U-S-A: Part I

“One bed is not enough, one job is not enough, one life is not enough.”

I have loved the introduction to John Dos Passos’ USA trilogy from the moment I first read it.  It is striking, literary, feverish, obsessive, expensive, lyrical.  The quote above is merely one sentence that is mine.  Every sentence is mine to treasure, but that sentence is mine to hold onto.  I feel it, I think about it, I reference it, I idealize it, and I have now memorialized it in the most unholy and banal of places: my blog.  (Previously held in high esteem on my facebook profile.)

And now I’m living it out, but in reverse; I am unhappy about it.  I have been all-consumed by work lately, unsatisfied with my own performance, leaving work knowing I have not done enough to make everything work, knowing enough hasn’t been done to make changes for the students.  They are still pitifully behind where they should be, and it seems that no amount of magical happy time or two hours in my classroom will change that.  Who can say.  (Period purposeful.  No question there.)

I have taken to working at home more than usual lately.  I make phone calls to students.  I make phone calls to parents.  I make worksheets I don’t use.  I make powerpoints I only have time to use half of.  I ineffectually worry.  I pace.  I race my mind through series of useless, effortful, pointless imaginations of the next day and the day after.  I wonder how/why/when/where things will happen when the next day comes.

It was like that last year as a first year teacher, but this year is not marked by the worry of the scope of movement in class.  I am too confident to worry about that this year.  This year is also not marked by the dread of last year.  I have no class I truly am unsure I will be able to control during the day.  I have longer periods and shorter periods but that is only because of the schedule of the day. I have easy classes and trying classes.  Those things never change no matter the situation.  (What would suburban teaching feel like?)

What also never seems to change are the students who fell behind years ago and never seemed to make progress towards academic success again.  Those boys are what I worry about now.  Those are the ones I cannot forget.  They are taking all my time and energy.  I have lost all focus.

Well, they don’t take up all my time.  The guys on the other end of the spectrum take up a lot of energy as well.  On top of my two preps, the independent reading tracking, the lesson plans, the alignment templates, the unit plans, the tests, the assessments, I am now asking for more work in concern that the smartest we have are being dumbed down by my teaching to the middle (and sometimes lowest) common denominator.  Thus, those guys and I will be reading a book all our own.  I hope that goes well.  It’s going to be Slaughterhouse-Five, and I’m hopeful.  There are only four or five guys I’ll be doing it with.  I am excited about it.

It will be very low stress, as long as the proper amount of prep is put in ahead of time.

 

I’ve been surfing Dave’s ESL cafe.  I’ve been thinking about Alex.  She has her certification in ESL now, and why don’t I try that track.  It might be a nice change.  There are so many questions about what will happen next year, and where I will go, and I am only keeping my options wide open, thrown open, easily available.

Life brings on that most difficult decision The Clash knew so well.

 

Conversate and other words

I think the word I hate the most is “conversate.”  It’s not a word, but people seem to think it is.  I hear it from everyone every day, and on occasion, it even pops out of my mouth when I’m talking to my students, and I hate myself a little bit more.  I’ll be giving instruction, like “after you’re done silently reading you may turn to your partner and work through the guiding question.  This isn’t a time to conversate about your lives, this isn’t a time to avoid work, this is a time for you to get your work done in class…”  And as I’m standing there I know the students aren’t questioning me and the words I use (the ones they understand) and so I realize that whenever I use a word like conversate I am just encouraging the use of words I do not like.

This, however, is entirely out of character.  On any other given day you will find me extolling the virtues of the English language, and how malleable it is, about how its evolution is still going on to this day and will continue to change and grow and morph in the years beyond.  I will mention how google has now become a verb that means to search, and turns of phrase like “status update” are making their way out of the internet world into the human world.  My students will listen and not really understand (a) what I’m saying, or (b) care why I’m saying it, but I say it nonetheless.

But, starting with “conversate”, things have been going to far.

As I was working with my students on their projects this past Friday, I had them divided into the students who had chosen not to make a presentation, and the students who had chosen to make a presentation.  As I get to Malik (not his real name) I ask him what clips he will be using for his presentation, and he says he doesn’t want to make a presentation.

“Why?” I ask. “Didn’t you realize you chose one of the two options that required a class presentation?”

“Yeah.  But I don’t want to do no presentating.”

