I suppose communists are pissed off while living in a capitalist system because that system turns them into the ultimate ironic expression of individuality, by making them objects of loathing (pursuing communist political objectives while being so despised is a productive form of individuality). And capitalists are pissed off while living in a communist system because that system turns them into the ultimate ironic expression of community, by making them objects of ridicule (and murdering them) even though they possess the charisma necessary to unite large groups of people.

Don't know which genius I prefer, the one who generally follows or revolts against the rules. I suppose a lot of geniuses choose rules to follow and others to revolt against, working their choices into a cohesive, coherent frame, which they then use to justify, manage, and coordinate their positions, the contradictions with which are not readily apparent. So perhaps my favourite geniuses are the ones who will listen to no one (revolting against the rules) while ensuring that no one will listen to them (that no one will follow their rules), in the pursuit of a ridiculously sublime aesthetic which is pruned each and every time it blossoms.

Boys Don't Cry

Finally saw Kimberley Peirce's Boys Don't Cry and was impressed by how many profound statements were worked into its gritty low-budget frame. You're transgendered, the majority of people surrounding you are not transgendered, many of them are hostile towards you because you're transgendered, and few are willing to listen and try and understand the cultural problems associated with being transgendered. Hence, things are difficult, maintaining a job is difficult, and making friends, keeping in touch with family, and being consistent, is difficult, if not impossible. Lies are necessary, depression is immanent, complications are manifold, and friendship is required, not only to help one deal with the psychological disruptions inherent in such a disposition, but also to firmly establish an enduring sense of normalcy. Because being transgendered is perfectly natural and any son of a bitch who goes around religiously promoting some kind of homophobic rhetoric in regards to such physiological features is an abusive, hate mongering, fucker, whose voice should be silenced, period. Such fuckers abound in Boys Don't Cry and the results are ugly. Peirce's film doesn't shy away from providing provocative evidence concerning the abominable affects of mainstream stereotypes, and precisely points out the reprehensible nature of normalized conceptions of the good, adequately illuminating whose ethos is irrevocably out of line.

Really like The Decembrists's "Chimbley Sweep."

I like listening to old women interminably gossip about people with whom I'm unfamiliar, especially when they don't care whether or not I'm paying attention.

So, someone at work is renting a room in a town 20 kms away and has agreed to provide you with a ride to work everyday (you don't have a car) if you take it and are willing to split on gas. During the first ride, they mention that it's not a problem if you fall asleep. You don't want to fall asleep because you want to be there to provide conversation for your drowsy driver. But, it's possible that they want you to fall asleep so that they can gossip about how you fall asleep every morning while driving to work. What do you do?

I get along well with women who don't want to have children and consequently prefer childish husbands.

Current

Green bracelet crunched
micro fission
five three four.

Usually, I dislike it when people appear out of the blue and ask me a question without using direct subjects or objects, as if I'm supposed to immediately know what they're talking about based upon the ways in which their intonation precisely matches that used in a previous conversation. Then when I have to ask what it is they are talking about, they cleverly respond with some sprightly witticism designed to make me feel worse. At least, I used to think that this is what people were doing, each and every time, with no recourse to any other possible interpretation, forever. Until today, when I accidentally greeted someone in the aforementioned fashion, with no cunning intention whatsoever, and listened as they responded with the same frustration with which I usually respond. I initially felt foolish, but afterwards, like an invincible He-Man. I continued sweeping the floor.

Sometimes, if I'm not paying any attention and approach whatever half-assedly, I'll remember it forever. At other times, I'll go over a concept 20 zillion times and still *&^% it up on a test.

Sometimes, if I don't pay attention at all to my lover, things work out well and the relationship progresses. At other times, I take the relationship seriously and it turns into a disaster.

Therefore, in order to progress, I have to make sure to unconsciously pay attention (thereby living the dream).

