Attempt To Keep a Schedule

Okay, so I did not make Saturday. And this will be short... but I am trying.

In the category of weird film double-features: Taxi Driver and The Parent Trap (remake with Lindsay Lohan, not the original). Okay, the link, and there is one, comes at the end.

Anyway, Taxi Driver. Not one for the kids, but a fantastic study in the dangers of isolation in the middle of a big city. Martin Scorsese directs Robert DeNiro - do I need to say more? Anyway, Travis (DeNiro) battles what has come to be called PTSD with the accompanying insomnia. Travis becomes a Taxi Driver, and starts to observe, stalk, and eventually judge the humanity that surrounds and frequents his cab. Cybill Shepherd - dizzyingly beautiful. Jodie Foster -  disturbingly vulnerable. At one point, Travis purchases an armory of handguns, practices at the shooting range, and threatens himself in the mirror with the now famous phrase "You talkin' to me? YOU talkin' to ME?" Travis could be a villian or a hero, though his actions are essentially the same, carried out in a vastly different setting. Great film.

Okay, The Parent Trap. Not on the same level as Taxi Driver, but a light dessert after a heavy main course. Lindsay Lohan gives, unfortunately, her first and probably best performance. Would that she got better rather than sliding down the skill hill. Anyway, about half-way through the film, Hallie is suddenly faced with the evil Merideth, whom Hallie has not yet met. Merideth, having met Annie (the other twin), begins to talk to Hallie in a familiar (and evil) fashion. Hallie says "You talkin' to me?" Merideth responds, "Who do you think you are, Robert DeNiro?... yes, I'm talking to you." This accidental coincidence led to much laughter.

We just joined NetFlix (hey, worth a try), so there will be more film reviews. In addition, we will be seeing a play on Wednesday night, so perhaps a theatre review before Saturday.

Happy Holidays to all!! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Kicka$$ Kwanzaa! Whichever.

Collected Thoughts - December 2008

So, it seems I am need more discipline to post more regularly. I will post something every Saturday, going forward. [Let's see how long I can keep this schedule.]

Listening to Paramore's Riot album, which plays into the combined desires I have for punk-like rock music as well as keeping a little connected to some strands of 'popular' music. Kind of like Avril Lavigne with a louder and pushier band. I like it.

Also in heavy rotation is Juliana Hatfield's latest, How To Walk Away. I will refrain from my macro-analysis of Juliana's musical bi-polar disorder, but this is the happiest sounding record in a while (big step up from Made in China, in my opinion). Juliana has been a staple of my musical diet for decades now, like an old friend who you don't see every day, but then you hang out one weekend, like no time had intervened. Give it a listen. Catchy with dark and sarcastic lyrics.

Watched Angelina Jolie and James McEvoy in Wanted. I have described it as a writer aiming to combine Fight Club, Matrix, and Office Space. What I have failed effectively to communcate to my friends and family is that the writer missed. The voice-overs would have been funnier and more effective from Edward Norton, the action would have been more effective if wrapped in a more-developed story, and the office is a parody of a parody. Angelina has cool tattoos and is pretty (though the excessively raccoon-like eye makeup here borders on visual comedy). Yeah, I get that. She is also a better actress than this movie allows (see a more amusing and convincing Angelina in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (or Tomb Raider for that matter, d'oh).).

Dark Knight is still good, and it is awesome that it is on DVD now, because you can pause for the multiple bathroom breaks that you will need during this long, long film. Still love the Joker magic trick with the pencil. Sums up the character: playful, performative, dark, and unmoored from any societal norms.

Milwaukee Rep's production of The Blonde, The Brunette, and The Vengeful Redhead by Robert Hewett was a fantastic performance of a spotty script. Deborah Staples played 7 different characters in this one-woman show: a scorned redhead, a trashy brunette and an ambivalent Russian blonde as well as an elderly neighbor lady, a British physician, a 4-year-old boy, and a foul-mouthed husband. The weaving of the stories is pretty good, but the couplings and re-couplings of the characters as threads break and new connections are made... just weren't all believable. Ms. Staples transitions and portrayals, however, were consistently excellent and startling in their diversity. She was impressive as Lydia Gwilt in Armadale, but this is a step up on the scale of difficulty. Impressive again.

History Re-visited and Re-viewed (1)

Reading a new book: James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (1995). I won't go through all the arguments, but, basically, he demonstrates the 'America as Hero' spin put on almost every event in our history. I don't know what he will eventually label as the 'cause' of this phenomenon because I haven't finished the book. He looks at the bits left out. Helen Keller became, later in life, a radical socialist. Woodrow Wilson not only guided us through WWI, but leads all presidents in foreign interventions (mostly in the Western Hemisphere) and resegregated the government back to pre-Civil War levels.
He asks: why is all of this white-washed (literally, in the chapters on racism) out of the curriculum? Can't high school students handle the truth (to fudge a quote from Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men)? What kind of citizenry are we trying to create? Why must college history professors spend whole sections of classes 'un-teaching' the lessons of high school?
Loewen also quotes Anais Nin: "We see things not as they are but as we are." As a historian, I think this is true. It gets me thinking about the filters and lenses that we accumulate over our lifetimes. High school is certainly one source.
Why do I have friends who seem to start with the assumption that the world is good and joyful, but I have a much more negative and fearful approach to the world I see? The question arises: are they seeing the same world as I am? The answer is: yes and no. They get the same data, but play it through more forgiving and more positive lenses. Intellectually and emotionally, it seems that we are what we eat. If I play my world through a dark lens, then dark nourishment and dark reactions are not surprising.
So, how can we (I) trade in these lenses for something more pleasant but still truthful? Tricky business, this rearranging world-views.
Recent viewings: Stevie, a play by Hugh Whitmore. Euridice, a play by Sarah Ruhl. Dexter, Season Two. Dark City. Maybe that tells more about my filters and choices than the rest of this entry.
That's enough for now. More soon(er).

