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Defending Xanadu

My favorite movie musicals are The Commitments, A Hard Day’s Night, Singin’ in the Rain, The Blues Brothers, Waiting for Guffman, The Wizard of Oz, Yellow Submarine, This is Spinal Tap, Dancer in the Dark, and the much maligned Xanadu (which I first saw only recently).

I now have a lot of affection for Xanadu. On my first viewing, I didn’t know what to make of it. But I kept thinking about it (this is generally a good sign). On a second viewing, I finally got it. I like this movie a lot and I want you to like it too. But it can be a confusing experience. So, as an antidote to confusion, here are 18 points about Xanadu:

1. Xanadu has no bad guy and almost no dramatic tension. The closest thing to a bad guy is an egotistic boss who is at best a comic foil. The only dramatic tension in the story is resolved in three seconds at the very end. I was expecting a story on the first viewing and got bored when no story appeared. Later, I realized Xanadu’s style is purposefully lifted from musicals of the 30’s and 40’s. It’s not plot-driven or character-driven. Xanadu is theme-driven.
2. It was a labor of love and “labor of love” is Xanadu’s theme. The labors of love are shown as building a dance hall, building a partnership, and building a romance. The romance between the artist and the Muse carries the movie. These labors of love are all shown as effortless (it is a fantasy, you know). The movie exists to celebrate falling in love and being alive. It is willfully nice. It is very nice. And it is the thoroughgoing niceness of the movie that won me over.
3. Xanadu doesn’t have a shred of irony. I find this refreshing. Some people confuse lack-of-irony with lack-of-self-awareness. That really doesn’t hold true in this case.
4. Critics accused the filmmakers of not knowing what they were doing. I think those critics were projecting their own confusion. I see the principals of Xanadu positively radiating confidence. What’s more, perfectionists like Gene Kelly and Jeff Lynne (and, I expect, Olivia Newton-John) don’t involve themselves in projects where people don’t know what they’re doing. Uncertainty and confusion are anathema to perfectionists. Quite the contrary, Xanadu accomplishes what it sets out to do. I see only three basic mistakes in the movie:
5. The first mistake is that Xanadu should have been rated G. It looks like they added post-production audio of the boss saying “shit” (twice) to guarantee a PG rating. If so, this was a terrible miscalculation. Some sequences are obviously made for kids. If it had been rated G, it probably would not have met so much hostility when it was released. And I think kids would really enjoy it.
6. The second mistake is the leading man is an everyman. Worse, he never sings and barely dances. Placing this candle between the arc lamp charismas of Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John yielded the predictable results. The actor’s performance was called wooden. If you look closely at his face, there’s real acting going on. But why look at his face when Olivia and Gene are right there?
7. The only other basic mistake (which I don’t mind at all) is that Xanadu embraces styles that are now kitschy and unintentionally funny. Fashions from the 70’s and 80’s are now camp legend. And, for that, Xanadu is quite an artifact. This only adds to my enjoyment of the movie. (How about that van’s paint job, or the Ruthless People wardrobe, or the Kotter stripes in the apartment?) I like it, but I can understand the facepalms.
8. I bet P.T. Anderson studied Xanadu very thoroughly for visual style and other elements when he was making Boogie Nights. And I suspect Xanadu’s male lead was a big influence on the Dirk Diggler character.
9. The handmade (pre-CGI) special effects depicting colorful streaks of light and fun scene segues are one-of-a-kind for this movie.
10. Xanadu is *not* a roller-disco movie. Roller skates are a form of transportation in this movie’s Los Angeles. The music is pop, new wave, and big band jazz. Electric Light Orchestra does most of the songs and they are great (even when they recycle their own material and fall into disco-y sound effects). Unfortunately, the title song is overproduced almost to the point of parody. Strip away the overblown audio and it’s a good song. (The only song I don’t like is the one Olivia sings in the studio sequence. This is just personal taste, but it’s a style of dreary ballad that was all over the place in the 70’s. Still, this particular number is worth watching, if only for the palm tree.)
11. A palm tree steadily erects during the studio sequence. It’s not there to be clever or subtle. It is maybe the most unapologetically Freudian moment I’ve seen on film. Then again, why the urge to be ironic? Erections are, after all, a fact of human life and falling in love. Their symbolic representations are not unknown to the cinema. But I still have to laugh for the surprise. There are other surprises (don’t worry, I’m not spoiling anything):
12. The Tubes perform, representing new music in one number.
13. There is an animated sequence. On first viewing, suddenly seeing the Disney-style images made me groan. But my groan was misplaced. It’s animated by Don Bluth and is very well done.
14. Olivia Newton-John, in heels and a USO uniform, tap dances with Gene Kelly in a big band sequence. Gene is a gentleman and holds back on his fireworks to let Olivia shine. And she is stellar! Who knew she could tap dance?
15. Olivia’s costume changes in the finale are really over-the-top. I hear the various get-ups are quite a hit with gay men and middle school girls.
16. Xanadu correctly anticipated: clothing styles, new wave, big band revival, working women, some aspects of hip-hop, and multiculturalism. Even the sister Muses are multi-ethnic. Combinations of styles run throughout the movie and represent an everyone-is-invited cosmopolitanism.
17. Xanadu’s director, Robert Greenwald, now makes popular lefty documentaries like Out-Foxed and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices.
18. Xanadu is like Being John Malkovich except it is a musical fantasy about designing a dance hall. In both movies, an artist is inveigled (by forces beyond his comprehension) to host an enjoyable refuge for people. In Being John Malkovich, the artist’s personality is supplanted by a bunch of greedy, fearful senior citizens. In Xanadu, the artist gets to fall in love with Olivia Newton-John. Being John Malkovich is a more convoluted and interesting movie. But Xanadu has a much happier ending. The music is great. It is relentlessly nice. And I believe Xanadu is also fun for the whole family.

