Happy Thanksgiving! Here, we are thankful for poetry, comics and ... math?

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088) Children of Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez, finished November 23

It's been a while since I've read anything by a Hernandez brother, but nothing's changed. I recognize their place in history, their importance on several counts, their craftsmanship, and their voluminousness, but I just     don't     get it.

Sorry.

I mean---this book seems like something I would love---bits of fantasy and nonsense among the grounded realness of a small town---but it never quite works for me. It's time to accept that.

toda


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089) Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by John Derbyshire, finished November 24

We were with friends for Thanksgiving last year and picked this off the shelf and was immediately sucked in. I loved it. It stretched my mind and made me think mathematically. I still regularly cite a couple tidbits I picked up from these early chapters.

So I borrowed it and kept reading---and had a Hawking experience: I understood as I read, but the understanding fled me as soon as I set the book down.

As I kept reading, my inability to retain what I had previously learned meant I soon got to the point where I understood nothing. Eventually this became comical as when I read:

1 + 1 = 0 [...] 1 - 1 = 0. (Notice that these results are the same as for addition. In this field, any minus sign can be freely replaced by a plus sign!)

It's that exclamation mark! that really got me. I mean, golly! There's nothing left to do but laugh!

Somehow I did finish the book, and enjoyed the experience overall. Though if I had it to do it again, I might follow Derbyshire's advice.

He noted at the beginning that the book was written in alternating chapters---history chapter, math chapter, history chapter, etc.---and that I was welcome to just follow one track. Ignoring the math chapters, I'm quite certain, would have rendered the history chapters somewhat nonsensical, but at least I would have finished quicker!

three hundred sixty-eight days


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090) Leaves of Sass by R. A. Christmas, finished November 25

I've been aware of Christmas forever and read him (or about him) in Sunstone and Dialogue over the years.

The acknowledgements page makes it sound like this collection is an old man making sure everything makes it into print without worrying too much whether things are quite ready to be in print yet---like he's running against the clock, in other words.

And much of the collection reads like the bad impression that suggestion leaves. Some of the poems really do just feel like prose with line breaks. There are some winners in here, yes, but they are certainly easy to overlook given the amount of bog they're buried in.

The two strongest works, imo, are the two final works---both lengthy.

The first is an eight-parter (although the seventh part consists of twelve parts itself) and is an homage to the Church's involvement with Boy Scouts. An homage that includes child abuse and a look at the Scout Law that, at times, reads like a seven-deadly-sins confessional. But his love for Scouting nevertheless shines through. The combination of earnestness and earthy cynicism is a balance many of the poems in this collection aim to strike, but never better than here.

The second long poem (more than a quarter of the collection's length) is a translation from French, an earlier version of which once appeared in Dialogue. Although not Christmas's purely original work and a translation from a nonMormon author, it manages to be as complicatedly Mormon as anything in the book. Plus, the years of work and polish are evident and render the rest of the book even dingier in comparison. This translation deserves wider attention. I hope Valéry's people get it into something more people will see.

monthish


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091) I Gave Her a Name by Rachel Hunt Steenblik with paintings by Ashley Mae Hoiland, finished November 26

My feelings about this book are almost identical to my feelings about its progenitor---you could just reread that review and know what I'm going to say next.

The Baader-Meinhof
Phenomenon applies
to our Mother. After
you first have reason
to see Her, you see Her
everywhere (228)

This pretty much captures Rachel's entire MO. She's seeing God the Mother in everything and she's just writing it down. (She's teaching us how to do this through example.) She has good instincts, so most of the poems work (although some are short to the point of absurdity), but the overall effect is of an artist's sketchbook---a thousand versions of the same face, presumably in preparation of a major work.

In this sense, the accompanying art is perfect. Deliberately "unfinished" to the point of overlapping images and smeared or splashed paint. It captures what the poetry is doing.

