The malapert bookworm

After the holiday: An xmas post-mortem

2008-12-29T18:27:17Z

Ah, Christmas. I love Christmas. I am not one of those people who gripe about the crowds, nor am I one of those people who spends a lot of time searching for random, thoughtful-seeming presents for coworkers and distant relatives. We're not exactly living Little House in the Big Woods, here (per last year's rumination on gifts and consumerism), but our holiday is lower-key than it is for a lot of (most?) middle-class (and MC-aspiring) Americans.

We began the official holiday with a lovely Christmas eve service at my parents' church (also the host of my Scout troop), with Christmas story bible readings, carols and candles. The young and handsome pastor played guitar for several songs, and Zeke burned his hand on a candle, so there were ups and downs -- but generally a lovely experience. (Until we exited the church into a truly torrential downpour. I hope that wasn't some kind of omen.)

And Christmas itself? It was lots of fun: By "it," I mean most all of it. There was the inevitable stress of getting presents and pajamas packed into the car for the (shortish) drive to my mother-in-law's house, the inevitable chaos of having four little kids (nearly-9, 5, 4 and 1.5) together in one house, the general hustle of saying "Hi!" to my parents and brother's family in nearly the same breath (it seems) as saying "Bye!" to them as we whirl on out to see the other family. But mostly, it was fun. As I've said before, I love hanging out at my mother-in-law's house (and her holiday habit of making a big pitcher of sangria only adds to the appeal). This trip was much more hectic (the nephews) than usual, but still pretty fun.

I especially love seeing the kids (and even the grown-ups) open their presents. Hannah is transitioning into that age where the distant relatives have started to give her shower gel and those little mesh puffballs for washing, instead of toys (though she has turned the puffball-scrubbie into a toy), but these particular relatives were not present, so she was spared the effort of looking grateful. Mostly, it's toys -- toys for grownups, too (and cash -- thanks to generous relations!). That there were four kids all there opening together, and then four kids to play with the result added to the stress, at times, but also to the fun.

In the spirit of the American holiday, in which we obliquely and silently pay homage to Mammon at least as much as to anyone else, allow me to note some of my favorites among the Christmas loot:

Best Toy: There was no real Floam this year, the gift that Hannah yearned for a few years back and which, after her sincere (but failed) attempts to make it fun, has become a household byword for betrayed anticipation. Most of the toys were, in a word, awesome. The best of the bunch, in terms of the amount of play that it got, were the My Meebas that Granny got each of the post-toddler grandkids. Hannah studiously played with hers and got it out the first day; Zeke's took until Saturday, but he was all the more excited by it. I think he likes it more than Hannah, and they are both determined to get more of them. (You can go to the very annoying My Meebas website to see what they are.)

Most used, grown-up category: The Harry Potter 20 Questions orb. Hannah got one from Santa Claus, and Granny, coincidentally, got one from us. (Hannah got the regular flavor of 20 Q game last year or so, and it has been a great favorite. These things are eerie in their ability to "guess" your answer from a series of often seemingly unrelated questions.) Trying to stump the game became a weekend habit. (I did it with with Flobberworms, and Hannah did it with Cho Chang, of all people, but to give you an idea how unlikely this is, it guessed answers as obscure as Amelia Bones and Bezoar.)

Most used, kid category: Hannah's awesome "Guess Who Extra" game, from Nana and Grandad. The "rock 'em sock 'em" Kung Fu Panda game that Zeke got will never endure as many game plays as this superior game already has. (I know this, because cousin J. opened his game and it keeps falling apart and is, generally, adorable but poorly engineered. For KFP fun, watch the DVD extras instead.) Guess Who is a great game anyway, but the "extra" (with categories such as "Monsters" and "Creepy Crawlies") gives it even more longevity.

Funniest: Tie. I got my dad a poster showing a group of Plains Indians with the slogan: Homeland Security. Fighting terrorism since 1492. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself. My mother-in-law got my bro-in-law M. a glass mug from despair.com, with what is maybe my favorite of their Demotivators: Achievement.

Almost didn't make it to the recipient: We got Rob's youngest bro a really cool academic "cookbook" (really more of a dissertation on food science and meal planning), and I think he hated to let it out of his hands. Said bro's wife, my lovely sister-in-law A., scored a dip calligraphy set that I hated to see go, even though I had specifically picked it out for her. Does this mean that we have something in common with them? Besides our mutual regard, of course.

Best in show: Cash, obviously, which we are perennially short on (though I must say we did an excellent job of budgeting this Christmas!). But the best tangible thing was probably what salvador_dalai and I got for ourselves: The Dr. Horrible DVD! Haven't watched Commentary! The Musical, yet, but just seeing it on a big TV-sized screen was a true treat, as was introducing mom-in-law to its glories. (She loved it, obviously.) Maybe we should have a Dr. H.-watching party (and serve frozen yogurt and soup, of course).

A sweet gesture, filtered through the mind of a 5YO

2008-12-22T04:16:26Z

This morning, Zeke accidentally fluttered his eyelashes against my face. "A butterfly kiss!" I exclaimed.
"What's a butterfly kiss?" he asked. I was sure we'd been over this before. But... I brushed his cheek with my eyelashes.
He shrieked with mock horror: "Aaaaaaaarrrrgh! You kissed me with your EYE! EYE-KISS!"
And then he dissolved in laughter.

And that's how I started my solstice celebration....

The worst Christmas song ever?

2008-12-19T18:17:33Z

It's got to be "The Christmas Shoes," right? C'mon. You can complain about your novelty annoyances, and they wear pretty thin, but they're also pretty easily dismissed.

"The Christmas Shoes," though: Wow. If you are lucky enough not to be familiar with this tune, imagine if you will a softcore country ballad telling the story of a little boy on a quest to buy fancy "Christmas" shoes for his dying mother. That's right: It's Christmas Eve, and the little guy is at a store buying pretty shoes, which are "just her size," so that "if Mama meets Jesus tonight," she'll be able to wear them. He urges the sales clerk to hurry, because "Daddy says there's not much time."

