Let's come to grips with reality

I spent some time last week in Madison, where the demonstrations and protests against the activities of governor Scott Walker continue apace. On the Saturday at which I was present, there were probably a good 40 or 50,000 people eventually gathered around the capitol. The Iraq Veterans Against the War led the march in to the capitol square, joined by strong contingents of both firefighters and police, even though their bargaining rights aren't impacted by the bill (they know they're next...) If one knows anything about the history of labor struggles in this or any other modern nation, it might be a bit disconcerting to see shirts proclaiming: "Cops for Labor." But if you have any sense of humor at all, you should be able to appreciate it, all the same.

The crowd frequently chanted the by-now old standby: "This is what democracy looks like!" and many signs reflected that same opinion in that form or another... all of which, of course, made me grit my teeth in frustration.

These protests are not a sign of 'democracy'. On the contrary, given that this legislation was voted upon by the majority of both houses of the Wisconsin legislature; and both of said houses are comprised largely of Republicans duly elected by the majority of Wisconsin citizens; and the legislation was signed by Wisconsin's equally duly elected governor, one could reasonably say that the legislation itself is what democracy looks like. This is what the state voted for: a collection of ideologues so immersed in their religion that Goldwater would be nauseated (and probably equally appalled at the waste of time and money the governor of Maine has expended in dealing with paintings he doesn't like.)

Standing up for one's rights is not an example of 'democracy'. Far from it; especially if one is referring to the bastardized system of government that the United States uses and likes to proclaim to the world as 'democracy'. As pedants will like to point out, the United States wasn't even intended to be a democracy. It was intended to be a republic. Of course, since most of the so-called Founding Fathers intended that the republic be based upon that same style of government employed by the Romans prior to Caesar, our government, like theirs, is no closer to being an actual republic than I am to being president. The average Roman citizen did not have a republic and neither do we.

We have an oligarchy.

Just like Rome, our government was owned originally by wealthy families. In the case of Rome, they called these clans 'patricians'. In our case, we called them 'plantation owners and titleholders in Britain.' In the case of Rome, when the people had finally had enough of hereditary clan rule, they revolted, most notably under the Brothers Gracchi, and were finally invited to share in some of the exercises of government. All that did, of course, was gain nominal representation for the average Roman in the form of the tribunes and invite wealthy plebeians to run the government alongside the wealthy patricians. Eventually both were owned by equally wealthy Greek, Italian, and Roman merchants and everything continued on in true oligarchic fashion. The same thing happened here, in that we often see hereditary exchange of office controlled by a few wealthy clans and they and others like them are often completely owned by merchants we now know as 'corporations'. In Rome, one bought oneself down the cursus honorum (military tribune to quaestor to aedile to praetor to consul and then possibly on to censor or provincial governor) by using other people's money whom you would then repay by granting rights of trade to areas or routes. In the US, you often perform the same journey: state officer to representative to senator to president or governor; all of it done with someone else's money whom you then repay with legislative or regulatory favors.

In ancient Rome, you had to do something pretty egregious or have made more than the usual assortment of enemies to get accosted for the open bribery that made the system function. No one walked the cursus without bribing people; often the voters themselves in their centuries. Same thing here.

We don't have a democracy. We don't have a republic. We have an oligarchy. And they own you. They own everyone. So, standing in the streets, protesting the actions of one's own elected officials, who freely engaged in the institutionalized bribery known as our electoral system, suggesting that what you're doing is an example of 'democracy' in action is very, very far from the truth, either real or imagined. The better concept to keep in mind is not democracy, since that's always been a somewhat questionable concept to begin with. As Isaac Asimov often complained:

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

No, the better concept to keep in mind is justice. Justice is what we're talking about when we argue that the right of workers to bargain together is essential to their well-being. Justice is what we're talking about when we see people in the wealthiest nation in the world going without healthcare and those people that actually have access to it as a part of their employment are about to see it stripped away. Justice is what we're talking about when the living standard for the average employee, public or private, hasn't appreciably improved in four decades while the wealthiest have seen their income and assets skyrocket. Justice is the essence of tens of thousands in the streets, shouting their anger at the people who so boldly treat them as if they were expendable; as if their lives and their families didn't matter; as if their labor and time were something to be used and tossed away; as if they were... plebeians. And not wealthy ones, at that.