Largely I find this multifaceted manner of attacking the subject successful (if, by this point, a bit redundantly redundant), although it did result in at least one inadvertent hilarity:

She said that all of
the temples on her island
are for female deities
and that they’re all active.
She pointed to one that
was for fertility and another
for protection from the sea:
She takes care of the sailors. (196)

lol

over midnight


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092) Life in Poetry by Kate Piersanti, finished November 27

I know Kate---bump into her every once in a while---and thus know she's always thinking about poetry. But she also gave me the impression she had not done much more than think about it.

I was wrong!

This is her fourth collection, newly out. Her style is consistent and, unlike Christmas (above), always poetic. her hit rate is only so-so, but her work does have moments of beauty and grace to celebrate.

The book's of a classic giftbook appearance (lots of photos, small square shape) and I think a lot of moms would go for it.

(Incidentally, what surprised me the most from this nice Mormon grandma was the celebration of physical passion in many of the poems at the collection's beginning.)

one month even


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HIVE ZINE

.

The ARCH-HIVE is a Mormon-themed arts collective in Utah that's doing some interesting work these days. I just bought the first five issues of their HIVE ZINE. Here's a brief reaction:

001: God and My Ex by LAZERos

Poems* and images, *all in the Deseret alphabet. Which I have not yet bothered to translate. Because, well, hassle. That's all, that's my whole excuse. (Sorry.) But it's cool!

002 by The Desert Prophet

A phony Revelation that reads much like a statement of influences. Although Andy Warhol's missing, so ... maybe not just that exactly.

003: Deseret Brands Vol 1 by LAZERos

Popular brands Mormonified. Now available on tshirts.

004: The ARCH-HIVE Post by Saint Michael

A Provo newspaper from an alternate timeline. A bit of parody, a bit of fantasy, a bit of nonsense. It fit in the envelope and included a lovely aged paperclip, but honestly I would have loved something more ambitious. At least an interesting paper! Nice draft, though. Mostly, I appreciate they're coming them out on a schedule. I know how hard that is.

005: Spells for Many Blessings by The Desert Prophet

This is the strongest of the five so far. The most complete and coherent as a piece, for one thing. But also a distilled example of an important trend in Mormon letters. You take something like Stephen Peck's King Leere or Mel Larson's Pilot Program and you get one strain of the weird in this literary moment. Then you take something like what Dave Butler's doing with his Witchy books and you get another strain. "Spells" combines both these trends but strips away plot and character. It's like---essence of weird Mormon, 2019. Even Ardis approves!

Rift Zone by Tess Taylor

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087) Rift Zone by Tess Taylor, finished November 13

The author, poet, is my neighbor. Which you will know if you came to hear me speak at LDSPMA. Although she's written quite a lot about being from this here town, she hasn't really embraced her smalltown East Bay heritage in a collection of poetry until now, with collection number three⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾, which is entirely about addressing that heritage, including all the awful stuff. (And although this collection is wise and clever and nuanced, it does contain a pretty high percentage of awful stuff---racism, pollution, and other top hits of American ugliness.)

Visually, the poetry in this book engages deeply with ugliness or, more deliberately, with earthquakes. The geology of California is famously fractured and the book's epigraphs largely describe rocks and faults. But many of the poems are also fractured, bits of lines spread across the page.

Given my personal poetic preferences, it will surprise no one that these poems are not my favorites. (I recognize the irony that my latest published work looks much the same.) I get that Tess is exploring how far form ("form") can be pushed without breaking, but she's so good when she's focused more on content. Or so say I, anyway.

(Although I should mention that, when she chooses to go lyrical, she's quite good at it and has lovely restraint.)

The parts of the collection I think I am most likely to share with students are autobiographical. Or, presumably autobiographical. The poet is under no obligation to be lower-case-t truthful, and some of the "autobiography" doesn't seem to be possible (that is, the calendar does not allow one to be that age in year x and this age in year y).

Immaterial and not a complaint.

I could write about individual poems I liked, but I think instead I want to talk about the envoi.

It begins with an epigraph about San Francisco being built upon old ships and docks, then begins to list some of those old things the Bay is built upon: "floating opium dens next to floating prisons" ... "Whose white settlers funded their own microgenocides" (21, 23). And so forth. but key is the final line:

As much as of anywhere I am of you.