Where to begin? For starters, what little boy has the faintest idea what size shoe his mom wears? Really? But my real problems with this song are more profound. To wit, if I were on my deathbed, I'd much rather have my son with me, sharing a last few precious moments, than out buying anything. Especially shoes. Luckily, I've never been mortally ill, so I can't exactly predict what would be going through my mind as the last hours trickled away, but I bet shoes would be pretty far down the list. Unless they were magical cancer-curing shoes or something like that. Maybe shoe-based defibrillators. I suggest defib, because in the movie version of this song, the young mother-on-deathbed suffers from heart problems.

That's right -- I said "movie." Starring Rob Lowe and Kimberly Williams, no less. It was even released on a real network (more or less). The website calls it a "little song with a big message." Um? That dying women need footwear, too? That Jesus has high fashion standards?

I know, I know: It's supposed to demonstrate the importance of giving, to detract from the commercialism of our modern Christmas by showing that true gift-giving comes from the heart. But is a song about a boy SHOPPING for SHOES really the best way to convey such a message? I think not. How about a song about a little boy who is too poor to give presents, so instead he plays his drum as a gift? Or a song about a rich ruler tramping into the snow to bring food and cheer to a poor man? Heck, John Legend's ode to "Nutmeg" has more to do with the spirit of Christmas than "The Christmas Shoes."

Because you know what this song is about? Making money off of sentimental people. That's not the true spirit of Christmas. Sure, it's the true American spirit, so I can see how easy it is to get confused.

Well, it's a good thing we paid for that financial bailout package!

2008-12-15T17:54:29Z

Otherwise, things might be REALLY bad....

AP: "With the country spiraling deeper into recession, the Federal Reserve is ready to slash its key interest rate -- perhaps to an all-time low-- in hopes of cushioning some of the economic fallout felt by many struggling Americans."

Bureau of Labor Statistics (including rising joblessness)

CNNMoney: "Gas prices rose for the second consecutive day following eighty-six consecutive declines."

Bloomberg: This was the year the global economy fell apart. Next year may not be that much better, as policy makers try to put the pieces back together."

"The economic crisis is putting an increased burden on nonprofit organizations, including those that help homeless people. More people are seeking the organizations' services at a time when donations are down and banks and local governments are less willing to help the groups."

How much worse would it be if they'd just divvied up that $700B among all of us?

Notice Board: End of the Year Special Edition

2008-12-11T21:36:40Z

Wow, it's been a while, eh? A lot of folks have been getting away with a lot of stuff. Time they were put on notice!

Serotonin:
I realize, now, that I've completely underestimated you. Taken you entirely for granted. I see now; I understand how important you are. I'm glad you're coming back to me. Don't leave again, 'K?

Heat Miser:
I will stop going around and saying that I like your brother better. (I really do think you have awesome hair.) And I promise to watch your new movie -- I've even got it programmed into the DVR already. So can you let it snow? Please? It's been so long!

Facial hair:
I have loved you, and still, in the right context, do. You know I love a beard -- my fella's got one, probably always will. I love it. I love the way the right beard makes a handsome face gorgeous, like the (handsome but) rawboned Viggo Mortensen turning into smokin' Aragorn, or the (handsome but) pointy-chinned Hugh Jackman turning into the temperature-raising Wolverine or Drover. So yeah, I'm with you, most of the time. But mustaches? They're a dodgier proposition, and it's the rare face that can bear up under the hirsute grandeur of, say, the Sam Elliot Special or the Jamie Hyneman Deluxe. It's an even rarer lip that dares the cosmic weirdness of, say, a Billy Ruiz Extravaganza. The recent spate of pornstaches is not to be borne. Facial hair, get off the lips of Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. I don't care what movie they're making; if it's not a sequel to Boogie Nights, they have no business with those things on their faces. While you're at it, facial hair, leave Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom alone, too. You can have Dr. Phil and Thomas Friedman.

Christmas:
Slow down! Everybody always says "slow as Christmas," but you're like a jackrabbit these days.

The Big Three:
No, you can't have any more of my money. I have two GM cars at home, and they replace two previous GMs. The first new car I bought was a Chevy, and it replaced my favorite, a Ford. You have gotten plenty of my money over the years. Fine. But you can't have my taxes. The bankers, apparently, need it all. Seriously, I know people say the economy will collapse if we "let" any or all of you fail, but why weren't you doing something last year, or last decade, when analysts and observers pointed out that your big ol' cars and bloated business models were headed for trouble? Weren't you paying attention when Priuses became a phenom and Coopers became hot? Weren't you watching people check out the high resale value of Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys? You just gave up, didn't you? You thought it was fine to pay laid-off auto workers 90% of their wages, and to crank out many interchangeable big ol' things, supposing that a bunch of trucks and vans, a couple of classics (Mustang, Camaro) and a few fads (the Neon, the PT Cruiser) would carry you indefinitely. Nonsense. Listen, I understand bad financial decisions -- been there, done that. And I guess I can't blame you for trying, but if I went up to Washington and asked Congress for a handout, er, bailout, Capitol Security wouldn't even let me on the floor. And you don't get a handout either. Suck it up, and stop holding the country for ransom.

The University of Tennessee:
I realize money's tight, and maybe in the world of NCAA coaches, a $6 million severance package accounts for belt-tightening. But did you have to rub our faces in it by hiring Phil Fulmer right back, for $12,000 a month? I mean, c'mon -- hundreds of people are losing their jobs all over this city, without a six-figure cushion. Without a four-figure one, either. I know, supposedly Fulmer's new salary comes from private donations, yadda yadda yadda -- you couldn't have found a better way to spend that money? On, say, NOT FIRING TEACHERS? Maybe part of Fulmer's responsibilities can include helping kids figure out to how to graduate without being able to take the classes they need.

Girl Scout Chocolate-covered almonds:
You are too delicious. Go away. Oh, wait, you're almost gone already? How'd that happen?

Christmas specials: The most wonderful time of the (TV) year?

2008-12-04T17:44:37Z

Because I'm too mopey to post, I take refuge in my annual delight: Holiday specials! Last year, I did a pretty thorough rundown:

Part the first: A new one, and my favorites

Part the Second: The Good, the Weird and the Ugly

And Part the Third: The Rest (an "Ani-magic" wonderland)

ho, ho, ho

A touch of snow today

2008-11-21T16:08:48Z

I missed the brief flirtation with snow we had a few days back. A friend woke up to snow dusting her ivy, and lots of people reported seeing proper flurries on Saturday, on Tuesday....

