The Boys Are Back

...and so am I. At least occasionally. This is cross-posted from MidLifeBloggers but I don't know who reads that or who, if anyone, reads ByJane.

People who know me know that I'm a real snippy critic when it comes to movies. Much of what the film industry puts out earns Three Snorts from me. So when I tell you I thought a movie was terrific, trust me--it was terrific.

Last night I went to a screening of The Boys Are Back. I didn't expect anything special. Didn't really know much about the film except that it starred Clive Owen and had boys in it. To what end, I wasn't sure--and really, that wasn't the point in my going. It was a screening, for heaven's sake. Shades of Hollywood, for heaven's sake. Not to mention a chance to make myself feel like LA's not that far away. So I met up with Margaret of NannyGoatsInPanties and Alena of LenaLoo's Inner Green Fairy and Larissa of no blog at all, bought myself the popcorn I must have to watch a movie and settled back to see what was what.

What I saw was one of the best films in ages. I hate movie reviews that recount the plot so I won't. Suffice to say, it's a love story between a father and his sons. It's about trying your best and sometimes coming up short, but sometimes not. It's about trying and sometimes failing, but sometimes not. It's about family in all its messy glory when each member is valued as an individual. It's about males without women but not in a way that demeans either gender.

It's about filmmakers not going the quick and dirty route with heavy-handed symbolism and Lessons Learned. No manipulation by music, no cheap Hollywood tricks to create an emotional response. Scott Hicks, the director of Shine and producer of Billy Elliot, directed it, from a screenplay by Allan Cubitt, which was based on the memoir, The Boys Are Back In Town, by Simon Carr. They have created a spot of real life in a movie theatre. Truly, if I hadn't recognized Clive Owen, I would have thought I was watching a documentary. I loved the world they created on the screen and, frankly, I didn't want it to end.

I can't remember the last time I was so touched by a film. Yet, such is the world of movies these days that I don't think I would have seen it if not for the screening. Too many bum deals out there for $10.50 a pop. Too many films where the best thing going was the popcorn. So I have to thank Melissa from Women and Hollywood for getting me on the hallowed screening list. And I have to thank the filmmakers, all those involved, for creating a film that made me remember that moving pictures are indeed an art form and that the best of them reflect who we are and refract our values.

Civil Discourse

I've been writing a variation of this post for some time now--since, actually, the 2008 Presidential Election started getting loud, which was during the Primaries, as I recall. I've thought it so often that I had to go through past posts to make sure I haven't said it all before. The truth is, I have. I've written bits and pieces of it in my Tweets and my Comments on other's blogs and as red-starred warnings on my own blog. Most people have heard me; some, the tone deaf and determined, have not.

There is a nastiness abroad that is passing for "political discourse." It is polluting the very debates we need to be having in order to make an informed decision on election day. Disagreement is when you proffer the opinion, "I beg to differ and for this or that or the other reason." Disagreement is not when you're larding your comments with sarcasm, whipping out your wit as if you were auditioning for Counterpoint. I don't care if you're on the left or the right: intelligent people make thoughtful debaters. They use reason to convince, not condescension to score points. They listen and respond, rather than waiting till the other person finishes to throw a zinger or two.

You like McCain; I like Obama...or, as was once the case, you like Obama and I like Hillary. There, we've said it, smiled and gotten on to other topics, good will and friendship intact. We have not loaded our commentary with heavy sarcasm. We have not called each other names or even implied that one of us is an idiot to not believe what the other does.

I cannot stand that hostile "you dumb fuck" tone of so much of what's being written these days. Grace D calls me the Manners Narc, because I have on more than one occasion called someone to task for slamming another's ideas in a less than collegial way. I accept the title, wear it somewhat proudly even. I learned the so-called art of debate at the dinner table with my father. It was our entertainment, but it came with certain rules: Don't get angry and don't get personal.

I work really hard to keep those rules in my discussions these days. You see, I have an absolutely vicious tongue which, should I unleash it, could flay the skin off a lizard. I know that. I've seen it happen in the past. So it's a matter of integrity, of honesty to me that I not use my ability to batter someone with my words to win a debate. And because I work so hard to keep my discourse civil, I expect others to do the same.

When they don't, I absolutely do think less of them.

Happy Father's Day!

