Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Gritty and true
True Grit. Incredible movie. The original came out in 1969, when I was 8 years old and ready for hero worship. Kim Darby's strong, dignified, brave and idiosyncratic Mattie Ross fit the bill. I've just discovered that Kim has a website, and a big, adoring fan base, and well she should. A film starring such swaggeringly manly, hot, and gifted as John Wayne, Dennis Hopper, Robert Duvall and, yes, a sexy young Glen Campbell--that does not sound like a recipe for a movie crying out for a remake. You can see the original, by the way, Saturday night (Jan. 8) at 8:00 pm. Did you know that if you look a movie up on the IMDb site, marginal notes will tell you when the film is upcoming on TV? But I digress, as usual.
What I mean to say is, the Coen Brothers did it up right.
Monday night I went to True Grit with my dear friend Dan. Dan and I both love movies and observe similar "movie etiquette". Talking is fine during the previews, but once the film starts we each enter our private experience of the film, and we don't feel the need to talk much afterwards. We like to process. He is MY movie buddy. You can't have him.
Anyway, from the first moment the Coens weave a world of violence and dust, opportunism and venality, cowardice, drunkenness; a dried up, sepia hell of tawdry vice. Against this dispirited, cynical world stands our young, stubbornly virtuous heroine, Mattie Ross. The mesmerizing tale unfolds in all its gritty--what else?--glory.
Young Hailee Steinfeld is a worthy successor to Darby in the role of Mattie. Jeff Bridges embodies Rooster Cogburn in a way that is wonderful to see. Matt Damon and Josh Brolin enter their characters so completely they scarcely look like themselves. The acting is so good that the casting of these big-name stars presents no obstacle to the suspension of disbelief that is, for me, key to total movie enjoyment.
The movie versions of True Grit are very well-known, but they are based on a splendid book by Charles Portis. Noir fiction master George Pelicanos discusses the enduring power of the book in this NPR interview. An excerpt of the book is included on the NPR page, so you can get a taste of Mattie's unique, even quirky, voice. You don't have to love Western fiction to love this novel. I hope you will read it if you haven't yet.
. 
2011, A.D.D.
So, I woke up this morning at 5 and, unable to fall back to sleep, I thought I would edit some poems. I went to Google to start a search for the etymology of the word "nightmare". I don't know how this happened, but now it's nearly 8 a.m. and I have redesigned my blog, lurked around Facebook, visited my email, edited several photos, and perused the British Museum's online collection of ancient manuscripts . Having now realized I forgot to research the word "nightmare", I am tempted to go back to sleep. What is wrong with my brain?
I've recently been reading Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Carr asserts (with some pretty convincing supporting evidence) that we are turning our brains into frenetic hummingbirds. Reading the book, on my Kindle for PC, with several other windows open on the screen, highlighting portions for my upcoming media class and drifting about the internet for lesson plan ideas.....um, reading the book.....made me want to READ in the old-fashioned immersive way in which everything in the world disappears but the kingdom of words I have entered by curling on pillows in a spill of golden light and opening the wondrous material object formerly known as "book". And I'm not a new media hating curmudgeon, mind you. My son would be quick to note that I am always wired to something. As a digital native, he is not so infatuated with the simulated flight of hyperlinking his way across the morning that feels, to me, like living in a Disney version of the Library of Alexandria. My childhood dreams come true--imagining any place in the world and transporting myself there instantly with my mind. Magic. It can even make three hours disappear, gone forever in a few clicks of the keys.
Oh, what the heck was I intending to write about? The Shallows? Yes, well, Michael Agger, writing in Slate, described Carr's book as "a Silent Spring for the literary mind". Carr, prior to publishing "The Shallows", had already provided plenty of curriculum fodder for media studies classes with his Atlantic Article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". NPR's "All Things Considered" presented an interview with Carr in June 2010; it's good listening and lays out the essential points of his concern.
Nightmare. Something about nightmare. Let me get back to you on this.....as soon as I can follow a thought to a conclusion.
(for some great articles and blog posts on this issue:
Monday, January 3, 2011
New Year
Resolved?
--Write more.
--See more of my friends.
--Skate some. Walk some.
--Keep this &%#$# blog!
Oh--and stop stockpiling for the "next catastrophe". I had our cleaning goddess, Orianna, cull out three garbage bags full of expired canned goods from our basement. Shame. What's left? Pasta, pasta, pasta. Also, I have eight cans of tuna, four cans of crab meat, seven tins of sardines, and four cans of corned beef hash to consume by April.
No problem. One can of said hash is this very moment developing a lovely crust in our big frying pan.
