Of Font and Film

The New Obstacles

2011-05-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

All you need to make a romance is a guy, a girl, and some obstacles.

Obviously, there’s a bit more to it than that, particularly if it is to be done well, but I’m playing off of Jean-Luc Godard’s famous comment that “all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun,”

I began thinking about true love’s obstacles after watching “Bright Star” and “Romeo and Juliet” on the same day.

“Bright Star” is Jane Campion’s 2009 film based on the last three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne.

The version of “Romeo and Juliet” I watched, my favorite Shakespeare adaptation and one of my favorite all-time films, is Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 masterpiece staring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.

The many obstacles to love faced by the most famous teenage lovers in history are well known—their star-crossed connection doomed from the jump because their only love sprang from their only hate, their secret marriage, Romeo’s killing of Juliet’s cousin, Juliet’s forced marriage to another man, and so on and so on until they are both dead. As obstacles go, these aren’t at all bad. Not at all.

Of course those of John Keats and Fanny Brawne are pretty impressive too. The two are of different classes in a time when that kind of thing really mattered. He couldn’t afford to marry, couldn’t support himself, let alone a wife. And finally, he catches his death of cold and is sick for a lengthy period and then, well, what the movie.

I found “Bright Star” moving and passionate, smart and romantic. Jane Campion is a fantastic director and, as usual, she has made a stunningly beautiful film.

This was the first time I’ve seen “Romeo and Juliet” in HD and it was exquisite. The forty-three year old film holds up extremely well. As far as I’m concerned there will never be a better Juliet than teenaged Olivia Hussey. I first saw the film when I was maybe eight or ten and was so moved by it that I was sick for days afterwards.

Both “Romeo and Juliet” and “Bright Star” are intensely romantic and tragic, and as in the case of our own epic adventures, death has the final word. And though I believe as the “Song of Songs” says that “love is as strong as death,” as far as we know and as far as we can see it is the insurmountable obstacle of this life and, therefore, its loves.

Classic love stories have classic obstacles—cultural taboos, such as class, caste, money, power, race, religion, gender roles, sexual orientation, etc.—powerful enough to keep all but the strongest soul mates from their fates.

But what do we have today? What possible credible obstacles do modern members of educated, liberal democracies have? For many of us, the dragons of class, race, religious, sexual, and financial impediments have been slain. What’s left?

What are the new obstacles?

As enjoyable and inspiring and moving as I found the two films, I found myself thinking more about the new modern obstacles and concluded that in the absence of outward, societal obstacles and taboos, we have created our own, largely internal ones for the narratives inside our heads and the postmodern stories we tell and live.

The new Capulets and Montagues and cultural taboos are neuroses and narcissism, ambivalence and the tyranny of too many choices. External demons have become inner ones. We don’t have impediments as much as issues. Abandonment issues. Daddy issues. Mommy issues. Commitment issues. And on and on issue ad infinitum.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence we have these now that we don’t have the others.

Newfound freedom causes a vacuum that the insecure rush to fill.

Most modern romances, with the exception of Richard Curtis’s brilliant “Notting Hill” which was about the new and very modern obstacle of celebrity, are more about ambivalence than much of anything else, about self-involved characters who are afraid, who really don’t want relationships. Sure, they want sex, they want interaction, but not intimacy, not strings, not entanglement, not love, not commitment. And I think this is a case of art imitating life, of our modern stories reflecting our modern condition, of avoidance and ambiguity, of fear and ambivalence, of a new level of self-centeredness, of external obstacles being replaced by internal issues, whether real, imagined, or invented that net the same result—the tragic thwarting of love. But it seems far more significant and substantial when the obstacle is that of an entire repressed culture than a character merely being unable to make up her mind.

My Not-So-Guilty Pleasure

2011-04-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

The film editor of Crime Spree Magazine, Jeremy Lynch, asked me to contribute an essay to a series he’s running about guilty pleasures.

After I agreed to do it and began to think about it, I realized I don’t really have any. Guilt, like shame and fear and envy and hate, is a negative, mostly useless emotion. I experience remorse when I realize I’ve been wrong (which is often) and do my best to take responsibility for it, repent, and attempt to rectify the situation. But I associate guilt with feelings produced by cultural and parental programming, voices of shame inside us that don’t lead to change, but only to continual condemnation.

I’m in no way saying I never feel guilt. I do—even the negative, waste-of-time kind. But I do my best to identify it and eighty-six it as quickly as possible.

I live a very deliberate life—one, as much as possible, from my soul, by my design, based on my callings and convictions, not those of the culture around me. In this, I feel a deep kinship to Emerson, attempting to be and not conform, to, as he said, “Be, and not seem.”

Given this, and my conviction that, as Emerson said, “genuine action will explain itself,” I try neither to do anything because of how it looks or apologize for anything I do—and this includes movies. But, when thinking of guilty pleasures two genres come to mind—romance and horror.

I don’t feel guilty about the films I enjoy in either genre because I’m very selective, but both genres seem to have an inordinate amount of inanity and insipidity, movies deserving of the guilty pleasure moniker.

For my not-so-guilty “guilty pleasure,” I choose a new horror movie.

Last Thursday I drove over and took my soon to be twenty-one year old daughter to the midnight showing of “Scream 4.”

And you’re thinking, surely I should feel guilty about that, right? Well, I don’t. Not even a little. And here’s why: Not only is “Scream 4” a smart, funny, self-conscious, suspenseful meta-art masterpiece, but well-made suspense-based horror movies are something I’ve used to connect with my daughter since her early adolescence when I had to tell her what parts to close her eyes during.

In the fourth “Scream” installment, Sidney Prescott, now the author of a self-help book, returns home to Woodsboro on the last stop of her book tour. Unfortunately, Sidney’s appearance also brings about the return of Ghostface, putting Sidney, her old friends, Gale and Dewey, along with her teenage niece Jill and her friends, in danger.

I don’t care for horrific or shocking images, don’t like to be subjected to what has come to be known as the torture porn. But I do love suspense—the art of “Psycho,” the German Expressionism and relentless tension of the original “Halloween”—the Hitchcockian brand of anxiety that causes an audience to forget to breathe. And I appreciate smart, well-written scripts. “Scream 4” has a bit of both of these—along with humor and hipness to spare.

Like the original, and to a lesser extent the other two sequels, “Scream 4” works on a lot of levels, but is perhaps at its best when exploring genre. It not only looks at horror genre conventions in general, but at the micro sub-genre of “Scream” itself. At one point I thought, I’m sitting in a theater watching a movie in which kids inside a movie are watching a movie based on a movie based on a book based on a movie—and in the process the characters are not only talking about the other movies, but the one they’re in.

If you like smart, hip, fun, suspenseful horror with all of the pleasure and none of the guilt, treat yourself to “Scream 4.”

The Pursuit of Happiness

2011-04-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

“All happiness is in the mind.”

I found this bit of wisdom in my fortune cookie as I was contemplating the elusiveness and evanescence of happiness—partially because of certain circumstances and situations in my own life and partly because of the thought-provoking second act of “Into the Woods,” which I had the privilege of seeing at Gulf Coast State College this weekend.

The production was masterfully directed by the Rosie O’Bourke , skillfully conducted by Rusty Garner, and performed by some incredibly well-trained students in the school’s extraordinary program.

The second act of Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant musical opens with every character, all of whom are taken from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, having gotten what they wanted, what they wished for—all of them in the midst of living happily ever after.

Of course, there’s a dissatisfaction beneath their seeming happiness as dissonant as the music accompanying them.

The entire production they’ve been in pursuit of happiness, of what they each thought would make them happy, and now they have it and they’re learning a lesson so true it’s a cliché among clichés—true happiness isn’t getting what you want, but wanting what you have.

The prince was far happier pursuing perfection than possessing it. Cinderella realizes there’s a world of difference in wanting a ball and wanting a prince.

Where does happiness come from? What is it?

Some seem to think it’s found in the comfort, freedom, and security money affords.

Some say it’s to be found in more spiritual pursuits.

Others, that it’s found in finding a mate—a soul mate to share everything with—including the oneness and nirvanaic oblivion of sex.

Some say it comes from non-attachment, from letting go of everything, of only being fully present in the present moment. But as two characters that break their vows and give themselves to each other discover, even living in the moment can be defensive and over-determined. As the peasant woman points out following her tryst with and abandonment by the prince, “But if life were only moments, then you'd never know you had one.”

There’s not much we can do about the pain involved in life, but much of how much we suffer over it is up to us. Suffering takes place when our minds demand for things to be different than they are. Acceptance is the key that unlocks peace. Peace is the doorway that leads to happiness. And, as my fortune so wisely pointed out, this all takes place inside of us. The serenity prayer says it all. We find true harmony and contentment when we truly let go of those things we have no control over.

At the moment I broke open my cookie and withdrew its timely message, the unhappiness of a few close friends was lodged in my solar plexuses like the broken tip of a blade. One definition of love is that the happiness of others is essential to your own. So even when we’re happy—or would be—the unhappiness of those we’ve invited into our hearts can bring great unhappiness crashing down on top of us.

When’s the last time you were truly happy? Probably wasn’t the result of having everything you wanted. Wasn’t because the world suddenly became a kind and loving place.

I’m reminded of the line from “The Two Jakes,” the underrated sequel to “Chinatown.” When Kahn asks Jake if he’s happy, Jake responds, “Who can answer that off the top of their head?” “Someone who’s happy,” Kahn replies.
Embrace the pursuit. Be grateful for the struggles and soul-deepening difficulties of life.

True happiness comes from meaning—having meaningful lives, from being connected and contributing, from having meaningful relationships and meaningful work. It’s hard to get much happier than having a purpose, feeling a sense of calling about what we do, and sharing it in profound ways with others. This is love. This is happiness—or at least its pursuit, and as the characters of “Into the Woods” all too soon and too late discovered, the pursuit of happiness is happiness itself.

2011-04-13T23:05:00.002-07:00

This past weekend, I spoke at a writers’ conference in Fort Walton Beach with one of my publishers. Toward the end of our session, while taking questions from the audience, one of the attendees told us he had been writing for ten years and had only received rejections. He then asked us what was wrong with the publishing industry, why was it so broken it couldn’t see there was money to be made from his books, adding that he knew the only way to get published was to know somebody, to have an “in,” an unfair advantage.

At the conclusion of the session, I spent some time talking to the keynote speaker of the conference who had slipped in about half way through our presentation. He is truly a fantastic writer, a bestseller, and a great guy. He is also someone who not only teaches the craft of writing, but continually works to improve his own.

As we talked, he mentioned how, when he first started writing, he wrote four novels over ten years and couldn’t get any of them published. He shared with me how he didn’t give up, how he worked hard and learned his craft, and how it paid off with his fifth novel—the one that launched his brilliant career.

He didn’t give up, he worked hard, didn’t make excuses, and he broke through, got published, and has done very well. Unlike the angry young man that has yet to attract the attention of an agent, the successful writer didn’t blame his failure on a corrupt, nepotistic system.

I have a lot of writer friends (lots of friends working in all the arts) and not one, not a single one—was helped because they knew someone. They’ve worked hard, paid a price, and earned everything they’ve ever received.

Later in the weekend, I had the privilege of observing the work of and talking to a visual artist. She is a working artist, making a living and her way in the world by living the artists’ life. We spoke about the romantic notion some people have surrounding art and its creation. She, like the best and most productive artists I know, is living an unassuming life dedicated to creating, to improving, and to supporting her work the best way she knows how. She doesn’t have a huge studio or expensive equipment. She has a table—a dining room table. And on it, she makes amazing art. And she does this day after day, week after week, year after year.

Both artists—the bestselling writer and the successful visual artist—are living the artist’s life, one of continual creation, humility, evolution, overcoming self-doubt and drama and criticism with the dignity of discipline and dedication. They continue to produce good work because they work hard. They don’t merely strike the pose of an artist or talk about art. They work hard to create it.

Living an artistic life is like living any kind of life. There are no shortcuts. Hard work and humility are more important than appearances and connections. Imagination, creativity, and dedication are more important than talent and intelligence. And attitude and approach are more important than anything else.

Crying Out of the Depths

2011-03-31T16:27:00.001-07:00

Nothing captures cries of the soul quite like poetry.

Cries of longing, cries of ecstasy, cries of agony, cries of love, cries of despair, cries from the depths.

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

Poetry is the language of love and lovers—and the God who is love, whose very essence and being is love, the one from whom all love issues. Because of this, in the best of poetry it is difficult to discern whether the lover being lavishly loved in verse is human or divine—and in the very best, it’s impossible.

This is nowhere more evident than in the work of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, who 800 years after his death is the bestselling poet in America and Afghanistan.

Rumi’s ecstatic utterances are spiritual and sensual, earthen and eternal—effervescent with eroticism. He exhorts us to . . .

Be foolishly in love,
because love is all there is.
There is no way into presence
except through a love exchange.
If someone asks, But what is love?
answer, Dissolving the will.

He insists we . . .

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.

We should do this because . . .

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.

And reminds us that . . .

*Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

Are the above lines about a human or divine lover? Is there a difference? If we perceive them properly, don’t all loves and lovers ultimately become sacraments, vessels through which the divine loves us, through which we love the divine?

Love opens us, causes us to bloom into our best selves, not only dissolving our wills but all illusions of separation, leading us into oneness. When lovers become one, they are not just one with one another, but will all things.

*With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains
In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.
They say there is a window from one heart to another
How can there be a window where no wall remains?

Of all the people translating Rumi into English, I most highly recommend the poet Coleman Barks. A wonderful poet in his own right, Mr. Barks translations of Rumi’s work burn with a fire that scorches the soul. Recently, I have been reading and rereading “Rumi: Bridge to the Soul,” but I also recommend, “The Essential Rumi,” “The Soul of Rumi,” and “Rumi: The Book of Love”—all beautifully rendered by Coleman Barks.

So the next time you find your soul crying out of the depths in ecstatic agony, I suggest you invite Rumi and Coleman to join you.

all verse translated by Coleman Barks except
* translated by Shahram Shiva

Lincoln Lawyer Rolls into Theaters

2011-03-21T20:34:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago, Michael Connelly sat beside an attorney at a baseball game who told him he operated out of his car—that with forty-plus courthouses in LA, mobility was more important than anything else.

That was all it took for Michael’s mind.

I used to think Michael Connelly had the mind of a reporter and the soul of a novelist, but the more I think about it, I’d say he has the mind and the carefully honed craft of a professional reporter and the soul of a lonely jazz sax player in a small out-of-the-way bar in the middle of the night. The former shows in his excellent plotting and satisfying stories, the latter, in flourishes—riffs if you will—scattered throughout his books, observations and insights about the city of angels and demons and the angles and demons who inhabit it. This is most true of his Harry Bosch series, but also shines through in his first Mickey Haller book, “The Lincoln Lawyer”—now a film starring Matthew McConaughey.

Mickey Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence — it's about negotiation and manipulation.

A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney's dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career.

Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal — this time to save his own life.

The movie is good—always entertaining, often engrossing—and I highly recommend it. It’s best where it’s most faithful to Connelly’s excellent novel, weakest where it strays—particularly in the ending, where a riveting climax in the book is inexplicably made more pedestrian in the movie. Still, all and all the movie is one of the best things at your local movie house at the moment, faithfully capturing the gritty city—the sprawling slum where pretty people do ugly things.

The film also provides McConaughey with his best role in a long time—to which he responds with his best performance since maybe he played another defense attorney in John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill.”

See the film, but more importantly, read the book it was based on—and for other entertaining legal thrillers with more twists and turns than Mulholland Drive, check out all of Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller books: “The Lincoln Lawyer,” “The Brass Verdict,” “The Reversal,” and “The Fifth Witness.”

Each of these, like every Michael Connelly book, is like a trip led by a brilliant, trusty old tour guide whose night job is jazz musician.

Arise My Love

2011-03-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

“The Adjustment Bureau,” which has moments reminiscent of “The Matrix” and “Dark City,” is at heart a romance far more than sci-fi flick. In fact, its use science fiction and fantasy elements only serve as obstacles for its lovers and as catalysts for philosophical explorations of fate and free will, ambition and amorousness.

As I sat in the theater watching the lovers fight for their fate, battle forces beyond them, passages from The Song kept echoing through my mind—as did “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” another film that brought to mind The Song.

The Song (or Song of Songs) is a book of Egyptian love poetry found in the heart of the Hebrew Bible. It’s provocative and profound, sensual and sexual, powerfully capturing both the desires of lovers and the hostility of others to them and their love.

The world is hostile to love and lovers. It has been ever thus.
In The Song, the lover calls to her beloved saying:

Arise, my love,
my fair one, and come away;
for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

She has been searching the city for her lover and experienced firsthand just how cruel the heartless townsmen can be:

I run out after him, calling,
but he is gone.
The men who roam the streets,
Guarding the walls,
Beat me and tear away my robe.

The lovers only hope is to flee to the countryside, to find a garden so they can be alone—away from the callous, commerce-driven city, away from those who find love, superfluous, frivolous, worthless.

Lovers retreat into one another—not only because each is the other’s first best sanctuary but because there is often no other safe place.

As Rumi puts it:

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.

This is some of what I was thinking as David Norris chased Elise Sellas and agents of the adjustment bureau chased them both through the city.

On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Matt Damon) meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt)—a woman like none he's ever known. But just as he realizes he's falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart.

David learns he is up against the agents of fate itself—the men of the adjustment bureau—who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path…or risk everything to defy fate and be with her.

Lovers facing obstacles to be together may be the oldest plot in the history of story—or at least second behind adventure tales of the hunt around cave fires. But the obstacles—whether agents from the adjustment bureau or mundane things far less dramatic—aren’t just conflict-producing plot points but examples of art imitating life. Most lovers know only too well just how difficult it is to make love stay.

And what of choosing a lover, choosing to love or not? Or any number of other decisions we make, or think we do, every day? Do we have free will? Are we truly free? In the world of the movie, we’re not. Unseen forces influence and adjust. It’s an interesting notion. Even a nonconformist iconoclast like me often questions how free I really am. And you don’t have to believe in fate or full blown determinism to see how way leads to way, how every choice limits subsequent choices, how our paradigms and worldviews and cultures and educations and families and religions, like the agents of the adjustment bureau, exert enormous, often unseen influence on us.

One of the more intriguing questions raised by the film concerns coupling and accomplishment, happiness and ambition. Does being in a fulfilling relationship cause us to be less driven, to do less with our lives? Does love makes us lose our edge? Fill a crevice without which we fill with other often obsessive pursuits and passions? David is told that if he and Elise become each other’s neither will live up to their considerable potential, that to become her lover means forfeiting the white house and the opportunity to change the world.

This is something I’ve wondered about nearly as long as I can recall—am I limited as an artist by my happy childhood and love-filled life?

Perhaps a better question is so what? So what if David and Elise do less in the world? So what if the mundane aspects of life together make them more mundane as people? I’m not convinced it does—or has to—but so what if it does? What of love? What of what it produces in our souls, the mark is leaves on us that is anything but mundane? Isn’t that worth the white house and any number of accomplishments? And what if love is all there is? What if love and lover are all—everything and anything else a distraction, an illusion, a poor substitute?

Again, Rumi:

Be foolishly in love
for love is all there is.

There is no way into presence
except through a love exchange.

Love and lover live in eternity.
other desires are substitutes
for that way of being.

In and Out

2011-03-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

As I write this, I’m watching the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, searching for inspiration, hoping something said in an acceptance speech or a scene played from last year’s most honored films will spark an idea for this week’s column.

And it worked.

But not like I imagined (imagine that).

Several ideas came. And went. Like falling flakes in too-warm weather, nothing stuck.

At one point, a friend IM’d me on Facebook and asked what I was doing. When I told her, she began to offer suggestions for what I might write about—most of them far better than my own thoughts. But, again, not one of the many wonderful seeds she was sowing took root.

And so, with a deadline looming, which of course they always do, I had many, many ideas, but not one that felt right for this column.

Until . . .

I began to muse about the differences between ideas and inspiration.

I have ideas all the time—lots and lots of them; many before I ever started watching the Oscars—ideas for columns, novels, movies, short stories and a host of other random and unrelated things. But in the way only one of the thousands of acorns that rain down from an enormous oak becomes itself an oak, few ideas are ever more than that—ideas.

Ideas are easy. Execution is the thing.

From the moment my first novel came out in the fall of 1997, I’ve had countless people want to give me their ideas for books—and my response is always the same. I can’t get to all of my own ideas. And if it’s your idea, it’s probably your book to write.

An idea is defined as “a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity; an opinion, conviction, or principle; a plan, scheme, or method; a notion; a fancy.”

This isn’t entirely unrelated to inspiration, but, in my experience, it’s different enough to make all the difference in the world.

Inspiration is defined as “stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity; an agency that moves the intellect or emotions or prompts action or invention; a sudden creative act or idea, that is inspired; divine guidance or influence exerted directly on the mind and soul of humankind; the act of drawing in, especially the inhalation of air into the lungs.”

These definitions get at part of what I think is the biggest difference between an idea and inspiration.

An idea remains a thought or concept in the mind, while inspiration stimulates us beyond thought and feeling into activity.

Ideas are involved, of course.

Everything begins with an image, a thought, an idea—but, if inspiration, this is truly just the beginning. An idea can be a seed for inspiration, but inspiration moves us beyond the idea—the seed sprouts.

There’s an alchemical process involving passion, maybe even obsession , that transforms an idea into an action or causes some ideas to be inspired, while others aren’t (or aren’t yet), and I no more understand it than any of the great, thrilling, humbling, inspiring mysteries of existence. But it is inspiring—inspiration itself inspires.

We can ponder ideas, but inspiration propels.

And though inspiration is a mystery—utterly beyond us and out of our control, we can court it.

I pursue and woo my muse with an earnest relentlessness akin to madness of a sort only certain types of obsessed lovers can fathom—spending my mornings and midnights trying to seduce her.

I fill my life with people and things I find inspirational—art and artists; books and writers; music, fun, friends, soulful sinners and saints, lovers, thinkers, characters, and kind, compassionate people.

My writing room, the space I spend more time in than any other, is filled with thousands and thousands of books, with photographs and paintings, with images and icons, with gifts and mementos. Often, particularly when I’m writing, the room flickers in candlelight, as incense and instrumental music floats around.

But none of this guarantees inspiration. It’s just preparation and invitation—invocation of a type not unlike religious devotion.

I never know what will inspire a column. Sometimes something in a mediocre movie will provoke a thought that blossoms, while a fine film or book, though inspiring in itself, offers me no way in, no tunnels, no hooks, nothing that sticks to grey cells, nothing that penetrates the soil of soul.

The same applies to all my creative endeavors—from novels to nature photography—and to nearly all of life.

If I don’t know when or from where inspiration will come, I can but be ready at all times. I’m not, of course, but I attempt to be prepared, to be open, to look and listen, to seek and woo.

In this way, the writing life, like the creative life, like the soulful life, is like the best and wisest life any of us can lead. Hone our sensitivity and receptivity, be diligent in our preparation and searching, learn to listen, learn to live the Buddha’s awakened life, for we never know when the still small voice inside us will speak, when our muse will tickle our ear with soft whispers, when the wind or a wren might have a message for us.

As Frederick Buechner so extraordinarily and eloquently puts it, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Ultimately, inspiration is a mystery, but it’s as basic to our nature as breathing (the very act the word comes from)—drawing in and letting out. In and out. In and out. Just breathe. Breathe in the universe in each inspiring inhalation. This is meditation. This is inspiration. This is love. This is life. In and out. In and out. Removing any obstruction, all impediments, we open our hearts and minds, our souls and spirits, to the Mystery. In and out. In and out.

String Theory

2011-01-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

I’m always interested in the emergence of similar themes in movies—not trends that have an innovator and imitators, but films released so closely together it seems their creators were having the same dream.

Two recent films exploring the same issue (namely, is it possible for a man and a woman to have a purely sexual relationship?) are “Love and Other Drugs” and “No Strings Attached.” And though both approach the subject in different ways, with different characters and setups, they have enough in common to inspire a look at their underlying cultural significance. My guess is that for these two films that actually got the green light, hundreds of scripts representing variations on this same theme were tossed over many an agents transom.