Prophets and Money-Management

[Yes, I love puns. Sorry.] My main concerns today can best be expressed in two questions:

1. Is it EVER a good idea to loan family members money?
2. What will I say about Old Testament and Modern Prophets on Saturday morning to a Church group?

First, those of you who know me know that I am usually pretty cryptic (or just plain disdainful) about my youth. I make no secret that my father ran the family into the ground financially and emotionally with a series of bad decisions and bad behaviors. Into that authority-void, I stepped as a 15-year-old with a part-time job and a solvent bank account. I worked. I paid a lot of the bills. I tried to be the parent. And, when I got the chance to go to college (on scholarship and a lot of loans), I jumped at the chance and essentially ran away from home to get an education.

I have been running ever since.

Today, my brother, whom I love and worry about, has teleported me back 25 years, by asking me for a loan. His need is real, but my eagerness to remain untethered financially to the family I stopped saving years ago is strong. Can this turn out well? Someone will come out of this resenting someone for something. I hope I am wrong about that. I will probably take a leap of faith and loan him some money.

Second, what can I say to my Church's Men's Group about Prophets three days before the Presidential election? What should I say? What should I NOT say?

Prophets of the Hebrew Bible appear, on the surface, as wholly depressing and grouchy. No doubt. But I have found that they are often trying to slap a sleeping populace out of their stupor and their slavery to whatever idols they have recently created for themselves, and hope to make said populace reassert their relationships with God and each other. Community (big 'C') does not work if we stare nightly only at TV. I believe that our Golden Calf is really a flat-screen made by LG or Samsung. In an analogy I repeat often, if aliens landed on an abandoned planet (perhaps after a surprisingly inclusive Rapture), they would reconstruct our belief structure as the worship of TV and indoor plumbing. The glass/plastic god and the porcelain god.

Are there prophets around us today? Has God gone silent, or are we the numbed and zombie-like masses who can't understand the calls when we hear them? Facebook.com, of which I am a new member, is neither a Face nor a Book.

Question of the day: where are the voices, the original and troubling voices that challenge you and me to get up off the sofa and DO SOMETHING? Prophets are, by my definition, those who tell us truths we don't want to hear. Phrased another way, they do what some sermons used to do for me, which is 'convict' me; they cut into me and make me uncomfortable in my action and inaction. Some prophets speak with conviction, total self-confidence and persuasiveness. Their prophetic voice is only measurable by the discomfort they inspire and the awakening they can sometimes facilitate.

But we have to decide to wake up and not hit the cultural 'snooze' buttons (you pick yours from the myriad choices that modern society has dreamed up). Dreamed up. Interesting that we even talk about actions of our modern culture as if happening in a dream-state. To quote a Kate Bush song from Hounds of Love: "Wake Up! Look who's here to see you."

Collected Thoughts in October 2008

A lot since the last entry... my Augustana College 20th Reunion, the Spooky Trail, but first the promised theatre reviews:

1. The Constant Wife by Somerset Maugham (performed at the Boulevard Theatre, Milwaukee).

Basically a study of marriage dynamics, this play struck me as extremely 'period.' I feel this way usually when there are confrontations and assertions in the text of the play that probably made sense in some other context but are hard to follow in the current day and age. Plot? Man cheats on wife with wife's best friend. Everyone knows except the constant wife (named Constance !?!?!). Constance is finally confronted, only to reveal that she has known all along and had avoided acting like she knew so she could go on with a comfortable existence, since she had resigned herself to the transformation of her marriage from passionate to predictable. All of these twists and turns, complicated by the return of a man who loved Constance before her marriage, leave plenty of space for monologues on the role of women and men and honesty and love and passion and,... well, I think you get it. I liked all of the actors and the tones they struck, but I lost my program, so I can't (and won't) go through each one. In the end, a good performance of a mediocre text.

2. State of the Union by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (performed by the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theatre, Milwaukee).

Politically pertinent plays performed playfully. The setting is reversed from this historical moment: in 1948, the Republicans are desperate to find someone to help them break the Democratic streak in the White House. They happen upon a charismatic businessman whom they convince to make some preliminary speeches, to test the waters. In front of this backdrop, we encounter the man, his outspoken wife, the cogs in the political machine, his mistress who happens to own a newspaper, and a wide variety of business and labor types.

Lindsay and Crouse, most famous for writing the story for Sound of Music, give us a mostly-subtle love story rather than just bashing us with politics. The Rep actors did an excellent job selling the characters and giving them 'arc' or transformation throughout the action. Those who hate come to tolerate, those who ignore come to notice, those who have lost love manage to find it again. This play, which won a Pulitzer, was made into a film (starring Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and Angela Lansbury). I am anxious to see what Frank Capra did with the text and the characters. I hope he did as good a job as the Rep did.

3. Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (performed by Milwaukee Shakespeare at the Broadway Theatre Center, Milwaukee).

To start at the end, what I really like are 'talk-backs.' I love it when the actors (and perhaps the director) come out after a performance and answer audience questions. Not every question is lit-crit-worthy, but many press the actors to verbalize their (character's?) motivations and their experiences. If I were Emperor of Things, I would make it a rule that every run of every play had to do these more often. This performance happened to have a talk-back, so it automatically starts with a B+. Hey, I'm emperor.

Anyway, this rendition of the play has the novel update of being recast as a 'reality show' in which the King of Navarre and his 3 friends are followed around by a Greek Chorus/Comic Relief group sporting TV cameras and microphones. No text is added to the Shakespeare, though some of the non-main-arc sections are heavily deleted. The result is a loud, hilarious, mostly-accessible version of the play. The disconnect between the Shakespearean language and the TV monitors evaporated for me almost immediately [ah, a victory for my high school English teacher's mantra of 'willing suspension of disbelief']. When the play-within-the-play leaked over into American Idol, I was temporarily irritated, but they recovered nicely. A difficult play was rendered cleverly accessible.

4. I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright (performed by the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre at the Stiemke Theatre, Milwaukee).

Doug Wright irritates me. I read Quills, and, frankly, didn't like the play. So I went into this production with a chip on my shoulder, prepared to declare my ticket money wasted.

