Times: Union Leader Says Pension Issue Is Key to Ending Strike
21cnd-touss184.1.jpg
Dec. 21-Roger Toussaint, the leader of the transit workers union, said today that his members would return to work only if the Metropolitan Transit Authority took its pension proposal off the table, but he added that the union was ready to resume negotiations right away.
His remarks during a news conference this afternoon came as the city's first transit strike in 25 years stretched into its second day and as the heated verbal jousting between Mr. Toussaint and the governor and mayor intensified, with both sides complaining about the propriety and legality of the other's conduct..
"Provided that the pension issue comes off the table, that would be a basis for us to go back to work," Mr. Toussaint said. He later added: "We are prepared to resume negotiations right away. We wouldn't end the strike as a condition of negotiations."
Soon after he spoke, several government employees' unions including those representing teachers, firefighters and municipal workers backed the transit workers union's demand for the M.T.A. to drop the pension issue from negotiations.
Earlier in the day, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg assailed the strike as illegal and said negotiations would not resume until transit workers returned to their jobs.
In another significant development, Justice Theodore T. Jones of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn ordered Mr. Toussaint and two other officials of the Transport Workers Union, Local 100, to appear in his courtroom at 11 a.m. Thursday, saying that he might sentence one or more of them to jail. Today's hearing took place as Mr. Toussaint was meeting with a mediator from the state's Public Employment Relations Board.
The judge's remarks, which appeared to surprise lawyers on both sides of the case, came as the lead attorney for the state argued for a contempt order against the three union officials. The state attorney had been expected to seek fines of $1,000 a day against the union officials under the Taylor Law, which bars strikes by public employees.
Justice Jones also put off until Thursday his ruling on a request by New York City for a temporary restraining order against the transit workers as part of a lawsuit the city filed against the union.
At a news conference this afternoon, Mr. Bloomberg said that jailing union leaders would not help resolve the strike and could make negotiations more difficult and contentious.
"I never thought that putting someone in jail and making them a martyr would help," he said. "I would urge the judge not to put them in a jail and to raise the fines."
Noting that transit workers made more money than teachers, firefighters and police officers, he again hammered the union for an illegal strike "designed to take place at a time of the year where it will hurt the most people."
Mr. Pataki echoed those remarks and said no negotiations would take place until the strike has ended. "I have one message for them - there aren't going to be any talks while you are walking," the governor said in a news conference in Albany.
Richard A. Curreri, the director of conciliation at the Public Employment Relations Board, met with Mr. Toussaint this afternoon, joined by two other professional mediators. Mr. Toussaint said they would meet again after his news conference.
It remained unlikely however, that Mr. Toussaint would agree - if mediation fails - to submit his contract dispute to a three-member panel of arbitrators whose decisions would be binding. Mr. Toussaint has repeatedly ruled out arbitration as an option. Arbitration was used to end the city's last transit strike, an 11-day walkout in April 1980.
"As I said before, our concern and problem with arbitration is that it removes any say-so from transit workers," Mr. Toussaint said this afternoon. "That is precious and important to us."
In arbitration, the union and the M.T.A. would each choose one member of the panel, known as an "impasse panel." The union and the authority would each have the right to strike names from a list of candidates for the third member of the panel.
After the 1980 strike, the transit union supported the state's binding-arbitration clause, but Mr. Toussaint, who was elected in 2000, has said he does not believe arbitration would give his members the best deal. The state's binding arbitration clause applies to only three categories of workers: police officers, firefighters and M.T.A. employees.
Traffic was snarled again today along many of the city's major roadways, including the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, as many commuters tried to get into Manhattan before a 5 a.m. ban on cars with fewer than four people took effect. The prohibition ends at 11 a.m. each day there is a transit strike.
Though getting into Manhattan south of 96th Street seemed a little easier on the strike's second day, things remained hectic at trouble spots like the 96th Street police checkpoint on the Upper West Side where traffic had been backed up for many blocks on Tuesday, and at the Long Island Rail Road station in Jamaica, Queens, where there were long lines of people throughout the day.
To ease congestion, Mr. Bloomberg said today that the city would start letting non-emergency vehicles onto Madison and Fifth Avenues, which since Tuesday had been closed to passenger cars and taxis from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. Now, only one lane would be reserved for emergency vehicles on each thoroughfare.
The strike began after talks between the union and the transportation authority were halted Monday night after the union rejected the authority's last offer. The authority had agreed to drop its previous demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new transit employees, up from 55 for current employees, but said it expected all future transit workers to pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the current 2 percent.
The offer was rejected, and at 3 a.m., union officials announced the strike. On Tuesday, Mr. Bloomberg decried the walkout as "thuggish," and "selfish" and declared that negotiations - in which the city does not participate.
Mr. Toussaint responded vociferously to those remarks today, saying that "maybe it's very difficult for a billionaire to understand what someone who is making some few tens of thousands of dollars is going through."
"We are not thugs, we aren't selfish, we are not greedy," Mr. Toussaint said. "We are hard working New Yorkers, dignified men and women who have put in decades of service to keep this city moving 24/7."
But Mr. Bloomberg sought to discredit that argument calling it a "fraud" and noting that the strike was most damaging to workers who are far poorer and more vulnerable than Mr. Toussaint and his members.
"They are the people starting up the economic ladder who are basically living day-to-day," Mr. Bloomberg said. "And if they don't get paid, they can't eat. These are not people who are making $50-$60,000 a year. These are people making $10-$20-$30,000 a year. And they're the ones that are really suffering."
On Tuesday, Justice Jones called the strike illegal and ordered the union members back to work. He also hit the union with a contempt order requiring a $1 million fine for each day it is on strike. And he said he would consider $1,000 daily fines of its leaders, on top of the automatic fines against individual workers.
"This is a very sad day in the history of the labor movement in New York City," the judge said as he issued his contempt order.
The order sets off penalties against striking members of Local 100 of one day's pay, in addition to one day of lost wages for every day they are on strike, as stipulated under the state's Taylor Law. Those fines are separate from any fines that may be levied as part of the injunction being sought by the city.
Mr. Toussaint has called the Taylor Law fine excessive and predicted that, "in the end, I think it will be abated."
On its Web site this morning, Local 100's parent union, the Transport Workers Union of America, reiterated that it did not support the actions of its subsidiary. During Tuesday's hearings, the union said the authority had engaged in "extreme provocation" by demanding changes in the rules governing transit workers' pension benefits. Arthur Z. Schwartz, a lawyer for Local 100, said the Taylor Law stipulated that pension rules for the local's members were not subject to collective bargaining.
"They are putting the union against the wall, demanding something that the law says we cannot be asked to agree to," Mr. Schwartz said.
Mr. Schwartz also argued that Local 100 could not afford to pay the $1 million daily fines imposed by the court, and he introduced tax records for 2004 that showed the union's assets to be about $3.6 million. "This begins the process of crippling the union," he said.
Later Tuesday, the state's Public Employment Relations Board dismissed the union's complaint that the authority had violated state law by negotiating pensions.
The board said the strike "is neither a consequence of the M.T.A.'s bargaining demand regarding a new pension plan, nor within control of the M.T.A." The panel also said that both parties still had more opportunities to resolve the dispute and that any injury to the union because of the strike would be "self-inflicted."
But leaders of other public employees' unions insisted that the transportation authority was acting illegally in insisting that pension changes be part of a settlement.
"If that issue was taken off the bargaining table, there could be an imminent settlement," said Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers and chairwoman of the Municipal Labor Committee.
Ms. Weingarten said that when the city wanted changes in the pension system, it in the past sat down with many city unions instead of picking one to try to force through changes.
Other union leaders called for changes in the Taylor Law, arguing that it unfairly allows for large penalties against unions and workers while doing little to punish cities when they drag out contract negotiations for years.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
mayor bloomberg on TWU and Toussaint -day 2
Roger Toussaint and the TWU board have sought to portray this strike as a fight for working people. That argument doesn't hold water. Working people are being hurt. Busboys are getting hurt; garment industry workers are being hurt; owners of mom and pop businesses are being hurt. No one is being spared.
"What frauds, claiming to be a champion of working families when their illegal actions are costing New Yorkers their livelihoods. They should stop trying to pass blame, stop their lame attempt to spin their indefensible actions and get back to work.
statement by bloomberg
"What frauds, claiming to be a champion of working families when their illegal actions are costing New Yorkers their livelihoods. They should stop trying to pass blame, stop their lame attempt to spin their indefensible actions and get back to work.
statement by bloomberg
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
F8ck the transit authority and f*ck the union
this is a pissing war for grown men. Two men digging in their heels, asking for unrealistic things, not willing to give an inch and using one of the worlds largest cities and millions of people as their pawns..
shame on the MTA, shame on Toussaint
curses on both of them
the MTA has coffers of billions that they found, the union wants it
i want a job where i can retire at 55, get my pension and sit around and do very little..
i want to work for transit
i have no sympathy for this union working man....i have no sympathy for the MTA
shame on the MTA, shame on Toussaint
curses on both of them
the MTA has coffers of billions that they found, the union wants it
i want a job where i can retire at 55, get my pension and sit around and do very little..
i want to work for transit
i have no sympathy for this union working man....i have no sympathy for the MTA
Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 22, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 22, 2005
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Happy Holy Daze, Capricorn! I've been meditating on the perfect holiday gifts for you. What items might inspire you to take maximum advantage of the cosmic currents in 2006? And the answer is: anything that makes you laugh harder, deeper, faster, and more often. For me that would be something like DVDs by comedians Margaret Cho, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Sarah Silverman, but you might need different stimuli. The point is, you've got to significantly raise your Laugh Quotient in the coming months. The astrological omens say it's the only strategy that's guaranteed to make you an expert problem-solver, increase your intelligence, and keep you in peak health.
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Happy Holy Daze, Capricorn! I've been meditating on the perfect holiday gifts for you. What items might inspire you to take maximum advantage of the cosmic currents in 2006? And the answer is: anything that makes you laugh harder, deeper, faster, and more often. For me that would be something like DVDs by comedians Margaret Cho, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Sarah Silverman, but you might need different stimuli. The point is, you've got to significantly raise your Laugh Quotient in the coming months. The astrological omens say it's the only strategy that's guaranteed to make you an expert problem-solver, increase your intelligence, and keep you in peak health.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Friday, December 16, 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
two dreams
i woke every hour on the hour. Once because i was too hot. Once to open the window and get a soda. once due to a dream
I dreams that my cat had paperclips or needle type objects stuck through her skin. It was my task to extract them from her skin. I had to hold her on her side and remove the paperclips from her nipples where she had been pierced. I laid her on her side and removed them without my effort. my adreneline was pumping but i got them removed. I woke up panting.
my second dream had me walking infront of this oceanside mansion, like in newport but this one was in disrepair. I remember seeing it in a dream before and this time there was scaffolding and it was being repaired. I said or thought in the dream that it was my dream house and i wanted to own a place like that. The house had 6 windows in front and two pools with fountains and a large yard and a long walk way to the beach front. I may have been looking at the back of the house, like in newport where you walk the waterfront which is the back of the house.
The next scene i was in a home that was old like a cabin and in disrepair. Dar appeared and wanted to call St Louis and use two phones. she said she would call for me and wanted a second phone. She dialed 215 and i remember telling my mother who appeared that I would pay for the calls.
the next scene had two women but i had to go to the bathroom and i gather up arms full of browning and aging photographs to take into the bathroom. My sister asked me what i was doing and i told her i was trying to get into the bathroom. I went into the room and there was a latch lock and i could not do the latch. I had to empty myself but i couldnt get the privacy
i woke up and had to go to the bathroom
I dreams that my cat had paperclips or needle type objects stuck through her skin. It was my task to extract them from her skin. I had to hold her on her side and remove the paperclips from her nipples where she had been pierced. I laid her on her side and removed them without my effort. my adreneline was pumping but i got them removed. I woke up panting.
my second dream had me walking infront of this oceanside mansion, like in newport but this one was in disrepair. I remember seeing it in a dream before and this time there was scaffolding and it was being repaired. I said or thought in the dream that it was my dream house and i wanted to own a place like that. The house had 6 windows in front and two pools with fountains and a large yard and a long walk way to the beach front. I may have been looking at the back of the house, like in newport where you walk the waterfront which is the back of the house.
The next scene i was in a home that was old like a cabin and in disrepair. Dar appeared and wanted to call St Louis and use two phones. she said she would call for me and wanted a second phone. She dialed 215 and i remember telling my mother who appeared that I would pay for the calls.
the next scene had two women but i had to go to the bathroom and i gather up arms full of browning and aging photographs to take into the bathroom. My sister asked me what i was doing and i told her i was trying to get into the bathroom. I went into the room and there was a latch lock and i could not do the latch. I had to empty myself but i couldnt get the privacy
i woke up and had to go to the bathroom
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
what nicole blackman wants for xmas, what do you want ?
What I Want For Christmas
by Nicole Blackman
------------------------------------------
What I want for Christmas:
I want a new religion, one that doesn't make me feel bad all the time
I want to talk to my Grandfather in heaven and tell him I love him
I want to change your mind
I want the music industry to quit marketing to me
I want a second chance
I want that notebook back that I lost two years ago - there was some good
stuff in there
I want to know where all my socks went
I want to smack a couple of ignorant people around
I want everyone to have a place to sleep and someone who loves them
I want you to know I'm serious
I want to test drive a couple of kids to see if I really want to have
children later
I want the water to boil faster when I'm really hungry
I want to go home
I want the tomatoes to taste year-round like they do in the summer
I want everyone to have their own record label, typeface and fanzine
I want to do whatever you want to do
I want that guy on the internet to quit bugging me
I want to leave all my friends something really special in my will
I want you to stop calling me
I want waitresses to quit looking at me funny when I order tea instead of
coffee
I want bands like Pearl Jam, Counting Crows and REM to stop being so earnest
I want to be an excentric old lady so I can get away with YELLING ALL THE
TIME
I want an answer
I want to fly in real life just once like I fly in my dreams
I want to have my own TV show and do all the commercials, too
I want you to come over
I want Laurie Anderson to stop...talking... like... that
I want Pamela Anderson to let me in on the joke
I want to rock and roll all night and party every day
I want 2 or 3 people to get what they deserve
I want Sony to give it up with the minidisc - it's just not happening guys
I want you
I want you to want me
I want a law that makes men who spit on the sidewalk have to lick it up
I want to party like it's 1999
I want a bottomless cup of coca cola and clean bathrooms at truck stops
I want you to tell me the truth
I want to be able to see the stars better in New York City
I want people to stop trying to sell me things over the phone
I want to see more men wearing nailpolish
I want some more of that
I want everyone to stop saying "Dude"
I want everyone to start saying "Fuck right off!" - today
I want to know what love is
I want you to show me
I want people to start eating more cheese
I want to live in a world where rock stars don't have to die to prove
anything
I want to know what your favorite fairy tale is
I want candy
I want some extra hands so I can get more stuff done
I want to come up with a new amusement park ride that feels like you're on
really good drugs but doesn't make you want to throw up afterwards
I want more rock and less talk
I want to understand the appeal of White Castle hamburgers, because they
taste like turds on a bun
I want to take a nap
I want cab drivers to start wearing deodorant
I want network anchors to stop with the cute perky hairdos
I want to see anchors in afros, corn-rows, dreadlocks and big-assed wigs - go
wild!
I want to get off here
I want people to stop saying words like "user" and "interface"
I want someone to play with
I want women's magazines to stop making me feel so bad about everything and
instead run stories like "You're fabulous! Don't change"
I want to boogie-oogie-oogie till we just can't boogie no more
I want someone to develop stamps that actually taste good
I want you to just leave me alone
by Nicole Blackman
------------------------------------------
What I want for Christmas:
I want a new religion, one that doesn't make me feel bad all the time
I want to talk to my Grandfather in heaven and tell him I love him
I want to change your mind
I want the music industry to quit marketing to me
I want a second chance
I want that notebook back that I lost two years ago - there was some good
stuff in there
I want to know where all my socks went
I want to smack a couple of ignorant people around
I want everyone to have a place to sleep and someone who loves them
I want you to know I'm serious
I want to test drive a couple of kids to see if I really want to have
children later
I want the water to boil faster when I'm really hungry
I want to go home
I want the tomatoes to taste year-round like they do in the summer
I want everyone to have their own record label, typeface and fanzine
I want to do whatever you want to do
I want that guy on the internet to quit bugging me
I want to leave all my friends something really special in my will
I want you to stop calling me
I want waitresses to quit looking at me funny when I order tea instead of
coffee
I want bands like Pearl Jam, Counting Crows and REM to stop being so earnest
I want to be an excentric old lady so I can get away with YELLING ALL THE
TIME
I want an answer
I want to fly in real life just once like I fly in my dreams
I want to have my own TV show and do all the commercials, too
I want you to come over
I want Laurie Anderson to stop...talking... like... that
I want Pamela Anderson to let me in on the joke
I want to rock and roll all night and party every day
I want 2 or 3 people to get what they deserve
I want Sony to give it up with the minidisc - it's just not happening guys
I want you
I want you to want me
I want a law that makes men who spit on the sidewalk have to lick it up
I want to party like it's 1999
I want a bottomless cup of coca cola and clean bathrooms at truck stops
I want you to tell me the truth
I want to be able to see the stars better in New York City
I want people to stop trying to sell me things over the phone
I want to see more men wearing nailpolish
I want some more of that
I want everyone to stop saying "Dude"
I want everyone to start saying "Fuck right off!" - today
I want to know what love is
I want you to show me
I want people to start eating more cheese
I want to live in a world where rock stars don't have to die to prove
anything
I want to know what your favorite fairy tale is
I want candy
I want some extra hands so I can get more stuff done
I want to come up with a new amusement park ride that feels like you're on
really good drugs but doesn't make you want to throw up afterwards
I want more rock and less talk
I want to understand the appeal of White Castle hamburgers, because they
taste like turds on a bun
I want to take a nap
I want cab drivers to start wearing deodorant
I want network anchors to stop with the cute perky hairdos
I want to see anchors in afros, corn-rows, dreadlocks and big-assed wigs - go
wild!
