Quote of the Day

"I am going to make it through this year if it kills me."
  -- The Mountain Goats, This Year

What I Watched -- True Grit

I went to see True Grit with T a couple weeks ago, and I can't believe I forgot to write about it!  I so rarely go to the movies that I should have reported my outing immediately, but sometimes life gets in the way.

But, about the movie.  Awesome!  Jeff Bridges is fantastic, my boyfriend Matt Damon is chubby but great, and Hailee Steinfeld is hilariously sharp.  I thought her attitude would get old, but it didn't somehow.

True Grit is based on the 1968 book by Charles Portis, which was originally made into a movie a year later starring John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn.  It's the story of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Steinfeld), who sets out to avenge her father's murder.  She hires Rooster (Bridges), a perpetually drunk US marshal to help her in her search for the killer.  The pair are accompanied by LaBoeuf (Damon) - French for "the beef," appropriately (!) - a Texas ranger who is after the killer for other reasons.

The plot is simple, so if a movie like this is going to make it, the magic has to be in the characters - and this movie makes it.  Each actor inhabits his or her character so fully; it's genius.

Bottom line: see it.  You'll be entertained and impressed by how simply done a good movie can be.  No twists, no gimmicks, no special effects.  Just good acting and directing.  (Okay, so there are always some special effects.  But you get my point.)

What I Watched -- Savage Grace

Julianne Moore got rave reviews, which was why I decided to watch this movie.  I didn't know much about it; just that there was some socialite scandal in the Baekeland family (of Bakelite plastics fame).

And geez, was I weirded out by said scandal, even moreso when I reminded myself that it's a true story! Julianne Moore plays Barbara Baekland, wife of Brooks.  Barbara married into the family.  Because of her more humble beginnings, and despite her newfound wealth, she is incredibly insecure about her social standing.  She turns to none other than her own emotionally-underdeveloped son Tony (played by Eddie Redmayne) for comfort.  The creepy, a-little-too-graphically depicted relationship that results was a bit much for me.

Both Moore and Redmayne, the only two real characters in the movie, do a decent enough job with what they're asked to do by the director.  It's just that what they do is so horrifying.  Until the final moments when everything unwinds, it appears that they are both too introspectively incapable, or maybe just vacant, to notice the unnaturalness of it.

Bottom line: I'm a fan of the oddball indie, but this is a step beyond.

Beware the Kissing Bandit!

Other than to say it's not me, I have no comment.

100 Years of Winter

I went to sleep, and somehow when I woke up, I found myself on the other side of the wardrobe, in a land of perpetual winter.  Everyone keep your eyes open for a faun with an umbrella.

Climate Change

Two days ago, it was 70 degrees.  This morning, we rowed in the snow and sleet:

Totally Gleeked Out

I was honest with y'all when I said that M got me hooked on Glee.  And since I got home from Oakland four weeks ago, I have completed my viewing of all the old episodes of the show, and am happy to say that I am now about 10 minutes shy of being up to date.  That's a lot of glee club, and the second season does get a bit didactic, but it's still totally worth it.  Let me tell you why:

1. Music is awesome, and I mean that as a general statement.  Remember how yesterday I was loving all the songs?  I still am.  I've probably listened to Firework a dozen times in the last 12 hours or so.  I'm totally on a music kick these days, listening to lots of music on this here blog, watching lots of Glee, even listening to music rather than podcasts in my car and on my iPod sometimes, which is nearly unheard of!  So, what's so great about music?  Well, for starters, there is a perfect song for every emotion and occasion, even if they are sometimes Glee-fully cheesy.  And music is good for you!  It eases stress, enhances intelligence and your immune system, enhances pleasure and suppresses pain, and lots of other stuff.

2. The glee club kids are there for each other.  Sure, they're judgmental and petty in a high school kind of way - which is appropriate, since they're in high school - but when it comes down to it, they're accepting and supportive of each other.  Would that we could all find people like that.

