Sunday, March 31, 2013
THIRTY EIGHT AND COUNTING
Tomorrow, John and I will be celebrating 38 years together.
Holy shit.
How the time flies.
I won't go into the chapter and verse about how we met. I just did that a short while ago when I was re-hashing the Boston Phoenix' demise.
We met through an ad I placed in the personals section.
It is a great gift to be able to stay with another person through thick and thin. Mostly thick, very little thin.
One thing is that we get to see the long haul. The past, of course. How we have grown together and even apart together.
We have learned a lot. Some serious things. How to really have a relationship. Some happy, light fun things. How to raise a wonderful Airedale. How to fight. How to enjoy longevity. The only way you can enjoy that is to have some.
One of the main things is to see history march along and to have something to do with that. Marriage equality. We don't call it "gay marriage" any more.
We were there at the outset.
We have seen friends come and go and have had to learn that not many of them will really stick over time. We move on, they move on. We are supposed to have new experience. Change.
Also to see the blossoming of the relationships that last. The ones around our own relationship. Family. Friends, a smaller number than the acquaintances.
I am getting maudlin.
Which brings us to the present.
It is just a special day among many special days and I am grateful to be able to celebrate the quantity as well as the quality.
Labels: life, marriage equality
OPTING OUT
Since the election I have been getting daily emails soliciting my support of the Obama campaign's after life.
A kind of social action thing with an agenda which isn't very clear. More of the same. Organizing for Action. I got three emails today!
I am still an Obamaphile. I support what he is doing or trying to do.
But I have qualms about the kind of thing his former people are doing now.
Barack is not running again. It is over.
Someone else will come on with the show. It might be Hillary or Joe or any number of other new generation Democrats.
But this kind of operation is not my cup of tea. It seems like having an organization for the sake of having an organization. And keeping some people employed.
The Obama Administration is what I want to support. Not a shadow organization. I think that is actually very dangerous and not even in his best interest.
So. I am busy taking myself off the mailing lists which is harder than you might think. They really do not want to take "no thanks" for an answer. But I am persistent.
When all this started, they had a meme where they asked if I was "in". I said yes. I sent the maximum money.
Now there are asking me about this thing. I am not in. I am out.
Labels: obama, Re-election of Barack Obama
ON THE JOB
Today's movie was a re-run of Mike Judge's
more or less a cult movie for people who work in soul less companies. As well as people who are trying to find a way to "find themselves".
A comedy, it is pretty funny but Judge has been around the real world and has found a lot of humor which hits home.
The "consultants" are just like the "efficiency experts" who showed up at Ocean Spray when I was working there in 1965 or so. They got fired in front of the entire office because the head guy who was something of an asshole but not that big of one had no idea that having them would be so dispiriting. It went against his grain.
The boss, actually a passive aggressive pussy, is right out of my time with actual people I hired when I had my own company. I also had the pleasure of firing them for the assholes they were. We were suckers for the kind of guy who would kiss our ass and kick down.
So a lot of this is quite familiar.
I worked in the workplace, training managers and not one of them, well not many, wanted the kind of situation that they had to work in. But most felt powerless.
In this movie, a guy gets power by just relaxing and stopping with the bullshit. Stopping doing it, ignoring others who do it, being a happy person.
The other side of the comedy here, and there is a lot of it, a laugh every minute and more often a lot of the time, is out of a profound sadness that people need to suffer each other and themselves to observe "happy rituals" instead of being happy.
"Friday will be Hawaiian shirt day".
The added feature with Mike Judge and each actor in the piece is worth every minute of its watch except for the dunderheaded Jennifer Anniston who proves her character was just being herself.
It is a 5 out of Netflix5 because it is funny and sad in all the right places. And I will probably watch it again some day.
Labels: films
Saturday, March 30, 2013
FULL HEART
Today's film was Daniel Autieuil's
La fille du puisatier / The Well Digger's Daughter (2011)
in which a timeless story is told in a way in which it is new again.
A young man, a young woman, different social classes (French), a war, the first big one, that separates them. A jealous rich mother (bourgeois) who confuses the situation. A stubborn and forgivably cantankerous father (the well digger, working class) and the people in between.
The terms "prince and princess" are used from time to time. Just so. A fairy tale. An old king and a bitch queen and another mild mannered petit king and even a kind of ogre. But a nice one.
Just enough tension to keep us at the edge of our seats and plenty of satisfaction when we are rewarded for our loyalty to the cause.
The big star of the picture is la belle France. And the French provincial ways.
I got this because it stars and is directed by Autieul whose films I watched all together some months ago. This one had not been released.
Now it is here.
Delightful.
The period costumes, vehicles, scenery, all great to see.
A 3 out of Netflix5. Well, maybe a 4. It would be good to see Autieul puff up in mock rage again and then see the mild collapse into sweetness. A great character study.
Labels: films
Friday, March 29, 2013
STIRRING THE POT
While we are on wing nuts, the one at the gym is back at me again.
I do still have the Obama sticker on the Volvo and it is, I think, a red flag for him.
He cannot stand it.
Whether to convert me or just to piss me off, he brings in "bulletins" or things off the internet to prove something or other. Something that "liberals refuse to face".
A tea partier of the deepest kind.
Some time ago, I had successfully fended him off saying that I didn't want to discuss politics and have it mess up our casual friendship.
That worked for awhile.
Then the election. I had to repeat it and it was OK. But he was itchin' for a fight.
I didn't come to the party.
Then, after the election and the bitter disappointment, disbelief. How could that be? A new tack.
Now he has data. Just for information.
The other day he came in and asked if I (and my friend Gene, who I was talking with) had seen the "actuarial reports".
"No", I said, "do they tell me when I am going to die?"
"Not that kind", he said.
Before it could go any further I just said "stop it".
"I don't want to listen to any bullshit propaganda".
That stopped him.
He asked how I knew what he was going to tell me and mocked me as closed minded.
I just walked away.
Gene told me that he stopped talking about it period. That whatever I said to him had worked for me and for Gene.
The next day, he still had the papers but I overwhelmed him with helloes and greetings and it was nice to see him and kept walking.
I am ready to repeat my request from a year or two ago. "Please, let's just be friendly. I don't want to talk politics in here. I came to work out".
I know it is hard on these people. They had really drunk the kool aid and were convinced that Obama would be sent packing.
I have a couple of friends who had the same reaction. They were speechless the day or two after.
This guy is anything but speechless. All it has done is rev him up.
Labels: republican whack jobs
BITING THEMSELVES IN THE ASS
At last, the wing nuts are getting their own comeuppance.
They have painted Obama as a plodder, ignorant, a guy who lucked out because of affirmative action and on and on. He plays golf (gasp). How dare he? A Tiger Woods thing.
A lot of it is code for "dumb nigger". But let's not read between the lines there.
On the other hand he is power mad, intent on taking over the country, a socialist of the worst sort.
There is a paradox here. Which is he? The laid back steppin fetch it? Or the driven maniac.
Today Kevin Drum notes John Podhoretz' warning to his fellows about painting the black man black. Well, that is not it exactly.
The weird condescension his opponents display toward him is ludicrously wrongheaded. They seem eager to believe he is a lightweight, and he is not. Obama is very possibly a world-historical political figure, and until those who oppose him come to grips with this fact, they will get him wrong every time.....It’s not just the comforting delusion that he’s a golf-mad dilettante, but also the reverse-negative image of that delusion—that Obama is a not-so-secret Marxist Kenyan with dictatorial ambitions and a nearly limitless appetite for power. That caricature makes it far too easy for Obama to laugh off the legitimate criticisms of the kind of political leader he really is: a conventional post-1960s left-liberal with limited interest in the private sector and the gut sense that government must and should do more, whatever “more” might mean at any given moment.
Labels: republican whack jobs
CHAOS
Today's movie was
Boy, this is one hell of a movie.
It never stops.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Bruce Willis now (great makeup and expression coaching) and, Willis is from the future and they meet.
Not all peaches and cream.
They are at odds. Like you would be at odds with yourself or have "issues" with your younger self.
I will not outline the plot. Go to this fine review at the above link. That will tell you something but it will be misleading. No one who sees it will tell you the truth.
One truth is that there is a great supporting cast. Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Emily Blunt. Fine fine fine.
And a kid actor who will knock your socks off. How can this kid have a normal life after this? Well nothing is normal in the film.
One thing is that there are vastly amusing set pieces and the finagling with the period (2044) we are in is hilarious. There are some anachronistic old things as well as some things we never saw. There is the usual dystopia but weird.
There is a thing called TK (telekinesis) which has entered the human gene pool. Sort of old fashioned science fiction. The film's look and its apparatus owes a lot to steampunk. In fact, I think it is actually steampunk. A newer version.
