Lost in the 21st Century

As we approach the Holiday recognizing the contributions of Dr. King, I always tend to think about where we were, where we are and where we have yet to go.  To me, this is a day to stop and think. And remember.

As a Southerner of a certain age, I just can’t let this day pass without comment.  I don’t see how anyone of my generation can.

I grew up in the South before integration and during the Civil Rights Movement.  I’m not sure if I even spoke to a black person, other than our maid, before the schools were integrated when I was in the 5th grade.  People seem to forget the South in the early 1960’s was like South Africa under apartheid.  It was a very separate and scary place.  Everyone–and I mean everyone– had their place and society tried to keep them in it.

I think the late, great Molly Ivins said it best.  Molly once wrote:  “I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point — race.  Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything.”

That was certainly the case for me.  Realizing the falsities of racism made it possible to question many things, including homophobia, and to grow into acceptance and happiness about who I am today.  This realization made it possible to meet and get to know people who have made my life much richer than it would have been without them in it.  It made me value the need to learn and explore ideas, people and places that many people I knew wanted to ignore or discount.  It made me think and grow.

Dr King once said:  “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”   Well said.  That was, and sometimes still is, our biggest danger.

But, thankfully, a lot of us asked questions.  We still do.  Some of us are still trying to learn and figure things out.  We have come a long way but have a long way to go.  That’s why it’s so vital we ask questions and don’t accept simple answers.  That we get to know and talk to people who aren’t like us.  We sometimes discover they really are like us.  That leads to more questions…

Racism is still very much with us.  Don’t ever think the Teabaggers aren’t about racism.  They are.  They just may not even be able to admit that to themselves.  If they could ask questions, they would ask why they weren’t upset about George Bush taking us from a budget surplus to a horrendous deficit.  Instead, they blame Obama…

You figure that one out.  I did.

If you don’t know Eva Cassidy, you should.  Sadly, she is much better known now than when she was alive.  She left us in 1996 from malignant melanoma.

Had she been able to stay with us, I’m sure she would have been as well known as Nora Jones or, perhaps, even bigger.  She had a unique way with a song.  Her “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is so different from the Judy Garland version, you feel you are hearing a different song or a new song for the first time.  Her recording of “Autumn Leaves” is amazingly beautiful.  She really presents the songs with not just emotion, but obvious thought, behind them.  All sung in her uniquely beautiful voice and arranged to suit it.  Her last public performance was Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”.

I was listening to her again earlier today and thought I would share a couple of videos from Youtube.  Lots more video on YouTube of Eva’s performances.  For more information about her, you can go to:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Cassidy

One Holiday movie we saw, that I have not commented on was “Up in the Air.”  I needed time as it hit a little close to home.

I usually do a lot of business travel.  I figured out once that, out of the last 15 years, if you add all my hotel nights together, I have spent more than 2 of those years in a Hilton or Sheraton.  I can relate to the obsession with frequent traveler points and loyalty status as they are the only perks that make business travel tolerable.

Unlike George Clooney’s character in the film, I don’t use business travel to avoid relationships at home.  I’m very happy at home and, when I travel, I try to take as much of it with me as possible.  There are two kinds of travelers:  Minimalists and Comfortable.  I’m the latter.

Unfortunately, most of my business travel is to Phoenix, a city that I loathe as, to me, it embodies all that is wrong with America.  Over built with shoddy new construction, too much traffic and nothing but big box stores and chain restaurants as far as the eye can see.  Maybe I’m just too much of an East Coast boy….I don’t get Phoenix.

My other destinations are more pleasurable, but still all one sees is the airport, office and hotel.  When one travels on business, it ain’t fun.

The points and elite status on airlines and hotels do make it tolerable.  We rarely pay for hotels or air tickets when we travel on pleasure since I rack up so many points from my business travel.  And elite status helps you avoid a lot of hassel at the airport.

Unfortunately, due to the economic situation, I hardly traveled at all last year.  My partner and I were concerned, at first, that this might negatively impact our relationship.  Up to that point,  I had been on the road for about half the time during our 12 years together.  Neither of us was used to me being home that much.  I’m happy to say, we made it just fine being home together.

Fortunately, the economy is looking better and it looks like I’ll be resuming my travel schedule this year.  I head out Sunday on my first trip of the year.

Unfortunately, that year off cost me my elite status on the airlines and at the Hilton.  I’m afraid I’m going to be treated like the average leisure traveler.  I hope I can take it.

At least I’m not going to Phoenix!  That’s the next week….

I heard this song on XM Radio going into work today and had to look it up on YouTube this evening.

I do miss the days when men dressed differently to go to work or out on the town than they did to wash the car or mow the grass…

Please note:  There are no pleats in this video.  No flip flops.  No tank tops.  (A Gentleman never shows his arm pits in public.)   People who wear tank tops AND flip flops in public-especially on planes- should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  I only say that since I don’t believe in the death penalty…

I love this video and thought I would share it here..

I’m not going to write the standard New Years Day post.  It’s not my style.  I’m not always going to write about movies.  But I will again today.  Vacation continues and we are going to the movies a lot this week.  Also, since Congress is not in session, all is quiet on the political front.  It won’t always be quiet and neither will I.

Steve and I spent New Years Eve in our traditional manner.  A double feature and dinner at an Indian Restaurant.  We are blessed with several really good Indian places in Greensboro.  This year we went to Saffron and it’s probably the best.

We also saw two very good films– one of which was really great.  We saw both “An Education” and “Me and Orson Welles.”