Don't you hate it when people correct your embellishment in the pursuit of a more precise realistic picture which robs your narrative of all its exciting, everlasting, and legendary characteristics, in an informal setting?

Robin Hood

Ridley Scott's Robin Hood presents an epic, complicated tale almost worthy of the designation legend. The plot is dense and starts out intense but its momentum relents as its second half falters. Here's the situation: King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) has been crusading for a decade and is about to return home. In England, his less courageous brother Prince John (Oscar Isaac) has been ruling in his stead. Prince John's right-hand-man Godfrey (Mark Strong) strikes a deal with King Philip of France (Jonathan Zaccaï) in which he agrees to kill Richard and then convince John to brutally tax his citizens, thereby fomenting revolution. Then, after civil war has ravaged England, the French can invade and ruthlessly plunder the country.

However, Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), an honest member of King Richard's crusade, has other plans in mind. After rescuing the English crown from Godfrey's clutches, he returns it to the Royal Family and then sets out for Nottingham in order to reunite a fallen comrade's sword with his father. When said father (Max von Sydow as Sir Walter Loxley) discovers his son is dead, he asks Robin to pretend that he is that very same son, so that if he should pass on, his lands won't fall into the hands of King John. Robin agrees, and, after convincing his new wife, the somewhat upset Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett), that he's not a scoundrel, begins to restore justice to the region with the help of his Merry Men (Mark Addy as Friar Tuck, Kevin Durand as Little John, Scott Grimes as Will Scarlet, and Alan Doyle as Allan A'Dayle). Fortunately for Robin, Sir Walter also remembers his father (Mark Lewis Jones), who was killed when Robin was 6, and is able to help him rediscover related memories.

There's much more to Robin Hood's plot than what I've presented above. Political intrigue, ethical imbroglios, spiritual reflections, working class rights, aristocratic wisdom, feminine strength, and feudal customs are also synthesized within to create a byzantine portrait of Polanskian proportions. Even with all these intertwined dimensions, each presenting their points directly and/or covertly, Scott and scriptwriter Brian Helgeland still manage to create deeper layers of provocative sensation, showing how the defenders of a French castle take the time to eat during a siege, dealing with 12th century orphanage issues, depicting greed as a conniving hydra, delicately integrating provincial and "urban" life, and lampooning conceptions such as the divine right of kings. Then, as if worried that all of these plot twists have alienated their audience, the film's last section concerns itself with Godfrey's revenge quest and a ridiculous battle, shooting arrows to the wind, building cliché on cliché stick by stick, the multitude of twists and turns requiring closure which is rushed in order to prevent the film from lasting three hours. Robin Hood's ambitions are grand and its narrative multidimensional, but its dénouement suffers beneath the weight of its bulk, and can't support its synthetic structure. It's nice to see the legend of Robin Hood reimagined and intellectualized, Scott's film providing it with unprecedented layers of historical intensification. But the ending made me wish they had localized the story so we could have spent more time with Robin Hood and his Merry Men, its ineffective grandiose form causing me to wish for more regionalized content. Which is the perfect recipe for setting up a sequel, which I'll probably see, and then complain about having seen.

And when you find that a community is willing to accept your bohemian proclivities, nurturing and cultivating them, providing them with room to grow and an appreciative audience, then it's possible for degrees of enjoyment to permeate your individuality, for your disposition, in turn, to reverberate more actively, and for cynicism's destabilizing strength to be recast as something which motivates, invigorates, and challenges, ensconcing a less contentious and playfully spontaneous personality.

Boardwalk

The distance is open
one-way pedestrian
21st century insurance.

Bike racks and Chilliwack and brick-a-brack.

I'm not interested in studying the subtle intricacies of wine because I don't have the patience. But I can write down impressions stimulated from vinous scents in order to discover peculiar observations (the scent instantaneously synthesizing past spiritual, physical, and psychological experiences) which may resonate with others. I'm also not learning how to golf.