Not me. I missed Saturday's Blount/West Knox flurries somehow, and I missed Tuesday's campus/East Knox flurries because I work in a windowless hole beneath a tower. This time, I didn't miss it -- there's not much to see, but it is, unmistakeably, SNOW. Hearing a student in the outer office mention it, I scurried out of my basement stronghold to the parking garage, and there, drifting every so slowly down through the gingkos in the tree well: Snowflakes. Not a lot. And maybe you had to kind of squint to see them, but they were there.

I love snow. I really miss the infrequent but dependable snows of my childhood winters. The January that Hannah was born, we had a "blizzard" in central North Carolina -- a couple of feet of snow, which left us in the hospital stranded. The nurses camped out on pallets and cots, and lunch that first day or two consisted of the dregs from the kitchen shelves: I remember one meal consisting of a slice of bread and half of a canned peach. Hannah says she's a snow pixie because we had so much snow the first month of her life.

Snow days are still magical in my mind. Every little flake that lazily finds its way into the tree well holds the promise of real snow, blanketing the ground, ready for snowmen or snow cream or just for looking at. The promise is almost always, these days, unfulfilled, but the magic is still there.

A celebrity in town: Or, my brush with comic greatness

2008-11-20T14:11:47Z

Robert Ben Garant is in town for a benefit appearance for the Highlander Center. One of the celebrities -- in his case, comic genius -- to spring from my native soil. He's one of the few that I have some connection with. I didn't know him that well in high school; he's actually my brother's age. But he went to a high school near mine, and competed in speech and drama at the same time I did. His teacher/coach was buddies with mine, that sort of thing. We did different events, but I think he competed directly against my brother (who I guess has bragging rights thereby).

But I do have one story. I'm sure he doesn't remember me, but I wonder if he remembers this occasion. My freshman year of college, a friend and I came up to Knoxville to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which played weekly at a crappy theater on the westside. (Locals: Remember The Kingston Four?) They always had a police officer stationed there, presumably to stop any rice- and camp-fueled rioting, but really, I expect, to keep an eye on all the proto-goths and New Wavers and flaming geeks. (Which persons, history shows, are generally better behaved than their mundane-seeming counterparts. But I digress.)

Anyway, my car wouldn't start -- dead battery. The officer wouldn't help us, but then, if we were at Rocky Horror, we were obviously wierdos who had thereby abandoned any claim to the protection of law. The convenience store next door didn't have jumper cables. We were trying to figure out what to do, along Kingston Pike at 2 a.m., when a carfull of Farragut High students came over. It wasn't because they knew me; a couple of them recognized me, I think, and I them, but they were just doing the basic humanitarian thing. They volunteered to drive down the Pike in search of jumper cables. They found some, at another convenience store down the road, but the store clerk wouldn't let them take the cables off the premises.

Not to worry -- they volunteered to leave one of their number behind as surety for the cables. They came back to us in the K4 parking lot, bearing jumper cables but minus one friend. We got my car jumped off, and they returned the cables, and all was well.

The cable hostage was Robert Ben Garant. Mostly, I laugh at his work because it's hilarious. But there's a litle part of me that sometimes laughs, too, because I think about this skinny teenager hanging around a convenience store in the wee hours waiting for his friends to rescue near-strangers and come back to ransom him.

But on the other hand

2008-11-18T13:09:37Z

After letting of steam in yesterday's post, I got a little karmic reward.

This morning, I woke up to the sound of Zeke laughing in his sleep. I thought at first he was crying (he'd crawled into our bed, as usual), but when I put my hand on him, I realized that he was laughing. Just chuckling away.

That was a good way to start the day.

On not suffering fools gladly

2008-11-18T02:00:45Z

I need to learn how to put up with incompetents. Not because incompetents should be allowed to roam free, but because otherwise I'm going to have a heart attack before my next birthday. Unfortunately, I'm used to hanging around irl with smart, competent people, like salvador_dalai , coffey, ratjin , wen3so, willowtreewren and msbitterheart .

So apparently I'm spoiled. I expect that the professors whose students I work with will NOT go out of their way to sabotage the students and make my life harder as a by-blow to the students' misery. I expect that the students and faculty will remember, or at least remember to look up, the instructions on how to fill out basic (yet vitally important) paperwork. Then again, I ever so foolishly expect that people in general are aware of basic traffic laws and care about the most general principles of hygiene and safety as they walk, drive and shop.

The carelessness and vindictiveness that sometimes marks all of the above are, usually, pretty easy for me to ignore. I have gotten much better in my mellow middle-age at letting these annoyances waft over me; otherwise, I wouldn't have survived this long. But lately, the world seems particularly rife with annoyance, and it's getting harder and harder let it waft. There are various situations I can't really go into, such as my deep fears about a nonprofit I'm involved with, but one example will illustrate why I'm having a frustrating day (weekend?). I did some freelance editing recently, for an academic journal that happens to be edited by a faculty member at the university. Fine. But instead of paying me as a freelancer, from the journal, they're paying me through the university payroll. This means (a) a LOT more taxes will come out, because it'll be lumped on top of my regular paycheck, which will bump me for that paycheck into a higher bracket, etc.; (b) I have to prepare special extra paperwork, explaining that I did not do this work on company time; and (c) it will be in the end-of-December paycheck (at the earliest), which will mean it will have been nearly THREE MONTHS after the work, and I'd planned to use this money for Christmas. None of this was made clear to me in advance, and none of it was told to me directly at all by the faculty member or her assistant; I only found out about when one of my bosses asked me to do the extra paperwork.

Infuriating.
I am trying to abstain from complaining to the faculty member until after I get paid. But it's really, really hard. And believe it or not, this isn't the biggest thing I'm annoyed about right now!

The scariest part? Or how to give kids Tolkien nightmares

2008-11-14T03:09:46Z

We just got Frodo and Friends out of the barrow... Our nightly readings of The Lord of the Rings are sporadic, because the kids' bedtime is already unhealthily late. (We're trying, and for disorganized bohos, we do alright.) But sometimes, the length of the reading session is determined not by the time we start, but by the events of the story.

