Who let this movie happen?

Why didn't anyone tell me that Happy Feet is the worst movie made in my lifetime? Sparky and I just finished watching it - barely. I lost count of how many messages contradicted themselves - or how long I waited for the movie to actually begin...

And if anyone understands exactly what age group or target audience this movie was aiming for, please fill me in... The movie goes back and forth from lame musical-style music video -> scary predators who promise to return, but never trouble us again -> to all kinds of ethnic stereotyping that would make Jar Jar Binks blush -> torture scenes where an old penguin gets strangled -> to a movie with a mission... and then back to, "Dance, I said!"

My head hurts and I want my 108 minutes back. I would do something that would make my head hurt less than what just happened... like maybe hit my head against the wall. clunk. clunk. clunk.

Do not adjust your sets

Sparklestone and I have recently begun watching Star Trek: Enterprise on DVD. A year or so ago, we watched the entire 7-season series of The Next Generation. We geeked hard and we loved it. Still do.

For those of you not up to our geekiness quotient, Enterprise is the story of Earth's space exploration work prior to Captain Kirk's adventures. The captain of this Enterprise is Captain Archer - played by Scott Bakula. That's right, Mr. Quantum Leap himself... it really works. The ship is much smaller than any we have known - especially the interior, the Computer is not very smart yet, and most of the people on the ship are humans. It's very easy to relate to this crew as they are the first Earth team to go a-exploring - they're more like us now than any of the other crews we know. The Captain is wearing a baseball cap with the ship's numbers embroidered on it, for crying out loud.

But the lighting is really incredible. During the second episode that we watched, Sparkle stopped the DVD and put in a different movie just to make sure that nothing was going wrong with his (big, fancy, new) TV. Sure enough, the lighting for the show is different. It reminds me very much of the lighting in the original Star Trek series. The light is muted and there is a lot of soft-focus action. It certainly achieves the feeling that we're watching a little bit of pre-history - that we're looking back on events that have already happened, but that we just haven't yet seen. And that's fascinating because Enterprise is still a possible *future* for us, not old news.

Hippies make me happy

Last night, our friends, The J's, took us to see Medeski, Martin, and Wood. It's only the second time in our almost 8-year friendship that we've gone to see music together. We have dramatically different musical tastes. They don't care for folk or country music and we don't care for squeaky frenetic jazz. Dave, Janette, and I can agree on some 80's post-punk/goth/rock bands, but even then, we're a few years apart from each other. The one single music show we attended together prior to last night was a Tori Amos show, in Omaha, in 2002 or so.

Last night the band played an acoustic show, which is reportedly rare for these guys. I had never listened to their music before because while The J's are fans, even they have told us that sometimes the music gets too crazy for them - so crazy that once even left an MMW show between sets.

We got to the show a little late last night, because The J's had to accept an offer on their house (woohoo!). By the time we got there, the only seats left were almost behind the band - we could only see the back of the percussionist (Mr. Martin, I believe) and the left side of the bassist (Wood). I don't know what kinds of instruments Medeski was playing, but I did notice a piano and some other huge keyboard on the stage when we walked in. Those guys played all KINDS of instruments! We got to watch the percussionist make some sounds out of a tambourine and a cymbal that had us asking, "How did he do that?" Most of the show was incredible - only about 15% of what I heard was the kind of music that really makes me feel like I'm completely crazy and makes me beg to be sedated. Admittedly, even less than I have the vocabulary to talk about music, I don't have the ear for comprehending that kind of sound. I don't like it. But they played "What'd I Say," by Ray Charles and it was just beyond exciting. I fully expected the audience to start singing "Aaaaayyyy, Ohhhhhh."

At the same table as us were 3 hippies - one of them had the whole look down to a T - hair pulled back in a head band, beard way too long and big for his face, big ol' baggy clothes on his skinny little body. They were SO fun to watch - dancing all over, hands pointing, yelling "YE-AH" in a big voice. It wasn't that kind of show - it was definitely a seated show, but these folks were just HAPPY to be happy. I had a really good time watching them. On the way home, Sparkle pointed out that it's amazing that current 20-something hippies look exactly like 20-something hippies looked 20 years ago. I certainly love to imagine Sparkle and all his friends, not quite 20 years ago, getting down, being happy, making other people happy like those folks made me smile last night.

Tiny little laughing at my tiny little self

I like Modest Mouse. Sparklestone doesn't always care for them so much because, as he says, "I just can't handle that manic angriness right this second." But I have listened to Good News for People Who Love Bad News so much that I have started to get the lyrics and to uncover how very smart they are. I couldn't wait for the new album to come out, so when it did, I bought it that day.