Don't talk to me about what democracy looks like, because I've never seen it in my lifetime and neither have you. Talk to me about justice. Talk to me about basic rights denied. Talk to me about equality. Talk to me about a wealthy class so grasping that hundreds of millions in "bonuses" remains not enough to satiate their desire. Talk to me about casting aside the corrupted system, as Jefferson suggested, and then I will join you in the streets every minute of every day. And then we will talk of revolution.

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine. - Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.

Subconscious expression

I play a little WoW. It's no secret that science fiction and fantasy have been interests of mine since I can remember knowing about them. I was fascinated by things like Star Trek and the Lord of the Rings (which I read at age 7.) However, despite being a huge Blizzard fan and having spent days on end in front of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo (as I used to express to people in the Green party: I'm a peace activist who spends a considerable amount of time playing wargames.), I resisted World of Warcraft and MMOs in general for a long time. I just felt like I had too many other things going on and didn't really have the time to become absorbed in it.

However, a couple years ago, I had some time on my hands and figured I would download the demo and try it out. After playing off and on for a few days, I decided I'd give it a try for a few months, and I've pretty much persisted in that pattern: every couple days I'll get on and play for a couple hours. It's a cool distraction and there are a few other friends of mine who play about as much. In possible subconscious tribute to my environmental politics, my main is a shaman; a class that attempts to commune with the natural spirits of the world and act with them to preserve parts of it and change others. He's part of a race called tauren, whose culture is expressly modeled on that of Native Americans, which is a longstanding interest and probably another subconscious engagement (believe me, if there were a culture modeled on feudal Japan, I would have been all over it.)

My initial role with my shaman was one of offense. There are few things as enjoyable as strapping on a couple of fist weapons (cesti of fantastical proportions and design far beyond anything possibly imagined by the Romans) and whaling away on whatever enemy creatures happen to be within reach. However, there's an alternate talent spec on my shaman that is based solely on healing. I can't do much with it on my own, but I can join a group in 5-, 10-, or 25-person instances and keep them alive so that we accomplish larger goals than I could perform by myself. I'm sure you've heard this theme before...

So, I've fallen into the habit of healing more than anything else when I play. There are four more healing specs among the 9 other classes in the game and I have characters that perform each of those specs. As with a lot of games that I play, I've become interested in the methodology behind the systems and how they accomplish the same goal with different tools. I still find it somewhat odd because, at root, I'm not a healer type, as it were. My personality lends itself to problem-solving (often, uh, direct problem-solving) moreso than sympathy or nurturing; both of which are often associated with the idea of healing. Furthermore, I'm more prone to playing the leadership role in a lot of my activities, which in the game would equate to tanking, not healing.

But I've begun to wonder if the healing approach is instead a substitute for the pursuit of group activity. While groups in the game can't function without a tank, they are equally unable to function without a healer (delving deeper, one realizes that without competent DPS (Damage Per Second) people, it's often difficult to succeed, as well.) However, the healer strikes me as the one that sustains the group as a whole. While the tank is needed to progress, there are many situations in which the group as a whole will be hindered (i.e. getting killed) even if the tank is doing his/her job properly. What gets them past those hindrances is usually the healer. Am I acting out my desire for achieving goals as part of a group/family/society?

There's no denying that I've been part of any number of ventures (personal, professional, political) in which progress has been halted by the lack of enthusiasm of those around me. I can remember any number of times when I was still ready to struggle ahead and everyone else seemed to find better things to do and left me holding the bag or, at the very least, stranded with the remainder whom were either indolent or motivated for narrow reasons, if not both. I've tried to start any number of projects that essentially depended on the participation of others which never came to fruition because my enthusiasm was always greater than everyone else's. So now I find myself enthralled by a game role which requires the presence of others.

The game can be played alone. Despite its appellation as a massively multi-player game, there are many who, in fact, prefer to solo it. One can quest and progress alone as a tank or DPS. It's far more difficult to do so as a healer. So, if one heals, one groups.

