Category: Films and TV

I guess that’s why they call it the blues

April 17th, 2022

Asian TV.

I’m addicted.

The dramas evoke emotion and meaning, so I haven’t been able to convince myself they lack value to my life and mind. Many are romantic, but not just; dominant themes are ethical quandaries and chosen family, amidst backstories that span multiple lifetimes. Distinct cultural paradigms. I love especially, exploring different ways of thinking about time, seeing how calculations play out iwhen characters buy into various conceptual measurements of what constitutes virtue and goodness.

It isn’t that there isn’t anything comparable, but very little in Western television resonates with me beyond ‘entertainment value’, whatever that is. When I talk to my therapist about the shows, as part of a ‘bundle of behaviors’ I get lodged into from time to time, she asks “What is it that you are getting from them, that you are not finding elsewhere?”

I reply with the answers I just gave, but there’s something else. She knows this and is waiting for my real answer. Me too.

My strongest childhood memories of television find me sitting on the floor of the great room of my elementary school, the space filling and emptying around me. Captain Kangaroo. Feelings around being the first one dropped off to school or the last one picked up, watching the teachers watching the door. The impressions are strong, even though this might not have happened often.

During weekends at home, Shirley Temple was often on TV, Tarzan, sometimes Fred Astaire at night. Astaire in fact, became my first crush, so much so that I teased my ex-husband about choosing him for the Fred shape of his head. I still love songs from those musicals, still feel happiest wearing long flowing dresses that swish and move in time, while as an adult, viewing the productions through a more critical eye. A child doesn’t ask themself what or who is missing from a story, or why.

Shall we dance
Or keep on moping?
Shall we dance
Or walk on air?
Shall we give in
To despair
Or shall we dance with never a care…

Later, my mother would have me videotape soap operas when I got home from school, so she could watch them after work in the evenings. Neither of us could program the VCR program to record correctly, and if I watched, I could edit commercials. I’m not sure if she asked me to do that, or if I liked them; it was more like second-hand smoke.

Saturday morning cartoons were a big thing, for other kids. While staying with a friend I paced restlessly as she watched her favorite show, tortured because she lived in an apartment building with a big pool I’d woken excited to get into right away. Speed Racer broke through the cartoon barrier eventually, though I can’t place what it was that caught my interest enough to wake a full hour early to watch the show before Jr High. The Japanese creator of the manga Mach GoGoGo, self-taught artist Tatsuo Yoshida, was inspired by Elvis and James Bond movies, which makes perfect sense. It was definitely a vibe. I wouldn’t want to watch it now, nor tamper with the early memories.

As soon as I moved out on my own (for certain values of my own), I traded soap operas for CSpan and BookTV, making efficient use of time. There was such an urgency I felt, to become someone of substance! And for the most part, I kept to that going forward, gravitating toward what I could justify as enrichment, with the kids once they arrived, as well. We watched animal and science shows, and there were long periods in which we didn’t have a TV at all, or where I closed it behind cabinet doors, restricting hours it could be on.

As I write this, I realize I may have strongly factored the influence of TV when sleuthing out reasons my mother was depressed, and later, suicidal. Alongside soap operas came Phil Donahue then Oprah, and she, like many mothers then, began to talk about childhood wounds and injustices more, and more dramatically. There was more crying, more shopping and debt. Arguments with my step-father intensified. My sister was born.

Always interested in biographies of suffering, I believe my mother couldn’t always tell the difference between her own stories and the stories she read, then the interviews she watched on TV. She began to re-frame her own narratives with those others in mind; I was captive audience for tales I couldn’t process. Terrible decisions to come would be justified by past-life regressions she learned about through Shirley McClain. Thanks, Oprah. Then, pendulum swinging the other direction, televangelists entered the scene.

No wonder my relationship with TV is so charged! These days my mother watches Fox News for hours, and ways in which I think and live differently are taken as attacks. There’s nothing we can say to one another, although with distance, compassion for her overall suffering is more present. The sleuthing energy is not needed to protect myself anymore, but for inquiry and exploration. Hopefully that exploration becomes increasingly generous, ever more transformative.

Hm. I’ve unexpectedly written into another layer of answer to my therapist’s question “What is it that you are getting from them, that you are not finding elsewhere?”

There is integration and healing going on.

