Monday, June 27, 2011
Deep Thoughts #58 - Special Topical We the People Edition
The right-wing yo-yos who have been stroking off on the 10th Amendment should read this week’s Time magazine cover story (if they can read).
Thursday, June 23, 2011
MacKenzie River Pizza Company
Though I did not post about it at the time, Amy and I did indeed get to have another late lunch, just the two of us, last Wednesday; but we chose to eat at a place called MacKenzie River Pizza Company, a new chain restaurant, with a hunting lodge sort of theme, in the possibly cursed location where Something Different and Snax used to live on 82nd Street. Since those two venerable eateries closed, two other establishments have come and gone in quick succession, and now this new place has opened. It’s a perfectly acceptable place to eat, and if you have no compunction about chain places, then you’ll probably like it. It’s new enough that the staff is still falling all over themselves—per the corporate training manual, of course—to make your experience a pleasant one, but it’s also been open long enough that they have worked out the wrinkles to the point that a late lunch on a Wednesday afternoon presented no problems.
We shared something called Cowboy Nachos (organic corn chips, cheddar cheese, black olives, tomato, green onion, jalapeño, and house salsa) and a small, thin-crust Rancher pizza, which was topped with ground beef, bacon, tomato, pepperoni, red onion, and green pepper. Both were, again, perfectly acceptable, although sliced tomato should never be put on pizza; and the nachos have nothing on the astonishing versions served up at the Slippery Noodle. That said, you could do much worse along that stretch of 82nd Street—one of the worst stretches of chain places in the whole city. (If the Starbucks and Quizno’s hadn’t closed, the people from Fishers would feel right at home.)
We shared something called Cowboy Nachos (organic corn chips, cheddar cheese, black olives, tomato, green onion, jalapeño, and house salsa) and a small, thin-crust Rancher pizza, which was topped with ground beef, bacon, tomato, pepperoni, red onion, and green pepper. Both were, again, perfectly acceptable, although sliced tomato should never be put on pizza; and the nachos have nothing on the astonishing versions served up at the Slippery Noodle. That said, you could do much worse along that stretch of 82nd Street—one of the worst stretches of chain places in the whole city. (If the Starbucks and Quizno’s hadn’t closed, the people from Fishers would feel right at home.)
Friday, June 17, 2011
Jackson's 4th Birthday - More Photos
Two photo posts in the same calendar year. Can you even stand it? If so, you can click here for some more pictures from the birthday party we had for Jackson at our house. Cake, candles, presents, etc. I even managed to catch some amusing expressions on his face when he was opening his presents. His favorite present, though not pictured here, was a Cars tricycle that my parents bought for him. So far he's been able to bike back and forth between our house and Lazy Daze without too often having to relinquish the tricycle in favor of being carried on someone's shoulders; and if I can manage yet another post to the photo site, the next batch will be of Jackson rolling along on his little trike.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Restaurante Oaxaca
Today we tried our luck at Restaurante Oaxaca, a Mexican place up on MLK that had a nice review in NUVO a few weeks back that spoke well of the mole (and of the other things to eat there, too—but mostly the mole). The exciting part was getting there, because I don’t know the west side all that well, and also because we didn’t decide on this place until we were in the car. Even though I knew it was on MLK, and MLK is finite—it only exists from 38th Street to West Street—I still wasn’t familiar with that part of town, and I usually get it wrong when I have to guess which way to turn; and I guessed wrong today, too, except that the restaurant was in the little strip mall I guessed at, just not in the specific storefront I eyeballed from the road.
We weren’t entirely sure they were open when we walked in. The lighted sign in the window said they were open, and the door was unlocked; but there was no one in the dining room, neither diner nor employee. After a minute or two, though, someone came out to greet us and we were seated. The dining room is very spare, a four-by-four space that looks sort of like a cleaned-out convenience store or a Chinese take-out place; but it’s sometimes those little hole-in-the-wall places that wind up being the best kept secret in the neighborhood. That might well be the case with Oaxaca, which used to live inside a grocery store on Lafayette Road.
The menu, like the space, is somewhat spare; but it has the aforementioned mole, which you don’t find too often, even in the those Mexican restaurants where the menu has hundreds of choices and goes on for pages and pages. They offer tacos and fajitas and a burrito, as well as menudo soup—and a number of other things, but I have to confess to a bit of journalistic ineptitude here, because I didn’t commit them to memory or write them down, and the restaurant does not have a website. I ordered the three tacos for five bucks. They are offered on the menu with your choice of chicken, beef, or barbacoa (shredded beef); and I got one with chicken, one with barbacoa, and I asked if they could put chorizo in the other one—which they could. Amy ordered the mole ($8.95).
Instead of the usual chips out of a bag and thin salsa, what they brought out to whet our appetities was a bowl of something green that looked like either thick salsa or thin guacamole. That was served with chips, and the chips were so thick that I wondered if maybe they had actually cut up tortillas and dropped them into oil while we waited. I didn’t think to ask, but they were a few minutes coming out, so I went ahead and guessed that they were homemade. Either way, they tasted great, with a good solid crunch and not much in the way of an oily feeling. The green stuff in the bowl was unlike any salsa I have ever tasted—packed with avocado, cilantro, and enough jalapeño that you could taste the pepper and feel the heat.
The tacos were also unlike what you get in most Mexican places when you order tacos. The gringo version of this Mexican staple has morphed into a crunchy corn shell filled with meat and topped with some combination of lettuce, tomato, cheese, and sauce. The only thing this has in common with an authentic Mexican taco is the meat filling. An authentic Mexican taco is meat served on top of two soft corn tortillas and topped with cilantro and onion. They are only served folded if they are “to go.” Other than Oaxaca, La Bamba is the only place in town where I can remember being served authentic tacos.
The barbacoa was nothing to write home about, being somewhat greasy and listless and not especially flavorful. The chorizo, on the other hand, was crisp and bright with flavor; and the chicken was seasoned perfectly, more flavorful and interesting than chicken tends to be at places like this. The mole, I thought, was only so-so. There was quite a lot of it, over a one-quarter bone-in chicken. The sauce was sweet at first taste, and stayed sweet to me through the finish. Amy said that subsequent bites let the other flavors of the mole open up a bit, but I did not go back for a second taste and so had to take her word for it.
It should also be noted that both dishes came out piping hot, like the food had gone from grill or oven directly to the plate and then directly out to our table, within a span of seconds. Other than that impressive piece of timing, the service was spotty. We were the only customers in the restaurant from the moment we walked in to the moment we walked out (and lest you think that says something about the place, we came in around 2pm, well after whatever lunch rush there might have been); and even though that was the case, both drink refills and the check were awhile coming. That’s a minor quibble, though. The food more than makes up for a bit of waiting, and we’re both pretty sure we’ve found our second-favorite Mexican place in town (after the inimitable El Sol de Tala). A lot of Mexican places tout their “authentic” food, but remember—if you get a taco in a crunchy shell, it’s not authentic.
I know a lot of people will stay away from this place just because of its location on MLK, and that’s unfortunate on multiple levels. If, on the other hand, you’re already planning to visit the art museum to see the Thornton Dial exhibit of art made from found objects, why not swing by Restaurante Oaxaca on your way—or on your way to check the museum at Crispus Attucks High School, which is down at the other end of MLK. Remember, “we can’t close our eyes to the plight of the cities.”
2958 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street
490-2429
We weren’t entirely sure they were open when we walked in. The lighted sign in the window said they were open, and the door was unlocked; but there was no one in the dining room, neither diner nor employee. After a minute or two, though, someone came out to greet us and we were seated. The dining room is very spare, a four-by-four space that looks sort of like a cleaned-out convenience store or a Chinese take-out place; but it’s sometimes those little hole-in-the-wall places that wind up being the best kept secret in the neighborhood. That might well be the case with Oaxaca, which used to live inside a grocery store on Lafayette Road.
The menu, like the space, is somewhat spare; but it has the aforementioned mole, which you don’t find too often, even in the those Mexican restaurants where the menu has hundreds of choices and goes on for pages and pages. They offer tacos and fajitas and a burrito, as well as menudo soup—and a number of other things, but I have to confess to a bit of journalistic ineptitude here, because I didn’t commit them to memory or write them down, and the restaurant does not have a website. I ordered the three tacos for five bucks. They are offered on the menu with your choice of chicken, beef, or barbacoa (shredded beef); and I got one with chicken, one with barbacoa, and I asked if they could put chorizo in the other one—which they could. Amy ordered the mole ($8.95).
