Friday, April 30, 2010

Poem in Your Pocket Day

-

Here are some poems out of the (electronic) pockets of friends today:

From Matt S:

“On Armida’s Tooth-Ache,” by Mr. Gale

Ah cruel pain, thus to torment
the soft, the fair, the innocent!
Thus to disguise that angel-face
by nature form’d with ev’ry grace.

What could aim thy fury there;
is there a crime in being fair?
Go plague the ugly; thy assaults
may there perhaps mend nature’s faults;

Or let, by thee, some cruel fair
guess what we hopeless lovers bear.
If not, be kind and torture me;
but let the tender fair be free.

Source: Gentleman’s Journal, 1694.

*

From Susan P:

Tree by Jane Hirshfield


It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books—

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

*

From Audrey B:

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

*

From me, because I just watched the movie Bright Star, about John Keats:

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

*

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Of Course They Did

-

The geniuses at Summit Entertainment tossed around several names for director of Breaking Dawn, the last installment of the Twilight saga. Ang Lee, Gus Van Sant . . . world-class directors. But as soon as the name Bill Condon---director of Dreamgirls and the Academy Award broadcasts---was floated, I knew that's who they would choose. Because why choose a world-class director when you can choose the director of an awards show that honors world-class directors?


Wednesday, April 28, 2010

After Spending the Weekend with Ryan and Lindsey . . .

-

. . . I find myself at work saying things like "That's easy-peasy."

-

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My Lovely Sister . . .

-

. . . and her Texas honey

(Photo by Trish Burdett)


Straight-Up Puppy Love

-

Ryan and Rocky:

My Sweet Niece Lindsey

-

Scrumbling in the woods:


Buffer Post: Second Attempt

-

La La La La La La La!!

La La La La La La La!!

La La La La La La La!!

-

Buffer Post

-

Why did the whale cross the road?
To get to the other tide.

*

Please realize:

1. This joke is stolen from Deb's website.

2. The only reason this post exists is that, out of prudishness, I can't bring myself to post a picture of my sweet niece Lindsey RIGHT after the post titled "Sex on Film."

Damn. But now I've written "Sex" again.

And "Damn."

-

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Sex on Film

-

Watching a film on cable last week, I was inspired to start thinking of the best sex scenes in film. I started making a list, though it was hard to stay on task. I kept wanting to include sexy scenes in addition to scenes with sex---the shower scene in Casino Royale, the bedroom scene in Twilight. From there I started including films with stars I merely think are sexy (Gael Garcia Bernal in The Motorcycle Diaries, Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild).

Eventually I pulled myself back to the task at hand, and came up with the list below. Here are my top 10:



10. The English Patient
A very romantic movie, with several sex scenes with the amazing Ralph Fiennes.


9. Mountains of the Moon
This is a little-known movie about the two Englishmen who discovered the source of Victoria Falls. One is an insecure and custom-bound aristocrat. The other is a free spirit, who in one memorable scene lies in bed with his mistress, passing a candle over her body.


8. The Piano
This Jane Campion film has Holly Hunter falling in illicit love with Harvey Keitel. This makes the list for the sheer quantity of nudity.


7. Brokeback Mountain
You really feel the terrible, powerful desire that the main characters feel for each other.


6. Secretary
An amazingly honest film about a shy young woman who finds her perfect match in her dominating boss. The scene in which he first approaches her, and which sends her into the office lavatory, is almost unique in film.


5. Original Sin
This movie with Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie is not a great film, but I like it for several reasons. The love scenes with Banderas and Jolie are good. But even better is the scene between Angelina Jolie and Owen Wilson, playing for once a serious role. The way Owen Wilson's character can control her by manipulating her desire is, again, almost unique---a very rare nod to the strength of women's desire. So often men are portrayed as crazy for sex, and women are on the sidelines shaking their heads in incomprehension. This movie is a rare counterpoint to that mythology.


4. Stealing Beauty
At the end of this movie, Liv Tyler finally loses her virginity in the Italian countryside. Though it's a short scene, it really portrays the feeling of teenage sex for a girl.


3. Atonement
Library. Green dress. James McAvoy. Nuff said.


2. A Walk on the Moon
In the 1960s, middle-class, proper Diane Lane is with her husband and kids at the family camp people in her community go to every summer. The husbands go back to the city to work every week, and the wives stay at the camp with the kids. During the week, there's only one man around: the "shirt man" who sells clothes to the families out of his trailer. This shirt man happens to be played by Viggo Mortensen.


