Kirk has instructed me to update, so here I am. And! New town, new year (almost), new look, new name.
When I started this thing, "Elegant Disarray" was one of two titles I was considering. It comes from an old unfinished lyric of mine that went:
And she said, "O go away, leave me alone",
Her voice the sound of cracking bone.
Then through my eyes the new sun shone,
In the room where the books are thrown
Upon the floor in elegant disarray.
Still it rang through my head: "O go away".
Not my best, which is one reason I never finished the song, but I've always been rather pleased with the phrase "elegant disarray", and the phrasing of it in the song was cool too. Unfortunately, when I Googled it recently I saw that at least half a dozen others had turned the same phrase, and that's just since the advent of the internets. Ah, well. It's been at least a couple of millennia since the author of Ecclesiastes wrote that there was no new thing under the sun, and if it was true then it's certainly true now.
"Entre chien et loup", as I originally titled this blog, literally translates as "between dog and wolf", but figuratively it refers to dusk or twilight, which is my favorite time of day. The first post that I wrote, which I never published, began as a meditation on John William Waterhouse's painting of The Lady of Shalott, with its dusky mood, and moved into a discussion of why I love that hallowed interval between day and night. Maybe I'll try to recreate it sometime. Anyway, entre chien et loup remains my favorite French idiom (it's also the favorite of a French translator by the name of Céline Graciet--and can I just say how much it pleases me that, thanks to Richard Linklater, when I hear the name Céline I think not of a skeletal Québecoise chanteuse but of the ethereally lovely Julie Delpy, "the thinking man's femme fatale", as one writer described her, to which I must add, "and woman's" --and you can read her post about it here), but I think "Elegant Disarray" better sums up what goes on here.
Merry Christmas, everyone, and peace and happiness in the new year.
December 22, 2005
October 3, 2005
Ambery goodness!
Last week the third annual Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival took place in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It’s grown considerably since last year, which is great; unfortunately--probably necessarily--ticket prices have followed suit, which is not so great, since it meant that I had to seriously limit my viewing choices.
One choice was easily made, however: as I was flipping through the festival brochure, a still from one of the films caught my eye. Was that who I thought it was, head tilted backward, draining the dregs from a wine glass? Why yes indeed! It was none other than the lovely Amber Benson, and as I discovered from the caption, her movie Race You to the Bottom was playing on Sunday afternoon.
I must admit that I don’t keep up with Ms. Benson’s career to the degree that I used to, so I didn’t really know anything about the film. Considering the...um, less-than-stellar quality of most of her post-Buffy projects, however, I kept my expectations low.
I was pleasantly surprised, not least of all by the fact that Amber’s name was first in the opening credits. If you’re as unfamiliar with the movie as I was, it concerns a straight girl (Amber) and her bisexual male friend (played by an actor named Cole Williams, who I kept thinking was someone else, though who I can’t put my finger on). They both have steady boyfriends, and they are both messing around behind said boyfriends’ backs. With each other, of course. The film depicts a weekend trip from L.A. up to Wine Country, and it’s basically just a talky character piece (which genre, by the way, I happen to love) about their relationship, which is prickly to be sure. As Wine Country romantic comedies go, it’s definitely no Sideways, and as talky character pieces go it’s definitely no Before Sunset (my fave flick of 2004, incidentally), but it’s nonetheless a decently written, superbly acted, and clearly lovingly crafted little movie. (In addition to the acting, the cinematography is particularly noteworthy.) It was great to see Amber in something that, more than just not being total dreck, was actually worthy of her talents (I understand she won the Best Actress award at Outfest), and it was cool to see her in a role that is decidedly un-Tara-like (lots of profanity and dirty dialogue). It’s worth seeking out if you’re a fan.
On the other hand, and in related news, I watched the first 2 episodes of Alyson Hannigan’s new sitcom. And now I’m done with that. Yeeeeowch. It’s abominable. I mean, I hate traditional sitcoms in general, but this one has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Not even Aly’s incandescent presence (nor the welcome return of Freaks and Geeks alum Jason Segel) can lift it out of the litterbox. Better luck next time, Aly.
Oh, also in movie news: I recently rented the DVD of Rock School, a documentary about the Paul Green School of Rock Music in Philadelphia (upon which the Jack Black movie School of Rock was allegedly based). Paul and his band were active on the Philly scene at the same time I was. I’m not sure I agree with his teaching philosophy, but the doc is worth a look, if only for a glimpse of what is surely the world’s only gangsta rap outfit composed of Quakers. And if you do happen to see it, keep an eye out for a brief appearance by one of the former guitarists for my band--he’s the guitar teacher who’s not Paul.
Finally, and on a completely unrelated note, here's a funny article about the giant squid.
One choice was easily made, however: as I was flipping through the festival brochure, a still from one of the films caught my eye. Was that who I thought it was, head tilted backward, draining the dregs from a wine glass? Why yes indeed! It was none other than the lovely Amber Benson, and as I discovered from the caption, her movie Race You to the Bottom was playing on Sunday afternoon.
I must admit that I don’t keep up with Ms. Benson’s career to the degree that I used to, so I didn’t really know anything about the film. Considering the...um, less-than-stellar quality of most of her post-Buffy projects, however, I kept my expectations low.
I was pleasantly surprised, not least of all by the fact that Amber’s name was first in the opening credits. If you’re as unfamiliar with the movie as I was, it concerns a straight girl (Amber) and her bisexual male friend (played by an actor named Cole Williams, who I kept thinking was someone else, though who I can’t put my finger on). They both have steady boyfriends, and they are both messing around behind said boyfriends’ backs. With each other, of course. The film depicts a weekend trip from L.A. up to Wine Country, and it’s basically just a talky character piece (which genre, by the way, I happen to love) about their relationship, which is prickly to be sure. As Wine Country romantic comedies go, it’s definitely no Sideways, and as talky character pieces go it’s definitely no Before Sunset (my fave flick of 2004, incidentally), but it’s nonetheless a decently written, superbly acted, and clearly lovingly crafted little movie. (In addition to the acting, the cinematography is particularly noteworthy.) It was great to see Amber in something that, more than just not being total dreck, was actually worthy of her talents (I understand she won the Best Actress award at Outfest), and it was cool to see her in a role that is decidedly un-Tara-like (lots of profanity and dirty dialogue). It’s worth seeking out if you’re a fan.
On the other hand, and in related news, I watched the first 2 episodes of Alyson Hannigan’s new sitcom. And now I’m done with that. Yeeeeowch. It’s abominable. I mean, I hate traditional sitcoms in general, but this one has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Not even Aly’s incandescent presence (nor the welcome return of Freaks and Geeks alum Jason Segel) can lift it out of the litterbox. Better luck next time, Aly.
Oh, also in movie news: I recently rented the DVD of Rock School, a documentary about the Paul Green School of Rock Music in Philadelphia (upon which the Jack Black movie School of Rock was allegedly based). Paul and his band were active on the Philly scene at the same time I was. I’m not sure I agree with his teaching philosophy, but the doc is worth a look, if only for a glimpse of what is surely the world’s only gangsta rap outfit composed of Quakers. And if you do happen to see it, keep an eye out for a brief appearance by one of the former guitarists for my band--he’s the guitar teacher who’s not Paul.
Finally, and on a completely unrelated note, here's a funny article about the giant squid.
September 16, 2005
More sentences
Riffing off the last list, I made another one last night. This one is the Top 5 Opening Lines of My Favorite Literary Works. This is hardly an exhaustive accounting of my favorite books, of course, just the ones whose opening lines came into my head as I was making the list. I’m going to leave the attributions out and post them in a reply so you can have fun trying to identify them. Or, you know, not. But I would have fun doing that.
Top 5 Opening Lines of My Favorite Literary Works
A. “The primroses were over.”
B. “124 was spiteful.”
C. “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.”
D. “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
E. “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.”
And a special bonus line!
F. "'A week,' said Wren sadly."
Top 5 Opening Lines of My Favorite Literary Works
A. “The primroses were over.”
B. “124 was spiteful.”
C. “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.”
D. “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
E. “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.”
And a special bonus line!
F. "'A week,' said Wren sadly."
September 15, 2005
Sentences
The hurricane. A Bush-appointed Chief Justice. Carnage in Iraq, rioting in Northern Ireland. Not to mention my own crap. It hasn’t been a great couple of weeks.
I think about things to take my mind off of it. One of the things I like to think about is language…words, phrases, sentences. In the shower last night I put together my Top Five list of sentences remembered from books. The’re not in any order; they aren’t even necessarily my favorite lines, just ones that, for one reason or another, have stuck in my brain. Since they’re not actually ranked, how about I use letters instead of numbers? Seems only right.
Top 5 Sentences Remembered from Books
A. “The Motie was particularly interested in the various forms of human government.” Larry Niven, The Mote in God’s Eye. Pretty dull sentence, right? I’m actually annoyed that it’s in my head and that it pops up every now and then, but I supposed it’s my deserved punishment for lying. In sophomore English class, I told this kid that I had a photographic memory. Which I don’t, I just used to enjoy making stuff like that up. Sometimes if I was talking to someone I knew I’d never see again--on a train, for instance--I’d make up an entire life story, typically much more dramatic or adventurous than my actual one. Sometimes I’d use an English or Irish accent. Anyway, to challenge my supposed photographic memory, this kid asked me to memorize a sentence from the book he was reading. The deal was that he would demand, at some unspecified point in the future, that I recall it, and though I may not have a photographic memory, I do have a brain that weird shit gets stuck in. So, not only did I recall the sentence when he asked me to, I still remember it lo these many years later. Considering that it’s using up valuable cranial real estate, I think the joke was ultimately on me.
B. “Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could forever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes, or midway leave us whelmed.” Herman Melville, Moby Dick. Okay, technically that’s two sentences. I guess Melville didn’t have an English teacher who told him that it’s “wrong” to begin a sentence with a conjunction. Anyway, this one I purposely committed to memory. Even though I tend to dismiss Moby Dick as 20 pages of an actual story coupled with 600 pages of a textbook for Cetacean Biology 101, Melville does knock out some killer stuff now and again. He shares my affinity for alliteration and taste for the poetic where the prosaic would get the job done as well (would you rather sail to the Solomon Islands or the Islands of King Solomon? For me the choice is clear). This particular passage struck me hard enough when I read it that I felt I should memorize it. It does sum up rather well the way I (unfortunately) tend to view life.
C. “The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.” James Joyce, Ulysses. Okay, technically that’s not even one sentence, since it lacks a predicate. Actually, seeing it out of context, you might think that “hung” is a verb, but it’s actually functioning as an adjective here. This bit comes toward the end of the book, when the omniscient narrator is asking questions and then answering them. As Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom step out of Leopold’s house into the Dublin night, the narrator asks, “What did they see?” and the answer is the phrase above. I had made my way through almost the entire novel, and become convinced along the way that Joyce had lost his considerable gifts for lyricism and grace, when I read that line, and it literally took the breath from my lungs. Knowing that Joyce could still write like that and was deliberately not doing so kind of sucked, but reading that one line made having read the other 900 pages worth it.
D. “Mr. Rainbird Clarke conjectures Pictish.” Hee. Though I can’t remember for the life of me who wrote it, this is my favorite sentence ever from a nonfiction book. I was taking a class called History of English, and was doing research on a paper about the influence of Celtic languages on early English, when I came across it in some musty tome. The author was discussing a stone that had been found in Scotland with an inscription in an unknown language, and what that language might be. “Rainbird,” “conjecture,” and “Pictish” are all awesome words, and I’d never seen them together before and probably never will again. It’s also perfect trochaic pentameter. Awesome.
E. “Strange young girls, dark as the moon, stared from mysterious verdant doorways.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road. This actually is one of my favorite lines, maybe my most favorite line, from a book. It’s so good that I won’t even say anything about it. I’ll just let you do with it what you will.
I think about things to take my mind off of it. One of the things I like to think about is language…words, phrases, sentences. In the shower last night I put together my Top Five list of sentences remembered from books. The’re not in any order; they aren’t even necessarily my favorite lines, just ones that, for one reason or another, have stuck in my brain. Since they’re not actually ranked, how about I use letters instead of numbers? Seems only right.
Top 5 Sentences Remembered from Books
A. “The Motie was particularly interested in the various forms of human government.” Larry Niven, The Mote in God’s Eye. Pretty dull sentence, right? I’m actually annoyed that it’s in my head and that it pops up every now and then, but I supposed it’s my deserved punishment for lying. In sophomore English class, I told this kid that I had a photographic memory. Which I don’t, I just used to enjoy making stuff like that up. Sometimes if I was talking to someone I knew I’d never see again--on a train, for instance--I’d make up an entire life story, typically much more dramatic or adventurous than my actual one. Sometimes I’d use an English or Irish accent. Anyway, to challenge my supposed photographic memory, this kid asked me to memorize a sentence from the book he was reading. The deal was that he would demand, at some unspecified point in the future, that I recall it, and though I may not have a photographic memory, I do have a brain that weird shit gets stuck in. So, not only did I recall the sentence when he asked me to, I still remember it lo these many years later. Considering that it’s using up valuable cranial real estate, I think the joke was ultimately on me.
B. “Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could forever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes, or midway leave us whelmed.” Herman Melville, Moby Dick. Okay, technically that’s two sentences. I guess Melville didn’t have an English teacher who told him that it’s “wrong” to begin a sentence with a conjunction. Anyway, this one I purposely committed to memory. Even though I tend to dismiss Moby Dick as 20 pages of an actual story coupled with 600 pages of a textbook for Cetacean Biology 101, Melville does knock out some killer stuff now and again. He shares my affinity for alliteration and taste for the poetic where the prosaic would get the job done as well (would you rather sail to the Solomon Islands or the Islands of King Solomon? For me the choice is clear). This particular passage struck me hard enough when I read it that I felt I should memorize it. It does sum up rather well the way I (unfortunately) tend to view life.
C. “The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.” James Joyce, Ulysses. Okay, technically that’s not even one sentence, since it lacks a predicate. Actually, seeing it out of context, you might think that “hung” is a verb, but it’s actually functioning as an adjective here. This bit comes toward the end of the book, when the omniscient narrator is asking questions and then answering them. As Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom step out of Leopold’s house into the Dublin night, the narrator asks, “What did they see?” and the answer is the phrase above. I had made my way through almost the entire novel, and become convinced along the way that Joyce had lost his considerable gifts for lyricism and grace, when I read that line, and it literally took the breath from my lungs. Knowing that Joyce could still write like that and was deliberately not doing so kind of sucked, but reading that one line made having read the other 900 pages worth it.
D. “Mr. Rainbird Clarke conjectures Pictish.” Hee. Though I can’t remember for the life of me who wrote it, this is my favorite sentence ever from a nonfiction book. I was taking a class called History of English, and was doing research on a paper about the influence of Celtic languages on early English, when I came across it in some musty tome. The author was discussing a stone that had been found in Scotland with an inscription in an unknown language, and what that language might be. “Rainbird,” “conjecture,” and “Pictish” are all awesome words, and I’d never seen them together before and probably never will again. It’s also perfect trochaic pentameter. Awesome.
E. “Strange young girls, dark as the moon, stared from mysterious verdant doorways.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road. This actually is one of my favorite lines, maybe my most favorite line, from a book. It’s so good that I won’t even say anything about it. I’ll just let you do with it what you will.
August 19, 2005
RRC4G, Part the Second
I'm going to finish my post about Rock Camp in a second, but first: did you ever see a discarded object somewhere and wonder about its provenance? Like, you see a pair of underwear by the side of the road and you try to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to its arriving there? This morning I was going into the post office, as I do every morning, and in the ashtray out front was an 8-track tape of Ike and Tina Turner. Dude, an 8-track! It's been about 30 years since I saw one of those in real life. It was all beat-up and broken. I'm dying to know what it was doing in an ashtray in front of the post office.
Anyway, on with the show.
...continued from the sweaty lunchtime dance party below.
After lunch some campers would go to workshops while others practiced with their bands, then later they’d switch off. Although I had a lot of fun teaching, this was my favorite part. My responsibility was to go around to my students and see how they were doing with their bands, and if they needed any help with their bass parts, which I did, but basically I went around to all of the bands and helped them with their songs, if they needed it. I have to tell you, writing and arranging songs is my absolute favorite activity in the world. I wish I could do it all the time. I would do it, can do it, and have done it for extended periods of time and to the exclusion of any other activity including eating and sleeping. So, a couple of dozen bands all working on songs at the same time? Pretty much my idea of heaven.