3. Will Schuester.  Really, what's not to like?  He's a little lost, but hopeful.  He can sing, he can move his body, he's a good guy with just enough bad to be interesting, and he can rock the jeans-with-a-sweater-vest-or-blazer look and make it somehow adorably nerdy and kind of hot at the same time.

And if nerdy doesn't do it for you, how about Matthew Morrison as just plain hot at a Vogue photo shoot?  Yes, please.

4. Brittany.  She is stupid, quiet, hilarious.  Not to mention a great dancer.  In fact, the girl (Heather Morris) who plays Ms. Brittany S. Pierce (not to be confused with - and let's be very clear on this point - Brittany Spears) was originally hired to teach the actors the choreography to Beyonce's "Single Ladies," but the directors liked her so much they took her on as the third Cheerio in the glee club.  Her humor is deadpan though, so you have to have the volume up or you'll miss it.

5. April Rhodes.  Played by the ever-so-teeny Kristen Chenoweth, April Rhodes is a lost soul faking her way through life, and I think everyone feels that way at some point.  But really, I've just like KC ever since Pushing Daisies.

6. Teachers, for a couple of reasons.
  6a.  I remember a very poignant moment at my high school senior retreat: we were in small groups, and each group had a teacher in it as well.  The teacher in our group told us that the hardest thing about teaching high school was that the students didn't appreciate that he had a life outside of school - a wife, kids, normal problems, big and small.  Maybe this show will remind kids that teachers (and coaches!) are people too.
  6b.  Every now and then I have a moment with one of my kids that is sort of Glee-esqe.  There is not (usually) singing and dancing involved, but there is a real connection.  Maybe it's just something we have in common that we can talk about, or maybe it's one of them coming to me for advice about a problem they're having.  It doesn't really matter which, it just matters that we're eye to eye.  For Mr. Schue, he has that moment with just about every member of New Directions; for me, if that happens with a few kids a year, I'll just be happy to know I'm helping.

There you have them: half a dozen, or rather half a baker's dozen, reasons why I heart Glee.

I love all the songs today!

I've discovered something great and something frustrating about this blog.

Frustrating: the Google search bar is crap.  Why is that?  Isn't Google supposed to be the king of searches?  I type in "Rihanna" and it says "No results."  WTF Google?  I know I've written about Rihanna.  Why are you lying to me??

But the great thing, is that I can just click the music tag, and go back and listen to all the songs I love that I've posted about!  You should try it.  My songs are awesome (mostly.  And every now and then, awful.  But in an awesome way).

P.S. Why does the word awful not mean "full of awe," in the way that hopeful means "full of hope"?

P.P.S. Can I just emphasize again how much of a rock star Bruce Springsteen is?  I love him even though he's way too old for me, and also married.  I'm keeping my eye on his website, but for now he and the E Street Band are still on a touring hiatus.  Sad face.

The Song I'm Loving Today

Firework (Katy Perry)

Special thanks to K for sending me this link!  Good find.  Inspiring, uplifting, rockin'.

So, Katy Perry is really pretty and is actually a good singer.  Too bad that usually gets lost somewhere behind her sexy and usually crazy outfits, or maybe it's just behind her super wacky husband:

I'll get to the song in a minute.  But before I do, I should share my all-time favorite Katy Perry video.  I laugh every time I watch it:


Okay, now for today's song!


Do you ever feel like a plastic bag,

Drifting through the wind,
Wanting to start again?

Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin,
Like a house of cards,
One blow from caving in?

Do you ever feel already buried deep,
Six feet under, scream
But no one seems to hear a thing?

Do you know that there's still a chance for you?
Cause there's a spark in you.

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine,
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July.

Cause baby you're a firework,
Come on show 'em what you're worth,
Make 'em go “Oh, oh, oh!”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y.

Baby you're a firework,
Come on let your colors burst,
Make 'em go “Oh, oh, oh!”
You're gonna leave 'em fallin' down-own-own.

You don't have to feel like a waste of space,
You're original, cannot be replaced.
If you only knew what the future holds;
After a hurricane comes a rainbow.

Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed,
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road.
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow,
And when it's time, you'll know.

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine,
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July.

Cause baby you're a firework,
Come on show 'em what you're worth,
Make 'em go “Oh, oh, oh!”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y.

Baby you're a firework,
Come on let your colors burst,
Make 'em go “Oh, oh, oh!”
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe-awe-awe.”
Boom, boom, boom,
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon,
It's always been inside of you, you, you,
And now it's time to let it through.

Cause baby you're a firework,
Come on show 'em what your worth,
Make 'em go “Oh, oh, oh!”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y.

Baby you're a firework,
Come on slet your colors burst,
Make 'em go “Oh, oh, oh!”
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe-awe-awe.

Boom, boom, boom,
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon,
Boom, boom, boom,
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon.

Back to the grind

Far and away the worst part about travel - even worse that the TSA - is having to face your real life again once you return home.

Yesterday when I got back, I realized that my indoor plants were dying, and that outside the weeds were taking over the yard.  So rather than work on my sociology presentation like I was supposed to, I pulled weeds and got mud under my fingernails just when I need them to be looking pretty again.  Smart move.

Then I sorted out some other stuff around the house, wrote my blog post, and before I knew it, it was dark out.  So much for getting my presentation finished.  I should probably start on that soon.

And today I got to work to find a pile of paperwork to tend to, as well as dozens of e-mails and phone messages which required response.  Boo hiss.  But I suppose that's the price you pay, isn't it?

Spring Break

I'm back!

Sorry again about last week.  I was very busy coaching three practices a day.  That makes for a lot of time driving a launch.  But I wore sunscreen from head to toe and came back mostly not sunburned.  My face always gets red, and the backs of my hands did, despite my repeated sunscreen applications.

So, here's what.  R and I took our rowers to Louisiana for spring training.  He and I left last Friday morning for the long drive in the truck.  And the truck...was huge.  It was a Ford F-250 Super Duty extended cab (the top of my head came to somewhere in the vicinity of the hood of the truck), and behind it we were towing a fully loaded boat trailer.  That's right folks, 65 feet of boats, with a total value of, um, a lot.  Plus oars, launches, motors, and other equipment.  It was quite a rig.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of me with the whole business in the background, so you can't see how comically small I looked.

Along the way, we passed by such entertaining Missouri towns as Braggadocio, Hayti (is that just a misspelling of Haiti?), and Cooter.  What fun.  We stopped for lunch at Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, on BK's recommendation.  It was fast, filling, reasonably priced, and we had bread thrown at us.  Actually, ours was more tossed, but some people got a full-on throw.  Good times!

After a few trailer-driving adventures (including a dead end road and a long single-lane bridge), R and I rolled into the parking lot where we deposited the boats around midnight, right on time.  A quick shower and a good, if somewhat short, night's sleep at the hotel were needed.  The kids' bus arrived a bit late, but they got right to work unloading the trailer and rigging boats.

 

 

You can see the trailer off to the left in this picture of the octuple.  When it's fully loaded, it's quite impressive.

We went out for a swing row on Saturday afternoon, to help the kids get their sea legs under them.  I also had to teach my novices to do racing starts, since we had a race the next day and had never learned how to do them!  It was a fun afternoon.

R and I met up with the coaches from NSU and LSU on Saturday night to finalize our race plans for Sunday, and thank goodness we did.  Sunday's races involved lots of people and equipment, and the section of the lake we were racing on was only two boats wide, so the round-robin style of racing meant lots of back and forth in the launch to the starting line.  We had a good day, though - almost a clean sweep.  We lost one race.

The rest of the week was rowing, rowing, and more rowing.  I coached three practices a day (and thank god for R, who coached four), and the kids worked hard.  We did lots of seat racing, lots of drills and technique work, and even had a little fun.  We took a mid-week break on Wednesday afternoon and took out the octuple, taught the kids to surf in a boat, and learned to scull.  I even got to spend 10 minutes in a single!  I spent so much time driving the launch that I had that feeling of being in it when I got in bed at night.  You know how that happens after you've been on roller coasters at an amusement park all day?  Well, it happens if you spend too much time in a boat too.  I guess I just needed to get my land legs under me.