Like tonight. On the Barrow-Downs. Sure, the idyll in Tom Bombadil's house isn't exactly action-packed, and depending on how, as a reader, you care to handle all the singing, you can glide through pretty easily, stopping at any point without any cliff-hangers. The next chapter? Not so much. I mean, you can't stop reading aloud when Frodo is left alone in the fog, hearing his friends' cries for help. And you certainly can't stop when he's the only one awake inside the glowing grave chamber. You've pretty much got to keep on going till Tom comes to save the day, and Merry, Pippin and Sam shed their grave togs and run around naked in the sunshine.

Hannah's OK. She thought Tom's suggestion to run around naked was hilarious, in fact, and she curled up in bed murmuring "Ho, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!" Given past experiences, there's still a chance she'll wake up worried about wights, but for now, the emotional coast is clear.

Not so for Zeke, who cried and cried as soon as we left the room, and had to be cosseted and cuddled and have extra "buddies" (stuffed animals) piled up around him. I think it's the first time he sought out Blue's floppy, soft company since he was 2. Yikes. I was really careful never to say that the wights were "ghosts," a word that Zeke is afraid of. I didn't even say straight out that they were skeletons, or undead, or anything like that, being vague as to my theories about wight-ness. Frankly, I thought I was being pretty clever with this.

But let's face it, those Barrow-wights are scary. As I kissed Zeke's tear-wet face, I remembered (belatedly) that for me, the Barrow-wights were always one of the scariest parts of the whole trilogy. Scarier by far than those Black Riders, even with the creepy sniffing. Scarier, even, than the Paths of the Dead. The whole episode is so creepy and random, and the disembodied (literally) hand wriggling like a spider? Horrible. It creeps me out a little even now, thinking about it.

What makes some things scarier than others? I mean, really, not much in LOTR is as scary as, say, the average episode of CSI, because those are real things that happen to real people, all too frequently. Not much in LOTR is as scary or as upsetting as a tragically truncated Amber Alert, or half the stories of the war in Iraq. But fiction, well-written, acts upon our imagination in ways that most news stories do not (and that's lucky for us, really).

We never know what's going to scare a kid, what's going to stay with them for life. I'm often surprised at how sanguine Hannah or Zeke are about some things, and then again how upset they are by things that I had hitherto thought tame. The Barrow-wights aren't like that. I could've seen this one coming. They are truly scary.

What scares you?

Movie updates

2008-11-11T15:27:59Z

Since one of the main movies I've been waiting for opens this weekend, I thought I'd better get up to date on the (few) movies I've seen this fall!

A few weeks back, for msbitterheart 's birthday, the gals and I went to see The Duchess
Full disclosure: I really like Keira Knightley. I think she's cool-looking, not just pretty, but a particularly appealing kind of "pretty," with some sass in her eyes. In interviews, she comes across as smart and funny, and -- very important -- I get that sense from her in her movie roles, too. There's often just a little bit of a sardonic smile threatening to burst out of those famously attractive lips. The Duchess is her latest "costume drama," which she's sort of getting pigeon-holed into lately; the genre seems to be doing pretty well by her, though. The Duchess doesn't exactly call for tour-de-force acting. It's a very well-done, gorgeous period movie, but I found that it left me a bit cold. I wasn't as caught up in her marital tragedy as I should have been, nor was I as captivated by her love affair as the film obviously intended me to be. My favorite parts were the banter with the Whigs, which I loved, not the love story. Given the movie's structure (and advertising), that's probably a failing. Georgiana as waif caught up in hopeless love and arranged marriage is all very good, but Georgiana the smashing celebrity who uses her looks and fame to charm the powerbrokers of the world's most powerful nation? That's a story I'd like to see. And it's a story that would have suited Keira Knightley better -- she's not miscast, exactly, but she does some aspects of Georgiana's life and personality far more than others. There was a moment early in the film where I thought she was indeed miscast, when the Duke (the divine Ralph Fiennes, playing the repressed a-hole with intimidating and charismatic power) is discussing his offer of marriage with Georgiana's mother, (the remarkable Charlotte Rampling, who can hold her own with him). He wants a son ,and she assures him that the women of her family are fertile and strong, and that they always have lots of strapping sons, etc. Honestly -- have you ever looked at Keira Knightley's gorgeously gamine figure and thought: "There's a woman who'll have lots of healthy babies!" One wonders, when the Duke establishes a long-term affair with the lushly colored and robustly figured Bess (Hayley Atwell), what the heck he thought he was "buying" with his "purchase" of the willowy Georgiana Spencer? Sadly, though, as I said, this triangle isn't the emotional heart of the movie -- I enjoyed The Duchess, but would have enjoyed a slightly different take on the same basic story more. I'm intrigued by Bess, by how Georgiana reconciles herself to their unusual living arrangement, by how G. came to command the demimonde.... There are several truly fascinating stories here, and I think the filmmakers focused on the failed marriage (not the freshest or most compelling) and split the difference among the others.

