small favors

Fortune and coincidence provided me with a small moment of grace this morning as I drove in to work. I drive up into the foothills and was just ahead of the sunrise. Enough of the edge of the sun was coming up to see it over the hills, but not so much that I had to put on sunglasses or throw down the shade. As I drove uphill the angle stayed pretty much the same, and during the drive the radio was playing "Say Hello to Heaven" by Temple of the Dog and "Amber" by 311. Wiped away the anxiety of the dreaded Monday morning.

the kind of man you are

I read two books recently that have a lot in common: Five Skies by Ron Carlson, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. They are both powerfully written, though spare. They both resonate with me as a middle-aged man with sons. And they are both difficult to get through, because they portray difficult and depressing stories. To a certain extent, they both still follow a literary formula that dictates that all the struggle and suffering portrayed in the book should amount to something, and give the reader something positive to hold on to after all that emotional investment and pain. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience; though I wouldn't recommend either book to the casual reader looking for easy entertainment.

Five Skies takes three men in various stages of life and puts them together in the open air of an Idaho plateau. They are all at an itinerant point in their lives, for different reasons, and are employed temporarily as builders in a fairly remote location. The oldest of the men, who is in his sixties, has been retained to manage the job; he finds an extremely capable but somewhat indifferent man in his forties, who then suggests they also bring on the youngest of the three, a twenty-something drifter who talks a good game but tends to bolt at any suggestion of responsibility. Over the course of the project we learn more about each man and each one's separate pain. By sharing the work of the planning and construction as well as the remote life of their camp, they grow to trust and appreciate each other and the clear, cold beauty of their surroundings. The book touches on several intensely masculine themes: outdoor living, the mythology of "handy" men and construction, the subtle and silent way men appreciate each other, and the relationship between men of different generations. As their respect for each other grows, so does the reader's emotional involvement in their back stories, daily progress, and camaraderie. Soon we come to realize that the men represent not only relationships of men of different generations, but of fathers and sons. The book builds on these themes slowly and steadily, and while each man has his own tragedy in the past, their shared pain is the culmination of their story.

The Road is set in an extremely bleak version of the present or near-future in which an unexplained apocalypse has ruined the planet and left the surviving population cannibalistic, desperate, and on the verge of extinction. The environment is gray, covered in ash from the original (implied) firestorm and subsequent uncontrollable fires, and inhospitable. Most of the remaining resources have been consumed or hoarded by the survivors. A few individuals mange to coexist but are driven to extreme measures and devolve to little more than animals. Faced with this virtually unbearable scenario, a man and his son try to stay alive while traveling to what they hope will be a more survivable southwestern coast. The man is beaten down by the world as it has become, but insists on continuing to fight toward a more hospitable climate and keep himself and his young son alive in the meantime. His son has never known the world as it was. They suffer terribly, and the boy wonders what the point might be of struggling to continue. The father maintains that he and his son are the "good guys"; however, his remaining goodness applies mainly (if not only) to his unwavering love for his son and his attempt to keep them alive. The man trusts no one and refuses to extend help to anyone along the way, even though his son questions his very humanity if he is not willing to help the other survivors. Unfortunately, the man is proven right time and again when any contact with others becomes a desperate fight for survival. The book mines a depth of faith, love, and loyalty between father and son in a setting of darkness, corruption, and entropy. The payoff could tritely be characterized as bittersweet, and though even at the end McCarthy maintains the overwhelming pallor of darkness, a small light of hope and faith remain.

irony

i·ro·ny [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-]

–noun, plural -nies.

1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.

2. Literature.
a. a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
b. (esp. in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., esp. as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.

3. Socratic irony.

4. dramatic irony.

5. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

6. the incongruity of this.