It's a lovely and appropriate conlcusion to a book that is about just that: embracing the where and what and when and whom and (etc) "I am of."

available to purchase april twentytwenty

about exactly a month


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081 – 086, in books

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081) Hansel & Gretel Get the Word on the Street by Al Ortolani,
finished October 19

I have a high regard for Rattle and reading about this chapbook made me feel ... almost obliged to buy it:

Each poem is like a chalk mark on a blackboard. Much like the teacher who has leaned one too many times against the chalk tray, Ortolani wears his poems on the back of pants, his shirt sleeves, his jacket elbows. These poems represent connections to others, sometimes dark, sometimes light, often quirky. A fellow teacher, and mentor to the poet, once said that one of the most difficult measures of the career public school teacher is their ability to stay positive and elevated by interest, if not always in the subject matter, then in the hand raised outside of the T zone.

So how is the collection?

Pretty good.

We might have a no-prophet-in-his-own-country situation here, but I didn't love most of it---in part because I kept thinking about how I would (re)write such a poem. (For some reason, I never really write poems about my experiences in education. I'm not sure why.)

I haven't reread many of the poems yet, but every time I have, I've been more impressed by the second reading. This suggests the poems have power they are only starting to reveal.

I plan to take and leave this in my classroom. I suspect I will find utility for it there.

maybe a week


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082) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, finished October 23

With mixed-skill classes, is it at all sensible to read the entire thing?

much too long, almost a month


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083) The Autumnlands Volume 2: Woodland Creatures by Kurt Busiek and Ben Dewey, finished October 28

Although it can't startle with the sudden unexpected originality of the first collection, this one too impresses. I thought it was going to be the end of the story, but it's not. Now I have to wait! Dang.

couple weeks


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084) Toil and Trouble by Mairghread Scott with Kelly & Nichole Matthews, finished November 1

I'm of two minds about this comic.

Of the first mind, it's a creative take on the Scottish play, an exploration of who the witches are, why they're involved, what their goals are, and the lives outside the narrow confines of the play. It's a well shaped world and beautifully visualized.

Of the second mind, the bits of play that exist are just that: bits. Which wouldn't be a complaint except the end of this novel is to disconnected from the end of the play. The last couple-plus acts are dispensed with in the last four pages and ... why? It's a dissatisfying conclusion.

I kind of want this to become a grand ten-episode tv extravaganza just to correct the imperfections in something so close to being truly marvel-making.

Recommended! You might like it more than me!

under a week


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085) Compulsive Comics by Eric Haven, finished November 2

I recognize Haven's work, but I'm not sure from where. Probably Best American Comics, I suppose.*

*(Having said this, I thought a moment longer and even knew which story I had seen in BAMC---"Mammology." Which is impressive---I read that over ten years ago!)

Anyway, I loved it. Absurdist nonsense. Even when it's engaged in something no less realistic than reg'lar ol' superheroes, his manner of doing it heightens the nonsense. Short collection, made over the years of doing something else, happily concluded.

this evening


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086) Apocalypse Bow Wow by James Proimos III and James Proimos Jr., finished November 11

This illustrated middle-grade novels pass before my eyes without notice these days, like hoodies or pedestrians* but Lady Steed handed me this library book and said it was worth reading and indeed it was. I laughed.

Basically---it's a standard no-more-people apocalypse from the perspective of funny animals. That's it.

Not a bad conceit at all.

moments


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Feature Films: October2019

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Not nearly enough Halloween movies this October, but I think a few may spill into next month. Fingers crossed!

ELSEWHERE

The Kings of Summer (2013)

I loved this movie. It captures late adolescence precisely and its cast is stellar. Every supporting role is just perfect. Just look.

This isn't the first kinds-in-high-school movie the flim club has selected. Edge of Seventeen and Eighth Grade were also excellent, but I think I liked this one best. Perhaps because its protagonists were male? Maybe. I don't know. But I heard what this one saying a little more clearly.

(Don't bother with the trailer. It misses the tone and artistry of the film entire.)

HOME

Toy Story (1995)

This is the baby's favorite film. Or, rather, she just loves Cowboy and this is the one that was playing on repeat to day when I came home.