I was consistently impressed by the level of musicianship on display. I mean, with the older girls who’ve been at it a while, I expected it, but some of the younger girls who’d only been playing a year or less…man. Blew me away. Especially the drummers, for some reason. You know, drums was the first instrument I wanted to play. When I was like 13, I took lessons for about a month, but I got frustrated and quit. I figured I was too much of a spaz to play drums. At camp, I sort of became assistant manager to a band who called themselves the Rockin’ Kitty Cats. They were the very youngest girls at camp, all beginners on their instruments (and all completely adorable). I happened on to their practice session one day when their assigned manager, a very cool chick from L.A. named Ray Ray, was feeling slightly overwhelmed, and I stuck around to help out and the band sort of adopted me. Anyway, the RKC didn’t have a drummer, so Ray Ray was sitting in for them. One afternoon Ray Ray had to take a break and the girls wanted to practice their song, so they were like, “Jenny! You play the drums!” And I was thinking, ahhh, I’m a total spaz, but I knew that wasn’t gonna fly with a bunch of excited 8- and 9-year-olds. So I sat down, clicked off 1-2-3-4 on the sticks, and lo and behold I rocked out! The beat was admittedly very simple, but still. Now I have drum fever.
I think the thing that impressed me most about camp was how positive and fun the atmosphere stayed. Staffers got stressed, but everyone kept it together. There was always someone to turn to if you needed help. And despite how groups of girls are often portrayed in the media--as jealous, as manipulative, as back-stabbing, as “mean girls”--I saw absolutely none of that behavior in anyone. Every girl I met that week was totally cool in her own way.
Oh, wait--speaking of totally cool, there was a documentary crew there filming for a movie about Rock Camp. There were 5 girls, I believe, that they were following in particular, including one of my bass students. I think I managed to stay mostly off-camera, although I was focused on teaching so I’m not sure. At one point, though--see, one of my girls wanted to learn Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy,” so I was trying to figure it out on guitar. And I’m sitting in this room alone (so I think), and I get to the point where I’m playing it well enough to get into it, but still really really sloppy, and after jamming on it for a couple of minutes I look up and one of the camerawomen is like 2 inches away from me, filming. And before I could say, “You’re definitely not putting that in the movie, right?” she goes, “That was great!” and runs out of the room. I seriously doubt that it will end up in the movie, but if it did I’d be mortified.
So that, in a nutshell, is RRC4G. Oh, except for the final showcase, of course. How they managed to get 25 bands on- and offstage in 2 hours is beyond me, but it worked. And can I just say, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard an 11-year-old girl singing a song about global warming that includes the line “Bush is an idiot/He won’t sign the Kyoto Protocol,” followed by thunderous applause and cheers from the audience. That shit is rad, yo. But while I enjoyed all of the performances, I think my favorite was a blistering punk/metal number called “Counterattack” by a band known as the Screaming Monkeys, featuring a tiny bassist named Alexia.
At the very least, I plan on going back next summer. My final word for now: if these girls represent the future of music, then rest assured that it’s in good hands.
Anyway, on with the show.
...continued from the sweaty lunchtime dance party below.
After lunch some campers would go to workshops while others practiced with their bands, then later they’d switch off. Although I had a lot of fun teaching, this was my favorite part. My responsibility was to go around to my students and see how they were doing with their bands, and if they needed any help with their bass parts, which I did, but basically I went around to all of the bands and helped them with their songs, if they needed it. I have to tell you, writing and arranging songs is my absolute favorite activity in the world. I wish I could do it all the time. I would do it, can do it, and have done it for extended periods of time and to the exclusion of any other activity including eating and sleeping. So, a couple of dozen bands all working on songs at the same time? Pretty much my idea of heaven.
I was consistently impressed by the level of musicianship on display. I mean, with the older girls who’ve been at it a while, I expected it, but some of the younger girls who’d only been playing a year or less…man. Blew me away. Especially the drummers, for some reason. You know, drums was the first instrument I wanted to play. When I was like 13, I took lessons for about a month, but I got frustrated and quit. I figured I was too much of a spaz to play drums. At camp, I sort of became assistant manager to a band who called themselves the Rockin’ Kitty Cats. They were the very youngest girls at camp, all beginners on their instruments (and all completely adorable). I happened on to their practice session one day when their assigned manager, a very cool chick from L.A. named Ray Ray, was feeling slightly overwhelmed, and I stuck around to help out and the band sort of adopted me. Anyway, the RKC didn’t have a drummer, so Ray Ray was sitting in for them. One afternoon Ray Ray had to take a break and the girls wanted to practice their song, so they were like, “Jenny! You play the drums!” And I was thinking, ahhh, I’m a total spaz, but I knew that wasn’t gonna fly with a bunch of excited 8- and 9-year-olds. So I sat down, clicked off 1-2-3-4 on the sticks, and lo and behold I rocked out! The beat was admittedly very simple, but still. Now I have drum fever.
I think the thing that impressed me most about camp was how positive and fun the atmosphere stayed. Staffers got stressed, but everyone kept it together. There was always someone to turn to if you needed help. And despite how groups of girls are often portrayed in the media--as jealous, as manipulative, as back-stabbing, as “mean girls”--I saw absolutely none of that behavior in anyone. Every girl I met that week was totally cool in her own way.
Oh, wait--speaking of totally cool, there was a documentary crew there filming for a movie about Rock Camp. There were 5 girls, I believe, that they were following in particular, including one of my bass students. I think I managed to stay mostly off-camera, although I was focused on teaching so I’m not sure. At one point, though--see, one of my girls wanted to learn Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy,” so I was trying to figure it out on guitar. And I’m sitting in this room alone (so I think), and I get to the point where I’m playing it well enough to get into it, but still really really sloppy, and after jamming on it for a couple of minutes I look up and one of the camerawomen is like 2 inches away from me, filming. And before I could say, “You’re definitely not putting that in the movie, right?” she goes, “That was great!” and runs out of the room. I seriously doubt that it will end up in the movie, but if it did I’d be mortified.
So that, in a nutshell, is RRC4G. Oh, except for the final showcase, of course. How they managed to get 25 bands on- and offstage in 2 hours is beyond me, but it worked. And can I just say, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard an 11-year-old girl singing a song about global warming that includes the line “Bush is an idiot/He won’t sign the Kyoto Protocol,” followed by thunderous applause and cheers from the audience. That shit is rad, yo. But while I enjoyed all of the performances, I think my favorite was a blistering punk/metal number called “Counterattack” by a band known as the Screaming Monkeys, featuring a tiny bassist named Alexia.
At the very least, I plan on going back next summer. My final word for now: if these girls represent the future of music, then rest assured that it’s in good hands.
August 17, 2005
This post is frickin' long...
...and has taken many a lunch break to write, and I'm still not done. But anyway, I figured I'd post the first part.
So, Rock ‘n’Roll Camp for Girls. What is it all about, you ask? Well, RRC4G was founded in 2000 by a woman named Misty McElroy. It was actually her college thesis project, and was only intended to be a one-time thing. However, it was so successful that she did it again the next year, and the next, and now it’s grown to the point where scores of girls ages 8-18, from all over the country and all around the world, descend on Portland each summer for one very intense week of music-making.
The basic idea is to give girls a sense of entitlement to music as a form of self-expression, to allow them to find their individual voices (literally and figuratively), explore their creativity, learn to work productively with others, and most importantly, to have FUN. (Because playing music is like, the funnest thing ever.) They take classes at beginner, intermediate, or advanced levels of guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals, or DJing. They form bands based on age and preferred style of music, including but not limited to rock, pop, punk, goth, r&b, and hip-hop, and they write an original song with their band. They take workshops on things like DIY recording, zine-making, surviving as a female artist in the music industry, and just surviving as a female in the world (i.e., basic self-defense). They finish the week off with an always-sold-out showcase at a Portland club, where each band performs its original song. And the whole thing takes place within a specifically feminist framework: all of the teaching and guidance positions are filled by experienced women musicians (though men are allowed to volunteer in other capacities, and there were a couple of dudes there) in an atmosphere that is positive, open, nurturing, and as non-hierarchical as possible.
I first read about the camp in a magazine (I think it was Bust) a couple of years ago, and immediately thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. My female musician friends and I were always complaining about how it seems most girls would rather have a boyfriend who’s in a band than be in a band themselves, and wondering how we could encourage more girls to make their own music, and here someone had come up with an awesome way to do just that. I’ve wanted to volunteer ever since, but this year was the first time I could afford to do it. I offered to do just about anything, and was assigned to teach a beginner bass class. There was another beginner bass teacher as well, and a total of 8 students, and we decided to keep them all together rather than breaking them up into separate groups (which I think I think was a really good idea, as she and I had different approaches to teaching that complemented each other nicely). Our girls were amazing--attentive, focused, and quick to learn. In fact I couldn’t believe how quickly some of them picked things up. There’s a picture above of some the bass students--check out the little one in front with the curly brown hair. Her name is Alexia, and she came all the way from Thailand to be at camp. She was my student. She had never played the bass before, and she had these tiny little fingers...yet by the end of the week, she was jamming out killer bass lines with her band.
In the mornings, camp would start out with an assembly. The girls would do fun community-building exercises and sing the camp song, a groovy blues number, accompanied on guitar by none other than Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney. Then it was instrument instruction until lunch. During lunch, bands would come and play. On the first day, the Donnas came! I can’t tell you how much I fucking adore the Donnas. Unfortunately they were not allowed to play due to landlord suckiness, but they had a Q&A with the girls and then hung out and signed autographs (see picture above). I talked to each of them a little bit, more so to Torry, the drummer, who I’m totally crushed out on, and I tried to control myself but I think I gushed a bit. Anyway, the rest of the week the bands actually got to play, including a local hip-hop outfit that played on Friday, and turned all of the hundreds of campers and staffers into one giant sweaty lunchtime dance party.
...to be continued
So, Rock ‘n’Roll Camp for Girls. What is it all about, you ask? Well, RRC4G was founded in 2000 by a woman named Misty McElroy. It was actually her college thesis project, and was only intended to be a one-time thing. However, it was so successful that she did it again the next year, and the next, and now it’s grown to the point where scores of girls ages 8-18, from all over the country and all around the world, descend on Portland each summer for one very intense week of music-making.
The basic idea is to give girls a sense of entitlement to music as a form of self-expression, to allow them to find their individual voices (literally and figuratively), explore their creativity, learn to work productively with others, and most importantly, to have FUN. (Because playing music is like, the funnest thing ever.) They take classes at beginner, intermediate, or advanced levels of guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals, or DJing. They form bands based on age and preferred style of music, including but not limited to rock, pop, punk, goth, r&b, and hip-hop, and they write an original song with their band. They take workshops on things like DIY recording, zine-making, surviving as a female artist in the music industry, and just surviving as a female in the world (i.e., basic self-defense). They finish the week off with an always-sold-out showcase at a Portland club, where each band performs its original song. And the whole thing takes place within a specifically feminist framework: all of the teaching and guidance positions are filled by experienced women musicians (though men are allowed to volunteer in other capacities, and there were a couple of dudes there) in an atmosphere that is positive, open, nurturing, and as non-hierarchical as possible.
I first read about the camp in a magazine (I think it was Bust) a couple of years ago, and immediately thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. My female musician friends and I were always complaining about how it seems most girls would rather have a boyfriend who’s in a band than be in a band themselves, and wondering how we could encourage more girls to make their own music, and here someone had come up with an awesome way to do just that. I’ve wanted to volunteer ever since, but this year was the first time I could afford to do it. I offered to do just about anything, and was assigned to teach a beginner bass class. There was another beginner bass teacher as well, and a total of 8 students, and we decided to keep them all together rather than breaking them up into separate groups (which I think I think was a really good idea, as she and I had different approaches to teaching that complemented each other nicely). Our girls were amazing--attentive, focused, and quick to learn. In fact I couldn’t believe how quickly some of them picked things up. There’s a picture above of some the bass students--check out the little one in front with the curly brown hair. Her name is Alexia, and she came all the way from Thailand to be at camp. She was my student. She had never played the bass before, and she had these tiny little fingers...yet by the end of the week, she was jamming out killer bass lines with her band.
In the mornings, camp would start out with an assembly. The girls would do fun community-building exercises and sing the camp song, a groovy blues number, accompanied on guitar by none other than Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney. Then it was instrument instruction until lunch. During lunch, bands would come and play. On the first day, the Donnas came! I can’t tell you how much I fucking adore the Donnas. Unfortunately they were not allowed to play due to landlord suckiness, but they had a Q&A with the girls and then hung out and signed autographs (see picture above). I talked to each of them a little bit, more so to Torry, the drummer, who I’m totally crushed out on, and I tried to control myself but I think I gushed a bit. Anyway, the rest of the week the bands actually got to play, including a local hip-hop outfit that played on Friday, and turned all of the hundreds of campers and staffers into one giant sweaty lunchtime dance party.
...to be continued
August 8, 2005
In this case, the three names thing makes sense.
Since I know that among my vast readership are a number of Once & Again fans, I thought I’d mention this: I was puttering around the internets on my lunch break, as I often do, and I came across this article on MSNBC.com about Evan Rachel Wood, which posits that she may be “America’s Next Great Actress.” It caught my eye because I just watched The Upside of Anger this weekend, in which she co-stars with a number of other notable young female actors, not to mention the formidable Joan Allen, and it reminded me of how much I like her and how easily she stands out even among very talented ensembles. (Verdict on the movie: great acting, yes; some interesting writing but also some clichés; weird, jarring ending; overall, left me kind of...meh.)
Of course Evan was a regular on the late great O&A, where her baby-dyke-coming-out story was handled better than I’ve ever seen anywhere, both by the writers and by her, and where I first noticed her--her pale ethereality, especially set against her darker, earthier castmates, made it hard not to. She was the standout among acting standouts in the otherwise overwrought Thirteen, and, as I said, she continued to shine in The Upside of Anger. So, I don’t know if she’s America’s Next Great Actress, but I’m certainly looking forward to her future projects.
Of course Evan was a regular on the late great O&A, where her baby-dyke-coming-out story was handled better than I’ve ever seen anywhere, both by the writers and by her, and where I first noticed her--her pale ethereality, especially set against her darker, earthier castmates, made it hard not to. She was the standout among acting standouts in the otherwise overwrought Thirteen, and, as I said, she continued to shine in The Upside of Anger. So, I don’t know if she’s America’s Next Great Actress, but I’m certainly looking forward to her future projects.
August 3, 2005
Chicks rock, if you don't know it.
This Sunday I returned from Portland, where I spent a week as a volunteer instructor at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls. It was an amazing experience, and one that I want to write more about, as soon as I catch up on all the work I was already behind on when I left.
In the meantime, just a drive-by to mention that the one show I’m really watching this summer is Rock Star: INXS. If you haven’t seen it, it’s an American Idol-esque competition to find a new lead singer for the Aussie rock band. Since the potential frontwomen and men are singing classic rock tunes, the cheese factor is considerably less than on AI (and the house band is effin’ hot), but the performances are just as over-the-top and, occasionally, painful. The women fare particularly badly; they all seem to come from that Janis Joplin/Melissa Etheridge bluesy belter mold that I just can’t stand, and I cringe as they work to set rock feminism back 30 years, pouting and strutting around the stage all boobs and butts and bellies (although the men do their fair share of strutting and preening as well).
There’s one exception: a 22-year-old Minnesotan with a massive headful of dreads named Jordis Unga (the surname is Tongan, apparently, which is awesome. Not enough Pacific Islanders in rock, I always say). She has consistently offered distinctive, nuanced takes on the songs she sings, and has refused to take part in the tiresome histrionics that her competitors seem compelled to engage in, relying instead on her vocal gifts and natural presence, both of which are considerable. Last night she gave a flawlessly rendered and absolutely stunning performance of “The Man Who Sold the World” that had me in tears. Dave Navarro called it one of the best vocal performances he’s ever seen, and I’d consider that only slightly hyperbolic (I'd certainly say she outclassed both Bowie and Cobain). If you’re not watching the show, check it out, if only to see Jordis’s next performance.
In the meantime, just a drive-by to mention that the one show I’m really watching this summer is Rock Star: INXS. If you haven’t seen it, it’s an American Idol-esque competition to find a new lead singer for the Aussie rock band. Since the potential frontwomen and men are singing classic rock tunes, the cheese factor is considerably less than on AI (and the house band is effin’ hot), but the performances are just as over-the-top and, occasionally, painful. The women fare particularly badly; they all seem to come from that Janis Joplin/Melissa Etheridge bluesy belter mold that I just can’t stand, and I cringe as they work to set rock feminism back 30 years, pouting and strutting around the stage all boobs and butts and bellies (although the men do their fair share of strutting and preening as well).
There’s one exception: a 22-year-old Minnesotan with a massive headful of dreads named Jordis Unga (the surname is Tongan, apparently, which is awesome. Not enough Pacific Islanders in rock, I always say). She has consistently offered distinctive, nuanced takes on the songs she sings, and has refused to take part in the tiresome histrionics that her competitors seem compelled to engage in, relying instead on her vocal gifts and natural presence, both of which are considerable. Last night she gave a flawlessly rendered and absolutely stunning performance of “The Man Who Sold the World” that had me in tears. Dave Navarro called it one of the best vocal performances he’s ever seen, and I’d consider that only slightly hyperbolic (I'd certainly say she outclassed both Bowie and Cobain). If you’re not watching the show, check it out, if only to see Jordis’s next performance.
