The thing about madness is, it's an inconsistent narrative. As compelling and emotionally-charged as it is, to be familiar with someone who suffers so, ultimately for both Phillip's best friend Erik and his girlfriend Kari, the relationship proves to be too difficult, too frustrating.
ON Monday night at the Democratic National Convention, Caroline Kennedy introduced a tribute to her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, by pointing out, "If your child is getting an early boost in life through Head Start or attending a better school or can go to college because a Pell Grant has made it more affordable, Teddy is your senator, too."
To my surprise, I started to cry. Started to cry like I was watching the last 10 minutes of "Brokeback Mountain" instead of C-SPAN. This was whimpering brought on by simple, spontaneous gratitude.
I paid my way through Montana State University with student loans, a minimum-wage job making sandwiches at a joint called the Pickle Barrel, and — here come the waterworks — Pell Grants. Thanks to Pell Grants, I had to work only 30 hours a week up to my elbows in ham instead of 40.
Ten extra hours a week might sound negligible, but do you know what a determined, junior-Hillary type of hick with a full course load and onion-scented hands can do with the gift of 10 whole hours per week? Not flunk geology, that's what. Take German every day at 8 a.m. — for fun! Wander into the office of the school paper on a whim and find a calling. I'm convinced that those 10 extra hours a week are the reason I graduated magna cum laude, which I think is Latin for "worst girlfriend in town."
Twenty years after my first financial aid package came through, I have paid off my college and graduate school loans and I have paid back the federal government in income taxes what it doled out to me in Pell Grants so many, many, many, many times over it's a wonder I'm not a Republican.
But I would like to point out that my perfectly ordinary education, received in public schools and a land grant university, is not merely the foundation on which I make a living. My education made my life. In a sometimes ugly world, my schooling opened a trap door to a bottomless pit of beauty — to Walt Whitman and Louis Armstrong and Frank Lloyd Wright, to the old movies and old masters that have been my constant companions in my unalienable pursuit of happiness.
I'm a New Yorker now. Every now and then when I have time to kill in Midtown, I duck into the Museum of Modern Art to stare at Van Gogh's "Starry Night." I love looking at the picture, but I also love looking back on when and where and how I first saw it — on a slide in a first-year art history course in which some of my fellow students were ranchers' sons who wore actual cowboy hats to class. It was a course I paid for, in part, with a Pell Grant, a program always and as ever championed by "my senator," Ted Kennedy, a program so dear to Barack Obama's heart that increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grants for needy students was the first bill he introduced upon arrival in the United States Senate.
I am a registered Democrat. That first night's convention speech by Senator Kennedy about his life's work reminded me what being a Democrat means. I have spent the last eight years so disgusted with the incompetent yahoos of the executive branch that I had forgotten that I believe in one of the core principles of the Democratic Party — that government can be a useful, meaningful and worthwhile force for good in this republic instead of just an embarrassing, torturing, Book of Revelation starter kit.
When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke on Tuesday night, she brought up some of the people she met in her thwarted campaign for the nomination, including a young marine beseeching her for better medical care for himself and his comrades, and an uninsured single mother with cancer rearing two autistic children.
Imploring her most ardent supporters, some of whom have been, let's say, a tad tepid about backing Senator Obama, Senator Clinton said, "I want you to ask yourselves: were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that young marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids?" In other words, in a fine display of adulthood, she asked her delegates to decide whether they are in a cult of personality or members of the Democratic Party.
Barack Obama is the best possible presidential candidate to campaign for traditional Democratic ideals because of his ability to stir party diehards and rally new voters, because of his backbone, his gift for oratory, formidable intelligence, compelling back story, swell wife, adorable offspring and no small amount of cool. I mean, the morning after that acceptance speech in front of 80,000 people, even Richard Nixon's personal Rasputin, Pat Buchanan, was on MSNBC calling Senator Obama "manly."
Honestly, when I think about how Senator Obama would handle the nuts and bolts of governing I have no more and no less faith in him than any of his major rivals for the nomination of the Democratic Party. This is actually a huge compliment. They were a seriously solid group. Compare them to the incoherent Republican primary field, a set of candidates expressly invented to make the average Republican voter nervous: the businessman was too Mormon-y; the evangelical might worship Jesus more than money; Senator McCain has campaign reform cooties; Ron Paul was Ron Paul.
