Some thoughts on the film Gone Girl

"There's a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her."*

    The David Fincher directed film Gone Girl feels incredibly icy and sleek. Based upon the novel of the same name, the story begins with the disappearance of a beautiful blond wife from her home in middle America. Of course, then the husband becomes the primary suspect. There are signs of a struggle and a massive amount of blood spilled and cleaned up but no body. And as the husband, Nick, is thrown through the paces of both sheepish innocence and assumed suspicion, we begin to learn that the picture-perfect marriage was not quite thus at all or ever. There are clues that point towards veiled - and not quite so veiled - malice and maybe some signs of domestic violence, perhaps callous cheating, and the wife, Amy, might have been pregnant when she vanished. It all makes for a suspenseful procedural. Especially in Fincher's hands - just see the director's other polished and glassy efforts including Zodiac and Seven. 
     But there is even more to this story than just the aforementioned. There is a twist - a big twist - and I will attempt mightily to avoid spilling it here. But be warned: you might be able to guess at that secret plot point by reading further.
     I can say that Amy, the girl who is gone, has a history. A sordid history of a malevolent nature. And it is dredged up as the searchers exhaustively poke through the woods, fields, trash heaps, and lakes within and surrounding the small town from which she has vanished - without real trace as to where she is now and if she is still alive. But there is evidence of a different kind in Amy's past, and I had to keep reminding myself that the novel and the film's script were written by a woman over and over again as I watched the narrative flex and stretch beyond all recognition of reality.
    So it goes like this: Amy has a history of sociopathic behaviors - making up rape and physical and emotional abuse claims to punish the various men in her life. It's disturbing on many levels, and I know I am not the only one who got a strange sensation from this story's details. I can't help but think play with a few ideas about how this reads to me. It's just infinitely interesting to consider, but I certainly can't say that this was at all an intention of those writing the script or filming the movie. Humor me. To my specifically wired brain, Gone Girl the film reads almost like a screeching response to the current swell of voices speaking out against the gendered/sexualized violence inherent in our misogynistic culture. As the number of those survivors and allies against sexual and domestic violence grows and their voices increase in volume, Amy's outright lying and manipulation surrounding these types of acts can almost sound like an antifeminist rant - against those who decry misogyny and its innumerable attributes. To me, it reads like a knee-jerk backlash comment that could've come from those who benefit most from and buy into misogyny (even when they are not consciously aware of it). Amy's fabrications are their worst nightmare come to life, i.e. a woman making up claims of sexual and domestic violence to punish "innocent" men. It's another example of a commonly-employed excuse this culture pushes to denounce and silence those who come forward to critique it. Because there was once a woman who lied, all your voices - survivors and allies alike - are questionable and, thus, discredited. 
     It is a questionable reading of this film, to be sure. But I do know I am not the only one who had that prickly haired feeling when Amy's history and nature of malicious and vengeful acts was revealed. It sounds a lot like something I have heard so many, many times before.



"What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What have we done to each other? What will we do?"*



*dialogue from the film

Review of the film Martha Marcy May Marlene

 "I don't blame you for not trusting people."*

    Martha has every right to not trust anyone. But the real issue is she is also questioning whether she can trust herself. And this latter mistrust is so much more terrifying than the first could ever be. The things she remembers, did they really happen the way her memory tells her they did? And if she can't trust her memories, then can she be sure that any experience now is real as well? It all seems dreamy - hazy - and the smallest detail of the present will send her mind spinning backwards - so that it can be hard to distinguish where she is, who she is with, and what is truly occurring in this moment.
    In the film Martha Marcy May Marlene, the plot drifts, and sometimes leaps, from the present to the past with little or no cue. And viewers slowly are immersed in the mind-space of the title character, a young woman who ran from a troubled childhood to a place she thought would give her comfort and safety. Yet, that place, a small, isolated upstate farm that may or not be a misanthropic cult run by a scarily charismatic and seductive male leader, reveals itself as something Martha must run away from as well. But whether she has truly escaped is open to interpretation throughout the narrative.

"Do you ever have that feeling where you can't tell if something is a memory or something you dreamed?"*

     Having sought refuge with her older, estranged sister in a huge, lake-side mansion, Martha wanders through the riffing of her mind like a sleep-walker - unsure of where that thin line between dream and reality exists. There are beautiful moments from the farm - in which Martha works side by side with the other women in the fields, listens to a young man strum a guitar and hum through the lines of an improvised song, and smells the bald head of a newborn baby. And there are frightening moments - of strange, misogynistic rituals, drugged herbal teas and foggy periods of forgetfulness mixed with searing pain, and whispered, veiled threats and actual acts of violence. But there enters for Martha that mistrust again, of herself, of what her mind is telling her happened, and if that could possibly have been true. 
    A slow and terrifyingly realistic film, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a superb psychological thriller featuring amazing performances. And images that sear on the brain with eerie beauty. It all feels like it could have happened - or maybe not at all.