It wasn't.

Doug Wright still irritates me, because he has forced me to reassess, to change my original evaluation - which means, to quote that venerable philosopher, Fonzie, that I was wrrr..., I was wrrrrrr..., I may have been premature in my negative evaluation. This play was excellent, partially because of the real-feeling writing and partially because of Michael Gotch's absolutely virtuoso performance of this one-man play (with over 30 different characters). I was blown away.

Plot: Doug Wright writes himself into this play about how he negotiates the writing of a play about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, an openly gay transvestite who survived Nazi Germany and the Soviet period of Eastern Germany.

Whoa. Yeah, I know. Amazing. Wright chronicles his evolution from naive admirer to horrified spectator to mature author in relation to the life she led. Life is not as clean and clear as characters and action often appear in plays. Wright's injecting himself as a character can look a bit narcissistic, but this allows for the two layers of action (Charlotte's navigating her life and Wright navigating his research and realizations). Really well-written and well-acted. I am glad that I am forced to give Doug Wright another chance.

More on the other stuff later. Drop me a note or a comment.

Reflections on a New York Vacation

Usually after a vacation, S and I make adjustments to our lives in accordance with something we learned in the experience of the trip. So, what of this one? S had a couple, particularly related to the two halves of the vacation (tennis and food/walking). From the tennis experience, she took away a desire for greater fitness. From the food/walking, she took away a desire for less life-clutter and better food [I am doing her points a horrible injustice by compression and rephrasing, but she can put them in her own Blog]. :-)

As for me, I am contemplating many things.

First, from the tennis experience, I learned that I enjoy experiencing tennis (in this case) in person rather than over the air waves. The TV-ification of sports and all other 'real' events has a couple of effects. On the one hand, it seems like democracy in action - people who can't afford the air fare to New York and the $200+ per day ticket prices can 'experience' the tennis matches on TV. On the other hand, events on TV are controllable, editable, chopped up for commercial breaks, and marketable as media commodities. The 'events' become 'bread-and-circuses' as well as ways to carry us between commercials and highlight products. Consumerism, while pretty rampant AT the events too, is semi-avoidable on the ground. In front of the TV, the marketing is interrupted by the event. At least when you attend the event and spend the money, you know that you are purchasing something. When you are 'watching' an event, it seems free, as long as you accept the commercials. I think the more obvious costs are better than the media-woven version of the event. Also, the 'real event' and the 'media-woven version' are not the same event. When watching a tennis match on the USA network from the hotel room, the experience was entirely different than being in the stands. It is like they are two totally different things. [Note for more on this topic, see Umberto Eco's Travels in Hyperreality - terrific book, that makes you redefine the nature of 'real.' My favorite essay is the one in which he flies from the 'real' Bourbon Street in New Orleans to the Disney version of Bourbon Street at one of the theme parks - and his comments on the experience.]

Second, professional tennis players are crazy fast and amazingly consistent. Without the pressure from the opponent's shots, they could stand out there and hit for hours without making an error. I need that kind of consistency in my game.

Third, fitness. I need to decide to do the hard things and lose some weight. If I could, I would be faster and probably play better.

Fourth, from the museum and food and walking parts of the vacation, I need to limit the number of things I try to do (as in hobbies/sports/activities), and just do a few of them well. In Greenwich Village, there is a tiny store-front cheese maker who makes 3000 lbs. of mozzarella cheese by hand each day. His cheeses are sought out by all of the major restaurants in Manhattan because of their uniqueness, their flavor, and their delicious peculiarity. That's all he and his family do. Make cheese. Make the best cheese in Manhattan. One thing. 50 years. While I don't know if that is the perfect model for me, I think that getting out and being active in a couple of things is better than trying to sift through the dozens of possibilities, waiting for one of them to strike my fancy or jump off the page. I need to decide. I need to commit. To something [leaders in the consideration are: writing, tennis, and joining the board of the Boulevard Theatre]. More than 2 or 3 things, with the addition of work, are more than enough to fill my days and consume my energies and creativity. Commit. That's the next step.

Coming next: critique of (reflections on) deconstruction as a movement or a way of life and reviews of 3 plays that we will be seeing this week. There will probably also be comments on the upcoming election and the notion of Biblically-based social justice. We will see where I end up going...

New York Vacation 2008 (Entry Three)

Saturday:
We tried to spend the remaining time in the morning going to the MOMA, but it did not open until 10:30am, which would have been cutting it awfully close with the airport [or so we thought]. So we walked through yet another street festival. It appears that street festivals in Manhattan on summer weekends feature four types of vendors, repeated endlessly: 1) pashmina dealers, 2) knockoff leather bag dealers, 3) cheap New York souvenir T-shirt dealers, and 4) street food of various ethnic backgrounds (usually Mexican, Greek, and Indian). We were taken on a scenic (?!) taxi ride through Queens on the way to LaGuardia [though I think he did avoid the tolls without costing us much time]. Finally, we ended up on a flight to Kansas City rather than Milwaukee because Midwest 'canceled' the flight because of weather. What they really did was combine two half-full flights to the Midwest and keep the non-stop money they charged the Milwaukeeans. Nice. They could have couched it as a green initiative, kind of like ride-sharing, but then they would have probably had to admit that it was a business decision and refund some money. Heaven forbid!

Friday:
Walked through Central Park up to the Guggenheim, saw art [Louise Bourgeois, Rothko, Pollack, early Kandinski, and Ad Reinhardt [all black paintings]], went to Neue Galerie, saw art [Klimt and Schiele], went to Candle 79, ate art [hand-cut Spinach Pasta with veggies in a peach-cashew cream sauce as well as delicious Whale Tail Pale Ale from Cisco Brewery in Nantucket], went to Met, saw art [oh, boy, huge museum, uh, Rembrants, Picassos, Bracques, Dalis, Renoirs, Sargents [Madame X], Degas [Ballerinas galore], El Greco [including the one of the catholic cardinal that Francis Bacon used as basis for Pope with Sides of Beef], Caravaggios [Juan de Pereja], Greek [most of the marble statues of males with the penises knocked off], Egyptian [an entire transplanted temple that would have been under water because of the Great Aswan Dam], Oceania, African, and the list goes on and on], walked home, fell down. Eventually got back up and went to O'Lunneys for beers and some bar food. The conversation turned to reflecting on the vacation and the lessons (or some might call them 'take-aways') from the vacation [more on this in the next Blog].