So, why all this interest in sex only scenarios? Why is “friends with benefits” so popular? The primary reasons given for the purely sexual relationships in the movies are to avoid pain and complications. Is this a result of a generation reacting to their parents’ bad breakups? A defensive stance against the cost of caring and the inevitability of heartache? Is it the result of feminism? Porn? The masculinization of relationships? The moving onto the mainstream radar of alternate ways being and relating? I’d say it’s some of all the above.

Regardless of the relationship configuration—friends, lovers, partners, sex buddies, or any combination or variation—the two things that are unavoidable are the very things the couples in each movie are attempting to avoid. When we invite someone into our lives—in any capacity at all—we are inviting pain and complications. This is particularly true of friends and lovers.

The Buddha said life is suffering.

It’s part of life. It is life.

Jesus said compassion—the act of feeling what others feel, including their pain—is the most life God we can be.

To me, the relevant question is not “Is it possible to have a relationship that avoids suffering and complications?” but “Why would you want one?” Life is messy. We are the children of the big green slimy mama. We are complex beings fashioned in the likeness of God, the contradiction, according to the biblical book of Genesis, of lofty spirit and lowly dirt, animal and spiritual. Can we really join ourselves with other such creatures without übercomplications, heartache, friction, frustration, pain, joy, ecstasy, creativity, love, anger, challenge, difficulty, meaning, and madness? And if we could, why would we want to?

Nietzsche said, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness” and Francoise Sagan said, “I have loved to the point of madness / That which is called madness / That which to me / Is the only sensible way to love.” To me, both quotes resonate within this anonymous one: “A fool in love makes no sense to me. I only think you are a fool if you do not love.”

The gentle madness of love that makes fools of us all is not to be avoided, but sought. The fact that, as Shakespeare so insightfully noted, “the course of true love never did run smooth” is the whole point.

Of course, it’s human nature, or seems to be, to avoid suffering, to search for the situation that gives the most pleasure for the least personal cost. And that’s exactly what the characters of these two films attempt.

In “No Strings Attached,” Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) are life-long friends who almost ruin everything by having sex one morning. In order to protect their friendship, they make a pact to keep their relationship strictly "no strings attached." "No strings" means no jealousy, no expectations, no fighting, no flowers, no baby voices. It means they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, in whatever public place they want, as long as they don't fall in love. The questions become - Can you have sex without love getting in the way? And can their friendship survive?

In “Love and Other Drugs,” Maggie (Anne Hathaway) is an alluring free spirit who won't let anyone - or anything - tie her down. But she meets her match in Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal), whose relentless and nearly infallible charm serve him well with the ladies and in the cutthroat world of pharmaceutical sales. Maggie and Jamie's evolving relationship takes them both by surprise, as they find themselves under the influence of the ultimate drug: love.

Neither picture is great, and though “Love and Other Drugs” is the better film, both are entertaining, have moments of humor and insight, and really strong performances from their respective stars and supporting cast. As usual, Natalie Portman stands out—something she’s been doing since “Leon: The Professional” and all the way through “Beautiful Girls,” “Garden State,” “V is for Vendetta,” “Closer,” and again just recently in “Black Swan.”

But far more interesting than any performance or even the films themselves is the lengths we go to in order to avoid pain and heartache and complication and vulnerability and, yes, madness. We’re defending against the things we need most—loss of control, ego death, connection, compassion, need, want, desire, love.

Our souls need the complexity and difficulty and challenge and pain of relationships. We cannot become who we’re meant to be without them. The notion that we can have lovers with no strings or sex with no complications is a denial of the soul and assumes choosing who we love and get involved with is somehow a rational decision up to us, but as Rumi said, “Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” Our souls find each other, are drawn together by forces we can scarcely imagine, and our connections accomplish things within us we can’t begin to comprehend—and it doesn’t get much more complicated or stringy than that.

The Best One Wish to Change the World

2011-01-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

My religion, to the extent I have one, is compassion.

I’m not saying I live it out very often in any meaningful way. Only that I try to. That, to me, compassion is the highest of humanity, the ideal all truth aspires to.

Into a world, a culture, a religion centered in “be holy as God is holy,” Jesus taught and lived, “be compassionate as God is compassionate”—insisting that we can be no more like God than when we love enough to feel what another feels. And not just those who are like us or look like us or think like us, but even, especially, our enemies.

As a student of art, philosophy, and religion, I’ve found no better advice, no wiser counsel than “treat others as you would have them treat you.” And this is best and most consistently achieved through compassion, that process by which we open ourselves up to others—walk in their shoes, see the world from their view, feel with them what they feel, their joy and pain, frustration and futility, triumphs and tragedies becoming our own.

Given this, I was thrilled to discover that one of my favorite religion scholars and writers’ new book and project is about this very thing.

When Karen Armstrong, author and religion historian was awarded the TED Prize and asked to make “One Wish to Change the World,” she wished for compassion.

As far as I’m concerned there can be no better wish. If we lived in love, in compassion, actually put ourselves in the place of others, we could no longer close our hearts to them, no longer refuse to share the abundance we have with them. It would end hunger and arrogance and ignorance and violence and incivility and inhumanity and be the quickest route, the only route, to “on earth as it is in heaven.”

I’m so thankful TED chose Karen and Karen chose compassion.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The TED Conference, held annually in the spring, deals not only with technology, entertainment, and design, but also science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world.

The TED Prize is designed to leverage the TED community’s exceptional array of talent and resources. It is awarded annually to an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and, much more important, “One Wish to Change the World.” After several months of preparation, s/he unveils his/her wish at an award ceremony held during the TED Conference. These wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

Karen Armstrong created a Charter for Compassion, aided by the general public and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The charter was signed in November 2009 by a thousand religious and secular leaders.

Out of all this, her new book, “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life” was born. In it, she writes that while compassion is intrinsic in all human beings, each of us needs to work diligently to cultivate and expand our capacity for compassion. Here, in her straightforward, thoughtful, and thought-provoking book, she sets out a program that can lead us toward a more compassionate life.

When told she was being honored with the award, Armstrong wrote, “I knew immediately what I wanted. One of the chief tasks of our time must surely be to build a global community in which all peoples can live together in mutual respect; yet religion, which should be making a major contribution, is seen as part of the problem. All faiths insist that compassion is the test of true spirituality and that it brings us into relation with the transcendence we call God, Brahman, Nirvana, or Dao. Yet sadly we hear little about compassion these days. And it is hard to think of a time when the compassionate voice of religion has been so sorely needed. Our world is dangerously polarized. There is a worrying imbalance of power and wealth and, as a result, a growing rage, malaise, alienation, and humiliation that has erupted in terrorist atrocities that endanger us all.

Please consider reading “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life” and joining me in signing (and doing our best to live) the Charter for Compassion.

Charter For Compassion

“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women

• to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion;
• to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate;
• to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures;
• to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity;
• to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”

Walking In Another’s Shoes Whether They Fit or Not

2011-01-12T20:17:00.001-08:00

I wish we lived in a world of love—of justice and compassion—where there was no judgment, only acceptance and appreciation. If this is too much to ask for, I wish we lived in a world where people were not judged by the color of their skin or their sex or their religion or their sexual orientation, but by the content of their character. If this is too much to ask for, then I wish we lived in a world where ignorance and hatefulness and incivility were marginalized instead of celebrated, where people who practice such things were not promoted to the top of companies, voted into office, given radio and TV shows and book deals. If this, too, is too much to ask for then I at least wish those of us who disdain such things would not remain quiet, not give into the blusterous bullies and their benighted rhetoric, not sit in silence as the insecure haters make homophobic, sexist, or racists remarks, not stand idly by accepting injustice because that’s just the way the world works. As Dr. King said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

To all this, you may say that I’m a naïve dreamer. Perhaps. But I’m not the only one.

There’s King and Lennon, of course. And there’s also Philip Green—a highly respected writer who is recruited by a national magazine to write a series of articles on anti-Semitism in 1940s America in Elia Kazan’s “Gentleman’s Agreement.” Green (played by Gregory Peck) is not too hip on the idea at first, but then it occurs to him that since he’s new in town, he can pretend to be Jewish, and thus experience firsthand the realities of racism and prejudice, and write from that perspective. It takes very little time for him to experience bigotry. He soon learns the liberal-minded firm he works for doesn’t hire Jews and that his own secretary changed her name and kept the fact that she is Jewish a secret from everyone. Green soon finds that he won’t be invited to certain parties, that he cannot stay in certain ‘restricted’ hotels and that his own son is called names in the street. His anger at the way he is treated also affects his relationship with his fiancée, Kathy Lacy, his publisher’s niece and the person who suggested the series in the first place.

Of all the horrible injustices and inequities Green experiences, the most insidious is the silence Dr. King talked about, the gentleman’s agreement of those who say they are not anti-Semitic not to stand up against those who are. Of course, by their very refusal to take a stand they (and we) are part of the systemic oppression of the minority, the different, the other, that history gives dreadful witness to.

“Gentleman’s Agreement” deals with anti-Semitism, but the lessons of hate and tribalism in the film apply to all oppressed peoples and groups, particularly the powerless, the different, the disenfranchised minority.

“Gentleman’s Agreement” is a brave and poignant film—especially for 1947—and though I’m sure some will condemn it as polemical or didactic, I think it achieves a good balance between story and moral, never becoming preachy or patronizing. And it’s not bulky or heavy-handed in the way of 2004’s “Crash.”

Of all the brilliant achievements of “Gentleman’s Agreement,” perhaps the two most telling and terrifying are the way good, well-intentioned people contribute to the oppression of others by not raging against the machine, and the way certain people within oppressed groups attempt to assimilate and disappear, and resent those who don’t—both groups taking a dangerous “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach that requires denial and dishonesty.

Bigotry, prejudice, hate—any form of xenophobia, whether racism, sexism, classism, or homophobia—all come from the same little lizard brain place of fear that leads to tribalism, insecurity, and a warped sense of superiority.

I returned to “Gentleman’s Agreement” recently for what must be the fifth viewing because of an experience I had that was not unlike that of Philip Green.

When word got out that I refused to be married until my gay brothers and sisters enjoyed the same opportunities and equality, gossip began to spread and certain people assumed I was gay and began treating me differently. Speculation and gossip and condemnation have continued and let to some incivility and unkindness—and the entire experience made me feel like I was living my own little version of “Gentleman’s Agreement.”

I’m grateful for the experience, and its heightening of my experience of the film, which is rich and rewarding, reminding us that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.

“Gentleman’s Agreement” is filled with good people—actors, writers, filmmakers—doing something.

Several of the main players and the director of “Gentleman’s Agreement” were brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The two who refused to testify, John Garfield (who played Green’s best friend, Dave Goldman) and Anne Revere (who played Green’s mother) were added to the Hollywood Blacklist. Revere didn’t appear in another movie for twenty years and Garfield died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-nine after being called before the committee again—this time to testify against his wife.

Gregory Peck, my all-time favorite actor, for his choice of roles even more than his acting style and screen presence, was a good, principled man whose name was on Richard Nixon’s “enemies list.” Peck is Philip Green, Father Chisholm, Dr. Anthony Edwards, Joe Bradley, King David, and Atticus Finch—the very embodiment of the best of the characters he played.

Our failures of compassion say far more about us than those we’re prejudiced against. And compassion is the key—not pity that comes from a superior place, but a “feeling with,” putting ourselves in the place of others, experiencing what they experience, feeling what they feel. As another of Gregory Peck’s characters, Atticus Finch, says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” A Muslim proverb says, “To understand a person, you must walk a mile in her shoes whether they fit or not.” It’s exactly what Atticus Finch and Philip Green do, and what you and I can do every day if we will only be as willing and caring and open and brave as they are.

Dark Night of the Soul

2011-01-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

After a truly amazing year, for which I am deeply grateful, 2010 ended with a period of prolonged difficult and dark days for me.

I don’t mean to suggest that the rest of 2010 was without pain and disappointment and darkness. Just that there’s a difference between life’s ordinary slings and arrows and a true dark night of the soul—and over the past few weeks, I’ve been in the throes of the latter.

The experience is complex and multilayered—part circumstantial with identifiable causality, part inexplicable, utterly unmooring in its mysteriousness.

I can’t remember ever feeling as lonely or broken or empty for as long. It’s as if during the year’s final days, I’ve been experiencing a death of my own.

During this time of downness and darkness, of loss and loneliness, of pain and puzzlement, of melancholy and meaninglessness, I have attempted (and often failed) to be mindful and present, open and engaged, resisting the urge to bypass, short circuit, fix, or otherwise prematurely end the experience. I’ve tried to follow the wise advice of the Sufi mystic and poet, Hafiz, who wrote:

Don't
Surrender
Your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more
Deep.

It’s not easy, of course. Who relishes being lonely or cut deeply? But there is something about brokenness, about the crushing of the grapes of our being, something about spending a solitary, sleepless night at the place of pressing, the Gethsemane of our souls, that produces the most potent and profound wine. As Hafiz says:

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Hafiz words heal and inspire, but no one’s words have done more for me, have resonated more in me, that those of Thomas Moore.

Though he’s best known for, “Care of the Soul,” and I’ve benefited greatly from all his books, the two titles of his I find myself returning to most often are, “The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life” and “Dark Nights of the Soul”—the latter especially helpful in recent dark days.

A mentor and counselor to me in more ways than I can begin to express, Moore was a Catholic monk for twelve years and later became a psychotherapist, earning degrees in theology, musicology, and religion. His many books are at once accessible and abstruse.

His approach to life is one of soul. Through psychology and art and religion and myth and literature, he performs and teaches care of the soul—reminding us of its vital importance, exploring its dark depths, helping us view life in the light of its needs.

Gentle and wise, caring and compassionate, Moore’s revelatory work is revolutionary without being egocentric, heroic, or sentimental.

Truly shamanistic, Moore’s medicine offers a soothing salve while encouraging the embracing of soul-building darknesses and difficulties.
As he writes, “At one time or another, most people go through a period of sadness, trial, loss, frustration, or failure that is so disturbing and long-lasting that it can be called a dark night of the soul.

“If your main interest in life is health, you may quickly try to overcome the darkness. But if you are looking for meaning, character, and personal substance, you may discover that a dark night has many important gifts for you. Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference.”
In “Dark Nights of the Soul,” Moore examines life’s difficulties—such as the loss of a loved one or the end of a relationship, aging and illness, career disappointments—not as obstacles to be overcome, but as periods of incubation and positive opportunities to delve the soul’s deepest needs for healing and a new understanding of life’s meaning.

Moore goes on to say, “Many people think that the point in life is to solve their problems and be happy. But happiness is usually a fleeting sensation, and you never get rid of problems. Your purpose in life may be to become more who you are and more engaged with the people and the life around you, to really live your life. That may sound obvious, yet many people spend their time avoiding life. They are afraid to let it flow through them, and so their vitality gets channeled into ambitions, addictions, and preoccupations that don’t give them anything worth having. A dark night may appear, paradoxically, as a way to return to living. It pares life down to its essentials and helps you get a new start.

“Here I want to explore positive contributions of your dark nights, painful though they may be. I don’t want to romanticize them or deny their dangers. I don’t even want to suggest that you can always get through them. But I do see them as opportunities to be transformed from within, in ways you could never imagine. A dark night is like Dante getting sleepy, wandering from his path, mindlessly slipping into a cave. It is like Alice looking at the mirror and then going through it. It is like Odysseus being tossed by stormy waves and Tristan adrift without an oar. You don’t choose a dark night for yourself. It is given to you. Your job is to get close to it and sift it for its gold.”

C S Lewis said we read to know we’re not alone. This is no more true than of a book like “Dark Nights of the Soul” that speaks directly down into the deep, dark well of our most utter and complete aloneness.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a dark night of the soul, get Thomas Moore’s brilliant book so whether you go gentle into that good night or rage, rage against the dying of the light, you won’t do it alone. If you’re not experiencing a dark night of the soul, get the book anyway, so that when you do, you’ll be better equipped to receive the dark gifts offered by the experience.

The Tao of George

2010-12-30T08:25:00.000-08:00

There’s a reason why “It’s A Wonderful Life” is such an enduring film—and it’s probably not what you think.

It’s not just that certain copyright and licensing issues led to it airing every night on every station every holiday season for many years, making it as much a part of Christmas as trimming the tree and exchanging gifts.

It’s not just that it’s sweet or sentimental or so called Capracorn.

It’s not just that it’s an exceptionally written, perfectly acted and directed, inspiring and entertaining movie.

It’s the Taoist-like balance it achieves, the yin-yang of its light and darkness, the truth of human existence it captures and conveys.

Birthed out of failure, “It’s a Wonderful Life” began as a short story titled, “The Greatest Gift,” written by Philip Van Doren Stern, who, after failing to find a publisher for it, made it into a Christmas card, which he mailed to two-hundred family members and friends. Originally purchased by RKO Pictures as a vehicle for Cary Grant, three different scripts were written and rejected before the project was shelved and Grant went on to make the “Bishop’s Wife”—all of which led to Frank Capra getting involved and the success the film ultimately became. Of course, success is relative. This seminal, among-the-best-of-all-times movie was a box office failure when first released in 1946.

George Bailey is a small-town man whose life seems so desperate he contemplates suicide. He had always wanted to leave Bedford Falls to see the world, but circumstances and his own good heart have led him to stay. He sacrificed his education for his brother's, kept the family-run savings and loan afloat, protected the town from the avarice of the greedy banker Mr. Potter, and married his childhood sweetheart. As he prepares to jump from a bridge, Clarence, his guardian angel, intercedes; showing him what life would have become for the residents of Bedford Falls if he had never lived—a hellish existence in the greed-driven, dark, depraved Pottersville.

Clarence tells George, “See, you’ve really had a wonderful life.”

But has he?

As “wonderful” as George’s life is—particularly in its positive impact on others, it’s not all wonderful—or even good. There’s a price to pay for living in a small town—or any size place where you don’t fit in. There’s a price to pay for honesty and integrity, for a life lived in service to others and high ideals, a high price for not having a price. The biggest price George pays is an internal one, intellectual and spiritual, the anguish and frustration that comes from being awake, surrounded by those who slumber.

Appropriately black and white, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is profoundly Taoist in its push-pull of yin and yang. These two forces, and the interplay between them, arise out of emptiness—symbolized by the empty circle they are drawn into. George embodies, and is surrounded by, and is acutely aware of, light and dark, soft and hard, masculine and feminine, receptive and aggressive, but mostly the empty that is around and in and between all things. And it’s this balance of the lighter and darker sides of existence that elevate this film to greatness. Without the one, you’d have silly, sweet, sentimental swill. Without the other, you’d have only meaninglessness and darkness. But the two together achieve a complexity and profundity that so mirrors reality it gives rise to the notion that life can actually imitate art.

Many viewers seem to miss how truly dark the film actually is, but it’s this ingredient, this rich yinish quality that enables “It’s a Wonderful Life” to earn its inspiration and ending.

The film’s shadow side doesn’t just appear when Bedford Falls transforms into Pottersville. It’s been there all along—showing through the skein between realities, in the injustice and inequity, in the claustrophobia and frustration, in the way the rich and powerful oppress the poor and disenfranchised.

Perhaps more than an alternate reality, Pottersville is the same reality as Bedford Falls—only seen differently. George Bailey, a truly good, kind, and decent person projects a goodness and decency on the world he inhabits. To him, the town is Bedford Falls. Old Man Potter has always seen it as Pottersville. The rich and powerful always view the world as theirs—their right, their entitlement, their prize, their reward. Instead of Pottersville being the version of reality that resulted from George never being born, maybe it’s what happens when a good man like George finally allows the selfishness and brutishness and meaner aspects of lesser men to cloud his vision, when he gives up and gives in, quits fighting the good fight and turns the whole thing over to them.

The Tao is the way or path (a term used in a lot of the world’s great wisdom traditions). It is ancient. Ineffable. Unnamable (“the Tao that can be named is not the Tao”). And you don’t have to be Taoist to appreciate its universals truths or the wisdom of its most sacred text, the Tao Te Ching.

This way or channel is the flow of the universe. True fulfillment and serenity comes from living in harmony with it, walking the path. Like us, George spends much of his life fighting the path, stubbornly resisting the way, insisting he has a better way. Invariably, when he surrenders and begins to travel the way he glimpses his best self and begins to practice wei wu wei—doing without doing, actionless action, that in-the-zone, alignment with the Tao, where we, like water, flow in a stream of effortless action/in-action, yielding, becoming inseparable, indistinguishable from the creator and all of creation. Truly one.

But George went to some very dark places before aligning himself with the Tao, before giving in and becoming truly free.

Like religion and philosophy, we turn to art for meaning—and few films are as meaningful and as much about meaning as “It’s a Wonderful Life.” That an average George can make a difference, can have meaning by giving meaning to others gives us hope, challenges us to make a difference. Viewing the film is a religious experience for me. Profound. Transcendent. Trasformational. Watching it each year is a rite, a ritual, a memorial and remembrance.

For me, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is both inspirational and cathartic. It moves me like no other movie. I laugh and cry (a lot). I am George Bailey. I am small town. I have a small life. My Bedford Falls existence could easily be Pottersville if not for love, for art, for meaning, for family and friends. I’m on a quest, searching for meaning, attempting to walk the way. I want to make a difference in the world and doubt that I am doing much of anything that matters to much of anybody. George inspires me to give, to take the small gifts I’ve been given, like a few measly loaves and fish, and share them with others. It’s what Philip Van Doren Stern did with his story, “The Greatest Gift.” It’s what I’m attempting to do at this very moment by writing and giving away this column, for I believe what is written beneath the picture of George’s dad in his office: “All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away.”

The Most Wonderful Films of the Year

2010-12-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

What is it about Christmas movies?

I don’t mean Oscar contenders released during the holidays, but films in which Christmas is actually a character.

Why are the good ones SOOOO good?

What makes movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Love Actually” among my favorite films of all time, and why do I return to “The Holiday,” “The Family Stone,” “The Ice Harvest,” “This Christmas,” and “Home for the Holidays” time and time again—and not just in December?

I think it’s a number of factors really—many of which are the very ones that make this season the most wonderful time of the year.

There is much that is tired and trite, hollow, cynical, and sentimental about the holidays. Much cashing in. Sometimes the entire environment sounds as shallow and tinny as poorly recorded, overplayed Christmas music on small, cheap department store speakers. Too much of the season is about buying, spending, acquiring—and ridiculous reciprocation calculations (Should I get him a present? He’s probably gonna get me one. We’ve got to invite them to our party since they invited us to theirs, right?)

The crass commercialism of the holiday supposedly in honor of the impoverished peasant living among and fighting for the marginalized, subsistence, villagers and day laborers of First Century Palestine is, like so many things related to him, a most tragic irony.

What is bought and sold more than anything else during this season is us—our very souls.

And yet. And yet. In spite, of all these violent assaults on Jesus, all these adulterations and perversions of the meaning of his life, something sacred, something magic, something undeniable survives. This, more than anything else, demonstrates the true power of the man, his message, and the holiday that honors and celebrates his birth. That something of the ineffable, something of the transformational, something of the true spark of divinity survives the full on assault of the American capitalist religion is truly a Christmas miracle.

And the best Christmas movies embody this. They tap into the magic and they quiet all the clamor to capture the love.

Jesus dared to live love. His life (and too soon his death) was the result of his conviction that God is love, that God loves everyone equally and unconditionally. (It’s another tragic irony that the religion that rose up around him has all but lost this). Jesus’ radical, yet only-hope-for-humanity notion that God is not an angry, distant deity, but a present loving parent who loves us no matter what we do (or fail to, including living out love) survives in spite of the religion that bears his name’s insistence on being like every other religion. And it somehow survives Christmas, too.

Love survives.

We ignore, abandon, dilute, and contaminate love, and yet love remains. Mixing our needs and projections and illusions and neuroses and insecurities and attempts to control with love can’t kill love any more than mixing our greed and gluttony and selfishness and tribalism and sentimentality with Christmas can kill its spirit. We alter it to be sure—and what remains often bears little resemblance to love or Christmas—yet we can still glimpse love, still feel the meaning and magic beneath, above, around, and, on occasion, through the small tears in the fabric of the blanket of commercialism smothering Christmas.