And then a few days later I saw another movie about love: "True love" this time, with a happy ending.
I guess I should begin with yet another disclosure: I love Michael Cera. I love him in everything I've ever seen him in, notably his hilarious webvideo "Impossible is the Opposite of Possible." And sure enough, I found the movie Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist infinitely appealing and charming, a teen movie that even a middle-aged lady can love. This is one of those movies that manages to exist firmly within a genre, yet make it seem fresh and new, with just the right blend of convention and innovation. Sometimes, the conventions become cliches, and sometimes innovation becomes twee. N&N gets it right. In some ways, we've seen this story a bunch of times before: Boy and girl meet cute, and they're obviously right for each other, and they kiss or almost-kiss but various obstacles and misunderstandings intervene before they finally hook up for good. There are comedic friends and evil ex-girlfriends/sleazy would-be boyfriends. But here there's also wry humor done exactly right, with enough hip irony to make the kids believably smart (but not annoyingly precocious). There's even gross-out humor (warning -- if you have a weak stomach, you'll want to look away from the public toilet scene). This movie gives the central characters -- and their friends, even -- the respect that many movies (of many genres) don't. They are real people, who talk and behave in believable ways, and that gives the film a life and sparkle that many others lack. It is, for example, one of the only movies I've ever seen that really makes believable the cliche of the beautiful brunette girl who thinks she's ugly. Kat Dennings (the titular Norah) is gorgeous, but in a dramatically different way than the "mean girls" at her parochial school, and with that mane of dark hair all but hiding her face sometimes, you can sort of see the little kid inside the high-school senior; she's also the daughter of a rich and famous music-biz guy, so I suspect she's used to assuming that people only like her for her money or her dad's influence. (She never has to wait in line at clubs, for instance.) Unlike the fragile and affectingly awkward Nick (Cera, of course, who beautifully plays this persona as if it were the first time), Norah shields herself in sarcasm, like a lot of smart, not-so-beautiful teenager girls did and do. (C'mon, gals, raise your hands -- you went to high school, right? Some of you know what I'm talking about.) I remember that NPR movie reviewer Bob Mondello described watching N&N fall in love with each other as we, the viewers, fall in love with them, and that's exactly what happened to me. Vive Nick and Vive Norah! May you live happily (and hilariously) ever after!

And finally, this past weekend, I took the kids to see Madascagar: Escape 2 Africa with my brother and nephew.
It was fine. I do a pretty good job of avoiding the kids' movies that I know I will hate (Alvin and the Chipmunks, for instance), and I actually seek out the kids' movies that I really expect to enjoy (Kung Fu Panda). So I'm pretty sanguine about those in the middle. This is one of the ones in the middle. I really liked the first Madascagar, which I think did a great job of capturing the blend of zany humor and wink-wink jokes for grown-ups that most cartoons today seem to go for; I guess the rationale is that the studios want to suck in those parents' tickets along with the kiddies' admission, but all too often it feels forced and frenetic. Madascagar was one that pulled it off pretty well, and it's a nice examination of friendship. As a central movie theme, you don't get any more classic than friendship. Unless it's family -- and that's the focus of Madagascar 2. Was I the only one who kept thinking of The Lion King? I realized after it was over that the evil usurping lion Makunga was not, in fact, Alex's uncle, as I'd been assuming, thanks to Scar and Mustafa & co. (And speaking of Baldwin: Why doesn't he do more cartoon work? He was fabulous!) The late Bernie Mac voices Alex's father here, and he does a great job. The plot is pretty much boilerplate, though. (Gosh, do you think the disgraced son will be able to redeem himself in his father's eyes?) The cliches of the genre are unavoidable, and that's not necessarily a bad thing -- if they're done right. Here, it gets a bit too clunky, and the subplots feel a bit random and slapdash. There's an awful lot going on here, maybe too much. Sure, the romance between two of the chums is pretty entertaining, but it doesn't really add that much. And I was just sick to death of Nana, maybe because she features so prominently in the Christmas special on the original movie's DVD. I was just rolling my eyes when what I thought was a jokey cameo turned out to be a major plot point. Snore. On the other hand, there's also a touching subplot about Marty the zebra, who realizes, upon finally hooking up with his herd, that being in a herd of zebras means he's not at all unique. This is a great example of something that we should have had more fully developed. (Maybe we could have had less Nana, and more Marty and King Julian.) The look of the film is amazing -- the design is better than the original, and the character designs are wonderful. (I loved Zuba's mane, so nearly like Alex's sharp pentagon, and the sweeping savannah landscapes -- the visuals are gorgeously done at every level.) But one of the things I loved about the original was its darkness -- that undercurrent of menace, of realism. Hey -- lions are CARNIVORES! No children's literature, from those horrifying German fairy tales right up through Harry Potter, really triumphs without an element of darkness to leaven the light. I was really impressed at how well the original Madascagar seemed to understand and convey that balance between the macabre and the humorous. That's all missing here -- Madascagar 2 is much more a run-of-the-mill cartoon, very entertaining, but without the depth or focus of a classic. Oh, also: Not enough penguins.

Sukiyaki Western Django

2008-11-10T19:50:57Z

I like!

Zeke-dono, living the game

2008-11-07T13:39:48Z

Zeke is a natural-born role-player. What the career potential is for this, I don't know, but he's got a real affinity and talent.

For a long time, he spent a lot of time halfway (or more) inside a "game" world inspired by InuYasha, in which a powerful but good demon named Sato, the leader of the Band of Ten, demonstrated his amazing powers. These largely involved superhuman feats of strength or speed. "In the game," Z would say, "I'm taller than -- what's the tallest thing on earth?" "Mount Everest, I guess." "OK. In the game, I'm taller than Mount Everest. I could STEP on Mount Everest." Or, "In the game, I'm faster than the fastest thing on earth or the fastest thing in outer space." There would occasionally be some running around, leaping and demonstrating of various martial-arts moves: Dragon Twister! Sword Push!

He progressed to wanting to draw pictures of the various members of the Band of Ten (which term is inspired, I should add, by these guys). For a while, he even thought about going for Hallowe'en as Sato, his gigantic and heroic alter-ego. "The game" faded as a constant preoccupation earlier in the fall (aided, probably, by the big influx of Bionicles around his birthday). But it never really went away, and kung-fu moves and general character creation would still crop up at random times.

Now, it's samurai. (Gee, where'd he get that from?) Last night, he refused to relinquish his towel after his bath, having it tied around his neck and practicing what looks like reasonably convicing iaijutsu. His signature move is "the triple weapon draw." He can also be pulled out of almost any sulk by "running like a samurai" (or, really, a ninja), that distinctive way of holding the arms stretched out behind. Zeke's elaboration is to leap in the middle of the run.

"My name is Kyuzei," he announced this morning. "My samurai wears a long blue coat" (hence the towel). He looked consideringly down at his feet and added, "And sometimes he wears one sock." (Also, because he's basically this guy, of course he uses twin blades.)

I know that I should deplore his attraction to swords and the guys who wield them, and that I should steer him towards Legos instead of make-believe ninjas and feudal warriors and steampunk samurai, but I'm sort of caught up in the game, too. I delight in the Dragon Twister and the Triple Draw, and I dearly love the fearsome ronin with the double swords but the single sock.