Gordon-Levitt, one of the few two-name stars, is really really good. Somewhere in the film they unleash the Diehard Willis and it is smooth as silk given Gordon-Levitt's performance up to that point. They had to work on this. "See kid, this is how Bruce fucking walks".
OK. I would watch it again. Still a few loose ends. But I don't care about that. Life IS loose ends. A 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Thursday, March 28, 2013
YOU CAN TAKE A GUY OUT OF BOSTON BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE BOSTON OUT OF THE GUY
I am 15 years away from the great city in which I lived for many many years.
I still get a lump in my throat over this.
Mayor Menino will not Seek a Sixth Term
Menino was coming in during my late period.
He was a vastly underrated mayor mostly because of his down low way of talking and acting. They called him "Mumbles". Not nice.
But he came in on the end of the lavishly corrupt Kevin White administration. The one that started with such high promise, actually did some good stuff, then faded into scandal and controversy.
Menino took the good stuff baton and ran with it.
A low key guy. A drone, a worker bee.
It will be fun to see who tries to fill his shoes.
I knew some of the White gang and they all disparaged Menino. He showed them his stuff and passed them on the track. Surpassed.
Labels: Boston
SCHADENFREUDE
Today, Kevin Drum goes there.
Watching the Worm Turn on Gay Marriage
Basically, some evangelical is whining about being seen as an "An outcast, a bigot, narrow-minded, a "hater" or all of the above. It's a different type of ridicule but it's still ridicule."
Yup.
I agree with Kevin. A spade is a spade.
It must be tough to wake up and have your mind set and your lifestyle the subject of constant derogation.
Hey, just like being gay, right? But now, it is a fact, the evangelicals are in the minority and on the decline and homos are in the ascendancy.
Only the holy rollers are going to be extinct or divided into cults and "the gays" will just melt back into the crowd again as equal members of a just society.
I sure don't want to pick on evangelicals but when you have a huge kick me sign on your ass what do you expect?
In this one, in 1992, ol' Pat gets immolated by the "homes". If he only could have seen the future.
Labels: bigotry, christist watch, gay history, gay rights
DARING DO
Today's movie was the super exciting cycle thriller
with the ever more exciting Joseph Gordon-Levitt and, as the villain, a great leering turn by Michael Shannon.
This is bikes on speed. Up and down New York. A tick tock thriller.
It is very exciting. The blood is still racing around with my adrenalin in it.
Something convoluted involving the shipment of illegals out of China and a message for a messenger who can't get there in time and a cop who wants to intercept the deal.
Filmed in the middle of NYC traffic there is no safe spot available. All swerves, dodges and pile ups.
The speed makes you forget the improbable.
I loved the way they included the old fashioned Chinese ways, subcultural, in the middle of the bike culture all modern, all kind of outlawish.
I would gladly see it again if it came around. A 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
PHOTO FINISH
Well, not the finish, but these "kids" will know a different life because of the last two days and the days that came before.
Look at their joy with all the mindless hate around them.
Courage. Out. I also like the enthusiasm of the kissing.
Labels: marriage equality
HERSTORY
Edie Windsor tells how it all came about.
She is the plaintiff in today's DOMA case at SCOTUS.
"It made a huge difference".
They were together 45 years and it made a difference to be married.
I can testify to this.
We were full certified domestic partners when we got married and I did take marriage seriously because we were a part of the legal fight for so long (see GLAD below).
Of course, we would do it. And we did.
The applause of the hundred or so friends had not subsided and I knew something "magical" had happened. For them. For us. Even our dog, Franklin, knew. He barked along with the applause.
It is important to be "legitimate". I am an iconoclast and a loner. The last person to seek society's approval or even want to be with "them" when they approve.
I felt, I feel different.
John and I have been together for 37 years and more. Actually 38 in just four days.
And it has always been great, spectacular, miraculous, fun, exciting, passionate, a spiritual meld of two beings like none other.
And the second we were married it was like looking through a magnifying glass. All bigger and better.
Since then? We have continued the "fight". We live in a communal property state so our status as partners gets us a joint return with the state and the federal government.
You know, it is not widely understood that the IRS already recognizes our partnership if the states have communal property. A small thing but important.
It is hell to go through the bureaucratic shit each year to insure that we get our due but we do it.
This is a big deal for everyone.
Signs are good that in a while, if the state says we are married, the feds will too.
God bless Edie Windsor.
It is not about the cash which is nice but really, it is about the magic and the recognition that love is love. And this is the United States of America where all are to be equal under the law. Any law.
Labels: marriage equality
HEAD OVER HEEL
Today's movie was
with Richard Gere as a "too rich to fail" financial guy who is caught on two sides. One with his money stuck in Russia just when he needs to sell his own company, frozen assets, indeed. The other when he crashes his car with his very expensive bimbette along with him. She dies. He tries to walk.
A convoluted plot which somehow resists getting bogged down in the necessary trivia of finance and getting an arrest for manslaughter.
Tim Roth is the cop and an excellent cast fill out what is surprisingly an edge of the seat story. The "hero" is, after all, a shit. Not even a bit of one. A complete one. I think it is very difficult to carry off but they did. A sympathetic bastard.
Bit Gere has a long career of this kind of thing.
Susan Sarandon is the wronged wife. She spends almost the whole movie in a low profile but when she blows, there are fireworks.
I liked it. A good solid Hollywood product. All gloss, of course, but some substance and, indeed, a look into the moneyed life.I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
PROGRESS
Credit where credit is due.
Maine Lawyer Credited in Fight for Gay Marriage
Mary Benauto is an unsung hero today.
She started it all back when "they", the power gays, said we shouldn't be trying for the conventional.
Missing entirely the point that the conventional is equal rights. Not some arcane straight idea of marriage.
We were on the bandwagon early when there weren't many other people. We gave some money, went to some meetings, helped Mary launch the ship that just sailed into the SCOTUS today and yesterday.
It is too early to claim victory. Even if we have Prop 8 thrown out and DOMA decided as unconstitutional there is more to do. Each state. Not just the ten.
But it is inevitable. So are we. We always have been whether the bigots and homophobes thought/think so or not.
Labels: gay rights, marriage equality
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
SUPREMES
I wasn't going to comment on today's proceedings, the first three of six hours devoted to the two marriage rights cases in front of them.
I still will not, actually.
Unlike the many commentators that somehow can read the tea leaves of questions asked by the Justices.
This seems highly premature to me although it is interesting that some saw a drift toward the technical option. Take the Prop 8 case and declare that there is no standing for the proponents and leave the decision of the Ninth Circuit which was to nullify the ban.
On another front today, in addition to more polls showing majority support for marriage rights, there is also an interesting development wherein it is totally clear that Prop 8 would not pass in California today. The support here for equal marriage rights is way past the margin that the mormons and catholics paid for.
If you want to listen to it, hear are the oral arguments.
There is a lot of funny shit before the audio starts. Skip ahead.
Labels: gay marriage, gay rights, marriage equality
BROKEN DOWN
Today's film was the documentary
Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune (2010)
Sad story of a great troubadour. A political activist in song. At one time a peer of Dylan. Dylan did personal songs. Ochs did the political. They were rivals. Personally and publicly.
I loved Phil Ochs singing and followed him until he got incoherent.
They say he was a victim of his own success but he really died of alcoholism and manic depressive disease.
They often try to make something other than this out of such a situation. To his credit, Kenneth Bowser who wrote and directed does not take this bait. He calls it as it was.
Och's breakdown was public. He was irrepressible.
The film is well done. A lot of singing. I had forgotten his beautiful voice and guitar virtuosity. He wrote all his own songs and could reel them off effortlessly. And handsome as sin.
I am glad that I saw it. A 3 out of Netflix5. Reviewing the past.
Labels: films
BACK TO THE FUTURE
I went to the ATT store today to get a bill error fixed and, at the same time, bought a new old cell phone. Mobile phone.
This is the old clamshell, simple real buttons, one little screen, no chance of "pocket calls".
They made me pay for it as I am not "up for a new one" until the fall. I paid for it gladly.
I have tried to live with the Samsung which you type on screen. It has functions so available that they "fall out" of their little hiding place onto the screen. It makes calls for me without my knowing. It is a royal pain in the ass.
It is now at the ATT store, in the recycle box.
So glad to have it over with.
This is what I wanted when we switched from Verizon but I was too impatient to wait for it. I took the Samsung and have been punished for my compulsiveness ever since.
Labels: technology
WRENCHING DECISION
I have shopped at Stater Brothers, a small southwest grocery chain, since the big disabling strikes out here, seven years ago? No, ten years. 2003-2004. See here.
I had been a super market kid and had a job with the supermarkets as an adult engineer for five years. I had been in the union and I had been in management.
