2008

I'm not running for President in 2008.

Joe Biden is, as of today. I'd vote for him. I'd also vote for Clinton, Obama, Gore (who isn't officially running but, according to one article I read, may, depending on how the Oscars go), just about anyone.

It seems like 147 Democrats are running. And McCain, who at one point seemed indestructible, is slowly imploding. He's also really old. Doesn't anyone remember Reagan?

Giuliani also is imploding, but more like an actual implosion. His campaign is disastrous and it hasn't even begun.

Is it too early to be sick of this race? I'm glad Kerry isn't running, but I'm starting to believe he'll soon be the only one showing up in the Senate. At least he'll have first dibs in the cafeteria. But I don't think he'll have anyone to sit with.

Reading to small people

We've been taking the small (but growing) one to storytime at the library on Saturdays. They tend to read things like "Goodnight Gorilla" there. That's all well and good. In fact, the boy has two copies of "Goodnight Gorilla" at home, both of which he likes.

But I've been reading to him whatever I'm reading since, hmm, I guess before he was born. The first thing that struck a chord was Robert Bly's collection of Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo poems, in English and Spanish. They were fun to read in both languages and he seemed to respond well to both. That was back in my at-home days, when he was a few months old.

There have been some misses. Most recently, Yusef Komunyakaa's "Talking Dirty to the Gods," a book I'm not sure I'll finish on my own. It's just dense and not anywhere near as engaging as the title.

Currently, we're disproving the notion that its Komunyakaa's excessive allusions to obscure people with difficult to pronounce names that was that book's killer. We're reading "1491," a very scientific book, a book-length graduate paper, on the people of the Americas prior to Europeans. It's full of tough names.

Last night was hair-washing night, something that's increasingly difficult as the boy's curls grow longer and more entangled. I volunteered to fight that fight and M-N read from the book. She got stuck with a chapter on the Triple Alliance (mistakenly known as the Aztecs) in central Mexico. They had a fondness for polysyllabics gone awry, things like Huitzilopochtli, Tlacaelel and Tlamatinime (go ahead, try to same them aloud).

I had flashbacks to classrooms where we'd go around and everyone read a paragraph. I'd be obsessively counting the heads before my turn and read ahead, hoping for a paragraph that didn't have any words I couldn't pronounce. Then it'd get confused when someone got a short paragraph, or dialogue, and the teacher had him or her read more.

As someone who became a writer, that seems excessively traumatic, in hindsight.

Anyway, the boy is becoming an expert in pre-Colombian civilizations. And his hair is clean, too.

Movie Review: King Kong

King Kong: Torgo disapproves

What a silly movie.

Not that silly is bad. But it's also an incredibly pretentious movie. Silly and pretentious don't mix well.

I understand that Peter Jackson had to make The Lord of the Rings as 3+ hr epics. They were big books. Tolkien got carried away, so the source material was overblown.

But King Kong is, at its heart, a simple story. People go to Skull Island. Big ape. Big ape comes back to NYC. Havoc ensues. Does it really need to be a 3+ hour movie?

No. Here's how it could be shorter:

1) The old guy at the beginning going back to Chicago -- that plotline exists to highlight Naomi Watts' character's problems keeping friends. That could've been achieved with a line of dialogue, not an entire sequence.

2) Getting Adrien Brody on the boat. Just have him tagging along. The 10 minutes spent on on getting him there against his will is just fluff.

3) Getting to Skull Island. That's practically a movie in itself, none of it good.

4) The natives. Creepy? Yes. In the original? Yes. Appropriate representation of a native culture (no matter how messed up their island may be)? No. The darkest of the dark natives with their crazy ceremonies and bloodlust for white blondes is inherently offensive. Cut that.

5) The bugs in the canyon. Ok, I just don't like bug scenes. Didn't we accomplish this with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?

6) Ice skating in the park. Really? A 25-foot ape doesn't just crack the ice? And he doesn't mind the freezing cold? And Naomi Watts is in a thin dress, so there's a fundamental gap in the logic of ice and temperature.

7) The Empire State Building. I swear, if Naomi Watts climbed one more ladder (and, by the way, shouldn't it have been far too cold for all that high-altitude climbing in a nightgown?)... and then the ladder breaks, but Adrien Brody climbs it to come get her.

8) Back to Skull Island, the brontosaurus (or whatever they were) stampede. It was cool, sort of, until the special effects became so transparent that it just seemed sadly fake.

9) Ok, and the first mate/Jimmy story. You know one of those guys is gonna be a red shirt. They're just dragging out the plot so one is a red shirt with emotional resonance. But then, of course, the black guy dies.

