My apologies:

There was no blog last week because I completely forgot about it until I was driving home from church twenty minutes ago; there will be a blog this week provided I don't completely forget about it again. Hope all's well with each and every one of you.

Currently Roadside Crosses (Platinum Mystery) By Jeffery Deaver see related

Not-so-favorite things:

Yes, I know this is essentially a continuation of last week, and yes, I know that I strongly implied in last week’s post that I was not a fan of negative lists, but I was interested in the idea the more I thought of material for it, and as it turns out I’m going to be too short on time today to come up with anything more involved, so here’s a list of things I dislike to go with the things I like from last week. I think I’m going to shy away from noting to what degree I dislike these things; unlike terms of affection, I’m far more reluctant to use words like “hate.”

-          I don’t like when words like “groundbreaking” and “original” are used when “trashy” would be more appropriate. I’m sorry, HBO, but your shows are not worthy of acclaim just because they show naked people cursing.

-          I don’t like humidity. I don’t particularly like hot days, either, but I can handle the summer time; what I really don’t like are days where you can’t stand outside for more than a couple seconds before the very air starts to smother you.

-          I don’t like it when people automatically label something bad because everyone likes it, and good because nobody’s heard of it. Some movies are popular for a reason, and just because you break the rules of conventional filmmaking, writing or music does not automatically make your efforts laudable. I suppose I don’t like the opposite of this, either, since I’m not one to enjoy many “popular” music acts.

-          I don’t like flat soda. My friend Tony will differ with me on this; ask me for that story.

-          I don’t like cough syrup, or cough drops, or the feeling that invades my mouth and throat after taking them.

-          I don’t like mint, for pretty much the same reason as cough syrup.

-          I don’t like driving when a) I’m lost, b) I’m someplace crowded, c) I have to think quickly, or d) the weather isn’t perfect. Really, it’d be simpler to say that I only really like driving when I’m on the open road, under a clear, sunny sky or the night stars.

-          I don’t like the feeling between sober and pretty buzzed, which is why I rarely drink.

-          I don’t like hypocrites, or people who spend more time trying to get what they feel they’re entitled to than actually trying to earn something.

-          I don’t like it when a girl cheerfully gives me her phone number, then leaves it to me to figure out that she has no intention of actually returning my call.

I hope this was more entertaining than depressing. I hadn’t really thought about some of these for a while, and I tried to keep them interesting, rather than just a list of complaints. Feel free to tell me if you agree or disagree on these; maybe feedback will spark a future post. Have a great day, and remember to set your clocks back tonight.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Credit for this blog must be given to my friend Amanda, because she had the idea first. In her most recent post she talked about defining someone through things that they enjoy, rather than things they don’t, and I rather liked the idea. It’s uplifting, first of all, and it allows for personal insight without being quite as revealing as the “confess ten things” idea I mentioned here not too long ago. Most importantly for me, it offers a stimulating option for a blog post that at the same time does not take a great deal of energy from me on a Saturday night. So thank you, Amanda. Here is a list of some things I like.

-          Laughing really, really hard at something. This never happens when I’m alone; a movie that sends me into convulsions when watching with a group will probably only earn a smile or chuckle in private, and that’s because the fun of laughter is sharing it, and feeding off of the mirth of others.

-          Windy days, the windier the better. If I walk outside to find sunshine and a brisk wind blowing in my face, I am automatically happy. This is why I enjoy being by the seashore, where a constant, salty breeze is a normal occurrence.

-          Voiceovers. I’m talking about movies or television shows wherein either a narrator talks directly to the audience (“MacGyver”, Maverick, (500) Days of Summer, Snatch) or the narrator is actually talking to someone else (Kevin Spacey is interrogated in The Usual Suspects; Ted is telling his kids the story of how he met their mother on, obviously, “How I Met Your Mother”). This storytelling style always adds to my enjoyment; I think I like the idea of someone guiding you through what you’re about to see. It also allows for you to know things the on-screen characters don’t, which brings me to how much I like…

-          Stories on screen that mess with time and expectations. This one might be a little harder to explain. When a narrator says something like “little did I know,” I’m primed for something exciting to happen. When a show opens with a guy tied to a chair and then flashes back to ten days before, I’m anxious to see how events will unfold. A simpler way to say this would be that I really like being captivated through creative storytelling, especially if it tricks me.