The best of Christmas movies provide us with this glimpse of love, which is captured so brilliantly by Richard Curtis in the prologue to his Christmas masterpiece, “Love Actually.”

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there—fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge—they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion . . . love actually is all around.”

The characters in “Love Actually” or “The Holiday” risk and receive love, and it’s this not particularly dignified or newsworthy phenomenon that is a metaphor in microcosm for the macrocosmic love Christmas is meant to commemorate and celebrate.

Among the best movies ever made, “”It’s A Wonderful Life” is also about love at Christmas—about a good man who truly lives in love by turning his back on greed and selfishness and extending himself on the behalf of others (the textbook definition of love). It captures love on many levels—the love of a couple (George and Mary, “George Bailey I’ll love you to the day I die”), the love of family (both George’s home of origin and the one he and Mary build), the love of others, and community, and ultimately, the divine source of all love (which comes to George through Clarence and eventually others). This last is particularly important, and the meaning of Christmas—we experience God’s love through those others who are willing to be conduits of it for us; others experience God’s love through us when we are willing to undergo ego death, becoming empty of anything but love.

The best of Christmas movies, like the best of art and religion and philosophy, remind us of what really matters. They inspire us toward the best versions of ourselves and provide us with much needed perspective. They say, like all truth, that love, not status or money or power or presents or bills or public opinion, matters most of all, and, as Clarence wrote to George, “No man is failure who has friends.”

The End of the World As We Know It

2010-12-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

If the Philistines are at the gate of American culture, it’s on the inside.

We’re witnessing the end of an era, the twilight of American culture.

As a wise person once said, “America has become a storefront for a corporate mob.”

We are a culture of constant consumption, gluttons who mostly stuff ourselves with regurgitated entertainment devoid of anything meaningful or of lasting value. As social critic James Twitchell put it, “There is barely an empty space in our culture not already carrying commercial messages.”

So many things being sold to us. So much noise.

We live in a “systematic suppression of silence,” George Steiner said.

It’s the end of the world as we know it—and how do most of us feel? Just fine. At least we do as long as they keep us distracted, entertained, medicated, and consuming.

Morris Berman says in his book, “The Twilight of American Culture” that there are four factors present in the collapse of a civilization. Name one of them that doesn’t apply to us:

1) Accelerating social and economic inequality.
2) Declining marginal returns with regard to investment in organizational solutions to socioeconomic problems.
3) Rapidly dropping levels of literacy, critical understanding, and general intellectual awareness.
4) Spiritual death—the emptying out of cultural content and repackaging it into formulas.

In the same book, Berman writes, “We live in a collective adrenaline rush, a world of endless promotion/commercial bullshit that masks a deep systemic emptiness, the spiritual equivalent of asthma.”

Are we talking about the Roman Empire or the American one?

According to Sallust, Rome in 80 B.C.E. was a government controlled by wealth, a ruling-class numb to the repetitions of political scandal, and a public diverted by chariot races and gladiatorial shows.

Sounds like us to me. Our sickeningly greedy culture is of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. Too many are numb to and ignorant of everything that truly matters. And we are a public diverted by NASCAR, sitcoms, reality TV, transient, trashy novels, trite, tiresome, retread movies, extremist political pundits, and the pathetic freak show parade of celebrity culture—and I’m not even talking about the too-easy targets of Palin and Paris, The Situation and the Octomom, and Bush and Beck.

We celebrate ignorance and inanity and incivility—and we like it loud and obnoxious and arrogant.

Are we Philistines? Read the definition and decide for yourself— a smug, ignorant, especially middle-class person who is regarded as being indifferent or antagonistic to artistic and cultural values.

The problem isn’t the occasional consumption of cultural crap. It’s the steady diet of it—it’s not knowing it’s crap.

You may wonder what’s made me so cheery, why a hopeful, glass-half-full-guy like me has suddenly become a sandwich-boarded sidewalk seer wildly and wide-eyedly proclaiming the end is nigh.

Easy. It’s my front-row seat to the apocalyptic end of art and culture, justice and compassion. But the reason I’m ranting about it right now is an incident that happened last week in (of all places) New York at a place known for enlightening events—the 92nd Street Y.

This particular event was a conversation between Steve Martin, the writer and actor, and Deborah Solomon, who writes a weekly interview column for “The New York Times Magazine.”

About halfway through their conversation, a Y representative handed Solomon a note asking her to talk more about Martin’s career in show business and less about the art world, the subject of his latest novel, “An Object of Beauty.”

The following day, the Y sent out an apology for the event and the promise of a refund.

“The Y never told me what they wanted,” Solomon said, adding that Martin, a longtime friend, had asked her to conduct the interview, and that she determined that a conversation focused on the art world and his book seemed most timely and interesting. “Frankly, you would think that an audience in New York, at the 92nd Street Y, would be interested in hearing about art and artists. I had no idea that the Y programmers wanted me to talk to Steve instead on what it’s like to host the Oscars or appear in “It’s Complicated” with Alec Baldwin. I think the Y, which is supposedly a champion of the arts, has behaved very crassly and is reinforcing the most philistine aspects of a culture that values celebrity and award shows over art.”

And I couldn’t agree more.

Entertain us or we’ll whine and want our money back. Make us laugh, not think!

But the event and the response it received points out part of the problem. Steve Martin, who happens to be a good writer and storyteller, is a celebrity. His novels most likely get published and read because he’s a movie star. It seems to me that the very thing that gets him published and reviewed and read (or at least purchased), namely celebrity, is the very thing that came back to bite him in this instance. Celebrity culture sycophants wanted to hear not about art and literature, but mindless movie star trivia.

Celebrity books are a bane for novelists like me. Rare is the day that goes by that I’m not working hard to become a better writer, but because like Emily, I’m nobody, who are you? I send my books out into the loud, crowded world armed with only reviews and word-of-mouth. Recently, I was doing a signing in Tampa at a Barnes and Noble, for which a very modest crowd showed up, when the manager told me that just a few days before, the store couldn’t hold the huge throng that turned out for Tori Spelling’s new book.

Who knew Tori Spelling wrote? Let alone had more than one book out?

How should it make me feel that Tori Spelling, Brittany Spears, and Justin Beiber’s books outsell mine? (By a lot!)

Serious literature, fine film, great art—all still exist, but are too often buried under the loud, crass, kitsch, shallow, hollow, derivative drivel of consumertainment. We’ve blurred the lines between news and entertainment, between art and entertainment, between what truly matters and what matters not at all, and it’s making us trivial, silly people.

We pay for diversion, to be distracted, to keep from truly being moved or inspired or challenged, to fill the void with noise to keep ourselves from meditating on our mortality, from the time and space and silence required for serious thinking and reading and contemplating and the crafting of soul. And we’re doing it everywhere—not just in tiny Deep South towns, but in New York City.

Will you join me in the revolution? Let’s start the avalanche. Just because poison is being served doesn’t mean we have to eat it. When’s the last time you challenged yourself with a work of art? How long has it been since you refused to be bought or distracted or mesmerized into moronity?

Today’s the day. Turn off the TV. Turn your back on the insulting 3D idiocy at the Cineplex. Close the contrivance and crass manipulation of hyper-commercial novels. No longer submit to the artless assault of shallow entertainment. And begin your search for works that challenge and inspire, provoke and nurture, educate and entertain.

What Sven Birkerts said applies to all great art: “If literature survives at all, it is as a retreat for those who refuse to assimilate to American mass culture.”

Refuse to assimilate today! Crack open a good book and join me in a revolution that feels like an inspiriting monastic retreat.

Life is but a Dream

2010-10-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s sweet, sad, sublime, “Jack Goes Boating” is a small film about the biggest of things—things like love and loneliness and relationships and dreams and imagination and fear and betrayal and unforgiveness and life and death. It deals delicately with the beginning of one relationship and the deterioration and death of another.

Jack (Philip Seymour Hoffman—who also directs the film) and Connie (Amy Ryan) are two single people who on their own might continue to recede into the anonymous background of the city, but in each other begin to find the courage and desire to pursue their budding relationship. In contrast, the couple that introduced them, Clyde (John Ortiz) and Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), are confronting unresolved issues in their marriage.

Jack is a limo driver with vague dreams of landing a job with the MTA and an obsession with reggae that has prompted him to begin a half-hearted attempt at growing dreadlocks. He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend and fellow driver Clyde and Clyde’s wife Lucy.

The couple set Jack up with Connie, Lucy’s co-worker at a Brooklyn funeral home. Being with Connie inspires Jack to learn to cook, pursue a new career and take swimming lessons from Clyde so he can give Connie the romantic boat ride she dreams of. But as Jack and Connie cautiously circle commitment, Clyde and Lucy’s marriage begins to disintegrate. From there, we watch as each couple comes face to face with the inevitable path of their relationship.

The four characters who people “Jack Goes Boating” are isolated icebergs, adrift, bumping into one another, the bulk of their beings unseen, floating beneath the surface, each deeper and darker than they appear.

Jack seems simple, even slow, but he is guileless and deliberate. He, no less than Connie, Clyde, and Lucy, is wounded, suffering from insult and injury, but most of all from isolation.

Jack and Connie, at the very beginning of their relationship, bring into it the damage and baggage from their previous lives and relationships. Clyde and Lucy have not only this, but the open wounds they’ve inflicted on one another. Lucy tells Jack, “You’ve never been in a relationship. A lot happens. Lot of good things. Lot of things you wouldn’t wish on your enemy.” Lucy has hurt Clyde in ways she wouldn’t wish on her enemy, and though Clyde says he’s worked through them, there’s real, deep-seated pain just beneath his mask of near constant conviviality, just behind his kind eyes.

Perhaps more than anything else, “Jack Goes Boating” is about dreams. Dreaming—actually imagining a different reality, is the beginning of all things. “Jack Goes Boating” vividly and profoundly demonstrates the connection between imagination and accomplishment, between visualization and manifestation, and shows how closely and intimately related to love they are.

On the shelf beside Connie’s bed, half hidden by a picture frame is a word carved from wooden letters affixed to a stand. Only three letters of the word are visible, but I’m certain the word is dream. It sits there next to where Connie dreams, where Jack and Connie lie as they softly say what they’re looking for in their “dream” partner.

Jack and Connie dream of lives different than the ones they have—lives less lonely, lives lived in love with a loved one.

What is required for such lives? The desire, of course, then the dream—the imagining, the visualizing—and then the leap, the choice to live in love not fear, the action that enables love to conquer, then vanquish, fear.
It all begins with the thing Einstein said was far more important than intellect. Imagination.

In the myth of the Tower of Babel, when the Lord comes down and sees what the humans are up to—building a tower to heaven, building a civilization, making a name for themselves—the Lord says because of their imaginations nothing they dream up and set their collective minds and hands to will be impossible for them, and so confused their language so they couldn’t understand each other. Like Jack, and the people in the story of the Tower of Babel, our greatest limitation is our imagination.

To accomplish what he does, Jack uses visualization—actually, vividly imagining his actions before he takes them—something Hoffman, the director, uses to full affect.

Creative visualization refers to the practice of seeking to affect the outer world via changing our thoughts. It’s the technique of using our imaginations to visualize specific behaviors or events occurring in our lives. The practice is a common spiritual exercise and is often used in sports psychology.

Connie wants to go boating. Jack wants to take her, but can’t swim. Connie wants someone to cook for her, something she’s never had. Jack wants to, but doesn’t know how. Through love—love as an act of imagination, love as an action, love as both the dreaming and doing that conquers all fear—Jack becomes an excellent swimmer and cook, heroic in the way only the truest lovers can be.

“Jack Goes Boating” is witty and funny and charming and likable, but it’s also, by turns, sad, even heartbreaking. Amy Ryan, as ever, is extraordinary. Philip Seymour Hoffman is, as usual, brilliant and beautiful, and in addition to being one of my favorite actors, doing the most interesting and profoundly moving work these days, he may also soon be one of my favorite directors. He’s off to an amazing start. Go boating and swimming and cooking with Jack as soon as you can. Learn from his fearlessness. Be inspired by his love. And like him, visualize the life you want to have.

I drove over a hundred miles to go boating with Jack. The film is so good it’d be worth a trip ten times that. Maybe more. No, definitely more. Infinitely more.

Alone With All That Can Happen

2010-09-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

The morning after watching “Solitary Man,” I woke up feeling utterly and completely alone. I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the movie—I often experience an intense sense of isolation—but the timing was interesting and thought-provoking.

Being alone isn’t the same as being lonely. Many times I feel the most connected when I am most alone—something Lord Byron captured so beautifully in his phrase, “In solitude, where we are least alone.”

Being with others isn’t the same as not being lonely. Certain people, certain settings and situations, make me feel more lonely, not less. A social gathering involving small talk, cocktail chatter, mundane, surfaces inanities—and what social gathering doesn’t include such things—usually makes me feel far more isolated and alone than when I’m actually by myself.

Whether we’re alone or with others, in one sense we’re always ultimately alone. As Thomas Wolfe said, “Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every human.”

Even as we appear to be sharing the same experiences—including intensely intimate experiences like making love or sharing a meal or talking about God—we’re always having our own unique experience. Oscar Wilde’s observation that there are as many publics as there are people is true of everything. It’s why I say there are some six and half billion gods. No two of us have identical notions of what the word ‘god’ means. So whatever God is and is not, we’re left with our beliefs and perceptions, and though heavily influenced by culture and family, indoctrination and education, they’re still utterly and uniquely only our own.

Beneath all our labels, beyond all our associations and group identities, it’s just us. Ultimately alone. Solitary us. Yet there is an us. We are part of a planet, a species, an interdependent system. We are able to connect, to touch each others’ souls, be inside one another in profound and meaningful ways. At this very moment, you and I are having a personal, intimate (hopefully) meaningful exchange. I am offering you the water of my words and you are drinking them in.

And yet. And yet.

Even as we have truly deep and intensely intimate connections, we remain, in a very real and certain sense, alone. And it’s out of that aloneness, that sometimes painful experience of isolation, we reach out—out of our solitude—to an other.

Solitary means “being, living, or going alone or without companions; saddened by isolation; keeping a prisoner apart from others; being at once single and isolated; occurring singly and not as part of a group or cluster.”

Occurring singly and not being part of a group is a good thing. Emerson said, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”

In one sense, the more evolved and self-actualized, the more true to our quidity, the more we refuse to conform, the more alone we will be—less able to fit, less a part of group think and speak. We will not benefit from the safety found in numbers. But this evolution of our beings will also simultaneously, counter intuitively, lead us to a greater awareness of our connectedness with all people, with all things. Connected at very deep levels; completely unconnected at shallower levels.

These are thoughts I’m having as I think of solitude and my experience in proximity to the film. They are not necessarily in the film except in very implicit ways. Ben Kalmen’s solitude originates from the deepest most profound place—his mortality—but his outward isolation isn’t from self-actualization, but its opposite, not out of love, but fear.

“Solitary Man” tells the story of Ben Kalmen, a fifty-something New Yorker and former successful car dealer, who through his own bad choices lost his entire business.

When the film opens, Ben’s on the verge of a comeback, but some of the same motivations that led to his demise are threatening to take him down again. He’s divorced from Nancy, his college sweetheart and the one person who knows him better than anyone. Although he still finds the time to hang out with his daughter Susan and his adoring grandson, she breaks off contact when she discovers he's seeing one of her friends. His girlfriend Jordan is the daughter of a very influential businessman who's on the board of a major auto manufacturer.

If Ben can just keep his hubris in check for a little while longer, he will be back as big as ever. But circumstances place him in very close proximity with the one girl he shouldn’t touch, throwing everything into jeopardy.

“Solitary Man” is solid story elevated by great performances. Michael Douglas is brilliant as Ben, and the other players hovering around the edges of his solitariness hang right there with him.

Ben’s isolation is more an acting out, a childish, defensive way of actually isolating others that leads him to himself be isolated. He’s a solitary man because of bad behavior, because he’s incapable of intimacy.

The sense of isolation—even the experience itself—is part of the human condition. It is not the same as never connecting, as being unable or unwilling to—which seems the case for Ben.

Even in our ultimate aloneness we can connect with others. In fact, we can connect because of it, through it. Sharing our feelings of isolation with another human who is open about his or her own feelings of separation frees us from our solitary confinement prison cell.

Solitude is a good and necessary part of existence. We are our best selves when we have the time and space to be ourselves, to just be—in the beauty and stillness of silence and solitude. Einstein said, “I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

It comes down to balance. Too much or too little or the wrong kind of solitude negatively impacts our souls. Finding trusted friends who are themselves seeking this same balance and committing to each other to aid in the process is invaluable. As Rilke so wisely put it, “I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.”

Learn from Ben’s mistakes. Identify those in your life who protect your good solitude and make sure you’re protecting theirs. And in those times when you feel all alone, be fully present, and don’t just be alone. Be alone with the promise and possibility of all that can happen.

A Prescription for Society’s Sick Soul

2010-09-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

Recently, I ended a column with these words:

Story can be sacred.
Movies can be magic.
Sharing the meaningful ones with our children is nothing short of shamanistic.

I’ve long considered what I do as a novelist, as a storyteller, as a teacher, to be shamanistic. If story is sacred, then to be a storyteller is a sacred calling. It’s how I view what I do, why I take it so seriously.

When I closed my column titled “Film School” with the word “shamanistic,” I knew I’d eventually revisit the concept here, but when, this past weekend at the 11th Annual Gulf Coast Writers Conference, Connie May Fowler referred to writers as shamans, I knew it would be sooner rather than later.

It was out of my conviction that story is sacred and storytelling is a sacred calling that I started the Gulf Coast Writers Conference over a decade ago, and as I listened to Connie’s keynote address this year, heard her talk about how important story is, how writers hallucinate as they write and readers hallucinate as they read and how spiritual and magic that is, I knew I was in the presence of a kindred spirit, a sister, a fellow shaman.

Interestingly, we initially called the conference the Gulf Coast Writers and Storytellers Conference, and only shortened it over the years out of necessity. Our conference is a celebration and exploration of story, and is, therefore, a gathering of shamans.

Shaman is an anthropological term referring to the spiritual leader of indigenous or native peoples. Shamans are healers and priests and counselors and storytellers.

Shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit world. They treat ailments and illnesses by mending the soul. By alleviating issues affecting the soul, they restore individuals’ entire being to balance and wholeness. They also enter supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans visit other worlds to bring guidance to misguided souls, to alleviate suffering caused by soul sickness, removing elements that were never intended to be there. As priests or intermediaries, shamans stand between two worlds—one seen, the other not—serving as a bridge between the two.

A priest or priestess is a go-between, a person straddling two worlds, having a foot planted in each. He or she is a messenger, a representative, an emissary. The same is true of storytellers. We plumb the depths of the underworld and being back messages. We dig deep beneath the surface and excavate the stories buried there.

I became aware that I was a shaman very early in life, and became active in adolescence—studying story, using story, telling stories, writing stories. My pursuit of my calling has led me to study religion, philosophy, psychology, and story itself. Like Connie, and so many other shamans I know, I’m not a hobbyist, not doing this just for fun. I’m driven to tell stories, obsessed with story itself and continually improving my storytelling techniques.

It’s an odd and interesting time to be a shaman. I’m a shaman in a culture and at a time when serious story and careful, sacred storytelling is devalued, where the novel is increasingly marginalized, yet where, ironically, our need for narrative has never been greater. As a people, as a nation, as a culture, we are soul sick and need the mending, balance, and wholeness only sacred, true story can bring.

There’s so much noise in our world, so much inanity, so much that assaults our senses, hearts, and minds. So much. Just so so much.

If we’re not very careful to filter input, to guard our quite time, to thoughtfully and mindfully select our shamans and stories, then the vast majority of what we’re assaulted with is shallow, silly, empty, and corrosive. Like junk food, much of what’s on offer is wasted calories that neither nourishes or satisfies.

Sacred story is transformative. It speaks to the deepest part of us and calls forth our best selves. The journey of narrative mirrors the journey we’re on, and reminds us that it’s the epic hero’s journey as ancient as time and myth, as old as soul, originating when consciousness did.

For our souls’ sake we should honor true shamans and the sacred stories they tell. We should open ourselves up to the magic of story and let it work its wondrous work in us, welcoming the expanding and challenging, emptying and refilling.

Don’t settle for substitutes. Seek out true shamans and the magic stories they tell today, and began sharing your own true, sacred stories with others. If we all got in touch with the shaman in our souls, it would change not only us, and our children, but the whole world entire.

Once Again and Again and Again

2010-09-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

A man and a woman.

A mother and a father.

Divorced.

Having failed in relationships, trying again.

After dating a while, they’re ready to have sex—or think they are.

Nervous.

Scared.

Risking. Pressing through.

Then, suddenly, they go from awkward and uncomfortable to her crying and him unable to continue.

Is it possible you might be who I need you to be? she asks.

It is. He is—and is not. And that’s life—or at least a reflection of it—art that is a recognizable reflection of human experiences more than a few of us are likely to have.

It’s a tender, true, affecting scene—one of many, not from a feature film, but from a network television show.

There are actually “film” people who disdain television, as if those who work in it—writers, directors, actors, producers—are less somehow, as if the screen size isn’t the only thing that’s smaller. But some of the very best filmed fiction is made for television. Shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Six Feet Under,” “Gilmore Girls,” “House,” “Mad Men,” and others are as good as anything on offer at the local movie theater—and these series are doing the equivalent of several feature-length films season after season.

If it’s true that TV is a writer’s medium and film is a director’s, it stands to reason that the best television has to offer will be richer, deeper, more intellectual and emotionally satisfying than all but the very best movies. Television allows for the time it takes to tell a complex tale while truly exploring the characters propelling it forward. It’s why in general, novels adapt better to TV than film. It’s also why so many accomplished and acclaimed writers, producers, actors, and even directors are drawn to television—particularly cable.

Recently, “Entertainment Weekly” listed what it deems as the five best divorce movies ever: “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “The War of the Roses,” “An Unmarried Woman,” and “The Odd Couple,” and maybe they are, but none of them delves as deeply or does so with such sustained exploration as does a too-early canceled TV show.

Divorce is death. A painful end to something at one point you never wanted to end—and maybe still don’t. Failure. Rejection. Disappointment. Embarrassment.

Divorce is death, yet life continues. Not only your life, but that of your onetime spouse. Like an apparition, your ex haunts your life, a continual reminder of what was, of what might have been, of what is, of what can never be.

Divorce opens a family up and invites new people in. Lawyers. Counselors. Friends. Lovers. Strangers.

In the best of situations, divorce is difficult.

And this difficulty is handled deftly in the divorce drama, “Once and Again”—one of the best adult hour-long dramas network television has ever produced.
Lily Manning (played by the breathtakingly beautiful and perfectly cast, Sela Ward) is a 40ish suburban soccer mom living in Deerfield, Illinois. Recently separated from her philandering husband Jake (Jeffrey Nordling), Lily is raising her two daughters, insecure, anxiety-ridden 14-year-old Grace (Julia Whelan), and wide-eyed, innocent 9-year-old Zoe (Meredith Deane). For support, she turns to her more free-spirited younger sister, Judy (Marin Hinkle), with whom she works at their bookstore called My Sister's Bookstore.

Lily’s life changes when she meets Rick Sammler (Billy Campbell) in the principal’s office of Grace’s school. Rick is a single father and co-head of an architectural firm, Sammler/Cassili Associates, which is located in downtown Chicago. Rick has been divorced from the rigid Karen (Susanna Thompson) for three years and has two children, Eli (Shane West), a 16-year-old basketball player with a learning disability, and sensitive 12-year-old Jessie (Evan Rachel Wood), who longs for the days before her family’s disintegration.

Lily and Rick share an immediate mutual attraction and begin dating. Their budding relationship causes problems in both of their respective families. Grace strongly objects to Lily and Rick’s relationship as she still hopes to see her parents get back together. Karen, a public interest attorney at the downtown law firm of Harris, Riegert, and Sammler, is worried about the toll Rick’s new relationship would take on their children, particularly Jessie, who is shy and emotionally fragile. She is also working through her own feelings of jealousy that Rick is in a new serious relationship.

