5 Snouts up for Black Swan on DVD

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for Black Swan starring Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers as experienced on DVD on my Mac months after everyone else in the world has seen it.    I'm in good company thinking it was brilliant.  I should start off by saying I'm no huge Natalie Portman fan, nor am I immensely fond of ballet.  Yet, I do know Swan Lake (which, after the Nutcracker is the ballet to know) and love Tschaikovsky.    And I was a chubby would-be ballerina for several years in elementary school, falling asleep at night dreaming of dancing en pointe.  So I do have a reason or two to like this film.

The thing that caught and held my attention in this movie was the web of relationships within which the rising ballet star finds herself:  her mother (played flawlessly by Barbara Hershey), her idol Beth (Wynoa Rider) her rival Lily (played hauntingly by Mila Kunis), and most of all her two selves echoing her dual roles as white virginal swan and black seductive swan.  We never know what's real, what's imagined, who is paranoid, who is out to get whom. 

It is rare in Hollywood to find so many strong roles for women in one story.   Many psychologically compelling movies would content themselves with one parallel plot or relationship.  This screenwriter knows mothers and daughters, knows perfectionism taken to extremes, knows the shadow self so many of us hide and project onto others.  All of those common human dynamics get stretched and magnified here by a not-so-funhouse mirror into the full length of Black Swan.  It is unforgettable.

4 snouts up for Tinker Tailor, 2 snouts up for freezing Tower theater

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but sadly only (:)(:) for the extremely cold Tower movie theater.  Look, I was so cold, I almost can't tell you how many snouts Tinker Tailor should have.  I have long defended the Tower (located about a mile from my home) from its detractors.  I didn't mind that it wasn't painted or that the seats didn't have cupholders.  I love that its an old independent theater with a great marquee and it shows foreign and independent films (well, are there any independent films any more? and how independent is Tinker Tailor?).  But this experience was beyond the pale.  I was wearing a turtleneck, a scarf, an indoor jacket, an outdoor coat with my hood up and thick gloves and I was still struggling to stay warm.  After the movie, we spoke with the manager who said, "I couldn't tell if it was cold.  I don't have a heater at home," and "we couldn't adjust the heat if we wanted to.  We have to call an outside person who comes to do something." 

Nonetheless, he gave us 3 free passes to another show.  I would have used them tonight for the Artist but I couldn't bring myself to give it another try, at least not while it's still winter.

As to the movie itself, it's very good, an intriguing plot, well-written, well-acted, all in a great period piece set in 1975.  Jeez, you know you're getting old when there are period pieces set when you went to Jr. High.  The "ancient" technology of dial phones and reel to reel tape recorders share the limelight with Colin Firth, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy and Mark Strong.

Special mention must be made here of this exceptionally beautiful young man, Tom Hardy.  He has quite the star quality.  I thought he was really compelling and gorgeous in Inception too and didn't recognize him at all in this one.  Couldn't believe they were the same guy.

And my son probably wouldn't forgive me if I didn't give a shout out to newcomer of the year Benedict Cumberbatch.  Have you come across this actor, yet?  He starred in an excellent BBC series set in modern day as Sherlock Holmes.   He has a significant role in War Horse in theaters now and you can watch him sweat as the young guy on Gary Oldman's team in Tinker Tailor.  Word has it he's also picked for a leading role in the new Star Trek movie.  Whatever he does he seems to ooze intelligence and discernment.  How Dickens posthumously gave him his catchy stage name, we'll never know.

How to get your kids to like a college

Reed College

Most people who know me know that I am an enthusiastic member of the Reed College graduating class of 1983.  Reed, a small liberal arts college nestled in a quiet residential neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, is known for its quirky intellectual students.  Its unofficial motto (printed on t-shirts and BPA-laden water bottles) is "Atheism, Communism, Free Love."  I am an active alumna.  Along with John Bergholz of Chicago, I spear-headed a campaign a few years ago to create the first ever class-funded scholarship. "The Class of 1983 well-endowed scholarship fund" is its precise name.  Students, I'm told, particularly male ones, are pleased to be selected for it.