Thursday:
Grand Central Station, Greenwich Village, Food Tour led by Rahim, our former NYU student who is going back to chef school and knows WAY too much about food preparation and is absolutely in love with the Village and SoHo opportunities for eating and experiencing food created and prepared in authentic and delicious ways [restaurant highlight was Monte's [must go back] and old and fabulous coffee shop down the street was Cafe Dante], Soho, Kate's Paperie [air-conditioned place to stop and rest the feet and cool the bodies before the next stage of the walk; yes, stages like the Tour de France], Moo Shoes store font [where Sherry wanted to get some Vegan-friendly shoes] was closed, walked up to Angelica Cafe and met Darwin [our cool waiter who seemed particularly fascinated that we have been married for almost 17 years], walked Uptown to see Empire State Building [saw it, felt our pain in the feet, waved at it, and kept walking; caught a glimpse of Famke Janssen], bought beers and Pringles from a deli, watched TV and went to sleep.

Wednesday:
Tennis - Tennis - Tennis. Medina Garrigues and Ruano Pascual versus Spears and Kops-Jones, Pennetta versus Safina, Del Potro versys Murray [saw it mostly on the Jumbotron while eating and trying to stay cool], Navratilova versus Novotna [exhibition, but still fun], Bryans versys Robredo and Roitman [third row at Armstrong - twenty feet away; over pretty quickly, but the Bryans stayed and signed almost anything the kids pushed at them, very cool.], Williams sisters versus each other [Venus played better, but Serena managed to win anyway], Nadal versus Fish [Nadal wore him down, and the match went until 2am]. Came home, hung out the do not disturb, and fell asleep.

Tuesday:
Tennis - Tennis - Tennis. Stosur and Raymond versus Erakovic and Kostanic-Tosic, Gonzalez and Monaco versus Soares and Vemic, Davydenko versus Muller [amazing upset, thought Muller eventually lost to Federer], Bammer and Jankovic [moved to Armstrong]. Went out and had convenient, cheap [by Manhattan standards] pizza and a couple of Heinekens, and came home and went to sleep.

New York Vacation 2008 (Entry Two)

Monday:
Bus to King Center for Day 8 of the US Open. Seats in Arthur
Ashe stadium, but wandered around during the 11 hours of tennis. Saw
Mardy Fish defeat Gael Monfils. Saw Rafael Nadal struggle with Sam
Querrey. Saw Dinara Safina frustrate Anna-Lena Groenfeld. Missed the
Bryan Brothers, but might catch them today. Saw some high-end doubles
on court 11 (a bleachers court), so we were extremely close to that
action. Good fun. Saw both Williams Sisters [both won easily]. And,
finally, saw Andy Murray, the hope of Scotland, beat Stanislas Wawrinka
in a tough match, though the 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 (I think) didn't match the
fight Stan (that's what the crowd called him) put up. During the day,
hung out with Kelly and her dad, Mike. Had fruit smoothies and talked
about their close encounter with Dementieva and Djokovic at Nippon, a
sushi place. During the evening session, sat next to 2 English ladies
(Marina and Linda) and watched Murray; they explained the tension in
the English relationship with Murray, who is outspokenly Scottish, not
British. Ouch!

Sunday:
We got into Manhattan and walked, and walked, and walked. Saw some interesting people in Central Park and along 5th Avenue, as someone had declared it Brazil Pride Day, or some such. Many people sporting their Brazil 'football' jerseys and colors. [Aside: New Yorkers, or the folks who party on the streets of Times Square seem to have be more comfortable with showing skin.] Ate at the Candle Cafe, one of the many vegan restaurant options here on the island. Delicious.

New York Vacation 2008 (Entry One)

So, we aren't really in NY yet [sitting at the airport waiting for departure]. But, I promised some reviews of recent media experiences, so here is the catchup.

Misanthrope at Boulevard Theatre (Bayview):
Mark Bucher adapted the classic Moliere play in at least two ways: 1) moving it to a modern Art Gallery and 2) changing the genders of some of the characters, making most of the love dynamics same-sex. On thing I kind of wish he had changed is the distraction in the dialogue rhyming couplets. I got used to it, but it was distracting at the beginning. David Flores, in the lead, was fabulous. He was bombastic and opinionated and self-righteous and witty. Perfect. The tension of his high-mindedness in the arena of intellect and art contrasted well with his oft-noted inconsistency in terms of emotions and love. Nice tension. Around Flores, the other members of the cast paled a bit, though, again, the wit and kitsch of some of the segments were hilarious [see the over-the-top poetry reading, which only proceeded after an emotional stripping down to red satin dancing trunks]. Enjoyable and a bit edgy. The same sex tension seemed a bit forced in places, but, overall, the play was, hopefully, a portent of things to come from Boulevard.

KT Tunstall concert (Pabst Theatre):
Firecracker. That's all I need to say. KT is a firecracker on stage. Constant motion. Also, I am a sucker for any accent from the British Isles (she's Scottish). There were a couple of new songs, but the bulk of the concert came from her 2 albums "Eye to the Telescope" and "Drastic Fantastic." I have listened to both albums enough to hope that she might have experimented a bit with the arrangements of the songs or maybe stretched herself a bit. [Like Tori Amos covering 'Smells Like Teen Spirit"]. KT clearly has the musical talent to do some of those 'outside the box' kinds of things, but, perhaps, she is still building a fan base. Martha Wainwright, the opening act, took a couple of songs to get warmed up, but got steadily better. Personally, I liked her monologues to the crowd between the songs better than the songs themselves. Martha is hilarious and tells funny stories.