“Once and Again” was created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the same team behind “Thirtysomething,” and both shows demonstrate their brilliance for dramas that capture the nuance of entire epochs of modern American life.

Though the show begins with and centers around the romance and relationship between Lily and Rick, it also deals extensively with their children and to a lesser degree with their exes, Jake and Karen, and their ongoing struggles to find peace, joy, and love in the post-divorce environment.

Like “Thirtysomething,” “Once and Again” is smart, literate, well-written, affecting, timely, timeless, and dramatic without too often being melodramatic.

It’s also at times dizzily, intoxicatingly, wildly romantic. Rick and Lily have an earned and unexpected intensity and intimacy that combines the best of heady, youthful infatuation with the scars and wisdom age and experience and rejection and failure and the disappointment that divorce brings.

Few things are as therapeutic as talking. Few things need the healing therapy talk can bring as much as divorce. Each episode of “Once and Again,” as they’re dealing with divorce and death and life and love and betrayal and fear and loss and hope, has the characters, shot in black and white, sit and talk—to us, the audience, making us their therapist, making us privy to their most hidden thoughts and feelings, making us more complicit in their lies and lives—and more compassionate. This makes TV more like a book—we know what characters are thinking, get to be in their heads, know what the other characters they interacting with cannot.

In “Once and Again,” as in life, the past is prologue. Everything that comes around, comes around, not just once, but again. And again. Every seeming new issue in every seeming new relationship bares an amazing similarity to the issues and relationships that came before. We are products. We are patterns. We have dynamics, issues, wounds, experiences. We carry who we are into each new relationship, including what we’ve learned and lost, gained and changed, which makes the biggest part of our new relationships not new at all.

Divorce is difficult and dramatic and traumatic, and there’s no one who hasn’t been touched by its ripples. Fortunately, through story, we can learn and heal and grow and become more and better, and be our best selves even in brokenness, and, as far as divorce dramas go, “Once and Again” is a good place to start. Give it a try. You might watch it once. Or, like me, you might watch it again and again.

Continental Divide

2010-09-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare rightly noted: “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

This is particularly true of the love found in romance fiction where the genre convention is to introduce two potential lovers with enormous chemistry and desire then place as many obstacles between them as possible.

Obstacles to love are too numerous to name, but they’re dwindling. No longer are class, race, sex credible impediments. Part of the reason “Notting Hill” works so well is that fame as a hindrance in our celebrity-obsessed culture is so believable. And with “Going the Distance” we have another. The world is shrinking to be sure, but not enough to solve the enormous issues of a bicoastal relationship.

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long star in this romantic comedy about a long-distance romance that may be worth fighting for. Garrett (Long) is still nursing the wounds from a recent breakup when he meets Erin (Barrymore), an unflinchingly honest girl with a big talent for bar trivia. Hitting it off immediately, the pair spend a romantic summer together in New York City. It was supposed to be a summer fling, but as fall approaches and Erin returns to San Francisco, the spark is still there. Subsequently dividing his days between working and hitting the bars with best friends Box (Jason Sudeikis) and Dan (Charlie Day), Garrett drops everything whenever Erin calls. The more Garrett's phone rings, the more his pals begin to suspect that their drinking buddy is taking the relationship a little too seriously. And they're not the only ones; Erin's sister, Corrine (Christina Applegate), is keen to ensure that her smitten sibling doesn't repeat the mistakes of her past, and she makes no attempts to sugarcoat the fact that she disapproves of the coast-to-coast romance. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and as the texting becomes more intense, both Garrett and Erin start to suspect that their summer fling may just be the real thing.

“Going the Distance” is a stellar romantic comedy—genuine and genuinely funny. Its honest, real, credible look at the issues of long distance dating never feel false or forced. The film never over reaches in the way so many do, never gives us unearned emotion or over-the-top melodramatic plot twists. It’s a comedy about adults for adults with mature, often sexual, humor that rises organically out of who the characters are, their relationship, and the situation they find themselves in.

Barrymore is, as usual, adorable, and she and Long make a sweet, convincing couple in a relationship worth working out. Speaking of working . . . the chosen professions of the couple (print journalist and music promoter) not only provide authentic challenges and obstacles, but reflect the upheaval both industries are experiencing right now.

“Going the Distance” works so well, is so good, that it is easily the most fun, enjoyable experience I’ve had in a movie theater in a very long time, and I can already hear the film knocking on the door of my top ten romcom list. It’s the kind of romantic comedy you can give yourself over to and not regret the morning after.

The Quiet American

2010-09-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

“The American” is a quiet, little film, visually arresting, slowly affecting—a well crafted work of art, but on the artisan more than artist end of the artistic spectrum.

At one point, an insightful and observant priest notes that the main character, who presents himself as a photographer, has the hands of a craftsman more than an artist. It’s hard to think of a better way to describe the film itself. Well built. Beautiful. Work of craftsmanship. Not an artistic masterpiece.

Academy Award winner George Clooney stars in the title role of this suspense thriller. As an assassin, Jack (Clooney) is constantly on the move and always alone. After a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, Jack retreats to the Italian countryside. He relishes being away from death for a spell as he holes up in a small medieval town. While there, Jack takes an assignment to construct a weapon for a mysterious contact, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). Savoring the peaceful quietude he finds in the mountains of Abruzzo, Jack accepts the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) and pursues a relationship with a beautiful prostitute named Clara (Violante Placido). Jack and Clara’s time together seems hopeful and free of danger, but is such a thing possible for a man like Jack?

“The American” was written by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel “A Very Private Gentleman,” by Martin Booth, and directed by Anton Corbijn, a Dutch photographer who has worked extensively in the music industry. His feature film debut was “Control,” a film about the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis.

Cinematography is often referred to as painting with light or writing with light, which is exactly what Corbijin does so brilliantly. Every frame of the film is picturesque—carefully composed, exquisitely captured. In this age of digital video, in the era when film is supposedly “dead,” it’s good to imagine holding up a strip of film to the light and considering how each frame is a still photograph. Corbijin’s work is a good reminder, and it makes me think that a photographer making a movie is like a poet writing a novel—any sacrifice in narrative drive is often made up for by beauty, artistry, and craftsmanship.

Like the film itself, Clooney’s performance is stripped down. Quiet. Sparse. Spartan. There’s none of the usual Clooney charm, and the movie is the better for it. Also like the film, Violante Placido is breathtakingly beautiful, her body carefully crafted by a true artist, every shot of her a photograph worth framing and hanging. Equally as beautiful, though in a very different way is the conscience of this well crafted film—Father Benedetto, played brilliantly by Paolo Bonacelli. He provides humble, helpful insight, wisdom, and service, an ego-less spiritual caretaker worthy of confessing to.

If over-the-top, cartoonish Hollywood action-adventure movies have left you unsatisfied, try this art house thriller. The quiet ride it provides is far more effective, far more enthralling, far more resonate than big-budget bombs and one-dimensional good and bad guys could ever be.

Film School

2010-09-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

Movies are magic.

Or can be.

The good ones, like all good art, don’t merely entertain. They enlighten. They inspire. They educate—an education of heart far more than head.

They transform us.

They challenge us.

They change us.

Of course, there are plenty of people who find film frivolous. Pragmatists, who, unlike me, fail to find meaning in fiction, in made-up stories, in myth and metaphor. It’s sad. Stories are sacred. Or can be. They speak to our souls. They have the ability to convey and communicate more truth, more wisdom, more of what matters most, than any other form of communication.

“The Film Club,” a memoir about movies and other things that really matter, by novelist, David Gilmour, demonstrates these truths quietly, but effectively, subtly, but with plenty of profundity.

Gilmour, an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his 15-year-old son Jesse to do his homework, realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, and offers him an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent—but he must watch three movies a week of his father’s choosing.

Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from “True Romance” to “Rosemary’s Baby” to “Showgirls,” films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian Depalma, Billy Wilder, and others. The movies got them talking about Jesse’s life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies.

Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship—and their own lives changed in surprising ways.

Can watching movies with a novelist/film critic dad really be better than going to school? Is this ingenious parenting or grounds for being declared unfit? You can decide for yourself. My answer? Well, I happen to have a fifteen year-old son, who truly excels in school—far and away better than I ever did—and, I happen to be a novelist and (something like) a film critic, and I truly believe I could provide him a better education than he could receive virtually anywhere. I’ll only add two caveats: 1) Unlike Gilmour, literature would be a big part of my curriculum, and 2) I’d hire a math and science tutor.

Gilmour gambled. He risked a lot in attempt not just to educate, but to save his son. As he puts it, “The films simply served as an occasion to spend time together, hundreds of hours, as well as a door-opener for all manner of conversational topics — Rebecca [Jesse’s girlfriend], Zoloft, dental floss, Vietnam, impotence, cigarettes.”

The book is filled with insight and wisdom like:

“The second time you see something is really the first time. You need to know how it ends before you can appreciate how beautifully it’s put together from the beginning.”

“It is an example of what films can do, how they can slip past your defenses and really break your heart.”

“The beautiful girl in the Thunder Bird in “American Graffiti” who keeps disappearing is an example of Proustian contemplation that possession and desire are mutually exclusive, that for the girl to be the girl, she must always be pulling away.”

“You can’t be with a woman you can’t go to the movies with.”
All of which leads Jesse, his son, to certain insights of his own: “It’s like when you’re watching a film you really love. You don’t want somebody trying to be interesting. You want them just to love it.”

Gilmour offers much to contemplate about the movies he chooses to reach his son with, too. Within just a few introductory paragraphs he reveals interesting information about the movies as well as helping his son (and the reader) have a more meaningful experience with it.

He reveals how Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s handling of “The Shining,” said Kubrick made movies to hurt people; how Brando improvised the scene in “On the Waterfront” when he takes the girl’s glove and puts it on his hand; how Steven Spielberg made his directing debut with a truck-chase thriller called “Duel,” which he still watches periodically to remind himself of “how he did it,” how Spielberg said, “You have to be young to be so unapologetically sure-footed;” how Howard Hawks said that a good film must have at least “three good scenes and no bad ones.” And so much more!

Reading “The Film Club” and reflecting on it, reminds me of the way in which I used movies to connect with and educate my daughter over the years—particularly when she was entering early adolescence. We watched all sorts of films—including the horror movies that are such a rite of passage for teenagers—but most of all I designed a cinematic curriculum in feminism, attempting to empower her by showing her just how kickass teenage girls like Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars and Rory Gilmore could be.

This past weekend, my now twenty-year old kickass daughter came home from college with the textbook from her film class, and we connected over and celebrated cinema all over again as I devoured the tome in our kitchen, in the car (as she drove), and at the table of the Chinese restaurant where we went to lunch. The experience was all the dad of an amazing, kickass co-ed could ask for, and it made me so very grateful that we, like the Gilmours, had started our very own version of the film club so many years ago and that it continues to this day (we even watched “The Killer Inside Me” while she was here.)

Gilmour picks some truly great films to share with his son, and the book includes the complete list. I recommend reading the book and watching the movies—and if you can share the experience with someone, form a “film club” of your own, all the better.
Story can be sacred.

Movies can be magic.

Sharing the meaningful ones with our children is nothing short of shamanistic.

Greatness Within Our Grasp

2010-08-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I witnessed a talented, young artist get discouraged to the point of sulking because one element of the project he was working on didn’t turn out the way he had hoped.

It was interesting to witness.

“I suck,” he said. “I’m terrible.” This, after a quick experimentation he had spent a short time on didn’t work—or didn’t work in the way he wanted it to.

He’s barely out of his teens, has only relatively recently grown serious about his art, had worked on this particular part of his project for a very short time, and was quite dispirited because it wasn’t an instant success.

The disappointment and depressing condition the young man experienced were temporary, and he’s back at work on his craft—and probably was later the same day—but it reminded me of just how much hard work, discipline, dedication, patience, practice, time, blood, sweat, tears, failure, and investment becoming truly proficient at something requires.

I can’t know for sure, but the young artist, like nearly all young artists, seemed to expect to be able to accomplish what he wanted to because he wanted to, because he has talent, but what he lacks, what prevents him from being able to achieve what he’s striving for isn’t talent. It’s something else—something that makes talent the smallest component of the equation in any endeavor.

One of the most dangerous mentalities we can have is the easy, lazy belief that “you either have it, or you don’t.”

I work with creatives all the time, mostly writers, who want to—no, check that—who expect to be good, even genius early in their development (notice I didn’t say career) and in early attempts or first drafts.

Only people who don’t know any better think they can be good at something from the jump—which describes most novices and people trying to do something new. We don’t know because we’re new, and either we think that what we do is good or we’re so overwhelmed by its failure, we abandon it. Both cause us to give up—the first, on truly becoming good, the second, for good.

Both tragic responses fail to perceive the truth—being great at something is not a birthright, but the result of busting our asses.

I’m not saying we’re not born with talents, not given certain innate gifts and natural abilities, that we don’t have specific interests and internal proclivities that point to potential, just that they are little more than a place to start.

Talent is a seed. Full of potential—not much more.

I know a lot of talented people. The world is full of them. Hell, prison is full of them. During my time as a prison chaplain, I was amazed at the staggering amount of talent languishing behind the chain link and razor wire.

Talent inside prison is like talent anywhere. It’s all the same. Just potential. Just possibility.

What we do with our gifts and talents, how we develop them, what we invest in them, that’s what determines outcome, that’s what makes the difference between success and failure.

And it’s no small investment that’s required to become truly great.

Experts agree that to truly excel at something, to be world class, requires ten years or ten thousand hours of a certain type of the right kind of practice.

Two inspiring and encouraging and wise books that make a convincing case for this are “Talent Is Overrated: What really separates world-class performers from everybody else” by Geoff Colvin and “Outliers: The story of success” by Malcolm Gladwell.”

If the frustrated young artist who says he sucks after failing in certain ways at his new craft and you and I want to become masters, we must invest a decade of our lives to deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice, according to Colvin, is “designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally, and it isn’t much fun.”

Notice that last one. Amateurs have fun—both in practice and in performance. The proficient (notice I didn’t say professionals) do not. It’s all about approach. Do you want to have a good time or do you want to become good at what you’re doing?

The latter approach is about always improving—pushing ourselves just beyond what we can currently do. It avoids automaticity and actually changes our bodies and brains.

I can say unequivocally and experientially that I have found this to be the case. I became serious about writing fiction in the summer of 1994. It was then that I began to write daily, seek and receive feedback, study great writing—reading books about writing and reading lots of great novels—and though I witnessed improvement all along, it was after I crested the ten thousand hour and one million word mark that I experienced a quantum leap into a level of proficiency that was, to me and trusted others, apparent and recognizable.

Want to be great at something? Whether or not we are is far more in our control than most of us realize.

Here’s a challenge for you. Find someone who is consistently proficient, who is great at what they do, and examine what enabled them to reach their current level of performance. I guarantee, whether you find evidence of natural abilities or not, you will certainly find someone who is reaping the reward of years of investing, of working harder and longer and more intentionally and deliberately than anyone else.

There are no shortcuts.

The belief in genius, in prodigies, in “you have it, or you don’t” amounts to little more than an excuse for laziness.

You, me, and the sullen young man who inspired this piece, have an opportunity to be world-class, but are we willing to pay the price, put in the work, sacrifice a big chunk of our lives to achieve it?

Dedication to a decade of deliberate practice is the beginning. What are you waiting for? Get Colvin and Gladwell’s books and get busy.

The Sacred Journey

2010-08-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

I went to see “Eat, Pray, Love,” not because I expected it to be a great movie, but because its subject—namely how to live optimally—has been a lifelong pursuit of mine.

I’m so very grateful for the gift of my life, and sincerely attempt to put the most into it and get the most out of it. Toward that end, I continually ask myself the following questions.

(I’m not saying Liz Gilbert, the protagonist of “Eat, Pray, Love,” asks the same questions, just that her quest may have led her to some of the same answers.)

Am I practicing love and kindness?

How do I obtain enlightenment?

What is the meaning of my life?

How do I truly savor every drop of juice from the sweet fruit of the tree of life?

Am I being mindful?

How awake am I? How aware? How alive?

Am I blindly following the culture I was born into or questioning everything in search of the truth?

Am I living justly and compassionately?

Am I making the world a better place by living unselfishly, extending myself for others, giving my gifts with joyous generosity?

I’m not saying I’ve figured out the best way to live—not even close—just that I’ve devoted myself to finding out the best way for me to live my life.

Liz Gilbert dedicated a year of her life to a similar pursuit. Here’s how the studio describes the film:

“Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having — a husband, a house, a successful career — yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali. Based upon the bestselling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love proves that there really is more than one way to let yourself go and see the world.”

“Eat, Pray, Love” is better than I expected it to be, and, as usual, Julia Roberts is resplendent. The writing and directing are good—save for the way too much of the film is lit with a soft, ethereal quality from above and behind its actors, the overblown rim light putting a halo-like aura around Julia that I found extremely distracting. And it follows her not matter where she is—in a theater, a darkened room, even walking down an unlit street at night in Italy.

Liz’s journey toward enlightenment, toward love, began because she’s lost her appetite for food and life and wanted to go some place where she could marvel at something.

She’s in a crisis—recently divorced, floundering, trapped on a treadmill of meaningless, unintentional existence.

Like so many of us, it takes a crisis to move and motivate her. But we don’t have to wait for crises to force us toward meaningful lives any more than we have to travel the world to find some place to marvel at something.

Right now people from all over the world are traveling to Italy, India, and Bali attempting to eat, pray, and love their way to happiness and fulfillment, but the problem isn’t our zip code. It’s us.

Liz traveled around the world to find that the kingdom of God was within her all along. To walk the path, the way (of enlightenment, fulfillment, and love) doesn’t require outward travel, but inward.

There’s nothing wrong with travel, with an outward journey that symbolizes our inner one, but it’s the smallest aspect, shortest distance, least important part of the true journey.

In the same way the best thing an education can do is to teach us how to be students for life, the best and only hope Liz has of a continuous life filled with meaningful eating, praying, and loving is if her journey caused her to be able to have the same experiences when she returned. If we can’t find something to marvel at every single day, the problem isn’t with the world or where we live, but with us and how we perceive.

And we don’t have to devote ourselves to a guru to become our best selves. Or, if we do, it needn’t be for long and we don’t need to have just one. And no matter how helpful or inspiring or transformational we find certain leaders, we must inevitably shoot our gurus and sprinkle ashes on our Buddhas.

Like inspiration that becomes doctrine and eventually dogma, teachers, counselors, gurus too soon become gods and our attachment to them ultimately leads to spiritual dependency and death.

Liz found what worked for her. You and I have to find what works for us. There are no rules. There is no one path, no one way to walk The Way.

Want to know the best approach to life? Ask anyone with a terminal disease. They’ll tell you. Cast aside what really doesn’t matter. Spend your few rare, precious, priceless moments on meaningful things of lasting value.

Liz tried new ways of living in an attempt to change her life—going to extremes and traveling the world. And it seems to have worked. But true, lasting change is about integration, about how we live every single day. It lasts because we’re making lifestyle changes that lead us back to our best, most original selves. Diets don’t work because they are faddish and temporary and don’t constitute a true change in the way we live. The same is true of spiritual fads or programs or the latest greatest teaching of the most popular guru or book or Oprah guest.

Lasting change is about integrating what really matters most into our lives.

Here’s what I attempt to (and fail to) do every day and what I recommend to you:

Be. Savor every second. Breathe deeply. Empty. Open heart and mind and belt to the wonderful, terrible grace-filled catastrophe of life. Live with abandon. Love with passion and without reservation. Search for God—within and without. Be kind. Be still. Be silent. Be with supportive, nurturing friends. Be alone. Give. Give. Give. Ask. Seek. Knock. Sing. Dance. Make every meal a celebration. Make every day an adventure. Think. Create. Have lots of sex. Dream. Play. Protect the weak and vulnerable. Speak the truth. Fight for justice. Stand up for the oppressed. Be creative. To mine own individual, idiosyncratic self be true.

Only when these things become a way of life—something we live every day, not only on certainly holy days or in certain exotic places—only when eating is praying and everything is love, will we be our best, deepest, most actualized selves and live our best, richest, most meaningful lives.

Perchance to Dream

2010-08-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

For all we know—or think we do—we know very little about dreams. Of course, the truth is, we know very little about much of anything, but some things are harder to fake than others.

Dreams can be defined as a succession of images, sounds, or emotions the mind experiences during sleep, but that doesn’t even begin it.

Dreams are mystical and spiritual, ineffable and inexplicable, which is why I take issue with Freud’s claim in “The Interpretation of Dreams,” that he can “demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state.”

Dreams are mysteries. Any interpretation is at best only partially correct.

Dreams can be instructive and inspiring, but in the way all mysterious things (God, the universe, art, life, death) are—In subtle, lyrical, non-literal, largely metaphorical ways.

Dreams are also rich material for story. Fiction, whether on page or screen, is like a dream. My experience with writing fiction—particularly the novel—is that it is very much like entering a kind of dream state, and, I to varying degrees, remain in it until the novel is born.

In thinking about this column, it occurred to me that dreams play significant roles in three out of four of my most recent novels.

Dreams are the subject and the setting for acclaimed filmmaker, Christopher Nolan’s new movie, “Inception”—an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved.

Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move—an enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Though one of the most well-made and entertaining films of this disappointing summer at the cineplex, “Inception” was not as good as I wanted it to be.

Sure, it’s demonstrates a brilliant filmmaker at work. It’s as well constructed a movie as you’re likely to see. It’s interesting and exciting and intense, but it has no soul.

It’s visually stunning, intellectually engaging, but emotionally unfulfilling. A puzzle, a logicians labyrinth. Clever. Cold. Cerebral. I wanted to care for the characters—enjoy the movie on more than an intellectual level—but there was no heart, no warmth, no spirit.

And I wish “Inception” had been more dreamlike, more random and hazy and nonlinear. For all its talk about and delving into dreams, there’s very little in it that feels like anyone is actually dreaming. I felt it could really have used the hypnotic touch of a director like David Lynch. “Mulholland Drive” has far more of the dewy residue of dream state than does “Inception.”

Both times I watched “Inception,” I thought of another dream-like movie, “What Dreams May Come”—and though it’s more about the dreams that come when we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, it makes a quite convincing case that those dreams are more like the ones we have in our beds at night or in our heads during the day than we realize.

Though I’ve seen “What Dreams May Come” several times, I decided to watch it again while writing this, and I discovered that it’s even better than I remembered. A lot better.

I had also forgotten how beautiful and extraordinary Annabella Sciorra is and what a tour de force her amazing performance is in this film. Watching her served to heighten how weak the poorly cast Ellen Page is in “Inception.”

Watch any scene in “What Dreams May Come” and you’ll find more true, convincing human emotion than in all of “Inception.”

“What Dreams May Come” is a gorgeous film, a work of art, filled with and about art. It’s magical and mystical and beautiful. In short, it’s a dream. It’s a stunning work of imagination about life and death, but most of all it’s about love and loss. It’s profound and says some interesting things about the world to come—something like “As below, so above,” we create our lives in the afterlife in the same way we do in this present life, that if something is true in our minds, it is true. As the person who wrote the phrase “what dreams may come” says, “Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“What Dreams May Come” is about things dreams are made of—twins, soul mates, second chances, not giving up, winning when you lose and losing when you win. It’s filled with the things that fill dreams. It’s inspiring and inspiriting—and everything that “Inception” is not.
It’s not that “Inception” is bad. It’s not. It’s quite good, and as for well-crafted, thoughtful and thought-provoking entertainment in theaters right now, it nears the top of the list of limited choices. In fact, I recommend it.

I recommend both movies, but for very different reasons. If you want to see a high-quality timepiece at work, go see the Swiss watch-like “Inception.” Its precision and brilliance are beautiful to behold. But if you want to spend time with something truly timeless watch “What Dreams May Come,” and as you do, open your mind and heart and embrace the dream of life taking place in the mind of God.

Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

2010-07-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

What do you do when your heart hurts?