This strike got to me like no other strike I had seen. It was basically a lockout. And the Safeway guy who kind of ran it was a gold plated asshole.
I had shopped at Ralphs, then left because it was dirty and the stock wasn't rotated. I went to Vons. Vons is the Safeway outlet here. So I left Vons.
I would not, could not, cross a picket line.
Stater Brothers had and has an independent contract in which their people get whatever the other national chains and unions settle for.
I stayed at Staters through a second strike in 2011.
But lately, there is trouble in paradise.
The Staters is a great store but small and has recently dropped items that are on my standard list. About a year ago there began to be serious problems of stock rotation. I had to look at everything.
I liked the people at Staters. Regular friends. I stayed because of that and the meat which is like an upscale meat market and, for a long while, it has been a routine that John and Booker would walk the two miles there and we would meet at the end of my shopping.
It wasn't just shopping but a destination.
Small straws break the camel's back.
A missing item here (vegetable lasagna), the realization I had a month old potato salad there, an empty shelf of sodas, an out of stock with this and that.
Enough.
Today, I went back to Ralphs. I have come full circle.
But it is not the same Ralphs. Not even in the same place. It is a huge modern double the size super super market and it has fucking everything.
The produce is dramatic. The aisles are wide. And so on.
I shopped there today and found everything. I also was able to buy vegetable lasagna.
Things are looking up.
John and Booker changed their route and we sort of hit the mark on when to leave and when to meet.
I already miss some of the Staters thing and the meat does not compare but the fact is that I do not really buy my meat from the counter but from the case.
Old dogs can learn new tricks.
Monday, March 25, 2013
BUGGED
I am so against all the Purell hysteria. I feel sorry for the "worried well" who fear any kind of bacteria.
This should scare them. Not me. I feel secure and happy with all my little friends.
I don't know which of the three types I am but I am glad to be whatever it is.
COURAGE IN THE LIMELIGHT
I like this "article" a lot.
I like the family and what I have read about it.
It is quite a surprise to find out your son is gay especially if your "gaydar" is not well honed.
My parents "knew" for years and were so afraid of it that they couldn't deal. Of course this was the 40s and 50s.
When I came out to them I had a family and all the signs of fitting the standard model of straight adulthood in America. The one size fits all paradigm.
I didn't even get to tell them that I was gay. Someone got to them before I did.
No blame, my fault. But I was afraid. Afraid of them, afraid of rocking the boat, afraid, afraid, afraid.
And when the gay cat leaped out of the bag all their previous worries about me were finally realized. And even though they tried, there was no way the cat was going back into the bag.
It was a tough couple years.
Eventually, especially when they met John (he and my Dad bonded over the naval veteran thing), it all quieted down.
Before he died, my Dad and I had a fine time talking about it and being happy and his being happy about my obvious happiness.
You can't beat happiness as a sign of a good life well lived.
I think that things are better today. It may be easier for kids to be themselves and for parents to "see the signs" and get the fuck over their own stuff about it.
I had already taken care of some of the worries. I had the kids, the grandkids. I was happy and not soliciting blow jobs in alley ways and mens rooms in Boston. Well not that way exactly.
I was in some danger because I was out out. Not halfway. You can still get your ass kicked for that. But then I could get my ass kicked for a lot of things. Being an addict and drunk wasn't the safest of life positions. But they didn't know that.
And so on.
Sooner or later we all have to grow up. Good for this kid.
Parents have to realize that they need to do some growing too. Good for the Portmans.
Labels: coming out, gay rights
KIDNEY SHAPED
I went to the Nephrologist today. A PA-C working in the group practice. Who hugs. Nice. And on time service with a smile. I like that.
Less likable was the news that I do have a kidney problem which will need to be addressed.
It is not trivial. The "function" tests for the last three 6 month intervals have been heading down, a bit faster than they like.
So. I am off aspirin and ibuprofen.
I am to drink a lot of water (but I already do so that is a no brainer).
I am to get an additional battery of blood tests
I am going for an ultrasound to look for a tumor (ugly word, eh?).
All this in the next four weeks then a meet with Joey again.
I would like to dramatize this a bit and indulge in some self pity but that isn't very productive and it isn't the way that I live now. If I ever did.
I will march to the orders I am given with the assent of my personal doc. My advisor.
My attitude? Well, I certainly have one but I think that it is in pretty good shape.
I went to the appointment with several scripts. One about waiting too long in the office. That didn't occur.
Another about not liking the doc or feeling his/her competence. No dice. She was great. (hug) (hug).
I even wrote a script about how I wasn't going to modify my diet. Stop salt and all that. It didn't come up.
So I am good to go and I will keep you posted on the progress of yet another adventure.
As John points out, there is something about being older that can increase the chances some of the parts will wear out or grow unwanted appendages. I guess it is inevitable. My job description says to deal with them. I am the one who wanted to live to be 90. So I get what I get and do what I do to make it. Or not.
That part is not up to me anyway. I am doing the best I can with maintenance.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
FOUR WAYS
Today's film was the NYTimes Critics' Pick, Bernard Tavinier's
La princesse de Montpensier / The Princess of Montpensier (2010)
In this period film, the princess manages to have a "relationship" with four different men. Not all at the same time. But in the same time period. Or is it that they have or think they have a relationship with her.
The princess is a very modern woman in many respects. She does not go for the old "do as you are told" and "marry who we tell you" shit.
She will marry but don't think that means anything unless she wants it to.
Well, maybe that is not modern.
I am not by any means mocking this film. It is filled with excitement, sword fights, bloody warring, some small amount of sex not very explicit but there is some. She does give in from time to time.
I enjoyed this very much. I even learned just a little bit about the Thirty Year War which ends and then keeps breaking out. Catholics versus the Huguenot "heretics".
The war is a backdrop for another war for the hand and more of the princess. Is she that hot? Probably. She is just the type that straight men want to bump in the night. But do they want commitment?
She has at least two who are willing to be committed but that doesn't seem simple enough for her.
Well, given the guys, I wouldn't settle for just one of them or two either.
I would be happy to sit and watch this again and that makes it a 4 out of Netflix5. The slaughter of a boar (which would be as ubiquitous as a deer in France) not withstanding. The dead dog is obviously breathing. Good boy.
Labels: films
BIG WEEK
Bruni pretty well sums it up. Nicely.
This week the Supreme Court will hear arguments on two landmark gay marriage cases. Or, rather, human rights cases.
The oppressive DOMA in which the bigots admit defeat by trying to show that marriage needs defending and the Prop 8 case, which we are so much a part of here in California where rights have been taken away by a gaggle of catholics and mormons with deep pockets.
The fact is that it does not matter what the Supreme Court in its limited wisdom says or decides about this. The outcome is totally clear.
Gay marriage is and will become a reality. Human rights will be restored to a sizable cohort of American citizens. The iron grip of the religious right on the machinery or politics in this country will be diminished. The phrase "gay rights" will become quaint and anachronistic.
That last one will take a bit longer than the first two. And the second longer than the first.
It is a radical shift for the times. A complete flip of the zeitgeist. And I was there. With my husband.
Labels: gay marriage, gay rights, human rights
Saturday, March 23, 2013
A SLICE OF TIMES
Today's film was Andrew Rossi's documentary
Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)
This is not what I expected. I thought maybe a kind of civics' lesson on making a newspaper with some stuff thrown in about the threat to the institution.
Nothing could be further from the case.
This film takes a few months time at the Times where Rossi, alone without a crew, stalked the halls and, eventually boiled it down for us. Daily life at the Times.
Sure there is a lot about the viability of newspapers, but more exciting is the way that he follows several reporters in the progress of their tasks. The back and forth, the bickering, the actual joy in producing something new every day. Indeed, we see one guy lose 90 pounds during the shoot. I noticed somewhere in the last third of the film and then they quickly refer to it. Personal.
Rossi's timing was serendipitous. He hit the Times right when the WikiLeaks news dump with the Times in the middle. Very good.
David Carr, who has a wild personal history, breaks a huge exposé of the Tribune Company causing its president to resign. I love David Carr anyway and to see him in the flesh is quite a treat.
We see the expected daily meetings formulating the front page. We see them mock NBC for making a photo pop into a big event. They decided not to cover it.
And so on.
The rhythm of the thing is quite engaging. It moves. And moves. We get to know some people. A young reporter gets assigned to Iraq and then makes it to Baghdad chief. Personalities.
I would be happy to see this again. Therefore a 4 out of Netflix5.
Nice job, Rossi.
Labels: films
Friday, March 22, 2013
STREET PERSON
Today's film was Bill Press' NYTimes Critics' Pick documentary:
Bill Cunningham New York (2010)
I kept putting this film behind others in the queue but it finally surfaced today and I am so glad that it did.
