Raising my bottle of vinaigrette

Oddly enough, one of my favorite Newman clips remains this screen test for East of Eden:



Naturally, I think this in part because James Dean is in it and everyone knows how I swoon for Jimmy. (Note: Giant played on PBS tonight. All kinds of good.) But man, this is so wonderful in part because Dean and Newman are so wonderfully different. Dean is clearly taunting the boy with the bowtie in a very sexual way -- and I don't say that just because he says, "Kiss me." The mutual stare at the end almost looks like they will either come to blows or make out. Either way might have worked for the film.

The funny thing, of course, is that it's arguable that Newman got his big break because of Dean's untimely, pointless death. His role as Rocky Robert Wise's Somebody Up There Likes Me broke Newman out of pretty-boy roles on television and into film and, quite frankly, the movies were never quite the same (or at least the leading men). As much as I am a Dean fanatic, I'm fairly certain that, like his idol Brando, he would have burned out or became large and eccentric had he survived. At the very least, he would never have had the career that Newman did -- or, indeed, the life that Newman did. The clip above is a funny reminder of how two stars diverged so very much from this point on -- and yet how both have gone down in infamy glow brightly, only in our collective memory.

Thank you, Paul.

Las olimpiadas peruanas

The Olympics are on again, which means that NBC must remind everyone in this country that no one cares about anything that the Americans don't win. Though I am as swept-up as the next guy with the impressive swimming out there, the constant rah-rah becomes tiresome, overshadowed only by the singularly dumb "commentary" offered by the "sportscasters" who seem more interested in Philip Dalhausser's lack of hair than his playing ability. My good friend laloca seems to be upset that equestrian events are being given the short shrift in television coverage; I think that she should thank her lucky stars that she doesn't have to hear about how Gandalf really loves to eat carrots in the morning. I try to alleviate all the flag-waving by checking the medal tracker every day to discover heretofore unknown athletes from countries you wouldn't expect to get a medal. (For example, I see that Togo has won a bronze medal in kayaking! Why isn't there a story about that? I bet you it's big in Lomé right now...)

All this brings me back rwenty years to August 1988 when I was just starting my senior year of high school in Lima. Peru has never been one to make a huge presence in any international sport these days (in soccer, for example, I thank God for Bolivia for keeping Peru from the bottom of the pack of the South American World Cup standings), but that year the country sent a world powerhouse team for one sport: women's volleyball. Strange but true: Peru used to be a feared presence in women's volleyball.

To the delight of millions of Peruvians, the women made it all the way to the final game, where they played against the "Confederation of International States" -- which is to say, the Soviet Union, having just broken up and not figured out what to do in time for the Olympics. Given that the big event was happening in Seoul, the medal match got under way very late at night, probably around 2am or so. I remember being allowed to stay up late to watch the game, even though it was a school night, although I was so tired I couldn't stay awake.

When I woke up, I turned on the TV to see what the final score was -- and discovered that the game was still going on.

Indeed, after soundly winning the first two sets, Peru subsequently lost the following two sets, leading to a do-or-die fifth set, with both teams trading points. The game was still going strong when my family realized that the school bus was on its way -- and with my school all the way on the other side of town and us not having a car, I had to race down the stairs to get the bus on time. Someone, probably Vicente, had a portable radio to listen to the rest of the game; I remember Jenny complaining about a lack of equestrian events being shown in Peru. (Some things really never change.)

The bus ride offered one of the more surreal images I will ever see. Despite the fact that it was rush hour and the route to school traversed some of the most traffic-laden roads in Lima (and that says something), there were barely any cars at all. The bus zipped to school in no time flat -- and the only people we saw on the street were all crowded around electronics stores, which had graciously turned on television sets in their display windows so that dozens of Peruvians stood staring, immobile, at a single screen.

When we got to school, the game was still on. A teacher had a portable TV in the trunk of their car and various teachers crowded around; we students were stuck with radios. I had never seen the final points until tonight when I happened upon a sketchy YouTube clip of the final ten minutes of the game:


If you look at this video, you will note around the 7-minute mark the point where Peru had this in the bag: 15-14, championship point, Peru serving. I distinctly remember this moment being transmitted over the radio. The ball went into the air --

And the transmission stopped. Silence.

Everyone who was listening at school basically let out a loud cry of "WTF?!" in both English and Spanish. What happened? Satellite feed? Sendero Luminoso? Crappy Peruvian 1980s technology? Aaaaigh!

Less than two minutes later, the feed came back. Just in time for us to hear the announcer say that the Soviets had just gotten the last point. 17-15. Peru lost.

Peruvian women's volleyball never came back to that high point on the international stage: despite being recognized as a major player throughout the 1980s, you will note that Peru is not playing in the Olympics this year in that event. The loss at this game still meant that Peru won the silver medal, one of only four won by Peruvian athletes at any Olympics. This merited a major celebration when they got back home, which remains memorable.

That is, maybe, until 2020. Since, apparently, if Alan García gets his way, Peru won't just be a major player at the Olympics: Peru will be the Olympics. Hell, that Great Wall ain't got nothin' on Macchu Picchu, man. Can Francisco Lombardi match an opening ceremony to the level of Zhang Yimou? And if the athletes can take Beijing's smog, how will they do in Lima? (Actually, Lima's probably better than Beijing in that department. Maybe.) There are those who think the idea of a Peruvian Olympics isn't so bad. Then again, this comes from the government so full of itself that it actually, seriously tried for a bid for the 2016 Olympics... even though the deadline had passed nearly a year ago.