Irish Fest (Maier Festival Grounds):
No Guinness. The music was good and the people looked like they were having a good time, but NO Guinness? I will probably not go again. Sorry, but there are some requirements. Whatever the reasons or explanations, it would be like not allowing black t-shirts at a Harley-Davidson festival. Whatever.

Lars and the Real Girl (film):
Why isn't Ryan Gosling a star yet? Maybe he is. Well, he should be. This film will be avoided by a lot of people because of the one-sentence summary: "Delusional loner comes out of his shell after purchasing a life-sized doll and treating her as if she were alive." I am sure that someone could come up with a better one-sentence summary, but that is the basic. However, the basic does not suffice for this film.

Rather, Lars and the Real Girl is a film about community and family and the healing of damaged people (and aren't we all damaged in some way?). Lars has some deep issues with social interaction, his mother's death, his dead father's sadness, and his sister-in-law's pregnancy. Until Bianca (the Real Girl) appears, Lars will work and go to church, but will not cross the driveway from his garage to have dinner with his brother and her wife. Bianca changes all that, and initiates some hilarious and strange moments along the way (Bianca comes to dinner, Bianca goes to church, Bianca reads to children at the hospital, Bianca gets elected to the School Board). Through all this, Lars's doctor, played by the superb Patricia Clarkson, counsels tolerance and sensitivity, since Lars seems to need Bianca to work through some issues, and ostracism will not help him progress.

That's the message of the movie. That's the deep current that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. What if you or I were 'having an issue' and needed to rely on the unconditional support of our community to get through it? Would we be brave enough to ask? Would our community (assuming that we even have one anymore) be brave enough to offer us the tolerance and sensitivity we might need? What would a world look like if the Larses in our lives could count on us? Am I ready to get past my own needs and selflessly, bravely help someone who really needs help? How can I learn that discipline? How do we encourage that kind of service in the current "ME" environment?

That will get us started. We have tickets to Monday - Wednesday US Open. We hope to see some interesting matches in the round of 16 and the quarter finals. More on that as it happens.

Collected Thoughts of the Day Again (2)

Riff on Movie Title:
I know what your collected thoughts were last summer.
I still know what your collected thoughts were last summer.
I know what your collected thoughts were last summer,... again.
I still know what your collected thoughts were summer before last.

Anyway, movies:

Dirty Pretty Things - fantastic. Who knew the BBC could make a movie I wanted to study, not just watch. Audrey Tautou and Chiwetel Ejiofor are magnificent and complex. See it.

Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse Planet Terror - fun. Rose McGowan is ridiculously sexy and the action is hilarious. I have had fantasies of running an old tow truck into human-shaped bags of red jello just to see the explosion, and here we get to see them in action. Also, having zombies eat Fergie's brains fulfills another fantasy for quiet. Finally, Marley Shelton's part as the second fiddle creates a great side story that ties things together.

Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse DeathProof - long-winded. Sorry. I wanted to like it because the Cannes folks did, and I liked Pulp Fiction, and Q plays to my generation, but, in the end, I did not like it. The last 30 minutes were good, but Q's focus seemed to wander. The dialogue was predictable and not that amusing. Won't watch it again (except maybe for the last car chase and beat-down).

Dark Knight - Heath Ledger was, as everyone says, excellent. He raised the bar for psychotic villians. Even Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lechter have nothing on Joker. There is an anarchic whimsy about the character and the mayhem. Christian Bale's straight-man Batman pales in comparison, but provides the boring springboard off of which Ledger can launch. Watch it for the Joker. Buy it for the Joker. Pray that screenwriters are paying attention and give us villians (and heroes, for that matter) with depth of character and strangeness that we deserve.

In other news, my 3.5 USTA tennis team won at City Playoffs and went to State. We did, in fact, get beaten soundly at State, but it was fun and challenging.

Upcoming: Misanthrope at the Boulevard Theatre, KT Tunstall concert, Irish Fest in Milwaukee, and the US Open in Flushing Meadows. So, there are reviews to come.

Hayden White from The Content of Form (p. 173) "The meaning of real human lives... is the meaning of the plots... by which the events that those lives comprise are endowed with the aspect of stories having a discernible beginning, middle, and end. A meaningful life is one that aspires to the coherency of a story with a plot. Historical agents prospectively prefigure their lives as stories with plots." I haven't checked the reference (I actually have that book on my shelf), but I like it whether it is on 173 or not. In 'The Holiday', starring Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz, Arthur (Eli Wallach) tells a depressed Iris (Kate Winslet), whose character has been emotionally crushed by an ex-boyfriend, that there are two types of women in the movies, the leading lady and the best friend. He tells Iris that he can tell she is a leading lady, but that she is, for some unknown reason, acting like the best friend. Iris's response is something like "I should be the leading lady of my own life, at least, shouldn't I?" What would it mean if we plotted our lives and made ourselves the heroes and leading ladies? What confidences and adventures would we have? What meaning would we impose on these existences?

Collected Thoughts of the Day - Quick Hits

First, Hellboy 2. Uh, despite all the raves (that have been lost under the tidal wave of 'Dark Knight' raves), I was disappointed. Let me be clear. It LOOKED super cool. Neat effects, cool monsters (it is Del Toro, after all) and wicked steam-punk gadgets. But. But. How do I say this? Weak writing. Weak. Lame. Weak. Dangit. The promise of the first 20 minutes, with a nifty premise and back story of the humans against the elementals, is almost entirely dropped in favor of flash and predictable (and insulting) jokes about stress in marriage and relationships. Please. Del Toro had fantastic material that seems to have been left on the picnic table at the last rest stop. Sorry, but I won't be purshasing this one. Not impressed.

Second, tennis. It is hard and it is depressing to be in a slump. I feel like that unnamed player in Bull Durham that gets called in and cut from the team to show the audience what will happen to Crash after Nuke makes the big time (hope I didn't ruin that for you).

Third, iPhone 2.0 is good. I don't even miss the idea of the 3G (I did not upgrade hardware).

