The grey rain curtain rolls back...and all will turn to smoggy gas refineries...
Mood:  caffeinated
Listening to my iPod the other day, I was struck by the similarity between the oboe line from the Largo movement of Dvorak's New World symphony, and the Grey Havens motif from LOTR. (Yeah, yeah, it only took me two years to notice...I'm a little slow on the musical uptake.) So then I wondered, did Howard Shore purposely do that? Did he draw on the New World theme because Frodo's ship was sailing west, and west is the traditional direction for discovering unexplored New Worlds (assuming Middle Earth has a classically European orientation)? Does that mean that when the gray rain curtain rolled back and Frodo beheld a far green country under a swift sunrise, he was actually looking at Hackensack, New Jersey?

I need to go lie down now.

Three Dollars more
Mood:  special
Now Playing: Love Will Keep Us Together (Captain & Tenille)/Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Divison)
Recently, I watched Three Dollars again with a friend, who was totally horrified and depressed by Eddie's plight. She couldn't stop talking about it afterwards. It had such a powerful effect on her, she said, because she could imagine it actually happening to her. I have to agree with her 100%. Most films are escapist and don't dwell on everyday subjects. Odds are you'll never be chased through a haunted house by a psychotic plastic doll, gunned down by the Mafia, or electrocuted by the Emperor of the Galaxy on the planet Fjxrdyl, but most of us do live in Eddie's world, whether we're aware of it or not. No matter how much of a safety net you think you have, that gnawing "what-if" anxiety is always there, percolating beneath the surface. It's not something people talk about.

I also reconsidered my earlier reaction to the film, and decided it was OK that the story ended, instead of beginning, right at the moment when the pressure on the main character was at its most extreme. The story structure is modelled more along the lines of "It's A Wonderful Life", where the protagonist looks back on his life and tries to figure out how the heck it got so screwed up. The difference is that Three Dollars doesn't have Clarence to mentor Eddie, it has Nick the homeless guy, and it ends on a much more anxious, muted note. (Although, Mr. Potter never does return Uncle Billy's $8,000, so it's not like the Jimmy Stewart movie has an entirely rosy ending either.)

Watching it a second time, I appreciated David's subtle ways of characterizing Eddie: the half-tucked, half-untucked shirt; the taking off of the watch at bedtime; the frustrated, almost violent way he pounds the locust into the coffee table with his shoe. The way the house deteriorates along with Tanya's depression. Their shared space seems to get smaller, darker, and more cluttered as the film progresses.

Mini-Oz
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: imaginary badminton




Recently, Australian Defence Force personnel deployed in Sudan discovered a mud puddle shaped like Australia. It even includes the island of Tasmania.

The mud puddle was photographed, tagged, and released onto the Internet.

Gummy Bears In Space
So, we've got nearly an entire year to go before 300 is released.... *tum te tum* While we're waiting, let's fill up this blog with some aimless chatter.

I'm a big fan of those cheesy concession-stand trailers that they show just before the previews. Watching them, you'd think computer graphics hadn't advanced beyond 1982. For some reason, they're always set in outer space. Perhaps the makers think candy bars look more majestic when floating in front of the Horsehead Nebula. Perhaps, by crushing the Andromeda Galaxy beneath a Coke, they hope to make the cup seem bigger. More value for the money. ("Try our NEW, universe-destroying 64 octillion ounce size!")

Sometimes you get to ride on a virtual rollercoaster (also located in outer space), consisting of an oversized strip of red celluloid film that zips you under, over, and around various sugary obstacles. Sometimes, you're fired upon by a warlike fleet of Raisinettes, or hurtled pell-mell through an asteroid field of popcorn. You just never know what's going to happen with these things.

Our local theater shows a concession trailer of beautiful color pictures taken from the Hubble telescope. As you contemplate the vast grandeur and starry sweep of infinite creation, you're told not to litter.

The Spartans: Cheese-stealing beard growers
Here's some interesting tidbits about a typical Spartan's journey to manhood (from the Channel 4 website):

Spartan men would neither farm nor fish, manufacture nor trade. They would simply fight. And when they weren't fighting, they would train. And when they weren't training, they would socialise with their fellow fighters rather than with their own families, to bolster the solidarity and cohesion of the phalanx.