Instead of the usual chips out of a bag and thin salsa, what they brought out to whet our appetities was a bowl of something green that looked like either thick salsa or thin guacamole. That was served with chips, and the chips were so thick that I wondered if maybe they had actually cut up tortillas and dropped them into oil while we waited. I didn’t think to ask, but they were a few minutes coming out, so I went ahead and guessed that they were homemade. Either way, they tasted great, with a good solid crunch and not much in the way of an oily feeling. The green stuff in the bowl was unlike any salsa I have ever tasted—packed with avocado, cilantro, and enough jalapeño that you could taste the pepper and feel the heat.
The tacos were also unlike what you get in most Mexican places when you order tacos. The gringo version of this Mexican staple has morphed into a crunchy corn shell filled with meat and topped with some combination of lettuce, tomato, cheese, and sauce. The only thing this has in common with an authentic Mexican taco is the meat filling. An authentic Mexican taco is meat served on top of two soft corn tortillas and topped with cilantro and onion. They are only served folded if they are “to go.” Other than Oaxaca, La Bamba is the only place in town where I can remember being served authentic tacos.
The barbacoa was nothing to write home about, being somewhat greasy and listless and not especially flavorful. The chorizo, on the other hand, was crisp and bright with flavor; and the chicken was seasoned perfectly, more flavorful and interesting than chicken tends to be at places like this. The mole, I thought, was only so-so. There was quite a lot of it, over a one-quarter bone-in chicken. The sauce was sweet at first taste, and stayed sweet to me through the finish. Amy said that subsequent bites let the other flavors of the mole open up a bit, but I did not go back for a second taste and so had to take her word for it.
It should also be noted that both dishes came out piping hot, like the food had gone from grill or oven directly to the plate and then directly out to our table, within a span of seconds. Other than that impressive piece of timing, the service was spotty. We were the only customers in the restaurant from the moment we walked in to the moment we walked out (and lest you think that says something about the place, we came in around 2pm, well after whatever lunch rush there might have been); and even though that was the case, both drink refills and the check were awhile coming. That’s a minor quibble, though. The food more than makes up for a bit of waiting, and we’re both pretty sure we’ve found our second-favorite Mexican place in town (after the inimitable El Sol de Tala). A lot of Mexican places tout their “authentic” food, but remember—if you get a taco in a crunchy shell, it’s not authentic.
I know a lot of people will stay away from this place just because of its location on MLK, and that’s unfortunate on multiple levels. If, on the other hand, you’re already planning to visit the art museum to see the Thornton Dial exhibit of art made from found objects, why not swing by Restaurante Oaxaca on your way—or on your way to check the museum at Crispus Attucks High School, which is down at the other end of MLK. Remember, “we can’t close our eyes to the plight of the cities.”
2958 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street
490-2429
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Jackson's 4th Birthday
And yet another series of pictures of what our little boy looks like on his birthdays. There are some other good pictures from Jackson's party this afternoon, and I will do my best to get those posted to the Picasa page in the next day or two. (Four of the pictures here are repeats from last year, which is mostly because I'm running out of previously unposted pictures from each of his birthdays).
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Thai Café
Today we took advantage of Jackson’s still being in school to gallivant about town for the afternoon, and we zipped up to Broad Ripple to satisfy Amy’s craving for Thai food at Thai Café. It’s one of three ethnic places lined up in a row in a strip mall area just east of, I don’t know…Winthrop? The dining area is a small space that will hold maybe two dozen diners on a busy night, and yet it did not feel precisely cramped. We were seated immediately and asked if we wanted more to drink than the water that our server poured for us (also immediately); and when we declined additional beverages, we were left to peruse the menu.
Said menu contained the full complement of standard Thai offerings, including noodles and curries and soups and appetizers, many of which trade heavily on the signature Thai flavors of chile, lemongrass, lime, coconut milk, and sweet basil. And before I get any further with this, I want to note one thing in particular. You, the diner, get to choose how spicy your dish will be. Though Thai restaurants have started to explode on the culinary scene here in Indianapolis, I suspect that many people still think of Thai food as the ultra-spicy redheaded stepchild of Chinese cuisine. Though the flavor of chile peppers is an important element of Thai cuisine, it need not be present in every dish.
You also don’t have to break the bank. While Thai food is generally a bit more expensive than Chinese it is, also generally, of much higher quality; and Thai Café has a lunch menu with seven different entrées at $6.95 a pop. Dinner entrées will run you two to four dollars more, and appetizers are in the $7-$9 range and are so generously portioned that they might well serve as a meal unto themselves for people with lighter appetites.
Amy and I each had the lunch portion of Padd Priew Waan, which consisted of pineapple and vegetables stir-fried in a sweet and sour tomato sauce. With each entrée, you get your choice of meat (beef, chicken, pork) or tofu; or you can go vegetarian or vegan with any entrée on the menu. Amy had chicken, and I had tofu. Entrées come with soup or salad, and we each chose the lemongrass soup—a light chicken broth flavored with lemongrass and accented with cilantro. It was just a bit salty, but the flavors were balanced and well proportioned. We got a plate of vegetarian spring rolls, which was $6.95 for six; and I thought that might be too many, but we made them disappear.
The main course was also quite good. The Padd Priew Waan was served very simply with a mound of white rice and had big chunks of tofu and pineapple and vegetables. I went with a three on the 0-5 heat scale, but could not really detect anything serious in the way of heat. The sauce was maybe a little strong in both the sweet and sour departments, but was still delicious. I imagine there will be a return trip in the near future for a run at their Padd Thai, a stir-fried noodle dish. Jasmine Thai (on 96th Street) has the best Padd Thai I’ve ever had, but I have no doubt that Thai Café is going to give it a run for its money.
1041 Broad Ripple Avenue
722-1008
www.indythaicafe.com/cafe/index.html
Said menu contained the full complement of standard Thai offerings, including noodles and curries and soups and appetizers, many of which trade heavily on the signature Thai flavors of chile, lemongrass, lime, coconut milk, and sweet basil. And before I get any further with this, I want to note one thing in particular. You, the diner, get to choose how spicy your dish will be. Though Thai restaurants have started to explode on the culinary scene here in Indianapolis, I suspect that many people still think of Thai food as the ultra-spicy redheaded stepchild of Chinese cuisine. Though the flavor of chile peppers is an important element of Thai cuisine, it need not be present in every dish.
You also don’t have to break the bank. While Thai food is generally a bit more expensive than Chinese it is, also generally, of much higher quality; and Thai Café has a lunch menu with seven different entrées at $6.95 a pop. Dinner entrées will run you two to four dollars more, and appetizers are in the $7-$9 range and are so generously portioned that they might well serve as a meal unto themselves for people with lighter appetites.
Amy and I each had the lunch portion of Padd Priew Waan, which consisted of pineapple and vegetables stir-fried in a sweet and sour tomato sauce. With each entrée, you get your choice of meat (beef, chicken, pork) or tofu; or you can go vegetarian or vegan with any entrée on the menu. Amy had chicken, and I had tofu. Entrées come with soup or salad, and we each chose the lemongrass soup—a light chicken broth flavored with lemongrass and accented with cilantro. It was just a bit salty, but the flavors were balanced and well proportioned. We got a plate of vegetarian spring rolls, which was $6.95 for six; and I thought that might be too many, but we made them disappear.
The main course was also quite good. The Padd Priew Waan was served very simply with a mound of white rice and had big chunks of tofu and pineapple and vegetables. I went with a three on the 0-5 heat scale, but could not really detect anything serious in the way of heat. The sauce was maybe a little strong in both the sweet and sour departments, but was still delicious. I imagine there will be a return trip in the near future for a run at their Padd Thai, a stir-fried noodle dish. Jasmine Thai (on 96th Street) has the best Padd Thai I’ve ever had, but I have no doubt that Thai Café is going to give it a run for its money.