I want to get off here
I want people to stop saying words like "user" and "interface"
I want someone to play with
I want women's magazines to stop making me feel so bad about everything and
instead run stories like "You're fabulous! Don't change"
I want to boogie-oogie-oogie till we just can't boogie no more
I want someone to develop stamps that actually taste good
I want you to just leave me alone
Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 15, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 15, 2005
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
The British edition of Cosmopolitan still provides women with practical, no-nonsense advice like "How to love yourself after a pig-out" and "8 sizzling sex lessons your man needs to learn," but it has also added a spirituality column. "I've come to the painful realization that men and shoes are not enough to make me happy," wrote Hannah Borno, introducing the new section. "The key to true contentment lies elsewhere." Cosmo readers now get helpful tips on consulting their guardian angels, tapping into the wisdom of dreams, and trying out various meditation techniques. If this renowned hotbed of the sensual approach to life has finally acknowledged the subtler dimensions, maybe you Capricorns, traditionally the hard-core materialists of the zodiac, might also be inspired to expand your spiritual perspective. I hope so. It's a perfect moment for you to get delightfully zapped with a sacred epiphany.
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
The British edition of Cosmopolitan still provides women with practical, no-nonsense advice like "How to love yourself after a pig-out" and "8 sizzling sex lessons your man needs to learn," but it has also added a spirituality column. "I've come to the painful realization that men and shoes are not enough to make me happy," wrote Hannah Borno, introducing the new section. "The key to true contentment lies elsewhere." Cosmo readers now get helpful tips on consulting their guardian angels, tapping into the wisdom of dreams, and trying out various meditation techniques. If this renowned hotbed of the sensual approach to life has finally acknowledged the subtler dimensions, maybe you Capricorns, traditionally the hard-core materialists of the zodiac, might also be inspired to expand your spiritual perspective. I hope so. It's a perfect moment for you to get delightfully zapped with a sacred epiphany.
three dreams
i was feeling shitty last night so i went to bed at 9pm..
who would think i would get a period after 9 months of getting none. its too cold and my body was just tired.. i could feel it coming on -the EBV bout
not the period... who would have thought.
i was feeling worn out so i went to bed and came up with the following dreams
1. i was in an open market and the vendor of jewerly had a necklace that said Je suis
in gold block letter. i bought the necklace for 60 dollars. I knew that he sold one previously for 65 dollars and wanted to sell this one. So i bought it and wanted it
2. i dreamed of speaking to dar. In my dream she referenced something and informed me that she moved to Detroit. She had left her husband and had renovated a house in detroit. I thought how sad for stephen to be away from his paternal grandmother who is so close to him and a caretaker at times and how sad for dar to be separated from her husband.
3. i rented a taxi or town car and returned it. I saw myself overfilling the gas tank and spilling over. the amount the tank took was 11.25 and then i pushed it to get to 50 cents and overfilled it. The woman who i returned the car to gave me the bill and it was a handwritten bill that detailed some expenses. I was worried about the bottom line and how much it would cost me becasue i has been quoted a price when i took the car of about 11.58 a day and wanted to keep it that price. at the end of the encounter the price was as quoted and no misunderstanding happened
who would think i would get a period after 9 months of getting none. its too cold and my body was just tired.. i could feel it coming on -the EBV bout
not the period... who would have thought.
i was feeling worn out so i went to bed and came up with the following dreams
1. i was in an open market and the vendor of jewerly had a necklace that said Je suis
in gold block letter. i bought the necklace for 60 dollars. I knew that he sold one previously for 65 dollars and wanted to sell this one. So i bought it and wanted it
2. i dreamed of speaking to dar. In my dream she referenced something and informed me that she moved to Detroit. She had left her husband and had renovated a house in detroit. I thought how sad for stephen to be away from his paternal grandmother who is so close to him and a caretaker at times and how sad for dar to be separated from her husband.
3. i rented a taxi or town car and returned it. I saw myself overfilling the gas tank and spilling over. the amount the tank took was 11.25 and then i pushed it to get to 50 cents and overfilled it. The woman who i returned the car to gave me the bill and it was a handwritten bill that detailed some expenses. I was worried about the bottom line and how much it would cost me becasue i has been quoted a price when i took the car of about 11.58 a day and wanted to keep it that price. at the end of the encounter the price was as quoted and no misunderstanding happened
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Brokeback Mountain a review again
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
The lonesome West.
Running time: 134 minutes. Rated R (sex, nudity, profanity, some violence). At the Lincoln Square, the Chelsea, the Loews Village.
A love story is a machine for keeping two people apart, and you can't argue with the idea that there are problems in store for two men who begin a romance while herding sheep in 1963 Wyoming. "Brokeback Mountain" is a machine that works.
It works well enough that you wish it would work perfectly instead of gradually getting gummed up with melodrama. This is one of the best serious films about homosexuality ever made, but though it's sad and sobering it's still only a rough draft of a great movie.
Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) are two cowboys - sheepboys, actually - who take a job protecting a flock against the wolves of summer on Brokeback Mountain. They joke around and graduate to playful shoving matches. Then one cold morning Jack makes a move and Ennis stops shoving back. The sex scene that follows is fairly graphic, and director Ang Lee ("Sense and Sensibility," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") must know that he could have tripled his audience by trimming 60 seconds. But the scene is there, and if it will make some viewers uncomfortable it also plants us firmly in reality.
That's why it's a surprise when the film first hints it's heading for the most obvious, unsubtle ending and then goes there. Jack and Ennis agree to forget what happened and part for four years, during which time each takes a wife and becomes a father. Jack's wife, Lureen (Anne Hathaway), is never developed; whether she's in rodeo togs or buried under a pile of fake blond hair, she's a look, not a character.
The writing is often eloquent in its spareness, but you don't expect one of America's greatest authors, Larry McMurtry, who co-wrote the script with Diana Ossana, to illustrate a lovers' quarrel with Garth Brooks lines like, "I wish I knew how to quit you." If any situation calls for implying rather than saying, it's the desperate one between these two tortured men.
The film's finest moments are largely to the credit of Ledger. Ducking from the world under the brim of his hat, Ennis pulls his head like a turtle and speaks as though he's being charged by the word. He's a man worn down by the constant, crushing burden of being someone he is not.
Despite his efforts to be there for his daughters and his wife (a touching Michelle Williams), some combination of shame and longing turns him into an angry, even violent man. He keeps getting in bloody fights not because people suspect he's gay but because he needs to punch somebody. Another girl tries to connect with him but is forced to give up. "I was probably no fun anyhow," he says, having long since given up on himself. The craggy, aching voice Ledger does is in itself enough to make this one of the year's great performances.
Ledger is an actor who didn't work as a poster boy, but Gyllenhaal is nearly the opposite. He's goofy and callow in the early scenes, but even as the character ages 20 years and Gyllenhaal dials down the antics, he never seems like an adult. If anything, the smudgy mustache he wears as a supposedly 40-year-old man makes him look about 15, and his voice remains a boy's.
"Brokeback Mountain" will rightly be praised for trying to make an honest assessment of the emotional wreckage done to men and women by the closeting of homosexuality. That idea is so powerful and so little explored on screen that it's bound to be revisited in a more complete film in the future.
Back to: Movie Reviews | Home
The lonesome West.
Running time: 134 minutes. Rated R (sex, nudity, profanity, some violence). At the Lincoln Square, the Chelsea, the Loews Village.
A love story is a machine for keeping two people apart, and you can't argue with the idea that there are problems in store for two men who begin a romance while herding sheep in 1963 Wyoming. "Brokeback Mountain" is a machine that works.
It works well enough that you wish it would work perfectly instead of gradually getting gummed up with melodrama. This is one of the best serious films about homosexuality ever made, but though it's sad and sobering it's still only a rough draft of a great movie.
Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) are two cowboys - sheepboys, actually - who take a job protecting a flock against the wolves of summer on Brokeback Mountain. They joke around and graduate to playful shoving matches. Then one cold morning Jack makes a move and Ennis stops shoving back. The sex scene that follows is fairly graphic, and director Ang Lee ("Sense and Sensibility," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") must know that he could have tripled his audience by trimming 60 seconds. But the scene is there, and if it will make some viewers uncomfortable it also plants us firmly in reality.
That's why it's a surprise when the film first hints it's heading for the most obvious, unsubtle ending and then goes there. Jack and Ennis agree to forget what happened and part for four years, during which time each takes a wife and becomes a father. Jack's wife, Lureen (Anne Hathaway), is never developed; whether she's in rodeo togs or buried under a pile of fake blond hair, she's a look, not a character.
The writing is often eloquent in its spareness, but you don't expect one of America's greatest authors, Larry McMurtry, who co-wrote the script with Diana Ossana, to illustrate a lovers' quarrel with Garth Brooks lines like, "I wish I knew how to quit you." If any situation calls for implying rather than saying, it's the desperate one between these two tortured men.
The film's finest moments are largely to the credit of Ledger. Ducking from the world under the brim of his hat, Ennis pulls his head like a turtle and speaks as though he's being charged by the word. He's a man worn down by the constant, crushing burden of being someone he is not.
Despite his efforts to be there for his daughters and his wife (a touching Michelle Williams), some combination of shame and longing turns him into an angry, even violent man. He keeps getting in bloody fights not because people suspect he's gay but because he needs to punch somebody. Another girl tries to connect with him but is forced to give up. "I was probably no fun anyhow," he says, having long since given up on himself. The craggy, aching voice Ledger does is in itself enough to make this one of the year's great performances.
Ledger is an actor who didn't work as a poster boy, but Gyllenhaal is nearly the opposite. He's goofy and callow in the early scenes, but even as the character ages 20 years and Gyllenhaal dials down the antics, he never seems like an adult. If anything, the smudgy mustache he wears as a supposedly 40-year-old man makes him look about 15, and his voice remains a boy's.
"Brokeback Mountain" will rightly be praised for trying to make an honest assessment of the emotional wreckage done to men and women by the closeting of homosexuality. That idea is so powerful and so little explored on screen that it's bound to be revisited in a more complete film in the future.
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Brokeback Mountain a review
Ang Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who bring deep reserves of feeling to this defiantly erotic love story about two Wyoming ranch hands and the external and internal forces that drive them from desire to denial. Directed with piercing intelligence and delicacy by Lee, the film of Annie Proulx's 1997 short story -- the unerring script by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana is a model of literary adaptation -- wears its emotions on its sleeve.
That leaves the film vulnerable. The media keep tagging it as the gay cowboy movie, the queer Gone With the Wind, the Western that puts the poke in cowpoke. Coupled with the rise of homophobia as church and state shout down gay marriage, the film is up against it.
Do me a favor: See the movie first and make your judgments later. It's an eye-opener. The story begins in 1963, when ranch boss Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) hires Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) to herd sheep up on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. Ennis is quiet, but whiskey and Jack's talk about his rodeo riding loosens Ennis' tongue and his inhibitions. One cold night they share a bedroll. Jack gives the impression of experience. For Ennis, this is nothing he'd done before, but no instructional manual is needed.
Proulx writes it this way: "They never talked about sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, 'I'm not no queer,' and Jack jumped in with 'Me neither.' "
Lee and the gifted cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Amores Perros) transform Proulx's terse prose into expansive visual poetry. Shooting in Alberta, Canada, Lee avoids trite postcard prettiness to find the beauty and terror in nature that mirror the vivid and sometimes violent relationship between the two men. "It's nobody's business but ours," Jack tells Ennis.
He's wrong, of course. Joe spots them with his binoculars and never hires them again. Ennis marries Alma (Michelle Williams) and has two daughters. Jack moves to Texas, marries Lureen (Anne Hathaway) and has a son. Living a lie is easier than dealing with the truth, at least it is for Ennis until Jack pays a visit -- his first in four years.
Lee's filmmaking mastery has never been more evident. Watch the skill with which the Taiwanese director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sense and Sensibility walks the volatile ground of this reunion scene. Ennis can't contain his excitement. Running down the steps to greet his friend, he collides with Jack's body, kissing him fiercely and Jack returning the heat. Alma sees it too, from the window, finding reinforcement for something she's always felt. Without dialogue, Lee creates a whole world that can be read eloquently and movingly on the faces of the actors.
And what actors. Though the characters must age twenty years, Lee has cast the film young, a risk that pays major dividends. Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) excels at showing Lureen's journey from cutie-pie to hard case. And Williams (Dawson's Creek) is a revelation, using what Proulx calls Alma's "misery voice" when her husband goes fishing several times a year with Jack. Who can blame her? They never bring home any fish. When Alma remarries and lets Ennis feel the knife of her resentment, Williams lets it rip.
Of course, the movie would not work at all if the two lead actors didn't deliver the goods. Gyllenhaal finds the reckless core in Jack, who cruises alleys and bars in Mexico when Ennis rejects his offer to settle down and run his father's ranch. Ennis lives in fear of coming out -- he relates a harrowing childhood incident in which he saw a man tortured and killed for the crime of living with another man. And so he forbids himself happiness with the one person he has ever truly loved.
Ledger's magnificent performance is an acting miracle. He seems to tear it from his insides. Ledger doesn't just know how Ennis moves, speaks and listens; he knows how he breathes. To see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jack's closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost. As Jack told him once, "That ol' Brokeback got us good." That's the key reason -- besides its daring, its bravery, its dead-on relevance to right now -- that this classic in the making ranks high on the list of the year's best movies. It gets you good.
PETER TRAVERS
(Posted: Dec, 1 2005)
That leaves the film vulnerable. The media keep tagging it as the gay cowboy movie, the queer Gone With the Wind, the Western that puts the poke in cowpoke. Coupled with the rise of homophobia as church and state shout down gay marriage, the film is up against it.
Do me a favor: See the movie first and make your judgments later. It's an eye-opener. The story begins in 1963, when ranch boss Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) hires Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) to herd sheep up on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. Ennis is quiet, but whiskey and Jack's talk about his rodeo riding loosens Ennis' tongue and his inhibitions. One cold night they share a bedroll. Jack gives the impression of experience. For Ennis, this is nothing he'd done before, but no instructional manual is needed.
Proulx writes it this way: "They never talked about sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, 'I'm not no queer,' and Jack jumped in with 'Me neither.' "
Lee and the gifted cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Amores Perros) transform Proulx's terse prose into expansive visual poetry. Shooting in Alberta, Canada, Lee avoids trite postcard prettiness to find the beauty and terror in nature that mirror the vivid and sometimes violent relationship between the two men. "It's nobody's business but ours," Jack tells Ennis.
He's wrong, of course. Joe spots them with his binoculars and never hires them again. Ennis marries Alma (Michelle Williams) and has two daughters. Jack moves to Texas, marries Lureen (Anne Hathaway) and has a son. Living a lie is easier than dealing with the truth, at least it is for Ennis until Jack pays a visit -- his first in four years.
Lee's filmmaking mastery has never been more evident. Watch the skill with which the Taiwanese director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sense and Sensibility walks the volatile ground of this reunion scene. Ennis can't contain his excitement. Running down the steps to greet his friend, he collides with Jack's body, kissing him fiercely and Jack returning the heat. Alma sees it too, from the window, finding reinforcement for something she's always felt. Without dialogue, Lee creates a whole world that can be read eloquently and movingly on the faces of the actors.
And what actors. Though the characters must age twenty years, Lee has cast the film young, a risk that pays major dividends. Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) excels at showing Lureen's journey from cutie-pie to hard case. And Williams (Dawson's Creek) is a revelation, using what Proulx calls Alma's "misery voice" when her husband goes fishing several times a year with Jack. Who can blame her? They never bring home any fish. When Alma remarries and lets Ennis feel the knife of her resentment, Williams lets it rip.
Of course, the movie would not work at all if the two lead actors didn't deliver the goods. Gyllenhaal finds the reckless core in Jack, who cruises alleys and bars in Mexico when Ennis rejects his offer to settle down and run his father's ranch. Ennis lives in fear of coming out -- he relates a harrowing childhood incident in which he saw a man tortured and killed for the crime of living with another man. And so he forbids himself happiness with the one person he has ever truly loved.
Ledger's magnificent performance is an acting miracle. He seems to tear it from his insides. Ledger doesn't just know how Ennis moves, speaks and listens; he knows how he breathes. To see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jack's closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost. As Jack told him once, "That ol' Brokeback got us good." That's the key reason -- besides its daring, its bravery, its dead-on relevance to right now -- that this classic in the making ranks high on the list of the year's best movies. It gets you good.
PETER TRAVERS
(Posted: Dec, 1 2005)
Brokeback Mountain
its seemed that the NYC gay community, curious, readers of the NYer reviewer, Anthony Lane that DID NOT Trash this movie, Ang Lee fans, Heath Ledger fans , Jake Gyllenhaal fans, Michelle Williams fans and haters...