The single-mindedness and thoroughness with which they pursued this programme was extreme, radical and typically Spartan. Being born Spartan was not enough. All male Spartans had to earn their citizenship through long years of competitive struggle, and through surviving one of the most gruelling training systems ever invented.

The first test came early. A ravine a few miles outside the centre of Sparta was known as the Apothetae – the 'Deposits'. It was also called the 'place of rejection', because newly born Spartan boys were thrown into the ravine if they were judged unfit to live.

Infanticide was common throughout ancient Greece. Unwanted babies – usually girls – were left on hillsides. Sometimes they would be placed in a basket or protective pot so that there was at least a chance of someone coming along and taking the child in.

In Sparta, things were, as ever, different. Boys rather than girls were the likeliest candidates for infanticide. The decision about whether the child lived or died was not left to the parents but was taken by the city elders. And there was no possibility of a kindly shepherd rescuing a newborn child after it had been 'placed' down here. The decision of the city elders was final, terminal and absolute.

Surviving the Apothetae was just the start for the boys. At the age of seven, they were removed from their families and placed in a training system called the agoge, which means, literally, 'rearing'. The children were treated little better than animals.

For Spartan boys, one of the classrooms of the agoge was the wild foothills of the Taygetos mountains. They were organised into 'herds' under the command of an older 'boy herd', who was responsible for discipline and punishment. Denied adequate clothing, they slept rough throughout the year – and, in winter, temperatures could drop below freezing. Kept on short rations, they were expected to steal to supplement their food. Anyone caught stealing was flogged – not for the theft itself, but for being an unskilful thief.

It was more of a trial by ordeal than an education.

One of the more famous Spartan legends concerns a young boy who allows his intestines to be gnawed away by a fox that he has stolen and concealed, rather than cry out or let the animal go. In the retelling, the story usually becomes a straightforward tale of endurance and moral toughness. Restored to its original context, however, it sounds more like a half-starved, brutalised boy dying from an excess of bone-headed obedience.

The Taygetos also provided the backdrop for one of Sparta's most controversial and disputed institutions: the krypteia or 'secret service brigade'. Membership of this was reserved for boys who had shown particular promise. Hard cases would be sent out into the wilds with basic rations and a knife. By day, they would lie low and, at night, would infiltrate the valley below, murdering any helot they caught.

Although Sparta encouraged the collective spirit, it placed a higher value on individual achievement. The boys were tested constantly – against each other and against their own limitations.

The competitive nature of the Spartan system found its most extreme expression at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia. If a boy survived his first five years in the agoge, he would go there at the age of 12 for a brutal rite of passage.

On the altar, cheeses were placed – the sort of homely nourishing foodstuff that young boys on short rations would have found irresistible. The challenge was simple: to steal as many cheeses as possible. But in front of the altar was a phalanx of ephebes – boys in their 20s – carrying whips. Their instructions were to protect the altar, showing neither mercy nor restraint.

Indoctrinated with the tenets of endurance and perseverance, and determined to excel in this public display, the 12-year-olds would brave the gauntlet again and again. Meeting the whips face on, they would have suffered the most horrific injuries. The weakest never left alive.

The sheer brutality of a system seems alien. But it's not just modern audiences who find the Spartans shocking. The philosopher Aristotle argued that they turned their children into animals, while other contemporary Greeks pictured them as bees swarming round a hive, stripped of their individuality.

It's been a popular conception of Sparta through the centuries, but one that misses an important point.

Taking part in any mass activity can be fantastically unifying. We all recognise that feeling if we're part of a Mexican wave in a football crowd, singing in a choir or joining a protest march. As individuals, we are not diminished by the crowd. We become stronger; our reach is greater; our sense of self is magnified.

That was the underlying appeal of the Spartan system as a whole: the possibility of transcending your limitations as an individual and becoming part of something bigger and better.

From the age of 12, the boys' training became, if possible, even more exacting. Reading and writing were taught 'no more than was necessary', but music and dancing were regarded as essential.

The battlefields on which hoplites clashed were once memorably described as the 'dancing floors of war'. A phalanx that was able to move together in a coordinated way made for a formidable dancing partner.

