Dear Reader,
Whoever you are and wherever you are, thanks for reading. Without you, this wouldn't be nearly as fun. I wish you the happiest of holidays and the greatest of new years. If you ever grow despondent in the challenging new year, just know that you are not alone; together we can overcome any hardships in our way. The future is brighter than you'll ever believe it to be if you let it be that bright. Enjoy this splendid season!
Cheers,
Thom
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Movies about writers
Generally, movies about writers can be just as irrelevant as books about writers, but I recently saw a few that are worth the time. 2006's import from Norway "Reprise" captures the craziness and excitement of youth, tempering it with the loneliness and solitude of the writing process. In one of the more symbolic and moving scenes, the successful writer, listening to music and reading a book, looks on as his friend playfully flirts with his girlfriend, a pretty young woman who the friend seems to have given up on his own writing career to pursue. This calls to mind earlier discussions in the movie of how love, romance, and relationships take away time from a cultured man's opportunity at reading books and listening to music. Somehow it seems during the aforementioned scene that the successful writer feels a tinge of regret in choosing to be an outsider to relationships for the sake of writing.
Something far more surreal is 2007's "Slipstream". Written and directed by Anthony Hopkins, the movie captures the craziness of Hollywood like 1991's "Barton Fink" by the Coen brothers and 2001's "Mulholland Dr." by David Lynch while maintaining a focus on the stress a writer feels whenever writing too closely to the heart, unable to let go.
Something far more surreal is 2007's "Slipstream". Written and directed by Anthony Hopkins, the movie captures the craziness of Hollywood like 1991's "Barton Fink" by the Coen brothers and 2001's "Mulholland Dr." by David Lynch while maintaining a focus on the stress a writer feels whenever writing too closely to the heart, unable to let go.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
There is a science to defense
I remember when I used to play on the basketball team in middle school and when I went to all sorts of basketball camps as an even younger kid, the coaches always told the players offense wins games, but defense wins championships. It was ingrained in our minds so deeply that it almost lost all meaning. Here is an interesting New York Times article by Jonathan Abrams that discusses specialized defense toward the end of basketball games in the NBA. Basically, based on the greatest crunchtime players on the floor, the defense will drastically adjust to make sure that player doesn't win the game for the opposing team. Apparently, there's even a science to all this - a player's crunchtime abilities can be quantified. And LeBron James is the leading crunchtime performer thus far this season (no big surprise). Did you happen to see the last-second layup the other night to beat the buzzer in the first quarter against Denver? He ran across the whole court in four seconds straight to the hoop! Crazy-awesome. Check it out in the game recap.
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Day the Box Office Stood Still?
No, it wasn't the day the box office stood still as the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was top selling this weekend. I saw it and, contrary to what most critics suggest, it is worth seeing even if it fails to match the original. Keanu Reeves nicely plays a simple stoic as the alien Klaatu. The special effects, especially in the IMAX theater, are gargantuan and effective. And the many biblical allusions are a nice touch.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Write me a check
To help American writers during the Great Depression, FDR granted funds to the Federal Writers' Project; in this time of bailouts, it's not likely we'll see such a program started up again. In fact, Paul Greenberg has a completely different perspective on it in his humorous essay "Bail Out the Writers!" from the New York Times Sunday Book Review - pay writers to stop writing. Maybe a warped program like that would get me to stop exposing my ridiculous writing to the world. Ha!
Friday, December 05, 2008
Earthless
Flies buzzed about the man’s vacant face, aimlessly searching for something rotten on the darkened horizon of his high forehead, dead skin cells sunken like ships without lighthouses. He was here, but he was not here. And he was not alone. The city streets kept busy, with men and women scurrying from one task to the next, unaware of the man with the flies buzzing about his head, round and round, like a cartoon character and its halo of stars from a blow to the head, unconscious and still breathing, dizzy but too tired to dance to the music playing inside himself. He held a sign and a cup, asking for change. A sign. A cup. Change. All he wanted was change. Spare a little change. Just a little, to help him stay warm at night, to help him be well-fed, to help him try to stay as occupied as everyone else seemed to be.
Most passersby ignored him. Others laughed at him. Some took pity on him and granted him a wish with a penny or two that he wasted on needless thoughts. Some people gave him shiny quarters, which he quickly mistook for foil-covered chocolates, chomping on them with his fallen-out teeth, bleeding his gums. Other people, feeling especially guilty or otherwise charitable, gave him dollar bills. Sometimes he responded to these particularly generous donations of cabbage with a different response from his usual “God bless,” saying instead, “Do you have any salad dressing?” And then he would chuckle, a real whole-hearted and boisterous laugh outside himself, muffled with coughs. It was funny to him, and it was sometimes funny to the other person, but somehow not for the same reasons.