July 13, 2005
Still here
No, I haven’t abandoned this blogging thing, at least not yet. It’s just that, with no internet access at home, I tend to do my blogging during down time at work, and for the last several weeks there just hasn’t been any. However, my boss is out for the afternoon, and I’ve spent the better part of the last 2 days at the mind-numbing, eye-blearying task of weeding duplicate names out of a huge database, so I’m taking a break.
So anyway, this past Saturday, July 9th, was the 50th anniversary of “Rock Around the Clock” hitting Number 1 on the US pop chart, thus initiating the so-called “Rock Era.” Which it seems we’re not really in anymore...if anything we’re in the “Hip-hop/R&B Era,” I guess. But even though rock ‘n’ roll will likely never be the dominant force in pop culture it once was, I think the dire predictions about its future that I sometimes hear are ridiculous. “Hey hey, my my, rock and roll can never die,” sang Mr. Young (paraphrasing Danny and the Juniors), and if you can’t believe Neil Young, who can you believe? Plenty of people like rock and hip-hop and R&B and lots of other kinds of music (I’m one of them), and I think they all have vibrant futures ahead of them. That said, no music has ever captured my soul like rock ‘n’ roll music...it will always be the music that changed my life, that made me alive at all. So I wanted to take a brief moment to recognize the song that, it some sense at least, started it all. And hey, have you heard “Rock Around the Clock” lately? Because it’s still a kick-ass tune.
Speaking of kick-ass tunes, the Song-I-Can’t-Get-Out-of-My-Head this week is by Canuck quintet the Weekend and is called “Into the Morning.” It’s an awesome little punk-pop anthem of teenage love, and I mean “punk-pop” in the best sense of the word: it combines wistful pop earnestness and self-aware punk cynicism in just the right combination. Provided your connection can handle it, you must dig on the video. I watch it like 5 times a day. It also doesn’t hurt that the singer is way hot. She actually reminds me quite a bit of the object of my first major crush, a girl named Lisa Spadaro who went to my mom’s dance school. Man. I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world, with her raven-black hair and chocolate-brown eyes and dazzling smile. I wonder where she is now?
Oh hey…funny thing: I used to have this running fantasy in which Lisa and I were spies, going on secret missions to glamorous European locales and getting ourselves into desperate situations where it appeared we were going to die, and so of course I had to reveal my feelings about her, and then we would make out. That’s a funny thing because I was introduced to the Weekend thanks to “Into the Morning” being used in the spy-spoof movie D.E.B.S, which I watched last Sunday. Mary-Jane, in her blog, mentioned seeing My Summer of Love (which I haven’t seen but am looking forward to) and called it “a lesbian teen flick in which nobody dies.” I’m pleased to say the same about D.E.B.S, and also to tell you that it’s definitely worth seeing. It’s hardly great cinema, but it’s charming and funny with the added plus of having a sweet lesbian romance. Sara Foster, who plays the latently lezzie spygirl who falls for her out ‘n’ proud archnemesis, actually reminds me a bit of Amber Benson (high praise indeed), though her beauty is more commonplace. But she does cute things with her mouth like Amber.
So anyway, this past Saturday, July 9th, was the 50th anniversary of “Rock Around the Clock” hitting Number 1 on the US pop chart, thus initiating the so-called “Rock Era.” Which it seems we’re not really in anymore...if anything we’re in the “Hip-hop/R&B Era,” I guess. But even though rock ‘n’ roll will likely never be the dominant force in pop culture it once was, I think the dire predictions about its future that I sometimes hear are ridiculous. “Hey hey, my my, rock and roll can never die,” sang Mr. Young (paraphrasing Danny and the Juniors), and if you can’t believe Neil Young, who can you believe? Plenty of people like rock and hip-hop and R&B and lots of other kinds of music (I’m one of them), and I think they all have vibrant futures ahead of them. That said, no music has ever captured my soul like rock ‘n’ roll music...it will always be the music that changed my life, that made me alive at all. So I wanted to take a brief moment to recognize the song that, it some sense at least, started it all. And hey, have you heard “Rock Around the Clock” lately? Because it’s still a kick-ass tune.
Speaking of kick-ass tunes, the Song-I-Can’t-Get-Out-of-My-Head this week is by Canuck quintet the Weekend and is called “Into the Morning.” It’s an awesome little punk-pop anthem of teenage love, and I mean “punk-pop” in the best sense of the word: it combines wistful pop earnestness and self-aware punk cynicism in just the right combination. Provided your connection can handle it, you must dig on the video. I watch it like 5 times a day. It also doesn’t hurt that the singer is way hot. She actually reminds me quite a bit of the object of my first major crush, a girl named Lisa Spadaro who went to my mom’s dance school. Man. I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world, with her raven-black hair and chocolate-brown eyes and dazzling smile. I wonder where she is now?
Oh hey…funny thing: I used to have this running fantasy in which Lisa and I were spies, going on secret missions to glamorous European locales and getting ourselves into desperate situations where it appeared we were going to die, and so of course I had to reveal my feelings about her, and then we would make out. That’s a funny thing because I was introduced to the Weekend thanks to “Into the Morning” being used in the spy-spoof movie D.E.B.S, which I watched last Sunday. Mary-Jane, in her blog, mentioned seeing My Summer of Love (which I haven’t seen but am looking forward to) and called it “a lesbian teen flick in which nobody dies.” I’m pleased to say the same about D.E.B.S, and also to tell you that it’s definitely worth seeing. It’s hardly great cinema, but it’s charming and funny with the added plus of having a sweet lesbian romance. Sara Foster, who plays the latently lezzie spygirl who falls for her out ‘n’ proud archnemesis, actually reminds me a bit of Amber Benson (high praise indeed), though her beauty is more commonplace. But she does cute things with her mouth like Amber.
May 27, 2005
I heart alt-country darlings. Apparently. Plus random other stuff.
I’ve been listening a lot to the new record by Kathleen Edwards called Back to Me, and it’s really good. I was sort of vaguely aware of her from her previous record Failer, but hadn’t really paid close attention. When Back to Me came out I started hearing her frequently on the excellent WFUV, the Fordham University-based radio station that I often stream at work, and that led me to her website, and that led me to a listening party at CMT.com where you could stream the entire album, which is like, the best idea ever. Because how many times have you been burned after hearing one or two songs by an artist on the radio that you dig, and then you buy the record and those are the only good songs and the rest of it bites? For me the answer would be “many”.
I’m pleased to say that that is not the case with Kathleen Edwards. I listened to Back to Me every day last week while the listening party was going on, and then when it ended I had to buy the CD so I could keep listening. I’m not quite sure why she’s considered alt-country, though. Actually I’m not quite sure what the term “alt-country” is even supposed to mean, but no one else seems to be either. I can sort of see it with Neko Case, Kathleen’s fellow alt-country darling (it’s the media’s phrase, not mine), whom I talked about a while ago, because her vocal style and musical arrangements clearly draw on classic country. But Kathleen seems more rooted in rock and folk, though there are country elements as well, like the lovely slide and pedal steel guitar work that dominates the album’s instrumentation. Regardless, this is a record full of great songs, from the snarlingly cynical “In State” to the swaggeringly sexy title tune to the moody, slightly disquieting “Copied Keys” (my fave), and Kathleen has a languorous quality to her vocals that I really like; it actually reminds me not a little of Beth Orton, though she lacks some of the richness of Orton’s resonant contralto.
I’m going to see Kathleen play in Santa Fe on June 15th, and for those of you in the Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest, she’ll be swinging through your area before that, if you’re interested.
Also on the chick singer-songwriter tip, I’m almost annoyed at how much I like the song “Breathe (2 AM)” by Anna Nalick, but I totally do. I’m annoyed because the vibe I get from Anna (and admittedly I could be wrong; I know almost nothing about her except that she’s very young) is that she belongs to that class of marginally talented yet inexplicably successful women like Michelle Branch, Vanessa Carlton, et al., who write pedestrian songs with naïve and painfully earnest lyrics that appear to have come straight from the pages of their high school journals. (The degree to which I despise that sort of writing corresponds directly to my level of embarrassment over my own naïve and painfully earnest high school-era writings.) I mean, there’s even a point in “Breathe” where Anna tells us that “these words are [her] diary screaming out loud,” yet as cringeworthy as that moment is, the song as a whole is deeply affecting and never fails to move me when I hear it. I don’t think I’ll be buying the CD, though.
I did buy Alana Davis’s debut CD in 1998, on the strength of her cover of Ani DiFranco’s “32 Flavors”, which showcased her smoky, soulful voice. (She was quite young, too--only 16, I believe. If she’d been prettier, she could’ve been Joss Stone. [Please be assured of the cynicism behind that comment.]) Unfortunately the rest of the album didn’t hold up. She seems to do well with covers, though, because I just heard her doing an acoustic guitar-driven take on “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” that’s really good, and it reminded me of what a great song that is. You’ve gotta love a song that can be played a skillion times on classic rock radio, and made fun of on Saturday Night Live (the cowbell sketch was hilarious), but still grab you when you hear it sung with conviction. Oh, I also just heard the Decemberists and Petra Haden covering Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”. Also a great song.
I’m pleased to say that that is not the case with Kathleen Edwards. I listened to Back to Me every day last week while the listening party was going on, and then when it ended I had to buy the CD so I could keep listening. I’m not quite sure why she’s considered alt-country, though. Actually I’m not quite sure what the term “alt-country” is even supposed to mean, but no one else seems to be either. I can sort of see it with Neko Case, Kathleen’s fellow alt-country darling (it’s the media’s phrase, not mine), whom I talked about a while ago, because her vocal style and musical arrangements clearly draw on classic country. But Kathleen seems more rooted in rock and folk, though there are country elements as well, like the lovely slide and pedal steel guitar work that dominates the album’s instrumentation. Regardless, this is a record full of great songs, from the snarlingly cynical “In State” to the swaggeringly sexy title tune to the moody, slightly disquieting “Copied Keys” (my fave), and Kathleen has a languorous quality to her vocals that I really like; it actually reminds me not a little of Beth Orton, though she lacks some of the richness of Orton’s resonant contralto.
I’m going to see Kathleen play in Santa Fe on June 15th, and for those of you in the Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest, she’ll be swinging through your area before that, if you’re interested.
Also on the chick singer-songwriter tip, I’m almost annoyed at how much I like the song “Breathe (2 AM)” by Anna Nalick, but I totally do. I’m annoyed because the vibe I get from Anna (and admittedly I could be wrong; I know almost nothing about her except that she’s very young) is that she belongs to that class of marginally talented yet inexplicably successful women like Michelle Branch, Vanessa Carlton, et al., who write pedestrian songs with naïve and painfully earnest lyrics that appear to have come straight from the pages of their high school journals. (The degree to which I despise that sort of writing corresponds directly to my level of embarrassment over my own naïve and painfully earnest high school-era writings.) I mean, there’s even a point in “Breathe” where Anna tells us that “these words are [her] diary screaming out loud,” yet as cringeworthy as that moment is, the song as a whole is deeply affecting and never fails to move me when I hear it. I don’t think I’ll be buying the CD, though.
I did buy Alana Davis’s debut CD in 1998, on the strength of her cover of Ani DiFranco’s “32 Flavors”, which showcased her smoky, soulful voice. (She was quite young, too--only 16, I believe. If she’d been prettier, she could’ve been Joss Stone. [Please be assured of the cynicism behind that comment.]) Unfortunately the rest of the album didn’t hold up. She seems to do well with covers, though, because I just heard her doing an acoustic guitar-driven take on “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” that’s really good, and it reminded me of what a great song that is. You’ve gotta love a song that can be played a skillion times on classic rock radio, and made fun of on Saturday Night Live (the cowbell sketch was hilarious), but still grab you when you hear it sung with conviction. Oh, I also just heard the Decemberists and Petra Haden covering Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”. Also a great song.
May 12, 2005
May 6, 2005
May the Force be with me
There’s a lot of hype about the new Star Wars movie. Despite that, I actually feel like I want to see it.
It’s strange, because I didn’t see either of the last two movies, mostly because of my complete lack of desire to do so. I was definitely a fan of the original trilogy, though, at least when I was younger. I was 12 when the first film came out, and I remember the lines wrapped around the theater and down the block, which was something I’d never seen before. Or since, at least to that extent. I went to see it 3 times, which was the only time I’d ever seen a movie more than once on the big screen (that record, such as it was, was eclipsed the following year by Grease, which I saw 4 times). I had a poster on my wall, a t-shirt that I wore with pride, and a bit of a crush on Princess Leia. Also, I wanted Chewbacca to be my best friend. Sure, that’s all pretty mild compared to some kids that I knew, and certainly compared to the fan culture that’s since emerged, but I’ve never been much for watching things 5000 times, or collecting lots of stuff, or (heaven help me) role-playing. I loved the movie, is all I’m saying.
I also loved The Empire Strikes Back, and I agree with the critical consensus that it’s the best one. (And the crowd's reaction to "I am your father!" was the strongest I've ever heard in a theater.) By the time of Return of the Jedi my ardor was waning, and as with many others, the cloying cuteness of the Ewoks and hokeyness of the ending put the final nail in the coffin for me.
When the original was re-released in theaters in 1997, I went to see it (I hadn’t seen it since 20 years earlier) and I was baffled by the fact that I actually found it sort of boring. Had I changed that much in 20 years? Had I simply gained insight, or had I lost the capacity--seemingly infinite in childhood--to become immersed in a fantasy world? A bit of both, I think, but sadly more the latter.
So now I’m equally baffled by my desire to see Revenge of the Sith, especially since I missed the first two parts of the story, which I still do not plan to watch. I think it’s partly because I was there at the beginning, and now I want to be there at the end. There’s always something satisfying in completion. There’s also the sense--because Star Wars has become so embedded in our culture and its characters so iconic--of participating in some great social ritual. (There was a post on Albuquerque Craig’s List from some guy who was trying to get people to come to the midnight showings on opening day, saying he wanted to make it “the best line party ever”, and for a moment or two I actually considered it. I think it was mostly the fact that his unabashed delight in his own Stars Wars nerdiness was so endearing.) Darth Vader in particular has become a cultural icon (wasn’t he voted the greatest movie villain of all time or something?), so it’s almost like there’s this need to understand his genesis that’s arising from the collective unconscious or something. In any event, I guess I’m going to see the movie.
Plus, Chewbacca’s in it! And I still sort of want him to be my best friend.
It’s strange, because I didn’t see either of the last two movies, mostly because of my complete lack of desire to do so. I was definitely a fan of the original trilogy, though, at least when I was younger. I was 12 when the first film came out, and I remember the lines wrapped around the theater and down the block, which was something I’d never seen before. Or since, at least to that extent. I went to see it 3 times, which was the only time I’d ever seen a movie more than once on the big screen (that record, such as it was, was eclipsed the following year by Grease, which I saw 4 times). I had a poster on my wall, a t-shirt that I wore with pride, and a bit of a crush on Princess Leia. Also, I wanted Chewbacca to be my best friend. Sure, that’s all pretty mild compared to some kids that I knew, and certainly compared to the fan culture that’s since emerged, but I’ve never been much for watching things 5000 times, or collecting lots of stuff, or (heaven help me) role-playing. I loved the movie, is all I’m saying.
I also loved The Empire Strikes Back, and I agree with the critical consensus that it’s the best one. (And the crowd's reaction to "I am your father!" was the strongest I've ever heard in a theater.) By the time of Return of the Jedi my ardor was waning, and as with many others, the cloying cuteness of the Ewoks and hokeyness of the ending put the final nail in the coffin for me.
When the original was re-released in theaters in 1997, I went to see it (I hadn’t seen it since 20 years earlier) and I was baffled by the fact that I actually found it sort of boring. Had I changed that much in 20 years? Had I simply gained insight, or had I lost the capacity--seemingly infinite in childhood--to become immersed in a fantasy world? A bit of both, I think, but sadly more the latter.
So now I’m equally baffled by my desire to see Revenge of the Sith, especially since I missed the first two parts of the story, which I still do not plan to watch. I think it’s partly because I was there at the beginning, and now I want to be there at the end. There’s always something satisfying in completion. There’s also the sense--because Star Wars has become so embedded in our culture and its characters so iconic--of participating in some great social ritual. (There was a post on Albuquerque Craig’s List from some guy who was trying to get people to come to the midnight showings on opening day, saying he wanted to make it “the best line party ever”, and for a moment or two I actually considered it. I think it was mostly the fact that his unabashed delight in his own Stars Wars nerdiness was so endearing.) Darth Vader in particular has become a cultural icon (wasn’t he voted the greatest movie villain of all time or something?), so it’s almost like there’s this need to understand his genesis that’s arising from the collective unconscious or something. In any event, I guess I’m going to see the movie.