Still, check out the "promotional video!" I, for one, am convinced.

Nothing beats a great pair of legs

My students hate the "Broadway Melody" sequence. Every time I show Singin' in the Rain (which is practically every semester, since it is a great film to reference throughout any film course), I always brace myself when we get to the big number about three-quarters' through the film. It stops the plot dead with absolutely no relevance to what has come before and it will take about 17 minutes for us to return to the story at hand. No matter that this was the reason why audiences went to see the film back in 1952, my students generally hate the sequence.

But oh, those legs. No one can deny those legs.

Every time I see Singin' in the Rain -- which, between my classes and my son, is often -- I still get chills every time those green-clad legs come on screen. I remember that even as a kid, I was mesmerized by those legs. Cyd Charisse never says a single word and yet, in this spectacle-within-the-film, she has a brilliantly executed character arc, created only by dance. And while the movie isn't done in widescreen, Charisse's stretched legs certainly makes it seem otherwise.

Charisse's passing follows the other greats from the film: Lina Lamont (1977), Don Lockwood (1996), Cosmo Brown (2003); only spunky Kathy Seldin remains with us. Each one dancing into the afterlife makes me thankful for the wonderful world they left behind. Mme. Charisse, you will be missed.

Quietly, with Madeline

Many things will be said about the comic genius and fantastic, zippy presence of Madeline Kahn during Stinkylulu's Kahn-fest today. There will undoubtedly be a lot of wonderful commentary on her roles throughout her career; I hope, for one, that someone does a comparison of her Blazing Saddles singing with Marlene Dietrich's warbling in the westerns that she did.

For me, however, thinking about Madeline Kahn oddly comes back to Judy Berlin, a quiet wisp of a movie that happened to be her last. Her supporting role as a Lawn Guy Land mother, just realizing her marriage ain't what she thinks it is, is pitch-perfect.

I remember less about the film itself, however, and more about the experience watching it. I wanted to see it not only because it happened to win Sundance that year, but also because I heard both Madeline Kahn was fantastic in it. It was playing at a theater I had not really been to in downtown Monterey, California, right on the main drag. The only time that I had to see the movie was a matinee sometime during the week; in those days, I was mostly trying to finish my dissertation during the daytime and waiting tables at night, so movies had to get squeezed in by hook and crook sometimes. I remember racing to the theater, buying my ticket and walking in.

Upon entering, I realize that the space I've entered is somewhat cavernous: a relatively large theater for what is really a small town. There are only a few lights on, although maybe there was only one, as I only remember one, right above. The rest of the theater was curiously dark. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw that I was in what had been a lovely old theater, with some wonderful details on the sides -- but that had been years ago. Fallen somewhat into disrepair, there were cracks on the ceiling in a number of places, some plaster on the floor somewhere. I saw it was a beautiful theater, if a bit sad in its manner of cracking.

And so began the movie: Judy Berlin. And quickly, before I get into the movie itself, I realize that I am alone in this grand old theater. It is, I think, the only time I have had such a privilege -- awkward, because this should have more viewers, because movie-watching is a social experience where we are collectively alone. And yet, also amusing and intimate. And so, when Madeline comes on the screen, I don't feel as if she is speaking only to me; she really is only speaking to me -- large, in black-and-white, wonderful, cracking.

This entry is part of Stinkylulu's Madeline Kahn Appeciation Day -- please visit the other sites on the list, since at least one of them is sure to bring up that fact that she was in possibly the best flick of 1979 The Muppet Movie.

Smackdowning John Malkovich

It's been ages since I have had the chance to participate in one of Stinkylulu's Supporting Actress Smackdowns -- so when a call went up for 1999 and I realized I had already seen most of the performances involved (I had only not seen one of the films), I jumped at the chance. For the record, the nominees are:

• Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense
• Catherine Keener in Being John Malkovich
• Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted
• Samantha Morton in Sweet and Lowdown
• Chloe Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry
  

A pretty interesting year, one that yielded some fun nominations indeed. As a curio, however, it turns out that I actually kept track of the movies I watched back in 1999 and chose my own list of a top five back then. In apparent order of preference from nine years ago, my choices then for Best Supporting Actress were:

• Julianne Moore for Magnolia (but also Cookie’s Fortune and An Ideal Husband)
• Sissy Spacek for The Straight Story
• Toni Collette for The Sixth Sense
• Cameron Diaz for Being John Malkovich
• Nora Dunn for Three Kings
  

Poor Cameron Diaz will never get another shot like this again, I fear. I do wonder why Spacek wasn't nominated: it's such a great little performance, and Richard Farnsworth got an acting nomination out of it. (Plus, hey, she was playing someone mentally challenged! It's a sure thing! Heck, look what it did for Jolie!) Then again, what was I thinking about Nora Dunn?

Anyway, my views have changed slightly in the ensuing years. Check out the Smackdown to see the winner (who, by the way, I'm totally happy with).

