Kansas City--a photo essay #4 (Pictures of the skyline taken while driving on the freeway)

The Fourth picture

I don’t know if it’s a good idea to take pictures while you’re driving, but I do know that it’s hard to hold the camera steady. Luckily, I picked up a trick from my father-in-law, an inveterate photographer who manages to drive and take excellent photos out the rear window that you just need to steady it against the wheel. I take a few shots of the approaching Kansas City skyline, in the foreground you see the face of horrified drivers on the opposite side of the freeway, wondering why I’m driving on top of the median. I take a picture of the skyline, the cars, the cars of a stalled train—the only mode of transportation that I felt like was missing. The main airport for Kansas City is located in a different state, and the drive into the city feels like it. On the way you pass a smaller, closer airport, but it’s the sort of place that you just know the flights cost about a thousand and up.

The skyline is impressive, though my direction appear to be shuttling me right on by. I’ve heard amazing things about the BBQ, which is true of nearly every place we’ve visited over the past few years. However, when you’re running on just under four hours of sleep your main concern becomes finding a place, even a manger, where you can rest your head.

I drove down Main Street waiting for things to get cute. I am not in my early twenties, and I’m married, which means I tend to look at cities in hopes that they are cute. Do they have a gelato place, maybe  some independent book stores? I’m in. Nothing, beyond a detour really happens on Main Street that I’d call cute. It’s just a row of businesses along a solid four lane drag. I pass a sign for Historic Westport, and it’s the type of sign where you just know cute things are happening in Historic Westport. You can almost see the people getting tattoos, making artisan beers and selling jewelry on the street before going to grab a bite to eat at the closest pub, also, maybe an old timey wagon store will be there. Somewhere, there has to be a reference to the Dust Bowl. 

Kansas City a photo essay--3

Third Picture

Later, while hiding it pretty well from the couple in 32, I take a picture of the topography around Kansas City. You can see the flat patches of farmland from which the city was raised, bisected by a long beige strip of freeway. It’s easy to imagine large herds of bison wandering around such a land, cropping grass and slipping down to the river at dusk to lap up water as insects hum. From up high the land makes more sense. You can see how everything is just a grid. You can understand that from such a distance, God could have conceived of the flood. The world is just a collection of rises and depressions of which we are but one relatively insignificant part. The land seems like it will last forever.

Eventually we land, and I feel that sense of relief—a release of tension that I didn’t even know I was carrying. I love the land. At the rental place, (digression: my friends tasked me the day before I was to get on a flight to rent a car for the weekend and check into the house. None of this turns out to be particularly hard, but it’s the sort of thing where you just know wives aren’t involved, because these sorts of details wouldn’t be getting sorted out at the eleventh hour. Also, I’m an easy going guy ((sometimes, when I am not being easy going I am kind of terrible)) and I don’t really have anything to do in Kansas City. I like to arrive for these trips early in the day to get a feel for the city. By the evening, everyone will be drinking, and the weekend will become a kind of blur. It’s only in these first quiet moments that I’m able to walk the streets and imagine what it might be like to live here. 

 A nice lady named Andrea recommends that I upgrade the vehicle, because: sales. She’s also nice enough to mention several neighborhoods that are fun, and we exchange some banter about whether I want the insurance. She says, “I can tell you want too.” And she was right. I did want to say yes to an SUV and full coverage, so I could drive that SUV into a river and not worry about it, but I’m an adult so I turned her down. When she asked what I was traveling for, and I told her a bachelor party, she said,

 “Which one of you is from Kansas City?”

“None of us,” I told her, and she looked at me like I was crazy

Perhaps that should have been a sign. 

Kansas City: a photo essay--2

I’ve read recently that too much rumination can lead to depression, so I’ll try not to think too much about it, or anything for that matter. I spotted a toy set along the ride: a tremendously large red and yellow plastic set of the sort you see in a McDonald’s. The difference is that this toy set is acting as a bridge between a warehouse and an abandoned looking apartment complex. I try to imagine children playing on this structure and fail. I wonder if the person who brought the toy set there thought it could change the complexion of the neighborhood or the block? Nothing changes.