The big excitement for the kids was our first of two trips to Walmart; we fit right in in the small towns, don't we?  There was an insane amount of food purchased.  Carts full, for just a week.  Then again, we were working them pretty hard, and much of it - including the 15 pounds of ground beef for the men - was eaten.  I just needed to buy some basics - fruit, juice, milk, chocolate milk, pasta, chicken, pesto, Twizzlers, and Almond Joy.  The pesto proved especially challenging:
"Excuse me, can you help me find something?"
"What are you looking for?"
"Pesto."
"What?"
"Pesto?"
"What's that?"
Oh boy.

Friday morning R and I decided to cut down the Marathon Row to a half marathon, since we were racing again on Saturday and didn't want everyone to be too tired.  The rowers had also expressed some concern about injury; apparently last year the Marathon Row was pretty rough.  So that was that.  The crews raced out to the 6.5 mile mark in 8s, then rafted up to make a party barge, listened to music, had snacks, and generally enjoyed themselves.  We switched around into mixed 8s on the way back.  Mixed 8s.  I love rowing in them, and always have, but the kids seem to hate them.  Isn't different supposed to be good?

Friday afternoon I took some kids out in doubles and singles, and even rowed in a double myself for a bit.  Probably up to 20 minutes this time!  That's the most I've rowed in a boat in probably 4 or 5 months!  Hooray!

As for evenings, we had team dinners some nights, R and I got together to strategize some nights, and I ate a lot of junk food.  I did a bit of walking (and even jogging!) around the town, which appeared to be preparing for a tulip festival.  Or maybe they just really like tulips.  It wasn't totally clear.

 

Yesterday we raced WSU, and did pretty well overall.  We lost a couple of big races, but won more than we lost.  On the whole, not a bad morning.

Then R and I began the long drive home.  We stopped at a wide spot in the road called Ida, which incidentally had the best radio station I found on the whole trip home, and guess what I found at the single-pump gas station....Pepsi Throwback!  Holy cow!  This stuff is rare.  So I bought some, and it kept me awake all afternoon.

This trip, the towns I noticed were in Arkansas, and were lovely: Hope (and nary a sign about the Clintons to be seen from the highway, at least not that I noticed; I guess they're not much of a tourist attraction) and Friendship.  They sound great, don't they?  Not sure if they actually are, but whatever.

There was an awesome moment when we turned east on I-40 to cover the distance between Little Rock and Memphis, and were faced with a bright orange full moon on the rise, the largest full moon we've seen since 1993.  I would have tried to take a picture, but I was driving and that would have been dangerous.

We eventually pulled into the boathouse around 3:15 this morning, and I got home about 4:00.  It was then that I realized I had left my contacts, which I had taken out around 11:00 in favor of my glasses, in the truck.  Oops.  Hopefully I can get those back tomorrow.

All in all, I'd say it was a successful and productive trip.  It was great to get to spend some quality time with the kids, and to see them improve so much!

Busy Week

Apologies otra vez for the lack of posts.  It's a busy week for me!  But I'll be back soon....

What I Watched -- Paris

I just mentioned how much I love Juliette Binoche, so I'm going to go back and try to reconstruct comments about a movie I saw of hers which I apparently neglected to write about.

The movie is Paris, and I watched it when I was on my kick of movies about that city.  It's the story of a brother (Romain Duris) and sister (Juliette Binoche); he is a professional dancer with a terminal heart condition, she moves into his apartment with her three children to care for him.  That seems to spell disaster, but somehow it doesn't.  Pierre's illness has made him introspective - he spends a lot of time watching the lives of passersby from his balcony - and Elise needs the company of an adult.