Thus we come back to one of our essential dichotomies: anyone who knows me realizes that I'm not overly fond of people and can lose my patience or become bored with most in a very short time. And, yet, the majority of what I enjoy involves other people to an often extraordinary degree: politics, games, even aikido. The latter is nominally a defensive art and perfecting the form requires uke (the person being thrown) to absorb the energy of shi'ite in a manner both protective of himself and in an understanding of the form. In other words, it's really difficult to practice the form alone; even (perhaps especially) the jo katas. You need someone else to exchange energy with.

Logically, one can't fail to see that there are any number of goals that will only be accomplished with the strength of many. Logically, there will have to be some spirit of cooperation amongst the people in order to make progress. Logically, people are going to have to be willing to tolerate either others' company or be reduced to factionalism before the goal is even approached. This is where logic clashes with reality and Ambrose Bierce's example of the post holes comes to mind.

So, here I am, seemingly naturally inclined to solitude, yet driven to participate with others in most of the things that I still enjoy (many of which are, admittedly, fading fast these days.) Am I a socialist at heart or just projecting onto an inclination for human contact, despite recoiling from the majority of it?

Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me (not of the same blood an seed, but partaking with me in mind, that is in a portion of divinity), I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To work against one another therefore is to oppose Nature, and to be vexed with one another or to turn away from him is to tend to antagonism. - Marcus Aurelius, Mediations, II.

 Still working on it.

The common good

"Let every action aim solely for the common good." One of my favorite quotes from Marcus. It's definitely an aspirational concept, as it's difficult to process the idea of getting out of bed and taking a shower somehow serving the welfare of one's neighbors. Unless they're going to be working alongside you and smelling you. Or unless you're leading the community action network that's helping to repair the road upon which you all happen to live. See how easy?

It's not hard to convince yourself of anything as long as you keep an open mind about the topic. Of course, the intent of Marcus' quote was not to encourage the concept that eating your 3 squares a day was going to advance the community. He meant public actions serving the public weal. That shower is, almost by necessity, a private action (unless your neighborhood and local statutes are a lot more relaxed than mine.) But I like to think that I've absorbed the concept at every level upon which it was intended. In point of fact, getting out of bed and getting your ass in gear could be considered of benefit to the people with which you live, communicate and, in some cases, serve. In my case, the question often becomes: where does one draw the line?

As my best friend has told me more than once, I'm, uh, not lacking for self-confidence. There are many things at which I know that I'm pretty capable. There are more at which I may not be great, but at which I'm able to fake it so that most won't know the difference. In that respect, one would think that whatever rewards might result from those capabilities would be justifiably mine and I could feel good about having achieved what was necessary to receive them. Or, for that matter, one could envision benefiting from good fortune simply from being willing to get out there and try, as well as having advantages of experience or skill or talent; "making one's own luck", as the saying sometimes goes.

But I'll be the last person to tell you that I deserve anything. In point of fact, it's far more likely for me to concede any kind of reward or advantage to someone else, simply because it's, once again, easy for me to talk myself into it precisely because I have an open mind about so many things... and a largely closed one about myself.

It's very simple for me to suggest to myself that someone else is better at something than I am and that any advantage I've gained in a contest is largely through mistakes of theirs or luck on my part and/or lack of same for them. It's likewise simple for me to hand things over to someone in a material dispute largely because my version of "the common good" often translates to "anyone but me." From my perspective, anyone could do better with material resources or advantages than I could and, thus, there's no sense even arguing about it because they'll at least do something useful and I probably won't. It's not even a question of who deserves it ("'Deserves' got nothin' to do with it.") It becomes more of a question of worth. Are they (whomever 'they' is) the more worthy recipient? Yes. Does that comprise the "common good"? Usually not, but having the prize come to me doesn't serve the "common good", either, so it might as well go to someone else.

This is one of the foundation stones of my disaffection with the capitalist system, in that said system virtually requires one to step on the bodies of his competitors in order to "succeed" (putting aside the farcical nature of the construct since the 16th century, anyway) and, while I'm no stranger to winning things like games, it's my first nature to take the rewards of winning and hand them off to someone else (or at least feel miserable about not doing so; or perhaps turning down any reward. Or compliment. Or even acknowledgment of success.) Why? Is it because I'm not worthy? Maybe. Is it because others are more worthy? Probably.