Side note: for me to 1) know that a particular album is being released on a particular date, 2) anxiously await that date, and 3) actually purchase the album on that date is all new. It's the result of mine and Sparkle's commitment over a year ago to get back into music. It's very exciting!

I've listened to the new album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank enough to catch a few really good songs and enough to know that I'll keep going back to it to dig deeper and get more out of it. There are songs that just keep getting really stuck in my teeth and I have to go play them just to find out if they're really as good as they taste in my memory. They're usually better than I remember.

My favorite song so far - the one I keep going back to over and over - is "Missed the Boat." The music sounds so sweet and the singer's voice (I'll go look up his name now: ah... Isaac Brock) is so calm and so soothing -almost like a lullabye-, while the lyrics are so damning. I love that juxtaposition - it's like a brick pillow (something I tried to explain to my almost-4-year-old friend, A, last weekend).

For those of you who don't know, I am trained in literary theory. Admittedly, I'm rusty, but I did spent a lot of time working on it. At the very least, I consider myself a feminist post-modernist, if not a deconstructionist. (Yeah, OK, that's how I consider it. But really, I haven't done this in so long that a true post-modern feminist would scorch me for even bringing it up. And a real deconstructionist would just take me apart.) Because of those tendencies, I don't put much stock in trying to figure out the intent of the author or "what the author is really trying to say." The exciting thing about a text is that it's up to the reader to get/apply/bring/create the meaning of the words. So here's what I'm hearing: this song is talking about how our country (you, me, all of us) got into the current war in Iraq.

A few of the lines that get me every time:

Our ideas held no water, but we used 'em like a dam.

and

We built ourselves a pillar, we just used it as a crutch.

and in the same verse:

We were suddenly uncertain, at least I'm pretty sure I am.

In another verse:

We didn't read the invite, we just dance at our wake.
All our favorite songs were playing so we could shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.

And finally, the verse that Mr. Brock (I might remember his name for 5 more minutes!) whispers in the sweetest little rhythmic story telling voice:

Tiny curtains open and we hear the tiny clap of little hands. A tiny man would tell a little joke and get a tiny laugh from all the folks.

Modest Mouse plays and sings the song so sweetly, in such an addictively lovely way, that it's hard to remember that missing the boat is a bad thing. Missing the boat leaves us in a place where we don't want to be. The song is SO good - the sweet music, the sweet voices - it distracts us from the point so that we don't even know we're not getting it. And that's the point.

When a work of art uses its own devices to hide the fact that it's giving you the point... that's good art. In fact, it's poetry.

Yowza

Last night we watched Syriana, directed by Stephen Gaghan. The Netflix sleeve on the disc started with the following:

George Clooney (who gained 30 lbs. for the role) plays CIA operative Robert Baer...

...as if that 30 pounds were the most significant accomplishment of the movie! It must be fun to write those blurbs for a living.

Syriana is a spooky movie. The director did a fine job of playing the movie out like a drama, rather than a conspiracy film from the beginning - it wasn't really until the movie was over that I figured I'd been manipulated. I also acknowledge that I want to feel like I've been manipulated so that I don't have to believe that there's any truth in the movie. Unfortunately, I can't quite convince myself that it's all untrue.

I'm starting to realize that I really enjoy movies with settings in the DC area. I love living here and I do like to see our local places in film. We recently watched Breach, directed by Billy Ray, also filmed around here. One of my co-workers pointed out that it was a DC movie that was filmed very well - it really did stay true to the landscape and the area. Nobody's come out to our house yet, but that's bound to happen sometime, right?

Marie Antoinette

I'm a fan of Sofia Coppola already, so I was pretty sure I'd like this movie before I even saw it. I was right. (I had the same experience with sushi too - I knew I would like it before I tried it).

There's no arguing - the movie is visually beautiful. And like other S.C. movies, there's a real stillness and quietness in the characters. There's not much dialogue - most of the action seems to be internal to the characters. I spent a lot of time imagining what the characters must be feeling or thinking. Sure, some people would say that the movie itself should spell it out for you, but the very act of thinking about the characters' internal worlds increased my empathy for the characters.

My favorite scene (not necessarily a spoiler, but you might wanna skip it until you see the movie): Marie has had two children already - we see them at their births. We learn about a third child when two workers carry in a large portrait of the Queen with her daughter, son, and a baby in a crib. Then the workers come back and carry away that portrait. Then, the workers come back carrying another portrait. As they move out of the frame, we see that it's the same portrait as before, without the baby in the crib. This scene is so well done - our characters don't even appear in that scene, but Marie's sense of loss over that child is so clearly expressed - even without words.

