Friday, February 06, 2004

Distractions   One of my distractions from blogging duty, over the past eight months or so, has been online gaming. Well, sort of. Although I contracted briefly at an online gaming outfit back in the mid-nineties, I've never been attracted to computer or video games generally. Out of some shapeless, inchoate, and most likely shameful need to look with-it, I've tried, intermittently, to get interested in it. Only a couple of years ago I bought, and spent a few nights with, Myst. And then Riven. I think I was attracted by the packaging. But the game was hopelessly dull to my taste. About a decade earlier, entirely on a lunch-hour impulse, I had bought Zork II. That wasn't even a graphic game: it was text-based, and remarkably soporific. But around July of last year I discovered online GO. I had undertaken a project to bring the game to students at a local charter school, and happened to mention this to a fellow contractor, who told me he'd been playing for several months on the web. Following his lead, I found a bunch of servers and resources. Been playing pretty regularly ever since, usually at the Dragon Go Server.  Meet me there if you like.  It's "BachWorker". GO on the web. That's an odd and remarkable fusion of ancient and modern. The game is at least three thousand years old. It originated in China, spread to Korea and then to Japan between 600 and 800 A.D., and finally became known in the West only about 150 years ago. It came to me personally during the summer of my 20th year, and I promptly lost all interest in chess. 11:23:11 AM    comment []

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

A virus ate my posts   Yesterday I was contacted by an old friend, from pre-Internet days. Somewhere on the Web he'd stumbled across my name, then my website, and finally this weblog. “I couldn't find any posts from May to December,” he said. “What happened?” “Um, a virus ate them,” I said. “Really?” he said. “Which one? Should I warn my friends? Can I get it just talking to you?” I was joking, and I told him so. The truth is I didn't make any entries during that period. I just had other things on my mind and in my appointment book.   9:49:41 PM    comment [] More Monster   Rosemarie and I have continued to talk about Monster since we saw it last Sunday. The whole movie is strong: script, casting, direction, acting, editing. It has no weaknesses that I can see. But even within that context, Charlize Theron's achievement in showing us Aileen Wuornos is profound. “A portrayal on that level is a spiritual act,” I said. “It has connections with Jesus going among lepers. To undertake so thorough an identification with Wuornos is an act of compassion, in and of itself.” “Yes,” said Rosemarie. “I felt that myself.” “Look at what Brian Cox did in L.I.E.,” I said. “Same sort of thing.” “Well but his character Big John has redeeming features that Wuornos doesn't,” Rosemarie said. “Sure,” I said, “but that's not the point. I'm not comparing the characters but the acting achievement, as spiritual tasks. Like a priest listening to someone in confession.” “But not all acting is like that.” “No, of course not. A movie can be of simply ordinary competence – say Catch Me If You Can from last year – and entertain and be plausible and even based on a true story and all that, without exhibiting the levels of compassion and empathy we're talking about in L.I.E. and Monster.”   10:33:22 AM    comment [] The State of the Union   I want the sonofabitch outtathere. Four years ago I voted for him. I've regretted that more and more with each passing month. He and I are both Christians. He is in fact a born-again Christian; he came to his God in a moment of insight that changed his perspectives on himself and his life forever. Some of his advisors and appointees are similarly born-again. I experienced a similar conversion when I was about fourteen; it subsided within a few weeks, and I had to accept that my God was not going to come to me in a flash of spiritual illumination, but slowly, a day at a time, in fear and trembling. There are considerable numbers of Christians in this country. Most of them are not fit candidates for the presidency. Most of them would not make good presidents. I am one of those. So is G.W. Bush. I want the sonofabitch out. And the whole crew with him.   9:58:11 AM    comment []