Plus, Chewbacca’s in it! And I still sort of want him to be my best friend.
April 20, 2005
Yesterday
Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. In 2001 I visited the National Memorial there, so naturally I was recalling it yesterday.
It was actually late September of 2001 that I was in Oklahoma City, only a couple of weeks after 9/11. I’d left the East Coast without going anywhere near Manhattan, let alone Ground Zero, because I couldn’t bear to see that gaping wound on the city’s face. But going to the Oklahoma City memorial helped me to grieve, both for the victims there and for those of 9/11, in a way I hadn’t yet been able to.
The memorial is really well done. From the blasted wall of the building across the street (now a museum), left just as it was that day, to the Survivor Tree alone on its little hill, to the quiet, shallow reflecting pool between the gates that mark the moment of the explosion, to the 168 chairs standing starkly on the gentle slope beyond, everything strikes just the right note of grief, remembrance, and hope. The chairs are probably the most affecting, because they allow you to reflect on each of the lives lost that day, every one of them attached, as if by silken spider thread, to a myriad of other lives, every one of them brimming with love and joy and sorrow and anger and hope and disappointment and dreams. The small ones, of course, hit you the hardest. I pretty much started crying the moment I stepped onto the grounds, but seeing those small chairs is when I really lost it. I really hope that the memorial to be built at the World Trade Center site works as well.
Although my whole experience at the Oklahoma City memorial is indelibly imprinted on my memory, one image stands out: a part of one of the outer walls of the building was left standing, and the twisted rebars emerging from the torn concrete are a visceral reminder of the destructive power of ignorance and hate. But as I stood there looking up at it, the morning sun crested the wall and shone through the broken metal in a way that lent it a strange kind of elegance. It struck me as a potent symbol of the transformative power of hope.
Also yesterday, the Roman Catholic Church got a new pope. Unfortunately I don’t see a lot of cause for hope there, nor do advocates for ecumenism, or women, or lesbians and gays. I’ve seen words like “disaster” and “catastrophe” thrown around. I’ll reserve judgement for now, but this is at best a step to the side, at worst a step--or more--backward.
It was actually late September of 2001 that I was in Oklahoma City, only a couple of weeks after 9/11. I’d left the East Coast without going anywhere near Manhattan, let alone Ground Zero, because I couldn’t bear to see that gaping wound on the city’s face. But going to the Oklahoma City memorial helped me to grieve, both for the victims there and for those of 9/11, in a way I hadn’t yet been able to.
The memorial is really well done. From the blasted wall of the building across the street (now a museum), left just as it was that day, to the Survivor Tree alone on its little hill, to the quiet, shallow reflecting pool between the gates that mark the moment of the explosion, to the 168 chairs standing starkly on the gentle slope beyond, everything strikes just the right note of grief, remembrance, and hope. The chairs are probably the most affecting, because they allow you to reflect on each of the lives lost that day, every one of them attached, as if by silken spider thread, to a myriad of other lives, every one of them brimming with love and joy and sorrow and anger and hope and disappointment and dreams. The small ones, of course, hit you the hardest. I pretty much started crying the moment I stepped onto the grounds, but seeing those small chairs is when I really lost it. I really hope that the memorial to be built at the World Trade Center site works as well.
Although my whole experience at the Oklahoma City memorial is indelibly imprinted on my memory, one image stands out: a part of one of the outer walls of the building was left standing, and the twisted rebars emerging from the torn concrete are a visceral reminder of the destructive power of ignorance and hate. But as I stood there looking up at it, the morning sun crested the wall and shone through the broken metal in a way that lent it a strange kind of elegance. It struck me as a potent symbol of the transformative power of hope.
Also yesterday, the Roman Catholic Church got a new pope. Unfortunately I don’t see a lot of cause for hope there, nor do advocates for ecumenism, or women, or lesbians and gays. I’ve seen words like “disaster” and “catastrophe” thrown around. I’ll reserve judgement for now, but this is at best a step to the side, at worst a step--or more--backward.
April 18, 2005
My favorite poem of four lines
I almost said "of four lines or less", but then I remembered that there's haiku. This one was written five hundred years ago by that most prolific of authors, Anonymous.
Western wind, when wilt thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.
"The small rain down can rain." Yes. Yes it can. I don't think any poet has better captured, in a single image, how the daily trials of life can beset us.
Western wind, when wilt thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.
"The small rain down can rain." Yes. Yes it can. I don't think any poet has better captured, in a single image, how the daily trials of life can beset us.
April 15, 2005
Mon poeme préferé en anglais
I had planned to post a lot of poems this month, and here the month is half over and I’ve only done one. I’ll try to do more, I guess. Since poems in French don’t seem to go over, here is what I would call (only if pressed, of course) my favorite poem in English.
Spring and Fall: To a young child
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
I must have read (or recited, mostly to myself) this poem hundreds of times, yet it never fails to affect me. I find it hard to talk about for that very reason, as I do favorites in other genres, say Joyce’s “The Dead” or Jules Bastien-Lepage’s painting of Joan of Arc, because analysis requires a certain emotional remove that I’m unwilling to grant. I do love many of the structural elements of the poem. Alliteration can be hard to pull off without seeming cheesy or overbearing, but when done well, as here, it is effective and affecting. I love the limpidity of the words Hopkins invents; where we need Lewis Carroll to tell us that “slithy”is a portmanteau meaning “lithe” and “slimy”, we know instantly what “unleaving” is and how it leaves the landscape “leafmeal”, even though we’ve never encountered these words before. Mostly what I love, though, is the mood the poem engenders, the mix of beauty and sadness. When I was a young child, fall was my favorite season, both because of its incandescent beauty and because of the nebulous sadness that I, like Margaret, felt. Now that I’m an adult and privy to the insight that Hopkins delicately yet shatteringly encapsulates in the final line, now that I am in the late summer and no longer the spring of my life, it’s still my favorite season. And even though the sadness is more concrete, even though I do “come to such sights colder”, there is still that nebulousness at the edges--which is really just our instinctive realization that sic transit gloria mundi--that invests the golden beauty of fall with greater poignancy.
Spring and Fall: To a young child
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
I must have read (or recited, mostly to myself) this poem hundreds of times, yet it never fails to affect me. I find it hard to talk about for that very reason, as I do favorites in other genres, say Joyce’s “The Dead” or Jules Bastien-Lepage’s painting of Joan of Arc, because analysis requires a certain emotional remove that I’m unwilling to grant. I do love many of the structural elements of the poem. Alliteration can be hard to pull off without seeming cheesy or overbearing, but when done well, as here, it is effective and affecting. I love the limpidity of the words Hopkins invents; where we need Lewis Carroll to tell us that “slithy”is a portmanteau meaning “lithe” and “slimy”, we know instantly what “unleaving” is and how it leaves the landscape “leafmeal”, even though we’ve never encountered these words before. Mostly what I love, though, is the mood the poem engenders, the mix of beauty and sadness. When I was a young child, fall was my favorite season, both because of its incandescent beauty and because of the nebulous sadness that I, like Margaret, felt. Now that I’m an adult and privy to the insight that Hopkins delicately yet shatteringly encapsulates in the final line, now that I am in the late summer and no longer the spring of my life, it’s still my favorite season. And even though the sadness is more concrete, even though I do “come to such sights colder”, there is still that nebulousness at the edges--which is really just our instinctive realization that sic transit gloria mundi--that invests the golden beauty of fall with greater poignancy.
April 12, 2005
Popage
So the Pope died. You know, in case you weren’t aware. My mom actually called me after the news broke “to see if [I was] okay”. I’m pretty sure it was just an excuse to call (not that she needs one), but it was kind of weird. Because, me? And the pope? Not so much.
A lot’s been made of the fact that he assumed his office around the same time that Reagan became president (and Thatcher became British PM), and indeed, my view of them is much the same: men--former actors, actually--who used their skills and considerable charm to obscure their rabidly conservative and anti-populist agendas. It’s interesting to note that, although Reagan left the world stage long before John Paul II, their deaths also came close together, and now the pope is being lionized in the same way that the president was. (Also interesting that, where Reagan was posthumously given sole credit for the “defeat” of communism in Europe, he’s now forced to share it with the pope.) I must say, though, that I didn’t feel the same antipathy toward JP2 that I did toward Reagan--it was more like disappointment eventually followed by indifference underlain by bitterness.
I still remember when his predecessor, John Paul I, was elected in 1978, and the hope that liberal Catholics (which at that point was every Catholic I knew, even the priests and nuns at my school) felt in the promise that he would continue in the spirit of reform begun by his predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI. And I remember how crushed everyone was when he died only a month later, to be replaced by a deeply conservative man who would, seemingly, do all that he could to crush that spirit short of actually repudiating the Vatican II reforms. John Paul II arrived on the scene at a crucial point in the history of the Church, when he had the opportunity to further its transformation into a true progressive force for good on this planet--which, lest we forget, was a big part of Jesus’ whole deal--and instead he squandered it, and chose a retreat into medievalism. He was anti-woman and anti-gay, considering both feminism and homosexuality to be part of a greater “ideology of evil” with which he saw the Church at war. And despite the acclaim he’s received as a “strong leader”, such skills were nowhere in evidence as the Church in North America was devastated by the scandal of pedophile priests, a matter on which he chose to remain largely silent. Even if I’d never had any affection for him, and even if I’m not big on authority figures in general, I still always felt some measure of respect for him as the leader of my faith, but after that it was extremely difficult to do so.
The one thing about his papacy that I did find encouraging was his commitment to ecumenism, in both its narrow and broad senses. That was at least one plank of the Vatican II platform that he didn’t try to rip out. He reached out to Jewish and Muslim leaders, becoming the first pope ever to set foot inside both a synagogue and a mosque, praying at the Western Wall and bestowing a kiss upon the Qur’an. I thought of his particular devotion to the Virgin Mary as I read, recently, a book entitled The Miracle Detective, which gives an exhaustive account of the purported Marian apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Among the Virgin’s many pronouncements there was that religion is a human invention and that “All religions are similar before God”. I wonder what JP2 thought of that. I know the local priests were duly shocked. I found it surprising but validating, since it well coincides with my own philosophy, most succinctly summed up by the aphorism “One truth, many paths”.
JP2 also built bridges within Christianity, reaching out to the Orthodox Churches of the East, to the Anglican Communion, and to the Lutheran Church. I have to admit I admired him for that. (On the other hand, by strengthening conservative Catholicism in the US, he also had the ominous [if inadvertent] effect of allying Catholics with Protestant Evangelicals, and I don’t think I have to point out what that alliance has wrought.) I think most Christians find the deep divisions among members of their faith distressing, especially considering that such rifts stand in direct contradiction to Jesus’ express wishes. Of course, it started with the Apostles immediately after his death, and it’s quite unlikely he didn’t see it coming. It’s human nature, I suppose. Still, we should at least aspire to an ideal, even if our achieving it is improbable, shouldn’t we?
Hmm. Okay, that’s a bigger question than I care to get into right now. I’d like to wrap this entry up with a fervent prayer for the cardinals to enter their conclave next week and choose a true visionary to lead the Church, someone who can bring it into the 21st century and make it the light to the world that it ought to be. I’d like to, but it sort of seems pointless.
Sigh. I’ll do it anyway.
A lot’s been made of the fact that he assumed his office around the same time that Reagan became president (and Thatcher became British PM), and indeed, my view of them is much the same: men--former actors, actually--who used their skills and considerable charm to obscure their rabidly conservative and anti-populist agendas. It’s interesting to note that, although Reagan left the world stage long before John Paul II, their deaths also came close together, and now the pope is being lionized in the same way that the president was. (Also interesting that, where Reagan was posthumously given sole credit for the “defeat” of communism in Europe, he’s now forced to share it with the pope.) I must say, though, that I didn’t feel the same antipathy toward JP2 that I did toward Reagan--it was more like disappointment eventually followed by indifference underlain by bitterness.
I still remember when his predecessor, John Paul I, was elected in 1978, and the hope that liberal Catholics (which at that point was every Catholic I knew, even the priests and nuns at my school) felt in the promise that he would continue in the spirit of reform begun by his predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI. And I remember how crushed everyone was when he died only a month later, to be replaced by a deeply conservative man who would, seemingly, do all that he could to crush that spirit short of actually repudiating the Vatican II reforms. John Paul II arrived on the scene at a crucial point in the history of the Church, when he had the opportunity to further its transformation into a true progressive force for good on this planet--which, lest we forget, was a big part of Jesus’ whole deal--and instead he squandered it, and chose a retreat into medievalism. He was anti-woman and anti-gay, considering both feminism and homosexuality to be part of a greater “ideology of evil” with which he saw the Church at war. And despite the acclaim he’s received as a “strong leader”, such skills were nowhere in evidence as the Church in North America was devastated by the scandal of pedophile priests, a matter on which he chose to remain largely silent. Even if I’d never had any affection for him, and even if I’m not big on authority figures in general, I still always felt some measure of respect for him as the leader of my faith, but after that it was extremely difficult to do so.
The one thing about his papacy that I did find encouraging was his commitment to ecumenism, in both its narrow and broad senses. That was at least one plank of the Vatican II platform that he didn’t try to rip out. He reached out to Jewish and Muslim leaders, becoming the first pope ever to set foot inside both a synagogue and a mosque, praying at the Western Wall and bestowing a kiss upon the Qur’an. I thought of his particular devotion to the Virgin Mary as I read, recently, a book entitled The Miracle Detective, which gives an exhaustive account of the purported Marian apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Among the Virgin’s many pronouncements there was that religion is a human invention and that “All religions are similar before God”. I wonder what JP2 thought of that. I know the local priests were duly shocked. I found it surprising but validating, since it well coincides with my own philosophy, most succinctly summed up by the aphorism “One truth, many paths”.
JP2 also built bridges within Christianity, reaching out to the Orthodox Churches of the East, to the Anglican Communion, and to the Lutheran Church. I have to admit I admired him for that. (On the other hand, by strengthening conservative Catholicism in the US, he also had the ominous [if inadvertent] effect of allying Catholics with Protestant Evangelicals, and I don’t think I have to point out what that alliance has wrought.) I think most Christians find the deep divisions among members of their faith distressing, especially considering that such rifts stand in direct contradiction to Jesus’ express wishes. Of course, it started with the Apostles immediately after his death, and it’s quite unlikely he didn’t see it coming. It’s human nature, I suppose. Still, we should at least aspire to an ideal, even if our achieving it is improbable, shouldn’t we?
Hmm. Okay, that’s a bigger question than I care to get into right now. I’d like to wrap this entry up with a fervent prayer for the cardinals to enter their conclave next week and choose a true visionary to lead the Church, someone who can bring it into the 21st century and make it the light to the world that it ought to be. I’d like to, but it sort of seems pointless.
Sigh. I’ll do it anyway.
April 1, 2005
Poisson d'avril? Non, merci.
April Fool’s Day is my least favorite “holiday”, probably because as a kid I tended to be less the prankster and more the...prankstee? And since I got made fun of more than enough as it was (the perils of nerdhood), an entire day devoted to that activity was not exactly something I looked forward to.
In France today is Poisson d’avril, or April Fish. The thing to do is make paper cutouts of fish and stick them on your friends’ backs. It sounds stupid, but it’s actually kind of funny, in a silly and innocent (and somehow egalitarian) way.
More to my liking, today begins National Poetry Month. Since I’m already on about the French, here is what I would, if pressed, call my favorite poem:
Le Pont Mirabeau
par Guillaume Apollinaire
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
The more astute among you may have noticed that it’s in French. I’ve seen numerous translations and unfortunately none of them comes close to the original, but here’s a decent one. This is actually a version that was recorded by the Pogues.
Le Pont Mirabeau
by Guillaume Apollinaire
Below the Pont Mirabeau
Slow flows the Seine
And all our loves together
Must I recall again
Joy would always follow
After pain
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
Hands holding hands
Let us stand face to face
While underneath the bridge
Of our arms entwined slow race
Eternal gazes flowing
At wave's pace
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
Love runs away
Like running water flows
Love flows away
But oh how slow life goes
How violent is hope
Love only knows
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
The days flow ever on
The weeks pass by in vain
Time never will return
Nor our loves burn again
Below the Pont Mirabeau
Slow flows the Seine
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
Like I said, it’s decent, but a lot of my favorite stuff gets left out. Translating the first line, Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine, as “Below the Pont Mirabeau/Slow flows the Seine” somehow loses the simplicity and solidity of the line. I like it translated as “Under Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine”, which gives you that and keeps the original’s rhythm as well. I love how that line is repeated at the end of the last stanza before the final refrain; to me it’s like the anchors of the bridge on either side of the river. And I love how that final stanza sort of resolves out of three lines in the subjunctive to the final line in the indicative, like being shaken out of reverie. Where the simplicity and solidity of the line make it seem neutral at the beginning of the poem, here it becomes quietly devastating. You don’t really get that sense in the English. And twisting the line "comme l'Espérance est violente" (how Hope is violent) to make it "How violent is hope" takes a lot of the sting out...you need the noun before you get the adjective, because the adjective is so unexpected.