So the Spartans spent many hours perfecting what was known as 'war music', a kind of rhythmic drill in which changes in direction and pace were communicated musically. The Spartans earned the reputation for being 'the most musical and the most war-like of people'.

At the age of 20, with their training nearing completion, Spartan males faced their most crucial test: election to one of the common messes – dining clubs – where they would be expected to spend most of their time when they weren't training or fighting.

But even if you had survived the brutal apprenticeship of the agoge, entry to these exclusive gentlemen's clubs was not guaranteed. Election to a mess was by the vote of existing members. You could be blackballed if it was felt that you didn't measure up – and that would be that. You would become a failed Spartan, consigned to a living hell of exclusion and public humiliation.

If, on the other hand, you were elected, you would receive from the state a share of land and a quota of helots. You were now one of the homoioi – one of the peers, the warrior elite at the top of Sparta's hierarchy.

The common messes, which lay a mile or so from the centre of Sparta, were an essential part of the city's social engineering, intended to keep discord and civil strife at bay. Old and young mixed here, easing generational conflicts – a constant source of friction elsewhere in Greece. More importantly, rich and poor met on an equal footing, the differences between them hidden by a rigorously enforced code of 'conspicuous non-consumption'.

In egalitarian Sparta, the rule was: even if you've got it, don't flaunt it. This was applied to everything from houses to clothes, even to food. In the common messes, the dish of the day, every day, was a concoction made of boiled pigs' blood and vinegar, known as melas zomos, 'black soup'.

The joke goes that, on being told the recipe for black soup, a man from Sybaris – a city in southern Italy infamous for its luxury and gluttony – said he now understood why the Spartans were so willing to die.

Spartan frugality may have shocked their contemporaries, but to a modern audience, their diet – leaving aside the black soup – sounds nutritious and healthy. Their land was very fertile, producing figs and quinces among other fruits. It was also a rich hunting ground. Compared to the diets of their neighbours – and enemies – the Spartans' comprised a much higher proportion of meat.

Regarding facial hair:

One of Lycurgus's more pernickety rules was that the upper lip should be clean-shaven and the beard long.

Dilios
It's all over town...David will be playing Dilios in Zach Snyder's adaptation of 300.

For those who haven't read the novel, Dilios is a fairly major character. He's a storyteller as well as a warrior, and he keeps the soldiers' morale high by spinning tales around the campfire. In the novel, when we first meet him, he's been entrusted with the all-important task of Main Character Exposition: recounting the story of young Leonidas' encouter with a wolf. (Side note: let us pause here and appreciate David's talent for exposition....from Faramir's lengthy Middle Earth geography lesson, to Carl's rambling explanation of the Van Helsing curse. That's not an easy thing to do, to hold an audience's attention while bending their ear with background information.) Chances are he'll be supplying a significant chunk of the narration.

More importantly, however, Dilios is the sole Spartan survivor of the Battle of Thermopylae, and it is he who carries the tale of their brave last stand to the cities and towns of Greece, uniting Greek citizens against the gathering forces of darkness and keeping the fragile flame of democracy alive. In a larger sense, he's the true hero of the story. He is the voice and the conscience of the soldiers, and one of Leonidas' most entrusted right-hand men.

Dilios also gets scratched in the eye during battle, so look for David to be sporting an eye patch about midway through.

Three Dollars
Mood:  on fire
Gosh, these blog entries have gone wildly astray recently. In theory, this is supposed to be a blog about David-related topics, not bad Christmas gift ideas. Sorry about that. Blame it on the lack of news.

*Three Dollars spoiler alert*

Last week I finally broke the fifteen-month drought of new David films, and saw Three Dollars. There were mixed reactions when this movie came out. Some loved it, some hated it, but in either case the film provokes strong emotions and a lot of discussion. Would Eddie really have fallen downhill so fast? Is the middle class living within a razor-thin margin of safety, or is that a leftoid fantasy? Is economic rationalism that bad? (The question that occurred to me: would the thoroughly moral and decent Eddie have willingly participated in the garlic bread scam?)