As we get older the mind spends more time hovering on tiny happy memories, things that we sure as hell didn't appreciate enough when we were in the moment, and can now never recreate or recover. Standing in the shower this morning somehow reminded me of the brief era that I lived in my grandma's beach house and bathed in the ocean pretty much every day. I only showered when I couldn't get away with not showering, or when I had massive amounts of sand in my crevices. Letting my mind linger on this memory of living there was pleasant, though the more I thought about it, the less pleasant it probably should have seemed. My roommate and I never had the heat on because we couldn't afford it. We ate ramen and peanut butter sandwiches like all the other starving students you've ever heard of. I remember being lonely, though I did have friends in town, and I had a couple of girlfriends over the course of that year, and so did my roommate. I worked on the loading dock of the local Orchard Supply Hardware. 'Nuff said about that. My car was a rusted-out '77 Toyota Corolla wagon, though according to my carless roommate, I was lucky to have a car at all. On the plus side, we lived in a house that always had the sound of breaking waves in the background. My roommate was my best friend, at the time. We were creative and irreverent and the shit we collected and plastered all over our house reflected our humor and energy. At one point I tried to carefully and conscientiously paint my car some other color than 70's mustard yellow, but got a wild hair up my butt after I had only finished one quarter panel and ended up using it as a stencil-art/graffitti/guerrilla poetry backdrop instead. In hindsight, I loved that car, no matter that all the empirical evidence available would lead anyone to conclude that it was a piece of utter shit.

I guess it's all relative, which makes me consider that old saw; that you never appreciate how good you have it until you're older. "Youth is wasted on the young," and all that.

I guess the feeling intensifies when the current situation starts to seem like THE outcome of events and not just another segment of the great adventure. Sometimes the reverie over past glories, real or imagined, keeps our current happy moments just slightly out of focus... or out of sight entirely. This is not revelatory. Everybody knows (or is) someone who can't let go of the feeling those memories provide, who can't create something new and good for themselves because they can't get over how great things used to be. The folks at eye magazine (www.eyemagazine.com, issue #68) are running a special edition about their proposed additions to the established "design canon", mainly based on the premise that "history is vital - nostalgia is death."

I am also at an age where I can appreciate the fact that thirty years from now I will probably still be thinking that I didn't know how good I had it. Maybe I'll forget the things that I'm reminiscing about now and long for things that haven't even happened yet. I have sure forgotten a lot of other things up to now that I wish I had back.

Holy crap, I'm wistful about things I can't even remember! That's what we mean when we say we take (or took) things for granted and that our kids don't know how good they have it. They have what we used to have, and we wish we had it back.

lucky bastard

I think the universe is trying to tell me to lighten up.

I have been in a weird place the last couple of days here at the HOW conference. I even posted about negativity, and trying to be positive, or at least trying to be balanced.

Then, somebody I was talking to on the trade show floor GAVE me his Red Sox tickets. I told him I had looked online for tickets but was not finding anything cheap or easy, and he asked if I wanted to see the game anyway. He went away for a sec and came back with two tickets to last nights' game. Weelll, in case you live under a rock: Jon Lester pitched a no-hitter last night. First lefty since 1956. The Sox won 7-0. Jason Varitek caught his 4th no-hitter, a record. It was very exciting! It's my first visit to Boston, my first time at Fenway. The place and fans rock. They are insane. It's funny to see the main badge of honor among fans: a Sox ballcap so old and raggedy it's not even blue any more. The wearer is obviously a die-hard. And there are tons of them.

So, since then I have felt a little brighter, a little better, and have been jotting things in my notebook that have a more hopeful tone. I will post some of those notes a bit later.

Thank you, universe!

treading water, breathing fire

I have been accused of being too negative. I observe what's going on around me and laugh at it, deride it, poke holes in it, step on it. It's a deep-seated insecurity, I know. I KNOW. Like everyone else I want something to look forward to, something to inspire me. I judge constantly, but also judge myself and try to do better. I have described my crisis of confidence a bit; my ongoing internal dialogue continues to rise and fall, sway and turn, between seeking the positive and finding the negative. I have been accused of being too negative, and I have no excuse. However, I wonder: how can we discern the positive if we don't examine the negative? Besides, what does my personal disapproval of something I see as selfish, hypocritical, depressing, stupid or wrong have to do with anyone else's personal assessment? I guess a lot, if their personal assessment also uses my thoughts as part of the analysis.

I am going on 40 years old and I am still unsatisfied with life. Is that wrong? Maybe, if I don't work to discover a path that will help me do better... a couple of thoughts from my notebook this morning (I'm at the HOW Design Conference squirming with the constant contact of my own reflection):

"Millions of people are
smarter than you
and more clever
and
what does it get us?