I saw pretty much the whole thing.

Though hardly in order.

HOME

mother! (2018)

So. First viewing.

It's not what I expected. First, I found the narrative to be a) compelling and b) throughout the film. I expected neither. It is true that at about the halfway point it rejects even its tentative hold upon realism for a purley surreal dreamscape, but it never stops telling its story.

I'm not sure it's "good" but, honestly, I'm not even sure what that means. The film it reminds me of most is Eraserhead---but that might be for these two reasons: first that birth is an important event and second that it's surreal and Eraserhead has become the go-to comparison in my mind. I don't know that I really actually truly remember Eraserhead well enough to make meaningful comparisons.

The thing that I'm having the hardest time with is the film's final collapse into allegory. There was symbolism aplenty throughout, but when the poet says "I am I," we fall into allegory. And at that point, everything must mean something. And with that sort of demand placed upon the material by itself it begins to fall apart. It's less surreal movie asking questions and more religious text providing answers. It's an awkward transition---and would have been unnecessary if Arenovsky had just trusted his audience a tad more.

Anyway. The goal's to watch it one more time (this go-round with Lady Steed) before Tuesday's film group. Here we go!

HOME

WALL·E (2008)

Some aspects of this film feel even more on target now than they did ten years ago. Although, of course, now Fred Willard would be playing Jeff Bezos. I do think the robot relationship would be handled a little differently. Sure it's cute and sweet but it always struck me as a bit nonconsensual and I figure the people at Pixar paid to worry about such things would now find me less crazy.

HOME

Gravity (2013)

Watching it on a 27-inch screen is nothing like watching in 3D right next to the screen, but it's still a solid piece of entertainment. The long takes and the near-realtimeness work to build the suspense which builds and builds and ends satisfyingly.

Although I agree with the 15-year-old that I want to know what happens next.


SHE SURVIVED SPACE . . . BUT CAN SHE SURVIVE . . . DINOSAURS?!?!?

It looks like a place that would have dinosaurs.



For the record, we're watching these movies out of order. Gravity should have been first, then The Martian, then the still-unwatched Interstellar, then WALL·E. Ah, well. Parenting is hard.

HOME

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

It has some very funny moments but I'm not convinced it's the horror-comedy masterpiece people always say it is.

HOME

mother! (2017)

After a couple days thinking about it, I decided I really liked mother!. I disagreed with two choices (the "I am I" line of dialogue which turns the whole thing into a 1:1 allegory, which is messy; and that it loops is recursive---which seems to cut away from its cathartic potential), but overall, I think it was excellent.

Fresh off a second viewing, I largely agree with myself. The birthnight decent into chaos lasts a bit long as its happening, but I didn't mind once it was over.

Curious to see what other people think. I know the film is widely hated.

ELSEWHERE

Macbeth (2015) ×2

It's interesting.

I just showed this to two classes. My class which has a harder time engaging in in-depth intellectual discussion was much more successful appreciating the daring artistic choices made by this film. They were much more into the actor's presentations of the characters, etc.

The class which I can't get to stop digging deeper so we can Get to Other Things, thought this film was doing too much, found the depictions of madness absurd, the cinematography pretty but laughable.

I'm oversimplifying of course, but that's largely true. And something I've long known about film: the audience you see a film with can greatly affect your experience of that film, your opinion of that film.

That said, watching it post-read was definintely the right choice.


t

ELSEWHERE

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

First, how cool to see (hear) Frank Oz playing a role in his own body?

Okay, that out of the way, this movie is pretty great. The ending is sudden, but the effects almost entirely hold up, the acting's good, the werewolf mythos is worthily interesting, the jokes are funny, the filming's fun, etc. Just a well made movie.

Would watch again.

And less a couple sins, I could watch it with my kids.

Alas, alas.

HOME

Little (2019)

The two leads are great, but most of the pleasure of the film can be had in the trailer. As a 109-minute story, it indulges in a lot of lazy set changes, set pieces, and character development.

Which is a shame because it has moments and interactions and suggestions that are joyful and pure. They're just weighed down by lazy storytelling and a weird unwillingness to make tech companies or middle schools realistic.

