I have all the music required to host one effing cool dance party. Ideally, the event would incorporate the best of hip hop and euro dance music, opening the eyes (well, ears) of people on both sides of the dance music spectrum. There are some tracks by ATB, certainly one Oakenfold, some PvD, and others that I would love to share with a dance floor. I’ve got the amps and the speakers … and with a borrowed projector shooting iTunes visualizations onto a wall, things could be pretty sweet. I am missing, however, a critical part of this equation. And don’t say “people willing to attend.” I’m missing a venue. Slot this into the equation, budget a hundred bucks for miscellaneous ephemeral costs, get a group with the right dynamics together, and we’ve got ourselves a sweet sweet night ahead. Folks in the country generally do stuff like this in barns, which makes a whole pile of sense: no noise violations, a big space that is easily cleaned up, and parking galore.
Very few places like the barn ideal are available in the city. Furthermore, I am not willing to rent a venue … it’s too artificial. This is an event that has to come together organically, when someone says “yeah I think I know a place …” it has to be an event that people want to go to and will do something to make it work. A basement, right now, is the best bet. For complex logistical reasons, a dance party may forever exist only as a pipe dream, but will certainly remain in my mind as “that cool thing” which, if pulled off, would be pure magic.
I was one of the three people in the United States who had not yet read the book The Da Vinci Code, and so as a part of my mission to not suck at life this Christmas break, I decided to read it. Also, the remaining two people who have not yet read the book are probably under enormous peer pressure to just read it and get it other with … my apologies to you both. That said, the reading has only lasted an intense couple of days. I casually opened up the book to read a few chapters, and suddenly it was somewhere after 3am, and I was 250 pages in. My mind was certainly thirsty for some novel’age after the textbooks I have been buried in, but the book also happens to take a deathly tight grip on your mind, compelling you to turn page after page and pound through to the conclusion. My expectations were high, yet vague: I avoided even reading the book jacket description so that my experience would be as the author intended; unbiased, greenhorned, vaguely interested. This tactic paid off. Case in point: after hearing the ending to Million Dollar Baby, I still haven’t watched it. Not so with this book … oooh no. I had absolutely effin’ no idea what to expect upon cracking the cover, and was thrilled to be sucked in to a web of thrillingly thrillingsten thrillful plots … the way vacuums suck up dirt or the souls of the authors of bad analogies. Whew, I really can’t write tonight.
To get back on track: this book was a fantastic reintroduction into the world of pop novels. Also, it appears to have amazing potential as a movie which will be starring Tom Hanks and directed/produced by the team that brought you “Apollo 13” and “A Beautiful Mind”. The luxury of being the A list of the A list stars affords Mr. Hanks the opportunity to simply only star in good movies … I think this film adaptation is going to be a stunner.
While waiting for my ear appointment today … wait a second, I’ll digress for a minute. Dr. Wilson has been treating my ears since I was two years old. He has, over the years, pulled my tonsils, adenoids, put in ear tubes (none of which I remember), fixed the hole that would’t heal from the ear tubes, and monitored my ears since that hole opened back up. I hear the phrase “could you write down a 1-2% TPM perforation” at regular sixth month intervals. There has always been hope of this healing, and right now it looks like my left ear, holy for all this time, just may be on the mend. Fantastic news for someone (me) who has always wanted to pursue things like water skiing and diving, but has always been hindered by the requisite ear protection. Maybe I’m just making excuses for myself. Regardless. While I was waiting for this appointment, I read the Newsweek cover story on anorexia from the December 5th issue. The article itself was nothing earth-shattering: a lot of personal stories and a point to a paradigm shift in the diagnosis; parents are no longer being blamed as “causing” the illness.
The article itself was not particularly intriguing. Sometimes I forget that the requirements for a Newsweek cover, while steep, are also quite specific: appeal to a lot of people, sell the magazine. Therefore, an article like this can’t be all to everyone, it can only open a window to further research, dialogue, or perspective on the topic. It certainly did this for me, but got me veering off in a direction that I tend to head in, as I have been developing my theory about people for some time now. My theory is neither all-encompassing, researched, nor particularly polished, so bear with me as I push it from my head through my hands to the screen for the first time.
In the present day, humans do not need to worry about surviving because food and shelter of extremely good quality are the de facto standard. We are very close to our “roots” in that we are still endowed with tremendous energy that used to have an outlet: survival. Conditions of life and death were present in my Minnesota area as recently as the late 1800s, described by Black Elk of the Lakota Indian tribe (I read that book for theology, not psychology, but bear with me). So … where am I going with this? I am attempting to paint a picture of a pampered humankind. So recently stripped of the worry of our basic needs, we are left with a tremendous surplus of energy to put towards … almost anything. It is what we choose to do with this restlessness that defines who we are. When this energy goes unchecked, directed into nothing, serious problems arise. Let’s loop back around to anorexia. It is a clinical disorder, it is a serious, life-threatening problem - I don’t deny this … but put an anorexic out in the brutal winters of the Lakota indians, and the person either quickly overcomes their problem or is undoubtedly suicidal. Logically, if they were suicidal, they would figure out a quicker way to end their life than starvation. This leaves normalization. A person confronted with problems threatening their very existence on earth quickly “normalizes” because “normal” becomes a very narrow term: either find the food and the shelter or die.