The lines were long and not going FANDANGO left me getting tickets at 4pm for the 540 showing. it was cold and i entered the theater which got crowded quickly. People were on time for this one..
The movie is directed and beautifully shot. the music ranged from Linda Rondstadt to Steve Earle to Emmylou Harris to Willie Nelson and was perfectly scored. Both performances were great but i struggled with believability. WHen Heaths character was present in the relationship with Gyllenhaal, it was theater at its best but maybe it was it struggle between his relationship with Gyllenhaal and this desire to be more in a straight world. This character articulates his struggle more than Gyllenhaals does.
The two men are in two different places in their head except when they are together. When they are together, i didnt always feel their passion or their connection. THey get together for more than sex. they get together as old friends and are friends.
their complicated relationship is harder to describe than their relationship with their women partners.
SPOILER
Gyllenhaal goes on to take more risks and meet up with other men when the occasion arises or when he is hurt and goes to mexico to get laid where after his divorces Heaths character does not. he remains alone. His love for his friend is evident at times and not always evident even when they are together. He goes off with him and is committed to the THING they have but its complicated in his head. Gyllenhaals character is clearer about HOW he wants their future to be and it cant be in 1969 or the 70s..
i didnt find this stereotypical or corny...its not a clear cut love story but its a love story....
The lines were long and not going FANDANGO left me getting tickets at 4pm for the 540 showing. it was cold and i entered the theater which got crowded quickly. People were on time for this one..
The movie is directed and beautifully shot. the music ranged from Linda Rondstadt to Steve Earle to Emmylou Harris to Willie Nelson and was perfectly scored. Both performances were great but i struggled with believability. WHen Heaths character was present in the relationship with Gyllenhaal, it was theater at its best but maybe it was it struggle between his relationship with Gyllenhaal and this desire to be more in a straight world. This character articulates his struggle more than Gyllenhaals does.
The two men are in two different places in their head except when they are together. When they are together, i didnt always feel their passion or their connection. THey get together for more than sex. they get together as old friends and are friends.
their complicated relationship is harder to describe than their relationship with their women partners.
SPOILER
Gyllenhaal goes on to take more risks and meet up with other men when the occasion arises or when he is hurt and goes to mexico to get laid where after his divorces Heaths character does not. he remains alone. His love for his friend is evident at times and not always evident even when they are together. He goes off with him and is committed to the THING they have but its complicated in his head. Gyllenhaals character is clearer about HOW he wants their future to be and it cant be in 1969 or the 70s..
i didnt find this stereotypical or corny...its not a clear cut love story but its a love story....
Friday, December 09, 2005
snowflakes dont ripen til january
Patty: Try to catch snowflakes on your tongue. It's fun.
Linus Van Pelt: Mmm. Needs sugar.
Lucy Van Pelt: It's too early. I never eat December snow. I always wait 'til January.
Linus Van Pelt: They sure look ripe to me.
Linus Van Pelt: Mmm. Needs sugar.
Lucy Van Pelt: It's too early. I never eat December snow. I always wait 'til January.
Linus Van Pelt: They sure look ripe to me.
the meaning of xmas
"And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid ... And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings o great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord."
"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men."
"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." - Linus Van Pelt
"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men."
"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." - Linus Van Pelt
Thursday, December 08, 2005
to write or not to write
NPR invites you to share the beliefs that guide you in your daily life.
write your own essay for NPR on what you believe or not
sound like fun and fun to read
writers out there, on your mark-get set go
write your own essay for NPR on what you believe or not
sound like fun and fun to read
writers out there, on your mark-get set go
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
a dream
i had a dream that there were people saying goodbye to Olga Sierra. they were lined up to share their words with her. She was alive in the dream. THe next scene there was a greyish poodle that fell or jumped off a cliff in to a river and a boy and his father were the owners and they were shocked that the dog had drowned and was gone forever. In the next scene, i watched a golden colored dog rise from the water and then appeared the poodle looking dog who shook out its fur and it curled up. the boy and man were overjoyed that the dog was alive and infact survived what they thought was a tragedy.
i was amazed that it all unfolded so quickly and so naturally..
the dream reflects things going on at work....and events that happened yesterday
i woke up tired...
and its cold..
HOW COLD IS IT In CHicago, you ask????
0 degrees
Freeze Frame
says the Chicago Sun Times
I miss aaron brown and dont watch Anderson COOPER 360
i was amazed that it all unfolded so quickly and so naturally..
the dream reflects things going on at work....and events that happened yesterday
i woke up tired...
and its cold..
HOW COLD IS IT In CHicago, you ask????
0 degrees
Freeze Frame
says the Chicago Sun Times
I miss aaron brown and dont watch Anderson COOPER 360
Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 8, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 8, 2005
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead." So said the humorist Gelett Burgess, and now, just in time for your Shedding Season, I'm offering his advice to you. It's high time for you to get rid of all the old stuff you possibly can, including not only the major opinions that you've outgrown, but also mementoes that have lost their meaning, clothes that no longer match your self-image, and once-exciting adventures that have succumbed to numbing habit.
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead." So said the humorist Gelett Burgess, and now, just in time for your Shedding Season, I'm offering his advice to you. It's high time for you to get rid of all the old stuff you possibly can, including not only the major opinions that you've outgrown, but also mementoes that have lost their meaning, clothes that no longer match your self-image, and once-exciting adventures that have succumbed to numbing habit.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Monday, December 05, 2005
cat juggling is illegal
the moscow cats are juggling
MOSCOW CATS THEATRE
MOSCOW CATS THEATRE – the only entertainment of its kind in the world - features non-stop action by a troop of talented felines performing original and astounding acrobatic feats, integrated into a non-verbal, colorful and fun-filled family show.
Created almost 30 years ago by renowned circus performer Yuri Kuklachev, MOSCOW CATS THEATRE has grown into one of the most popular weekend outings for Moscow kids and adults, selling out every performance. Kuklachev decided to start working with cats after finding an abandoned kitten in a park. A juggler, flying gymnast, illusionist and clown, he kept on training cats, disproving a widespread belief that cats cannot be tamed.
MOSCOW CATS THEATRE
MOSCOW CATS THEATRE – the only entertainment of its kind in the world - features non-stop action by a troop of talented felines performing original and astounding acrobatic feats, integrated into a non-verbal, colorful and fun-filled family show.
Created almost 30 years ago by renowned circus performer Yuri Kuklachev, MOSCOW CATS THEATRE has grown into one of the most popular weekend outings for Moscow kids and adults, selling out every performance. Kuklachev decided to start working with cats after finding an abandoned kitten in a park. A juggler, flying gymnast, illusionist and clown, he kept on training cats, disproving a widespread belief that cats cannot be tamed.
a dream
i dreamed that i saw my cat with her mouth open and she had no teeth. All her teeth suffered from neglect and fell out and she was a toothless cat..
Sunday, December 04, 2005
could have gotten any better???
thanks to Valjean615 i went to long island, port washington last night to see Patty Larkin play in this little theater. We went to dinner with Gene Frey who is one of my favorite people. I just never seem to see Gene enough. I hate it when i see him to say hello and have to be somewhere or in my seat.
Dinner was at a mediterranean style fish place. Warm Bread with hummus on every table, greek salad or a romaine and feta in a lemon dressing. the side dishes were broccoli and carrots steamed and the side was rice pilaf or wheat bulgar( that was to die for) i had the grilled salmon and ate the skadolia( potato and garlic) scoop at appeared on my plate.
it was out of this world. I eat salmon all the time but it was great to have someone else cook it and for it to be cooked well not overcooked like i like it. Grilled salmon rocks..
we entered the hall with minutes to spare and took our seats. we sat infront of two ladies..a woman in her 60s and her 80 something mother.. they had no problem saying things like" is that Patty larkin, it doesnt loook like patty larkin, last time i saw patty larkin she sounded better, looked better, i liked that other song better"
i whispered to Chris that they were like the old men in balcony on the muppets.
they also commented on the other patrons and had to question why a couple brought their kids
They left during the fourth PL song..
they were replaced by our neighbors to the left where the man of the couple went out for food during intermission. All we smelled was grilled chicken as they proceeded to eat their dinner in the seats that hte old women abandoned...
the chicken smell and rustling of papergoods was as disruptive as the old ladies
it really made for a disconnected and disrupted show
vicki genfan opened
why is that some folkies sing covers and interpret them and end up sounding like a saturday night live skit.. well Vicki Genfan hit the skit.. with Norweigan Wood and Joy to the World last night
Cris Williamson is a satruday night live skit but that is another blogger entry..the day i had to crack up when i saw cris williamson, g-ddess to the ladies music world, parody to me..
back to Patty Larkin the guitar genius...
patty put on a good solid set of solid songs
most i knew
me and that train
wolf at the door
the book im not reading
italian shows
birmingham
beg to differ
children
st augustine
all that innocense
winter wind
at the mall
i am sure i am missing some...but that seems to be what i can recall
thanks Chris for taking me along for the ride and the ticket
Dinner was at a mediterranean style fish place. Warm Bread with hummus on every table, greek salad or a romaine and feta in a lemon dressing. the side dishes were broccoli and carrots steamed and the side was rice pilaf or wheat bulgar( that was to die for) i had the grilled salmon and ate the skadolia( potato and garlic) scoop at appeared on my plate.
it was out of this world. I eat salmon all the time but it was great to have someone else cook it and for it to be cooked well not overcooked like i like it. Grilled salmon rocks..
we entered the hall with minutes to spare and took our seats. we sat infront of two ladies..a woman in her 60s and her 80 something mother.. they had no problem saying things like" is that Patty larkin, it doesnt loook like patty larkin, last time i saw patty larkin she sounded better, looked better, i liked that other song better"
i whispered to Chris that they were like the old men in balcony on the muppets.
they also commented on the other patrons and had to question why a couple brought their kids
They left during the fourth PL song..
they were replaced by our neighbors to the left where the man of the couple went out for food during intermission. All we smelled was grilled chicken as they proceeded to eat their dinner in the seats that hte old women abandoned...
the chicken smell and rustling of papergoods was as disruptive as the old ladies
it really made for a disconnected and disrupted show
vicki genfan opened
why is that some folkies sing covers and interpret them and end up sounding like a saturday night live skit.. well Vicki Genfan hit the skit.. with Norweigan Wood and Joy to the World last night
Cris Williamson is a satruday night live skit but that is another blogger entry..the day i had to crack up when i saw cris williamson, g-ddess to the ladies music world, parody to me..
back to Patty Larkin the guitar genius...
patty put on a good solid set of solid songs
most i knew
me and that train
wolf at the door
the book im not reading
italian shows
birmingham
beg to differ
children
st augustine
all that innocense
winter wind
at the mall
i am sure i am missing some...but that seems to be what i can recall
thanks Chris for taking me along for the ride and the ticket
Friday, December 02, 2005
Thursday, December 01, 2005
capricorn for week of December 2
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You might want to listen to "Doing the
Unstuck," a song by The Cure. It could prod you to do what you know you
should, which is expel yourself forcibly from the rut you're lodged in.
"It's a perfect day for letting go/ for setting fire to bridges," the
lyrics advise, "for rip-zipping and button-popping/ for dancing like
you can't hear the beat." Maybe some of you are protesting, "But I want
to use logic to *think* my way out of this jam." Here's what I have to
say in response: You probably won't get unstuck with your rational mind
alone, which is why you should do irrationally constructive things like
singing liberation songs very loudly.
Cure - Doing The Unstuck Lyrics
It's a perfect day for letting go
For setting fire to bridges
Boats
And other dreary worlds you know
Let's get happy!
It's a perfect day for making out
To wake up with a smile
Without a doubt
To burst grin giggle bliss skip jump sing and shout
Let's get happy!
"But it's much too late" you say
"For doing this now
We should have done it then"
Well it just goes to show
How wrong you can be
And how you really should know
That it's never too late
To get up and go...
It's a perfect day for kiss and swell
For rip-zipping button-popping kiss and well...
There's loads of other stuff can make you yell
Let's get happy!
It's a perfect day for doing the unstuck
For dancing like you can't hear the beat
And you don't give a further thought
To things like feet
Let's get happy!
"But it's much too late" you say
"For doing this now
We should have done it then"
Well it just goes to show
How wrong you can be
And how you really should know
That it's never too late
To get up and go...
Kick out the gloom
Kick out the blues
Tear out the pages with all the bad news
Pull down the mirrors and pull down the walls
Tear up the stairs and tear up the floors
Oh just burn down the house!
Burn down the street!
Turn everything red and the beat is complete
With the sound of your world
Going up in the fire
It's a perfect day to throw back your head
And kiss it all goodbye!
It's a perfect day for getting wild
Forgetting all your worries
Life
And everything that makes you cry
Let's get happy!
It's a perfect day for dreams come true
For thinking big
And doing anything you want to do
Let's get happy!
"But it's much too late" you say
"For doing this now
We should have done it then"
Well it just goes to show
How wrong you can be
And how you really should know
That it's never too late
To get up and go...
Kick out the gloom
Kick out the blues
Tear out the pages with all the bad news
Pull down the mirrors and pull down the walls
Tear up the stairs and tear up the floors
Oh just burn down the house!
Burn down the street!
Turn everything red and the dream is complete
With the sound of your world
Going up in the fire
It's a perfect day to throw back your head
And kiss it all goodbye!
Unstuck," a song by The Cure. It could prod you to do what you know you
should, which is expel yourself forcibly from the rut you're lodged in.
"It's a perfect day for letting go/ for setting fire to bridges," the
lyrics advise, "for rip-zipping and button-popping/ for dancing like
you can't hear the beat." Maybe some of you are protesting, "But I want
to use logic to *think* my way out of this jam." Here's what I have to
say in response: You probably won't get unstuck with your rational mind
alone, which is why you should do irrationally constructive things like
singing liberation songs very loudly.
Cure - Doing The Unstuck Lyrics
It's a perfect day for letting go
For setting fire to bridges
Boats
And other dreary worlds you know
Let's get happy!
It's a perfect day for making out
To wake up with a smile
Without a doubt
To burst grin giggle bliss skip jump sing and shout
Let's get happy!
"But it's much too late" you say
"For doing this now
We should have done it then"
Well it just goes to show
How wrong you can be
And how you really should know
That it's never too late
To get up and go...
It's a perfect day for kiss and swell
For rip-zipping button-popping kiss and well...
There's loads of other stuff can make you yell
Let's get happy!
It's a perfect day for doing the unstuck
For dancing like you can't hear the beat
And you don't give a further thought
To things like feet
Let's get happy!
"But it's much too late" you say
"For doing this now
We should have done it then"
Well it just goes to show
How wrong you can be
And how you really should know
That it's never too late
To get up and go...
Kick out the gloom
Kick out the blues
Tear out the pages with all the bad news
Pull down the mirrors and pull down the walls
Tear up the stairs and tear up the floors
Oh just burn down the house!
Burn down the street!
Turn everything red and the beat is complete
With the sound of your world
Going up in the fire
It's a perfect day to throw back your head
And kiss it all goodbye!
It's a perfect day for getting wild
Forgetting all your worries
Life
And everything that makes you cry
Let's get happy!
It's a perfect day for dreams come true
For thinking big
And doing anything you want to do
Let's get happy!
"But it's much too late" you say
"For doing this now
We should have done it then"
Well it just goes to show
How wrong you can be
And how you really should know
That it's never too late
To get up and go...
Kick out the gloom
Kick out the blues
Tear out the pages with all the bad news
Pull down the mirrors and pull down the walls
Tear up the stairs and tear up the floors
Oh just burn down the house!
Burn down the street!
Turn everything red and the dream is complete
With the sound of your world
Going up in the fire
It's a perfect day to throw back your head
And kiss it all goodbye!
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
When The City Eats Your Soul
When The City Eats Your Soul
Where do you go when you've had enough of the urban grind but still crave it like heroin?
By Mark Morford
Then come those times, like when you walk out your front door on a calm sunny Sunday morn and find your shiny new car has been smashed by a hit-and-run driver to the tune of 14 grand's worth of repairs and your heart sinks and your normally Zenlike ennui boils over and you look around your grungy metropolitan neighborhood with a sudden mix of resignation and revulsion and an uncontrollable hissing sigh, that you realize how fed up you are with life in the city.
It happens, now and then, like a wave of nausea and heaving frustration, all aimed at the congestion and the traffic and the parking woes, the spitting lunatic homelessness and the lack of space and the lack of quiet and the random urban demons careening around the 'hood smashing windows and exchanging gunfire and peeing on your stoop when you say to yourself, You know what? I've loved and endured the city in equal turns for nearly 10 years now, and maybe that's enough, and isn't it about time I found some quiet and green and a yard and a dog and a parking space to call my own?
It's a question, I'm sure, asked by every city dweller past the age of, say, 32, the age where your hip grungy stained "artist's" apartment with the peeling vinyl flooring and limp water pressure and the horde of twentysomething partyers who live behind you and who smoke like factories and stay up 'til 5 a.m. snorting coke and playing acoustic guitar very very badly, it all switches from being funky and charming and urban to utterly obnoxious and tiring, and don't these people have jobs?
It is the time, in other words, wherein you hit that very special crossroads where you decide either to suck it up and accept the trade-off of calm energy for urban sophistication, or you think about getting the hell out. Or, better yet, you dream of doing both.