Through them, you meet other Parisians, and learn the stories of several individual lives.  The movie is a bit disjointed in that regard; it feels more like a collection of short films than a single feature-length picture.  There isn't the feel-good sense that all the characters are in this rat race together, like there is at the end of Love Actually.  Instead, they are just people struggling with their own lives.  Their stories do connect in small ways, but that's hardly the point.

Rather, the point is Paris.  The movie is an unapologetic appreciation of the city, and the people who live in it, while perhaps interesting, are almost incidental.

Bottom line: a lovely movie.  Not unhappy, but not one to cheer you up either.

What I Watched -- Gone Baby Gone

As you know, I recently watched The Town.  And since that was Ben Affleck's sophomore effort at directing a feature film, I thought I should check out the original.

Unlike The Town, Gone Baby Gone does not star the director himself.  The main character is played by his brother Casey, who is frankly a better actor.  He plays Patrick, a private investigator hired by the aunt of a missing girl to help the police in their search.  When the search wraps up 45 minutes into the movie with no sign of the little girl, you know something's up, and you can see Patrick getting sucked into it all: "He lied to me.  I can't think of one reason big enough for him to lie that's small enough not to matter."  And, he's in.

The movie is about deciding what the right thing to do is; the topics are serious, and the questions aren't subtle.  Sometimes they're even the overt topic of discussion:
Patrick: "Murder's a sin."
Remy: "Depends on who you do it to."

The gray moral ground is supported by fuzzy camera shots and dull coloring, which really add to the overall sense of ambiguity.  The star-studded cast includes Amy Ryan (The Wire) as the girl's mother, Amy Madigan (Field of Dreams, among many other things) as the girl's aunt, Titus Welliver (Lost and lots of other TV shows) as the uncle, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman as cops, and Michael K. Williams (The Wire) in a bit part.

Bottom line: better than The Town.  It's worth watching the younger Affleck struggle with his conscience, and learn to live with the choices he made.

What I Watched -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being

You all may not yet know how I feel about Juliette Binoche. I've mentioned her on this blog before, but didn't really gush. I loved her in Chocolat and Paris, Je T'aime; in looking back at my blog, I realized that I forgot to write a post about another movie I saw with her in it recently.  I'll get to that, if I can remember enough to write something coherent.

But anyway, about The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  I've never read the book, and the truth is that I probably never will.  But for some reason, I thought it was about something totally, um, different.  Maybe that was because a common cover image is a floating bowler's hat, and because the only other image that springs to mind when I think "bowler hat" are the works of Rene Magritte, including "The Mysteries of the Horizon," "Golconda," and most famously "The Son of Man."  All these images, as well as the title itself, conjure in my mind something along the lines of the metaphysical.  I guess I thought the text of the novel would be, for lack of a better word, deeper.  And maybe the book is - like I said, I haven't read it - but the movie is  about a dude who marries one chick but can't stop loving another.  Okay, it's not quite that simple, but that mostly sums up the plot.  It just happens to be very well done.

The film stars a young Daniel Day-Lewis as Tomas, so I couldn't help thinking how similar the story of this character is to his turn as Guido Contini in Nine, but they're different, too.  Perhaps it's because Tomas is so much younger than Guido that he seems somehow more likable, more innocent, even though he knows that his philandering with Sabina (Lena Olin) hurts his wife Tereza (Juliette Binoche).  The trio of lovers hits all their emotions dead-on, and you understand where each of them is coming from, even if you can't always sympathize.

There are a few odd cinematographic moments, though.  For example, there's the seemingly random and context-less cut to historical shots of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.  I'm not too good on Czech history, so I had to look this one up.  Milan Kundera, the author of the book, was born in Czechoslovakia, so I'm sure this all seemed to be a perfectly natural inclusion to him; one of the screenwriters is French and, while not Czech, it's safe to assume he has been at least mildly steeped in European history, unlike us American kids.

The film still manages to maintain a dreamy, melancholic sensibility, and it works.

Bottom line: it's a thoughtful and worthwhile exploration of sex and love, but it's not for the faint of heart.