I’ll post more favorite poems during April, but I’ll try to stick to ones written in English, so I don't have to complain about translations.
In France today is Poisson d’avril, or April Fish. The thing to do is make paper cutouts of fish and stick them on your friends’ backs. It sounds stupid, but it’s actually kind of funny, in a silly and innocent (and somehow egalitarian) way.
More to my liking, today begins National Poetry Month. Since I’m already on about the French, here is what I would, if pressed, call my favorite poem:
Le Pont Mirabeau
par Guillaume Apollinaire
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
The more astute among you may have noticed that it’s in French. I’ve seen numerous translations and unfortunately none of them comes close to the original, but here’s a decent one. This is actually a version that was recorded by the Pogues.
Le Pont Mirabeau
by Guillaume Apollinaire
Below the Pont Mirabeau
Slow flows the Seine
And all our loves together
Must I recall again
Joy would always follow
After pain
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
Hands holding hands
Let us stand face to face
While underneath the bridge
Of our arms entwined slow race
Eternal gazes flowing
At wave's pace
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
Love runs away
Like running water flows
Love flows away
But oh how slow life goes
How violent is hope
Love only knows
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
The days flow ever on
The weeks pass by in vain
Time never will return
Nor our loves burn again
Below the Pont Mirabeau
Slow flows the Seine
Let night fall, let the hours go by
The days pass on and here stand I
Like I said, it’s decent, but a lot of my favorite stuff gets left out. Translating the first line, Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine, as “Below the Pont Mirabeau/Slow flows the Seine” somehow loses the simplicity and solidity of the line. I like it translated as “Under Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine”, which gives you that and keeps the original’s rhythm as well. I love how that line is repeated at the end of the last stanza before the final refrain; to me it’s like the anchors of the bridge on either side of the river. And I love how that final stanza sort of resolves out of three lines in the subjunctive to the final line in the indicative, like being shaken out of reverie. Where the simplicity and solidity of the line make it seem neutral at the beginning of the poem, here it becomes quietly devastating. You don’t really get that sense in the English. And twisting the line "comme l'Espérance est violente" (how Hope is violent) to make it "How violent is hope" takes a lot of the sting out...you need the noun before you get the adjective, because the adjective is so unexpected.
I’ll post more favorite poems during April, but I’ll try to stick to ones written in English, so I don't have to complain about translations.
March 31, 2005
Yeah, I don't know.
So this blogging thing takes a lot more time and effort than I figured. And seeing as I can count the number of people who actually read it without taking off my shoes, I wonder if it's worth it. Since I intended this as basically an online journal, i.e. something for my own benefit and not necessarily anyone else's, I guess it shouldn't really matter. Yet somehow it does.
Anyway, here's something I wrote last week.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was on VH1 this past weekend. I always watch it, even though I get annoyed at the fact that this purported celebration of rock music takes place in a banquet room at the Waldorf Astoria, with everyone in tuxes and gowns sitting around tables and rather staidly nodding and clapping. Come on, man! It’s ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL. This year’s show was opened by the O’Jays. How do you not dance to “Love Train”? I’m dancing around my living room and making crazy gestures, inviting people all over the world to join hands and start a love train, and everybody who’s in the actual goddamned room with them is just SITTING THERE. Worse than that, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Hall this year they had Jerry Lee Lewis and Bo Diddley close things out, and STILL nobody got out of their chairs. Jerry Lee turns 70 this year, but believe me, he can still play the shit out of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”. Ladies and gentlemen, THAT IS THE KILLER UP THERE. HE’S ALMOST A SEPTUAGENARIAN AND HE IS ROCKING FOR YOU. GET THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR CHAIRS.
I watch because even though the performances can be spotty, there’s always a gem or two that makes it worth it, and because even though the induction speeches can be lackluster, there’s always a moment or two that moves me (and if Bruce Springsteen is inducting someone, as he did U2 this year, and as he seems to most years, I know I’m in for 10 minutes of stellar oratory).
This year, as I mentioned, U2 was inducted, as were the Pretenders. (There were others as well, but those two groups were the most significant to me.) Although I stopped being interested in U2 twenty years ago (I think I knew it was over when I went to see them in ’85 and was more into opening act Lone Justice than I was them), during the first half of the ‘80s, man, I loved them. I remember when I was 15, 16 years old, I used to take the train up to Westchester to visit my cousin on long weekends. We were so into music and it was all we talked about. We were both learning to play guitar, and we’d always show each other new stuff we’d figured out. We wanted to be in a band more than anything. I remember these endless drives through dark woods, on our way to some party in a field in the middle of nowhere, blasting U2’s Boy on the stereo. That and the Police’s Outlandos d’Amour. Those were a couple of great records, and at that time they sounded so new and so different than anything I’d listened to before. I didn’t even want to get to the party, I just wanted to be in that car, hurtling through the darkness on a country road with the music playing. When I started writing songs a couple of years later, U2, along with the Police, the Clash, and REM, was one of my biggest influences. In fact, the first demo that my band ever recorded (the band that I eventually formed with the aforementioned cousin) included a song called “Remembrance Day” that was, shall we say, heavily indebted to U2. They lost me when they got to the plodding basslines and numbing sameness of The Joshua Tree, but those early records were something, and War in particular stands as one of the greatest albums of the ‘80s.
The Pretenders had an even bigger effect on me: Chrissie Hynde was one of the reasons I even picked up a guitar. The first song I ever heard by them was their cover of the Kinks’ “Stop Your Sobbing”, and it was one of those “Who the fuck is that?” moments. I’ve always thought that Chrissie has one of the most original and arresting voices in pop music. It was her look that really got me, though: with her skinny, leather-clad body and black bangs hanging in her heavily-lined eyes, she looked like the lost Ramone sister. She was tough, but not in the pouty, posturing way that, say, Pat Benatar was (or tried to be). She was cool, but not in the aloof, movie-star-beautiful way that, say, Debbie Harry was. She was as tough and as cool as any man yet sacrificed none of her femininity (whatever that might mean), which couldn’t be said of, say, the deliberately androgynous Patti Smith. (No disrespect intended toward Benatar, Harry, or Smith, all of whom I like.) And she played guitar. I wanted to be just like her.
Of course, the Pretenders were more than just Chrissie Hynde. That is to say, they were more than just a singer-songwriter and her backing crew, they were a band. Unfortunately that became all too clear with the deaths of Pete Farndon and James Honeyman Scott, from which the band never recovered. They kept recording, obviously, but as Chrissie herself has pointed out, they were basically a Pretenders tribute band.
When I think of the Pretenders, I think of my freshman year in high school. High school was not a pleasant time for me, and getting up in the mornings always sucked. But in 1980, “Brass in Pocket” was all over rock radio, and I have this memory of golden sunlight streaming in through my bedroom window, and those shimmering chords, and Chrissie’s half-swaggering, half-vulnerable vocal insisting “I’m special, so special” that somehow made everything okay.
Top 5 U2 Songs
5) “New Year’s Day”
4) “An Cat Dubh”
3) “The Unforgettable Fire”
2) “Bad”
1) “Sunday Bloody Sunday”
Top 5 Pretenders Songs
5) “Show Me”
4) “Talk of the Town”
3) “Message of Love”
2) “Brass in Pocket”
1) “Kid”
On a tangential note, “Kid” is definitely my favorite Pretenders song and I adore their version of it, but close behind is Tracey Thorn’s heart-stoppingly gorgeous rendition on Everything But The Girl’s Love Not Money.
Anyway, here's something I wrote last week.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was on VH1 this past weekend. I always watch it, even though I get annoyed at the fact that this purported celebration of rock music takes place in a banquet room at the Waldorf Astoria, with everyone in tuxes and gowns sitting around tables and rather staidly nodding and clapping. Come on, man! It’s ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL. This year’s show was opened by the O’Jays. How do you not dance to “Love Train”? I’m dancing around my living room and making crazy gestures, inviting people all over the world to join hands and start a love train, and everybody who’s in the actual goddamned room with them is just SITTING THERE. Worse than that, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Hall this year they had Jerry Lee Lewis and Bo Diddley close things out, and STILL nobody got out of their chairs. Jerry Lee turns 70 this year, but believe me, he can still play the shit out of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”. Ladies and gentlemen, THAT IS THE KILLER UP THERE. HE’S ALMOST A SEPTUAGENARIAN AND HE IS ROCKING FOR YOU. GET THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR CHAIRS.
I watch because even though the performances can be spotty, there’s always a gem or two that makes it worth it, and because even though the induction speeches can be lackluster, there’s always a moment or two that moves me (and if Bruce Springsteen is inducting someone, as he did U2 this year, and as he seems to most years, I know I’m in for 10 minutes of stellar oratory).
This year, as I mentioned, U2 was inducted, as were the Pretenders. (There were others as well, but those two groups were the most significant to me.) Although I stopped being interested in U2 twenty years ago (I think I knew it was over when I went to see them in ’85 and was more into opening act Lone Justice than I was them), during the first half of the ‘80s, man, I loved them. I remember when I was 15, 16 years old, I used to take the train up to Westchester to visit my cousin on long weekends. We were so into music and it was all we talked about. We were both learning to play guitar, and we’d always show each other new stuff we’d figured out. We wanted to be in a band more than anything. I remember these endless drives through dark woods, on our way to some party in a field in the middle of nowhere, blasting U2’s Boy on the stereo. That and the Police’s Outlandos d’Amour. Those were a couple of great records, and at that time they sounded so new and so different than anything I’d listened to before. I didn’t even want to get to the party, I just wanted to be in that car, hurtling through the darkness on a country road with the music playing. When I started writing songs a couple of years later, U2, along with the Police, the Clash, and REM, was one of my biggest influences. In fact, the first demo that my band ever recorded (the band that I eventually formed with the aforementioned cousin) included a song called “Remembrance Day” that was, shall we say, heavily indebted to U2. They lost me when they got to the plodding basslines and numbing sameness of The Joshua Tree, but those early records were something, and War in particular stands as one of the greatest albums of the ‘80s.
The Pretenders had an even bigger effect on me: Chrissie Hynde was one of the reasons I even picked up a guitar. The first song I ever heard by them was their cover of the Kinks’ “Stop Your Sobbing”, and it was one of those “Who the fuck is that?” moments. I’ve always thought that Chrissie has one of the most original and arresting voices in pop music. It was her look that really got me, though: with her skinny, leather-clad body and black bangs hanging in her heavily-lined eyes, she looked like the lost Ramone sister. She was tough, but not in the pouty, posturing way that, say, Pat Benatar was (or tried to be). She was cool, but not in the aloof, movie-star-beautiful way that, say, Debbie Harry was. She was as tough and as cool as any man yet sacrificed none of her femininity (whatever that might mean), which couldn’t be said of, say, the deliberately androgynous Patti Smith. (No disrespect intended toward Benatar, Harry, or Smith, all of whom I like.) And she played guitar. I wanted to be just like her.
Of course, the Pretenders were more than just Chrissie Hynde. That is to say, they were more than just a singer-songwriter and her backing crew, they were a band. Unfortunately that became all too clear with the deaths of Pete Farndon and James Honeyman Scott, from which the band never recovered. They kept recording, obviously, but as Chrissie herself has pointed out, they were basically a Pretenders tribute band.
When I think of the Pretenders, I think of my freshman year in high school. High school was not a pleasant time for me, and getting up in the mornings always sucked. But in 1980, “Brass in Pocket” was all over rock radio, and I have this memory of golden sunlight streaming in through my bedroom window, and those shimmering chords, and Chrissie’s half-swaggering, half-vulnerable vocal insisting “I’m special, so special” that somehow made everything okay.
Top 5 U2 Songs
5) “New Year’s Day”
4) “An Cat Dubh”
3) “The Unforgettable Fire”
2) “Bad”
1) “Sunday Bloody Sunday”
Top 5 Pretenders Songs
5) “Show Me”
4) “Talk of the Town”
3) “Message of Love”
2) “Brass in Pocket”
1) “Kid”
On a tangential note, “Kid” is definitely my favorite Pretenders song and I adore their version of it, but close behind is Tracey Thorn’s heart-stoppingly gorgeous rendition on Everything But The Girl’s Love Not Money.
February 23, 2005
Un piccolo miracolo
Place-based partisanship is annoying. When people extol endlessly the vast virtue of their own little corner of the world, and smugly denigrate everyone else’s, they reveal nothing but their own parochialism. Thomas Pynchon, in Vineland, had a great line about this, which of course I can’t remember, but it had to do with a couple of Manhattan girls whose sole perception of California was through “the many ways that it failed to be New York.” I’ve known similar people. I can’t claim that I’ve never been guilty of this myself, but as I’ve matured I’ve come to realize that different places are just that--not superior or inferior, just different. Every place has something unique to offer, and in failing to seek it out, we only diminish ourselves.
Unless you’re talking about Buffalo, ‘cause that place is just a dump. But seriously, folks….
Of course, it’s natural to feel a certain affinity with the place where you grew up, and its peculiar language, customs, and traditions. Not to mention its food--we’re all familiar with the phrase “comfort food”, and indeed, when we’re out in the far-flung reaches of the globe, and feeling upset or unsure, the foods particular to our home places can be a great source of comfort. When I was growing up in New Jersey, my favorite food was pizza. And as I’m fond of saying, in Jersey you can’t spit without hitting a pizza joint.
True, you can get pizza just about anywhere. But as I’ve discovered in my travels throughout this land, it’s just not the same. When I first moved to California and walked into a pizza place asking for a slice, they looked at me like I had five heads. It seems that the slice as a concept does not exist in California--nor does “real” pizza. California has its own take on pizza, and its quite enjoyable, but in terms of the pizza of my youth it just can’t compare.
It’s hard to say just what makes New York-New Jersey pizza what it is. It’s gotta be made by Italians, that much I know. If you don’t see a guido (or guidette) behind the counter, and at least one small white-haired old man with an Italian accent in the general vicinity, clear out immediately. I think it also has to do with the simplicity of the recipe--just bread, sauce, and mozzarella cheese (toppings allowed within reason, of course, but there’s a lot to be said for the classic cheese pie), and the fact that it’s cooked in a regular oven, not a deep dish or some schmancy wood-burning brick deal. It’s just simple Southern Italian peasant food, and when it’s done right, it’s really, really good.
Unfortunately no one seems to be able to do it at all west of the Mississippi, and no one seems to be able to do it right west of the Delaware. People here in the West will say, oh, you have to try such-and-such a place, they have real East Coast-style pizza. And then you go there, and...no. Just...no. I’ve tried many places, and none come close. So when someone told me that the Pizza Castle here in Albuquerque had the real thing, I was more than a bit skeptical. But the other night, as I was freaking out (just a little) over my recent birthday, I felt like I needed some Jersey comfort food, so I decided to check it out.
It’s in a crummy strip mall, which was a good sign (the best pizza joints always are). I must decry the fact that there was nothing castle-like about it, however. I mean, New Jersey had, once upon a time, the famous Tower of Pizza, which you entered through a miniature replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (incredibly exciting when I was a kid), so I expect truth in naming. But it did have threadbare carpeting, rickety booths from whose faded cushions yellow foam protruded, a menu board with slots that you stick those little plastic letters into, and--oh yes--a pinball machine. Now you’re talking genuine pizza place ambiance, my friend. It could’ve used a jukebox, though. When I was little, our family pizza place was Luisa Pizza in South Plainfield, which was owned by a friend of my dad’s ( = free pizza). Every time we went there, I would play “Run To Me” by the Bee Gees on the jukebox. I loved that song sooooooo much. Eventually I bought a 45 of it and played it over and over, but somehow it was never quite the same as hearing it on the jukebox at Luisa while eating pizza.
Anyway, as soon as I walked into the Pizza Castle, I knew that what I’d heard was true. Smell that? Real pizza. I ordered a couple of slices to go (small disappointment: the box did not feature a mustachioed man in a chef’s hat making the Italian gesture for “Yummy!” and saying, “You’ve tried all the rest--now try the best!” But you can’t have everything) and took them home. The crust was the perfect thickness and not at all soggy, the sauce was tasty, the cheese was fresh and there was just the right amount. And the slices were so generous that I could only eat one--the other one is wrapped in foil in my freezer, waiting for the next time I need a little homestyle comfort.
Thanks, Pizza Castle. You’re a small miracle in the desert.
Unless you’re talking about Buffalo, ‘cause that place is just a dump. But seriously, folks….