-          Writing in a Moleskine notebook. There’s something about seeing the pages fill with words.

-          Having a deep, late-night conversation. You can’t plan these, and in my experience they usually happen when it’s not a good idea to be staying up as late as you end up talking.

-          The feeling I get when I first climb into bed and stretch out. It’s also great to wake up in the middle of the night, realize I don’t have to get up for hours, and roll over to go back to sleep.

-          I love writing, especially when the words I’m putting down are matching up with the vague feeling of what I wanted to express in the first place.

-          I love it when I watch a woman walk into a room and something like a small electric shock hits my stomach and my fingertips.

I’ve already gone on too long, but I hope you enjoyed this list of things I like. Personally, I enjoyed revisiting them.

Currently Where the Wild Things Are By Maurice Sendak see related

Visiting the Wild Things

A few days ago, I was reading an article about the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are and fearing that I may be out of touch in a big way. The book was written by Maurice Sendak in 1963, and it has apparently become one of the most beloved children’s books of all time since then. My siblings can certainly attest to that, since one of them cites it as one of his favorite books ever, but I couldn’t recall ever picking it up. Now the movie was about to come out in a matter of days, it was probable my brother and sister would invite me to see it, and I still hadn’t read the book. I decided I had to take action, and my mother agreed. “Hold on,” she said, and went upstairs for a minute or two. When she returned to the kitchen, she put a thin paperback in my hand. I was then looking at one of the most beloved children’s books of all time, which happens to contain all of ten sentences.

It wasn’t that I was disappointed. On the contrary, Sendak had written a great children’s book, a very, very simple story surrounded by some great imagery. A boy named Max gets sent to bed without his dinner, and then a magical world grows in his bedroom and he goes to where the wild things are. After hanging out with them for a while, he becomes lonely and returns home. End of book. Not a big deal when you’re reading it to your kid at bedtime, but how in the world does something like this turn into a film? After seeing the movie this afternoon, I can tell you that Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers did a very impressive job of making something out of nothing, or at least very little source material. As for whether they made something an audience will be happy with, well, I think that’s up to what kind of audience they get.

I need to at least say that the movie is visually stunning. I think that part of the appeal of the book must be the visual of a little kid jumping and playing with monsters, and you get to see plenty of that in the film. Movie technology has come a long way, and somewhere in the middle of the film I started thinking about how toy stores could go nuts with related merchandise—even I found myself wanting to hug one of these big furry guys. I’ll also say that a good job was done with the construction of an emotionally complex plot upon some sparse original framework: we get to see why Max gets sent to his room without dinner, and why he would desire to go to another world for a little while. The screenwriters are skilled even at creating conflict on the island of the wild things, so that there’s a logical progression from Max arriving to Max having fun and then Max deciding to go home. Where the Wild Things Are is a visually arresting movie with a thought-provoking plot, and apparently it is exactly what Sendak envisioned for his work. I only wonder if the filmmakers properly considered their audience.

Normally, audience opinion wouldn’t matter much to me. My textbook rule for a film adaptation of a book is that it stay as faithful as possible to the source material, and the more that goal is attained the happier the audience is likely to be. This rule works because your average book has a fully developed plot, with a theme and something the author wants to say about life; thus, when seeing the movie I can easily determine whether or not the movie’s message matches the message of the book. With Sendak’s work, this rule doesn’t exactly apply: in order to have a movie at all, the screenwriters largely had to make a story up. The story they made is not a bad one, but it’s complex, ambiguous, and kind of dark, even. It’s not the story that one would immediately think of after reading the book, and to some extent I think that poses a problem. I can’t exactly say how big that problem is, but I can say that there is a possibility that many children who have gone to sleep dreaming of the fun adventures of Max and his monster friends may encounter something completely different in the movie theater. Not good, not bad, not inappropriate; just something different, and something even that they might have to have their parents explain to them.

So, should you go see Where the Wild Things Are? If you’ve never read the book and love to go on journeys of the imagination, I’d say go for it. If you’ve read the book and are eager to see what they’ve done with the film, then you don’t need my advice; you’ve probably already seen it. If the book is a treasured part of your childhood, if you can picture Max and his monster friends vividly and you spent hours dreaming of the games you would play on the island of the wild things, then the movie may be worth watching just to see your favorite characters come to life. My only piece of advice: don’t expect the world you’d created in your head to be the world you see on screen.