George

I have a crush on early-Beatles-era George Harrison. Why am I choosing this particular day and time to reveal this information?  I have no idea.  Just thought you should know.

 

What I Watched -- The Town

I haven't seen Gone Baby Gone, but if The Town is a fair representation, I have to admit that Ben Affleck has some directing chops.

This is, make no mistake, a bank heist movie.  That's the main premise, so don't expect too much.  But mixed in is some goofy romance (and - MILD SPOILER ALERT - an appropriately cheesy ending), as well as some not-so-goofy bromance.  The bros are Doug (Ben Affleck) and Jem (Jeremy Renner, whom I loved in The Hurt Locker).  They grew up together in Charlestown (the "Town" of the title); Jem's family took Doug in after Doug's father (a bit part played by Chris Cooper who, by the way, studied theater and agriculture (!) at Mizzou) went away for bank robbery.  It's a family business in that neighborhood, and Doug has built his own four-man team to pick up where his dad left off.  Doug's the clear leader, but Jem is the more interesting character.  Aside from a few references to a possibly complicated relationship with Jem's sister Krista (played by a normally lovely but here very drunk-looking Blake Lively), Doug is pretty flat as a character.  Jem, on the other hand, keeps you on the edge of your seat, if only because watching him is a little bit like watching a train wreck you know is about to happen.  Affleck may have the director's chair, but the acting award goes to Renner, hands down.  Doug falls in love and decides he wants out of the business; Jem convinces him that they need to do this one last, dangerous job.  You can imagine how that all ends.

Now I'm going to have to go back and see Gone Baby Gone, just for comparison's sake.

Bottom line: pretty good, for what it is, and worth seeing now that it's on DVD.  Bonus of seeing Jon Hamm with a firearm rather than a highball glass.  Variety is the spice of life, after all.

What I Watched -- Inception

I stayed up late watching Inception two nights ago.  Not a good idea to stay up late, since I'm exhausted.  But it's one of those movies that's hard to stop once you get into.

I had heard that it was super complicated, hard to follow, confusing, etc.  The truth is that it was not quite as much of a wild mind bender as everyone said.  Maybe since I had heard so much about it, I paid a little bit of extra attention to the film.  Or maybe it just wasn't as complicated as people thought.  True, a couple spots were a tad wacky, especially the first dream right at the beginning before you start to get explanation, but after that it's okay.  Oh, and of course there's the cliffhanger ending, which isn't so much hard to follow, but leaves you with questions to think about after the crazy special effects end.

And speaking of special effects, they were awesome.  That's one thing that I can say without equivocation.  And apparently the Academy agrees with me; Inception won for Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects.

But so far I haven't said much about the movie.  I'll summarize as best I can: Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) has been building a name for himself as an illegal extractor; he and his team infiltrate people's dreams and steal their deepest, darkest secrets.  Dom has been exiled from the US for reasons you discover later in the movie.  One of his victims, Saito (Ken Watanabe), appreciates Dom's skill, and promises him the ability to return to the U.S. and his children if Dom does one thing for him: Saito wants Dom to reverse course and, rather than extracting knowledge, plant an idea in someone's mind.  Doing so is not only very difficult to execute properly, but will also require Dom to face down his own demons and deal with the loss of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard, of Nine and La Vie en Rose fame).

Dom assembles his team, including architect Ariadne (Ellen Page of Juno and Whip It); forger Eames (Tom Hardy of Sweeney Todd and Band of Brothers); chemical genius Yusuf (Dileep Rao); and of course his right-hand man Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt of (500) Days of Summer, 10 Things I Hate About You, and - all those years ago - Angels in the Outfield and A River Runs Through It.  Wow, he's done a lot actually!).  The superstar team, at Saito's request, breaks into the dreams of his biggest commercial rival to plant an idea that will destroy the rival's energy empire.  We dive three layers into the dreams of that rival, Robert Fischer (played by Cillian Murphy, who I recently saw in The Wind That Shakes the Barley), learning about Dom as we go.