HOME

Moana (2016)

Notwithstanding all my snide remarks about Disney, they do make things like Moana. It's beautiful and moving---it's impossible not to be swept away. If nothing else, the chicken will pull you in.

One of the aspects I find most compelling is the sense of history and myth that my own culture feels distant from.

Consider:

We tell the stories of our elders in a never-ending chain

Do we have that?

ELSEWHERE

Romeo Is Bleeding (2015)

Although this movie is basically "old" now by high-school standards it's so local and so raw that it still speaks to my freshmen. Both those who are skilled at stepping into others' stories and those who resist such.

I still haven't figured out the best way to use it as a pedagogical tool, but I'm trying.

Donté turns thirty this year. You can see his latest project here.

HOME

Shazam! (2019)

I missed most of this movie between phone and baby, but it's okay---I've seen it before.

Fortunately, I caught most of the movie's best parts which are its moments of unbridled joy. That's what it's best at. The violence and action are fine but suffer from the same difficulty seen in most Marvel movies or, say, Justice League: they're a bit loud and samey and, well, boring.

I like character development and interaction. And while actions scenes can include characters growing and changing and whatnot, there's usually not much of that as a percentage of the action scene. So you suffer through the action to get to the good stuff.

I have hopes for the sequel, but don't worry: I'll keep them in check.

I mostly just want to see Zach Levi be a kid again.

THEATER

The Addams Family (2019)

Look: I know the reviews weren't that hot. I get it. But I liked it.

First, the film does homage to the cartoons and the tv show both (maybe the '90s movies as well, but it's been too long for me to be certain) but manages to be largely it's own thing. It does well with the character design and the animation. I know some people have complained that it's derivative, but it's worth nothing that all those things it's "deriving" from derived from the work of Charles Addams.

(Incidentally, aren't we now due an awesome Edward Gorey movie?)

But I think the film may have made some of the wrong decisions deciding where to reach out to new audiences and where to serve fans. Our theater was pretty full or parents and kids and I was laughing at waaaay more jokes than anyone else. But the film's stretch for Theme and Plot and Meaning are super-generic. Pretty much every animated movie that isn't sure what moral it should send settles on some version of Be Yourself, Accept Others Being Themselves, etc. It's tired stuff and just because it's an Obvious Fit for yet another film doesn't mean you should settle. I mean...what do other studios think when they see a Toy Story 4? And that's a sequel!

Anyway, I still enjoyed it. I was a bit worried when it told us Snoop Dogg would be cousin it but he did great. Although, he was so itty one has to wonder why they hired Snoop Dogg. Was it...pandering? without being willing to actually give him Snoop Dogg stuff to do? I have to wonder how many iterations that went through.

Overall though the voicework was good. Nick Kroll who I find generally irritating did a commendable job with Uncle Fester. I don't like the urge to hire Names to do voices (it's not going to save Artic Dogs, I'll bet money)---hire voices to do voices.

Anyway, that's enough letters spilled on a mediocre movie, even if I did have plenty fun watching it.

(Less fun was the twoyearold screaming halfway through that she was done wearing pants.)

ELSEWHERE

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

You would think, given today's media landscape, that fourteen-year-olds would be pretty film literate. It's really not the case though. And it drives me crazy when a good student (as defined by desperation to never be sullied by an A-) rejects this movie as "bad" simply because they lack the skills to read it properly.

I know that kind of literacy isn't my job, but gee whiz.

I mean.

Just, gee whiz.

ELSEWHERE

An Honest Liar (2014) ×2

I love how this film can completely suck kids in. And it's so layered---we can have excellent conversations afterward.

It also depresses me how a minority of kids are completely incapable of engaging with a form of media longer and more complex than a tiktok.

I'm very glad I watched it with the commentary once upon a time. It gives me a few additional insights that have come in handy.



