On All the Pretty Horses, the trailer

Is "All the Pretty Horses" worth seeing? I probably won't--it was intense enough a read for me, and also, doesn't it seem like Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz are too old? I think one of the reasons John Grady could get away with so much and also why the story was so great was because he was 17. It was a coming-of-age. But Matt Damon is adorable and if he were 17 it would be perfect.

Big Cities are a Genius

A) street gyro in the rain. Greasy and yogurt-saucy and oniony delicious. B) tamale and arroz con leche served in a paper coffee cup hot-hot. Eaten on the way home from the subway. Pretty much the tastiest thing I've ever spent a dollar on. C) Sylvia's: chicken and ribs, collared greens, black-eyed peas, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, tomato and okra gumbo, candied yams. D) Dunkin' Donuts' wheat (hardy and cinnamon-laced). E) the neighborhood grocer with mango juice just waiting. F) Upscale grocery stores though they would break me fast with every ethnicity of food and artfully prepared sometimes that you could dream of. And fresh-baked things. Gorgeous.

The Best-Laid Plans

What is it that they say about the best-laid plans? Is there another half to that adage, or is it just the dismissive first and the rest is left to the imagination?
We got up to Sundance! It was a kind of last minute decision and there was much tramping about in the snow (it was soo cold, we almost lost Davis, and our faux-hawked friend waxed particularly snarky in regards to snow sports--"any sport where you have to wear that much clothing..." again left to the imagination) but we got some standbys and ended up in the very last showing of the festival. Cool.
We caught a collection of shorts. I like short films for a couple of reasons: first I think that they have the potential for pithy wit that short stories have. That is, there has to be an interesting turn at some point, but it has to be subtle because you only have 20 minutes to develop it but it has to be interesting or it's just a commercial. I think that it's a delicate balance, and that when it's struck, brilliance ensues. Second, it's interesting to see how people handle character development in such a confined space (really an extension of the first point). Third, if it's trash, it's over in a minute.
Some highlights: The first short was set in the Katrina-ravaged South. A man hires two others (who are in straights financially) to gut his house. He screws them over repeatedly, the two guys end up resorting to violence. The climax shot is the trailer the guy lives in with his wife, and you can hear the sounds of struggle and screaming which continues as the two guys run away. The final shot--the guys shuffling home, the main one just crying. It was unsettling, in a good way (I think): it was an interesting exploration of the things that could lead a person to violence. It might have excused it--and that's what I'm chewing on right now, was that ok? But what do you do when you're trying your best to get by and the infrastructure isn't working for you and you're trying your best to do good but you are cut off at every turn? What's left to do?
Also, Dennis. The story of a socially dysfunctional body-builder. Dennis calls a girl to go out to dinner, we meet his overprotective mom who tries to guilt him into not going, he goes anyway, the girl ends up convincing him to drink a little and they're dancing at a friends' house. He runs (rides his bike) home where his mom guilts him for going and drinking. Last scene: he asks his mom if he can sleep in her bed. She says yes and "you remind me so much of your father" (Amanda: Freud just wet his coffin). And I usually don't dig the painfully awkward thing, and this was painfully awkward. There's a moment where the girl is dancing with him and all the pain and distance of the human experience is there: not being able to connect with people, being judged on just one aspect of yourself, manipulation and control. In it's simplicity of theme it was really universal-feeling.
There were a couple other that were good, and a couple that were just awful (so much so that Faux-hawk did all she could to engage me in conversation to distract) and kind of gratuitously so.

So a thought. I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about people who have made really bad decisions. The shorts program was an interesting culmination of it. I've also spent the last couple of weeks with Cormac McCarthy who spends a lot of time with characters who have made so many bad decisions (murder, incest, necrophilia) that it's a challenge to relate to them. What McCarthy does really well, though, is invite you into their lives to see their side of the story.
I like this in theory. In theory it seems like working to relate to people who are different than you would be a great exercise in empathy. But in delving into the ambiguities that define the worlds of these characters I find myself in this darker place than I'm fully comfortable. McCarthy's Child of God, for instance, follows Lester through trauma, to social ineptitude to necrophilia to serial murder+necrophilia. McCarthy challenges his audience with the question is Lester a child of God? He asks us to see him completely, to relate to him, and to see then if we feel comfortable judging. And I don't. I think the strength of McCarthy's characters is attested to by the fact that they're bad'ns, but still human and loveable. Back to my point, though, in delving into the challenges of these characters I become acutely aware of my own shortcomings. And not in a positive way either. I guess the point is this: I feel drawn down by all of this ambiguity-surfing and I'm not sure why that is or what it says. Do I stop thinking about the exceptions to the rule? Do I write myself off as a softy and give up McCarthy?
Phil said something about being a relating reader versus being a resisting reader--and is that the issue here? I take these things too much to heart and I should put some distance between myself and the things I'm encountering? A sorting of ideas.

