listening to Richard Ashcroft. 

Pretty much, movie night for me and Jay is often the result of neither of us wanting to tell the other no in the hanging-out sense of the word…, and add to that the reality that we’ve become for each other always-there escapes from the Things We Should Be Otherwise Doing.  We’re just always generally up for watching movies (who wouldn’t be?); it always sounds good. We like so many of the exact same things too, so it’s easy.  When he offered an unguided self-imposed class-in-our-living-rooms audit of film history, fkk yes I wanted to take part and learn a thousand new things.  Of course.  And vise versa; often my offers ring fine-tunely with his…at least enough to where we can enjoy the film and talk about it.  Sit, wine or Champagne or Cavas, creatively plan our flavors for the evening, imbibe, and discuss the living ball of the thing til morning.

Recently I realized our movie evenings have been taking place for over a year.  We could be approaching two years even, but without my ability for shortish-term memory, I no longer possess the power to recall.  Chuckle.  Honestly, I just don’t remember when we started.

We have so much terrain yet to cover, but since the beginning of this film-viewing partnership, we’ve seen 2 French films (MY GOD, THEY’RE SO DIFFERENT), 1 German film and too many ancient American films to count.  Sometimes we expand on the theme of one director like Robert Altman or a subject theme like dark comedies.  Other times, we follow an actor.  Often, he explains cultural eccentrisms  of the things he knows and I nod and try to remember to do same.  As a result, I have now been taught Billy Wilder and given a deeper sense of historical perspective.  DVD extras are invaluable in this realm: they show how trailers used to be edited and outakes from the year they were released and news clips.  We’ve watched film reels from the World War years, witnessed, 60+ years later, actual show openings in the 30s when Los Angeles and New York looked nothing like they do today.  It’s incredible.  It’s what it used to look like to my grandparents. 

We don’t get that chance very often anymore, to be taken back into real time and not some artist’s depiction.  I learned that Vivien Leigh was in a movie besides Gone With The Wind (what?) and I was mouth-agape shocked at Marlon Brando’s build in A Streetcar Named Desire.  How did he build a body like that before there were gyms?  Which leads to the inevitable:

What was the world like before I came to understand it?  What did people do? (certainly there were gyms) How did they live?  What was the world like? 

See?

When you’re my age, you see tributes to old actors and musicians and politicians and it’s easy to wonder why they’re considered greats.  Is it because of their popularity in their time?  Because of their belovedness to the age group of those owning the economy?  Is it because they’re such old bears they’ve dominated the social vernacular since time began?  Is it because we’re not creative enough in our social commentary to highlight anyone other than the same old people?  Perhaps not, but the kids don’t know these things right off.  We have to be taught them.  It’s like learning the Beatles – Until being shown the light, it was easy for me to dismiss the B’s because their music was in commercials and part of the popular media scape and in cartoons and ads for cars.  I didn’t know why everyone loved them; I just knew they did and I was bored.  “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” just seemed old and too simple to love and quite frankly, a relic.  But once I was shown the history and learned about innovation and Sputnik and All You Need Is Love and Timothy Leary and how until they became powerful enough to break the mold, the music industry was dictated by fat old white men.  And then I dosed and listened to their innovation from album to album and mentally graphed it next to social heartbeats during that time, and then Ahh; I got it. 

It’s a powerful concept, teaching things in relevance to their own living, breathing systems, to the osmosis and the melding and the taking away and adding and regenerating.  It probably seems obvious.  My point is that it’s effective.  I was taught art history that way in college, and I’m pretty nostalgic for it.  I sat through years of slides in the dark velvet coolness of an auditorium, trying to stay awake but usually succeeding because the subject matter was so damn interesting.  That same prof had us also studying maps and wars, music, old newspapers and scripts alongside.  I burn a hot soul-fire for histories like that – of our reality, our past, human innovation, the beginning of life, endeavors -  music and art, discovery, curiosity and all the venerable fields that it birthed; all of it together against its own historical backdrop living organic Wagner/Ingres/Yuri Gagarin system. 