10) The T-Rex in the canyon, swinging on the vines, trying to eat Naomi Watts. Just typing that makes me feel dumb.

Ok, ok. Again, silly can be good. Independence Day is a silly movie. It has its pretensions, but it's not over 3 hours long. And it doesn't Frodo the ending by dragging things out. We all know the ape likes the girl but the ape has to fall off the building he climbed. Stop showing me the cameos and in-jokes of the fighter pilots (one is the guy who played Kong in the 70's version! How pointless! Another is Frank Darabont, director of the Shawshank Redemption! How odd!).

And then there are all the slow motion shots, Jack Black making his facial expressions, Adrien Brody looking like Droopy Dog, and, well, ok, that's enough.

Movie Review: The Searchers

The Searchers: Torgo disapproves

I love Westerns. Or should I say, I love late-era Westerns, Clint Eastwood Westerns. Cowboy movies that arrived after the time in which the enemy was known as an "Injun."

"The Searchers" is supposedly the greatest Western of all time. It's John Ford, John Wayne, VistaVision landscapes, all that. But like most pre-1960's Westerns, it's inherently, profoundly racist and ignorant.

In recent years, there have been defenders of the racism in this movie. Roger Ebert wrote an article questioning whether it was racist or an indictment of racism. I don't think there's any question.

John Wayne's character, Ethan, is not a pure and virtuous hero. He's obsessively vindictive, violent, and unrestrained. His hatred of the Comanches (as he pronounces it, "Coh-manch") is supposedly multi-layered and entirely justified. IMDB.com notes that in an early shot, a gravestone can be seen that mentions Ethan's mother having been killed by the Comanches. Also, it's supposedly hinted at that Ethan had an affair with his brother's wife, and the two kidnapped girls, Debbie and Lucy, are actually his children, hence his tireless searching for them.

But none of that justifies the representation of the "Injuns" in this movie. They're brutal, merciless savages. Not smart, either. They're played for both cartoon villains and comic relief. There is one shot, only one shot, where Ford gives the Comanches some depth. Near the end, when the cavalry is raiding their village, there are children and terrified mothers trying to flee the carnage. But that's pretty much it.

Beyond the racism, it's not even that solid of a movie. I read the original NY Times review from 1956 (in which there's no mention of racism), and even then Ford was faulted for mixing beautiful outdoor cinematography with "Three Amigos"-style soundstage shots. The review noted that one campfire scene might as well have been shot in a sporting goods store window.

And back to John Wayne. I've never been a big fan of his. Like I said, I'm a Clint Eastwood fan. Wayne apparently loved this movie more than any other. He named one of his kids after his character. But his character is so sloppy and inconsistent that it's hard to admire. Ethan's supposed to be a returned Confederate soldier, dark and mysterious. But by this point in his career, 50-year-old John Wayne looked about 60, overweight and tired. Ford gives him a few menacing shots, but they're only menacing because of the lighting and camera movements. Wayne just stands there sneering.

Kitty Washing Machine

This is cruel. Very, very cruel. And wrong. Very wrong. By "cruel," I mean hilarious. Wrong? Ok, but hilarious.

Eat at Mcdon(read this blog)ald's, Shop at Wal-(read this blog)Mart

This article refers to an episode of "Iron Chef" where the McDonald's logo flashed for an instant with the irritating slogan "I'm lovin' it."

Supposedly, it was a mistake. Sure, it probably was. I'm willing to believe that. But my favorite part of the article is the defense presented by the McDonald's spokesperson:

"'We don't do subliminal advertising,' said Bill Whitman, a McDonald's spokesman."

McDonald's doesn't do subliminal advertising? What about the fries cooked in beef fat? That's not subliminal advertising? What about the toys in Happy Meals, conditioning children to associate McDonald's food with fun and play, as opposed to heart disease and fries that don't mold?

This was as laughable as a story I saw on the news last night about Wal-Mart deciding to pay thousands of employees backpay for overtime they worked. The reporter said Wal-Mart realized the error and chose to take action on their own.

Bullshit.

Wal-Mart even tried to soften the story by adding that they discovered thousands of hours for which they paid people in error that they aren't going to go back and collect. And the reporter ended his story with that! As though Wal-Mart paid some people too much, some too little, it all evens out and isn't life great?

I can now wear my sunglasses at night

It's not just that I'm cheap. I am, I'll admit that. But for other reasons, I've been without sunglasses for several months.

The main reason is that I know I'll break them, so I'm reluctant to buy nice ones. I always break sunglasses, often very quickly. I broke a pair at Bennington once, and remember buying new ones on one of many misadventures in 'downtown' Bennington (home of the semiannual 'cool guy convention').

