Rewrite Woody Allen's "why is life worth living?" speech from "Manhattan"

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Walt Whitman, to name one thing... and Lenny Bruce, and... Illmatic, and... The Clash's recording of "Jail Guitar Doors"... lolcats, naturally... 'The Sun Also Rises' by Hemingway... Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John Coltrane... the way Miles hits the first high note on "Sketches of Spain"... the Stuffed Poblano at Kerbey Lane... Niki's hips..."

ILE's secret Most Emo Thred.

oh, shit, I was actually planning on watching this later today, as well. Weird.

Well it's Sunday night isn't it? I like to think half the world's about to watch it.

hah

hoos otm, largely.

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Kraftwerk, to name one thing... and Cary Grant, and... "Super Coming" by the Boredoms, and... Steely Dan... Bergman movies..."

8 1/2. Can I add that? And Orson Welles. And Jacques Tati.

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, John Barth, to name one thing... and Jesus, and..."The Crane Wife", and... the Pet Shop Boys' recording of "Where the Streets Have No Name"... whaling, naturally... "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky...Clive Owen, M.I.A... the deep sounds rising up about eleven minutes into Rimsky Korsakov's "Russian Easter Overture"... the lamb tikka masala at Spiceroot..."

That grin on Orson Welles face in The Third Man.

i hate this thread

jimmy mod otm

"That one guy" hating things.

i can only handle this movie when i'm miserable

and then it's pretty much my fave ever!

BUNCH OF CULTURAL REFERENCES... ANNOYING NEW YORK REFERENCE... 17-YEAR-OLD CHICK I'M SCHEMING

ew, dude.

i don't think it's a good speech. but i do enjoy listing things i like.

in the context of the movie, maybe the point is that he doesn't know what he likes, much less wants, he just talks everything to death. So the listing is a bit ironic, innit?

"Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, James Joyce, to name one thing... and William Morris, and..."Love Will Tear Us Apart", and... Ella Fitzgerads recording of "Mack the Knive"... Woody Allen movies up to Crimes and Misdemeanors, naturally... "The Rings of Saturn" by W G Sebald...Peter Lorre, Caribou...the last minute or so of The Blacksmith by Planxty...my homemade coconut macaroons..."

None of the above. Artists overrate art as a reason to live.

Please explain this.

aimless otm

You explain it then.

would have thought people > art?

I'd rather live for sex and touch and tears and love and camaraderie than for any artist I can think of.

co-sign with aimless even though I feel bitter about it

(x-post)

Haha, me and Enrique agreeing for once!

yeah isaac kinda comes to the same conclusion at the end of this little monologue which leads him to take action for the first time. and it's too late because he is a blinkered douche. kinda the point guys!

maybe -- but not the point of the thread, which is emo+++

I haven't seen the movie in years, I was answering to Ned rather than criticizing it.

haha emo in finding itself the point of any given subject non-shockah

would have thought people > art?

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, September 24, 2007 1:06 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I'd rather live for sex and touch and tears and love and camaraderie than for any artist I can think of.

-- Tuomas, Monday, September 24, 2007 1:07 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Oh well sure, all those things are otm but I cannot personally underestimate the real joy I feel when art and music moves me in ways I don't really understand.

And sometimes, people don't say or do the right things, or at least the things you want them to say and do and sometimes art does. I don't think there's anything wrong in recognising that.

i know that when i'm over-relying on these things something's a bit wrong. when i was a teenager music was pretty much *everything*. it wasn't all bad but i was making up for other things that weren't there.

yeah i am just defending this monologue's use in the movie, not in this weird thread

Never understood the placement of Sentimental Education in this. I think Woody is fronting like he's highbrow, and prefers Madame Bovary like everyone else in the universe. "Shopping and adultery" >>> "shopping and minor archaic French politics."

xp

When I was a teenager girls were everything. And I would certainly have tried to impress them with shit about Joyce and, iirc, Kafka.

This reminds me of Jimmy Boyle's books. Now, obviously, doing sculpture wasn't the one thing that stopped him being a number one thug and as he found out, the realities of live can't be overcome by art alone but it certainly helped him see beyond his personal experiences and I think art has done that for me on many occasions.

I don't think I over-rely on them or I would kill myself if I never saw Picasso's ceramics again but it certainly makes for a nice afternoon.

quitney and j0hn d be on a nick hornby tip here

Sentimental Education is a rather more mature piece of work than Bovary though

low blow

xpost

If I knew anything about nick hornby I might be insulted but as it stands acrobat might as well have said "you dudes sound like Zwoilatz the Unfortunate"

Nick Hornby's main moral "... then I realized that listening to music and stuff was lame and we got married and were properly happy. THE END" He was the Judd Aptow of the '90s.

Maturity is counter-revolutionary!

Err ... well, yes, more mature and more finely wrought, and I actually sometimes wish it were still the standard for older men now to write grand S.E./Dance-to-the-Music-of-Time books about the milieus of their younger days (if only so we'd have more interesting cultural continuity), but ... well, basically Bovary has slightly more shopping

Hornby is disdainful of pop culture, though – or, rather, pop culture's ok as long as it affirms the Importance of Art.

well, basically Bovary has slightly more shopping

Somebody give this man tenure!!

(acrobat: if that's Hornby's point, then it's hardly what I'm saying - only that, y'know, the adolescent urge toward seeing art as the thing which can be elevated in importance above all matters human & social [not only adolescent though lol, I think Flaubert believed exactly that] is hardly the last stop on the line)

what he said

Flaubert's also tracing how adolescent virtues decay, and how adolescent virtues reveal themselves as rather ordinary longings when maturing.

"slightly more shopping" = high-level Marxist/materialist analysis

I jus read

None of the above. Artists overrate art as a reason to live.

-- Aimless, Monday, 24 September 2007 05:15 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

through

co-sign with aimless even though I feel bitter about it

-- J0hn D., Monday, 24 September 2007 14:07 (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

and my kneejerked.

there was this mad as a box review of that simon reynolds post punk book. it's main arguement was that the post punk period was only of any importance because of the Rock Against Racism movement and the damage this wrought to the National Front. it probably wasn't mad as a box. that's unfair. very unfair. i have not read Flaubert but i have read some nick hornby. this is proably bad, right? anyway, surely "art" can be solidarity as well as the other stuff? it can be communication and community cos "art" is made by people and consumed by people and er stuff. is that... adorno? i don't know. maybe this is just about Prefab Sprout. "somethings hurt more than cars and girls"... right?

This is a great thread. I'll try to answer thoughtfully when this Michael Jackson thing is over.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 7 February 2003 02:19 (6 years ago) Bookmark

nanalyzing the scene

http://www.issuu.com/interiorsjournal/docs/interiors1212

I've always been mystified by "the crabs from Sam Wo's"...or whatever he says

such a Becker-Fagen line

I've always been mystified by "the crabs from Sam Wo's"...or whatever he says

― Iago Galdston, Tuesday, December 18, 2012 11:37 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

why?

years ago I wrote this short story about my Mother called "The Castrating Zionist"

I've always been mystified by "the crabs from Sam Wo's"...or whatever he says

― Iago Galdston, Tuesday, December 18, 2012 11:37 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

why?

the mussels are better

Richard Brody:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2011/11/the-crabs-at-sam-wos.html

but is Sam Wo's still open?

I never understood, did I have the name of the restaurant right? What is Sam Wo's anyway, a NYC restaurant? That's all, disregard

yes, it was. Long gone, apparently, tho one w/ same name in SF closed last year.