Aqua

Passing through so she draws
with chalk battering eyelids
for a weekender.

And the light-hearted, jovial comment, made in jest innocently and playfully, in an informal setting, was pompously rebuked by an authoritarian remonstrance, hackneyed and shrewd, delivered pretentiously and austerely, by a total douche bag.

When a union's international focus cannot be harmonized with its domestic policy, no longer seeking the same rights for its global brethren as those enjoyed by its contributing members, it obliterates all claims to the promotion of social justice, and becomes a leviathan.

Cooked with tofu for the first time tonight. Didn't read anything about how to prepare it, just sliced it up, threw it in a pan, added mushrooms, green pepper, onion, and creamy garlic sauce, and then stir-fried the fucker. The results were alright, bit bland, but full of non-dead-animal vitamins and nutrients. Not bad tofu, not bad.

I'm hoping Quentin Tarantino directs a film entitled Bank Robbin' Bitches some day.

Diversify, Intensify, Multiply

Felt the irresistible urge to attend a street fair this afternoon.

Harmony is like smashing a bottle and trying to reconstruct it while constantly slashing your hands.

Probably shouldn't have said, "wow, I really appreciate the symmetry," but the situation was very symmetrical.

It has nothing to do with coming up with the correct answer, but is more concerned with presenting the most potent system, simultaneously productive, mesmerizing, confounding, whose details have manifold metaphorical implications for seemingly disparate domains, corresponding to specific variations and fluctuating themes, concretely unified in its discursivity generating polemically complimentary vicissitudes within which constituents, whose arguments have unilaterally won the decade, deconstruct and inspire one another, constant, unalterable motion, that comprehensively expands upon in order to isolate a specific shifting point (a moment of truth).

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Intermixing fate, superstition, religion, individuality, gambling, dreams, ethics, history, economics, showmanship, temptation, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus provides a phantasmagorical panoramic synthesis of parapsychological proportions. A religious guru (Christopher Plummer) makes deal after deal with the devil (Mr. Nick played by Tom Waits) only to fall further and further into his demonic clutches. When we first meet the immortal Doctor Parnassus, his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) is days away from becoming the exclusive property of Satan, and, due to his lacklustre antiquated bush-league performance values, the Doctor has no hope of reversing her fate. But shortly thereafter, his travelling troupe discovers a man hanging from a bridge (Heath Ledger as Tony), and, after saving his life, benefit commercially and ontologically from his gifted oratorical skills. So a new wager must be made which the Prince of Darkness generously conceives, the first one to capture 5 souls receiving sole access to Valentina's future, souls being captured after they enter Doctor Parnassus's Imaginarium, which is the Doctor's imagination physically manifested, the dimensions of which are cultivated according to the imagination of whomever happens to enter (the souls have to decide whether to travel the high or low road within, those flying high becoming the Doctor's possession, those not, Satan's). As Valentina falls for Tony, and Tony's credibility deconstructs itself, Anton (Andrew Garfield) falls by the wayside, and the Doctor must come to terms with immortality. The past and the future then destructively present themselves without recourse to binary oppositions or stable, enduring dispositions. One part romance, two parts tragedy, three parts reality, four parts fantasy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus competently delegates intergenerational gesticulations, while mysteriously emphasizing transcendental transmutations. Plus two.

You can't dismiss the interruption in order to schedule a future meeting for the art of the potential relationship rested in your acceptance of the interruption itself, necessitating that you sacrifice part of yourself.

The mathematical psychology must meticulously analyze the minute personality characteristics of their interlocutors precisely and constantly (continually revising basic formulas) in order to present itself artistically.

Reflection

An objectively subjective multiple personality is the direct consequence of engaging in interpersonal activity.