As someone who attempts to live with a certain mindfulness, I try not to bypass a broken heart, try not to short-circuit the process no matter how painful, no matter how long. There’s much to be gained from sitting with the saturnine experiences of existence.

I’m not advocating wallowing or prolonging or being miserable one moment more than we need be, just that there is benefit in the sad, in the sorrowful, in the song of the thorn birds fluttering around inside of us.

As Siddhartha so rightly stated, life is suffering. Pain is part of being a healthy human. I live, therefore I feel. And in addition to our own pain—that caused by others and the self-inflicted variety—there’s the pain of others. Only the narcissistic feel only their own pain. Love, genuinely caring for an other, inevitably leads to pain. The more love we have, the more pain we have. He who loves ten has ten woes. He who loves fifty has fifty woes. The more capable of compassion we are, the more we will suffer. Compassion comes from two words that mean to “feel with.” Feeling what others feel leads to additional pain and suffering.

Whether we choose to open ourselves to others and to their pain, or focus on ourselves and the thousand natural shocks that our flesh is heir to, pain, suffering, broken hearts are inevitable.

When my heart hurts, as it does right now, I think and feel, reflect and write, read and meditate, turning to art and religion for guidance and healing. Occasionally, I turn to trusted friends and counselors, but mostly I experience my sadness in solitude. And in my aloneness, few things comfort, console, and give care as much as the right movie.

It’s true, books are better, but there’s something so immediate about movies. Like fast-acting medicine, an old familiar film provides nearly instant relief.

I’m not recommending simple escapism, though there’s certainly a place for that, but films that feel like old friends—available to us when old friends can’t be and without all the guilt and calories that accompany comfort food.

I’m sure you have your own medicinal movies, but here are a few films that get me through you might try, too.

No filmmaker makes me happier, cheers me up faster, than Richard Curtis. “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” and “Love Actually” are movies I watch and quote from so repeatedly it seems as if I have them on a continual loop.

When I need inspiration, to be reminded of the difference one person can make, I pull “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Keys of the Kingdom” off my shelf—two films that, in numerous viewings, never fail to speak to something deep within me and make me cry like a little girl.

When I want to fall in love or be reminded of the possibilities of love—particularly for those whom it has seemed to pass by, I turn to “Before Sunset,” “Conversations with Other Women,” “Love Affair,” “Frankie&Johnny,” and “The Russia House.”

When I want to look at life from a different perspective, to see the world and love and relationships in a new way, Charlie Kaufman is what’s called for, in particular, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “Synecdoche, New York”—movies that are moving, thought-provoking, awe-inspiring, devastating.

And for all the above—for love, romance, inspiration, sacrifice, making a difference, and just getting carried away—nothing the doctor orders can compare with “Casablanca.”

If my broken heart wants not to feel unbroken, but commiserate with other broken hearts, I find “Brief Encounter” and “The End of the Affair” particularly appealing.

Sometimes, when I’m laid low by life or love or something far more random, what I need is to just be swept away, to get caught up, or take off on an adventure. When I do, I return to “The Last of the Mohicans,” Blade Runner,” “Spartan,” “Man on Fire,” “Déjà vu,” “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” “The Holiday,” and “Dan in Real Life.”

And if I just need to laugh, nothing helps me quite as much as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Hangover,” and, of course, a Richard Curtis film—most of which could go in all of these categories.

There are so many other movies I could mention. This list is not meant to be comprehensive. These are just where my broken heart goes, the ones I keep in my medicine cabinet—my first aid kit for my in-case-of-emergency moments.

As you can see, among other things, I recommend movie therapy. Story gives meaning to our lives, and films provide a singular, immediate experience of story—art imitating life in narrative we can relate to and be inspired by. So the next time you’re feeling broken, remember my prescription. Take two movies and call me in the morning.

Kingdoms in Conflict

2010-07-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

Leo Tolstoy said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

He wasn’t the first to say it.

After penning what many believe to be two of the best novels ever written (“Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”), he spent his later life studying and writing about the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ teachings, encapsulated in the “Sermon on the Mount,” became the foundation upon which Tolstoy attempted to build his life and legacy.

The Kingdom of God is within—not without. Not of institutions or empires, church or state, but of love.

It is not only opposite the world, but opposed to it—standing as an alternative, a current that is counter to culture and creed, dynasties and domination systems.

As such, the Kingdom of God functions differently than the Kingdom of the world. Those who live by it trust, share what they have, love everyone—even enemies—refuse to retaliate, fight greed and hate, inequality, and injustice. In stark contrast, the world, fueled by selfishness and greed, in largely controlled by money and power, manipulation and physical force, oppression and brutality, most often putting the might of the majority in power over the rights of the multitudes.

The kingdom that’s within rejects power, refuses to use physical force. Built on compassion and justice, it operates in freedom and love—which are virtually the same thing—making a priority of helping the poor, the oppressed, the least, the lowest, the marginalized, and disenfranchised.

In Tolstoy’s antiestablishment and antiauthoritarian “The Kingdom of God is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystical Religion but as a New Theory of Life,” he argues that all societies contain social systems of wealth and power based on the inequitable distribution of wealth where, even as governments and ideologies change, domination systems use the threat of force to protect institutional inequality. The powerful maintain their power because of systemic oppression, and under the threat of force and the allure of material desire, individuals committed to maintaining the status quo are actually instruments of their own domination.

Power corrupts.

Like the Roman Empire Jesus challenged or the Russian Empire Tolstoy railed against, our culture is corrupt. Greed has led to a domination system that, through brainwashing of state and church and family, leads most of us to walk around in a hypnotic state, faithful cogs in the very machine that oppresses us.

But as evil as injustice, inequity, oppression, and domination are, Tolstoy, like Gandhi and MLK, follow Jesus in his insistence that force can never be a part of the Kingdom of God, and strictly adheres to Jesus’ prohibition of responding to evil with evil. Freedom is love is right. Force is evil is wrong.

Tolstoy’s radical commitment to Jesus’ teaching, particularly his insistence on nonviolence and ending greed by the sharing of one’s possessions, led him to reject the ownership of private property and to sign away his copyrights to his works, which in turn caused an epic battle with his wife—the last year of which is dramatized in Michael Hoffman’s “The Last Station.”

After almost fifty years of marriage, the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren), Leo Tolstoy’s (Christopher Plummer) devoted wife, passionate lover, muse and secretary—she’s copied out War and Peace six times…by hand!—suddenly finds her entire world turned upside down. In the name of his newly created religion, the great Russian novelist has renounced his noble title, his property and even his family in favor of poverty, vegetarianism and even celibacy—after she’s born him thirteen children!

When Sofya then discovers that Tolstoy’s trusted disciple, Chertkov (Paul Giamatti)—whom she despises—may have secretly convinced her husband to sign a new will, leaving the rights to his iconic novels to the Russian people rather than his own family, she is consumed by righteous outrage. This is the last straw. Using every bit of cunning, every trick of seduction in her considerable arsenal, she fights fiercely for what she believes is rightfully hers. The more extreme her behavior becomes, however, the more easily Chertkov is able to persuade Tolstoy of the damage she will do to his glorious legacy.

Into this minefield wanders Tolstoy’s worshipful new assistant, the young, gullible Valentin (James McAvoy). In no time, he becomes a pawn, first of the scheming Chertkov and then of the wounded, vengeful Sofya as each plots to undermine the other’s gains. Complicating Valentin’s life even further is the overwhelming passion he feels for the beautiful, spirited Masha (Kerry Condon), a free thinking adherent of Tolstoy’s new religion whose unconventional attitudes about sex and love both compel and confuse him. Infatuated with Tolstoy’s notions of ideal love, but mystified by the Tolstoys’ rich and turbulent marriage, Valentin is ill equipped to deal with the complications of love in the real world.

A tale of two romances, one beginning, one near its end, “The Last Station” is a complex, funny, rich and emotional story about the difficulty of living with love and the impossibility of living without it.

Kingdoms come into conflict in “The Last Station”—inside Tolstoy as much as without. Any attempt to live in allegiance to the kingdom within will inevitably lead to conflicts with other kingdoms—without and within.

Hoffman has made an exquisite film of relationships and rhetoric, of love—love of people, love of principles. It’s the story of spirit and flesh, of noble ideals and small-souled self-interest, all swirling around a gifted writer and thinker, a man attempting to live according to his convictions—no matter the cost.

Every element of the film works, but the directing and acting—particularly Plummer, Mirren, and Giamatti—are stunning.

Though only covering the last year of his life, “The Last Station” gives us a fascinating glimpse at Tolstoy and his struggles to follow Jesus.

Like Tolstoy, I attempt (and continually fail) to follow the true, simple, profound teachings of Jesus, to live according to the kingdom within, and, like him, this leads me to reject cultural status quo and the roles church and state, money and power, play in the domination system. I part company with him when it comes to celibacy, but he did, too, until late in life. Perhaps I’ll feel differently in my eighties (though I sincerely hope not). I also think there are ways to integrate the radical teachings of love and freedom, of nonattachment and nonviolence, in everyday life, to be countercultural within one’s own culture—as opposed to removing oneself completely from culture.

I recommend in addition to watching “The Last Station,” you also read “The Kingdom of God is Within You,” and in the process, search yourself, as Tolstoy did, for the Kingdom of God inside you.

Chaos and Creativity

2010-06-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

The act of creation is often chaotic.

As Marilyn Ferguson said, “The creative process requires chaos before form emerges.”

Artists work with chaos—a truth embodied in Sharon Hubbard’s observation that “The creation of true art requires some mysterious innate ability to thrive in chaos.”

Art is an attempt at creating order out of chaos—or at the very least a way of searching for and assigning meaning to the chaos itself.

There’s a random, mysterious, sometimes chaotic element to the universe that I think those of us who spend our time engaged in creating art are particularly sensitive to. Perhaps that’s why chaos theory so appeals to me, and why one of my favorite sayings is: “God created order out of chaos, but sometimes the chaos shows through.” This is also why, for me, any religion, philosophy, or worldview that claims to explain everything is simplistic, shortsighted, and suspect (seriously lacking in credibility).

In dealing with the chaos of existence, there seems to be two approaches—those of us who welcome, even invite, it in, and those who attempt, with all the defensiveness they can muster, to keep it at bay.

My own approach is one of openness—honoring the random, the chaotic, the humbling that reminds me just how not in control I really am—all the while careful to avoid manufactured drama and the destructiveness of unnecessary anarchy. But regardless of the approach, the artist and spiritually open person can’t afford not to embrace the whirlwind.

Like everything else, there are counterfeits for chaos, and some people get addicted to the rush and so continually create circumstances so that their lives resemble a Tilt-A-Whirl ride. Some artists suck on chaos like it’s a crack pipe, and so recklessly and routinely set fire to their own lives.

Guido Contini, whose story is told in Rob Marshall’s musical, “Nine,” appears to be just such an artist—a gifted writer/director who’s lost all control of his life and appetites. In fact, at one point his estranged wife, Luisa, tells him that that’s all he is—an appetite.

Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), famous Italian film director, has turned forty and faces a double crisis: he has to shoot a film for which he can’t write the script, and his wife of twenty years, the film star Luisa del Forno (Marion Cotillard), may be about to leave him. As it turns out, it is the same crisis.

Luisa's efforts to talk to him seem to be drowned out by voices in his head: voices of women in his life, speaking through the walls of his memory, insistent, flirtatious, irresistible, potent. Women Guido has loved, and from whom he has derived the entire vitality of a creative life, now as stalled as his marriage—his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the prostitute from his youth (Fergie) and his mother (Sophia Loren).

As Guido struggles to find a story for his film, he becomes increasingly preoccupied—his interior world sometimes becoming indistinguishable from the objective world—and his producer suggests he make a musical, an idea which itself veers off into a feminine fantasy of extraordinary vividness.

“Nine” is the film adaptation of a musical inspired by Fellini’s mesmerizing classic, “81/2.” Ordinarily, I’m not much on musicals, but because of the subject matter here and its connection to Fellini and “81/2,” I wanted to see “Nine” from the moment I heard about it. And the film did not disappoint. I expected to like the story in spite of the musical intrusions, but found myself really responding to a few of the numbers, and appreciating the masterful way Marshal stitched them into the seam of the narrative. I really enjoyed the musical performance by Fergie, which is not surprising, but what I found shocking was just how talented a singer Kate Hudson is. But it’s not the musical but the dramatic performances that make the movie something special, and though all are particularly strong, Daniel Day-Lewis is again amazing, and Marion Cotillard is absolutely heartbreaking.

Being creative involves chaos. But nothing is as chaotic as the frustration that results from the chaos in an artist’s life becoming so out of balance that it no longer allows for creativity. Few films embody these truths as dramatically and powerfully as “81/2” and “Nine.”

Saul Bellow said that “Art is the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos”—something Guido has yet to learn.

In life, as in art, there’s real skill involved in managing chaos. Of course, chaos can’t be controlled. I’m not suggesting it can. Maybe it can’t even be managed, but we can. We can manage ourselves, our responses.

Maybe managing chaos is like trying to make a movie without a script or maybe it’s an altogether absurd notion in the way “talking about love is like dancing about architecture.” And in the end, that’s what “81/2” and “Nine” and life are all about—love. Love that drives us to create. Create connections—with our words, our bodies, our beings, our art—and, in doing so, touch the void, approach the whirlwind, open our belts and minds and hearts to chaos. A chaos that, depending on how we respond, can lead to creation or destruction—to art, to a more artful life, or to even more chaos.

Film Criticism

2010-06-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

I’m not an expert on film (or anything else), but I am a student of it, and I’ve dabbled in it enough to know just how difficult it is to do well. I’ve taken a few film classes, I’ve written and sold screenplays, I’ve made a half dozen short films and one handheld, no-budget feature, I’ve read hundreds of books on film, and watched thousands of movies—just enough to know how very little I know.

Of course you don’t have to be an expert in or even a student of film to know just how challenging it is to make good ones—even the most casual moviegoer can tell you that more mediocre movies are made than anything else, and far, far more bad films are made than great ones.

Still, I find it a bit uncomfortable to criticize the state of American cinema. Part of the reason is in the difference in knowing and doing. I know a little about film, but I’m not a working filmmaker—and there’s an enormous difference between the two. I feel far more comfortable speaking about the state of American publishing or criticizing novels because I’m a working novelist. But, here again, because I do it, because I know how difficult it is to do well, I find it difficult to be vitriolic or violent in the way so many haters online and in print are.

I recall a challenge John Mellencamp issued to haters years ago. “You make your best rock record and I’ll make mine,” he said, “and then we’ll compare the two.”

The point is well taken. Criticizing is easy. Creating enduring art isn’t. And making an attempt at making authentic art gives us greater appreciation for all who do—regardless of the relative failure that results.

And it will fail. Everything does—particularly art. I understand this all too well. As Joyce Carol Oats observed, “The artist, perhaps more than any other person, inhabits failure.”

This same sentiment is echoed in a remark by TS Eliot. When someone commented to him that most critics are failed writers, he responded, “So are most writers.” I would say all. It’s just some books fail less than others.

My approach to this column has been to reflect on life and meaning as I’m inspired by exemplary works of art, and with few exceptions—a few books and movies so bad I had to comment or mediocre works that nonetheless provoked thoughts I felt worth sharing—I’ve done just that, which casts me in the role of appreciater far more than criticizer.

But the state of Hollywood movies in general, and summer movies in particular, is so bad, I’m compelled to write about it, so, having said all the above, I will now step out of my role as appreciater and into the ill-fitting clothes of criticizer.

What’s wrong with Hollywood?

It all comes down to character and story. We come to movies wanting an experience of what it means to be human. Whether in ordinary or extraordinary circumstances, we hunger for humanity—everything else is secondary. Everything—visuals, stunts, explosions, chases, spectacles. What’s missing is humanity—people we can relate to in credible (if extraordinary or even unrealistic) situations.
And here’s why: money.

Art for profit becomes entertainment. Entertainment produced to make the most money possible becomes hollow, shallow, silly, bloodless, lifeless.

Like politics and our “free” market, greed has largely spoiled the entertainment industry. Blockbuster-driven studios produce absurdly big budget movies that, like other entities in our society are “too big to fail,” and so try to be all things to all people, attempting an even more watered-down version of what worked before.

Sure, there are still a few auteurs around working within the studios, but most are forced to make independent films—something becoming increasingly difficult to do, with fewer and fewer means of distribution.

In the same way chain stores, blockbuster and celebrity books have negatively impacted publishing, cineplexes, blockbuster movies, and star vehicles have hurt the film industry.

Here’s my Top 10 list of What’s Wrong with Hollywood.

1. Illiteracy. Too many people at the top making the biggest decisions don’t read—not books and not even the scripts they’re greenlighting.

2. Gatekeepers. Interns are doing most of the reading, writing coverage, and, therefore, deciding.

3. Risk aversion. Art can’t be made without risk.

4. Money. See above. Things are out of balance. Too much business, not enough show.

5. Sequels. Enough!

6. Old TV shows. Even if something happened to work as a television show, chances are it won’t as a film. TV and film are different mediums—and it has little to do with the relative size of the screen.

7. Video games. Really? Really?

8. Pyrotechnics over people. If we don’t care about your characters, we’ll soon be bored with your explosions.

9. Skewing tween. By attempting to make PG-13 movies for adults that appeal to tweens, too, you do neither.

10. 3D. Gimmicks can’t distract us from seeing that you have only cardboard characters and a preposterous plot—and having to see that in 3D just makes our heads ache all the more.

Lawyer Lit

2010-06-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

I’m willing to bet a not insubstantial sum (or would if I had it) that the vast majority of the reading public not only not make a distinction between literary and genre fiction, but couldn’t care less that some people do.

Mostly the people who make such distinctions are critics, academics, writers, agents, and editors—in other words “insiders” or “industry” people—and I hear them do it all the time.

In general—and these are gross generalizations— they say genre fiction is more about plot and entertainment, literary about character and the writing itself. Genre fiction is more mass market driven, popular, transient; literary fiction, more serious, sophisticated, elite, enduring.

But these are false distinctions.

To say that all genre books are poorly written or that all literary books are well written is akin to racism—a dangerous prejudice. Lazy. Easy. Thoughtless. Careless. Ignorant.

Certain genre fiction is as literary as anything being written and published. What matters most is if a book is well written, if it’s worth the investment of our precious reading moments, not where it is shelved.

Graham Greene, a great novelist and one of my mentors, made the distinction in his own work between what he called “entertainments” and his more serious novels, but both were well written.

In my own work, I attempt to develop character and use language in ways that are considered literary, but plot for suspense and to entertain in such a way so that readers rapidly turn pages and stay up late reading the way they do genre books.

Scott Turow does the same thing.

Over two decades ago, Turow virtually invented an entirely new subgenre of crime fiction—the legal thriller. Sure, there had been other novels about the law and lawyers before his, but none that so reveled in the practices and procedures of our culture’s most reviled profession. And no one had ever written about it quite so eloquently—or with such mystery and suspense.

The novel was “Presumed Innocent,” and though many legal thrillers by Grisham and company have followed, none—including Turow’s other efforts—have ever equaled it.

Now, Turow is back with “Innocent,” the sequel to that genre-defining, landmark bestseller that inspired the hit movie starring Harrison Ford, and it continues the story of Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto.

More than twenty years after Rusty and Tommy went head-to-head in the shattering murder trial of “Presumed Innocent,” the men are pitted against each other once again in a riveting psychological match. When Sabich, now over sixty years old and the chief judge of an appellate court, finds his wife, Barbara, dead under mysterious circumstances, Molto accuses him of murder for the second time, setting into motion a trial that is vintage Turow—the courtroom at its most taut and explosive.

Implicit in “Innocent” is the question: Are people capable of true change? I know we like to think so. I honestly think I’m growing and evolving, but maybe this, like so much, is merely an illusion. I believe change is possible, but know how very difficult it is to achieve. In the two decades since we’ve seen him, Rusty has changed very little. Maybe I’m not nearly as different from my twenty-year-ago self as I think I am. Maybe I’m not meant to be. I do believe that the most valid, worthy, and possible change is that which brings us back to our original selves, to our essential core—which might be far less about change and far more about restoration. Removing the layers of dust and rust, of karmic particles, until we can once again see the face we had before we were born.

Interestingly, the person who had changed the most from “Presumed Innocent” to “Innocent” is not the protagonist but the antagonist. Throughout the book Tommy Molto marvels at the ways in which he has changed. And it’s true. He has. And yet, he gets pulled right back into the situations and scenarios that mirror those of twenty years ago. Not only is change not easy. It’s not permanent. Like an addict working a twelve steps program, we have to walk the walk of our change, realizing it’s a process, a journey, not predetermined, not a destination.

With his characteristic insight into both the dark truths of the human psyche and the dense intricacies of the criminal justice system, Scott Turow proves once again he knows how to write a book that compels us to read late into the night, desperate to know who dunnit. But he does this with graceful good writing, with a style that has substance.

A worthy follow-up to “Presumed Innocent,” “Innocent” is a well written character study, an exploration of a family and its secrets, a marriage and its mysteries, a look at how little has changed in the lives of the characters we found so compelling two decades ago.

Unlike most attorneys turned novelists, Turow excels as a writer first—worth reading even without the mystery, the suspenseful plotting, the intricacies of the law, the inside view and insight into the criminal justice system his books offer.

Is “Innocent” literary fiction or a genre book? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter—and the fact that it is a hybrid, part literary novel, part mystery/thriller, proves just how much. The best books are both. The most enduring books are well written, with multi-faceted characters, and a compelling story with plenty of drama and conflict. “Innocent” is just such a book.

A Million Young Poets

2010-06-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

Last week, I traveled to New York for “Double Exposure” and “Thunder Beach” signings and meetings as part of Book Expo America, the publishing industry’s largest trade show, where hundreds of publishing organizations meet to promote their upcoming summer and fall titles, and every branch of the industry converges to discuss and plan for the future.

Over 22,000 attendees crowded into the Javits Center, where, in spite of the current economy and the state of reading in America, there was genuine excitement and optimism. Books were signed. Deals were struck. Contacts were made.

It was a quick, but extremely successful trip for me. Had great meetings with my agent and editors and publishers. Had two signings for “Thunder Beach” and ran out of books at each.

This was only my second trip to New York, but I love the city—particularly walking down the streets in the middle of the night where there are so many other night owls like me bringing energy and excitement to the city that never sleeps.

Being one person in a city of over eight million is not unlike being one author at an industry event of over twenty thousand, but I felt completely at home in both places—comfortable, relaxed, open to the experiences offered.

People come to New York for many reasons. It’s a special place, and in some ways seems the center of the world. As Jay-Z says, it’s a “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of. There’s nothing you can’t do. These streets will make you feel brand new. The lights will inspire you. One hand in the air for the big city. Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty. No place in the World that can compare.” But as I reflect on my BEA experiences, it’s a song by John Mellencamp and not Jay-Z that seems most fitting.

People come to BEA for many reasons. Publishers to promote their lists and authors, authors to promote their books, agents to cut deals, readers to get books and the autograph of a favorite author, and scores of aspiring writers come looking for a publisher.

At my publisher’s booth, like all the others, part of the constant parade of people passing by included self-published authors, clutching their books, hoping to get a publisher to take a look. It’s not the way to go about getting a publisher. It’s an impatient person’s way of attempting a shortcut that nearly never works, but I understand the drive.

People want to be published for many reasons. Some have visions of grandeur, of fame and fortune—all of which are absurd. There are far better and easier ways to become rich and famous or infamous. The most recognized authors aren’t a fraction as famous as a B-list movie star or national politicians. And as far as money, it’s laughable. The only sure way to make money as a writer is to write ransom notes.

Some people want to be published because of ego, because of needs inside them that having their name on a dust jacket can’t even begin to meet. For others, it’s perceived as a way of cheating death, of leaving something behind when the curtain falls on this short life. Maybe a portion of all these things is in every writer, but for some of us, it all comes down to our way of being in the world. I (like so many writers I know) write because I have to. It’s how I process, how I express.

It’s how I give, what I have to offer.

What I want more than anything is to be a great writer. It’s why I write and write and write and write and write, why I read and read and read and read, why I study and seek and listen and discuss and long and yearn and crave. And secondly, I want to be read.