And here is my decidedly underproduced version of Xanadu (flubs and all):

Image of Flying Spaghetti Monster Discovered in Pancake

I’m voting for a bunch of spineless twerps and I’m not happy about it.

The most recent episode of This American Life tells two stories – one about Tea Partiers in Petoskey and another about Democrats in DC.

My take on it: fighters who don’t think, followed by thinkers who don’t fight. It’s a very good episode especially if you want to get exasperated and angry.

We need the government to create as many jobs it reasonably can, as soon as possible. But the increasingly cranky Republican Party is blocking any attempt and the Democrats lost interest in fighting for it.

One unreal talking point from the Right claims, “Government can’t create jobs.” That is amazingly false. I see government workers regularly at the library. There’s another one that brings my mail. There is a whole category of jobs called government jobs. What’s more, governments can create work programs which can pump a lot of money into the private sector. Maybe we could use that to fix our crumbling infrastructure now so we don’t need to replace it, at far greater expense, later. I know people who could use the work. Or, I suppose we could just do without bridges and pipes. By the way, some communities are reverting to gravel roads because they can’t afford pavement, or because they are ideologically opposed to the idea of commonwealth. Governments can also create tax incentives and encourage industry in ways that promote job growth. The political right is keen on convincing us that government can do nothing about employing people. And some are fooled by this. And I have yet to hear this idiotic claim contradicted.

A more honest Republican talking point would be, “We don’t want the government to create jobs.”

That is why I am voting against the Republicans. And that means I’m voting for those cringing and fearful Democrats.

Any economist will tell you that during an economic downturn, deficit spending is a tool that governments can use to help revive the economy. I expect many Republican leaders are aware of this fact, but they have other priorities. The Republican leader in the House said his top priority is ensuring Obama is a one-term president. Really? That is more important than jobs and the economy during this crisis? Please, be sane. We’re hurting here.

And now we have a bunch of cranks that actually believe those talking points and are running for office. Let’s say we’ve had a house fire that’s been burning for the last couple years. These are the people who spent those two years trying to defund the fire department.

I don’t want these people in high office. I don’t want these people operating heavy machinery.

The Republicans refuse to realize the economic collapse happened because of the deregulation they continue to advocate. They led, with a lot of support from Democrats, a decades-long dismantling of all things New Deal. This allowed banks to divert mortgages into incredibly risky investments. In some cases, these investments appear designed-to-fail. If they were designed-to-fail, that’s not illegal.

I’m not generally opposed to risky complex financial instruments. I want investment banks free to try new things. But I don’t want the entire economy tied to those risky thingamajigs. Deregulation allowed that to happen. The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 – there’s a name to behold – ended a 1933 law that kept investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies separate. Now, all those institutions can combine.

Several mergers later, a huge part of our economy was in just a few very large buckets. That’s why humble home mortgages found their way into those bizarre financial instruments. This gave Wall Street a big appetite for making new mortgages and even betting against them. Did you know taking insurance policies out on crappy mortgages can be more profitable than having the mortgages paid off? And you never have to report the billions you made this way during the housing collapse, so there is no paper trail. It’s true. And it’s legal. And the economy is in the shitter as a result. The Right’s obsession with financial deregulation – getting rid of laws designed to protect the economy – was disastrous.

I’d rank that as one of the biggest legislative failures in the last 100 years. Yup.