Objective in the communal sense, subjective within its various subdivisions/constituents, person A regarding you as character type B with attributes ^, D, and F(c), individual F believing you possess psychological profile X with particulars g, *, and M, yourself absorbing these evaluations according to identity K, creating the formula ((B+^DF(c)) + (X+g*M)) divided by K, whose results are partially or generally deflected, notwithstanding radical remainders which cannot be eliminated (affective subconscious partisans). The solidified K misrepresents its discursive foundation.

It spiralled and, I don't know, twisted, became something convoluted and messy, before an arrangement was cultivated wherein which specific designations, broad, leaving plenty of room for innovations (which could modify, alter, redirect), became valued institutionally as representatives of certain facts, conceptually and reproductively, in order so that when I mentioned the word apple, persons could picture the object to which I was referring, and it would become common knowledge that an apple was not a locomotive or a beach, and that there were many corresponding varieties.

Saw my first herd of Rocky Mountain Sheep today.

As you age, the art of trivia is forged not by guessing the right answer, but in discovering the most creative incorrect conjecture.

The Alanis Morissette Lady Lumps video is pretty hilarious.

Iron Man 2

Tony Stark is back in Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2, the much anticipated sequel to its critically acclaimed 2008 predecessor. This time around, Iron Man's (Robert Downey Jr.) suit is being sought after by the American military but he refuses to reveal its secrets, claiming to have privatized world peace, the ultimate achievement of the symbolic individual. But historical familial enemies have surfaced, and Stark's Russian shadow-self Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) develops a personalized nuclear apparatus of his own which threatens to dismantle Stark's global franchise. Both of their parents worked together to design the technological infrastructure that created Stark's business, but the elder Vanko (Yevgeni Lazarev) was sideswiped by Stark's father (John Slattery) after which he spent the rest of his days immersed in bitter misery. When the military discovers that another individual has created an Iron Man-like suit, Iron Man's novelty, the fact that he could justify not sharing his design because there was no comparable opposition, wears out, and Stark's friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) comes calling. Stark also makes full-time assistant Pepper Pots (Gwyneth Paltrow) the CEO of his company, American weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) eventually 'hires' Vanko to streamline the development of battle ready 'Iron Man' suits, the secret intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D recruits Tony to see if he has what it takes to be a member, and Stark continues to fall further in love with Pepper while remaining mesmerized by the sultry Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson). Justin Theroux's script is jam packed with several additional subplots, every scene bristling with dynamic multidimensional energy, and while they are laid on a little thick, they manage to transform Iron Man from a particular galaxy into a melodramatic universe, which is one of the principal motivating factors on every fantasy sequel's agenda.

The issue of a privatized military remains problematic and should be investigated however. I suppose that if and only if a socially conscious peace promoting tyrant thwarting military industrial complex destabilizing individual makes up a one-person privatized military (who occasionally requires assistance from close friends), who doesn't take particular sides and is interested in preventing governments from imperialistically colonizing other countries or enslaving their own populations, then a privatized military is okay (the anti-revolution). Hence, Iron Man 2 is an idyllic fantasy, one wherein the individual can function in a godlike fashion outside of communal confinements in order to keep that community safe. His lifestyle is bohemian, and his private interests wolfish, but when it comes to protecting the public from the forces of evil, he's unconditionally ready at all hours of the day, never wavering in his altruistic commitment, always.

