Category Archives: Jaws

Day 36: 7/31/2013: Hear Ye! Hear Ye: Auditions for “JAWS”

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

Today with the help of my dear friend Dan, we brought the “JAWS” charity reading one step closer to reality with our Facebook group.

Check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/events/546709615393682/546809945383649/?ref=notif&notif_t=plan_mall_activity

Many people have graciously volunteered to read. If you’re interested, PLEASE let me know.  Perhaps you’ll channel discontented, philandering housewife Ellen Brody, her beleaguered husband Martin, or the GREAT FISH himself!

We’re still deciding on a venue, so if you have a cavernous net-strewn sea shanty you’d like to lend us for an evening, gimme a holler!

Day 34 7/29/2013: The Ghost of Jack Webb & Me

by in Activism, Animal Welfare, Jaws, Pop Culture and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

I felt the ghost of Jack Webb working through me today. In the morning, I showed my international students the documentary “Los Angeles Plays Itself” which uses movies to explore L.A.’s identity crisis. Multiple shots of city hall stirred up some heavy “Dragnet” nostalgia. The spirit of Sgt. Joe Friday sparkled in the bright badges of the LAPD officers I spoke with about the horror in Chinatown. As I dropped by PETA’s fancy office in Echo Park, I imagined  Jack Webb reborn as an animal rights crusader. In another era, he could have broken up backyard dogfighting rings, or brought down poachers with the same relentless moral superiority that he used to lecture acid-addled hippies. I hope PETA can help me with the turtle-pet store crisis. Stay tuned.

As for sharks, besides buying a 6-pack of Great White beer that features a slick, glossy and too-manic shark clutching a mug of froth and a chewed up surfboard, (I just had to buy it, I hope it’s not horrible), I’m reminding everyone to send comments  asking the National Marine Fisheries Service not to undermine the Shark Conservation Act with loopholes and exceptions.

I also want to finish dividing “Jaws” into readable “chunks.” I hate that word.  It evokes chewed up humans. Chunks of human flesh remind me that although I did succumb to using the word “Sharktastic” yesterday, I’m trying to outlaw cute shark language here–no “bite-sized” monologues, for example.  Even the Great White beer package doesn’t resort to cutesy words, although I just noticed that the shark mascot stands on a sandy shore littered with a shell, a starfish and a bloody human hand, a kind of nautical crime scene.

Day 32: 7/27/2013: Musings of a Shark Cult Leader

by in Activism, Education, Jaws and tagged , , , | 2 Comments

I’m truly touched by how many of my colleagues have eagerly volunteered to read sex scenes from “Jaws” in a public setting to help save sharks.

My shark-themed English class is part of a contextualized learning grant program. Today I met with my fellow teachers and we discussed our various hybrid classes. As I defined my pedagogical mission, I realized that I don’t want to simply teach a class this semester. I want to start a shark cult.  I want to engage and enrage students and make them to fall in love with what’s disappearing. Maybe love will move them if anger will not.

Even if I don’t inculcate an army of brainwashed shark worshipping eco-terrorists, perhaps they’ll awaken to the plight of elephants or the senselessness of war or overconsumption.

Is fun the most powerful call to action? Is making shark cupcakes for charity the gateway drug to environmental activism? Should I use “Sharknado” as a sassy introduction to the sobering topic of ocean acidification and climate change? A good cult leader must effortlessly engage multiple strategies.  Perhaps “Air Jaws” is a good place to start.

P.S. Monday I’ll follow up with the rescue places about the turtles.

Day 26: July 21, 2013: Dirty, Sexy “Jaws”

by in Activism, Humor, Jaws, Pop Culture, Shark Charities and tagged , | Leave a comment

famous poster

I’m writing a blog entry for Sharksavers about the Jaws charity event.

My original copy of “Jaws” is so old and well-loved, the spine is nearly demolished. I keep trying to locate key moments like Alex Kintner being yanked off his raft, but the ravaged paperback, as if possessed by an X-rated daemon flips open to a lurid sex passage.