Normally when I travel, I like to look reasonably good. Talk to your parents or anyone over the age of fifty long enough, and they’ll remind you that people used to get dressed up for flights like they were a special occasion. Now that flights have more in common with greyhound bus rides than anything else, the idea seems quaint. On that day, though I was dressed fine, my face was flushed with lack of sleep, and my stomach was complexly grumbling and giving warning signals that I’d need to find a restroom in short order. In short, I felt like I was dying. I barely remember the airport or the people on my flight, though I was jealous of the woman who fell asleep before me. She was one of those types who managed to fall asleep in seconds, lightly snoring with a slightly pleased look on her face for being so damn good at sleeping. Eventually, everyone on the flight was sleeping. I presume the pilot as well given what I’ve learned about the effectiveness of autopilot. It’s not just for having sex on a plane. I would never, I should confess, have sex on a plane. I fear planes. I suspect that I’m destined to die on one, or barring that, getting eaten by a bear. I would never, for instance, fly on a plane piloted by bears, but perhaps that went without saying. I hope if I ever crash that I am sleeping like a baby. I don’t remember my dreams. In my dreams that I don’t remember, I suspect that I’ve taught myself to fly, and I soar above the ground in those dreams, scouring the countryside for a suitable place to land.



The second picture

I never use cameras but even I know that you should never take a picture out the window of a plane. Whatever it is that you are seeing and feeling, being on top of the clouds, never winds up showing up in the photo. It looks like a mass of white, one more boring thing in an ever lengthening list of boring things. Somehow, I wait too long, and I manage to take a picture (I’m trying to do this surreptitiously, which turns out to be hard, because I know that taking pictures out a plane window is not particularly intelligent, and I don’t want the people across the aisle who I’ll never see again, a nice couple by the look of them, napping pleasantly, to judge me for doing something stupid like taking a picture out a window. I tend to care too much about what other people think though I’ll also point out that it’s often important what other people think, which winds up leaving me feel somewhat justified in caring about what the passenger in 33 c and d think of me snapping pictures of clouds) from inside the cloud, which likes like nothing so much as exactly what it is, a sheet of white.

We are no longer amazed by flying. I suppose a large plane is too much like a bus, and no one dresses up anymore, and they only serve free cocktails in first class. I suspect that when we say flying, we mean something closer to that of Icarus, and I also suspect that flying in a small plane actually feels like flying. 

Kansas City--A Photo Essay.1

If you tell someone from that you’re going to Kansas City to meet up with some old friends the most common response is an incredulous, Kansas City? As if you have just told them you are traveling to the moon because you’ve always loved its color. I discovered this last fall as I was preparing to leave. It appears that for most people on the east coast, Kansas City, is less a place, than a place you don’t go. If I’d said Savannah, people would have commented on the beaches, Chicago or even Denver, perhaps a comment on the weather and some vague comment about the downtown getting better. Occasionally, you find someone who’s been to Kansas City, and they will look at you askance and perhaps tell you that Kansas City is not the New York of Missouri like you’ve been lead to believe. People are cruel though and not always to be trusted, though, after so many snide remarks it’s hard to avoid a sense of foreboding. Why the hell am I going to Kansas City?

                I was headed out to Kansas City for a bachelor party. We decided on Kansas City because it’s in middle America, and my friends and I are on opposite coasts or Chicago. We decided to meet in the middle after a democratic voting process that involves rankings of cities in various orders along with questions, or synopses if any of the places have been visited or commented on by friends. The main goal of the city picking process is not to be the one who makes the ultimate decision. This is primarily because my friends are all very warm-hearted jerks, who will mercilessly ping the person who picked the city or the house if anything goes awry. For the record, I wanted to go to Milwaukee.

                This was supposed to be a photo essay. I brought a real camera on a trip for the first time in my life. I was flush with the power, taking pictures of everything from behind various windows, metro, plane, car, in the hopes of capturing the insubstantiality of travel, the being no place. The problem is that somewhere along the way I lost the camera. The fact is, it had gone dead anyway after ten or so photos and had ceased being useful to me. I am carless with things like cameras and feelings.