*dialogue from the film

Review of the novel The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

    "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge."*

     If you can come up with a more gripping first sentence, tell me, because I can't find one. I am quite biased, true, since I know the rest of the tale. I don't care; it's a stellar beginning to a book I could just sit with all day and flip through, marveling at the dazzling strands of story/web that Atwood spins so skillfully. 
     And the many threads of this tale - be they elements of science fiction, family relations, the nature of war - pull a reader in slowly, without warning as s/he navigates the layers: The narrative of Iris Chase Griffin and her sister, Laura, is only the beginning. Set against the historical backdrop of the last century, these two daughters of a once rich and influential Ontario family are also the subjects of much ridicule and suspicion. And there are so many dimensions that are pieced out, luring the reader to continue - fragments and hints. As one begins to map out the mystery surrounding Laura's death with the details that the now elderly and confessional Iris wishes to divulge, there is a sense of great depth and breadth to the novel. Atwood may be telling a very specific fictional tale, but there is also truth residing within - about the nature of family, friendships, grudges, overwhelming sadness and love. 



*Excerpt from the novel

Love for the graphic novel The Arrival by Shaun Tan

     I can barely imagine what it would be like to navigate a new environment where I could not speak the common language and communicate with others. Because in my reality, even when I have been in countries, I can always revert to English. It can so easily be your only language - it's relatively simple in most foreign places to tell someone of that nation that you don't speak their language, only English. It's a true privilege to be able to speak this world-dominating language. 
     Along this line of thought, images can say so many innumerable, infinitely diverse things - think a picture can speak a thousand words. And they can be employed to voice something simply and across the so often thorny, tricky barriers of language. A gorgeous image's ability to be evocative is indeterminable. And an image's ability to transcend what seems fundamentally different and alien renders it, at times, much more powerful than words in any given language. 
     This power is what makes Shaun Tan's graphic novel The Arrival so extraordinary. It is a tale told only in images - there are no words written on any of the pages. This brings those who pick up the book into league with the protagonist, a man who - in a true worldly story - has come to the decision to journey far from home. He is sailing to a distant foreign land in order to begin constructing a better life for the family he left behind. He does not speak the language of the new land he has arrived in. And he is thrown immediately into a crowded, busy environment full of alien sights and sounds, populated by such various people, all with whom he cannot communicate in a common spoken language. So he learns to use simple drawn images to voice his many questions and needs to those who take the time to attempt conversing with him. And slowly this unnamed man begins gaining traction in the slippery foreign society in which he is establishing a new life.
     The story is simple and common in our increasingly fluid society. It is full of recognizable themes. Yet it also has such complexity and such layers - think about how there are still much-debated wars over borders between countries and nation-states all throughout the world. And media storms over the legitimacy of refugee claims and immigrant status within our own country. There are battles fought on state level about the cultural acceptance of foreign languages being spoken in certain settings, such as schools and other institutions. There are so many obstacles that we have fabricated that vastly distance us from other people - those we have deemed foreign and fundamentally different from us.  
     It's my aim to see more of the commonality between myself and others. This is a constant, uphill process. And it is important to always remember, while undertaking this course of action, that discovering a commonality does not mean I immediately understand someone else. A similar circumstance or factor is only part of the context of that other person. Based on that, I should not fool myself into believing I have a complete blueprint for who that person is. Instead, commonalities should be seen as building blocks on which to begin constructing further awareness. Like simple pictures which can be infinitely added to. 
     Perhaps what I've pulled from this graphic novel is too granola-ish, too much peace-loving nonsense. I've been accused of that before. But what's wrong with thinking this way? Why is it a bad thing to decipher great possibility in different forms of expression? I believe it leaves a lot to the potential of each individual as they bring their own contextual lens to something, allowing everyone their own interpretation. That should be exciting, not scary, right?
     At some point in our personal family lineages someone left the old country for the new, to pave the way for what they hoped would be better lives. We all have some ties to immigration, in one way or another. It's silly to deny it and pretend that those who aim to seek out asylum and hope in our country nowadays are so different from our ancestors - wherever they may have traveled from. We should trace our histories as we look at these people and remember always that there are foundations for understanding. They are present at the many intersections between their narratives and our own.

Adoration for the anthology Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness

In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.*
                                            -Bertolt Brecht

     Extremity - that which pushes us to the edge of experience - is a universal touchstone. And upon it, those who once believed they suffered alone through their tortures can find innumerable company. It is what joins "them" and "us." We must speak our experiences, our pain, the hurt that endeavors to isolate each of us from one another. This is that which has a common language, if only we attempt to voice it to someone, anyone else. Think on those things that make you want to laugh, shout, rejoice, wail - that which causes you to truly feel beyond the usual, the mundane, the everyday. Those are what we should share. Those are the links of commonality between us despite any distances of geography, culture, creed, or time.   
     An anthology that attempts to bear testament to the extreme of human experience and endurance, Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness was edited by the esteemed poet Carolyn Forche. The heavy volume draws from other noted poets throughout the former century, across a broad spectrum of tumultuous human rights events - war, torture, exile, repression - from the Armenian genocide to World War II to Tiananmen Square. It certainly doesn't cover everything that it could and should, and that is my only qualm with the anthology - but save that for the second volume, which is sure to come. Here, the collected works of these poets are each unique in detail and voice. Yet there is a connecting harmony running through every one that is, at first, faint and gentle. But it builds as a reader ventures farther within, gathering strength, creating a familiar rhythm that deeply resonates. And it lingers, continuing to sing - erasing that which has always seemed insurmountable. So that we can look upon one another with some bit of recognition, no matter the superficial differences present. That should stay at the forefront of every individual's mind after finishing Against Forgetting. Take the title as a motto, a creed, and a purpose to carry with as you move through this vast and varied world.

     

WHAT HAPPENS

It has happened
and it goes on happening 
and will happen again
if nothing happens to stop it

The innocent know nothing
because they are too innocent
and the guilty know nothing
because they are too guilty

The poor do not notice 
because they are too poor
and the rich do not notice 
because they are too rich

The stupid shrug their shoulders
because they are too stupid
and the clever shrug their shoulders
because they are too clever.

The young do not care 
because they are too young
and the old do not care
because they are too old

That is why nothing happens
to stop it
and that is why it has happened
and goes on happening and will happen again

-Written by Tadeusz Rozewicz
(Translated by Robert A. Maguire and Magnus Jan Krynski)






*Excerpt from the poem Motto by Bertolt Brecht as quoted in the anthology.

Review of the film The Loneliest Planet

“Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world through the indications of our sensory organs.” 
                                   - Sigmund Freud
                                    The Interpretation of Dreams

     The Loneliest Planet is a film that lives in the wordless exchanges between its characters. And there are innumerable interactions that occur without any one speaking at all. The body conveys so much - the gentle tilting of a head, the brushing together of arms, the sharp narrowing of the eyes, the sudden entire body jerk of fright - we can recognize significance, and there are things that never need be voiced to be understood. 
      Sometimes this is a knowledge - a sneaking suspicion - that we are not even fully aware we possess until later. We are so caught up in the moment that our brains highlight some things, what seems essential, and submerge others. These hidden pieces of information may not be above that line of full consciousness, but they are there. And they will remain in the unconscious until that quicksilver second of recognition. Then we are left wondering how we had not fully realized their magnitude until now.
     This film unyieldingly explores a short few days in a relationship, between a young man and a young woman. They are intimate and in love - infatuated? - with each other and engaged to be married. They are on a trekking adventure through the country of Georgia, which is a greatly mountainous land lying beneath the great northern bulk of Russia and just above the desert coastal countries of the Middle East. The wilderness of foothills and valleys of these Caucasus Mountains are astonishing in beauty. But there is a foreboding nature to them as well - it is so quiet and desolate. There are moments when the couple's hired native guide suddenly puts up a hand to silence and halt them, and the air is undeniably impregnated with a sense of danger. As if someone is following them, unseen but uncomfortably close behind with sinister motives. But then they begin hiking again, and the young pair is laughing and talking as if nothing is astir except the mountain breeze and the cold water of the rocky valley creeks. We almost forget.
     Then that thing happens, the one we've been expecting. And it is still surprising and shocking, and it changes everything. And the event lasts less than three minutes. But its significance is without question - these two characters, this couple who had seemed so compatible and nakedly in love, may not be exactly who the other was so certain of. Again, there is not much dialogue, yet it is overwhelming to watch their faces in the moments and hours after, as they continue their trek. And the new ways in which they interact with each other and their guide. 
     There are no words to adequately describe what has occurred, what has changed, but there is visible reconsidering and realization creeping through every expression, gesture, and interaction. All around them, the vastness and ancientness of the mountains extend to every horizon. Rendered tiny and vulnerable by those heights and depths, the three walk towards the night that awaits them, and the two foreigners are unsure of what it will bring.
     A quiet meditation of a film, The Loneliest Planet offers what seems a simple story. But there is also a profound psychological narrative at play throughout. How well can we know each other? How knowable are we to others? To ourselves even? And what happens when we are caught violently off guard - and what transpires is so far from anything we could have ever imagined? What becomes of us? And, perhaps, we also ask ourselves in silent moments of naked vulnerability, was it really so unimaginable after all? Maybe there was evidence all along, evidence that we overlooked, submerged beneath the surface of our consciousness. We were just so caught up in the story that we were telling ourselves - a far simpler tale than the truth suddenly laid bare.

Review of the documentary film Life Itself

     In 1999, the popular film critic and media personality Roger Ebert told his wife, Chaz, of something he had decided that became integral to his future life and character. This proclamation came shortly after the death of his contentious rival/colleague and dear friend, Gene Siskel. The latter man had suffered very privately from terminal brain cancer, which Ebert had been kept unaware of until the last possible moment. Ebert and his wife were planning on going to visit Siskel in the hospital on a Monday morning when he died the Saturday afternoon before. The surviving member of Siskel & Ebert & The Movies was devastated, not only by the loss of his friend, but also by the secrecy surrounding the terminal nature of Siskel's condition. 
     After a short while spent quietly processing, Ebert stated to Chaz that - if he ever fell ill in a similar fashion - he would never want to hide his condition, especially not from the people he loved. So a few years after his thyroid cancer diagnosis along with numerous surgeries and stays in the hospital and rehab, Ebert invited documentarian Steve James into his life to create a film to that built off his memoir by the same name. Steve James is the noted filmmaker of Hoop Dreams, which Ebert had declared was the greatest movie of the 1990s. Ebert's sincere and widely-heard accolades of that documentary helped launched it and its director into international fame and esteem. Despite this, the biographical film that emerges from James, with Ebert's enthusiastic cooperation, is not simply and purely exultation of the writer. It is true that James has great respect for Ebert and that shows throughout the film. This is most evident in how multi-layered the portrait of the man becomes as the director takes great swaths of time, life events, friend and family interviews, and moments with Ebert himself. There are passages narrated by the man's voice, which had been lost due to the invasive cancer surgeries, and they are handled with the grace of poetry. One can gather from the words why the writer has always been so well received. There are other pieces that are not always cheery - Ebert has been described as someone who was ostentatiously stubborn and petulant, as well as vain. James finds a lovely balance among the many sections of the man's life that he uses to to construct the film. The overall picture is that of a real man - and that is why Ebert would have approved. 
     Watching the man and his wife, Chaz, interact, one can view plainly how much the two complemented each other. And how much love lived between them. Ebert may have been pig-headed at times, but he truly enjoyed other people. The snippets of the film that give us other's stories and recollections of Ebert prove so interesting for this reason. A former producer or colleague may not have completely positive things to say about their interactions with the late writer, but each always has at least one glowing fragment to give. And as they add up, it is becomes clear that there is continual illustration of how he unquestionably impacted those who were around him. He was not a man that was easily forgotten as he moved in and out of other people's lives.  
     Roger Ebert loved movies so sincerely, and that was also abundantly clear throughout his life and those parts shown in the film. With the clout he gained from all his years and accolades as a writer and television personality, he pushed for the further accessibility of films. His writing about movies aimed for accessibility as well. As a young adolescent, I used to read Ebert's reviews with reverence and awe at his ability to compress so much information and so many lofty ideas about a particular film into such a tight, controlled space. He was a great writer. And a great champion of the movie industry - small and large. 
     His writing and every movie review he ever issued are collected at rogerebert.com. There one will find a diverse collection of new and old writers publishing reviews and op-ed pieces, that are in keeping with the spirit of the site's namesake. That is to say, they are all truly unique in voice and view. This site and the film, Life Itself, are lovely and lively tributes to a man's whose own voice will resonate long beyond the time of his passing. And in the memories of those who loved and honored his life.

Review of the poetry collection The Subsequent Blues by Gary Copeland Lilley

     At times the writing in this thin volume is slow and careful in rhythm - lilting like easy waves lapping at the reader's ankles - but then it all turns, as if on the tip of a needle, towards fast staccato beats that rush forward and lay one flat. Wash over your head in a fierce tidal wave. Leave you startled and gulping oxygen on the shore. These poems know what they're doing. They're lived in and precise - full of well-worn flesh and whispered echoes of bluesy guitar floating upon air laced with cigarette smoke.                
     Truth resides here as well. Lilley's verse weaves stark realism with the spiritual, crafting myths of honest witness to the good, the bad, and all the shades of in between coloring this earth. Quietly lovely and then brazen and arresting in the exhilaration emitted. Drugs and booze, love and hate, life and death all sing inside the covers of this collection. And, after putting it down, one is left sensing a renewed and refreshed contact with the world.

KING ELIJAH'S DIRECTIONS TO THE GRAVEYARD

The sweet musk of plowed dirt, over country 
as dark as the chamber of a cold heart
or an oiled pistol.  The melancholy
of whiskey and guitar, a blue steel night.
No moon slash or razor.   There is no star
as good a guide as the tombstone neon
that hangs over the long bar, the half-full glass
where talk swings dry, thin, and quick, and red eye
cigarettes beckon through the haze.  Jukebox
jumps, a saxophone pushes smoke to the ceiling.
A rattle of bullets and ball and chain,
the dust raising dance of hoodoo saints.
A prayer sung like rainfall, and everyone
that you see in there is already gone.


-from the collection, written by Gary Copeland Lilley

Review of the novella collection The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness by Rick Bass

“The heart of it all is mystery, and science is at best only the peripheral trappings to that mystery -- a ragged barbed-wire fence through which mystery travels, back and forth, unencumbered by anything so frail as man's knowledge.”* 

     I need some out of doors, natural world contemplative, wilderness and universe glorifying reading right now. It's about that time. When the realization of this habitual yearning finally dawns on me, the first book I always reach for is Rick Bass's collection of three novellas, The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness. The Texas-born and Montana Yaak Valley-dwelling author excels in the short form of literature. And he is one of the few American writers who can consistently and seamlessly marry his deep adoration for the wilderness with the fictional tales he puts on page.
     The ethereal yet realistic stories that comprise this collection are all rooted firmly in the land. And a deep respect and awe for how that land which his characters inhabit comes to inhabits them as they pass through on the eye blink-quick trajectories of their lives. Bass's characters find themselves altered by the rocks, rivers, meadows, and trees that they so naively believed they had total dominion over. 
     In the first tale, a desperate man chases his resourceful, quick-witted wife through the winter-heavy foothills of the north country. She lures and thwarts his progress over and over, until it is uncertain who is attempting to ensnare whom. The second story centers around a young and brash oil surveyor in flight above the Appalachians and the site of the ancient sea that formed them so long ago. The author's reverence for the natural world is clearly spoken through the ruminations and words of a childless woman returning to the vast tract of west Texas land on which she was raised in the final story. She is the last of her family left alive to keep claim of this ranch that has been their's since before Texas became a state. And she takes stock of and wonders at the wild terrain that will surely outlive her.
      These men and women again and again discover their existences bumping up against the inevitable mortality that waits for all. Because what is left behind when we die but the land? No matter how drastically we alter the landscape, or however long we believe we have ownership of those rocks and trees, they will replenish, thrive even, long beyond the brief specks of our lives by millennia. 


*excerpt from the title novella.
     

Thoughts inspired by the television series True Detective: Season 1

     I realize that I'm a little late to the review party on this one. I'm almost always early to parties, unfashionably so. But, in this case, I'm so unfashionably tardy. Oh well.  
     I've had a lot on my mind lately. And my thoughts on the first season of HBO's True Detective were somewhere in that whirlpool occupying my head space as well. It is only in the last few weeks and days, as I read and read and am near overflowing with reactions to the Elliot Rodger killing spree in California, that those reflections surrounding this television series began to spill over into the forefront once again. I guess the threads of the real life tragedy have become knotted together with the frayed, dangling ends of the somber fictional tale floating about in my brain.
    It is not my intent to infer that Rodger and the wholly imaginary killer of True Detective: Season 1 are the same thing. They are not. But they are of the same cruel world, the same culture of misogyny, privilege and entitlement. Please allow me a little elaboration - or flight of fancy - whatever the following might be named.
     In season one of the series, detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart, as written by the creators of the show, swirl some mighty thick and dark waters. And throughout the confined narrative, we catch fleeting, shadowy glimpses of terrifying and powerful monsters lurking beneath that surface. Many decry the single, smaller - but still horrifying - beast of a man that ultimately emerges as a cop out. He doesn't seem to live up to the epic nature of those lurking monoliths that remain behind. The critics can argue about faulty harbingers of a vastly different conclusion to the story until their faces turn blue. Yes, I agree, those waters still harbor greater giants whose hides are thick with the armor of veiled decency and order - be it cloaks of religiosity, tailored suits of bureaucracy, tightly linked arms of family values, whatever - they are allowed to stay hidden. For now.
    On May 23, 2014, the horrific events caused by Rodger swirled to the surface and emerged. And certain threads of truths were drawn out with them and him, dripping from the young man's shoulders and back. Then they were deposited on the shore upon his death, like ropey strands leading back into the watery murk. And people - some outspoken and others more hesitant - began to pick up those cords and pull, tugging hand over hand to draw out that which would still remain concealed.
     There are those who, like viewers of True Detective: Season 1, had seen the dark shadows of things much bigger than the one singular man that surfaced. Now, those premonitions of larger monsters are becoming real through the evidence being dragged up. Their existence has been thoroughly rebuffed. Or whispered about by that population who knew the constant disavowals were false. But the beasts' very real outlines are becoming more distinguishable to all. They are taking on their true forms, and those who would deny them still seem increasingly absurd.
     So many wrongly believe that misogyny is a women's issue - that the realities of this constant force are simply a female problem. But this cultural climate is what we all swim in, and no one - not women, men, nor those who identify differently - can remain unchanged by that which is all around each of us. We are held inside it; we all breath, and digest the culture. To a different extent for each of us, true, but that effect is still present in our lives, shaping and filtering our individual contexts. 
     
"Yes, we should all be feminists, but too often we believe that the plight of the oppressed is solely the business of the oppressed, and that the society in which that oppression is born and grows and the role of the oppressors and beneficiaries are all somehow subordinate." 
    - “Yes, All Men” by Charles M. Blow in the New York Times section 'The Opinion Pages' on 06/01/14.
     
     And this is not just about misogyny and women, but also the privilege and entitlement afforded to so few at the expense of the majority. It is about racism, classism, sexism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, egocentrism, greed, and hypocrisy. I could go all day on the wrongs that this is about. I hope others realize that the cumulative weight of these wrongs has an adverse effect on everyone - those oppressed and those perpetrators and those who fall into categories of both. 
     Maybe these wrongs can be become fleshed out and seen for what they are - drastically limiting facets of our culture. In True Detective: Season 1, the narrative introduces misty outlines of this - hinting at the grand architecture of society's ills. Even the utter lack of well-developed and progressive female characters can be seen as a suggestion of the misogynistic nature of the world portrayed therein. And/or it can be viewed as a glaring error by the creative team behind the show. Either way, it is extremely troubling to witness.
      Women were viewed in a very similar manner by Elliot Rodger. They did not possess true multi-dimensionality or full human agency. The way in which he talked about what women, and society too, owed him recalls the female characters inhabiting the edges of True Detective. They each serve a purpose - sex, titillation, sympathy, deepening male character development mostly - and then they fade again into the background and are forgotten, until their presence is needed for further narrative advancement. They are ornaments in this fictional universe. You could also say that about many of the sideline male characters of the show - like those of the biker gang the detectives must infiltrate and the entirety of the African American population living in the neighborhood Cohle must navigate out of during a police raid, both in the fifth episode of the season. One could argue that Elliot Rodger seemed to look at everyone, besides himself, that way too. 
     But it is most glaring when examining the view of women in each instance. When focusing on how they are portrayed in this television story and the story that Rodger seemed to be reading and telling himself, one can catch sight of those monsters over their shoulders, rising, revealing themselves for what they are - beastly structures constructed and fortified by concepts of misogyny, privilege, and entitlement. They continue to dip in and out of clear focus, misty and slippery, but they should be gazed upon by all and named accordingly. They make everyone perpetrators, victims, or some combination of the two - and I hope that, on a basic level, there are an increasing number of people who realize that those roles are not who any of us wish to be. We have been molded into inert bystanders of a society built on the bending and breaking backs of all. Instead, we need to clasp hold of those ropey strands left on the shoreline and begin to wade in.
    