So how does someone with my level of confidence become completely mortified at the idea of benefiting from any kind of personal success or good fortune? That's a complex question with what may not be a single answer. Guilt? Pride? Martyr complex? A conviction that my happiness is utterly secondary (if not tertiary) to that of those around me? That last one sounds the most likely. After all, I always arched an eyebrow at the whole "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" thing. The first two are fundamental, of course, but the third always struck me as kind of half-assed. If one has the first two, shouldn't the third be a given? But what if that's only when the first two are pursued for... the common good?

Regardless, keep fighting for all three, Wisconsin. You probably deserve it more than I do, anyway.

How to completely misinterpret the news

As all of you know, a recent development in the Middle East has been an upsurge of popular revolt. In addition to the rampant use of psychotropics among Libyan teenagers, popular revolts have ended the long-standing regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, seem to be on the verge of extracting major concessions from the king of Bahrain and toppling the presidency in Yemen, and have emerged in Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, and now even Saudi Arabia.

What always tends to follow in the wake of such geopolitical trends are people claiming that "things would have been different IF" their advice had been followed by the people who ruled such nations and apparently were neither as enlightened or commercial as the little world within the DC Beltway. This rambling discourse is one of those claims. It's titled "A crisis of legitimacy". Unfortunately for the author, the only question of legitimacy is the one aimed at his own grasp of history over the past 100 years.

1. Demographics: He cites a population explosion based on "reduced opportunities for women." Of course, opportunities for women have never been widespread in some of these regimes, going back centuries. There's also an easy counterpoint to this cultural claim in that one of the largest population explosions in US history accompanied a steady expansion of opportunities for women in the 1950s and 60s (the so-called Baby Boom; perhaps you've heard of it, often spoken of in dreadful tones concerning the impending implosion of the US economy given our farce of a public pension system.) But I'm just quibbling here.

2. The so-called "resource curse": Here's where we really get rolling with the Western-centric viewpoint. According to the "resource curse" theory, nations with abundant natural resources are more prone to corruption and a lack of economic, social, and cultural development. Smith is quick to tag the "Ruling Elites" (why is it that so many social entities or theories that are intended to be targets of repugnance are capitalized by conservative writers? Must be an insidious form of Socialism...) with the lion's share of the blame for this phenomenon. Said elites are the type of heinous criminals most Westerners assume must inhabit all of the Middle East, as they keep their downtrodden people impoverished and powerless to prevent their rulers from extracting whatever resources are available and enriching themselves and only themselves with the sale of those materials. But, of course, sale implies having a customer. One doesn't just pump oil from the ground and ship it off to a Swiss bank account. And once you have customers, they're going to be interested in getting the sweetest deal they can find for those resources in order to further the growth of their own economies and enrich whichever corporation is "in theater" (to borrow his phrase) and fomenting this joyous transaction.

Now, which entity has been the largest customer for the primary resource of the Middle East for most of the last century? Which customer has been only too happy to support various despots and dictators to ensure a free flow of that substance to its shores; that support usually being comprised of cash, guns, and the training to use those guns? Which customer has acted swiftly to deter any forces of change within these various crudely drawn states, presuming (rightly) that said forces might not be so pleased to be giving the milk away so easily and might actually have an interest in developing their own nations? Let me think... Oh, yeah...

That last link is to a page written by my friend, William Blum, a former employee of the State Department who has spent much of the last 40 years detailing exactly how the US has gone a bit farther than the "fledgling wannabe-Empire" that Smith claims. From Chiang-Kai-Shek to the Duvaliers and Noriega, the US gladly supported strongmen and vicious criminals around the world. From Mossadegh to the Sandinistas, the US moved quickly to destabilize, isolate, or outright overthrow popular and legitimately elected regimes that conflicted with US economic and private corporate interests. The Middle East is, of course, one of the foci of this global effort, since most of the people living there have the misfortune to have settled on top of our oil.

Those Ruling Elites have existed at the behest of the US to keep their populations in check and to keep the oil flowing. El-Zein? Turned a blind eye. Mubarak? $1 billion per annum in military support and training. The Gulf states and the Saud kingdom? We're the biggest guard dog you've ever seen. Saddam Hussein? Our fair-haired boy until he exhibited a little too much pride. The lone real exception is Qaddafi, but since Libya doesn't really produce that much oil and wasn't invading Egypt, those people could just do without any of that liberty stuff. And now they're using drugs. Degenerates.