The first picture

I’m riding on the metro at 6 AM, a truly awful time to be riding the metro and a worse time to be dragging your suitcase down the sidewalk in the dark in order to catch it at 5:30. It felt like the walk of the damned, though I did see another person at the same time, a cheery woman walking her dog. That she was cheery is further proof that pet owners are insane. On the train, I take a picture of the sun, a sphere of orange light lifting itself between telephone wires, billboards, and old brick buildings. When I’m riding on the metro I can never decide if the detritus of the city: wires, bricks, graffiti, burned out buildings are hideously ugly or whether they are possessed of a transient sort of beauty, look on my works ye mighty and despair. I wonder if they are monuments of failure, to bring beauty, to connect, and whether that makes them meaningful.

Sadie

She'll say to me, in the very early morning, "I can't get these socks on without your help," and then she'll burst into tears.

Sometimes, she'll hear my footsteps coming down the stairs and she'll begin to get excited, holding her hands up near her mouth, saying, "who's coming? who's coming?" And then when I arrive she'll say, "It's the daddy monster," and then she'll begin telling me about the bagel she is eating.

I'll say to her, "It's time to go upstairs for a bath. She'll say, "No. I'm not taking a bath tonight." Usually, if I wait a couple of minutes or so, she'll say that she's ready to upstairs to take a bath, but she'll say, "Can I bring this guitar with me?" And I'll say yes, and we'll prop it up against the toilet in just the right position so it can watch over her. She'll say, "No splashing in this bath, because we don't want to get it wet." Later, she'll dump water over her brother's head, and look at me blankly, then cry when the water is poured over her head. "I don't like the water poured over my head," she'll say.

In the evening, before bed, I'll say, "pick out three books. I'll read you three books."

"Two books, daddy," she'll say, negotiating in the wrong direction. "You read me two books."

"Okay," I'll say. "I'll read you two books." Later, when I get up to leave, she'll say, "No. Three books daddy. Three books." Later, when I get up to leave, she'll say, "Just one more."

Sometimes, out of the blue, she'll say, "I love you daddy." Sometimes, I'll think that she's saying it to me only to discover that she's holding her little pink blanket that she calls "yaya" very tightly, and reminding "yaya" that she loves her.

Most days when i get home from work, she gives me a hug. Sometimes, she says, "Daddy you need to take off your shoes."

Sometimes, I pick her up from school, and we have conversations like this: 

s: Why is it better to love than to not love.

M: It gives the world hope. It makes it more beautiful. s: Like the doughnut shop? M: Yeah, like the doughnut shop.

Sometimes, I'll pick her up from school and refuse to let her walk on the balance beam, a row of bricks three feet off the ground, and she'll start screaming in the way that you know people do when they discover that their whole life has been a sham. Later, she'll say, "I'm okay now. I took a deep breath." 

On the nights I work late, I often awake to the sound of her arguing with her mother about what clothes she'll wear to school. "I want to wear this dress," I'll hear her say. "But it's winter," Steph will answer. "It's too cold." 

"But I want to wear this dress," she'll counter, and it's hard to argue or sleep with that kind of logic. 

She says pink is her favorite color, though she'll sometimes change that to purple. Kids are fickle. 

This evening, after Stephanie had to help her properly brush her teeth when she wouldn't cooperate, she walked into her room and said, "That's humiliating." Though it came out as three separate words that could be construed as humiliating. 

We had guests over today and when they arrived she kept saying, "Welcome. Come in and join the fun!" 

For some reason, whenever she starts touching her brother's head gently with an object, she can't resist increasing the pressure or tap until she asked to stop, he crawls away, or begins to cry. 

Tonight, an hour after she'd been put to bed, she was at the top of the stairs screaming in fear. She'd seen a skunk in a Curious George video who wandered around the house, and she was lying in her bed, thinking about that skunk, worried that it would break into our house and terrorize her with its stinky tail. 

The other day, after making eggs and showing her the difference between the white and the yolk, I said something strange and then followed it by telling her that I was "Only yolking." 

She started laughing and said, "Daddy's joking, which marks the first time in her life that I have witnessed her understanding a joke without being told. 

In the bath tonight I asked her how she got to be three so fast. I asked her, "Did it happen very quickly? Did you just spring up overnight, or did it take a long time?" 

"It took a long time," she said, reassuring me in my old age. 

The other night, she found a half-eaten plate of my dinner on top of the fan and brought it to me. "Daddy, you forgot your dinner," she said, handing it to me. Then she put her hand on my leg and patted it reassuringly, "Don't worry, daddy, if you eat your dinner, you can have dessert." 