The last pair I had I'd bought on the street outside my office. They were $6 and destined to break, but riding my bike, I needed something. There's an awful lot of sun in this city, plus, dust and debris.

I broke those in about a day, then held them together with tape for another month or two.

Today, finally, I found cheap ones at a Walgreen's. They were $5, on clearance. I bought two pairs. I decided I couldn't wait any longer when I actually got dust in both of my eyes while walking the 2 blocks to Walgreen's.

As it turns out, this post was largely an excuse to reference Corey Hart. That song is awesome.

Movie Review: Something New

Something New: Torgo approves

This movie is aimed at women. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. It's written, directed, and produced by women. It stars women and eye-candy men. That's all well and good. My only problem with its focus is how generally unlikable Sanaa Lathan's character is.

She's the successful, snobbish businesswoman who gets set up on a blind date with Simon Baker. Only, she's black and he's white and she's not interested in dating a white guy. But he's immediately interested in her and continues to pursue her until she overcomes her reluctance and falls in love with him.

It's a perfectly solid movie. Simon Baker is very good. Alfre Woodard is excellent. Blair Underwood is very good. Turk from Scrubs is great as Turk from Scrubs as a lawyer instead of a doctor.

There was just no way I could see Simon Baker's character being so smitten with Sanaa Lathan. She's hot, sure. She was hot in Love & Basketball (where Alfre Woodard again played her mother). But she's also really unpleasant.

The movie is told from her point of view, so this is less problematic than it seems, it just bugged me.

There are also a few "Crash" moments, where the dialogue on racism is forced and wooden, but never as badly as it was in "Crash," thank god, and this movie is, ultimatley, a romantic comedy. And as a romantic comedy, it's pretty good.

I also have trouble not recommending a mostly good movie where the black woman gives up on Blair Underwood for the white guy. I'm inclined to favor a movie like that.

Movie Review: The New World

The New World: Torgo approves

The only other Terrence Malick film I've seen is The Thin Red Line. I saw that in the theater and felt pretty much the same way about it then as I feel about The New World now. Both films are visually beautiful. Malick has a wonderful eye for shooting natural beauty. At points in each film, it feels a little like watching National Geographic: the Movie.

Also, in both films, 2.5 hours feels more like 3-4. The movies are slow, plodding, low on dialogue, and generally more interested in creating a mood than a quick-moving story. That's fine. Particularly here, where the story is about Pocahontas (who, interestingly, is never called "Pocahontas" by any character in the movie).

Malick apparently went to great lengths to achieve realism, training all the Native American actors to speak Algonquin, requiring the Jamestown settlers to experience first-hand the colonists' lives, and making Colin Farrell and Christian Bale grow beards.

I enjoy watching Christian Bale, but he has very limited screen time here. Fortunately, he has an interesting role as the second love of Pocahontas, after John Smith (Farrell) leaves to go further exploring. Bale's character, John Rolfe, is surprisingly even-headed when discovering she still loves Smith.

As for Colin Farrell, this is the first of his movies I've seen. He's a mumbler. There's far too much mumbling in this movie as a whole, Farrell especially.

Q'Orianka Kilcher, in her first film role, is quite good as Pocahontas. The movie is, truly, centered on her story. I think she's given the necessary complexity and depth that was missing in my 11th grade AP US History book.

I just picked up a book called "1491," about new theories that the Americas were vastly more populated and "civilized" than previously thought, prior to Columbus. It explores the idea that massive civilizations had tremendously intricate and large-scale agriculture and other systems in place. One thoroughly depressing picture shows areas of South American rain forest, now cleared for cattle grazing, with signs of these huge irrigation projects now visible from the air.

But back to the movie. In the movie, the Algonquin are perhaps overly idealized. Their culture is portrayed perhaps authentically in terms of clothing, art, behavior and language, but still quite as something perfect and noble. Fortunately, the Jamestown settlement is portrayed with what I found to be brutal realism. It's an ugly picture. It's a wonder they survived.

Anyway, the boy is up, so that's the end.

DVD Review: The Girls Next Door (discs 1 & 2 of 3)

Yeah, I'm not sure what to say about this. For some reason, we put disc one on our Netflix queue. Something about three 20-year-old women as the girlfriends of 80-year-old Hugh Hefner, that's interesting.

Turns out, it's more creepy than interesting. We slowly worked our way through the first disc then pushed the second disc way down in the queue. That one just popped up a week or two ago, and we slowly worked our way through it. I'm not sure if we'll watch disc 3.