I am at this point. I have a lovely and well-maintained and relatively enormous flat in San Francisco and I love it to death, but I've been here a very long time and it can exhaust and frustrate and I've had two cars smashed and endured endless sirens and homeless screams in the night. There is not enough green. There is far too much gray. You cannot rent forever. Or can you?
If you live in the Bay Area, it is a question both complicated and unbearable. After all, where the hell can you go? Where can you still buy a home in this region that's even reasonably city-adjacent and urban-accessible that has its own delicious non-uptight community that will still clock in at well under half a million dollars for something more than 900 square feet of cheaply built, cracked-foundation bliss?
This is the real conundrum: where to obtain city-like charms with cabin-in-the-woods quiet and space for under the cost of selling the ovum of a blue-eyed geisha on the Japanese black market? After all, the Bay Area real estate market is nothing if not a hellbitch of investment discouragement. You take a deep breath and make a few Web site clicks and take one look at prices around the region and you go, Oh holy hell, I guess I'll just stay in my sad rent-controlled limbo a while longer and besides what's a little gunfire and urine when a small fixer-upper in Sausalito is 800K, without windows?
Of course, the ripest bohemian dream is to have, well, both: the hip urban pad and a weekend woodsy getaway, maybe Calistoga or Occidental or Bodega or Russian River or Sebastopol, something up in the rolling pristine fogless green, a place to escape the urban grind, a writing-sex-hot-tub-meditation-bring-some-friends-up-for-the-weekend retreat where you can go and plant some lavender and work on the deck and think about the meaning of single-malt scotch.
I have visited these regions. I have felt the calm verdant hum. When there, it is impossible not to fantasize about sticking around, about buying my own private quarter acre near the organic farmlands and the neohippies and the winemakers, the artist communes and the spiritual renegades and the slightly mad alt-millionaire geniuses who live well off the grid, all while still somehow maintaining a link to the beloved city.
Is such a dual existence possible? Check that: Is such an existence possible on a columnist's salary? Does Bush speak with nuanced polysyllabic intelligence?
Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there is a way and I just don't know it, a way to live the dual urban/pastoral dream without going into 30 years of runaway debt, without cashing in every nest-egg stock you ever owned and without borrowing three-quarters of a million dollars from the bank even as you stock up on tuna and water and canned beans for when the Big One hits and wipes it all off the map anyway.
This, then, is the big conundrum. Because a city like San Francisco, well, it gets in the blood. It is difficult to shake. I want to get out, but I don't want to leave. San Francisco remains one of the most desirable places to live in the world, the most electric and accessible and radiant and walkable urban jungles still without a Wal-Mart in its city limits, all resulting in the eternal S.F. lament, ongoing for the past decade: Relatively young? Make a decent salary (even two, combined)? Love the city? Want to lay down some roots and maybe buy a nice house? Good for you. Now get the hell out, because you can't possibly afford it.
So then, like countless city dwellers, I wait. I long. For the lottery win, for the market to implode (ha), for miracles and magic and time to heal all ridiculously inflated prices. I read the stories that claim the Bay Area housing market is cooling off -- which, around here, is a bit like saying the sun has dropped eight degrees from its recent high of 59 billion Fahrenheit. I dwell in schizophrenia, longing to stay in the city but getting hit by massive cravings to flee to calmer regions whenever the drug dealers four blocks away look at me like they're the hammer and I'm the nail.
Meantime, the yellowish vinyl tile in my rent-controlled kitchen is from 1974. I shall convince myself it is full of urban personality and charm. I shall pretend that I have enormous storage space and a closet larger than a gym locker and that my car will be protected by a magic force field generated by fierce German angels sent me by the Audi corporation. I shall buy more plants, ignore the broken glass in the street, turn up the Supergrass and the BRMC and the Thievery Corporation to drown out the sirens and the screams. It is, perhaps, for the time being, the only way.
Where do you go when you've had enough of the urban grind but still crave it like heroin?
By Mark Morford
Then come those times, like when you walk out your front door on a calm sunny Sunday morn and find your shiny new car has been smashed by a hit-and-run driver to the tune of 14 grand's worth of repairs and your heart sinks and your normally Zenlike ennui boils over and you look around your grungy metropolitan neighborhood with a sudden mix of resignation and revulsion and an uncontrollable hissing sigh, that you realize how fed up you are with life in the city.
It happens, now and then, like a wave of nausea and heaving frustration, all aimed at the congestion and the traffic and the parking woes, the spitting lunatic homelessness and the lack of space and the lack of quiet and the random urban demons careening around the 'hood smashing windows and exchanging gunfire and peeing on your stoop when you say to yourself, You know what? I've loved and endured the city in equal turns for nearly 10 years now, and maybe that's enough, and isn't it about time I found some quiet and green and a yard and a dog and a parking space to call my own?
It's a question, I'm sure, asked by every city dweller past the age of, say, 32, the age where your hip grungy stained "artist's" apartment with the peeling vinyl flooring and limp water pressure and the horde of twentysomething partyers who live behind you and who smoke like factories and stay up 'til 5 a.m. snorting coke and playing acoustic guitar very very badly, it all switches from being funky and charming and urban to utterly obnoxious and tiring, and don't these people have jobs?
It is the time, in other words, wherein you hit that very special crossroads where you decide either to suck it up and accept the trade-off of calm energy for urban sophistication, or you think about getting the hell out. Or, better yet, you dream of doing both.
I am at this point. I have a lovely and well-maintained and relatively enormous flat in San Francisco and I love it to death, but I've been here a very long time and it can exhaust and frustrate and I've had two cars smashed and endured endless sirens and homeless screams in the night. There is not enough green. There is far too much gray. You cannot rent forever. Or can you?
If you live in the Bay Area, it is a question both complicated and unbearable. After all, where the hell can you go? Where can you still buy a home in this region that's even reasonably city-adjacent and urban-accessible that has its own delicious non-uptight community that will still clock in at well under half a million dollars for something more than 900 square feet of cheaply built, cracked-foundation bliss?
This is the real conundrum: where to obtain city-like charms with cabin-in-the-woods quiet and space for under the cost of selling the ovum of a blue-eyed geisha on the Japanese black market? After all, the Bay Area real estate market is nothing if not a hellbitch of investment discouragement. You take a deep breath and make a few Web site clicks and take one look at prices around the region and you go, Oh holy hell, I guess I'll just stay in my sad rent-controlled limbo a while longer and besides what's a little gunfire and urine when a small fixer-upper in Sausalito is 800K, without windows?
Of course, the ripest bohemian dream is to have, well, both: the hip urban pad and a weekend woodsy getaway, maybe Calistoga or Occidental or Bodega or Russian River or Sebastopol, something up in the rolling pristine fogless green, a place to escape the urban grind, a writing-sex-hot-tub-meditation-bring-some-friends-up-for-the-weekend retreat where you can go and plant some lavender and work on the deck and think about the meaning of single-malt scotch.
I have visited these regions. I have felt the calm verdant hum. When there, it is impossible not to fantasize about sticking around, about buying my own private quarter acre near the organic farmlands and the neohippies and the winemakers, the artist communes and the spiritual renegades and the slightly mad alt-millionaire geniuses who live well off the grid, all while still somehow maintaining a link to the beloved city.
Is such a dual existence possible? Check that: Is such an existence possible on a columnist's salary? Does Bush speak with nuanced polysyllabic intelligence?
Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there is a way and I just don't know it, a way to live the dual urban/pastoral dream without going into 30 years of runaway debt, without cashing in every nest-egg stock you ever owned and without borrowing three-quarters of a million dollars from the bank even as you stock up on tuna and water and canned beans for when the Big One hits and wipes it all off the map anyway.
This, then, is the big conundrum. Because a city like San Francisco, well, it gets in the blood. It is difficult to shake. I want to get out, but I don't want to leave. San Francisco remains one of the most desirable places to live in the world, the most electric and accessible and radiant and walkable urban jungles still without a Wal-Mart in its city limits, all resulting in the eternal S.F. lament, ongoing for the past decade: Relatively young? Make a decent salary (even two, combined)? Love the city? Want to lay down some roots and maybe buy a nice house? Good for you. Now get the hell out, because you can't possibly afford it.
So then, like countless city dwellers, I wait. I long. For the lottery win, for the market to implode (ha), for miracles and magic and time to heal all ridiculously inflated prices. I read the stories that claim the Bay Area housing market is cooling off -- which, around here, is a bit like saying the sun has dropped eight degrees from its recent high of 59 billion Fahrenheit. I dwell in schizophrenia, longing to stay in the city but getting hit by massive cravings to flee to calmer regions whenever the drug dealers four blocks away look at me like they're the hammer and I'm the nail.
Meantime, the yellowish vinyl tile in my rent-controlled kitchen is from 1974. I shall convince myself it is full of urban personality and charm. I shall pretend that I have enormous storage space and a closet larger than a gym locker and that my car will be protected by a magic force field generated by fierce German angels sent me by the Audi corporation. I shall buy more plants, ignore the broken glass in the street, turn up the Supergrass and the BRMC and the Thievery Corporation to drown out the sirens and the screams. It is, perhaps, for the time being, the only way.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of November 24, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of November 24, 2005
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Writing in the Robb Report, Jack Smith reported on the fate of a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite claret from Thomas Jefferson's personal collection. In 1985, it sold at an auction in London for what would today be $187,000. A few months later, while it was being displayed, exhibition lights dried out the cork, which fell into the bottle. The prized collectible was spoiled. The moral of the story, as far as you're concerned, is this: When you obtain a valuable resource from the past in the coming weeks, either use it or protect it from prying eyes. Don't show it off or boast about it.
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Writing in the Robb Report, Jack Smith reported on the fate of a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite claret from Thomas Jefferson's personal collection. In 1985, it sold at an auction in London for what would today be $187,000. A few months later, while it was being displayed, exhibition lights dried out the cork, which fell into the bottle. The prized collectible was spoiled. The moral of the story, as far as you're concerned, is this: When you obtain a valuable resource from the past in the coming weeks, either use it or protect it from prying eyes. Don't show it off or boast about it.
Salon on Harry Potter -Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"
Harry and his friends are growing up, but this latest Potter film may leave you struggling with your own childhood demons.
Editor's note: This review contains minor spoilers, particularly for those who haven't read the book.
By Stephanie Zacharek
Pages
Nov. 17, 2005 | Mike Newell's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth film based on J.K. Rowling's popular but not easily categorized series of novels, may be likely to inspire admiration rather than warm affection, at least while you're watching it. There are stretches where Newell's picture, even as it radiates thoughtfulness and integrity, feels more methodical than magical. He and screenwriter Steve Kloves (who also adapted the first three Harry Potter pictures) have taken great care in streamlining the complicated fbplot of Rowling's novel, but even so, you can almost hear the gears turning from scene to scene.
But I now think "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" may be more like a drug that slips into your bloodstream and takes a few hours to get to work. I didn't sleep well the night after I saw "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire": In my dreams, the picture reshaped itself into a somber, shuddering, gray mosaic, a solemn reassurance that, just as I've always feared, everything is not quite right with the world. "Goblet of Fire," nobly faithful to its source material, is an end-of-childhood picture: Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), now 14, has returned to Hogwarts for his fourth year. The school is to host the Triwizard Tournament, an international competition so dangerous it's been put on hold for many years. Students from two other wizard schools -- their fancifully descriptive faux-French and bogus-Bulgarian names are Beauxbatons Academy and the Durmstrang Institute -- will visit Hogwarts for the year; one student from each school will be chosen, after putting his or her name into the mystical Goblet of Fire, to compete in the games. No student under 17 is allowed to even enter.
But somehow, when the goblet spits forth the names of the chosen contestants, Harry's name is among them, inciting rancor and resentment among his classmates, especially Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), who, with Emma Watson's Hermione Granger, is one of his two closest friends. Ron is convinced that Harry put his own name into the cup, and his jealousy is so great that he refuses to speak to Harry, at one point withholding crucial information that could keep Harry from harm. But before long it becomes clear that someone at the school -- we don't learn who until the very end -- put Harry's name into the goblet in the hope that he'll be killed during the dangerous proceedings (which include outwitting a vicious dragon to procure a golden Faberge-type egg that contains the clue to the next task). And although we're never told as much, it's obvious that whoever dunked Harry's name in the goblet is a servant of the venomous Lord Voldemort, who wants to see Harry killed.
]
"Goblet of Fire" is neither as garishly dumb as Christopher Columbus' first two Harry Potter pictures, "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," nor as lyrical as Alfonso Cuarón's beautifully tuned "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." Cuarón's picture was a great romantic fantasy grounded in naturalism, and the first Potter adaptation to show any real understanding of its source material. Newell's movie is equally faithful to the fourth book's tone, but its poetry has a completely different texture. This is a brooding, somber story, a metaphor for the painful segue from childhood to adolescence. It balances the exhilaration of independence -- one of the great joys of growing up -- with the sobering realization that being a grown-up means there's no one around to protect you.
Newell begins building that sense of dread in the first scene: We see an old man climbing a shadowy flight of stairs and peering into a firelit room, where we get a glimpse of a small, pale, pinched embryo of evil -- Lord Voldemort, in his current, weakened form -- giving instructions to two of his henchmen, his voice a cross between a hiss and a purr. Later, Lord Voldemort's mark -- a skull with a swerving snake issuing from its lipless, leering mouth -- appears in the night sky tattooed in bold plumes of smoke, a signal to his followers that he's preparing for his reemergence into the world, stronger than he was before.
But none of this is adequate preparation for what happens at the end of "Goblet of Fire." To describe the unsettling form Lord Voldemort ultimately assumes -- a shape that Ralph Fiennes, with the cunning of a demon himself, has poured himself into -- would be tantamount to giving away the end of a thriller. (And "Goblet of Fire" is, in essence, a thriller.) The last moments of "Goblet of Fire" also contain a mourning scene that's operatic in scale. Its intensity is overwhelming, and it reaffirms the strengths of Rowling's books: Like all great children's literature, the Harry Potter novels are really explorations of the ghosts that haunt adults long after they've grown up and left home -- feelings of longing and loss, of vulnerability and the desire for transcendence.
Shot in misty gray tones by Roger Pratt (also the D.P. on "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"), "Goblet of Fire" has the hushed glow of old silver, like a weird treasure that's been locked away in a chest for decades. It's not a particularly pretty movie, and leaving the screening, I heard one moviegoer grumbling about its being "in black-and-white." But its look has the same grudging beauty that, once you get used to it, English weather does: It's so defiant in its grayness that you come to appreciate its conviction. Newell is the first English director to make a Harry Potter movie, and if Cuarón's vision of Potter's world was a dream England, Newell's is one that vibrates with realism -- nostalgic realism, maybe, since so much of the picture's imagery has a late '60s vibe. Early in the movie we see a small city of tents set up by the sports fans who have come to see the Quidditch World Cup, a scene of pseudo-hippie resourcefulness and bonhomie lifted straight from the 1969 Isle of Wight rock festival. (And then there are the movie's small, sly, rock 'n' roll touches, like the psychedelic-looking anti-Harry Potter badges worn by the more resentful students, and the Betsey Johnson-style fur-trimmed rock-star coats favored by the statuesque Beauxbatons' headmistress, Madame Maxime, played by English stage actress Frances de la Tour. There's also a fleeting cameo by Jarvis Cocker, the most English of English rock stars since Ray Davies.)
One of the pleasures of the "Harry Potter" series is reconnecting with familiar characters and seeing how new ones fit into the mix. "Goblet of Fire" brings us Cho, the Hogwarts classmate on whom Harry has a crush, played with great charm by young Scotswoman Katie Leung: She has only a few scenes, but they're lovely. And Brendan Gleeson is Mad-Eye Moody, a roughed-up, curmudgeonly newcomer to the Hogwarts faculty, who's fitted with a fake metal leg and a false eye that rolls around crazily in its artificial socket, like a cue ball with a mind of its own.
Another of the series' pleasures has been watching the actors who play the three leads, Radcliffe, Grint and Watson, grow out of their childish mugging and develop a greater range of subtle emotions. Newell is especially sensitive, as Rowling is, to that strange, underwater period in which girls and boys begin to realize what they want out of life, coupled with the miserable recognition that other girls and boys -- sexually elusive, maddening creatures that they are -- hold the key. This adolescent bewilderment manifests itself differently in each character: Harry, like a doofus, dribbles water from his mouth when he catches Cho looking at him across the dinner hall; Ron's jaw drops when he gets a gander at the twitching bottoms of the Beauxbatons' girls ("Bloody hell!" he mutters, the only appropriate response); and Hermione, most heartbreaking of all, can barely contain her frustration that it never even occurs to Ron to ask her to the big Yule Ball. (She ends up going with Durmstrang's star athlete, the sullen-sexy Viktor Krum, played by Stanislav Ianevski.)
The scenes leading up to the dance, as well as the event itself, may not be the most dramatic scenes in the picture, but they're its emotional center. In spirit, they're a twin to Alex Chilton's great Big Star song "Thirteen," which begins, "Won't you let me walk you home from school?/ Won't you let me meet you at the pool?" before winding its way to "Won't you tell me what you're thinking of?/ Would you be an outlaw for my love?" -- as devastating an encapsulation as any of the way, in retrospect, our first youthful attachments only appear to have been weightless; at the time they're happening, they mean the world.
