While I was reading, I took a chance to smell my left hand’s fingertips.  They smelled like the handsoap in my bathroom–lavender, I think.  Something flowery like that, at least.  And for a moment I wish they smelled like cigarette or cigar smoke.  I wouldn’t take hookah.  Too sweet.  I could do without sweet right now.  I could do with bitter and dingy.   There was always something about cigarette smoke on the tips of my fingers.  I’d always smell for it in a shower, scrubbing all over my body but using my fingers as the litmus test.

When I smelled the right hand, it smelled clean like baby powder, I slap it on the back of my neck on warm days, and pretend it does anything for the sweat.  I used an spray can air freshener this year in my classroom, something called Powder Fresh.  It smelled exactly like baby powder.  I used to spray it at the floor around the kid who had just farted, and that always eased my worries–but that smell always smells like tabula rasa, indelibly blank and unbelievably clean, simple, and pure.

I wanted to smell used, and thought for a moment I’d go buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke one or three on the porch to ease my worries.  Then I’d take a shower and make sure my finger only barely smelled like impending cancer.

This is a strange thought because I’ve only ever smoked about a pack of cigarettes in my lifetime, and only a few more cigars.  And lately, I haven’t smoked anything but hookah and even that hasn’t been for months. That was my bargain with myself–just hookah, and I’d feel healthy.  Unfortunately, I did feel healthier.

So I thought about drinking, but I only have a bottle of nice wine, and all my other liquor is either sealed in my old bedroom in Tallahassee, sitting in a closed store in Philadelphia, or corked up and staying that way here in my month-old apartment.

Drinking alone and smoking.  Those are my ritualized habits of self-destruction and vice–the activities that will rot my brain and blacken my soul and one day probably send me straight to Lucifer himself for a one-on-one.  If only life would be so cruel to make those a little more popular, I think I’d be a happy man.  But drinking alone sounds a little alcoholic, so I’ve only had one drink this summer, outside the aforementioned weddings.  And a smoker has become such a pariah that even the places that promote public drinking have banned it.

So I was reading in bed, and have been all day, but that felt far too normal and banal and abominable.  I twitch my hands instead and think about ways to help my brain buzz into unfocused splendor.

I’m waiting for the school year to start, to start teaching again, but all I can really think about is the inevitable vice that stress will bring.  I guess I’m preparing my to-be-tarnished soul.  I would watch Jeopardy, or Wheel of Fortune, but I’ve decided to forgo cable this year, and don’t really miss it.  But the ritualized gambling of game shows would, by proxy, take a load off the feeling I have to do something unhealthy.

In waiting for the school year to begin, I’ve been making worksheets and copying out pages of workbooks for the students, to be on top of my game for the upcoming onslaught of inevitable stresses on my time management, patience, and professionalism.  I don’t know, but something about a 16-year-old high school freshman shouting obscenities at me or another adult seems to stretch my civility before 8 AM.  Instead, I wrote six quizzes, a three day project, and a homework sheet this morning before noon.  I hardly didn’t know what to do with myself.

So it goes–the most valuable lesson I’ve learned from my reading.  Thanks Kurt Vonnegut.

I mean, sure.  There are those wonderful themes about racism in To Kill a Mockingbird–but “to kill a mockingbird” doesn’t really sound right in any situation and doesn’t roll off the tongue so neatly as “so it goes.”  It’s become a motto of me, not in the original literary sense of accepting death, but in the sense that teenagers are always going to be teenagers, and teenagers do stupid things and they won’t be happy about the punishments of it.

But I won’t be happy about having to always be around the suck of it, and I won’t always be happy about doling out consequences, and I won’t be happy hearing the troubles of children who think so infantilely for having had such adult experiences, but most days they aren’t mollifying so I find myself stuck in another year that promises to be just as interesting as all the rest.

With students coming, I seem to be smelling my fingertips and wondering why they don’t smell like smoke, and I check up on my stock of liquor, and I think about Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and the $100,000 Pyramid and even Match Game–for no good reason other than that seems to be the show I watched most when I was home in high school and had the time to flip the channel to the Game Show Network.

All the while I try to imagine nothing.

So it goes.

I am a staunch historian, and I thoroughly believe in the value of studying history.  If you do not, you might as well stop reading this blog.  We’ll just never get along.  To that extent, is it useless to study ancient warfare in a modern context?  Are there no pracitical applicable lessons to be learned from tactics that defy era, technology, or weaponry?  I think you out there in someplacewhereyou’restaringatacomputerscreen should be thinking to yourself, “No, there is value in knowing that stuff…”  Because  you’re right.