But I would have been content with any one of the Democratic candidates in the Oval Office — Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, even John Edwards (because it is possible to make bad decisions about one's private life and still have good ideas about health care). Each one has his or her gaping drawbacks, of course, but that's always going to be true of people seeking a job only a damaged lunatic would want.
When Barack Obama talks about an America as it should be, I'm guessing the best of all possible countries he imagines would look awfully similar to the ideal America just about every registered Democrat would dream up. Picture this: a wind-powered public school classroom of 19 multiracial 8-year-olds reading above grade level and answering the questions of their engaging, inspirational teacher before going home to a cancer-free (or in remission) parent or parents who have to work only eight hours a day in a country at war solely with the people who make war on us, where maybe Exxon Mobil can settle for, oh, $8 billion in quarterly profits instead of $11 billion, and the federal government's point man for Biblical natural disasters is someone who knows more about emergency management than how to put on a horse show. Is that really too much to ask? Can we do that?
As Senator Obama, the plainspoken former editor of The Harvard Law Review would answer, yes, we can. As the recipient of a partly federally subsidized, fancy wallet-size diploma from Montana State, I prefer to put it this way: Indubitably, we shall.
Sarah Vowell is the author of "Assassination Vacation" and the forthcoming "The Wordy Shipmates," about the New England Puritans.
Not long ago, in the midst of a formal roll call of the votes of all the delegates, Hillary Clinton made an announcement from her place on the floor among the New York delegation, moving to suspend the roll call and nominate Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.
Here is the video of this incredible, historic moment:
REDBELT: reviewed by the ill-suited, ill-educated hack writer M.G. Wood
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Okay, I'm just gonna lay this right on the line. Even though this is a simple movie review, a blog, a piddling little exercise in self-expression, self-delusion, self-engrandizement, and now clearly leading to self-flagellation; it must be stated that I am intimidated by the prospect, the very idea, the unreal fantastic notion, that I could ever write about, or critique a piece of work by one of the world's greatest living writers, David Mamet.
So, what I'm going to do here is just pound out as much information as I possibly can about Mr. Mamet's latest film REDBELT (due to release on DVD August 26th 2008) before I disintegrate into a weeping, slobbering, incoherent, inarticulate mass of humanity.
August 24, 2008 Film Excerpts From the Spanish Diary By WOODY ALLEN
JAN 2
RECEIVED offer to write and direct film in Barcelona. Must be cautious. Spain is sunny, and I freckle. Money not great either, but agent did manage to get me a 10th of 1 percent of anything the picture does over $400 million after break even.
Have no idea for Barcelona unless the story of the two Hackensack Jews who start a mail-order embalming firm could be switched.
MARCH 5
Met with Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz. She's ravishing and more sexual than I had imagined. During interview my pants caught fire. Bardem is one of those brooding geniuses who clearly will need a firm hand from me.
APRIL 2
Offered role to Scarlett Johansson. Said before she could accept, script must be approved by her agent, then by her mother, with whom she's close. Following that it must be approved by her agent's mother. In middle of negotiation she changed agents — then changed mothers. She's gifted but can be a handful.
JUNE 1
Arrived Barcelona. Accommodations first class. Hotel has been promised half star next year provided they install running water.
JUNE 5
Shooting got off to a shaky start. Rebecca Hall, though young and in her first major role, is a bit more temperamental than I thought and had me barred from the set. I explained the director must be present to direct the film. Try as I may, I could not convince her and had to disguise as man delivering lunch to sneak back on the set.
JUNE 15
Work finally under way. Shot a torrid love scene today between Scarlett and Javier. If this were a scant few years ago, I would have played Javier's part. When I mentioned that to Scarlett, she said, "Uh-huh," with an enigmatic intonation. Scarlett came late to the set. I lectured her rather sternly, explaining I do not tolerate tardiness from my cast. She listened respectfully, although as I spoke I thought I noticed her turning up her iPod.
