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. . . of the much-acclaimed movie that was a total bore.

Benjamin Button = a rich man's Forrest Gump

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1. So I was listening to a podcast the other day with Catherine Hardwicke and Rob Pattinson, the director and star, respectively, of the movie Twilight. And Rob Pattinson confirmed something that I, Lynn Weber, had noted myself wayyyy before I saw this podcast. He said one of the hardest things about the role was that he had to be, for example, both "pretty" and threatening at the same time. So, you know (brush, brush) . . . Rob and I are on the same wavelength about that.

2. Some good novels about winter: The Tenderness of Wolves, Smilla's Sense of Snow, The Shipping News, Forty Names for Winter.

3. I'm about to launch a campaign to get my family to vacation in the Pacific Northwest in Summer 2010. Some teasers to whet their appetite, including shots of Crater Lake, Olympic National Park, Puget Sound, and more:











































































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So as I was atop the zipline tower feeling that I couldn't do it, Jared was helping me out, making me laugh. In particular, he noted of the zipline: "It's no worse than your driving. You're going half as fast with twice the safety precautions."

Touche'.
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1. Nobody looks better in man-capris than Jared.

2. The difference between a Yankee and a Damn Yankee: The Damn Yankee stays.

3. My nephews are way smarter than I am.

4. If you look through the window at a resentful-looking guy in a plaid shirt outside of a trailer home on the way to the US National Whitewater Center, he WILL give you the finger.

5. I can still climb more than twice my height on a rock wall.

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Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. You’ve probably done something like this before; if you like, post your own answers in the comment section. (Note: I’ve abridged this somewhat from its original, overly long form.)


1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Wrapping paper; my mom trained us carefully in this area, and some of my best childhood memories are helping my mom cook and wrap presents around Christmas

2. Real tree or Artificial?
Artificial---originally for cost savings, and now for ease as well

3. Do you like eggnog?
Yes! Esp. with rum

4. Favorite gift received as a child?
Easy-Bake Oven; I LOVED my Easy-Bake Oven; also: Barbies, a trumpet

5. Hardest person to buy for?
Any male

6. Easiest person to buy for?
Any female

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
Yes

8.Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
It's a gift; there can't be any "worst"

9. Favorite Christmas Movie?
Love Actually

10. Favorite Christmas song?
O Holy Night, Welcome to Our World, The Atheist Christmas Carol

11. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Bird

12. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
Absolutely nothing; I don't believe in being annoyed by Christmas

13. Favorite ornament theme or color?
I love red lights outside

14. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Turkey, gravy, sauerkraut, cranberry sauce, and homemade fruitcake

15. What do you want for Christmas this year?
Well, in a moment of impulse I bid on a limited edition print by 20th-century artist James Rosenquist on artnet.com, so I believe I'm getting a limited edition print by 20th-century artist James Rosenquist for Christmas and I better like it

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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Conversation overhead today between one editor passing by the cubicle of another:

Editor 1: (excited) Is that a Ticonderoga??

Editor 2: Yeah, it's a great pencil.
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I gave Jay this down vest a week ago, and he loves it, wears it incessantly. He came downstairs in robe and vest this morning, and I do find him seriously cute in this getup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1. We have an extra large cubicle at work that used to be used for training new staff. Thus we call it the "training cube." But these days all we use it for is to set out food that editors have baked or freelancers have sent to us for the holidays. One colleague joked that we should just call it the "food court," and another asked if we can put a Panda Express in there.

2. We are getting Fios today. Fingers crossed that nothing will get screwed up.

3. I'm happy that Obama chose Rick Warren to participate in the inauguration. This evangelical pastor holds many views that I don't, but this is what bipartisanship means---you find common ground, even if you disagree. And Rick Warren was one of those Christian leaders who broke with past evangelical tradition to become an environmentalist, which was a huge step in turning away from knee-jerk conservatism. So he represents himself the kind of bipartisanship that Obama values.
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Extending my thoughts about women in film from yesterday . . . There are a couple of scenes in recent movies I've really liked. I'm thinking of two in particular. The first is with Brenda Blethyn in Secrets and Lies. It's a scene toward the beginning of the movie in which she's looking at herself in the mirror before she goes to bed at night. She's wiped the makeup off her face and looks at herself with a sense of despair, feeling haggard and hopeless. The second scene is from Quantum of Solace, in which M is at home but talking on speaker with colleagues about a crisis. She's in her robe, again without makeup. And as she's talking, she putting on night cream, but in this case she's matter-of-fact and brisk.

I don't know why I love those two scenes so much, but they feel very intimate and real to me. I suspect women spend a lot of time in front of mirrors at night, looking themselves over, thinking about how well or poorly they're aging. it's like a moment of thoughtfulness and (literally) self-reflection that is sometimes scary, sometimes invigorating. I love that they included such a scene in the Bond movie, especially . . . it's like an acknowledgment that M is who she is, and not just a woman playing a man's part.
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I've still got a few to see (Benjamin Button, Milk) but there's a good chance that my favorite movie of 2008 will be Twilight. Most of you will know that this is the movie adaption of Stephenie Meyer's young adult novel of the same name, and that it's a vampire romance. A high school vampire romance.