1. Enemy at the Gates
This war film got terrible reviews when it came out, but I've always loved it. Jude Law stars as a young man from rural Russia who is drafted into the Soviet army in World War II as a sharpshooter. The film depicts the siege of Leningrad and the character's battle with a Nazi sharpshooter brought in to find and destroy him. His love interest is played by Rachel Weitz, and their quiet sex scene in the barracks is absolutely one of the most powerful in all of movies. I admire the guts it takes by these actors to actually simulate real sex on camera and make it so believable.



Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Tea Party

-
I've been thinking a lot about the people involved in the Tea Party movement lately---this subsection of extreme conservatives who like Glenn Beck and seem to have outlandish views on the intent and reality of the Obama administration. A part of me hesitates to go down the road of psychoanalyzing people in the way I'm about to; it's something I condemn often enough. But I can't deny thinking this way.

The election of Obama was really something. The country was in shambles militarily and economically. A really unpopular president was about to exit. And in this campaign emerged one of the most charismatic candidates we've seen in recent decades, right up there will Bill Clinton. But while Obama had the charisma and smarts of Clinton, he also had an air of high moral values that Clinton lacked. And he was to the the first African American president of the United States.

The feeling around the time of the election was so happy and hopeful. And all of us who campaigned for Obama felt we were a part of something historic. As we watched his acceptance speech on TV, we saw people of color weeping with emotion, and we felt part of a great community and a great moment.

On the outskirts of this moment of great collective meaning, however, were . . . the losers. If you voted for Bush, you had nothing: no triumph, no community, nothing to be a part of, nothing to be proud of. You felt, perhaps, unimportant. And you had to sit and observe the glow of triumph and community radiating from those who defeated you. I'm sure some people even felt that African Americans having a moment of special celebration put them in a bad light: as the oppressors, or at least as people who aren't a part of or haven't earned a "moment."

These people needed something. They needed an identity, a cause, and a community. And that's what the Tea Party movement (to use it as a shorthand for all this rising tide) offered. From losers they became the opposition. From loners they became a movement. And they gained an identity: patriot, constitutionalist, lover of country.

In a way, there's nothing wrong with this. It's what we all try to do with our experiences: spin a loss into something positive. The problem emerges from the nature of opposition, though. To really get the kind of attention and respect these people craved, to feel the kind of heroicism and significance they needed, they had to create a crisis---to make the present situation something big and scary that they, in turn, would be heroic and significant for opposing.

And that's where the lies begin. Tyranny, death panels, outlawing of guns, Maoists in the White House. It's just a long string of lies that nonetheless serves to provide the Tea Partiers with a justification for their activity: for their meetings and protests and declarations. No matter that they sat through the skyrocketing deficit of the Bush years. No matter that Bush, conclusively, factually, lied about the war in Iraq, which cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. No matter that the only citizens who truly are in the same position as the original American revolutionaries are the residents of Washington, DC, who pay federal taxes and have no representation in Congress. Not a single representative in the House; not a single senator, much less two.

These are inconvenient truths. But the Tea Partiers aren't really interested in truth. They're interested in identity and power. They're interested in mattering. We can only hope that once they feel that they matter, they'll also feel able to stop lying and start really engaging in the political process in an honest way.

-

Monday, April 19, 2010

Paranoids Anon.

-

A friend at work mentioned this joke by the late comedian Mitch Hedberg, which cracked me up. He would joke that he'd make a horrible car mechanic because he'd diagnose every problem with "maybe there's a killer after you."

-

Saturday, April 17, 2010

I'm in Love. Again.

-

I love animation. We just got back from seeing How to Train Your Dragon.








The Art of Illustration

-
I love illustration; it might be my favorite visual art form outside of movies. But I can never find comics at the bookstore that are interesting to me. They are either in a style I don't find appealing or too much of the same thing all the way through. I wish fewer comics looked like this:


















And more like this:












This last one courtesy of Tom Humberstone, who did this one-off illustration for the book Let the Right One In. The first one is from Watchmen, and as I look at it now, it's pretty cool, at least in small doses.

-
-

Friday, April 16, 2010

Friday Miscellany

-

1. Note: Spoiler follows. Just finished a mystery by Martha Grimes called The Old Wine Shades. It's one of the few mysteries where the killer doesn't get caught at that end. The killer is known, but the police can't prove it.

