Category Archives: Jaws

anything related to JAWS the film or novel

Day 130 11/2/13: How To Tell A True Shark Story

by in Art, Environment, Jaws, Pop Culture, Shark Attack, Shark Behavior, Shark Mythology and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What a fabulous night of art, conversation and all things shark at the Hero Complex Gallery. My favorite pieces in the very Quint-centric (not a criticism) JAWS-tribute art show, were those that riffed on the movie’s less well-worn lines (although all of the dialogue is threadbare if you’re a JAWS geek), and its unforgettable, but only briefly glimpsed faces.  Aaron Glasson’s “The Harbormaster,” is a psychotropic take on that smiling old salt who emerges, pipe-clenched-firmly-in-teeth from a dockside shed, an oasis of eccentric calm amid the rabid, reward-hungry shark hunters and then is gone.

Gorgeous Jaws-themed cookies, a fascinating presentation by Jaws production designer Joe Alves, insanely life-like replicas of Hooper, Quint and Brody and Ben Gardener’s head. “Smile You Son of a Bitch” closes Nov. 3.  If you live in L.A. and love JAWS or sharks, please go and support the show. You can buy some great art for as little as $20 and support Pangeaseed’s shark conservation efforts.

As transcendently JAWS-geeky as the evening was, the true highlight for me came afterwards when my friends and I were lucky enough to have dinner with Ralph and Cindy Collier and talk sharks and drink wine and eat very late into the evening. The waitresses seemed to linger and eavesdrop as Ralph told stories of unlucky abalone divers of mysterious tooth fragments. I’m delighted and surprised by the ease with which Ralph dismantles myths and clichés about shark behavior. He patiently answered my questions about stories that have long haunted me like the 1959  attack on skin diver Robert Pamperin whose body was never found.  Such cases often support the theory that sharks “eat people,” that the hapless souls disappear down the ravenous shark’s gullet.  But according to Ralph, studies of tides and currents offer a more realistic possibility– the remains are often carried or pulled out into the oblivion of the deep sea.

In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien writes that war stories are never really about war. “They’re about friendship. Sunlight.”  I would argue that shark stories are also mystery stories about what it means to be animal and human and that like O’Brien’s Vietnam stories, even the true shark stories carry the deep dreamy resonance of myth, of nightmare, of the collision of worlds–human & animal, land & sea, tellable & untellable.

Image

Day 127 10/30/13: JAWS Tribute: Enjoy Art! Help Sharks!

by in Activism, Jaws, Marine Conservation, Shark Charities, Shark Conservation, Shark Finning and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What are you doing this weekend, Los Angeles?

Why of course,you’re attending “Smile You Son of A Bitch,” a  Jaws-themed Art Show at the Hero Complex Gallery!

This divine mash-up of pop culture and activism includes the work of over 90 international artists celebrating the glory of Quint, Brody, Bruce and all things JAWSJAWS1.

The $10 admission benefits Pangeaseed’s shark conservation and education efforts.

When: November 1-3

Opening Reception: Friday Nov. 1

6 pm-10 pm

Where: Hero Complex Gallery, 2020 South Robertson Blvd. Studio D  L.A. 90034

Day 106 10/16/13: Halloween, Jaws & Me

by in Jaws, Pop Culture and tagged | 1 Comment

Halloween, that most sublime of all holidays, is nearly here. These annual round-ups of the creepiest and freakiest (from the primitive, rural corn assassins to the nadir of 70s mass culture), always remind me of my **favorite  costume ever… JAWS.

I remember marching in the humble 3rd grade Halloween parade around the leaf-strewn New Hampshire schoolyard, and sweating  that cold, creepy perspiration that happens only  inside a flimsy Halloween mask. Despite how superior I felt to the rag-tag assortment of (other) dime-store cheapies and shoe polish hobos, a stubborn confusion haunted me.

I wanted nothing more to BE the shark, and yet technically, since I was peering out of eye holes in the shark mouth I felt more like a dismembered Jonah, trapped inside the so-called “massive gullet.”   My young body, clad in that odd hospital gown, became a walking billboard for the movie, rather than some crude approximation of a shark’s body.

Alas, communion with one’s beloved is seldom easy.

original

**(besides a spare, but evocative turn as Yoko Ono, (circa 2003), and a truly inventive Woodsy Owl (2007).

Day 106 10/9/13: Valentine Road

by in Beatles/John Lennon, Jaws and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Driving home from a lecture on blogging, (I blog far too much and at all the wrong times), I heard an interview with Marta Cunningham, the director of  “Valentine Road”  a documentary about the 2008 shooting of Lawrence King, an openly gay  junior high school boy in Oxnard, California.