Bill Cunningham is the fashion photographer (charity balls and stuff) for the NYTimes and, once a week, the curator of the iconic photo display On the Street. Also, of course, in the NYTimes.
Cunningham is a delightful personality, 80 years young. He knows thousands of people on sight and they know him.
He has recorded fashion history in NYC since the Fifties when he gave up designing hats (a declining business) and took up photography for the Times.
One day, he had leftover film from the night before and went out on the street scouting for snapshots of people in fashionable clothes. He made photo books, some now classics.
On another day, he got a snapshot of the famous recluse Greta Garbo, several shots. His editor saw them and asked him to make a layout with other street shots to make a theme. Which he did.
Now, decades later he still does that weekly column.
Cunningham is a very interesting guy on the personal side. He lived in the studio apartments at Carnegie Hall until the year this film was made. Crammed with file drawers and minimal living space, he lives a spartan life.
No car, he traverses the city on a Schwinn. His 29th. 28 were stolen.
We see a lot of fashion in this film but good stuff, not a lot of bullshit. He is the champion of the common man or woman who wants to dress in a way that makes a statement. He is not interested in celebrity except insofar as it helps pay his salary. He is not a paparazzi. He attends only charity events and charities that he approves of at that.
He is a seriously pixie like man who sparkles with life and energy. He is an optimist. He is in great shape. A natural beanpole of a man.
He is still very handsome and when he was younger, a real looker.
I really liked this film and saw all the deleted scenes. There is a lot in the film to see and hear again. A 4 out of Netflix5.
UP IN THE AIR
We just got Booker his second Kuranda dog bed.
Made of PVC pipe which holds a tight web of naugahyde, the bed puts the whole body off the ground and gives a hard mattress kind of support to the dog. Ours also has a sheepskin cover. Cozy.
A month ago, we got his first one for our work room, between my desk and a day bed and he was in it within a day.
Booker is a night stalker. He moves from one sleep spot to another so one bed will not do the job.
He sleeps in the first Kuranda bed, up on the day bed and down behind the day bed between it and the glass slider.
He also sleeps in his "real bed" which is in our bedroom.
The work room Kuranda worked so well that we replaced the big bean bag type of bed in our bedroom with a much bigger Kuranda.
He walked on it last night. Then off.
Then today when I got up from my nap, there he was knocked out on the new one by our bedside.
We can only supply so many beds. Booker also sleeps next to the dining room table and chairs, against the front door in the little alcove and between a lucite chair and the big slider in the living room. These are all more or less like dens which I think most dogs like. Booker loves them.
I should mention that we also have two love seats and a huge arm chair which also belong to Booker. They seem best to lie on his back with all four feet in the air.
For now, the two Kurandas will have to do. Off the cold floor, on a web rather than a big soft fluff and in a fixed secure place. These advantages are especially good for an old dog. He isn't old yet but, like us, he is not getting any younger.
This puppy likes his much smaller bed. I don't expect the gymnastics from 85 pound Booker but we never know. He is full of surprises.
HERO-INE
Risé Stevens has died at 99.
Rise Stevens Opera Singer Dies at 99
You can't be expected to know who this is.
When I was a kid, she was all over radio, films. Then television.
She was a Bronx girl and her last name was Steenberg. Improbably her birth first name was Rise, Norwegian. A perfect name for an opera singer.
Stevens was notoriously not temperamental. Anything but a diva.
When it was time to retire, she did so with dispatch and became the president of a music school.
Her story is a lot like Beverly Sills.
She is a hero because she got to be 99 but also because she was one of those people who made a bridge for kids like me from pop music to "serious" stuff. There was no distinction for her. And she didn't hype the pop up like a lot of the sopranos. She just piped down and did it straight.
She was famous for doing Carmen and she owned the role for decades. It had to be a pain in the ass to sing all those arias all those years. The same ones over and over but she was a generous performer and also knew where the bread was buttered.
Over time, Ms. Stevens forsook the traditional interpretation of Carmen as a saucy temptress, playing her instead as “hard, calculating, tough and one step away from a prostitute,” as The International Dictionary of Opera said in 1993.I have to admit that I had no idea she was still alive. I am glad she was/is. All those years, a gift. For us and for her.
One more time, honey. The card scene.
In the still of the night (1946)
Thursday, March 21, 2013
MOTORCYCLE WESTERN
Today's film was David Gordon Green's
With less than a million dollars and an almost free donation of his time by Conrad Hall, this early "indie" film was made in Arizona with a van and a truck and a zippy up to date panasonic camera.
Concerned about the attacks on the integrity of police, Green, who had been a very successful record producer (Chicago, the group) set out to have a countercultural view of a good cop.
Robert Blake whose life would make a whole other film agreed to star as the half pint Arizona cycle cop who wants to do the right thing.
The result is a beautifully rendered, John Ford inspired (Hall had worked a lot with Ford) western in cops clothing. Right down to the obligatory vistas of Monument Valley.
The film does have a story but it is mostly a character study with a lot of characters and well known B-actors filling in the gaps.
The resulting film, which has a tragic ending as everyone probably knows by now, was not received well. It played at Cannes but was not accepted in the US because it was perceived as a "fascist" picture. Yes, they were still throwing those words around at that time.
I wanted to see it again and I am glad that I did.
It is beautiful to watch. The relationships are simple and clean even when they are dirty. There are hippies. There are cops. Good cops and bad cops. There is justice. Rough justice. And there is tragedy. Sad, mistaken tragedy.
And yes, there are bikes, instead of horses. It isn't a biker film.
I am glad I saw it. I don't think I will want to watch it again but I would be happy to if someone served it up and asked me to sit down with them.
A 4 out of Netflix5.
There is a good interview with Hall on the disc and you are invited to see it before you see the film. I recommend you hear from Hall after and not get all into the "making of" before you see the product.
In fact, don't look at this trailer either.
Labels: films
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
SHOCKER
I went to visit with my friend John at the gym this morning.
He was working out at the weight rack. The dumbbells.
As I started to say hi, I noticed that something radical had happened.
They have bought a whole new rack of weights.
That is a lot of weights. Maybe thirty feet from one end to another.
They are great looking.
I didn't pick one up.
I told John I would try to use the free weights next week.
He laughed.
He knows that I have pretty much forsaken free weights for the safety and comfort of the machines. There are many choices, none really the same as a free weight workout but still. I am an older guy.
I need a softer landing.
There was some sadness here.
I have used the old weights in this gym for maybe 20 years. I used to come for vacation and went to Golds when it was way out near the newspaper plant. The other side of the airport.
They were a bunch of mismatched, rickety weights. Many of them would unscrew themselves as you worked out. Actually not integral, just a bunch of weights on a bar.
I didn't ask where they went. I would be too tempted to go and see if I could get, maybe just the 7.5 weights as a souvenir.
The good old days.
Labels: gym
MEMOIRE
Today's movie was the second half of the NYTimes Critics' Pick film by Raül Ruiz
The Mysteries of Lisbon (2010)
Impossible to summarize. The dreams of a young man gently meld into the memories of people that he meets in his life and then come back to the present time.
It would be impossible to summarize the many stories contained in this work but the story teller's art is so successful that the entire piece works together to provide an experience of being that is new and from a different perspective.
The effect is, as the Times guy says, a realization that we are but footnotes in our own lives with others.
Or something.
It does not need a moral or a conclusion although I know what it is. I just cannot say it out loud in a cohesive way. Well, why should I? It is here in Ruiz' film.
I would be happy to see this again and get some things which I am sure that I missed the first time through. There are many "tricks" both of the eye and of identity. Some of the same actors appear in other's stories. They could be the same people but do not have to be. Fascinating in and of itself but you can't stay with that as the stories move on. Don't miss the train!
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
This is pretty good. Listen.
Labels: films
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
SECRETS
Today's movie was the first half of the NYTimes Critics' Pick Raul Ruis'
This was a miniseries overseas and the recut and packaged as a four four and 15 minute movie.
This is in the early 19th Century, sometime. A young man is told the story behind his life by the priest who saved it some years ago. Actually it is a story told by the older young man telling about the priest telling him the story when he was a young man.
I type all this out to reflect the many layers that unfold in this great sort of classical melodrama.
Classical, that is, until certain things happen and certain people appear who are not what they seem. Or are.
I am midway after all.
There is some magical realism which I always like.
I am pleased to be in the middle of this and to have a midway break (which is built into the film) to think things over.
I think that in Part II we are going to have pirates too. Well, we already do. We have also had a couple of gypsies, a countess, a priest who has other identities in people's, well his, story.
Fun.
Labels: films
Monday, March 18, 2013
DANCE DANCE DANCE
Today's movie was Wim Wenders performance documentary
Pina – Dance Dance Otherwise We Are Lost (2011)
a Criterion presentation of Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal.