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Monster and Elephant   We were silent today in the theatre after Monster. Rosemarie and I sat while the credits rolled by, dully staring at the scrolling lists of people we don't know and most likely never will, people who had some part in the making of the film. I was greatly moved, on the edge, not quite falling over. It had been a tossup whether to see Monster or The Company; we finally had decided to put off the ballet film so as to see it with our daughter next weekend. I hadn't mentioned my apprehensions about Monster, but they were there. The last one-word title film I'd seen was Gus Van Sant's Elephant.  I had found it awkward, vacuous, and without significance, a film that prided itself in saying nothing of any substance about its subject. It seemed almost to propagate the moral disease, the anomie, that infected its two protagonists. I had read some reviews of Monster, seen a few advance clips, encountered strong recommendations from a friend in Toronto whose film judgement I am learning to trust. But I was still doubtful: yeah, sure, it's going to be one of those “sympathy for the devil” films. It'll go all schmalzy and googly-eyed about a serial killer, explaining about her traumatic childhood and shit like that. So now I'm sitting in the theatre watching the final credits rolling up the screen, and I don't want to stand up. I don't want to walk out into the sunlight and have to refocus my mind on dumbshit things like driving home, or going for coffee, or anything else. I want to continue contemplating, instead, the tragedy of Aileen Wuornos. “Bruce Dern.” Rosemarie said. “I was wondering who the old guy was.” “Geez, I haven't seen Dern in decades.” Rosemarie and I have seen a lot of films. We can estimate each other's responses pretty accurately, without words. When we saw The Garden of the Finzi-Contini's, years ago, we were speechless the whole drive home. This afternoon we were talking by the time we left the theatre, but we weren't saying much more than wo or wow or your toronto friend was right, and there was a lot of silence in between even this much. “I was afraid it would be sentimental,” I said as we reached the car, “but here I am near tears.” “Me too,” said Rosemarie. “But I'm not sympathetic to Aileen,” I said. “She's a repulsive toad. Why am I almost crying?” “Well...” said Rosemarie, and stopped. I looked over at her. “...would you cry at the end of Macbeth?” “Hm. I actually did once,” I said. “Was he a sympathetic character?” she said. “No. Of course not. He's a monster.” “And the missus too, right?” “Yeah.” “Then why did you cry?” I thought about that for a while. Rosemarie left the question hanging. She quit explaining me to myself a long time ago. “Hell of a performance,” I said after a while. “Yes,” said Rosemarie. “The other girl too.” “Christiana Ricci?” “Was that her name? Yeah, her.” “One of the reviewers trashed her.” “Damn critics. That was a tough role.” “Theron was over the top. That's a performance to learn from. Even committing the murders, it was like you were seeing into her soul right at that moment. Looking into hell itself. Watching a performance like that – and understanding it – should be worth two years of graduate study in psychology.” “Yeah. I saw people like that – who had committed murder – when I was doing my nursing study at the state mental hospital.” “Mm. The woman had no inner life. Everything she was, she was on the surface. I mean you could really see everything on her face, from moment to moment.” “That level of acting is beyond technical. This isn't something Meryl Streep could do. This is basic insight into a character.” We spent some time remembering Sophie's Choice, and what Meryl Streep did and didn't do in that film. We fell silent again for a while. I said “You know the first moment when I almost lost it? It was when she was trying to turn a new leaf and get a regular job. It's like, with every word out of her mouth I'm saying don't be so stupid, you're deluding yourself, how can you be so invincibly dumb and still believe in yourself, and finally I'm crying for her because she won't wise up and she thinks that's what following your dream means. At that moment she's Macbeth believing the witches. She's Quixote. The moment demands, really, that we laugh, not cry.” “But we cry.” “We cry. Right.” “Interesting thing,” said Rosemarie a few minutes later. “The film isn't sympathetic at all, is it.” “No. I was afraid the director would be making all sorts of excuses for Aileen. She didn't.” “She?” “Yeah. Didn't you notice? The director was a woman.” “Wow. Who? Not that awful one from The Piano.” “No. Somebody I never heard of named Patty Jenkins. I'll google for the name when we get home.” “Mm.  No excuses. Aileen makes excuses for herself but the director doesn't believe them and doesn't expect us to.” “Uh-huh. At the first murder you have to sympathize with Aileen – that's self-defense. But then by degrees the story says she's going over the line, and then towards the end people – even Selby – pull back sort of horrified at what they know or suspect Aileen has been doing. This is the sort of social action that collectively defines what a moral boundary is: what the people around you, when you've done something wicked like this, recoil from understanding. When they look at you with horror in their eyes. Like when the greek chorus realizes that Oedipus has married his mother. I saw that happening with Selby even.” “Yeah. I did too. And with Thomas.” “The Bruce Dern character? Yeah. I think I did. But I wasn't sure, there at the end. Was he part of the group taking her into custody or was he trying to warn her to get out of there. I don't know.” “There was a scene a few moments earlier where he got a look in his eye like: I know this woman is the murderer, and he went out of the room or the bar real quick.” “We'll have to see it again.” Anyway, there you have it. This is a superb film. This is a strong, thoughtful, reflective film. It is a contribution to discussion of social and moral values at a level that most films – even serious ones – can't imagine and don't aspire to. Charlize Theron's performance sets new standards for insight and integrity; such as I encounter only a few times in a decade. The entire film is strong: the supporting roles, the script, the editing. But what in blazes was Van Sant trying to accomplish with Elephant?  I'm still wondering about that.  Stay tuned. 9:46:40 PM    comment []

