This person's name is John Emmet Tracy.
He is one of my favorite human beings right now.
You should watch every single TV show
and movie he's in from now on.
So Internet, I want to write about something really, really kind I saw the other day. You know how I've been saying here for, well, at least since I started this blog 2 or 3 years ago, that kindness is incredibly important to me right now. This rock we all fly around on is full of dark and crazy. It has people who'll make you want to grab those most precious to you and find a nice, deserted island to live on (which could lead to interbreeding issues and turn your descendants' skin blueso it only works in theory because stupid biology...but I digress). I can't mention her by name (unless she reads this and officially gives me permission and promises not to sue me and if that happens I'll come back and edit), but I have made a friend on Twitter who's suffering all kinds of sad health problems. I've been very blessed not to have these, but I have other friends and family who've not been so fortunate. And so I can see, from watching their struggles, that when you are very very sick Life is...you know. Crap. And yet here is this lovely person who is finding ways to find joy where she can and not only that, she spreads it out to the rest of us. That's hard - if it were me, I think there's a fair amount of evidence on this blog that I'd be typing out pieces of melancholia and woe-is-me. Spreading good when you feel bad is hard, yet it's heady stuff. God love her. I write here all the time about the power of Story. Stories are how we connect to each other - they're how we evaluate our past, our present, and our future; they're how we share our dreams; they're how we build on what others before us have built. Really, storytelling is what makes us different. I don't think any other creatures on this planet do it...maybe dolphins. And gorillas. But that's it! I'm pretty sure zebras aren't making each other cry with stories about those bad years all the lions from Nigeria killed and ate all the lions from Zimbabwe that worshipped trees because Nigerian lions believed in worshipping clouds and so all tree worshipping lions must die. And I know hippos aren't making each other laugh insanely at the crazy antics of those wild and crazy crocodiles. (Correction: animals actually do tell these stories, but they all work at Disney.) And so when we are sick, I think it's just human nature to turn to stories and storytellers. The virus or the genetic problem or the cancer or the heart disease are destroying your physical matter, but they can't reach your soul. And therein lies the power of Story - a cancer can eat you a live, but your Story makes you You...Story keeps you thinking and dreaming and just generally going, even when Science tells you that you ought to stop. But we have our stories and our storytellers, in books and movies and campfire tales and emails and dinner parties and television. And for many, many people, be they perfectly fine and healthy or very very sick or struggling, if you can find a story or stories to connect to, in whichever medium that works best for you, it keeps you going, it shows you why any of this even matters. And this sweet lady has found her story connections on TV shows. And one of the TV shows was a show called Olympus, which aired on the SyFy Channel and was a fabulous show and I can say that because, when I was able to stop focusing on my owned effed up life problems for two seconds, I watched several episodes of it and said out loud at least three times, "Wow! What a good show!" To have a story, you need a storyteller. Or a team of storytellers, in the case of TV and movie stories. And sometimes, you find storytellers who are willing, because they are really kind and get why what they do matters, to go beyond just telling their story or stories and decide to reach out to the people who are connecting to the stories they tell, who are finding comfort and joy in them. This is what I saw happen the other day - someone who is struggling with crappy crap was reached out to by other human beings who just happen to tell stories for a living. They didn't have to reach out. Telling stories for a living is a hard road to walk in a world that values material things and financial power, that doesn't recognize the value in human connection via Story unless there's bank to be made off it. And yet they all got together in spite of whatever was going on in their lives, their worlds - meeting up in offices or coffee shops or on street corners or wherever - just to sign a show poster for a sick woman. And then send it to her. Oh my god! Internet! Do you have any idea how amazing that was?! Do you even understand how shit like this makes me want to hug every single person I meet on the street, even the scary bad ones, and go: I know you have it in you! I know at heart you are good! I know you can do good! Because sometimes other people show you that it's possible. If you ask the person who took charge of this how they managed this, he will tell you: Eh, not a big deal...I just met them at coffee shops and we just, you know, signed it. And I know he will say that, because a friend told him what a rock star he was for doing this and that was his response. But it wasn't about the poster, and it wasn't about the autographs. It was about the THING. The supremely endearing, kind thing a group of human beings did for another. And it completely made her day, her week, her month, her year. Because of a story. And so: heart. melted. Why these people don't all have Emmys and/or Oscars is a travesty. A travesty, Reader(s)! At any rate. I'm promoting them. They are all very very talented storytellers even when not spreading love and goodness throughout the planet, and so I think you should watch them in action, friend them on Facebook and/or Twitter, and when they are nominated for Emmys and/or Oscars write copious amounts of letters to the judges in charge of deciding who wins those demanding that they be given special consideration. Here they are: Graham Shiels Sonita Henry Sonya Cassidy Tom York Natasha Burnett Levi Meaden Sophia Lauchlin Hirt there were other storytellers from the show who've been incredibly sweet to her on social media, but weren't able to meet and sign the poster. They also need Emmys and Oscars, and millions of Facebook/Twitter fans (and a blue Twitter check! Twitter! WHY do some of these amazeball people not have the special person blue check yet?!), and letters demanding recognition by The Academy: Cas Anvar Wayne Burns Alan C. Peterson and last, but NOT least, John Emmet Tracy, who was the ring leader in getting the poster, meeting up with the storytellers who were available to meet him at offices and coffee shops and on street corners or whatever, and sign the poster AND then mail it to my sweet friend. What a lovely, kind, sweet human being he is. Why is he not starring in every single movie and television show right now, Hollywood? Why? Because what ought to happen is all the kind, good people in the world like these storytellers should be in charge of the planet. I'm fairly certain if that happened the troublesome areas of the Middle East would be fixed, war and hunger and poverty would end, and joyful Utopia would ensue. I mean, one group of storytellers have made a difference in just one person's life. When was the last time a government did that? (Never. A government has never done that, that's when.)
Let's talk about storytelling, social media, and connections. (And at the end, I have a Big and Important Announcement.) First, storytelling (as it relates to social media). I think I've been pretty vocal here about the effect I think social media is having on us as a society,both culturally and linguistically. But also artistically. We aren't relating to each other as well, and worse we're beginning 2 write words as numbers or syllables of words, which I really h8. In 1976, as a Kindergartner, this would have confused the holy crap out of me; I submit my final evaluations, later on, in Algebras I and II, along with scary ass Trigonometry as hard evidence. I worry about how much time I spend on it. I'll be honest: I think I'm on Twitter and Facebook way too much. I'm also on Pinterest and Instagram, but not as much because I don't get to interface with other users there like I do on Twitter and Facebook. (Narcissism, Ego. I'm saying this out loud to you: Twitter and Facebook are all about narcissism and ego...so is Instagram, but you have to know how to use it properly and I still don't have a clue how to do that.) I'm also on LinkedIn, but nobody wants to hire me, so I'm bored there already. And I'm on Google+ but...have you been there? I feel like I'm standing in an abandoned warehouse. I'm worried about how much I'm on my phone or my laptop as opposed to, say, riding bikes with Miss M or gazing up into the night sky, pondering stars. I look around me and see other people doing this as well. I find it worrying, and yet, this is how the 21st century just seems to be turning out. And if you aren't doing 21st century things, you get left behind. However! I see that social media really does has great intrinsic value in getting the word out, whatever your word may be. One of the reasons I started actively tweeting about a year ago was to build an audience for my writing (and to win friends and influence others, but none of that has happened at all...oh, wait, no! Except for the friends part. I am WAY up in my friends data....cause I'm a sweetheart). It's been slow going--mostly because I'm crap at Twitter and muck it up a lot. And also I'm worried about bugging people too much--famous and not famous. But live tweeting (or, actually, just hitting the star button a lot since I had no clue and everybody was going too too fast for me) DIG (on USA!) was an eye opener for me. I saw what a community Social Media can build. I met some new friends. I made some important connections. Jason Isaacs sat back and admired my geeky researcher issues. It taught me a lot. One thing it taught me was that this is how making Art will most likely work for now. If you are an actor, a writer, a director, a producer, a poet, a painter, a journalist, a musician, a storyteller of any kind? You HAVE to be on Twitter. You HAVE to tweet and interact with people consuming and potentially consuming your product, your Art. And also on Facebook to some extent, but what I see is most people heading toward Twitter. I think because it's short and it's quick, and also because a lot of famous and influential people are on it and people (cough ME cough) like to be able to announce to their friends: "Brad Pitt favorited my weird tweet yesterday!" (Brad Pitt isn't on Twitter.) (But he SHOULD be.) Millions and billions of people from all over the planet are on it. If you want people to see you, to be exposed to your story, you HAVE to do it. Well, wait. No. You don't HAVE to do anything...I'm not trying to be the boss of you. But if you don't do it, your story won't reach the mass