Or, let’s think of this in terms of books.  Does it make sense to stop reading  Hamlet, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, The Lord of the Rings, Black Boy, Brave New World, Romeo and Juliet, The Giver, etc. just because there are the Harry Potter series, the Twilight books, the Time Traveler’s Wife, and various James Patterson and Stephen King books topping the New York Times Bestseller list?  Should we leave the past behind and only allow only what is new and pretty and shiny to be let in?

I think not.

The problem is the genre of film allows this to easily happen.  And many people who watch movies (or passively read about movies) tend to think only the little that is said without thorough investigation into the actuality of history.

Point 1: Michael Bay is awesome…but not really.

The Island

Michael Bay, as many know, is the champion of all things pretty, and mind-numbingly explosive.  After all, you don’t make a name for yourself with blockbusters like Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Island, Transformers, and Transformers II (directed all by Bay) without some level of skill.  I mean, seriously.  That’s an impressive list of movies, with impressive DVD sales, and everything.

But let us be honest.  The movies star nice looking people, blow a lot of things up, include heart-racing, adrenaline pumping, action and car chases (or meteorite destroying drill malfunctions, what have you), and fun technological advances.  They’re like James Bond films…just without James Bond.

These movies have made millions.  They have loyal fans of adults, teenagers, and children alike.  They’re fun to watch, made millions in the movie theaters.  But they suck.  They have no deeper meaning, make me thoughtful in no way, and generally make me dumber, because I actually could have been learning something while I was wasting time watching pretty people run around.

Point 2: There is more to history than just history.

Citizen Kane

A friend of mine (after reading a former post of mine) responded thusly:

I’ll disregard the opinion of anyone who thinks Citizen Kane is great for anything more than its innovative transitions and camera angles.

While said tongue-in-cheek, there is, I know, a part of him that believes this to be true.  And this is why I am angry.  I love Citizen Kane, in the same way I love Schindler’s List.  Sure it’s a little on the long side, but the story is great, the acting is believable, the direction is flawless, and the overall impact: unforgettable.

The ease with which Americans, modern people, I’m not sure who this list should (or actually does) include, forget the past when it comes to movies is disturbing.  Yes, movies are more entertaining today.  Movie from yore are a little boring.

Except that’s not true.  I defy anyone to watch The Apartment and not be complete enraptured.  Peeping Tom is one of the creepiest movies I’ve ever seen.  (If you have a Netflix account, I believe it is streaming live.   You should go watch it now.  Better than Drag Me To Hell.  Creepier.  Stranger.  More interesting.)  And you know what, It Happened One Night is the quintessential romance that cannot be improved upon in a modern way.  There are just old movies that age well, and have stayed good for a reason.  Citizen Kane is one of them.  Beyond the transitions and camera angles. (We’ve all heard the “Oh my gosh, there’s a ceiling” reaction.)  But let’s talk about the role the dining room table plays in the movie.  Did you ever think about that? Or how about the scene where Welles types out the rest of a horrible review of his wife’s disastrous operatic debut?  The acting is top notch, better than Sean Penn in Milk.

I am struck by many things.  Here’s a short list:

• People today seem so averse to watching older, or just pain old, films.
• People tend to devalue the impact of older movies because modern counterparts tends to be more engaging, which they equate with “better.”
• People tend to devalue the fact that most older movies have a deeper theme than most modern movies, even modern movies based in classic stories.

This is why the market for older movies should be booming, not dying away.  This is why people should actually sit down and become their own movie reviewer.  If you take the time to watching a movie a week, you’ll watch AFI’s Top 100 movie list in less than two year.  Probably less than a year, considering you’ve seen a lot of them.

Why is it people are so ready to agree, or disagree with the statements of critics and film historians, but are so rarely willing to make their own original statements about the movies themselves.  People, you, staring at your own screen.  Say what’s on your mind.  Be willing to say Citizen Kane sucked, but don’t you dare say it’s boring without backing it up.  I’m not about opinion’s with no evidence.

Just have an opinion, and make it your own.

Imagine you were watching a movie (not hard to imagine), and in the vein of Citizen Kane, there is a question that keeps getting asked over and over and over again (E.g. What is rosebud?  Why Rosebud?).  That one’s a little more difficult.  Better yet, think about it in terms of a mystery–Who is the serial stalker?–and people keep asking “Who did it?” over and over and over again.  You expect that from some movies.  In the case of mystery movies, it really drives the plot, it’s the essential question that motivates why the story movies along and what goal the investigator has.