If you have not seen them before you need to see them now.
If you have seen them before, this wonderful presentation, in 3D no less, is a way to bring back great memories.
The film has selections from the dances rather than the entire works. This is a bit off putting at first, the cuts and sidesteps, but then that annoyance disappears with the realization that this is a banquet and to stand on the sidelines and complain is to miss the opportunity to dive in.
Many of the dances are done al fresco, others on stage before an audience, still others in isolation.
It was great to see the Muller's Cafe again. Wow. The dancers working with their eyes closed.
The less said the better. You have to see it.
Pina, who died suddenly in 2009 only five days after being diagnosed with cancer, left the company bereft and without any compass at all.
This film began only a few days after her death.
The performers are caught in silent headshots as they talk over their own thoughts about Pina. Very moving.
There can be no doubt that their work in the film was inspired by the circumstances.
Pina's work involved the deep collaboration of her dancers. Sets were unique and always a surprise. The style she evolved became copied and known as Tanztheater and influenced the world of modern dance in an extraordinary way.
The production is beautifully realized, to say the least. While I have no 3-D on my computer the standards that must be used for the technology come through clean and clear. Digital of course.
What else. I appreciate the sound track which records the breath and steps, all of it, that the dancers make on top of the score. Very nice. It is quite like being in the theater.
In some dances, Wenders uses the "magic" of film editing to create effects that support the choreography. Quite surprising and welcome.
I will see this again. A 5 out of Netflix5.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
ORIENTAL DAY
It was perfect to see the Miike film today as I am headed out for a rare dinner with some friends. A close seatmate in AA is having a small celebration of his anniversary.
I don't usually go to these as I would end up "having to" go to a lot of them and it is too difficult to do all and impossible to pick and choose.
But this guy is special and so is the day.
The "do" is at an oriental buffet place which is probably culinary hackery but it is still a preferred form for eating out. No waiting. Eat what you want. Go back for seconds (unlikely) and get on with the festivities.
We don't get oriental food much as it is either go to Panda, which is pretty bad, or go sit down and wait and endure the intricacies of the chopsticks, the waiting or the doubt about the menu.
For awhile there was a great place here with the grill setup at your table. Actually two. Both have gone under.
There are others but not worth the trip.
Anyway, here I am.
Asian day.
Labels: food
NOT JUST ANOTHER SAMURAI PICTURE
Today's film was Takashi Miike's
Hara-Kiri Death of a Samurai (2011)
Not another samurai picture because it views from the underbelly of the system.
A father, son and grandson (all samurais by virtue of inheritance) have fallen on hard times as the samurai business is in a deep recession. No wars.
In addition, in the absence of wars, the samurai system of retainers and estates have become full of empty ceremony and attention to a self-defined "honor".
The plot in this richly realized picture is so unusual that I do not want to write about it. Everything is a spoiler. It may already be spoiled by telling you what situation the main characters have found themselves.
Here is the deal. The film is beautiful. It is always one step ahead of us but not too far. Well, ahead of me, but not too far.
There is a long period of suffering and deprivation which is difficult to watch but, hey, it wouldn't be so compelling without the down side. Like life, eh?
I can report that there is vindication and a great resolution of wrongs.
Just not in the way I would have planned it.
I would be happy to see this again and watch the carefully paced story as it evolves and how character overcomes the clichés of this traditional framework. Samurai stories are the Japanese westerns.
This would be more on the order of High Noon or that train to Yuma we have seen in two or three versions.
I enjoyed Miike's other films that I have seen. He is on my radar.
A 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Saturday, March 16, 2013
MYTH BUSTERS
I thought this would just be a trivia romp but, as it turns out, I actually have believed more than a few of these myths.
And it is fun to be caught out. Sometimes.
I was surprised to hear about peanut butter, chameleons, sushi, earthworms, five senses, 10% of your brain, Abner Doubleday, Puff, space explosions, redhead extinctions and the sniper.
Actually, you do need to refrigerate organic peanut butter and I would never ever eat the other shit.
Labels: myths, urban legends
LIGHTS OUT
Today's film, a NYTime Critics' Pick was an autobiographical film by Ira Sachs,
His fifth film, this is the most personal and as Sachs is gay, so is the film.
It is about a ten year relationship. Normal ups and downs ensue complicated by the fact of his partner's addiction to crack cocaine.
While this is a cautionary tale that has to be told, crack is ferociously addictive and often kills gays disproportionately. The film is also about a romance of long standing that is able to withstand the ravages of the disease and then eventually dies of its own weight.
The love affair and the friendships and the internal and external turmoil ring very true.
The hero, Erik, is not a fool. He loves his partner and tries. They both try.
The placid, sober intervals are beautiful which makes the upsets even more distressing.
This is a difficult film, not a gay niche film, a serious feature length journey of joy and pain.
The two young stars Thure Lindhardt and Zachary Booth are wonderful. Genuine. Deep feeling. Lindhardt was the star of another serious gay film (The Brotherhood), although both films transcend the category. They are human films.
I will get this DVD for the library and certainly watch it again. There is a lot of identification here as, while I never did crack, thank god, I did need treatment and recovery and so did my partner. We worked through it and lived many of the scenes in this film. Over and over until we stopped. And then went on.
This is a 5 out of Netflix5 film.
Labels: films
ADMIT TWO
Good news today.
Another kid that I interviewed was admitted to MIT this week. I had one in the "early admission" process.
That makes two from my area (from the eastern state line to the Banning Pass and from the high desert down to the international border).
Many years we have none. It is the first time I have had two.
I invest considerable time and energy in the interview process each year. Anywhere from 15-25 kids, depending on how many get to stage two applications and how many decide to get an optional interview (almost all).
They are a wonderful mix of kids. Big, little, mature and not so much. A new millennium ethnic mix, the way we will all be in another generation.
Extraordinary kids. Top of their classes, movers and shakers. Many have been wishing for this since they were little kids. Really.
Every once in a while a clinker but that is rare. And when that happens, I have been able to help them decide to make other plans.
This year's class had over 18000 applications of which 1548 students were admitted. This give us an admission rate of 8.2%
It used to be 10%.
I look at their faces knowing that only one or two will make it from here. A sad reality.
At the current percentage admits, we should be sending two kids out of this area every year and I bend over backward to write a positive review for each of them that I think should be admitted. Almost all. I am told no one at MIT compares the writeups to see that I recommend almost indiscriminately.
But many factors come into play and we have to be realistic and realize that the desert does not offer some of the academic and cultural enrichment that a lot of kids from urban areas enjoy. It is more of a stretch to get kids into MIT from places like this. Because I came from an impoverished schooling, I am with them on this. Unfair but a fact nonetheless.
This year the two guys who are going into the new class are standouts. I wish I could tell you their inspiring stories but I cannot, of course. Suffice to say that I am quite proud to have made their acquaintance and to have a small part in their achievement.
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Labels: MIT
Friday, March 15, 2013
GRAND SWEEP
Today's film was the second half of Olivier Assayas'
a grand epic of a family over three decades including WWI and the various economic ups and downs along with the coming of modern thought about the relationship between men and women, the role of religion in daily life, the gradual diminishment of good taste and inter-family bickering. All French of course.
This would be Assayas' try at a traditional film with all the costumes and finery to say nothing of the period factory life in, of all things, a porcelain factory. Heavily labor intensive.
The main character is a modern man stuck with his boots in traditional ways. Culture shock. Future shock in the early 20th Century.
Assayas is a very interesting director with a wide swath of good films. Most recently I saw his tee vee miniseries about Carlos, The Jackal as well as his post mod Irma Vep, a meta meta take on movie making. A film within a film within a film.
Rate this one as a 5 out of Netflix5 as I am certain I will watch it again just to see how this kind of film can be made so well.
Labels: films
Thursday, March 14, 2013
POP GOES THE COLLAR
News from the fashion front.
WSJ: The Popped Collar is Back
It never left as far as I am concerned.
I have been wearing a popped collar since I was, well, in college.
I still do it. I will do it until I die.
It is my trademark.
I am always ahead of the times.
In this case it took about 60 years behind the times for the wave to catch up with me again.
You don't know how often some rude bastard will come along and flatten it out.
THE PHOENIX FALLS BUT IT ROSE FOR A LONG TIME
This sad news from Boston.
It was a long run.
When I moved to Boston and, even before, the newly born news-weeklies, tabloid free papers, were part of my urban liberal/radical upbringing.
They were a source for all you could never find out in the straight media.
Many of my leftist opinions were honed by reading these.
I had NYC Village Voice and had seen a few similar rags from other cities as well but these were our very own radical and irreverent news and opinion sources.