The movie gets slow in the middle, but it's not a fatal flaw. One point of the movie is that Marie was b-o-r-e-d and lonely and that on most days, time dragged for her like a chain around her leg. The movie doesn't get that slow for the viewer and it's worth waiting it out.

Everyone knows how this story ends - thankfully, the movie handles the ending gracefully. Of course, some people would say that in ending gracefully, it doesn't honor the actual events - that it's important to know that the Queen's excesses drove the people crazy and that the people were thirsty for blood. We get that. This is art and graceful endings are allowed.

---

I'm trying something different here. Instead of just trying to write about my life, which I never get around to doing sufficiently, I'm going to try to write about art that I'm coming across. As I read, watch movies, hear music, view paintings, etc, I interact with those objects. I'll write about that - and my writing will no doubt reveal what I'm thinking and living with at the moment. I'm not trying to write like an art critic, so please don't come here looking for deep insights. But if you've read or seen or heard anything that I'm writing about and want to discuss, please do! And if you have recommendations for me, don't hold back! Maybe I'll even post more than once a quarter this way.

Not quite my story, but I can learn

On a friend's recommendation, I just read The Color of Water: a Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother, by James McBride. Since the baby we'll get will most likely be a different color than we are, I'm trying to prepare for some of the reactions and situations that our family will find ourselves in.

The book gave me lots to think about. For example, there's an incident in which one of the author's brothers (all of the children in the family look black) gets wrongly arrested. The judge is about to send him to jail for the night, until his white mother stands up and says, "He is a good boy, he didn't do this thing, let him come home with me." The judge lets the boy go. Yeah, that stinks. But what really got me was the author's confusion as a young man about how to identify himself socially. His mother was white and both his father and stepfather where black. They lived in all-black neighborhoods. Was he black and was whitey bad? What about all the good white people he knew? He struggled with understanding and defining his own identity. His mother didn't discuss these issues with any of her twelve (12!) children, primarily because she didn't want to talk about her own growing up. The author finally gained some clarity as an adult, when he got his mom to explain her own childhood to him.

I'm sure that our children will have some difficulties growing up brown with white parents. I expect that they will be confused about who's side they're supposed to be on in certain situations. I'm sure that they will have to decide those questions themselves, but I am also committed to being aware of those questions. I want our children to know that it's OK to have questions and that it's OK to be confused. And that I will personally kick anyone who gives my babies any grief.

The mom's reticence to discuss her childhood challenges me. I anticipate that there will be a lot of stories that I won't be able to tell my children until they're older. I am incredibly fortunate that my real parents (NOT my birth parents) were near me throughout my childhood, so that they are able to help me remember the happy parts of being a kid. Talking about birth parents with our children will surely test me, as I know first hand how terrible birth parents can be. (Just to be clear: having a baby of your own biology does not make you a birth parent - that makes you a parent. You're a birth parent if you either give your child for adoption or if your child has to leave you because you're so bad at parenting.)

The Color of Water is much more complex and interesting than I've uncovered here. The details of how this woman raised twelve children on almost no money (because really, how much money IS enough to raise 12 children??), how she managed their educations, and how she was so determined to raise her children to be strong and proud and loved... that story is amazing.

Questions for mothers

So, we're going through the home study to get OK'd to adopt a baby and we are getting asked some annoying-assed questions. I'm sure that if most parents had to go through this process before they could get pregnant, we wouldn't have a population control issue. A sampling:

• how much cash do you have in the bank?
• how long have you been married?
• how much is your rent/ monthly mortgage payment?
• how do you feel about your mother?
  
• why do you think you view her that way?
• are you sure you won't mind if your baby isn't the same color as you?
• do you think your mom will mind?
• are you sure? what if the baby isn't white?
• really? are you sure?
• what is your fire escape plan for your house?
• ask your doctor: are you expected to live a normal life span?
• now let's say that you get a baby that is, say, not white. will that be OK?
• so, how does it make you feel that you couldn't get pregnant?
  
• what if your baby is a different color than you?

My mom is helping me to look on the bright side of these stupid questions: 1) she says that if everyone did have to go through the process prior to pregnancy, somebody wouldn't be carrying my baby right now and 2) it's either this or throwing up for three months straight, then not fitting in any of my clothes, and doing all of this without coffee in the morning or wine at night.

So I'll answer your stupid questions, just pass the espresso - and hand me that baby.