I mean, take the show I watched a few episodes of last night, Our Blues. It’s melancholy, and I’m affected by how direct-facing and sad, yet beautifully too, the relationships are portrayed. Older actors express the disillusionment of aging… accepting one is not getting back some things they’ve lost, not going to become most things they dreamed of becoming. This, alongside of bright youthful memories.

There’s a phrase a wise friend introduced me to: nostalgia for the present. Even our brightest memories are not complete; if they were, they wouldn’t be quite so bright. There are angles we edit to isolate the strongest dose of what’s desired in any given moment as we flip through the channels, remixing impressions. Nostalgia for the present sees that it isn’t really the past, or redoing of the past one is craving. It’s always about genuine peace with the present, ‘the (current) whole catastrophe’. It’s okay to feel more than one thing at once. In fact we must.

There’s a story to continue to tell here, about the other side of the coin re permeable boundaries, mandalas of connection, and how to love, even so.

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distinctly American

March 18th, 2020

Everything is rightfully about Coronavirus now, but I find myself looking over the present moment’s shoulder, more concerned about pandemics and other catastrophes to come than this one. The scariest thing is that my country keeps proving itself so childish in the way we handle big things. Our system prides itself on having breathing room to take reckless risks; people have such faith in checks and balances, believing an invisible good will beneath it all has to eventually break through.

Wisdom comes through unlikely places, and last night a little came through for me while watching Better Call Saul, a show based on a side character in Breaking Bad.– less brutal, but with the similar themes. Walter White was a okay guy until given pressure and opportunity to reveal otherwise; Saul seems helplessly shady, falling into the arms of baser instincts over and over again.

But we still root for him. Which is so… American.

I think we root for his dancing on the edge. Life has dealt him a raw deal, and he’s making art of it. We could celebrate him as a crazy wisdom character, alchemizing suffering, even while aware every second that we’re watching a tragedy unfold.

I loved this episode… seeing just how adeptly and shamelessly he wielded his rage against a giant force, delighted as he pulled one rabbit after another out of his proverbial hat. Because that’s where the difference between the two characters (Walter White/Saul Goodman) reveals itself most strongly. Talent appears in service to something for both characters, but perhaps Saul’s pain, therefore his motive, is more pure.

I find characters like that endearing.

But is my whole country also locked in to this kind of tragedy unfolding? Might we use such works as a peek at the script? This pandemic, as horrible as it is (and it is, which is hard to feel when buffered by our creature comforts and internet), seems to be a warning shot.

So many in my country have a romantic sensibility of the pioneering West as a vast open land where individuality can flourish, and bad taste too, if it chooses. In a vast open land, territorial conflicts are handled by just the people involved; people who look each other in the eye, pushing each other left or right over time. Who has time to micromanage the social dynamics in the village next door?

Someone who sees the world that way could indeed vote for what a Donald Trump appeared and sometimes appears to be. They might see themselves as the man Saul seems to be standing up for against the impenetrable interests whittling away at their lives, using whatever ridiculous antics it takes.

But in the end, Saul doesn’t really care about that man. The character is just on his own side. His pain doesn’t carry some grand transformative vision.

I think that is the end of the story, tragic though it may be.
REALLY SHALLOW STUFF

January 14th, 2020

Okay! So, after several deeper posts about coming to terms with loss and the complexities of relationships, I thought to share some REALLY SHALLOW STUFF, truly skin-deep! Sound fun? I hope so, since that is what is about to happen. 😉

The other day I shared that my biggest antidote for over-thinking and malaise these days, is taking on a rather physical job. It has been the kind of decision that ends up being a surprise box of interesting effects health-wise, and in my case, turning my quite inward orientation —> outward.

All day I ask, “What can I do for YOU?” And, I love that.

However, being outward every day *does* continually expose a lot of the ways I have been, not just behind-the-times in terms of physical presentation, but honestly neglectful with things like make-up and jewelry specifically. I used to spend a lot of time as an ultra stylish avatar named Eliza, channeling most my whimsy into her, but even she would often settle into her typist’s default mood!