I hope that summary makes some sense.  Now, a few things I noticed as the movie went along, aside from the great graphics.  First, Ellen Page as Ariadne.  When she came on screen, I thought she had been terribly miscast; she seemed way too young and innocent to play the part convincingly.  But as the movie went on, I changed my mind.  Ariadne is new to the world Dom's team inhabits, so you're learning about the processes of inception and extraction as she does.  She is young and innocent, I was right about that much.  But she is also intelligent and sure-footed.  Her character provides a moral and metaphysical anchor for the viewer to follow through the complicated worlds.

Second, related to the first, is the idea of Ariadne.  Ellen Page's character is named after the mythological daughter of King Minos of Crete, who ran away with Theseus after he slayed the minotaur.  Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus as she slept, and was discovered by and later married to Dionysus, the god of wine, ritual madness, and ecstasy.  Ariadne is often depicted as a woman amongst the Greek gods, and also as the sleeping beauty on the island of Naxos.  Most myths have Ariadne killed in some way or another, but she is rescued from Hades by her husband and taken to Mount Olympus for all eternity.  The details are both important and interchangeable, because any of these depictions can be related in various interesting ways to the movie.  Think about it for a while if you've seen Inception.  In the movie, Ariadne is the only woman on a team of men.  Do the men represent gods, and Ariadne is the woman among them?  If so, are they gods because they can control your dreams, or can they control dreams because they are gods?  Is Ariadne rescued from the dream world by Dom, or does she turn tables and rescue him?  And on and on.

Third, it wasn't until the end of the movie that I realized how little Robert Fischer's character actually matters to the plot.  Even though, in the end, his is a lovely feel-good story, he is really just a vehicle for Dom to achieve his own desires, and for us as the viewer to learn about Dom's past.  That seems both sad and appropriate.  Dom has made his living as a thief, after all, and victims of thieves are often nothing more than unfortunate collateral damage.  That's the story of Robert Fischer as well, although he doesn't know it - that's the genius of inception.  And of Inception.

Bottom line: if you're even a little bit interested in wacky movies, see this one.  It's not a total David Lynch mind-f*** movie, but more in the style of Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Momento, where the characters know that reality is not always what it seems, and have to navigate that confusion.  Worth the price of admission.

My new bike!

Peeps!  I have made a big investment!  Not in an IRA or anything like that, but in a bike.  It's pretty wicked.  The specs are here, and I finally took some pictures.  It doesn't have pedals yet, but it will as soon as I get to K's house to get them off my old bike.

 

 

 What do you think?

Macbeth

Last night, Dad took K and I to see Macbeth at the Loretto-Hilton Center at Webster University, put on by the Repertory Theater.  It was really good!

Now, in fairness, I haven't seen Macbeth performed very often, so I don't have much to compare it to, but still.  We had great seats which made it easy to see the actors' facial expression and small movements, plus there weren't a lot of audience members in front of us to be distracting.

Some of the scenes in the first act were very well done - for example, when Macbeth starts to go crazy after he's killed Duncan and Banquo (by proxy) - but when I really started to lose myself in the play was the scene in the second act where Macduff's wife and children get slaughtered.  You know that thing that happens when you get really engrossed in something, so much so that you don't even know you've lost yourself until you find yourself again?  When you're reading a book and lose all track of what's around you and just lose yourself in the story?  That happened starting with the slaughter scene.  (Hmm, I wonder what that says about me?)  So for the rest of the show, I was totally lost.

Another thing I loved was the opening.  You know how every book of Shakespeare opens the play with the cast of characters?  Well, they actually acted out the character list.  All the actors knelt on or near the stage, and each one stood up and announced the name of the character(s) they were playing.  I'm very visual, so it really helped!  As characters go, I especially liked Macbeth (duh), Macduff, and the witches, who were super creepy and weird.

Overall, a lovely evening.  Thanks, T!  Oh, and thanks for the coffee also.