Of course, it’s natural to feel a certain affinity with the place where you grew up, and its peculiar language, customs, and traditions. Not to mention its food--we’re all familiar with the phrase “comfort food”, and indeed, when we’re out in the far-flung reaches of the globe, and feeling upset or unsure, the foods particular to our home places can be a great source of comfort. When I was growing up in New Jersey, my favorite food was pizza. And as I’m fond of saying, in Jersey you can’t spit without hitting a pizza joint.
True, you can get pizza just about anywhere. But as I’ve discovered in my travels throughout this land, it’s just not the same. When I first moved to California and walked into a pizza place asking for a slice, they looked at me like I had five heads. It seems that the slice as a concept does not exist in California--nor does “real” pizza. California has its own take on pizza, and its quite enjoyable, but in terms of the pizza of my youth it just can’t compare.
It’s hard to say just what makes New York-New Jersey pizza what it is. It’s gotta be made by Italians, that much I know. If you don’t see a guido (or guidette) behind the counter, and at least one small white-haired old man with an Italian accent in the general vicinity, clear out immediately. I think it also has to do with the simplicity of the recipe--just bread, sauce, and mozzarella cheese (toppings allowed within reason, of course, but there’s a lot to be said for the classic cheese pie), and the fact that it’s cooked in a regular oven, not a deep dish or some schmancy wood-burning brick deal. It’s just simple Southern Italian peasant food, and when it’s done right, it’s really, really good.
Unfortunately no one seems to be able to do it at all west of the Mississippi, and no one seems to be able to do it right west of the Delaware. People here in the West will say, oh, you have to try such-and-such a place, they have real East Coast-style pizza. And then you go there, and...no. Just...no. I’ve tried many places, and none come close. So when someone told me that the Pizza Castle here in Albuquerque had the real thing, I was more than a bit skeptical. But the other night, as I was freaking out (just a little) over my recent birthday, I felt like I needed some Jersey comfort food, so I decided to check it out.
It’s in a crummy strip mall, which was a good sign (the best pizza joints always are). I must decry the fact that there was nothing castle-like about it, however. I mean, New Jersey had, once upon a time, the famous Tower of Pizza, which you entered through a miniature replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (incredibly exciting when I was a kid), so I expect truth in naming. But it did have threadbare carpeting, rickety booths from whose faded cushions yellow foam protruded, a menu board with slots that you stick those little plastic letters into, and--oh yes--a pinball machine. Now you’re talking genuine pizza place ambiance, my friend. It could’ve used a jukebox, though. When I was little, our family pizza place was Luisa Pizza in South Plainfield, which was owned by a friend of my dad’s ( = free pizza). Every time we went there, I would play “Run To Me” by the Bee Gees on the jukebox. I loved that song sooooooo much. Eventually I bought a 45 of it and played it over and over, but somehow it was never quite the same as hearing it on the jukebox at Luisa while eating pizza.
Anyway, as soon as I walked into the Pizza Castle, I knew that what I’d heard was true. Smell that? Real pizza. I ordered a couple of slices to go (small disappointment: the box did not feature a mustachioed man in a chef’s hat making the Italian gesture for “Yummy!” and saying, “You’ve tried all the rest--now try the best!” But you can’t have everything) and took them home. The crust was the perfect thickness and not at all soggy, the sauce was tasty, the cheese was fresh and there was just the right amount. And the slices were so generous that I could only eat one--the other one is wrapped in foil in my freezer, waiting for the next time I need a little homestyle comfort.
Thanks, Pizza Castle. You’re a small miracle in the desert.
February 18, 2005
Perhaps Jefferson should have specified the height and thickness of the wall
My feelings about the separation of church and state can be summed up thusly: I want my government to keep its nose out of my church, and my church to keep its nose out of my government. Simple as that. I'm getting sick to death of right-wing "Christians" prattling on about the United States of America being "a Christian nation", claiming that our legal system is based on the Ten Commandments, misrepresenting what the founders of this country thought and said, and so on and so on and so on.
The following quotes are excerpted from a letter to the editor of a local weekly paper called Crosswinds. The letter was written by Robert-Francis Johnson of Santa Fe. I was not familiar with any of these quotes, and I haven't checked their authenticity, but since they were published I'm going to assume that the editor of the paper has (maybe not the wisest assumption, but I'm going with it).
"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine."--George Washington
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion..."--from the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams, June 10, 1797
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"--James Madison, in "Memorial and Remonstrance," 1785
"Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'"--The U.S. Supreme Court, 1947
And, lest we forget:
"They have kept us in submission because they have talked about separation of church and state. There is no such thing in the Constitution. It’s a lie of the left, and we’re not going to take it anymore."--Pat Robertson, addressing the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice), 1993
And on the other hand:
"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press--in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past years."--Adolph Hitler
No further comment needed, I believe.
The following quotes are excerpted from a letter to the editor of a local weekly paper called Crosswinds. The letter was written by Robert-Francis Johnson of Santa Fe. I was not familiar with any of these quotes, and I haven't checked their authenticity, but since they were published I'm going to assume that the editor of the paper has (maybe not the wisest assumption, but I'm going with it).
"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine."--George Washington
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion..."--from the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams, June 10, 1797
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"--James Madison, in "Memorial and Remonstrance," 1785
"Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'"--The U.S. Supreme Court, 1947
And, lest we forget:
"They have kept us in submission because they have talked about separation of church and state. There is no such thing in the Constitution. It’s a lie of the left, and we’re not going to take it anymore."--Pat Robertson, addressing the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice), 1993
And on the other hand:
"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press--in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past years."--Adolph Hitler
No further comment needed, I believe.
February 11, 2005
Another little piece of my soul just died. Thanks a lot, Vin Diesel.
As I'm sure everyone knows, the early part of the year is when movie studios, having shot their Oscar wad back in December, release all of their really crappy movies. I never see any of them--I try very hard not to watch really crappy movies--but I'm still subjected to watching commercials for them, and a little piece of my soul dies every time I see one.
There's one I've started seeing a lot, for what looks to be some sort of family comedy starring Vin Diesel. Yes, that's right, Vin Diesel in a family comedy. Obviously he's following the patented Arnold Schwarzenegger Method for Being a Big Movie Star. I guess if you're going to ape someone's career moves, Arnold would be a good one to pick.
Anyway, the first time I saw the commercial I was sort of chuckling to myself and shaking my head in a Not if you were the last movie on earth kind of way, when I realized that Lauren Graham is also in the film. Well, that stopped my chuckling. Because I know that, like an insect helplessly drawn to its fiery death in one of those bug zappers, I am eventually going to cause myself grievous spiritual harm by watching this movie. Mind you, I don't think I'll actually spend any money on it, but sooner or later it's going to show up on TBS or FX, and that fateful day will find my ass on a couch. Such is the power of my crush on Lauren Graham.
Herewith a Top Five list of the worst movies I've ever sat through because I was all crushed out on somebody who was in it:
Top Five Worst Movies I've Ever Sat Through Because I Was All Crushed Out On Somebody Who Was In It
The rankings in this list are based less on the quality of the movie (since they all suck) and more on the depth of my ardor.
5) Daredevil (Jennifer Garner) I suspect that Elektra might be worse, but I haven't seen it. Prolly rent the DVD though. Sigh.
4) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Helena Bonham Carter) What a mess. Branagh should stick to Shakespeare.
3) Taboo (Amber Benson) The less said about this, the better.
2) Paradise (Phoebe Cates) Co-stars Willie Aames and a chimpanzee.
And the number one worst movie I've ever sat through because I was all crushed out on somebody who was in it...
1) I Love You, I Love You Not (Claire Danes) Did you know that Nazis are bad? Because they are. Man, I could've done an entire Top Five just with Claire Danes movies: The Mod Squad, Brokedown Palace...the list goes on, and I've seen them all. Yeah, my thing with Claire got a little too close to obsession, but in fairness to me, it was an extraordinarily difficult time in my life (the mid- to late '90s, that is) and I should have been medicated and I wasn't.
And now, in fairness to the actors above, here's a Top Five list of good movies that they were in:
Top Five Good Movies Starring the Actors From the Previous Top Five List
5) Jennifer Garner: Washington Square. Okay, "starring" might be a stretch, but she was in it.
4) Helena Bonham Carter: A Room with a View. Gorgeous film; still one of my faves.
3) Amber Benson: King of the Hill. Not a great movie, but a good one, and my favorite film role for Amber (small as it is).
2) Phoebe Cates: Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But of course.
1) Claire Danes: Little Women. Classic adaptation of a classic book.
More on the celebrity crush tip: the other night on Lost, Matthew Fox's character revealed some lovely ink on his left shoulder. Aitch-oh-double-tee HOTT. I do believe I dropped back a notch on the Kinsey scale just from seeing that.
There's one I've started seeing a lot, for what looks to be some sort of family comedy starring Vin Diesel. Yes, that's right, Vin Diesel in a family comedy. Obviously he's following the patented Arnold Schwarzenegger Method for Being a Big Movie Star. I guess if you're going to ape someone's career moves, Arnold would be a good one to pick.
Anyway, the first time I saw the commercial I was sort of chuckling to myself and shaking my head in a Not if you were the last movie on earth kind of way, when I realized that Lauren Graham is also in the film. Well, that stopped my chuckling. Because I know that, like an insect helplessly drawn to its fiery death in one of those bug zappers, I am eventually going to cause myself grievous spiritual harm by watching this movie. Mind you, I don't think I'll actually spend any money on it, but sooner or later it's going to show up on TBS or FX, and that fateful day will find my ass on a couch. Such is the power of my crush on Lauren Graham.
Herewith a Top Five list of the worst movies I've ever sat through because I was all crushed out on somebody who was in it:
Top Five Worst Movies I've Ever Sat Through Because I Was All Crushed Out On Somebody Who Was In It
The rankings in this list are based less on the quality of the movie (since they all suck) and more on the depth of my ardor.
5) Daredevil (Jennifer Garner) I suspect that Elektra might be worse, but I haven't seen it. Prolly rent the DVD though. Sigh.
4) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Helena Bonham Carter) What a mess. Branagh should stick to Shakespeare.
3) Taboo (Amber Benson) The less said about this, the better.
2) Paradise (Phoebe Cates) Co-stars Willie Aames and a chimpanzee.
And the number one worst movie I've ever sat through because I was all crushed out on somebody who was in it...
1) I Love You, I Love You Not (Claire Danes) Did you know that Nazis are bad? Because they are. Man, I could've done an entire Top Five just with Claire Danes movies: The Mod Squad, Brokedown Palace...the list goes on, and I've seen them all. Yeah, my thing with Claire got a little too close to obsession, but in fairness to me, it was an extraordinarily difficult time in my life (the mid- to late '90s, that is) and I should have been medicated and I wasn't.
And now, in fairness to the actors above, here's a Top Five list of good movies that they were in:
Top Five Good Movies Starring the Actors From the Previous Top Five List
5) Jennifer Garner: Washington Square. Okay, "starring" might be a stretch, but she was in it.
4) Helena Bonham Carter: A Room with a View. Gorgeous film; still one of my faves.
3) Amber Benson: King of the Hill. Not a great movie, but a good one, and my favorite film role for Amber (small as it is).
2) Phoebe Cates: Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But of course.
1) Claire Danes: Little Women. Classic adaptation of a classic book.
More on the celebrity crush tip: the other night on Lost, Matthew Fox's character revealed some lovely ink on his left shoulder. Aitch-oh-double-tee HOTT. I do believe I dropped back a notch on the Kinsey scale just from seeing that.
February 7, 2005
The post-Super Bowl outcry you'll never hear
So, yesterday was the Super Bowl. Normally I stay as far away as possible from overhyped sporting events, but I was shopping in Target and they had every TV in their electronics department tuned to The Big Game (and turned up excruciatingly loud), so I couldn’t completely avoid it. Although I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on, I did hear one of the announcers say that Paul McCartney would be playing during the halftime show. As a Beatles fan from way back (albeit one who, were she to make a Top Five list of her favorite Beatles, would place Paul at number five, right behind Stu Sutcliffe) I thought I’d check it out, if only for nostalgia’s sake.
I got home and turned on the TV just in time to see Sir Paul begin his set. It was kinda weird…everything was so note-perfect that I felt like I was watching a performance of Beatlemania, except it was so perfunctory that it wasn’t even as good as Beatlemania.
What it was, of course, was safe. The hoi polloi love Paul for the same reasons that I dislike him: he’s inoffensive and bland. And we all know that he was chosen for just those qualities, because we all know what happened at last year’s halftime show: blah blah Janet blah blah wardrobe malfunction blah blah the world is going to end because little Billy saw a boob and because female sexuality is EVIL EVIL EVIL.
That’s already a more thorough analysis of Hootergate than I ever wanted to engage in, so let me get to my point. Just after the halftime show, and before I could get away from the dinner I was making to change the channel, there was some sort of football montage that was set to U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Okay, I get it: they play football on Sunday and it’s a violent contact sport. Cute. And completely, utterly appalling. For anyone who’s unaware, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” commemorates the murder of 14 unarmed Irish protesters by British soldiers in 1972. More than that, it’s a clarion call for an end to sectarian bloodshed in Ireland, and by extension anywhere that enmity breeds violence. In so many ways it was so very inappropriate to use that song that way, especially given the continued US military presence in Iraq and the fact that we’ll probably never know the number of innocent Iraqi civilians killed by US soldiers. I was, as I said, appalled, appalled and offended, as an Irish-American, as an American, as just a person with any kind of awareness and sensitivity.
If the people who were in an uproar over seeing a female breast on TV for half a second had any true sense of righteousness, as well as even a modicum of political and historical awareness, the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” would never have entered the lexicon, and the hue and cry over this would be deafening.
You’ll note that it’s not.
I got home and turned on the TV just in time to see Sir Paul begin his set. It was kinda weird…everything was so note-perfect that I felt like I was watching a performance of Beatlemania, except it was so perfunctory that it wasn’t even as good as Beatlemania.
What it was, of course, was safe. The hoi polloi love Paul for the same reasons that I dislike him: he’s inoffensive and bland. And we all know that he was chosen for just those qualities, because we all know what happened at last year’s halftime show: blah blah Janet blah blah wardrobe malfunction blah blah the world is going to end because little Billy saw a boob and because female sexuality is EVIL EVIL EVIL.
That’s already a more thorough analysis of Hootergate than I ever wanted to engage in, so let me get to my point. Just after the halftime show, and before I could get away from the dinner I was making to change the channel, there was some sort of football montage that was set to U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Okay, I get it: they play football on Sunday and it’s a violent contact sport. Cute. And completely, utterly appalling. For anyone who’s unaware, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” commemorates the murder of 14 unarmed Irish protesters by British soldiers in 1972. More than that, it’s a clarion call for an end to sectarian bloodshed in Ireland, and by extension anywhere that enmity breeds violence. In so many ways it was so very inappropriate to use that song that way, especially given the continued US military presence in Iraq and the fact that we’ll probably never know the number of innocent Iraqi civilians killed by US soldiers. I was, as I said, appalled, appalled and offended, as an Irish-American, as an American, as just a person with any kind of awareness and sensitivity.
If the people who were in an uproar over seeing a female breast on TV for half a second had any true sense of righteousness, as well as even a modicum of political and historical awareness, the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” would never have entered the lexicon, and the hue and cry over this would be deafening.
You’ll note that it’s not.
January 25, 2005
A birthday card, the moon, and Axl Rose
On my way home from work yesterday I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things (bread, tea, juice) and to get a birthday card for my father. I’d already looked for a card in three other stores and hadn’t found one I liked. I was anticipating having to look through every card in the rack, again not finding one that I liked, finding two that were okay, endlessly vacillating between them, and all in all spending way too much time in the card aisle and not even being satisfied in the end. That’s pretty much every card-buying experience I’ve ever had.
Instead of that, though, I went to the card aisle and the very first card I picked up was exactly the one that I wanted. Somewhat stunned, I got the other things that I needed, not even minding so much that they were out of my usual bread, and left the store.
Outside the sun had set and it was cold, but not frigid. The now-familiar tang of piñon smoke came to me across the hazy twilight. I inhaled deeply, then looked up through the bare branches of the cottonwood trees and was gobsmacked by the sight of the huge, nearly-full moon rising over Sandia Peak. I put my grocery bag down and just stood there, watching the moon until it disappeared behind a low-hanging cloud.
Then I went to my car, and when I started it up I was just in time to hear the opening riff of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” on the radio. You know, Guns N’ Roses had a checkered career both musically and otherwise, but at their best they were one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet, and “Sweet Child” is GN’R at their absolute best. I fucking love that song, man. And it was the album version, not the radio edit, so for six minutes I sat in my car totally rocking out and not caring if the people passing by thought I was weird or insane. Then I went home.
I just want to thank the Universe for handing me that short span of time in which things were really good.