number of people it could potentially. (But then, on the flip side, can I also just say that sometimes just regular word of mouth works, too? In my neighborhood, people leave books in Miniature Libraries people have placed in their yards; I still ask friends for good movie/tv show/book recommendations. To their faces. In person. Offline. It's a thing humans can still do.) For television storytelling, because of the way it's gone--which is that nobody really has time to sit back and watch shows AS they're airing (the exception being you're a fan and a geek and so you make the time)--it's absolutely essential you have as many people involved with the show tweeting. And the more interactive, the better. Right now I'm watching a show on NBC called American Odyssey fight for renewal, and the reason it's in a fight and has a chance is because dedicated fans are fighting for it. And the reason they're dedicated is because they feel seen and heard by the storytellers making the show. Therein lies the power of social media. The artist in me wants to cry out, "But cannot Art just be ART?!" (Because I'm dramatic.) But the social media addict is going, "Yeah, man. This is how it WORKS." (Because I'm a complete dichotomy.) In addition, it's a nice way to connect with your favorite storytellers in general. The other day, I watched STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA, which was written and directed by Nikole Beckwith (you MUST see this if you can--it is amazing; unexpectedly unsettling but also beautifully sad and thoughtful). I sent Nikole a tweet and told her how wonderful her story is. And she responded to me--so sweet and kind. I will love her forever now. Therein lies the power of social media: I'll watch anything and everything Nikole Beckwith is involved with now. (Actually, I would have anyway, because I think she's gifted and talented...but she's also lovely and nice, and so now I'm in her corner forever.) Ditto that for novelists, poets, musicians, actors, etc etc and so forth. If you can connect to people who admire one bit of any work you've done, and if you can make them feel heard and appreciated? They will wrap you in gobs of love and light, and when some dickhead comes to you and says: YOUR ART SUCKS (as dickheads on social media are wont to do), these same people will gather up their pitch forks and their angry torches and they will go beat up those dickheads for you. I swear it, I swear it by all that is holy and good. They will. And then they will bring you those dickheads' dead dickhead bodies and lay them on the porch for you to find in the morning, just like cats do to show they love you. Okay, that's done. Do you want to hear my Very Important and Big Announcement? I got a writing job!! And I'm suuuuper excited about it. Here's how the power of social media works: I started tweeting (or, you know, trying to keep up) with DIG live tweets by Jason Isaacs back in March. Because of that, I met a new friend who is way, way better at live tweeting than me. We got to know each other pretty well. G thought my DIG research was amazing and brilliant and is delusional that I am talented. Then, G connected with a nice lady named Erin from a big Sci-Fi website called Three If By Space (which, if you are a big Sci-Fi fan and don't know about this website--WHAT?! Wake up! Go HERE and be amazed), and let me know they needed writers. And it just so happens I'm interested in a new show coming to the SyFy channel in December calledTHE EXPANSE, which looks like more good storytelling and amazing acting and also there's a conspiracy theory and you kind people know how much I loved that aspect of DIG...and! AND! there's zero gravity sex in this show. (Do you guys even know about zero gravity sex? Oh, wait until December...you will. Apparently, Isaac Newton may have thought about it some. I know for sure I would have, especially had I been one of the first people in Outer Space. How can you NOT ponder this? Not thinking about this aspect of Outer Space existence is like...like...eating pancakes without syrup. How can people DO that?! No. NO. Pancakes need syrup. Humans need sex. We are NOT arguing about this, it's just how it is, the end.) So that's my big announcement: I have a writing job (no pay, but I get to be legit published AND! more important, I get an editor, and god knows I so need one of those). My main writing job will be to write up stuff about SyFy's THE EXPANSE, sort of like I did for DIG (on USA!), but less archaeology and no red cows or Essenes (although I don't know. Maybe...maybe there are Essene-like aliens in Outer Space!). I can do more writing for them once I get the hang of it. Just. Everybody pray I don't muck up Three if By Space's super nice website. If you go there and you see, like, misplaced vowels and off kilter stuff, that's me. I can't even figure out how to do Twitter cards on this frickin' blog, let alone get a web address without the "blogspot" in it. (I actually do know how to do get rid of the "blogspot" part of this site's address--I just haven't yet. Because procrastination.)
Okay, Reader(s). You had Friday, Saturday, and I've given you all of Sunday morning to watch the first episode of DIG (on USA!). If you haven't followed directions, then you're about to have the whole thing spoiled for you. I mean it: the WHOLE thing. Maybe you like that, though, maybe that's your kink. If so, then this blog entry's for you. First, I will just tell you my overall reaction to the show: gorgeous. (You knew I would say that, right?) The cinematography really was beautiful though; even critics who weren't impressed with the show itself said so. I don't know what episodes 2-10 will convey, but if you haven't seen the first show (and if you haven't, our coffee dates are all canceled til you do see it), then please watch it for that. You can "feel" Jerusalem. I must go there now. I must. (It's always been towards the top of my travel bucket list, but now it's number 2, right under the UK. I will feed my anglophilia with a UK trip, and follow that up with my need to be surrounded by something ancient...in Israel.) Second, I felt the cast was wonderful. Anne Heche was so good at being no nonsense and in charge; Jason Isaacs does a good Lucius Malfoy, but he also knows how to portray inner wounded lambs magnificently; Ori Pfeffer was such a dick (not really, Ori Pfeffer! just Ori's character); and Alison Sudol was ethereal. ETHEREAL. And then there was Richard E. Grant. I mean, hello: Richard. E. Grant. (We'll talk Richard another day.) Next, some business items: I've been reading some of the critical responses, and I have a problem with them. Mainly I have a problem with them because they feel so early. This is not a typical American television series; typical American TV series go on and on and on (they hope). This does not. This tale is finite: there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it's not like the people connected to the show haven't been all over the Internet, talk shows, and podcasts saying this over and over til they're blue in the face. Americans! Connect the dots! So the first episode reviewers who've announced the show is a big ol' mess--phhht. That's like reading E.M. Forster's Room with a View and after 1 chapter going, "Eh, I don't get it." That's like a book critic reading 10 pages of a book and going, "This book sucks." If you do that, then you're kind of missing the point behind storytelling. BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO READ THE WHOLE THING. Stories are about making connections--in 2nd grade Reading, I talk to kids about making text-to-text (this reminds me of the book...), text-to-self (this reminds me of when I...), and text-to-world (this reminds me of the time my neighborhood...) connections. I'm telling you this because I want you to understand why I hard rolled my eyes to the back of my head when I read reviews that went: This was confusing, or this was boring, or this was a mess (or whatever, there were at least 10 that made me hard roll my eyes waaay back). Because my teacher brain hears 2nd graders not paying attention to the story, people who were NOT listening to the directions, because they're playing with their little friends instead or whispering about what happened at recess...I think that when I read stuff like that. And by the way those kids always get UNsatisfactory on all their quizzes. In addition, this is a relatively new concept for a TV series to America. Americans are used to the mini-series concept--2, 3, or 4 episodes that usually re-tell a really popular romance novel and usually shows on Lifetime Movie Network 100,000 times and is always on at my mother's house. But this is not really a mini-series. You can call it that, if you're an inside-the-box thinker, but it's not really a mini-series. It's a TV series that lasts one season. They've hinted there could be more, if this is wildly successful, and they've hinted that because TV networks are all about the money. But from every piece of information I've gleaned, the creators Gideon Raff and Tim Kring wrote it on spec (without being asked to) and weren't really thinking about creating a multi-billion dollar TV show franchise. They just wanted to tell a good story. Which I think is nice. And I've long said that NBC (which owns USA Network) seems to be trying to do different things with television. It's a tricky medium. I'm not in the film/tv industry, but I have friends with family who are, and I'm telling you: this is a tricky medium to tell stories in, particularly in this country. I mean, you show your first chapter and people are suddenly declaring it shitty. And then the network gets skittish and yanks it off the air and re-runs episodes of Sarah Palin's Alaska instead. This was never created to go on and on and on; the whole story is airing, whether you watch it or not, whether you like it or not. If you hate it, it's not being yanked off the air; it's showing, every Thursday at 10/9 Central and if you're not interested go watch The Voice or The Kardashians or something. That's a new concept for Americans, and a big reason I think some people aren't really getting what's going on. That, and we as a species have developed terrible attention spans along with the ability to creatively problem solve and process large pieces of information...thanks smart phones and testing obsessives! Okay! I'm done, I am done. My rant is done. Now for the de-brief. First of all, I'm not going to recap the show. There are people out there who've already done this, and are far better at being concise than I. Here's--> a good recap if you need one (and full disclosure: I'm absolutely using it because they pulled my tweet about the show and used it in their article, and my narcissistic tendencies are on full display now and I really don't care what you think about that.) Second, there was so much going on in this episode. SO MUCH. Which is one reason why I think many of the anti-DIG reviewers said it was messy and confusing. That may be the point; it's supposed to be