Sunday, April 27, 2003

It's not fair  I encountered Angelhead a couple of years ago, I don't remember just how. I remember the experience as claustrophobic, ecstatic, painful, and finally cathartic. Angelhead is the story of Michael Bottoms' descent into madness. A few days ago Rosemarie took it out from the library, not remembering (because of her ongoing series of ECT sessions) that we had read it earlier.  She has a nearly boundless - or boundariless - capacity to identify with the pain of others, and is having difficulty with the story Greg Bottoms tells in Angelhead as his brother Michael spirals down into schizophrenia. Last night we spent some time talking about this. "You need to keep some distance from these people," I said.  "Michael's illness is not yours.  His brother Greg is writing with the perspective of two decades of living and growing since this all happened." She nodded.  "But I just think of the family, of their father trying to give the boys a better life, and then Michael turning out that way... ." "And...", I said.  "...and then what?" "It's not fair," said Rosemarie. “What's not fair?” “That it should turn out that way.” Our conversation went far into the night. We talked about identifying ourselves with tragedy in the lives of others, and about keeping a distance, a perspective, a sense of judgment, a personal boundary. No, it's not fair. God never promised us that the world would be fair. I'm not even sure that this world was created fair from the beginning. Job had more guts than I when he screamed for God to show up and defend Himself in court; I could not, I cannot, do that. I've never been able to get beyond just hunkering down and accepting my toothaches or whatever. I've never complained about what's fair, in life, and what isn't. Angelhead is a supremely painful and brilliantly written tale. Its author says it is “creative non-fiction.” It is, for me, writing that forces me to pause every few pages. I need to absorb, to ruminate, to reflect, to shape myself into the story I am being told. The story of Angelhead, and the writing in it, are of a sort that move me deeply, and always have. Some movies have the same effect on me. It is the combination of personal candor and reflective judgment that gives these things a human solidity; on encountering one, my visceral response is: here, on the other end of these words, is a solid human soul, a human shape, one of God's creatures living and looking out upon the world just as do I. 8:57:15 PM    comment []