Before Midnight: Review

I’ve been watching Before Midnight since I was an innocent teenager, or at least I’ve been watching the two characters, Jessie and Celine, talk about what it means to be in relationship for that long. I saw the first movie, Before Sunrise, when I was in my teens, sixteen maybe? It was before I’d ever been on a date or gone to a dance, or had a conversation longer than three sentences with any member of the opposite sex that I found remotely attractive. What makes this germane is that for some reason I immediately latched on to the characters in Before Sunrise as representatives of the sort of romance that I’d like to have at some point in my life as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

My sister, two years older than me, was quite influential, which means that I watched the plethora of romantic comedies that were churned out in the mid to late nineties.   I watched Matchmaker and Dave, and anything with Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts in it. In short, I was basically a sixteen year old teenage girl in movie and romantic tastes. And yet, despite my lack of comprehension about how one conversed with women, I knew that what I saw in Before Sunrise is what I would one day like to have: the type that ranges from religion, to sex, to friendship, to psychology, philosophy, one’s grandparents, and failed dreams. It struck me as true, and started the long love affair that I now have with trains, and conversation, and travel. I rarely travel and almost never ride trains, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love them from afar.

The interesting part about the arrival of Before Midnight , the third installment in this series, was my discovery, made by reading various movie reviews and Grantland that a number of like-minded  males existed out in the world. I listened to a podcast on Grantland about the movie and both writers for the web site confessed to loving Before Sunrise, having a romantic idea of convincing a girl to be with them just with the gift of gab. Of course, it’s not so much that Jessie convinces a French girl to get off the train with him. it’s the exchange between the two of them that makes the movie interesting, life-like. It’s about as good an attempt as I’d seen at bridging the gap that movies always run into of not having enough time in the characters thoughts to make them fully realized. If the movie only has 103 minutes, we’re going to spend almost all of them getting to hear these people speak in interesting ways.

Well, spoilers. The first shot in the movie is iconic for viewers of the first two films: a shot of only the actor’s feet, two pairs of sneakers traversing the same path. What makes this particular opening shot so brilliant is that it’s not of Jessie and Celine as it was in the previous movies. Rather, it’s of Jessie and his son at the airport. The son is on his way back to be with his mother, the women who Jessie divorced in order to be with Celine. Thus, we immediately are embroiled in the consequences of their previously only romantic affair. And Jessie makes it clear that it pains him to be without his son. And consequently, he resents himself, and the relationship with Celine in very minute but difficult ways because of the breach it has caused in his life. This small breach is the beginning of a forty five minute argument that comprises the latter half of the movie.  And, though it’s more fun to watch the two of them banter about being in their twenties and walk through the streets of Vienna, and equally fun, though partially sad, to watch them rediscover one another in the streets of Paris, with failing marriages, career shifts, and the changes that happen when dreams start to harden into reality, it’s this latest iteration that rings the truest because they are pulled out of the love vortex and into the real world, which is messy. Quit e frankly, as a romantic, I probably like the first two movies better, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually better. From the opening shot of the different pairs of shoes the movie is relentlessly adult: jobs, expenses, shares of house work, etc.

From the airport, Celine and Jessie  drive off into the Grecian isles. The difference is that they are now accompanied on their romantic adventures by two twin girls, asleep in the back seat. These angelic twins, sleeping so peacefully keep Jessie and Celine from stopping at the site of some old ruins, which rings true.. A childless couple could go see the ruins and enjoy them, wander around chatting, or blow them off to go have passionate sex in a hotel room:  parents just try and talk quietly to make sure the kids remain asleep. The other thing that you notice right away is that Celine and Jessie are aging, a fact which the camera and make up and lighting make no attempt to hide. Nineteen years have passed since the first film, and it’s kind of weird to keep revisiting them in these roles because it makes the viewer conscious of both the characters age, and their own aging process, but really, kudos to the movie for not dolling them up. 