confusing, because there's a lot going on. There are symbols, hidden meanings, weird happenings, and no you don't get to know the characters right away, just like meeting a new person for the first time...relationships take time to develop; be patient. This happens in novels all the time, by the way. There are character arcs. Focus. Pay attention. Because this is a television show that seems like a novel: episode 1 was the exposition: Once upon a time, there was a man named Peter who had a terrible thing happen to him and so he went to Israel...we're going to tell you a story about what happens next. Now there will be rising and falling actions, a climax, and eventually a denouement. This isn't for dumb people, is what I'm saying. Which is why I'm a little annoyed they piggy backed the premiere with a FAST AND FURIOUS 7 preview. I think it sent the wrong message. (I'm being a tad flippant here and totally alienating all the Vin Diesel fans...but I'm also sorta kinda serious and don't care what the Vin Diesel fans think, actually.) Third, I think if/when I de-brief the next 9 episodes (and can I be honest and let you know I'm not sure I will? I have a shitload of shitty shit on my Life Plate at the moment, and I'm ignoring about 90% of it so I can write this), if/when I do that, I will just deal with what I think is happening/my theories. Since I only have time to cull what is in my brain. If I try to pull from all the stuff that's out there, there will be explosive brain matter all over my kitchen--or wherever I write, because I like to be mobile. I asked Jason Isaacs during his premiere live tweet (in which he did not stick to his stated program, which was that he was supposed to only tweet DURING THE COMMERCIALS. I have it on good authority that he takes direction well, but Thursday night was one time he did not.) And he actually answered me (!!) (I think he just felt bad about not answering any of my other fabulous questions I tweeted to him in February when they premiered DIG in New York and that was his apology) (I really don't ask Jason questions on Twitter; typically, I like to vary between just flippantly harassing him and expressing maternal sympathy for any man problems he tweets about. But when I do ask questions, I try to make them thoughtful...unless I'm in a flippant mood.) Where was I? Right! My question was if Alison Sudol's character was real, if there are paranormal aspects to the show. Jason said that was an interesting question and I was a good thinker. And so, in a nutshell, Jason Isaacs totally knows me now: an interesting thinker type. And if he's read any of my other tweets, he could add the words ridiculous and neurotic and hyperbolic. And also, he answered me but he didn't answer me. Tres misterioso. Jason Isaacs for UK Prime Minister! (I'm joking with Jason Isaacs, who has a marvelous sense of humor...if he'd actually answered anyone's questions that night, he'd have been in hot water with the USA Network people.) So I'm running with it. Because I don't think Peter had a real interaction with Emma; I think it was in his mind. But then how would he have known what she looked like when she turned up murdered? And she slipped a stone into his pocket; how would that have gotten in there? So! Many! Questions! Other things that make me think Peter Connelly isn't having real experiences in Israel: he called his wife. He didn't speak, and she basically told him to get a life and stop doing that and hung up on him. Later in the story, she calls him and complains about what he said to her the other night when he called her. I think she accused him of being drunk, but I'd have to go back and re-watch and Miss M and I need fresh air and sunshine today and so I don't have time. But isn't that interesting. (One reviewer complained about that--that person said it was sloppy writing. And that's why I say to those reviewers: YOU NEED TO WATCH THE WHOLE STORY. And pay attention. Stop expecting your information spoon fed to you. And quit talking to your neighbor during the lesson; there may be a quiz.) Also, Peter first sees Emma in the market and she disappears on him, like an apparation...when he finally does get to interact with her, it's preceded by a weird band of religious-y people walking around with torches and some creepy guy in a red cap looking strangely at Peter. At the end of the episode, he's in a bad car accident but still manages to chase down, on foot, a fleeing car. The chase leads him back to Emma's apartment, with the bad guy (Khalid) there in the apartment waiting for him. How did he get there? Why is Khalid there? How did both of them get in without the old man landlord and his key, the one who let Peter and Golen in the first time? And why did Khalid not kill Peter? He just took the stone and silently disappeared. Sooo...was Khalid actually even there? I have questions. And I'm totally okay not having them answered in episode number one. In fact, you know what, lazy thinkers? I'm ALSO okay not having all my questions answered by episode number 10. BECAUSE SOMETIMES LIFE DOESN'T GIVE YOU ALL THE ANSWERS. Entitlement = a real problem. SO many other things going on this story I could write about, but that was a big one for me, that I don't think all of this is real or that maybe there's something paranormal/otherworldly going on or maybe Peter Connelly is just straight up fucking crazy. Personally, I hope it's all about the Universe. I'm a spiritual mystical, Divine Infinite type, and so I'm all about ley lines and spiritual crossovers/connections. This is where I made the text-to-self/text-to-world connections in the story exposition, and if you haven't made any connections yet, I think you should watch 2-3 more episodes because I bet you will. More things I think viewers ought to pay attention to: *Numbers and letters and symbols matter. I think there's something important about Emma's initials (EW) being carved on the wall. I think the number 7 in Tunnel 7 will have significance later on. I think the numbers 12 and 13 matter. I think the breast plate and the stones that are missing from it matter (the stone Emma slipped into Peter's pocket is from the breast plate, I've deduced). *The boy, Joshua. Clearly being groomed to the next Messiah. But there are more than 1 Josh, which is why Fay the evil lady (or is she evil? maybe she's not) was so okay smoking him in the desert (shot him...Fay killed a little boy, is what I'm saying). I bet they have about 12-13 clones, and each Josh is about to turn 13 years old. (Can we talk about how mystical the number 13 is? In Christianity, 13 is an evil number, bad luck. In Judaism, it's basically the number for God. In Christianity, God the sole entity is split into 3 pieces (the Trinity); in Judaism, all the pieces lead back to God...there's a thing about a cube, I think--a cube has 12 lines on it and all the lines connect in the center, which is 1...12+1=13. All numbers lead to God. And Hebrew letters all have a significant meaning; in addition, they are each assigned a number. There's a thing called gematria that you do with Hebrew letters. The Hebrew word echad which means "one" equals the number 13. The Hebrew word for love (ahava) equals 13. In Hebrew, if two words together equal the same value, then the essential meaning of the two words is the same. And so, ahava is 13, echad is 13, another word Hashem (meaning, essentially I think: God is all) equals 13. Therefore, echad ahava Hashem...God is love, God is one, God is all. Equals 13.) In fact, 13 is all over Judaism. There are 13 examples of God's divine mercy; Jewish boys and girls have bar/bat mitzvahs at 13. There are 13 Hebrew letters in the name Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The names of their wives, Sarah, Rachel, Leah, and Rivka also all have 13 Hebrew letters. The Hebrew Bible has 39 books (3 x 13). Adonai, the Hebrew holy word for "God" has a numerical value of 26, which is 13+13, and there's a thought that's because it's a balance of masculine and feminine. ....and 13 is also in Christianity as well: Jesus had 12 disciples (plus Jesus = 13). Also think about: 12 months of the year, 12 signs of the zodiac... Holy shit! You guys! I totally HEART stuff like this! Also pay attention to the number 7. God created the world in 7 days. And the dig is about the lost ark, the covenant. The first covenant God made with man was with Noah. Noah's father lived to be 777, and had Noah when he was 182 (14x13, which is a multiple of 7 times the number 13). I mean, I could go on, but I bet you have things to do. The breast plate is an important piece to the puzzle, as are the missing 12 (see? numbers) stones. The breast plate is a real thing--it's called the Hoshen, and it's basically a direct line to God. Priests wore it to atone for the sins and misjudgements of the Children of God. There are 12 stones that fit in the breast plate, and each represents the 12 tribes of Israel. Some researchers believe the initials of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their wives were engraved on the stones. The stones colors I think will matter, at least the color red. The red heifer is a thing, and the stone Emma put in Peter's pocket was red(dish). Some scholars think the other stones in the breast plate are the colors yellow, green, and blue. In addition to black and white, those are the first 6 colors all languages recognize. That might become a focus later on, but now I'm just reaching at everything. So I'm going to stop here. Because it's a beautiful, sunny day here and I would like to take my little girl for a walk. And also I have a cold virus that's set up shop in my sinuses. And tomorrow is Monday and I have to go help wayward children become model citizens. And if I keep thinking about all the secret code stuff that was in this first episode alone (and I know I've missed TONS--for example, I didn't even get to Richard E. Grant's suspicious character,the key symbol, the peace sign symbol in Emma's window, her journal and Peter's stealing of it, that whole weirdness about Peter and Emma skinny dipping in the holy water at the dig site, and Emma kissing Peter and his freaking out about it. I didn't get into bad guy Khalid and the car crash, or into the whole Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock stuff either), then my brain will explode. And, y'all, listen: I really, really need my brain this week. To summarize: this show is smart, and if you don't think so I'm not saying YOU aren't smart, but I am suggesting maybe you're not focusing. Also, I'm going to Israel. I don't know when, but I'm going. And God is in the numbers, and so now I wish I was better at Math (ha! just kidding-no I don't; I'm fine sucking at Math). Last, we are slowly devolving into a species that (a) doesn't listen, (b) doesn't pay attention, and (c) has no focus. There people out there who will take advantage of this, mark my words. If Gideon Raff or Tim Kring need someone to file papers for them or make them coffee or whatever, they can contact me. I can be free all summer.