But how does this relate to education? What if one school of thought is responsible for guaranteeing intellectual and cultural safety, and only people subscribing to that school are presented as just guardians of a unilateral global political aesthetic (privatized Philosopher Kings)? If that aesthetic has a communal basis that seeks to preserve and maintain an inclusive diverse multicultural multilingual peaceful public organization, complete with universal supporting educational and medical institutions, institutions that would prevent their military from developing and obtaining potentially perverted weapons of mass destruction, without aggressively forcing their ideology onto the cultures of surrounding nations, preferring organic internal growth to hostile external confrontation, while still functioning as a contributing member of the global economy, but not to the extent that it sacrifices its social programs in order to pay its dues, then I guess that's okay. This liberal philosophical kernel facilitates the development of a multidimensional ethical orchard whose political fruit is openly accessible. At the same time, if the one principal school of thought promotes a one-dimensional divisional political frame that preys upon racial tensions in order to divide and conquer the workforce, encouraging different minority groups to squabble amongst one another while a dominant elite few control the means of production and prevent the people from having access to the knowledge required in order to earn a higher income, or charge them astronomical sums in order to be educated so that they'll be mired in debt afterwards for an interminable period of time, then I guess that's not okay. The question is, does Iron Man 2's privatized symbolic individualized military support a Democratic or a Republican ethos, and if it indeed supports one more than the other, how does it demonstrate this support? In order to answer these questions, I've provided some of the film's Republican/Democratic evidence below in order to demonstrate how it supports both ideologies. If we can determine which side's evidence is more convincing, then we can reach a verdict regarding the political character of Iron Man 2, and, derivatively, that of its quintessential political kernel: an individual privatized military.

Republican points: the majority of characters are beautiful; the principal villain is poor; the exaltation of privatization exalts privatization; many of the locales are populated exclusively by the elite; foreigners are depicted as villains insofar as Vanko is Russian and the French police in Monaco allow him to escape; as Pepper attempts to run Tony's company, a Republican pundit calls her a "pin-head"; the film focuses much more of its attention on technology than humanity; and Tony Stark, as the ultimate individual, ideally embodies the forces of capitalism.

Democratic points: Stark can't win this one on his own: the individual needs the support of his friends the most prominent of whom are female and African American (although they could be female and African-American Republicans); as Pepper attempts to run Tony's company, a Republican pundit calls her a "pin-head," and Favreau's direction indicates that we should consider the comment ignorant (it was still presented nonetheless); the private can't function without the public, the two dimensions forming a politico-ethical yin and yang: the private dimension may as well be represented by an individual who is committed to bringing about world peace; the film's secondary villain, military arms dealer Justin Hammer, is incompetent and a prominent American; while speaking to a Senate committee, Lt. Col. James Rhodes demands that his commentary be presented in context; the principal villain is poor and brilliant, and his anger is justified (although his methods are not) insofar as his family was humiliated by the Starks (his relationship with Hammer productively deconstructs his villainy as well); and women are depicted as being thoroughly qualified for tasks traditionally undertaken by men and there is no mention of family or childrearing.

Within Iron Man 2, we have a privatized personalized military. Overtly, this military obviously supports a Democratic viewpoint insofar as it legitimately seeks to secure a balanced world peace, while also supporting a Republican viewpoint inasmuch as it is a privatized military operated by a wolfish individual capitalist. Favreau and Theroux's film has provided a host of conflicting ideological baggage to support either case, only a small amount of which has been presented here, in order to cleverly disguise/ignore their political motivations. I believe that their Iron Man is more Democratic than Republican since their multilayered plot has intelligently crystallized an assiduous ambiguity, or, alternatively, represents Anarchism's progressive dimension (not as a dominant political aesthetic but as a deconstructive tool to challenge ideological stances) (eventually one must act and deal with the communal consequences of their actions [the ways in which they were interpreted, regardless of motive]). Bold, beautiful, complicated, resilient: there's a lot more going on in Iron Man 2 than many similar sequels and I highly recommend trying to figure things out on your own or with friends.

Pottery

Lipstick and lavender and novocaine,
Bluegrass and cowboy hats and cataracts,
Moth bears splitting hairs at seven,
Sidewalk cracks, unwritten tracts effaced.

Listening to her discuss certain things, robustly providing precise interpretations of specific details, comprehensive yet lucid, didactic yet entertaining, left one entrenched with a hollow definition of the political, for here was someone who artistically and effectively administered her department, another generation of scintillating stereolabs, who didn't shy away from adopting and implementing alternative points of view, who encouraged that her business be approached from multidimensional angles, enabling and empowering holistic dispositions, but still didn't take an active upper managerial role, leaving one wondering that if her technique was divergent while at the same time inspirational, then those responsible for guiding and promoting new, contemporary approaches, could in fact be promulgating an antiquated conception of change.