Currently I Started Out as a Child By Bill Cosby see related

Funny People

I love to laugh, I really do. For that reason, it’s a little ironic that very few comedians can keep me laughing consistently—on the other hand, maybe I just love laughing so much that I’m loathe to cheapen the experience by guffawing at any old joke. At any rate, I’m always in search of a good chuckle, particularly when in the midst of ennui, which explains why I took advantage of the chance to borrow a coworker’s CD the other day. It’s a data CD instead of a conventional album, so there are probably six albums or so on the thing, all of which are about an hour long. I’ve gotten through three or four so far, and have experienced the work of three comedians as a result: Dane Cook, George Carlin, and Chris Rock. I will readily admit that that there were portions of each comic’s act that I found amusing. Having said that, I have some fundamental questions as to the nature of modern comedy after listening to these gentlemen:

Why do some people find it funny when comics insult others?

This heading is a bit misleading, as I’m well aware that there can be much amusement in pointing out the stupidity of ourselves or others; in fact, Hobbes argued that laughter is a result of our recognition of superiority. But how does that translate into a twenty-minute, full-volume rant that casts some really vile aspersions regarding certain people’s ancestry and sexual practices? I’m sorry, but I got bored somewhere around the third time George Carlin told someone to go blank themselves, and I got insulted somewhere around the ninth time. Vulgarity alone is not amusing.

Are black comics supposed to be decreasing modern racial tension, or increasing it?

This isn’t unique to black comics, but also the Hispanics I’ve seen on Comedy Central. You can say all you want on CNN about equal rights and people disregarding skin color, but it seems like the success of a comedy club is often built upon the difference between black and white. What does that say about a black comic who stands on stage for an hour blasting white people, or members of his own race? What does it say about the people of whatever color who are in the audience laughing? I think what I’m saying is it seems to me a comic can get away with saying a whole heck of a lot in the context of a joke; if we’re offended, we’re told not to be so uptight and to stop taking the comic seriously. But walk out on the street and say the same things, or let a white comic really fire at black people, and you’re looking at a whole other set of consequences. Yes, I agree that in a lot of ways we ought to avoid taking comedy so seriously. But we also should avoid underestimating comedy as a tool for social commentary, and the effect it might have on people.

Why does comedy have to be R-rated now?

Okay, fine, profanity can be fun. If you’re making a certain emphasis, or trying for a certain rhythm of speech, then I could see how it might have its advantages – I’m pretty sure I’ve written about it here before. But I’ve also written about a question that comes with the use of such language: why use it all the time? Also, why do so many people make it seem like a good thing that we’ve “pushed the boundaries” of comedy? Apparently, we can now do “cutting edge” comedy about subjects that were previously decreed taboo by evil, narrow-minded people. And has this new license to go where no comic has gone before improved the nature of someone’s act? Absolutely not; an increase in allowed subject matter does not make jokes funny. I’ll go one step further: even if I were to concede that sexual situations were funny, and that they needed to be addressed in a comedic arena, there’s no need to be explicit. Some of the greatest comedy I’ve seen is subtle, and it works because the comic references a truth that the audience gets without having it spelled out for them; in other words, I don’t see anything inherently funny about a comic telling me that he blanked the blank blank in the blank, and so on.

Let me try to wrap this up: Humor is a wonderful thing, almost magical at its core, and it can be found in just about everything. My friend and I have been reduced to hysterical laughter simply by moving a glass of milk across the table. “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, “Get Smart”, and “The Cosby Show” all thrived on situational and physical humor, and none of it involved something I couldn’t watch with my grandparents. The comics I was listening to the other day actually proved this point in spite of themselves: the greatest Dane Cook sketch I’ve heard is about how every man wants to be part of a heist, and my favorite George Carlin joke is about shared experiences: “Have you ever been talking to yourself when someone walked in the room, and then you had to pretend you were singing, in the hopes that the other person will believe that there’s actually a song called ‘What Does She Think I Am, Some Kind of Putz?’” These guys can be funny without profanity, without sex, without “pushing the boundaries” of race. I just wish more comedians would take a page from Bill Cosby, and try harder to amuse than to shock.