Bitter determination to continue to try to be more clever next time?

TRY TO:
be smarter
more clever

BUT

try to
do something that matters"

That's what it comes down to: start with a purpose. What you do to be smart and clever beyond that is icing on the cake.

the problem with HOW

I am coming close to a crossroads of crisis. Sound melodramatic? It may be. I'm not sure how else to put it. I have been aware for going on two years that design may not actually be my thing.

So, I am aware of this but continue to strive to do good work in my discipline, to find work in my discipline, to succeed and be happy in my discipline. It's been a little rocky over the last couple of years, no coincidence. I left the creative department that I built to see if I could be a creative director at an advertising / design studio and was heartbroken when the owner turned out to be a piece of shit who ran the company into the ground three months after I started. Freelancing and unemployment tested my commitment to the world of design quite a bit. I finally got a corporate job that pays a living wage, but now I live as a creative janitor.

One of the perks of working for the big corporation is that they can afford to send me to a conference in my discipline. So, I jumped at the chance to come to HOW in Boston. I thought, I'll get a little creative juice, mix with my peers, see a couple of friends, have a good time.

Here's the thing: I think if I have to listen to another designer tell me about their process or their challenges or their portfolio or any other way tell me how fucking cool they think they are, I may just pierce my eardrums with a free-crap pen.

"Uh-oh!", right? What the hell am I doing at a design conference if I can't stand other designers?

ok, so

I think it's obvious that I am not the average blogger. That is to say, I suck as a "blogger." I'm pretty OK with that as a rule. However, I read over my recent posts and they're all over the place. The problem is, I don't have time to write when I really have something to write about. I also don't want to devolve into the "me on display" bullshit I see in a lot of other people's blogs. The blogs I actually read are the ones who provide a personal perspective on something else that might be interesting. I think I can do that, even in a de facto personal blog.

HOW design conference

I have some time on my hands while I am at the HOW Design Conference in Boston. Yay, right? I am not much of a blogger, to be sure, but I'll see what kinds of posts come out of this experience. I am sitting in the lobby of the Westin Hotel Copley Place, waiting for a room to be available. The hotels in Boston are slammed this weekend due to lots of college graduation activity in addition to the conference and probably the beginning of the tourist season. I had to stay in the 'burbs my first night here since there was nothing available in town. I made it down to Boston a little too early this morning, though... and now I wait. I went to register at the convention center, but my first event is not until 2 and it's 11:30 AM now.

kernel panic

The undercurrent of my thoughts is suffering a long, slow, unfocused distress. My achievements have slipped behind my goals so far in the last year that I can't reconcile my effort with them anymore. My career has been the loss leader for everything else; last year at this time I took a big step and left the corporate in-house creative services department that I built in order to work at a small studio that needed a creative director. It looked good on paper but was a fucking disaster -- the owner was stealing from the operating fund and the studio closed three months after I started. I was unemployed for five months, floundering through ideas about what to do next, thinking that maybe I wanted to get the hell out of the creative/production business anyway. All of that thinking led me exactly nowhere, though I tried to be upbeat and optimistic and look at it as an opportunity instead of a total clusterfuck. My wife also did not work, so we were just barely stringing together mortgage payments with the little freelance work I did and unemployment benefits. I finally, desperately, accepted a shit job with a fairly stable company in order to have SOME income and benefits. As it turns out, the folks who hired me apparently had no idea how or what they were going to use me for and basically abandoned me in a cube for the last four months.

So, I have had a lot of time to atrophy and think depressing thoughts and basically get nothing done. I am getting to the point where having no direction and no real motivation other than a paycheck is starting to make me anxious; for the last four months I have just looked at this job as kind of a break from the hard, constant work and stress I used to suffer, but now I realize that it's stifling any more comprehensive analysis of the situation or executive problem-solving functions in my brain.

The rest of my life is fine; my wife is enjoying success in graduate school and in her part-time job, and the kids are great. But I am getting run down by my situation at work. I don't have the energy to go start over as a graphic janitor, thinking I might be a creative lead in this company someday. I need something ELSE.

waiting for the day

with nausea and trepidation

when they take all the men in plaid shirts out to be shot

as a message to the rest of grown male humanity

that plaid is no longer as safe a fashion choice as they thought.