2. Am determined to get to a movie this weekend.

3. It was fun sitting on the sofa this morning, watching Rocky creep out silently on the deck to try and catch squirrels.

4. A long branch (maybe 6 feet long, 2 inches in diameter) was moved from our far fence to our patio recently, and we couldn't figure out how that happened. Then Jay said he figured it out. The culprit's name, he said, begins with a W and ends with an -ifer. (That would be my brother's dog Westifer.)

-

Thursday, April 15, 2010

C'mon Now . . . How Great Would This Be?

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Get Your Veggie On

-
I was listening to NPR this morning, an interview with an ecologist about environmental threats. Usually, I hear "environmental threat" and think, Blah blah blah. But this guy was interesting. He talked about the principle of "too big to fail" and how it applied to many things, not just banks. For example: farming. Mass industrial farming will be vulnerable as the planet heats up, and we'll need many small farms instead.

As it turns out, the number of individual farms is growing for the first time in a long, long time. I'm sure this is due to the farmers' market and CSA movements. More motivation to get out to the market this spring and support local farmers.

-

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Wild Turkey, Neighbors in Their Natural Habitat

-
Our neighbors Bob and Lisa came over to tell us there was a wild turkey in the woods behind our house this afternoon. It was very cool to see this guy, especially when he eventually got a running start and then flew up into a tree.








Friday, April 9, 2010

Friday Miscellany

-

Mysteries to Try

I put together a list of some easily likable mystery/thrillers for a friend at work. These are all contemporary and set in the US or Europe. There are a lot of great historical mysteries set in other times and far-flung places (e.g., The Mistress of the Art of Death, about a woman doctor who performs autopsy in medieval Europe, and Shinju, about a detective in 1600s Tokyo). But I kept it simple for this list.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
A very popular and well-written mystery by a Swedish writer, featuring an investigative reporter and a brilliant, troubled young woman.

Thirteen Steps Down, by Ruth Rendell
The essence of Rendell: creepy and psychological.

In the Woods, by Tana French
An involving police procedural; kind of a paragon of the form.

Gentlemen and Players, by Joanne Harris
An academic mystery set in an English private school, with all the delicious cleverness and evil that implies.

The Horse You Came In On, by Martha Grimes
Martha Grimes is a huge name in the biz and extremely reliable. Her Richard Jury novels are some of my favorite mysteries, partly because the detective is an urbane detective with fun, funny friends---a refreshing change from the Ian Rankin-type of worn-down, middle-aged cop that is so prevalent. All of her Jury novels are named after pubs in which some of the action takes place, and this is one of my favorites, natch, because it’s set in Baltimore.


Kurt Cobain Biopic

Courtney Love just announced she’d like to see Robert Pattinson star in a biopic about Kurt Cobain. I think he’d be amazing: he looks enough like Cobain, does a great American accent, and has the acting chops to pull it off. My fear, though, is that critics’ (and some viewers’) feelings about Pattinson are too compromised by his association with Twilight.

A writer named Courtney recently wrote a review of Twilight for Pajiba.com. In it she wrote this: “I didn’t know much about the series, vaguely understood vampires were involved, and had only caught glimpses of the Robert Pattinson kid on Access Hollywood. Unwittingly, I had already been ensnared in what I like to refer as the Tom Cruise Syndrome: No matter how much you try to isolate one component, the others filter through and pollute or enhance the first. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who can watch Cruise and not immediately pull up the Rolodex of images of him jumping on Oprah’s couch, Scientology, and the Matt Lauer interview.”

This is so true. No one can see Tom Cruise for the good actor he is anymore (unless perhaps you were lucky enough to catch him heavily made up in an uncredited recent role, before his cover was blown). Likewise with Rob Pattinson. You know that just the IDEA of “Robert Pattinson cast in Kurt Cobain biopic” would immediately become a culture-wide joke, and his actual performance would be irrelevant. I feel like this happened with Chris Cornell’s last solo album as well; the mere idea of “Chris Cornell and Timbaland” was instantly mockable, and critics heard in the album exactly (and only) what they expected to hear.

I'm kind of a broken record about these things, aren't I? Chacun a son gout, says my friend Julie, but I always want Chacun a mon gout.