Guaranteeing a person’s survival opens them up to an extremely rich life … lived on the knifepoint of mental stability. When you think about workaholics, alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, bad drivers, consider that there is some driving force behind that person, some restless energy. Not the illuminating view of humans that I really wanted to share … but it’s a start.
C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, never wanted his books turned into movies. Who can blame him? Was the cinematic technology really present any time other than now to bring his world to life? (I don’t know the answer to that, but the rhetorical question sounded cool, and asking questions sure is easier than answering them). Anyhow. Having read the Chronicles of Narnia twice, once as a rather young lad, the descriptive word “beloved” certainly rings true to my ears. Let me back up a few paces and describe to you how I ended up seeing the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
I bought advance online tickets (a first for me … and what a horrible experience, too) to a sold-out show of King Kong at the largest screen in Minnesota, the Marcus UltraScreen. Yes, in my quest for Friday entertainment, I was determined to see the biggest movie of the year on the biggest screen, taking the biggest hit to my wallet possible. I succeeded on the last point. You see, Mykala and I made it to the movie, were admitted, and walked into the theater … but couldn’t find a seat. Except for a nice pair … in the front row, on the faaaar left of the theater. Now, watching a movie from the front row is one thing (I saw Castaway and just remember it as being very very wide), but watching a movie at some bizarre angle on a screen three times the height of a normal movie screen is like going to an Imax theater and laying upside down in the aisle. Or something. Bad analogy. So, I stormed out of the theater, ready to erupt like Mount Vesuvius on Pompeii back in the day when the pyroclastic flows used to beat the heck out of towns and townspeoples. Mykala, willing to endure to the risk of being covered in ash and soot, suggested we see a gasp different movie.
So we ended up here, at the Chronicles, and … by golly it wasn’t a let-down at all. I paused mid-way through the movie, wondering why there wasn’t a giant gorilla scaling a building, but immediately returned to the wonderfully crafted Narnian story. The effects were seamless (the talking beavers were hilarious and stunning realistic in the way their entire mouths moved when the spoke) and so earned the name “special effects”. My favorite part was the arrival of Santa Claus: perfect timing with the season we are in now and a great plot twist from the novel I had completely forgotten about. I would watch this movie again … it’s good for a small Friday night gathering, but may fall flat when screened to a larger group.
Also, I saw a Saturday Night Live parody of the Beastie Boys in which they rap about going to see “the ChroniWHATcles of Narnia” and even though it’s stuck in my head … it’s still funny.
Hollywood’s commentary on current events is doomed to be packaged into a format that will sell tickets, avoid details required to truly make points, and a feeling of detachment due to the time required to make a movie. Nevertheless, if a standard could exist by which films could model their political statements, Syriana would be a good start. Certainly, I will have to see it again when it comes out on video to fully understand (or at least make a better attempt at fully understanding) what is going on in the movie’s plot.
What Syriana refuses to do is preach or present a one-dimensional view of the problem it centers around: oil on Earth is a limited asset and it is a societal instinct to fight over limited resources. The character sketches (they can only be sketches as there are many players in this vast political game) are well thought-out, giving us a chance to bounce their personalities off one another in our own heads. That is, the movie is rich enough to be continued in your mind, after the projector shuts off and you unstick your feet from the floor of the theater.
As a thriller, Syriana is not perfect: it lacks the intrigue and slamming rapid twists and turns I expect from my thrillers (The Da Vinci Code, ahoy!) … but I expected it to be more thought-provoking than adrenaline-pumping. I found it in the vein of The Constant Gardener in that you were forced to listen to the dialogue, make connections, actively participate in the movie.
Want to think? Think about the future? Talk about the world with some people who are (hopefully) level-headed and not rabies-infested politically indoctrinated folk? See this movie.
Yesterday, while biking at a furious pace to check-out a book and photocopy it in time for a noon deadline, I found myself skidding almost completely sideways for 20 feet at 19 miles an hour. My bike tilted from the normal 90 degrees to the ground in slow motion. 80 degrees. 70 degrees. As it did so, my brain managed to register the high pitch squealing coming from my tires, a squeal which was abruptly stopped when my pedal slammed into the ground and bounced me back to a normal, upright riding position. I laughed nervously, and continued biking.