you’ll ever come across surround you. Does wonders for the disposition I imagine. From the picturesque Mediterranean to the verdant mountains and valleys, the scenery is often arresting; you’re compelled to stop and let your eyes drink it all in. I’m told Beirut is one of the top vacation spots in the Middle East. I’ve no reason to doubt it.
Despite the vast expanses of land visible all around, the actual urban landscape is densely packed. Streets feel crowded with vehicles. A dearth of sidewalks means pedestrians and moving cars are always in uncomfortable proximity to one another. The traffic would fray the nerves of anyone unaccustomed to vehicular anarchy. Many times I saw autos packed like clown cars with people spilling out of the top or a van with plastic deck chairs for seats.
Lebanese celebrate German win over England
Motorcycles and mopeds are ubiquitous, but helmet use is practically non-existent from what I’ve seen. It’s funny how as an American this jumps out at me right away and I find myself having a strong paternalistic reaction. I found this simultaneously amusing and horrifying. Out of morbid curiosity I’d like to analyze Beirut’s traffic accident and fatality statistics in order to see how they compare to more conventionally regulated cities. Despite the loosely organized chaos of the streets, I never felt unsafe, but then I was usually in a very big truck.
Nasrallah threatening to attack Israel. Big bark for such a tiny dog.
The term “third world” has fallen out of fashion, replaced with the far less patronizing “developing nation”-tag. Lebanon feels like the quintessential developing nation. Downtown Beirut seems as vibrant and cosmopolitan as any medium-sized Western city or perhaps even Tel-Aviv. You’ll find Nike and Prada stores next to chic hotels and boutiques. There are numerous billboards advertising luxury condominiums and commercial developments aplenty. But this affluence is concentrated in small pockets around the city. Poverty remains pervasive. Ramshackle housing, rolling blackouts and a neglected infrastructure are the reality for most Lebanese. Coupled with an anemic labor market and a frequently dysfunctional government, it’s clear why those who can leave ultimately do.
Sky Bar. Surprisingly not full of d-bags
As my host has said on several occasions, there are four times as many Lebanese living outside of Lebanon as within. This diaspora has arguably been a net positive for the Lebanese people, but it has undoubtedly caused the country to suffer. The brain drain in Beirut reminds me of what’s happening in Detroit and other industrial dinosaurs trying to claw a foothold into the 21st century. In the case of Lebanon, it seems to be a combination of things: a weak government dogged by systemic corruption, a standard of living that can’t compete with Beirut’s more enticing Western neighbors and external interference from the likes of Syria and Iran. This pressure has immeasurably impeded the maturity of the nation. Frustration regarding this reality is never far from the surface of most Lebanese.
I have often heard young, educated and driven Lebanese expats speak of the growing ambivalence they feel towards their country. They have a sincere and deep-rooted desire to return for myriad reasons. What stops them is a lack of agency. They feel unable to effect significant change in the country especially in a place where political assassinations are commonplace. Still, there is a strong sense of pride among the expat community and if things settled down, I could see many resettling. I would bet on an organic democracy emerging in Beirut within the next couple of decades. The soil is still just a bit too hard for it now, but when I look around it just feels inevitable.
Despite all this, there are things about the country that come as a pleasant surprise. From what I’m told Beirut has a very low incidence of crime such as assault, theft, murder and rape. This is surprising for a number of reasons. The first is that there is no real police presence on the streets. You don’t see beat cops patrolling neighborhoods. You will see the random odd soldier manning an equally random and odd checkpoint. The second is that Lebanon is not a country under Islamic rule. The penal system is far less severe compared with that of some of its neighbors. They don’t have anything like Iran’s Basij wandering the streets, looking over everyone’s shoulder.
In many respects, Lebanese society feels exceptionally free. I tend to think the freer the place, the more susceptible it is to violence, but Beirut cuts against that theory. I’ve also heard that during the civil war, the streets were still relatively safe as long as you stayed away from the hot zones. Apparently there wasn’t much spillover into civilian life (aside of course from living in a literal warzone and all that entails).