That’s it.

I want to write good and great books—getting better and better all the time—and I want to be read widely and deeply.

I don’t want to shortcut the process or cheat the system. I want to work hard, to sacrifice and invest and grow and become. I want to bleed on the page. And all I’m asking in return is for lots of readers. I, like so many writers, just want to be read, just want to be heard.

Which is why these words from John Mellencamp’s song, “Check it Out” have been echoing around in the chamber inside me.

A million young poets
Screamin’ out their words
To a world full of people
Just livin’ to be heard
Future generations
Ridin’ on the highways that we built
I hope they have a better understanding

I guess I’m not particularly, literally young (could I pass for youngish?), but I’ve never felt younger. I’m not a screamer, but “a young poet living to be heard, screaming out his words to a world full of people who can’t hear because of all the noise” feels right to me.

And there are millions of us. And whether it’s in New York or at BEA or in the wide, wide world, our little words, our weak voices get drowned out, are missed, are dismissed. Yet, we keep writing, keep publishing (or trying to). In spite of rejection or bad reviews, or the insult of indifference, we don’t stop because we can’t.

I can’t not write.

I’ll never write a perfect novel, but I’ll also never stop trying.
This is why I went to New York, to BEA—and why I was just one among millions. A million young poets.

It’s (or appears to be) a Cruel, Cruel Summer

2010-06-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Summer has officially begun—at least as far as movies are concerned, and I saw two of the biggest releases so far this past weekend—“Robin Hood” and “Iron Man 2.”

Both movies were better than I expected—which is not to say either is great—just that they exceeded my relative low expectations.

Neither film fulfills its respective potential, neither delivers on the promise it makes, but both are entertaining and not without merit.

“Iron Man 2”

With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) faces pressure from the government, the press, and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, along with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle) at his side, must forge new alliances—and confront powerful enemies.

“Iron Man 2” is neither as good as “Robin Hood” or the movie it is sequel to. Still, Robert Downey, Jr. is perfect for the part and plays Tony Stark with credible snarkiness and charm.

Ultimately, Tony Stark is a shallow man—limited, juvenile, vain, his bad playboy attitude and brilliance the only things to recommend him. Because of this, there’s very little exploration, soul-searching—even the few self-discoveries he does make are unearned and unsatisfying.

It occurs to me that both Batman and Iron Man are rich kids with superhero suits, but unlike Batman, who’s dark, tortured soul and the journey it drives him to is inspiring and instructive, there’s a big gaping hole in Iron Man’s chest—leaving only a little room for heart and soul. Take away the suit, and batman remains a fascinating, eccentric, engaging man, but Iron Man is just a man—and not even—rather a spoiled man child with egomania and expensive toys.

Christopher Nolan (with help from his brother, Jonathan, and others) has set the standard for comic book and superhero movies with “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” and watching a movie like “Iron Man 2” only serves to remind us how good they really are.

“Robin Hood”

Far more primitive, but every bit as heroic, the flawed archer and freedom fighter, Robin Hood makes Iron Man look cartoonish.

Following King Richard's death in France archer Robin Longstride, along with Will Scarlett, Alan-a-Dale and Little John, decides to return to England. They encounter the dying Robert of Locksley, whose party was ambushed by the treacherous Godfrey, who hopes to facilitate a French invasion of England, and Robin promises the dying knight he will return his sword to his father Walter in Nottingham. Here, Walter encourages him to impersonate the dead man to prevent his land from being confiscated by the crown, and he finds himself with Marian, a ready-made wife. Hoping to stir baronial opposition to weak King John and allow an easy French take-over, Godfrey worms his way into the king's service as Earl Marshal of England and brutally invades towns under the pretext of collecting royal taxes. Robin rallies the barons and the king in an attempt to thwart the invasion, but do they have what it takes?

“Robin Hood” has the gloss of historicity about it, but it is as truth and not as fact that the film excels. A story is true not because it is factual, but because it is credible, because the humans experiencing it can identify with the humans in it and the situations and circumstances they find themselves in. Thus the oft quoted intro to a tale, “The following story is true though none of it really happened.”

“Robin Hood” had far more character development than I expected, far less frenetic action and endless battle sequences. This has led some moviegoers to complain that the film is sluggish and slow-paced, but there’s plenty of action—and it’s made all the more thrilling because we know and care about the people involved.

Ridley Scott, like his brother, Tony, is one of the best big-budget Hollywood directors working today, and he does an outstanding job here, showing far more restraint than I expected, remaining largely invisible in service of the story.

As you would expect, “Robin Hood” is about tyranny and corruption, the need for lambs to become lions when the rich and powerful abuse their position even more than usual, and the heroic individual who leads them for “cometh the hour, cometh the man.” But it’s also about love, a romance between two adults neither looking nor particularly open to romance discovering its irresistibility when attraction, character, and circumstance offer opportunity.

Though I enjoyed both movies, I can really only recommend “Robin Hood”—and not even it highly, which is far more troubling for what it portends about the prospects for this summer at the local Cineplex than the relative disappointment of these two movies. And, sadly, that’s not all that surprising—or, frankly, surprising at all, but what’s wrong with state of motion pictures in America, particularly ones released in the summer, deserves a column all its own, which gives me an idea.
Stay tuned . . .

What is God?

2010-04-08T13:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I pulled into a closed bank parking lot on 23rd Street where Girl Scouts were selling cookies.

As I stood there looking at the familiar boxes, wondering why Samoas weren’t among them, and asking how sells were going, I heard the following:

“What is God?”

“What?” I asked.

“What is God?” the tween Girl Scout asked me again.

It may very well be the most important question each of us asks and answers—determining all our other questions and answers—and it was interesting to hear it from a little girl selling cookies.

It’s the question I’ve been asking myself , one I’ve been answering and not, since childhood, and for a fraction of a second I wondered why she was asking, then it hit me.

I realized the reason for the question in the same moment she nodded toward my arm.

I was wearing a short sleeve shirt, and peeking out from beneath the cuff, written on my left bicep in black ink the words “is God” were visible.

“What is God?” she was asking, emphasizing the “what” because she could see the “is God.”

Most talk about God in our culture is simplistic, sexist, silly, and downright juvenile. God is reduced to that which we project our fears, biases, hopes, and dreams onto. God likes what we like, hates who we hate because we have created what we call “God” in our own image.

But God is a mystery—beyond us to such an extent we’re only left with myth and metaphor, story and poetry.

Transcendent. Ineffable. Sublime. What is God is what we should be asking all the time. Unfortunately, many among us are taught from an early age exactly what God is. We live with a rigidity and certainty, so convinced we know what God is we stop asking, keeping us from any hope of ever glimpsing what God is—which, by the way, is the best we can ever hope to do. A glimpse of ultimate reality, of the ground of being, of the great mystery, is rare and humbling and worth everything—and probably won’t happen as long as we believe we already know what God is.

If we would continually empty ourselves, be open, and ask, as my cookie salesperson did, “What is God?” we might just get a glimpse.

I take seriously the question my own arm inspired the Girl Scout to ask. If you do, too, and would like to join me in the asking, I’ve pulled a few books off my shelves to help us ask the questions (don’t trust any books or gurus that claim to have the answers).

“The God We Never Knew” by Marcus Borg is the most accessible and easy to understand of the stack of old friends I’m looking at as I write this. He’s a Jesus scholar and an active person of faith who takes modern scholarship and non-literal ideas of religion and makes them easy to understand.

Karen Armstrong is another writer who takes scholarship and interprets it for the masses. Not as personal or devotional as Borg, Armstrong takes a more historical and academic approach. Her books, “A History of God,” “The Battle for God,” and “The Case for God” are excellent—wise, learned, brilliant, thorough, profoundly thought-provoking.

“God: A Biography,” by Jack Miles approaches the God of the Hebrew Bible (or more accurately the gods) as a literary character, combining narrative, literary criticism, and modern scholarship into a fascinating look at the most famous and most written about character in human history.

“The Disappearance of God,” by Richard Friedman looks at the presence and increasing absence of God in the Bible. In many ways, a mystery story, “The Disappearance of God” is engaging and insightful, revealing, as all books about God do, far more about us than God.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for our male-dominated, sexist culture, I highly recommend feminist theologians, Sallie McFague, Elizabeth Johnson, and Rosemary Radford Ruether, who challenge our ridiculous and limiting masculine concepts of God. “She Who Is,” “Sexism and God-Talk,” “Models of God,” and “The Body of God” are excellent aids in restoring the lost feminine face of God, and it’s difficult to imagine anything we need more. Losing the metaphor of Mother God has made us orphans capable of hating our own siblings.

I’m not just recommending each of these books, but recommending you read them all.

In most of the ways our culture judges such things, I’m not a religious person. And because of the ways our culture judges such things, that suits me just fine. But
I’ve spent my life emptying and asking the questions and will continue to. And I’m continually frustrated by how little the most religious (as our culture judges) among us know about their own religion or its sacred texts—not to mention religion
in general or theology.

The best way each of us can keep from being ignorant and arrogant, defensive and violent, is to, in humility, ask the questions, emptying ourselves of all we think we know and questioning everything—including the questions.

Over the years of my decades-long quest, I’ve come up with a few answers—answers I still continue to question, except for one. The only answer I am completely convinced of, the one that, if I am wrong about, I want to be wrong, is the one tattooed on my left bicep, the bottom part of which led the Girl Scout to ask, “What is God?”

I lifted my sleeve so she could read the answer to her question and she did.
“God is love is God,” she read, and there was nothing else for either of us to say on the subject.

Romance and Rhetoric

2010-03-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

“The Russia House” is a romance—of rhetoric as much as relationship, with ideas as much as individuals. It’s about a scientist with the soul of a poet, a heroic drunk who finds it in himself to become a decent human being, and the bewitchingly beautiful woman who makes them both better men.

“The Russia House,” based on the John LeCarre novel, stars Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer as two people caught in a web of spies and politics, whose love could prove fatal to them both. When Katya (Pfeiffer), a beautiful Russian book editor, attempts to send British publisher Barley Blair (Connery) a manuscript written by a noted Soviet scientist, she unwittingly draws them both into a world of international espionage. The manuscript, which contains information that could alter the balance of world power, is intercepted by the West’s spy-masters who then send Blair to Russia to gain more information on the mysterious document. But after Blair falls for Katya, he finds himself torn between his mission and the woman whose passion for her country and for Blair knows no bounds.

This is one of those rare films I return to time and again—twice a year on average—that continues to affect me deeply. I love its idealism. I love its romanticism. I love that it takes these two ways of being in the world and juxtaposes them with cynicism of the benighted, fearful men running the world.

“The Russia House” is a romance I can believe in, one that resonates with me, one that has credibility, one that is grounded in reality. It miraculously manages to be wise and profound, about real issues of honor and justice, of love and hate, of life and death, yet remains wondrously, wildly romantic.

The events of “The Russia House” are set into motion because of these words by Barley at a writers retreat in Russia during the Cold War:

Barley: I believe in the new Russia. You may not, but I do. Years ago, it was just a pipe dream. Today, it's our only hope. We thought we could bankrupt you by raising the stakes in the arms race. Gambling with the fate of the human race.

Russian writer: Barley, you won your gamble. Nuclear peace for years.

Barley: Oh, rubbish. What peace? Ask the Czechs, the Vietnamese, the Koreans. Ask the Afghans. No. If there is to be hope, we must all betray our countries. We have to save each other, because all victims are equal. And none is more equal than others. It’s everyone's duty to start the avalanche.

Russian writer: A heroic thought, Barley.

Barley: Listen, nowadays you have to think like a hero just to behave like a merely decent human being.

Later, a writer named Dante, who turns out to be a scientist as well as a poet, asks Barely to promise him if he ever manages to act heroically, Barley will respond as a decent human being. Barely does, but when Barely discovers what Dante wants his help with, he wavers. Dante tells Barley that his thoughts on world peace have inspired him, which causes Barley to be confronted with whether he is willing to die for what he claims to be his most beloved beliefs.

Barley: I'm not the man you thought I was.

Dante: You do not have to remind me that man is not equal to his rhetoric.

None of us are equal to our rhetoric, but both Dante and Barely manage to be when it really matters, making them decent and heroic, and reminding us that being brave isn’t the absence of fear, but remaining resolute in spite of it. This, for me, makes “The Russia House” a profoundly inspiring film. If Boozy Barely Blair can be a hero, so can I, so can you.

Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer are absolutely brilliant in their roles as Barely and Katya, and though in general I hate the way Hollywood too often casts young women and old men, because of the characters and the casting, it works here. But as good as Connery is, Pfeiffer completely disappears into the role of Katya—something difficult for such an extremely beautiful woman to do. With her accent and mannerisms and the persona of the old Russian soul she’s become, Pfeiffer is Katya.

“The Russia House” vividly and convincingly shows how few people—mostly scared, paranoid, small-souled men—keep the world from peace. It also shows the power of love.

Love, as the most powerful and powerless force in existence, gives us the inspiration and the ability to change, to become.

Love is the ultimate act of faith, of trust, and Cold War espionage provides a perfect backdrop of distrust to test the resolve of Dante, Barley, and Katya—lovers of truth, lovers of life, lovers of ideas, lovers of literature and art, lovers of people more than countries, of love and peace more than might and power.

Even in the face of certain death, Dante, Barely, and Katya hold fast to love, risking all for it—including their very lives—for they know what the author of the biblical book of the Song of Songs knew: “Set me as a seal upon your heart. For love is as strong as death.”

Barley: I love you. All my failings were preparation for meeting you. It’s like nothing I have ever known. It’s unselfish love, grown up love. You know it is. It’s mature, absolute, thrilling love.

Katya: I hope you are not being frivolous, Barley. My life now only has room for truth.

Barley:You are my only country now.

Love conquers all. It changes us. It changes the world—toppling empires, removing regimes, lasting, remaining, enduring. Long after the Russian and American empires are ash-streaked heaps, love will still be changing hearts and minds, giving hope and strength, comforting, inspiring, transforming. Boozy Barley Blair acted heroically in the way only decent human beings can because of love. Love gently leads us to become our best selves, gives us the best hope of being equal to our romance and rhetoric. These three remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.

My Perfect Moonlight Movie

2010-03-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me recently that I watch movies the way I read books—alone.

True, I don’t watch every movie alone. Occasionally, I brave the theater (with its mouth-breathing popcorn crunchers and screen talkers—harsh and unkind, I know [and I’m known for being neither], but I genuinely love film and these people prevent me from fully entering its world). Sometimes I even take a move-watching companion, but mostly I watch movies in high-def on my Sony 55 inch HD TV in my study, reclined in my leather Stressless chair surrounded by my books.

Not only do I watch movies alone, but I mostly watch them late at night when the world is sleeping—a trend that goes back to my adolescence as the only night owl in a house of early birds.

There’s no better way to get caught up or swept away than alone with a good movie on the dark side of the witching hour. And some movies are just meant to be watched this way—“Frankie and Johnny” foremost among them. It’s a movie about loneliness in which the crises-ridden climax takes place on a long, lonely Saturday night as Clair de Lune, which is French for moonlight, plays in the background.

Garry Marshall (“Pretty Woman”) directs the screen adaptation of Terence McNally’s 1987 play “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” the story of an ex-con, short-order cook (Al Pacino) who drives a waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer) crazy with his intense courtship and professions of love. McNally adapted his two-character play for the screen and has expanded and rearranged his original story, adding a variety of settings and extending the narrative out over a longer period of time, while surrounding the lovers with additional characters. Kate Nelligan, another lonely waitress, and Nathan Lane, a gay neighbor, really standout.

This exchange between Cora (Kate Nelligan), a waitress standing at the order counter trying to get the old, overweight cook, Tino, to finish her customer’s food, is an example of the movie’s good-humored humor.

Cora: Tino! Who do ya gotta %$#@ to get a waffle here?

[Tino points at himself, Cora looks back at a customer]

Cora: Forget the waffle!

“Frankie and Johnny” is a sweet story—but not overly so. There’s a real sadness present, too. These are people whose lives haven’t turned out like they had hoped—for those among them with enough hope to even dare to hope. They are living lonely, little lives of service and subsistence, but doing so with humor and dignity, and the desire to make real connections.

As charming and funny as “Frankie and Johnny” is, it’s Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer’s performances that elevate it—him, as a middle-aged man so desperate, he’s needy and obnoxious, her, as a sad and wounded woman so gripped by fear she’s hardened and defensive. Here are two examples of their typical interactions:

Frankie: I feel like you’re too needy.

Johnny: Oh, come on. What does that mean?

Frankie: I just feel like you want everything I am. You know?

Johnny: Yes, I do. Why not?

Frankie: I’m retired from dating.

Johnny: What does that mean? Something happen to you as a kid? What happened?

Frankie: You know. Why is it that anytime a woman doesn’t want to get involved in a relationship, men think they were messed with as a kid. Wrong. They were messed with as a woman.

Each time I watch “Frankie and Johnny,” I feel the same way—connected, compassionate, happy and hopeful. The movie is not without sadness and darkness, loss and lovelessness, but it’s because, and not in spite, of these things, that an earned sense of hope appears, grace out of the grime and grittiness.

In addition to the witty writing, charm, sweetness, wonderful performances, “Frankie and Johnny” has a strong, complimentary soundtrack—the best piece of music by far, “Clair de Lune,” third movement of Suite bergamasque by Claude Debussy, a piano depiction of a Paul Verlaine poem.

When it begins to play on the small radio in her apartment, Frankie says, “That music is nice. Makes me think of grace.”

I can’t think of anything better than that, and as it turns out, it is a grace for Frankie and Johnny.

As Frankie once again begins to crawl back inside her distrust and defensiveness, Johnny calls the radio station’s DJ and asks him to play it again in hopes it will save their relationship.

Johnny: Now, there's a man and a woman. He's a cook. She's a waitress. Now, they meet and they don't connect. Only, she noticed him. He could feel it. And he noticed her. And they both knew it was going to happen. They made love, and for maybe one whole night, they forgot the 10 million things that make people think, I don't love this person, I don't like this person, I don't know this—instead, it was perfect, and they were perfect. And that's all there was to know about. Only now, she's beginning to forget all that, and pretty soon he's going to forget it, too.

Does he play it again? Does Frankie come out of her shell and risk love? Is it possible for two people to find later in life what was so excruciatingly elusive earlier when they were younger and more hopeful and more sure?
Watch the movie or read the play, preferably alone and late at night, and let the Clair de Lune shine its grace on you, as you witnesses to their story.

Bloodletting Brilliance

2010-03-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” is a vicious, violent, relentless literary bloodletting masterpiece of American fiction—an apocalyptic prose poem.

It’s as well written as anything I’ve ever read—the writing itself, better than even McCarthy’s other peerless works, is a dark, devastating delirium of alchemic anarchy.

The novel chronicles the brutal world of the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the mid-nineteenth century. Its wounded hero, the teenage Kid, must confront the extraordinary violence of the Glanton gang, a murderous cadre on an official mission to scalp Indians and sell those scalps. Loosely based on fact, the novel represents a genius vision of the historical West, one so fiercely realized that since its initial publication in 1985 the canon of American literature has welcomed Blood Meridian to its shelf.

As a novelist, as a student of literature, even when I’m reading for “entertainment,” I’m not. This is especially true of a writer like McCarthy. I can’t fathom anyone purporting to have literary aspirations or claiming to be a student of American literary fiction, not studying this great American novelist.

In recent years, thanks to film adaptations and Oprah, McCarthy’s audience and influence has increased. With “No Country for Old Men” and, especially, “The Road” he has moved more into the mainstream, and while these are more accessible, more contemporary, “Blood Meridian” is the masterwork, that which will surely endure even if no other work does.

I was first introduced to Cormac McCarthy by literary critic, Harold Bloom, whose books have taught me so much over the years.

Here is a bit of his introduction to “Blood Meridian.”

“‘Blood Meridian’ seems to me the authentic American apocalyptic novel, more relevant even in 2010 than it was twenty-five years ago. The fulfilled renown of “Moby-Dick” and of “As I Lay Dying” is augmented by “Blood Meridian,” since Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and of Faulkner. I venture that no other living American novelist, not even Pynchon, has given us a book as strong and memorable as “Blood Meridian,” much as I appreciate Don DeLillo’s “Underworld;” Philip Roth’s “Zuckerman Bound,” “Sabbath’s Theater,” and “American Pastoral;” and Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” and “Mason & Dixon.” McCarthy himself, in his Border Trilogy, commencing with the superb “All the Pretty Horses,” has not matched “Blood Meridian,” but it is the ultimate Western, not to be surpassed.”

But the relentless brutality of “Blood Meridian” can’t be denied. It’s not an easy book to read. Listen to Bloom’s confession.

“My concern being the reader, I will begin by confessing that my first two attempts to read through “Blood Meridian” failed, because I flinched from the overwhelming carnage that McCarthy portrays. The violence begins on the novel’s second page, when the fifteen-year-old Kid is shot in the back and just below the heart, and continues almost with no respite until the end, thirty years later, when Judge Holden, the most frightening figure in all of American literature. So appalling are the continuous massacres and mutilations of “Blood Meridian” that one could be reading a United Nations report on the horrors of Kosovo in 1999.

“Nevertheless, I urge the reader to persevere, because “Blood Meridian” is a canonical imaginative achievement, both an American and a universal tragedy of blood. Judge Holden is a villain worthy of Shakespeare, Iago-like and demoniac, a theoretician of war everlasting. And the book’s magnificence—its language, landscape, persons, conceptions—at last transcends the violence, and convert goriness into terrifying art, an art comparable to Melville’s and to Faulkner’s.

When I teach the book, many of my students resist it initially (as I did, and as some of my friends continue to do). Television saturates us with actual as well as imagined violence, and I turn away, either in shock or in disgust. But I cannot turn away from “Blood Meridian,” now that I know how to read it, and why it has to be read. None of its carnage is gratuitous or redundant; it belonged to the Mexico–Texas borderlands in 1849–50, which is where and when most of the novel is set. I suppose one could call “Blood Meridian” a “historical novel,” since it chronicles the actual expedition of the Glanton gang, a murderous paramilitary force sent out both by Mexican and Texan authorities to murder and scalp as many Indians as possible. Yet it does not have the aura of historical fiction, since what it depicts seethes on, in the United States, and nearly everywhere else, well into the third millennium. Judge Holden, the prophet of war, is unlikely to be without honor in our years to come.

“Even as you learn to endure the slaughter McCarthy describes, you become accustomed to the book’s high style, again as overtly Shakespearean as it is Faulknerian. There are passages of Melvillean-Faulknerian baroque richness and intensity in “The Crying of Lot 49,” and elsewhere in Pynchon, but we can never be sure that they are not parodistic. The prose of “Blood Meridian” soars, yet with its own economy, and its dialogue is always persuasive.”

I agree with Bloom. As interesting, fascinating, engaging as its characters are, as much as their journey is epic and suspenseful, it is the language of “Blood Meridian” that elevates it to the lofty position of art, of enduring, timeless, literature. Mastery of language like this happens so seldom, a work like this is published so infrequently, all of us who hold story sacred, who claim to care about culture, about art and literature, should buy it, read it, study it, reread it, repeat.

Like Bloom, I esteem Roth, Delillo, Auster and others, but, for me, no writer since Shakespeare has so tapped at and tested the limits of language as Cormac McCarthy. Of all the heady and humbling things said about my last novel, “Double Exposure,” nothing meant as much as when reviewers and readers compared it to McCarthy’s work.

“Blood Meridian” is just what the title says—the highest point or stage of development—and not just for Cormac McCarthy, but for literature. It’s a midday zenith of world literature, a peek, a meridional masterpiece written in blood.

A Few Notes:

Thanks so much to all of you have sent such warm and generous congratulations on “Double Exposure” winning a Florida Book Award. I’m truly grateful for both the award and for your kind support.

I’m very happy that “Hurt Locker” took best picture and Kathryn Bigelow won best director at the Oscars. Well deserved! It gives me hope. In the end, I think “Avatar” is little more than an amazing technical achievement and stunning visuals.