I'm reposting an entry from several years ago when I blogged on Live Journal. I've written some about my father before, and when I do, I almost always end up in tears and being incredibly mushy (or as he would have said with an eyebrow raised, Tender). So I guess I never venture too far into what I feel about loving him and missing him because, well, because I'm afraid I might never get out. The last paragraph of this, the last sentences--that says it all. I'm sharing it with you today because I can't with him.

The World Cup--and Harold darling...

It's a draw--1::1, USA and Italy. {Sound of cheers}!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sure a computer saavy person could actually give you a link to that sound, but it ain't me.

I can't believe I actually watched the game. I didn't intend to. I turned the TV on to just hang out for a while, and there the game was. And I never moved throughout. I'm amazed at myself.

I've never been a sports fan particularly. My father, from whom I would have gotten the bug, wasn't a a sports fan either. He was a star fullback, first for Cornell, and then for one of the early league teams, the Long Island Bulldogs--or maybe it was the BlueBells. He played in the days when the helmets were leather caps and the only padding they had was Kotex. He considered contemporary players, with their complicated underlay of plastic and metal, to be (his word) sissies. So I never learned to love games by sitting on his knee. I learned to love reading by sitting on his knee. And arguing any topic at any time whatsoever....

...it's a funny thing about this blog. I started out to write about watching the soccer and how I couldn't believe how absorbed I was in it and how it took me back to that time long ago and far away, when I loved a footballer in England and spent many a Saturday watching him play...

...but then my thoughts took a right hand turn to my father--and I suddenly realized that tomorrow is Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. You would love all the new stuff computers can do. You would cheer my blog on and write Anonymous comments and maybe you'd have your own blog. I miss you. I miss your mind and your wit. And I miss the way you loved me. And liked me. Especially that.

Cleaning Out My Parents Desk

Now, isn't that a fascinating headline? They say--you know They, the SEO people--that one's blog titles are crucial, critical and direly important to what kind of traffic one gets. So you can see, what with the creativity that's just burbling out of me, why my blog traffic is so, so, so-so.

However, I couldn't think of any jazzier way to announce what I have spent the day doing. Yes, absolutely. Cleaning out my parents' desk. It's a lovely desk, mahogany, with a drop down writing surface,
and multiple cubbies as well as several small drawers in the top. And three drawers in the bottom. It has, for as long as I can remember, been the repository for the flotsam and jetsam of my parents' life. Once my mother died and bequeathed the flotsam and jetsam to me, I just kept it as it was, allowing it to grow a bit with my own stuff--dead cell phones and the like--shoved into the top drawer. But I've long known that one day I would have to deal with My Parents' Desk, and I've known as well that it would be difficult. None of us--my father, my mother, nor I--liked to throw things out. My mother was, in the early years, probably better at it than my dad and I. But once he died, she seemed to inherit all of his pack rat traits and then some. Thus, the Macy's receipts and Screen Actors' Guild cards from the 90s. Thus, it is left to me to make the hard decisions about what to toss.

That carton you see contains but one, the smallest, drawer and the top cubbies of the desk. It is, you will note, half full. What I threw most easily were my mother's bills and receipts, circa 1998. A twinge or two at tossing all of the Lee C. Gassner address labels, but none for the all the dessicated ballpoints, souvenirs of CPAs and insurance companies and, of course, now-defunct motel chains. I did experience some feelings of guilt at getting rid of stacks of perfectly good, albeit dreadfully dull greeting cards that my mothers gathered from somewhere or other. These are not of the Hallmark genre; think more along the lines of Birds of the World and Flowers of Fall. And with them went the handsful of perfectly good envelopes. It was hard to throw them as I know my father is flipping in his grave at the sheer wantonness of my waste. But if I did what my every instinct is telling me--put them in a box to keep and use some day--then they would become my flotsam and jetsam, and I have no daughter to will them to.

The Things I Did Not Throw (and yes, the allusion to The Things They Carried is intentional):

• the collection of perfectly good, not-been-cancelled stamps that my father maintained through the years. Not that he collected stamps, but for the actual postage, you know. I'm sure I'll use them. It would be a sin not to, a waste of perfectly good money. Of course, I do wonder if there's a statute of limitations on postage. I know we now have Forever Stamps, but will the 5cent Washingtons and the 3cent Liberty's fly as well?
  
• their passports, each in its own leather case, initial-stamped in gold--HG...LCG. I don't know why I'm keeping them. They just seem too good, too fresh to throw out. But still...
  
• medical reports, because that's now the only record my sister and I will have, and we may need it some day
• a letter from my first husband, to my parents, written after I left him, in which he told them how much he loved them--and me.
  