I can't help but wonder what he'll do with all this imaginative energy when he really learns to write.

Motivation

2008-11-06T13:24:39Z

By Christmas, Hannah will have to pick a topic for a class research project -- each year, her school holds a "Great Brain" fair (which last year was featured on TV news) -- and she begins speculating on this about as early as she and Z. begin speculating on their Hallowe'en costumes. (Which is to say, as soon as the last event is past, they're brainstorming on the next one.) So Hannah's been mentioning Great Brain topics since, oh, March. (Great Brain is kind of like a science fair, except the kids can do any topic, not just scientific ones.)

She's down to three strong contenders: The Hindenburg, the Titanic, and sound waves. The first two are subjects she's very interested in, having watched a couple of TV specials and read some books about them. (The Hindenburg has the added appeal of having been featured on an episode of Mythbusters.) I think they're all great topics, and I suggested she just do whichever one would be most fun to work on. So this morning, she said she'll probably do sound saves, "because that's the one I know the least about. I already know a LOT about the Titanic and Hindenburg."

Wow. Most people's motivations would be to go with the things they already know, which would make the work easier, or would let them concentrate on presentation rather than research, or whatever. Not Hannah -- she genuinely wants to pick the topic where she feels has the most to learn, because that's what makes it fun. Learning, fun?

You go, girl.

Because otherwise I'd be obsessively reading politico blogs and analyses

2008-11-05T22:43:08Z

Which Samurai 7 Character am I?

Because it would certainly be the most sarcastic one.

Quiz here

Big day! Is it morning in America at last?

2008-11-05T14:18:45Z

There is so much punditry and analysis out there already this morning, that I won't delve too deeply into Obama's victory, except to celebrate my relief and excitement and -- yes -- hope. I am hopeful about the economy, about the war, and about things in general this morning, despite my blurry brain from staying up too late and toasting too much.

So instead of nattering on, I give you Peter Baker, from today's New York Times: "But the task awaiting Mr. Obama arguably transcends this economic program or that foreign crisis. He takes over a nation weary of the past and wary of the future, gloomy about its place in the world, cynical about its government and desperate for some sense of deliverance. Nearly nine of every 10 Americans think the country is on the wrong track, the deepest expression of national pessimism in the polling history. 'Obama this year recognizes the country needs to be healed,' said the presidential historian Michael Beschloss."

It is not the president's job to make us feel better. But healing? That, I can get behind.

Yes we can!

The American Dream and Myths of Meritocracy

2008-11-04T14:11:24Z

So I've been mulling over a piece about the prevalent myth that hard work = prosperity, and how that has deflated (and given the lie to) the "American Dream," and then the lovely and talented wenso went ahead and wrote something over on HER blog! Read it.

This topic is one of endless fascination and frustration for me. Years ago, I remember reading an article in the Raleigh newspaper about some affluent homeowners who were angry about a new development that was within sight of their 400K homes. I don't remember her exact words, but the upshot was "We worked hard for what we have, and we don't appreciate our property values being hurt by people who just won't work as hard as we do." Now, this was a development targeted at homeowners with salaries in the 30-50K range, the idea being that the schoolteachers, police officers and firefighters who served the suburb of Cary might actually be able to live in the town where they worked. These are the layabouts who might besmirch the hallowed precincts of the businesspeople, engineers and whatnot in the pricier homes. And you can see the woman's point: Who'd want miscreants like teachers and cops mucking up the neighborhood?

But she wasn't thinking of teachers and cops. She was thinking of those criminally low salaries. And low salaries must mean low motivation. Bad attitude. Lack of ambition. Perhaps it never occurred to her that someone might actually choose a lower-salary job because they feel called to help others, or because they have an affinity for that type of work, or whatever. And I'm sure it never occurred to her that someone might "choose" a lower-salary job because they grew up in a family that never assumed they'd go to college, a family where the head of household had that kind of job.

In this country, one of the best predictors of a young person's lifetime income is the income of the person at the head of the family they grew up in. In plain language, the kind of job your father or mother has plays a major role in determining what kind of job YOU will have. (This correlation is strong enough that litigators use it to determine a young person's lifetime potential earnings in damages lawsuits.) The class lines we deny that we have are much more tenacious and harder to cross than most of us suspect.

This is one of those cases where anecdotal evidence lines up with the scientific and statistical evidence. Look around you: Are the richest people you know the best people? Are they even the hardest-working ones? In some cases, yes -- a person has a great idea or immense drive and pulls up from hardscrabble conditions to the pinnacles of financial (and, thereby, in our country social) success. These examples are visible enough to keep the "American Dream" alive, but is it a realistic or even likely roadmap to financial success? I suspect that the odds of a lower-income person becoming one of the wealthy are even less than the odds of a high-school football player becoming an NFL superstar.

Do you really need statistics on this? Again, look around you. Do you see nurses slaving through 12-hour shifts, carrying not only the physical demands of the job but also the intellectual and emotional demands? Do you see school teachers showing up for 6 a.m. bus duty, then grading papers at night until 9, then taking second jobs in the summer to cover their mortgage? Do you see technicians and factory workers on their feet for hours at a time, doing dirty backbreaking work in poorly heated rooms?

I could go on and on. If you are tempted to counter by saying, "Well, those people don't *have* to do those jobs; they could have gone into another line of work," then ask yourself: "But then who would do those jobs?" They have to get done by somebody!

It is so obvious to me that personal merit does NOT equate in any kind of way with financial success (Ken Lay, Leona Helmsley, on and on) that it is difficult for me even to have a conversation about it. I feel as if I'm speaking a different language, one with no common ground. I imagine it's like trying to discuss theology with a Scientologist.

There is much to be said about our nation's mortally dangerous ignorance about economics. That supply-side economics retains any credence, for instance, despite all evidence to the contrary. That hegemony, not financial wisdom, dictates economic policy. Perhaps this is another post for another day. On this day, this election day, I know a lot of people are voting for an American Dream that doesn't exist for them. They're voting out of fear that somebody will take away their hard-earned money and property. And they are blind to -- or are ignoring -- the lie that runs beneath those fears.

Not OCD, just O? A fangirl's lament.