Ron and Harry, both rejected by their first choices, ask girls they don't really know (very pretty ones, at that), and then, in their cluelessness, ignore them the whole evening. Hermione, who makes an entrance in a jaw-dropping satiny evening dress -- a triumph of Jany Temime's costuming, the dress makes her look like neither a dumb ingenue nor a tarted-up performer in a dance recital -- conducts herself far more gracefully, but at the end of the night, frustrated by Ron's inattentiveness (and, probably, by the fact that she wants his attention at all), she plunks herself down on a set of stairs and removes her shoes, probably her first grown-up pair, which are clearly hurting her feet.
Ralph Fiennes' Lord Voldemort may be the most deeply disturbing image from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." But the movie's overall aura of impending change is unsettling in itself. At the end of the picture, as Ron, Hermione and Harry are about to part for the summer, Hermione -- usually so brisk and matter-of-fact -- seems unusually troubled by something. She looks at Harry and blurts out, "Everything's going to change now, isn't it?" Harry reaches out to her, and with a little laugh of resignation, says, "Yes." Because everything is going to change. Voldemort is back, which is horrible enough by itself. But Hermione, earlier than the others have, has latched onto a disquieting truth. She's just realized they're all on the other side of childhood, looking back. There's nowhere to go but forward.
Harry and his friends are growing up, but this latest Potter film may leave you struggling with your own childhood demons.
Editor's note: This review contains minor spoilers, particularly for those who haven't read the book.
By Stephanie Zacharek
Pages
Nov. 17, 2005 | Mike Newell's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth film based on J.K. Rowling's popular but not easily categorized series of novels, may be likely to inspire admiration rather than warm affection, at least while you're watching it. There are stretches where Newell's picture, even as it radiates thoughtfulness and integrity, feels more methodical than magical. He and screenwriter Steve Kloves (who also adapted the first three Harry Potter pictures) have taken great care in streamlining the complicated fbplot of Rowling's novel, but even so, you can almost hear the gears turning from scene to scene.
But I now think "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" may be more like a drug that slips into your bloodstream and takes a few hours to get to work. I didn't sleep well the night after I saw "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire": In my dreams, the picture reshaped itself into a somber, shuddering, gray mosaic, a solemn reassurance that, just as I've always feared, everything is not quite right with the world. "Goblet of Fire," nobly faithful to its source material, is an end-of-childhood picture: Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), now 14, has returned to Hogwarts for his fourth year. The school is to host the Triwizard Tournament, an international competition so dangerous it's been put on hold for many years. Students from two other wizard schools -- their fancifully descriptive faux-French and bogus-Bulgarian names are Beauxbatons Academy and the Durmstrang Institute -- will visit Hogwarts for the year; one student from each school will be chosen, after putting his or her name into the mystical Goblet of Fire, to compete in the games. No student under 17 is allowed to even enter.
But somehow, when the goblet spits forth the names of the chosen contestants, Harry's name is among them, inciting rancor and resentment among his classmates, especially Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), who, with Emma Watson's Hermione Granger, is one of his two closest friends. Ron is convinced that Harry put his own name into the cup, and his jealousy is so great that he refuses to speak to Harry, at one point withholding crucial information that could keep Harry from harm. But before long it becomes clear that someone at the school -- we don't learn who until the very end -- put Harry's name into the goblet in the hope that he'll be killed during the dangerous proceedings (which include outwitting a vicious dragon to procure a golden Faberge-type egg that contains the clue to the next task). And although we're never told as much, it's obvious that whoever dunked Harry's name in the goblet is a servant of the venomous Lord Voldemort, who wants to see Harry killed.
]
"Goblet of Fire" is neither as garishly dumb as Christopher Columbus' first two Harry Potter pictures, "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," nor as lyrical as Alfonso Cuarón's beautifully tuned "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." Cuarón's picture was a great romantic fantasy grounded in naturalism, and the first Potter adaptation to show any real understanding of its source material. Newell's movie is equally faithful to the fourth book's tone, but its poetry has a completely different texture. This is a brooding, somber story, a metaphor for the painful segue from childhood to adolescence. It balances the exhilaration of independence -- one of the great joys of growing up -- with the sobering realization that being a grown-up means there's no one around to protect you.
Newell begins building that sense of dread in the first scene: We see an old man climbing a shadowy flight of stairs and peering into a firelit room, where we get a glimpse of a small, pale, pinched embryo of evil -- Lord Voldemort, in his current, weakened form -- giving instructions to two of his henchmen, his voice a cross between a hiss and a purr. Later, Lord Voldemort's mark -- a skull with a swerving snake issuing from its lipless, leering mouth -- appears in the night sky tattooed in bold plumes of smoke, a signal to his followers that he's preparing for his reemergence into the world, stronger than he was before.
But none of this is adequate preparation for what happens at the end of "Goblet of Fire." To describe the unsettling form Lord Voldemort ultimately assumes -- a shape that Ralph Fiennes, with the cunning of a demon himself, has poured himself into -- would be tantamount to giving away the end of a thriller. (And "Goblet of Fire" is, in essence, a thriller.) The last moments of "Goblet of Fire" also contain a mourning scene that's operatic in scale. Its intensity is overwhelming, and it reaffirms the strengths of Rowling's books: Like all great children's literature, the Harry Potter novels are really explorations of the ghosts that haunt adults long after they've grown up and left home -- feelings of longing and loss, of vulnerability and the desire for transcendence.
Shot in misty gray tones by Roger Pratt (also the D.P. on "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"), "Goblet of Fire" has the hushed glow of old silver, like a weird treasure that's been locked away in a chest for decades. It's not a particularly pretty movie, and leaving the screening, I heard one moviegoer grumbling about its being "in black-and-white." But its look has the same grudging beauty that, once you get used to it, English weather does: It's so defiant in its grayness that you come to appreciate its conviction. Newell is the first English director to make a Harry Potter movie, and if Cuarón's vision of Potter's world was a dream England, Newell's is one that vibrates with realism -- nostalgic realism, maybe, since so much of the picture's imagery has a late '60s vibe. Early in the movie we see a small city of tents set up by the sports fans who have come to see the Quidditch World Cup, a scene of pseudo-hippie resourcefulness and bonhomie lifted straight from the 1969 Isle of Wight rock festival. (And then there are the movie's small, sly, rock 'n' roll touches, like the psychedelic-looking anti-Harry Potter badges worn by the more resentful students, and the Betsey Johnson-style fur-trimmed rock-star coats favored by the statuesque Beauxbatons' headmistress, Madame Maxime, played by English stage actress Frances de la Tour. There's also a fleeting cameo by Jarvis Cocker, the most English of English rock stars since Ray Davies.)
One of the pleasures of the "Harry Potter" series is reconnecting with familiar characters and seeing how new ones fit into the mix. "Goblet of Fire" brings us Cho, the Hogwarts classmate on whom Harry has a crush, played with great charm by young Scotswoman Katie Leung: She has only a few scenes, but they're lovely. And Brendan Gleeson is Mad-Eye Moody, a roughed-up, curmudgeonly newcomer to the Hogwarts faculty, who's fitted with a fake metal leg and a false eye that rolls around crazily in its artificial socket, like a cue ball with a mind of its own.
Another of the series' pleasures has been watching the actors who play the three leads, Radcliffe, Grint and Watson, grow out of their childish mugging and develop a greater range of subtle emotions. Newell is especially sensitive, as Rowling is, to that strange, underwater period in which girls and boys begin to realize what they want out of life, coupled with the miserable recognition that other girls and boys -- sexually elusive, maddening creatures that they are -- hold the key. This adolescent bewilderment manifests itself differently in each character: Harry, like a doofus, dribbles water from his mouth when he catches Cho looking at him across the dinner hall; Ron's jaw drops when he gets a gander at the twitching bottoms of the Beauxbatons' girls ("Bloody hell!" he mutters, the only appropriate response); and Hermione, most heartbreaking of all, can barely contain her frustration that it never even occurs to Ron to ask her to the big Yule Ball. (She ends up going with Durmstrang's star athlete, the sullen-sexy Viktor Krum, played by Stanislav Ianevski.)
The scenes leading up to the dance, as well as the event itself, may not be the most dramatic scenes in the picture, but they're its emotional center. In spirit, they're a twin to Alex Chilton's great Big Star song "Thirteen," which begins, "Won't you let me walk you home from school?/ Won't you let me meet you at the pool?" before winding its way to "Won't you tell me what you're thinking of?/ Would you be an outlaw for my love?" -- as devastating an encapsulation as any of the way, in retrospect, our first youthful attachments only appear to have been weightless; at the time they're happening, they mean the world.
Ron and Harry, both rejected by their first choices, ask girls they don't really know (very pretty ones, at that), and then, in their cluelessness, ignore them the whole evening. Hermione, who makes an entrance in a jaw-dropping satiny evening dress -- a triumph of Jany Temime's costuming, the dress makes her look like neither a dumb ingenue nor a tarted-up performer in a dance recital -- conducts herself far more gracefully, but at the end of the night, frustrated by Ron's inattentiveness (and, probably, by the fact that she wants his attention at all), she plunks herself down on a set of stairs and removes her shoes, probably her first grown-up pair, which are clearly hurting her feet.
Ralph Fiennes' Lord Voldemort may be the most deeply disturbing image from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." But the movie's overall aura of impending change is unsettling in itself. At the end of the picture, as Ron, Hermione and Harry are about to part for the summer, Hermione -- usually so brisk and matter-of-fact -- seems unusually troubled by something. She looks at Harry and blurts out, "Everything's going to change now, isn't it?" Harry reaches out to her, and with a little laugh of resignation, says, "Yes." Because everything is going to change. Voldemort is back, which is horrible enough by itself. But Hermione, earlier than the others have, has latched onto a disquieting truth. She's just realized they're all on the other side of childhood, looking back. There's nowhere to go but forward.
salon reviews RENT
Rent"
Who knew a movie musical could be worse than last year's over-the-top travesty "Phantom of the Opera"?
By Stephanie Zacharek
Nov. 23, 2005 | Oh, the plight of the struggling artist in New York, circa 1989: It's so hard to maintain your integrity when your parents keep leaving annoying, concerned messages on your answering machine, your old roommate marries a rich girl and is suddenly no longer amused by bad performance art, and, worst of all, your friends insist on dying of AIDS.
Chris Columbus' version of Jonathan Larson's alleged rock musical "Rent" spends most of its time congratulating itself on its own open-mindedness. Experimental filmmaking? Neat! Exotic dancing? Yeah! Homosexuality? Everybody into the pool! The movie's spirit of aggressive inclusivity reaches its apex in the noisy song-and-dance number "La Vie Boheme," in which the characters take over a bunch of tables in the middle of an East Village restaurant and mime several mildly non-missionary-style sex acts, just to show how open they are to alternative ways of, you know, living life. "When you're living in America at the end of the millennium," sings one character earnestly, in a different number, after he's tried to sell out and discovers the world of actually making a living just doesn't suit him, "you are what you own." Truer words were never sung, at least not since Florence Henderson donned a dirndl in "Song of Norway."
I wasn't sure a movie musical could be worse than last year's styrofoam-and-gilt swan-boat travesty "Phantom of the Opera," but I'm afraid "Rent" proves me wrong. The early scenes aren't so bad: At least the performers, and the absurd lyrics they're asked to sing, have earnestness on their side. The crushed-by-life rock star (Adam Pascal), the aspiring experimental filmmaker (Anthony Rapp), the beautiful-but-troubled dancer (Rosario Dawson), all prance and pirouette with gusto through the big opening number, wondering aloud, "How we gonna pay last year's rent?" They may be poor, but they know what their assets are: Later Dawson, who has the hots for Pascal and hopes to jolt him out of the funk he's been in since his junkie girlfriend committed suicide, scoots down on all fours and sings, "They say that I have the best ass below 14th Street." The evidence, as it twitches before us, is irrefutable.
But because -- and consider this a spoiler alert -- "Rent" is a story about life, love and loss, someone is going to die, and you can bet it's not going to be the obnoxious, sub-Karen Finley performance artist played by Idina Menzel: The sacrificial lamb here is the sweet, beloved-by-all tranny (Wilson Jermaine Heredia, who at one point offers a reasonably enjoyable number dressed in a cute Santa-girl outfit, even if Columbus shoots the sequence with patchwork-quilt visual craziness). As if that weren't enough, we get a further milking from a shameless almost-death scene at the end of the picture, in which a character goes limp, supposedly hearing the angels' clarion call. Columbus' camera travels with unvarnished deliberateness down that character's dangling arm, lingering on the lifeless fingers, which, lo and behold, begin to twitch with life. Not 30 seconds later, the whole gang is laughing and hugging, remarking on what a close call that was. We get all the poignance of a death scene and still get to go home with our happy ending.
Looking back on that scene, I almost can't believe it wasn't some sort of sick joke. But "Rent" is dead serious. Even though the picture is jampacked with enthusiastic singing, it's devoid of any real feeling -- its robotic, "Up With People" vigor leaves behind a cold, metallic aftertaste. I never saw the stage version of "Rent," so I'm not sure if Columbus has cluelessly trampled on Larson's material or, worse yet, merely presented it faithfully. (Larson died of an aortic aneurym just before the play went into previews in 1996.) But either way, Columbus isn't graceful enough as a filmmaker to navigate the story's smiley-face/sad-face twists and turns. The movie feels cluttered and forced; the scenes clunk along with an oompah-band rhythm.
What's most disheartening about "Rent" is watching all these performers work so hard, for so little payoff: It's frustrating to have an ensemble of young actors who can sing and dance (among them the eminently likable Rosario Dawson, and Taye Diggs, who's wasted here), and to realize that this is the best material anyone has to offer them. There's very little that's remotely musical about "Rent": The songs are like a vaudeville performer's idea of that newfangled rock music the kids are so nuts about these days.
And then there are the lyrics: "I'm looking for baggage that will go with mine," coos one troubled character to her potential soul mate. "You'll be my queen, I'll be your moat," sings another character to the guy he's fallen hard for. Larson wrote "Rent" as a reimagining of "La Bohéme," an exploration of the beauty and pain of being young, poor and artistically inclined and striving to express yourself. It's a fine idea in theory, but in the end, "Rent" is about nothing more than the oppressiveness of other people's self-expression. The depressed rock star in "Rent" takes a year to write one song. But the three minutes we spend listening to it seems interminable.
Stephanie Zacharek is a senior writer for Salon Arts & Entertainment.
Story finder (3 ways to search S
Who knew a movie musical could be worse than last year's over-the-top travesty "Phantom of the Opera"?
By Stephanie Zacharek
Nov. 23, 2005 | Oh, the plight of the struggling artist in New York, circa 1989: It's so hard to maintain your integrity when your parents keep leaving annoying, concerned messages on your answering machine, your old roommate marries a rich girl and is suddenly no longer amused by bad performance art, and, worst of all, your friends insist on dying of AIDS.
Chris Columbus' version of Jonathan Larson's alleged rock musical "Rent" spends most of its time congratulating itself on its own open-mindedness. Experimental filmmaking? Neat! Exotic dancing? Yeah! Homosexuality? Everybody into the pool! The movie's spirit of aggressive inclusivity reaches its apex in the noisy song-and-dance number "La Vie Boheme," in which the characters take over a bunch of tables in the middle of an East Village restaurant and mime several mildly non-missionary-style sex acts, just to show how open they are to alternative ways of, you know, living life. "When you're living in America at the end of the millennium," sings one character earnestly, in a different number, after he's tried to sell out and discovers the world of actually making a living just doesn't suit him, "you are what you own." Truer words were never sung, at least not since Florence Henderson donned a dirndl in "Song of Norway."
I wasn't sure a movie musical could be worse than last year's styrofoam-and-gilt swan-boat travesty "Phantom of the Opera," but I'm afraid "Rent" proves me wrong. The early scenes aren't so bad: At least the performers, and the absurd lyrics they're asked to sing, have earnestness on their side. The crushed-by-life rock star (Adam Pascal), the aspiring experimental filmmaker (Anthony Rapp), the beautiful-but-troubled dancer (Rosario Dawson), all prance and pirouette with gusto through the big opening number, wondering aloud, "How we gonna pay last year's rent?" They may be poor, but they know what their assets are: Later Dawson, who has the hots for Pascal and hopes to jolt him out of the funk he's been in since his junkie girlfriend committed suicide, scoots down on all fours and sings, "They say that I have the best ass below 14th Street." The evidence, as it twitches before us, is irrefutable.
But because -- and consider this a spoiler alert -- "Rent" is a story about life, love and loss, someone is going to die, and you can bet it's not going to be the obnoxious, sub-Karen Finley performance artist played by Idina Menzel: The sacrificial lamb here is the sweet, beloved-by-all tranny (Wilson Jermaine Heredia, who at one point offers a reasonably enjoyable number dressed in a cute Santa-girl outfit, even if Columbus shoots the sequence with patchwork-quilt visual craziness). As if that weren't enough, we get a further milking from a shameless almost-death scene at the end of the picture, in which a character goes limp, supposedly hearing the angels' clarion call. Columbus' camera travels with unvarnished deliberateness down that character's dangling arm, lingering on the lifeless fingers, which, lo and behold, begin to twitch with life. Not 30 seconds later, the whole gang is laughing and hugging, remarking on what a close call that was. We get all the poignance of a death scene and still get to go home with our happy ending.