One man, neatly dressed and lugging around a large green suitcase, once offered to take the man with flies buzzing around his head to lunch. As the two of them stepped up to the counter of a fast food restaurant, side by side, some of the flies began to find other people to buzz around, including a young woman with dyed-black hair holding a secret within her belly and a conscience of convenience in her mind. The neatly dressed man, smiling like a newborn, asked his lunch buddy what he wanted to eat. The buddy was not sure what he wanted, still reeling from the warmth upon stepping indoors and seeing that smile.
“I’ll take care of it for you,” the neatly dressed man said, looking behind the counter at the puffy-cheeked woman with soft brown skin and a welcoming joyous half-grimace. “Let’s go with combo No. 1. Let him pick his drink.” The neatly dressed man pointed toward the water; his lunch buddy nodded. After paying for combo No. 1 and upon noticing that his own baggage was left unattended, the neatly dressed man patted the lunch buddy on the shoulder, walking away, saying, “God bless you, and enjoy the meal.”
The homeless man looked back and sighed. The woman behind the counter served up his meal. The homeless man, no longer coughing, spoke up, clearer than ever, “Feed it to the birds or starvin’ children or somethin’. I wasn’t really that hungry anyway.”
Most passersby ignored him. Others laughed at him. Some took pity on him and granted him a wish with a penny or two that he wasted on needless thoughts. Some people gave him shiny quarters, which he quickly mistook for foil-covered chocolates, chomping on them with his fallen-out teeth, bleeding his gums. Other people, feeling especially guilty or otherwise charitable, gave him dollar bills. Sometimes he responded to these particularly generous donations of cabbage with a different response from his usual “God bless,” saying instead, “Do you have any salad dressing?” And then he would chuckle, a real whole-hearted and boisterous laugh outside himself, muffled with coughs. It was funny to him, and it was sometimes funny to the other person, but somehow not for the same reasons.
One man, neatly dressed and lugging around a large green suitcase, once offered to take the man with flies buzzing around his head to lunch. As the two of them stepped up to the counter of a fast food restaurant, side by side, some of the flies began to find other people to buzz around, including a young woman with dyed-black hair holding a secret within her belly and a conscience of convenience in her mind. The neatly dressed man, smiling like a newborn, asked his lunch buddy what he wanted to eat. The buddy was not sure what he wanted, still reeling from the warmth upon stepping indoors and seeing that smile.
“I’ll take care of it for you,” the neatly dressed man said, looking behind the counter at the puffy-cheeked woman with soft brown skin and a welcoming joyous half-grimace. “Let’s go with combo No. 1. Let him pick his drink.” The neatly dressed man pointed toward the water; his lunch buddy nodded. After paying for combo No. 1 and upon noticing that his own baggage was left unattended, the neatly dressed man patted the lunch buddy on the shoulder, walking away, saying, “God bless you, and enjoy the meal.”
The homeless man looked back and sighed. The woman behind the counter served up his meal. The homeless man, no longer coughing, spoke up, clearer than ever, “Feed it to the birds or starvin’ children or somethin’. I wasn’t really that hungry anyway.”
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Unfinished
He was unfinished. Repelled by the curious magnetism of his overarching brow, the fuzzy edges of his elongated face swirled about his ear by the petite woman who, while playing with his overgrown stubble like whiskers, whispered as gently as snowflakes falling on wide tongues, her eyes distracted by shelves and shelves of books, “My, what a spectacular collection of books you have.” But the man, approaching forty and having yet to admit that his grayness was earned instead of being some strange anomaly, didn’t have the heart to shave himself that morning, as to appear as flawless in pretense as his apartment.
He had all the books in the world – all the books worth owning, plus some random extras on parenting that now seemed so insignificant to him – but he had only read a few of those so many books all the way through. So many books, so much knowledge unread. Every time he opened a new book, he felt an impending sense of déjà vu, like he had read these books before, in a dream, or in between flights from NYC to Paris, or at the very moment of his recent cardiac arrest. Every gasp of breath felt like his last when his heart gave out. Sometimes to stop the pressure on his heart he’d try to breathe through his stomach. Ever since that day, he has felt jolts of life down his spine to remind him of how close he came to losing his life. Now his heart felt so empty, like a metal canister meant for medical syringes, cold and sterile and dead enough to grant life to whomever needed medicine. Life wasn’t easy for a man with a weak heart, an old soul, and an ambivalent will.
If he had only read the books instead of speeding through them, skimming them, closing them up before actually considering – and appreciating – their finer points; if only he had paid more attention to what was right in front of him, he wouldn’t be laying on this couch with this girl fifteen years his junior, wondering when she’ll stop adoring him for how smart he pretends to be.