2008-11-03T19:32:57Z

I think it must be true that some people have "addictive" personalities -- that is, that some of us do not merely engage with some product, entertainment or device, but we obsess on it. It's fairly common with little kids -- I remember a friend's preschool-age niece having watched 101 Dalmations so many times in succession that she knew not only dialogue but the specific bark sequences.

It happens with food, too. You know how a little kid (say, for instance, my kids) will want some new treat or snack exclusively just up until the point where you finally decide to stock up on whatever kind of cereal or whatever it is? And then they're done, and the cereal goes bad? My kids do not just have this as a trait of kid-hood -- they have it "honestly," perhaps even genetically (?) from me.

I have it bad. For me, it largely takes the form of pop culture obsessiveness (though I do the food thing, too, the everlasting frustration of salvador_dalai 's careful shopping lists). If I get "into" a show or movie or book series, then I want to watch nothing but that show. I want to read about that show online, and I want to watch fan-made videos of it. Right now, it's Samurai 7, which passes both my own movie-quality test ("Does it have a sword?") AND Ralph's original ("Does it have a spaceship?"). Only really in anime are you likely to find both, joy!

How is it possible for a middle-aged woman to squee like a schoolgirl over fanmade wallpapers of steampunk samurai? Sad, really -- but irresistible. I never really outgrow these things, retaining a deep affection for each new love after it ripens into an old love (remember last year's fangirl obsession with Pirates? That's a love that will probably never die.)

I've learned to live with this. Nurture the obsession (and thank the Gods of the Tubes for the internet, right?). Indulge it, even (but keep the wallet closed). Soon, each new crush will fade into the comfort of a well-worn love affair.

And in the meantime, if you want to talk about Katsu or Kyuzo, you know where to find me.

Tricky treats

2008-11-01T01:51:59Z

We had a good time trick-or-treating, but it was weird to start when it was still broad daylight. A lot of the regular houses weren't open for business -- maybe they thought it was too early? The kids got tired pretty soon, but not so early that they didn't get tons of loot, as usual.

But the main reason I post is to show off their costumes. Hannah went as a cosmonaut. No specific one (she bristles at W's assumption that she was Yuri Gagarin), just your basic cosmonaut. You can't really see it in the pix, but she does indeed have "CCCP" on her helmet and red stars and all; there's also a real metal gauge (from a blood pressure cuff) embedded in her sleeve. She had white booties, but she's not wearing them in the picture (which was taken right next door at my parents' house).

Zeke went as Inuyasha, complete with hanyo ears and Tetsusaiga. We were lucky that the first trick-or-treaters we encountered were a group of Japanese teenagers, who made much of him; later another teen, patently a fangirl, positively squee'ed (the more so when we revealed his plan for next year: Sesshomaru).

Religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin

2008-10-31T14:15:09Z

Those are the three topics that Linus has learned never to discuss. Since I talk about the first two all the time anyway, I might as well venture onto the third one. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown aired on Tuesday, in a double feature with You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown. The Peanuts Christmas special is a true gem, a perfect little tragicomic narrative that manages to be satirical AND heartwarming. These seasonal specials don't quite rise to those heights, classic though they are.

I'd forgotten how episodic Great Pumpkin is. It's really like a series of favorite bits from the Peanuts strip (Lucy pulling away the football, Snoopy as the WWI Flying Ace). This is good stuff, but we've seen so much of it over the decades that it doesn't really feel nostalgic to me. The trick-or-treating is my favorite part, with poor Charlie Brown, so matter-of-fact about his pathetic multi-holed "ghost" costume (he had "trouble with the scissors") and his sad-sack refrain after each house, as the kids check out their haul: "I got a rock." This is a special rife with character humor, rather than narrative humor, but it's still pretty entertaining. It doesn't really rise much above the humor, though -- unlike, say, Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, which debuted about a year before this special.

The central "tragedy," the nonappearance of The Great Pumpkin, is a puzzle to me. It just makes me feel a little sad nowadays. It should be an amusing depiction of childish hopes gone too far, or an expression of the power of faith against all odds, or something. But now, I just see a lonely kid in a pumpkin patch. How did Linus first "find out about" The Great Pumpkin? I remember Zeke's Thanksgiving Rabbit, and suspect the truth, but that imagined/feared critter is at least just an image, not a mythos. Linus has a whole narrative for The Great Pumpkin, and I find it bothersome. This says a lot more about me than about Linus (or about Peanuts), of course. I love that The Great Pumpkin is said to rise in "the most sincerest pumpkin patch," and of course it opens Linus up to just the sort of slip he makes, expressing doubts about the GP, and thus providing a rationale for GP's (continued) non-appearance. There's an interesting rhetorical twist in there, but at the end of the night, I see a kid sleeping on the ground, without presents from the GP, but also without candy from trick-or-treating. And it just makes me sad. Linus has always been my favorite Peanuts character, and it is interesting, on reflection, that the intellectual of the group is also the person of faith (i.e., the Christmas speech). Charlie Brown is the perennial loser, the classic sad sack, but Linus is the one who ends up all alone, disparaged and disappointed, at the end of Halloween night.

I have only the vaguest memories of seeing You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, and I have to say that, as a narrative piece, it's superior to Great Pumpkin. As comedy, GP is more amusing. Elected does have its comic "bits" from the strip (Joe Cool), but it also some genuine satirical bite. The title is a bit of a red herring -- of course it isn't Charlie Brown who runs for class president, but Linus. I was entertained by the depiction of polling (by Lucy, a potential Rovian strategist if ever there was one) and the complexity of the campaign (she appoints Charlie Brown to head a committee, who appoints Snoopy to be in charge of signs and posters, who appoints Woodstock as his assistant). The election itself was great. Linus has a gift for demagoguery, as we might have guessed from his skills with oratory seen in the strips and the Christmas special. He promises revolutionary reforms, pounding the podium and rallying the students to cheering vigor. It's almost as if, bitten by the campaign bug, the mild-mannered thinker becomes Robespierre. You think there's a message in there? Only when his campaign speech devolves into a rant about the Great Pumpkin does he lose his audience -- it nearly loses him the election, too, which comes down to a 50/50 split (broken, ironically, by his opponent, who votes for Linus). I loved this presaging of the much-maligned "gotcha" culture of our 21st-century election media!