JUNE 20
Barcelona is a marvelous city. Crowds turn out in the streets to watch us work. Mercifully they realize I've no time to give autographs, and so they ask only the cast members. Later I handed out some 8-by-10 photos of myself shaking hands with Spiro Agnew and offered to sign them, but by then the crowd had dispersed.
JUNE 26
Filmed at La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpiece. Was thinking I have much in common with the great Spanish architect. We both defy convention, he with his breathtaking designs and me by wearing a lobster bib in the shower.
JUNE 30
Dailies are looking good, and while Javier's idea to add a massive Martian invasion scene complete with a thousand costumed extras and elaborate flying saucers is not a very good one, I will shoot it to make him happy and cut it in the editing room.
JULY 3
Scarlett came to me today with one of those questions actors ask, "What's my motivation?" I shot back, "Your salary." She said fine but that she needed a lot more motivation to continue. About triple. Otherwise she threatened to walk. I called her bluff and walked first. Then she walked. Now we were rather far apart and had to yell to be heard. Then she threatened to hop. I hopped too, and soon we were at an impasse. At the impasse I ran into friends, and we all drank, and of course I got stuck with the check.
JULY 15
Once again I had to help Javier with the lovemaking scenes. The sequence requires him to grab Penélope Cruz, tear off her clothes and ravish her in the bedroom. Oscar winner that he is, the man still needs me to show him how to play passion. I grabbed Penélope and with one motion tore her clothes off. As fate would have it she had not yet changed into costume, so it was her own expensive dress I mutilated. Undaunted I flung her down before the fireplace and dove on top of her. Minx that she is, she rolled away a split second before I landed causing me to fracture certain key teeth on the tile floor. Fine day's work, and I should be able to eat solids by August.
JULY 30
Dailies looking rather brilliant. Probably too early to start planning Academy campaign. Still, a few notes for an acceptance speech might just save me some time later.
AUG. 3
I suppose it comes with the territory. As director one is part teacher, part shrink, part father figure, guru. Is it any wonder then that as the weeks have passed, Scarlett and Penélope have both developed crushes on me? The fragile female heart. I notice poor Javier looking on enviously as the actresses bed me with their eyes, but I've explained to the boy that unbridled feminine desire for a cinema icon, particularly one who wears a sneer of cold command, is to be expected. Meanwhile when I approach the set each morning bathed and freshly scented, between Scarlett and Penélope there is a virtual feeding frenzy. I never like mixing business with pleasure, but I may have to slake the lust of each one in turn to get the film completed. Perhaps I can give Penélope Wednesdays and Fridays, satisfying Scarlett Tuesdays and Thursdays. Like alternate-side parking. That would leave Monday free for Rebecca, whom I stopped just in time from tattooing my name on her thigh. I'll have a drink with the ladies in the cast after filming and set some ground rules. Maybe the old system of ration coupons could work.
AUG. 10
Directed Javier in emotional scene today. Had to give him line readings. As long as he imitates me he's fine. The minute he tries his own acting choices he's lost. Then he weeps and wonders how he'll survive when I'm no longer his director. I explained politely but firmly that he must do the best he can without me and to try to remember the tips I've given him. I know he was cheered because when I left his trailer, he and his friends were howling with laughter.
AUG. 20
Made love with Scarlett and Penélope simultaneously in an effort to keep them happy. Ménage gave me great idea for the climax of the movie. Rebecca kept pounding on the door, and I finally let her in, but those Spanish beds are too small to handle four, and when she joined, I kept getting bounced to the floor.
AUG. 25
End production today. Wrap party as usual a little sad. Slow danced with Scarlett. Broke her toe. Not my fault. When she dipped me back, I stepped on it.
Penélope and Javier anxious to work with me again. Said if I ever come up with another screenplay to try and find them. Goodbye drink with Rebecca. Sentimental moment. Everyone in cast and crew chipped in and bought me a ballpoint pen. Have decided to call film "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Studio heads have seen all the dailies. Apparently they love every frame, and there is talk of opening it at a leper colony. It's lonely at the top.
Some love hotels have multiple complex entrances designed for the discretion of customers.
Some love hotels have no windows.
A love hotel (ラブホテル rabu hoteru) is a type of short-stay hotel found in East Asian countries and regions such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy to have sexual intercourse.