1041 Broad Ripple Avenue
722-1008
www.indythaicafe.com/cafe/index.html
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Crash
I’m not sure that I ever would have forced myself to watch this picture if it had not been for a long profile article about Paul Haggis in The New Yorker. Haggis is a filmmaker and former Scientologist, and he left the “church” over a flap to do with one of their spokesmen making a statement that made it seem as though the “church” supported California’s discriminatory and illegal anti-gay law known at Proposition 8. Standing up for gay people and renouncing churches (even goofy fake “churches” like Scientology) are both good things. This would be a much better world to live in if both of those things happened a lot more often. I gained a tremendous amount of respect for Haggis after reading that article, and that respect was what finally made me break down and jump Crash to the top of my Netflix queue.
It remains to be seen, though, whether or not I can write objectively about the film. I was deeply disappointed in the cowardly voting of the members of the Academy when they gave the 2005 Best Picutre Oscar to Crash instead of Brokeback Mountain; and though it is not the fault of either the film or Haggis that the majority of the voting members of the Academy are frightened homophobes, I bore the film an irrational grudge anyway. Eventually, though, I came to the film in my own way, propelled by a newfound respect for its writer-director. I enjoyed much of the film (particularly Terrence Howard’s role), but not all of it; and now that I have seen it, I can unequivocally state that Brokeback Mountain is, without question and beyond any shadow of a doubt, vastly superior to Crash.
The film probes the inner workings of human nature, examining the ways in whch a varied group of people react to instances of overt and covert racism (as well as corruption and abuse of power). It does this against the backdrop of Christmas in Los Angeles. The lives of many of the characters intersect at various points throughout the film, an affectation meant to illustrate the point that even in a bustling, populous city like Los Angeles, it’s a small world after all. It’s not a documentary, or even a docudrama, so suspension of disbelief is required; but despite being a narrative film, the events that take place occur in the world of the real—which means that what takes place, while unlikely, is technically possible. This requires a different brand of suspension of disbelief than if one were watching, say, Harry Potter. When the narrative consists of wizards and magic wands, suspending one’s disbelief is akin to turning a light switch on or off.
The suspension of disbelief that comes with a narrative film set in the world of the real also comes with an asterisk. There is an implied bargain between filmmaker and audience: The audience will accept that this is a work of fiction, provided that the filmmaker keeps it real. When the sense of realism begins to shift toward idealism, then didacticism comes into play. The terms of the bargain change. Haggis manages these themes on the thin end of the wedge here. Every major character in the film is first examined either as racist (or corrupt or abusive, but mostly racist) or not, and is then shown later in the film from the reverse angle; and while this is reasonably compelling from a dramatic standpoint, it falls short of the profundity for which Haggis is clearly striving. It’s almost as though Haggis wanted to see what the Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder hit “Ebony and Ivory” would have sounded like if Spike Lee had written it for Tupac to record.
Is there, in fact, good and bad in everyone? Of course there is. Do people react to those forces in different ways, sometimes randomly? Of course they do. But there is random and then there is random. As Hannibal Lecter is quoted in The Silence of the Lambs, a series of supposedly random occurrences can also be read as “desperately random, like the elaboration of a bad liar.” And while that is not the same as me calling Paul Haggis a bad storyteller, I will grant you that the two just might be kissing cousins.
But it’s also possible that there is something else at play here. I think it’s also possible that Haggis might be using the religious backdrop of Christmas in order to subvert his main theme with a much more interesting subtext. As the film unfolds, it becomes clear that each of the characters is destined to suffer through something bad happening to them before their better self is revealed; and those bad things happen to just about every character in the film, both major and minor—or, the Jews wander in the desert for forty years before getting to the promised land. But for all of that, only one character seems to rage against the seemingly pointless series of unpleasant events. That character takes it upon himself to stand up to the unfair treatment, staring down death and refusing to give up his dignity or his rights at the point of a gun.
Maybe there is no promised land. Maybe there is only the good luck and bad luck that we achieve on our own or bring upon ourselves. The film doesn’t answer those questions, and it does not attempt to. The whole point is to provoke thought, and this it does quite well. The problem is that Haggis directs with a heavy hand. He seems to understand that he is working with very difficult material that is constantly on the verge of slipping from his control; but instead of trimming the material to a manageable amount, it is as though he is demanding to be allowed to say everything there is to be said about the themes he has chosen to treat. And yet chaos is integral to his themes, too. So we come back to the elaboration of a bad liar.
These characters run into each other too much. Haggis clearly means to show a cross-section of Los Angeles, but he almost winds up creating a grittier version of Stars Hollow. It’s very thought-provoking and would probably reward multiple viewings much more than would be expected for a film that relies so heavily on shock value, but Haggis is trying to do far too much with the material. The intention and effort are both admirable, and the film is very good; but ultimately it falls short of the greatness to which it clearly aspires.
It remains to be seen, though, whether or not I can write objectively about the film. I was deeply disappointed in the cowardly voting of the members of the Academy when they gave the 2005 Best Picutre Oscar to Crash instead of Brokeback Mountain; and though it is not the fault of either the film or Haggis that the majority of the voting members of the Academy are frightened homophobes, I bore the film an irrational grudge anyway. Eventually, though, I came to the film in my own way, propelled by a newfound respect for its writer-director. I enjoyed much of the film (particularly Terrence Howard’s role), but not all of it; and now that I have seen it, I can unequivocally state that Brokeback Mountain is, without question and beyond any shadow of a doubt, vastly superior to Crash.
The film probes the inner workings of human nature, examining the ways in whch a varied group of people react to instances of overt and covert racism (as well as corruption and abuse of power). It does this against the backdrop of Christmas in Los Angeles. The lives of many of the characters intersect at various points throughout the film, an affectation meant to illustrate the point that even in a bustling, populous city like Los Angeles, it’s a small world after all. It’s not a documentary, or even a docudrama, so suspension of disbelief is required; but despite being a narrative film, the events that take place occur in the world of the real—which means that what takes place, while unlikely, is technically possible. This requires a different brand of suspension of disbelief than if one were watching, say, Harry Potter. When the narrative consists of wizards and magic wands, suspending one’s disbelief is akin to turning a light switch on or off.
The suspension of disbelief that comes with a narrative film set in the world of the real also comes with an asterisk. There is an implied bargain between filmmaker and audience: The audience will accept that this is a work of fiction, provided that the filmmaker keeps it real. When the sense of realism begins to shift toward idealism, then didacticism comes into play. The terms of the bargain change. Haggis manages these themes on the thin end of the wedge here. Every major character in the film is first examined either as racist (or corrupt or abusive, but mostly racist) or not, and is then shown later in the film from the reverse angle; and while this is reasonably compelling from a dramatic standpoint, it falls short of the profundity for which Haggis is clearly striving. It’s almost as though Haggis wanted to see what the Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder hit “Ebony and Ivory” would have sounded like if Spike Lee had written it for Tupac to record.
Is there, in fact, good and bad in everyone? Of course there is. Do people react to those forces in different ways, sometimes randomly? Of course they do. But there is random and then there is random. As Hannibal Lecter is quoted in The Silence of the Lambs, a series of supposedly random occurrences can also be read as “desperately random, like the elaboration of a bad liar.” And while that is not the same as me calling Paul Haggis a bad storyteller, I will grant you that the two just might be kissing cousins.
But it’s also possible that there is something else at play here. I think it’s also possible that Haggis might be using the religious backdrop of Christmas in order to subvert his main theme with a much more interesting subtext. As the film unfolds, it becomes clear that each of the characters is destined to suffer through something bad happening to them before their better self is revealed; and those bad things happen to just about every character in the film, both major and minor—or, the Jews wander in the desert for forty years before getting to the promised land. But for all of that, only one character seems to rage against the seemingly pointless series of unpleasant events. That character takes it upon himself to stand up to the unfair treatment, staring down death and refusing to give up his dignity or his rights at the point of a gun.
Maybe there is no promised land. Maybe there is only the good luck and bad luck that we achieve on our own or bring upon ourselves. The film doesn’t answer those questions, and it does not attempt to. The whole point is to provoke thought, and this it does quite well. The problem is that Haggis directs with a heavy hand. He seems to understand that he is working with very difficult material that is constantly on the verge of slipping from his control; but instead of trimming the material to a manageable amount, it is as though he is demanding to be allowed to say everything there is to be said about the themes he has chosen to treat. And yet chaos is integral to his themes, too. So we come back to the elaboration of a bad liar.