For years, in addition to the t-shirts and water bottles, my kids have visited Portland, peripherally attended reunions, and generally been exposed to my wide variety of Reed alumni friends--all of whom are fun, bright and adorable.  I knew that when it came time to apply to colleges, my children would give strong consideration to my alma mater.

My husband, on the other hand, graduated 30 years ago from an obscure institution called Brown University.    Actually, there are places where this venerated Ivy League institution is less well-known.  One of my favorite moments (and like so many of my stories, this doesn't reflect well on me), was when my then boyfriend, now husband, and I were interviewing for the same summer internship at the Oregon Attorney General's office.  With both our resumes in hand, the interviewer said, "now I know all about Reed--what a great college!  Tell me about this Brown University you attended, I'm not familiar with that."  It was all I could do not to shoot my fist in the air.

Unlike me, my husband is not an active alumnus, doesn't attend reunions, doesn't buy t-shirts and rarely refers to his college (even though, I hasten to point out, he liked his experience there just fine).  Although he maintains friendships with fellow alums, we don't vacation with them or see any of them often as they mostly live far away.

Well, did you see it coming?  Guess which college is drawing significantly more attention from the high school sophomores at our dinner table?  Three guesses and the first two aren't sitting in the rain drinking strong coffee.

This is so unfair.  Had I known that this was the winning strategy, I would have forced them all to attend constant Brown reunions and wear the t-shirts (not sure what the Brown unofficial motto is, maybe "Oh, look at me, I went to Brown so I don't have to work at Starbucks for the rest of my life"?)  As it is, I must look into which airlines fly from Sacramento to Providence, Rhode Island.  sigh...

The Rip van Winkle Effect

Since I've been back working in and around the state Capitol, I'm experiencing the Rip van Winkle effect.  Remember the Washington Irving story of Rip van Winkle?  He falls asleep and wakes up some 70 years later after the American Revolution.  Well in 2004 or thereabouts, I fell asleep (read: quit my job lobbying on health care for a union and became a homemaker/failed entrepreneur) for 7 years and woke up in March of 2011 only to find myself lobbying on health care for a union.

It's eery because everything is the same only some things are different.  Almost all the other staff and lobbyists in the health care area are the same people, they've just shuffled around a bit, in and out of the building, from job to job, mostly skewing in the direction of money.  Due to term limits, most of the legislators are different, but somehow they're the same as well.

The thing that's the most different is language.  While I was asleep, people started using the following words that weren't often used in 2004.  Without them, it appears that public policy is impossible to conduct.  Principal among them are metrics, silos and optics.

Of them, my husband, who was "awake" during this period, tells me, metrics is the most dispensable with insiders, but completely indispensable with Foundation grant makers.  "If you want to get a grant, you've got to be interested in metrics," he says.

Back at the turn of the century, we used to use quaint words like data or outcomes or measurements to mean the same thing.  Now, only metrics will do.

My same source thinks that silos may be the most useful of the terms.  In my job we're always trying to break down silos between subject areas or subspecialties, but occasionally it might be useful to build them.

Of the 3 terms, optics may be the most telling.  The only way to use the word optics is "I do/do not like the optics of _________"  In the beforetime, we would say, "I don't like how this looks to the public" or "I think this will play well."  Politics has always been concerned with optics of course.  But this is a fascinating concept.  See this piece in the New York Times on the term--click here.  It says that William Safire wrote his last language column partly on the word optics.

In the end, all I can tell you is that until we get more metrics on the use of these terms,  I may just crawl into my silo until it's safe to come out.  And if you don't like the optics of that--tough.

Can I take MLK's legacy seriously?

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day--the day every year when millions of American do laundry and take down Christmas cards.  Seriously, why isn't this day more important to me?  Every year I resolve to organize something around it and every year it just becomes a badly needed Monday off from school and work.