Eliza, attending a gathering in Second Life

Many of us become stuck, style-wise, inside the era in which we come of age, but for me, I think I became stuck in my mid-90s reaction to the BIG 80s LOOK AT MY HAIR AND BRIGHT COLORS AND SUPERSIZED EARRINGS AND TINY WAIST AND HIGH HEELS… a gentle hangover that has lasted now a very long time. To that end, I settled into a mostly clean face (minimal make-up) and straight hair look, usually with variations of black and white clothing and flat or simple shoes.

Actually (and this will tell you how easily-influenced I can be!), I think I entrained upon Vera Wang after seeing an early interview with the designer in which she was wearing a simple pair of black pants and black top. She credited her simplicity of focus on herself, at least in part, for her great creative inspiration with wedding gowns. She seemed quite Audrey or Jacqueline, to me, IOW: timeless, as though style was a decision one could make once for themselves and be done with it. 🙂

[Aside: A moment ago, I searched “Vera Wang simplicity” to see if I could find a photo of her look now, only to find Simplicity is the name of her dinnerware. I also read an article in which she praises comfort as her guiding style principle, but it is the sort of comfort that includes car-priced jackets. ;-)]

What I’ve realized now, is that updating my look, at least in small ways, can no longer be an idea that passes through a few times a year. Also, playing with ideas in this way, test-driving them out on the road, is becoming pretty fun. I’ve gone from scoffing at the very idea of Instagram “influencers”, thinking of them as just swimsuit models hired for events like Fyre Festival, to watching endless “7 Tips” type videos from YouTube stars like Shea Whitney.

Shea’s all about luxury, has a closet the size of my entire 3-bedroom rented apartment, and seems to spend more in handbags per month than I have for clothing in the course of oh, five+ years(!), BUT, she’s entertaining to watch and gives lots of genuinely good advice for people in just my predicament.

My next thing will probably be SPRAY TAN. 😀 Hear me out …

Back in those 80s I mentioned before, we would do horrible things to our skin, like sitting out in the blazing Florida sun for hours wearing baby oil, or sitting under sun laps with Sun-In all over our hair. Going back to school after the summer, or even a long weekend, without peeling skin on nose and shoulders, was even (at least for my silly peer-group), somewhat embarrassing!

Then came the 90s, and news that doing what we were doing was sure to not just age us before our time, but actually KILL us, which pushed many out of tanning beds and off the beaches unless we were donning hats and 30 SPF. Companies started working harder to perfect spray tans so that we didn’t have to be orange to be sun-kissed (some <ahem> public figures haven’t gotten this message yet), and it was then that I began to spray tan my legs lightly as a really good substitute for the nylons we were also beginning to go without.

Somewhere along the way though, spray tanning technology became really high-quality, which felt like a crossroad: either I was going to have to begin to spend money to have it done right, or just forego. I forewent. Which was FINE, especially since back then I didn’t have the thinning skin beneath my eyes that can give me a sort of happy skeleton look under the kind of lighting they use at work, and the family cellulite hadn’t yet struck with force.

Spray tan is such a shallow topic isn’t it? But, doesn’t it feel fun to be so frivolous, at least some of the time? If so, there’s probably more to come, on things like dry shampoo and 5 day hair wash fasting, peppermint puckered lips, and tucks and buttons. I’m planning on doing a lot of happy experimenting, including with my writing here. 🙂
The way you sip your tea…

January 7th, 2020

I’ve been working a lot since my grandfather died, keeping occupied, a la “Don’t look down.”

It isn’t exactly his death which has been scary to me at some deep level, but what his stepping out of the way reveals about what remains… what a life might amount to and mean to others. Or not. His absence is limitation in my life–so many things that now go away. But it is also permission–to stop hiding the wine and buddhas in the apartment, to ask myself what should be written, now that it won’t hurt him to do so.

Walking a tightrope is hard without fanfare. “Keeping busy” means answering “Just fine” a lot, because who has time to hear the whole of it anyway…

Yet, it must matter in the Big Scheme of Things, especially when what seems my very personal, almost entirely unexpressed, pain, comes back, reflected through the lives of those whose stories did eventually find expression, those who were eventually seen. My incredibly edited life bursts the bounds of its interiority this way, becoming 99% subtext, and Art not my own.

To lesser or greater degrees, this is true for all of us, as it was for Judy Garland, the newish film about whom I watched today, weirdly, just after I’d come across a clip of Elizabeth Taylor during an interview. In the interview, Elizabeth said people loved her because the highs and lows of her life, the near deaths and public sorrows, deemed her a survivor. Was Judy a survivor? I’m not sure.