These characters run into each other too much. Haggis clearly means to show a cross-section of Los Angeles, but he almost winds up creating a grittier version of Stars Hollow. It’s very thought-provoking and would probably reward multiple viewings much more than would be expected for a film that relies so heavily on shock value, but Haggis is trying to do far too much with the material. The intention and effort are both admirable, and the film is very good; but ultimately it falls short of the greatness to which it clearly aspires.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Deep Thoughts #57 - Special Topical Race Day Edition
In a perfect confluence of disparate rivers of poo, the guy doing the race invocation actually name-checked Izod, the IndyCar title sponsor.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Deep Thoughts #56 - Special Topical Plain Old Saturday Edition CONTINUED
I previously assumed I would not be raptured, but I just went to the food court for pizza and my total was $7.77. So I guess you never know.
Deep Thoughts #55 - Special Topical Plain Old Saturday Edition
Which is goofier? Applying deductive reasoning to the Book of Genesis to explain the rapture, or believing that intelligent design is valid?
Thursday, May 19, 2011
All Sales Final—No Returns or Exchanges
These Borders stores have got to quit going out of business. They’re positively wrecking my goal of getting rid of more books than I acquire over the course of this calendar year. I have acquired eight new books this year, and five of them are from going-out-of-business sales at local Borders stores. Two of the others were gifts, which means that other than the Borders books, I’ve only bought one book this year. Unfortunately, the stack of books in the outgoing pile has just as many qualifications as the stack of books in the incoming pile. One I got from a girl at work who had two copies of it and gave one to me because we had been talking about it and I said I hoped to get around to reading it one day but didn’t want to buy a copy. Two are Consumer Reports guides that are only going away because I recently acquired newer editions (although I have not added those two newer editions to the stack of incoming books, which I suppose I should do since I’m counting the old ones in the outgoing pile—and which will make the incoming pile even bigger, damnit). The others are books I have owned for some time and have never read and decided to read because I didn’t think I really needed to own them any longer—and those are the ones I’m trying to get rid of first, books that I bought in the first place for no good reason except that they were in the bargain bin or the clearance section and I thought that one day they would be useful for something and that spending a buck or two on them would not be a problem.
Financially speaking, at least, I was correct. I’m not going to go broke buying ten bucks worth of books here and there at Half Price Books, or grabbing a bargain book now and then at Borders. The problem is physics. Books take up space, and I don’t have a lot of space in my house. I do, however, have lots of books for which I have no real use. Whatever interest I might once have had in film has plateaued. I still like movies, but I will never make a career of making them (or writing them); and that means that I really don’t have much use for a book about the Cannes Film Festival that was written twenty years ago. Biographies of George Lucas or Stanley Kubrick? They’re there. Do I need them? Nope. Have I read them? Nope. I suppose it’s possible that I will read them one day and find that I really do want to keep them, but my interests have shifted. I still have that biography of Rudy Giuliani, which I want to get rid of but can't bring myself to read. It's awfully long, and I just can't get my head around spending that much reading about a douchebag who is the second most successful person in history to make a career out of milking 9/11 for all it was worth (after Osama bin Laden).
We’re going on halfway through 2011, and I had hoped the outgoing pile would be significantly higher than the incoming pile by now. It probably doesn’t help that I have taken a break from reading books of my own that I want to get rid of because I have been slogging through Stephen King’s It, for what I think is only the second time ever, because I wanted to experience the vibe of it to see if that vibe was the same kind of vibe I have been thinking should run through a long novel I have been thinking about writing about Irvington. That, and I can’t seem to tame the stack of magazines that sits next to the stack of library books next to my reading chair, which I also can’t quite seem to tame (the library books, not the chair). I even reduced the number of magazine subscriptions I take, down to two from five (or three from six, if you count Film Comment, the new issue of which I buy every time it comes out, but which I do not have delivered to my home by the postal service), but—thanks again, Borders—I have recently added quite a lot of literary magazines that were on sale, and a couple I got in Kansas City at the Barnes & Noble at Country Club Plaza, which has the best selection of literary magazines I have ever encountered (except maybe for Elliott Bay in Seattle, but it’s been a long time since I was there, and I may just be romanticizing its excellence at this point, though I don’t believe this to be the case).
So Borders is giving it to me from both directions—punishment, perhaps, for all of those Rewards Certificates from back in the day. One of my credit cards used to be a Borders Rewards card (though the issuing bank has since ended that program), and I would earn a $5 Borders Reward certificate after accumulating a certain number of points, aggregated based on dollars charged to the card, not including interest or balance transfers. One time, there was an error—it’s been so long now that I don’t remember the source of the error—and a number of Borders Reward cardholders got a LOT of Rewards Certificates one month. I got so many that they came in one of those manila envelopes with a metal clasp at the top. Buried in amongst the Rewards Certificates was my credit card statement. The total value of the Rewards Certificates was just north of $800, if I recall correctly. The bank eventually decided that it wasn’t worth the time and trouble to try to get the certificates back from the people who got them; and they sent out a letter saying that we could spend them, but that we should limit how many we used at once, so as not to overwhelm the poor sales associates at the Borders stores. I don’t remember all of the books I added to my stacks with those Rewards Certificates. I imagine that it was the bank that paid for those certificates, though, and not Borders—so these going-out-of-business sales coming right when I’m really trying to reduce my inventory of books is just a coincidence. I think.
One of the guys at work is convinced that all the Borders stores are going to go away, and at first I resisted that idea on principle because I have always thought the Borders stores around here were superior to the Barnes & Noble stores. However, now that River Crossing and Downtown have gone away, I’m not sure I care anymore. Those two were far better than any of the others—the newest one at the Castleton Square Mall is horrible—and even though the one on the south side is adequate, I’m almost never down there anymore. From where I sit, it doesn’t seem to matter much anymore whether Borders exists in Indianapolis or not. Its best stores are gone, and if the one at Castleton is anything to judge by, any new stores they might build—not that I can imagine that they would build any new ones anytime soon—aren’t going to be much to write home about. And even though the Barnes & Noble is still there at Clearwater Crossing, I still have to find a new place to get Poetry and Film Comment because that Barnes & Noble doesn’t carry either magazine. They carry Zone 3, a five dollar literary journal published by Austin Peay State University, but not Poetry. You know who does carry Poetry? The Barnes & Noble in Avon, and the Barnes & Noble at that goofy Metropolis “mall” out in Plainfield.
There wasn’t really any point to any of this. I just felt like writing about it. It has taken a really long time to read (it clocks in at nearly 1100 pages), and it wasn’t nearly as good as I was hoping it would be. It’s from the pre-intervention phase of Stephen King’s career. The first half of Hearts in Atlantis, a post-intervention book, does the theme of the loss of childhood innocence way better—and in only about 250 pages.
Financially speaking, at least, I was correct. I’m not going to go broke buying ten bucks worth of books here and there at Half Price Books, or grabbing a bargain book now and then at Borders. The problem is physics. Books take up space, and I don’t have a lot of space in my house. I do, however, have lots of books for which I have no real use. Whatever interest I might once have had in film has plateaued. I still like movies, but I will never make a career of making them (or writing them); and that means that I really don’t have much use for a book about the Cannes Film Festival that was written twenty years ago. Biographies of George Lucas or Stanley Kubrick? They’re there. Do I need them? Nope. Have I read them? Nope. I suppose it’s possible that I will read them one day and find that I really do want to keep them, but my interests have shifted. I still have that biography of Rudy Giuliani, which I want to get rid of but can't bring myself to read. It's awfully long, and I just can't get my head around spending that much reading about a douchebag who is the second most successful person in history to make a career out of milking 9/11 for all it was worth (after Osama bin Laden).