“An Education” was first and is one of the best films I’ve seen this year or any year.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.  It was a perfect gem of a film.  Beautifully written, acted and directed.  Perfect art direction as well.  The film is set in 1962 and relates to the “education”, in both school and life, of a 16/17-year-old girl in England.  Carey Mulligan was amazing in the lead.  Peter Sarsgaard was also wonderful, but he is so natural his performances are frequently overlooked.  Great supporting performances also by Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike and Dominic Cooper.

I won’t spoil the plot, but I will say it did make me think about how things have improved for women over the last 47  years.  In the film, the main questions are “what is the value of education for women?” and “is it worth it?”  The heroine learns the answer in the course of the film through both her “education” in life and in school.  She questions the value of a woman’s education at that time as it was really seen, even by her father, as only useful to get a “Mrs. Degree”.   Even her teachers advised her, outside of marriage, the only options for an Oxford educated woman  were teaching or, perhaps, civil service or a secretarial job.  She questioned whether it was worth all the effort when one could get the “benefits” of a post collegiate life, a good marriage to a man who would take care of her, without the education.  Her question was what is the value of education outside of this context?  Was she just wasting her time?  As someone who graduated from a Liberal Arts college, I’m very happy with her ultimate realization.

The film also took me back to the time and place when I was young and looking trying to figure out how to learn to live the life I wanted.   How do you escape your little world to find the larger world you want to be a part of?  The answer is:  You take chances on new things and new people.  You make mistakes and you learn.  Everything is new and the future appears unlimited.  You are young enough to recover from most of your mistakes.  Please make every effort to see this film.  A lot more happens that I won’t go into.  It really is an amazing multi-layered film with wonderful multi-layered performances.  It is nothing short of perfection.

“Me and Orson Welles” is also a very enjoyable film, however not without its flaws.  The performances by Zac Efron, Claire Danes, Ben Chaplin and most especially Christian McKay, as Orson Welles, were excellent.  The art direction and clothes/hairstyles do not ring true to the period.  The script is flawed.  However, the film captures the period and every theatre buff should see it for the “inside” look at Welles’ famous production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” that launched the Mercury Theatre.

The connection to “An Education” that jumped out at me was, again, how things have, hopefully, changed for women.  In this film, all the women were more or less at the mercy of the men.  The men treated them as second class sex objects.  The only way the women could get ahead was by sleeping with and manipulating the right man.  Sex was either a means for advancement or a recreation- depending on your sex.

The one other thing that amazed me was that in both films the protagonists were 16 and 17 years old.  These kids took big chances.  They made mistakes.  And they learned about life.  With few exceptions, I don’t see kids of that age embracing life and taking the big chances anymore.  They- and society- today seem to still view people this age as children who must be protected.

I’m starting to wonder if puberty now begins at 30.  This is something else I’ll need to think about and write about more in the future….

We just came home from seeing the new movie musical of “Nine” and I have a few thoughts to share…am I becoming an entertainment critic?

Movie musicals are very dear to my heart and I’ll have more to say on them in the future.  I’m excited every time Hollywood tries to take on filming a musical.  For so many years, there were none.  Then came “Chicago” and the genre was seen as financially viable by Hollywood again.  “Rent” and “Dreamgirls” followed and each was successful in its own way.  I hope “Nine” does not slow or stop additional musicals from being made.  I hear it is tanking at the box office after costing $80 million dollars to make.  There were a total of seven people in the theatre tonight when we went to see it.  Two of them left after about a half hour.

Let me say up front that I liked, but didn’t love “Nine”.  I want to see it again sometime now that I’ve figured out what I saw.  I was expecting a big musical, but what I got was an art film.

I saw the revival of “Nine” on Broadway with Antonio Banderas a few years ago.  It’s not a great show to begin with, but can be engaging.  The right lead is the key and I think, good as he was, Daniel Day-Lewis was miscast.  He was good, but I always saw the cerebral British actor working very hard to be the lusty, emotional, sexually driven Italian director.  “Nine” is  about this man’s internal journey and the roles various women have played in his life and how they impact his art.  Each woman is a key to his character.

This is a difficult concept to “open up” and make into a film.  The result is very much a musical art film– not a gangbuster Hollywood Musical.  I wish Rob Marshall,  the director had recognized this earlier in the film.  It was difficult to become engaged with the character of Guido Contini with the erratic “Chicago” style camera work employed at the beginning of the film.  I know this was intended to convey the energy of Rome in the 1960’s when Italian cinema was all the rage. But I found it impeded the initial attempts to establish the character of Guido Contini.  It did not draw me in, but rather distanced me from the film.

All the women were marvelous.  Marion Cotillard, who was so amazing in “Piaf” a couple of years ago, is luminous as Luisa, Guido’s wife.  Penelope Cruz is wonderful as his mistress.  Judy Dench stops the show with her big number.  Fergie is an earthy revelation.  Sophia Loren is Sophia Loren-what more can you want?

My only complaint is Kate Hudson.  She is beautiful  She sings and dances the hell out of a very mediocre song.  However, her character is out-of-place in the film.  In a film about the important women in one man’s life, her newly added part is basically a potential one night stand of no importance to the plot.  If it were up to me, good as she is, I would leave her part and her song on the cutting room floor.  Inserting the song and the character into the film doesn’t work–it’s clearly an attempt for the composer to get in a new song to qualify for Oscar consideration for “Best Song”.  It isn’t…

Just a few thoughts I thought I would share.  I’ll be interested to hear other opinions.  More movies to come this week!