confessionS oF A dangerouS minD

This is the only Charlie Kaufman movie I haven't seen.  (And in case you're wondering, here is a list of all of the Charlie Kaufmann movies to date:  

2008  Synecdoche, New York

 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

 2002 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

 2002 Adaptation

 2001 Human Nature

 1999 Being John Malkovich

 He also seems to have done a little work on Kung Fu Panda 2--believe it or not--but I don't think that qualifies it as a CK movie.  (But I have seen it--& liked it, too.)

Being John Malkovich is one of my all-time favorite movies.  Maybe even top ten . . . I don't know, I'd have to construct an actual top ten movies to be able to say.*  And I am extremely fond of
Human Nature, Adaptation,  & Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, all of which I've seen at least a couple of times.  It took me three goes before I really liked Synecdoche, New York.  At first it just struck me as pretentious and weird for the sake of weird (as opposed to weird because it can't be helped).  At second I just thought it was stupid and boring.  Then I had my heart puréed, and watched it again & it made sense to me.  (It's mostly a movie about what it's like to live after you have been totally destroyed by someone else.)  In fact, just writing about it makes me want to watch it again . . . which I may have to do pretty much right now.  Or maybe I'll watch Ultramarines: Warhammer first. 

Later . . .

So this Confessions of a Dangerous Man thing . . . I liked it.  I really liked George Clooney & Drew Barrymore.  Such a weird storyline.  So weird that you kind of start believing it after awhile.  

*My Top Ten Movie List**
1.  The Unbearable Lightness of Being
2.  Jesus Christ Superstar
3.  Amadeus
4.  The Right Stuff
5.  All That Jazz
6.  Repo Man  
7.  Rocky   The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
8.  Waking Life
9.   Manhatten  Sweet Land

10.  Being John Malkovich 

**NOT in hierarchical order . . . and subject to change or re-consideration.

Girlsketeers Meeting: 6:50 to 7:20 A.M. Sunday, December 22, 2013

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Jacqueline won’t let me in to her Girlsketeers meetings.  (It’s my sisters and their Beatles Fan Club all over again.  No wonder I hated the  fab Four until I was older.)  I tried planting a camera in her room once.  I put it on her bookshelf and hid it behind a bobblehead of the Deal or No Deal era Howie Mandel.  As verified by checking the camera later, she opened her door, walked straight over to the camera and threw it on her bed.  Doesn’t mean I won’t try again.  But she does play her music LOUD (and sings along even LOUDER)—I believe that it is the God given right of every human being to play music as loudly as they want to at least some of the time—so I am at least able to follow her playlist.   

Here’s this morning’s playlist:

Set One

“America the Beautiul” by Frank Sinatra

“Hoedown Throwdown” by Miley Cyrus

“The Best of Both Worlds” by Miley Cyrus

“Happy Working Song”  (from Enchanted) by Amy Adams

“I See the Light” (from Tangled) by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi

“Home” (rom Beauty and the Beast) by Susan Egan

“Super Freak” by Rick James

“We Want the Funk” by Parliament/Funkadelic

“Brick House” The Commodores

“Get Down Tonight” by K.C. and the Sunshine Band

Set Two

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“Movement I – Mercy” from The Prayer Cycle by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

“Give a Little Whistle” from Pinnochio by Cliff Edwards

“I Will Go Sailing No More” from Toy Story by Randy Newman

“Thomas O'Malley” from The Aristocats by Phil Harris

“That’s What Friends Are For” from The Jungle Book by  by J. Pat O'Malley, Lord Tim Hudson, Digby Wolfe,  with Chad Stuart. George Sanders and Bruce Reitherman

“Love” from Robin Hood by Nancy Adams

Now that’s the way you get yourself going on a Sunday morning.

leO

So . . . I wrote a letter to LEO (which stands for Louisville Eccentiric Observer, a free rag which proclaims that it is Louisville's urban alternative weekly--which is a misnomer on two counts, as Louisville cannot really be said to have an "urban" side, and as LEO is about as alternative as penny loafers).  Actually I'd written a letter the previous week because I was pissed at some anti-reading remarks by one of the columnists, but as the columnist is a friend of mine I declined the editor's offer to print the letter.  So this second letter was on the same topic, and since this time the writer who had offended my sensibilites was the editor of the paper, I acceded to having it printed.  It went like this:

My Dear Leo,

Once again I notice the thread of anti-literacy that has been showing up in LEO.  This time it's in a movie review of  Catching Fire, written by Sara Havens.  After expressing her interest in the movie, she writes, "I'm dying to know how it ends without having to crack open a book."  Really?  I'm hoping that what she meant was that she was uninterested in reading an adolescent novel based on recycled science fiction tropes, but that certainly isn't what she said. 