We’re going on halfway through 2011, and I had hoped the outgoing pile would be significantly higher than the incoming pile by now. It probably doesn’t help that I have taken a break from reading books of my own that I want to get rid of because I have been slogging through Stephen King’s It, for what I think is only the second time ever, because I wanted to experience the vibe of it to see if that vibe was the same kind of vibe I have been thinking should run through a long novel I have been thinking about writing about Irvington. That, and I can’t seem to tame the stack of magazines that sits next to the stack of library books next to my reading chair, which I also can’t quite seem to tame (the library books, not the chair). I even reduced the number of magazine subscriptions I take, down to two from five (or three from six, if you count Film Comment, the new issue of which I buy every time it comes out, but which I do not have delivered to my home by the postal service), but—thanks again, Borders—I have recently added quite a lot of literary magazines that were on sale, and a couple I got in Kansas City at the Barnes & Noble at Country Club Plaza, which has the best selection of literary magazines I have ever encountered (except maybe for Elliott Bay in Seattle, but it’s been a long time since I was there, and I may just be romanticizing its excellence at this point, though I don’t believe this to be the case).
So Borders is giving it to me from both directions—punishment, perhaps, for all of those Rewards Certificates from back in the day. One of my credit cards used to be a Borders Rewards card (though the issuing bank has since ended that program), and I would earn a $5 Borders Reward certificate after accumulating a certain number of points, aggregated based on dollars charged to the card, not including interest or balance transfers. One time, there was an error—it’s been so long now that I don’t remember the source of the error—and a number of Borders Reward cardholders got a LOT of Rewards Certificates one month. I got so many that they came in one of those manila envelopes with a metal clasp at the top. Buried in amongst the Rewards Certificates was my credit card statement. The total value of the Rewards Certificates was just north of $800, if I recall correctly. The bank eventually decided that it wasn’t worth the time and trouble to try to get the certificates back from the people who got them; and they sent out a letter saying that we could spend them, but that we should limit how many we used at once, so as not to overwhelm the poor sales associates at the Borders stores. I don’t remember all of the books I added to my stacks with those Rewards Certificates. I imagine that it was the bank that paid for those certificates, though, and not Borders—so these going-out-of-business sales coming right when I’m really trying to reduce my inventory of books is just a coincidence. I think.
One of the guys at work is convinced that all the Borders stores are going to go away, and at first I resisted that idea on principle because I have always thought the Borders stores around here were superior to the Barnes & Noble stores. However, now that River Crossing and Downtown have gone away, I’m not sure I care anymore. Those two were far better than any of the others—the newest one at the Castleton Square Mall is horrible—and even though the one on the south side is adequate, I’m almost never down there anymore. From where I sit, it doesn’t seem to matter much anymore whether Borders exists in Indianapolis or not. Its best stores are gone, and if the one at Castleton is anything to judge by, any new stores they might build—not that I can imagine that they would build any new ones anytime soon—aren’t going to be much to write home about. And even though the Barnes & Noble is still there at Clearwater Crossing, I still have to find a new place to get Poetry and Film Comment because that Barnes & Noble doesn’t carry either magazine. They carry Zone 3, a five dollar literary journal published by Austin Peay State University, but not Poetry. You know who does carry Poetry? The Barnes & Noble in Avon, and the Barnes & Noble at that goofy Metropolis “mall” out in Plainfield.
There wasn’t really any point to any of this. I just felt like writing about it. It has taken a really long time to read (it clocks in at nearly 1100 pages), and it wasn’t nearly as good as I was hoping it would be. It’s from the pre-intervention phase of Stephen King’s career. The first half of Hearts in Atlantis, a post-intervention book, does the theme of the loss of childhood innocence way better—and in only about 250 pages.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Best. Bumper Sticker. Ever. #3
Gas Prices Stink
The sticker was circular and pink, with a gas pump in the middle, the first two words above and the last one below. And believe it or not, it had been slapped on the back of an SUV. Yep. Someone bought a gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle and then had the temerity to complain about gas prices. That's the kind of ignorant idiot who will vote for Mike Pence for governor. That will be the true barometer of Indiana ignorance. When the 2012 election results are certified, check the number of votes for Pence for governor and you will find out, to a person, how many people in this state just don't know any better.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Top Ten Films 2010
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Late again.
10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I caught the last twenty minutes of this by accident one afternoon when I had to give out passes for a fire alarm, or some such thing; and those last twenty minutes were so intriguing and well done that I immediately wanted to get the novel and read it and then watch the rest of the film—which, eventually, I did. The film does a very good job of efficiently compressing the story told in the tightly-plotted, rapid-fire novel; and Noomi Rapace, though not a spot-on match of the girl described in the novel, delivers a striking performance, gifting the audience with one of the most compelling characters in years.
9. Blue Valentine
The feel-bad movie of the year—hands down; and yet, it’s so cleverly presented that it’s hard to look away. The story is told in non-linear fashion, but to say that director Derek Cianfrance is channeling his inner Tarantino is to understate just how helter skelter the movie really is. Ultimately, though, that’s also part of its charm. Cianfrance cuts between time and place with absolutely no transition, leaving it to the viewer to make the connections between one scene and another. It’s awfully well made, but it’s awfully harrowing, too. Very challenging - for an American film.
8. The Kids Are All Right
At this point, you almost have to ask yourself what exactly Annette Bening has to do to win that elusive Oscar. She earned her fourth nomination for her role as the uptight breadwinner in this dramedy about a lesbian couple whose kids reach out to their sperm donor and wind up getting to know their dad. What might have kept her from winning here is that Julianne Moore was also very good, playing the laid-back, fun half of the couple. Moore has nearly as many noms as Bening, and also no wins. The film is a little too perfect in places—almost like an advertisement for a new Pottery Barn store in Stepford—but the strong acting and strong writing more than make up for that.
7. The Illusionist
A hand-drawn animated film with almost no dialogue—and what dialogue there is, is in French. Okay, if you got that far, then maybe you can get your head around a story about an aging illusionist (it’s not just a clever title) who no longer impresses audiences with his simple sleight of hand—but continues to go from place to place in search of those audiences anyway. For a time, his path crosses that of a young girl who is just starting make her own way in the world, and they settle into a vaguely symbiotic father-daughter relationship. By the end, of course, things have changed; but what is unique (and refreshing, and ultimately very satisfying) is that those changes happen organically, which opens up lines of existential thinking that are almost never triggered by animated films. Pound for pound, one of the more rewarding films of the year.
6. Nowhere Boy
I’m not necessarily convinced that this is a great film; but as so often happens with movies that are steeped in music from the 1960s, I really liked it (even if, technically, this movie was steeped more in the music of the 1950s). Aaron Johnson doesn’t resemble John Lennon so much as he resembles Buddy Holly, but he’s got the swagger we might imagine that Lennon had when he was young. But more than anything else, the film portends Lennon’s tragic end and gives us something of an idea of what informed his thinking, his politics, and his music. Great supporting turns by Anne-Marie Duff and the inimitable Kristin Scott Thomas effectively bolster the eponymous role played reasonably well by Johnson.
5. Inception
So yeah, it turns out that this film was everything it was cracked up to be. Pretty much a non-stop cavalcade of sharp visuals and snappy sounds—and it also had a reasonably compelling (if perhaps unnecessarily complicated—this is Chris Nolan, after all) story and some fine acting. In fact, I think there’s one performance in particular that really helped to elevate this film from unfathomable schlock to very watchable chaos. Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt both do a good job of getting into their roles and chewing scenes—but it’s the appearance of Ellen Page that brings that little bit of levity that is necessary for something this dire to work. I sort of hate to say that she humanizes the film to some degree, because that sounds hokey; but it might also be the truth. Nolan generally packs too much into his movies, but he also finds ways to make those overstuffed kerfuffles eminently appealing—and that’s the most important contribution Page makes to the film. (And just try to take your eyes off of Marion Cotillard. Can’t be done.)
4. Rabbit Hole
This was supposed to be a thoroughly bleak, utterly heart-rending exploration of what happens when two parents have to confront their worst nightmare; and yet, while it was certainly not the happiest film I’ve ever watched, it wound up being far more uplifting than I ever would have guessed. The writing is so good that, in the midst of the all the gloom, there are actually places where you can safely laugh out loud. Post-Botox Nicole Kidman is a little scary to look at sometimes, but her acting chops are still in good working order; and Aaron Eckhart seems to get better with every role. The surroundings are a little too Pottery Barn, and the ending has a kind of muddled tone that betrays the fearlessness of the rest of the film; but those are minor quibbles, and they’re not enough to derail what is otherwise an exceptional film.