But Linus is elected, by the barest margin, and the satire really grows teeth. Linus storms into a meeting with the school principal, with fire in his belly, all ready to eliminate homework, extend recess and all the other fantasy reforms of his revolutionary speechifying. Sally waits in the hallway like Madame Defarge, gleefully anticipating Linus' triumph. However, when Linus emerges, he is visibly chastened, sweating and repeating "yes, sir" over and over. It turns out that the student body president doesn't really have the power to change any of the basic school structure or policies, as any grownup knows. The humbled Linus is harangued by Sally as a sellout. Perhaps she could investigate his lobbyist connections?

I loved this whole narrative; this special may lack the inspiring and heartfelt sweetness of the Christmas special, but the depiction of the political process -- and its usual outcome -- was pretty much spot-on.

Interestingly enough, I learn from wikipedia that this special first aired on October 29, 1972. Seems like that would've been a pretty good election year to learn political cynicism in.
.

At the turning of the year

2008-10-30T18:08:20Z

My years turn when the ancient Samhain festivities also turn the seasons, traditionally. Like our modern New Year, it ought to be a time of reflection, doubly so for me; but also like the modern New Year, it's often so hectic and busy that I rarely let myself take the time for it.

I love Hallowe'en, and I love Samhain. I love birthdays -- all the trappings of all of these. I love hokey, tacky orange and purple decorations, and would drape the house in lights and set up hay bales if I could afford to buy them. (But like the xmas lights, I'd probably be too lazy/procrastinating to remove them, which would be bad. Maybe the goats could eat the hay?) I also love birthday cakes, and paper plates with cartoon characters on them, and glittery candles. (I also love bonfires and straw dolls and the trappings of the ancient holiday, but those things don't really fall into the realm of guilty pleasures.)

We had a Hallowe'en fair at church last night, and it was wonderful -- pulled together in just a few weeks with a minimum of planning, just shy of a spur-of-the-moment thing, but a triumph nonetheless. (Special kudos to T. for the irresistible black light room and S. for the wonderful Samhain room.) Tomorrow, of course, is trick-or-treat, complete this year with a visit from Granny. Today, which ought to be the big event (my birthday) feels more like the pleasant lull in the swirl of activities. I plan to go to taekwondo (which I love) and the library (love even more), but not much is planned in the way of celebrations.

That's OK with me. For all my big talk about having a Kung Fu Panda party (!), I find that I relish the prospect of a pretty basic family dinner (maybe out, probably in, for budget's sake). I find that I relish the prospect of watching Samurai 7 and The Office while wrapped in my blankie (trying to keep the thermostat a bit lower these days). And I find, in particular, that I look forward to tomorrow, when salvador_dalai and his mom (and some other friends) will go out to see my brother-in-law's awesome Big Band, The Streamliners, and I'll stay home and watch movies with the kids. This is not the function of my extreme (ha!) age (41, if you wondered); even at 25, I'd still just as soon have curled up with a book or a computer game as have gone to a concert or bar. We're having an election party on Tuesday, which will be fun.

But for now, I'm in quiet mode. I'm thinking of my cool birthday present from Hannah: Two interesting small rocks she found on the playground.

So in a way, I'm celebrating Samhain a bit like my ancestors after all. I'm reflecting after a year's harvest, a sometimes-bitter one this year. I'm going to burn up the old year, and let the new one come in with the frost. I'm going to cherish my interesting rocks, and I'm going to cherish the children who collect them, and I'm going to find some oh so elusive quietness here, at the turning of the year.

This is just to say... or, the morality of free cake

2008-10-24T16:39:10Z

I am eating free cake, under what, you could argue, are false pretenses. No, I did not sneak into somebody rehearsal dinner, but I did attend the employee cafeteria's "tailgating" event. Every Friday before a game (or maybe just home games), they set out a big ol' cake -- done in up in orange and white, of course -- for all comers. I work here, so I'm entitled to the cake.

And boy, some days, you really just need some cake. Today, it's chocolate. Manna from heaven.

But I don't support the team. My graduate assistant and I were the only people in the joint not wearing orange. So if I'm not a fan, am I entitled to the fan cake? I think so, but I still feel kind of dirty. So, with apologies to William Carlos Williams:

I have eaten
the cake
that was in
Arena Dining

and which
you were probably
saving
for Vol fans

forgive me
it was delicious
so sweet
and so moist

Happy birthday, Weird Al!

2008-10-23T13:07:45Z

I know this is an exceedingly odd thing to herald a return from long absence (fall break, busy time, bad cold, all in succession, whatev). But when I heard it was Weird Al's birthday -- and that he's only 8 years older than me (give or take a week), I couldn't resist. Loved you back when you were setting '80s rock and pop to polka tunes, loved you more when you set the story of Episode I to the tune of "American Pie."

This one is my favorite (and, I think, msbitterheart 's)
www.youtube.com/watch

Taekwondo progress!

2008-10-11T01:27:01Z

It's official: Hannah passed her belt test and is now a Senior Green Belt. She was worried about a couple of bobbles in her pattern, but we weren't sure how much those things weighed into the scoring. She did a great job on free sparring, something she'd really worked on (even managing to get in a couple of jump kicks, as well as her required combinations).

Her crush, N., did not pass his test, which would have put him at Red Belt. Hannah was really bummed for him, and though I tried to console her by pointing out that they were now closer in rank, she is much too unselfish to comforted by any bright side to his failure. (He wasn't able to break the boards at his belt test and was visibly upset afterward.)

Failure is inevitable, and is an important part of learning taekwondo. Really, of learning most things. Hannah will certainly, at some point, fail a belt test, or put one off. I know it will be hard for her, but she has the example before her of a couple of friends who advanced to fairly high levels (Red and Black Decided) after having failed in the past, and Mr. C. told some inspirational anecdotes about them. It will not be easy for Hannah when it's her turn to "fail," but Mr. C. and her other classmates will be there to cheer her on for an eventual success.

Still, I can't help but be relieved and proud that she passed this test, her first at this more serious, more structured school. Go, girl!