Am I Alone, People?

monkey eats popcorn, a photo by gilesbooth on Flickr.

Last week, my son and I ditched one of his after-school activities so that we might get started on our "Summer Must See Movies" list. A ++ parenting, non? As we sat in the darkened theatre and waded through the super-lame previews that kick start most summer (and winter, for that matter) films, it dawned on me that there was only one thing I've always found annoying about the movie- watching experience. Popcorn. Specifically, the amplified sound of popcorn being chewed.

An informal poll of several of my peer-group, however, garnered slightly distressing result. Are you kidding, Francis, was the common refrain? Popcorn is the best part of the going to the movies! You have a thing against popcorn, said another? For real? It was obvious that I was alone in my hatred.

It wasn't the first time, either. I have discovered that there a more than a few areas in which my observations do not jibe with those of the gen pop. Like my use of the term gen pop, for instance. Here are a few more:

- I despise the way magicians dress.

- I think hand sanitizers are pointless.

- Pretzels should never be eaten alone. They need the rest of the Party Mix.

- Every time I see James Cameron I have to supress the urge not to bust the television

- I still enjoy Woody Allen films

- I don't find The Three Stooges funny

Just wanted to let you all know.

Animal Snuff No More

When my husband and I cooked up our offspring, the thing we most looked forward to was introducing them to the classic movies that had formed our childhood. How great is it going to be to see these movies again through their eyes, I thought to myself as I sat down to compile a list for their enjoyment? Mid-way through the making of the list, however, I began to notice a troubling trend: Never Cry Wolf, Bambi, Finding Nemo, To Kill a Mockingbird, Sounder. Are you seeing it? How all are either animal or mother snuff film?

Ask 10 random people about the greatest popular-entertainment-related trauma of their childhoods, and you'll probably find it's an even split between the death of Bambi's mom and the death of Old Yeller. So let me ask you this: whence comes the tradition of heartrending children's classics in which a central character spends an entire book caring for and loving a very special animal, only to have it die in the end? The easy answer would be Disney but blaming them for anything is like shooting fish in a barrel. Sadly, most of these classic have been culled from literature where cherishing, nurturing and killing off an animal is as old as the form itself. Hello? Have you re-read The Yearling, lately? Brutal.

Which is why I decided to reverse the trend with my kids by coming up with a radical concept. For every film aimed at a young audience, I would throw in a documentary. It sounds crazy, I know, but if well chosen, a doc can introduce your kids to film making and life concepts that a fish looking for his mom mom simply cannot. And if you can avoid those docs that have extreme violence and sex as a core them (Duh.) - for which their are legion - you won't believe how enjoyable the experience can be.

Our latest in a long line of Should-We-Let-the-Kids Watch-This? - films is the documentary, Man on a Wire. Directed by James March, the film chronicles the events of the morning of Aug. 7, 1974, when a French daredevil named Philippe Petit stepped into the sky above Lower Manhattan and for almost 45 minutes ambled back and forth on a metal cable strung between the towers of the World Trade Centre. The movie starts with Petit talking about how he skirted security to get into the World Trade Centre in the first place, and then it works backward and forward until the story is complete—right through the nerve-wracking, awe-inspiring moment when Petit steps into the chasm and enchants the world. My son watched this as if he were in a trance and afterwards, we had as deep conversation as you can have with a ten-year-old about everything we had just seen. From the film's theme of pursuing your dreams despite the odds, to the importance of teamwork to why people want to do things like this in the first place. And as an added bonus: no animals were killed in the telling. Brilliant!

N.B. I also highly recommend Spellbound, a fantastic doc about kids participating in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee and Sharkwater. Both excellent doc- primers!

Talking Bout...Pop Music! Talking Bout....Pop Music!