I was shocked to read in the paper that there are marches all over town and that the Occupy movement is a big part of it.  Shocked not because it's happening, that makes sense, but because I didn't know anything about it until today.  Honestly, how can I live in a liberal, activist enclave and work for whom I work and not know that the largest march in a while is expected to take place today in my city on MLK day?

In many ways, King exemplifies the ministry that I want.  Not in the sense that I need to be a famous national leader who ends up being assassinated and now people do laundry on his birthday, but in the sense that I want to be a minister who is serious about social justice, whose faith is connected to the real world and calls for and creates and fosters change.  

This year people are reporting more on King's last speech and march at Riverside Church than on the "I have a Dream" speech.  At the end of his life, King set his focus on the gap between rich and poor and ending the Vietnam War.  A week after his famous speech on that subject at Riverside Church, he was killed.  Now, almost 5 decades later due to the Occupy Wall Street/99% Movement there is a groundswell of attention to the fact that 20% of Americans live in poverty and the size of the gap between rich and poor is almost insurmountable.

The movement and its language is so pervasive that in one year it has vastly changed public opinion about taxes.  For the first time in decades, Americans are ready for some good old-fashioned class warfare.

And so the backlash has begun:  yesterday saw a front-page story in the New York Times (reprinted on front page of Sacramento Bee and lord knows where else) about how difficult it is to be in the 1% these days.  The article showed that rich people are people too, and they have feelings and can feel hurt by all the chanting and the demonizing.  The minister in me wants to say, you know, that's true.  We separate ourselves from rich people when we say, "we are the 99%"  why not chant, "we are the 100%"?  But the activist realist in me says, "hallelujah, we are finally talking about what's important."  (I actually think it's possible that both are true, by the way.)

On the same Sunday, on the front page of the NYT business section was an article about a woman who has the tough job of rehabilitating Bank of America's reputation--ministers everywhere take heed: we all need to have more compassion for Bank of America and its public relations consultants.

So it's on.  In my ministerial school recently, there's been talk that if my ministry doesn't scare me, it's not big enough.  Other than standing where I am, trying to articulate the presence of love in the state capitol every day I don't know what my ministry is right now.  But it's scary enough to work full-time, study for ministry and raise a family.

As King himself said, "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

Daddy Squeeze Live in Downtown Sacto January 20th

This Friday, January 20th, Southside Park Cohousing is hosting a "house concert" with Dan "Daddy Squeeze" Newton, a master of the accordion.  Here's a link to his website  http://www.daddysqueeze.com 

 

The concert will be in the Common House on Friday, January 20th.  434 T Street, Sacramento, CA.  Park on T street between 4th and 5th and take walkway by 412 T street back behind houses to common house.  Doors open at 7pm.  Concert starts at 7:30.  The tickets are a steal at $12.  To reserve your seats email Catherine O'Brien at cob@stanford.edu

 

Below you will find some testimonials...

Dan's fresh approach to the much-maligned squeeze-box and his mind-boggling repertoire of both original and traditional material will change the mind of the most hardened accordion skeptic. 
Dan draws influences for songs and tunes from such sources as French Musette, Gypsy Swing, Cajun, Jug band, Tex-Mex and Cumbia, and calls this global gumbo “ethnoclectic” music.

“Daddy Squeeze” entertains and enlightens his audiences with stories and colorful anecdotes about the accordion and his experiences while making a living playing the instrument he loves.

"It’s hard to imagine a bad time with Daddy Squeeze (a.k.a. Dan Newton) in the house!"  -Mpls Tribune

 Dan Newton -- “Daddy Squeeze

 

“It resembles an expanding suitcase, but in Dan Newton’s hands the ungainly accordion becomes an instrument of remarkable poise and grace. “Daddy Squeeze,” as Newton is known, is as close to a true minstrel as we have in this area, spreading his squeezable joy wherever he can find an audience. He’s the rare musician who can travel from “A Prairie Home Companion” to Nightclubs to Retirement Homes to Cafes literally without skipping a beat.”       - Keith Goetzman