A little shook up

I had planned tonight to finally blog about something fun, but my parents just called to inform me that a really major earthquake hit Peru very close to Lima earlier this evening. For those not in the know, Ica is on the coast in the heart of wine country and not far from Nazca, where the lines are located. This quake measured somewhere between 7.5 and 7.9 on the Richter scale, which puts it in league with the last Big Quake to hit Peru in 1970, which is one of the worst ever to hit worldwide, having caused an avalanche that wiped out entire cities. Making that connection right now makes me so thrilled that this wasn't as big of a disaster as it clearly could have been. (Nontheless, this also disproves my theory that Larcomar, the posh mall built into said cliffs, would fall right into the ocean with the first major earthquake. I always said that that would bring new meaning to the phrase, "Shop 'Til Ya Drop." I slay me with my wit.)

For as dirty and horrible as it is -- indeed, there is a book from the 60s by Sebastian Salazar Bondy called Lima, la horrible -- I do still consider Lima as "the place where I come from," much more so than Long Island. Beyond my own academic work, I have very personal ties to the city and to the country. The odor of dust, smoke, smog and sea that greets me when I step off the plane at Jorge Chávez International Airport has long been the smell of home for me, something instantly familiar, if also bracing. In many ways, Lima is the worst part about Peru and the thing I hate the most -- and yet, it's home.

All that said, no matter how long I lived there, I never got over a (not necessarily irrational) fear of earthquakes, particularly the Big One which would (will? yikes) decimate Lima. I have never been in a really major earthquake, although living on the 15th floor of an apartment building made some major tremors seem pretty horrible. (One happened when I stayed home from school to get a paper done. My parents weren't home and I ran to the elevator shaft, where I prayed to God that if He would make it stop and brought my parents back safely, I would never stay home from class ever again just to get an extra day of work. I kept that promise, too.) Given Lima's location right on the fault line between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates (I think I have that right), the prospect of a Big Quake is an inevitability. Thankfully, this wasn't it. But -- and this is true -- I still occasionally randomly think of my family in a big quake and it hurts my heart in so many ways.

I will also confess this here and now: they say that what you fear most often brings about some great creativity -- and it is true that the long piece of fiction that has been sitting in my head for over a decade, waiting to come out (tenure, please... tenure...) is based around a seismic event.

In any case, my aunt called to say that everyone in the family was OK. In fact, one side of the family is now hunkered down in her house -- which is built like a giant concrete bunker -- just in case a stronger aftershock should come. My love goes out to them, and to everyone else in coastal Peru tonight.

Taking pictures of the back of your head

When I talk about experiences at the Telluride Film Festival, I often mention the wonderful surprise that was Yi Yi, a thrilling three-hour film set in contemporary Taiwan. You have to understand that another Taiwanese film that had something to do with dragons or tigers was also in the festival; we all knew that that martial arts adventure was going to hit it big. Yi Yi was the opposite: quiet, introspective, thoughtful, building up an impressive story around a family trying hard to connect. As it happened, it opened in our little Masons theater as our first screening; while it was not that well-attended at first, everyone who saw it was floored by it. The film quickly became the film to see, the film that everyone (including me, especially me) would tell other people about while waiting in line. As it happened, Yi Yi also closed our theater, a screening where we sold out and turned away nearly 100 angry people who desperately wanted to see this really magical film.

Which is why I'm stunned now, up late grading papers but about to head for bed, as I read that director-writer Edward Yang has just died, leaving Yi Yi as his final word. The movie features Yang-Yang, the young boy seen above, who takes pictures of the back of people's heads because he wants to take note of the things that people don't, or can't, pay attention to. I am saddened that Yang won't be able to show us such fascinating elements anymore.

George Wu has a wonderful review of the film in Senses of Cinema.

If I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick

At some point in the planning stages last semester, I realized that the last Wednesday of the semester would fall on my birthday. Wednesdays for me are generally long, particularly if the department schedules a meeting early in the morning, which it chose to do today. Luckily, however, it also falls on my screening day, which means at least I could pick some movies that, quite frankly, I wanted to see.

So, as I have been saying all day today, I have finally joined the ranks of what the media advertising executives might term as "undesirable"; that is, I turned 35 today. And to celebrate, I ignored the fact that I was missing a meeting and gleefully watched Casablanca on the big screen, which always makes me happy. Between Claude Rains as Louis Renault, perhaps my favorite supporting character in all moviedom, and the Silver Screen goddess Ingrid Bergman (or, as she is known in our house, She Who Jeff Would Stalk If It Were Still the 1940s And/Or Ingrid Were Still Alive), I was perfectly in my element. Naturally, the movie has something for everyone (intrigue, romance, guns, sharp dialogue, iconic music, Paris, etc.), so I don't understand if people say they don't love it, but I do find it an "adult" movie of sorts. I don't remember the first time I saw it, though I imagine it was in college, when I really started watching movies in earnest; that is to say, whenever I saw it first, it was not like an immediate revelation. Instead, my relationship with Casablanca has been a slow, constant burn. I do not quote dialogue from films, and yet this is one that I can actually quote. I could easily get through the rest of the day after watching this.

Casablanca: the present I gave myself. Happy birthday to me, old man.

(Coming soon: the trip to Mexico, and my run for NPR)

Five easy pieces

I was intrigued by a posting at Where's My Cape? last week where a reader had posed five individual questions to be answered -- a meme of sorts, but personalized. I thought it was a neat idea, but I figured KC has been pretty busy with the double blogging and impending birthday preparations and what-not. I thought I wouldn't bother her.