Here's the thing. First, there's Holly. She seems to be completely manipulative/in love with the Hef. She's bright/delusional. She wants a baby with him/wants financial security. I can't figure it out. It may be all of the above. She actually, physically sleeps in the same bed with Hef, according to the show.

Then there's Kendra. Or Bridget. I'm not sure which is which. The one on the left in the picture. She is a walking stereotype of a the dumb blonde. She pretends to be a jock-girl, but when asked to actually play a sport, it's clear it's just an act. She also isn't so good with the whole reading thing.

The other one, Bridget (or Kendra), is the brightest of the bunch. She has advanced degrees and it shows (Holly has a Master's, apparently, which is part of why I can't figure out if she's just exploiting a good thing or actually in love).

They all live a completely bizarre life in a fantasy land something akin to how I imagine Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch before he fled the country.

Which brings me to Hef. I didn't know much about him before. I guess things would be different if I grew up when he was younger. But the Hef of this tv show is a frail old man. It's sad in a way. You get to see that he still runs Playboy, along with a host of little old ladies who, I assume, have been working at the magazine for a long, long time. I'm not an expert in the world of porn magazines, but somehow I doubt that others are run by so many people who remember the Depression.

Something is very clearly creepy about the fact that Hef's oldest daughter is in her late 50's and that if he had a new kid with Holly, that baby could be mistaken not for Hef's child, but his great-great grandchild. No, really, think about it. He's 80. If his daughter is near 60, had a baby at 20, and her kid had a baby at 20, then that baby had a baby at 20 (not that babies should be having babies), then that would be Hef's great-great grandchild. In other words, all of Hef's girlfriends could pass for his great-grandchildren.

Ok, I need to think about something else.

Superfluous American Idol Post

Time is running out. The age limit for American Idol contestants is 28. That means I'm still within the age range of potential pop icons, but not for long.

I was a fan of Paula Abdul in the Laker Girl turned Forever Your Girl days. The video with Keanu Reeves was the beginning of the end for me, and apparently it was for her, too. That sad, drunken video of her last week (which is too depressing to link here) just made me feel sorry for her.

Randy Jackson is odd. He seems to have almost no talent, but he's worked with people with talent, like Mariah Carey. He played bass for Journey, but wasn't in Journey. Hell, I could play bass for Journey.

And the other guy is really just a wretched human being.

I watched about 10 minutes of that show last night. It's just painful. There was a time when it was funny to watch the bad singers. But by now, it feels wrong. First, to get on the show, you go through screeners. So the embarassing people were screened by producers who said, "This person can make an idiot of himself on tv." Then, at least last night, they just drag out the footage of the shattered wannabe crying. That's not funny.

To win on the show, you apparently need to have a great but bland voice. You need to be versatile enough to sing anything ranging from Billy Joel to Elton John. You don't want to have too much style. Someone like Mariah Carey would never make it. I don't think she'd handle Burt Bacharach songs well.

But anyway, I have just one more year to make the show. Time to start training. Or get a silly costume.

Jack is Dumb

The week M-N was having baby #1, I had borrowed the dvd set of "24" season 1 from someone at BN. I borrowed it from an incredibly nice woman who was a mother, a liberal Democrat, and she watched the show with her family. I found that weird. She did, too.

It's a silly show. It's a mixture of soap opera, brainless action, right-wing propaganda, conspiracy-theorist propaganda, and kiefer sutherland's school of bad anger management.

I watched all of season 1, though. And watched some of season 4 on tv. Last night, I watched about an hour and a half of season 6. The problem is (or, one of the problems is) that it's a never-ending series of the exact same scenario. There are terrorists and double agents and senseless, violent killings and torture and jack bauer yelling, ad infinitum.

If this was an action movie, it would fail. In fact, it was an action movie, with Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken, called "Nick of Time." It was the exact same premise: Walken kidnapped Depp's daughter and threatened to kill her unless Depp assassinated a presidential candidate. That was the plot of about 4 seasons of 24. And like 24, Nick of Time was done in real time, an interesting but ultimately hollow gimmick.

The ticking clock sucks me in, but I finally realized the way out. Last night, I turned off the tv with 20 minutes left. One plot had been resolved, and I knew the rest of the show would be a build-up to a cliff-hanger. (I checked televisionwithoutpity.com, and it was: apparently, I missed one major character being killed by Jack plus a nuclear bomb going off in LA.)

Since I didn't watch, I feel no need to keep watching.

Movie Review: The Apartment

The Apartment: Torgo approves

This is a great movie. I actually rented it on VHS from the library. We didn't have a Netflix movie at home and I had to return a dvd I'd gotten the week before. I was there on Friday night, and the dvd section was mobbed, so I went to the video section, which was largely empty. It's not like VCR's stopped working when dvd's came out.

