Mailbag Highlights To Print Page

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Ray Carney’s Mailbag Highlights
Film	Page
Enough with the praise for the young and the noble. Click here to read what's WRONG with American independent film.	55, 67, 92, 117, 120
The film Gena Rowlands doesn't want you to see. The film she wants to destroy. Video clips from the first version of John Cassavetes' Shadows.	60
To listen to a radio commercial for Cassavetes' Faces and the soundtrack of a scene cut from Husbands	54
Why Donald Trump does not understand art. Why are we addicted to struggle, competition, rivalry, achievement, and reward as ways of creating drama in film? Aren't the most important parts of life about other things? Can't we make films that are not secretly (or not so secretly) apologies for the worst aspects of American capitalism?	78
What? Art is not just entertainment? Independent film recommendations	67
Is Mabel John Cassavetes in drag? You decide. A self-portrait of John Cassavetes	77
“…In the NUDE, all that is not beautiful is obscene…” Quotes by filmmakers	58
Your Life Is a Movie. Some indie film recommendations and a book on what’s wrong with contemporary film	36
Shhh! It’s a secret, don’t tell anyone! What Ray Carney loves about mainstream films Ray Carney’s favorite mainstream films, actors and actresses	22, 105
Kitschy, kitschy, koo! Taking on Hitchcock and Spielberg	56
Wallowing in the Slime Pit. Why are American films and reviewing so bad?	79, 83, 92
The Boring Ultimatum	84
Do you have what it takes to be a Survivor? Ask Arthur Vibert Film, advertising and the end of art	88
What the heck is "independent cinema?" Sorting the sheep from the goats	96
Harvard Film Archive Screening Notes	2006, 2007, 9@Night,Wings of Desire
Education	Page
Tell the truth but tell it slant: Parables for students and teachers	8
Interviewing for Philistines 101: Pay attention journalists!	56
Do you want cheese or fries with that? All Entertainment All the Time Essay by Mark Edmundson	74
Learning for “Dummies” Three kinds of learning, do you know them?	12
Immoral art, immoral criticism and immoral education: A discussion of Jonathan Glover's book, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century	79
Corporate-speak: You can't handle the truth!	96
Why is Helen Keller screaming? The Poirier method of reading and discovering language	91
Group Thinking as the Source of Fascism in an American University	Page
Brain-dead or brain-washed? A reflection on celebrity culture and the apathy of many college film students	95,96
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue. Censorship and the fear of free-expression at an American university	98,101,111, 115, 121, 122
The manipulation of student opinion and the origins of fascism	102,111


The “Other Arts”	Page
Did Mozart know how to “go with the flow?” Music and literature recommendations	57
It’s all Greek to me! The basics of art speech	46
Rant alert! What is the function of art? Resistance against the system	73
Would you hang out with these guys? Ray Carney’s visit with artists’ masterworks in a museum	64
Was Bach an alien from another planet? Thoughts on Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier	72
What’s it all about, Alfie? On being an artist and living creatively	49
Art-as-resistance, art-as-defiance, art-as-challenge Department Brief excerpt from James Joyce's glorious, mysterious, sacred description of the glory, the mystery, and the holiness of the earth, the heavens, and the love of a woman from the "Ithaca" chapter of Ulysses	71
A Mozart and a Bach a day keeps the doctor away Source for complete Bach and Mozart CD collections	55
Everything you wanted to know about music but were afraid to ask. Music Appreciation 101 – how to enjoy the things you’re “supposed to” like classical music	53
What is a hot and sweaty jealous mistress? Quotes on Art	48
And you thought you knew how to listen to a CD… Listening to music 101 with recommendations	44
True confessions of an art addict	67, 68, 73, 75
ART. It's not for sissies or couch potatoes!	82
Do critics make the best lovers? Find out in "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary Critic," an essay by Frank Lentricchia	96
What is Shakespeare’s trampoline? Art is in the complexities of language, images, steps. Horror of horrors, it’s not in the PLOT!	24
Ask Yoda	Page
Why spin your electrons? May the Force be with you The existence of souls and how we make them	43
Are you a “football to the universe?” How not to waste your life and how to tend your soul	78
You may have had a lot to drink last night, but are you conscious yet? Stages of consciousness – resistance, separation, emotional and wholeheartedness	48
Would Jesus make the cover of Time? Great teachers and the importance of finding one	8
The aliens’ dessert menu “What does it mean to be human?” masterworks	88
Planetary Influences	Page
Find out why Ray Carney thinks Global Warming has it backward. Better wear your overcoat…	55
Can we do it without the drugs? Cultural Transformation	24
Do you have what it takes? The power of imagination Going beyond politics to free our hearts, minds and souls. We must think bigger!	45
Fighting the greatest evil of our time. Distraction. Some non-fiction recommendations.	23
Blood and guts in the trenches Discussion on Americans and their institutes: Breaking free of systems	71
Ray Carney's annual Christmas message. Timeless and timely. Or too late? Decades too late?	51
“…I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim…” Quotes on Genius	49
Do you have what it takes? Boot-camp recruiting for humanity. Intentionality and being a minimal moral agent	91
Blacked-out by the know-nothing media. The most important event in the history of civilization.	60
The passions and obsessions of Ray Carney, raw and uncensored. Secret: They’re all in his syllabus…	10
Mailbag Categories & Departments	Page
"God Bless My Dutiful Readers" Department	88
"I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child" Department	91
"The Life of a Scholar" Department	86
"Mark (Burnett) of the Devil" Category	80
"Much have I traveled in the realms of gold” Category	37, 65, 73
“Novelty” Department	54, 57
"Now a Word From Michael Moore" Department	72
"One more lost film," "ho hum," "whassup" category	64
"Please give it a rest" Category	44
"Under the radar" Category	65, 69, 80
"What's wrong with film competitions" Category	58
The struggle for free expression. Clichés wait everywhere to entrap you. Break free of the system. Speak your soul. Give all to love. When half-loves go, the Gods arrive.	98
Why are we in so love with images? Why do we look to them to save our souls? All evidence and experience points the other way. Leave vision and return to the word, the Logos, the idea, the world.	97
"What's wrong with this picture?" Department	91