Tomorrow I'll go through the other two drawers.....

George Clooney Plays My Father

My dad was a Leatherhead...truly. Here he is, sans helmet, circa late 20s


He spent his college ball days as a fullback for Cornell. Then he went into the leagues, which were just starting then, and played for the Long Island Bulldogs. I don't know all that much because my dad was a modest man, and this all had to be pried from him.

It was a really rough game in those days. His fourth finger on one hand only had one joint because the finger was broken in a game and never fixed. He had a red star scar in the corner of his eyelid from someone stepping on his face with their cleats. And he played one entire half unconscious. He was knocked out somewhere at the beginning of the half but never fell down. He didn't come to until the half was over, and in the telling of it, that seemed no big deal to him.

I can't remember why my dad didn't continue playing pro ball, but I can tell you he had little interest in the modern game. "Sissies," he would say, looking at all the padding and high tech helmets they wear today. Padding in his day was Kotex and the helmets, yep, just leather.

Hungry Hill: A Memoir, by Carole O’Malley Gaunt

Hungry Hill: A Memoir, by Carole O’Malley Gaunt. University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

Carole O’Malley Gaunt is quite obviously Irish, and center stage of her memoir is her alcoholic father. How much more does one need to know to slot it into the genre of memoirs that detail the ills the Irish child suffers at the hands of his or her drunken parent? Think the McCourts, for one. It seems that her publisher and her publicist are aiming at that audience. Here’s the back flap copy they’ve written to entice readers:

“The author recounts her sad and turbulent story with remarkable clarity, humor, and insight, punctuating the narrative with occasional fictional scenes that allow the adult Carole to comment on her teenage experiences and to probe the impact of her mother’s death and her father’s alcoholism.”

Just makes you want to run right out and buy the book, doesn’t it. If you said, no, then you would be missing something, because the deathly prose in Hungry Hill is confined to the jacket copy. O’Malley Gaunt herself is a talented writer whose way with words and faculty for specific details makes this story of her teenage years come alive as only the best of memoirists have the wherewithal to achieve.

I am not Irish and my parents were merely social drinkers, but I grew up in roughly the same era as O’Malley Gaunt details here, and I can tell you: she’s got it down, right to the penny loafers and the headbands. Time and again, she transported me back to that time and that place. Here’s Carole on a double date:

“…Richie leans over, looks at Gordie, and lifts his eyebrows, a signal if I ever saw one. When Gordie puts thirty cents down for their cokes, Kathy pulls out her wallet from her straw bag while I reach into the pocket of my Bermuda shorts for the exact change. Because Gordie and Richie do not fork money up for our sodas, my neck relaxes a little….Out on the street, a blast of hot air hits us as if the July heat had been waiting for a Friday night meltdown. As we walk up the street, Richie and Gordie talk about cars—engines, headlights, and prices, but I can’t tell one car from another and have only just learned what a tailfin is….In the middle of Newbury Street, while talking about the pits in chrome fenders, Gordie reaches for my hand. It’s not as if he’s going to lift my hand with its short fingernails to his lips and kiss it, after all this is Springfield, not Paree. But still I don’t like it.”

I was on that double date, only mine was in Pittsburgh and we had just come from Gammon’ s and what made me uncomfortable was the boys hooting and hollering at a sign in the butcher’s window: Breasts, 79 cents. But the straw bag, the Bermuda shorts, the endless talk about cars and such that we all listened to with such feigned admiration—she’s nailed it.

But if you’re not looking for a trip down memory lane, there are those other reasons to read this book. It has something to do with the fact that her mother died early and her father was a handsome alcoholic and she was the only girl with six brothers. But at heart, Hungry Hill is really a coming of age story. The specifics of her life are less important than watching her make her way through the landmines that are always waiting for young girls growing up. This is not to minimize the impact that her father’s drinking had on her, but really, it is more important to her now, probably. There is about those fictional scenes with the adult Carole and the parental figure who wronged her a Twelve Step patina that rings false with the intense truthfulness of O’Malley Gaunt’s written memories of the time.

Hungry Hill is, despite the jacket copy, not a “sad and turbulent story.” Far from it. It is a counter to the bloated tales we're getting of the good old days of the Sixties and Seventies, stories of the movers and shakers, as it were, by the movers and shakers of today. This, on the other hand, is just a book about a girl in a time and a place; it’s a window into Growing Up Girl then—and I suspect—now as well. And it captures the era far better than all the retrospectives in the glossy weeklies have done.