You guys!!! This is IT!!! Dig (on USA!) is about to start. TOMORROW! I can't even...this feels like I've been climbing the Matterhorn and I'm about to ski down it. TOMORROW! At 10 PM (9 Central), USA Network. (If you have DISH Network, it's on Channel 105.) (If you have something else, go do your own Google researching.) I've been following the making of this show since this summer; I've practically bought stock in it (I don't know if you can tell or not). So I think we should petition Congress to have a national DIG (on USA!) holiday moment. I already have an itinerary for us, America. Here it is: March 4 (today!!)--DIG Eve. Get your popcorn ready, make your Jell-O shots, decorate (ancient archaeological/Negev/Sonoran Desert themes ONLY). Get ready for amazingness and good cheer (and fire up the Google so you can double check on whether or not the stuff from this show could actually happen). March 5--DIG Day (D-Day). Invite family and friends or just friends who are like family over for the major television event of 2015. Jason Isaacs (we're Twitter buddies again, now that I've completely absolved and totally forgiven him his trespass of last week) says they'll be live tweeting the show. I don't know how I feel about live tweeting, quite frankly. Sometimes I like to watch it as it happens, but then I always feel under way too much pressure to add to the conversation, and if I'm going to add to that kind of a conversation, I prefer to just be witty and clever. And I can't just...BE witty and clever, Internet. The stars have to align just right for everything witty and clever that leaves my brain. So I stay out of live tweet fests. Unless I've been drinking, but that's another tale for another time. And also, I think I'll need to focus on this show. Because I think there may be a lot of: What?! Oh no he DIDN'T! and Holy shit!! Could that seriously HAPPEN?!?! and That is sooooo very messed up!! and This planet is going to hell in a handbasket! going on in my brain. I may even say some of that aloud. I don't know. It depends on how tired I am--10 PM is about an hour past my regular bedtime. It is nothing short of a testament to my admiration for Jason Isaacs' innate ability to tell good stories that I am staying up past my bedtime and with a massive head cold no less....and! I'm not even expecting a thank you! I'm merely doing this because he's a fellow creative, and I sense this is going to be a don't-breathe-or-you'll-miss-something kind of show. ..........Okay, okay, FINE. He also spells swanky and I have an inability to deny men with British accents. Even though he sounds like Chicago in this show. Which is slightly sad, I feel. But I wasn't in charge of deciding the character's accent. March 6-Boxing DIG Day. Like Boxing Day in England, except no charitable collections (unless you want to). This is the day we gather around the water coolers at work, or meet up at Starbucks or happy hour after work, or get on Facebook and Twitter, and start our arguments, our analyses. We will continue this process, every week, for the next nine weeks (actually, as a matter of fact, I just realized: this show is going to take me through the end of my school year. Just as DIG ends, I will be going on summer break. Y'all! This is an omen, it's a SIGN.) We will continue this process:every Wednesday will be pre-DIG Day followed by Thursday DIG Day and then Friday post-DIG Analyses/Arguments Day, you know...just basically making ourselves insane until the 10th episode airs, when our minds will be blown because I have it on good authority that that episode is going to be crazy epic. But then this is the fun of an action/adventure/thriller/conspiracy story, isn't it? The insanity that taunts you, til you reach the very end, the very explosive and mind-blowing end. Just like sex, except this is going to be FAR less messy and sweaty (maybe) (you may experience at least the need to catch your breath periodically throughout the pilot, switch viewing positions, whatever). Here are some more fun things for you to watch, so you can start to get your DIG on:
Have I mentioned that this show ALSO has Downton Abbey's Richard E. Grantin it? Oh, how I do love Richard E. Grant. I need to stay focused on the topic of this show, what this blog is about, so I can't go into more detail than that. But remind me: because I heart Richard E. Grant a whole heckuvalot, and I will point you to some of his marvelous body of work some other time. I confess: I really don't watch a lot of TV on actual TV...I usually get my shows via DVR or Netflix or Amazon or some other way--it's a time constraint/raising a small child issue. But if YOU do watch actual TV, and you've been watching anything on USA Network, then you've probably seen them interrupting your viewing pleasure with weird and creepy DIG promos. I don't know what these look like, but according to a lot of irate people on Twitter, they are creepy and STOP IT, USA NETWORK. You know what else they've been doing on Twitter? Randomly selecting people to tweet at, saying mysterious things to them for no apparent reason, when the person has been tweeting about something that has nothing at all to do with DIG (on USA!) whatsoever. Like THIS. And THIS. Stuff like this just makes me like USA Network even more, because I am always so amused when people's regular routines are interrupted by the loud and obnoxious. It's a breath of fresh air in a stale, beige world. Will you watch DIG? If you don't, and I blog some more about it (and FYI: I will blog some more about it, and there could be spoilers, I simply cannot be held responsible if you don't watch--I will give you til each Sunday to catch up and watch Thursday's episode, but after that? I cannot be held responsible. Sundays are going to be my DIG de-brief day, and if you don't watch, you won't have a freaking clue what I'm going on about...and I am NOT stopping to catch you up). You'll be out of the loop. On the fringes. Flailing in the wind. Tossed about in a wide, Sargasso Sea. Lost and confused. Don't do it to yourself, reader(s)! Don't do it. Wait! Before you go...do you have about 20 minutes? If you do, watch this video of Jason Isaacs talking about DIG (on USA!) and his role in it.
All I could do, the whole time, is wonder: what the heck did they do to your FACE?? Followed by: I am so in the wrong job. How fun would THAT be, to have the make up department mess your face up every day? Because after work, I'd leave that beat up face make up on, go out to dinner and act all casual but also really skittish, and just let the other diners wonder about me. And if I could go out with other people for dinner whose faces were also destroyed by a make up department? Oh happy DAY! We could create a whole scenario and really freak out the other diners. I'd write a script and everything for it. Live dinner theatre, if you will.
I'm going to put that on my bucket list, right up there next to "have tea at Buckingham Palace."
...In his interview, Ori talks about Jason's love of bringing music on set. I don't know if Jason realizes it or not, but there's like a whole psychological thing behind using music to motivate; I do it all the time with 7 and 8 year olds--everybody works better including their teacher. Ori also talks about Gideon Raff's Israeli series Prisoners of War, something you should watch if you love Homeland (it's the series that the Showtime series Homeland was based off of) (have you seen that amazing series, Homeland? If not, honestly. I don't even know what to do with you. Go click those links I posted and Get. Busy.) (but first: watch DIG on Thursday). Both Prisoners of War and Homeland are stories that are all kinds of complicated and multi-layered, two things I'm a ginormous fan of in most of my stories. Okay, let's summarize your homework (due tomorrow, so focus!): *get popcorn/Jell-O shots ready (you can choose other snacks if you'd like...if it weren't a school night, I'd be drinking chocolate martinis, for instance). *decorate your house (Negev and/or Sonoran desert and/or ancient Middle Eastern archaelogical themes ONLY) *Set your DVRs or TIVOs or whatever, because you'll probably need to review some of the more brain exploding parts. This will also make you the DIG expert in all your arguments until next week's episode. *Watch all of the videos I've posted. (I'm not kidding. There may be a quiz.) *Watch Prisoners of War and Homeland. (We'll count that as extra credit.) (On the quiz.) Ready? GO!