I hope I am not on the cusp of laundry day when the revolution comes.

proud papa

I have a lot to be proud of, as a dad. My boys both play soccer; I coach the older one's team, and we just finished our second season together. We had lost three in a row but won our last game by one goal. It was a close game and very exciting. My older son plays defense and has come a long way in the two seasons that I've been coaching him.

My younger son also had his last game of the season, unfortunately it was at the same time as my older son's (so I didn't see it) but I heard afterward that his team scored 13 goals, and that he personally scored ten of them. I know that sounds like a cruel amount of scoring, but he plays in the Under-6 division, and generally the kids don't know that anybody is keeping track and they pretty much score like crazy anyway. It's not a matter of running up the score, since theoretically the kids don't know we're keeping score and we never tell them that anybody "won".

My older son is also an avid reader. He's only nine, so his tastes haven't branched out yet, but he reads a LOT. At least an hour a day, usually in bed before he goes to sleep. Being a voracious reader myself, I am ecstatic that my son is showing signs of following a similar path. I credit MOST of my lifelong learning to reading independently. No offense to any of my teachers or parents, but when you have a kid who reads as much as me (who read the encyclopedia and dictionary for giggles), the standard education system is really just running alongside (and sometimes behind) down the road of life. That's a whole 'nother subject; maybe I'll tackle it in this venue someday. Anyway, my older son starting reading early, and took to chapter books the summer before first grade. He's 9 now and reading at a fairly high level. I read all of the same books that he does so I know what going on in his books and can discuss them with him if he has questions. It also helps when he's reading books like the Animorphs series and I can get the references to mind-controlling alien slugs or jokes about which character would say what in a given situation. The Animorphs books in particular present emotional and interpersonal issues that can be pretty intense, so I make it a policy to never be more than one book behind him as he goes through the 50+book series. He also likes our old Calvin and Hobbes collections, and has dabbled in The Dangerous Book for Boys since my dad gave it to me for father's day(see my other blog, Handy Husband, for some other outcomes of that gift).

I have also decided to start pre-screening a couple of books recently hoping that they would be at the right level for him and that he would be interested in them. I started with the first Artemis Fowl book and he ended up liking that a lot. I am also looking for books at his level that might break out of the "young kid as hero" theme in order to broaden his horizons a little bit. I was reading Stephen Donaldson, Stephen King and James Clavell by the time I was 12 and I hope to prepare him a bit so he can be ready for that level of reading by that time too.

My younger son has taken a very different learning path -- he is extremely active and has developed the language skills a little later than his older brother. He is famous for his malapropism and, uh, imaginative sentence strings. Very stream-of consciousness. He has, however, essentially taught himself to read and he is not quite six. We have read to him every night pretty much since birth, but he has absorbed the sight words and can now read just about anything you put in front of him. We also have been teaching him basic addition whenever he expresses an interest, he likes hearing about "money math" and often wants to discuss time and clock-reading. The best result of all this came up this past weekend also: he and I were in an Office Max looking for binders and came across the "learning workbook" section of school supplies. He was drawn to them, and wanted to get one that is geared toward basic reading, writing, and math skills for K-1st graders. Once we got it home, he devoured it. Since he can read well enough to read the instructions and accompanying psuedo-story elements, he sat there for almost three hours coloring patterns, writing, and doing basic math. He kept it next to him during dinner and had to be reminded to keep eating his pizza, which is his favorite dish. He got up this morning and dove right back in, loving every page and kicking butt on every one. Keep in mind that this is a kid who has been hard to deal with (due to his active nature) since he was in utero, and only recently has developed an attention span of longer than 30 seconds. Soccer has been great for him, but we never thought academics (or sitting still) would be anywhere near his thing.

I am excited. I am proud. I am glad my boys are using their brains for stuff other than Xbox, though a little Xbox is alright with OG (Original Gamer) dad. My wife and I have a little different educational philosophy than most parents -- click here to see my post regarding the boys' school -- but I am happy with the way things are going!

ever deeper

No posts for two months -- a big no-no for the committed blogger! I don't care. I wasn't entirely sure why I got into this in the first place; although having a lot of time on my hands and a penchant for writing helped. However, keeping a diary in the public domain goes against my introverted nature as well as my better judgment. That’s probably why, even though I had the time, I did not have the inclination and have not posted regularly enough. Oh, well – I’ve got more to say. It’ll come when it comes.