In February of this year, a more innocent time, I embarked upon a strange project. It began with a request from my daughter to change the channel on the radio on our short drive to school to the syndicated pop station that for the purposes of this post must remain nameless. ( It does, however, rhyme with "More gin, Radio!" But, I digress.) Now normally, we would listen to the alternative music station enjoyed by both my son and I. (Sending them off to school bathed in the soothing waters of the Foo Fighters made the day seem easier to face, somehow, you know?) This morning, however, I decided to give in. We'll just listen to her station instead of ours for a few weeks, I explained to my son as he watched horrified as I cranked the dial towards this new pop music world. Let's just listen to it and try to embrace what the young kids are listening to these days, I said, as we sat back and let the soulful sounds of Kesha rape our aural canal.

Do any of you remember what it felt like back in 2004 as you watched George Bush become president? You don't remember seeing and hearing that freight train coming and feeling like there was nothing you could do about it? Well, let me ask you this: can you recall a pre-Black Eyed Peas world? Because it was a glorious time. It was a time when R and B singers weren't allowed to use Auto-Tune as training wheels (Sure, this robot helps me sing. But someday I'll do it all by myself!) and groups like Train didn't seem like the least likely group to put out a song entitled, "Hey, Soul Sister".

When I was a kid, my sister would order compilation albums from the TV. They had names like Knockout! and HITS! HITS! HITS! and we would sit and listen to these for hours. It was how we were introduced to some of the most crap-tastical music of the day. We would consume the popular songs like a bag of penny candy but if we let the record ride buried on there was usually an artist on there that didn't get conventional radio play. Louden Wainright was on one of ours. Nick Drake on the album of a friend. Who are these weirdos, we would say when our friends were around? Only to find ourselves strangely moved to listen to them again when no one else was around. Ah, the familiar push and pull of commerce and art!

It's important to remember this when it feels as if pop music has hit an all time low. Pop music has always been ridiculous and disposable. That's why it's called pop. Culture Club was pop. Pat Boone? Pop. Flock of Seagulls? Same, same. When was the last time you heard "I Ran" and thought, Wow, this song is a deep, deep well? And yet that album sold millions and millions of copies. Pop fades with time. Art endures. That's why we will still be listening to Arcade Fire 50 years from now long after the name of Train has been cursed for the last time.

Try to remember this the next time you climb into the car with the kids and one of them twists the dial towards the local pop station. Maybe I'll hear a hidden gem. Maybe I'll hear I'll hear a gem. It's what I keep telling myself.

FOMO

Mister Rogers, a photo by glindsay65 on Flickr.

There other day, I was approached by a friend who let me know that she was giving up on Facebook. The reason? She felt that reading other people's posts, looking at pictures on other people's walls, made her feel like she was missing out on something. You’re home alone but watching your friends' status updates tell of a great party happening somewhere else. You are aware of more parties than ever before and like gym memberships, adding Bergman movies to your Netflix queue and piling up unread copies of the New Yorker, watching these feeds gives you a sense that you’re not participating and missing out on something.

The feeling she was experiencing has a name and it is FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and many critics of the inter-web believe it will ultimately be the undoing of most social media. But my question is this: hasn't it always been thus? Doesn't this ring of hand-wringing of both the personal and the cultural variety?

Radar equipment companies sell radar equipment to the police as well as to the general public. Clorox is one of the world’s worst polluters of water but they also own Brita who make filters to get the bad stuff out of the water again. Lawyers create mazes that you have to hire a lawyer to escape. Facebook and Twitter create FOMO and also cure it.

Do you see where I am going with this?

Despite the occasional sense that everyone is popping bottles of champagne on city rooftops while I watch Modern Family reruns in my yoga pants, I still love participating in social media. And, believe it or not, seeing what I’m “missing” has shaped how I decide to spend my time. It has reminded me to fill my life with stuff that makes me feel like there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. If I feel like I’m missing out, I see it as a flag that I’m unhappy about something else, an indicator that I need to invest some time in finding my own fun, or a reminder to stay in the moment — even if the moment is just enjoying my friend's photos photos on Facebook!

