February 6, 2014

My view of our back porch.

I shovelled for three hours yesterday. I didn’t do it all at once, I broke it up. An hour and then an hour to rest, that kind of thing. I stretched. I shovelled from my right side and I shovelled from my left side. Michael was out-of-town and our snow blower is broken. We got a foot of snow. We have a big parking pad outside the garage - one I have to turn around in - and which needs to be clear of snow. I didn’t want to do the job all at once, after the snow stopped, so I kept going out again and again. There were moments of total white-out - I could not see a thing. I felt suspended in some kind of purgatorial wasteland. It was - and is - cold and miserable. For example, right now it’s 0 degrees. And windy. Ick.

Usually I like to hunker down inside when it’s cold outside, with a license to watch movies and read. So I generally welcome inclement weather. And yes, I’m still reading and watching and cozying. Frankly, I do that no matter what. What I have come to loathe about the cold most is what it takes to simply go outside - the suiting up, the dripping boots, the splotches of salty residue through the hallway. I’m ready for warm. I’m tired of this.

Oh, then the furnace went out. Yeah, that too. Fortunately, the problem is turning out to be trivial - a piece of ice fell on some necessarily capped vent outside. Michael, who returned last night after ten days away, is dealing with the furnace situation (and a repair person) as I write.

It’s nice to share a dwelling’s periodic problems with another adult. Particularly one who knows how stuff works. Yay for my husband.

Okay, this has been a really nice month. I watched a lot of movies. On the writing front, I’m inching my way along, little by more, a bit and a bot. Composing days and thinking days mingle. I’ve imposed daily writing minimums (amount of time, not number of words.) Consequently, I have this authoritarian voice that commands me every morning. I remind myself that I like doing what I’m doing. I chose this. I make myself slow down and breathe. Because I do love it. I’m into my characters: my heart heaves for them, I’m scared for them, I get to be God to them! I pull their strings and oh, oh, oh, what a delightful way to spend time.

I often wonder why I didn’t shut down my whole life much earlier so I could just do what I’m doing right now.

But first, let’s talk for a moment about books. Actually, I read only one book in January , but it was thick: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. (More on that in a moment.)

I’m currently reading George Orwell’s 1984, along with Mulan, who had this book assigned. Soooooo good. I’m open-mouthed with it’s greatness. I’d never read it before, can you stand it? I’m thinking about Winston and Julia and O’Brien all the time! (We’re about halfway through.)

How can it be that I’m just discovering Orwell now? Mulan and I also read Animal Farm together. She enjoyed Animal Farm much more than 1984. I guess Animal Farm is the kid version of 1984. Frankly, I think she’s too young for 1984, but whatever. We listen to an audio recording together in my office, Mulan on the reclinable chair and me at my desk. The audiobook is read by Simon Prebble, who has the quintessential British, intellectual,upper-class (but accessible) accent. This is a longer process than simply reading the book. But I’m finding this way is a significantly deeper and more satisfying experience overall.

A year or so ago I did this with Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim, a book I ‘d read a few times before. I sat in a chair in the living room and listened to the astoundingly nuanced audio version - by Paul Shelley - while I read along. Lucky Jim, which I think is quite funny - maybe the funniest book ever written - was twice as funny with Shelley reading. I recommend that if you’re so inclined.

I’m going to read more classics. My god, now that I am in my fifties, I want to reread every book I read before age 30 - back when I was not even a person. I’m getting so much out of 1984. If I’d read it in my youth, would I be reading it again? Maybe not. I need to reread (or just read!) Dostoyevsky, Proust, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, and on and on. I want to go slowly through them, maybe with the audio versions. I really hope I live to be a hundred. I need a lot of time, people.

Ooooh. I must read Christopher Hitchen’s Why Orwell Matters.

But let’s stick with 1984 for a moment. Okay, aside from the obvious correlations between 1984 and the current SNA, Snowden situation, I’m thinking about the Catholic Church as well. Yes, I love Pope Francis more than any other in my adult life. But one good Pope does not transcend and transform an entire Church (altho who knows, maybe he will!)

What I’m getting at is, while reading 1984, I cannot stop thinking about Big Brother as the Vatican. In December, I read Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of Chinese Communist Rulers, and he states - almost as an aside - that the only world organization that does not recognize the validity of the Communist Party in China is The Vatican, and that this is ironic because The Vatican is so much like the Communist Party - in terms of secrecy, authoritarianism, informants, paranoia about the outside world, etc.

OH. MY. GOD. I know, I know, probably obvious. But, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this all the while reading 1984!

Here’s a passage from 1984 that I love: “In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane.”

Not sufficiently interested. Oh. Oh. So perfectly worded. George Orwell, I love you.

And then of course I thought about the Catholic Church in regards to the Party’s prohibitions and persnicketyness about sex:

Here’s another passage:

“…she grasped the inner meaning of the Party’s sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party’s control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship.”

and

“There was a direct intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy. For how could the fear, the hatred and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as its driving force?”

I know. I’m having the epiphanies that most 9th graders have. I’m slow. I’m late. But I get there.