National Poetry Month

-
April is National Poetry Month, and the hues of the trees in our backyard reminded me of this Robert Frost poem:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Somewhere Down the Road

-
I started listening to Amy Grant's new CD, Somewhere Down the Road, today, and it really took me back. I've always loved Amy's music: both the fun upbeat songs and the deep meaningful ones. Because Amy's just a few years older than I am, her albums always seemed to speak to where I was in life. I could tell my whole life's story through a retrospective of her music.

One of the new songs on her album is called "Unafraid." In it she writes: "My lovely mother's getting on in years, and the way her body's aging brings her girls to tears. The way she trembles with each effort she makes, She just says heaven's getting closer each day." This made me think of my own mom, the year before she died, when Alzheimer's was taking its toll. We were visiting her house, my two sisters and me, and she was struggling to put on a shirt right. She was stuck, but she was laughing and we were laughing, and we gathered around her, helping her out and enjoying being together, even in these circumstances. And yet I had a pang in my heart, thinking how lucky she was to have three daughters who loved her and who would walk with her through this. And I felt so sad for myself, who would most likely be making that difficult walk alone.

That in turn reminded me of my heartbreak when I lost my children at different stages of pregnancy. For some reason the first one, our little son, was the hardest. We had tried to get pregnant for several years, and now I was safely into the second trimester, so full of love for this child of ours. When he mysteriously died I was struck down with grief, tears pouring out of me for weeks on end. Not long after that, Amy put out a song called "Somewhere Down the Road," which is reproduced on this new album (and gives it its title). This song expressed so perfectly how I felt: "So much pain and no good reason why. You've cried until the tears run dry. And nothing here can make you understand. The one thing that you held so dear is slipping from your hands. And you say, Why why why does it go this way?"

Losing my firstborn was the bitterest pill I'd ever swallowed. And as the years went on and I lost two more children, I struggled to make peace with the realization that we wouldn't have a family of our own. But I knew I was lucky in so many other ways: with a husband I loved, good friends, a life of peace and plenty. Life doles out injustices far worse than mine, and to live at all is to live in a world where suffering can come at any time, to anyone.

I learned a lot through my losses. I began to understand the wisdom that others have distilled for centuries before me: things like "Life is suffering." Like "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change." And several years later I saw Amy Grant at a country music awards show. She was the first recipient of a new humanitarian award named after Minnie Pearl. Minnie Pearl was actually a friend of Amy's family when she was growing up, and Amy named one of her daughters after her (using her real name, Sarah). When she gave her acceptance speech, Amy talked about Minnie, specifically how she always wanted to be married and have a family, and that didn't happen for her. "But," Amy said, "she played the cards she was dealt, beautifully."

Over the years, that's become my mantra. It's a good mantra for anyone. What else can you do with life, really? And I'm grateful for the artists--writers and musicians--whose work helps us process our own experiences and, hopefully, make the best of them.

-

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The Secret to Aging Gracefully

-

Not lingering at mirrors.
Just glance to make sure you don't have your shirt on backwards or something, then move along.

-

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Counterfeiters

-
Just saw this on Tivo. Good movie on an always-sad theme, the Holocaust. In this case, it's the (true) story of some Jewish prisoners who were pulled into a special unit because of their printing skills and tasked with creating counterfeit money for the Third Reich. What made this especially interesting were the individual personalities, from different walks of life and with different values. Thrown together, they had to negotiate their varying priorities as a group that would sink or swim together.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Easter, Courtesy of Dad

-
Easter was a great holiday for my siblings and I when we were growing up. The forsythias were usually just blooming, the crocuses were up, and we often had a new Easter outfit to wear to church. The week before, my mom would have led us in dyeing eggs, and the smell of vinegar still makes me think of home.

But the best part of Easter was the hunt for our Easter baskets. My dad didn't simply hide the baskets. Each child had a set of clues that led from one hidden clue to another, finally ending in the basket. There were usually four or five clues per child. It's amazing to think that Dad wrote five clues for between two and four children every year for more than twenty years! I still remember some of the hiding places: inside the washing machine, taped to the bottom of our dining room table (with the tablecloth hanging down so we couldn't see it), inside a utility closet. We absolutely loved trying to figure our the clues; he crafted them with just the right difficulty level for each child (though, of course, we were all gifted).

Thank you, Dad, for all those great Easter Sundays!!

-

Time for a Change

-
Thus the new blog look.

-

Cool Tree

-

I took this photo this morning and played with it: