Theatre: dark play or stories for boys

Jenny and I went to see this show at Actor's Express because a friend was in it, and because the Express has never let us down. It was quite good, in a way that surprised me. The premise is rather simple, even possibly silly: the twisted danger of the internet and the way this effects boys. But the lead actor carried the show (it's mostly told in monologue), our friend Brent was surprisingly amazing, and the whole setup was almost always interesting to watch.

Book: Lady Chatterley's Lover

by D. H. Lawrence (1928).

I loved the beginning of this book, with those little author asides (grand statements about the nature of women and freedom and all that). The middle bit was good as well, but a little less fun in that way. The British class and rank stuff is all foreign to me, but interesting. The sexy passages are indeed sexy. And, surprisingly, it ends on a hopeful note. I wasn't expecting that.

Taking stock

My birthday just passed, and like at New Year, I find myself taking stock of where I've been and where I'm going.

Twenty-two was far from spectacular, but a whole lot of crap happened. I spent my birthday canoing with the boy I thought I'd marry; he left me before I'd even made it to my half-birthday. I was unemployed, but ended up working for a wonderful small business. I traveled the Southeast a lot. I organized the prop room at USM. I experienced folk art and beer in Louisiana. I drove the Natchez Trace. I hiked Stone Mountain, and stopped at a watermelon park in middle Georgia on Thanksgiving Day. I spent Christmas in rural Arkansas with Mormons (not recommended). I got my heart broken. My best friend moved in with me. I learned of the greatness of Athens, GA, and AthFest, and The Grit. I got a bunch of new traditions, from the pub where the bartenders love us, to a standing Sunday night at the Mountain Stronghold. I got a way better apartment. I started a self-portrait project. I celebrated best friend's birthday on the beach in Flori-bama. I reconnected with my college sweetheart. I made lots and lots of plans.

I'm utterly convinced that twenty-three can only get better. Look out for: more traditions, like mid-week movie nights; hanging the Division Champs banner at the opening Thrashers game; birthday trip to NYC for some Neil Gaiman-related goodness; holiday trip to London and various other European locales; flight-booking for Rome; other long and winding roads; plus good times galore with all these wonderful people.

Book: Magic for Beginners

by Kelly Link (2005).

This one has been on my radar since before it was even published. Then I actually read a Kelly Link story ("The Faery Handbag," in The Faery Reel), and I cried and knew that I had to read more. I read a bunch of other stuff, then finally bought the book earlier this year, started it, put it down, came back and finished it in one night.

These stories are absolutely amazing. Heartbreaking. Simple, spare, intense. Weird. I don't know that I can describe them in more than single word sentences. They pull you along, you can't make sense of them but it doesn't matter--the images and ideas are so beautiful, so resonant, that you never really stop to question.

My favorite was the title story, which deals with a group of friends and their love of an underground TV show called The Library (which is like Buffy on crack), a boy who inherits a phone booth and Vegas wedding chapel, and his father who writes books about giant spiders.

***

Small Beer Press has made Link's first story collection, Stranger Things Happen, available as a free download.

Book: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke (2004).

A delightful and long (really long) novel about the Restoration of English Magic. It's been described as Tolkien meets Jane Austen, and that's pretty accurate, except Clarke is vastly more interesting than Tolkien. Indeed, few other authors could make 1000-plus pages of story consistently compelling. I didn't want to finish this book and leave this world, in the end.

(I'll just have to reread The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories for my English Magic fix.)

Theatre: Doing Good Things

at 7 Stages.

A German fairy tale of sorts, about two girls in the woods, trying to do good things. It's harder than they imagine. This performance was crazy--very interesting but very dark and, well, German.

Film: 3:10 to Yuma

Even more amazing than the trailer led me to believe. Christian Bale is just as awesome as always; the story has all these interesting nooks and crannies for the thinking mind; Westerns are hot; Ben Foster deserves an Oscar for his performance. And Confederate soldier gear has never looked so sexy.


3:10 to Yuma
dir. by James Mangold, 2007

Film: The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse

The League is weird, and this movie was weirded because it wasn't like the show very much at all. Tamer, with strange interruptions and divergent storylines. But still made of awesome, if only because of the talent of these actors.


The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse
2005

Film: To Have and Have Not

Apparently this movie has little in common with Hemingway's novel. What it does have is a whole lot of awesome. Bogey plays it somewhat differently than his hard-boiled detective (Spade or Marlowe)--here he's kind, caring, performs emergency surgery with confidence, and smiles a whole lot.

But who wouldn't smile at Lauren Bacall? She's only 19 here, in her first film role ever, but she has all the grace and worldliness of an actress who's been working for years. She tosses off the best lines of the film with a smoldering look, like she knows she destined for stardom and romance.

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and -- blow."


To Have and Have Not
dir. by Howard Hawks, 1944

Film: The Night of the Hunter

A visually iconic film: even if most people couldn't name it, they'd recognize the idea of a man with LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles. Robert Mitchum is that man, here, a traveling preacher who murders widows for money and believes that God tells him to.

This film is in the noir tradition, though instead of presenting the foggy or rain-slicked urban streets of a city, it deals entirely with rural West Virginia and the Ohio River. Shots of various animals are interspersed (rather than shots of city lights and lonely diners)--the whole effect is kind of strange.

The story is strange too. I wonder if the original plot didn't suffer under the strict rules of the Production Code. We're presented with many dualities: love/hate, good/evil, male/female. The children at the center of the film are saved by a woman who raises orphans and teaches them Bible stories, but who unfortunately talks to herself in much the same way the preacher does. This convention, particularly at the very end, lends a creepiness that I don't think was intended.

Still, I'm amazed that in 1955 a movie with such strong themes of female empowerment, female love and protection, and anti-religiosity was made at all. I love those bits, of course--how religion is really just an excuse for people to enact their bullshit personal politics all over you, and how children inevitably get caught in the middle. And how shit like that will kill you, because you really have to be a terrible person to manipulate people based on how fucked-up you are in the head and then have nerve to call that God.


The Night of the Hunter
dir. by Charles Laughton, 1955

Film: Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

This movie wasn't really about its plot (notice the incredible lack of exposition) but about its characters. Or really, about its actors. Kris Kristofferson and James Coburn show everybody how it's done, and look like they're having the easiest time in the world doing it. Bob Dylan stands and squints a lot, and you love it because he's fucking Bob Dylan. Peckinpah throws in some of his beloved children (creepily hanging around the gallows and various dead bodies, but not really being put in danger the way they were in The Wild Bunch), naked breasts, somber landscapes--the whole thing has this tone to it that's very odd, very solemn, but it works.

And the soundtrack fucking owns. Cause it's Bob Dylan.



Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
dir. by Sam Peckinpah, 1973

Film: Cracker Crazy: Invisible Histories of the Sunshine State

A weird documentary--totally one-sided, I'm sure, but interesting nonetheless. Deals with the hidden, ultra-violent history of Florida. I learned some things I never knew, heard stories about places I've lived, and generally laughed a lot at the archival footage and its eerie (sometimes entirely racist) narration. Worth seeing, for sure.


Cracker Crazy: Invisible Histories of the Sunshine State
dir. by Georg Kozulinski
presented by the Atlanta Underground Film Festival

Some movies I have seen recently

Young Guns II was really strange. Oddly paced and not as fun as the first, but still pretty cool.

Me and You and Everyone We Know was cute and way weirder than I expected.

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus was the most amazing thing I've seen in a long time. Top five, for sure. I can't even really write about it, since it felt so close to me.

Stranger than Fiction was much, much better than I thought it would be. Maggie Gyllenhaal is my dream girl.

Film: Dead and Breakfast

How did I not hear about this movie sooner? It has a million and one things I love: Bianca Lawson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Texas, country songs, zombies, Buddhists, Jeremy Sisto, line dancing, badass chicks, lots of cussing in Southern accents. On and on and on.

Totally hilarious, totally worth seeing unedited. And I want the soundtrack.



Dead and Breakfast
dir. by Matthew Leutwyler, 2004

Film: Stardust

The second Neil Gaiman novel I ever read finally becomes a movie--and does the book justice in a big way. Things have changed, it's true, but I really think all the changes were for the better (well, except for that perplexing opening scene with the scientists).

The humor is subtle, the landscapes are gorgeous, the fantasy is imaginative. The cast is splendid, especially Charlie Cox as Tristran. That boy needs to be a star. I really don't think I could heap enough praise on the film.

This was absolutely the most fun I've had at a movie in a long, long time. Possibly ever.


Stardust
dir. by Matthew Vaughan, 2007

Film: Young Guns

"Regulators. We regulate any stealing off this property. And we're damn good too. But you can't be any geek off the street. Gotta be handy with the steel if you know what I mean, earn your keep."

Book: The Historian

by Elizabeth Kostova (2005).

Bargain bin buy so I'd have a beach read when I went on vacation. Turns out I loved this book. I'm a big geek for historical research, monasteries, and really old books, so it's no wonder, really. This book reminded me of A.S. Byatt's Possession, and that's a big compliment. The story drags a bit in the middle, but picks back up again pretty quickly. The end in awesome, in that it subverts what you think the climax will be, and turns everything from a monster-hunting story into a family drama about people who are really lovely and worth being invested in.

Travel dreams: Villa Lante

Giardini #1
Originally uploaded by Roby Ferrari

I am now officially saving up to travel to Rome, Viterbo, and Bagnaia. My goal is to have enough money to go by September of next year.

I have wanted to see the Villa Lante, in Bagnaia, since I was 17. Time to make it happen.

Virtual monastery tours

I just found this absolutely fascinating page of virtual tours of monasteries, by a professor at Georgia College.

The Atlanta Water Gardens

Visiting the Atlanta Water Gardens is one of those extreme pleasures that soothes me for the rest of the day. I think it is entirely possibly that all my favorite places in the world relate directly to water.