The subtitle to "The Cry" is "La Llorona – the Urban Legend that Kills."
La Llorona is a woman in Hispanic folklore that drowned her children to punish her husband for betraying her in some way. When she realized what she had done, she was doomed to walk the river forever, searching for her missing children. That's how the legend goes. "The Cry" takes place in modern day New York and centers on a pair of cops investigating a series of cases where women are drowning their own children. Read On...
Somebody Up There Likes Me Less Than Zero (UPDATED and REVISED)
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Somebody Up There Likes Me Less Than Zero
I confess to being morbidly obsessed with death and dying, in particularly dying young. And in a culture where dying young has become a Cause Celeb, it is now common practice to turn famous men and women who die prematurely into Gods, e.g. Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis, Kurt Cobain.
When James Dean died, a great many of the scripts that had been lined up for him in his still blossoming career were handed over to another Young Turk, Paul Newman. SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME, HUD, COOL HAND LUKE. These films made Paul Newman a star. But, it also dogged him for years: that he may have been the beneficiary of Dean's death. As unfair as that albatross may have been, the truth is, Newman proved himself with great performances and a long career spanning 40 years; a true legend. But still, James Dean is a God in the eyes of millions.
How unfair is it that after over 20 years plugging away in Hollyweird with excellent performances in films as diverse as LESS THAN ZERO, CHAPLIN, and ZODIAC; Robert Downey, Jr. gives the best performance of his career in the most successful movie of his career, only to have to contend with our newest Pop Culture God, Heath Ledger.
When do the Survivors get the glory? Don't get me wrong, I admired Ledger's performance in THE DARK KNIGHT. But, Robert Downey, Jr. isIRON MAN. He's fought drug addiction, depression, he's survived jail (real jail, not the celebrity country club that P. Hilton slept in), and lived to tell about it. And now, coupled with what many are claiming to be the riskiest, most challenging, and more importantly, the funniest performance of the year in TROPIC THUNDER, one has to question the unstoppable Academy Award publicity machine for Heath Ledger's Ghost, when there's a living, breathing Super-Hero Super-Star that probably deserves it more waiting in the wings.
UPDATE!
Robert Downey Jr. says, "Fuck D.C.!" Robert Downey Jr gave a lengthy interview, promoting his hilarious turn in "Tropic Thunder," to moviehole.net. Later in the interview, via a discussion of "Iron Man's" success, the topic of "The Dark Knight" came up, and Downey didn't mince words .
Here's what he said:
"Iron Man 2" is a topic of conversation, as he and Favreau are currently collaborating on a story for the much anticipated sequel. "Now Justin Theraux who wrote 'Tropic Thunder', is writing it and Jon and I are working on the story with him. It's pretty great and I think it's going to be cool. I think it's going to appropriately well thought out so that we don't forget what got us the response that we appreciated so much, which is, we didn't say, 'Great, now that this is like this, now we're going to twist it and do this with it.' It's now; I'm not saying we're going to do bits. I think more of the same; it is a very rich feel, because it was a very simple movie, if you ask me. It was an origin story."
Which apparently was not the case with the other big summer movie "The Dark Knight". "My whole thing is that that I saw 'The Dark Knight'. I feel like I'm dumb because I feel like I don't get things that are so smart. It's like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I'm like, 'That's not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.' I loved 'The Prestige' but didn't understand 'The Dark Knight'. Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high brow and so f--king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.' You know what? F-ck DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from."
Well clearly Downey isn't about to do anything for DC Comics anytime soon. "You know, you're never too old to burn your bridges because I believe I have offended everyone," he says, laughingly. "I think I've got a couple more. 'I'll burn that bridge when I come to it' is my favourite phrase I've ever coined."
Regardless of whether PINEAPPLE EXPRESS is good or bad; funny or not; a box-office smash, or not; the good news is, for fans of director David Gordon Green, the massive publicity campaign that is now standard operating procedure for all Hollywood productions will bring long overdue attention to a great film maker.
David Gordon Green graduated from The North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, N.C. in 1998. Two years later Mr. Green wrote and directed his first feature-length motion picture.