Walking into the theater to see a movie recently, I had to pass the two enormous gray garbage cans filled with the trash from the previous audience and it made me sick. We’ve got to do better—not only with what we put in our bodies, but with all the waste, all the garbage we’re creating. Throwing something away doesn’t make it really go away—whether it’s plastic bags or deadly chemicals (and nearly all chemicals ultimately are). I challenge you as I am challenging myself. Consume less, waste less, discard less, reuse more.

Wide Open Spaces and the Sound of Silence

2010-03-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Quiet.

Slow-paced.

Character study.

Not words you’ll hear used to market many movies—especially in the era of blockbusters and Cineplexes—but for a film to truly be affecting, to give us, its audience, the opportunity to connect with its characters, it must involve no small amount of moments that involve just such things.

In the same way each of us need time, silence, and solitude to become our best, deepest, richest, most inwardly complex selves, a film needs a certain pace and space for characters to live and breathe. A life fitted with time to think, space to meditate, to contemplate, to be, is essential for soul building. A story imbued with quiet not only allows character to develop, but enables us to connect.

And nothing’s more important.

Stories are magic, are sacred things, because they give us multiple lives, infinite incarnations, endless opportunities to so indentify with a character that we become that character, that we experience existence from inside another.

Of course, this can be done during the quiet moments between action sequences or battle scenes, but the more the moments, the more deeply we experience the other, and if an entire story is thus, well then, all the mo’ betta’.

“Crazy Heart” is just such a story—a quiet, slow-paced, character study. Affecting. Moving. More.

Fifty-seven year old Bad Blake is a minor legend as a country singer. But that status only nets him gigs in bowling alleys and bars. Bad is an overweight, chain-smoking alcoholic. He is informed by a doctor that his self-destructive lifestyle will send him to an early grave. This self-destructive behavior has also led to several failed marriages and a grown son who he has not seen since he was four. While performing in Santa Fe, Bad meets newspaper journalist Jean Craddock, who wants to do a piece on him for her newspaper. Despite the differences in their ages, Jean and Bad begin a relationship. Jean and her four year old son Buddy become the closest thing to family Bad has. Not coincidentally, during this time, he experiences a resurrection of sorts in his career, but what looks to be a promising professional and personal future may be jeopardized by his hell-bent self-destructiveness.

“Crazy Heart” is a good enough film, but it’s the performances that elevate it into something worth recommending. Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal are quietly mesmerizing.

As I watched “Crazy Heart,” I kept thinking that what I was seeing was a remake—or at least the spiritual offspring—of “Tender Mercies.” And then Robert Duvall made an appearances (and later I find out he produced it), and it confirmed the connection between the two films for me.

“Tender Mercies” stars Robert Duvall (in an Oscar-winning performance) in a touching story of a down-and-out country singer named Mac Sledge who meets Rosa Lee, a young widow (Tess Harper) in a small Texas town. But as their relationship blossoms, Mac’s years of hard living resurface when his music star ex-wife (Betty Buckley) appears bringing his estranged daughter (Ellen Barkin) with her. It’s a low-key, contemplative film directed by Australian Bruce Beresford (“Driving Miss Daisy,” “Breaker Morant”), written by Horton Foote (“To Kill a Mockingbird”), who won an Oscar for his screenplay.

“Tender Mercies” is that rare film that is far, far greater than the sum of its parts—a simple story told simply, its understated performances pitch-perfect for this masterpiece of quietude.

Both “Crazy Heart” and “Tender Mercies” are redemption stories set in the sad, alcohol-soaked world of country music, where the music itself is a character. Bad sings (and lives) that “falling feels like flying for a little while” and Mac keeps reminding himself over and over that no matter how painful he must “face reality.”

Though film as a medium is limited in showing it, simplicity in one’s outer life often leads to richness and complexity in one’s inner life. It’s what Walden is about—going to the woods to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, to learn what it has to teach, and not, when we die, discover that we had not lived.

It’s a big part of why I live where I do (on a lake in a small town) and an even bigger part of why I live the way I do. Without time to think, without space to breathe, without stillness and solitude, we’re like plants in a windowless, smoke-filled office dying without sun and rain and fresh air. Whether we’re confronting alcoholism or existentialism, we, like Bad Brad and Mac, need time and space and love.

Love changes us. It’s the only thing that can. Actually, it’s far more accurate to say that love gives us the opportunity, the environment, in which change can occur. Jean’s love for Bad Blake, Rosa Lee’s love for Mac Sledge, provide a milieu for the men to change—any substantive change they do.

Unconditional love is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and others.

Acceptance.

Being accepted—completely and utterly accepted—just as we are. No judgment. No rejection. No expectations. Nothing but passionate compassion, understanding, appreciation, kindness.

Rosa Lee’s love for Mac is unconditional. She is constant. She is patient. She is giving. Mac experiences God’s tender mercies through her—which is what makes this small, quiet film profound. She gives Mac something Jean isn’t quite able to give Bad. The capacity for love each woman has is different. They are different and have had very different experiences.

Life is suffering—much of it unnecessary and self-inflicted—but, as Mac discovers, being loved, truly loved, makes even tragedy and trauma bearable. Trusting in, resting in, being secure in another’s (and ultimately God’s) love enables us not to survive life, but to experience it with hope and joy.

Mac tells Rosa Lee, “I don’t trust happiness. I never have and I never will,” but despite his claim, and the way his self-destructive decisions have so often caused it to be true, her unconditional love is showing him day by day, moment by moment, he can trust goodness and good things.

And it’s not just washed up, alcoholic country singers who need unconditional love. We all do. Unfortunately, too often when fronted with it, we find it so foreign, so inconceivable, we run from it. Mac jumps in the old pickup truck, buys a bottle, and runs as fast as he can, but something, thankfully, mercifully, brings him back.
What was it that brought him back? The kind, loving, and oh so tender mercies of a good woman (and the God loving him through her).

Dennis Lehane's “Shutter Island” Shows Scorsese to be Master of Dark Art

2010-02-24T09:30:00.001-08:00

Back in November at the Miami Book Fair, while telling Dennis Lehane how much his books have meant to me, I asked him if he had seen Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of his novel, “Shutter Island.” He told me he had and that it was a masterpiece.

I couldn’t agree more.

At 67, Martin Scorsese is at the height of his powers as a filmmaker.

And for the third time—three for three—Mr. Lehane has had one of his novels adapted successfully (the others being “Mystic River” and “Gone Baby Gone”).

It’s rare for an author to have one good film made of his or her work, but three? It’s unheard of. I asked him why he thought he’d been so fortunate, and he said it was because in each case, a true auteur was involved—an artist with a vision to serve as author of the film. In the same way Mr. Lehane is the author of his books, Clint Eastwood was the author of “Mystic River,” Ben Affleck, of “Gone Baby Gone,” and, now, Martin Scorsese of “Shutter Island.” Just as a great novel must have a visionary artist, a great film needs a single-minded director, an alchemist who takes all the disparate elements and makes magic.

It’s 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston’s Shutter Island Mental Hospital. He’s been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he wonders whether he hasn’t been brought here as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy’s shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, while more dangerous criminals escape in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything - his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.

I have been an admirer of Dennis Lehane since, while doing a book signing for my first novel at Murder on the Beach in South Florida back in1997, Joanne Sinchuck, the store’s owner, recommended I read “Sacred,” which had just come out. It was so good, I had soon read everything he’d written, and have continued to read each new work as it has been published (though I’ve yet to be able to get to his latest “Remains of the Day,” because of deadlines). Of Mr. Lehane’s books I’ve read “Shutter Island” is my favorite just behind “Gone Baby Gone,” but I highly recommend all of his work as some of the very best contemporary crime fiction being written.

With “Shutter Island” the film, what Scorsese has done is take a great novel and do it justice by making it into a powerful cinematic experience. He uses the language of cinema to offer a film that, to me, is more translation than adaptation. It’s faithful to the book in many literal and all spiritual ways.

Sitting in the dark theater watching Scorsese’s “Shutter Island,” I kept thinking this is a masterwork by a true master filmmaker, that the movie is a class—Cinema 101. Every frame is full and rich and flawless, every shot stylish, every angle adding to the story being told. This is classic filmmaking by an elder statesman cinephile who here realizes the promise of his potential—and obviously has fun doing it.

“Shutter Island” doesn’t just show a director doing his best work, but a film student—perhaps the most serious film student of any working director—who has become a scholar, and his teachers, his influences, are everywhere present. No doubt we are seeing the tutelage and inspiration of Truffaut, Wilder, Kurosawa, Fellini, and many, many others. But the two filmmakers I continually saw in frame after frame, shot after shot, in the mise en scène, in the camera placement and movement, were Hitchcock and Kubrick. Perhaps it can be argued that this is a result of the film’s gothic material and crime genre, but I think that’s only part of why these great directors came to mind. For decades, Scorsese has been film’s most eloquent spokesperson. In “Shutter Island” the film itself becomes the spokesperson, eloquently, exquisitely speaking the language of cinema.

Some have called the film too gloomy, too atmospheric, too dark. For me, the film, like the book, captures perfectly, if painfully, the psychological, spiritual, and physical condition of its time, place, and people. There’s a world of difference between mood and emotion. Too many filmmakers go for emotion—manipulating audiences into a momentary emotional reaction, but here, the master, creates a mood, a relentless, pervasive experience that creeps in like a fog off Boston Harbor into a man’s marrow. And stays there. It’s the difference between an immediate effect and a being truly affected by a work of art.

A few critics have dismissed both the book and the film as hokum, as some sort of parlor game unworthy of writer and director, but, to me, this reveals a genre prejudice, an unwillingness to even consider that a work with some certain genre conventions can also be art. Some have actually indicated that Scorsese has invested too much craft, too much attention to detail, too much cinematic art in “Shutter Island.” They seem to be saying that if a work can be classified in a particular genre, if it has twists and turns, an actual plot, and a devastating dénouement, it should be made with less care, less skill, less everything in order to justify their unsupported belief that it is indeed somehow less.

“Shutter Island”—both the book and the film—is a haunting, affecting story with both substance and thrills. It’s entertaining and enlightening, a genre work and a work of art, and the two men responsible—Lehane and Scorsese—are very, very good at what they do, masters of their mediums, artists and craftsmen, entertainers extraordinaire to be sure, but also provokers of thought, nourishers of soul. Read the book. See the film. Preferably in that order.

Audience Participation

2010-02-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, I had an experience in a movie theater that connected to a similar experience I had some twenty-three years ago.

I was in a huge, packed theater in Tallahassee with my daughter because I’m a good dad and she wanted me to see “Valentine’s Day” with her. The movie itself is okay—a little obvious with weak writing, but a stellar cast and some real charm. Meleah, my 19 year-old daughter loves it and has seen it three times so far. This makes me love the movie, too. It just doesn’t make the movie any better.

A little background:

Back in 1986, I left the small town of Wewahitchka, Florida, and moved to the big city of Atlanta, Georgia, and going from a place with one traffic light to a place with six-lane interstates was just one of the differences I encountered. Some things were definitely different, true, but not everything. I thought I had left the bigotry and small-mindedness of small Southern towns behind, but I was wrong.

After living in Atlanta for several months, I went with a friend to a theater in the Atlanta suburb of Conyers (this was circa 1987). The movie was, “Fatal Beauty,” and at the end of it, after surviving several acts of violence and a couple of shootouts, Sam Elliott and Whoopi Goldberg kissed. The audience reaction that followed was a horrible, ugly display of racism. After boos and groans and angry expressions, someone shouted, “Just shoot them both right now.”

Twenty-three years later, in a filled-to- capacity theater in Tallahassee, in “Valentine’s Day,” Jamie Fox and Jessica Biel kissed and no one said a word or made a sound—except happy ones.

This made me happy. It’s real progress. (Even if it can be argued that most audiences would find Mr. Foxx and Ms. Biel far more palatable than Mr. Elliott and Ms. Goldberg no matter what they were doing). And it came about because of people like Sam and Whoopi—and so many writers and directors, novelists and painters, and artists (not to mention activists and martyrs; I’m dealing with arts and entertainment and its cultural impact here) who express both how the world is and how it can be.

Don’t get me wrong. I have long since been disabused of my belief in the moral progress of man. Even as a segment of the world’s population is growing and evolving in love and oneness, in wisdom and understanding, another is growing even more militant in its ignorance and fear and hatred.

Still, these two experiences in movie theaters in the South are linked in my mind, and I do see my most recent theater experience as progress of a kind. But the two experiences are linked in another way as well—in a far more discouraging way. Sadly,
both are also linked by expressions of bigotry.

True, no one moaned or groaned when Jamie Fox and Jessica Biel kissed, but they certainly did when the two gay characters did.

When Eric Dane and Bradley Cooper kissed, the bigoted, homophobic reaction was just as bad as the bigoted racist reaction had been at “Fatal Beauty” two decades earlier, and I sat there thinking how sad humans are in the nearly universal tribalism that wants an “us” and a “them.” Why do we need a group to despise, to identify ourselves by, a group for which we say our god loves us but hates them?

The negative reaction was even more poignant because, based on the comments from the women in the audience, the two men were the most attractive on the screen, and long before it was revealed that they were gay, many of the women around me were whispering their approval of and desire for them.

The hopeless optimist in me believes (or badly wants to) that we are evolving, becoming (culturally) our better selves, but another voice inside me says that human history shows not progress so much as a shuffling of bigotry from one group to another. Please, please, please, please, please, please help me prove that voice wrong.

The Long Hall

2010-02-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

Interesting things happen in halls. In them, we encounter neighbors or classmates or family. We bump into and are introduced to strangers. We carry things and move things. We say hello and kiss goodnight. But mostly hallways are places of transition—the not-quite-there-yet limbo between where we have been and where we are going.

Two recent films, “Across the Hall” and “Adam,” which couldn’t be more different, both have hallways playing significant roles in them. In “Adam,” the main character falls in love with a girl he meets in an apartment building hallway, and in “Across the Hall,” dark deeds happen in and on either side of a hotel hallway.

“Across the Hall”

An expanded version of his 2005 short film of the same name, director Alex Merkin's “Across the Hall” is a feature-length noir thriller that follows the tense standoff between a young man, his best friend, and his fiancée. Mike Vogel appears opposite Brittany Murphy and Danny Pino in a film penned by Merkin and Jesse Mittelstadt—the same two who collaborated on the original short film.

A quiet night takes a dangerous turn when Julian receives a frantic phone call from his best friend, Terry, who has followed his unfaithful fiancée, June, to a downtrodden Riverview hotel on the other side of town. Having a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a revolver in the other, Terry is staked out in the room across the hall from her.

As noir as anything I’ve seen recently, “Across the Hall,” has more style than substance, but enough more that you might not notice. That said, it is a well constructed thriller with some nice twists and surprises that manages to build and sustain tension.

Desire is a powerful force—one that not only propels us through life, but actually is life, causes life to be, causes life to continue. But there’s a dark side of desire. The desire for another, so primal, so pure, can turn into jealous possession—a violent grip that can squeeze the life out of a relationship. Love is freedom. The two words come from the same root, and you can’t have one without the other for very long—freedom is oxygen that feeds love’s flame. If love is present, our most passionate possessings of others will be simultaneously releasings. This is clearly something Terry doesn’t understand. Gun in hand, he’s going to force June to get into the cage of his desire and eliminate the competition for her affection. The Buddha says end desire and you end suffering, and though non-attachment is certainly a solution, for me, fully attaching in love and freedom is the better way—though, actually, the two approaches are far more closely aligned than they may appear to be. We were created to be free. God, the universe, the world, only give us freedom. If we are imprisoned it is our own doing—including submitting to the dark side of someone else’s desire and the cell their control wants to lock us in.

Merkin’s movie has some very nice touches, and though he calls “Across the Hall” a “psychological thriller, a Hitchockian story,” that’s a bit of a stretch. Hitchcock is far more subtle, far more restrained, far more refined. Still, Merkin manages to sustain a delicious sense of dread, and his old, empty, dark hotel on a rainy night provides enough atmosphere for a couple of films.

One of Brittany Murphy’s last films, “Across the Hall” shows her sultry little lost wild child/almost-a-woman sexuality, that, like her voice is sexy, but a bit awkward. Of course, this vulnerability adds to her appeal.

“Adam”

In a very different hall, two misfits meet and miscommunicate.

In this sweet, charming romantic dramedy, Hugh Dancy (“The Jane Austen Book Club”) plays Adam, an intriguing and handsome young man with Asperger Syndrome, who has led a sheltered existence his entire life—and probably would’ve continued to, but when he meets his new neighbor, Beth (“Knowing”), a beautiful, understated young woman, she pulls him out into the world in ways he could’ve never imagined. The results are funny, touching and entirely unexpected. Their implausible and enigmatic relationship reveals just how far two people from different realities can stretch in search of an extraordinary connection.

“Adam,” both the lead character and the film itself, is sweet—with quiet but palpable charm and very real appeal.

Genuine connections are rare, deep connections difficult—realities only complicated by Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that involves significant challenges in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Adam’s condition presents him with obstacles to intimacy that at times seem insurmountable. But when it comes to relationships, I think we’re all more like Adam than we’d care to admit.

Having authentic, abiding, actual connections with others and being involved in every crevice of at least one other person (and maybe more) is what we most long for, but our relational Aspergers keeps us trapped inside ourselves, unable to risk the naked, egoless, love-based vulnerability required for true and utter human bonding. And sometimes, tragically, even when we have our own relational Aspergers under control, the person we’re attempting to relate to is unable to because of theirs.

Like Adam, part of what keeps us imprisoned in our relational Aspergers is rigidity. Our pride and egos and lack of love leave us wounded, defensive, unable to bend, unable to forgive. When Adam refuses to forgive Beth for her humanness, his wise older friend says, “Everyone is a liar. You’ve just got to figure which liars are worth loving.” It’s obvious from the very beginning that getting involved with Adam is risky for Beth, but Adam is also taking a risk, as we all do in connecting with others. Perhaps nothing is as risky, but certainly nothing is more worth the risk.

Interesting things happen in halls—sometimes life-altering things. After all, it’s not the destination, but the journey that most determines who we are and the quality of our lives. And you could do worse than spending some time in the dark hallways of the Riverview Hotel or the dingy hallways of Adam and Beth’s apartment complex. Both are aspects of the long hall of humanity. In fact, life itself is a hallway lined with doors—each representing options, opportunity, and, ultimately in the choosing, destiny.

A Doubly Single Man

2010-02-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

Fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut of Christopher Isherwood’s novel, “A Single Man” is a faithful, yet artistic, adaptation, and ultimately an extraordinary film. Financed by Ford himself, this stylistic work of art affords Colin Firth the role of a lifetime.

Set in Los Angeles on November 30, 1962, “A Single Man” is the story of George Falconer (Colin Firth), a middle-aged British college professor who has struggled to find meaning in his life since the sudden death eight months earlier of his longtime partner, Jim (Matthew Goode). Throughout the single day depicted in the film, and narrated from his point of view, George dwells on his past and his seemingly empty future as he prepares for his planned suicide that evening. Before meeting his close friend Charley (Julianne Moore) for dinner, he has unexpected encounters with a Spanish prostitute (Jon Kortajarena) and a young student, Kenny Potter (Nicholas Hoult), who has become fixated on George as a kindred spirit.

You’d expect a designer like Ford to make pretty pictures of pretty people wearing pretty closes standing in pretty places, but unlike so many music video directors who are unable to combine beautifully shot images and symbols into narrative, Ford integrates style and substance in brilliant, effective, and evocative ways.

“A Single Man” is about, among other things, being single, and as I watched the frames unspool and bathe the enormous screen, I began to think about what this means. In one sense, we’re all single. In another, none of us are. When most people think of being single, they think of someone who has no sexual partner, no primary person, no automatic plus-one for every situation that calls for it. Of course, many, if not most, still equate this with marriage. One is single until one is married. But there are plenty of single married people; plenty of people who are not married and couldn’t be less single.

Interestingly, George doesn’t just appear to be single now that Jim is dead, but because their relationship is rejected by society, he appeared to be so even when Jim was alive and they were together. This is true of all secret or non-sanctioned relationships—which, at various times and in various places, have included race, religion, sex, age, family, nationality, number of partners, sexual orientation, etc.

George is an acutely single man in the sense that he isn’t allowed to truly grieve for his great love because family and friends and coworkers and the community don’t recognize the relationship, don’t value Jim and George and what they have. This imposes an intolerable level of suffering atop an already unimaginable experience of loss—a depth of isolation to join the desolation—that makes him a doubly single man. Just imagine how this compounds and complicates, extends and exponentially multiplies the difficulty of something that is impossibly painful to begin with.

The book and the film include a fascinating discussion about minorities and the fear they elicit from the majority. This fear is based on a perceived threat, and whether it’s because of race or religion or sex or sexual orientation, it is the result of small heartedness within the haters that cause them to operate in fear not love, inside a paradigm of scarcity where the freedom, happiness, lifestyle, and even existence of “the other” is seen as somehow robbing them of these very things.

Most of us, comfortably ensconced in the majority, can’t imagine what it’s like to be a minority, but we should continually try. And like, Gregory Peck in “Gentleman’s Agreement,” we should look for opportunities to be a minority—or at least be thought of as a minority. When we are empathic, we are our very best selves. When we are compassionate, we are most like God.

Because I have so many good, dear friends who happen to be gay, and because I love and spend time with them—including in gay friendly places and events, I’ve had people ask if I’m gay. This is a great honor to me. And to all the homophobes out there (because it only matters to you), please consider me gay—in fact, consider me the gayest of gays.

In the midst of writing this, I took a lunch break at a restaurant showing the Don’t ask, Don’t tell hearings, and it struck me just how short a distance we’ve come in the forty-eight years since the events of “A Single Man.” How can we continue to justify our bigotry, our fear, our so very small minds, our utter lack of love? How can we continue to fashion all too human gods who lend a sense of righteousness to our prejudices?

The film takes place in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and an already-dead-and-doesn’t-know-it coworker tells George he should build a bomb shelter but not tell anyone because, when it’s needed, the world at that time won’t be a place for sentiment. George, who knows more about death and loss and loneliness than his coworker could ever imagine responds that he wouldn’t want to live in such a world.

As a single man, George, like the rest of us, longs to make a meaningful connection with others—something he did with Jim, something his enormous grief makes impossible now. When one of his students observes how we’re all trapped in the prisons of our own bodies and how we can never know what others are really like inside, never experience the world as they do, George recalls how the times he’s spent connecting with other human beings have made his life worth living. Now, unable to connect, he no longer wants to live.

Throughout “A Single Man,” George talks about certain moments of clarity he experiences, and how they change him and transform his perspective, his very worldview in ways he can scarcely describe. These revelations, these sublime epiphanies, are little reverberations of mystical insight, grace-filled glimpses that point to so much more—the more of life, the more that it and we can be. Watching “A Single Man,” was just such an experience for me—a moving, memorable one of clarity, insight, even epiphany.

When the Student is Ready . . .

2010-01-27T12:20:00.000-08:00

What is an education? How does one go about getting one? Where can both knowledge and wisdom be obtained? These are not only questions I’ve spent my life trying to answer, but those explored by the intelligent and insightful, smart and sexy new film, “An Education.”

In England in 1961, following a youth orchestra rehearsal, bright, beautiful schoolgirl Jenny is given a lift home by a charming older man, David. The two strike up a relationship which includes David’s business partner Danny, and Danny’s vapid mistress, Helen. David charms and coaxes Jenny’s protective parents into allowing him to take her to concerts, jazz clubs, and even to Paris.

David goes out of his way to show Jenny and her family that his interest in her is not improper and that he wants solely to expose her to cultural activities which she enjoys. Jenny quickly gets accustomed to the life David and his companions have shown her, and Jenny and David's relationship takes a romantic turn. After seeing Jenny dance with Danny, David hastily proposes marriage. Her father agrees to the engagement, and Jenny has to decide what kind of education she’s going to pursue—David’s lifestyle or higher education at Oxford.

Jenny’s entire life is spent in pursuit of an education, but when she meets David, she realizes for the first time just how limited her, her parents, and her school’s view of an education really is. What Jenny is experiencing and what she must confront reminds me of what John Adams said—“There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.”