Saturday, April 26, 2003

Bye Bill Gibson   Some people just aren't made for this dog-eat-dog, high-pressure, get-the-headlines-out-every-day world of blogging. Hell, if that's really what it is, I'm probably not made for it myself. Who needs to know my daily opinions? I only think once or twice a week anymore. And it takes a couple of hours just to get the synapses fully revved up. 2:06:49 PM    comment [] The Day of Resurrection Saturday night was nearly sleepless with pain. Simple pain, the aftermath of a root canal, nothing of any spiritual significance. I rolled and tossed and finally took a wallop of ibuprofen around 3 am, and slept. Rosemarie had returned from her hospital stay on Thursday; we had together been present for the washing of feet, we had seen the altar and sanctuary stripped at Maundy Thursday service, together we had listened to the Good Friday crucifixion narrative, together acclaimed the Light of Christ at the Great Vigil on Saturday evening. The root canal had been on Saturday morning, performed by a dentist I had no prior experience with. From the moment the novocaine wore off, something was wrong; the tooth was as sensitive as before, and the jaw muscle was stiff and sore. I knew I wouldn't be able to sing; I began to doubt that I would even be able to attend the Easter service. Rosemarie wanted very badly to attend. She had risen before me, on Sunday morning, and when I awoke it was to the sound of organ and brass summoning me to be alive again. So at 7am I sat at the kitchen table, weeping for joy of the music, of the organ and brass summoning us all to whatever is prepared for us in life. I was forgiven even for my pain, for wishing my dentist evil, for tossing sleepless the whole night. So we left for service. I arrived just as the morning choir rehearsal was under way; kept some restraint as we ran through the hymns and the seating for the brass quintet that was joining us in the service, and then we rehearsed the last chorus (or two, depending on how one counts them) of Handel's Messiah: “Worthy is the Lamb” and “Amen”. Tooth and all, I sang. After all the exultation of the service, the coffee hour was Rosemarie's welcome back into the little tribe that is our parish. She was entirely in her element – coffee socials have never been my strong suit, but Easter is an exception to many conventional truths. Rosemarie hugged, and chatted, and gossiped, and celebrated resurrection with everyone around us. And that afternoon, at our daughter Kate's for Easter dinner, we celebrated once again, with Bernie and Bev and Pherooz and Leroy and Gabriel and Finlay and Kate and Jason. The meal was Jason's contribution entirely, ham and cheeses and little rolls and potatoes and asparagus and some things I never did learn the name of.   1:52:46 PM    comment []

Friday, April 18, 2003

without hope   Tonight, for us Christians, there is no hope. Today we have nothing to give the world, no cheerful uplifting sentiments. Today all the cynics are right. It was all a sham. We were defrauded by our own pie-in-the-sky optimism. We wanted so much to believe in it all. God was with us. When they came to take him they barely even noticed us. We hardly even got in their way. The powerful governments of the world go and do whatever they want, to whomever they will, whenever they want to do it. If we had flopped down in front of their tanks they would have ground us to hamburger meat without even slowing down. If we had chained ourselves together with him they would have simply torn our limbs from their sockets. He's dead then. And he's taken us with him. Nothing comes of this. Nothing starts from here. This is not the seed of any new life. This is just plain death: a scream, a whimper, a last breath, and then nothing. The soul garrotted on the threads of its own hope. 9:36:21 PM    comment []

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Making music Last Sunday I sang. At the 11am church service, with our alto, Tara Hochhauser, I sang “Wie selig sind doch die” from the cantata “Ein Feste Burg”, BWV 80, by J.S.Bach. Rosemarie was in the hospital, trying not to fly into mania. She'd been looking forward to hearing me sing. Tara and I had given her a preview on Monday, when I brought a chair into the studio and Rosemarie sat and listened to us sing Wie selig sind doch die, die Gott im Munde tragen Doch sel'ger ist das Herz, das Ihn im Glauben trägt. Es bleibet unbesiegt, und kann die Feinde schlagen, Und wird zuletzt gekrönt, wenn es den Tod erlegt. The whole occasion was a little celebration for me; I hadn't sung alone (or in a duet) publicly for over twenty years. Everything went basically pretty well. The church didn't explode, nobody had a heart attack, no one developed any loud and sudden affliction with Tourette's Syndrome. I stayed awake throughout the performance, and didn't have any uncontrollable urge to pee. Making music – especially by singing it – is for me primordial. It is stuff from the Garden of Eden. Making music is one of the only ways left for me to forget my ego, my time, the clock, my inadequacies.  Music makes me whole again, a simple animal, a creature without thoughts or intentions. 10:08:11 PM    comment []

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