Recently, there has been an effort to raise the visibility of the police. In the last few years, the sight of an actual cop car has become more commonplace. I don’t think they actually patrol or work a beat, but they seem to be moving in that direction. We even got to experience the inaugural implementation of some sort of traffic regulation when my friend was hit with a ticket for not wearing a seat belt at a highway checkpoint (where ironically another driver used the road's shoulder to circumvented said checkpoint altogether and didn't get so much as a stern look). This would have been unheard of a few years ago. We're talking about a place where traffic lights are more of a suggestion than a directive. It's encouraging to those of us who believe you need a government to enforce laws as "live and let live" only gets you so far.
Desecrating ruins. That's just how we roll.
I almost managed to stay out of trouble this time. No unauthorized mosque photos causing platoons of Hezbollah soldiers to descend on us. Instead I tried to take a picture of a military convoy truck much to the chagrin of the people I was riding with. The soldiers didn't seem to mind as I'm told a few of them waved at the camera as I took the photo. Unfortunately, their superiors weren't as gracious. We were pulled over and questioned for a few minutes while a baby-faced soldier cursed me in Arabic. I showed the officer in charge the offending photo and he made it clear that I was to delete it. Once I did, they let us go with only a warning not to go around snapping photos of the military.
"When in Rome" I suppose, but it still struck me as odd considering that soldiers and armored vehicles are pretty ubiquitous in the city and it's not even clear why. They're the equivalent of mall security. To make it worse, it seems in order to get a uniform you must have all traces of levity excised from your personality. These guys are utterly humorless. At least the Hezbollah guy smiled while he was interrogating us. And he let me keep my picture.
Las Vegas, NV – An hour removed from landing at McCarran International Airport, I am sitting in what is frequently regarded (at least by the locals) as the world’s best strip club. I have joined some friends who arrived a couple hours earlier. We are seated in an area reserved for bottle service patrons, an elevated section fenced off from the rest of the club. A half-dozen used glasses ring half-empty carafes of vodka and fruit juice. The group is buzzing and there is lots of demonstrative backslapping. Howls of laughter are barely audible over the din of hard rock coursing through the place. A pneumatic platinum blonde dancer slinks down a pole on a small circular stage just a few feet from us. A scene couldn’t scream “Vegas” any louder.
I plop down on a velvety couch facing the rest of the club. I admit to finding the inverted social dynamic of strip clubs intriguing. All the girls play by Sadie Hawkins rules. At least ostensibly they do. Like everything else in this city, you’re still coming out of pocket. It’s not as if the girls are risking anything when they approach a guy. Still, I have watched dancers get upset when their dance solicitations get rejected. Maybe in some ways that rejection is even worse than a guy approaching a girl in a normal club. It’s hard for somebody to be implicitly told that they are physically unattractive no matter what the circumstances.
After some breezy conversation, Aria excuses herself to conduct business. She is working after all. I am left to wonder how she got started in her career. I’m guessing someone scouted her after observing her in a club or something. Asked her if she wanted to make some easy money just offering to hook deep-pocketed men up with long-armed girls. Was it much of a moral quandary for her? Did she worry about her parents asking about how she afforded her lifestyle? What about relationships? Was she able to maintain a significant other? What were her tax returns like?
I won’t see Aria for the remainder of the trip. I feel a tinge of disappointment about that.
Strip clubs like nature abhor a vacuum. Eventually a couple of other girls insist on keeping us company. I tell one girl that I am treating my friend to a dance and she goes over to sit on his lap. I explain to the other girl that I don’t like dances. I haven’t for a while. Not so much for moral reasons, but a stubborn immunity to the effects. My brain is unable to detach what the girls are doing from the fact that money has facilitated this transaction as opposed to say my disarming charm. The cash nullifies the gratification. So I hand her a few twenties and tell her I’ll compensate her for her time.