Sometimes, when he was dreaming or when it felt like the flight was crashing or when his heart was giving in to its own emptiness, he even felt like he had written those books once. But that’s no realer than the unrequited, worshipful love this young woman, with her unaware adulation and lively brown eyes, had to offer him.
“Read me a bedtime story,” she didn’t actually say, but he could’ve sworn he heard it as she curled up beside him, reaching for his slovenly shirt buttons with her nimble fingers, childlike and weak and so very helpless. He held her like his daughter. He knew she’d get a good night’s rest – and that was all. Perhaps she’d get a chance to read one of his many books. Maybe she’d wake up with a smile on her face, content in knowing that she spent the night with someone so sophisticated and intellectual and artistic. Or maybe her heart would give itself out to his and he would feel alive again.
As she slept atop his broad chest, her breathing completely natural and his heartbeat utterly irregular, he started to think about all the times in his life he left the book wide open. He did not seek closure on anything, not even the books he read. He wanted there to be no end. No end ever. Not for him, not for his family, not for his friends, not for his love interests, not for the stories he told or the stories he read, not even for this delicate woman sleeping so gently on his breast. Perhaps this is why he was unfinished. But if he was unfinished, what did that make this cute one, in all her adoration and admiration?
He had all the books in the world – all the books worth owning, plus some random extras on parenting that now seemed so insignificant to him – but he had only read a few of those so many books all the way through. So many books, so much knowledge unread. Every time he opened a new book, he felt an impending sense of déjà vu, like he had read these books before, in a dream, or in between flights from NYC to Paris, or at the very moment of his recent cardiac arrest. Every gasp of breath felt like his last when his heart gave out. Sometimes to stop the pressure on his heart he’d try to breathe through his stomach. Ever since that day, he has felt jolts of life down his spine to remind him of how close he came to losing his life. Now his heart felt so empty, like a metal canister meant for medical syringes, cold and sterile and dead enough to grant life to whomever needed medicine. Life wasn’t easy for a man with a weak heart, an old soul, and an ambivalent will.
If he had only read the books instead of speeding through them, skimming them, closing them up before actually considering – and appreciating – their finer points; if only he had paid more attention to what was right in front of him, he wouldn’t be laying on this couch with this girl fifteen years his junior, wondering when she’ll stop adoring him for how smart he pretends to be.
Sometimes, when he was dreaming or when it felt like the flight was crashing or when his heart was giving in to its own emptiness, he even felt like he had written those books once. But that’s no realer than the unrequited, worshipful love this young woman, with her unaware adulation and lively brown eyes, had to offer him.
“Read me a bedtime story,” she didn’t actually say, but he could’ve sworn he heard it as she curled up beside him, reaching for his slovenly shirt buttons with her nimble fingers, childlike and weak and so very helpless. He held her like his daughter. He knew she’d get a good night’s rest – and that was all. Perhaps she’d get a chance to read one of his many books. Maybe she’d wake up with a smile on her face, content in knowing that she spent the night with someone so sophisticated and intellectual and artistic. Or maybe her heart would give itself out to his and he would feel alive again.
As she slept atop his broad chest, her breathing completely natural and his heartbeat utterly irregular, he started to think about all the times in his life he left the book wide open. He did not seek closure on anything, not even the books he read. He wanted there to be no end. No end ever. Not for him, not for his family, not for his friends, not for his love interests, not for the stories he told or the stories he read, not even for this delicate woman sleeping so gently on his breast. Perhaps this is why he was unfinished. But if he was unfinished, what did that make this cute one, in all her adoration and admiration?
Monday, December 01, 2008
A book that knocks you unconscious
Craig Ferguson, clever host of "The Late Late Show" on CBS wrote a novel; it is literary, full of Jungian philosophizing and self-aware storytelling. The book is 2006's "Between the Bridge and the River," and here is a particularly thought-provoking excerpt:
"It took me until I was an old man and could smell death before I finally shook off the mental and spiritual chains of the frightened engineers and referees who attempt to control the thoughts of us and our fellow pilgrims. You have been thrown to the ravages of the collective unconscious and you survive with questions and innocence and self-doubt. You have been mauled by fear and poisonous self-judgment but have not succumbed to it. You live your life as it arrives. ... You, sir, are interesting!" -Craig Ferguson, "Between the Bridge and the River," 287.
"It took me until I was an old man and could smell death before I finally shook off the mental and spiritual chains of the frightened engineers and referees who attempt to control the thoughts of us and our fellow pilgrims. You have been thrown to the ravages of the collective unconscious and you survive with questions and innocence and self-doubt. You have been mauled by fear and poisonous self-judgment but have not succumbed to it. You live your life as it arrives. ... You, sir, are interesting!" -Craig Ferguson, "Between the Bridge and the River," 287.
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