I'm married and have two kids, a dog and a house. My wife stayed home for many years, mainly for our kids' sake; we agreed that she would take on most of the home-related duties like cooking, bills, and taking care of the kids and that I would go to a job every day and bring home money. It's been tough financially, but whenever we revisit the decision it always works out that we would rather have her home with the kids than have a couple of extra bucks and less time or energy to enjoy it.

However, my long term vision has always included encouraging her to go back to school to get her Master's degree. We waited until the kids were both old enough to be in school so it was less of a scheduling burden. When she finished her first year she thought it would be a good idea to get a part-time job as well and start contributing to the family finances.

Unfortunately, I was unemployed for five months. An interesting experience; staying home every day after working almost every day for many years is weird. When you are on vacation, your time is limited; you get an urgent feeling to spend your time off wisely because soon it will end. When I was unemployed I had an urgent feeling that I needed to spend my time wisely, but in order to become re-employed as soon as possible. I found myself needing to spend almost as much time dealing with the consequences of unemployment as I did working. However, that eventually ended and it became frustrating and boring to not have a destination and a goal every day, with new problems coming up regularly to face and overcome. The ongoing challenge while unemployedwas to survive and find work, but there was only so much I could do on a daily basis toward that end.

So (long story made excruciating), for the last few months, she has been working her butt off and I have been home instead. I took over some of the home-life duties, but kind of grudgingly; since school and part-time work don't pay the bills, I couldn't embrace the Mr. Mom role as fully as I would if she and I were willingly switching places. We have talked about whether or not that would ever happen; she thinks it's a good idea, when she is able to bring in enough money to support the family, that I would then get a chance to stay home, work part-time (maybe), and go back to school myself if that's what I wanted.

I think I'd like that! My recent stint at home sucked in a lot of ways, but mainly because I didn't want to let my family down, and we didn't have a lot of alternatives. The financial repercussions of this will be hard to overcome, even now that I'm employed again. However, it did give me some more time with the kids, and some time to think about stuff. I was able to support my wife in her school and work efforts when she needed it, and I was able to volunteer for the boys' school a lot more than usual. I coached my older son's soccer team and was able to focus on it a lot more than I would have been able to otherwise. I liked being home, I just didn’t like not having any money!

providing an endless amount of attention

My sons are very different. One is a classic introvert and one is an over-the-top extrovert. I personally am an introvert with extroverted tendencies. I am speaking of these personality traits in the sense of the Meyers-Briggs classification; an introvert essentially gets their energy from being alone and accomplishing things on their own; an extrovert gets their energy from interaction with others. The introvert tends to avoid and even dread dealing with other people; the extrovert cannot stand being alone and/or quiet. My number two son, the extrovert, needs attention CONSTANTLY. He is a little older now, and occasionally will sit by himself and read or play with a toy, but otherwise is asking to play with me, my wife, or my older son every minute of every day. I do not begrudge him his need for attention, and do as much as I can to engage him, keep him occupied, and pay as much attention to him as I can. However, it never, ever ends. It’s NEVER enough. I don’t have the energy to keep up with him, and neither do my wife and older son combined. He also tends to stray pretty quickly from activities and crafts that he asks us to set up for him, so that is a losing proposition. He will ask to paint; we will set up brushes, water, paints, and paper. We’ll get him dressed in grubbies. He will make one giant swash down the middle of the paper and say: “I want to build a racetrack out of wood.” Grrr - we JUST set up this painting activity! Now we have to take it down? And get going on some other complicated craft setup? If you’ve gone through this more than once, the response will soon become “no way”. Which becomes frustrating for him, especially when he was younger and had no way of reasoning things out with us or understanding that it was his behavior during the activity that was causing us to not want to do things with him. *Heavy sigh.* Of course, like most parents, we have discovered things that he will do for longer than 5 seconds and that we can roll back up quickly if he doesn’t want to do it after all. Board games are a big example. The best ones don’t involve a lot of setup, since he will suggest another activity while you are setting the first one up, if it takes too long. Unfortunately, he hates to lose. This is another fun aspect of his personality, hating to be told no, and hating to lose. He has gotten better about this over time, but it still makes him cry, and sometimes makes him not want to play that game any more. So, we let him win most times, and prep him big time when we see he’s about to lose. It usually works to play multiple times and just hope that he wins one, which gives him the corresponding amount of joy and usually erases the agony of defeat. Amazingly enough, he has allowed me to teach him chess and sticks with it even if he is losing. I give him a lot of breaks, and a lot of coaching, and he has comes back to it every couple of days with excitement and willingness to learn. So anyway, I just wondered the other day (first to myself and then out loud to my wife), what exactly it would take for him to feel completely satisfied with the amount of attention he was receiving. We have never had the energy or time to even get close; it’s frustrating for him and adds a little guilt to our parental burden, but -- the first thing that came to both of our minds was “There IS no amount of attention that would be enough.” It was consoling, in a way; we knew we would never be able to keep up with him and that he would have to adjust his needy behavior to fit in with the world around him. It made it clearer than ever that our focus should be on teaching him self-reliance, not on providing complete attention to an endless pit of need! Of course, employing that kind of strategy and approach does not mean that ignoring him will teach him self-reliance; we love the cute little bugger to death and want to play with him as much as we can. It’s just a matter of being able to STOP when we need to pay attention to our older son (or ourselves!), and not having the younger one have a major breakdown in order to draw the attention back to him. We shall see!