There can be true meaning in social media—real connections, real friendships, devotion, humor, sacrifice, joy, depth, love. And filling your life with a sense of constant craving and desire (also called defilement, affliction) will make you feel like a slave. Is what we are looking for when we log on? No. What we are looking for is connection and you can find it on the interweb is you look in the right places. It's in the earnest posts of friends who've lost loved ones, in the pictures of their dogs dressed up like movie stars and the heartfelt bragging of their children's accomplishments. It is even in this speech that I found of Mr. Rogers accepting an Emmy. Read this and ask me if the interweb can be so bad when there is this type of stuff to be found on it:

mister rogers went onstage to accept a lifetime acheivement award — and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "all of us have special ones who have loved us into being. would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. ten seconds of silence."

and then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, "i'll watch the time." there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that mister rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. and so they did. one second, two seconds, seven seconds — and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. and mister rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly "may god be with you," to all his vanquished children.

First Time Last

The Wilrik, a photo by Donald Lee Pardue on Flickr.

The other night I was laying in bed coasting through the channels when I happened upon the film, Requiem for a Dream. My husband is a huge fan of its director -Darren Aronofsky- and he and I had watched it together several years ago. I vividly remember sitting through the entire thing and turning to my husband immediately afterwards and telling him - nay, pronouncing! - with all sincerity, that I was never going to watch that film again. Ever.

For those of you unfamiliar with the film when it was released, Requiem For A Dream was about a lot of things: addiction, exploitation, destitution, loneliness, institutional corruption, the toxins of the media and our get-rich-quick culture, the false promises of the American Dream. Mainly, though, it was about visceral experience and Aronofsky provoked the audience in a visual way to feel these themes with the characters rather than have us sit back comfortably as the characters slowly circled the drain. That's why when Ellen Burstyn's character started to buzz out on pain pills, you started to feel like you were doing the same. When her drug addicted son (Jared Leto) started riding the heroin train, you felt like you were too. Fun times, huh? It was as powerful an anti-drug movie as I had ever seen and probably ever will since. And guess what I learned? I didn't like feeling like a crackhead and never wanted to be in a place where I had to turn tricks to get a fix. Lesson learned, Mr. Aronofsky. Success!

There are definitely films that I will love and cherish forever but there are also those that handily fit into the category described above: first time last. Sometimes, however, I would like to meld the two. I have decided that the best way for this to happen would be to receive the full Lacuna Inc. treatment —that's when a total stranger could with the touch of a "forgetting pen device" wipe away the memory of having seen a certain movie. Then I'd watch Hitchcock’s Psycho again for the first time. And Rushmore. And all of the Godfather movies. I just want a chance to spend an evening getting really invested in the Corleone family. Or watch Bill Murray sink to the bottom of that pool in the middle of his twin's birthday party and feel my heart break. Or watch Janet Leigh and wonder just what she is going to do with all that money. And when she meets Anthony Perkins, I want to sit through that whole awkward, kind of sweet conversation they have over sandwiches without knowing that the wig Norman’s about to put on his head is made of human hair, and not know just where he might have plucked that hair from…

Wouldn't that be nice?

Done, Dammit!

Here's a little something I've been crapping out for the past two years. I finished it yesterday. I had been thinking about it for several years before I started it. Started it. Stopped it. Loved it.Hated it. Been indifferent to it. Now it's done and I feel.....weird.

I'm sure I'll get over it.

Feeling....Groovy? Not So Much.

Sleeping in the Praha center, a photo by mihailokg on Flickr.

Nothing makes you feel like you are 100 years old like the following:

1) Falling asleep in front of the television at 9:30 PM. On a Saturday. Before your eight year-old does.

2) Buying a bottle of Crown Royal. For the bag.

3) Complaining to your kids about the size of the speed bumps in a traffic calming zone.

4) Using the word "Cripes". Or "Trousers". Or "Groovy", for that matter.

5) When your body wants exercise but your brain says stay home and read the paper.

6) When you buy something with the Heart Smart label at the supermarket and it gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling.

7) When you consider walking and talking multi-tasking.

8) You get teary listening to the national anthem.

9) You are using a duvet in May 'cause it's chilly in here, don't you find?

Anything to add, intraweb?