To my glee, I found another five questions directed to laloca at Baggage Carousel 4 this evening. Laloca and I go waaaay back -- she knows more about me than I almost want to imply, which is what happens when you meet at 14 and her first words to you are, "Why are you talking to him? You should talk to me" -- and I thought, what could she possibly come up with for me?

Her questions turn out to be spot-on, and even allow me to talk about a couple things I have been thinking about blogging about anyway. Since I just finished a huge batch of grading (and can therefore really get back to writing tomorrow), I will delay going to bed just yet to respond.

1. in the wee hours of the morning, you toss and turn as your dreams take a nasty turn into nightmares. you've entered the march madness office pool, and your picks have Crime Zone vs. Un Chien Andalou and Heavy Metal vs. The Day After in the final four. Then, in a surprising upset, nuclear war falls to bladerunner-esque Lima. what did you eat before going to sleep?

Let me delay my response for a moment to fill in everyone (including laloca) about how perfect this question is.

The whole brackets thing may seem old hat now that March Madness has come and gone and I didn't participate in the actual basketball thing anyway. (This may be residual effects from when AU came thisclose in 2002 to making it to the dance, bringing ESPN to campus and driving me batty with the constant voice-mail messages to "support our team at the pep rally!" -- only to have us then lose by one point to Holy Cross. Secretly, I was pleased, having attended said rally with my misanthropic TA, both of us wearing black and saying "rah" at inappropriate moments.) I have, however, been unusually active in an internet version called Band Madness, which I accidentally caught in its first week. The concept of deciding which is better, the Eagles or the Pet Shop Boys (I voted the latter, naturally), makes me smile. It shouldn't, but it does.

This question also brings up a movie called Crime Zone, which is a major blast from the past that has come back to haunt me lately. Directed by Luis Llosa for Roger Corman's production company way back in 1988, this post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie is pretty good for the crapola-level it was aiming for; it also features a large number of random cameo appearances by many people I went to high school with: two English teachers as bickering shopkeepers, the librarian as a freeze-dried aristocrat, an ex-girlfriend as a robotic bank-teller. As it turns out, I actually auditioned for this film, for a role as a profane 15-year-old taxi driver who said "fuck" a lot. (Given that I was kinda born-again at the time, the audition was lots of fun.) Given that the only lead film roles I've gotten were in three productions by a former student (including one entry into the 24 Hour Film Festival, where I played the superhero Shoe-Man), you may tell that I didn't get the job.

Fast-forward fifteen years: I am now a film academic asked to present something on American production techniques used in Latin America for a conference. I decide to expand what was essentially a footnote in my book to a full-blown presentation on Luis Llosa's films for Corman. (The original title: "Babes in the Amazon, Ponch in the Andes: Roger Corman and Peruvian Cinema.) In the process, I bought copies of all these old films, including Crime Zone. The paper went over well enough that colleagues of mine who were putting together a book on Latin American exploitation film have asked me to expand this piece for their collection, which I'll have to have done by mid-summer. Funny how things work out.

Back to the question: what did I eat to generate such a nightmare? Easy: I must have eaten the god-awful pizza and sangría sold on the Calle de los Pizzas in Miraflores in Lima. Circa 1988, this was consumed nearly every other weekend before going out dancing at Nirvana. It was cheap and awful -- and back then I didn't know I was semi-lactose intolerant. So I'm sure nightmares would have been the alternate result.

2. paper or plastic?

Usually plastic, because then I don't have to buy more plastic bags to use as trash bags. But I'm shopping a lot at Trader Joe's these days, which means a lot of paper. Since I'm in Takoma Park, I will answer what is in my trunk: hemp.

3. how does it feel to be rapidly approaching your 14th birthday?

Laloca asks this question because, in her mind, I am still 15 and getting younger. This is because I replaced her as youngest-person-in-the-class when I moved to Lima in 1986. She has never forgotten this, nor has she let me forget this. As a result, the following conversation ensued only a few years ago when I joined her and her boyfriend for some birthday sushi:

MIDDENTO: So how does it feel to be 30?
LALOCA: [shrugs] Really, not any different than 29.
MIDDENTO: That's funny. Because now you look 30. [Boyfriend literally spits out his miso.] You know, I think I've been waiting 15 years for my being younger than you to finally pay off.

Sigh.

In any case, it's great to finally be turning 14. I appear to be growing a chest hair and, if I'm lucky, I'll get that Wham! cassette I've been asking for. (George Michael is so the next thing in music. No, he is.)

4. if you could ask anyone in the world (living, dead, or as yet unborn) a single question - and have it answered with full honesty - who would you ask, when would you ask, and what would the question be?

J.J.'s gorgeous elegy for his grandmother (really, go read it now, it's gorgeous) reminded me of a moment with my own grandmother in 1998. Abuelita's mind had long since gone to Alzheimer's, though she was healthier than anyone else in the family otherwise. (She would live two more years, in fact, after this moment.) She was, however, confined to her house, shuffling back and forth with the help of a nurse, hunched over with very vacant eyes. My aunt took primary responsibility for her, and had done so for several years.

I was there doing the first research for The Book and Angela had come with me. By that point, we were already engaged -- and yet, for reasons that still baffle me, my aunt wouldn't let Angela meet Abuelita. I found this silly, but I respected her decision.