Fourth, things I like: PicLens for Firefox (now compatible with Flickr and YouTube); www.acronymfinder.com; ScribeFire addin for Firefox; Iron Man (still, despite all the hype about Batman); Selma Blair's assymetrical hair in Hellboy; sharing movies (loaned Serenity to a co-worker and she really liked it).

Fifth, I feel sad that I might be moving into a season in my life that I had been hoping to avoid - the age when parents of friends and older friends begin to pass away. The father of some close friends passed today, and, while it was expected, it does not make it any easier. Time is cruel to us all, which makes it even more important to live now. Smile now. And, if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with... wait, sorry. Stolen lyric. But seriously, these passings should be taken as opportunities to reflect, to savor the gifts that we have been given, the blessings of a unique person crossing our path and leaving us slightly different, slightly changed, slightly better. Thank you, T. Rest well. Sing in the mirror. I will always smile at that story, which makes it part of me now.

After the Initial Blush of Enthusiasm...

How do you transition from the initial enthusiasm for blogging into the more disciplined 'peeling of the onion' of your attitudes, writings and self? And when I write 'you', I mean 'me.' The long layoff has been part laziness and part busy-ness.

Book: Jenna Blum's Those Who Save Us [excellent, and plays right into my interest in the juxtaposition of different time periods playing off each other.]
Movie: Guillermo del Toro's 'Pan's Labyrinth'... [very good also, but an interesting combination with Blum's book, since both have the theme of women's accomodations to WWII Fascist males in order to save their daughters. Strange and unplanned coincidence...]

Vacation last week with S's family: excellent weather and too much food. I need to eat veggies for a month to recapture any kind of fitness and moderate cholesterol level. Badminton, pontoon boats, Uno, golf, parades, bonfires, reading, photography... good fun. Dread of getting back to the business of work. Squeezing this last weekend of vacation for every instant that it is worth. Purposely avoiding checking work e-mail. There will be time tomorrow, and if they really need me, they can call.

Borrowed an hour from God this morning - meaning I sat in a classroom down the hall from the Chapel writing rather than attending services. I just seemed to need the time to write and think. Among the activities were the jotting of all the details I can remember from the vacation, writing through my attitude toward habits and depressions (and depressants) as well as pondering the nature of self-discipline, service, calling, and mindfulness. How is it that excellent ideas and activities are eroded under the waves of habits and comfortable 'same-nesses' of daily life? How radically (root) do I need to dig in order to make changes? How much attention is necessary in this moment to see the potentials and the opportunities? How long does it take to make a new habit, really?

Finally, got the video invitation to a conference in honor of my graduate school advisor. As a non-academic, I would not think of presenting a paper, but I was thinking of attending. But my fear of inadequacy surfaces. Of his 40 advisees, how many of them are employed in education, and how many (like me) failed to get that job? Failed is the word that I keep coming back to. How do I let go of that part of my life, and be fully present in this one?

I have been berating myself for not digging in and getting personal in this blog. Perhaps I have crossed the line and swung too far the other direction. I will probably get back to book and movie reviews in the near future,... but I thought you should know where my head is (and where it has been during the long silence).

Thanks, and I will write again soon.

Book Review: Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears

I was planning to post more often than this, so perhaps I just have to allow myself shorter entries. Anyway, below is a detailed take on Pears's book. Basically, I liked it and everyone should read it and discuss it with me. If you want more detail, read on.

There has to be some literary fashion or cliche or something that I am not familiar with, wherein the author picks a geographical location and weaves interlinked stories of inhabitants from different eras. These inhabitants cross paths in echoes and read each other's documents, art, architecture, and remnants. Tom Stoppard did this in Arcadia, and Iain Pears takes it up a notch in Dream of Scipio; Stoppard really bounced back and forth between two sets of players, Pears makes his movement between three.

The geographical thread are the towns of Avignon and Vaison, France, in Provence. The earliest plot involves Manlius, a Roman citizen and landowner living during the decline of the Roman Empire. He has to deal with the remnants of the great civilizations as they sink under the waters of early Christianity and the 'barbarian' hoards gobbling up Europe. The middle plot is that of Olivier, a mediocre poet obsessed with collecting historical documents as well as currying favor with the Avignon Papacy right at the outbreak of the Black Plague. Olivier picks up the thread of Manlius's manuscript, The Dream of Scipio, and ensures its survival in the Vatican Archives. Julien, our third protagonist, struggles to be a scholar studying Olivier and Manlius in a France overrun by the Nazis, collaborators, and the Resistance.

Whew! No Peter Mayle waxing poetic about cheeses and countryside here. Instead, two themes seem to bubble up repeatedly: antisemitism and the nature of civilization. Pears sums up his take on the latter as exposed by the former. In the end, each protagonist longs to save and preserve the civilization that he has come to know and love. But only Julien really completes the circle in a speech near the end: he levels a scathing indictment against civilization by demonstrating that the Nazi extermination of the Jews was only possible with the tools and attitudes made available by civilization: apathy, scapegoatism, but also efficient train administration, malleable theologians, inventive scientists, persuasive governors, and calming writers. These tools and mechanisms allowed Nazi Germany, in Julien's words, to create a grand and horrible monument to civilization that would outlast any building project or military conquest: they exterminated millions of human beings on a grand scale. Civilization, which had been worth saving, becomes supremely suspect at the macro level as well as at the level of the individual, the everyday citizen who follows orders and turns in neighbors to the secret police.

Julien's disillusionment rang loudest in my ears, though it is not the only ending. Olivier and Manlius have their revelations as well. I will leave that for you to discover.

Okay, first of all, read this book. Period. The interplay of history and art and philosophy make it enjoyable as well as convicting. If a good sermon is one that 'comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable,' then Pears has written quite a pulpit-pounder, if the reader will meet him half-way. As we citizens of the world wrestle with the latest crises involving oil, war, poverty, global warming, natural disasters, and Jessica Simpson breaking up with Tony Romo, revisiting the purpose of 'civilization' is not a bad exercise. What do we do with all this advancement in technology and possibilities? What do we do with all of these libraries full of art and literature and science and philosophy? What are we building as our monument?