The movie chugs along, including the now famous riffs by Jessie about ideas for books or movies or speculation about the nature of an afterlife that includes reincarnation and Celine gamely working in the kitchen. The long scene, which comprises the middle portion of the movie, (these shots are always endless and pure, and Greece looks beautiful and very far away, much to my chagrin) involves a conversation between several different generations about the nature of relationships and sex, and, though it lags at points, settling on some of the caricatures of men desiring only sex, rather than intimacy, it winds up landing in a very poignant way, as two older couples talk about what it means to stay together, how that person becomes an essential part of you, so much so that the women remembers her departed love the most at sunset. This long form love is juxtaposed with that of a young couple who have a blasé attitude about love, knowing that the sex and intimacy are only brief stopovers before they move away into other cities, other arms.

If the movie has a weakness, it’s that the character played by Julie Delpy, Celine, has hardened from a mildly crazy, and okay, yes, mildly neurotic woman, into a bit of a harridan. Her wild swings in emotion and intentionally hurtful pot shots abound throughout the movie. She seems menopausal, though she’s too young for it, and I think that perhaps her character wasn’t as rounded as it could be. In previous movies, it was clear that part of her charm was wrapped up in this madness. However, in this movie it feels a bit overplayed, and the viewer almost feels bad for Jessie. Almost. Jessie is always filled with ideas about life, love, the nature of reality etc, but what he’s really in love with is the ideas that originate from him, thus, what could feel like an exploration is really a strange kind of selfishness. To be fair, I do love the character and I feel resonances with that character, but he’s not perfect either.

Eventually the two of them settle into the now familiar back and forth talking that were the root of the previous two movies. The two of them have been given a night away, and they do what any couple with children would do with a brief time away: they reconnect and then they fight. The connection is natural as they slip into the habits that were once a natural part of their days and nights together. However, the tricky part is the argument that follows, which I’d argue is also par for the course. Given the small windows in which the two characters can connect and talk with one another, it is in this brief space away that they finally have the time to air their grievances, part of reconnecting is figuring out if you still have a connection, and sometimes that can be a delicate process.

I won’t cover the specifics of the argument except to say that it is done elegantly. Julie Delpy argues for a solid twenty minutes completely topless because it is the argument that is more important than clothes. (I’ll point out that one of the sadder moments is when Jessie tells Celine that he missed waking up in the morning and listening to the whirring of her beautiful mind. She counters with something along the lines of being busy working, taking care of children and the house.) The two of them discuss his ex wife, infidelity, family, living in Paris, living in the United States, whether they still love one another etc. The painful part of the argument are those few moments when the two of them could stop arguing, or say sorry, (which feel familiar) but instead they choose to get one last dig or stab in, which sucks you back in to the mayhem of an argument.

Arguments are strange in that way. How they can grow out of a small thing and rise into grievances you’ve been carrying around for months or years. They are as strange as our minds. I won’t go on to describe the argument in much more detail, but it’s probably the best representation of what a long term couple looks like when they are arguing, not when they are getting divorced, but when they are going through that sometimes shit-y and divisive process of staying together. It ends with a sunset. It ends with hope. Somewhere, in the distance, I can hear the low rumble of a train. 

Downton Abbey Recap

We're watching a soap opera with manners. I don't mean that in a particularly damning way. I've stated before that a great deal of cache and interest can come about by trying to decide who a character is to marry. In short, we tend to carry about the relationships between people, and we'd like them dramatized to keep it interesting. Adult life pretty much hinges on relationships, whether it be at home or at work, so it's no wonder that a soap opera vibe comes off a semi-delightful show.

The difficulty with constructing a drama that doesn't revolve around meth dealing, zombies, white walkers, being in the mafia, or motorcycle gangs, is that the drama isn't naturally built in. Rather, the writer's for the show must produce it in order to keep the audience interested. What are we interested in? Does it necessarily mean that we must keep watching awful things happening to characters that we otherwise like?

This week, Anna, played excellently by Joanne Froggatt, (limits of the script provided) is served up on the altar of drama in a terrifying rape sequence. I've been chief among the people calling for an end to all scenes with Bates and Anna as I had grown tired of watching the two of them rub their noses together like two bunnies who are very much in love. And, so, perhaps, in a way, I'm to blame. I mentioned in a previous post the advent of the slow television movement in Norway, a seven hour train ride from Oslo to Bergen aired in its entirety. What might a television show that resembled real life look like? Probably it would be tremendously boring. But what does boring mean anyway? Is it something that fails to entertain? Or that fails to keep our attention? Or is it something that comes down part and parcel with human life, or just modern life? Maybe if we, if I rather, were not bored so easily, television shows wouldn't be in so much of a rush to keep me entertained. Perhaps they could begin telling stories that resemble our lives, that don't leave us feeling entertained but a little less alone.