These papers told about the local hot spots, the rallies, the places to volunteer. They had the "personals".
As a newly out gay man, I "dated" or "cruised" in their Personal sections. I didn't much like or want to be in the 3 Bs, bars, bushes or baths.
The ads which were a little slower and more complicated to work through were the precursor of today's on line hooking up sites.
You would send in an ad and then people would reply to a mail box at the paper. After a week, you would go down and get the mail. Then either answer or shit can them.
I answered a few ads and met some nice people.
My first real adult romance was with a guy named Mark who was actually Mort and was an art history prof at UNH. I met him on the first answer. It was like getting a hole in one on your first golf game. So to speak.
Then I met David who was a nice hippy kid and learned that not all of the answers would lead to sex but they could lead to friendship.
Things went so well that I decided to try it myself.
I only put in a few ads.
All got pretty good replies. I would usually go in after a week and then, I think, they only held it open for three weeks.
One latecomer was particularly interesting. A wise guy with a snappy response.
Can you see where this is going?
I called. He answered from his office. He was equally brash, almost snotty, on the phone. I loved it.
We agreed to meet after his work for a drink. He worked in City Hall so we decided to meet at the T lollipop sign at the Government Center subway stop.
As I stood on the steps of the T entrance and looked across the vast City Hall Plaza at the drones leaving the Hall, I spotted this smart looking guy with a kind if impish smile walking toward me.
Bingo.
We went to Peter's Plum, a now defunct bar on the Plaza and didn't linger long.
He came back to my place which was ten minutes away in Charles River Park.
I can still remember almost every moment.
I took him in with me through the back basement entrance past the dumpsters and into the elevators. I don't think I used the freight elevator.
We didn't make it to the second floor studio apartment without, well, the rest is history.
He never forgave me for going in the back way.
Our interactions were formulated from the very beginning. I still don't see what is wrong with the back way.
But we have been together for 38 years this April.
That is what the Phoenix means to me and why there is a tug at my heart to see it fall back down into the ashes.
It did have a good long run.
For this post, I googled "gay ads", "gay personal ads", every combination.
They aren't anymore.
But I did turn up gay related ads, commercials, a compilation tape of funny ones.
Some personals were intentionally pretty funny.
Labels: gay identity, gay life, gay marriage
SURVIVAL
Last fall I bought a desert rose plant to fill out my cactus/succulent collection on the patio.
I went against a long standing principle which is to never buy a plant that is in bloom.
But it was so pretty, I brought it home. And while it does not look like a cactus, it lives like one. Well, one that needs a bit more water.
I think that it is deciduous. I am too lazy to look it up. You do it.
The blooms lasted for a month or so and then, winter came, lower sun and all, and it bore no more blossoms.
OK.
Then about 6 weeks ago, it dropped all its leaves.
This confirmed my worst fears. But a few leaves stayed and so I let it go. I had nothing to fill the space.
Soon after, there appeared to be buds all over the stem ends.
The buds grew.
Now the first spring blossoms are in full life and there are many many buds.
I guess it has two seasons!
Well, it has had two, whether that means two a year is not yet clear.
A lot of plants do this in the desert. They get the unfiltered sun and the heat, spring forth and have a full bloom.
The summer heat puts them in dormancy.
Then the fall comes and the plant revives to do another set of blooms before it has its winter and fall (of a few weeks) and begins again.
Hope so.
Labels: botany, cactus, desert, flowers
CLOSETED
The California Closet guys came yesterday afternoon. On time.
It took them about two hours to install two closets.
One in our workroom that organizes the space much more effectively. The other at the end of the kitchen with more shelves. The old layout wasted a lot of cubic space.
We were going to get fancy with bi-fold mirrored doors but now can see that is not necessary for access to the central sections. As we thought. One reason not to do every aspect of your plan if you can go one stage at a time. You learn as you go.
The guys were very effective. Clean, neat, orderly.
All the stuff is back in. We had one's closet's stuff all over the day bed or, rather, Booker's one bed in the workroom and on the dining room table.
The un-neatness of that drives me nuts. John was good about getting it all back into place by last night.
One outcome is that we, again, found a lot of shit we didn't need.
Some of this was postponed from disposal when we moved three years ago (yes it is almost three years). Mostly CDs and DVDs that we never listen to. And will never listen to.
They are now recycled into the "goodwill" store inventory, somewhere.
These are not our cds. I liked the picture. But I notice Van Halen. I would keep them. Also a few others.
Our old stuff was mostly people we had heard in concert and bought the record outside in the lobby, riding a high. And never listened after that. We had heard the real thing after all.
There was a lot of Rosemary Clooney and others too numerous to mention. Also jaded tastes. I have listened to all the Hall and Oates sides that I am ever going to listen to. Ever.
SUMMER ROUTINE
Suddenly, it is summer.
Bang.
Two things.
Pacific Daylight Savings Time has opened up the post dinner Booker-walk period. The best time really.
Booker doesn't like the direct sun that much except when it is chillier and with the hot days now, that makes the night walk even more desirable.
This will last eight months and, in the fall, we will be able to cheat a little bit after PST comes back.
As far as the light is concerned, we are a little different here. The mountain takes an hour away from the "normal" flat land day.
The shadow is on us by 615PM. And we are further out now than we used to be. A good thing.
Of course, we are no where near official summer (JUne) but that is life in the desert. Anything but normal.
Ahhhh. Summer.
THE RICH HAVE PROBLEMS TOO
But when your characters have a lot of money you can make a sumptuous, beautiful epic and very long film about the family and its ups and downs.
Today's film was Olivier Assayas'
and I just watched the first half of its three hour life.
A large family, now in the third generation, is having some problems of its scions doing what they want to do versus corporate loyalty.
The company is a large porcelain production outfit, mining to retail, and has been overseen by its founder, the grand-père, who is dying in the beginning and dead midway through.
A crisis for the sons and daughters who have both married outside the family and have pursued other careers. Except for the youngest son who wanted to be a pastor and, through some bad choices, has to divorce his wife who has or has not been unfaithful.
The cast is first class. One of the women, the second wife of the pastor is Emmanuell Béart who we saw the other day in the artist film. She was the model and mostly naked throughout. Here, she is still a bit unconventional but in a Victorian way. Buttoned up but very hot.
The wayward pastor is Charles Berling whose emancipation from the desire to be a parson leads him to a new life with Béart. The discarded wife is a haughty and severely fucked up Isabelle Huppert who has often been the "other woman" but, here, goes against type. There is an uncle who sort of presides over the situation, Mathieu Genet. I have seen this actor play everything up and down the scale. Here he is definitely "up".
These are all favorite stars. A feast to see them together.
The story spans thirty years so I am only half way through and at a point where the pastor, living on his earnings as an heir, decides to return to Limoges from his idyll with Béart in Switzerland.
Here is what I like about this film so far. It is very expensively done and so the detail is incredible to watch. There is a party in which all (except the dour Huppert) waltz faster and faster and then let go in a huge dance sequence which involves the entire mansion, a can-can line indoors and out. There are horses and carriages and hunky young factory workers and more goo gaws (it is the Victorian period after all) than are possible to look at.
One senses that all involved had a gloriously happy time doing this film.
I have been more than pleased to participate as a fly on the wall.
What will happen next?
Au revoir jusqu'à demain.
Labels: films
FEELINGS
I read this article in The New Yorker and really wanted to hear Jason Moran.
When the article was done, I was feeling teary. So unusual. What is going on here?
I had to "look him up on YouTube>
When he was fourteen and had taken a lot of lessons in classical, he heard Monk and it changed his musical life. Well, maybe his life.
I used to play piano. Improvisation. I took lessons several times.
I was good enough at it to know that I wasn't good enough.
I have never been able to explain that one to people. So I will not try hear.
For the most part Jazz bores me now. I abhor the efforts of some to enshrine or embalm it.
Moran is the first fresh talent to come along in a long while. And here he is finding new spaces in Monk.
Who of course had lots of new spaces himself. But no one had been able to unravel them like this.
Want some more? Jason Moran working out Body and Soul Live at The Tribes.
This time solo. Man. The piano. Intentional? I think so. Talk about taking it out for a walk.
He takes that little phrase and just works it over and over. And over and over again. The invention is scrupulous. A hard combination to get. Carefully handled chaos and order.
He uses the full piano. Top and bottom. There are 88 possibilities. There is great space in between. Time for the listener to listen and get onto it with him.
I read that Moran typically does not take down the entire piece but parts of it and deconstructs so we can really hear it. Here he shows that in process.
Man!!!
If I could play like that I would take it up again.
Labels: Jason Moran, music
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
WE STILL SAY "DIAL"
When I was a kid, we had a telephone, at first, with no dial.