I am late with this. Normally I try to post by Saturday morning. But this Saturday morning, Miss M & I ate pancakes at iHop. (Is that how you spell it? Or is it IHOP all caps? Everything is so Apple-y now, so if it starts with the letter "i" I leave that letter "i" lowercase.) And then there was a playground visit. And laundry folding. And one movie called THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE airing on HBO and starring one of my favorite thespians, beautiful Thandie Newton, so I had to watch the whole thing once it started. (My take away: Thandie Newton was too good for Marky Mark.) And then grocery shopping. And now I'm making spaghetti. And I'm drinking some wine while making that spaghetti. And later, I'm going to have some more wine. And coffee with Bailey's Irish cream because I'm a grown up now and I can do that. Here is last week, summarized: Monday-Wednesday, I treaded water, as I normally do. Mondays are always supremely hard. On Monday mornings, my friend Cindy texts me things like: Amy, it's 7:45 AM. Time to go to work. Get out of your car and come inside, Amy. Now. And then I sigh and say quietly in my car, "I know. I know." And then I go in. (Teaching poor kids is rewarding in that the kids are my everything...everything else is spiraling me into Dark Nights of the Soul.) On Thursday, I got home to a package waiting for me. I thought it was a left over order I'd put in for Christmas that had just come WAY late. No! It was a beautiful, silver ring inscribed with my all-time favorite Rumi quote: That which you seek is seeking you. It was from Tanya, a Midwest friend I haven't met in person, but we did a group blog together many years ago--we all challenged ourselves to complete a project that scared the beejezus out of us and wrote about the process together on the blog--and she and I are still in touch today, years later. So months ago, T threw up a Facebook post asking for people who'd like to participate in a Pay It Forward thing--7 (or more people) would say yes, and at some point in the year, she'd send each of those 7 (or more) people some kind of gift...and then each person was to put up the same Facebook status so that they could do the same for 7 (or more) people who responded to them. So. Cool. (And that T-dawg actually remembered! And it came at a time when I really needed something like that to fall into my life.) (This is when the Internet connects people and is actually a good networking tool, rather than just the hub for porn and psychos and angry people it usually is.) I took Friday off for a couple of doctors' appointments, and when I was through, I went to the movies. By myself! And I didn't have to see a movie with animated characters, singing animals, or princesses! It was insanely amazing. I had too, too many choices and basically had to do eenie meenie miney moe. It ended up being between CAKE, THE IMITATION GAME, SELMA, or A MOST VIOLENT YEAR. I was interested in seeing CAKE because Jennifer Aniston was desperate for an Oscar and so she got fat (Jennifer, that's so cliche, but I still think you're lovely and a great actress, and overdue for an Oscar--stupid Hollywood, making its actresses get ugly or fat or play a crazy person before they give them an Oscar)...I wanted to see THE IMITATION GAME because I'd heard good things about it and, apparently, every straight female and gay man in America wants to sleep with Benedict Cumberbatch, and they like to call themselves "Cumberbitches," which the feminist in me just winces at...I wanted to see SELMA because it's a biopic about MLK (who's one of my heroes) and the husband of my sweet friend Angie worked crew on it (he got to drive Oprah around)(and also, I think they have scaffolding from some sets sitting in their driveway now)...and I wanted to see A MOST VIOLENT YEAR because Jessica Chastain is in it, and I will always see movies Jessica Chastain is in since I desperately wish she and I could have a coffee date and become BFFs. In the end, THE IMITATION GAME won because the timing worked out. My take away: It was so good! Please go see it, particularly if you're a WW 2 buff and/or technogeek. It's all for you. For me, I took away how important it is that we take care of each other; bullying does nothing to further our species. I cried in two places. Benedict has beautiful eyes and is a really, really good actor. Keira Knightley is gorgeous and talented--I wish people would stop being sarcastic about her (Oscars people, I mean YOU). Governments are full of sons of bitches. War is hell. Nazis, ultimately, were pretty stupid. Human beings can do awful things to one another. Alan Turing was robbed. Now, for the rest of the weekend: I have a mountainous stack of papers to grade. I have other paperwork I need to fill out since Parent-Teacher winter conferences are looming. I need to plan for next week's lessons. We're going to a friend's house to celebrate men in helmets jumping on top of each other (I'm going for the Super Bowl commercials, beer and chips/dip--I simply don't understand sports) (though, for some reason, I think I could potentially kick ass at golf). I need to work on my resume some more. I hate grey, rainy days--yesterday was beautifully sunny and I had 95% more energy. Today it got cloudy and grey and my whole outlook depleted. I may need to invest in an anti-winter darkness light. It is not lost on me that I am winter-born and do not like anything about the winter, except for the occasional snow day here and there. And that's only because I'm a Southerner and it's a novelty; if I were up North, I'd have ten million complaints about snow. I keep meaning to meditate and then keep forgetting to. I have way too much on my schedule and a needy, clingy 6 year old isn't helping things. On Friday, when I had some time to myself, I just sat in the peace and quiet...have you done that? You should do that. It's hard, especially if you have a brain like mine that refuses to shut up. But I found that if I just breathed deeply and really focused, for a good 10 minutes or so there were no worries; only peace. It was nice. You know what else is nice? Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges just made a music album for insomniacswho want to help kids not be hungry. You can download his Sleeping Music, for whatever you'd like to donate--there is no real price on it--and every single bit of money goes to No Kid Hungry. Isn't that nice? Jeff Bridges is another favorite thespian of mine. But he's also such a lovely, artistic soul--he's a musician, and I think he's also a gifted photographer. (I find that most creative people are gifted in more than one craft or like to dabble in more than one. My friend P is a talented writer and musician...my friend Kat is a talented writer and photographer...most creatives are drawn to anything that creates. Which seems to make sense, in the grand scheme of things.) Next time I write I will probably be doing some more promoting for several of my favorite thespians (including but not limited to Jason Isaacs...hello to him) because March 5 is coming, and March 5 is when DIG (on USA!)starts. I've been slacking off on my DIG free PR I promised to Jason Isaacs last summer on his Instagram account. This looks like an amazingly amazeballs show that will make you question EVERYTHING. If you don't live in the United States, you will be so sad. So sad! Since you won't get to see it until they put out the DVD for it (I hope they will put out a DVD for it, so other countries can see it). I don't necessarily feel bad about this, since I had to wait to see the BBC's Case Histories series 1 and 2. But it does underscore my belief that, because stories connect human beings, there should be no borders when good shows come on the air. We have satellites flying around in outer space right now--I'm sure technology exists that would let whoever, wherever, watch any country's television shows. If I can listen to BBC radio live every Friday, then I should be able to watch BBC television shows live whenever. Join the 21st century, television networks. Until that happens, we'll just have to share amongst ourselves, I guess. Be storytelling Resistance Fighters and all that. Channel our inner Alan Turings. Pay it forward. Let Jeff Bridges put us to sleep while we help hungry kids eat. Get plenty of UV Vitamin D rays, wherever we can, in the low winter sun moments. Be unimaginably wonderful and stupid, amazingly brilliant and crazy; find ways to channel our inner Resistance Fighters about pretty much everything. Resist everyone and everything that would like to contain us, keep us within safe borders and tell us who to be, where to go. Let's work on that, focus on it, all of February. Want to? Here's a picture with something I'm pondering for the week and you can too, if you'd like:
Before you read: I apologize. I am sorry. I tried to find a way to break this into two posts so I wouldn't be jumping around all over the place. But I couldn't find a way to do it, after I wrote it, that wouldn't have involved a major re-write in some places and...I'm just happy to be able to find something to write about and the energy to still do it. So sorry but not sorry. Come jump around in my brain with me--it's fun!
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Y'all, I have the most ridiculous child. You may think yours is ridiculous, but I'm sorry no. Mine is way more ridiculous. She both amuses and confounds me. Do you know that this flippant thing walked right up to me on Monday afternoon and announced she was sick. Then she announced I would need to help make her better by fixing her some hot tea and buttered toast and that when I was finished, I could bring it up to her room ON A TRAY as soon as it was ready. On a tray. With a little dainty napkin for her little dainty mouth and also some grape jam on the side, please, and oh yes: a chocolate biscotti as well.