On page 104, Benchley gives a description of Ellen Brody’s nipple-revealing “diaphanous nightgown” and tells us that her husband (Roy Scheider in the movie) returns from the bathroom “tumescent.” Ellen, however has taken a sleeping pill. She drifts off as Brody grumbles “I’m not very big on screwing corpses.” The rather poetic “tumescence” (the “tomb” sound underscoring Brody’s doomed chances) becomes a frank and embarrassing “dwindling erection.”

When I read this book as a pre-adolescent kid, (at least a dozen times between 1975 and 1976)  the sex scenes were as disturbing to me as the shark attacks.  Sometimes as with Brody’s “screwing corpses” comment, the two themes merged.  A memorable and lengthy description of Brody urinating recalled the shark “spewing foam and blood and phosphorescence in a gaudy shower,” as he chomped on poor Chrissie in the opening chapter.

Castro saw “Jaws” as a critique of capitalism, but maybe the novel with all its adultery and frustration, is an even better allegory for all-consuming desire, and the awkwardness of bodily love, gross fluids and all.

Day 11 7/6/2013: Diary of a Slacktivist

by in Activism, Humor, Jaws, Marine Conservation, Pop Culture and tagged , , | Leave a comment

Last night I saw “Jaws” at the Egyptian theatre in Hollywood. This movie feels like part of my DNA. The print was old and beautiful with a color true to 1974. Other than a woman behind me who emitted a series of  ”Ahhs!” “Ooohs” and “Aww” for every potential shark sighting or lost child on the beach and who actually asked her friend the meaning of Quint’s famous quip, “Here’s to swimmin’ with bowlegged women,” I had a great time. Part of the benefit of Los Angeles is to be able to watch movies with people who stay to see the name of the key grip and explode in cultish appreciative applause at key moments, and I have zero tolerance for people who can’t keep their mouths shut. ANYWAY,  Since l’ll actually be going on a great white dive in South Africa next year, the shark’s destruction of the cage really scared the hell out of me, no matter how rubbery and awkward the whole thing looked. My friend Dan and I took public transportation to the theatre, which was nice since global warming hurts the ocean…! Seeing Peter Benchley’s cameo as the TV reporter made me excited for the 40th Anniversary JAWS benefit I’ll be hosting in February.

I  want to do as much creative stuff like that this year as possible. I don’t want all my work for sharks to be signing petitions. But sometimes so-called “slacktivism” is the best I can manage with the demands of my glamorous lifestyle.

Anyhow, here’s what I did today:

1. Signed a petition to ban the sale of shark fins in Canada

2. Sent a letter to the Secretary General of the U.N. asking for a worldwide ban on shark finning and the selling of shark products.

3. Volunteered at savingsharks.com offering my services as a writer, teacher, etc. to organize a benefit, coordinate volunteers or whatever else they might need.

Day 3 6/28/13: Reading “Jaws” 40 Years Later

by in Jaws, Marine Conservation, Shark Charities | Leave a comment

Much has been written about the negative legacy of “Jaws,” the mindless eating machine myth that fueled so much wanton killing of sharks. But many marine biologists and shark researchers have also cited “Jaws” as the reason they fell in love with sharks in the first place.

I wonder how many of them actually read Peter Benchley’s novel before they saw the movie?

I love the idea of harnessing the power of pop culture to save animals. Today, my friend Dan and I began planning a benefit for early next year to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the publication of “Jaws.”  What better way to raise money for an threatened species than through dramatic readings of the thrilling, cheesy glory that is Benchley’s novel?

I still have my copy.  It’s missing a back cover, and the front is held on by gleaming bits of tape, but I can still see that familiar and beloved conical shark head rising through the green, wrinkled sea. I read this book again and again—slumping in the back of my mother’s car, hiding in the sheltering branches of a maple tree, feeling sophisticated on the school bus.  I loved Benchley’s description of the “great fish”  and felt baffled by his detailed account of Ellen Brody’s pre-coital rituals ( did women really put baby powder their bras?).

Although I didn’t become a marine biologist, I’m grateful to Peter Benchley for initiating me into the two great mysteries of nature–the apex predator and the bored housewife.