Instead of that, though, I went to the card aisle and the very first card I picked up was exactly the one that I wanted. Somewhat stunned, I got the other things that I needed, not even minding so much that they were out of my usual bread, and left the store.
Outside the sun had set and it was cold, but not frigid. The now-familiar tang of piñon smoke came to me across the hazy twilight. I inhaled deeply, then looked up through the bare branches of the cottonwood trees and was gobsmacked by the sight of the huge, nearly-full moon rising over Sandia Peak. I put my grocery bag down and just stood there, watching the moon until it disappeared behind a low-hanging cloud.
Then I went to my car, and when I started it up I was just in time to hear the opening riff of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” on the radio. You know, Guns N’ Roses had a checkered career both musically and otherwise, but at their best they were one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet, and “Sweet Child” is GN’R at their absolute best. I fucking love that song, man. And it was the album version, not the radio edit, so for six minutes I sat in my car totally rocking out and not caring if the people passing by thought I was weird or insane. Then I went home.
I just want to thank the Universe for handing me that short span of time in which things were really good.
January 24, 2005
I don't even know where the Caucasus IS.
A week ago was Martin Luther King Day, a day that always provokes a lot of thought and discussion about color, race, and ethnicity. There’s a bit of irony in that, since Dr. King dreamed--as do most of us, I think--of a society in which those things don’t matter. Of course, despite the progress we’ve made since the beginning of the civil rights movement, we’re not even close to having such a society, and so we continue to talk about race. Depending on the context, sometimes that’s a bad thing and sometimes it’s a good thing.
In addition to MLK Day, a couple of other things have had me thinking about race. I finally got around to watching a PBS documentary about Los Angeles that I taped weeks ago, and it had a lot to say about that city’s ever-changing mosaic of ethnicities and the relationships among them. (Strange thing: when I was younger I had nothing but contempt for L.A.; as I’ve gotten older I’ve become deeply fascinated by and even enamored of it.) Then there was Jamie Foxx’s win at the Golden Globes for Ray, along with Don Cheadle’s nomination for Hotel Rwanda. (Judging by the audience, Cheadle was the popular favorite, and I kept imagining that if he’d won as well as Foxx, Julia Roberts would have popped up out of the stage to tell us that she loves her life.) There was also a recent experience with my bank, an erroneously bounced check, and white privilege. Actually, I was going to write something about that, but it seemed too serious, and as serious a subject as race can be, I’m not in the mood to be all that serious about it right now.
So, there was also the 20 minutes or so of The Big Lebowski that I watched as I was eating breakfast on Sunday. I’d seen it before (underrated movie, by the way) and was on my way out so I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it was near the beginning where Jeff Bridges refers to the guy who peed on his rug as a “Chinaman”, and then John Goodman says something to the effect of the “preferred nomenclature” being “Asian-American”. In our politically correct age we often have to negotiate the pitfalls of preferred nomenclature, and even when you’re sensitive to it, the nuances can be tricky. I’m not entirely sure, for instance, why some people seem to prefer “African American” over “African-American” (i.e., non-hypenated versus hyphenated). To me, they connote different things: an African-American is an American of (black) African ancestry (which is generally what we’re talking about when we use the phrase), while an African American is an American who emigrated from Africa. This is obviously a grey area, though, which is why Snoop Dogg can make a joke about how Charlize Theron should give him a call, because they have so much in common: they’re both African American.
Since moving to the Southwest, I’ve noted that while the American Indians I knew in the Northeast seemed universally to disdain the term “Native American” (and to prefer “Indian”), out here it’s “Native American” that takes preference (so far as I can tell). I’ve also gotten straight on the fact that “Hispanic” and “Latino” are not interchangeable, since “Hispanic” includes natives of Spain and those of immediate Spanish descent, while “Latino” refers only to emigrants from Latin America and their descendants.
None of those terms applies to me, so I don’t really feel entitled to an opinion about them. (Note that I didn’t say I don’t have one, just that I don’t feel entitled to it.) But I’d like to talk about a term that does apply to me: Caucasian. I’ve heard it on numerous occasions recently (which is what got me thinking about it), in various contexts, from the playful (like Jamie Foxx’s acceptance speech) to the serious (like the L.A. documentary). And here’s what I think: it’s a doofy-ass word, and it’s time we got rid of it. It’s a holdover from a time when scientists believed that all humans could be categorized as one of 3 races, which they termed Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid. They’ve since realized that things are far more complex than that, and indeed have begun to question whether race is even a viable scientific construct. Plus, “Caucasoid” and the sibling that replaced it in popular speech, “Caucasian”, were never accurate terms to begin with, since the theory that the peoples they described originated in the Caucasus region of Eurasia proved false.
In modern American English, of course, “Caucasian” is a synonym for “white”. It would surprise the scientists who coined it to learn that it was being used in this way, and it would surprise most people who use it nowadays to learn that it originally included a lot of folks who aren’t considered white, including the peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. (It would no doubt surprise a lot of white Americans to know that whiteness itself is a flexible concept, and that if their ancestors came from places like Italy, Ireland, and Poland, they weren’t considered white when they got here.)
But anyway, the fact that “Caucasian” and “white” are synonymous obviates the need for both, so I’m voting we dump Caucasian. To me, it’s like “Negro” or “Oriental”: not offensive, exactly, but clunky, anachronistic, and weird. It just grates when I hear it in a sentence. If it’s being employed for comedic effect, that’s different, but no one should use it seriously.
Another synonym for “white” as it’s used in Present-Day English is “European” (or “of European ancestry”). I’m hardly going to be offended if someone refers to me as white, but I like the term “European-American” better. “African(-)American” came into use as a means of identifying people by their ethnic ancestry rather than the color of their skin, which--as long as we have to keep sticking people into categories--I think is a good idea. So I started using “European-American” to describe myself some time ago, but people always kind of looked at me funny…in many cases I think they thought I was making some sort of sardonic comment on “African-American”, which was totally not the case. Lately, though, I’ve started to see “European-American” or variations thereof popping up on forms and stuff. Usually it’s something like “White/European”. I’m trying to encourage it.
At the very least, though, let’s get people to quit with “Caucasian”.
In addition to MLK Day, a couple of other things have had me thinking about race. I finally got around to watching a PBS documentary about Los Angeles that I taped weeks ago, and it had a lot to say about that city’s ever-changing mosaic of ethnicities and the relationships among them. (Strange thing: when I was younger I had nothing but contempt for L.A.; as I’ve gotten older I’ve become deeply fascinated by and even enamored of it.) Then there was Jamie Foxx’s win at the Golden Globes for Ray, along with Don Cheadle’s nomination for Hotel Rwanda. (Judging by the audience, Cheadle was the popular favorite, and I kept imagining that if he’d won as well as Foxx, Julia Roberts would have popped up out of the stage to tell us that she loves her life.) There was also a recent experience with my bank, an erroneously bounced check, and white privilege. Actually, I was going to write something about that, but it seemed too serious, and as serious a subject as race can be, I’m not in the mood to be all that serious about it right now.
So, there was also the 20 minutes or so of The Big Lebowski that I watched as I was eating breakfast on Sunday. I’d seen it before (underrated movie, by the way) and was on my way out so I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it was near the beginning where Jeff Bridges refers to the guy who peed on his rug as a “Chinaman”, and then John Goodman says something to the effect of the “preferred nomenclature” being “Asian-American”. In our politically correct age we often have to negotiate the pitfalls of preferred nomenclature, and even when you’re sensitive to it, the nuances can be tricky. I’m not entirely sure, for instance, why some people seem to prefer “African American” over “African-American” (i.e., non-hypenated versus hyphenated). To me, they connote different things: an African-American is an American of (black) African ancestry (which is generally what we’re talking about when we use the phrase), while an African American is an American who emigrated from Africa. This is obviously a grey area, though, which is why Snoop Dogg can make a joke about how Charlize Theron should give him a call, because they have so much in common: they’re both African American.
Since moving to the Southwest, I’ve noted that while the American Indians I knew in the Northeast seemed universally to disdain the term “Native American” (and to prefer “Indian”), out here it’s “Native American” that takes preference (so far as I can tell). I’ve also gotten straight on the fact that “Hispanic” and “Latino” are not interchangeable, since “Hispanic” includes natives of Spain and those of immediate Spanish descent, while “Latino” refers only to emigrants from Latin America and their descendants.
None of those terms applies to me, so I don’t really feel entitled to an opinion about them. (Note that I didn’t say I don’t have one, just that I don’t feel entitled to it.) But I’d like to talk about a term that does apply to me: Caucasian. I’ve heard it on numerous occasions recently (which is what got me thinking about it), in various contexts, from the playful (like Jamie Foxx’s acceptance speech) to the serious (like the L.A. documentary). And here’s what I think: it’s a doofy-ass word, and it’s time we got rid of it. It’s a holdover from a time when scientists believed that all humans could be categorized as one of 3 races, which they termed Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid. They’ve since realized that things are far more complex than that, and indeed have begun to question whether race is even a viable scientific construct. Plus, “Caucasoid” and the sibling that replaced it in popular speech, “Caucasian”, were never accurate terms to begin with, since the theory that the peoples they described originated in the Caucasus region of Eurasia proved false.
In modern American English, of course, “Caucasian” is a synonym for “white”. It would surprise the scientists who coined it to learn that it was being used in this way, and it would surprise most people who use it nowadays to learn that it originally included a lot of folks who aren’t considered white, including the peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. (It would no doubt surprise a lot of white Americans to know that whiteness itself is a flexible concept, and that if their ancestors came from places like Italy, Ireland, and Poland, they weren’t considered white when they got here.)
But anyway, the fact that “Caucasian” and “white” are synonymous obviates the need for both, so I’m voting we dump Caucasian. To me, it’s like “Negro” or “Oriental”: not offensive, exactly, but clunky, anachronistic, and weird. It just grates when I hear it in a sentence. If it’s being employed for comedic effect, that’s different, but no one should use it seriously.
Another synonym for “white” as it’s used in Present-Day English is “European” (or “of European ancestry”). I’m hardly going to be offended if someone refers to me as white, but I like the term “European-American” better. “African(-)American” came into use as a means of identifying people by their ethnic ancestry rather than the color of their skin, which--as long as we have to keep sticking people into categories--I think is a good idea. So I started using “European-American” to describe myself some time ago, but people always kind of looked at me funny…in many cases I think they thought I was making some sort of sardonic comment on “African-American”, which was totally not the case. Lately, though, I’ve started to see “European-American” or variations thereof popping up on forms and stuff. Usually it’s something like “White/European”. I’m trying to encourage it.
At the very least, though, let’s get people to quit with “Caucasian”.
January 14, 2005
I got lubed by a hot guy
I took Marylou to Jiffy Lube yesterday for her three-month oil change (if it's not obvious, Marylou is my car...she's named both for the character in On the Road and a favorite singer-songwriter of mine, Mary Lou Lord) and I thought the guy who--ahem--serviced me was totally hot. Why is this a blogworthy event? Because, excluding celebrities, I see a guy that I think is hot like once every...I'm gonna say two years. The last time I remember seeing one was actually about two-and-a-half years ago, I think. My friend Jessica, singer-songwriter par excellence and my former bandmate, was playing a show in NYC and there was a guy at the bar who looked like Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave) with a bit of Colin Farrell thrown in (not, fortunately, the eyebrow bit). Hot.
The Jiffy Lube guy, whose name was Tim, was a 50/50 cross between Edward Norton and John Cusack, but with black hair and blue eyes. I think both Norton and Cusack are good-looking men, but more importantly I like them both a lot as actors, which I think was informing my attraction to Tim. Also, black hair/blue eyes is something of a magic combo for me, which helps explain my burning lust for Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls). That, and her smokin' bod.
Yeah, don't mind me. The long, cold, lonely winter nights are getting to me, is all.
The Jiffy Lube guy, whose name was Tim, was a 50/50 cross between Edward Norton and John Cusack, but with black hair and blue eyes. I think both Norton and Cusack are good-looking men, but more importantly I like them both a lot as actors, which I think was informing my attraction to Tim. Also, black hair/blue eyes is something of a magic combo for me, which helps explain my burning lust for Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls). That, and her smokin' bod.
Yeah, don't mind me. The long, cold, lonely winter nights are getting to me, is all.
January 12, 2005
Music alert: Shivaree
When I discover good music that I've not heard before, I like to share it with people. And what better forum than this? Um, well...maybe one that people actually read, but...you know. I also like it when people share good music with me, so fire away anytime you've got something.
Shivaree takes their name from an Anglicized French word meaning (according to Dictionary.com) "a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds", and their singer's name is Ambrosia Parsley, so how can you not love them? Imagine a whiskey-drunk Christina Amphlett possessed by the spirit of Billie Holiday and singing Kurt Weill songs at a dive bar in Buenos Aires. Their website calls them "strange, sultry, darkly comic, and constantly changing", and from what I've heard I agree. Listen to clips of all the songs from their new record at the site, or check out this one for a few full-length streams from a previous record.
Shivaree takes their name from an Anglicized French word meaning (according to Dictionary.com) "a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds", and their singer's name is Ambrosia Parsley, so how can you not love them? Imagine a whiskey-drunk Christina Amphlett possessed by the spirit of Billie Holiday and singing Kurt Weill songs at a dive bar in Buenos Aires. Their website calls them "strange, sultry, darkly comic, and constantly changing", and from what I've heard I agree. Listen to clips of all the songs from their new record at the site, or check out this one for a few full-length streams from a previous record.
January 11, 2005
Racial profiling? You make the call.
So, I’m trying to be vigilant. That’s how we’re supposed to help fight terrorism, right? Keep our eyes open, report anything suspicious or weird? Narc on our neighbors and whatnot? Actually, despite the Orwellian implications, I think it’s generally a good idea. People mostly tend to be oblivious to…you know, everything, and disinclined to act even if they do notice something. Although I’m a pretty observant person--I like to think I have a writer’s eye--I’m often guilty of the latter, mostly because I don’t trust my instincts, or I think I’m just being silly if I feel like something’s wrong. I’m trying not to do that, both for my sake and everyone else’s.
For example, last summer I was coming out of the post office in Manhattan--the huge one across from Penn Station--and I noticed two large--LARGE--suitcases sitting in the middle of the steps. They didn’t seem to belong to anyone. Mind you, there will people everywhere--it was lunch hour, and a beautiful day, so the steps were crowded with people sitting and eating as well as going in and out of the post office. But the bags were just sitting there, and no one seemed to notice. I stood there for a little bit to see if anyone would retrieve them. I thought about calling 911 but that definitely seemed excessive. I looked around for a cop but of course I didn’t see one. I remembered a few years back, when I was sitting in a Paris train station and a guy sitting near me left his briefcase for like one second to go grab a schedule or something, and immediately the case was surrounded by three or four assault-rifle-wielding soldiers. This was way before 9/11 or the Madrid bombing or anything like that. People love to make fun of the French and especially the French military, but let me tell you, they’re on top of shit.
Anyway, I went back into the post office and sort of wandered around, looking for someone I might tell, but again there were no cops, and there were long lines at all of the windows. I went back outside and looked at the bags again. By now they’d been there for at least 20 minutes, and it’s pretty hard to imagine someone legitimately leaving their possessions alone like that in the middle of New York friggin City. Now I was really going to call 911, but then I remembered that there was a police substation right across the street. So I walked to the corner to cross, and then I see this guy come running up out of the subway station, run over to the bags and grab them, then disappear back down into the subway. It was very odd. In any event, I decided not to tell the cops, and since the subway didn’t blow up, I guess it was all right.
That was my only experience with being on the front lines of the War Against Terror, until recently when I was returning from my trip back East for the holidays. I flew into and out of Newark, where things always seem a little bit more tense than they do at other airports. I mean, it’s where Flight 93 took off from, so I guess it’s understandable. And after having to remove every article of clothing that wasn’t in direct contact with my skin in order to get through security, and then passing a dude spread-eagled against the wall and surrounded by cops, I was feeling a little tense myself. So as I was waiting in line to board my flight, I glanced over at a row of empty seats and I noticed a book sitting there. It was softcover, about the size of a magazine, like the workbooks we used to use in school. It had a maroon cover, and yellow writing in Arabic. There was nobody anywhere near it.