scheming to talk

I am a horrible conversationalist and I know it; I live inside my mind so much that most of the things people say to each other feels like it already passed through my head, so why say anything? I am terribly boring if you expect a lot of back-and-forth and a lot of interest from me regarding the subject of you. I make do; I mean, I’m not that eccentric, and people tend to like me well enough, but I know for a fact that I can’t carry my share of the load when I meet new people and I get really tired of answering questions about myself when people try to draw me out. Which is odd; most people really only love to talk about themselves, and usually are asking you questions about yourself in order to eventually tell you all about themselves.

Even higher-level conversation about art, philosophy, politics, whatever all boils down to: I believe this. Any interest in what anybody else believes is really only to gather information to compare against and validate what I believe.

When I was a kid my mother was kvetching a bit about one of her friends from work, and with a kid’s innocence I asked why that person was her friend, anyway? She explained that she was just irritated, and her friend had many redeeming qualities that would allow them to stay friends, most notably that she really listened; she wasn’t just waiting for her turn to talk. My mom said, you know what I mean? and of course I did, I just really hadn’t put a name to that particular phenomenon before. However, after she mentioned it, I started realizing that many MANY of the “conversations” I had or observed other people having were like two monologues happening at the same time. I also noticed that I frequently felt compelled to speak only if what the other person said had some familiar aspect to it:

oh, yeah, that happened to me except...
you know, I have one like that but it’s...
really? you’re blind in one eye? I have an uncle who...

and I realized that I was doing a disservice to the folks telling the story by trying so hard to relate. I think people only do that in order to make sure the person they’re talking to knows that they understand, that they really relate, but it also tends to shift the focus from a response that shows you really care. It starts to sound like all you want to talk about it yourself. Which you do, but it makes it that much more obvious...

So... what’s the point? I like this medium more than I thought I would because it does allow me to essentially speak my mind without someone on the other side just waiting for me to shut up so they can tell me their side of the story. However, it makes me a bit self-conscious because it feels hypocritical. If all of this stuff needs to be said without interrupting, why let anybody read it at all? I guess even introverts like me need external validation sometime.

who notices?

I watched Collaterallast night, with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. I found it interesting but a little thin. I appreciated the existential undercurrent more than anything; even that was a little underdeveloped. As thrillers go it was a great premise, and Tom Cruise was good if a little clipped. Jamie Foxx was lauded for his part as Max when it came out; I thought he was very solid but wish he could have been a little less transparent. As his character is put under more and more pressure he cracks, then gets it together, then cracks and gets it together again. I wish he could have cracked a little harder; really lost it at least once. Even the scene that was supposed suffice for that particular plot result fell a little flat and unexciting. The best part of the dynamic between Max and Cruise’s killer Vincent was during the final scene as Vincent tries to find Max and Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) -- the subtle suggestion that they are thinking along very much the same lines as one tries to escape and one continues to pursue is portrayed effortlessly. Director Michael Mann’s signature is to pit two men against each who differ only slightly: one good but flawed, one really really smart but really really bad. He likes to blur the line, but it’s always pretty clear who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. The contest is also always on a slightly higher level than your typical action movie, the main characters are usually intertwined in lots of ways that are obvious as well as subtle.