Watching old movies explains so much about American culture as watching foreign films highlights elements of foreign culture.  It shows our esteems, what we hold high and fall short of.  How we used to talk…or used to wish we sounded like.  Like when were duels outlawed – and why so late???  Where we came from and where our crazy thinking can be mapped back to.  Naturally, it also charts the industry’s progress from the stage to what we now see in film.  In so many early films, acting is actually over-acting, screen actors performing theatrically as they would Hamlet on a stage.  Because back then, a film role was just another gig; less than a stage role actually, and there was no template for it.  Actors were melodramatic and unrelatable.  Watching old movies shows us what nightlife used to be like before there were sound systems and speakers and recorded music and visuals.  All the clubs had big bands and cigarettes and dancing girls.  Of course they did; how else would they entertain but with dancing girls and a black band leader?  

And then, through such an audit and not knowing or expecting anything beforehand, Quality begins to emerge.   I learn who the good actors are and the progressive directors.  It couldn’t be helped; they naturally reveal themselves.  Watching old movies, you can’t mistake those who became breakouts and leaders in their craft and why: they mastered character acting. They created it when before them there was none.  Sunset Boulevard, A Streetcar Named Desire, now I understand the cult of Marlon Brando and of Bette Davis, and goddamn is it valid and deserved.  They’re honestly amazing.

The Women, The Little Foxes, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte - with Olivia de Havilland (Melanie!) as a murderous public relations [gasp!] maven?, Jezebel with Henry Fonda and John Barrymore - and look how beautiful Bette was in this still (sorry, but I LOVE this image), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Some Like It Hot, All About Eve, Auntie Mame, On The Waterfront, Stage Door, Metropolis, Casa Blanca and maybe 1 or 2 others that I’m failing to remember. 

And there’s less ancient ones like The Horseman - the French make the weirdest allegories to sex!, Cinema Paradiso with the cutest little boy in history, Dr. Strangelove, M*A*S*H, Withnail & I, Team America World Police - a most hilarious and smart political satire, Gosford Park.

Oh yes, and I cannot forget the extensive Pedro Almodovar commitment we uphold.  That one is very, very important.

Have you ever seen Habla Con Ella?  (Talk to Her).  Really, seriously crazily unbelieveable, strong and profound.  And All About My Mother?  Women on The Verge?  I’m barely able to understand how much this man loves women.  Honestly, this man loves women.  He makes them heros and their neurosis cute and forgiveable and interesting and entertaining.  It’s an amazing and strange thing to see and take in as a female: all the things I’m wishing to fix or at the least identify and take hold of and improve or destroy.  These things he pardons and holds tightly and puts out to view as harmless but funny-almost; things “about life” that we should just witness and understand for what it is.  Like seeing an adult naked body when you’re young; it’s all wrong and insane but it’s the truth of the world.  It really is something.

Talk To Her stayed with me for a very long time.  I’ve taken time to digest it.  I thought about that film so much for the last few weeks that I didn’t really talk about it or write anywhere because I didn’t know what to say.  It kept me from writing here in fact.  I hadn’t conquered it yet; mealed it around to a place where I could articulate my thoughts on it clearly and earnestly without regretting it later.  The way it portrayed men – I needed to understand it and decide whether I consider it real or not, or partially real, or an image of what some men are like maybe?  Especially in juxtaposition to how I’ve grown accustomed to seeing men portrayed in film and TV; in control, demanding it, hurting others sometimes, powerful, taking what they want.  Of course real life is different.  I’m really just referring to the portayal.  See it and tell me what you think.  Tell me about it.  Tell me what you think about the part in the dream where the miniaturized husband can’t help himself; all he wants to do is please her.  It’s amazing and weird and quite frankly a thing to behold.

I’ve been listening to The Shins’ Wincing The Night Away as I’ve been writing this tonight.  Such an interesting and strong departure.  Most definitely recommend it.