Anyway, great movie. Jack Lemmon is always terrific as the hopeless loser. Shirley MacLaine has what I think is an unusual role for a movie that's almost fifty years old, the psychologically distraught mistress of a higher-up in the company (it doesn't sound so unusual there, but I don't want to spoil plot points). And then there's Fred MacMurray, said higher-up, playing a complete jerk-off. He had an odd career. I know him mostly from "My Three Sons," but also from "Double Indemnity," which was terrific and, like his role in "The Apartment," completely unbecoming of a role model/widower/father of three boys with a tendency towards whimsical, quickly resolved adventures and dilemmas.

It still seems odd that a movie from 1960 is so openly about a guy who loans out his apartment to men having affairs so he can advance in his company. It's a very bitter movie. A comedy by name, but more of a very dark romance, as in, so dark it's just barely a romance when Wilder's more Capra-esque moments pop up. Lemmon helps it to be funny at points. He's just such a sad guy.

My MFA, one year later

Thanks, Julie, for noting that it's been one year since we got our MFA's. I'm never 100% sure, because it feels like about 3 years. So what has the degree meant, one year later?

First, I'll be paying $216 a month for the next 15 years to pay for 2 years of school. I didn't get a teaching job, like I thought I would, but instead got an ed-related job that I like (and seem to be good at). That meant a move of over 3000 miles to California. I'm not sure I would've done that before going to grad school. But hearing about people's lives there helped give me the motivation to do something a little crazy.

Oh, and the writing. I'm still writing and reading poetry, though I took a 4 or 5 month hiatus. I haven't submitted anything to journals since April. I haven't put together a chapbook or manuscript, but I feel like I'm writing poems in a vein that could form a nice book.

I think there was a little burnout from all that I produced while in school, but it's also difficult to write, have a 45-50 hr/wk job, and spend time with the family. So I put family and the job first, trusting that there will be time to write later. It bugs me to read about people who've spent their whole lives writing and publishing. I still think the writing suffers if all you've ever done with your life is write. Though I'd take the early success.

Bennington gave me a much sharper eye for reading. It didn't challenge me as much as another program might have, in terms of forcing me to expand what I read, but I was at a point where I sought some of that out anyway. And the volume of reading I had to do led me to grow bored quickly with poetry that isn't challenging. That, in turn, affected my writing and helped me think about presenting my voice in a way that isn't an echo of every professional writer/teacher out there.

That may cost me publication credits (although, with poetry, who the hell knows what gets you published?), but I'd rather write what I like then write to get published. And since I'm not publishing to keep my job, it doesn't matter.

There are some people in that picture with books coming out. I wish them all the best. I was, inexplicably, the youngest person in that class. So I'm giving myself time. Stanley Kunitz wrote until he was 100. If I match that, I have 72 years to write. 73? Wait, how old am I?

The Sting That Haunts

Not sure if I've written about this before, but there's a shoeshine guy outside my building who yells at passers-by all day. His favorite thing to yell is "Pride! You've got to have pride!" as though he can shame people into getting their shoes shined.

I'm on the fourth floor and just around the corner from him, but I hear it clearly every day. It's annoying.

But today was worse.

I admire street musicians who just sit somewhere and play and play and play, hoping for handouts. That's rough. But a guy showed up today on the corner below my window with a keyboard. Not a little casio thing, but a big, 88-key monster, and began playing. Loudly. It was louder than the music on my computer.

At first, I thought, "How novel, a keyboard player." He did some ragtime, some jazz (including a decent Herbie Hancock cover), then settled into The Entertainer, the Scott Joplin tune best known from the Sting.

Don't get me wrong. I like the Entertainer. I love the Sting. But three hours later, I don't ever want to hear that song again.

The shoe shine guy is quiet when he has a customer. Money only encouraged the Keyboardist from Hell.

I never realized before, but if you're playing for pedestrians, you really only need one song. I sometimes think, oh, that'd be kind of cool, but I don't know that many songs on the guitar to play for hours. But hell, I know one song. I know a few. I could have a whole set.

People often play in the train station by my office. I never thought about it before, but I bet the station agents have to endure the same song all day. I couldn't take another day of this. If he comes back next week, I may have to work somewhere else.

Movie Review: Idiocracy / Book Report: Body Painting / Shaq Report: Walking by me

It's been a busy 24 hours. Last night, we watched "Idiocracy," the Mike Judge movie that just came out on dvd after not really being in theaters. That's about as topical as I'll get with movies these days.

