Clockwork

The Brooks screened A Clockwork Orange on Thursday night. So we went and it was, of course, awesome. It was some nice timing as we had been to Eastern State Pennitentiary in Philadelphia only a few weeks ago. The prison Alex goes to is of that Pennsylvania style (the tour said that ESP influenced the design of 300 prisons around the world). A very interesting, new layer added to the film as that prison system was founded on an at-the-time idealistic principle of isolating prisoners (feeling they needed time to reflect with their thoughts in order to help them reform, they didn't even see their guards). Of course, that didn't last (those types of prisons eventually started to be converted to the type of prison closer to what we know of today, closer to the 20th century) as we learned more about the damaging impact of solitary confinement. (Anyway, they have a very distinct star-shaped architecture, compared to the spokes in a wheel and high, narrow corridors, how it's easy to spot.) Okay, so a prison designed on well-intentioned but ultimately cruel and unsuccessful reform ideology as the backdrop to that part of A Clockwork Orange? Seems like a very Kubrickian move and a little too close to be a coincidence (especially given the relative scarcity of this type of prison model). So that was very interesting to see in this context. Also, I think I may have caught a little reference to 2001 I hadn't before. There's the obvious record-store one, of course, but I noticed in the fight scene with Billy Boy's gang, right before they hear the police, the way Alex is postured beating one of them with his club...I THINK this was framed similarly to the scene in 2001 where the ape has the bone. I may be wrong. I'm trying to do a side-by-side by I'm having trouble finding that shot in A Clockwork Orange. I could be wrong, but it did strike me this time. Okay, got to go home a little early yesterday. Woohoo! Mary Beth and I went to some art exhibits at Glitch and Crosstown Arts. The one at Crosstown was really good, focused on police violence against blacks. There were paintings with newspaper clippings mixed in and tv's playing synchronized news footage beside the paintings. Later the artist gave a music performance. Between first looking and the music performance we went down to Amurica for Spill It. This one was a lot better than the last one, I thought. Most of the stories were really good. It always feels rigged though. The guy who won came in just before they started and the host was all excited he came. It's normally supposed to be 10 story-tellers, but they did an extra one after that and it happened to be him and then he happened to win (it felt similar last time we went, where the person who won was the one the people running it were all best friends with and most excited about). His story was good and was one of the better ones (probably not THE best in my opinion, but still really good). And this isn't so much as a complaint, but a goofy observation. I don't think they win anything except the joy of winning. But the feeling does stick out a little bit. Okay, after this we went over to Paul's. Shawna is in town for a week or so. We watched Castle Freak which was horrible but funny to make jokes about (the making-jokes being funnier than the watching itself as it's not quite funny-bad). Oh, and I forgot to mention in my last post that I started to play Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga last week, just a little bit, dipping my toes in the water so-to-speak. I really need to get back into Mother.