We talk while her friend grinds my friend into submission. She tells me about how they both fly out to Vegas when they want to make some quick money. They are from the tri-state area and usually work at one of the large clubs near the Westside Highway. This is fairly common among dancers. Many come from LA and San Diego for the weekend. I ask her how it works and she explains that the girls pay a flat fee to work, usually $100-150/night depending on the weekend. For dances, they keep whatever they make. If a girl and her clientele use the VIP section or one of the more private and insanely expensive ($500/hour) rooms, the club takes a percentage. On a good weekend she says she’ll clear maybe $5,000. And that’s not even the real money.
She says that she doesn’t offer “take-out service,” but many of the girls (including her companion) do. If I had to hazard a guess I would say maybe 70% of these girls are pros. On any given night in this club there are usually over 100 girls working. I ask her what kind of money they make for extra-curricular activities. She points to one of the girls engaged in a lap dance, a life-size Barbie. “My homegirl working over there? She charges $2,500 an hour.” Surely that can’t be right, I scoff. A man with the means to pay that kind of money, wouldn’t he be able to just go pick up a girl? Obviously these sort of profligate transactions happen. I mean New York’s former governor is perhaps the most famous John of all time for doing just that. She waves off my incredulity. “They do it because they can. They like being able to get what they want right now, right here.” Still, I can’t really wrap my head around it. I just envision having the wickedest case of buyer’s remorse ever.
I would guess the enhanced women outnumber the natural girls at least 4:1. It’s disturbing how much (bad) plastic surgery is being regularly showcased here. But the girls wouldn’t do it if it didn’t increase the bottom line. I’m no proponent of breast augmentation, but I would think optimally a woman should only go one cup-size up from her natural physique. Anything more and her body isn’t equipped to handle the bulk. These girls completely stomp on that rule and seem to be adding three or four cup sizes to their natural frames. The result: skin stretched taut across the breast plate with two bocce balls straining underneath. It confounds me that anyone finds this attractive.
A number of songs later, I tell her that I’ve let the meter run long enough and thank her for her time. The two girls discuss how much longer they intend to stay in terms of dollars: “How much more you wanna make tonight?” “I’m at fourteen-hundred. So like five more dances?” I’m impressed at how they’ve compartmentalized their work.
My friends and I are all still on New York time and it’s after three in the morning. We are exhausted, but not sleepy. Everything in this city conspires to decouple you from your internal clock. Unless you’re outside you never have any idea what time it actually is. The city is one giant sensory deprivation chamber. I can’t believe I have three more days of this.
I didn't have high expectations going into Tom Six's "The Human Centipede". The trailer seemed to give away the film's macabre punch line. I figured it would be your run-of-the-mill low budget, poorly-acted, unintentionally hilarious horror film, albeit one with a novel but thoroughly demented premise. After viewing the film, I was shocked for a number of reasons.
Herr Doktor
Foremost, it's actually a decent and for a few stretches good movie. German actor Dieter Laser anchors the film with his portrayal of the Mengele-like Dr. Heiter. In every scene his lunacy percolates under the surface like a fever. From his unblinking gaze to his slow and deliberate movements, his demeanor screams "I am not sane." Well that and his fetish for stitching mammals together via their gastro-intestinal tracts.
As ripe for pornographic exploitation as the film's premise is, I was happily surprised at how restrained the film turned out to be. There is blood and viscera, but the film never crosses into "Two Girls, One Cup"-level scatological licentiousness. In fact, the one scene where the logistics of the "human centipede" are depicted, any revulsion is generated from the viewer's own imagination. But that seems to be the lesson that most good horror moviemakers have learned: what I conjure in my head whether in anticipation or as it happens is infinitely scarier and more disturbing than what you can show me on-screen.