Dan “Daddy Squeeze” Newton has been dazzling audiences with his vast    repertoire and creative accordion style for over 25 years. He is a talented composer/arranger who has produced over twenty recordings. Dan has appeared at international accordion festivals in Vienna, Austria and San Antonio, Texas. He has performed at Lincoln Center in New York City, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., The Winnipeg Folk Festival and isa frequent guest on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Danspends most of his time playing accordion with his group Café AccordionOrchestra, performing Vintage Swing, Latin, American, and French Café music. He also performs in Donohue, Newton & Raynor with guitarist Pat Donohue and bassist Gary Raynor. Dan leads a number of bands including; Jumbo Ya Ya, Rockin’ Pinecones and The Daddy Squeeze Trio.

-- 

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes et Des Deux)

5 snouts up for Of Gods and Men on DVD now (a 2010 film in French with English subtitles).  I had read about this movie and I had wanted to see it when it was in theaters, but couldn't convince my kids that it would be fun to see a movie about Trappist monks in terrorized Algeria struggling with their faith.  Given that plot, maybe I won't be able to convince you either.  Yet, I was blown away by this extraordinary movie.

Set in Algeria in the 1990s during a brutal civil war between the government and Islamic terrorists, the film is based on a true story about these French Trappist monks who have led a simple sweet existence there for decades.  It is difficult to explain what is so compelling about the story.  I guess it may be as simple as while the background is hate, the foreground is love.

Despite (or perhaps because of) their deep faith, these monks actually rarely speak of God in their exploration of what's right for each of them and for their community.  For the first 2/3rds of the movie, Love is the stand-in term for God, which makes for very beautiful and accessible conversations.  Because there's so much at stake (the lives of the monks and the people around them), there's this backdrop of tension that you might not otherwise find in a movie about a monastery on a hill.  At any moment the terrorists or the army could kick in the door.

Watching the monks'  faith, peace and knowledge of the Koran meet the terrorists' violence and hate on Christmas Eve is spellbinding.  Much of their community life with each other takes place around the simple wooden dinner table.  The conversations between the monks are so compellingly written as to need to be re-played immediately.  The scene where they drink wine and listen to a record of Swan Lake is haunting.

It's been a long time since I've seen a movie this well-written, well-acted, well-conceived.

Pew poll: Class warfare visible for many

This is a reprint from Politico--I just think this is so exciting.  Sara

By MACKENZIE WEINGER | 1/11/12 2:48 PM EST

Although the Occupy Wall Street movement has receded from the headlines, a majority of Americans said in a new poll that they see major class conflict between the rich and poor.

Two-thirds of Americans said they think there are “very strong” or “strong” class conflicts in society, according to a Pew Research Center poll on Wednesday. That marks a 19 percent increase from 2009, when just 47 percent cited it as a main issue.

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The clash between rich and poor now ranks as American society’s greatest social conflict, pollsters found, followed by 62 percent whosaid there are very strong or strong conflicts between immigrants and native-born Americans, and 38 percent who said these conflicts exist between blacks and whites. In 2009, more Americans said there were strong conflicts between immigrants and native-born Americans than the rich and poor.

And the intensity of the clash between rich and poor has grown more extreme, with 30 percent saying there are very strong conflicts in this poll compared with 15 percent who said the same in 2009. The 30 percent of Americans surveyed is the largest number recorded since the question was first asked in 1987, the pollsters said.

Over half of Republicans, or 55 percent, said there are very strong or strong conflicts between the rich and the poor, and 73 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents agree. All those figures have shot up since 2009, when 38 percent of Republicans, 55 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of independents told pollsters they believed the same.

Overall, just 23 percent of Americans said there are not very strong conflicts between the wealthy and poor and 7 percent said there are no conflicts whatsoever.