I don't subscribe to the Calvinist notion that one's personal wealth is entirely a reflection of one's merit. I certainly don't discount the role of effort and talent in creating wealth, but considering that the vast majority of wealth is invested and inherited, most upper-class people are very much the beneficiaries of random chance, starting with the circumstances they were born into. (Or as Molly Ivins once wrote of a certain U.S. president, who shall remain nameless: "He was born on third base, and thinks he hit a triple.")

Eddie was unfortunate enough to be born into a family that was struggling financially; by late childhood, he and Amanda's paths were already diverging. As an adult, he wasn't able to acquire the backup resources that might have prevented his downfall, like an emergency savings account, or a large job network. His aging parents had health problems and lived far away. All of their equity was in the house and the car-shaped shrine to mobility. Even with all that, I'm willing to bet Eddie's starting point was still ahead of the average middle-class American, who graduates from college saddled with overwhelming debt (tertiary education isn't free here), working for one of the growing number of companies that no longer offer pensions, 401Ks, health insurance, or job stability.

Things are looking pretty grim for the middle class, and Three Dollars taps into that anxiety in a way that Hollywood has been curiously silent about. To take an anecdotal example, my current company has had five layoffs since I started in 2000. Two years ago, they cut 90% of the company one week before Christmas. In one day, we went from 300 people down to 25. It was as if the Black Death had swept through our office. When Eddie was getting laid off, it was like reliving my worst nightmares. The awkward silence, the reluctance to make eye contact, the stunned boxing up of personal articles, the delayed shock and anger. Coffee cups still cooling on the desks. Muffled weeping in the bathroom. Nobody ever forgets the horrible, helpless sensation of watching co-workers marched off to the firing squad; and yet these realities are forever insulated from the C-suite types like Gerald, to whom employees are simply headcounts on pieces of paper.

The other scene that gave me horrible flashbacks was the one where Eddie discovers the hidden and illegally stored barrels of toxic chemicals. A similar thing happened to me once when I was investigating the site of a proposed bike path in Fall River (our firm was competing for the project). The right-of-way happened to run through property owned by an industrial warehouse. I had to skirt around a chain link fence and bushwack into the forest to get back to the old B&M railroad bed. Along the way, I kept noticing strange items that shouldn't have been there: car batteries, rusting barrels, engine blocks. There was also a tarp covering a mysterious pit.

As I emerged from the woods with my notebook and camera, the warehouse owner and three huge goons were waiting. They grabbed and hustled me into a back room, confiscated my film, threatened me with bodily harm, and debated whether to call the police and have me arrested. While this donnybrook was going on, one of the goons returned with two civil engineers from a competing firm, who had also been apprehended inside the woods. Reluctantly, the owner decided to let all three of us go. "But don't you never come trespassing here no more," he warned us. He might as well have been wearing a sign saying "I'M HIDING SOMETHING."

When I got back, I told my boss "we are NOT, repeat NOT, bidding on this project". Then I called the town manager. She was interested and sympathetic and said they'd been keeping an eye on this guy for years, but without photographic evidence or a search warrant, there wasn't much they could do. It was frustrating, to say the least. In the movies there would be an immediate investigation and journalists would get involved and people would shoot at me from black limos and there'd be a jetski chase, but alas, the real-life story just kind of ended there. It's possible that eventually they did nail the guy though.

Oh, sorry. That anecdote kind of went off on a tangent. Let's reel this topic back in.

So did I like Three Dollars? I did, although it seemed to me that the movie ended at the beginning. That is, the REAL beginning of Eddie's story was the moment he found himself with no job and only three dollars. All the stuff with Amanda and Joy Division and the wheatgerm queue and the Thatcher/Reagan-era anomie was interesting background material, of the sort that writing teachers tell you to write before you get on with the actual telling of the story, but the dramatic tension didn't ratchet up satisfactorily until close to the end of the movie. I wanted to find out what happens to Eddie and his family. Does their house get repossessed? Does Abby get over her febrile epilepsy? Does Tanya leave the job market altogether?

And will Eddie ever be able to eat Edam cheese without guilt again?

Yankee Swap
Mood:  accident prone
You've probably heard of the phenomenon called "beer goggles", where all the people in a bar suddenly get more attractive at closing time? Well, there's a similar phenomenon that comes around at holiday time. "Gift goggles". Ten minutes before the store closes, an item of merchandise quickly gains plausibility and stature as a possible Christmas present.