Still, I need to reduce that subtext proportion. Maybe that’s why I keep trying to write about him, but not exactly him. I keep searching within the details of moments, for where to dwell, what to deem the truth of things–looking for the beauty I know is there, without applying unneeded gloss nor extra scuffing.

What I’ve found so far, is that his life is not just his life; his story is not just his story, but also mine, just as much.

Which is quite a thing to say.
Fathers, Legends and Queens

June 18th, 2019

I spent a lot of Fathers’ Day watching films, beginning with Rocketman as a promise to my daughter, who loved it so much that she paid to see it three times. Then, wishing to make comparisons, I rented Bohemian Rhapsody., which I’d walked wide circles around before, failing to imagine how anyone could do Freddie’s story justice.

It was in fact a little surprising, to have felt such strong possessiveness over Mercury’s story, since roughly calculating the hours I’ve spent listening to Elton vs. Queen, the former would easily run circles around latter. This is mainly because his music has permeated key events of my life to a greater degree, often through the instruments of musical friends.

I didn’t fall in love with QUEEN until I was into my 30s, but THEN it was, “Oh, wow.”

Freddie, from British Vogue

Freddie is clearly the more tragic figure, also the more naturally flamboyant, which makes him delightful to watch. But, importantly, he is not alive to validate nor invalidate what has been done with his life story, so is also far more vulnerable. I can’t help but think he might have added nuance to a few needed places in the film, such as regarding the tenderness of relationships other than with his first, female, love.

So I didn’t want to like the film.

[potential spoilers]

However, in the end I must admit that both films were sufficiently tender with their subjects. Artistry-wise, I mostly liked them differently, with what I disliked hinging upon the handling of the music itself.

That Bohemian Rhapsody was lip-synced should have been a problem but wasn’t, because Rami Malek’s physical embodiment felt so genuine that I wasn’t put off by his lip-syncing at all. I felt that not thinking about the music, a la “I like (or dislike) this better than the original, etc.”, kept my attention with the story. I was also already a fan of Malek, thanks to binge-watching Mr. Robot during a time I desperately needed that immersive distraction.

On the other hand, I would describe what was done with Elton’s story and catalog of music as “translatable to stage.” Choices made to adjust to the pace of the story and Taron Egerton‘s voice, make total sense when putting the concept itself at the fore, and Rocketman is definitely more conceptual. Think Across the Universe with a bigger budget. I’m a fan of Across the Universe, and covers of Beatles music generally, but there isn’t a single Elton cover I deeply like, even when sung by artists I value; his voice is simply fused with his songs for me.

Today I did find THIS playful rendition:

I mean, c’mon! Nice.

The presence or absence of fathers in shaping a life, features prominently in Rocketman, and must have been the main story Elton wanted to tell as the hook into understanding his longings… the depths he sank to, the fits of ego that possessed him. Longing has shaped many artists – to be reached for and loved, seen and known.

Me too.

My longing has been to make sense of everything in some cathartic way, to turn the puzzle inside out. It is the fairy tale of finding (or being!) a magic key that once turned, makes ‘it all’ always to have been worthwhile. It is some version of karma, but without punishments and rewards… something like, true character revealed, and that being a good thing.

I’ve had experiences of this kind of flip in vision-dreams before. Once the curtain falls, everyone bows, acknowledging the roles that they played and why, with even the villains deeply appreciated. In my last dream of this sort, I encountered my once step-father, the night that he passed away. He was surprised and delighted to find me there (whatever ‘there’ means in this context) to see him off, since we’d shared tragic history.

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your
head back and laugh at the sky.
– Totally Fake Buddha Quote

Addiction features prominently in both musicals too… addiction to whatever can stop the consuming pain of a primal need unfulfilled, such as for that of a present and approving father. Or the pain of looking for knowledge that can’t quite be filled in… understanding you would have had to have received from the get-go, or early along the way.

Therefore, we will always require the kindness of others. We will always need others to empathetically imagine us as though we had been given all those pieces – to see the ways in which what is missing makes us the wonderful beings we are.