The idea that cultural trappings or a weak-willed populace or any of the other speculative answers implied by Smith's essay are what kept the Ruling Elites in power and have ensured the "backwardness" of their respective nations is one put forth by someone who may never have set foot outside the United States. The tepid response by the current administration to the transformations taking place is indicative of changes in that policy brought about by the public's waning interest in conducting extra-national adventures in the name of "national security" (read: Chevron's profits) and the fact that, uh, we have some issues here in Der Vaterland that are more prominent than usual.

But this is my favorite part:

Regardless of their purported ideological flavor, the ruling Elites all relied on the same system of governance: offer a simulacrum of public purpose to the world and the populace, and ceaselessly pursue private confiscation of national income and resources.

Huh. Where have I heard that before? Oh. The iron fist of Empire has, indeed, been covered with the attractive glove of freedom, but not where Smith thinks.

Oh, and his presentation of Pakistan as an example of colonial interference creating unstable new nations is patently ridiculous, given that the British argued to keep the dominion of British India whole, but unimportant people like Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah knew that would be impossible. You can blame the British for a lot of things (including Mossadegh, in part) but not that. It's all here. He clearly knows of the existence of Wikipedia, but obviously not for even cursory research.

Sonnets to Telemann, part I

(in the manner, but without a shred of the talent of, Bill the Bard):

About the dark and empty night you float
Amidst the cold and silent reach of mind
The piercing sound of horn and string to note
Your face and form and eyes I yearn to find
Beyond the reach of hand or form or grasp
Within the hope of dreams to play a part
I cannot cling to mist or breast yet clasp
But 'plaint the ache and yearning of my heart
The song gives rise to thought of what could be
The empty space at hand belies that ghost
Your shape and warmth and soul I cannot see
No tune brings forth the light your heart might host
As I but wish to feel the touch of hand
The music fades and leaves but Morpheus' sand

Cue the shivers

I don't play any instruments. I kind of doubt I have the talent for it but I've never made a concerted effort so I can't verify it one way or the other. My parents felt it was necessary to put my sister through the unwanted travails of piano lessons but never subjected me to it/gave me the opportunity. I suppose they thought that excelling in school was sufficient to get me through life, devoid of other talents, or some such thing. The more likely reason is that they just didn't care and I, in turn, didn't either.

But music became really important to me in my early teen years, in part because it was one of the ways that I could more easily associate with the older people in my classes in the process of skipping two grades. If we could all relate via music that we liked (and that our parents likely didn't), then we could all be part of a group, as opposed to Them and Me. But mostly because something in it simply, uh, sung to me. I could see and appreciate the energy and effort that went into it and that it consequently produced. I've met few people that can get through life without music at some time, but I found a need for it pretty much all the time.

I jumped into the music world with both feet, as I am wont to do with most things, and had music playing around me as often as possible. Worked with it, studied with it, slept with it. I began to learn things about the musicians that I was hearing and started noticing tendencies and styles and genres and techniques. I especially began to notice moments that simply worked for me; that I could pick out and remember even apart from the surrounding sound and almost cringe at the force or delicacy or precision with which it was played. Just as an example, here's Bitch from the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers:

Keith Richards' counterpoint chord from the very beginning of the song is played in tight fashion, so the driving beat by Mick Taylor concentrates the energy and Keith releases it with those little twangs. It's at 2:10 where he starts one of the great solos in all of rock and 2:50 where he takes it to the next level. Both of those moments still make the hair on my arms stand on end. There was someone totally immersed in his craft and speaking volumes with one or two notes.

I became deeply enthused with the punk scene. It's what was "now" for when I was coming of age and the politics of the movement in general spoke to me. One of my favorites was Bad Brains because of the primal energy they retained in everything they did (even when they were just doing reggae.) In fact, for the famous "what one album would you have on a desert island?" question, Bad Brains may be it (or Mozart's clarinet, oboe, and bassoon concertos.) This is the track that pushed me over the top with Bad Brains:

Just the growl of Dr. Know's guitar at 38 seconds in makes my chest fill with energy because the band is about to explode with it, as well, and I can feel that. That's communication on a very basic but still very elevated level. They're letting you know that they're about to take you on a ride and you'll enjoy every minute of it, while H. R. yells at you about the loss of your basic liberties and how you're ignoring it.