LATEST POST

Previous films watched

2019

jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec

2018

jan feb mar apr may jun jul&aug sep oct nov dec

2017

qu1 qu2 qu3 qu4

2016

qu1 qu2 qu3 qu4

2015

qu1 qu2 qu3 qu4

2014

qu1 qu2 qu3 qu4

2013

th1 th2 th3

Poison Circus prep (and other books, good and so-so)

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073) Mort by Terry Pratchett, finished [some time between September 10 and 15]

I was a little underwhelmed by the last Terry Pratchett book I read, but that one's reputation is not as good as Mort's. Yet here I am, underwhelmed again. Do I need a break? Was I off as a reader? Am I just not into the earlier Discworld books?

This is a great and possibly terrible mystery.

How To suggested that the Bromeliad books might be where to go next but ... they're even earlier.

A great and terrible mystery, indeed.

ELAPSE


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074) Scooby Apocalypse by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis et al, finished September 15

I first saw some Scooby Apocaypse art a few years ago and thought it was fan art. Cool, but then I forgot about it. Until, recently, I found out it is in fact a published comic. And's been around long enough to several collections to appear. So of course I put it on hold.

It's ... pretty good. Maybe as the story continues it'll develop into what the Scooby gang was always really about, but at this point with the real monsters and the character's grown-up not-getting-along, it feels like it's missed the entire point. Plus, it's really too bloody to be a kids book. (Though my kids found it and read it and asked if there were more. I said yes, but they did not ask me to obtain them.)

I don't mind the recreation of classic characters---Scooby-Doo's premier was fifty years ago this month; by rights he should be in the public domain---but I don't have to like your recreation. I hope I'm not the LAST JEDI SUCKS dude of the Scoobyverse, but I only just kinda liked bits of this Book One.

I'm interested enough to want to know if they eventually align with Traditional Scooby Values to keep reading, but the overall quality of the storytelling is low enough that I don't think I actually will. Probably not, in fact. It would take some serendipity. And the real Mystery Machine does not run on such stuff.

gosh maybe a month


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075) Thistle and Brilliant by Wren Tuatha, finished September 22

I bought this book because I am a fan of the poet and also of the rag she edits, Califragile. The theme of the collection is love and relationships; the intro warns readers that the poet will stay away from "salacious stereotypes" and while I agree with the stereotypes maybe a bit more of the salacious would have been a good idea---some of the best poems are those that rub up against the erotic.

My other favorite poem (and the only one I read several times) was the final poem, "Shiny Thing while Wintering." Sadly, it only exists in the collection so I cannot link to it for you.

So it goes, so it goes.

maybe two weeks


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076) Macbeth by Wm Shakespeare, finished Oct 4
077) Macbeth by Wm Shakespeare, finished Oct 4

Yup.

weekish


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077) Miles Morales: Spider-Man Vol. 1: Straight Out of Brooklyn by Ahmed Garron et al, finished October 10

This was reasonably fun and had moments of real character and pathos, but ultimately it never grabbed me. I never quite cared. And I dig Miles Morales!

The kids like it. They can have it.

over two weeks


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078) The Autumnlands, Volume One: Tooth and Claw by by Kurt Busiek and Benjamin Dewey, finished October 13

This was sitting in a Little Free Library and I almost didn't take it, but something about its anthropomorphic animals was instantly compelling. I couldn't leave it behind. Plus, Kurt Busiek is a name with a reputation although I couldn't place it at that moment.

But truly: these are some of the best anthomopormics you'll ever see.

It is the far, far future. A time of magic that long ago replaced our world of technology. How we got from the world we are creating to this world is unclear, but the various tribes of the world are the various animals of the world---all people. The wealthy living in floating cities that remind me of 17th-century Amsterdam and the less exalted upon the ground. One such tribe is the bison who speak in a nearly movie-Indian patois.

Which gets us to the stylepoint I love most about this book---its cheerful mining of midcentury (and earlier) pulp culture. Each issue's third and fourth pages are doublespread splashes that look like they are the opening spread of the featured tale in a pulp magazine in the time of gaudy illustration and fancy dropcases. Here are three that I could find online:

And the comics, although of the highest modern sensibility, respect the glories of that tradition. Truly, if comics had matured to point fiction had back in the forties, we would have had comics like this. Just...not on as nice of paper.