The tragedy for those who become famous may be to reach the pinnacle of achievement in the world and find it ‘still not enough’. No matter status or stature, the answer is never ‘out there’.
magic in the doing

May 24th, 2019

“I wasn’t doing magic anymore… was just talking about doing magic.”

The above is a note I jotted to myself several months ago, and ran across today. It was something I saw up ahead as I wrote it, as though spoken by a me reflecting on that time, once through it. There was a sense of things I was struggling to identify then… a flatness to everything I suddenly became acutely aware of.

I think I’ve arrived at that point now, of understanding what I said to that previous me.

There’s a book that I love so much that I’ve recommended it to almost every dear friend, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. There are just so many excellent things about the book, starting with the distinct language and the mood that it sustains (like a mixture of many great writers in the Dickens and Austen vein), but what hooked me, was the very idea of the scene Susannah Clarke started with: a meeting of magicians.

These magicians were meeting together very regularly and debating quite vigorously over texts about previous magicians and the times of magic in which they lived. Most of those devotedly present were in total agreement that magic no longer occurred in England, which made for quite enjoyable meetings that ultimately fell into the same patterns as any other hobby group might. Two of the group however, were longing for more. They knew they were missing something.

In the book, this sets the stage for the two men of the title to appear. These men are not among those in the meetings, rather they are two actually practicing magicians quite different from one another, each intense and daring in their own ways. They seem to be brought into view by the context of the times. One, an older book and formula hoarder, resource-guards against those he deems unworthy. The other, more lighthearted and generous, is reckless at times.

Both continually endanger those around them.

Impressive drawing of the Raven King by Rachel Oakes
(found on Pinterest, but linked to the Etsy store EnchantedOaks and for sale as prints)

I could elaborate further, but suffice it to say that the contrasts between the magicians’ group, the two curious men, and the two daring practicing magicians, are something I’ve never been able to shake when examining my own life. I ask myself, am I really IN this that I’m doing right now, really ALIVE in it? Or am I playing it safe because of A, B, C? Where am I indeed out on the edge? Can I give something more to that effort?

Things have started flowing again, taking on new dimensions as my intentions and attentions become less divided. There had been a missing road connecting distinct sensibilities I think, linking knowing about with stepping into that knowing.

I’m thinking of having the Kena Upanishad tattooed onto my body, but the text is a little long:

“Not that which the eye does see, but that by which the eye does see…”

Which has the feel of being inside the storm. Come to think of it, there is another character in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell – a disturbing figure in many ways, covered in tattoos. Maybe I’ll take a bit longer to think about it. 😉
Character Examinations

May 11th, 2019

Even whittled down into bursts of story, George R.R. Martin’s range as a writer is a wonder to behold, never letting the reader off the hook from intense examining of character motivations, never ceasing to surprise with blind spot connections, and showing that like-it-or-not we coexist with unfathomable contradictions – in ourselves as much as any outside character.

I find myself examining my own life’s story-lines as if written by Martin, which gives me patience with my own “villains” and impossible situations. And I must say, this especially during the show’s last few seasons, where verdicts are coming down, hindsight well in hand. We see some of the we characters we thought of as noble and ‘good’ as sadly ineffectual and even dangerous due to the very values we love so much, for one thing. And we reluctantly love, even forgive, indisputable monsters. George R.R. Martin has said in interviews that he finds the question of redemption especially fascinating. Me, too.

Oh, I’m talking about Game of Thrones, by the way.

My son and I have an ongoing debate. He has a distaste for social justice warrioring, not because he doesn’t care, but because he feels that the only things that ever change anything… anyone in the world, happen not because someone learns them in a straight-forward way, but through such things as, well we might say *art for art’s sake* and one-on-one relationships. To forcefully advocate for a ’cause’ as a central thing, goes against what he believes in, in a way. The closer one can get to being themself, and doing what they do, the more the world at large will also. Or something like that.

I, on the other hand, see it all similarly to learning foundational times tables. I think you have to get some basics down, and then as you work with those basics along with the material of your life, those values/principles/aspirations may find their own avenues of expression. Or they may not. But I don’t think one can afford not to try to move something forward because their effort may be clumsy, or because all they’ve got to work with are blunt instruments. In a nutshell my philosophy is something like Picasso’s line, “Inspiration exists, but it must find you working.”

I agree that it is the sublime that *most* matters, but that doesn’t let us off the hook for the rest.