I've seen some reviews categorize the film as "torture porn," along the lines of Eli Roth's "Hostel" or any number of chop-the-girl-up-in-creative-ways flicks that have come into fashion lately. I'd disagree that "The Human Centipede" falls into this category. There is misogyny, fetishism of violence and a general nihilistic misanthropy-thing going on, but these all seem like expressions of the antagonist's insanity than a cynical ploy from the director. Director Tom Six seems more interested in ramping up the anxiety in his audience to unbearable levels and for the most part he succeeds.
The movie starts out in typical genre fashion with two girls stranded in the woods who come across an eccentric loner. There is subtle humor in the opening scenes. It stems from the soon-to-be-victims being utterly unperceptive to the signals that their host is unbalanced. Six does a good job of disarming the viewer here. The tonal shift is jarring after herr doctor captures his prey and the audience finds itself on edge from there on out.
Six then proceeds to guide us through some heretofore unrevealed circle of Hell and strands us there. The post-modern austerity of Dr. Heiter's home makes for a perfect mousetrap with its seemingly endless identical doors and antiseptic white walls. The audience is left feeling perpetually mortified and helpless as our protagonists try their best to persevere their collective nightmare. Don't look for a ladder at the end either.
Trust me. You don't wanna know.
The films biggest missteps are the leaps in logic that the characters undertake which many horror films succumb to; at a few pivotal junctures, the characters behave in a way that blinkers reason in order to advance the plot (sort of like how lazy rom-com screenwriters rely on the "big misunderstanding" almost without fail in the second act). This dunderheadedness doesn't break the film, but it does detract from what is otherwise a well-crafted psychological torture film.
The film is subtitled "First Sequence" and according to IMDB, the sequel will be out next year. I can't imagine revisiting the universe that director Tom Six has created with this film and most likely won't. However, this one will earn (well-deserved) cult status and will probably be a midnight staple at art houses for years to come. I'm not sure what conclusions one should draw about humanity from this.
(P.S. - I am don't know what's more shocking about this film: the fact that director Tom Six conceived the idea of surgically chaining humans together like linking logs or that nobody thought of it before.)
I am currently riding the Acela, the fastest train in the U.S., from NYC to DC. The trip will take approximately 2hrs 45mins to cover a little over two-hundred miles. Last November, during my visit to Spain, I rode several trains, one being the high-speed rail between Madrid and Barcelona. That trip interestingly enough takes roughly the same amount of time as the NYC-D.C. Amtrak trip. However, the distance between Madrid and Barcelona is a bit over three-hundred miles. What gives?
Well of course there are myriad reasons why the U.S. lags behind not just Europe but Asia also. Our love of car culture and collective aversion to robust public funding for things that promote the general welfare (education, transportation, health care...) being chief among them.
Still, it's incredibly embarrassing to note how different train travel is in other industrialized nations. Slate recently had an article detailing how difficult it can be to navigate one's way through Penn Station. Although I've been through Penn countless times, it's rarely to use the railway. I was annoyed at how vague and insufficient the directions were throughout the station. And when you finally get where you're going there's no indication of it. Nothing that loudly broadcasts, "You're at Amtrak!"
How is it that I was able to find my way (easily) through every train station in Spain and Portugal despite speaking absolutely none of either native language? Why is it that for Amtrak the arrival and departure tracks aren't posted until 10-15 minutes before they happen? Why does Penn Station make you feel as if you're wandering around the rebel base on Hoth from Empire? It's all dingy corridors with pipes running every which way. It's not as if we don't have elegant transportation hubs (Grand Central, natch). Why do we just accept such a half-assed barely utilitarian structure? I guess for the same reason we accept higher MTA fares for ever-deteriorating service. Mein gott!
Well at least the Acela comes with free internet (that doesn't allow video or audio streaming; hey look I'm in 1994! The AOL Experience is back! 'You've got mail!'). Ugh...
Born and raised in Detroit. When food became scarce and the white man began occupying our homeland, I migrated to the island of Manhattan eventually moving to Brooklyn due to high rents.