While Cunningham doesn’t demonize Brandon McInerney, the 14-year-old who killed Lawrence during his first period class (the murdered boy had asked McInerney two days before to be his valentine), the director is quite critical of how the school handled things. For example,  in the wake of the shooting, the faculty might have handled the traumatized middle schoolers a bit more delicately, instead of herding them into a spare classroom for a screening of “Jaws.”

I tried to inhabit the bodies of those kids who’d just seen their classmate executed in front of them. The  queasy unreality I felt after being car-jacked during the L.A. riots was the closest I could get.

I hardly ever think of “Jaws” as a violent movie, but If I’d just witnessed the murder,  how might I process a story that begins with a naked woman wrenched beneath the surface of a dark ocean by something unseen?  Would I cheer for Chief Brody perched on the sinking mast of the Orca, firing his rifle at the relentless beast and uttering his triumphant “Smile, you son of a bitch,” before he blows the shark to bits?

It’s beyond horrible that school shootings, workplace shootings, movie theater shootings, and mall shootings have become routine events in this country.

John Lennon would have been 73 years old today if he’d not been shot and killed in 1980.

A few months after his death, I stood at a podium. I was 14 years old, burning with passion and grief at my hero’s murder. I debated another eighth-grader on the need for gun control. I don’t remember the particulars of the debate, which is now just a flash of feeling, more dream than memory. I only know that I won.

Related articles

Day 103 10/6/13: Certified and Certifiable

by in Activism, Animal Rights, Animal Welfare, Diving, Environment, Horses, Inner Turmoil, Jaws, Marine Conservation and tagged , , | 2 Comments
David Foster Wallace gave a reading for Booksm...

David Foster Wallace  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“That’s great! That’s just great! You’re certifiable! Do you know that, Quint?” Brody (Roy Scheider) hollers after Quint (Robert Shaw) smashes the boat’s radio (no more calling in for a bigger one) with a baseball bat.

I replayed that “Jaws” scene endlessly in my head on the way back from Catalina as my dive teacher filled out my diver certification card. I am by no means “good” at diving, but I am no longer afraid of bleeding ears or the large sharks attracted by the ribbons of blood pulsing from my exploding lungs.

The ocean is beautiful—heart-rendingly so. But I don’t want to disturb its inhabitants. I don’t want to shine flashlights in crevices to see lobster, or play with sea cucumbers. Even as I thrilled at the glimpse of a retiring purple octopus curled up in a rock hole, I felt a rush of feeling for the little guy. I know that octopus LIKE to be left alone. And lobsters seem to value their privacy as well.

I felt glad that I would be  teaching David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” in the morning.

The essential question is this:

How do I commune with animals, while not interfering with their nature, their ways of being? 

It’s not that animal rights guilt precludes my enjoyment of the natural world, but thoughts about animal consciousness increasingly shape my experiences.

I grew up riding horses and still love doing it (as a way of seeing the countryside), but even that activity is fraught with complications: bits, and crops and heels into ribs. I recently discovered this observation (given in sign language) from the always candid Koko the Gorilla:

Koko looks at a picture of a horse with a bit in his mouth:

K: horse sad.

CD: Why?

K: TEETH.

(Check out more of Koko’s insights in this fascinating argument for the personhood of gorillas).

More on this idea of displacement & communion soon. The sea hath ignited in my mind the power and glory of language while it seemed to have sapped the very marrow from my bones.

The Unexpurgated Estuary of “Jaws”

by in God, Jaws, Pop Culture, Shark Attack | Leave a comment

The Edited Estuary Scene in JAWS

Deemed too gruesome for the final film, I’ve only glimpsed a bit of the original estuary scene in “The Making of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws” doc available on the Jaws Anniversary DVD.

The hapless boy scout leader (played by stuntman Teddy Grossman)  has fallen out of his little rowboat, been dragged under, lost an athletic (and still sneakered)  leg.  In the unedited version, we see him propelled by the shark, pushing  Michael Brody out of harm’s way as the fish pushes him out to sea.

Excessive gore aside, I read somewhere that Grossman was a bit too hammy in this scene which could be another reason Spielberg axed it.

It’s still my favorite part in the movie, even its edited form–the, sweet oblivious Grossman (“Hey, you guys need any help?)  trying to tell the boys how to tie a knot while the fin speeds toward him is full of pathos and terror.