Touch darkness and darkness touches you back.*

P.S. While I was writing this post, I listened to the Spotify playlist entitled "HBO's 'True Detective.'" It features 80 songs that were used over the course of the season, adding up to over 2 and 1/2 hours of awesome.


*Tagline from HBO's True Detective: Season 1

Thoughts inspired by the poetry collection Diving Into The Wreck by Adrienne Rich

"A man is asleep in the next room
     We are his dreams
     We have the heads and breasts of 
     women
     the bodies of birds of prey
     Sometimes we turn into silver serpents"
- excerpt from the poem Incipience by Adrienne Rich


"Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."  - Margaret Atwood


     I remember times when I have laughed at certain jokes and seemingly random aside comments of casual misogyny. I think back on those moments and wonder how I could have chuckled so easily? How readily these blatant suggestions and hints of gender/sexuality based violence have risen from some individuals' throats and out their mouths, falling upon the ears of those who know better. How could these persons be so cad about veiled but handy threats against others - those who are their friends, their coworkers, their lovers and family? How could we, me, giggle as though these threats are never carried out, that there are those among us, men and women, who suffer beneath the weight of their constant shadow? Why do we titter about what is a reality as though it were not? How is it that I myself can giggle when I could easily be made victim of such suggested acts? And, perhaps, be made yet another survivor or simple statistic...of the misogyny that dominates our culture...but that so many - possible victims and probable perpetrators - have willed themselves to believe is just innocent fodder, guiltless fuel for laughs over drinks and dinner.
    The hair on my skin stands on end every time, no matter how I may grin and chuckle, allow these moment to pass without raising objections. Because, I have now begun to understand, there was silent objection, muted query and closemouthed protest. And I can guess that it wasn't just my own disapproval. There are those around me whose hair also stands up in the same mum manner. They might not have a clear notion of why this is happening, but it's there - the cloudy idea that what is being said isn't funny, is too true to ever be simple, or simply humorous.         
     Every one loses in a misogynistic culture. Men and women and those innumerable individuals who do not/choose not to fall into that limiting, culturally-constructed binary of identity. Even those who would be labeled perpetrators - they are losing out too...on the better options, actions, and identities possible for themselves and for those with whom they come into contact and affect/are affected by.
    The currently commonplace phrases "Not All Men" and "Yes All Women" and the heinous words and, much worse, deafeningly loud actions of one perpetrator in California have been ringing in my ears as I both skim and sink into Adrienne Rich's seventh volume of poetry, Diving Into The Wreck: Poems 1971 - 1972. The precision of her language across such a range of experiences yields images so delicately personal yet, also, so revelatory in their universal nature. Rich renders clearly identifiable feelings and notions that were once foggy - shrouded in cloud...floating along the edges of conscious thought. She writes of loss, love, intent, despair. And of those horrible things that one person can do to another. This includes acts of terrifying violence...rape, homicide...events that seem so hard to imagine at more innocent moments but are so present all around, all the time...are reality for so many.   
     I grapple with my distance from/proximity to the events that swirl around and surround me. I fumble to make sense of the tectonic-plate-like shifting of roles for men and women throughout the world. I sometimes weep over what it feels like I owe to others because of those roles that I have been forced/willingly stepped into. And I despair over what others find their spines bending and splintering under the weight of. 
     So, in my struggle forward, treading - sometimes weakly, other times fiercely and with such great purpose - through the murk, I will discover a buoy at my fingertips and grab hold. Call it a romantic, silly mirage. Call it a privilege afforded to so few. Call it whatever the fuck you wish. But I will continue to reach for those small islands of respite and re-invigoration, like Rich's transcendent, gloriously fortifying poems. We all find our strength where we can.
     
"I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail."
                                           - excerpt from the poem Diving Into The Wreck by Adrienne Rich

     

RIP author, activist, dancer, singer, actress and all around fabulous human being Maya Angelou

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

Review of the graphic memoir Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

    “…this old and great civilization has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism. As an Iranian who has lived more than half of my life in Iran, I know that this image is far from the truth. This is why writing Persepolis was important to me. I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists. I also don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.

     One can forgive but one should never forget.”

-From the introduction of Persepolis.  

  

     Smack in the middle of a region so often the concern of international political debates and yet also so glaringly misunderstood, Iran’s past and current history is a difficult subject to take on. In stellar fashion, graphic memoirist Marjane Satrapi summarizes that tumultuous past in the introduction to her book, Persepolis: The Story Of A Childhood. It takes just a page and a half for her to boil down thousands of years worth of history beginning with the first Aryan settlement in the second millennium B.C. — the foundation of the first Iranian nation in the seventh century B.C., the many changes of power and invasions that followed, the European colonialism upon discovery of oil within the country’s borders, the regime of the Shahs, and the CIA-led overthrow of those who would nationalize that wealth for the people. Despite the near-constant turmoil of history, Satrapi makes sure to stress that the Persian culture and language remained strong. Her pride and respect for the past, present and future of Iran are palpable in the words and phrases she has carefully chosen to use.  

      And this pride and respect continue to be evident throughout the memoir that follows the concise introduction. The author immediately introduces readers to her 10 years old self in 1979. It is that year that the Islamic Revolution took power of Iran and began to drastically alter the rules and customs of the land, rendering the political and personal landscape nearly impossible for a head and heart strong little girl to navigate. 