Whatever. She's little and I had time, so I went ahead and played nurse. She plays foot masseuse with me occasionally, so it's the least I could do I figured. But then I got up to her room with tea/toast/tray, and she had her little Polar Express bell necklace out. As I set the tray down, she let me know that, for the rest of the day, whenever she needed something she'd ring her little bell, and I was to come upstairs to ask what she needed.
Clearly, I am raising Cleopatra. (I have been Googling lots and lots of stories about what happens, in the end, to queens like Cleopatra and Marie Antoinette and the like and we've been having some mommy/daughter history lessons.)
Speaking of royalty, Twitter is abuzz with news from Sundance 2015. You guys! The Sundance Film Festival is on my bucket list, in a BIG way! I am insanely jealous by each and every tweet and twitted picture I am exposed to when something with #sundance or #sundance2015 lands in my twitter feed. Or, you know, I torture myself by actively searching for Twitter news of what's happening right now in Park City, Utah. I wish you could be inside of me so you could feel how bitter I am that I am here and not there. There are a butt load of people, right now, drinking wine over steaks and salads and talking about some fabulous film they just saw. They are sitting in front of large bay windows of restaurants and coffee shops, panoramic snow capped mountains as scenery, arguing plot points and debating endings while snowboarders and skiiers hop onto ski lifts in the background.
I'm sure they're also working very, very hard out there in Sundance Land. It must be exhausting to visit swag parties (party after party!) with people handing you expensive things (free of charge!). And then? To have to go watch a lot of movies (movie after movie!) on top of that? I seriously don't know how they manage. And then after all the interviews, they maybe do some skiing. Or sit in a hot tub surrounded by snowy icicles. Eat a steak. Have fans send complimentary drinks to your table. Hard stuff like that. The life of a movie star is very, very strenuous, I can tell.
Here's what I did today, just to compare/contrast: I taught Calendar Math. I made 6 people move their behavior clips down; one landed on Purple (the SUPER DUPER BAD color...I gave him a choice: lose indoor recess or I call your mom--he chose wisely and went for recess). I gave a Reading Comprehension quiz and a Word Study quiz. I had to say "NO" exactly 10,000 times. I taught a 40 minute lesson on stars and constellations. I had to do indoor (aka LOUD) recess because it was disgusting and rainy outside. I had to deal with two boys hitting each other in the boys' bathroom--both had confusing stories about who did what when where why. I deflected 25 tattle tales. I made one child cry because she had 2 yellow owls on her weekly conduct card and didn't get to go to the treasure box. I had to help dress a boy who dresses himself every morning...in the dark, obviously--his shirt was buttoned all crazy and it was inside out. He also had his shoes on the wrong feet, but they were two different shoes so there was nothing I could do to help him there. I had to have a long conversation with someone about telling the truth, no matter what. I had to have a long conversation with someone else about how it's okay not to know but NOT okay not to try. I had to have a long conversation with everybody about how reading every day is important or they'll never increase their reading level data. I had to re-direct constantly, and nobody (nobody!) felt like walking through the halls with a bubble in their mouth today.
The highlight of my WHOLE day? Showing them THIS VIDEO and having 3 out of 25 kids say (out loud), "Wow! That was AMAZING! So, that means that inside, we're...STARS!")
Yes you are, my darlings. Inside, you are all stars. But your teacher still wishes she were watching movies with the bigger, brighter ones instead of hanging out here with you.
....Did you know the bigger a star is, the older it is? Did you know that VY Canis Majoris, a red hyper giant star, is 1,800 times bigger than our sun? Did you know that one day, our closest star the sun will get bigger...and bigger...and bigger...and explode us all to smithereens? But don't worry--it'll be 2 million generations from now that have to deal with that. If we don't melt their polar ice caps first.
The thing I like about the solar system is the fact that we are all connected by the sun and the moon--we all see the same sun, we all see the same moon. That's the same sun and moon the dinosaurs saw, that Father Abraham and Ghandi and Buddha and Jesus and my great-great-great-great-great-grandma and your great-great-great-great-great-grandma and George Washington and Napoleon and Ghengis Khan and John Lennon and Susan B. Anthony and Queen Victoria and Shakespeare and Joan of Arc and Sappho and Eleanor Roosevelt and Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin and Socrates and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and their great-great-great-great grandmas all saw. When we look up in the sky, we are connected through the Universe. And when we look at stars, we are literally looking back in time. Starlight goes on through space and time, long after its life has ended. I can't think of anything more magical and amazing and connecting than Outer Space...and its stories.
Speaking of looking back in time: I watched one movie this week during a frustrating Insomnia Fest. It was calledFIELD OF LOST SHOES. One of my favorite actors (hello, Jason Isaacs) was in it, but this is not why I watched it. Okay, fine. I knew about the movie because he's in it so Jason Isaacs was slightly why I watched it--I did have other movie options available to me. But ultimately I watched it for my dad. Like all war-themed movies I end up seeing: I watch them for my dad, because he no longer can. (I'm more into movies like LOVE ACTUALLY and FORREST GUMP...I'm the kumbayah commie pinko hippie wannabe peacenik, remember?)
When I watch war-themed movies, I also watch them from a soldier's daughter's perspective. I'm writing about FIELD OF LOST SHOES because this is a movie my dad would have loved. My father would have talked about this movie for days after. And then he would have talked about his time at Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) back in the day and how it related to the Virginia Military Institute in this movie. Not only did FIELD OF LOST SHOES involve guns and soldiers and war and military college kids, it was History (capital H). And my dad was all about History--he lived and breathed it. I mean, he died after falling asleep to the History Channel.
What I'm saying is: I found myself at several points during this movie longing for my father. The opening scenes reminded me of photographs my family has of my father's PMC military rehearsals. (Which led me out of curiosity to do a YouTube search and--omg, you guys!Look what I FOUND! ...I don't think my dad is in it, though he'd have been at PMC then, because this is mostly of the band which he wasn't part of. But more nostalgia--my dad would have eaten up YouTube, too.) It brought back memories of my dad taking my little brother and me to visit his alma mater, and that, even at 13 years old, I could tell he was struggling to contain the emotional connection he still felt to a place he'd loved dearly.
The exposition of the story, when the main characters are introduced, reminded me of stories my dad told of upper class men being fairly torturous toward their incoming, green freshmen. (One story: all the upper class men locked all the freshmen into their dorm rooms one afternoon; my father's roommate desperately had to go to the bathroom and they wouldn't let him out. But he had to go Number Two! This would have been horrific--he had to do it in his pants or their floor or both. Their room was on the ground floor, so my dad helped his friend stick his ass out the window and find relief in the bushes below. An upper class man happened to be walking by just as they were doing that, and they both had to, like, clean toilets with their toothbrushes for a week or something.) (The military does this to its incoming, and they do it on purpose--it bonds them, and teaches them not to be a hero...you're going to need to look out for each other later on, when you're trying to kill the real enemy.)
This story was why, quite frankly, I was surprised the upper class men in FIELD OF LOST SHOES didn't go through with a threat they made to little, innocent Sir Rat. At PMC, I'm fairly sure they would've. Maybe they had to cut that scene due to test audiences' reactions. At PMC, they'd have shrugged and said, "Get over it, you fucking weak-kneed vermin! GET UP OFF THAT $%!@#*&#!!&^%# FLOOR RIGHT NOW AND RUN YOUR $%!TH))# @%%#$ OFF BEFORE I KICK THE *&^$%^!)(*!&^#!!$$%#*@#!*&^$! OUT OF YOU!!!! WHAT ARE YOU STANDING THERE LOOKING AT ME FOR GODDAMMIT?!?! I SAID: RUUUUUNNNN!!!!! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUUUUUNNNNNN YOU $^%@#%!&!*&!!!!!!!")
Soldiers: they live hard, they die hard, they watch each others' backs. And they cuss a lot.
(True confession: when I originally wrote and published this blog entry, I had the original soldier-y swears in that ALL CAPS dialogue up there. But then I started feeling the disapproving ghost of my father watching me, shaking his head at me and saying something about being ladylike and ladies don't blah blah blah ladylike. So when I woke up this morning, I couldn't stop being nervous about that, and I edited it all out with cryptic symbology. One day I will stop seeking my father's approval; today will not be that day. Sorry if you missed it; I was astounded, impressed, and amazed at how much filth I am able to access. It was really kind of breathtakingly lovely and disgusting, all at once. Let's meet for drinks and I'll recreate it for you in person. We can horrify the old ladies dining near us.)