Anyway, the characters are terrific, the plot is exciting, the world is compelling, the dilemmas matter, and after several disappointing popular comics of late (see above), this was a feast. I can't wait to read volume two!

four days


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079) Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, finished October 17

I first heard of this book from Chip Kidd who sold me on it. And the cover is so striking and reveals so much through an apparently plain surface, that I never forgot the book---even though it's been over a decade since he first pitched me. And, in that decade, I've become increasingly aware of how popular and influential the book is. Once you know about it, you'll see it pop up a few times a year.

I read walking to and from work. No one ever says anything. I was stopped four times (FOUR TIMES!) by people who just HAD to tell me how much they loved the book. A stranger gardening who had seen me many times before. A women IN HER CAR waiting at a stop light who rolled down her window to yell at me. Plus a librarian and a colleague (who once hung with Dunn in Portland). Incredible.

I finally picked a copy up in order to prepare for Poison Circus happening this weekend.

Anyway, the book!

I did enjoy it. It is very easy to read this book and see how, at the right moment in time, this book could mean everything to someone. I will definitely recommend it to people who might be living in that moment.

I could never teach it---sex and deep psychic trauma and genuinely creative cursing are not my high-school-classroom jam---but yes, I will have students I recommend it to. I feel confident about that.

If you don't know the story, it's a family of circus freaks born to a ringmaster, a geek, and a host of dangerous chemicals. And that's only for starters.

perhaps a month




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Feature Films: September2019

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HOME

Captain Marvel (2019)

First, Brie Larson is so great. In particular how she uses her voice, but in movie after movie she has proven she can act. I recommend her for your next project.

Second, the movie's good, but Marvel Studios come off a bit lazy, considering the use they put her to in Endgame. Very few of the moments in this movie pay off. Maybe they will later, but I haven't even heard a rumor of a Captain Marvel 2. In retrospect, it feels like it's a) a response to Wonder Woman and b) a bunch of nonsequiters. I would like to be proven wrong.

It also makes me want to watch other, earlier Marvel movies.

Will I? Dunno. Only if the kids get them from the library themselves. But I know they feel the same way.

THEATER

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

This is not an easy movie to write about, so soon after viewing.

I decided long ago I would not see Lawrence of Arabia until I could see it on the big screen. Today I did so.

And it was not what I expected

I'm not sure just what I did expect, but it wasn't anything so complicated as this. I expected clearer emotions. A simpler message. Something thrilling and awesomely large, but horse-opera simple.

What a fool I was.

I also didn't expect to have it uncover the original Star Wars's mild racism, or to explain the ugly evil in Attack of the Clones.

I thought there might be some white-savior tendencies, but I didn't explect it to deconstruct and stomp upon that ideal.

If you hire some Arab actors instead of (old favorites) Alec Guinness and Anthony Quinn, along with a couple other minor changes, then this film still feels remarkably modern. Certainly it feels post-Vietnam.

Certainly it demonstrates how war turns even the best men into monsters.

But I don't know what I think.

Ask me after the next time it comes to theaters.

HOME

The Martian (2015)

It's been four years. Geez.

But it did not disappoint! Great cast (Matt Damon is a treasure) (I couldn't help but notice Ridley Scott positioned the camera to shoot Jessica Chastain's cheekbones to full effect), complex details hung on a simple, accessible frame, immersively staged and shot. I loved it.

I had decided the movie was going to be enough for me. I still feel this way. But it's worth noting that the three people I live with who read and loved this book (two of them have read it multiple times) wouldn't shut up about their favorite bits missing.

Would watch again. Plus, it made me want to rewatch some of the other recent films in its neighborhood: Interstellar, Gravity, Arrival. It's been a nice run for near-future, realistic scifi film.

I had guessed this was thirty years in the future, but I learned from these videos linked to in the credits that it is actually only 2029. Not far off at all. They decided to make Earth pretty much as it is now---which is a pretty good choice. No matter what you try, the movie will age. Why make mistakes which are, ultimately, deliberate?

These astronauts are in school right now.

I rather doubt we'll actually get to Mars at all within ten years---let alone a third mission---but I hope I do get to see it.