     Satrapi’s words and images expertly chronicle the story of her childhood and adolescence attempting to balance her rebellious nature with the climate of political repression that hung heavy in her country. There are a multitude of moments that starkly contrast her home life with liberal parents to that of her public life. Outside the walls of her house, Satrapi’s young self and the rest of the Iranian population were shrouded within the folds of oppressive laws meant to silence those who would speak and/or act against the regime. Or even just act as a young person does — curious and candid. 

     There are frightening moments like this throughout the memoir and even more horrifying events, such as the Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq that lasted from 1980 to 1988, injuring and killing thousands of Satrapi’s fellow country people. 

     And there are moments that speak just as loudly but with irresistible laughter and amusement at the young girl's undiminished fiery attitude and desire for self-expression.

     Above all, Satrapi's memoir stridently illustrates the intersectional nature of the personal and the political, not only for the young heroine, but also for those Iranians whose voices are less accessible and loud. Their stories are just as important to hear and tease apart from popular media's very singular, simplified, and damning soundbites about an entire nation alive with diverse attitudes and experiences. It is through hearing their tales that we can find the similarities that link us to one another despite the differences. Armed with faulty beliefs and misinformation, there are so many who think the gulf between themselves and others is too wide a distance to bridge. Satrapi's memoir is further evidence that, though we are distinctly unique in a multitude of ways, we are also alike in our struggles for truthful self-expression and a dignified existence.

     "I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The danger of a single story is that it robs people of dignity, it makes recognition of our equal humanity difficult, it emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar."

- Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, excerpt from TEDGlobal July, 2009.

Review of the album Here, My Dear by Marvin Gaye

"I guess I'll have to say

‘This album is dedicated to you’

Although perhaps I may not be happy

This is what you want

So I've conceded

I hope it makes you happy

There's a lot of truth in it, baby"*

     After the dissolution of his marriage in 1975, soul musician Marvin Gaye made the most rawly personal album of his career with Here, My Dear. The other notable albums he released during that period soar from blistering social consciousness on Trouble Man to sultry, smooth love/sex anthems on Lets Get It On and I Want You. The concept behind Here, My Dear is profoundly different — that being a confession in painful, unambiguous detail of the naked self-pity and hurt stemming from the recent flinty and ruinous separation.

     A stipulation of the final divorce settlement was that Gaye pay a portion of the proceeds and advance for his next record to his ex-wife, Anna Gordy Gaye, sibling of Motown founder Berry Gordy. For a while, Gaye played with the idea of making a trash album out of spite. The last years of the couple’s marriage were rocked by drug abuse, fighting and a number of extramarital affairs. Needless to say, Gaye was not feeling nice when he penned the lyrics. But instead of a crap record, the musician laid bare the exquisite rises and tumultuous valleys of the decade-long relationship. And this was for all to hear. 

     He did not restrain the bile. Anna was scandalized by the airing of their personal strife and was tempted to file a $5 million dollar invasion-of-privacy lawsuit upon the album’s release. But she ultimately refrained.

     Perhaps it is because of the truthful nature of the stories told within. The musician struggles mightily throughout the length of the record, chronicling his long, passionate love and trouble filled relationship with Anna. He lays it all bare — not pretending that there weren’t good times and feelings, but also vehemently extrapolating on the ruin and shards of that once exquisite love they had held for each other. 
     There is a lot of self-commiseration within and between the lines, and this album can certainly be a difficult undertaking. But it also, through Gaye’s gorgeous croon and the ebb and flow of the rhythms swelling behind him, transcends a simple understanding — as all ardent relationships do. When listening to these songs, there is never any doubt that Gaye loved Anna. The woman who had sparked emotions that so fiercely penetrated his macho shell — mutating him into someone gazing out at the world after love has gone and stripping him down to his most base form. It is a revelatory experience that causes nerve endings to tingle with aching recognition. 

"One thing I can promise, friend

I'll never be back again

But I'm not really bitter babe"**

*Lyrics from the song “Here, My Dear” written by Marvin Gaye.

**Lyrics from the song "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You" written by Marvin Gaye.

Thoughts inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (and a sorta review)

      In a passage detailing his undergraduate anthropological studies after World War II, Kurt Vonnegut wrote:
    
   "Another thing they taught me was that nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, 'You know — you never wrote a story with a villain in it."
     I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war."

     I must admit that this has been one of the central themes of my own higher education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. And there are moments when I desperately desire that this notion be true. Certainly survivors and victims, even perpetrators and bystanders, all are — at some point on each of their lives' trajectories — scot-free of blame. Every one of them has been innocent of being ridiculous, bad, or disgusting. How could I even begin to believe such a thing?
     Let me explain. This is a sentiment only encouraged by how I interpret Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five. His protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, while in the evening years of his life, becomes unstuck in time. He swings from one moment of his existence to another, years and decades into the past or future. He could flash backwards to his childhood — staring at the painful-looking crucifixion on the wall above his bed. Or he could land unexpectedly in the time beyond death — where there is nothing but purple haze and a low humming sound. Or he could be catapulted into the basement of the slaughterhouse in which he was held prisoner beneath Dresden, Germany during the very end days of the War — and above which fall thousands upon thousands of bombs, leveling the beautiful city to ashes and shards. Or he could skip back to his abduction by the Tralfamadorians, an infinitely superior alien race of tiny green beings shaped like plumber's friends, who have much to teach Billy about time. Such wonderful things they instruct him to share with the rest of the human race. Vonnegut wrote that these Tralfamadorians are able to see in four dimensions, an extra over that of our measly three. This is how, Vonnegut explained, they view time:

     "All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all these moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."