I'll leave the point to discuss the episode as a whole. In general, the party added new life back into DA. It was a better episode than the first, or at least filled with more joy and possibility. Nothing warms the heart like watching rich people discuss what wine will go best after dinner and which room is best to gamble in while downstairs the servants worry about who will open a jam of jar. It's this natural divide that can serve to make the show a pleasure and nothing brings it out quite so much as a party.

I was struck by a couple of performances in this episode. I thought Gregson, played by Charles Edwards, displayed something that's gone out of the house since Matthew disappeared, a bit of whit and charm. He saves the day by out cheating a card shark and obtaining everyone's IOU's. And while that is a nice character building moment by itself, I thought Edwards played it with the perfect amount of confidence and self-possession. He was believably in control and enjoying it. With Tom bumbling around talking about how he doesn't belong...(didn't we already do this plot line with feeling outcast and Edna? Round two it is) it was enjoyable to see a male around the house who wasn't miserable, dead, or just kind of on a slow slide to terrible.

I'm referring in the last bit to Lord Grantham who never fails now to disappoint. He claims Gregson is a good man after he has his IOU recovered by him, paying not a wit of attention to his character. He also doesn't want a common singer to be at the table with him and is only won over when she can discuss wines. If you've seen him in Daniel Deronda, playing an old troubled man, you've pretty much seen the future of Lord Grantham.

The most interesting character in DA right now is Mary. She's both marriageable, and we had a new beau introduced, part of the business, and in mourning/self-discovery. It's this last element that I find so interesting. Mary was not particularly lovable when Matthew was going after her, however, she was independent. Thus, it's entirely believable that she would be mourning both her loss of self and Matthew at the same time. Rather than viewing it as selfish, it seems like a perfect sequitur for modern and post-modern life. This post-modern life consists of saying: the most interesting thing happening in my life is not the things that happen to me, but the way that the things happen to me affect me. In effect, Mary is a stand in for the deification of the self that is familiar to all of us. What really concerns her about Matthew's death is that it affected Mary and that makes her fascinating.

In fact, she goes so far as to say that she doesn't know if having a great love is any use to her. Though I suspect she'll be proved wrong, I like that the show is giving her room to doubt, room to be selfish, and I'm glad that she smiled. 

Review Downton Abbey

And we're back. Primarily we're back because this show gets massively good ratings. If it weren't for the ratings, we could have ended after season 1, and certainly after season 2. However, the show must go on. The show isn't nearly as funny as it once was, or perhaps we were just younger then, less attuned to the upper class snobbery of the dowager countess and the lower class snobbery of butlers.

Fortunately, in general the fourth season of Downton Abbey started with much more certainty than was displayed in Season 3. In a generous mood, it's easy to blame the wildly inconsistent writing of the previous season on the axes handing over the head of Matthew and Sybil. With such plots needing to be central to the show, perhaps we can forgive some of the inexpert soap opera drama of the third season. The nice thing about season four of Downton is that the first thirty minutes proved that the show is not above being boring. And, after the variety of chicanery that's gone on in the last two seasons, it was nice to watch the servants play cards and smoke while the upper class had discussions over plots of land and how long a person is allowed to mourn a spouse. Apparently the limit is six months.

And while the first half an hour cruises by we are privy to one interesting piece of information. We learn that the character O'Brien has left, though it was nice of the show's creators to not actually kill her off. It is okay to have people get married and move away, or change ladies that they wait on in this case. This gave the show a chance to replace her, and they did so quickly, reviving Edna Braithwhite, onetime schemer for Tom and now new friend and ally of Thomas. I'm fine with the change and even the history that her character brings.

Reprising the very bad role of O'Brien is Nanny West, who rubs Thomas the wrong way and is reported on immediately. This felt like the one misstep of the episode as she is immediately caught out in mistreating the older girl because of her lower birth and is fired. Chekhov says that you have to fire the gun if it's seen in the first scene, however, he didn't say you have to fire it in the very next scene. It would have been nice to let a bit of tension build around the character of Nanny West, but the show's writers were in such a hurry to move things along that they lost a potentially intriguing villain.

