July 24th 2011

Willy Wonka:
But Charlie, don't forgot what happened to the man who suddenly got every thing he always wanted.

Charlie:
What happened?

Willy Wonka:
He lived happily ever after.

Things We Didn't Say

I lean toward logic which means that math stuff comes easy enough to me. However, that does not make me a fan. I rarely do math just for fun.

I began this blog in April 2007. Today, April 07, 2011, I take a quick tally and I've posted here 101 times in the last four years. An average of two posts a month.

But there are also 95 wanna-be posts behind the scenes that only got as far as draft status. So I've written here 196 times. This makes my rate of publication about 50% and puts me up against the glass is half full or the glass is half empty debate.

I feel bad when a long time passes between my posts. I love this blog. I'm so grateful. Yet my posting frequency might indicate otherwise. I feel like defending myself here. But the dates speak for themselves.

I look back at some of the titles and topics of the unpublished 'posts' and feel some grief and wonder:

Breaking the Spell

Missing the Point

Is it 'A Wonderful Life?'

Do yourself a favor

Blog-reader Worthiness Test

Outercourse

Don't do me any favors

Barbie-colored Glasses

Some drafts in my blog are early versions of pieces that did eventually get posted. But there are many that stand alone and I can't figure out why they remain incomplete and unseen. Failed attempts. Maybe I'm too hard on myself.

I wonder if I were a sculptor or potter, would my unfinished pieces feel like failures in the same way that my unfinished writings feel? I imagine myself walking into my brightly lit pottery studio filled with the tools of my trade, the raw material, many pieces of my work in varying states of evolution and feeling good. Surrounded by living examples of my creative energy, complete or not. Celebrating each stage of development.

Why does writing feel different? I'm not sure. I'm not sure my writing has ever felt like art, exactly. I can make a successful argument for it but my heart would not be in it. My writing has had it's moments of creative energy but I rarely think of it as an artist expression.

Wonder swirls.

I do know that when I look upon a painting or carving or sculpture, I'm probably not likely to dismiss it by thinking, "Oh, he's just venting there. Off on a rant." Placing judgement on it with, "What an angry bitch."

I am able to feel whether I'm drawn to someones painting, drawing, clay piece, whether the energy pulls me in. Or not. But I likely will not be able to proclaim whether said artistic expression is just the artist whining about this or that.

Writing, in whatever form, poetry, song lyrics, journal entries or murder mysteries, speaks. Not always directly, but literally. It talks to you in a more specific fashion than some other art forms. You may be able to feel the emotion or energy behind a drawing or photograph but it usually will not say directly something like "My heart dances in the rain."

Now if you look upon a beautiful watercolor painting of a small girl splashing in a puddle wearing her muddy yellow Wellingtons, arms stretched wide in her shiny, wet red slicker, face turned up to receive the rain, you might fairly infer that the painter's heart indeed dances in the rain. But you might also fairly infer that the painter celebrates the spirit of childhood. Or that she has a daughter who jumps in puddles. Or that he thinks hotels in the Puget Sound area might be most likely to buy paintings that portray rain in a positive light. But you probably can't say for sure one way or another.

Taking in someones writing can also be guess work, I suppose. Trying to read into what you're reading. But somehow writing feels more vulnerable than other creative endeavors. When I look back at some of those drafts waiting to grow up, I cringe. Afraid to show them the light of day. Too honest. Too wide open. Too scary. Too angry and too sad.

Too much.

Let Your Heart Be Light

For some reason, I feel defensive of the Spirit of Christmas this year. Maybe also disillusioned and disappointed. Before I wrote this post, I wondered why.

There was a blog post at work recently referring to Santa, who visited some of our branches. The photo with the post was tagged with the identity of the individual who dressed up as Santa. A Christmas Spirit-minded staff member suggested in comment that there must be some mistake about someone having dressed up as the jolly elf and that surely this was the real Santa.