I had brought a video camera to get some footage for some language instructional videos for the Spanish language program at Michigan -- and, on one of the last days, I decided to shoot just a few minutes of footage of my grandmother so that I could bring that back to my mother as a gift. And, choosing to do this while my aunt was out, I asked Angela to come with me to meet her. It was the only time they got to meet and I thought I would just get some random shots of my grandmother sitting. The minute I turned the camera on, however, my abuelita changed: hunched as she was, she suddenly straightened up, looked at the camera and walked sprightlier than I had seen her walking in years. And, caught on film, there was a mischievous glimmer that I recognized from years earlier when I was little and she would conspire with my uncle Ernesto to douse me with water balloons.

My question, therefore, would be a very simple one to my grandmother at that moment: Are you really still in there -- and if so, how are you?

5. your inanimate object question: you are a table. describe yourself, and what is on you.

I am a coffee table made of light-colored wood, sturdy but with relatively thin legs, lacquered lightly. No drawer, just the table, with only a little bit of ornamentation at the lip. Books and magazines are in piles on me, along with some dust and someone's stocking'd feet.

and the bonus, i-didn't-come-up-with-it-myself question: as i was going to st. ives, i met a man with seven wives. each wife had seven sacks, each sack had seven cats. each cat had seven kits. kits, cats, sacks, wives, what kind of sack can hold fifty-six felines without breaking?

Hemp. More importantly, however, is the question: how did you get all those damn cats in the bag without your arm getting torn to shreds?

**
I'd be happy to direct five questions of my own creation to anyone who requests them. It's more fun than I thought it would be -- and definitely not your everyday meme.

Remaindered

I have no idea how I missed the news that Premiere magazine would be shutting down. I believe I still have about, oh, a year on my subscription -- but let's not even mention the economic losses here. For someone who studies movie magazines, I'm here to confirm that this was one of the last of its kind, at least in the U.S.

I've just quickly gathered some info on this and, quite frankly, I agree with many of the sentiments. Yes, there are problems with "long-lead" entertainment magazines in this day and age, particularly with the blogosphere around where we can make all sorts of scandal immediately upon hearing a rumor. Yes, this was particularly true with their Oscar predictions which, predicted months before publication, now tended to be way off. Yes, they had become -- just say it -- trashier.

But they weren't that trashy, certainly not to the (delectably trashy) level of Entertainment Weekly. I have always felt that EW is eminently disposable and dispose of it I do; as my wife can confirm, however, I have kept my copies of Premiere since my subscription began sometime in the early 1990s. Seriously, I have them all. Mainly because sometimes the articles came in very useful for historical purposes: when I found it, EW's Popwatch blog mentioned one of my absolute favorite pieces ever, one where Ben Affleck interviews himself. (The cover is picturered here as well.) More than anything, the articles that mattered were the longer pieces that really got at the heart of matters. I think of those kind of pieces in Vanity Fair and indeed am surprised when I see something like it in EW -- but I expected it from Premiere. A year's subscription has been the top prize for my Oscar Party every year: a good film rag that wasn't too pulpy, nor too academic.

The website will live on in an interesting new form and, given I hadn't appreciated their site before (which was really a retread of the print version, yawn), I will be checking it out now. But I'm a print kind of guy and I'll really miss not getting my monthly copy. It's definitely a sign that that part of my life is over.

Then again, maybe my book about film magazines as historical pieces suddenly has relevance.

What sometimes happens with a Ph.D in Comp Lit

My best friend from grad school had the most kick-ass dissertation ever. She came in from the corporate world the year after I did and she is seriously one of the smartest people I have ever met. Her project compared a particular type of resistance literature called the feuilleton as used in 17th C. France, early 20th C. Czechoslovakia and later 20th C. Argentina. Her project was truly comparatist and, man, she was driven. Naturally, since she started a year after me, she finished right before I did. She's also a great teacher and can drink anyone under the table. (She's Irish. Note thre red hair above.)

Of course, this made her completely unhirable in academia.

This is not a sad story at all, however. You see, right now she's at the center of a pretty major event in U.S. politics.

The person I speak of is Marcy Wheeler (aka "emptywheel"), who is currently the foremost authority (at least on the left) on the Scooter Libby trial. Her book, Anatomy of Deceit, is flying off shelves (here is an excerpt), she was recently profiled in the NY Times, and she is currently (and by that I mean right now, depending on when you're reading this) live-blogging (and scooping) the trial at firedoglake. She's kicking ass, taking names and is possibly the most intelligent person writing about this.

And she's my friend. Love her dearly.

UPDATE: And there she is reporting on the verdict! I think she's probably downing a lot of wine right now. The blog (and her reporting) is getting some pretty fab press too -- her talk here is pretty cool given that she has no formal training (that I know of) in reporting.

10 years ago...

I think she was reading a magazine, sitting on my bed in the house on Huron Avenue, when Brandon called. "Oh my gosh," he said, "she's there right now? So how does she kiss?"

He probably meant it as a joke, but I looked at her with the phone in my hand and grinned. Only two days earlier, during Party of Five, I had tried to kiss her during a commercial break; she would have none of it, saying that a first kiss shouldn't be held to the arbitrary distractions of a commercial break. This, however, would be different. She looked at me quizzically from behind the magazine. "I don't know," I told Brandon, "but hang on." And I put the phone down for a moment and lunged for her.