Okay, so The Goldfinch. What a glorious writer Donna Tartt is! I must read her other books. I was riveted. I read it like I was eating a beautifully made gourmet meal, meticulously prepared and every bite tasted great. But. Then. Then, then, then. It was weird. After I finished the book, I began to dislike it a few days later. A bad taste in my mouth. As if I had come to find out that all the ingredients in that fabulous meal were processed or overly-pesticided. Okay, enough of that analogy. But something happened when I digested the material. (Oh, I guess that wasn’t enough of that analogy for me!) Much of the story, well, it was hard to suspend my disbelief. The drug use was so over the top, it was impossible not to think there’d be more physical manifestations. (And for me that part is just boring.) It was too Dickens like, as if Tartt had simply had an assignment to write a modern hybrid of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Not that I mind. I don’t mind! But the main character was so unlikable and so unable to act in his own best interest. And inarticulate. Yes, I know the real character may have been tongue-tied. It’s quite nihilistic too - and frankly, I don’t mind that either. But it was as if Tartt wanted it both ways, for her story to have a dark nihilistic worldview, but then inspire people with beauty and joy and life’s mutability. Except there wasn’t much mutability. People stayed the same. I got tired of the musings (long, never-ending musings.) Truthfully this book needed a good editor. It would’ve been perfect 300 or so pages shorter, I’m my humble (and yet, now public) opinion.

And speaking of never-ending musing and needing an editor - I need to wrap up this blog post! Jeeeezhus. Why do you let me go on so long?

Let’s hit the movies and then wrap this baby up.

Movies watched in January 2014

1.) Enough Said, 2013, directed by Nicole Holofcener (twice!)

2.) 20 Feet From Stardom, 2013, directed by Morgan Neville (twice!)

3.) In Her Shoes, 2005, directed by Curtis Hanson

4.) August: Osage County, 2013, directed by John Wells

5.) American Hustle, 2013, directed by David O. Russell (twice!)

6.) Dr. No, 1962, directed by Terence Young

7.) Saving Mr. Banks, 2013, directed by John Lee Hancock

8.) It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946, directed by Frank Capra

9.) Inside Llewyn Davis, 2013, directed by Ethan and Joel Coen

10.) Twelve Years a Slave, 2013, directed by Steve McQueen

11.) Nebraska, 2013, directed by Alexander Payne

12.) Orlando, 1992, directed by Sally Potter

13.) Baby Face, 1933, directed by Alfred E. Green (the full pre-code version)

14.) Goldfinger, 1964, directed by Guy Hamilton

15.) The Butler, 2013, directed by Lee Daniels

16.) First Position, 2011, directed by Bess Kargman

17.) The Decolog, Episode #4, 1989, directed by Krzystof Kieslowski

Okay. Quickly now. I love Inside Llewyn Davis. Michael was not as into it when I watched it with him for my second time. I bawled like a baby at the end. I dunno, it gets me. Llewyn is unlikable (so unlikable Michael couldn’t care less what happened to him) but I relate to Llewyn. Not because he’s an asshole (I hope I am not that) but because he’s so close to making it and yet just keeps getting in his own way and he’s so in tune and so oblivious simultaneously. That’s how I feel.

Of the movies nominated for Oscars, I have to go with Nebraska, which I think is a masterpiece. Will Forte (a fellow Groundling) stars. He’s so good, and yes - Bruce Dern should get an Oscar for his performance, but wow, so should Will Forte. Every single day, and I mean this, I laugh at some point - out loud - thinking of June Squib as Kate, at the cemetery - pulling up her skirt and yelling at a the headstone of an old flame, “See what you missed, for talking about wheat all the time!” HIGH LARIOUS.

I enjoyed American Hustle too, watched it twice. Fun, dizzying, confident.

Surprise: loved Saving Mr. Banks. Mulan and I watched it on one of her snow-days. We both cried. Emma Thompson can do anything and I’ll happily watch.

Hey, how did Stories We Tell not get nominated for an Oscar? Sarah Polley was robbed. That movie was so great.

I did not like 12 Years a Slave. I won’t get into the whole sturm-und-drang - but this Slant review sums up my feelings in this area perfectly: 12 Years a Slave | Film Review | Slant Magazine

On that note, I did like The Butler. Yes, it was manipulative like a Hallmark Commercial. One might say there were as many compromises and omissions as in 12 Years a Slave. But The Butler‘s manipulations are in the traditional Oscar-bait, tear-rendering service of a great cast and story. It’s blatant need to be profound and thorough and all-inclusive just made me laugh, but with it - not at it. On the other hand, 12 Years a Slave just seemed cynical in it’s manipulations. Oh! And, Oprah is great in The Butler. She should’ve been nominated too. Not only nominated, she should just be an actress exclusively now. She’s reeeeeeeeally good.

I’ve never - or rather I had never - seen any James Bond movies. In my life. Never. Never! They just never seemed…. I didn’t NOT want to watch them, exactly. It’s just - there were always so many other interesting things to watch.

So, I’ve begun to watch them, starting with Dr. No and Goldfinger. They’re fun. They’re funny. They’re much more stylized than I thought they’d be. But somehow, I’m not jumping at the chance to keep going. No, I take that back. It’s such a big part of the culture. I’m going to take this whole year to try to catch up.

August: Osage County may be the worst movie I’ve seen in ten years.

First Position was a fun, tear-inducing documentary about ballet that I watched with Mulan. I think about that movie often too.

Enough Said - a home run for Nicole Holofcener. I had to watch it again immediately. Julia Louis Dreyfuss may be my favorite working comedic actress. She has so many quintessential moments - she’ll do three reactions to off one line - and all three of them make sense and are surprising and relatable. And James Gandolfini. Oh….. Oh….. So great. So lovable.

Sad.

Of course Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death - I’ve been thinking about him a lot too. Then I think about Hoffman’s addiction. And then I think of other addicts I’ve known. And then, I go down a hole.

So let’s end with 20 Feet From Stardom. I watched that one twice too. I love those ladies. I wanted to dive into that movie and just live there with all of them. That movie made me so happy about life. Such struggle, so much talent and hard work, so little recognition, and yet, that movie is so joyous and inspiring.

Until next month, my friends…