     So this is how I imagine that Vonnegut sincerely attempted to view the world's inhabitants. All those survivors and victims, even perpetrators and bystanders, were once and, perhaps, still are innocent beings. Every one of these individuals — little babies before the sins and errors they will surely commit and have committed against them. There is a passage in the novel in which Billy Pilgrim has a transcendent vision; it’s of the world’s history in reverse, like a film projector running backwards — of those horrible deeds done by so many to so many undone, of bombs that had been dropped returning upwards to the bomber planes they came from, and those planes returning to their hangers, and of the mechanisms and chemistry of those bombs being dismantled, and everything returned to factories and labs, and then to their natural forms. It’s a wonderful thing to imagine. 

     “And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed…Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.”

     Not that I believe in Adam and Eve as told by the Bible’s book of Genesis. But look at how I capitalize certain words despite my disbelief! It is strange how there are particular things that we cannot unlearn no matter how much we wish we could. They hold onto us, and we discover that we cannot lessen our own grip on them — though we thought we had done so long before.
     Each of us is a product of many different systems working on and against many others. It’s all about context — the biology and genealogy, the familial and community influences, the point of history in question, the economic and political structures at play, the quality of life on Earth, etc... We are constantly in flux — being worked on by and trying to balance ourselves against the world’s innumerable forces.
     I’m sure there's faulty logic in here somewhere. I certainly can’t claim to know what Vonnegut believed. But I personally hold that once a piece of art/literature is released into the world, the artist/author no long has any jurisdiction to direct the audiences’ impressions of that work. Thus, the readers of Vonnegut’s masterpieces may interpret them however they would like. It is my intent to do so thoughtfully, especially since I am on a quest to dissect why certain books speak to me so much. And Slaughterhouse-Five is one of those novels that simply will not stop speaking to me — no matter how many times I pick it up to flip through, and ultimately, reread in its entirety again and again.
     So, some may ask, where is the villain? And if there exist no true villains, what becomes of personal responsibility — of holding individuals accountable for their heinous acts against others? Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is notably lacking in individual villains. Sure, there are plenty of people behaving poorly, but whose fault is all of the nonsense and horror? Who does Vonnegut blame for the leveling of Dresden by Allied bombs in the last days of what is commonly considered to be the absolute worst series of events in the history of the world?

Why do such cruel and abhorrent things occur so often? 

Why do terrible things happen to anyone at all?

     “‘That is a very Earthling thing to ask, Mr. Pilgrim.’”  A Tralfamadorian tells Billy when he is first abducted. “‘Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?…Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.’”

     I can’t say that I agree that there is no why, as Vonnegut spoke through his little green characters. And perhaps he did not believe it completely either. Because it seems that he kept asking this question in nearly every book he penned after Slaughterhouse-Five, until his death in April of 2007.  There exists no definitive answer, but my curiosity continues, waxing and waning in intensity. Just as his certainly did. We are caught like insects in the three dimensions we are able to sense; we do not share the fictional Tralfamadorians’ capacity to gaze upon that fourth dimension — that view of time as much more flexible than we can ever begin to comprehend.
    Thus, it appears to be the nature of our existence to keep asking these unanswerable questions. And I promise I will keep asking. So it goes.

Review of the film Spirited Away

   Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli have made some of the most stunningly multifarious and creative animated films in the history of cinema. Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and Ponyo instantly come to mind. While most obviously geared towards the younger set, each of Miyazaki's films possess intricately plotted story lines and whimsically gorgeous visuals that appeal to those older as well. There are many who would also point out that this particular filmography boasts a fictional cast of personalities with seemingly unprecedented realism, complexity and nuance of character.
   Take my favorite of the bunch, the amazing Spirited Away. In this film, a young gangly girl named Chihiro finds herself swept into an alternate reality filled with magical specters, plotting witches, flying dragons and loud-talking toads - among many other fantastical creatures. Since her parents have suddenly been turned into slop hogs, Chihiro is thrust into this new world with only her own wit, courage, and generous and loyal spirit to guide her. 
   It seems Miyazaki's heroine is in over her head, but in this story, Chihiro's ability to remain brave and kind - a rare combination for anyone, especially a little girl - is paramount to setting herself and her parents free. At first glance she appears a selfish and anxious preteen. Then, through her adventures and encounters with a vast company of those willing to help if only asked in the right way, Chihiro discovers she is more resilient and resourceful than she had any chance to once believe. It is the wonder of Miyazaki's films that so many of his young protagonists find the best of themselves when thrust into unexpected and testing circumstances. It may be that Miyazaki is simmering the notion that there is often more to each of us than our current easy situations are pushing us to confront and realize.
   And this idea and the enchanted story full of such abstract yet accessible characters give way to images of transcendent magic and power. There are certain scenes that are not of this world. But I catch sight of them and am instantly bowled over - awed - with uncanny recognition. I simply feel as if I have dreamed of these gorgeous landscapes before some night long ago and must have forgotten them until this very second. It is the most spine-tingling sensation. In a good way. In the best way. I can't say that about many films. Spirited Away is one I can watch again and again.