Mozart's work is rife with little (big) messages of all kinds. For all that he's regaled for the technical precision of his work, Mozart was first and foremost a storyteller and often communicated through his work even when it wasn't accompanied by a libretto. The second movement of the Sinfonia Concertante that I spoke of a couple weeks ago is a perfect example of that, with the plaintive wails of the violin and the viola. But another favorite piece with what seems to me to be a constant driving message is the Rondo of the Haffner Serenade (no. 7, K. 250):

The lead violin (which was largely Mozart showing off, as serenades were traditionally supposed to be background music) propels the entire piece and keeps the listener rolling from one stanza to the next and at 4:20 briefly carries the tone to an even higher level that always keeps me hanging in anticipation (even though I've probably heard the piece a couple hundred times.)

I'm not much for country. I like a little bit of Johnny Cash and my stepmother was a big Jimmy Buffet fan when I was a kid so I have some of that imprinted on my brain (and I know he's not strictly "country" by most estimations) but it generally takes some blues mixed in to really find favor with me, be they Memphis or Irish. Steve Earle does the trick:

That's a piece sung with so much soul it could almost raise James Brown from the dead. You can hear him barking to the band when they come together between the verses because he's so immersed in delivering this story that it just bursts from him.

You may notice a dearth of whatever the current musical rage is (Lady Gaga, Glee, et al.) Despite the fact that I enjoy many types of music and just in the above have traveled from the 18th century to the 00s of the 21st (and the fact that I'm fond of many acts still performing in the last decade, such as Cake and The Crystal Method), I have zero interest in studio-processed crap that relies on the presence of programs like AutoTune to make it function. It has no soul. If you want to make music, make it. If you want to let the computer do it, let it. And get off my lawn.

By the way, while I was writing this, in addition to the tracks above that generate some kind of deep reaction from me, I was also listening to Mastodon's Blood and Thunder, Mos Def's Know That, The Orb's Toxygene, John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom, the flamenco theme from 3:10 to Yuma, Jimi Hendrix's Machine Gun, The Pogues' Sally Maclenanne, and Ice Cube's Wicked, among others. They all engender that same response from me: they're saying something and I know they are because some part of my body tells me that they are on a level that delves deeper than whatever lyrics may be present. If we could find a way to encapsulate that into words, the world might be a very different place.

Dramatic pause

I'm an unusual movie buff. Some people just love movies. They'll watch all kinds with enthusiasm, even though they have their favorite genres, actors, directors, and time periods. I'm only enthusiastic about good movies, which is an awfully arrogant way of saying I'm a really picky movie buff. I find it very difficult to countenance the idea of wasting two hours of my life on the next Too Fast Too Furious (even though I thought Vin Diesel's (godawful Hollywood name) performance in Pitch Black was decent), even if I have absolutely nothing better to do (I may be dead; check if I ever say I'm going to do this.)

I have my favorites, of course: early Ridley Scott and John Carpenter, anything by Akira Kurosawa, the Coen brothers, or Stanley Kubrick, every other Kevin Smith film (1, 3, 5, etc.); I could watch Salma Hayek stand in a phone booth for two hours... But most people will look at a movie listing, think to themselves "That sounds OK." and agree to see it if friends or family are going or if they're just sitting in front of the TV. I can't do that. If my thought is "It sounds OK.", I'll probably want to turn it off/walk out halfway through it because I'll start rolling my eyes at the performances or blowing holes in the script or whatever.

Obviously, in life and relationships, you sometimes have to go along to get along. On this, I just can't. It's just alien to me and not in the good Ridley Scott way. A former girlfriend once remarked on it as the most obvious example of how I'm expecting to be around someone(s) who are in tune with (or at least tolerant of) the way my mind wanders, 24-7, and how it will never happen... which is probably one of the sadder statements of my life but, there it is.

So, every year around Oscar time, I spend more time than usual at the nearest theater to see just what is in the running for the little statue and why. Here's where other movie snobs lift their noses and decry the Oscars as "biased", "out-of-touch", and a "popularity contest." All of that is true, but they also tend to spotlight many genuinely good films and are evidence that the American film industry hasn't completely imploded in the way that the music industry basically has. (You couldn't pay me to watch or listen to the Grammy awards. It's all crap.)