This evening, we drank a liter of Three Thieves from a new Christmas-gift decanter (I love!) and watched a German film about young-ish love and social breakdowns and two rough and choreographed and scripted soccer teams, yum, and it reminded us of the films we saw in the late-ish 90’s and of all the beautiful-like-that Europeans we wish we would have kissed by now.  It was cute as hell in an Amelie-but-male-centered  way.  And for the life of me I can’t remember the goddamn name.  Oh yes; checked the Netflix queue: it’s called Guys and Balls.  As in soccer balls and an underlying theme of male sports and homo/hetero sexuality and having to play together and learning to be friends.  Awwww.

I woke up this morning feeling run over by the holidaze.  sort of pit-in-the-stomach, thumped in the head by them.  I had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed the company and revelry of friends and family, but it all stopped short before I had a chance to swallow and there is too much to compute and to be done to “ready” for a new year.  And least of all things, going back to work.  I did though, go back to the office this morning, and it was a supremely surreal experience.

Roads on my commute in were car-less, recalling in a way the opening sequence in Vanilla Sky.  Driving into an empty parking garage left me feeling almost crazy, as if no one in their right mind would consider working today and I missed the memo.  But on the upswing, an empty office makes loafing around much easier and the guilt less potent re: collecting a paycheck for a day spent reading blogs and really good Slate articles about taking handouts from drug companies.

Is Monday really the beginning of 2007?  Can I put it off one more minute?  Tell me about you though; gift me some dialogue:  Do you like the winter soltice and the turning of the new year?  Does it do anything to you or for you?  How is your soul now after the holidays?  Are you miserable?  Are you happy?  Did you get what you wanted?  What are you planning for next year…or rather next week?  Do you make resolutions?  Do you keep them?  Do you at least meditate in the direction of a new start at the coming of a new year?  What are you doing with yourself this year?  How fast can you pay off your credit card and get out of town? 

Jay has a nemesis in his office that we’ve nicknamed the Pug-Troll.  In our imaginative minds, we’ve decided there are factions in his office as a result, between Our Hero In White Jay and the annoying and personally revolting Pug-Troll.  He’s a gossipy  willy-nilly that I’d enjoy demonizing  in hope that it would make him less annoying.  I don’t work with Jay so I’ve never met this nemesis, but J’s stories are annoying enough that I’ve put my money on blind assumption.  But I couldn’t do that really, just fantasize.  We linguistically lob him back and forth all day long.  I often propose sneaky cruel tricks to play on him and Jay just outright dreams of flamethrowing super-soakers.  The two of us, theoretically snorting lines of righteous indignation.

I last night learned that a friend of mine has written a book in her down time in the office.  I’m sure most people don’t have down time, but for those of us who do and who clearly have not been anywhere near productive, it’s amazing to hear such a thing.  Like hearing that people run marathons in Death Valley.  It’s like really?  You can do that?  That such an accomplishment is possible?  You’re kidding.

I’m heading out of town tomorrow evening for the weekend, but I want to get in some real time tonight in reflection.  I can’t say that I’ve kept resolutions, but this time of year does it to me.  It sits me down with a thud to do some thinking.  And I have got so much to do.  So much planning and righting and setting straight and preparation.  I wish the very best for you and for your intentions.  I wish you more than luck. 

deep in the starless night of the winter solstice of my soul-cosmos, I detect a glimmer of hope.  For you and for me too.