And I’m all for the malleability of the English language, but making up the verb “presentate” is going a little far ijn my estimation.  Can we not just converse and present?  Must we conversate and presentate?

I swear, as much as I appreciate the descriptive linguists who marvel in the changing shape of English today, what is bothering me even more is the fact that there are already words, shorter words, easier words, simpler words, for the words people are making up today.

And while is makes sense to turn:

• estimation into estimate
• education into educate

it does not make so much sense to turn

• conversation into conversate
• presentation into presentate, or
• salvation in salvate

Although I might be wrong.  It could be salvate will be in the dictionary before the year is out, but I’m not willing to use it for the rest of my life.  (And I’m going to try and avoid conversate and presentate, too!)

 

News!

In an exciting turn of events, my house has had some exciting developments recently.

Our landlord (pictured in the far right) has been arrested for (wait for ‘em all): credit card fraud, real estate fraud, and auto insurance fraud.  How exciting!  While we always knew he was sketchy, and somehow managed to transform our old house into a decent modern house, we never expected him to actually be engaged in fraud, much less three different types of fraud.

Please read more here.

I could not be more surprised, or beleagueredly  amused by the situation… And still life must go on.

A year of teaching: 365 days of Phoenix

I bought Phoenix’s It’s Never Been Like That a year late.  When I graduated from college at the beginning of May, I found myself, for the first time, subletting my apartment for the summer, packing up all of my worldly possessions from college, and driving back home for the last time.   The album came out in 2006.   I picked it up in 2007, about one month before I flew to Philadelphia to begin my two year commitment to Teach for America.

It’s Never Been Like That was that perfect fresh blast of soft and pop music I needed for the summer.  I spent many nights driving down the canopy roads and thinking about the choices I had made up to that point, the choices that had gotten me to being back home in Tallahassee before I started a job I had no qualifications for, a job where people just told me, “It’s so tough.  You have no idea”–all the while Phoenix was playing in the background.  (So was MGMT.  But what self-respecting semi-hipster indie-fan didn’t have them spinning all summer long?)  I waited in Tallahassee for almost two months.

Look out--look at, look at me
Calm down calm down I said to myself this time

The nervousness of my impending future/disaster (…it’s so tough…) played in my head.  It reeled over and over again.  Possibility after awful possibility played in my head as I permuted the possibilities of the future my decisions had led me to the former here and now.

Where to go I had no idea about it
Most of the people do, they're only doing just fine
I don't wanna stay in place no more, see
Ain't doing well, well, well, I'm only doing just fine

Then, all of a sudden, I was in Philadelphia.  Phoenix was still playing on my iPod, and I was desperately listening to anything to calm my nerves.  I was aloof in a place where people weren’t allowed to be aloof.  I was in TFA.  As a requirement you are asked to be social all the time, to participate, to be active, to meet people, to schmooze, to engage, to question, to discern, and to do a whole host of other verbs.  I walked in the crowd, headphones in.  No clue where I was going, but confident the group would get me to where I needed to go.

   Second to none, I wouldn't seriously get involved in a thing
   Bored of all the talking, you know it didn't change much
   I doubt your intentions are to make me feel any better today
   I even doubt tomorrow will be as easy as it was

I was ambivalent about TFA.  I didn’t exactly buy their sales pitch once I became a   member of their organization.  I doubted what they were really about, I didn’t want to get involved with them much, and it seemed as though the more I rejected them, the more they rejected me.  (NOTE:  This is only tacitly true.  Once I, later, began accepting them, they became more accepting of me.)

It started all in early September
When my godgiven little became a lot older

The rest, as I shall say, is history.  Last September came and went, and here I am a year older.  Phoenix is still with me.   And now they have a new album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, to sustain me and relate to my life.  When the lead singer Mars hits it, he hits it right.

The question is, which lyrics will define this year?

Wait, what?

This really exists. I can’t believe this really exists.

My only question now:  Why did my idea for Slasher Sloth vs. Mutant Llama get rejected?

Documentaries on Trial

Are his movies even worth it?

I keep waffling on the issue of documentaries.  I hate the, except when I love them.  There seems to be little middle ground, based on my own personal reactions.

