Odds and Ends

1. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to write about movies the way Michael Blowhard writes about movies?

2. “A few years ago I had an unusually insightful dream. I dreamed that I was standing just inside my front door, while an old friend stood outside on the doorstep. He was saying that while he did not remember the details of our friendship, he remembered the feeling, and that was far more important than the facts. I woke with a rare sense of clarity, and, unusually for dream revelations, that thought has stayed with me.” Louise Pfanner at normblog. I love the writer’s choice series.

3. Street art from Ukraine (via Mick Hartley). Charming!

4. Last spring, excuse me, this past rainy, cold, dreary spring, I listened to a lot of A Girl Called Eddy. The wry, adult wistfulness of her songs is perfect for a rainy day…..

Once there were trumpets in the air
And confetti in your hair
And I knew where I belonged
Now I’m singing you this song

Or, better yet, how about this part of the song?

I’m scattered like newspapers all over the street
I see your face in everyone I meet
I’m avoiding the corners
I’m avoiding your name
I know that I loved you but I loved you in vain

See? Perfect for a rainy day…..

A flat blue plain

I drove south on Lake Shore Drive toward Hyde Park the other day, on my way to the University of Chicago Hospitals. To the left of me, Lake Michigan was a flat blue plain. The sky clear, the air soft, rushing-rushing alongside cars and trucks, traffic thinning out the further south I drove. Still, the best part of my afternoon trip to Hyde Park was the drive back. Why? I’ll tell you.

First, the view of the city as I drove north. The road turns just a little, a gentle curve, and then you see it! The city displayed along Lake Michigan, buildings lined up along the water, fronted by a low dash of green-tree, skyscrapers tinged with blue at their peaks, and everything, everything, sky and water and tall columns reaching. Second, a little rainbow within the gushing waters of Buckingham fountain. Lovely. Lovely and beautiful.

(It felt good to feel something, feel that old tug at the heart. Lovely! Lovely and beautiful! It’s a bit wrapped in cotton-wool these days, the heart, I mean. A bit dull, a bit quiet – is that the way it goes as you get older, the emotions more secure and more calm, but also, a little flattened? Is this good or bad? Good, yes? Maturity, yes? Still, youth has it’s up-and-down-feeling advantages, doesn’t it?)

Update: Oops, I changed ‘Grant Park’ fountain to Buckingham fountain, because, of course, that’s what it is!

Hilarious: “Wide Awake in Wonderland”

I stumbled across the blog ‘Wide Awake in Wonderland’ in the Life section of WordPress. The writer is wickedly funny. I have a feeling I’m going to have to read every single entry. Good thing I like to procrastinate…

Sample from blog to whet appetite:

“I have a few friends who have heard the sound byte synopsis of my current life situation (mid-30’s [now that I’m 35 I can’t say “early 30’s” anymore, can I? Ugh] life crisis spurning an overseas trip in the hopes of “finding myself” and getting my head clear) and stated, “Your story is exactly like Eat, Pray, Love!” I don’t know why, but that makes me have less than zero desire to read it. Actually, it’s making me feel kind of hostile about the book. Like when I see the cutesy cover written in mustard, prayer beads, and flowers, I want to chuck it across the room.”

Meenakshi decides on a little rebellion

Meenakshi, myopic and atopic, squinting through heavy glasses and scratching at red blotches on her arms and legs, decides, today, to walk to work.

The walk is past Fenway, up Brookline Ave, toward the collection of medical buildings housed in the Longwood Medical Area. Halfway to Longwood, she realizes she has forgotten the keys to her lab, and, being Sunday, she will be locked out of work. There will likely be someone to let her in, but, should she chance it? The responsible answer is no. So, she will have to walk back the way she came, past the Fenway, over the bridge, toward Beacon St. Should she retrieve her keys at home and retrace her steps to this spot? A glint, a glimmer, a hint of rebellion brews. No. Perhaps not. What if, she thinks, she breaks the rules, the rules of correct conduct, of duty, of being responsible, and stay in? Stay in. Don’t work. Watch t.v. Eat Hostess chocolate cupcakes hidden in the back of a drawer. Indolence! Just for today, until she decides what to do, next. It can’t be the lab every Sunday for her, can it? This can’t be her future?

Well, why not a day of indolence? All rebellions start with some symbolic act. Dumping tea. Eating junk food. It’s a start, anyway, and that’s how Meenakshi, on her way to the lab, decided to turn back. In more ways than one.