This year I ended up seeing True Grit, Black Swan, The Fighter, and The King's Speech all in the space of a few weeks.

True Grit had the advantage of being a Coen brothers production to begin with. I've seen everything they've ever made and show no signs of stopping. Critics kept harping on how they told the story "straight" without their "trademark quirkiness", but those critics must have forgotten the brilliant No Country for Old Men, which was pretty straight, not to mention films like Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple. Most of them are fixated on classics like Fargo and The Big Lebowski (with some justification) and forget that the Coens know how to tell a story as well as any other mainstream dramatist(s), even if no one in it even approaches saying "Yah!" to some hotdish.

Speaking of Lebowski, I thought Bridges was excellent in this role; almost as good as he was in Crazy Heart last year. In the latter, his performance earned him the trophy because he lost himself in it. He basically became Otis Blake and showed me the first time I could look at him and not assume that he was about to spout a line like: "Well, that's just like... your opinion, man." Seriously, when he was on stage, staring at the statuette in his hand, saying: "This is really great.", I completely expected him to follow with: "This is totally gonna tie the room together, man!" Once again, in True Grit, Bridges managed to lose himself, turning the typical drunk cowboy routine into a fascinating character to watch. Matt Damon's performance was good enough to make me fail to recognize him for the first couple minutes he was on-screen and people have been raving about Hailee Stanfield for good reason. She took command of every scene that she was in (aka all of them; how do you get "supporting actress" from someone who's in every shot?) and was the foremost reminder of the excellent conceit that the Coens used concerning the dialogue, in which every occupant of backwoods Texas and Arkansas spoke the Queen's English as if they'd just stepped out of Windsor. It worked well for many of the roles in Deadwood and works perfectly here.

The Coens hewed more closely to the source novel than John Wayne's original did, as well. I'd never seen the original (I'm not a Duke fan, except as a rapper), so I had nothing with which to compare it in that respect. My preference for Westerns aligns pretty closely with the presence of a Man With No Name (who actually did have a name in all three films...; someday soon I'll do a post about Westerns) and movies like those. But I think I agree with my friend, Rodger, who summed up this version of True Grit by saying: "It was just a great film- story, characters, direction -beginning to end."

Black Swan fell short of my expectations. That's not to say that it had any particular failing, but I suppose I went in with a mixture of seriously high expectations for a film with Natalie Portman (a favorite) and Darren Aronofsky (director of the The Wrestler) but little knowledge of or affection for the dance world. As it turns out, I suppose I was expecting something that carried more personal impact with me. I enjoyed it, but once it was over, it was gone. The Wrestler was so poignant and well-done that it stuck with me for weeks afterward, as scenes like Randy's tantrum behind the deli counter would come back to me. Black Swan didn't do that at all.

Part of my lack of enthusiasm had to do with the way in which the "thriller" was delivered. In most movies that carry that label, a certain set of ground rules are established as "normal". Then, the abnormal begins to intrude and, in many of them, begins to mesh with the normal until the audience has difficulty distinguishing one from the other. One film that did this really well was Jacob's Ladder. It set the ground rules of normal in more than one place and then started displaying fantasy in glimpses and then in full scenes, until the viewer is totally lost and wandering as it all fell into place. Black Swan, on the other hand, never established normal. From the first scene, there were elements that seemed real but were then revealed to be fantasy, so we never knew what the rules of the game were.

That being said, I still enjoyed it. Portman, Mila Kunis, and Barbara Hershey were all excellent and Vincent Cassel did a decent job in the first role I remember him doing since the sadly often-overlooked Eastern Promises. Again, holding almost no knowledge of the dance world, I was a bit out of my element, but that didn't stop me from appreciating the commitment neé obsession of many of its inhabitants. I've been in communities where the bonding activity was lived and breathed and I can understand that kind of motivation and I think Aronofsky did, as well; perhaps even moreso than the wrestling world.

I knew the story of Mickey Ward, as I'd kept an eye on his trio of fights with Arturo Gatti back in the early years of the previous decade, so the film was fairly predictable (and probably would have been for many people even if they hadn't followed the real life events.) But it still had a couple elements that really made it sing.