And yet deregulation remains one of the few Republican platform issues – along with opposing Obama on everything and cutting taxes. (Right now, Obama wants to renew Bush’s tax cuts and the Republicans oppose him on that too, supposedly because it doesn’t apply to the very richest. And the Democratic Senate caved in and tabled the tax cut debate until after the election. Yeesh.)

To be fair, the current unemployment problem also stems from the Free Trade agreements of the 90’s. And those treaties were enthusiastically supported by both parties.

Now I know hating government is very trendy. Supposedly it’s patriotic even. I don’t get that one. But I actually want government officials who like the pretext for their jobs. I don’t want them hostile to the idea of public service. Politician is one of the few occupations where contempt for one’s work is seen as a virtue.

Of course the political power is very appealing. It’s the responsibility part they openly oppose.

I can understand the appeal of small government. Getting rid of Government creates need. Then companies can make money satisfying that need. Let’s assume that markets can satisfy anything a healthy society requires. (Yes, it is a fantastical idea.) A problem still arises when the population doesn’t have enough money to buy those requirements. If there aren’t enough jobs and the government is run by ideologues who are opposed to government helping people, we end up with a lot of very needy people.

The Bush administration’s non-response to Katrina is exactly what we should expect. I was in as much disbelief at the non-response as anyone else, but we should have seen it coming. Bush seemed genuinely surprised that people expected him to do something. The Republicans are tireless advocates of small government – it’s one of their favorite topics. Well, sometimes small government looks like a flooded city with no one to help. People were so angry at Bush, but he was just being consistent with his party’s platform. Why anyone wants to put that philosophy back in power is kind of mind-boggling.

The Republicans also want to privatize Social Security. Of course, if Bush had succeeded in this, the economic meltdown would have created a new brand of conspiracy theory: “Can’t you see? Cheney screwed the stock market on purpose so it would destroy Social Security! Man! It all makes too much sense!” (The effect is enhanced if you say this like Dennis Hopper or Crispin Glover.)

The Constitution charges our country “to promote the general welfare.” Republicans now consider that socialism.

We are far freakin’ far from socialism. If you think socialism is our big threat right now, you probably watch Fox News too much.

Instead of conservative, it’s more accurate to think of today’s Right as anti-liberal. Some of these anti-liberals are not just opposed to 60’s liberalism or the New Deal. They’re opposed the liberal tradition since the Enlightenment: Universities, scientists, journalists, progressive taxation, and the concept of public are all a part of what they see as rampant liberalism and what others see as the modern world.

The US is woefully behind the rest of the industrialized world in technology. And we have no political will to catch up. For example, the Federal goals for American Internet connectivity are to match, by the year 2020, the bandwidth South Korea enjoys today. And we may not even reach that goal because the political will isn’t there. I have nothing against South Korea but I don’t like them beating us like that.

And all those jobs that went overseas? Those jobs included research and development, because you need a shop floor to do that kind of work. So other countries are doing the innovating right now.

Can government solve this problem? Well, it can create incentives and programs that could help a lot. Well, the Right won’t have it. And we have a motivated subgroup that will rant all teary-eyed about Hitler, or some other nonsense, if it tries. But these are poor reasons not to try.

We have a vocal minority that believes Canada and Denmark operate like the Soviet Union. And they fear we’re next. I am sad our governance is influenced by these delusional people.

I am sadder there is so much airtime and money devoted to promoting and exploiting their delusional fears. It looks like the US Chamber of Commerce is trying to do for the Federal Government what General Motors did for the streetcar*. Only this time it’s legal and it’s cheered on by Fox and millions of voters.

These voters are about to vote for their own deprivation. And it’s all wrapped up in some perverse and badly-informed idea of virtue. “Vote against economic stimulus, it’s feels like fighting the Nazis.”

What’s more, some of them don’t give a crap about the world because they think their invisible buddy Jesus will put an end to it soon anyway. Leave it to religion to make the world disposable.

The conclusion of the Tea Party story on This American Life is surreal. The reporter is trying to make sense of one man’s contradictory decisions. This particular guy decided to do a number of things that are completely self-defeating. And it doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t seem to care about being logical or consistent or even successful. It’s a stark moment of hearing someone not thinking.

Electing that mindset is a bad idea.

So please join me in voting for those lame-ass Democrats. You probably won’t enjoy it anymore than I will. But it may keep cranks from having a legislative majority.

*General Motors was found guilty of criminal conspiracy under anti-trust law involved in the destruction of municipal streetcar systems across the country. GM, Firestone, Standard Oil, Mack Truck and Phillips Petroleum were fined $5,000 each. Their executives were fined $1 each. See the excellent one-hour documentary, “Taken for a Ride” for details.