At any rate, back on track: This movie gets a high five from me. You will like it, I promise. However, as a (commie pinko, left-leaning liberal) Southerner, I'll be honest and say I had a bit of a problem with how they dealt with the slavery thing, and I usually do whenever I watch movies like this--this is not a negative commentary, is what I'm saying, because it wasn't a surprise. I think a lot of storytellers don't know how to deal with some of the touchier stuff, especially issues that society is still healing from. Which seems very human--we all instinctively want to gloss over embarrassing things our ancestors did, note that we're horrified by it, and then try to sort of desperately find some sort of nugget of human kindness to latch onto, to prove to ourselves there were good people even on the bad guys side. The fact of the matter is, it's still sort of being done. Isn't it? It is. You can see it, because we are very, very uncomfortable about talking about it and worried about putting it in our art if our ancestors were the antagonists. (Fighting really REALLY hard here not to tangent off into a rant about SELMA and the Oscars with an anecdotal side story about how I cried when Halle Berry won an Oscar.)
Lots of people, especially in America, continue to deal with racism's after shocks to this day. Seriously--go talk to a black or a brown or any other color that's not white person; go have a chat with someone who's not Christian in America...bet they've got at least 100 personal stories of prejudiced or bigoted things someone's done or said to them and/or someone they love. This continues to be a problem, and we continue to pussyfoot around it, and if you don't think so it's probably because you're a WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant. And don't argue with me until you've had a heart to heart with someone who's not a WASP. And if you're arguing with me and you're NOT white, well goodness gracious...bless your heart. And if you're all mad at me because you're convinced there's a war on Christ, you have just GOT to stop watching FOX News. I'm not kidding. It's totally messing up your synaptic neurons, giving you a slow lobotomy of sorts.
I've completely off-tracked me. Where was I? Right--FIELD OF LOST SHOES. I wish they'd have just dealt with it or not dealt with it at all. There really didn't seem to be a reason to add in scenes to prove the lead characters were just fighting because their daddies said to, that they abhorred slavery which they probably didn't really...so some white people feel better about pieces of their history. They did what they did then because they didn't know better. But now we know better, so we should try to do better. Embrace thyself and thy history, Humanity. Tell the story like it really would have happened so no one wants to live it again.
The truth of the story was: once upon a time, America enslaved black people. There was a war over it. A general named Sherman was ruthless. This is a story about a group of boys who lived back then, and were products of their times. One of them was Jewish, ain't that some shit. People are complicated. Life is hard. We're going to tell you a story about a heartbreaking moment in our history when the shit hit the fan. We aren't here to fix what and why this happened, we aren't making ROOTS here. We're telling a small moment story about some babies being sent to fight grown ups. This is a story about friendship and honor and what happens in war sometimes. People should be allowed to truthfully tell their stories.
I think it would have been okay for these storytellers to basically say that. In the prologue and/or in interviews. (It's possible they did and I am unaware. But as someone just looking for a movie to watch at midnight one night, that's what I wondered about at the end.) I mean, I'm pretty ticked off still about women in Civil War times being held down, confined to narrow roles, and nothing was done to address that situation in this movie. Just let be what it was--this is how things just were back then. And in some houses to this day.
But I'm also a Southerner and get the nuance--this was filmed and premiered in the South, and believe me when I say we have a sordid history that continued well after slavery ended and people are very, very sensitive about to this day. Nobody wants to be professionally skewered in the press here. On the flip side: down here in the South? There are still people fighting this war in their hearts--and they are STILL holding grudges against Sherman and I'm not kidding or making that up. Sherman is still cursed here in some places--I think this movie did a good job expressing why through his character's brief onscreen bits. This was a nasty war, and it left scars, scars that we are still tending to in the 21st century. There was a LOT for the filmmakers to grapple with, psychologically, artistically, professionally, historically. So, not judging, just wish they hadn't done as much revising to the story's contents. Yet as a Southerner, I get them. We are a weird country.
The rest was fine and lovely and what mainly gripped me as I watched, what I kept thinking, once the plot really got under way was: these boys were just babies...they were only babies. And I think there are a lot of common threads we can identify with today: children are being scarred right now by grown ups who are killing each other and sometimes using them as shields and bargaining tools in the process; there are grown ups, right now, shoving AK-47s into the hands of babies and turning them into lethal killers.
Only a few of the boys sent into fight that day came out of the battle alive, and these scenes wrought tears from me. No child should ever die because adults can't manage their shit. The boys this movie is about were very, very brave. Far braver than the men in charge who were afraid of losing--men who feared losing enough to send in babies to fight their war, men who feared losing enough to pull their triggers and fire their cannons at children and young men barely out of childhood. This was a movie with a lot of complicated moral issues underlying it. (And I like those. I don't know if you can tell or not.)
I downloaded it on cable; I'm not sure if it's in theaters still. If you have time, and you like to watch war-themed movies (for yourself or for your dad because he can't now), you should watch this. It's an independent film, and those have notoriously low budgets, so going in knowing that I was so impressed with what they were able to do with what they had. And the people they had in the cast--wow. This was clearly a labor of love.
If you have a 6 year old, you'll have to watch it after 9 PM. If you do watch and disagree with anything I've written here, please let me know--we can meet for coffee or wine and argue about it. If you do watch and agree with lots of what I've written, still let me know--we can meet for coffee and wine and we can high five each other on how very brilliant and so much smarter than everyone else we are.
One day, I hope to be doing just that in Park City, Utah, with someone fabulous, after a Sundance premiere. Or just myself. Whatever. I'm fine either way as long as I have access to a hot tub and there are snow capped mountains behind me.
Today, I stayed in my pajamas until 3 PM. I strung out on Twitter from 10 AM until 3 PM. Yes, you read that correctly: strung out. On Twitter. Until 3 PM. In my pajamas. I could have been reading or writing, but instead I got on Twitter and fell down a rabbit hole.
Yesterday was better. Yesterday, I got to grocery shop alone so I went to Whole Foods (where you can spend a billion dollars on exactly three items). I listened to a live jazz quartet in the cheese section. I reveled at how nice shopping was without someone tagging along touching everything and begging for treats. Oh! And I made Art. Each year about this time, I make a vision board (some call these treasure maps, others visual prayers)--I just cut out pictures, words, or phrases that seem interesting or pull at me or represent things I'd like to have, do, or be. Then I glue them down onto something--paper or posterboard or into a journal--in collage format. Have you ever done one of these? They do actually work, but (a) you have to look at it and meditate on it quite a lot and (b) be serious. And also leave some spaces between the images and words so God can get in.
Instead of doing my regular vision board, though, I saw that my writer hero Liz Gilbert likes to do a color board--she finds colors she'd like the new year to feel like. So I grabbed the book I'd intended to use as my 2015 vision journal, a couple of magazines, and started cutting out anything that appealed to me. Then I glued them all into a mish mash collage. Anyone can do this, these color or treasure boards; no artistic ability required.
M did one with me. Let's compare a grown up's vision of what a new year should feel like to a 6 year old's:
This is how I'd like 2015 to feel: splashes of bold, wild color with some calm, soothing ones.
This is how M wants 2015 to feel: cute like a lion, pretty like Oprah and whoever that other woman is. With a bar code.
Interesting. I asked M: why the barcode? And she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Cause I like them." Later, I posted that picture in the comments section of Liz's color board Facebook post (I'm just going to call her Liz now because we're totally writer BFFs in my head, and she can just go ahead and call me "A" since it's very difficult to shorten "Amy"). Some sweet soul came in afterwards and said she loved what M had created, that she saw strength and courage and felt the bar code symbolizes a certain "can't be bought" attitude, and congratulated my sweet girl on growing up into a strong, courageous, beautiful leader.
I love other human beings like this, and it's one example of why I picked Liz Gilbert to be my ultimate writer hero--she attracts nice people. I am very, very into nice people and people who attract nice people to themselves these days. I would like to be surrounded, in 2015, by nice people who help one another, who are sources of strength and courage and good attitudes. I would like to be one of these people as well. I am no longer interested in being judgmental or mean or closed. 2015 is going to be a doozy for me, for Miss M, for a lot of people I love, and I am desperately seeking Niceness right now. With splashes of wild color here and there.