This movie approached existentialism (and the flaws of existential thought) from the standpoint of a couple of familiar routes: life as meaningless unless chosen and acted upon, as well as the idea that existence is subjective and that certain people could justifiably be murdered for the greater good. Vincent leans on this philosophy a little, more to keep Max engaged the mission Vincent is trying to carry out than as a real philosophy. Vincent obviously is a symbol of entropy and chaos, for which no justification is necessary. At first Vincent seems to be reacting to Max’s squeamishness with firm orders and justification in order to keep Max moving; later in the movie he actually becomes engaged with Max’s protests and tries to justify his actions in some other context other than “just do what I say or I’ll shoot you.” It leads to some interesting comments, if not real discussion between Vincent and Max. “Guy gets on the subway and dies. Think anybody’ll notice?” Unfortunately it also leads to the predictable “Oh yeah, you’re gonna shoot me? Well, shoot me, then!” bullshit.

The movie had a couple of gaping plot holes that almost ruined it for me. Vincent himself is visually completely unbelievable. His grey suit and hair are unforgettable; as in, witnesses are not likely to forget that guy. Wearing sunglasses in places where normal people wouldn’t is also an attention-grabber. I’m not a professional hitman, but I would assume that the idea is to NOT be noticed. Eventually the Feebs and local PD figure out what’s going to happen next and go after Vincent and Max (who they think is Vincent) with air support, and yet when Vincent and Max manage to escape after a huge shootout, the helicopter has disappeared. The whole point of calling air support is to track criminals on the ground when the ground forces can’t; yet Vincent and Max get away, in a cab that has been identified, to go on to the final conflict and chase without any interference from law enforcement. Another flaw is the premise that ANY cab driver ANYWHERE does not have their own cell phone, no matter how idiosyncratic, idealistic, short-sighted, or unfulfilled. Just does not happen. I also get sick of people who are being portrayed in life-or-death situations TALKING to each other during the one moment they have to kill the other and get away. I always think back to a scene in Best Seller with James Woods; two pros fighting each other in the dark in complete silence (in suits and ties no less), not wasting time or energy, just trying to survive by killing the other as quickly as possible.

I think the filmmakers also missed a huge opportunity to develop Mark Ruffalo’s character a bit more; he is the catalyst for the law enforcement characters to treat the situation with a little higher level of suspicion but is left as a minor character, too weak to effect real change. He makes the kinds of logical leaps that normal folks like us like to see our cops make, connecting the dots in a way that inspires the audience to root for him even though nobody else in the movie can see it or believe it. He is the vehicle for the classic law enforcement “hunch” to be played out in the movie; I like that kind of non-linear thinking and would have liked to see it played up and make a bit more of a difference in the outcome.

Overall, I like a thriller that has a little brains and a little guts. This one has both; I think where it falls flat is avoiding predictability and really delivering on the “thrill” part. A for effort; C for results. Totally worth a rental.

trying to stay up

“I am a leaf on the wind; watch how I soar” - Hoban 'Wash' Washburn, Serenity, 2005

I am whirling in the wind and want out, want control... I can see positive outcomes on the horizon, but it’s hard to stay positive in the meantime and focus on what to do next. I keep thinking of that quote because it has some optimistic confidence to it. Couple of problems with that sentiment, but it’s stuck in my head at the moment.

*Spoiler alert; don’t read the next part if it’s going to ruin the movie Serenity for you*

First of all, that character says that line right after managing to pilot a ship that is falling apart through a shitstorm of competing enemies into a hostile environment where none of his compatriots have much time to prepare for a fight, let alone much hope of surviving it. The next moment, he gets harpooned by a crude (but gigantic and effective) ballista and dies. Absolutely lovely touch on the part of the storytellers; Joss Whedon probably lost a bit of sleep over that one but it really is a perfect symbol of his own trials and tribulations with regards to Firefly the TV show. Do your job no matter what. Put everything you’ve got into just making it to a place to land, no matter what’s coming next. You save as much as you can, but pay the price. You end up where the wind takes you.