THEATER

Blinded by the Light (2019)

I was excited to see this film (even though, as so often happens, its best moment was ruined by the trailer), in part because I was looking forward to how it was going to render lyrics visual. I rarely understand lyrics and I certainly can't watch a movie and listen to lyrics at the same time and I have little familiarity with Springsteen's music. The attempts largely worked for me. I hope to see it played with again.

I remember quite liking the director's Bend It Like Beckham, though it's been a long time since Lady Steed and I watched that at Movies 8.

So I liked the trailer and heard a compelling interview with the director, but after a year of jukebox movies, this one has not done beaucoup boxoffice and I probably would have missed it were it not for a friend who love love loves Springsteen inviting us to join her.

(Incidental personal note unrelated to the film: I enjoyed so much hanging out with Lady Steed and three other women our age. I've always found being with women so much easier than being with men, but it's almost impossible for comfortable situations to develop---which has been true since we got married. [The reasons for this are twofold: it's hard for me to just hang out with women and women hanging out with each other tend to be less comfortable with me there.] It was great. There's something about the dynamics of American women that I find so much more enjoyable and pleasant than being with my fellow American men.)

UPDATE: It's been three days since the film and it's dropped a bit in my estimation. Little things I thought were evidence of imperfection seem more to me like the basic fact of the films. Viz., many, many moments in the film seemed be included to be sure to check off all the main intended moments rather than because these characters living these lives would necessarily pass through them. At the time of watching, these felt like irregularities. Now, in memory, the film feels more like a pastiche of these moments rather than a coherent whole. If you watch it, I'll be curious if you see what I'm talking about and if you agree with me as to the seriousness of the issue.

ELSEWHERE

Sylvio (2017) ×3

So I've seen this film maybe ... seven times now? I still like it. I figured today I would really know what I thought. And I think it's good.

It occurred to me today that this may be a film about Sylvio. The easy metaphors to assign Sylvio have to do with race, but autism might be more useful. He's not verbal, he's very aware of small sounds, he's deeply invested in an obsessive hobby---it's a bit autism-adjacent, don't you think?

It's also interesting how dang much of this film is shot in point of view.

Sylvio does not speak and his mask doesn't change expression, yet he manages to be the most emotive character on screen. It's like a Greek mask, revealing a deeper truth.

Also, and this may be over reaching, but am I seeing a direct reference to Piss Christ when Herbert looks through his beer? And if so, what does it mean?

HOME

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016)

So. Three acts.

Act one: Drags, much too full of fan service in a movie that has no other purpose. But still: I laughed a lot.

Act two: Holy turn of events, Batman! The movie takes a turn I never saw coming! Plus, my LPM (laffs per minute) shoots waaay up.

Act three: Ties it all together and just manages to be short enough.

In all, a fitting return to the '60s show's glory in animates form (starring Adam West! Burt Ward! Julie Newmar!). My kids who barely know the original (mostly that it exists) loved it too, calling it stupid enough to be hilarious. So there you go: Success.

ELSEWHERE

Kings of Baxter (2017) ×2

Documentary about a couple actors who run a twelve-week course at an Australian juvie, teaching them Macbeth. I'm trying it out as a film introduction to the play. I liked it. They liked it. I didn't love watching it twice in a row.

The real test is how it affect their feelings about the play as we get underway.

ELSEWHERE

The Lady Eve (1941)

I love Preston Sturges. My first experience bewildered me, though I'm certain I will love it when I watch it again. And my second experience also bewildered me, but I loved it first go-round. This plays some of the same games, but I was ready for him.

And I loved this film. It's the easiest of the three to love, although maybe that's because it is my third experience---it's no simpler, I don't think. I kept not knowing where it was headed next. And it kept making me happy.

And that long, long take---master shot---of Fonda and Stanwyck as she seduces him is one of the realest bits of sexery I've ever seen.

Also fun, I also learned that that farmer who had a dog? whose name was Bingo? That tune comes from something else. And it's a doozy.

ELSEWHERE

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

I still like it?

Do you still like it?

I'll bet you do.






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2013

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