Luke Wilson is perfectly cast as an average guy who mistakenly ends up 500 years in the future, where he's the smartest guy in the world. Maya Rudolph comes with him and she is, as usual, rather funny. It's a bitter, angry satire, but also kind of a dumb movie. The premise: stupid people outbreed smart people, therefore the world is getting stupider, is thin. It's based on a perception that's always bugged me: things used to be better, back in the olden days.

But it has its laughs. Starbucks in the future offers sexual services. Costco is the size of Connecticut. The hit tv show is about a guy getting repeatedly hit in the balls (kind of like Jackass or America's Funniest Home Videos, ok, actually, exactly like those shows). And, again, this is a role Luke Wilson was born to play.

Then, I had a 'subway book' in Jane Hilberry's "Body Painting." I began it on the way in, and finished it on the way home. I should've ridden my bike today (I was just tired from riding the last three days and being, well, tired). I judge a poetry book as bad when I feel like I could've written anything in it. Hilberry writes often in the observational/nostalgic style, where it would seem that simply noting how summer days were when she was a girl, or what radishes are like, or how a girl speaks in Arabic to her father, is enough to constitute a poem. There's nothing in the way of language, no surprises, no challenges, nothing memorable.

I don't know how that book got on my list. I think it was recommended. If so, I hope the person who recommended it doesn't read this blog. Of if s/he does, let me know. Because I thought it sucked.

Then there's Shaq. I'm not an NBA fan. Not since I was a kid. I follow baseball avidly and football as much as I can. The NBA just bores me. Still, I was walking out of a Rite Aid today and there was Shaq. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have noticed him if not for the Rite Aid employees yelling, "Shaq!" I looked around, didn't see anything, then looked up, and there he was. He's quite tall.

Walking back to my office, I passed the Four Seasons hotel and saw another really tall guy in a nice suit going in. About 10 scavenger-types clustered outside with pens and notebooks, autograph-seekers, I suppose. I guess the Heat are in town. And staying at the Four Seasons.

Oh well, I think I'm going to get a poem out of the Hilberry book. Sometimes bad poetry gives me ideas. I heard Sammy Hagar (who in no way is a poet, but when I was 12 I thought he was awesome) respond to a question about his song lyrics by saying that he often mishears a lyric in another song and when he finds out that the song isn't saying what he thinks it's saying, he's elated, because then he can use that line.

Book Report: Live From New York

Live From New York: Torgo approves

This book is just a collection of interviews with nearly every cast member, producer, writer, host, etc. of Saturday Night Live from the beginning through about 2003. The editors (because, really, they're not authors, they didn't write anything) piece bits of interviews together to move chronologically through the years, so it becomes a history of the show as told by the people from the show.

If you love SNL, it's an engaging read. I loved growing up watching the Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Jon Lovitz years, stuck with it through the Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Chris Rock years, and sometimes watched the Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Darrell Hammond years. I haven't seen many of the original cast episodes (other than in highlight shows), but what I've seen is great.

Even though everyone acknowledges the show's failings, the years it was terrible (and how it's bad more than it's good), the book still comes off as excessively glorifying. I mean, it's a tv show. It's a legendary tv show, but they lay it on a bit thick at times. The book is 565 pages, and that may be too long. It's especially tough in the last chapter, which is just an ode to Lorne Michaels. People criticize him there, but mostly people fawn over him, saying he's terrible to work for, but gee, what a guy.

Still, it's interesting to hear the stories from the people involved. And it's interesting to hear particular casts commenting on other casts. The only voice missing is Eddie Murphy, who's the biggest star to come out of the show and has always avoided revisiting it. Chris Rock briefly addresses why, but not in a satisfying way. It would have been nice if the editors at least got more feedback on his story from other people.

Hello Earth

So I added this ClustrMaps thing to my blog a couple of weeks ago. It's supposed to show where people who visit my blog are in the world. For a while, it seemed to confirm what I thought. Mostly me. Plus a couple of regular posters. The occassional lurker.

But recently there have been hits from other places. As of this posting, I have four continents represented. That's awesome. Hello, people from other continents!

Australia, Africa, Antarctica (the AAA), where are you? I don't know anyone in those places, but then, I don't know anyone in South America, Japan, or Europe.

When I write on this blog, I think mostly of myself as the audience, as in, I'm writing stuff so I remember it later, then also the couple of people who comment. Maybe I should make more of an effort to have global appeal, give people a reason to come here. Because honestly, I'm not really sure why people end up here.

Movie Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine: Torgo approves

As Charlie Kaufman movies go, I was less impressed with "Being John Malkovich" than I was with the concept of "Being John Malkovich." "Adaptation" was ok but not great. "Eternal Sunshine," however, is terrific.