My mind began to meander along a Santa path.
I thought of adding a comment, some quick clever quip.
I was leaning toward some cutesy take-off on "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

I had a vague familiarity with the Yes, Virginia story: a young girl sends a letter to a newspaper asking if Santa Claus is real. But that was really all I knew about it.

I wasn't even sure if it was an actual event or if it was some old Christmas After-School special that missed the Yakima television stations when I was growing up.

I typed 'Yes Virginia' into Google and clicked the fourth link down.

Even with just a quick scan, my eyes began to water.

According to newseum.com, in 1897 an eight year old girl, named Virginia, wrote a letter to the New York Sun:

Dear Editor: I am 8 years old.

Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun it's so.'

Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon

Newsman Francis Pharcellus Church's response begins:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.

This was in 1897, mind you. Not 1987, 1997 or 2007. I'm amazed at the December 2010 applicability this holds. If 1897 was a skeptical age, what are we now?

I had not read this newspaper editorial before. What a shame. I immediately printed up a few copies. I taped one to the door of my 'office.' I placed one on the counter with the half dozen Christmas cards sent to my department from other departments. I sat wishing I had more time before Christmas so I could print up many copies and send them out as my Christmas 'letter.'

I won't include the complete text here, although it is not long. I trust you to click there now and read it in its entirety. http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/ (Then, of course, you know... come right back and finish reading here when you're done.)

The parts that resonated most within me:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

Where did we lose our way, People? Humanity?

Certainly we were not created for our current, and apparently long held adoration and celebration of all things edgy, negative, fast-paced, confrontational, adversarial, skeptical, cut throat, violent, 'get them before they get me,' empty, distrustful existence that we live and breathe and market and support and encourage and exalt and aspire to and revere and buy into with our last copper cent.

We bow to The God of Cruelty, Cunning and Cleverness.

(The poet Rumi said; Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.)

We would never dare admit that we do not, in fact, know it all. That our strong and long held opinions and life philosophy, might be useless and arrogant and utter nonsense.

We are addicted to news. Bad news.

We live in a culture that thrives and celebrates the downfall of others.

We scour the celebrity rags in hopes that the 'stars' of our small minded culture have stumbled and crumbled socially, emotionally, physically.

We relish and willingly wallow in the energy of ego and avarice.

We strive to out-do the neighbors over the fence in what ever area we feel most materially insecure.

We seek to beat the car next to us off the line when the light turns green.

We grumble and grouse when those around us shine and succeed.

We resent and we covet and we begrudge.

And we stoop to our lowest self, as opposed to soaring to our highest truth.

We fear vulnerability, that we'll be revealed as frauds. And rightly so, as we cannot muster the courage to be authentic and true and wide open. Even within, or perhaps especially within our most intimate of relationships.

How moronic is it that over one hundred years after these apt observations were pointed out to Virginia, we are even more guilty in our small mindedness, in our refusal to see, to scoop up, to celebrate, to shout the truth?

I don't know about you, but to quote Ben Stone from Family Stone: "I'm ashamed of all of you. Even you." We are all complicit. We all participate and support, if in no other way, than in our refusal to refuse. When will we learn? When will we stop? When will we finally see that our constrictive and controlling cultural status quo no longer serves our collective spirit? It does not serve you. It does not serve me. When do we say 'enough?'

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Let your heart be light. Be light! Be Santa! Be Belief. Be an example. Be filled with Faith and Poetry and Romance. Be Magic this Christmas. This next year, Be Santa, Santa, Santa! Every single day.

Grow and Expand in your humility. Your bewilderment. Your willingness and honesty.

Forsake edgy and dark and hate-based adversarial minded energy, from within and from with out. It comes only from a place of fear!

Instead Rejoice!.

Repeat the sounding JOY!

Do the best thing for our weary spirit: Let your heart be light!

THINK SNOW...Movies

I love movies. I love snow.


Snow movies might not be a universally recognized movie genre but universal recognition is over-rated.