Ideology

Fred never cooked anything or helped out much with the housework. He had a loving wife and two daughters and they tended to take care of such things. As his daughters matured, one, by the name of Amelia, began studying progressive approaches to the distribution of domestic labour, and became increasingly more agitated by her family's situation. Her arguments became more pronounced, articulated more precisely and acutely as her theoretical knowledge became more practical in a rhetorical sense. But when her father finally buckled, and she came home to find him vacuuming after having cleaned the kitchen, the picture he cast unconditionally broke her heart, and she struggled to think of something to say.

Eventually

An integral instance captured
photographically in words
which mellifluously
articulate its drama.

Staring through the café window, my shuffle switched to Mozart's Requiem, and I thought I saw the mighty Vincent C______, bombastic bard, linguistic slayer of the wicked, seated on a bench across from me. Then, as I realized that the individual indeed was not him, and was becoming rather upset as I kept staring, I adjusted my gaze, and returned to my steaming hot cup of coffee, thoroughly saturated with caffeinated hypotheses.

And I saw her, just, lying there, jubilant and enthusiastic, emanating confidence and success in a bewildering fashion, unmitigated and uncompromised idyllic unrestrained happiness. So I refused to consider the logical stratagems which continuously reminded me of past misfortunate happenings which were the direct cause of substantial personal weariness, as if the beaming scarlet rays of an open-minded and felicitous sun were vehemently illuminating a festive, ceremonious dawn, wherein we would seek out and discover previously uninvestigated verdant domains of spiritual and intellectual contentment, tempered by the jaunty residual reflections of integrally reconstituted past experiences, curiously motivating exhilarating points of view, while quietly laying the foundations for an invigorating, reverberating adventure (something new).

I'm not entirely sure, or, even close to forming a plausible theory, about/regarding why these particular images return at these specific moments, while I'm concentrating on something that has no relation to them, an enigmatic, intriguing, frustrating reappearance, suddenly hovering, shimmering, instigating, for a moment, then gone, leaving behind a question which becomes reasonable when feverishly considered, like a personal psychological disengaged mystery, brightly illuminating tangential reflections.

Nova Scotia Historical Newspapers.

I'm trying to develop a social motif wherein every time I walk past my roommate I say something pleasantly awkward.

Behind many successful marriages, you'll find a good-natured woman in love with a disinterested man.

Behind many volatile divorces, you'll find a good-natured woman in love with a disinterested man.

Behind many lamentable singles, you'll find a good-natured woman in love with a disinterested man.

Crazyheart

The careers of many successful musicians have their ups and downs, and Scott Cooper's Crazyheart begins by introducing us to one of country music star "Bad" Blake's (Jeff Bridges) less fortunate moments. He's 57, has lived through 4 divorces, and currently travels from city to city in his ancient suburban in order to play for modest yet enthusiastic crowds in small bars and bowling alleys. Smoking and drinking constantly while still managing to competently perform (although he may have to take the occasional 'rest' in the middle of a song), times are tough for this living legend and it's been a while since he's caught a break. While playing in Santa Fe, he agrees to provide journalist Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) with an interview and the two hit it off. Thanks to her sober advice, Bad feels more comfortable reestablishing a relationship with country music celebrity and former protege Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), and his fortunes begin to relatively improve.

Simultaneously interrogating the life and times of a prominent musician and the consequences of alcoholism, Crazyheart demonstrates that life on the inebriated road necessitates a host of artistic acclimatizations, the most disruptive of which often result in successful professional developments. The film doesn't really vilify alcoholism to any serious extent, and even builds Bad up as a badass tough-as-nails aging artist, still playing by his own idiosyncratic rules, who has aged to much to sustain his choice of lifestyle (it demonstrates that alcohol abuse results in a peculiar constitution without moralizing intently on the subject). Instead, it poetically highlights the productive tension maintained between personal reclusion and communal creation, while evocatively elucidating one man's saturated experience.