Now, maybe it was a workbook. Maybe somebody was learning Arabic, something I’ve thought about doing myself, and accidentally left their book behind. Maybe any one of a number of other plausible, non-terror related reasons for the book being there was true. But you know how sometimes in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, when Bugs would get the better of someone, as he often did, they’d morph into a lollipop with the word “sucker” on it? I swear, as I stood there looking at that book, the Arabic letters on the cover morphed into Roman ones reading “How to Blow Up a Plane”. As I got closer to the woman who was examining boarding passes, I wondered if I should say anything. There was just something about that book sitting there by itself that struck me as odd. If someone had been reading it, I don’t think it would have been so. I reached the head of the line, and as I handed the woman my boarding pass, I leaned in and quietly mentioned the book. What freaked me out was when I said the word “Arabic”--she totally froze in the act of handing me my stub and her eyes widened. At that moment a security guard walked by, having just got off the plane, apparently, and the woman grabbed her and told me to tell her (the guard) what I’d just told her (the boarding-pass-taking woman). So I did, and got the same reaction, with the freezing and the eye-widening, when I said the word “Arabic”. I pointed out to the guard where I’d seen the book, and she went to look, but there was a crowd of people behind me waiting to get on the plane, so I couldn’t see what, if anything, happened. And since I didn’t hear any news reports of books being found at Newark Airport with the fingerprints of known terrorists on them, and an unknown but stylish and attractive blonde who saved a planeload of people, I guess it wasn’t anything.
The thing is, I felt all guilty about it after I got on the plane, because obviously I was working from the assumption that Arabs, or anything related to Arabs = terrorists. I like to think I’m above such base prejudice, but clearly I’m not. Actually I know I’m not, and I hate when something happens to prove it. I tried to assuage my guilt by pointing out to myself that there were three Middle Eastern-looking men sitting right in front of me on the plane, and I didn’t think anything of it, but the fact is that, although I didn’t recognize the language they were speaking, I did recognize it as an Indic and not a Semitic language. So am I a big creep? Am I just as bad as everyone else?
For example, last summer I was coming out of the post office in Manhattan--the huge one across from Penn Station--and I noticed two large--LARGE--suitcases sitting in the middle of the steps. They didn’t seem to belong to anyone. Mind you, there will people everywhere--it was lunch hour, and a beautiful day, so the steps were crowded with people sitting and eating as well as going in and out of the post office. But the bags were just sitting there, and no one seemed to notice. I stood there for a little bit to see if anyone would retrieve them. I thought about calling 911 but that definitely seemed excessive. I looked around for a cop but of course I didn’t see one. I remembered a few years back, when I was sitting in a Paris train station and a guy sitting near me left his briefcase for like one second to go grab a schedule or something, and immediately the case was surrounded by three or four assault-rifle-wielding soldiers. This was way before 9/11 or the Madrid bombing or anything like that. People love to make fun of the French and especially the French military, but let me tell you, they’re on top of shit.
Anyway, I went back into the post office and sort of wandered around, looking for someone I might tell, but again there were no cops, and there were long lines at all of the windows. I went back outside and looked at the bags again. By now they’d been there for at least 20 minutes, and it’s pretty hard to imagine someone legitimately leaving their possessions alone like that in the middle of New York friggin City. Now I was really going to call 911, but then I remembered that there was a police substation right across the street. So I walked to the corner to cross, and then I see this guy come running up out of the subway station, run over to the bags and grab them, then disappear back down into the subway. It was very odd. In any event, I decided not to tell the cops, and since the subway didn’t blow up, I guess it was all right.
That was my only experience with being on the front lines of the War Against Terror, until recently when I was returning from my trip back East for the holidays. I flew into and out of Newark, where things always seem a little bit more tense than they do at other airports. I mean, it’s where Flight 93 took off from, so I guess it’s understandable. And after having to remove every article of clothing that wasn’t in direct contact with my skin in order to get through security, and then passing a dude spread-eagled against the wall and surrounded by cops, I was feeling a little tense myself. So as I was waiting in line to board my flight, I glanced over at a row of empty seats and I noticed a book sitting there. It was softcover, about the size of a magazine, like the workbooks we used to use in school. It had a maroon cover, and yellow writing in Arabic. There was nobody anywhere near it.
Now, maybe it was a workbook. Maybe somebody was learning Arabic, something I’ve thought about doing myself, and accidentally left their book behind. Maybe any one of a number of other plausible, non-terror related reasons for the book being there was true. But you know how sometimes in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, when Bugs would get the better of someone, as he often did, they’d morph into a lollipop with the word “sucker” on it? I swear, as I stood there looking at that book, the Arabic letters on the cover morphed into Roman ones reading “How to Blow Up a Plane”. As I got closer to the woman who was examining boarding passes, I wondered if I should say anything. There was just something about that book sitting there by itself that struck me as odd. If someone had been reading it, I don’t think it would have been so. I reached the head of the line, and as I handed the woman my boarding pass, I leaned in and quietly mentioned the book. What freaked me out was when I said the word “Arabic”--she totally froze in the act of handing me my stub and her eyes widened. At that moment a security guard walked by, having just got off the plane, apparently, and the woman grabbed her and told me to tell her (the guard) what I’d just told her (the boarding-pass-taking woman). So I did, and got the same reaction, with the freezing and the eye-widening, when I said the word “Arabic”. I pointed out to the guard where I’d seen the book, and she went to look, but there was a crowd of people behind me waiting to get on the plane, so I couldn’t see what, if anything, happened. And since I didn’t hear any news reports of books being found at Newark Airport with the fingerprints of known terrorists on them, and an unknown but stylish and attractive blonde who saved a planeload of people, I guess it wasn’t anything.
The thing is, I felt all guilty about it after I got on the plane, because obviously I was working from the assumption that Arabs, or anything related to Arabs = terrorists. I like to think I’m above such base prejudice, but clearly I’m not. Actually I know I’m not, and I hate when something happens to prove it. I tried to assuage my guilt by pointing out to myself that there were three Middle Eastern-looking men sitting right in front of me on the plane, and I didn’t think anything of it, but the fact is that, although I didn’t recognize the language they were speaking, I did recognize it as an Indic and not a Semitic language. So am I a big creep? Am I just as bad as everyone else?
January 7, 2005
Faith and the tsunami
There were any number of things I considered writing about over the holidays: how beautiful Albuquerque looks at Christmas, and how good it smells (piñon woodsmoke: one of my new favorite aromas), how airline travel in the Age of Terrorism sucks even more than it used to, how cute and wonderful and amazing my nephew Dylan and niece McKenna are. It being the Christmas season, I thought about some religious topics too, like the annual controversy over Nativity displays on public property, and the larger questions it begs. I’d still like to address that sometime in the future. But after December 26th, I felt like I couldn’t write anything without first somehow acknowledging the epic tragedy that was unfolding on the other side of the world, and I didn’t know how to do it. It felt so overwhelming. Nonetheless, here I am, taking a crack at at least some aspect of it.
My friend Kirk wrote this in his blog: "I doubt I could say anything about the tsunami that hasn't been said better elsewhere. Shit. I did read an interesting editorial in the Guardian that talked about the difficulty of sq[u]aring a belief in God to natural disasters such as earthquakes & the like. Of course that's not an issue for me [Kirk is an atheist.--J.], but the writer had a good point. Wars & mass murder and such are easy as long as you also believe in human free will. But one does wonder what the believers say about things like this." As one of “the believers,” I thought I might try to say something, although again: overwhelming. I mean, this is the sort of thing that far more learned folk than I have been debating for millennia, and have compiled vast tomes on. So I don’t expect to make any kind of definitive statement on the subject. These are just a couple of thoughts, and of course, they are my thoughts only. Your mileage may vary.
One answer might be that Kirk, and anyone else who raises this question, is looking for a rational answer, and faith--a belief in something for which there is no proof--is by nature irrational. Not very satisfying, but true nonetheless. However, such an answer could be seen as either an ignorant or disingenuous attempt at circumventing the question, so let’s move beyond it.
I remember watching, a couple of years ago, a documentary called something like Where Was God on 9/11? Frankly, it pissed me off. Unquestionably, 9/11 was horrific--the worst single thing I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, and I hope the worst thing I’ll ever witness. But when I see Americans questioning their faith in light of it, all I can think is that they’re being typically, nauseatingly solipsistic. Human beings commit atrocious acts of violence, both large and small, against other human beings every single day, all over the planet, in an astonishing variety of ways. Yet not until it happens here do Americans feel the need to confront it emotionally--not until they dimly realize that God does not, in fact, bestow special grace upon the USA do they begin to question God’s existence. Please. Where was God on 9/11? Everywhere. With the people on the planes and in the buildings. With us in our homes, in front of our television screens. With everyone who was a victim of man’s inhumanity to man that day, whether in America or China or Palestine or Sierra Leone or anywhere else. With them, with us, grieving. Just like every other day.
As Kirk points out, it’s “easy” to deal with such things from a faith standpoint as long as we believe in free will and maintain a healthy cynicism concerning human nature. I bring the topic up, however, because I think there’s something similar at work when it comes to natural disasters. Obviously we can’t blame human nature for such things as earthquakes and tsunamis--in fact we often refer to them as “acts of God.” Again, the South Asian tsunami is probably the worst natural disaster I’ve ever seen, and again I hope I never see something worse. But again, so-called acts of God kill people every day. Why, if these small but daily disasters do not cause me to question my belief in God, should this enormous one do so? The magnitude of the tsunami disaster is, as I said, overwhelming, and the morbid fixation on horror that inevitably afflicts news organizations in these situations only serves to make it worse. Shots of corpses lined up row upon row, or of mothers keening over their dead children, grieve me worse than I can stand, and I’m forced to turn away. But what about the mother whose child is swept up by a tornado, or swallowed by an earthquake? What about the mother whose child starves because of drought? What about the mother who loses a child to cancer, to malaria, to AIDS? Does her grief matter any less than the mother whose child was drowned by the tsunami? Does any human being’s grief matter less than any other’s? I’m almost offended by the fact that people seem to expect me to question my belief in God in light of this tragedy, as if I’m somehow unaware of the reality of human suffering until it shows up on CNN.
Sorrow and grief are as much a part of our lives in this world as are joy and contentment. Sometimes more a part of them, unfortunately. Thus it has ever been, yet somehow faith has endured across the ages--something like 95% of the world’s population believes in a higher power. When confronted by suffering, some people choose a retreat into existential atheism: we are alone and adrift in a cold, insensate universe. That’s never going to work for me, because I know in my heart that God exists. The Deists who flourished during the Enlightenment imagined a “clockwinder” God, who set the universe in motion, then abandoned it to its own devices. I believe in a God who is actively, intimately involved with the world. Some people choose to believe in a wanton God who metes out punishment for any infraction of the myriad rules they are supposed to follow--metes it out, sometimes, in spectacular fashion. We heard as much from bigoted, big-mouthed “Christians” like Jerry Falwell after 9/11, and it’s being preached in Indonesian mosques right now. My faith teaches, and my heart tells me, that God is a loving God. This of course begs the corollary question: why does a loving God allow such suffering? Again, that’s a subject that has been written about by better thinkers and writers than me, and I doubt I can add anything new. My religion--just to be clear, I’m a Roman Catholic Christian--teaches that God is our divine parent. (Actually it teaches that He’s our Father, and I accept that, but I also know that She’s our Mother, too.) I try to remember what it was like to be a young child, so new in the world and so unfamiliar with its ways--my parents often said and did things that bewildered or angered me, things that only as an adult am I able to understand. They did these things because they loved me, not in spite of that fact. And I fear I’m perilously close here to equating vast destruction and death with being forced to eat broccoli, but I hope I’m making my point: I believe that God made the world the way it is for a reason, and just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love us. God loves us, and grieves when we hurt, grieves especially when we hurt each other.
So what can we do? We can stop hurting each other, and we can help each other when help is needed. We can pray for the tsunami victims and everyone else who needs prayer. We can offer money when it’s possible and necessary--my small check went to Save the Children--and offer of ourselves otherwise. We can remember that every one of the scores of thousands of lives lost or devastated in South Asia matters, as every human life matters. And we can keep our faith in the God who made us and made our world, the God into whose presence we will one day come. On that day, I believe, we will all understand.
My friend Kirk wrote this in his blog: "I doubt I could say anything about the tsunami that hasn't been said better elsewhere. Shit. I did read an interesting editorial in the Guardian that talked about the difficulty of sq[u]aring a belief in God to natural disasters such as earthquakes & the like. Of course that's not an issue for me [Kirk is an atheist.--J.], but the writer had a good point. Wars & mass murder and such are easy as long as you also believe in human free will. But one does wonder what the believers say about things like this." As one of “the believers,” I thought I might try to say something, although again: overwhelming. I mean, this is the sort of thing that far more learned folk than I have been debating for millennia, and have compiled vast tomes on. So I don’t expect to make any kind of definitive statement on the subject. These are just a couple of thoughts, and of course, they are my thoughts only. Your mileage may vary.
One answer might be that Kirk, and anyone else who raises this question, is looking for a rational answer, and faith--a belief in something for which there is no proof--is by nature irrational. Not very satisfying, but true nonetheless. However, such an answer could be seen as either an ignorant or disingenuous attempt at circumventing the question, so let’s move beyond it.
I remember watching, a couple of years ago, a documentary called something like Where Was God on 9/11? Frankly, it pissed me off. Unquestionably, 9/11 was horrific--the worst single thing I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, and I hope the worst thing I’ll ever witness. But when I see Americans questioning their faith in light of it, all I can think is that they’re being typically, nauseatingly solipsistic. Human beings commit atrocious acts of violence, both large and small, against other human beings every single day, all over the planet, in an astonishing variety of ways. Yet not until it happens here do Americans feel the need to confront it emotionally--not until they dimly realize that God does not, in fact, bestow special grace upon the USA do they begin to question God’s existence. Please. Where was God on 9/11? Everywhere. With the people on the planes and in the buildings. With us in our homes, in front of our television screens. With everyone who was a victim of man’s inhumanity to man that day, whether in America or China or Palestine or Sierra Leone or anywhere else. With them, with us, grieving. Just like every other day.
As Kirk points out, it’s “easy” to deal with such things from a faith standpoint as long as we believe in free will and maintain a healthy cynicism concerning human nature. I bring the topic up, however, because I think there’s something similar at work when it comes to natural disasters. Obviously we can’t blame human nature for such things as earthquakes and tsunamis--in fact we often refer to them as “acts of God.” Again, the South Asian tsunami is probably the worst natural disaster I’ve ever seen, and again I hope I never see something worse. But again, so-called acts of God kill people every day. Why, if these small but daily disasters do not cause me to question my belief in God, should this enormous one do so? The magnitude of the tsunami disaster is, as I said, overwhelming, and the morbid fixation on horror that inevitably afflicts news organizations in these situations only serves to make it worse. Shots of corpses lined up row upon row, or of mothers keening over their dead children, grieve me worse than I can stand, and I’m forced to turn away. But what about the mother whose child is swept up by a tornado, or swallowed by an earthquake? What about the mother whose child starves because of drought? What about the mother who loses a child to cancer, to malaria, to AIDS? Does her grief matter any less than the mother whose child was drowned by the tsunami? Does any human being’s grief matter less than any other’s? I’m almost offended by the fact that people seem to expect me to question my belief in God in light of this tragedy, as if I’m somehow unaware of the reality of human suffering until it shows up on CNN.
Sorrow and grief are as much a part of our lives in this world as are joy and contentment. Sometimes more a part of them, unfortunately. Thus it has ever been, yet somehow faith has endured across the ages--something like 95% of the world’s population believes in a higher power. When confronted by suffering, some people choose a retreat into existential atheism: we are alone and adrift in a cold, insensate universe. That’s never going to work for me, because I know in my heart that God exists. The Deists who flourished during the Enlightenment imagined a “clockwinder” God, who set the universe in motion, then abandoned it to its own devices. I believe in a God who is actively, intimately involved with the world. Some people choose to believe in a wanton God who metes out punishment for any infraction of the myriad rules they are supposed to follow--metes it out, sometimes, in spectacular fashion. We heard as much from bigoted, big-mouthed “Christians” like Jerry Falwell after 9/11, and it’s being preached in Indonesian mosques right now. My faith teaches, and my heart tells me, that God is a loving God. This of course begs the corollary question: why does a loving God allow such suffering? Again, that’s a subject that has been written about by better thinkers and writers than me, and I doubt I can add anything new. My religion--just to be clear, I’m a Roman Catholic Christian--teaches that God is our divine parent. (Actually it teaches that He’s our Father, and I accept that, but I also know that She’s our Mother, too.) I try to remember what it was like to be a young child, so new in the world and so unfamiliar with its ways--my parents often said and did things that bewildered or angered me, things that only as an adult am I able to understand. They did these things because they loved me, not in spite of that fact. And I fear I’m perilously close here to equating vast destruction and death with being forced to eat broccoli, but I hope I’m making my point: I believe that God made the world the way it is for a reason, and just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love us. God loves us, and grieves when we hurt, grieves especially when we hurt each other.
So what can we do? We can stop hurting each other, and we can help each other when help is needed. We can pray for the tsunami victims and everyone else who needs prayer. We can offer money when it’s possible and necessary--my small check went to Save the Children--and offer of ourselves otherwise. We can remember that every one of the scores of thousands of lives lost or devastated in South Asia matters, as every human life matters. And we can keep our faith in the God who made us and made our world, the God into whose presence we will one day come. On that day, I believe, we will all understand.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