"Pretty darn good," I said when I got back on the phone.

"Oh my gosh, you just did it now?! You are so going to get married and have lots of baaaabies."

Later, we decided to arbitrarily pick the day of that kiss as our anniversary, since we quickly fell into a relationship after it. On that day two years later, I proposed. And a year after that (upon finding out that the legal part of getting married in Massachusetts was a bit more complicated than we originally thought), we quasi-eloped and got married by the Mayor of Ann Arbor. Two two-two, made it easy to remember.

Ten years ago today, starting with that kiss.

Happy 8th, beloved.

Things Come Together

Sometimes, good stuff happens in a surprising way. Today, for example:

• Xan, incredible kid that he is, finally figured out that when I turned around in the car and stuck my tongue out at him, that I was playing a game and that he shoould stick his tongue out back at me. (I have been doing this for several days now and each time I did this prior to today, he would shake his head, "Noooo! Idon'twantit!" This actually made me laugh, which is why I kept it up at all.)
• I got an absolutely incredible e-mail from an old student who is currently attending Sundance, thanking me for introducing him to Atom Egoyan in class six years ago, which means that I actually did make a difference to someone's life.
• After reading that, I also got my teaching evaluations from last semester and did pretty well. One class was way higher than I thought it would be; the other would have been the same except I clearly pissed someone off royally. (For every question, 45 people evaluated me in the top two categories and one person gave me the lowest score possible. Whoops.)
• The Oscar nominations are tomorrow morning, which I will show live in class. For once, I have no friggin' clue who will be nominated, much less win -- which actually makes it exciting.
  
• The hiring meeting at work was surprisingly congenial.
• Xan had a good bath day and I was requested to read Kitten's First Full Moon, which is my favorite, too.
• I discovered that I'm a network executive's worst nightmare, due to my lack of TiVo. I had been dreading today, when 24 and Heroes would finally go up against each other, but thought I had solved the problem when Angela started taking a class on Monday nights. Fine, I thought, I'll tape 24 and watch Heroes since she is into the former and not the latter. Except while I was watching Heroes, I kept turning back to 24, even though I was taping it, because I wanted to know. So it appears that I have made a decision anyway about my own TV watching habits and (alas) can dump one. (Sorry, Hiro!)
• Upon going down to our library to find my "marked-up" copy of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, I instead come upon a signed copy. I didn't know I had a signed copy. I just sat here staring at it for a moment.

Oh yes, and I finished chapter one of the book. It ain't pretty (yet) but it's out of my system. (The third attempt at writing this chapter seems to have done the trick.) Which means I now have Introduction through Chapter 7. Eight down, one more to go.

Don't tell Brandon Adams...

...but it appears that Julie Andrews will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild. My dear friend from freshman year, who probably thought that this is long overdue and who once typed a short paper about Andrews on my computer when I fell asleep next to my desk (replacing my paper on Iranian author Sadiq Hedayat with the likes of "Julie Andrews is the most fabulous person in the world, and you should know this, professor!!!!"), will probably faint when he hears this.

I'm still not sure whether he's seen S.O.B. yet.

I needed you, Robert Altman

I was driving this afternoon by Ward Circle, having listened to Terry Gross' great interview with Parker Posey and on my way in to pick up my stack of papers to grade. It promises to be a cinematic weekend indeed, what with fifty mini-tomes on González Iñárritu's Babel. But then Terry Gross announced, "Coming up next, we take a look back at the life of Robert Altman, who died last night at the age of 81" and I cried out, almost stopping the car in the middle of the circle.

One thing is to appreciate a director and his work and, as a film scholar, I dutifully venerate Altman as the auteur he is. If nothing else, I use his films every semester to teach how sound can be used to focus attention on the screen instead of the camera, a technique he basically pioneered.

Perhaps more than any other contemporary director, however, Altman's work has connected with me on a personal level for quite a long time. One of my best students during my current tenure at AU wrote a fantastic piece in my course on the musical extolling the virtues of Nashville, brilliant enough that I was convinced to include it the next time I taught the course. My own interest in genre (and indeed of higher film study in general) started largely because of a paper I wrote in graduate school on the fascinating anti-Western McCabe and Mrs. Miller, a movie that still takes my breath away. I remember wrapping up an evening of chatting about pedagogy with my very first mentor, Julie Kalish (who laid the foundation for everything I know about teaching), by our going to see Short Cuts, still one of my favorite films. (The closing credits started to roll and, after three hours, Julie and I were mystified that there wasn't more movie to watch.) M*A*S*H; Three Women; Gosford Park; The Long Goodbye; Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: the list goes on and even when Altman failed (such as in the steaming pile that is Pret-a-Porter), he failed impressively.

It is even arguable that I would not be where I am today without Altman. As a senior in college, I wrote a paper bringing together reactions of Willa Cather's A Lost Lady and Altman's just-released ransom note to Hollywood, The Player. I was intrigued that both texts garnered the same responses from my peers: thrill for most of it, only to be met with disappointment at the end when the anti-hero triumphed instead of receiving a come-uppance. In clearing my paper topic, Professor Jahner (who I later realized I wanted to emulate when I would become a professor) laughed and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, but you seem more than fascinated by this movie. Go for it and see what happens." I was so proud of this paper that I submitted it as my writing sample to get into graduate school -- and sure enough, it got me into Michigan.