There was an operator. You told her (always a her) the name of "the party" you wanted.
Then, my god! A dial.
This is how it worked.
At first there was a party line, shared with others. But that didn't last long. It drove my Dad nuts to wait.
I wasn't old enough to enjoy listening in but later, a few cousins were on party lines and I got to eavesdrop.
There is no mystery to using a dial phone but it apparently flummoxed some people enough this had to be prepared.
In the old days, where I lived, there were just four numbers. I can still remember my cousin Phil's number: 3431.
In larger locations, they added prefixes that had a name. Like "Columbus". When I went to MIT, I lived in "University". Then in other cities, my memory fades. I think, maybe not, when I lived in Plymouth MA, the prefix was PILgrim. I don't know. It is fading.
Now, we live in an area that has two or three area codes and we have to dial the three digit prefix. My phone "dials" the one. For international I have to put in 01.
And so it goes.
Thanks to I Love Charts
Labels: technology
CRANE
Today's film was James Franco's film thesis at NYU
It is, nonetheless, made with a pretty big budget.
Takes from the life and poetry of Hart Crane, who some believe is the first great American poet of the 20th Century.
T.S. Eliot is an American citizen and counts in the race but he took off for the UK where he became a staunch anglophile and put on airs.
Crane did no such thing. He was well travelled and never left a sort of working man's kind of mentality. A relatively open gay man, he infused this consciousness into his poetry which, for many, was inaccessible.
The film is "interesting" meaning that it is a bit difficult. It is not meant to be a biography, I think, but rather, a sensibility. A kind of poem with life flashes. There is, of course, a lot of poetry reading.
The queer parts are done with considerable realism as are the tortured poet stuff which involves a lot of walking around in "a mood". We see a lot of NYC, Paris and what is supposed to be Havana but I bet is not.
Franco stars and, as the young Crane, we have James' brother Dave who has his own career cooking outside of being James' brother. A fun move.
The period is the 20's but the sensibility is more Godard or new wave French. There is a lot of handheld. The editing is quirky.
I liked it but it is a freshman outing. The other actors are marginal. Not a lot of rehearsal time I bet. I also bet a lot of it was filmed on the sly, not with a permit. The reason for the handheld and the quick cuts.
You can see Franco experimenting with light, night, sun flashes and so on. He wins with most of it.
I am glad that I saw it and wish him luck on his first full studio or even indie film. You gotta know that, in my heart, I love James Franco intensely and I am a kind critic no matter what. I am reasonably certain that if it had been another film maker it would not have gotten this first class DVD treatment. The NYTimes blasted it.
A 3 out of Netflix5.
The preview is ballsy. It doesn't mask the purpose and drift of the film. It is very brief, about a minute short of the normal length.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
LIGHTS ACTION CAMERA
HitRECord, an online collaborative production company founded by actor and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt, released the above video earlier this week. The two-minute short shows a stunning collection of contributor- and audience-submitted clips of various "flickering lights" — reflections on rivers, candles on birthday cakes, cell phones scattered across a packed theater.The concept originated from a poem by HitRECord member Wirrow, called "Give Me All The Flickering Lights," which is recited in the video.
Labels: films, fun. music, poetry
PROGRESS REPORT
Full article here.
There are currently ten states who allow gay marriage.
Labels: gay marriage, gay rights
FICTION IS STRANGER THAN TRUTH OR WHAT?
Today's movie was the documentary/narrative
Well, number one, the spelling of "imposter" is a purposeful act. Let it be.
A young con artist passes himself off with a false identity to the Spanish police but things go out of control when the actual family of the lost kid is contacted and, so he won't be found out, he continues to lie his way through the situation.
The amazing thing is that the family buys the story and, after four or five years, actually re-unite with their "lost son". And completely accept him.
Things go on from there and eventually unravel and even more surprises await.
So this is not about whether the imposter is a fake or not. We know he is because he is telling us so. It is about how people reacted to it and what the fuck is going on with them.
This is a thriller of a story with a mix of actual players including the perp and the family as well as an FBI agent and private investigator that got involved in the case.
The director, Bart Layton uses "re-enactment" along with the talking heads without going over the line of distorting the story or confusing who the real and not real people are.
This allows him to let us be sucked into the story and the situation in the same way that the real people were. Or pretended they were.
Some of it is crazy but a kind of sensible craziness. It is exciting. It is compelling. It is amazing.
Even if it was totally false, which it is not, it would make a great story. Because much of it is true, and we know what parts are still in doubt, it is even more crazy.
The kid who plays the perp looks like the kid who pretends to be the lost son even if he does not look like him, has a french accent, doesn't remember anything about his previous time with the family or his lost life. Then he does. In the same way, the other actors look like their real life counterparts and Layton intercuts very cleverly to make it all flow. And ebb.
This is a great film made from what is really a tabloid story. Only you would not believe it in a tabloid. Here, well, I believe it all. There is great care taken to confirm the "facts" and show the other info as lies.
I will give this film a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Monday, March 11, 2013
THE HOLY SEE
Just in time for the enclave.
The Vatican Buys Europe's Biggest Gay Sauna: VIDEO
Don't miss the comments on the page. Some are priceless.
You know what a gay sauna is, right?
A place to go and relax along with fellow heat worshipers. And if a little close up fellowship is available, then that too.
I am indifferent to the results of this week's election. I think most people are.
There was a time, when I was a kid, when the chimney watch was a major television feature.
Now, ho hum.
There is not a lot of difference between one bigot hypocrite and another.
New is the admission that there are, indeed, gay cardinals. If they get caught.
Sissy Spellman in NY city carried on for years with the young priests who ministered to his needs and everyone knew it. But no whistles blew.
And that is just the beginning.
Suffice to say it is all a sick joke. Too bad that many, too many, people's lives are ruined by these bastards.
Sure they do good. But on their terms.
Labels: christist watch
SHAKE AND ROLL NO RATTLE
Today's calm was shattered by a series of earthquakes all around Anza which is just over the mountain roads to San Diego. I go through it for my scenic trip to the water every year.
A 2.7, followed by a 4.7, that followed with a 3.0 and finally a 2.5
All in about half a minute.
Then a flurry of 2.5's a while later. We didn't feel those.
These were tremors, rollers. Not slip shock where there is a sharp bang and a jolt.
We are about 30 miles from Anza as the crow flies but there is a sizable mountain range between. Well, Anza is sort of on top. We are down below to the NE.
This is the first in quite a while. The first we can feel anyway. The small ones, sub 1 are going on all the time.
I was in the bathroom. On the throne.
I sort of go through a quick mental assessment. Is it bad enough to go flat on the floor or into the door frame? There wasn't a table to go under, the other precaution. We are on one floor so there isn't a lot of worry about the house collapsing on me especially in a small room like that.
This is sort of useless cogitation about something which is totally unpredictable. Like a basic question is whether this is a pre-quake, the big one, or whether that is all there will be.
John was close by in the work room. Booker was sleeping. Until it happened. He doesn't like it more than we do not.
Which means that the main thing is just to get to him and tell him it is OK if it is and save his ass if it isn't.
These are on the order of "nothing special" as it turns out. I suppose that later in the day or tomorrow, someone will ask if I felt the shake. Yes. Then on with the next item of business.
We have been here long enough that I don't think of them at all in between. If I wasn't writing this it would be erased pretty much.
The idea is that if it is the "big one" it will already be over. It is not like a hurricane where we sit waiting for days and hours before the inevitable, well not always inevitable, outcome.
We are very close the the huge branch of the San Andreas Fault. Almost all quakes have nothing whatsoever to do with this Fault but arise from some other known or unknown locales.
Of course, we could live in Japan.
Labels: earthquake
ART FOR LIFE AND LIFE FOR ART
Today's film, the conclusion of Jacques Rivette's
There is a sequence at the end of the film where the six characters each have a word with each other separate from the rest. It is like a musical coda. What they have learned. What we have seen.
Rivette is thought of by some as the father of the New Wave. No less a personage than Truffaut said so.
In this late film I think that Rivette sums it up. The artist in the story, a painter, is distilling a lifetime into the work. He creates a masterpiece but only a few people will see it.
We, actually, do not see it.
But we do see every action up to the great creation. The sketches, the line drawings, the poses of the model. The dialogue between artist and model, electric.
This film is four hours long and yet it passes very quickly. Rivette's magic.
Rivette is living longer and producing more than any other New Wave auteur. Unlike the artist in this film, he has far from completed his work.
The story, almost inconsequential, aside, the film bursts with color and "views". Frames of luscious color and composition. If one thinks there is a distance between a film and a painting, and of course there is, Rivette does everything he can to minimize the distance.
There is very little music in the film. Opening and closing. Intermission. Stravinsky.