The Evidence for the Prosecution:

1.  Documentaries can be boring.  An Inconvenient Truth – This has to be the worst quality documentary made.  I don’t like getting political when I rate movies.  Even when it concerns politics I agree with.  You cannot give me enough money to say a poor movie is interesting when it isn’t.  This is why this type of review is worthless. A perfect review of this type of movie is only a political move.  This movie is boring, and not boring in the deliberately slow-paced manner, which I typically enjoy.  It’s just not good.  It is a glorified PowerPoint presentation.  It is surprising, shocking, and meant to be moving; on most counts it fails because it does not engage me.  At all.  This first type of documentary is all too common.  It’s the reason most documentaries go on the shelves of stores…and stay there.  No one’s interested in being bored.  The coffee table edition is more interesting.

2.  Documentaries as propaganda.  Triumph of the Will – Probably the best example of propagandism, the film by Leni Riefenstahl (spelled right the first time!) about the rigid professionalism, determination, and divinely ordained nature of the Third Reich I have had to watch three times for classes.  The first time was in high school, just a clip of the beginning.  The second for a class called The World between the Wars in college.  The third was for another college class: The History of Film: Part II.  I’ll admit.  The film isn’t that engaging, but it’s one hell of an interesting movie.  It was interesting all three times.  Not exactly documentary, incredibly staged and all factual, but technically documentary.  Because we know it is propaganda, its value as a piece of recorded history is lost.  As a piece of fiction, presenting the fictionalized version of a true event is great.  As a documentary is cannot be taken with much seriousness.

3.  Documentaries as a time waster.  The Up Documentaries – This set of documentaries is amazing.  Other people know this. You should know this.  If you don’t–watch them!  But be prepared to waste a lot of time.  The problem is this series is well edited, but takes footage from people’s lives when they are 7, and revisit their lives every seven years, from 7 to 42.   This is the straightest set of documentaries I have ever seen.  I think they are revealing, interesting, and engaging on every level.  But be prepared to use up about 10 hours of time watching these documentaries.  Which is the problem.  As documentaries are generally a labor of love for the directors, there is so much content that they do not want to sacrifice that they should.  Information that seems unnecessary, out of place, or useless is included.  Why?  Because the director understands why it fits it.  The director has hours of footage for every minute in the films.  Why not include a little extra?  But still, 10 hours?

The Evidence for the Defense:

1.  Documentaries can be really interesting. Spellbound – I will never be able to get past this documentary.  I think this is the first documentary I truly thought was amazing.  It was shameful to watch because I saw glimpses of how nerdy I was as a child, I saw the way parents drive their children just to win, and I saw how cruel children can be on themselves.  But mainly I just laughed out loud at the absurdity of the nerdiest thing on ESPN–the fierce competition for the title of Spelling Bee Champion.  This documentary you must watch.

2.  Documentaries as understanding.  Hoop Dreams – I knew when I started working with disadvantaged youth, the realities of their lives were disastrous.  The problem was I never thought about it in the long term.  Even after the first year, I never thought about where those students I taught would move after I was done teaching them how to use a comma with nonessential information.  This documentary reminded me of what issues they face: standardized test bias, social pressure, rough neighborhoods, limited resources, poor education, and institutionalized practices that look a lot like discrimination.  The scene where, after a student has made it to college, but lives in a house removed from the main campus where other athletes live–all black, all removed, all separate–is shocking.  These events are not from the sixties, or seventies.  They are from the ’90s.  They could be from today.   The movie made me understand, again, what issues really plague urban youth.

3.  Documentaries as entertainment.  Super Size Me - The movie was done to entertain.  Without the cameras there, would the man have undergone his personal experiment to eat McDonalds every meal of every day for a month?  Doubtful. It was only done to be filmed.  A staged documentary, just not staged like Triumph of the Will, so I’m willing to go with it.  This movie is just funny.  Interspersed with interesting facts about the fast food industry, and one man’s body decline because of the food he eats, the movie was made to demonstrate a point.  It demonstrates that people need to eat less fast food.  It makes it’s point.  I still eat fast food, and will always go for a Whataburger Honey Chicken breakfast sandwich whenever I get into a town that actually has a Whataburger.  But the movie did make its point.