One weekend a few months ago, in the fall during t-ball season, Kelly helped me babysit my 3 nephews the entire day.  Through soccer games and practice in the driveway, pick-up baseball games in the back yard, I got to see little dudes try to become boys.  How great was it?  I can’t even explain it; I had so much fun.  15 nonstop exhausting hours of tear-me-apart fun and exhausting effort. Two soccer games and one T-ball game in the same day.  We literally played and drove and corralled all day.  I made peanut butter and honey sandwiches with the crusts cut off.  I pulled every grin and con I could devise to get them to eat all their bananas.  I ran up and down stairs to calls of “Yawyen, can you turn this transfawmah back into a spaceship?”  (they have star trek-themed transformers that are fkking cool as sh!t and ”engineered” to become the millenium falcon.  coolest. toys. ever.)  We spent hours at this incredible pizza place that their grandparents, my parents, always take them to and it’s funny.  It’s like they want to win the Most Favoritest Grandparents award so they literally buy them everything they ask for and constantly gift them with amazing experiences they never gave me.  At the mind-numbing pizza place, we’re joined by my parents, my sister and her boyfriend and thank god.  Because how to keep from losing 3 little dudes darting between stranger’s kneecaps in what amounts to pizza-soaked laser-lit darkness. 

With the famdamily all together, Melissa and I try to show our nephews arcade games while Kelly and Mark play skeeball all night, according to them, to “win the boys tickets.”  Yes of course.  Right.  That’s also probably why we found them driving racecars around a miniaturized track.

My watch said 9:30 when I realized that, holy sh!t, their parents, my brother and his wife, although probably fantasically drunk by this point, are supposed to be home…and we’re 40 minutes away.  Sh!t.  Home to an empty house with no kids in beds.  In some households, that might be barely noticed, but in my sister-in-law’s house, child-rearing goes by the book.  Almost frantically we hug the grandparents bye, load up 3 car seats and haul a breaking-down suburban deep into The [daunting] Woodlands with three babies in our possession.  In the car I start coaching: what do we do when we get home? “Help your brothers out of their car seats!”  Now what do we do when we get inside? “Run to the bathroom and get in the bath!”  What else?  “Find PJs!!” Yes.  Good.  And superfast.

Actually, bathtime with 3 toddlers is pretty funny.  All you really have to do is make sure there’s soap involved and do what you can to keep each from drowning the other or using one of the many tub toys (is that a T-rex?) in a disabling manner.   Soon, we’ve coerced the 2-year-old to go to sleep albeit with a robot almost his size alongside him.  If the kid wants a robot in his bed, so be it on my watch.  Let his mother be the bad guy.

Naturally, the wasted-by-now parents are 2 hours late.  My frantic rush was completely unnecessary.  Exhausted by now, I decide my brother really owes us for giving them our Sat. and Sat. night.  With that thought fresh in mind and with the other 2 boys finally coerced into their beds, I decide a search must commence for my brother’s stash.  With the findings of said stash, the beginning of my now-infamous Kettel and Tea came to be: as in vodka and sweet-leaf tea.  There should be a rap song about it.  Who knew it could be so good.

Articles I have enjoyed of late: 

Harry Potter and the Full Frontal dilemma: “We are not doing it as an excuse to show HP’s willy.”

Tobacco Companies Admit Their Products Cause Cancer, But Not in Those Who Sue Them

For self-promotion and self-protection, Virtual Identity Management

Let’s juicily, squishily break some rules: the B.Sh. Administration Wants Adult Abstinence ….yep. that’ll work.

Make magazine seems pret-ty awesome.

Looking for a Japanese girlfriend for super happy time? You’ll need this shirt. I love how thinkgeek.com has an entire section dedicated to caffeine. They also have “giant plush microbes.” Holy FK; check this Behemoth Swiss Army Knife!

Trentemoller: The Last Resort — über-cool Danish techno DJ delivers moody gorgeous ambient electro CD unlike anything Moby could ever dream of. What, you don’t do electronica? Run a hot bath, pop a hit of Vicodin, pour a huge glass of red wine and put this on for two straight hours during a full moon, and then try and tell me that again.

…I WON this 80 GB iPod in a raffle at a Space Exploration conference last night from Boeing. (80 gigs?? are you fkking kidding me? it’s insane!)  In an unfortunate moment of lameness, the back is engraved with the note: Space and Exploration.  Catch the Vision.