Looking back on that scene, I almost can't believe it wasn't some sort of sick joke. But "Rent" is dead serious. Even though the picture is jampacked with enthusiastic singing, it's devoid of any real feeling -- its robotic, "Up With People" vigor leaves behind a cold, metallic aftertaste. I never saw the stage version of "Rent," so I'm not sure if Columbus has cluelessly trampled on Larson's material or, worse yet, merely presented it faithfully. (Larson died of an aortic aneurym just before the play went into previews in 1996.) But either way, Columbus isn't graceful enough as a filmmaker to navigate the story's smiley-face/sad-face twists and turns. The movie feels cluttered and forced; the scenes clunk along with an oompah-band rhythm.
What's most disheartening about "Rent" is watching all these performers work so hard, for so little payoff: It's frustrating to have an ensemble of young actors who can sing and dance (among them the eminently likable Rosario Dawson, and Taye Diggs, who's wasted here), and to realize that this is the best material anyone has to offer them. There's very little that's remotely musical about "Rent": The songs are like a vaudeville performer's idea of that newfangled rock music the kids are so nuts about these days.
And then there are the lyrics: "I'm looking for baggage that will go with mine," coos one troubled character to her potential soul mate. "You'll be my queen, I'll be your moat," sings another character to the guy he's fallen hard for. Larson wrote "Rent" as a reimagining of "La Bohéme," an exploration of the beauty and pain of being young, poor and artistically inclined and striving to express yourself. It's a fine idea in theory, but in the end, "Rent" is about nothing more than the oppressiveness of other people's self-expression. The depressed rock star in "Rent" takes a year to write one song. But the three minutes we spend listening to it seems interminable.
Stephanie Zacharek is a senior writer for Salon Arts & Entertainment.
Story finder (3 ways to search S
thanksgiving week
I went to leave town on tuesday afternoon, after a beastly Monday afternoon. I left the parking lot late and headed home to get my cat and get back on the highway. 1/2 way home, i was flagged by an old lady and younger man (her son) in their car alerting me that i had a flat tired. I pulled into a FLAT place on HOward Ave in East NY and couldnt save my back tire that had a nasty screw deep in it. It cost me 50.00 CASH to get my ass on the road. I didnt like the sound of my new brakes, they have been back at the shop and i didnt like the sound but they screached Once and it was a rainy rainy day.
I decided to go to MAssachusetts and see how hte brakes were.
well 95 became a 3-6 parking lot and my new brakes got broken in. when i cleared 95 for 91 and then 84 i was cruising on at a great clip but i lost 2 hours travel time on 95. I made it to my parents with kitty o' love none worse for the wear. i picked up dinner and ate talking to my dad.
i got up wednesday and dropped my car off at the glass place. on my trip back from philly recently, i got hit by the flying rock and it nicked my windshield pretty bad so my dad called MILFORD GLASS and they could do my car wednesday and Bill my insurance directly for NO OUT THE POCKET costs to me. GLASS coverage is great.. so the toyota went to the shop and i went to WEight watchers in my father's maxima..
my mother went to meet my aunt and i met up with dad at home. i changed and we went to the bank, to get coffee, to the grocery store and the post office. we came home and i made these jello and yogurt and cool whip pies that i had made before.
MY neices have elevated PKU levels so they cannot have any sugar or fat free products, Those disclaimers that warn for Phenylalaine is for them. so they asked if i would make these pies especially for them. SO i did.
I then went to target with my dad and got home and my car was ready. I didnt have time to go to the outlet mall so i went to dinner with my parents.
Thursday, i woke up to a blanket of snow. I went out for coffee and the papers and ended up at BRooks or CVS twice for crap my mom forgot. Applesauce, PAM etc. it was cold in Massachusetts and my sister in law came over to start to cook. I had to run interference with her use of butter on veggies. She uses a stick of butter on everything. I baked butternut squash and a baked YAM and baked haddock and ate broccoli. I was able to avoid her peas, corn and pearl unions, mashed potatoes.
i played Rummy with my neices.. well i coached heather for a while. I looked at paiges cards and katies cards and cheated for heather. I didnt talk to my brother or my brother in law really. i dont have anything to say. My sister and i charted her black friday shopping.
i took her kids and she hit the stores. She hit the doorbusters on wednesday night and got some great bargains. She was going to sears and jc penny to get TVs and play station crap.
Paige and heather and i played cards and talked about current events. THey said they didnt care about the environment til we started talking about the ozone layer and hybrids and the oil prices and how the rainforest is being killed off. Paige talked about the second world war and hitler and asked alot of questions about the crematorium and the holocaust. she lives in a town where racism is rampant and she cannot disclose she is a jew. Kids walk around saluting hitler and we got to talk about how the town she lives in has the KLAN and the history of having the KLAN. crosses were burned on the neighors yard. my parents were talking with us about current events . i told paige about Anne Frank and how there were christians in europe who helped save jews. My dad will get them Schindlers list and i will send Paige the Diary of Anne Frank.
Unfortunately when you are the minority in a small new england town, you tend to want to hide. I still found myself putting my star of david in my shirt in NO WHERE North Carolina. Growing up as one of 35 jewish families, you learn to be unsafe. WE got to talk to paige about how unsafe being a jew facing anti semitism can feel.
paige and i watched FLY AWAY HOME and heather and katie watched Finding NEMO. they asked if they could sleep in my bed while i slept on the couch. Friday, i made em breakfast as my mom went to get her hair done and then i went to Kohl for their doorbuster. I scored the kids, Disney SCENE IT. These scene it games are DVD guessing games. So they had Harry Potter and wanted disney. I got it for more than 10.00 less then it was being offered. I went to get myself the MAGIC BULLET and got two pairs of levis and some socks.
i got home and we were ready to leave to go see Harry Potter. I liked this movie better than the last one. Paige has a learning disability so she doesnt read the books, Heather and Katie absorbed them this summer and read em all so they know more of the story and quoted me names and places. i had them bring me HP 1-3 so i could read em. so i brought them home with me. I will fill in the story and ill see the movies again
I really liked the movie. My father wanted more magic and my mom drifted off. She too is learning disabled and cant follow the plot lines easily. THe kids stuffed themselves on popcorn. I ate an apple. and we went back to my parents after a trip to the dollar store.
my sister, brother and their spouces were at my moms and we ate dinner. I then went shopping at Target again. i wanted the 4.14 crock pot for two and a new coffee maker for 4.14 as a spare.
saturday, i went to the outlets in wrenthem after i went to Kohls with my mom to get my neices some bras. I got two bras (thanks mom) and some cash from her. She paid me for the Kohls cash i got on friday and for some gift cards i had. I ended up with cash, she got the product
i went to the gap outlet and Liz Claibourne and ended up with sweaters and some shirts. I went to corning and bought some muffin tins (buy one get one free) and some pyrex bowls. I got gifts for Carol my favorite WW leader and i got my secret santa crap. I bought water proof boots for winter at BASS for 35 dollars and i bought gloves
i met up with my parents and we went to RENT. i was self conscious because of the topics and characters in the movies and was concerned about my parents response. They liked the movie and the characters. My mother thought that it was typical NY bohemia of the late 80s and thought some of it was dated. My dad didnt say much. I think i will see the movie again. I remember when they were filming it on Wooster street. I really understood better than the stage play. I think Angel needed a larger role and tie the characters together like she did in the play. The play was more confusing due to the limits of the setting but the plot is the same. I liked the movie alot.
i saw rent over 10 years i think. we had tickets for kids and i sat in the back of hte balcony on a snowy snowy january night. the theater was warm. it was cold and it was around my birthday. I remember the winter in the play and in the movie. I remember the night i saw them filming the scene where MIMI and Roger hook up and how they were making snow in soho while i walked to canal street. The large street that abuts the LOFT is supposed to be canal and Thompkins square park and 2nd ave are in the movie. I love seeing NYC in movies
i will not see KiNG KONG but ill see memoirs of a geisha and Munich. I remember the night Jim McKay reported the Israeli wrestling team was killed. I woke my parents up to times. i stayed up later and woke them when ARmstrong walked on the moon and the night the israeli wrestling team was killed. I remember being in tears for the loss.. the jews of the world felt that loss.
last night, i went to dinner with parents and i got up early and drove back to NY. I am going back to work a day early. my new boss seems to sign off on time off and then use it in emails or verbally as punishment. I dont need the day so i cancelled a day off. i emailed her and informed her that i would be back at work.
so i will go back to work... ho ho ho
I decided to go to MAssachusetts and see how hte brakes were.
well 95 became a 3-6 parking lot and my new brakes got broken in. when i cleared 95 for 91 and then 84 i was cruising on at a great clip but i lost 2 hours travel time on 95. I made it to my parents with kitty o' love none worse for the wear. i picked up dinner and ate talking to my dad.
i got up wednesday and dropped my car off at the glass place. on my trip back from philly recently, i got hit by the flying rock and it nicked my windshield pretty bad so my dad called MILFORD GLASS and they could do my car wednesday and Bill my insurance directly for NO OUT THE POCKET costs to me. GLASS coverage is great.. so the toyota went to the shop and i went to WEight watchers in my father's maxima..
my mother went to meet my aunt and i met up with dad at home. i changed and we went to the bank, to get coffee, to the grocery store and the post office. we came home and i made these jello and yogurt and cool whip pies that i had made before.
MY neices have elevated PKU levels so they cannot have any sugar or fat free products, Those disclaimers that warn for Phenylalaine is for them. so they asked if i would make these pies especially for them. SO i did.
I then went to target with my dad and got home and my car was ready. I didnt have time to go to the outlet mall so i went to dinner with my parents.
Thursday, i woke up to a blanket of snow. I went out for coffee and the papers and ended up at BRooks or CVS twice for crap my mom forgot. Applesauce, PAM etc. it was cold in Massachusetts and my sister in law came over to start to cook. I had to run interference with her use of butter on veggies. She uses a stick of butter on everything. I baked butternut squash and a baked YAM and baked haddock and ate broccoli. I was able to avoid her peas, corn and pearl unions, mashed potatoes.
i played Rummy with my neices.. well i coached heather for a while. I looked at paiges cards and katies cards and cheated for heather. I didnt talk to my brother or my brother in law really. i dont have anything to say. My sister and i charted her black friday shopping.
i took her kids and she hit the stores. She hit the doorbusters on wednesday night and got some great bargains. She was going to sears and jc penny to get TVs and play station crap.
Paige and heather and i played cards and talked about current events. THey said they didnt care about the environment til we started talking about the ozone layer and hybrids and the oil prices and how the rainforest is being killed off. Paige talked about the second world war and hitler and asked alot of questions about the crematorium and the holocaust. she lives in a town where racism is rampant and she cannot disclose she is a jew. Kids walk around saluting hitler and we got to talk about how the town she lives in has the KLAN and the history of having the KLAN. crosses were burned on the neighors yard. my parents were talking with us about current events . i told paige about Anne Frank and how there were christians in europe who helped save jews. My dad will get them Schindlers list and i will send Paige the Diary of Anne Frank.
Unfortunately when you are the minority in a small new england town, you tend to want to hide. I still found myself putting my star of david in my shirt in NO WHERE North Carolina. Growing up as one of 35 jewish families, you learn to be unsafe. WE got to talk to paige about how unsafe being a jew facing anti semitism can feel.
paige and i watched FLY AWAY HOME and heather and katie watched Finding NEMO. they asked if they could sleep in my bed while i slept on the couch. Friday, i made em breakfast as my mom went to get her hair done and then i went to Kohl for their doorbuster. I scored the kids, Disney SCENE IT. These scene it games are DVD guessing games. So they had Harry Potter and wanted disney. I got it for more than 10.00 less then it was being offered. I went to get myself the MAGIC BULLET and got two pairs of levis and some socks.
i got home and we were ready to leave to go see Harry Potter. I liked this movie better than the last one. Paige has a learning disability so she doesnt read the books, Heather and Katie absorbed them this summer and read em all so they know more of the story and quoted me names and places. i had them bring me HP 1-3 so i could read em. so i brought them home with me. I will fill in the story and ill see the movies again
I really liked the movie. My father wanted more magic and my mom drifted off. She too is learning disabled and cant follow the plot lines easily. THe kids stuffed themselves on popcorn. I ate an apple. and we went back to my parents after a trip to the dollar store.
my sister, brother and their spouces were at my moms and we ate dinner. I then went shopping at Target again. i wanted the 4.14 crock pot for two and a new coffee maker for 4.14 as a spare.
saturday, i went to the outlets in wrenthem after i went to Kohls with my mom to get my neices some bras. I got two bras (thanks mom) and some cash from her. She paid me for the Kohls cash i got on friday and for some gift cards i had. I ended up with cash, she got the product
i went to the gap outlet and Liz Claibourne and ended up with sweaters and some shirts. I went to corning and bought some muffin tins (buy one get one free) and some pyrex bowls. I got gifts for Carol my favorite WW leader and i got my secret santa crap. I bought water proof boots for winter at BASS for 35 dollars and i bought gloves
i met up with my parents and we went to RENT. i was self conscious because of the topics and characters in the movies and was concerned about my parents response. They liked the movie and the characters. My mother thought that it was typical NY bohemia of the late 80s and thought some of it was dated. My dad didnt say much. I think i will see the movie again. I remember when they were filming it on Wooster street. I really understood better than the stage play. I think Angel needed a larger role and tie the characters together like she did in the play. The play was more confusing due to the limits of the setting but the plot is the same. I liked the movie alot.
i saw rent over 10 years i think. we had tickets for kids and i sat in the back of hte balcony on a snowy snowy january night. the theater was warm. it was cold and it was around my birthday. I remember the winter in the play and in the movie. I remember the night i saw them filming the scene where MIMI and Roger hook up and how they were making snow in soho while i walked to canal street. The large street that abuts the LOFT is supposed to be canal and Thompkins square park and 2nd ave are in the movie. I love seeing NYC in movies
i will not see KiNG KONG but ill see memoirs of a geisha and Munich. I remember the night Jim McKay reported the Israeli wrestling team was killed. I woke my parents up to times. i stayed up later and woke them when ARmstrong walked on the moon and the night the israeli wrestling team was killed. I remember being in tears for the loss.. the jews of the world felt that loss.
last night, i went to dinner with parents and i got up early and drove back to NY. I am going back to work a day early. my new boss seems to sign off on time off and then use it in emails or verbally as punishment. I dont need the day so i cancelled a day off. i emailed her and informed her that i would be back at work.
so i will go back to work... ho ho ho
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Sunday, November 20, 2005
thanksgiving
thanksgiving day growing up in Massachusetts always included a trip to Plimouth Rock and learning about the Pilgrims. School days leading up to thanksgiving was day trips and drawings of turkeys and buckle shoes.
Then thanksgiving day became about going to the HIgh School football game. when Milford HIgh school played St Marys it was weeks of rivalry and the winner had bragging rights for a year. It was the Public education against the only Catholic high school in the area. THere was always an undercurrent of tension, Thanksgiving day allowed it to be played out in the open. Medway vs Millis, the high school of my mother and my cousins still have a 60 or 70 year rivalry today.
when St Marys closed down, it was milford vs Shrewsbury. We didnt know them, they didnt know us. they were people, just a team to beat.
going to the games in sweaters and leather gloves was more about being seen and who was with who then about the game, To fit in you went to the game
once i went to college, it was about coming home and being with relatives who i realized i didnt like. My cousin Norma loved the Macys day parade. the holiday became about who did the work and who didnt and sneaking off to smoke cigarettes. Thanksgiving day didnt have the same meaning
one thanksgiving, my aunt and her clan decided not to come over at the last minute. Leaving my mother like a deflated balloon as my cousin's wife was cooking for them. Years of tradition... 40 years of tradition down the drain. The holiday changed again
my mother cooked and i invited my neices for a sleep over to cheer my mother. That sleep over continues. the kids come over and we watch movies and we eat popcorn and get goofy. My mom has them to replace the fact that her sister stiffed her and left her deflated. My neices will get donuts for breakfast (they love em) and we will go to see the latest HOTEST movie. Again, another Harry Potter movie.
another thanksgiving, now my sister in law cooks at my moms.. her sister refused to come to her so she and her dad will come to my mom.. she uses too much butter and really isnt flexible in her cooking. so i end up with separate meals.. i will take my neices for a walk and watch DVDs and play cards with them.
maybe ill take pictures of them and let them take pictures of me...
i am leaving on tuesday and will be there wed- monday..
i have lots to be thankful for this year and every year
Then thanksgiving day became about going to the HIgh School football game. when Milford HIgh school played St Marys it was weeks of rivalry and the winner had bragging rights for a year. It was the Public education against the only Catholic high school in the area. THere was always an undercurrent of tension, Thanksgiving day allowed it to be played out in the open. Medway vs Millis, the high school of my mother and my cousins still have a 60 or 70 year rivalry today.
when St Marys closed down, it was milford vs Shrewsbury. We didnt know them, they didnt know us. they were people, just a team to beat.
going to the games in sweaters and leather gloves was more about being seen and who was with who then about the game, To fit in you went to the game
once i went to college, it was about coming home and being with relatives who i realized i didnt like. My cousin Norma loved the Macys day parade. the holiday became about who did the work and who didnt and sneaking off to smoke cigarettes. Thanksgiving day didnt have the same meaning
one thanksgiving, my aunt and her clan decided not to come over at the last minute. Leaving my mother like a deflated balloon as my cousin's wife was cooking for them. Years of tradition... 40 years of tradition down the drain. The holiday changed again
my mother cooked and i invited my neices for a sleep over to cheer my mother. That sleep over continues. the kids come over and we watch movies and we eat popcorn and get goofy. My mom has them to replace the fact that her sister stiffed her and left her deflated. My neices will get donuts for breakfast (they love em) and we will go to see the latest HOTEST movie. Again, another Harry Potter movie.
another thanksgiving, now my sister in law cooks at my moms.. her sister refused to come to her so she and her dad will come to my mom.. she uses too much butter and really isnt flexible in her cooking. so i end up with separate meals.. i will take my neices for a walk and watch DVDs and play cards with them.
maybe ill take pictures of them and let them take pictures of me...
i am leaving on tuesday and will be there wed- monday..
i have lots to be thankful for this year and every year
walk the line
i went to see Walk the Line on Friday.