A Diplomatic Letter from Space

There used to be an early draft of a story here. But it was just for a short time. And it was just for some friends who are smarter than me to take a look. Now it is gone. It may re-appear here or elsewhere. I don't know yet. If you know me personally, feel free to contact me on this trivial matter and we will talk about this and other things.

Vet Charities

"The American Institute of Philanthropy, a leading charity watchdog, issued a report card this month for 29 veterans and military charities. Letter grades were based largely on the charities' fundraising costs and the percentage of money raised that was spent on charitable activities."

Air Force Aid Society (A+)
American Ex-Prisoners of War Service Foundation (F)
American Veterans Coalition (F)
American Veterans Relief Foundation (F)
AMVETS National Service Foundation (F)
Armed Services YMCA of the USA (A-)
Army Emergency Relief (A+)
Blinded Veterans Association (D)
Disabled American Veterans (D)
Disabled Veterans Association (F)
Fisher House Foundation (A+)
Freedom Alliance (F)
Help Hospitalized Veterans/Coalition to Salute America's Heroes (F)
Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (A+)
Military Order of the Purple Heart Service Foundation (F)
National Military Family Association (A)
National Veterans Services Fund (F)
National Vietnam Veterans Committee (D)
Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (A+)
NCOA National Defense Foundation (F)
Paralyzed Veterans of America (F)
Soldiers' Angels (D)
United Spinal Association's Wounded Warrior Project (D)
USO (United Service Organization) (C+)
Veterans of Foreign Wars and foundation (C-)
Veterans of the Vietnam War & the Veterans Coalition (D)
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (D)
VietNow National Headquarters (F)
World War II Veterans Committee (D)

[The list is from this Washington Post page. Via the Rachel Maddow Show.]

Response to Paul Davies

"People say to me, 'Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?' No, I'm not... If it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it — that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it's like an onion with millions of layers... then that's the way it is." -- Richard Feynman from "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out"

Paul Davies' Op-Ed in the New York Times, "Taking Science on Faith" (November 24, 2007) makes a familiar argument. If he had used the light version of the argument, I might have agreed. But he uses the strong version which is just wrong.

The light argument is: Everyone works with metaphysical assumptions. For example, I have a working assumption that the universe is comprised of matter and energy -- and everything we experience emerges from those two entities. Maybe there is more to the universe than I am guessing. I just haven't seen convincing evidence of anything else yet. So yes, I have a metaphysical assumption and it might be wrong.

Davies argues a much stronger version of this. He states,

"science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way."

That is demonstrably false.

Quantum physics is not rational or intelligible. On the quantum scale, sometimes "if A then B" -- sometimes "if A then not-B." No one understands why this is the case. But if we perform enough experiments resulting in B or not-B, we can statistically chart the probabilities. That is a rational approach to something we don't understand. The use of probabilities delivers extremely reliable results over the long term. But the actual workings of the quantum world remain mysterious.

Physicists Richard Feynman and John von Neumann are both attributed saying, "You don't understand quantum mechanics, you just get used to it."

The world is not so orderly -- and this is already accepted by scientists. There is a difference between rationality in nature and using rationality to study nature. Davies conflates the two ideas.

Davies continues,

"The laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, the laws that regulate the world within the atom, the laws of motion — all are expressed as tidy mathematical relationships. But where do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?"

Davies presents these as questions that science ignores. Actually, these are vital and pressing questions in the physics community.

The mathematical relationships that he describes as "tidy" are actually pretty hairy. The relationship between gravity and electromagnetism has been a mystery for decades and is the impetus for studies in supersymmetry and the string hypothesis. When relativity and quantum mechanics are combined on the tiniest scales, they generate messy infinities.

The sexiest and busiest theoretical physics happening from Einstein to today has been the attempt to reconcile this problem. But Davies portrays the scientists as in a blithe disregard.

Davies reports,

"Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from 'that's not a scientific question' to 'nobody knows.' The favorite reply is, 'There is no reason they are what they are — they just are.'"

First, "nobody knows" is perfectly legitimate answer. It's the kind of answer that gets scientists out of bed in the morning. It's a mystery to solve. "Nobody knows, but maybe we can find out."

Second, we can't assume there is an ultimate explanation. If we found one, that would be nice, just as Feynman said at the top quote. But we can't currently assume such an explanation will be found.

Davies rebukes,

"The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational."

Again, we can't assume that nature has any reasons. But we can still use our rationality to study nature. Nature is what it is. Our rationality helps us discover nature. But we should not assume we will find rationality staring back at us. Currently, we don't.

Davies argues,

"If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality — the laws of physics — only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science."