The show's other subplots, though interesting, focus in a troubling manner around the increasing stupidity and irascibility of the Lord and Lady Grantham. Sadly, Cora is now one of the least intelligent women in the room as she consistently falls for whatever the servants tell her, going so far as to believe the lie that Anna is being mean to the her new ladies maid. (And while I'd be happy to watch anyone be mean to Anna after her and Bates traipse about the grounds telling each other how much they love another as though they were eighteen and in the middle of summer love, it seems implausible given her character up to this point).

Lord Grantham, once one of the few who could see through the trials and tribulations of his many daughters and workers has now squandered the fortune and seems intent on keeping his daughter from working with him on the estate. Primarily because his character is now an ogre. I feel bad for the actor, who is put in increasingly implausible situations if only to demonstrate time and time again that he is an a bit of an ass. That he was once a wise and patient father is apparently beside the point. What's important is that he espouse sexist views so that the women in the house might correct him. And while I'm all in favor of women's rights as a major and interesting plot line, I'm rather sorry that it is at the expense of the once interesting Lord Grantham.

The subplots involve Carson, the wonderful butler, making amends with his old theater buddy. The problem, as it always is, was over a girl who couldn't love them both. Why not just move to Utah guys? The second, and much more interesting sub plot involved Rose going to the country to dance a jig. I'm glad, because for the first hour or so I couldn't figure out why she was on the show. Luckily, the latter half provided some actual excitement as she romanced a farmer on the dance floor and then incited a brawl. The scene in the yard where the farmer returned is well-acted, and the charm of her youth is evident. And if I was worried because everyone was married last season, and that tends to be an interesting plot line (see: everything ever written by Jane Austen) then we have a new girl to marry off, and, you know, everyone else died. I'd mention Edith's fling, a married man moving to Germany for citizenship, but I've already read Jane Eyre, so I know that his wife dies in a fire and he is maimed and blinded but Edith still loves him and marries him or he runs away at the altar or whatever.

All in all, the episode lacked the wit and drama that made the first season such compelling television. However, on the bright side, it also lacked the clumsy writing and plotting that plagued portions of the latter two seasons, only for those errors to be papered over with dramatic death scenes. Count me as slightly encouraged at this point. I want the writers to take their time this season with the characters, to let them develop, so that we love or hate them with a bit more of our hearts before the full hand is played. I'm entirely willing to concede that I may be wrong, and the show may go back to a complete soap opera, or perhaps they'll just recycle story lines and degrade once interesting characters, but I'm willing to hope.

Review: The Hobbit: the desolation of Smaug

Desolation seems too strong a term to apply to Smaug in this movie, though I'm fairly certain, "The Monologue of Smaug isn't as pithy despite the internal rhyme. Perhaps, in which the desolation of Smaug is reflected on by those he touched in the past: a memoir. I'd go see that movie in a heartbeat. 

The question that I kept asking myself as I watched the second portion of The Hobbit was, why did he limit himself to three movies? I mean, honestly, inveterate readers are always eager to bend your ear on the complexities of the book that have been missed by the movie. Lord only knows how bereft I feel when watching Game of Thrones without knowledge of the eating habits of the people in various realms. Therefore, why isn’t The Hobbit a five or ten movie tale? I’m as disappointed as you are. I’ve read recently about the slow television movement that’s taking place in Norway. Apparently a large number of people tuned in to watch logs being cut and then added to a fire. I’ve been in the company of several men who appear to find nothing greater in life than gently prodding a fire or moving logs around to keep things going. Me, I just enjoy the heat. However, The Hobbit could be one of the first movies in the slow movie movement. Why didn’t we have more dwarf songs? I don’t remember the book, but they must have spent a good deal more time on the road singing, yes? I mean, the road, beyond the orcs and changelings is pretty dull.

After I’d gotten over the disappointment of no dwarf songs I settled in to watch a pretty good movie. And, to be honest, if the first three movies had never been made by Pete Jackson, I believe I’d be watching The Hobbit differently. As it is, we’re talking Michael Jordan coming back and playing on the Wizards, where the feeling is, yeah, that’s pretty good for an old guy as opposed to, I am watching a transcendent athlete at the pinnacle of his game. That’s pretty much what we’re watching with The Hobbit, Jordan on the Wizards.

