By Jonathan Alexandratos
I think I am what I watch.[1] I mean, not in some terrible way where
every degeneracy that projects onto my retinas instantly translates into my
next action.[2] It’s just that: people tell me that
they can tell what I’m reading by what I’ve written in a given week. There are certain stylistic similarities
that transfer, subconsciously.[3] I sometimes wonder if, in the best
case, I’m original simply because all of the various components I’ve absorbed
have intermingled to the point where no one can discern any individual element,
only the odd-looking whole, much like the communal face cloth in my old college
dorm. In the worst case, my A-B-C
stands for “Always Be Citing.”[4]
Recently I watched a film by Jean-Pierre Gorin (a director
I’ve loved ever since I saw My Crasy Life,
perhaps his best work) entitled Poto and
Cabengo which got me thinking about all this. The documentary, released in 1980, observed Grace and
Virginia Kennedy, two identical 6-year-old twins, as they communicated in pure
idioglossia. In other words, they
spoke in a language they invented.
All the time. And somehow
managed to avoid being in a sequel to The
Shining.[5]
The twins were raised in a strangely bi-lingual house. Their mother spoke a mix of English and
German. Gerlish? Engman? Their father spoke English only. The live-in, maternal grandmother, though, just spoke
German. So the Kennedy twins – who
called each other Poto and Cabengo, resulting in the title of the film – grew
up surrounded by a bit of, well, creative linguistics. There were 16 variations, between
the girls, for the word “potato.”
“Potatah” was one.
“Putatrah” was another. And
so on. Since the language was
purely oral, variations were easier.[6] It was also quick-paced and
staccato. Sounds pretty cool,
right? Well, the twins’ doctors
thought they were retarded. So
there was that.
And that, to me, is the part of the film that holds up the
biggest and most telling mirror to our society. Were these twins guilty of something we don’t just always
do, only perhaps to a lesser extent?
I’ve carried on conversations using random words, simply relying on
tones to convey meaning, but that’s still an extreme case.[7] We’re inventing and reinventing
language all the time, and it seems like it’s based on little more than just
what sounds awesome. Rad. Gnarly. Delightful. Like whatever will get us chicks.
Now, in fairness, the doctors in this documentary also
indicated the twins had reduced motor function, but it sure seemed as though
the fulcrum of their pro-mentally-handicapped argument was the fact that they
kinda spoke like Ewoks.[8] So, with that, I return to my opening
statement:
I think I am what I watch. But I think we all are. Poto and Cabengo merely represented an exaggerated version
of that statement. I’m not ready
to proclaim originality dead, but I’m ready to wonder if, all along,
“originality” hasn’t meant what we thought it did. Maybe originality isn’t an entirely new idea. Maybe it’s just the cleverest use of a
bunch of old ideas. Like whomever
is the keenest wielder of the Glue Gun of Invention is original. After all, Poto and Cabengo, as Gorin
aptly notes, didn’t create their own language. Even in the “potato” example offered above, one can see that
the twins’ “Potatah” is not far removed from our “Potato.” Yet, the language that Poto and Cabengo
spoke still bore the stamp of originality.
Gorin goes out of his way, in fact, to show the audience, in
a brief 73 minutes, the individuality and conformity of Poto and Cabengo. There are a number of sequences where
the screen goes black, and all you have is the audio of the twins
speaking. One article postulated
that Gorin didn’t have any footage for those scenes, so they were black in
forced recognition of his failure as a filmmaker. But that has to sell short Gorin’s expertise. He’s a guy that uses the very small to
illuminate the very large. People
as community, perhaps a slight ode to his Marxist upbringing. He and Jean-Luc Godard split because of
this.[9] No, Gorin knew, I’d wager, what he was
doing when he made this sound, the sound of both new and old, take center stage
in Poto and Cabengo.
Is my dilemma, then, so bad? Maybe, by Poto and Cabengo standards, I might still preserve
my individuality, in light of the fact that my surroundings are constantly
echoed in my day-to-day operations.[10] Gorin went on a fact-finding
mission. It may have, initially,
been to find out more about the Kennedy twins. It ended up being about us all. Now hang on, Worf’s about to totally stab this guy with a
Bat’leth and I really need to watch…
[1] One reason
why I can’t watch too many Klingon episodes of Star Trek.
[2]Unless we’re
talking about footnoting. In which
case, yes.*
*Or
if we’re talking about sales on frozen tacquitos.
[3] Hear that
David Foster Wallace!? All this is
happening SUBCONSCIOUSLY.
[4] Citation
needed.
[5] Though, we
only did make it to year 6…
[6] No one
needed a definitive way to write anything.
[7] Little
experiments where you say a sentence like “Fishbowl suckerpunch cola,” but,
tonally, you’re saying “I love you.”
It’s fun to do on the subway.
You tend to get your own car after a while.
[8] Yes, yes, I
know. There weren’t Ewoks in
1980. Ah, let’s just take a second
to appreciate that, shall we?
[9] He and
Jean-Luc Picard? Still cool.
[10] Great. Now on to why I have to make everything
I see into a narcissistic quest to “find out more about myself.”
No comments:
Post a Comment