3. The Fighter
I can’t even remember what my quibbles were with this one. No, wait…it was a couple of the songs on the soundtrack, and some of the montage sequences. The acting was incredible, particularly Christian Bale as a crackhead has-been boxer who pretends to be his brother’s trainer. Mark Wahlberg is the brother, and he gives what I thought was a really underrated performance as blue-collar fighter Micky Ward. Wahlberg was understated in a movie full of scenery chewers, but it plays well thematically. Melissa Leo was just fine as Micky’s mother, but Amy Adams really stole the show as his girlfriend. I don’t know that she has done a finer piece of work. I absolutely fell in love with her while I was watching this film.
2. The Social Network
You could choose to take this film just as an entertainment, regardless of its veracity, and you would certainly be none the worse for wear. It is well written, well acted, and brilliantly edited; and there’s even an arrangement of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails fame. So about that veracity, then: it’s way too complicated to try to explain in a brief blurb like this. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin used as source material a book by Ben Mezrich called “The Accidental Billionaires.” If you read the book, you will find many, many chapters and sections that begin with phrases like “We can imagine that…” or “We can guess what happened next…” Mezrich supposedly got much of his information from Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook who supposedly got screwed over by Mark Zuckerberg. Thus, you would think that a movie based on such a book would paint Zuckerberg in a bad light. In reality, though, not so much—at least, I didn’t think so. Time magazine named Zuckerberg their 2010 person of the year, and there’s quite the fawning portrait of him in the Person of the Year issue. The truth about Mark Zuckerberg is probably somewhere between the character portrayed in the film (brilliantly!) by Jesse Eisenberg and the character they wrote about in Time. The Social Network builds on a strong foundation of cinematic elements; and while the little details might be compressed or altered (or possibly even imagined), the broad strokes that Sorkin paints with are accurate. The result is an extremely impressive film.
1. Winter’s Bone
This film was based on an actual work of fiction (the novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell), but it might be more authentic than The Social Network; and the reason for that is director Debra Granik’s meticulous approach to her craft. Set in a bleak no-man’s-land in the Missouri Ozarks, near the Arkansas state line, the story tells of Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) and her family—in particular, her meth-cooking father, who has jumped bail and disappeared. When the sheriff comes to her door and tells her that her father had put up the house and land for his bond, and that the family will lose both if he fails to turn up for his court date, Ree—all of seventeen—decides that the only thing she can do is find her father. What follows his a harrowing journey of discovery that is frighteningly effective at reframing the concept of loss of innocence. The authenticity builds from the foundation of Granik’s decision to shoot on location and to convince locals to appear in the film and allow the crew the use of their homes. The story gives itself up reluctantly, because the people who live here do the same with their secrets. By the time you get around to the end, it’s entirely possible that the revelations are foregone conclusions; but the real payoff comes when you realize that after everything you have seen, life is going to keep on keeping on for these people. There is only survival to strive for in this part of the world, and perhaps not even that for very long.
10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I caught the last twenty minutes of this by accident one afternoon when I had to give out passes for a fire alarm, or some such thing; and those last twenty minutes were so intriguing and well done that I immediately wanted to get the novel and read it and then watch the rest of the film—which, eventually, I did. The film does a very good job of efficiently compressing the story told in the tightly-plotted, rapid-fire novel; and Noomi Rapace, though not a spot-on match of the girl described in the novel, delivers a striking performance, gifting the audience with one of the most compelling characters in years.
9. Blue Valentine
The feel-bad movie of the year—hands down; and yet, it’s so cleverly presented that it’s hard to look away. The story is told in non-linear fashion, but to say that director Derek Cianfrance is channeling his inner Tarantino is to understate just how helter skelter the movie really is. Ultimately, though, that’s also part of its charm. Cianfrance cuts between time and place with absolutely no transition, leaving it to the viewer to make the connections between one scene and another. It’s awfully well made, but it’s awfully harrowing, too. Very challenging - for an American film.
8. The Kids Are All Right
At this point, you almost have to ask yourself what exactly Annette Bening has to do to win that elusive Oscar. She earned her fourth nomination for her role as the uptight breadwinner in this dramedy about a lesbian couple whose kids reach out to their sperm donor and wind up getting to know their dad. What might have kept her from winning here is that Julianne Moore was also very good, playing the laid-back, fun half of the couple. Moore has nearly as many noms as Bening, and also no wins. The film is a little too perfect in places—almost like an advertisement for a new Pottery Barn store in Stepford—but the strong acting and strong writing more than make up for that.
7. The Illusionist
A hand-drawn animated film with almost no dialogue—and what dialogue there is, is in French. Okay, if you got that far, then maybe you can get your head around a story about an aging illusionist (it’s not just a clever title) who no longer impresses audiences with his simple sleight of hand—but continues to go from place to place in search of those audiences anyway. For a time, his path crosses that of a young girl who is just starting make her own way in the world, and they settle into a vaguely symbiotic father-daughter relationship. By the end, of course, things have changed; but what is unique (and refreshing, and ultimately very satisfying) is that those changes happen organically, which opens up lines of existential thinking that are almost never triggered by animated films. Pound for pound, one of the more rewarding films of the year.
6. Nowhere Boy
I’m not necessarily convinced that this is a great film; but as so often happens with movies that are steeped in music from the 1960s, I really liked it (even if, technically, this movie was steeped more in the music of the 1950s). Aaron Johnson doesn’t resemble John Lennon so much as he resembles Buddy Holly, but he’s got the swagger we might imagine that Lennon had when he was young. But more than anything else, the film portends Lennon’s tragic end and gives us something of an idea of what informed his thinking, his politics, and his music. Great supporting turns by Anne-Marie Duff and the inimitable Kristin Scott Thomas effectively bolster the eponymous role played reasonably well by Johnson.
5. Inception
So yeah, it turns out that this film was everything it was cracked up to be. Pretty much a non-stop cavalcade of sharp visuals and snappy sounds—and it also had a reasonably compelling (if perhaps unnecessarily complicated—this is Chris Nolan, after all) story and some fine acting. In fact, I think there’s one performance in particular that really helped to elevate this film from unfathomable schlock to very watchable chaos. Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt both do a good job of getting into their roles and chewing scenes—but it’s the appearance of Ellen Page that brings that little bit of levity that is necessary for something this dire to work. I sort of hate to say that she humanizes the film to some degree, because that sounds hokey; but it might also be the truth. Nolan generally packs too much into his movies, but he also finds ways to make those overstuffed kerfuffles eminently appealing—and that’s the most important contribution Page makes to the film. (And just try to take your eyes off of Marion Cotillard. Can’t be done.)
4. Rabbit Hole
This was supposed to be a thoroughly bleak, utterly heart-rending exploration of what happens when two parents have to confront their worst nightmare; and yet, while it was certainly not the happiest film I’ve ever watched, it wound up being far more uplifting than I ever would have guessed. The writing is so good that, in the midst of the all the gloom, there are actually places where you can safely laugh out loud. Post-Botox Nicole Kidman is a little scary to look at sometimes, but her acting chops are still in good working order; and Aaron Eckhart seems to get better with every role. The surroundings are a little too Pottery Barn, and the ending has a kind of muddled tone that betrays the fearlessness of the rest of the film; but those are minor quibbles, and they’re not enough to derail what is otherwise an exceptional film.
3. The Fighter
I can’t even remember what my quibbles were with this one. No, wait…it was a couple of the songs on the soundtrack, and some of the montage sequences. The acting was incredible, particularly Christian Bale as a crackhead has-been boxer who pretends to be his brother’s trainer. Mark Wahlberg is the brother, and he gives what I thought was a really underrated performance as blue-collar fighter Micky Ward. Wahlberg was understated in a movie full of scenery chewers, but it plays well thematically. Melissa Leo was just fine as Micky’s mother, but Amy Adams really stole the show as his girlfriend. I don’t know that she has done a finer piece of work. I absolutely fell in love with her while I was watching this film.