We have a nation full of children who brag about never reading a book.  Do we really need to encourage this kind of behavior--either deliberately or through sloppy writing?  For Christ's sake, enough of this.  Hey, I just read Stephen King's Dr. Sleep, and it was a great, thrilling experience--much better than any movie.  I'm also reading James Joyce's Finegans Wake, which is the most challenging book I've ever read, and I'm enjoying it immensely.  How about some of that?

Thomas Kalb  

They printed that letter, so I decided to write another.  I have been reading LEO o and on since its inception in 1990 (by John Yarmuth & Co.), and had grown increasingly dismayed by its steady slide into vapidity.  I was particularly roused to anger by a new column written by a young black woman which was so devoid of meaningful communication that it should have had a VACANCY sign hung on it.  So I wrote this:

Dear LEO,

How are you? Have you lost weight?  Well, you certainly are looking good. Maybe it's because you printed my anti-anti-reading letter in your last issue.  Speaking of which, since you were so receptive, I thought I'd write again.  A nice long letter this time . . . to tell you about what I've been reading this week.  Maybe you could cut it out and paste it over one of those dumb ass columns you've been running lately. (My particular not-favorite is the one by the woman who spent her entire column writing nasty things about a guy she dated because he used a nose spray in her presence.  Come on, now,  I know you can do better than that.  What was the point there?  Why give such a petty, small-minded person a forum?  Seriously, I feel that you owe we five minutes of my life back tor that one.)

So first off, yes, I am still reading Finnegan's Wake.  (And hey, could you please put that title in italics?  Former English teacher, you know.)  I'm almost to page 200 now.  I've been reading it out loud and that is great fun.  It actually forces you to acquire an Irish accent.  I catch the scatological humor . . . and most of the eschatological humor . . . but not much else, I 'll confess.  But it's still good stuff.  Besides, it's not a one and done kind of book.  I’ll be back.

I read Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier last week, and that immediately went to my top ten list.  It's an amazing book, filled with wisdom expressed in elegant language--primarily in excerpts from a book within the book, A Goldsmith of Words, by Dr. Amadeu Inácio de Almeida Prado.  Have you seen the movie Ulysses’ Gaze (1995)?  (If not, great movie.  Check it out.)  Night Train to Lisbon reminds me of that.  In the book, Gregorius, who has been living a very staid life as a teacher of languages, suddenly (prompted by a series of coincidences which jolt him out of his rut) leaves Bern and travels to . . . you guessed it, Lisbon.  And he goes by . . . ?  Right again.  One of the coincidences which prompts this departure from job and home is the acquisition of A Goldsmith of Words.  There is something about what Prado has to say in this book which pulls Gregorius in, and he ends up stumbling into a quest for the truth of Prado’s life (hence the parallel to Ulysses’ Gaze, in which Harvey Keittel’s character (A.) goes on a quest for a lost film which ends up becoming a quest for meaning in his own life).  Gregorius’s journey also becomes our own in that any thinking person must at some point consider what makes life meaningful and worthwhile. 

In terms of plot, Night Train to Lisbon is also about António de Oliveira Salazar’s brutal right-wing dictatorship in Portugal and the resistance movement which tried to oppose him.  While it is described as a “philosophical novel,” Night Train to Lisbon is far from the stodginess that such nomenclature might imply.  Perhaps it would be better described as Not a Superficial Novel.  It is not just about what happens.  It offers some food for the soul.

So enthralled was I by this book that once I learned that there was a movie version I felt the need to see it.  I’m sorry that I did so.  While there were some fine moments in the film—not the least of which was an appearance by Lena Olen, who at 58 years old is still amazingly beautiful and sexy—but the heart of the novel had been scooped out and replaced by a kazoo. 

Shortly after I closed the book, I began to read Perlmann’s Silence, which is (alas!) the only only Pascal Mercier book which has been translated into English.  I’m only 30 pages in at the moment, but I’m already pretty taken with it.  If I finish it in the next few days, I’ll write to you again and tell you all about it.

Thanks for listening, LEO.  And if you’re not interested in using this letter as wallpaper to cover up the ugly stain of one of those columns, would you at least do us all a favor and just print the name of the woman’s column and her picture and leave us some nice, cozy white space instead of the shit smear of her ill-considered words?  Seriously, you’d add a couple of World Classiness Points to Louisville’s score this week just by doing that.

XOXO,

Thomas Kalb

P.S.  I know it’s rather ignorant to refer to “that woman’s column” instead of doing the two seconds’s worth of research it would take to find her name, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Sorry.

Smartass is just one of the languages I am fluent in.  (Hey, I grew up with three sisters.  What would you have done?)  Just sent this one off this morning, but I anxiously await a reply.  I may not get one, of course, but I thought it was worth a shot, ya know?  There is quite enough shit in this world, and I don't understand why people just blithely ignore it.  It's time to take a stand, brothers & sisters.  Say it with me, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to ignore your vapid shit anymore!"