So, secondly, it’s a hard philosophy to get behind if you think about it a bit. A leaf on the wind is NOT in control. You could argue that none of us are, and that would be the point of the quote. I prefer to adhere to the sentiment that I think I learned from the TV series Kung Fu when I was a kid: “ I am a reed in the wind”, because it implies that I am flexible but will stay put and spring back up when the tempest is over.

ok, ok

So I’m reading Winslow In Love by Kevin Canty.

I love and hate Canty in the same...uh, breath (maybe stroke?); since he writes things that sound surprisingly close to things I should have or would have written, except he got there first. Naïve, I know, considering the tired old conversation about nothing being new under the sun, blah blah blah, but funny considering that his character Winslow has the same problem.

I should say his character Winslow is the one with the perceptions that sound so close to mine. However, the way Canty writes I am constantly trying to examine the writer behind the character of the writer. It is absorbing enough to follow the story, but writers as a breed are obsessed with examining their internal dialogue, and even though I am not a professional writer, I am no exception. So, to try and watch someone else do it through a fictional character brings up layers of reaction that are hard to manage. I like the story a lot. I like the character a lot; he is a poet who is washed up in a way that makes you want to root for him and his occasional bursts of brilliance. The likable loser, almost the archetype of the likable loser, someone who can’t enjoy success but certainly finds cynical humor and familiarity in screwing it up. I also enjoy the pace at which Winslow experiences his cycles of brief perception and sharp insight. Feels comfortable; again reminds me of the way things occur to me as I go about my day. However, it also makes me consider how meticulously Canty must have examined his own thoughts over the course of this book, in order to portray Winslow’s thoughts in such a genuine way.

Having anything at all original to say is tough. Winslow is paralyzed by the assumption that he does not have anything original to say, and most readers will probably be able to see both sides of that coin: everyone seems to have something unique to say, it’s just that nobody can manage to find anything original to say. So, what are writers doing, anyway? Trying to find something to write about that will resonate with most readers so that they have a vehicle for expressing their unique point of view.

I guess.

:)

untying

what drives us to write? A bit of despair, to be sure. I have not had the most wonderful year. I won’t bore you with the details, but it has been getting progressively worse. I was driving and feeling a bit desperate, teeth clenched and stomach tight, when it occurred to me that a lot of shit was going through my head and needed to be laid out in some kind of order. Writing helps.

Don’t get me wrong; my desperation does not compare to folks with major grief and pain. I am fairly lucky, overall. I think the first whiff of desperation comes when you begin to worry about losing what you’ve gained... again, writing helps.

I read a lot, too, which can be good and bad. I attribute a large part of my overall knowledge and personal perspective on the fact that I read constantly. I am not a literary scholar but can appreciate good work. Lately I have been realizing that I can spend too much time reading -- reading occupies my mind with information assimilation (regardless of what I’m reading) instead of exploring my own imagination and creativity.

So I’m getting in here and untying some knots. I’m using a program called MacJournal -- if you’ve never heard of it, you should check it out:

MacJournal

let's begin

Where to start? My dialogue is mostly internal. I suppose this is the next best thing... iPOST and the thin air responds (maybe?). Usually my discussions are imaginary; I make shit up as I imagine how it might be in certain situations with certain people as I go about my day. They are not always productive and sometimes turn into stern rebukes of myself for imagining things will go badly when in fact they have not (yet).

Why do this? I avoid these things like the plague, usually. I think most people write to express themselves to themselves, but with the hope that somebody else will read their "secret" words and be impressed. I certainly did when I was young. Got most of my girlfriends that way... letting them read my journals, my poetry, etc. That explains the blog explosion, anyway -- instant validation for people who share too much for something they should have probably kept to themselves. There's a formula, now; what's on the iPod? what did you eat for breakfast? where are your fucking flickr photos? what's your fucking myspace name?

So am I a hypocrite? I kinda feel like one, but I think I am safe for now since I don't want to share all that shit with you. I just want to leak some of the internal dialogue into thin air. We'll see where the discussion goes.