2. The Social Network
You could choose to take this film just as an entertainment, regardless of its veracity, and you would certainly be none the worse for wear. It is well written, well acted, and brilliantly edited; and there’s even an arrangement of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails fame. So about that veracity, then: it’s way too complicated to try to explain in a brief blurb like this. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin used as source material a book by Ben Mezrich called “The Accidental Billionaires.” If you read the book, you will find many, many chapters and sections that begin with phrases like “We can imagine that…” or “We can guess what happened next…” Mezrich supposedly got much of his information from Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook who supposedly got screwed over by Mark Zuckerberg. Thus, you would think that a movie based on such a book would paint Zuckerberg in a bad light. In reality, though, not so much—at least, I didn’t think so. Time magazine named Zuckerberg their 2010 person of the year, and there’s quite the fawning portrait of him in the Person of the Year issue. The truth about Mark Zuckerberg is probably somewhere between the character portrayed in the film (brilliantly!) by Jesse Eisenberg and the character they wrote about in Time. The Social Network builds on a strong foundation of cinematic elements; and while the little details might be compressed or altered (or possibly even imagined), the broad strokes that Sorkin paints with are accurate. The result is an extremely impressive film.
1. Winter’s Bone
This film was based on an actual work of fiction (the novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell), but it might be more authentic than The Social Network; and the reason for that is director Debra Granik’s meticulous approach to her craft. Set in a bleak no-man’s-land in the Missouri Ozarks, near the Arkansas state line, the story tells of Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) and her family—in particular, her meth-cooking father, who has jumped bail and disappeared. When the sheriff comes to her door and tells her that her father had put up the house and land for his bond, and that the family will lose both if he fails to turn up for his court date, Ree—all of seventeen—decides that the only thing she can do is find her father. What follows his a harrowing journey of discovery that is frighteningly effective at reframing the concept of loss of innocence. The authenticity builds from the foundation of Granik’s decision to shoot on location and to convince locals to appear in the film and allow the crew the use of their homes. The story gives itself up reluctantly, because the people who live here do the same with their secrets. By the time you get around to the end, it’s entirely possible that the revelations are foregone conclusions; but the real payoff comes when you realize that after everything you have seen, life is going to keep on keeping on for these people. There is only survival to strive for in this part of the world, and perhaps not even that for very long.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Catching Up with Jackson
So here are some random shots of Jackson that I have taken this year. I know I haven't been real good about posting pictures on a regular basis. I haven't stopped taking pictures, I just haven't forced myself to sit down and get them organized and posted. However, I did manage to find some time on this trip to Kansas City, so here you go. These go as far back as February, and I promise to do my best to get around to a select handful of shots from November 2009 to the end of 2010, to close the gap.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Poetry Magazine #2
So we were driving back to the hotel last night from the rehearsal dinner (at Barley’s Brewhaus, but more about that later, maybe), and I told my dad to turn a few blocks ahead of when we should have turned; and as a result, we wound up driving past a Barnes & Noble I would otherwise have missed. (I may well have marked it this morning when we went out for coffee, but who can say for sure?) It was certainly close enough to walk to from the hotel, though my dad thought it was not a good idea at that time of night, because he didn’t know the streets. I wasn’t about to get into how little sense that made, but I got online and mapped it when we got back to the hotel; and sure enough, it was only half a mile away. Google maps even estimated that it would take about ten minutes to walk there from the hotel.
Unfortunately, they closed at ten, and it was after ten when we got back from dinner. This morning, however, we took a walk and went past the bookstore for coffee at Scooter’s (another one of those chains that copied almost everything about Starbucks except the mermaid and the lingo) and then doubled back to the bookstore. We had to go upstairs to get to the newsstand, and I took that to be a good sign. They had a nice, big, wraparound newsstand section that took up three walls and was easily twice the size of the newsstand section at the Barnes & Noble at Clearwater Crossing. I saw n+1 in amongst some political and cultural (but not precisely literary) magazines, and was afraid that that might be it—but then I let my gaze travel along the bottom row (because those kinds of magazines are almost always on the bottom row—you gotta make sure to leave the prominent rows clear for pretentious shit like Esquire) and sure enough, there were the literary magazines, a couple of sections down.
And they had Poetry magazine. But when I got over there and picked it up…it was the May issue. The issue with the Dorothy Parker article that I had my eye on was the April issue. (I may not have mentioned that the last time I wrote about this.) I just can’t win for losing! Though the Poetry issue was disappointing, there were plenty of other interesting titles on the racks—including The Normal School, Boulevard, n+1; and some journals I had never seen before, like The Objective Standard and SubTerrain.
(Yes, I found The Objective Standard to be of interest. I admired Ayn Rand’s fiction and philosophy long before the Tea Party retards co-opted it—incorrectly, of course, but do you honestly expect that conservatives would do anything with philosophy other than misinterpret it and fuck it up?—for their own nefarious purposes. Ayn Rand was not a libertarian, and the only reason the Tea Party retards have latched onto her is because they’ll reach for even the flimsiest branch if they think it will make their goofy ideas look even remotely plausible. Plus, anyone who thinks that Objectivism equals the kind of "Don't tread on me" nonsense the Tea Party retards babble about either hasn't read Ayn Rand's fiction or simply doesn't understand even the basic tenets of the philosophy—but again...that the Tea Party retards don't understand something is not a concept that should come as a surprise to anyone.)
The selection obliterated the selection at any bookstore in Indianapolis that I know of (although it occurred to me as we were going up the escalator at Barnes & Noble that I should go back to the Books-A-Million location at Trader’s Point, because I seem to remember that they had a pretty solid selection of magazines in general, though I don’t recall what they had for lit journals in particular), and almost made me want to move to Kansas City—except that Kansas City is just as midwest as Indianapolis is, and to hear my brother tell it, even hilljackier than Indianapolis. I find that hard to believe, but that might only be because Kansas and Missouri don’t have In God We Trust plates, which sort of give you an idea of the number of hilljacks and bad drivers we have in Indianapolis.
Unfortunately, they closed at ten, and it was after ten when we got back from dinner. This morning, however, we took a walk and went past the bookstore for coffee at Scooter’s (another one of those chains that copied almost everything about Starbucks except the mermaid and the lingo) and then doubled back to the bookstore. We had to go upstairs to get to the newsstand, and I took that to be a good sign. They had a nice, big, wraparound newsstand section that took up three walls and was easily twice the size of the newsstand section at the Barnes & Noble at Clearwater Crossing. I saw n+1 in amongst some political and cultural (but not precisely literary) magazines, and was afraid that that might be it—but then I let my gaze travel along the bottom row (because those kinds of magazines are almost always on the bottom row—you gotta make sure to leave the prominent rows clear for pretentious shit like Esquire) and sure enough, there were the literary magazines, a couple of sections down.
And they had Poetry magazine. But when I got over there and picked it up…it was the May issue. The issue with the Dorothy Parker article that I had my eye on was the April issue. (I may not have mentioned that the last time I wrote about this.) I just can’t win for losing! Though the Poetry issue was disappointing, there were plenty of other interesting titles on the racks—including The Normal School, Boulevard, n+1; and some journals I had never seen before, like The Objective Standard and SubTerrain.
(Yes, I found The Objective Standard to be of interest. I admired Ayn Rand’s fiction and philosophy long before the Tea Party retards co-opted it—incorrectly, of course, but do you honestly expect that conservatives would do anything with philosophy other than misinterpret it and fuck it up?—for their own nefarious purposes. Ayn Rand was not a libertarian, and the only reason the Tea Party retards have latched onto her is because they’ll reach for even the flimsiest branch if they think it will make their goofy ideas look even remotely plausible. Plus, anyone who thinks that Objectivism equals the kind of "Don't tread on me" nonsense the Tea Party retards babble about either hasn't read Ayn Rand's fiction or simply doesn't understand even the basic tenets of the philosophy—but again...that the Tea Party retards don't understand something is not a concept that should come as a surprise to anyone.)
The selection obliterated the selection at any bookstore in Indianapolis that I know of (although it occurred to me as we were going up the escalator at Barnes & Noble that I should go back to the Books-A-Million location at Trader’s Point, because I seem to remember that they had a pretty solid selection of magazines in general, though I don’t recall what they had for lit journals in particular), and almost made me want to move to Kansas City—except that Kansas City is just as midwest as Indianapolis is, and to hear my brother tell it, even hilljackier than Indianapolis. I find that hard to believe, but that might only be because Kansas and Missouri don’t have In God We Trust plates, which sort of give you an idea of the number of hilljacks and bad drivers we have in Indianapolis.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Clark, I Think This is the Wrong Exit
This is a shot of the St. Louis Arch and the Mississippi River, badly swollen from the recent rains. We're on the road from Indianapolis to Kansas City for my brother's wedding. We started Wednesday afternoon and stopped in Effingham, Illinois, for the night; and then we were on the road again Thursday morning.