In a more complicated (not that most mystery movies aren’t complicated), movie like Citizen Kane where you have a guy at the beginning of the movie calling out “Rosebud!  Rosebud!” and people wonder what it is, the essential question works  a little differently.  In Citizen Kane, it was a starter to the almost epic biography of a man, his life, and what he most valued, which it turns out is Rosebud–this isn’t answered until the end of the movie, as a big reveal to explain what he really valued in life even though he couldn’t have it.

The Usual Suspects

Then there’s The Usual Suspects, which operates like a high class caper film.  It’s like a mystery, a mystery with the driving question: “Who is Kaiser Soze?”  (And, if you’re familiar with the restaurant Moe’s, which I love, then you’ll know the movie was popular enough for them to make a ‘Who is Kaiser Salsa’ salsa flavor after the movie.  That’s some pretty big stuff.  You know a movie has real popular weight when it’s satirized in restaurant food names.)  And, if you know the tricks of mystery capers, the solution will be one of three.

1. Kaiser Soze will be a character we know, possibly the character we know the best in the film. (E.g. Fight Club)
2. Kaizer Soze will be a minor character introduced at the beginning of the film with a small motive that is referenced at the end of the film with a big reveal.
3. Kaiser Soze will be a character we don’t see until the last scene of the movie, a reveal that gives satisfaction to a something like a real life chase. (E.g. Zodiac)

But we know the answer before we start the film because the film was directed by Bryan Singer.  And Bryan Singer is a film nerd.  He’s actually a nerd in many senses (e.g. comic book) but he’s a film nerd.  He probably knows movie history in and out, has seen all the film noirs like Laura, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcon that defined The Usual Suspects.  So he knows which way the pendulum must fall.  The greatest, and most personally pleasing solution for directors like Bryan Singer (please note any movie by M. Night Shayamalan).  The most pleasing solution is to have the answer in front of you the entire time.  He will always choose option one.  No questions asked.

This makes the movie, plotwise, almost boring to watch because we’re only introduced to one main character that plays through the entire movie–Verbal.  So the answer is staring (literally, staring) at us right from the beginning. Also, the plot doesn’t make much sense.  We are told a story from the beginning through Verbal, but I couldn’t not really keep track of the story.  At once we were in California, then New York, and characters saying things that should mean something but meant nothing.  They decided to kill someone.  I knew not who the person was or what their importance was.  I was bored.

Thank goodness Singer is an excellent filmmaker.  Because technically, the movie is quite creative and interesting to watch.  He sets his film shots up very well, does a lot with color, tone, and mood in his scenes, and though unevenly edited, has a good overall flow to his film.  He made a great film noir, in the tradition of The Big Sleep, and for that I can fault him nothing.  The Big Sleep is so twisted with its own plot complications that the movie itself doesn’t actually make sense–this is a pretty well known fact in the film community.

But, let me say this.  I think the movie is pretty good–if only for the knowledge that it does well what a filmi noir is supposed to do.  That being, confuse, confound, confirm the dearth of life, and potentially have an interesting reveal at the end.  But the plot isn’t there, and it should be there.  A movie is in essence a story in pictures first.  And if I like the pictures, but don’t really get the story, why should I care?

At least The Big Sleep flowed.  A movie I consider to be only a step below The Usual Suspects is The Black Dahlia, which is a pretty awful movie in its own right–a film noir like The Usual Suspects, with too much plot for an audience to care.  Usual Suspects is a far cry from the much more carefully laid out, and classier film noir, LA Confidential.   It does not, cannot compete.  So, while The Usual Suspects may have its thousands of die-hard fans, this guy here isn’t, and there’s a reason why: it’s just not interesting enough to be good, let alone great.

You judge for yourself.  6/10.

The movie is about an overweight teenage girl, who goes by Precious, in New York City.  We first see her in math class in high school.  She likes math class, she likes her math class teacher.  She doesn’t do anything in math class, and her teacher doesn’t seem to notice.  Then she is called to the principal’s office, where we discover the real issue.  This movie is not going to be an inspirational movie about a girl who loves math and eventually goes to Harvard.  This isn’t Dangerous Minds, and it certainly won’t be Freedom Writers.

We find out Precious has a child.  We find out she is pregnant with another one.  And, a few minutes later, we find out her father is the father of both of her children.  And Precious’ mother hates Precious for being “given” more children by her husband than she was.  Precious lets it slide.  She lets a lot of things slide.  She feels a lot of things, and her frustrations with her mother are not the most important.  She is still dealing with rape, incest, being not only a teenage mother, but a teenage mother with two children.  Life for Precious, in other words, ain’t been no crystal stair.