The movie genres used at the library system where I work are:
For the Youngest (Sesame Street)
Family (Toy Story, Big)
Comedy (That Thing You Do, Splash, Turner & Hooch, Money Pit)
Drama (Forrest Gump, Cast Away)
Action (Apollo 13, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan)
Suspense (Angels & Demons, Da Vinci Code)
Sci-fi (The Green Mile, City of Ember)
Horror (The 'burbs, Ladykillers, okay maybe not 'HORROR' but horrible for sure!)
Anime (Your guess is at least as good as mine, here....)
Special Interest (Concert for George, seriously go look it up. He plays one of the Mounties!)

I recently participated in an Intervention which took the form of a Tom Hanks marathon. A bit of deprogramming for the sake of the greater good, and in retrospect I have this to say:
Fuckin' Hanks, Baby!

Okay, way off track there.

Back to Snow Movies. Movies we seem drawn to around the holidays and through the winter months primarily because of serious snow seduction. (Not including out-right Christmas flicks.)


Here's my list:

• Family Stone
• Snowball Express
• Grumpy Old Men

Barbie's Honorable Mentions:

• New in Town
• Mystery, Alaska
• Day After Tomorrow
• Dr. Zhivago
• Bridget Jones
• Cold Mountain

Also Groundhog Day and Snow Dogs (Yes, yes, I know. Shut up.)

I also love the snow scenes in the Harry Potter movies. I wish there were more.

And even though I don't want to hear about your edgy, horror snow favorites, I'll say it:
The Shining. I have erased all the dark disturbing stuff from my mental data banks but I do recall loving the snow.

Now, tell me your favorite SNOW Movies! This is important stuff, who knows what I might be missing?

Here's the deal, if I had a magic wand...

...I'd wave it over those people who do not put up Christmas lights at Christmas time.

Not that I'd smite them or anything. I have no hard feelings or any ill-will. Live and let live is my motto, (or at least it was once a long time ago for about five minutes).

If you do not put Christmas lights up, that's fine. Suit yourself. But if I had a magic wand, I'd wave it over your Grinchy green head and make it so that you could not see the Christmas lights of others. None!

You would drive, as usual, along your regularly beaten path: To work, to the grocery store, to Walmart, to the strip club off you go, but each house you pass would be the same dark, unfriendly houses they are the other eleven months of the year. You would not get to leech Christmas Spirit from others.

If on the other mittened hand, you are not too cool to show some sweet, shiny, twinkly holiday cheer to anyone who happens down your Santa Claus lane then (and only then) you would get to fully soak up and enjoy all the Christmas lights of those generous souls around you.

This 'too cool' thing is driving me crazy and you'll be hearing from me on this again soon.

Spin Potter: The rest of the story

This post is part TWO of Don't Make Eye Contact. (See previous post below.)





So I decided I could take "I'm going to see it again," in more than one way.


My first instinct was "Well, you're not going to go see it a second time if you HATED it." Right? Too much information already.


But I decided that this doesn't necessarily mean she loved it. It just means she probably didn't hate it. I can live with that. Look at me embracing ambiguity.


I choose to believe that she wasn't exactly sure what she thought of it. Close one.





I went to see HP and the DHs Part One last Sunday.





After an exclusive brunch of biscuits, granola parfaits, crab omelet, some form of potatoes and a mango Mimosa I went to see HP.





I tried to go in without expectation of any sort. I've read the book once. Listened to it, probably three or four times. Discussed the intricate plot twists and therapy inducing turns countless times.





As with all HP movies I knew it would, could never contain it all. There is no way to include every thing. It's too bad but it's true.


When I left the theater after about half of the credits, I wasn't sure how I felt. I realized that I may be in exactly the same boat as my friend at work. I may need to see it again to really know what I think, how I feel.


But you know me, I'm happy to tell you what I think until then.





I didn't hate it.


It felt like a lot to take in.


I was not overly distracted by the places where it deviates from the written version.


There were some scenes and portrayals that I loved.


And at least two scenes that caused eye-rolling and deep groaning.