Yet, I must admit that when I see the process of illumination and natural learning people undergo when parsing and obsessing over these books and shows, I lean my son’s way. I begin to think his way is more realistic about the downsides of measuring what is happening in the world through our filters of concepts, even of compassion (which I do consider the highest ‘value’ available in the world). I have often wielded my sword seemingly driven by such ‘good’ motivations. But then, was I, really? How often am I simply reacting out of un-faced pain? How much damage have I caused at times while trying to do the right thing, to be good, to be worthy in the eyes of someone who isn’t even still there in my part of the grand story …

For now, I can’t decide whether my son is cynical or clear seeing about the political dimensions, but I know that he catches much that I miss, including camera angles and lighting, sound engineering and song choices–not just when we’re watching Game of Thrones. Maybe he is like a mantis shrimp and has more cones than I do, so to speak. 🙂

I wonder how he is seeing this world in this time, which to me has appeared more and more overrun by blatant villains, more empowering to the overtly cruel. I want to believe that by people banding together for the sake of honor and justice it is possible to speed up exposure of what needs to be addressed behind the scenes… that Bengal tigers and rhinos and elephants and wolves might continue roaming the earth, clear waters continue to flow, and all beings be beheld as valuable on multiple levels, rather than just resources to exhaust. Sometimes I do wonder whether my son may be missing my sense of urgency because he may not see how women fear they factor in this question of resources and territory to conquer in times experienced as austere (a measurement itself subjectively imposed).

Well that went in a few directions, not even getting to the contemplative questions I hoped to approach… again. 🙂 So for now I’ll just finish with a photo of Ghost and Jon, just because the dire wolves deserve lots of love and attention as imparting the original vision to George R.R. Martin which became A Song of Ice and Fire, then Game of Thrones.

fanpop.com
On flowing through horizons

April 10th, 2019

I let the weekend pass by without writing, too preoccupied to string thoughts together sensibly with the correct measures of thought for others, the big picture, my little self. I’m worried about things: my country, my judgment, our systems of justice, overall stamina to rise to the occasions arising. And of course the just day-to-day.

A woman on twitter wrote that the country seems like an abused spouse to her, walking on eggshells trying to find ways to mitigate the chaos constantly. Her image has stuck in my mind. Simultaneously, I try to seat myself ‘in the light’, so to speak. Without closing my eyes to the above, I find ways to root myself into ‘this very existence’, ‘what is’ through play and loving energy with others, making a celebration out of ‘whatever is right at hand’, be it silly or profound.

A friend with an ill son once said to me that during the times in which he was healthy, their family wasted no moment finding ways to express and celebrate *the life*. Her Jewish ancestors had taught her the wisdom of hesitating not at all.

Which may be part of the reason I’ve been taking refuge in music similarly to when I was young and, feeling caged, thought my life would forever be small. I have hesitated too much in my adult life (my ancestors taught me the opposite – that moving too fast and being reckless will get you into crisis where you will stay and stay for a long time), but the exceptions to that have been times of being so caught up in the flow, especially with others, to an extent that I couldn’t have overridden it if I tried. But why on earth would I have tried? 😉

And… music is flow. So I’ve been getting myself back to the garden playing dozens of small documentaries around the apartment while sorting and working. There are lots easily streamed, among them Jeff Beck, Prince, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, Abba, ELO, and Joni Mitchell.

My oldest ‘child’ is moving away, which keeps hitting me over and over again. I can see her at every stage of life, hear her many voices, remember so much. Trying to wrap my mind around the idea of connecting over the (yuk) phone isn’t working so well. No matter how unzen it may be, sometimes I DO want to go back. But instead must flow with the changes, align with the countless possibilities, appreciate the presence of mental time machines when they spontaneously appear.

This may be burying the lead, but speaking of time machines (ha ha), today the first photo of a black hole was shared with the public. To capture the photo, a fascinating collaboration of telescopes was needed, as were the right conditions. If the black hole had been flaring, no image may have been captured, even with so much preparation.

This is where we are, with all the big puzzles of our time – *more* cooperation is needed, not less.

For those who love words, I’d highly recommend listening to the question and answer segment after the unveiling. Answering a student’s question, Shep Doleman described space time as “flowing through the horizon”, among other wonderful things I’ll spend my day envisioning.