All the rest is ambient sound amped up for us to hear the creation and not just see it. Doors slam, stools scrape, curtains slide open, birds sing, people in the town are heard here and there. The pen strokes and brush sounds are, indeed very Stravinsky. The beat of the rite of spring.
I am not sure if I have the stamina to see this again but I think I will do it anyway.
Oh. Michael Piccoli as the artist. Whew.
That makes this a 5 out of Netflix5.
In this scene, we see the first sketches being made. There will be pages and pages and sheets and sheets. A full painting will emerge from all this work.
Labels: films
Sunday, March 10, 2013
ART IS IN THE EYE OF THE MODEL AND THE ARTIST
Today's film was the first half of Jacques Rivette's
Cannes Grand Prize winner.
A great artist who has been blocked for a long time meets a woman and asks her to be a model.
The film is basically about painting his long desired masterpiece La Belle Noiseuse (the beautiful nut or woman who is nuts).
We get to see the entire process of this painting. Sketch by sketch, stroke by stroke. The relationship between artist and model becomes a central part of the action. There is also a story wound around the process.
The film is four hours long and is quite fascinating to watch unfold. Both the concept and execution of the painting and the relationship between the people involved.
Part Two tomorrow.
Labels: films
BACK INTO THE CLOSET
We have retained the services and products of California Closets to redo two of our smaller closets.
I knew this was coming after we lost a hanging rod in the big walk in off our bedroom.
We are not getting that closet done. There are already some storage units in there and John fixed the pole.
But the two other closets are a mess and so we will get them rehabbed into more usable space.
California Closets (a franchise) are very professional and it is not as expensive as I expected. We enjoyed the visit of the sales rep who designed the whole thing before I eyes on a computer complete with 3-d views.
The guys come this week to put the units in. All we have to do is unload and reload the closets.
The next step will be to get accordion mirrors on each to get more light and easier opening. Sliders such as we have don't permit use of the middle very well.
We get the doors from someone else.
The closet interiors will look like this. Sort of. This is obviously for "girls".
Saturday, March 09, 2013
SUPERMEN
Today's film was the last segment of the second season of Errol Morris' "First Person" television series.
In maybe twenty episodes I have seen a fascinating collection of people telling their stories in a special way.
Morris interviews them through his device to insure full eye contact with the camera. They are looking at him but the optics make it so that they are looking at us. Not achievable without Morris' device. Try watching talking heads and notice.
The interviews are, of course, edited, and they are the product of an interaction with Morris himself who sort of talks from a distance from time to time.
Mostly it is the people. The effect is that they are talking to me.
How this makes a dramatic difference is a bit hard to equate but there is a difference, a presence, not achievable in other interview films I have seen.
He has also chosen exceptional people. Not exceptional in a traditional sense. These people are folks who have been there and done that which few of us are privileged to do. A few may not regard it as a privilege.
I have enjoyed this series very much.
Today, we had three relatively long pieces.
The first was a smart guy or, rather, a guy who has accumulated great knowledge for the purpose of being on the quiz show Millionaire. Since I don't understand the mechanics and have never seen the show I was a bit out of the loop technically but I did get the enormous ego of a guy like this (who got screwed a bit by the producers). He is an autodidact who works as a nude model, a bar bouncer and a stripper. He has a host of theories and ideas which he actually has carried out. He faked his way into high school senior classes four or five times. I lost count. He is probably a bit crazy. And he was fascinating.
The second guy was/is the chiefest pilot in the US or the world. He ran/runs the flight simulation school at which every pilot must refresh his learning annually. He chanced to be coming home on a flight where the DC10 lost all hydraulic systems. A virtually impossible situation. He went into the cockpit and assisted the pilots land the plane. We get a blow by blow of the long descent and trouble shooting including films of the final crash which he and 188 other people survived. Suspense. Real life. What are the chances that this guy would be on that plane. One, to help save an impossible situation and two, to study first hand the problem solving necessary to manually fly an "impossible" flight to a flat landing on an actual airfield.
The last guy is the highest IQ guy in the world. He tests at 210, the max. No one higher. And, he too, is a bouncer in a bar. He has worked out a thought system which has our survival built into it and no way to make it practical and work. A good talker. Also a little nuts. Moral. Don't be too smart. They will kick the shit out of you, which will make you so tough you can be a bouncer in the toughest bars in the world, and, the academics will have your ass for breakfast.
I could not sit through all this again although I did meet someone this week who has the entire series in their house on disc. I didn't ask if he ever watches. I have this idea that many of us, me included, by DVDs to have and then never watch them. How could we?
Here is to Errol Morris. He is working on some feature length pieces as I type. I am ready to see them.
Labels: films
Friday, March 08, 2013
NO ID
This actually happened to me in the St. Regis hotel in NYC.
Everything now is covered by security cams.
Two differences. One was that I was sort of sleep walking. I awoke pretty fast when the door shut.
Two was that I found an old telephone at a table in the hall and called down.
A house detective came and let me in the room.
He told me that the phone I used was not supposed to work.
He thought it was pretty funny. I did not.
Once I was in the room, he came and knocked to see if everything was OK. A way of checking that there was no one else in there.
Then he/they called me a few minutes later. "Is everything all right?". I think that is when they asked my name. A final check whether it was really me. As if someone would be walking the halls balls naked pretending to be someone who didn't live in the hotel. Well, maybe.
That was the end of it.
Don't finish work, on an empty stomach, and have two or maybe three black russians before you go to bed.
And they wonder why I quit drinking. This was just one of those kind of stories.
I laughed a lot in watching this poor guy. He doesn't look drunk but it is pretty foolhardy to do what he did none-the-less. Or stupid. So maybe he was. Drunk.
I identified almost completely.
Labels: alcohol, embarrassing moments, travel
MORE MORE MORRIS
Today, the film was a continued plow through Errol Morris interviews on his teevee show (2000) First Person.
I met a guy who was pen pals with Ted Koczinsky, the Unabomber.
An ex-spy who, it turned out mid interview, was the guy who led the successful evacuation of diplomats from Iran and became a film "Argo".
A woman who has a business of cleanup of messy crime scenes, suicides, or people who die alone. It was, perhaps, the most interesting and compassionate.
A forensic psychologist specializing in evil who has a set of protocols for diagnosing such mental diseases and the potential for treatment of same.
A mob lawyer who I have seen before and is fascinating with great "war stories" (that's him in the photo).
And a guy who set himself up to live on teevee, video cam, a "show called WeLiveInPublic. I used to watch a guy who did this. This was from the inside out. He is nuts.
Morris is a master interviewer. He is able to show most of these people ending up their interviews with deep personal reflections which catch them off guard in such a way you can see them looking inward. Not always with happy results. Sometimes though, with great personal satisfaction and wry amusement at themselves which is sort of the way Morris sees himself.
These are great pieces and I will be glad to see the end of it tomorrow.
Labels: films
Thursday, March 07, 2013
MORE MORRIS
Today's "movie" continuing with Errol Morris' First Person, a collection of 30-45 minute interviews with interesting people or situations.
Actually, beyond interesting.
Take today.
I watched a woman who had been the girl friend of a guy who became a serial killer after they were together. Later, while writing a book with this first guy, she met a second serial killer in the same prison and fell in love with him.
Wow.
You don't see that every day.
Then, a guy who is fascinated with crionics, the freezing of the body before or just after death on the chance that in a hundred, two hundred, or more years they will have figured out a way to resuscitate these people who wanted their bodies frozen. Crazy. Well, not if you are him. He has had his mother's head frozen and got in trouble right here in my county, Riverside, was finally released and still has the mom hidden in case they want to take her away from him.
Then we have, not the guy who "went postal" and killed a bunch of people in his post office, but this killer's boss who was blamed by the union for bad working conditions and pilloried into a dead end job, career in tatters as a result. He is not happy about it. They say he was autocratic and a little hitler. He did look like a bit of a shit but still.
Then the story of a murder in which a key witness was a parrot who was in the room at the time. The principles talk at length about who was there and not there and so on. The judge threw the parrot's testimony out. He said "no no Richard" over and over. Richard was the perp's name. Also the name of the kid in the family before. Could'a been his mom.
Finally, the best one, bar none. Perhaps the best I have seen. Gretchen Worden, the director of the Mutter Medical Museum in Philadelphia where thousands of exhibits of medical anomalies are stored and exhibited. They have the only plaster casts of the siamese twins Cnag and Eng. Most of the exhibits are the real thing. In bottles or skeletal remains. Worden has a great sense of humor and a deep respect for her work and her charges. It was a thoroughly enjoyable interview. I read that she has since died. Morris asks her if she would like to be exhibited. I do not know if she is on show or not. The interview sure came across very well.
I am in the first part of two out of three discs.
Labels: films