But my relation to Altman goes even further than that.

You see, my first memory of having a cinematic experience involves an Altman film.

Surely, I had been to the movies before 1980; I have a vague recollection of having seen Star Wars like everyone else on its release in 1977, and Grease and Xanadu came out before then as well, fueling my obsession with Olivia Newton-John. But the first visceral joy of going to the movies? That belongs to 1980's Popeye.

I didn't get to go to the movies too often as I was growing up. We really didn't have the money to spend on anything in those days, so I spent most of my time in the backyard. (This is fine for a kid, by the way. My own son is growing up like this.) Going to the movies, like going out to eat, was therefore a big deal. I distinctly remember one day my parents were fighting about something and Mom got really angry. She grabbed my hand, marched me to the car and started driving. "Come on," she said, "we're going to the movies." "We are?!" I said, incredulous and thrilled. I don't even think I knew what we were seeing, but I was 8 and any movie would be fine by me. And, truth be told, I loved this movie. I watched the Popeye cartoons all the time before school, and the funny guy with the puffy forearms (some guy named Robin Williams) was just great. There was a certain joy in seeing the lunacy of the cartoon come to life, not to mention that Shelley Duvall looked exactly like Olive Oyl. (Eerie.) I remember watching the movie at the Baldwin Twin Cinema on Grand Avenue with a bag of popcorn, aware of my mother steaming in the seat next to me, but calming down and eventually laughing through her tears. By the end of the movie, everything was OK, we went home -- and, in my 8-year-old way, I learned that the movies have a curious and magical power.

Popeye is today considered one of Altman's worst films: a commercial flop and the last straw that sent him careening away from Hollywood forever. Years later, when I discovered who "Altman!" was, a name to be venerated in hushed tones amongst fellow film snobs, I was tickled to find that he had directed this. I haven't seen it since back then (except the ending, which I caught once as the movie was finishing on cable) and I wonder if, like Xanadu, the film will age so badly that I will now find it laughable. I doubt it. Even so, the memory of that first truly cinematic experience will remain -- and for that alone, Robert Altman, I thank you more than I can possibly express.


Shelley Duvall, needing Robert.
If you're looking for more tributes, check out this rather comprehensive list at GreenCine.

Pondering the pigskin

Oge (who I just noticed is now a Texan!) will not necessarily be happy with this, but he won't be surprised by this admission either: I'm not really a football fan.

This may in part be due to my upbringing. My dad was not really a football fan and I went to high school in Peru where fútbol is something else entirely. That changed slightly when I went to college when, in order to be a freshman in relatively good standing, one went to football games. I therefore became a fairly ardent fan of the Big Green, even if we are currently 2-7. I didn't really understand the game all that well even then. This changed when, of all things, I joined the marching band my senior year (I switched to cymbals after playing the videocamera for a season) and I wanted to know when -- and more importantly why -- we had to start playing. (I also learned for the aforementioned Oge, the 'shmen on my hallway who played. And who derived great pleasure from tackling me in the hallway when I went to brush my teeth. Shall I describe what it's like having an offensive tackle doing something called the "turkey trot" on your chest while the rest of my 'shmen are looking on? I digress...) My dear wife played with the DCMB for five years and still can't really tell you what is happening on the field, but I finally picked up a cursory understanding.

This was not enough to turn my into a football fan, however. I don't really follow the NFL, nor do I really follow college football. After all, I teach at a school which happily doesn't have a football team (I've talked to the athletic director and she used the word "happy"). This also comes after having gone to graduate school at a place where football (along with basketball and hockey) was somewhat sacred: I shamfacedly confess that I never attended a game while I was there.

All this is meant to preface the peculiar things I'm feeling today, when NPR, colleagues at work and even my neighbors are asking me how I feel about the Michigan-OSU Game-to-End-All-Games this afternoon. (No, I didn't know they were both undefeated, although somehow i knew that Rutgers was.) And to be honest, with Angela and Xan out this weekend on Cape Cod and me here trying to get some serious writing done, I will reluctantly have to refrain from watching The Game.

But today?

Today, I feel like a Wolverine. Go Blue.

(UPDATE: So I lied, slightly. I have to make an appetizer for a birthday dinner tonight and I just turned on the game, where I discover it's 7-7. More perplexingly, however, I heard for the first time the opening strains of "O Fortuna" (from Orff's Carmina Burana) done by a marching band as fight music. I'm impressed -- and slightly disturbed. [Actually, I am more disturbed by this. Apparently, this is a common marching band thing?] But hey, Xan can actually sing that. I'm not kidding: he heard it on the radio the other day and has been happily screaming what sounds like "O Fortuna" all the time, appropriately fortissimo.)

Picking up chicks

Well, I had to pick this chick up several times while trick-or-treating. And damn if the boy isn't getting heavier by the minute.

Folks, if you're wondering why people ever have children, one of the reasons is that on one day of the year, you can dress 'em up in silly-looking clothing and have them go out and beg for candy. Not for him, mind you, because he's not allowed to eat that much. I, however, currently have the carcasses of four mini-candy bars within reach. (Thanks to the Costco Hershey's bag, I had a Butterfinger, a Reese's peanut butter cup, an Almond Joy, and a Kit Kat, which is melting in my mouth as I type this.) If I were nice, I would bring some candy to class, but I'm forcing one class to watch Babel, so you can determine for yourself whether I'm nice or not.