The director, Michel Gondry, also did Dave Chappelle's "Block Party," wherein you get to see Gondry often and get a sense of how he works as a director. That only helped appreciate "Eternal Sunshine," where both Kaufman and Gondry have distinct styles and visions.

Jim Carrey is quite good, though I'd say Kate Winslet is even stronger. Even having just seen her in "Finding Neverland," it was hard to acknowledge she's a British actress more often in period pieces.

I was also happy to learn that Gondry relied heavily on old-fashioned smoke and mirrors tricks over CGI for most of the film.

Roger Ebert mentioned a name for this type of movie, Maze Cinema, wherein the storyline loops back and the timeline is non-linear or at least convoluted. Movies that mess with the viewer's perception of reality seem to be a lasting trend. I think "Usual Suspects" was the first one like this I saw, then "Fight Club," "Memento," and probably anything Charlie Kaufman will ever write.

With this movie, what's so surprising is that despite it being highly conceptual and reliant on visual tricks, it was a powerful emotional center that's easy to feel. By the end, it has fairly punishing things to say about the nature of relationships, but it leaves hope (in ways better than I think it would have with the deleted scenes, which we didn't watch, but I read about --- the 'netflix' deleted scenes problem is that we want to return the movies right after we see them, but nothing spoils a good movie like watching the scenes that didn't work).

One last comment, there's also a clever scene with Jim Carrey playing his character as a 4-year-old, with the use of forced perspective making him look small against his mother. As the parents of a boy who often just wants us to pick him up more than anything in the world, then acts out in frustration if we don't, pulling at things on the fridge like Carrey's character, the scene hit close to home.

Book Report: Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Autobiography of Red: A novel in verse by Anne Carson: Torgo disapproves

Don't get me wrong. This is a good book. Carson is one of those writers whose work is often uncomfortable. Her characters are intensely revelatory with their emotions and desires. Their actions are frustratingly life-like. It can be unnerving.

That's great. Good for her.

I'm upset because she went and took an incredible title from the world. There are only so many great ideas, and "Autobiography of Red" as a title is one. I love that title. I want to read the book that has that title.

The plot is also a good idea, though it's not her original idea. She takes Geryon, a mythical, red, winged monster, moves him from the myth where Herakles has to kill him as one of his Labors, and puts him in a romantic, tragic modern-day gay love story, where Geryon is the naive, forgotten lover and Herakles is the dominant, carefree object of affection.

Transposing a myth like this has been done, and done better. I'm disappointed in how Carson doesn't exploit the red metaphor fully. It comes and goes and for long stretches, she's far too caught up in Geryon's longing for Herakles, Geryon's self-pity, and general wallowing.

The title's too interesting for a standard-issue tragic love story. In fact, Carson's character analysis is better than the story itself. The plot feels random and forced. When they end up in Peru, that seems inexplicable, but when they wind in the Andes perched atop a volcano that suddenly corresponds via local myth to winged red monsters, that's just silly.

Name the baby

So M-N was online last night and found a blog where a guy asked people to suggest names for his yet unborn baby. He offered a $25 Amazon.com gift card. Over 300 people posted ideas. Then he named the baby something incredibly stupid.

This blog has been visited more than 3000 times in less than a year (it's been around longer than a year, but I just added a counter on 1/30/06). Ok, so probably 1000 of those are me looking at my own posts, and I think the other 2000 are largely split between about 4 people, but still.

I'm not offering anything other than the satisfaction of knowing you played a role in naming a future astronaut/artist/activist/appletreefarmer/adjective. We originally wanted all names with an 'x,' after Malcolm X (but not Malcolm, especially not for the second boy, god forbid we invite Malcolm in the Middle syndrome). But too many boy's names with 'x' rhyme with Paxton, or have that 'ax' sound that won't work for two.

The first boy's name means Peace, which we like.

We have a list of about 6 or 7 names, none of which we're sold on yet. I'll try to post those later.

But for now, offer me suggestions...

Not a movie or book review

Today's my first day back at work in 10 days. It felt like a month. I forgot what time I had to leave to get here on time and ended up here at 7:40 a.m. I usually shoot for 8:15 or so. But then, I'm usually here around 8. I have a real problem with lateness, even when I'm coming to an office where I'm the only one here.

The little dude wasn't happy I was going. He woke up, realized I was in work clothes and started crying.

But now he's supposedly at an art museum (it's free day in SF, every first Tuesday of the month). Meanwhile, I'm getting around to a lunch break at 2:45. That's the problem with the first day back when you work alone. Nothing gets done when you're gone.