One of these was Christian Bale. I'm a fan of Bale's work. As much as I enjoy the Batman films for their departure from Tim Burton campiness, I'm even more of a fan of things like American Psycho, The Machinist, and 3:10 to Yuma (the latter film even quieting my normal Russell Crowe aversion.) Those were all very affecting or intriguing roles. I think Bale at least matched them all here. In fact, there's room to argue why this was supposedly a film about Mickey Ward, when Dicky Eklund (Bale's role) was far more interesting and went through much more of a traditional transformation than Mickey did. Bale is an actor who maintains his character off-camera and you could really see that in this role, as he really climbed inside Eklund's skin and made it part of himself. The director commented that "Dicky has a music to him" and Bale hit the tune.

The other element was the septet of women playing Mickey's sisters, who played the role of a Greek chorus on PCP; always announcing to the audience when tragedy was about to strike and usually creating or participating in it themselves. You've never seen such detestable and somehow vaguely endearing characters as the Seven Irish Harridans. The movie maintains a pretty serious tone, but they end up somehow delivering most of the comic relief.

Not to be left out are Amy Adams, in a serious departure from her very milquetoast roles in the past, and Melissa Leo, as Mickey's manipulative and passive-aggressive mother (Jack McGee gets a mention in a solid performance as Mickey's harried father, too.) In fact, most of the performances were so strong that they carried the film, turning what was a typical "hard-luck kid makes good" story into an interesting character study. I almost think it would work better as a play. The one letdown in this respect is really Mark Wahlberg, as Mickey. His performance isn't bad. It's just burdened with his trademark woodenness (the only movie in which I've seen him escape this tendency is The Departed) and a role that didn't really give him much to work with, in my opinion, especially when standing next to roles like Bale's and Leo's. It was still a very worthwhile film.

The King's Speech was flat-out brilliant. I admit some hesitation, even after hearing gushing reviews from opinions that I trust. I mean, how interesting can someone learning not to stutter (or stammer, as the English call it) really be? But it was excellent. The script was fantastic, the performances were great, and the very slowly-paced movie kept me totally engrossed from beginning to end.

I'm not familiar with most of Colin Firth's oeuvre. When I first heard his name, the only thing that came to mind was Shakespeare in Love and I completely missed A Single Man, so it was kind of surprising to hear him being lauded so much for this role, but he deserves every bit of it. He pulled off the rather difficult feat of playing the formal British royal while also expressing the deep frustration of his condition without having to chew the scenery like a latter-day Pacino or Nicholson probably would have. You felt the genuine sympathy of some of the bit players in the film, almost gesticulating in trying to draw the words out of him as he struggled to voice them. Geoffrey Rush was his usual adept self. For all that he's lauded for things like Shine, I think these slightly off-kilter roles (yes, that was a Shine joke...) such as Lionel Logue and Casanova Frankenstein (in the subtly hilarious Mystery Men) are the ones that really let him do his best work.

My two very tiny criticisms are that, first, Helena Bonham-Carter was totally wasted in her role. Her range is so great and expressiveness so prominent that having her play the staid, royal British matron is a waste of her talents. The fact that she could pull it off is a testament to her ability and might have been part of the attraction of the role for her. It just struck me as an incredibly confining situation. The second is that I think director Tom Hooper lingered just a bit too long on some of the interactions between Logue and Bertie. That was, indeed, the focus of the film; that their connection enabled the future king to get over his impediment, but it began to get a bit trying near the end, where one more deep exchange of meaning was traded in their lengthy stares (I'm reminded of the incessant crying that took place in the otherwise excellent Lord of the Rings films that had me fearing that all of Middle-Earth might drown by the time we reached the middle of Return of the King.) But those are really minor. It was a genuinely great movie.

So, awards. I'm placing my bets on:
Melissa Leo for Best Supporting Actress (The Fighter)
Geoffrey Rush for Best Supporting Actor (The King's Speech; even though I really think Bale should win.)
Colin Firth for Best Actor (The King's Speech)
Nicole Kidman for Best Actress (Rabbit Hole)
The King's Speech for Best Screenplay
The Social Network for Best Adapted Screenplay
Tom Hooper for Best Director (The King's Speech; I'd favor the Coens)
And the King's Speech for Best Picture.

Back to the real world next time.