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Manohla Dargis has this to say about "Turistas":

Advancements in special effects have made it easier than ever to make fictional disembowelments and the like look super-realistic. And on a fundamental level, the charnel-house aesthetics of films like “Hostel,” “Cabin Fever” and the remake of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” are not any different from the graphic passages in films like “Saving Private Ryan” and “Flags of Our Fathers.” The goals of these war movies are certainly far loftier than those of a run-of-the-mill horror divertissement, but in the end they all traffic — in part or in whole — in convincing images of extreme human suffering. Some films do it for art; others for amusement. For better and at times for worse, though, the cinema of death now appears inescapable.

After seeing "Borat" I was thinking about the comparative social functions of horror and humor. Is "Borat" "extreme" in the same way as "Turistas" and "Saw"? One could argue that humor advances, that it keeps pace with social issues (if one assumes that humor serves as a social valve & salve, as "The Aristocrats" argues, following what Aristotle might have argued in his lost work on comedy). Humor must dig deeper into discomforting topics; done well, it is almost always "extreme."

I'm not so sure it's the same for horror. Blame me for crass naivete, because I don't watch the genre nor have read any of what Dargis calls the "apologists for vivisectionist entertainment." So these are preliminary thoughts, and I would be willing to be educated. But I wonder if what drives the evolution of "extreme horror" is simply technological prowess, not a social need to have stories told in a different, more violent manner.

Let me back up. I think about narrative forms through the notion of the enthymematic. The enthymeme is a structure in persuasive language which takes the form of a syllogism, but is inverted. That is, the syllogism provides the major and minor premises, from which are derived a conclusion. On the other hand, the enthymeme provides the conclusion and the minor premise. The major premise (which is often articulated as a broad cultural value) is deliberately omitted. The author doesn't present it; the audience does. Drawn to the logical hole, they insert the major premise themselves. This is the dynamic of persuasion.

In a similar way, narratives operate by a series of structured incompletions. (The enthymeme is the most basic form of this structured incompletion.) One set of incompletions are necessary for plot. Another set is necessary for any linear arrangement of language. In these, the completion is postponed and often made available by the text or narrative. There's also the completion that's offered by the audience, which (if you could get inside their heads) is the thing that makes the narrative complete and meaningful. (Take a look at the Haida myths in Robert Bringhurst's The Story as Sharp as a Knife, which seem jumbled and almost incoherent.)

In the case of humor, the completion that an audience can provide changes, so the structure of the incompletion itself must evolve. In the case of horror? I don't see how this could be the case. Why does the structured incompletion of the horror narrative need to become more extreme, when horror, pity, and disgust are such fundamental reactions?

The Morning News publishes my essay about the first painting I bought.

Misty and I are about to head for the zocalo in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, where we are doing the colonial city leg of our month-long road trip driving from Texas, clockwise around the Yucatan, then down to Chiapas and back north. Tonight is "cook your traditional dinner for Christmas" at the hostel, but I am balking about attending, all curmudgeonliness aside: the Europeans would never believe that in Texas, we eat tamales for Christmas.

The absence of posts nearly all month has been due to the fact that we´re traveling in Mexico, taking a real moon of the honeymoon and enjoying lots of figurative honey. There´s lots to write about, but one thing I wanted to say is that traveling at Christmastime is the best way to enjoy the holiday, in my opinion.

Christmas is like a spice -- it´s something better enjoyed as a flavor, as an ingredient among many others. When you´re at home, you have to take Christmas as the whole damn meal for over a month, and I´m not so captivated by the holiday that I want to make it 1/12 of my year (or more, if you count Christmas displays in stores that go up the minute the trick or treaters go to bed).

What Christmas also lacks is a sense of the gift economy. When I was reporting the tongues story, I saw Dwight McKissick give a sermon on the meaning of the gifts, drawing on Paul´s letter to the Corinthians, as the first of a series of sermons in preparation for Christmas. (By chance, that´s also the letter in which Paul goes on at length about spiritual gifts, including speaking in tongues.) I wish McKissick and others also brought notions of the gift economy into their discussion. The notion of Christ´s sacrifice as a sumptuous potlatch is interesting to think about, and it may also go some way to explaining why people become so transformed as born again Christians: entering the gift economy and a symbolic order based on a gift economy is a shock, particularly when one´s only known symbolic orders based on market economies.

What is also curious is how the gift economy offered by churches depends on a market-based exchange, which is one of the main tools by which it threatens to taint the purity of the gifts. The other place is at the limit between logos and pathos. The next time a Baptist preacher calls you a postmodern fool, call him a mere entertainer. That will stop him cold.

You can preorder Um... from Amazon here.

You won´t learn anything about the book from the listing, except how long it is and how much it costs. But shoot me an email and I´ll provide you your very own personal description. Perhaps even personalized, if I know you well enough.