I also watched the movie Proof this past week. I haven't processed all of the information in it, but I liked. I would be curious to read the original play version to see if the ending of the movie is true to the play or a Hollywood modification... but it was certainly play-like. I will think about it and get back to you.

Book Review: Terror Incorporated

In the never-ending quest to push myself to write, here is another entry in the book review category. As I told a friend recently, I use the reviews to hide behind, until I find the voice or courage to come out and say what I think. Maybe later...

Loretta Napoleoni, Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks (2005).

Simply put, what I like about this book is that it insists on following the money, rather than get distracted by ideologies, religions, or marketing.

First hint: read the 3-page Conclusion at the end of the book first. It presents her thesis wonderfully (and SHOULD have been at the front; it would have saved me a lot of time and energy). In the book, she analyzes the evolutionary growth of what she calls the 'New Economy of Terror.' "The principal stages have been the wars by proxy of the Cold War era, the foreign sponsorship of armed groups, the privatization of terror, the birth of state-shells, and the Modern Jihad" (225). Napoleoni, an economist first and journalist second, revels in the numeric details as only an economist can. She counts the dollars as they flow from one group to another, in one form and another (particularly arms, drugs, and dollars).

Things I did NOT know: Hey, it turns out that terror groups (Napoleoni shuns 'terrorist' because of the excess baggage the term has acquired) don't like to be beholden to sponsors. Who knew? One of the most interesting things I learned was that groups explicitly work to create stable, independent finances (by investing in legitimate companies, stock markets, and real estate) in order to wean themselves off of the often fickle sponsors. Freedom-fighter today can become terrorist tomorrow, depending on the politics and the narrative wrapper. So, groups evolved into investors with independent wealth and freedom to act. Naploeoni sees the power vacuum caused by the fall of the Soviet Union as one of the major opportunities for this shattering of sponsorship and flourishing of independent groups/organizations (since they have become full-fledged organizations IMHO). I was unexpectedly amused (by the image, not the fact) of collections of small terror groups working up presentations and proposals for Al-Qaeda, hoping for a grant of funding. [Dude, I see you brought your AK-47, but did you remember the projector and the PowerPoint presentation?]

While the detail in the book can become dizzying, Napoleoni does have something interesting to say about the nature of Capitalism and Terror. The fact that the Terror Economy is now woven into Western Capitalism in such a way as to be difficult (if not impossible) to remove safely makes me wonder about the 'morality' of Western Capitalism. We don't seem to care where the oil or money or products or labor comes from (as Western Consumers) as long as those things are abundant and within reach. We get hints of how global consumerism not only leads to the consumption of goods and services, but also the consumption of peoples and ecosystems. I am unpleasantly NOT surprised that terror groups have individuals intelligent enough to mimic or plug into the Western Capitalist model and use it to launder billions of dollars.

I was trained as a historian, and in Napoleoni's description of 'state-shells' (regions and areas that terror groups isolate, ravage and control), I was reminded of 'feudalism.' A lot of the actions and interactions of terror groups, local populations, and national and regional governments recalls Medieval Europe for me. Local armies/groups can provide security and infrastructure in ways that the distant government either cannot or will not. These local warlords (or simply 'lords' in European history) establish security, collect taxes, negotiate with other nearby warlords, and exert absolute control over their lands. I wonder if this economic model has, as Napoleoni implies, been overcome in the modern era by national governments only to resurface when those national governments weaken and contract. Or has the 'victory' of national governments, super-powers and modernism really only pushed 'feudalism' slightly under the surface of society? Aren't we local, even if we are told that we are 'national' or 'international'? I wonder.

Finally, it is interesting to see how the story needs to be controlled. Napoleoni says that she had to try to focus on economics in order to avoid terms with baggage. I think that might indicate a deeper dissatisfaction with the use of the terms in the media and in the rhetorical machine we call 'spin.' Who is a terrorist? Who is a freedom-fighter? Revolutionaries are good if they are led by George Washington, but not necessarily in other situations. Radical reform can get to the root of a problem, but being a radical is problematic. If a militia supported by a government murders villages full of locals, aren't the funders responsible on some level? Who is a white-hat? Who is a black-hat? Who is responsible?

I can see why Napoleoni tries so hard to stick to economics. Math often has answers.

Theatre Review: Armadale

Theatre Review: Armadale, by Jeffrey Archer (World Premier at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre) Adaptation of Wilkie Collins’s 1862 Novel by the same name.

First, the play. Collins originally released the novel in serial form, as was common for the day (see Dickens), so the 752 page Penguin Classic has innumerable twists, turns and cliffhangers. As might be expected, Archer’ adaptation of such a work into even the lengthy 2 and a half hour production results in a sometimes campy, sometimes dark, always meandering, scattering of a play.

Structure: The mechanics are the play of binary pairs. There are 2 Allen Armadales (the biological and the adopted); there are two more Allen Armadales, (the sons); there is the good fiancé and the evil temptress; the clergyman and the Renfield; Victorian parents and the Victorian snake-oil doctor and fishwife.

Plot: The story starts as a comedy of errors-type play of multiple Allens, and quickly darkens into a Victorian Gothic of murder and revenge. The adopted Allen murders the biological Allen at sea, and then writes his son a letter. The son Allen of adopted Allen (impoverished and haunted) then seeks out the son Allen of biological Allen (wealthy and happy-go-lucky). But here the plot twists. Biological Allen and his wife had employed the forgery skills of a servant girl to enable their marriage. However, the honeymoon murder of the groom caused the wife to sell the servant girl into slavery rather than pay her for the forgery. This wronged servant girl, returned as the heartless governess, Lydia Gwilt, is the eventual protagonist of the play. Lydia, still young because of surgery and snake-oil, seduces the betrothed son of biological Allen as well as son of adopted Allen (called Ozias and turned protector) and Renfield. Lydia’s revenge arc is interrupted by her falling in love with Ozias, and she attempts to call off the trap she has set for son of biological Allen and his fiancé (her ward, Neelie). Lawyers, private investigators, and self-righteous clergymen conspire to force Lydia back into her revenge plot with threats of revelation. In the end, Lydia murders the clergyman, but finally commits suicide beside the body of Ozias, whom she thinks she has inadvertently killed. A la Romeo and Juliet, Ozias is not dead, and wakes to find the lifeless body of his love, Lydia, who, in the end, sacrificed herself to love rather than finish her story of revenge. Ozias leaves England to become a journalist. Fin.