“You’re so nostalgic”

(Or, is this what they call creative non-fiction?)

“You’re so nostalgic,” says my friend.

He’s right. Except, maybe he’s not. Maybe it’s not nostalgia. Maybe it’s stasis. Several years ago, I just stopped. I mean, I became fixed in a certain point in time, emotionally. The result of overwork, stress, fear, I don’t know. Fear is the best answer, I suppose.

This is a weakness of mine, the tendency to ruminate over the recent past, lost in a comforting reverie, revisiting, as if new friends and new places don’t need proper attention. Today. Now. In the present.

I don’t know. Maybe it is nostalgia.

Traveling tomorrow

because I am visiting a friend for his sister’s wedding!

*It’s nice to get away for a few days, but, oh, the mad rush to get things done before I go!

Update: I corrected the spelling of tomorrow. I always think there are two m’s! I am not a gud speler.

Hospital scenes. Also, I am an idiot.

The other day, while on the phone at work, I started doodling on my laminated picture i.d., the one I have to show when I am in the hallway. At all times, basically, so that security knows I actually work here. I don’t know why I started doodling on my picture i.d., but I assumed the marker I was using would easily wipe off, as if my laminated i.d. were some sort of etch-a-sketch I could shake to get rid of my doodling. 

Turns out, it doesn’t. I now have a very interesting pair of new bangs drawn in black marker on my photo i.d. How I will explain that to the folks down at the ‘get a new photo i.d.’ office is not entirely clear to me at this point. I’m sure I’ll think of something. Probably along the lines of: I am an idiot.

Half watching Saawariya, gupshup, and tea

I walked out onto the balcony this morning, before work, to wish my mother and her friend a good morning. Beautiful morning, clear and cool, perfect for morning gupshup and tea (see, I told you I am obsessed with chai). Both are visiting, along with my father who seems lost to the Olympics and is full of news about who won what medal and the total medal counts. My mother’s friend is a dear old friend of both the parents, from their school days in India, back when they lived and studied in Pilani. Yesterday, after a nice walk down to the local Thai eatery for takeout, we tried to watch Saawariya. I didn’t last long because I had to go to work early the next morning and wanted an early night, but they lasted a little longer, until they couldn’t take it anymore. “It’s like a kid’s movie,” says Mom, “it’s all made up.” Yes, I think that’s the point, to be whimsical and fairy-tale like, but that’s not what they want for their Bollywood fix. “Hey, all that nonsense in a typical Bollywood movie and you object to this?” I say, which gives them pause; still, they don’t finish the movie. It’s not to their taste. My brief viewing tells me it could be to my taste, because I like whimsical and silly, but maybe the execution is a little off.

*David Chute has a slightly different view here. David Chute is a 2Blowhards discovery, at least for me, and one of the reasons I love reading cultureblogs like 2Blowhards. I learn a lot.

I am a horrible person and I’ll tell you why

Because I was asked to link to this fundraiser Rags-to-Pads by the wonderful blog, Our Delhi Struggle, and forgot until today. It really does look like a worthy charity.

Woody Allen in the LA Times…

…being interviewed about Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

“Almost by necessity, he’s been catapulted out of his familiar New York tropes, into London and now Barcelona, and the change of scenery appears to have been rejuvenating, resulting in “Match Point” and “Cassandra’s Dream” — biting nihilistic satire-dramas that examine whether evil ever gets punished.”

I admit, I sort of stopped watching Woody Allen movies for a time, especially after his personal scandals,  but lately, I’ve loved revisiting Allen’s dreamy, romantic,  and that dreaded word mainstream, films of the mid to late 80s and early 90s. When I was still living in Boston, a year or so ago, and kind of hiding from my unhappy work life by watching lots of films, I spent a rainy morning with Hannah and Her Sisters (on Bravo or Sundance or some similar televion channel) smiling at the 80s ‘bag lady’ look of Diane Wiest and the gentle fumbling of Michael Caine. I’m glad his work seems re-energized by working abroad, but I want a Woody Allen for today, I mean, someone who will take an American city and people it, regularly mind you, with imaginary characters that exasperate and beguile. Is that too much to ask, young American film-makers? Or are you all too busy writing things like Juno or Darjeeling Limited? Actually, I liked Darjeeling Limited, which is odd, because I really shouldn’t have.