 

battlE glasseS

Jacqueline was a little preoccupied with Helen Keller this morning as she ate her pancakes for breakfast.  She has a mantra which goes something like this:  "Helen, she can't see.  She can't talk.  I can see.  I can talk."  After reciting this mantra, she did a new riff on it:

 

 "I have good eyes.  I just wear glasses in battle."  

That seems to be a reference to her on-going battle with Thunderella (who brings the rain, etc.) and/or her punctual blues battle with The Fire Blood.  I tried to get her to let me take a picture of her in her battle glasses, but she got mad.  So I'm going to use this picture

 even though it's blurry & even though she isn't properly garbed for battle because it sums up the ATTITUDE so thoroughly.

That's my little girl.  Mess with her & she will fuck you up!

le_s__ @^ _F 100 lessons

"Do what contributes to making you more genuine, moves you closer to yourself."

Pascal Mercier Night Train to Lisbon

Interesting implication there--that we are not ourselves, that we are somehow separated from outselves, and that in order to live a genuine life we mut find our way to our selves.  This seems true to me--and certainly explains the great need for mental health counselors.  The question is, then, what accounts for this separation from the self?  It's possible that it's a condition that the human being is born into, but I don't think that's it.  Young children seem very much to be themselves, and thus are genuine, and thus their observations of the world are often charming or even startling.  So the separation comes at a later date.  The events depicted in the novel suggest that the separation is caused by relationships with significant others--especially parents & loved ones, but also teachers, religious leaders, even casual acquaintances.  It also suggests--and I see this as right in line with what William James had to say in "The Social Me"--that it is by entering into relationships with others that we fracture ourselves, compromise ourselves . . . begin the process of separating ourselves from ourselves.  In order to remain whole (& genuine), then, it seems that one would have to have little to do with the world outside of he self.  But certainly we can't believe that the path to the genuine life is only opened by separating one's self from the world.  Well, unless you're a Buddhist.  For the most part, though, it seems pretty obvious that one of the purposed for existence is to encounter others . . . and, hopefully, to help or learn or appreciate when possible.  

Can one enter into relationships with others without compromise, without obsequiousness, without surrender?  Good question.  Is it even proper to do so?  Another good question.

But it's not an all or nothing proposition.  One can be honest in a relationship if one is strong enough, brave enough, to do so.  (It takes a pretty special person to put up with that kind of shit, though.)  But one can also do the necessary small compromises that make getting through the day without resort to firearms possible.

But enough.  I want to read some more.    

ST Lucy'S birthdaY partY

Yesterday was St. Lucy's Official Feast Day, so of course we Kalbs partied hardily.  Here's the evidence:

First the preparation phase.  It began when Jacqueline chose one of her many dolls and asked if she could have a box to put it in.  When you live with Jacqueline you get used to such requests and don't even think to ask "why?"  It was a pretty big (and floppy) doll, so it needed a big box.  Fortunately the goose is getting fat, so there was a large box to be found.  

Later that night I heard a strange sound in the hallway, and when I went to investigate Jacqueline was wrapping the big box with the big floppy doll in it in Christmas paper.

After the wrapping, she put the box in her room.  

Intermission.  Jacqueline had been to see Clara's Dream with her mom, and one of the actors in the piece was the offspring of a friend of mine.  (Obscurity here to protect the young and innocent.  The E-Street Shuffle is on his own, though.)  I told Jacqueline about that, and when I was out on the back porch having a smoke she went into my cell phone directory and called my friend, then talked to his offspring & invited him/her to come over to the Kalb Manse for a visit.  That, of course, meant that they were now best friends.  Return to text. 

When I went into her room the next morning I saw that she had written a note & taped it to the package:  

& then the new best friend's name, then 

(I've parted it out so that you can't see the name of the new best friend.)  Pretty darned cute, eh?  I'm particularly fond of the "contents" bit.

And then there was the making of the cake.  Jacueline cracked the eggs, poured in the cake mix & added the water.  I added the "butter."  Jacqueline stirred the mix with a spoon (seems that my mixer--which I bought when I was single--was part of the divorce settlement, mmm hmmmm), and I put it into the oven.  While it was baking,  Jacqueline took care of the bowl clean up.

 

And let me tell you, that was one clean bowl.  I'm only going to wash it for form's sake.

Friday morning Jacqueline icinged the cake and later that day the party got going:

And a splendid time was had by all.

The End

 
BTW  
Words to the wise:  If you're at a party and St. Lucy comes by and offers you some "deviled eggs" from her platter, pass on it.  That girl has a wicked sense of humor.  Trust me--I found out the hard way.  (Or should I say the soft, squishy way?)