What I Did Today...

Put up this magnetic calendar dry-erase board. It's by The Board Dudes and I got it at Target. I am confident that now I shall be forever organized as somehow the good fairies will nightly update my magnetic calendar dry-erase board. It came with two cute little screws and molly whatevers, as well as instructions, quite specific and obviously NOT written and then translated from a third world language, for installing the board. I obeyed orders and drilled the appropriate holes and felt incredibly masterful after I had done so. I love that I have my own power tools and know how to use them. I am my father's daughter: thanks, Dad.

E is for--hope I know by the time this post is finished

Every day when I face the letter of the day, I draw a blank. A--can't think of anything, and we know what a problem I had with B, and then C, what a lame post that was, and D, does anyone need to know the state and fate of my floors? And everyday when I face the letter of the day, all I can think of are wonderful topics for the day before. But then, of course, it's too late.

All I can think of today that begins with an E is--Ego. As in, mine is wanting lots of readers with lots of comments. But that means Effort. So E is for effort. I can toss these puppies off in a very short time (oh, you can tell?), but the really good posts, they take a while to write. At least for me. Of course I'm sure that everyone else whose writing I admire just tosses their puppies off, which is why I try to do it too, because--hey, hey, hey, we're back to E for Ego.

I just leaned over my desk and saw this written on a piece of paper: Eco Arts and Crafts. Oh, yeah, that. How did I not think of that as an E? This topic that has been of such great interest to me in the past month? I could answer that question, but E for Ego won't allow me to.

It's amazing what a stern fellow E for Ego is. He runs a tight ship, he does, allowing only certain minuscule pieces of himself to slip out and by and into the public domain. At least he thinks that only minuscule pieces slip out, but maybe whole chunks of him are obvious from even five miles away. You might wonder why, considering that I'm female, he's not. I dunno. Interesting, that. Is this a gender issue, I wonder? Was I too much my father's son, and not enough Daddy's little girl? Maybe.

It is true that I have what is considered a masculine approach to a lot of things in life. That is, I hone right in on the problem, analyze it, and come up with viable solutions. This is not exactly what you want in a touchyfeely therapist, is it? Here's your problem, here's how to solve it, go home and don't come back until you've done it.

So E is for Ego, and Effort, and Eco-Art. And for the last, look at this:




This is a real working radio. You can find it and buy it here. That's the site for African Wire Arts; check it out.

I Feel Sleepy, Very Sleepy, So Slee--

I'm fine as long as I'm upright, but the moment I sit at the computer, I begin to sink into the chair and drone into some slllllloooooooooowwww alpha state. I'm trying to do stuff, to get things done, to achieve and make much of my life, but I feel sleepy, so sleepy--!

This morning on my long walk with Molly, I saw a huge white rabbit, complete with big, perky ears. I did a double take. To see a hare on my walk, or ducks, geese, edible birds of all sort is not unusual. But a white rabbit? The Easter Bunny? And it was --did I mention this--huge. I know I saw it, but my life is such that maybe I didn't. Or maybe it was my father come down to beat the shit out of D for abandoning his little girl. You can see where my mind is these days.

Speaking of my father (yes, the emparadised one), did I ever tell you that I carry a picture of him in the console of my car? Sort of like a photographic St. Christopher. Yesterday I took it out--because I was stuffing yet another gas receipt in the console--and put it in my Date Book, which I was carrying to my appointment with the lawyer. What do you think of them apples, Harold Darling, I asked him. He didn't answer, but I can tell he isn't pleased.

The response to my Meme in Quarter Time was so fantastic that I've had to forego the prizes, since there were so many I couldn't possibly choose. I will now, however, begin the backstories. Don't know how far I'll get today, because remember that I feel sooooo sleeeeeepy. So maybe I'll just get the Bold-faced Lies out of the way to begin with:

4. I love Progressive Jazz.
Wrong. I hate Progressive Jazz. It is the only kind of music I have absolutely no tolerance for. Rap, yes. Country/western, certainly. Rock, pop, folk, and classical--yep, yep, yep, and yep. Progressive Jazz--nope. It's just noise to me. I get that there are improvisations and trills and drills and recurring whatevers, but that's all intellectual as far as I'm concerned. Maybe I'm not smart enough. That has occurred to me, since my sense is that Progressive Jazz is the province
of intellectuals. If so, call me dumb; or call me someone who needs more melody, more heart, more emotion in her music.