But mostly I didn't hate it.





I know this might not sound like a rave, but don't be so sure. I was actually quite impressed with how loyal the script and the director seem to cling to the book. I'm grateful. It must be easy to warp and twist and morph and cave purely for the sake of ticket sales. I didn't see this. Good for you, millionaire movie maker types.





The movie is about magic folk but more than once I remember thinking, why aren't they 'magicking' that glass of water or chandelier bomb. But it was fleeting and not overly disappointing. Mildly, but not overly.





I like this movie. I think. I'll need to see it again to be sure. I want to take it in.





One thing is sure. In spite of the fact that it is filled with characters capable of magic, this movie is not magical. It just isn't.





But to be fair neither was


C of S,


P of A,


G of F,


O of the Ph


and H-B P.





They vary in their quality of story telling. Each movie. Their deviation from the books, or not. Their trueness to the characters, or not.


But the only one that was truly magical was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It will never be the same. HP virginity. Sorcerer's Stone.

The Dursley's, the Hogwart's Express, Hagrid's hut, Dumbledore's beard, the Griffindor commons room, the Quiddich field. It was never again, pure and untainted after SS.

That movie was magical in a way I've never felt before or since. And I'm not optimistic about the future.

Was this the way people felt when they first saw The Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind?


Well wait a minute, I did go see Star Wars A New Hope seven times in the theater so maybe lightening does strike twice.

Don't make eye contact!

HP Spoiler Alert!

Can I tell you that there is a traffic jam of topics going on in my head? It's bumper to bumper but no one is getting any where. And every vehicle is honking its horn.

The new Harry Potter came out about ten days ago. I knew I wouldn't go see it the first day. I don't think I've ever gone to see a 'big' movie on its first day.
The risk with said strategy and this HP movie was that I'd potentially hear something before I did go see it. I took precautions. Evasive maneuvers, as needed.

I wanted no preconceptions. None good and none bad. Each a curse in its own way.
You hear someone mention that they weren't crazy about a movie and you walk in skeptical, anticipating disappointment and probably about to get it.
You hear someone mention that they really like a movie and you walk in with expectations that might not be met.
I find this second curse worse than the first, if I have to choose.

I work for a library system. Harry Potter is big in Libraryland. There are a slew of followers in the building where I work. For the last ten days, I haven't been able to look them in the eye. I've actually put my hands up on either side of my face like the blinders on a horse as I walked past so I would see no irritation nor exaltation in their eyes.

Because people at work refused to wear signs indicating whether they've seen the new movie or not, I had to be pro-active.
"Have you seen it yet?" I call out at the first sight of someone heading toward me in the hall.
If the answer is 'No,' we're probably all good unless they decide that I need to hear what they've heard from their thirteen year old nephew. To which I avert my eyes and raise my hand, which is the Unofficial American Sign Language sign for Shut up about Harry Potter movie reviews! This was relatively effective.
If the answer is Yes, I go into sensory lock down. "Don't say anything!" I implore. "Not good or bad. Don't tell me. Don't look at me!" I hold my hands up to my face and shun their scowl of bewilderment. For the most part this was enough.

The last HP movie viewer I came across just before Thanksgiving holiday weekend is generally a nice person. I like her. I walked around the corner without my guard up, mind elsewhere, when I ran right into her.
"Hi Barbie."
"HAVE YOU SEEN IT?" A little panicked.
"Yes," she started.
I covered my face and quickened my pace as I begged:
"DON'T SAY ANYTHING GOOD OR BAD. DO NOT SAY ANYTHING!"
She said "Okay, okay I won't say anything."
Whew, disaster averted.
And because I really do enjoy talking to her and am grateful for her respect of my wishes I tell her "By this time next week, I will probably have seen it. We'll talk about it then okay?"
"Okay," she chuckles. Then just when I think I'm in the clear she says "Plus I'm going to go see it again anyway."

What was it the Wicked Witch of the West said after she was hit with water......?
"I'm melting, melting. Melting."