.....It does occur to me that being strung out on Twitter may be why I'm suddenly into very, very nice people these days. Have you ever spent a day, a week, a month strung out on Twitter? It's full of snarky people--who are very smart and very funny, but many times do it at the expense of other human beings who are having a really hard time. Hey Humanity, can we stop being snarky at other people's expense when they're having a hard time? There is a fine line between poking fun at someone's eccentricities, with the implicit understanding we are ALL a bit wonky and deserving of being poked fun at, and just being mean because you need to feel better about your own eccentricities.
On the flip side, you can find some really compelling, wonderful people to follow on Twitter. I found a really lovely website today called The Bitter Southerner(I identify with the title...except for the fact I'm really more of a bitter Southern Yankee) and a story on it titled "We're All Freaks." The story is about The Clermont Lounge, specifically the ladies of The Clermont Lounge.
If you aren't from Atlanta, you may not know about this place. When I met C and we started dating, he lived about a mile down the road from The Clermont Lounge. It's an Atlanta icon. C lived in a very upscale apartment complex in a neighborhood/area Atlanta calls Poncey-Highland. Atlanta's very odd in many many ways, and one of these ways is that its neighborhoods class up then class down sporadically, with no rhyme or reason. Like, you'll be driving and driving and going: ooh! Look at all these lovely, posh houses and then BAM! you're locking your doors because there's a crackhead on the corner beating on windows of cars stopped at red lights, drinking from a paper bag, offering blow jobs for $5. I've never seen anything like it--I'd leave C's apartment at 6 AM to go to work, drive past several expensive, nice townhomes until the road dead ended into a grocery store parking lot everyone here calls "Murder Kroger" (called that because once upon a time 1000 years ago, two people got shot in front of it--and also, this is how Atlantans locate one other: "drive past Murder Kroger til you see the Big Chicken. Then take a right at Disco Kroger and that'll take you to Spaghetti Junction. If you find yourself OTP, you've gone too far." It's a language only we speak, and you have to live here for about 10 years before any of it makes any sense). I'd take a right at Murder Kroger, go past the police station, and then turn left on the crackhead corner to get to I-85 and a sense of normalcy.
At any rate. The Clermont Lounge is at the bottom of, and behind, The Clermont Hotel. The hotel was once a swanky place to live, if you were an upper middle class flapper. Ninety years later, it was pretty much bedbug-ridden and a place crackheads on the corner took their $5 clients to (though it's getting a big update now,and let me tell you: people here were freaking their freak because there was a moment when rumors about closing down The Clermont Lounge were flying around--it's safe, in spite of all the failed health inspections).
So The Clermont Lounge is behind the hotel, down a steep hill. It's a dive bar, with strippers, and its claim to fame are its ladies of the night (and sometimes day) with names like Blondiewho can do things like crush beer cans between their breasts. Celebrities like to go here, for the sheer freakishness of it all. (I know for a fact Lady Gaga does.) So do non-celebrities. And strippers? Well, this is where strippers go to die. (No, actually, I'm just kidding--quite frankly, The Clermont Lounge welcomes all working ladies, regardless of age, ethnicity, ability, etc. And I read something long ago about the strippers getting to keep all of their earnings, which pretty much makes it stripper nirvana).
I've been to The Clermont Lounge three times. It's not really a place you want to go to every week--I mean, you can. But they'll take all your money, and then you might have to work there. So I've gone twice with friends, once with C. The first time, we didn't stay long--it was a lot to take in but mostly one of the girls in the group got freaked out by bare nipples (as if she didn't have her own? weird). The second time, I think there was a group of rowdy frat boys there and that made one of us nervous (okay, fine. It was me. I was nervous). I'm far more freaked out by rowdy frat boys than bare nipples, let me tell you. The third time I went with C, and that time was when I kind of fell in love with the place. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I mean, it's a strip club. On principle, I generally disagree with the concept, because I disagree with how we treat women and use their bodies and put them in situations in which they feel using their bodies to make money is their only option. I don't like this, I abhor it. And yet.I think The Clermont Lounge is rather kind to its workers, in terms of these situations and the ones they have found themselves in. And so I sort of give it a pass? I guess? I'm still sorting out my feelings about it. I certainly don't want my daughter working there, and I harbor tremendous feelings of white collar privilege guilt about having landed the Life Lottery with options so I don't have to work there. And yet, I'm okay with it if other women want to work there because that's their choice and what if they have no other options? There are worse jobs they could be doing. This is what my internal conflict looks like about lots of things, by the way.
What I do know is that it is rife with stories. If you need some good characters or character development ideas, you should grab a friend or five (it doesn't seem to be a place one should venture into alone, at least not the first time) and go here.
Have you ever seen the movie WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?with Betty Davis? There's a stripper there who I feel channels Baby Jane very well, and she enchanted me. Later, I found out I had gotten to interact with THE Porsha, who often likes to dress up like Red Riding Hood or Little Bo Peep (which is who she was that night) to dance. I met her in the ladies' room--I was applying more lipstick (you just DO this, when you go to this place) and marveling at the rotting Las Vegas feel of even the restroom, when she came in. She told me I was pretty and asked if I'd come alone. I thought she was another odd bar patron hitting on me, and let her know: nope, I'm taken. She was sweet, and told me to have a good time and to be careful.
About 20 minutes later, she was doing her Little Bo Peep burlesque in front of me.
So here's the set up: you go in, and you need about 5 minutes to breathe it all in, get your bearings. The bar is also where the strippers work--you sit and drink, watching ladies of all shapes and sizes in various forms of undress in front of you--the bar is circular with a catwalk in the middle. This is where Porsha danced for me. She didn't take much of anything off. I figured this was because she was old school and back in the day, strippers didn't necessarily strip--an ankle or a bare shoulder were considered risque. But then? At the end of her dance? Right in front of me she lifted up her dress to reveal: NO UNDERPANTS. It was like looking at the sun, y'all. I mean, seriously: it wasn't anything I haven't seen before...I just wasn't expecting it after a rather tame burlesque show. I'd have been fine had someone clued me in that was her big finale.
(Side story: once, when I was 8, I was lying on the floor at my paternal grandmother's house watching TV. My grandmother bent over me in her nightgown to pick up something from the living room floor and I got an eyeful, and to this day when I think of my grandmother, this is pretty much all I can see. Psychological trauma. The Clermont Lounge with Porsha incident was very, very similar: Unexpected and jarring, though not unfamiliar.)
Afterwards, off stage, she came and asked if I'd enjoyed her show. (I'd given her a $10 bill after the flashing, in a shell-shocked stupor). I said I had and she told me to come back any time; she liked pretty, nice girls. And I have to say, in spite of the shell shock from the unexpected, I was completely bewitched by her at that point because I could tell: this was a genuinely sweet human being who was making Life work for her in the best way she knew how. I was amused and flattered and if I'd had a $20 bill on me, I'd also have given her that. But it was fine since she'd already had gotten all my dollars.
So I get why The Clermont is a draw for all kinds of people. I understand why it's iconic. Down South here, we not only embrace our freaks, we love them up. We stick them on the porch in a rocking chair, put a glass of MeeMaw's best sweet tea in their right hand, give them a hand fan for the other, and talk about them gently behind their backs. We say things like "Bless old Bubba Junior's heart. He done got the head sickness. 'Member when he was a li'l ol' thang and dang near kilt himself jumpin' off Brown Taylor Bridge? But y'all know his mama and granddaddy done the same thang so guess he just gets it honest." Southerners mourn their crazy and accept it, all at once. It's why Faulkner got away with writingA ROSE FOR EMILYand nobody down South even blinks an eye at that tale--everybody here knows a Miss Emily. They either live down the road from her, someone married her into the family, or she's their aunt. And she is what she is, and so be it...while people up North still analyze stories like this to pieces because seriously, William Faulkner, what the fuck?!
So don't make fun of people having a harder time in life than you. If you're laughing with them, it's funny. But I've read things where people just go to laugh at these women, and that's not funny. They don't take themselves seriously, but that doesn't mean they have the kinds of hearts you can break.
I have no idea what this has to do with color vision boards. I do see the connection between getting strung out on Twitter. Don't get strung out on Twitter, kids. It leads to flashing strangers at bars. Make a color board instead. And get some sleep. (O! Sleep! Thou art elusive these days. I'm typing this at almost 3 AM. If I don't start sleeping better, I'm going to get put in a rocking chair on a porch with a sweet tea while people write crazy stories about me behind my back.)