Walk the Line From Imbd
Finding the trauma in his life whisked away by the power of song, Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) commits his early years to understanding how music works, and looking for his big break. After marrying young (Vivian Cash is played by Ginnifer Goodwin), Cash soon takes to the road, touring along with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) while his records climb the charts. Unsatisfied with his situation, Cash soon starts to chase Carter, who reluctantly gives in to him and soon regrets her decision when Cash's life dissolves into a kaleidoscope of anger, pills, and disappointment.
Writer/director James Mangold clearly has a soaring affection for Johnny Cash, since "Walk the Line" is a straight-up love letter to the late, great singing legend. However, in his effort to illustrate the power of will Cash demonstrated in his life, Mangold's focus is thrown askew, making "Line" all about Cash's demons, and displaying almost none of his joy.
Cringingly, "Walk the Line" is as formulaic a biographical picture as can be made. "Line" follows the same route as last year's Oscar winning "Ray," taking the audience on a ride through broken childhood, professional growth, heavy womanizing, and ultimately drugs and despair. It seems that anything related to music has to follow these pathways; yet, these films continue to be made, completely oblivious that they are all alike. Mangold is a director with some sense of personality ("Girl, Interrupted," "Cop Land"), so it's a surprise that he would stoop to keeping "Line" so attentive to the familiar. Thankfully, Cash's cinematic story is a convincing one, taking the singer from the tragic loss of his older brother as a child to the heights of fame to his stormy courtship with the unresponsive June Carter. "Walk the Line" is basic to a fault, but it has the raw materials to get it at least halfway to success.
Taking the film the rest of the way are the performances, which are spellbinding. Joaquin Phoenix takes the challenge to impersonate Cash very seriously, and he sweats, glares, and stalks his way to a meticulous performance. In a dramatic choice, Mangold has instructed his cast to do their own singing, allowing the performers to slip into the skin of the songs and feel around. Phoenix does a spot-on job mimicking Cash's baritone and swagger, at times becoming one with the man in black. Phoenix is no stranger to jittery, internalized roles, so his domestic Cash is decent work. It's only when Phoenix hits the stage does the audience see just how far the actor has dug into his role. The concert sequences are electric, and prop the film up when Mangold finds himself wailing the audience over the head with Cash's dark moments.
Reese Witherspoon's performance is the real surprise here. Also doing her own signing, Witherspoon has the perfect twang to bring June Carter to life. Her chemistry with Phoenix onstage is worth the price of admission alone, with the two actors making every moment together in performance glowing (also crucial to their characters). Unfortunately, when Carter is off the stage, the script reduces her to a nag, constantly berating Cash about his lifestyle choices. Mangold isn't particularly kind to women in "Line," and maybe that's the way Cash saw his own life. For the film to work, however, Carter needed to be seen as a siren that Cash couldn't live without, but that feeling is never solidified. Instead of swooning over the couple and their battles to love each other, "Line" becomes a giant exercise in figuring out just what Carter saw in Cash in the first place. Not quite what Mangold had in mind, I'm sure.
As "Line" delves further and further into Cash's addictions and downward spiral, less time to given to his musical triumphs, robbing the film of a true depiction. The legendary Folsom Prison concert, which lightly bookends the film, is a powerhouse, cleanly displaying the fire in Cash's belly, as well as his mischief. There isn't enough of that in "Line;" the dedication to the drug abuse encompassing way too much screen time, and steals away focus from the romance in the Cash and Carter union. "Walk the Line" only tells part of the Cash legend (the film ends in the late 1960s), with a heartbreaking coda (which states that Cash died in 2003 a mere four months after June), hinting that perhaps Mangold was looking in the wrong era to find out what made Johnny Cash tick. ---- 6/10
___________________
my personal opinion is that is a good movie. not a great movie. I liked that JP and RW did their own singing and i think that the chemistry between them waxes and wanes. I love the love story. The committment as friends. Their relationship is the centerpiece of the movie and i love how the movie is organized. From FOLSON PRISON and then in flashback
its similar to RAY but so wasnt CAsh's story.
i love that the other SUN artists were cast and did their own singing. I walked out wanted to know more about JUNE, maybe cuz i know alot about Johnny. I loved Reese WItherspoon in this role.. OSCAR NOMINATIONS all round
its a MUST see
Walk the Line From Imbd
Finding the trauma in his life whisked away by the power of song, Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) commits his early years to understanding how music works, and looking for his big break. After marrying young (Vivian Cash is played by Ginnifer Goodwin), Cash soon takes to the road, touring along with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) while his records climb the charts. Unsatisfied with his situation, Cash soon starts to chase Carter, who reluctantly gives in to him and soon regrets her decision when Cash's life dissolves into a kaleidoscope of anger, pills, and disappointment.
Writer/director James Mangold clearly has a soaring affection for Johnny Cash, since "Walk the Line" is a straight-up love letter to the late, great singing legend. However, in his effort to illustrate the power of will Cash demonstrated in his life, Mangold's focus is thrown askew, making "Line" all about Cash's demons, and displaying almost none of his joy.
Cringingly, "Walk the Line" is as formulaic a biographical picture as can be made. "Line" follows the same route as last year's Oscar winning "Ray," taking the audience on a ride through broken childhood, professional growth, heavy womanizing, and ultimately drugs and despair. It seems that anything related to music has to follow these pathways; yet, these films continue to be made, completely oblivious that they are all alike. Mangold is a director with some sense of personality ("Girl, Interrupted," "Cop Land"), so it's a surprise that he would stoop to keeping "Line" so attentive to the familiar. Thankfully, Cash's cinematic story is a convincing one, taking the singer from the tragic loss of his older brother as a child to the heights of fame to his stormy courtship with the unresponsive June Carter. "Walk the Line" is basic to a fault, but it has the raw materials to get it at least halfway to success.
Taking the film the rest of the way are the performances, which are spellbinding. Joaquin Phoenix takes the challenge to impersonate Cash very seriously, and he sweats, glares, and stalks his way to a meticulous performance. In a dramatic choice, Mangold has instructed his cast to do their own singing, allowing the performers to slip into the skin of the songs and feel around. Phoenix does a spot-on job mimicking Cash's baritone and swagger, at times becoming one with the man in black. Phoenix is no stranger to jittery, internalized roles, so his domestic Cash is decent work. It's only when Phoenix hits the stage does the audience see just how far the actor has dug into his role. The concert sequences are electric, and prop the film up when Mangold finds himself wailing the audience over the head with Cash's dark moments.
Reese Witherspoon's performance is the real surprise here. Also doing her own signing, Witherspoon has the perfect twang to bring June Carter to life. Her chemistry with Phoenix onstage is worth the price of admission alone, with the two actors making every moment together in performance glowing (also crucial to their characters). Unfortunately, when Carter is off the stage, the script reduces her to a nag, constantly berating Cash about his lifestyle choices. Mangold isn't particularly kind to women in "Line," and maybe that's the way Cash saw his own life. For the film to work, however, Carter needed to be seen as a siren that Cash couldn't live without, but that feeling is never solidified. Instead of swooning over the couple and their battles to love each other, "Line" becomes a giant exercise in figuring out just what Carter saw in Cash in the first place. Not quite what Mangold had in mind, I'm sure.
As "Line" delves further and further into Cash's addictions and downward spiral, less time to given to his musical triumphs, robbing the film of a true depiction. The legendary Folsom Prison concert, which lightly bookends the film, is a powerhouse, cleanly displaying the fire in Cash's belly, as well as his mischief. There isn't enough of that in "Line;" the dedication to the drug abuse encompassing way too much screen time, and steals away focus from the romance in the Cash and Carter union. "Walk the Line" only tells part of the Cash legend (the film ends in the late 1960s), with a heartbreaking coda (which states that Cash died in 2003 a mere four months after June), hinting that perhaps Mangold was looking in the wrong era to find out what made Johnny Cash tick. ---- 6/10
___________________
my personal opinion is that is a good movie. not a great movie. I liked that JP and RW did their own singing and i think that the chemistry between them waxes and wanes. I love the love story. The committment as friends. Their relationship is the centerpiece of the movie and i love how the movie is organized. From FOLSON PRISON and then in flashback
its similar to RAY but so wasnt CAsh's story.
i love that the other SUN artists were cast and did their own singing. I walked out wanted to know more about JUNE, maybe cuz i know alot about Johnny. I loved Reese WItherspoon in this role.. OSCAR NOMINATIONS all round
its a MUST see
Saturday, November 19, 2005
dreams of tickets and the mcgarrigles/wainwrights
i dreamed that i received a parking ticket. I then looked at all the cars on the same block and then they had tickets too for expired parking meters. I came back to my car after being away and i saw a slip of paper. I thought NO i cant get another ticket. it wasnt a ticket it was a note that someone put the fare in the meter and saved me from getting a ticket. it was Donna, the woman who cuts my hair. I went into the shop and i thanked her. I raised the issue of getting the ticket and her paying my meter fare. I wanted to thank her. I turned the leave and then reached in my pocket and handed her a dollar
I dreamed that i was at brownstone, like the ones in park slope and in the basement or lower apartment was the Mcgarrigle sister, I saw the family clan. Rufus Wainwright and Martha heading into the apartment. The feeling of the dream was i was watching it more than i was in it
I dreamed that i was at brownstone, like the ones in park slope and in the basement or lower apartment was the Mcgarrigle sister, I saw the family clan. Rufus Wainwright and Martha heading into the apartment. The feeling of the dream was i was watching it more than i was in it
Thursday, November 17, 2005
dreaming again
last night i had a crazy dream about chicago
dont ask anything else about it.
i have been sleeping fine except that oNE Time i wake up about 4am...
chicago has been a dream theme
dont ask anything else about it.
i have been sleeping fine except that oNE Time i wake up about 4am...
chicago has been a dream theme
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of November 17, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of November 17, 2005
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
In their new book The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare, Brenda James and William Rubinstein make an interesting case for the theory that the real author of Shakespeare's works was the diplomat and courtier Sir Henry Neville. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject to evaluate their arguments, but I'm pretty sure that you will soon have a feeling similar to what Neville might be having if he were alive. Some reward or credit that has long been denied you will finally be yours. Vindication is nigh.
Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
In their new book The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare, Brenda James and William Rubinstein make an interesting case for the theory that the real author of Shakespeare's works was the diplomat and courtier Sir Henry Neville. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject to evaluate their arguments, but I'm pretty sure that you will soon have a feeling similar to what Neville might be having if he were alive. Some reward or credit that has long been denied you will finally be yours. Vindication is nigh.
dreaming again
Eilat
I dreamed about something having to do with Chicago. The city not the musical but i saw a version of the word Eiliat or Eilat or Eliat in my dream and i am not sure if it refers to hte Israel city or some other obscure reference from my subscious
i know that I had something to do in Chicago...
snippets anyone
I dreamed about something having to do with Chicago. The city not the musical but i saw a version of the word Eiliat or Eilat or Eliat in my dream and i am not sure if it refers to hte Israel city or some other obscure reference from my subscious
i know that I had something to do in Chicago...
snippets anyone
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
dreaming again
i dreamed that i got a period. I thought it was odd because i havent had one since March 2005. so the sight of blood in my dream caused me to know that i could still have a period any day. I dont think of it often anymore and know as long as i am having some sort of hot flashes i will not have a period. But in my dream i did.
the Loss of blood can mean a loss of energy and fatigue and loss of the life force
in another dream, i had a card or program that at locations on it. point pleasure was one of the places on the map. In the dream, i handed the card to Natalie Merchant who is not longer being called MS Merchant ( in the dream, at least) and she playfully drew and wrote on the card. she outlines the maps and in black sharpie wistfully played with the drawings, added her own. When she handed it back to me, i was surprised she was so playful. Point Pleasure was outlined on the card
the Loss of blood can mean a loss of energy and fatigue and loss of the life force
in another dream, i had a card or program that at locations on it. point pleasure was one of the places on the map. In the dream, i handed the card to Natalie Merchant who is not longer being called MS Merchant ( in the dream, at least) and she playfully drew and wrote on the card. she outlines the maps and in black sharpie wistfully played with the drawings, added her own. When she handed it back to me, i was surprised she was so playful. Point Pleasure was outlined on the card
Sunday, November 13, 2005
looks like Participant studio is socially responsible
Stand up and Participate
Participant studio who produced North Country, Good Luck and Good Night and Syriana
have webpages where forums of discussion about
informedia vs news for Good NIght and good Luck
Domestic Violence and Sexual Harrassment for North Country
and OIL usage and dependance for Syriana
its socially responsible movies and movie going .
i saw good quality movies and supported causes as well
Participant studio who produced North Country, Good Luck and Good Night and Syriana
have webpages where forums of discussion about
informedia vs news for Good NIght and good Luck
Domestic Violence and Sexual Harrassment for North Country
and OIL usage and dependance for Syriana
its socially responsible movies and movie going .
i saw good quality movies and supported causes as well
i have been on a movie binge.
Last weekend, i saw Good Luck and Good Night.
george clooney directed this black and white movie depicting Edward J Murrow's expose of the McCarthy Hearings with the underlying themes of being accused of being guilty without evidence and how government can ruin the lives of people who are deemed Enemy of the state. In 1950, the media had to present both sides so McCarthy is allowed a rebuttal. News clips are used brilliantly by Clooney. Look for the oscar nomination for David strahairn as Murrow is magnificent and Clooney as fred friendly is great. Langella as Paley and Downey Jr is great too
there were some girls who were analyzing the character development and superficial plot. I informed them that Clooney's real state is the current state of the MEdia today and role of the government in making dissenters enemies of the state.
they just didnt get the analogy.
I then saw Chicken Little in 3D
its not the best movie but the characters are cool. The plot falls a part with the aliens and i thought that it would have been clever to add some ET references, which i missed totally. the little stranded alient sets the audience up for ET but fails to use that.
the Mallad who read beauty magazines so she can overcome being the ugly duckling and the runt of the little who self soothes by singing 70s r&B tunes are the best. Chicken Little has references that GO way over the kids heads but made me laugh and Garry Marshall is a great dad's voice
i loved the 3D and kept peeking beyond the glasses to see the screen
lots of the kids cried to have to wear them. the ages of the kids would be important to keep the glasses on
This weekend i finally caught North Country
i loved the midwest accents, Midwest culture that is depicted and the Dylan soundtrack
Charlize Theron doesnt take the easy road out. Her characters and performances are always intense. The theme of Domestic violence, Sexual Harrassment, Loyalty to oaths and the brotherhood, Union loyalty, and standing for what you believe and what is true run through the movie. Its an oscar nomination performances for Sissy Spacek, Robert Julien and Charlize Theron.
lastly a few weeks ago, i saw Capote
the story of Truman Capote from when he reads about the murder of the family in Kansas and pursuades his NYer Editor that he and his personal assistant Harper Lee are going to investigate to write an article for the NYer. It soon is obvious that his a book. The book becomes IN COLD BLOOD. Capote is depicted as a spoiled narcissistic devious imp who is determined and manipulative and getting the story that he wants. His impatience and arrogance and lack of understanding of those around him is putting it kind. Phillip Seymour Hoffman becomes Capote as Strahairn becomes Murrow. Look again to the Academy to nomincate PSHoffman for his portrayal of Capote
Last weekend, i saw Good Luck and Good Night.
george clooney directed this black and white movie depicting Edward J Murrow's expose of the McCarthy Hearings with the underlying themes of being accused of being guilty without evidence and how government can ruin the lives of people who are deemed Enemy of the state. In 1950, the media had to present both sides so McCarthy is allowed a rebuttal. News clips are used brilliantly by Clooney. Look for the oscar nomination for David strahairn as Murrow is magnificent and Clooney as fred friendly is great. Langella as Paley and Downey Jr is great too
there were some girls who were analyzing the character development and superficial plot. I informed them that Clooney's real state is the current state of the MEdia today and role of the government in making dissenters enemies of the state.
they just didnt get the analogy.