No, it just means that some phenomena are unintelligible -- as in quantum physics.

A few words about the "laws" of physics. The use of the term "laws" carries some baggage. Plus, it invites additional baggage from those who want to assume a "lawmaker."

Let's take the law of gravity as an example. The law of gravity is one of the most respected ideas in physics. Galileo measured falling bodies at 32 feet/sec/sec. But that measurement turned out to be true only locally. Newton revised this by showing that the strength of gravity is inversely proportional to distance, and in doing so explained planetary motion. Einstein revised Newton, describing gravity in terms of space-time geometry -- which fit better with the orbit of Mercury around the sun. Now Einstein may be under revision as we try to understand the apparently accelerating expansion of the visible universe.

Like our secular laws, physical laws are open to revision. What's more, our current physical laws break down when we go back in time within the Big Bang model.

Our use of the word "laws" is a relic from science's past. Greater minds may be able to think up a better word. But it is important to realize that any scientific explanation is tentative, open to revision, maybe true at one time but not in another time. Modern cosmology now treats "laws" as potentially mutable.

Davies talks about his science education,

"The laws were treated as 'given' — imprinted on the universe like a maker’s mark at the moment of cosmic birth — and fixed forevermore."

It sounds like that education was a disservice. The Big Bang and inflationary models contradict these assumptions.

Leaving the Big Bang aside, let's concentrate on the consistency of scientific findings. Consistency of experimental results is the norm today and makes science possible. The current universe, to our best evidence, is very consistent. That does not necessarily mean that, at its root, the universe is intelligible or has "laws" for a "reason." Consistency and rationality are two different ideas. For example, the quantum world is consistently and dependably irrational.

Davies then touches on the multiverse speculation. This is the idea that our universe is only one of many universes. The other universes may have different physics which may or may not be stable or hospitable to life. He writes,

"In this 'multiverse,' life will arise only in those patches with bio-friendly bylaws, so it is no surprise that we find ourselves in a Goldilocks universe — one that is just right for life. We have selected it by our very existence."

Davies is responding to a line of questioning often called the anthropic principle. "Why is the universe so suited for our existence?" is a way of summarizing the idea. The problem with the anthropic principle is that explores the universe by looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

In the novella Candide, Voltaire ridicules this kind of thinking with the character Dr. Pangloss. Pangloss argues we live in the best of all possible worlds. Evidence for this assertion is that our noses are perfectly designed for resting eyeglasses.

Actually, most of the universe is hostile to human existence. We are not adapted to survive in the vacuum of space (the vast majority of the universe). And if the earth happened to form near the center of our galaxy, the turbulence may have made it impossible for creatures to evolve to the point where they could ask teleological questions.

A better question might be, "Why is our universe productive enough to create life at all?" That might be interesting except that it's likely unanswerable. Our sample set of universes is limited to one. And we don't know what portion of this one is visible to us.

While it's unlikely we are the first life in the universe, we're the only ones we have found. The universe is not teeming with life forms except very locally. A few miles up or a few miles down and you're escaping our humble biota.

If Davies is dissatisfied with speculating on a multiverse, we are in agreement. Unfortunately, he goes further:

"Both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too."

Scientists do not necessarily assume there is something outside the universe. For example, asking what was happening before the universe may be nonsensical because time is part of the universe in question. To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, asking what happened before the beginning of the universe is like asking what land is south of the south pole.

Davies' argument misconstrues the search for "physical laws" as necessarily appealing to something "outside" the universe. Plus, it throws in the problematic multiverse idea for good measure.

Then comes the zinger,

"For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence."

This is a subset of the general rule: "no one can provide a complete account of physical existence."

This is not a controversial point.

The advantage of scientific inquiry is that it admits this ignorance. But Davies tries to use our shared ignorance as a basis for false equivalence.

There is a difference between saying,
"The universe seemed to start with a Big Bang, I wonder why?" and
"The universe seemed to start with a Big Bang, I wonder who made it?"
The second question assumes a particular kind of answer.
The first question is more open-ended and parsimonious.

Davies' argument falsely equates the two. It does this by misrepresenting the quest for physical "laws" as a faith-based initiative. Today's cosmology is not so certain.

If Davies was arguing that we are all ignorant of any full explanation of physical reality and we do our best with our assumptions, I would agree. But he goes further to argue that all scientific inquiry is like religion.

In practice, the answer "God made it that way," tends to stop inquiry (and generates an unwarranted amount of certainty these days). On the other hand, all scientific knowledge is tentative.

Even a discovery as well revered as gravity is under continuous scrutiny and revision.

Under what circumstances does the God speculation get revised?


-- Pat McComb