Follow all of that? Realize, I left a lot of the sub-plots out.

Anyway, the actors were superb. Even the sometimes-strained British accents did not take away from the fun they must have had with all of the twists and turns. Deborah Staples was the (eventual) main character, Lydia Gwilt, and the standout of the play. Her transitions from exposition to interaction, from evil to benign, were light, smooth and often hilarious. Emily Trask, who played the virginal Neelie Milroy, offered an excellent foil for Staples’s Gwilt. Neelie began the play young and naïve, but matured through the action and came to understand the other forces at play. The two female leads really held the piece together for me.

Problems: My main problem is that I can’t decide if the play was flawed, or it the choice of books to try to adapt was flawed. It’s all just too much. There is too much murder for camp, too much camp for gothic, too much exposition for character development, and too many characters for the time allotted. There is the theme of mistaken identity, the theme of revenge, the theme of fate versus choice, the theme of poverty versus wealth, the theme of love versus history. Too much. Perhaps that is the final evaluation of the play. Too much everything. You need a double-shot of espresso and a notepad just to keep up.

Returned from California...

Tired and happy.

B and M hosted us for a wonderful week in Santa Cruz and Monterey/Carmel.

Among the highlights, we stood in the dark (with knitter LED ear-lamps), listening as Bob played Owl calls. Saw-Whet, Screech, and Pigmy responded. Strange to stand in a vast darkness and hear this intelligent life calling out. There were far too many species to list the event of seeing each (139 in total, I believe). In Monterey, S bonded with the Octopus at the Aquarium. We also learned that they are called 'jellies' now, not 'jellyfish.'  Carmel was half resort town and half Pacific natural wonder. Carmel Country Inn was a really nice B & B, especially with the fresh-baked cookies, the snacks we were encouraged to take back to the rooms, and Michelle's constant help. From Moss Landing, we took a boat trip into the bay and saw Hump-Backed Whales as well as Orcas (circling a buoy full of Sea Lions). Some good photos (yet to be processed). Point Lobos afforded some opportunities to photograph ocean/rocks/more rocks/Cormorants and the occasional Crab. Gorgeous.

After all of that, we needed some down-time, so we saw 'Iron Man.'

Movie review: Iron Man

Perhaps taking a cue from the Onion's hilarious video about the danger of lengthening a successful trailer into a full-length film, Iron Man begins by breaking the linear narrative with a jolting "grab you" beginning and then a "let's jump back" non-segue. After this intro, the film falls back into the classic time sequence of things.

There are plenty of reviews that will give you the narrative. I would rather jump right to some things I found interesting. 

Characters:

First, Gwyneth Paltrow gets many of the best lines and delivers them with understated but intelligent sarcasm. I liked how they drew this character, though perhaps she is the real super-hero in this film for being able to run in 4-inch heals over metal grating without getting stuck. But I digress.

Second, Jeff Bridges is a great nemesis, though I must admit that I was waiting for him to tell Robert Downey, Jr. "Hey, just call me The Dude, or just Dude."

Third, Terrence Howard played it too soft. I expected Jim Rhodes to be a bit louder and more... military. Perhaps he will come out of his shell once he is allowed to get into one.

Fourth, Robert Downey, Jr. was certainly a nifty bit of casting. I found many of his interactions with Paltrow to be strained, like they were ad-libbing and waiting for each other to say something. The ending, which I will not give away, set up (for me) the narcissistic self-destructive tendencies in Tony Stark that Downey, Jr. was in danger of giving away with his post-conversion niceness. Stark is, on some level, just a billionaire playboy with a new, cool sports car that he can wear. He's not a role model. That's what makes him real. 

Suit, cool. Trashed cars, cringe-inducing. Robot humor, funny. Villain, how many bad guys have missed The Incredibles and the dangers of monologuing? Setup for sequels, stay for all of the credits, and then your comic-geek-filled audience will raise a shout of joy as they did when I was there.

Rating? My rating system is Blue Thunder (BT) and AirWolf (\A/). Scale: Blue Thunder = bad and AirWolf = good. 2 BT is worse than 1BT. 2 \A/ is better than 1 \A/. Maximum is 5 on either end.

Iron Man = 3 \A/. 

That's enough for now. More on my recent church class and the nature of the Genesis narratives, Creationism, and the Theory of Evolution. Perhaps.

Inaugural Post

Hey, what do you do (in the Modern Age) when you become worried that you are taking in information without any creative outlet for the info-soup in your head? Create a Blog to absorb it. Create a Blog to join that little voice in your head that says "Hey, you, with the computer... Write something."

I asked a friend in college (Lutheran minister, actually) how to force creative production (I needed to write a paper and was entirely blocked). His reply: Sitzfleisch (apologies to my German-speaking friends for any misspellings or misuses). His on-the-fly translation was: put your butt in a chair and just start writing something. The Reflekting Pool is my return to this advice.

While escaping the chill (and work) in my home of Milwaukee, my Santa Clara friends suggested that I dump some of this pent-up verbiage into a blog. So, here it begins.

My plan is to post media reviews (books, art, movies, albums, and theatre) as well as reflections on the ideas and situations of the day. My real goal, truth be told, is to open this dripping spigot in my head and eventually write a play or two. A friend in California directed a version of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia a few years back, and it was a kind of Renaissance for me. I have, since, redirected and revived my reading. This blog is the next step in this process, the redirecting and reviving of my writing. Let's hope that some these word-flows collect here in the Pool.