The poll surveyed 2,048 adults Dec. 6-19, 2011. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71338.html#ixzz1jH4KvfFT

Meditation Lesson 2: the truth is in the breach

The Buddhists call it "Monkey Mind," the propensity of the mind to swing and chatter from thought to thought, worry to doubt to fear.  From Maria Nemeth (author of Mastering Life's Energies) I learned that in many ways this is not just our brain behaving like a monkey but our brain behaving like the monkey part of our brain.  Part of what keeps us safe and successful as a species is our ability to constantly focus on what might be about to kill us.

So it's no wonder that when I sit down to meditate, my brain goes bonkers.  Over the years of meditating every day (15 minutes to an hour depending on my routine), I've learned that the most important moment in meditation is not the part where I'm actually still and concentrating on my breath.  The most important powerful moment is when I catch myself somewhere else and bring myself back.  This is really what I most want meditation to help with during my busy day.  Through meditation I am strengthening the muscle in me that is able to make me sufficiently aware to catch myself when I am about to say or do something crazy and to breath and stop and get present.

As Eckart Tolle teaches, most of the time there isn't a saber tooth tiger about to attack me.  Most of the time I am completely safe.  With meditation, I have the option of not listening to Monkey Mind.  I can say, as Maria Nemeth taught me to, "thank you for sharing, nevertheless" and come back to reality.

The secret to walking more and getting out of your car

That's me above by the way, I've turned into a 30 something model walking to work (where, is that Guggenheim behind her? or a space station?) in high heels.

Anyway, this secret I'm about to tell you reminds me of a secret a friend of mine with a 35-year plus marriage once imparted.  She gestured to me to lean close and said, "do you want to know the secret to a long-lasting marriage?"

I did.  So I moved close.

"Don't get divorced."

Equally true is the secret to walking more and getting out of your car:  don't have one.

How do I know?  For years we have been in violation of California state law by being a middle-class family of 4 with only one car.  We can get away with this because we live in downtown Sacramento about 12 blocks from our places of work.  So we commute to work by foot or bike and then we use the car to schlepp the kids and groceries around and everything else.  This is further facilitated by living in a cohousing community where we can easily borrow a second car when we need to.

This all changed recently when my mother, whose principle residence is in San Diego, took (re)possession of an ancient Volvo of hers that my brother had been driving for years.  She now leaves it up here by her Davis house.  I took it upon myself to "borrow" it for a week or two.

That was several months ago.  It has now become our second car on an indefinite basis.  And here's where the real truth sets in.  It turns out that if you have a second car, it becomes practically impossible not to think up reasons to use it.  Suddenly I'm scheduling appointments that are so close to the time I have to be out of work that I "can't" walk or bike home first and get a car at  home, I "can't" coordinate with my husband and so I have to drive to work.  This further complicated by the fact that my employer pays for parking so I don't have a financial hit when I do this.  If I did, I would definitely not do it.

I actually think I've put on like 5 pounds just from 2 months of occasional driving.  I'm still only driving to work once or twice a week, but I can feel the pull.  This week it looks like I'll drive 3 times.

The car has got to go.

5 Snouts up for "The Thick of It" British television series

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:)  An almost unheard of 5 snouts up for The Thick of It a hilarious British television series that satires government and press.  It features Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker  the Prime Minister's foul-mouthed Scottish enforcer, constantly appearing out of nowhere in the Secretary of State for Social Affairs offices with Chris Langham as a brilliant deadpan Cabinet minister.

The main thing is the brilliant comic writing.  This is one of those series, like the British Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm that is painfully brutal and spot on.  I'm finding I need a break between shows of a week or more to recapture my equilibrium.

We found it because we watched In the Loop, which is a full-length film based on The Thick of It.  I think I forgot to blog about that but I'd give it a solid 4 snouts, maybe withhold the 5 because it's more of a television than a movie plot, but it's devastatingly funny and somehow Malcolm Tucker is even more obscene in his excoriations of the minister.  You never see or hear the PM in these--just his enforcer  who is almost invariably displeased with what the minister has been doing forcing them to dial back public positions in the most ludicrous possible ways.

This is George Orwell meets Dickens meets Ricky Gervais.  See them both.