Note that you can continue to ride your bike everyday throughout a Canadian winter without crashing once.

*Of course there's a snowstorm the next day. It's May for ****&^%$. Fortunately, I haven't wiped out yet.

Gunless

The new Canadian western comedy from director William Phillips examines the dynamic relationship forged between a wild individualistic American rogue and a settled congenial Canadian community. In Gunless, Sean 'The Montana Kid' Rafferty (Paul Gross) escapes from his hanging only to wind up surrounded by decent folk who are relatively ignorant of the American Wild West's code. His integration is smooth if not bumpy insofar as he quickly catches the eye of a local belle (Sienna Guillory as Jane) while still taking the time to 'call-out' Jack, the blacksmith (Tyler Mane), after he uses the word "common" in one of his introductory remarks. The plot comedically incorporates a basic formulation of Aristotle's conception of virtue (the virtue of a knife is its ability to slice) which causes Rafferty to dramatically (if not ironically) question his profession's means-of-production. Then, as he sacrifices his individuality for the community's greater good (after those wishing to hang him show up in town), that community responds in his defence by any-means-necessary.

And there's a gunfight, A-Team style.

The film intermingles slapstick relief with cerebral comic portraits (Rafferty and the carrot) in order to provide a sophisticated mix of jocular wherewithals. Structurally, some of the plot devices simply don't work insofar as The Montana Kid is much too friendly to be considered a ruthless killer, and who invites someone to dinner after they shoot up the local 'bar'/dry goods store? The title is problematic since the town isn't gunless and neither is The Montana Kid, the term "gunless" perhaps referring to Rafferty's identity crisis after winding up in Canada; but this doesn't sufficiently explain things since the town's residents do their best to build up his character, and the man he wishes to duel even reforges said duel's required second pistol even though he wants nothing to do with the duel itself. The relationship between Canadian history and Gunless's social dynamic is legitimate if not infantilized: the one Native character (Two Shoes played by Graham Greene of course) consistently outsmarts his liaison in the NWMP (Dustin Milligan as Corporal Jonathan Kent) and is consequently rebuffed (Native wisdom was overlooked and dismissed [or rewritten from an Anglo-perspective] as the West was Anglicized); there is only one character who speaks French (Anglophone policies of assimilation prevented a French Canadian identity from prominently developing in the West); the Asian family runs the local laundry, doesn't show up for the town dance, and is ignored in an educational setting (laws sought to prevent the immigration and integration of Asians into Western Canadian society [see Howard Palmer's Alberta: A New History][the Asian girl speaks perfect English but is introduced in isolation]); a prominent woman attempts to run her own farm (there must have been examples of strong women in frontier towns taking matters into their own hands who weren't segregated, but the fact that Rafferty's advice helps her to run her farm more efficiently still accurately reflects 19th-century patriarchal norms); and the ambiguously gay character is allowed to integrate as long as he marries and stays in the closet (however, the church is surprisingly absent from the film). Gunless also shows how Canadians are occasionally not as polite as they are generally depicted (when the NWMP troops give Montana a beating) while still depicting them as being generally polite. But this depiction is cultivated with its bold, underrepresented underside, for when push comes to shove, the town's inhabitants are ready to fight for what/who they believe in (Vimy Ridge, Québec's Bill 101). I liked Gunless for the ways in which it demonstrates the potentially productive relationship maintained between a community of individuals in a lighthearted, homely fashion (even if that relationship developed in less than two weeks). More cute and cuddly than rough and tumble, Gunless's theoretically absent arsenal still subtly presents an inordinate ordinance.

How Canadian!