Today was my day with Xan, so I brought him to campus in costume. The costume would have been perfect had it been a normal Octobery day; at 70 degrees, however, this suit was a little hot. (I bought this, by the way, on clearance at Old Navy -- a store I never even walk into -- last year for a grand total of five bucks, well spent.) The result was that the voices of nearly every person who walked by us went up by at least three registers upon seeing him in this suit. (This includes the I'm-too-cool-for-school frat boys who sit outside the student center all day to smoke.) Admittedly, I laughed for a full five minutes when I tried the costume on him for the first time the other day, perhaps because my rather un-American (read: not obese) child doesn't normally have a body shaped like this, which I found reminiscent of the main characters in the animated film Chicken Run.

The best part about these pictures, however, is not merely that they capture how adorably cute he really is: it's the fact that we'll have enough material from today alone to fully embarass him about 15 years from now. Mark my words.

Myself, I had a lot of plastic costumes growing up -- and my "homemade" costumes of later youth were not always terribly inventive. (I was a hobo for several years, I think, in junior high.) In graduate school, the creative juices started to flow more and for a couple years I went as Luka, which I thought was amusing, yet topical... until I discovered that people thought my masterful makeup job indicated actual bruises. (Shockingly, Angela refused to go as my mother one year.) I also managed to win a costume party contest as Speed Racer -- a natural for me since (a) my hair naturally creates that curl in the middle of my forehead if I don't use hair product, and (b) I managed to find a pair of white bellbottoms that gave me the perfect Speed silhouette. (Actually, those pants were a little tight. No, a lot tight. In the right spot. Let's just say I had to walk carefully for fear of hurting myself. I know, too much information...)

In my attempt to get everything done today, I didn't put too much effort into this year's costume for trick-or-treating, instead choosing to spike up my hair, wear all black and call myself first a Robert Smith wannabe (which became impossible when I remembered I only recently threw out all my old goth makeup, which had gone bad) and then merely a behind-the-scenes techie. Besides, I didn't actually have to teach today and I didn't want to distract from Xan's impact on his first outing on Halloween. I have threatened for several years now, however, to do something much more daring -- and wouldn't you know that next year the holiday falls on a Wednesday and I'm teaching Cinemas of Latin America again?

In any case, happy halloween. If anyone still wants some candy tomorrow, I still have plenty. (You still only get it if you come in costume, however.)

Still portraying a Niagara Falls barrel

I confess that I actually uttered the following words since the summer began to another professor in the department: "Well, I'm not even sure how to teach about poetry in class. This is why I stick to teaching fiction and film."

Here is, perhaps, another reason. Personally, I'm mildly impressed at my 16-year-old self's turning-of-phrase in "captain at helm." I'm not entirely sure I would have come up with something like this now.

Since we're unearthing all sorts of the musty past, I confess that I've recently rediscovered a whole trove of poetry written during high school and college. Unlike the example on the pink card, most of my teenage stuff is best described by Henry Rollins (paraphrased here): "And you lock yourself in your room and dress in black and your write lots of poetry and you know it's all good because you are the king or queen of paaaain."

Exhibit A:

Masque
[originally published in Kaleidoscope, Colegio Roosevelt, 1987]

Eyes bright
Cheeks are rosy
A smile curled upon my lips
A friendly hello to a few friends . . .
Not much, but enough
To let them see what I
Want them to see.

Mm. Cheery.

It's stuff like this that led my tía Elsa to inform my mother that I was about to commit suicide at any moment. Don't let her know, but one of my most recent poems, written on the sly in the last year, is titled "Car, crash." (For those of you now even more worried about me, my most recent one - still in progress - is tentatively titled "Music for Anne Beattie's Frank," which is much lighter. No, no Xan poems yet -- I'm too busy running after him to write poems about him.)

Still, I wonder what that 16-year-old whipping out a ditty on the back of was probably a note attached to a carnation or something would think of me now, twice a lifetime later.

Nirvana to reopen!

I've just heard that my high school discotheque of choice, Nirvana, will reopen. This disco was an amazing place: an old Spanish-style house with many small rooms, virtually all of which were painted black and featured an amazing amount of blacklight, where an angst-ridden teenage boy with frizzy hair could dance with a speaker to the sounds of Depeche Mode, Peter Murphy and Soda Stereo, under the influence of several screwdrivers. I even tried memorializing it through a dystopic short story written when I was in college.

But you (the very few of you in the know) say that this can't be true: Nirvana closed in the early 90s, to be replaced by an ultramodern laundromat. It hasn't existed for years. Indeed, Nirvana is just a nostalgic memory, a product of your life in Lima from the late 1980s.

Perhaps you haven't heard about this yet, that situations we thought it would be impossible to return to in Peru are suddenly back with a vengeance. And as long as we're bringing back the bad stuff, why not bring back the good too? Come to think of it, maybe we can bring back short films before all movies in Peru as well!

With a mau-mau and a cow-cow and a...

Well, blow me away. Of my three favorites (see entry below), I picked the final two -- and the fact that the winner (pictured here, Katherine Cross) won makes me especially pleased. Why?

Because she got to spell "hukilau"!

And what is so special about "hukilau"?

Hmmmm... let's see who manages to answer this first... everyone together now......