Verdict:

The drawbacks of documentaries are just too much to risk.  I have trouble enough finding a good documentary.  The semi-interesting facts of the History channel work like 60 Minutes reports rather than historical research.  And while I wanted to be fair by presenting an even number of documentaries for both side, the fact of the matter is I could come up with several more documentaries that I did not enjoy, and had trouble coming up with three that I did enjoy.  The sheer enjoyment factor should win, but I won’t let it.

Documentaries do one thing, generally, very well: they tell a good story.  When they fail to do that they are awful.  A movie, after all, exists to tell a story.

All of the bonuses of movies, like cinematography, direction, editing, acting, etc. are lost in the necessity of a documentary.  Almost never will a documentary be able to demonstrate artistic merit and the factual entertainment that defines its genre.  Because I stake so much of what a movie is based on what a viewer can see, I must dismiss documentaries, generally speaking, as a failed genre.  There are just too few good documentaries to make the genre worthwhile.

Feel free to point out an excellent documentary.  I have a feeling that means I’m not going to get very many comments on this post.

A statement of philosophy, part II.

Your life will never be as bad as this movie.  And you can be happy about that.  Unfortunately, your life will never be as awesome as this movie.  Which sucks, but it’s reality.  Neither do you have the tragedy of living near or having to talk with Larry the Cable Guy.  Nor, on the other hand, can you be as good looking as Bruce Willis or Milla Jovovich while living a life of fantasy in the near non-existent future where aliens exist (and apparently look like armadillos) and Chris Tucker is…Chris Tucker. I’m not sure where I was going with that.  I could have gone a lot of places with that.  None of them would have been good places, though.  Regardless…

Anyways, to get to the point.  I constantly compare my life to the movies I watch.  I lament the fact that my life will never (A) be as interesting or (B) successful as The Lives of Others, and sometimes  wish Danny Kaye would Court Jester his way into my world just once.   Ever since moving to Philadelphia, and probably because I ride my bicycle everywhere (primarily because  I’m too cheap to buy a car, and in no way does my concern for the environment dictate my decision but it is nice that it is a benefit) with my iPod headphones in, I have had the insane hope that one, as I am riding home from work, two rival gangs will bust out into choreographed dance/fighting a la West Side Story, or maybe even a little basketball choreography…whatever gets the youth off the streets these days.  By the way, I did not know that movie won 10 Oscars.  Since Return of the King, Ben Hur, and Titanic are the big 11 Oscar winners they seem to get all the attention, but 10 Oscars is a darn impressive feat.  And until rewatching that YouTube clip, had never noticed that Bernardo wore Converse All-Stars.  That’s just classy.  Or maybe everyone wore Converse All-Stars in the ’60s and I’m just a little young to know or understand.  Either way, classy.  I stand by my opinion.

(Ever since writing this, I’m going to start pushing the theater department at our school to do West Side Story as the spring musical.  This year they decided to do The Wiz.  I’m ambivalent.  The Wiz is apparently done every year at one of the middle schools in Philadelphia.  I have a feeling it’s overdone in urban areas.  Personal opinion.  Although I have to give the theater department props for doing The Outsiders and moving the play from the middle of nowhere middle America in the ’60s to New York City in the late ’80s.  They’re good.)

I am constantly wishing the movies I watch pop up in my own life.  In case you hadn’t clued in yet, this is the MOVIES AS ESCAPISM philosophy.  This is what I believe.  This is why I particularly hate watching documentaries.  I don’t like the world enough as it is, do I have to watch it all over again when I get home?  (NOTE:  This movie is a rare exception to the documentary rule.  Moving on…)  Watching Hoop Dreams was painful.  Crumb?  Just unnecessary.

This is why I’m not convinced by District 9.  It’s a little to preoccupied with NOT allowing the audience member to hopefully ignore the fact that it is really about apartheid to allow the audience member to watch the movie without thinking.  I like movies that make you think.  I don’t like movies that do the thinking for you.  This is also why (but for a slightly different reason) I will never like the National Treasure movies.  The National Treasure movies, unlike District 9, just tell you the answer.  District 9, instead, hammers the obvious into you with a mallet.  Neither is very comfortable or easy to watch.