I then saw Chicken Little in 3D
its not the best movie but the characters are cool. The plot falls a part with the aliens and i thought that it would have been clever to add some ET references, which i missed totally. the little stranded alient sets the audience up for ET but fails to use that.
the Mallad who read beauty magazines so she can overcome being the ugly duckling and the runt of the little who self soothes by singing 70s r&B tunes are the best. Chicken Little has references that GO way over the kids heads but made me laugh and Garry Marshall is a great dad's voice
i loved the 3D and kept peeking beyond the glasses to see the screen
lots of the kids cried to have to wear them. the ages of the kids would be important to keep the glasses on
This weekend i finally caught North Country
i loved the midwest accents, Midwest culture that is depicted and the Dylan soundtrack
Charlize Theron doesnt take the easy road out. Her characters and performances are always intense. The theme of Domestic violence, Sexual Harrassment, Loyalty to oaths and the brotherhood, Union loyalty, and standing for what you believe and what is true run through the movie. Its an oscar nomination performances for Sissy Spacek, Robert Julien and Charlize Theron.
lastly a few weeks ago, i saw Capote
the story of Truman Capote from when he reads about the murder of the family in Kansas and pursuades his NYer Editor that he and his personal assistant Harper Lee are going to investigate to write an article for the NYer. It soon is obvious that his a book. The book becomes IN COLD BLOOD. Capote is depicted as a spoiled narcissistic devious imp who is determined and manipulative and getting the story that he wants. His impatience and arrogance and lack of understanding of those around him is putting it kind. Phillip Seymour Hoffman becomes Capote as Strahairn becomes Murrow. Look again to the Academy to nomincate PSHoffman for his portrayal of Capote
celebrity sightings
i have extended my recent celebrity sights to 3
1. Lou reed was two rows behind me at suzanne vega at zankel hall
2. huey lewis was on 7th ave coming from Whole foods
3. mayor koch was buying two tickets to the 725 show of Derailed at the union square theater. I then saw him again as he was entering and i was exiting. He was alone. and so was i
1. Lou reed was two rows behind me at suzanne vega at zankel hall
2. huey lewis was on 7th ave coming from Whole foods
3. mayor koch was buying two tickets to the 725 show of Derailed at the union square theater. I then saw him again as he was entering and i was exiting. He was alone. and so was i
Thursday, November 10, 2005
mooch is the kitty o love
Mooch is the fun loving cat from Mutts. he loves his schnelly who is a house cat and you never see anything but her ears. he romances her and she disses him. he loves food and his little pink sock and sleeping all day. and eating and sleeping and eating..
i am BIG BIRD
Big Bird You scored 72% Organization, 66% abstract, and 66% extroverted! |
This test measured 3 variables.
If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also if you |
 |
My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Your SESAME STREET Persona Test written by greencowsgomoo on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
kay gibbons on Success
She recently summed up her philosophy of her success when asked whether she was surprised by everything she has achieved thus far in her career:
KG: I would’ve been surprised had I stumbled blindly into any of it, scratched a lottery ticket and found a prize that would then take me through the rest of my life. I wasn’t “lucky” that the books sold. I wasn’t “surprised” to learn that they’re also taught in literature classes. That sounds arrogant, but it’s not. To be able to write literature that sells takes an almost surreal amount of stubborn persistence; imagination; the ability to forego distractions, such as vacations, men, alcohol; and a willingness to lock oneself in a room and submit oneself to constant, ruthless self-criticism. If a writer is any good, he or she will criticize himself so unmercifully that the reader and the reviewer either have to be misguided or wrong to make too much of a complaint. And there’s something almost fun about fixing that deal in place. That sounds arrogant, and it may be. But it’d be more arrogant to subject readers, nice, hopeful people, to 250 pages of words I had not tried to perfect, that I’d merely typed, as Hemingway said of meaningless writing. I know when it’s being done to me, when clichés are bound or filmed and sold, and I don’t appreciate it, the disrespect for this gift of language and for the people we’re offering it to.
But getting there, to that lucky, sacrificial place, requires long, long stretches of unbroken concentration and more Diet Cokes than most people can or want to tolerate. I love the labor, the sheer manual labor that goes into making these books seem as though they were effortlessly written. I love what has come to feel like a habit of invention. I go about my days stunned that I didn’t waste what Walker Percy called a “knack” for writing.
And there’s the grace that comes when I’m in my daughters’ presence. I go about stunned that I didn’t drop or misplace my children or cause them to be expelled from school for repeating what they learned at home. You see, I live alone with three smart and sober teenage girls—it has taken skill, patience, stamina, and that same kind of “knack.” And like this 40-year custom of reading and writing, the girls are a seriously profound, sustained joy.
You see, I love what I do. I raise three human beings, and I do language for a living—it’s only as terrifying as it is lovely.
KG: I would’ve been surprised had I stumbled blindly into any of it, scratched a lottery ticket and found a prize that would then take me through the rest of my life. I wasn’t “lucky” that the books sold. I wasn’t “surprised” to learn that they’re also taught in literature classes. That sounds arrogant, but it’s not. To be able to write literature that sells takes an almost surreal amount of stubborn persistence; imagination; the ability to forego distractions, such as vacations, men, alcohol; and a willingness to lock oneself in a room and submit oneself to constant, ruthless self-criticism. If a writer is any good, he or she will criticize himself so unmercifully that the reader and the reviewer either have to be misguided or wrong to make too much of a complaint. And there’s something almost fun about fixing that deal in place. That sounds arrogant, and it may be. But it’d be more arrogant to subject readers, nice, hopeful people, to 250 pages of words I had not tried to perfect, that I’d merely typed, as Hemingway said of meaningless writing. I know when it’s being done to me, when clichés are bound or filmed and sold, and I don’t appreciate it, the disrespect for this gift of language and for the people we’re offering it to.
But getting there, to that lucky, sacrificial place, requires long, long stretches of unbroken concentration and more Diet Cokes than most people can or want to tolerate. I love the labor, the sheer manual labor that goes into making these books seem as though they were effortlessly written. I love what has come to feel like a habit of invention. I go about my days stunned that I didn’t waste what Walker Percy called a “knack” for writing.
And there’s the grace that comes when I’m in my daughters’ presence. I go about stunned that I didn’t drop or misplace my children or cause them to be expelled from school for repeating what they learned at home. You see, I live alone with three smart and sober teenage girls—it has taken skill, patience, stamina, and that same kind of “knack.” And like this 40-year custom of reading and writing, the girls are a seriously profound, sustained joy.
You see, I love what I do. I raise three human beings, and I do language for a living—it’s only as terrifying as it is lovely.
dreams
i have had two or three nights of dreaming of Mary Chapin Carpenter. the dreams are about not being able to proceed with the charity auction i am organizing because i have not received the goods from her Personal Assistant. Her appearance in my dreams has been in the distance.
last night, i dreamed about the PROMIS system or electronic statistical report that has me consumed at work. the staff have been tweaking it and i have been living in it for days. It is due today.
i also dreamed about some boots i chose to buy, they were used and didnt match. they were gold in color and one was stripped in bold yellow. I hestiated in the dream and then decided to return them. I found where i laid the receipt and called the place. The word RYE was in the title and i had to ask if they were open on sunday.
i also dreamed about having my mamogram done. I walked in to a place that took blood and asked if they took OXFORD, my health provider and they did. I was lead to the mamogram machine, undressed and they took my xrays. I was told to follow up with the doctors persciption that i had at home and to get my prior films so they could do a comparison to my past xrays. I remember being hestitant and skeptical in the dream that i would not be charged for the mamogram and that how convenient it was and quick where my xray center has no parking which is a barrier to my getting the xray.
in the dream, i thought could i send them, get a copy sent, can not go there to get my prior films and how did they take the films without the Doctors perscription. Oxford they would bill my health care provider
needless to say, i dont sleep through the night. i wake with mild hot flashes but no longer get out of bed..
last night, i dreamed about the PROMIS system or electronic statistical report that has me consumed at work. the staff have been tweaking it and i have been living in it for days. It is due today.
i also dreamed about some boots i chose to buy, they were used and didnt match. they were gold in color and one was stripped in bold yellow. I hestiated in the dream and then decided to return them. I found where i laid the receipt and called the place. The word RYE was in the title and i had to ask if they were open on sunday.
i also dreamed about having my mamogram done. I walked in to a place that took blood and asked if they took OXFORD, my health provider and they did. I was lead to the mamogram machine, undressed and they took my xrays. I was told to follow up with the doctors persciption that i had at home and to get my prior films so they could do a comparison to my past xrays. I remember being hestitant and skeptical in the dream that i would not be charged for the mamogram and that how convenient it was and quick where my xray center has no parking which is a barrier to my getting the xray.
in the dream, i thought could i send them, get a copy sent, can not go there to get my prior films and how did they take the films without the Doctors perscription. Oxford they would bill my health care provider
needless to say, i dont sleep through the night. i wake with mild hot flashes but no longer get out of bed..
random thoughts
the CMA are coming to NYC, there were photos of brooks and Dunn with our past, current and future, millionaire, metrosexual mayor. it just didnt fit..somehow the only jew that should be wearing a cowboy hat is Kinky Friedman. Bloomberg looked silly
it didnt fit then, it still doesnt..
the promotion started in august with lunch time concerts by Gretchen Wilson, Big n Rich and that Rapping cowboy.. Tickets are scarce and pricey. I tried to get into the Nosebleed seats in the garden (the events i wanted to go to are sold out, industry only or on nights i couldnt make..
the banners annoucing the CMAs are on eastern parkway which isa huge boulevard in brooklyn along the west indian parade route that runs through a Hasidic neighborhood...i have not seem the banners on flag poles in manhattan so they have relegated them to these two minority neighborhoods.. i think they had to put them somewhere.
I turned on my radio monday and caught country music. NYC has not had a country station in at least 5 years. So my ears were caught.. i heard live interviews and two morning guys FROM SEATTLE being piped into NYC...and talking about NYC hosting the CMAs as if they were here but they saying they were in seattle..
something isnt right... that rapping cowboy guy just isnt right..
my ballot tuesday, had Bernard Goetz , a guy who shot three black kids on the subway at point blank. .he is out of jail and running for mayor..so wasnt some guy named "rents are too high".. i didnt vote for either but i did celebrate my vote......and laughed out loud in the booth.. and pulled the lever...
also it is not right to hang those christmas ornaments before santa arrives on broadway in the macys day parade. actually santa will be coming to the mall in time for the veterans day sales.. when i see the sights and sounds of Xmas, the rockerfeller center xmas tree being put up and smell chestnuts on the street...it reminds me NOT of Xmas IN NYC but of Winter.. the weather has been delightfully warm and i dread those thermals and fleece and down vests...but before xmas comes winter... its not right..
it didnt fit then, it still doesnt..
the promotion started in august with lunch time concerts by Gretchen Wilson, Big n Rich and that Rapping cowboy.. Tickets are scarce and pricey. I tried to get into the Nosebleed seats in the garden (the events i wanted to go to are sold out, industry only or on nights i couldnt make..
the banners annoucing the CMAs are on eastern parkway which isa huge boulevard in brooklyn along the west indian parade route that runs through a Hasidic neighborhood...i have not seem the banners on flag poles in manhattan so they have relegated them to these two minority neighborhoods.. i think they had to put them somewhere.
I turned on my radio monday and caught country music. NYC has not had a country station in at least 5 years. So my ears were caught.. i heard live interviews and two morning guys FROM SEATTLE being piped into NYC...and talking about NYC hosting the CMAs as if they were here but they saying they were in seattle..
something isnt right... that rapping cowboy guy just isnt right..
my ballot tuesday, had Bernard Goetz , a guy who shot three black kids on the subway at point blank. .he is out of jail and running for mayor..so wasnt some guy named "rents are too high".. i didnt vote for either but i did celebrate my vote......and laughed out loud in the booth.. and pulled the lever...
also it is not right to hang those christmas ornaments before santa arrives on broadway in the macys day parade. actually santa will be coming to the mall in time for the veterans day sales.. when i see the sights and sounds of Xmas, the rockerfeller center xmas tree being put up and smell chestnuts on the street...it reminds me NOT of Xmas IN NYC but of Winter.. the weather has been delightfully warm and i dread those thermals and fleece and down vests...but before xmas comes winter... its not right..
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of November 10, 2005
Capricorn Horoscope for week of November 10, 2005
"The obscure we see eventually," said journalist Edward R. Murrow. "The
completely obvious, it seems, takes longer." You have recently taken
care of the obscure stuff, Capricorn. Through a blend of lucky
accidents and your dogged intelligence, you got to the bottom of a
stuffy old mystery and ripped away the veils that were hiding a
crippled old truth. Now you're finally primed to notice an open secret
that has been right in front of you for quite some time.
*
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Election night poem 2005
to mayor bloomberg, a jew with lots of money
who won the first round on the heels of Guiliani
Mr Bloomberg who refused to move to gracie Mansion
but considered the west side for stadium expansion
mr mayor with his teeth so bright
takes the subway to work but never at night
he flies here and there at stones throw
but doesnt think the media has a right to know
michael bloomberg whose campaign shots are so funny
i am sure that air brushing cost him lots of money
the blue blazer thrown over his shoulder
so it one hand that becomes his coat holder
michael bloomberg the man of big ideas
maybe this time, you mind will be clear
the schools are still a mess and subway is worse
maybe those will be NYC's curse
no more take hikes or give backs of taxes
no more hard ball, cuz the unions get the axes
no more talk of 911, terror and scare
if only you were a democrat, you're soul you would bare
mr mayor, i bet you will win again
mr mayor, i cannot say its a sin
mr mayor consider the poor among us
mr mayor i am not sure you have earned our trust
who won the first round on the heels of Guiliani
Mr Bloomberg who refused to move to gracie Mansion
but considered the west side for stadium expansion
mr mayor with his teeth so bright
takes the subway to work but never at night
he flies here and there at stones throw
but doesnt think the media has a right to know
michael bloomberg whose campaign shots are so funny
i am sure that air brushing cost him lots of money
the blue blazer thrown over his shoulder
so it one hand that becomes his coat holder
michael bloomberg the man of big ideas
maybe this time, you mind will be clear
the schools are still a mess and subway is worse
maybe those will be NYC's curse
no more take hikes or give backs of taxes
no more hard ball, cuz the unions get the axes
no more talk of 911, terror and scare
if only you were a democrat, you're soul you would bare
mr mayor, i bet you will win again
mr mayor, i cannot say its a sin
mr mayor consider the poor among us
mr mayor i am not sure you have earned our trust
the weather in chicago
Grey area
i watched Anderson Cooper being aaron brown last night and it is anderson cooper 360. a show that was on earlier now covering two time slots. all signs of aaron are gone. the morning papers and the weather in chicago
you can find all the morning front pages of your favorite papers here
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
i watched Anderson Cooper being aaron brown last night and it is anderson cooper 360. a show that was on earlier now covering two time slots. all signs of aaron are gone. the morning papers and the weather in chicago
you can find all the morning front pages of your favorite papers here
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
Monday, November 07, 2005
i am the champion, i am the champion of the world
Chicken Little saves the big game and does a TOM CRUISE in his underwear, singing I am the champion, I am the champion of the world... 
Rick Rubin Rebbe to many
Rick Rubin rick rubin, def jam genius who worked with many artists including tom petty, the dixie chicks, red hot chili peppers, acdc, Run DMC/Arrowsmith, and won 4 grammy awards with the Johnny Cash American Recording Series has taken on Neil Diamond.he has stripped Neil's songwriting to its essence. he removed the production and sequined shirts and its all just neil and his words...As for Rubin, he looks like a rabbincal student from Borough park. Put him in a black coat and black hat and give him Tzitism and Payos and he could pass for a Satmar
Neil Diamond will never be cool but Rick Rubin made him Hip ....
Neil Diamond Given The Rick Rubin Treatement
by Paul Cashmere
November 1 2005
Def American founder, legendary producer Rick Rubin, has turned his talents to reinventing Neil Diamond.
Rubin, who has produced Red Hot Chili Peppers and AC/DC, has produced '12 Songs', the new album for Neil Diamond.
Rubin was responsible for putting Johnny Cash in the studio for his final four albums and teaming him with musicians such as Flea from the Chili Peppers and Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and introducing the country legend to songwriters like Nick Cave and Trent Reznor. The results are considered some of cash's best ever work.
Diamond's album features all original songs. "Most of the songs were recorded with Neil playing and singing at the same time," Rick Rubin told Rolling Stone, "and it's a different animal. It's taking him back to being more of a singer-songwriter. He really blows me away."
"I locked myself in the recording studio with a whole box of number 2 pencils, a big stack of my trusty yellow legal pads and a funky old three-quarter size Martin Guitar with an E minor chord that could break your heart" Diamond said in a statement. "Rick was determined not to rush the process, but to wait until we got to the essence of the songs I was working on. I loved the sheer freedom of creating music for its own sake."
by Paul Cashmere
November 1 2005
Def American founder, legendary producer Rick Rubin, has turned his talents to reinventing Neil Diamond.
Rubin, who has produced Red Hot Chili Peppers and AC/DC, has produced '12 Songs', the new album for Neil Diamond.
Rubin was responsible for putting Johnny Cash in the studio for his final four albums and teaming him with musicians such as Flea from the Chili Peppers and Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and introducing the country legend to songwriters like Nick Cave and Trent Reznor. The results are considered some of cash's best ever work.
Diamond's album features all original songs. "Most of the songs were recorded with Neil playing and singing at the same time," Rick Rubin told Rolling Stone, "and it's a different animal. It's taking him back to being more of a singer-songwriter. He really blows me away."
"I locked myself in the recording studio with a whole box of number 2 pencils, a big stack of my trusty yellow legal pads and a funky old three-quarter size Martin Guitar with an E minor chord that could break your heart" Diamond said in a statement. "Rick was determined not to rush the process, but to wait until we got to the essence of the songs I was working on. I loved the sheer freedom of creating music for its own sake."
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