And that’s the point of the movie.  We see her go to a new “alternative school,” where she does a little more work than she did before.  She meets new friends.  Has a nice nurse when she has her baby.  Has a lovely teacher who works for her to try and help her.  But her mother still throws glasses and potted plants at her neck.  She even hurls a TV down the stairs at Precious and her child.  And Precious loses her home (for the better).  Precious finds out her father, the one who raped her, dies, a small victory.  But it is immediately undercut by the news that he had AIDS.

Now Precious has two children, one with Down Syndrome, AIDS, and no home of her own.  And with that same expressionless face she keeps moving through her life, without taking anything for granted.  She revels in her children.  Reveals the truth of her pregnancies, begins to come to terms with it, but in the end, her life still sucks.

It sucked from the beginning, and it sucks at the end.  The film has a sense of uncompromising honesty and dissatisfaction to it that it hurts, in places, to watch it.  It is not an easy film to watch.  Precious is a girl who isn’t great to look at, but she is impossible not to watch.  When she is tripped, and falls flat on her face, it hurt.  The care for her child still in her was already a real concern in my mind.  The movie’s sense of brute force with so little hope attached is what I like most about it.  It makes no promises to its viewers, and I only promise to hope it is good.

It was good.  It was really good.

4/4

5/5

10/10

Regardless, the reason why I bemoan my preference for comedic style is because I went to the movie theater the other night (a rare gift of a mid-week Federal/school holiday) to see the movie “The Men Who Stare at Goats.”  I was excited for the movie.  It has an all-star cast, and a preview that promised a hilarious premise with some very good potential.

The movie begins with Ewan McGregor, a young newspaperman who interviews a supposed werido, and shortly thereafter (no connection in events) is dumped by his girlfriend for a one-armed man.  The fact that the man she is attracted to has only one arm seems to have been a significant focus of the filmmakers.  They obviously though it quite funny.  I didn’t really find it that funny.  Yes, she caressed it, fondled it, held it.  But it just wasn’t funny.  Even by the end of the movie, the camera found its way back to the fake arm, and I kept finding my way back to the idea that this just wasn’t funny.

Back to the plot.  In an attempt to not end up just another nameless, uneventful, laughable death, our newspaperman decides to travel to Iraq, to become a war correspondent, in hopes of leading a better life, and in hopes of wooing his lover back with his tales of daring-do.    This is where he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney, pictured above, staring at a goat) who was a part of a secret government cover-up.  Also, a dance instructor.  Currently on a secret mission–which remains a mystery for most of the movie.  While our newspaperman and our suspicious Secret Agent traverse the Iraqi terrain, Cassady recounts his adventures in the army as part of a secret brain trust, those men with special abilities.  He is particularly clairvoyant.

Along the way, Kevin Spacey’s character is introduced.  He is the force of evil in the film–as much as there can be.  He is also somewhat clairvoyant, but not nearly as good as Clooney.  So, he enacts his revenge against the group, in more ways than one.  That is all I’ll give for plot.

And, in my ongoing rant with movies, it’s as though the funniest moments in the movie are because of who is saying something, and not what they are saying.  Like in Anchorman, whenever you hear people quote it, you never hear people just say it.  They say it with the character inflections.  Probably because it wouldn’t be that funny without the particular character actors saying it that way they do.  A friend of mine doesn’t impersonate Will Ferrell, he does a great Ron Burgundy.

But what’s funny about saying un-funny sentences strangely?  If it isn’t funny in its own right, if it’s only funny because of how someone is saying it, why bother with it at all?

The lack of clever lines in this movie is about the only strike I would give it.  The acting is hilarious.  Clooney is a very competent actor.  Jeff Bridges, playing the role he was made for, plays it well.  Kevin Spacey is hilarious.  Ewan MacGregor engages in a very funny conversation about Jedi warriors.  And I’m sure the conversation would not have been as funny if he has not already played a Jedi warrior in the Star Wars films.  Again, funny in the context of who is saying it, but not funny beyond that.  Not funny at all.  Particularly weak as a script, although strong as a concept.

Judge for yourself though.  I am admittedly biased in a negative way.

I would rank it 2.5 out of four stars.

3 out of 5.

6 out of 10. (One of the lower grades I normally give.)

Good.  By no means great.  Somewhat memorable.  Maybe a good Christmas gift for a few.  A decent movie night movie.  Not too much beyond that.

Although the trailer was so good, they probably should have started with that and moved on from there to make the movie.  Alas, if only most movies would take that advice.

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.

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!)

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.

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?

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