Clarification: Watching movies about the harsh realities of life is OK.  I don’t know why, but it is.  Watching Year of the Quiet Sun was much nicer than any factual movie I have watched about Europe post World War II.  It isn’t a happy movie.  It isn’t an altogether kind movie.  But because I know it is fiction, maybe it is easier for me to stomach and accept, because I know it isn’t reality.   The movie doesn’t have to be harsh to be hated.  It just has to be real.  Movies, to me, weren’t made to show the world.  They were meant to, at the most, mirror the world, echo the world, re-represent the world, meant to capture our shadows on the cave, not to show our true faces.

This brings be to the review of the article (a personal favorite): Sunshine (I’ll get to Solaris another day.)

I know this is really late.  I know this is two years late.  I’m going to start actually writing about modern and relevant movies when work allows me the time to go out to the movie theater and see relevant movies.  Until then, I’ll review old favorites.

This movie I think is quite wonderful.  I think it is quite wonderful because it was probably a movie made precisely for me.  Ebert got it right when he said the movie was made for nerds. But, it’s more than a movie for nerds.  It’s a classic movie in that it devotes nothing new to the entire subgenre of movies where a crew of people go into outer space, get on each other’s nerves, and grapple with the fact that they’re on a suicide mission all while trying to be both psychological and vaguely sexy.  It doesn’t add anything new because the genre exists solely for B-grade movies.  (The exception is Solaris almost exclusively.  I don’t like Alien or Aliens.  I’ll explain that one later too, I promise.)  I’m pretty sure this movie does not try to be anything more than the best it knows it can be–a B-grade movie.  This is why Ebert will give it a 3/4.   Because that’s all it should deserve.

Fortunately, it is more than that.  It is part Science Fiction, part horror, part drama, part diatribe.  It’s like an all style and no substance movie with a little bit a substance.  Not much, but just enough to be entertaining.  I won’t bother with the plot because the plot doesn’t really matter very much.   You’ve seen it before.  Until a certain moment in the film.  Then it switches genre with one fail swoop and moves into another type of movie you’ve also seen before.  It’s interesting to manage and understand the switch.  It’s not that interesting.  But it is interesting.  What’s more interesting are the visuals, which will always win me over storyline, although the storyline isn’t terrible.  It’s a joy to watch, the visuals will win any viewer over.

This, I admit is my major downfall as a moviewatcher.  Oftentimes I’m willing to allow my obsession with great visuals overtake my practical sense of plot, pacing, and acting, none of which is lacking in Sunshine.  Did I mention this is one of my favorite films.  I’m not sure why I’m trying to make it sound so bad.  It’s not.  It’s actually really good.  Give it a chance.  Put it on your Netflix queue.  I doubt you’ll be sorry.

If you are, let me know, and let me know why.  Like my students who all seem to think an opinion ends with yes or no, I will always respond in the same way: an opinion is no good without a valid reason.  Give evidence!  That’s usually when I start raving around the classroom like a lunatic screaming incoherently about the value of justification and evidence.  That’s when all my students stop listening.  Which is fine.  Everything is still fine.

A statement of philosophy.

Sometimes I wonder what makes a good movie good.  Or at least question why the movies I know aren’t great (like Clue, or another link for Clue in the negative, and yet another link for Clue…stop judging…) are still some of my favorite movies that I will never tire of watching.  But I’m not going to let my bad taste get in the way of enjoying a movie, or understanding the flaws of a movie.

Movie Philosophy #1: I hate movies that try and sustain themselves with a “trick.”  This is like the Kill Bills, Breathless, There Will Be Blood… There are the movies where you know they were made because the director wanted to make a ___________ film. (Fill in the blank as it applies.)  Those movies to me are boring. They do not sustain themselves on good story-telling, but on the idea of good film-making.  The two are not synonymous.

This rule does NOT apply to movies like Metropolis, or Grand Hotel, or old school movies of that nature where it can be boring to watching them.  That’s just the nature of the modern world.  I was brought up on modern day movies, and those movies demand less of an attention span than older movies do.  Those movies are still engaging, and still incredible to watch.  I’m always amazed by the great shift change scene in Metropolis.  Don’t get me wrong, Metropolis can be boring to watch.  It moves really slow.  But it’s interesting to watch because it was never intended to be anything more than a good story.  It’s movies that try to rise of above the reality of what a movie is that are the reason why people hate film elitists.  The point of a movie is to tell a story, and tell it visually.  Nothing less, although that can include something more.