In weather, it's been around 60 and sunny here lately. That's so weird. I was walking down the street yesterday thinking, it's January 1st and it feels like June. Meanwhile, huge snow storm in Albuquerque, where we were for Xmas. There was snow on the ground while we were there, but we missed this new storm.

And in sports, let's see, no baseball, I don't watch college football, our local NFL teams didn't make the playoffs, nor did my Dolphins or Packers. So I guess I'm rooting against the Patriots. The Eagles are a good story, maybe I'll root for them. Or the Bears. Or the Saints. How did Kansas City make it? Oh, right, b/c SF beat Denver.

More at 11.

Movie Review: The Quiet American

The Quiet American: Torgo approves

We've watched a lot of movies lately.

I read this Graham Greene book a year or two ago. Sometimes when I read old books where I know a movie has recently come out and I know the actors in it, it's hard for me not to picture the actors and see the book as a movie. Fortunately, Michael Caine seems perfectly cast, as does Brendan Fraser.

Caine is excellent as the older British reporter in early 1950's Vietnam, relying on his young Vietnamese mistress, jaded by the French v. Communist fighting. Fraser plays the seemingly simplistic American, moving in on Caine's girl and challenging his reluctance to take sides.

It's a love triangle, first of all, a murder mystery, next, then a political statement about how the Americans got involved.

This is how I used to think stories were supposed to be written, back when I thought there was a model to follow. Main plot, subplot, subplot, all interconnected and dependent on each other for resolution. It's simple in theory, complex in reality.

The Vietnamese girl, Phuong, needs to be interesting for the story to work. She is, though she's a bit wooden. She wants out of Vietnam, her sister pushed her towards the American, she's seen too many Vietnamese girls with French boyfriends who leave them at the airport. The American is just a means to her desired ends. That's good. I'm glad they didn't have her be in love with Fraser.

Her love for Caine's character is unexplained and difficult to comprehend, but fortunately the subplots subsume that story.

There aren't enough stories about how America first got involved, showing why the French left and why it unwinnable from the start. Of course, the relevance to Iraq is there, though it wasn't when the movie was made. Even without Iraq, it's a good message told in a nicely layered story.

Book Report: Jelly Roll by Kevin Young

Jelly Roll: Torgo approves

One of the things I'm most interested in with poetry is sound. I enjoy poetry where the poet is toying with the elasticity of language, crafting interesting sounds on the page, making art that's both challenging and fun to read (especially, these days, to a toddler).

Kevin Young has that. He reminds me a little of Ethelbert in his use of heavily enjambed lines (in terms of sound), but also his love of love poetry. "Jelly Roll" is always either celebrating a woman or grieving over her loss.

He's most playful with language in "Errata":

Baby, give me just
one more hiss

We must lake it fast
morever

I want to cold you
in my harms

& never get lo...


Most of the poems aren't as Cummings-esque. He pulls in the blues in "Disaster Movie Theme Music" (a poem split by lines):

Standing at your back door
The dogs bark so loud

Knocking on your back door
Till your dog barks so loud

As many times I come here girl
Now I'm not allowed?

--------

Creek done risen
Creek done rose

It ain't the creek that
took off all them clothes.


One of the best poems is "Lyre" (this is the whole poem):

Walking up the hill
from hell, singing

the shadows back--
all them wanting

to be among the living--
at my pants

leg like cockleburrs
or children, the dead

clutched clung

-----

I carried you cross
the coldest reaches

Led you back from that
under I had placed you,

hurt by my hand--what
I couldn't take--

the way I had wounded,
yet went on

-----

When I said I would
not turn to look

I lied. The lyre
in me is strong

enough even the birds
the dead can hear, but how

could I make you? I wanted
at my hand you

listening--instead you
hesitated, wished

to follow
me. Indeed. Now

I know I was merely
barking

at the least noise, that by
a leash you let me

----

Love, it was not that
my back was bare

to you--though it was
that too--nor to see

that face of yours
I already by heart knew--No,

I turned cause dust was
what made me up

& I wanted to see some
of the salt of you--to lick

whatever had helped you not
fall apart when far

forever from me you went


There's playfulness, but also a sophisticated emotional core. Young uses line breaks and run-on sentences to toy with the reader. I love that. But he also has something to say. He's adding to the history of heartbreak poems, a genre that always seem exhausted until a book like this comes along.

Unfortunately, it goes on too long. The poems are sparse and move quickly, but I still don't believe the book needs 190 pages. The same could have been achieved in 150, easily, or 130. Still, when he's on, he's on. And he's on enough to make this a worthwhile read.