While at the supermarket Wednesday night, I suddenly remembered the office Xmas party the following day. A Yankee Swap was on the agenda, which meant I needed a gift, fast.

The candy aisle was nearby. My eye fell upon a wind-up penguin which would, when fully loaded, waddle across a desk and poop cola-flavored candy pellets. Coincidentally, our company mascot is a penguin (insert unflattering metaphor here). Since in past years, our Yankee Swap has been dominated by silly gifts -- sea monkeys, guns that shoot foam darts, that sort of thing -- the penguin seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea.

However.

Unbeknownst to me, my co-workers had all independently decided to go tasteful this year with their gifts. No singing squirrels or light-up Elvis shaving cream dispensers for them; this year, it would be tea samplers and gift certificates.

Also unbeknownst to me, our new CEO had flown into town to meet the employees and attend the party.

The venue was a slightly posh local hotel, with linen table cloths, candles, and live jazz. Hardly the ideal setting for a plastic pooping penguin. I waited till nobody was looking, then slid my gift into the back of the pile.

The new CEO drew the highest number - 24 - which meant he would get to pick last. I lurked in the back, sweating bullets, as scented candle sets and leather day planners were unwrapped and exclaimed over. As the pile dwindled, my gift remained unchosen, a ticking time bomb. I drew number 13 and unwrapped a tasteful bottle of blueberry wine, which I tastefully traded for a tasteful set of tasteful travel coffee mugs.

More people chose, more people traded, and still my hideous wart of a gift lingered on the table. I swear I saw it pulsate slightly. Perhaps others could sense the evil force field emanating from the blister pak within, for they deliberately steered clear of it.

"What did you bring?" my office-mate asked.

"Um...a food item." Vagueness seemed the better part of discretion.

Finally, it was down to number 24, the new CEO. Guess which gift was still left on the table.

He unwrapped it, frowned, and examined it more closely. His expression slowly changed to resemble a vampire who has just been shown a cross carved out of garlic. By this point I had casually drifted to the very back of the crowd.

"What is it?" somebody called.

There was an ominous silence.

"It's....a pooping penguin."

The silence grew puzzled, as people tried to register the fact that those two words had just come out of the CEO's mouth. The CEO stalked over to the current owner of the blueberry wine, who looked stunned, and wordlessly handed him the penguin.

I was slightly cheered by the sight of the entire table craning their necks and nearly falling out of their chairs with laughter ten seconds later. But I fear the CEO now believes we're not "team players" and will put us on the chopping block. Mark my words. Soon, we'll all be out on the street digging through the trash for loaves of moldy garlic bread. All because of that stupid incontinent penguin.

The tin-foil hat brigade
Mood:  spacey
For anybody who's seen David in "A Little Bit of Soul", and thought the idea of highly-placed government, industry and finance leaders engaging in bizarre quasi-Satanic rituals was a little far-fetched: Try Googling "Bohemian Grove".

At the video store the other day, my eye fell on a copy of "Lord of the G-Strings -- The Femaleship of the String", mixed in with all the regular, non-adult movies. Here's the copy from the back of the DVD:

In the mythical realm of Diddle Earth, diminutive yet delectable Throbbit Bildo Saggins (Misty Mundae) is sent by Smirnoff the Wizard to destroy the legendary G-String - most powerful weapon in the land. The G-String was forged by the ancient villainess Horspank (Paige Richards), and those who possess the slinky and sexy under-garment experience supreme invincibility…and untold sensual pleasures.

Bildo is accompanied on her dangerous mission by fellow Throbbits Hornee (Darian Caine) and Spam (A.J. Khan) - both small of stature but big of erotic appetite. Together this courageous and curvaceous threesome trek far and wide throughout the territory of Diddle Earth, evading the Dorc forces of the evil wizard Sourasse and finding safety only in one another's arms. Along the treacherous path, Bildo and company also meet up with a fearless fighter - the dethroned Queen Araporn (Barbara Joyce) - who joins their quest to Party-Pooper Volcano, the only place where the G-String can be destroyed. Amidst rampaging desires and female fantasies made flesh, Bildo must be wary of Ballem, a hideous creature who desires the G-String and will stop at nothing in his mad quest to have it.