Jackson did pretty well on the trip, considering that he had to endure being strapped into a car seat for eight hours. (Splitting it up into two segments was probably a good idea. Unfortunately, we won't be able to do that on the way home on Sunday.) Despite being good, though, he didn't care much for having his picture taken.
We got into Kansas City with just a little bit of time to kill, and then it was off to the rehearsal. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I think it might have been the first Catholic church I'd ever been inside in my life. Apparently they worship "in the round," because there was a big marble dais in the middle of the charmingly retro sanctuary. It looked sort of like an Elizabethan thrust stage, but I didn't voice that opinion out loud to see if anyone agreed. We were probably pushing our luck with one of the other groomsmen talking about how the building wasn't up to code becuase there were no sprinklers. Jackson eventually warmed up to the girl who will be chucking flowers while he walks down the aisle with a ceremonial pillow in his hands, and I managed to get one almost-respectable shot of them cavorting down the aisle togeher.
Jackson did pretty well on the trip, considering that he had to endure being strapped into a car seat for eight hours. (Splitting it up into two segments was probably a good idea. Unfortunately, we won't be able to do that on the way home on Sunday.) Despite being good, though, he didn't care much for having his picture taken.
We got into Kansas City with just a little bit of time to kill, and then it was off to the rehearsal. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I think it might have been the first Catholic church I'd ever been inside in my life. Apparently they worship "in the round," because there was a big marble dais in the middle of the charmingly retro sanctuary. It looked sort of like an Elizabethan thrust stage, but I didn't voice that opinion out loud to see if anyone agreed. We were probably pushing our luck with one of the other groomsmen talking about how the building wasn't up to code becuase there were no sprinklers. Jackson eventually warmed up to the girl who will be chucking flowers while he walks down the aisle with a ceremonial pillow in his hands, and I managed to get one almost-respectable shot of them cavorting down the aisle togeher.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Poetry Magazine
So you may have heard that Borders is…well…dying, I guess would be the right word for it. They filed for bankruptcy and announced that they were going to close about a third of their 600 stores all across the country. The initial list of closing stores included just the downtown location here in Indianapolis, but a second round of closings gobbled up the store near the Fashion Mall. To my knowledge, those were the only two bookstores in town that carried Poetry magazine, and I am now at a loss as to where I can get my hands on an actual hard copy of the magazine.
And before you start damning me for a Luddite, yes, I am well aware that the full contents of every issue of the magaizine are available at no charge on their website on the magic Internets. In fact, I have already saved a copy of the story that caught my attention in the current issue of the magazine. I am also aware that I can use their magic Internets portal to buy an actual hard copy of the magazine. The point is not having access to what’s in the magazine. The point is finding a copy of the magazine somewhere in town.
I called the Barnes & Noble at Clearwater Crossing, but the gentleman I talked to said that it looked as though they had not carried Poetry since summer of last year. I don’t remember ever seeing it on the shelf there, but it’s just since last year that I’ve really gotten serious about my writing, so it’s entirely possible that I wasn’t really looking during the time when they did carry it. It’s also possible that I just never looked at all, since I always go to Borders first and Barnes & Noble only if the three most convenient Borders stores fail to turn up what I’m looking for.
Today I checked the Borders on the south side and the Barnes & Noble at the Greenwood Park Mall and did not find the magazine at either store, though I was not expecting to. The Greenwood Barnes & Noble has a surprisingly robust newsstand, given where it’s located. (The infestation of In God We Trust license plates is particularly virulent on the south side, to the point that I’m surprised that side of town can support one bookstore, never mind two—and the Barnes & Noble carries Nature, if you can believe it.) I’d give up on the Greenwood Barnes & Noble altogether, except for the fact that they carry—or used to carry—Canteen. I nabbed issues four and five there, but I haven’t seen issue six yet (and according to their website, issue seven is supposed to hit stores this spring).
Even before Borders started closing stores, the Clearwater Barnes & Noble had the best selection of literary magazines—but not Poetry—of any of the local bookstores that I frequent; but I rarely get out to the west side, and I don’t like going to Hamilton County, so I don’t know what the Barnes stores in those areas carry. I hope that Borders can regroup and get back in the game, but I’m not optimistic. Their web presence was a disaster for many years (during which time Barnes & Noble basically cornered whatever parts of the online market Amazon had not already assimilated), and apparently no one bothered to tell them that this time around e-books are for real.
And yeah, John-O the Luddite still wants to be a writer and publish, you know, actual books. What the hell, right? If anyone knows of a store that carries Poetry, I’m all ears. I don’t know if I’d walk a mile for a Camel, but I’d go to Hamilton County for a copy of Poetry.
Maybe.
And before you start damning me for a Luddite, yes, I am well aware that the full contents of every issue of the magaizine are available at no charge on their website on the magic Internets. In fact, I have already saved a copy of the story that caught my attention in the current issue of the magazine. I am also aware that I can use their magic Internets portal to buy an actual hard copy of the magazine. The point is not having access to what’s in the magazine. The point is finding a copy of the magazine somewhere in town.
I called the Barnes & Noble at Clearwater Crossing, but the gentleman I talked to said that it looked as though they had not carried Poetry since summer of last year. I don’t remember ever seeing it on the shelf there, but it’s just since last year that I’ve really gotten serious about my writing, so it’s entirely possible that I wasn’t really looking during the time when they did carry it. It’s also possible that I just never looked at all, since I always go to Borders first and Barnes & Noble only if the three most convenient Borders stores fail to turn up what I’m looking for.
Today I checked the Borders on the south side and the Barnes & Noble at the Greenwood Park Mall and did not find the magazine at either store, though I was not expecting to. The Greenwood Barnes & Noble has a surprisingly robust newsstand, given where it’s located. (The infestation of In God We Trust license plates is particularly virulent on the south side, to the point that I’m surprised that side of town can support one bookstore, never mind two—and the Barnes & Noble carries Nature, if you can believe it.) I’d give up on the Greenwood Barnes & Noble altogether, except for the fact that they carry—or used to carry—Canteen. I nabbed issues four and five there, but I haven’t seen issue six yet (and according to their website, issue seven is supposed to hit stores this spring).
Even before Borders started closing stores, the Clearwater Barnes & Noble had the best selection of literary magazines—but not Poetry—of any of the local bookstores that I frequent; but I rarely get out to the west side, and I don’t like going to Hamilton County, so I don’t know what the Barnes stores in those areas carry. I hope that Borders can regroup and get back in the game, but I’m not optimistic. Their web presence was a disaster for many years (during which time Barnes & Noble basically cornered whatever parts of the online market Amazon had not already assimilated), and apparently no one bothered to tell them that this time around e-books are for real.
And yeah, John-O the Luddite still wants to be a writer and publish, you know, actual books. What the hell, right? If anyone knows of a store that carries Poetry, I’m all ears. I don’t know if I’d walk a mile for a Camel, but I’d go to Hamilton County for a copy of Poetry.
Maybe.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Hmm...
I know what you’re thinking—that this most recent bumper sticker post was clearly ultra-conservative and right-wing, and also that I said I would not be posting that kind of inbred nonsense. Well…both of those things are true. The bumper sticker is ultra-conservative and right-wing, and I did say that I would not be posting that kind of garbage. Oh well. Sorry. I suppose I should originally have written that I would post both uplifting, progressive bumper stickers and the kind of right-wing verbal diarrhea that only the gun-toting hilljacks who live out where the buses don’t run could seriously support. Unfortunately, this is Indiana, so there are going to be way more of the right-wing ones than the uplifting progressive ones. I guess at the end of the year there may be two polls, one for best bumper sticker and one for most ignorant bumper sticker. You can’t even stand it, can you?
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Best. Bumper Sticker. Ever. #2
If it ain't King James
It ain't Bible
I really have to restrain myself from editorializing about this one—it’s just so blindingly ignorant on so many levels.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Deep Thoughts #54
I would be happy to donate to any Republicans who want to sterilize themselves so that they don’t pass on their stupid thinking to children.
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