The movie has gotten generally good reviews, but (important social lecturing alert) I think a movie like this is automatically handicapped. While teenage-fantasy movies from a boy's perspective can be respected as classics (see: American Graffiti, Diner), the same can't be said of movies for girls. It's the whole Tiger Beat phenomenon: Girl crushes are mockable, silly, and said to be fixated on "safe" boys. Boy crushes can be portrayed as deep and meaningful (see: Candle in the Wind, Virgin Suicides), but is lusting after Marilyn Monroe or Megan Fox any less "safe"? Maybe a greater number of dumb, mediocre movies are made for girls, so they're associated with poor quality and empty adoration.

Twilight is not such a movie, though. I think it will go on to be a classic. Here are some of the things I liked best about it:

Direction: Twilight was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and I can't imagine a better adaptation. The pacing was perfect, and Hardwicke surely set the tone for the whole production. Like Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings, she takes the material seriously and conveys that to her actors. Hardwicke also directed Thirteen, which may be the best movie about teenagers ever made.

Acting, Part One: Kristen Stewart was cast as Bella, and she is perfect. While being beautiful, she can also look plain, which is important for this part. She is understated in her acting, which makes some of the otherwise over-the-top romantic scenes work. Example: At one point Edward Cullen (the vampire) tells her that she's in danger if she continues to be with him. A cheesier actress would furrow her brow, look longingly into his eyes, and exclaim "I don't care!" (and a cheesier director would let her). Not Kristen Stewart. She looks at him very levelly, and says the line in an almost clipped manner: "I don't care." Quick, almost like she can't trust herself to say more. This keeps the cheese factor out but still expresses underlying emotion. The only time she lets the emotion pop is after the encounter with the "bad" vampires, when she and Edward return to the car; they're tense, and he's trying to put her seatbelt on, and she angrily yells "I got it! I got it!" What makes the moment so realistic is that her voice is about 5 notes lower in pitch than it is in the rest of the movie. And isn't that the way it really happens? When you're really upset, the actual pitch of your voice changes. Kristen Stewart's greatest accomplishment, though, is not allowing Bella to be a weak or old-fashioned damsel character. Because honestly that is what the part is, that is what the plot is. But she counteracts it by making her character understated, smart, and firm and rescues the movie from a possible Ick Factor.

Acting, Part Two: Robert Pattinson is cast as Edward Cullen, and, again, he is perfect. Here are some of the tightropes Pattinson had to walk in this role: He must be handsome, but slightly odd-looking. He must act older than his year, but still like a 17-year-old. He must be a hero-character, but not ham-handed. He has to be tortured but not melodramatic. And he has to balance all these needs simultaneously through the whole performance.

Cinematography: The movie has a great look, based on a palette of grays and dull greens. Washington State looks and feels damp, dull, and menacing.

Costume: The costumes mirror the cinematography: lots of grays and greens, so understated that you actually pay no attention to the clothes at all. A lot of time the students' hair is slightly messy and humid, kind of unkempt. The characters look like and dress like high school students. Average-looking, dully clothed, perfect.

Screenplay: Above all, the screenplay is smart. It doesn't explain every little thing. It risks the viewer missing something in order to keep its head. There are moments of humor, but they never clash with the somber tone of the movie. It took me a while to realize there is not a single curse word in the script, nor a single scene of nudity. Nothing wrong with those things in their place, but a lot of times they feel like a cheap crutch in teenage movies. Twilight has nothing to lean on but its own internal strength.

So there is my review, for those obsessive enough to care. I hope I haven't overstated the case for those who haven't seen it yet. I went in with expectations of a good movie but not a great one, which can help.
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It's that wonderful time of year again---the time for Best 10 Lists. These were my favorite reads in 2008 (though not necessarily published this year), from best to 10th best:

1. The Tenderness of Wolves, by Stef Penney: A great tale of the Canadian North, and how a mother, a stranger, and a company man set out in the cold and snow to find a boy.

2. Gentlemen and Players, by Joanne Harris: Mystery, academia, trickery . . . it's all here.

3. Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope: Nuff said.

4. A Woman in Berlin, by Anonymous: The true diary of a woman journalist in Berlin at the end of World War II.

5. A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin: A very engaging fantasy novel, easy on the fantasy. More to do with family and political intrigue than dragons and fairies.

6. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, by Barbara Kingsolver: Interesting to read and informative, a great introduction to how we can eat better.

7. The Dying of the Light, by Michael Dibdin: A quirky mystery that ends up being a totally different kind of book than you think it is at the beginning. Clever and good.

8. Half-Broken Things, by Morag Joss: Psychological . . . what? It's not a mystery, really, and "thriller" seems too dashing a word for the quiet pace of this book. But it's a creepy tale of a housesitter on her last assignment.

9. A Place of Execution, by Val McDermid: Val McDermid writes mysteries usually set in Scotland, and is one of my favorite mystery writers.