I remember staring at a photo included in the JAWS log, (a childhood bible of sorts),  that showed Grossman with blood pouring out of his mouth as thick and dark as chocolate syrup, his eyes cast back at that towering fin escorting him to oblivion. There’s something weirdly religious about the martyrdom and the blood in this scene–the Christian sacrifice in the mouth of the  pagan God.

Day 79: 9/12/13: The Lonesome Death of Mr. Jaws

by in Education, Humor, Jaws, Pop Culture and tagged , , | 6 Comments

I wrote a letter to the New Yorker re: their recent piece “Cape Fear” which is largely about OCEARCH. I tried to keep it brief, mostly questioning why they use  brutal hook and haul methods, outdated tagging etc. Despite their current status as media darlings, I do believe people will eventually see the truth about OCEARCH’s shoddy science and macho spectacle.

I also learned about the suicide of Dickie Goodman, the zany mastermind behind my well-worn and much loved 45 of “Mr. Jaws”  (#4 in 1975), not to mention earlier gems as “Energy Crisis ’74,” “Batman and his Grandmother” & “Frankentstein meets The Beatles.” Dickie shot himself back in 1989, but I didn’t find out until today when I decided to play a Youtube clip of “Mr. Jaws” for my baffled students. They laughed exactly once. “What IS this?” someone finally asked. Thank God they’d heard of Weird Al, so I could briefly outline the novelty record genre, although I just couldn’t summon the energy to explain K-Tel. Image

Day 78: 9/11/13: On Shark Dreams & Shark Cages

by in Cage Diving, Diving, Dreams, Jaws, Memory, Pop Culture | Leave a comment

Today  in the darkness of the classroom, I remembered how pop culture is often a kind of vehicle for the spiritual, the sacred. It is easy to remember this truth in the realm of music, but easier to forget during things like movies involving killer sharks.

In the last fifteen or so minutes of “Jaws,” Hooper submerged in his steel cage, tries to escape the gaping, strangely feminine mouth and  battering ram of a body of the pursuing shark.  Students groaned as Hooper’s spear gun glided hopelessly away to the sea floor.  As the shark parted the bars of the cage and Hooper escaped into the sanctuary of a nearby reef, I said rather morosely, “I hope that doesn’t happen to me.” The class cracked up. I felt good not only because I’ll do anything for a cheap laugh, but because I sometimes remember: “Oh yeah, this whole project is culminating in my descent into the waters of South Africa in a shark cage!”

Often this truth flat-out horrifies me.

But today I started remembering my over twenty-year catalogue of shark dreams. I have been confronting sharks for years. Underwater, at the surface, sometimes flying through the air. But never consumed, never bitten or  tugged at, never even bumped or inspected.  I’ve watched for them at night, my binoculars trained on the dark water. I’ve lived in empty trailers on desolate beaches just to be near the seas where they swim unseen. So this descent into the cage, though foreign and terrifying in a physical sense, feels in some deeper, intuitive way, inevitable– the conscious version of the descent I’ve made for years in sleep, in dreams.

Day 77 9/10/13: Five Nerdy “Jaws” Facts

by in Jaws, Pop Culture, Shark Trivia and tagged , , | Leave a comment
The Creature from the Black Lagoon at the Witc...

The Creature from the Black Lagoon at the Witch’s Dungeon Wax Museum in Bristol, CT. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Preparing for an erudite classroom discussion on “Jaws”, I thought I’d share some of these  facts and fragments I gathered from Nigel Andrews’ wonderful JAWS guide.  

1. The teeth of the three mechanical sharks used in the film–all named Bruce, after Spielberg’s lawyer, Bruce Ramer) were flossed regularly to rid them of seaweed.

2. Andrea Morton a Martha’s Vineyard waitress, starred as “Chrissie’s arm” (the severed appendage rising out of the crab and kelp littered sand hill that nearly makes Lt. Hendricks lose his lunch). Morton soaked her arm in a bucket of water for hours to capture the right shade of decomposed blue.

3. Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw’s mutual distaste for each other apparently began when Shaw poured himself a whiskey lamenting, “I would give anything just to be able to stop drinking.”  Dreyfuss reportedly said, “Okay” and promptly threw Shaw’s drink out a porthole. “He didn’t forgive me for that,” Dreyfuss recalled.

4. Spielberg filmed the scene in which Hooper (Dreyfuss) discovers Ben Gardner’s head in the wrecked hull of a boat in editor Verna Fields’ swimming pool, adding Carnation milk and little pieces of tin foil to the pool water to create murk and silt.

5. The death cry of the sinking, dying shark is actually archive audio from “The Creature from the Black Lagoon.”