GEORGE WASHINGTON (2000) is a film about poor Southern youths whiling away their days in a small town shaded from the Summer sun by walnut trees and run-down empty factories. When an unforeseen tragedy occurs, the young innocents must contend with a stain of regret and despair that is usually reserved for adults.
The film is narrated by one of the young boys, in a sweet sing-song voice over gorgeous images of a languid Southern small town in North Carolina; instantly provoking comparisons to Terrence Malick, creator of the landmark film DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978).
Naturalistic and Pastoral in ways that are all but impossible to convey once a million bucks and unlimited resources are laid at your feet by the Gods of Hollywood, GEORGE WASHINGTON is a work of art that Green will never be able to repeat. For once you've seen Paris... That's not to say he will never again make a great film. He'll just never again be able to make that great film.
Take the PINEAPPLE EXPRESS to Green-Ville (Read On )
Chemically Altered
Current mood: nauseated
Category: Life
Driving around the other day, flipping channels on the radio, came across "Right Now" by Van Halen. While most Rock stars would love their songs to evoke memories of late nights rolling beneath sheets and coke-fueled all-nighters, a young stud's 1st lay, and maybe even...romance. But, as I listened to this crafty little ditty by Edward Van Halen, my mouth became sticky, cottony; I felt a bit sickly. And then I realized what it was. I was having a sort of reverse sense memory. Where rather than a smell or a taste sparking a Proustian flashback to another time and place. My mouth began to taste the sickeningly sweet flavor of Crystal Pepsi, in all it's saccharin infused glory. I quickly changed the channel before I was faced with the prospect of vomit.
Watermelon Bubble Gum provokes one of my favorite sense memories. Any time I smell that faux Watermelon scent wafting from a convenience store candy rack, I always remember the Summer I spent hours and days killing time in a little book nook that lay buried below street level in what will remain an undisclosed location from my childhood. The old lady who ran the store used to give me boxes and boxes full of Time magazines emblazoned with illustrated images of Mao, Nixon, and Ali. The old lady had to embellish her income, I mean it was a book nook for Christ's sake, with food sales: candy, soda, crackers, chips, etc. Foot-Long Ropes of Greenish-colored bubble gum molded into a long narrow snake concocted into a chemical conspiracy to create the refreshing taste of freshly sliced watermelon. Ah, chemically-altered substances producing chemically-altered memories.
Currently
reading
:
Out: A Novel
By
Natsuo Kirino
Release date: 2005-01-04
The irreparable REAL WORLD by Matsuo Kirino
Category: Writing and Poetry
REAL WORLD by Matsuo Kirino reviewed by M.G. Wood
You will have already read deep into Natsuo Kirino's potent new novel REAL WORLD when you meet Terauchi. As one of four young women on the eve of their adult lives, as grown-ups, with responsibilities and burdens, Terauchi is the more intellectual and philosophical of the four, but no more mature, or prepared for the awesome changes that will engulf their final Summer together.
There really are things that are irreparable.
REAL WORLD is written in a 1st person narrative, with each of the main characters having their own chapter (or two) in which to tell their story.
In Terauchi's chapter, Chapter 6, she expounds upon her constant desire to tell people this, There really are things that are irreparable. She explains in a somewhat muddled, but no less compelling manner as to what this means, and why she sometimes finds herself so consumed by the thought, and unable to hold it in any longer, she just blurts it out for no good reason.
Something that's really irreparable is more like this: a horribly frightening feeling that keeps building up inside until your heart is devoured. People who carry around the burden of something that can't be undone will one day be destroyed.
There really are things that are irreparable, at first reading will strike many as an interesting diversion away from the more compelling aspects of the story, namely matricide. But, ultimately Terauchi's philosophizing will come to be a very poignant mantra, and coda.
Terauchi states that she could never just blurt out such a thing to Yuzan or Kirarin. In a brilliant passage, Terauchi describes the vacant nature of her two less than intellectually curious friends.
It'd be like a lighthouse, where the spotlight rotates and, for an instant, illuminates something. But, once the light moves on, everything melts back into the dark.
But, Toshi is different. Of Terauchi's three school mates, Toshi is the one she most identifies with, and confides in.
focused
nauseated