NPR
Force and Movement

March 17th, 2019

I watched the documentary Mr. Gaga today. At first, I watched with the sound off and subtitles on, while listening to a podcast. This is an objectively terrible habit I’ve gotten into, of taking multitasking to absurd and undermining ends, but I thought the film might be atmospheric and give an experimental air to the room.

Wonderfully, however, it was the sort of documentary which won’t stand for that treatment, which makes one want to engage with what is happening on screen, inside of the other lives, as though one’s own. And I did!

Eventually I stood up and shook my body convulsively, turned my limbs in odd directions this way and that. It felt great, though I stopped short of practicing the fascinating falls (you’ll have to see the documentary)!

Image from Stanford University promo

I didn’t know much about Gaga as a dance style, or as a language, as the film suggests. Until taken by friends to see the last Pina Bausch choreographed show Vollmond, I’m embarrassed to say that I knew little of the modern dance world beyond outside of parodies, which always gave the impression of a frivolous world of privilege far far away from my own.

Like many little girls, I had desperately wanted to be a ballerina when young, but it was because I was drawn to the beauty of the sets and movements, the hypnotizing and grand lyricism of it all. In fact, when I was about 13, I followed behind a girl at my church, learning to walk and hold my posture just like hers, pretending that I was also a dancer… a form which stuck and I still haven’t quite broken. I even learned to swing my ponytail like hers, while appearing to hold my head perfectly still.

So I remember feeling confused and overwhelmed after the Pina show, as though my mind had been curled and pushed backwards and all my linear lines of thought thwarted so much that they just wouldn’t work anymore.

Walking out, my sophisticated friends long immersed in the Art World asked what I thought, and I remember trying to compose a sentence or two that might give the impression I understood “the story” at all. I couldn’t. Looking for the story was the story, which was a koan to me.

And because it was a koan to me, for months afterward I felt and dreamed the splashing waters and the whooshing in everything, feeling the force Pina was trying to show, of destruction and resilience, embodying rather than ‘thinking’ about it directly.

Image from dansedanse.ca

This is my sense of things right now… an urgency that has me trying everything under the sun to get out of my head and onto the page, the stage, the whatever-it-takes. I feel like I’m trying to break into my own life, defying convention and my own accepted wisdom to do so.
finishing Harari’s lessons

February 28th, 2019

The Play-as-Being book group is finishing up its reading of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century today. It’s been an interesting ride, but as I write this, I have the feeling that the book is already outdated. Which is scary, because I don’t think enough people are thinking yet about the range of questions he brings to the fore. The only thing I feel sure of (inasmuch as I feel sure of anything), is that he ends the book in the right place, with what individuals can do.

I’m a big big fan of the ‘free will or no free will’ question and discussions that come up around that question within both science and contemplative circles. Free Will belongs to a self that doesn’t exist in the ways our systems tend to program toward, so Harari’s angle is a technological one, drawing attention to the role algorithms have in our lives already, then imagining the directions they are heading in. Importantly noting that they are not heading in these directions on their own, but at the direction of ever more consolidated powers.

He touches on but doesn’t fully address (how could anyone?!) the role of the unexpected in all this. Would any of us have imagined the scenarios we’re in right now, a decade ago? At any second, massive changes can and will occur.

So what CAN individuals do? Harari says, “Get to know yourself as well as ‘they’ do.”

You can tell by my posts perhaps, that this is what I’m working on: meditating more, leaning on and relearning what ‘intuition’ is in light of changes in complexity as a person, but also as a person within a family and friend network, as a member of larger society in my country, and within the world/cosmos.

I don’t have the capacity to mentally encompass all that! Indeed any of those categories when combined with any of the others can shut down my feeling of ‘free will’ about anything and be quite paralyzing! “No wonder that Hindus and Buddhists have focused much of their effort on trying to get out of or off of this wheel (entirely)” says Harari, of fathoming the myriad posited schemes of meaning.

From “The Good Place”
A deceptively ridiculous and timely show about deep ethics and existential questions.

My question is then, how to take it all lightly and keep perspective, while not distracting nor entertaining myself away from the questions or buying into one scheme or another. The PaB group I mentioned above is the closest thing to a community that can embrace so many contradictions that I’ve ever come near, yet Life seems to be kicking me out of that nest too.