J.R.R. Bacchus presents a Terry M. West film, Lord of the G-Strings: Femaleship of the String - an epic erotic adventure pitting good against evil, small against big, beautiful against ugly and hot against 100% smokin'!

According to my sister, who saw a snippet of this soft-core parody on cable while staying at a hotel last year, mere words cannot do justice to the jaw-dropping badness of the film. She tried to describe it to me over the phone the next day, and all I could hear was the clunk of the receiver hitting the floor and faint sobbing gasps of laughter.

I'm almost tempted to rent it to see if it's as hilariously awful as the Ralph Bakshi version, but I don't want to have to keep fast-forwarding through all the naked women.

Theater etiquette
Mood:  incredulous
Three short but true stories about theater etiquette.....

Etiquette Story #1 - "Proof"

Once upon a time (last weekend to be exact), I bought a ticket for a screening of "Proof", a complex, cerebral, explosion-free movie about father and daughter math geniuses.

Shortly before the movie started, three teenage boys came slouching down the aisle and sat directly across from us. You know the type: humungous pants, backward baseball hats, size 17 feet, etc. I thought to myself, "How nice. These youth are interested in mathematics."

Boy, was I wrong. The second the lights dimmed, they began cat-calling and whistling. Kid #1 yelled "I'm scared!" over the credits, then punctuated each scene with one or two random screams. Kid #2 crinkled his candy bag loudly for several minutes until he was shushed. Kid #3 entertained the crowd with armpit farts. It was like a really irritating Cinema Paradiso. When the belching contest started, I went out to the lobby and found the manager.

The manager was quite understanding. Earlier that day, she'd had to remove a group of teenagers who'd been startling the people in front of them by reaching forward and grabbing their hair during the scary moments. She marched in with a flashlight, shone it in the kids' faces, and put the fear of God in them. Nary a peep or a rustle was heard for the rest of the movie. I was left to ponder whether they'd mistakenly wandered into the wrong theater, thinking they were going to see "Jarhead".

Let us now skip over the unpleasant part of this story, the part where we encounter the same kids in the street after the movie, who recognize me as the one who finked on them. Instead, let's move on to....

Etiquette Story #2 - "National Treasure"

This is a very short, and extremely pointless, story.

PrincessFaz, at a showing of "National Treasure", had the pleasure of watching kids in the front row throw gummy worms at the screen, one by one. The candy stuck to the bottom of the screen and stayed there for the rest of the film. During the snow scenes, there were all these fluorescent worms hanging, which ruined the cinematography.

There really isn't a moral to this, except to suggest that anybody under age 45 should be chaperoned at the movies.

Etiquette Story #3 - "Fahrenheit 911"

I went to see this two summers ago with a huge group of friends. The theater was packed, so we had to split up. Three of us ended up sitting near the back.

The moment the movie got going, my seat started jiggling. And jiggling. And jiggling. After a few minutes, I turned around and asked the guy behind me to please quit messing with the seat. He denied it vehemently.

I turned back to the movie. The jiggling started up again. I turned around, glared, and told him to cut it out. He said "It's not me, it's him!" (pointing at the guy next to him). The two of them started arguing with each other. I said "I don't care who's doing it, just please stop!"

I turned back to the movie. Again with the jiggling. Another heated kerfuffle and exchange of threats (this time accompanied by an angry chorus of "sshhhh"s from our neighbors).

By this point, I'd missed about 15 minutes of the film, and it was time to call in reinforcements. I leaned over to my friend Carmen, and whispered "Hey...is your seat jiggling?"

Carmen whispered back "No...is yours?"

"Yes," I said. "Those two idiots behind me claim they're not doing it. Then they wait till I turn around and start up again. I'm about ready to kill them."

There was a short pause. Carmen said "Okay, did the jiggling stop?"

"Yes..." I said. There was another short pause while horrified comprehension dawned. "You mean...was that....you?"

"Yeah. Sorry. I always jiggle my leg at the movies."



PS Yes, I apologized to the row behind me after it was over. Lavishly and abjectly.