Last one today: on chivalry

Boswell opening a jug of apple juice because I couldn't.
My neighbor offering to run my garbage can across the street to catch the garbage truck and when we didn't catch it taking it back to my house so I wouldn't have to.
The guy at the gas station tonight opening the door for me.

Sometimes men doing nice things inexplicably makes my day. (When women do it it also makes my day. Why do I compulsively feel the need to make this gender-equal? Meh.) Anyway. Thanks you guys.

A note on the weather

It is snowing like some ice volcano exploded and the ice-ash is drifting incessantly. It's cold enough that snow is drifting, not melting or ice packing, but drifting like sand. It reminds me of the corioliss wind, from Dune (completely a nerd), which on the desert planet of Dune eats flesh from bone in windstorms. It's windy and snowing like that.

Good Will Hunting

The first time I watched this film was long ago and outside and it was edited. Last night none of those things were true and I really loved it. I want to rip it apart and point to manipulations of all sorts, but mostly it just made me want to be a better and more understanding and more brilliant person and to love more.
Specifically this: every movie should have a car scene. That scene that's filtered blue because it's dawn and everyone is quiet and looking out the window and the camera cuts from friend to friend to friend--maybe one is asleep or something--and Eliot Smith is playing in the background. Every movie should have one of these because there's something so calm about that pre-day quiet and so intimate about sharing a car together and not talking at all. And even though it's intimate, everyone is alone still. And I think that is captured really perfectly on film--the together but alone, and you don't get into anybody else's head overmuch, and the beauty of the light and quiet. And maybe instead of every movie having one so it gets to be a cliche, the movies that do have them should be awarded a medal of some sort and/or a special place on my shelf.
Death Cab gets extra points for writing a song about it.

Also: what happened to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck? Remember that Oscar's night and they cleaned up and were the hottest thing in Hollywood? They took their moms? What happened? Is this selling out? I think that Damon has done some pretty good stuff: the Bourne series was fun and he was good in Ocean's. Affleck was good as Jack Ryan, no? once? I think that all that's left for him, though, is to train his voice into resonant and stately and grow up to be Alec Baldwin--who is the only other actor I know of who compares for greasiness and for Jack Ryan-ness.
But I would've liked to believe in these kids. In young talent that does great things and grows into something greater.

Driving a red-orange car into the red-orange sunset.

Musica

Today I was walking home from school with Stella the ipod. I was all bundled and cold and my backpack was heavy, but I'm so content with my life right now. So I was happy. As I was passing behind the indoor tennis courts Valenica by the Decemberists comes on and suddenly I was pulled back from the frigid winter to the first week of last fall semester. Also walking home, though then it was oppressively hot and I was not as optimistic about my just-beginning semester and I was in love with a boy who I'd been very unfair to and wasn't sure how it was going to end. Valencia though, Valencia pulled me out of my funk and I waited for the lights to change and basked in the heat and exhaust and danced a little in my head. The Decemberists which he gave me actually with a warning: you will love them or hate them. Then Sons and Daughters which was icing on the cake and left me overbrimming with hope.

The stickiness of songs. Last winter it was Penelope by Pinback. I was walking from my interview with Penny my boss. She'd told me that I was getting a promotion and a raise and I loved my classes and almost almost over another boy and I was walking down the stairs in the atrium and Penelope was perfect.

This summer: The whole of Negotiations and Love Songs. Riding my bike to campus from Orem
Italy: St. Judy's Comet, the Cinque Terra on the first night in a sweeet hotel upgrade; Sink to the Bottom, Lucca walking frantically to a loud and trendy internet cafe (Amanda was sleeping on the grassy top of the medieval wall);
3rd Grade basement: Bohemian Rhapsody and Save the Best for Last (Vanessa Williams) :)
9th Grade: Going the Distance, first assembly
10th Grade: Truly, Madly, Deeply; Jason Fuller
Sophomore year: The Bends at 3 am
Winter '03: Amy Mann, The Bends, reading until I was nauseated on a wicker chair in an overheated basement
Paris: Hail to the Thief in my hostel bed
Junior year: Beulah, washing dishes or walking home in the dark
Ajapniak: Breath of Heaven, lying in bed on a P-day--turning point #1
Summer '06: Californication. Really just the Chili Peppers in general (though Roadtripping was Micah from the summer of my Freshman year and Under the Bridge is 3rd grade basement)
Christmas '06-7: Lina's mix, riding up 9th east on her bike (to check proofs)

So.