When I watch a movie like there will be blood, I know I’m watching a good movie.  I know I like Paul Thomas Anderson, and I know that the story he’s telling is pretty awesome.  The moment (pictured left) when the oil catches on fire, and you’re supposed to understand that hell has indeed been unleashed into the land of humans, is an awesome moment.  But I still can’t help the fact that while I watched There Will Be Blood, I was bored.  I was really bored.  I loved the images, and I loved the way the camera moved with the patience of a careful observer rather than with the choppy editing of an anxious five-year-old, but after and hour, I was over it.  After two hours, I still appreciated it, but I was still underwhelmed (word or not?  you figure it out…) with the way the story engaged.  By the third hour, I was still appreciative, still bored, anxious for the climax, and bored with the fact that the beautiful pictures and intriguing story were backed up by characters that had no dimensionality.

I know, I know.  You’re going to fire back that THAT WAS THE POINT!  I know it’s the point.  But, like watching all Tarantino films, the fact that there’s a point to making the movie, rather than a point to the movie itself, it’s bothersome to not be engaged on multiple mental levels.  It’s boring to know after the first five minutes that the point of a movie is to show the type of uncensored violence that exists in the world and that people know about and show it without fetters or shock still does not mean the movie will be more interesting.  It is not more interesting because it will be the same scene over and over again.  Thus, my bother with There Will Be Blood.  A movie I like.  A movie I know I should love.  But a movie I will never allow to be ranked higher than a 4 on a 5 point scale.   I need more to a movie than a trick.

This is why I do not like Godard.

I’m not sorry I said that, either.  I’d say it to his face.  In fact, Godard, if you’re reading this: I think you’re overrated.

Teachable Moments and Favorite Quotations

In teaching there’s a term (and I guess in life, but I never used the term in life before teaching) we like to use when we go off our regularly scheduled plans to talk about things other than our plans.  It’s called a teachable moment.  I’m still teaching, but by golly it’s not the nouns and verbs and essays I had planned on that day.

My favorite teachable moment this year came on the second or third day of class this year when we were talking about my big motivational quote I have hanging above my board.  It’s from Gladiator (duh!).  “What we do in life echoes in eternity.”   I like it because I always want my students to be thinking about the long term impact of their lives and actions, and what they want their long term results in life to be.  So we were talking about people in history who have echoed in eternity, and students were talking about Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Lincoln, and all of the African American heroes you would expect them to grow up admiring and being told they should admire them.

And then a student mentioned Hitler.

To preface: I’m no longer interested in having the leadership retreat discussion of “Was Hitler a great leader?” because we all know the answer we’re supposed to end with, but my answer will always be he was a terrible leader, unable to achieve an end goal because he was ultimately undermined by his unrealistic expectations of what he could do, how he could accomplish it, and how it would be received worldwide.  Moving on…

And then a student mentioned Hitler, and how Hitler is still a large figure in the world’s conscience, and how he did terrible things, and how he’s still known for what he did to the Jews, and how people still detest  him and compare people they really hat to him, and how if it weren’t for the brave men who assassinated him would go down in history for killing such a horrible man who still echoes in eternity.

Good.  Wait, what? Uh…

This is what I was thinking as he was talking.  I had to take that pause all bad teachers have to take when they just don’t know what to say.  And then the long delayed response: “Did you see Inglourious Basterds?”

“Yeah!”

“You know that never happened, right?”

“Huh?”

And that was that.  I was off on a historical tangent and most students had no idea what I was talking about, and those who did know what was going on did not seem interested in what I had to say.  But regardless, I had my fun moment explaining the real history of the end days of Hitler.  Thank goodness I’d seen Der Untergang and had a vague idea of what was accurate and right.  (By the by, a very solid movie, though slightly overrated in the spectrum of IMDb-hood because I’m not sure if the film is supposed to shock in how human it’s portrayal of Hitler is, or surprise by the reality of his end days situation, but either way, a very solid film, amazingly acted, and well directed.  Moving even.  Enlightening definitely.  Interesting, you can be assured.)

I’ve also been trying to be more motivational this year, so every time we read something I always remind my classes about how reading anything makes up smarter.  It wasn’t until about three weeks when I was called out on that fact by a student.  I didn’t have much of a response, but I did get a chance to talk about Genie.  You know, the girl who is in every general psychology textbook since the 1980s under the section about brain elasticity and language acquisition.   Genie was the girl who was tied to a toilet for most of her first 13 years by her parents.  Fed, but rarely interacted with.