Speaking of catastrophe, one of the cats left me a turd outside the bedroom door this morning. This means the offending kitty carried the item up the basement stairs from the cat box. In its mouth. That's motivation. They've been upset since we ran out of Greenies two weeks ago. Things are starting to escalate. Must get to Pet Quarters.
It seems I'm back in the writing biz! Had two poems accepted for the upcoming issue of The Cafe Review and just heard from John Berbrich that he's taking two of mine for an upcoming issue of Barbaric Yawp. These publications and their editors have championed my work since early days and I'm so pleased to be breaking my rather long silence by a reappearance in their pages. I've also accepted an invitation to participate in a panel discussion at the 2001 Terry Plunkett Poetry Festival at UMA.
The publishers of Barbaric Yawp, John and Nancy Berbrich, have become dear friends over the years, and in two weeks I'll be visiting them in their incredible book-crammed house in Russell, NY. Harold and I had a fantastic time with them when we visited a few years ago and I've decided to stop postponing the delight of a return visit and GO! Check out their website; they publish great chaps, too-- two of mine, I'm fortunate to say.
I'm getting revved up for my "Mass Media and Popular Culture" class. It's a hybrid this year, which gives me a lot more flexibility for using multimedia. Thanks to Harold, who turned me on to the series, I've been previewing episodes of the CBC's great radio show "The Age of Persuasion" with Terry O'Reilly. O'Reilly really makes the ad world come alive. Starting this month, the series will be officially available in podcast. UNofficially, archived shows are available thanks to some enterprising blogger.
Time to eat that hash! Mmmm, mmmm!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Glenn Beck on Social Justice Christians
In short, he exhorted viewers to "run" from their churches if they belonged to a church promoting social or economic justice; he further equated such values with communism and Nazism.
A quick survey of the media, both mainstream and user-created, reveals a refreshing variety of effective and creative responses:
Glenn Beck's original clip on social justice and Christianity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c4DqdleJuY&feature=related
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell and Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners discuss Glenn Beck's remarks about "social justice" and Christianity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQcrM4HQQyg&feature=related
Jon Stewart had a little fun with the nonsense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNOku6QP4UM&feature=related
Christians from many denominations respond:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6aUtizKqKw
A song offered in response:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAPCZ9EHk9I&feature=related
An interesting response from a thoughtful young man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMkHcLtVqb4
Soujourner's Magazine provides a handy letter whereby believers can "turn themselves in" to Glenn Beck for the crime of being a social justice Christian:
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/glennbeck_socialjustice
I can only offer my Exhibit One: well-known Communist and Nazi, Mother Teresa:
Saturday, April 3, 2010
So what?
So this is what I've been thinking, in no particular order.
Bad people have hijacked Jesus and disfigured him terribly.
Some force deep in my...whatever....soul, brain chemistry, hormones, emotional soup, mind or spirit....cries out to..? Love, worship, plead to, pray to, dance for, sing to, cheer, sob to, just be in the presence of......something. You cannot convince me there is NOT "something" any more than you could convince me there IS "something". It's not about "convince", for me. Just for me. I don't have the slightest interest in influencing any other living being's position on "the spiritual". And that represents a big change from my formerly zealous evangelical and oh-so-firmly-convinced-in-the-particulars young self. The self I was before I walked away with my fingers in my ears chanting lalalalallalaala I'm not listening. All of the hate-mongering, politics, pandering, fear-mongering, anti-gay, anti-poor, anti-foreign, anti-woman, anti-everyotheroneoftheseveralthousandsects, historical and current murder and torture and molestation and repression, rejection, deception, and "Jesus said 20 times more things about hell than he ever did about Heaven" SICKENING wave after wave of "doctrine" and sermonizing.... I'm not listening. That's where I've been stuck for years now--a position that isn't a "position" at all; just avoidance--elective deafness--turning my face to the wall. Ignoring.....something. Someone?
Someone.
I'm not good at doing the "God of my understanding is a faceless emanation of energy" thing. I don't find myself credible when I talk to myself about God this way. There's a 50 year old accretion of moss and slime that's slowly formed around a bright little kernel who went to Baptist Bible school and sang Jesus Loves Me to scare the nightmares away. Somehow under the moss and slime--some WHERE under that much and mire--that little kernel is still singing. Nothing I can do about it.
So, tomorrow is Easter. I am going somewhere, to church somewhere, to sing my heart out. I hope no one there knows me or tries to know me. I may leave before the sermon--may WELL leave before the sermon. I don't expect to see Jesus but maybe he'll see me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To Mrs. Eclecticist
Posts
All Comments