The movie is at its best when the camp is in full force. The most delightful scene in the movie takes place with all of the dwarves going downriver in barrels while killing off roughly 1,000 orcs. (What would happen in a battle between the orcs in The Hobbit and Imperial Storm Troopers? Would it just last forever, or would they all end up dead?). Anyhow, as the barrels roll downstream and Legolas jumps on their heads while firing arrows, or as one of the barrels careens over six ledges taking out 100 orcs, it’s easy to like The Hobbit. Hell, it was a kid’s book. Why not have a child’s pleasure in mayhem?

The two bits that go on too long, which is saying something in these movies, are in Lake Town and the conversation with the dragon. The Lake town politics wind up feeling a bit tacked on, and no one bothered to explain in the final scene why the police suddenly decide that they must arrest Bard. It’s patently unclear and confusing, which is basically the cut and paste description that could be used for the scene involving Smaug.

While I’m fully in support of the grand old tradition of having the arch villain wax on and on about their plans to our heroes, the real problem is in the largely unintelligible scene that follows. As in, I can’t actually tell what’s happening on screen. The dragon is supposed to be terrifying, and the special effects are excellent, but my overall sense of the space in the dwarven kingdom is something between ?, and why didn’t they put in any hand rails. What follows is an affront to science and gravity, as no one is singed in less they are hit by the flame, as though the air around the fire wouldn’t be hot, and the dwarves continually jump off cliffs to grab onto chains that hang everywhere. I’d have been more satisfied if I’d known I was going to go see a Cirque Du Solei show. Eventually, not to spoil it, the dragon is turned into gold, which he shakes off to go rain fire down upon Lake Town, leaving the viewer with  the overall feeling of, well, that was a good bit of time wasted to accomplish nothing.

I suppose I should focus on the bits that work. Evangeline Lilly does quite well in the movie, even introducing  an element of interspecial love that probably wasn’t in the books. I don’t remember because I haven’t read them in years. It’s fun if for no other reason than to upset female fans of Lost who always hated Kate’s character for being between Sawyer and Jack, patent jealousy, how else should a lady kill time on an island? And now she’s trapped between Orlando Bloom and one of the dwarves. (I say one of the dwarves because again, they are largely indistinguishable. This movie actually does a better job of sussing out who is who. However, at the end of the day, what seems a grand gesture in the book when the dwarves stay behind to tend for Kili winds up seeming strange in the movie. Wait, so which guy is staying? He likes herbs? Huh, with the beard.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t actually go see Smaug light up the screen. See what I did there? I’m just saying that it’s already been done, and better, by, you know, the same guy. We’re not talking Star Wars level drop off here, but we’re certainly talking about something less than the original. It’s hard to measure up against a genius, especially when that genius is you. 

Home Alone

Sadly, this is not a review of one of the funniest movies ever made.

I am not a stupid person.

In the evening, when I'm sitting in the basement, I often miss the stars. I hardly every look for the stars when I'm outside, but I still miss them.

When I'm alone though, inevitably I'll do something stupid. And I'll have to reevaluate whether I am a stupid person or not.

Tonight, I got a sandwich from the grocery store. The customer before me had his heated up, and I wanted mine heated up as well, but the woman didn't do it, and I am hesitant, even when paying, to correct people. At home, I turned the oven on and stared at the sandwich in the wrapper. I tried to remember whether the sandwiches at Potbelly's had wrapping on them when they went through the toaster oven. In my mind, I somehow pictured the sandwiches moving briskly through the oven with paper already attached. On some level, I knew that this could not be true, and yet, here was the sandwich that I wanted to eat, already wrapped up. You can see my conundrum.

I put it in the broiler and set the timer for ten minutes. After eight minutes, I smelled smoke. When I opened the broiler, my sandwich was on fire. Or, more accurately, the paper wrapped around the sandwich was on fire, bits of ashy paper sailed throughout the kitchen, I blew out the fire, swept the ashes from the stove, from the floor, and threw them away. Then I put my sandwich in the oven, paperless, and waited for it to warm, wondering what other stupidities I'd be up too, if given enough time alone.