I spin reading and writing and a practicable and developing skill that must be constantly engaged and honed.  Some guys genuinely seem to buy it.  Some don’t.  Some have never heard an approach like that before.  They were never given a reason to read before.  They never learned about malleable intelligence, were never told that smart is a thing you can get, isn’t a thing you are.  It surprised me they had never been messaged information like that before.

It made me feel frustrated that the young students trapped in West Philadelphia aren’t given much of a reason for anything, least of all school.  Least of all reading and writing.  Or math.  They come into high school depressed about having to take out another book, having to read another story, having to go over the multiplication tables that they’ve been going over for the last 8 years and still don’t understand.

Favorite thing said to me by a student so far this year: “Mr. W, I’m not trying to snitch or nothing, but people be calling you Harry Potter.”

Raise the Red Lantern

I watched a movie last night.  I was called Raise the Red Lantern.  Planning to watch only the beginning because I had Saturday School the next morning, I began the movie only to know after the first moments I would not be able to watch the movie in more than one sitting.  The movie is transfixing, and if you do not find it absorbing from the beginning, it will probably be a movie you will not enjoy.

It begins with a face, a beautiful, angry, and sad face of a young Asian woman (a recent dropout from the university after her father’s death) that is discussing her marriage possibilities with her–to be labeled later–stepmother.  The dialogue is spoken dispassionately from the actor’s mouths, but the words and facial expressions are anything but.  Thanks to youtube, the clip of the first scene is below.

NOTE: There is also a trailer on YouTube, but I’m of the opinion hat it reveals too much.  I think it might be better to come into the movie knowing little, for it is not what will happen in the movie, but how it will happen in the movie that is most amazing.

Back to the summary:  The young girl is named Songlian, and she is wedded to an obviously wealthy man.  She walks to his estate, and the main house butler is surprised she did not wait for the wedding caravan.  The first hint that her independent, educated spirit is not in keeping with the traditions of the household.

As she is led through the estate, she is brought to the master’s first three wives: First Mistress, the eldest of the wives and mother of the eldest son–she is never with the master throughout the movie; Second Mistress, a kind woman with a sweet face, but a woman who is noticeably growing older; and Third Mistress, still young, still beautiful, and a former opera singer.  Our heroine is no longer Songlian, but the Fourth Mistress.  Along with meeting the other wives, she is also introduced to the ancient customs of the ageless household.  Most importantly, the red lanterns.  The mistress the master chooses to sleep with is honored by having red lanterns hung in her section of the house estate.  She also chooses the dinner menu.  She treated better by the household servants.  She is the woman in favor.

The rest of the movie is a battle of emotions between the women.  The master is often heard but not seen with any clarity.  The only male characters are the house butler, his aide in hanging the red lanterns, and the family doctor.  In thinking about this movie, the first adjective that sprung to mind was great. The second adjective was feminist. I’m not sure if it is a feminist movie, but for being a movie about the loves, betrayals, emotions, and actions of women who are pitted against each other to gain favor of the master and birth him a son, it certainly tends in that direction.  It is also based on the novel Wives and Concubines by Su Tong.  It is clearly a story about women.  Beyond that I will not say because while it may be a story bout women, I’m not sure it is a movie entirely about women.

It is definitely a movie about a house.  The film is almost entirely restricted inside the walls of the house with the exception of the first few minutes.  The house stands as an unchartable piece of architecture, seen from the roof to extend over the horizon in a maze of pathways and stairs and secret rooms.  Each room of the different mistresses is patently different and lavishly decorated.  The house acts as a character of its own, lived out most closely by the actions and reactions of the First Mistress–dominated by custom, lacking emotion.

For a movie dominated by red it is blatantly lacking in sensuality.  The sex is custom and formality.  A demand of the master, treated like a competition to be won by the mistresses.  It is an exceptionally beautiful film, and I cannot praise it highly.  It is immediately a movie I knew I wanted to own.  It is captivating.  Beyond that personal reaction, it is technically tight.  The actors are entirely controlled and (re)act with as much honesty and energy as I expect in real life.  The cinematography is exceptional.  The direction: flawless.

Visually stunning, entirely controlled.