10. My Latest Grievance, by Elinor Lipman: A nice antidote to Tolstoy's assertion that all happy families are the same, and boring.

Bonus: Justinian's Flea, a history of late antiquity focusing on the outbreak of plague that dashed Justinian's plans to reunite the Roman empire.

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This theme may be getting old for some, but my friend Deb is so brilliant! I think she should write for a sitcom. A high-end, bookish, only-one-out-of-twenty-will-get-it sitcom, but still. Here's an email exchange we had, just this week:

Deb (while copyediting a book):
serial commas are my friends,
dj

Lynn:
NO, you are their master!!

Deb:

*startled*

*is schooled*

*and a leeeeeeeeeeeetle bit taken aback*

*imposes artificial authoriteh over serial commas*

*is seen through*

*cannot keep classroom in order*

*is lectured by principal*

*trudges home, dejectedly*

*slips off sensible potato shoes and apple sweater*

*pets Mr. Darcy*

*prepares self single-serving frozen dinner*

*sighs*

*reads chapter in jane eyre*

*gets to bed early*

*repeat*
*like groundhog day*

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After finishing Joanne Harris's Gentlemen and Players this week, I thought about its genre. I have a weakness for novels that feature:

* an academic setting (a private boy's school, a university)
* a wide cast of characters (various academic types: the upstart, the recluse, etc.)
* witty dialogue with literary references
* gentle poking at the foibles and psychology of the setting and its denizens
* a plot centering on a character whose desperation or sociopathy leads him or her down a path of greed or sabotage

Some of the novels I've read of this type include (roughly in order of greatness):

Gentlemen and Players, by Joanne Harris
Moo, by Jane Smiley
Kill Your Darlings, by Terence Blacker
The Lecturer's Tale, by James Hynes
Small World, by David Lodge
The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen (one plot strand only)
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I present to you, herewith, The Most Charming Photo in the World:

(featuring my brother and father at Ed's wedding)




















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Look familiar? Smoke billowing out of an iconic building. Bystanders watching in horror. Businesspeople trapped in a burning building. All over the world, and all throughout time, it's the same: People living out their lives in peace and joy, and a small minority who want to destroy that peace and joy. India and Mumbai: Our thoughts and prayers are with you, in sympathy, regret, and hope that things will get better.

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A New Unity

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One of the few good things to emerge from the Bush presidency is a new coalition of citizens who have been revitalized into a vigorous defense of the principles of legality, morality, and pragmatism. Bush's administration has been so destructive that some of his harshest critics have been Republicans, even former administration officials who became appalled by what they saw: Richard Clarke, Scott McClellan, Colin Powell.

Add to this list "Matthew Alexander" (a pseudonym, for security reasons), a top interrogator in Iraq whose team tracked down Al-Qaeda's number one man in Iraq: Al-Zarqawi. His article in the Washington Post on Sunday is incredibly smart and enlightening. Although it is lengthy, I urge you to read it below:



AN INTERROGATOR SPEAKS
I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq

By Matthew Alexander
Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page B01

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.

I'm not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work.

Violence was at its peak during my five-month tour in Iraq. In February 2006, the month before I arrived, Zarqawi's forces (members of Iraq's Sunni minority) blew up the golden-domed Askariya mosque in Samarra, a shrine revered by Iraq's majority Shiites, and unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed. Reprisal killings became a daily occurrence, and suicide bombings were as common as car accidents. It felt as if the whole country was being blown to bits.

Amid the chaos, four other Air Force criminal investigators and I joined an elite team of interrogators attempting to locate Zarqawi. What I soon discovered about our methods astonished me. The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules -- and often break them. I don't have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse.

I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they're listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of "ruses and trickery"). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.

Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq. Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money. I pointed this out to Gen. George Casey, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, when he visited my prison in the summer of 2006. He did not respond.

Perhaps he should have. It turns out that my team was right to think that many disgruntled Sunnis could be peeled away from Zarqawi. A year later, Gen. David Petraeus helped boost the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces, cutting violence in the country dramatically.
Our new interrogation methods led to one of the war's biggest breakthroughs: We convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader's location. On June 8, 2006, U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders.

But Zarqawi's death wasn't enough to convince the joint Special Operations task force for which I worked to change its attitude toward interrogations. The old methods continued. I came home from Iraq feeling as if my mission was far from accomplished. Soon after my return, the public learned that another part of our government, the CIA, had repeatedly used waterboarding to try to get information out of detainees.

I know the counter-argument well -- that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that's not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate."

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

We're told that our only options are to persist in carrying out torture or to face another terrorist attack. But there truly is a better way to carry out interrogations -- and a way to get out of this false choice between torture and terror.

I'm actually quite optimistic these days, in no small measure because President-elect Barack Obama has promised to outlaw the practice of torture throughout our government. But until we renounce the sorts of abuses that have stained our national honor, al-Qaeda will be winning. Zarqawi is dead, but he has still forced us to show the world that we do not adhere to the principles we say we cherish. We're better than that. We're smarter, too.

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