Life itself is an education—if we’ll let it be. It’s all in the approach—open, humble, hungry or closed, stubborn, incurious.

Nothing troubles me more—not even greed or violence—than the vast segment of the world’s population that is anti-intellectual and proudly, even militantly ignorant. Allan Bloom said that “education is the movement from darkness to light.” Herein lies the great tragedy—light has come into the world, but people love darkness. We shouldn’t be afraid of the unknown, but the self-destructive defensiveness of not wanting to know. Wanting to know—asking, seeking, thinking—is the very beginning of education.

Education is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character, or physical ability of an individual, the process by which accumulated knowledge, skills, and values are deliberately transmitted and received.

Think about all those elements—any act or experience that has a formative effect on us, and the process by which accumulated knowledge is deliberately transmitted and received.

There are many, many ways to get an education. The vital thing is that we get one, not how we get it. And, of course, the best educations are those received through a variety of means, by a plethora of professors.

Are we being educated? If we’re not, we only have ourselves to blame. We are responsible for our own education. And we have access to everything we ever need to receive the best education in the history of humanity—bookstores, libraries, museums, the internet, and life itself. When I think of all we have within our grasp and all the ways we fail to take advantage of it, I think of what Mark Twain said about reading—“the man who doesn’t read good books has not advantage over the man who can’t read them.”

“An Education” is not merely entertaining, but inspirational. It’s a wise and witty film, well made, well acted, well written. Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay based on the autobiographical essay by the British journalist Lynn Barber published in the literary magazine Granta. Barber's full memoir, “An Education,” was not published in book form until June 2009, when filming had already been completed.

This movie is magic—conveying so precisely, so powerfully the longing for knowledge and experience by an open person ready for them and the difficult choices involved in truly being educated.

Though “An Education” is filled with subtly brilliant performances—particularly by Rosamund Pike, Olivia Williams, and Peter Sarsgaard—Carey Mulligan’s performance is absolutely sublime. Her Jenny is nearly equal parts old soul and silly school girl, worldly wise woman and naïve innocent child. For nearly my entire life, I’ve been mostly attracted to older women, but Mulligan’s Jenny makes a compelling case against this practice.

Whether in her small bedroom alone with a book or on the streets of Paris, Jenny is hungry to learn, to breathe in every word, every sight, every sound, every experience. We have this in common. She thirsts, and the sheer power of it, its quintessential insatiability is overwhelming. I love this about Jenny, and it’s this aspect of her that I most identify with. These words are contained in all our other words, they are among the final words cried out by Jesus from the cross, they are the unspoken yearnings of mythic immortals who feed on the blood of others. They are the expression from the depths of ever dry and dusty soul, barely hanging on in a parched wilderness wasteland—“I thirst.”

Like Jenny, I’ve spent my life trying to “get my learn on.” I started to say my adult life, but my hunger for knowledge and true wisdom extends way back into childhood. It did, however, take a quantum leap when I finished my graduate degree and became a writer—which, after all, is how it’s supposed to be. School in general and college in particular are meant to teach us how to think, how to educate ourselves. Henry Adams said, “They know enough who know how to learn.”

In the midst of writing this, I happened to glance down at a bookshelf not far from my writing chair at two books I bought just for information—“An Incomplete Education” and “The Knowledge Book.” The books are two among thousands and thousands in my study/cave/sanctuary, for I truly believe what Thomas Carlyle said: “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”

Buddhism teaches “when the student is ready, the teacher will come.” When Jenny was ready, David appeared. When we are ready, we will learn—which is why it’s so important to continually remain in the humble posture of not-knowing, hungry, open seeking. It’s our best chance at a good education.

Stay open. Stay hungry. Stay ready. When we are, education will happen. We should be intentional about all things—but nothing more so than our education and enlightenment. Take. Eat. Original blessing comes from eating from the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. In fact, the tree of knowledge is the tree of life.

In the end, Jenny gets the best education—one that involves both heart and head, school and life, reading and experiencing. It’s the kind of education I’m in daily pursuit of, and the one I most wish for you, the one that, if we all received it, would most change the world.

RIP, RBP

2010-01-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

I owe Robert B. Parker more than I can tell. Fortunately, several years ago at a writing conference where we were both speaking, I got the opportunity to attempt to tell him.

I am saddened by his death. His absence leaves a great big gaping hole in American Crime Fiction. One that I and others will attempt to fill, but it is truly tragic that there will never be another Spenser novel.

At the age of 77, “just sitting at his desk” at his home in Cambridge, Mass., according to an email sent out by a representative of his U.K. publisher Quercus, Robert B. Parker is dead. The news of Parker's death on Monday was confirmed by Parker’s U.S publisher, Putnam; on Twitter, a representative wrote: “R.I.P beloved author Robert B. Parker. You were indeed a Grand Master, your legacy lives on, and you will be missed by us all.”

In a statement released late Monday, Parker’s longtime editor at Putnam, Christine Pepe, said: “What mattered most to Bob were his family and his writing, and those were the only things that he needed to be happy. He will be deeply missed by all us at Putnam, and by his fans everywhere.”

I can think of no better way for a writer to go than at his desk in the act of writing. I hope to go the same way (and, if it’s at 77, I won’t complain). Wonder what the last sentence, the last word he wrote was.

For me, losing Parker is like losing one of my literary fathers.

He is one of the main reasons I became a writer of crime fiction. In high school, I watched “Spenser for Hire,” the TV series based on his one-name Boston PI, Spenser. The series led me to the books, the books led me to a love of fiction in general and of crime fiction in particular. (The TV series is also where I fell in love with Mustangs and why I still drive one today).

When I started reading Parker’s Spenser novels in 1988, the series was already about ten strong, and since then, he has added at least one every year. In fact, he wrote them faster than his publisher, Putnam, was willing to publish them.
In recent years, he’d been writing other works in addition to the Spenser novels. Among them, a couple of very good westerns, a great book with World War II, baseball, and Jackie Robinson as a backdrop, a series featuring a female PI, and a series featuring former LA cop and now Paradise, Massachusetts Police Chief, Jesse Stone.

Younger, and not as evolved as Spenser, Jesse Stone, who battles alcohol and marriage problems in addition to the bad guys, is nonetheless tough, autonomous, and honorable—hallmark traits of Parker’s knights-errant. He’s also, like nearly all of Parker’s characters, a man in the process of self-discovery.

In all Parker’s works, crime and investigation merely provide a framework for his characters, giving them something to do while the real investigation into their psyche takes place. Like the Spenser novels, the Stone books are about a man and his journey to becoming a better man, while helping weaker people along the way. This is even truer of Stone than Spenser, since Jesse is younger, more troubled, more vulnerable.

Not a lot changed from one Parker book to another. I don’t mean to suggest that Parker wrote the same book over and over, though if he had it wouldn’t matter much to me or any of his other faithful fans. I’m saying, from book to book, Parker was tweaking the themes that mattered to him—which, more than anything, was what it means to be a man, exploring why hard-boiled men are the way they are. The core of all of Parker’s books is the same, which, I suspect is what we kept coming back for over and over again.

Parker wasn’t read for plot, but for the stripped-down style that nobody did better, the sharp, often witty dialog, the interesting, evolving characters, and the insights he peppered his prose with like a boxer with a great jab. Most of all, Parker was read for the journey of the man at the center of the story, which, whether it’s Spenser, Stone, Burke, or Virgil Cole, is finally and inevitably, Parker himself.

Toward the end of his life, Parker turned to the Western novel, and his work in it shows just how timeless his heroes and themes are.

Long before lone private eyes with heaters holstered beneath their seersuckers walked down the mean streets of uncaring urban back alleys, lone gunmen with six-shooters strapped to their waists walked down the dusty main streets of one-horse towns.

Listen to Raymond Chandler’s praise of the hard-boiled detective and tell me it couldn’t be applied to western gunslingers:

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”

Chandler’s description of this type of hero could apply as much to Parker’s detective, Spenser, as much as his western lawman, Virgil Cole.

If any modern detective fiction writer understood the relationship between cowboys and cops, it was Parker. Not only was he the most popular and prolific writer of the private eye novel of our time, but he studied the form, its origins and evolution—even writing his Ph.D. dissertation on “The Violent Hero, Wilderness Heritage and Urban Reality.”

Linked by ethos, code, and honor, literary cowboys and private cops, particularly as Parker wrote them, have far more in common with each other than either has with his contemporaries. Spenser could be in a Western, just as Virgil Cole could easily be in a hard-boiled detective novel.

If you haven’t read Parker or it’s been a while, here are some of my favorites: “Walking Shadow,” “Looking for Rachel Wallace,” “Double Play,” “Back Story,” “Night Passage,” and “Appaloosa.”

Fare-the-well, father. I lift a Samuel Adams in honor of you. Thanks for the hours and hours and hours of entertainment and inspiration, for the characters whose code I share, for speaking to the heroic in us all.

(This) Man’s Search for Meaning

2010-01-14T04:15:00.000-08:00

I’m a man on a mission—one that began very early in life.

I’m a seeker—searching far and wide—a traveler of inner and outer landscapes. There’s nowhere I’m not willing to go, no journey too arduous, no climb too steep, no descent too deep.

After all these years, my desire is still at times overwhelming. I thirst with an unquenchable thirst, crave with an insatiable craving. I’m in pursuit of the thing I was pursued for—and though it can be called many things, it is one. What I’m after, what I’ve been looking for so long, what I will ache for all my numbered days, is meaning.

From early adolescence, I have felt that life is fraught with meaning, and that to live a meaningful life requires a certain approach—mindfulness, openness, meditation, contemplation, abandon, deliberate study, intentional experience.

I find meaning in many places and through many experiences. My quest has led me to theology, philosophy, psychology, and to art. In fact, art is in and intertwined among everything—art in general and literature in particular. So much so, I can no longer distinguish between art and religion, art and philosophy, art and psychology, art and life.

Writing this column is a facet of my search for meaning. I’m look for the meaning of life in every book I read, every movie and play I watch, every song I hear, every photograph and painting I gaze at. But reading and watching and gazing aren’t enough. I also have to process, explore, contemplate—and that’s where the column comes in. After all, how will I know what I think until I see what I write?

We live in a world where deep meaning (and therefore living) gets lost in shallow pursuits, in noise, in movement, in franticness and freneticness and forgetting what really matters most.

Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of “Man’s Search For Meaning” observed, “Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”

“Man’s Search for Meaning” chronicles Frankl’s experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend not eating again until you do.

One of the main reasons I write novels (or columns or short stories or plays) is to have a more meaningful life. Through writing, I explore, I delve, I knead, I grope around in the dark searching for light. And I read for the same reason. Art is all about meaning—all about what it means to be human—to exist, to live, to love, to die.

I find art meaningful—both the creating of and the partaking of—as meaningful as anything in my life. That’s why I spend the majority of my limited time on this pale blue dot making it and breathing it.

Many people spend time talking about and looking for the meaning of life—as if it’s one thing to be discovered, a hidden ancient thing to uncover, but the meaning of life isn’t one thing. It’s many.

Frankl also said, “For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Art works this way. I read a poem, get lost in a novel, go to see a film, pass a graffiti-covered boxcar or bridge and all are messages from the universe—ethereal, ineffable, transcendent, true, all spoken to me in the present moment, the eternal now. I pause, breathe deeply, reflect, then continue moving again, only now with more meaning.

Giving ourselves over to art, letting it work its magic in us, is a way to have a meaningful life. Art speaks to the deepest part of our humanity. Artists create from the soul and the art they create speaks to our souls.

My quest for a meaningful life has led me time and again to art. Art comforts. Art heals. Art teaches. Art inspires. Art transforms. Art broadens the mind and expands the soul and increases our compassion like very few things can.

Through art we can explore and experience the depraved depths and heroic heights of humanity—and be transformed in the process.

Frankl said, “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”

This very moment, you and I are being asked about the meaning of our lives. What will we answer? Art can tell us.

My wish for you is a deeply, profoundly meaningful life—and though there are a plethora of elements involved in such a thing, art needs be among them.

As both an artist and someone whose closest companions are art and artists, my faith is that of Joyce Carol Oates:

“I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit.

“I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called culture—and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species.

“Through the local or regional, through our individual voices, we work to create art that will speak to others who know nothing of us. In our very obliqueness to one another, an unexpected intimacy is born.

“The individual voice is the communal voice.

“The regional voice is the universal voice.”

It’s Complicated

2010-01-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

Last week my dear friend, John Bridges, was planning to see “It’s Complicated” when he read my column about “Up in the Air” and decided to see it instead. When he told me what he planned to do, I said that I suspected “It’s Complicated” would be more entertaining, but that “Up in the Air” was probably the better, more substantive film. I’m humbled and honored that he trusts my recommendations, and I couldn’t help but think of him, as I watched “It’s Complicated” a few days later, pleasantly surprised at how good it was. It’s funny and charming, and highly entertaining—but not just. It also manages to deliver some insight and provoke some thought.

So, John, this week, I’m recommending you go see, “It’s Complicated,” and for all of us, I recommend we set our Facebook relationship statuses to “It’s Complicated.” After all, when have relationships ever not been?

Jane Adler (Meryl Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has—after a decade of divorce—an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Alec Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son’s college graduation, things start to get complicated. An innocent meal together leads to several bottles of wine, which in turn becomes a laugh-filled evening of memories about their 19-year marriage… and then to an impulsive affair. With Jake remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell), Jane is now, of all things, the other woman. Caught in the middle of this renewed romance is Adam (Steve Martin), an architect hired to remodel Jane’s kitchen. Also divorced, Adam starts to fall for Jane, but soon realizes he’s become part of an unusual love triangle. Should Jane and Jake move on with their separate lives, or has the passage of time made them realize that they really are better together than apart? It’s…complicated.

Nancy Myers, an extremely talented writer/director, who two years ago wrote and directed one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies, “The Holiday,” proves once again that Hollywood needs far more women in front of and behind the camera. Her writing is clever, witty, and by turns, poignant and hysterical, and whether paired with Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Cameron Diaz, or Kate Winslet, she gives moviegoers mature, powerful, multi-faceted women not seen nearly often enough at the Cineplex (art house and indie theaters are a different matter, but good luck finding one). And that’s the thing. Myers is bringing feminism to the masses—a certain type of feminism, mostly light-hearted, comedic, meant-to-entertain-first, but a real feminism to be sure. And she’s mastered (or should I say mistressed) the romantic comedy, which she understands in the context of contemporary culture. “There's a hardening of the culture,” she said. “Reality TV has lowered the standards of entertainment. You’re left wondering about the legitimacy of relationships. It's probably harder to entertain the same people with a more classic form of writing, and romantic comedies are a classic genre.”

Film and literature are rife with tales of adultery—from King David and Bathsheba, whose relationship ultimately led to Jesus of Nazareth, to “The Scarlet Letter,” to “Anna Karenina,” to “Brief Encounter,” to “The End of the Affair”—but in both film and literature, most tales of not-entirely-unattached lovers are dramas, if not melodramas, involving guilt-ridden, tortured, ultimately doomed souls, who are punished for what is seen as religious and cultural and personal transgression. But Myers shows that affairs, which are often, among other things, fun, can be funny, life-affirming, and highly entertaining experiences. She does this, in part, by making the lovers formerly married, which gives them a culturally sanctioned relationship in the past and a prior claim over their current lovers. And isn’t that how most people feel—“He was mine first.” “She belonged to me before you even knew her!”

Justification and palatability aside, the movie is about adultery. John Updike saw adultery—whether in life or only art, I do not know, though I suspect both—as “an imaginative quest,” and, as one of his characters put it, “a way of giving yourself adventures, of getting out in the world and seeking knowledge.” The psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich actually claims “the only social purpose of compulsory marriage for life is to produce submissive personality types that mass society requires,” and that “repressing sexual curiosity leads to general intellectual atrophy, including loss of power to rebel,” which has led Laura Kipnis, author of “Against Love” and “The Female Thing” to assert that “adultery is actually an act of cultural rebellion” and that “monogamy turns nice people into petty dictators and household tyrants.” Radical notions? Perhaps, but we’re all swimming around in the water of culture like fish who don’t know what water is, and our best hope of awareness enlightenment and compassion is to entertain all questions. And no one should question culture and marriage and roles and identity more than women. Thankful many are—from Myers to Kipnis to Anne Kingston, author of “The Meaning of Wife.” And, as Thomas Moore, author of “Care of the Soul” teaches, none of this need be taken literally.

I really appreciate what Myers has done here. True, “It’s Complicated” could have been far more complicated, but for a mainstream romantic comedy, it at least has audience sympathies in the right places. The film could’ve dealt with affairs in a more nuanced, less adulterous way—take out lying and cheating, and things are less complicated and far more honorable—but it’s a comedy and a big commercial studio film, and given that, it’s very, very good.

Forget “greatest living actress.” It’s time to refer to Meryl Streep as what she is—the greatest actress in history. And at sixty-something, could she be any more beautiful, attractive, strong, sexy?

Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin turn in fine, admirable performances, both bringing their characters to life with certain appeals for Meryl Streep’s Jane Adler, but clearly she is out of their league. I won’t tell you which man Jane chooses, only that to make things truly complicated, she should’ve kept both men as friends and lovers. Jane could certainly handle it. And Meryl, well, Meryl could handle an entire harem—or (since there’s not a word for a female harem, which is telling, is it not?) a stable.

Life and love and relationships are complicated enough to make one want to cry, but perhaps a better approach is laughter. Myers certainly makes a convincing argument.

Rocket Man

2009-12-29T11:09:00.000-08:00

Making connections in modern American culture is increasingly difficult. There’s plenty of noise—cocktail chatter, small talk, so much sound and fury that ultimately signifies nothing, but there’s very little deep soul to soul connecting. In our frenetic activity, we bump into each other, but don’t really stop, don’t really listen, don’t really have meaningful exchanges—we commit social hit-and-runs and call them relationships.

It’s not that we don’t want to connect. I honestly think we’re dying to. Craigslist’s personals have an entire category devoted to Missed Connections, and though most of them appear to be written by horny people trying to find someone based purely on how they look, I think it underscores a deep longing for far, far more than just hookin’ up.

We are lonely. We are longing.

Has it always been this way? There’s no way for me to know, but I suspect that, though earlier times were more communal, caring, connected, true naked-and-safe connection has always been rare. The good old days get idealized and romanticized, but perhaps in this way, in rootedness and belonging, they actually were gooder.

There are many reasons for our separation and isolation, and far smarter people than me have written books about them (two I’ve mentioned here before are: “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam and “Loneliness as a Way of Life” by Thomas Dumm), but as complicated as the condition is (and I truly believe it is extremely complicated), I tend to think the single biggest contributing factor is parenting. We live in a time of absurd over and under parenting—two extremes that might actually produce similar results. Could it be that neglect, insignificant-to-the universe parenting on one end of the spectrum and over-indulgence, center-of-the-universe parenting on the other creates kids who become adults who can’t connect. The net result of feeling unworthy or too worthy of bonding is the same, is it not? How many times have we attempted to make a real connection with someone only to find out that they’re too self-absorbed and narcissistic or too absent a sense of self and wounded for it to be even remotely possible?

Ryan Bingham, the central character of Jason Reitman’s timely, insightful new film, “Up in the Air,” finds it nearly impossible to make connections. His job is to fire people from theirs, and he flies all over the country to do it. He has no trouble with connecting flights—he never misses them, but making connections with other human beings is a different story.

In the film, Bingham’s life in the air is threatened just before he is about to reach ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met his female frequent flyer soulmate. The anguish, hostility, and despair of his “clients” has left him falsely compassionate, living out of a suitcase, and loving his above-it-all position. When his boss hires arrogant young Natalie, she develops a method of video conferencing that will allow termination without ever leaving the office—threatening Bingham’s very existence. Determined to show the naive girl the error of her logic, Ryan takes her on one of his cross country firing expeditions, but as she starts to realize the disheartening realities of her profession, he gets a glimpse of the emptiness of his way of life.

Ray Bingham is a rocket man. Elton John’s song could’ve been written for him.

It’s lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight
And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Here’s Rocket Man Ray’s philosophy:

“How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.”

Ray is detached—and “not in no kinda good way.”

Many religions teach detachment as way to achieve peace. Life is suffering. Suffering comes from attachment. End attachment, end suffering. But this practice isn’t a defensive, closed position of self-preservation so much as an end to idolatry and a freedom from the prison of possessiveness. I try to practice it less as detachment from than as attachment to—to everything and everyone. Who is my neighbor? Everyone—particularly those in need.

Jason Reitman has made a quiet, affecting, adult film—sophisticated and thoughtful—so timely as to make one believe in stars aligning and synchronicity. And he cast his film to perfection.

All of the actors in “Up in the Air” deliver brilliant performances, particularly Vera Farmiga and Anna Kindrick, but even amidst a stellar cast, George Clooney’s star shines so bright as to nearly eclipse the others.

Like a lot of movie stars, George Clooney, perhaps the closest thing to an old fashioned, Cary Grantesque movie star we have, is never not himself on screen. We’re not watching Ryan Bingham so much as George Clooney using the name Ryan Bingham. But of all the roles we’ve watched George Clooney play, this one seems to best suit his suave, charming coolness. In fact, characters don’t come much cooler than Ryan Bingham—cool all the way down to his detached, cold core.

During this season when so many fine films are being released, I hope you won’t forgo “Up in the Air.” With open heart and mind, I hope you’ll take it in and be challenged by it, for whether we are over-attached or overly-detached, we can learn much from Ray Bingham—even if mostly it’s how not to be.

Saving Jesus From Christmas

2009-12-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

Like complex chemical compounds, our lives are a collective of a myriad of multiplicities. We are influenced by so many people—known and not—and are connected in ways we can’t even fathom.

I couldn’t begin to list those who’ve had the most dramatic impact on me, but if I tried, the names would include, family and friends, thinkers and writers, artists and philosophers, theologians, and psychologists, but no single figure has been more influential than Jesus—not the Christ of Christianity nearly so much as the radical, marginal rabbi executed by Rome as a political prisoner. And though Christmas has far too little to do with this man, I’m using the mass’s belief that it does to share with you some great books about history’s most magnificent, magical, and misunderstood man.

Most people seem to associate Jesus with Christmas and Easter—and why wouldn’t they? These holidays are those the religion that rose around him emphasize most—a baby and a deity. But these are ways, tragically, of silencing or at least minimizing this beautiful poet of the poor, this embodiment of God’s love, this subtle subversive storyteller who challenges everyone and scares the hell out of the powerful—the moneyed, comfortable establishment of religion, politics, and culture.

What’s lost in the cuddley little baby Jesus in the manger and the resurrected all-powerful God-Jesus that insecure and power-hungry people build kingdoms and go to war for is the poor, peasant who taught that the we are most like God when we are compassionate, that the poor are our responsibility, that compassion in public is justice, that sexism and racism and religious intolerance is truly evil, that no one should ever, ever judge.

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. . . . Do not judge and you will not be judged. . . . The least among you is the greatest. . . . To find your life, you must lose it. . . . To live you must die. . . . Pray in secret. . . . Give to the poor without anyone ever knowing. . . . Do not store up for yourselves treasures. . . . If you see someone in need, give them what you have.”

The religion of Jesus’ day often repeated the saying, “Be holy as God is holy.” Jesus taught and lived and said, “Be compassionate as God is compassionate.”

Jesus’ gospel or “good news” is that we are loved so thoroughly and completely we can rest into it and be free and loving, our security, our trust in it putting an end to our fear, anxiety, despair, and pettiness.

Through masterful, insightful, profoundly true stories, Jesus railed against the oppression of the poor by the rich and powerful, the racism, fear, selfishness, and lack of love that divides us from one another and keeps us from being the people God created us to be. The messages and meanings of his stories have been largely lost through domestication and the religious agendas of those who teach them, but they are radical and powerful and persuasive.

Jesus taught that God is like a loving mother and father—who loves us no matter what (the parable of the prodigal son). God’s love is perfect and unconditional. God couldn’t love us any more than she does already, and there’s nothing we can do to make him love us any less. God so unconditionally loves and accepts us we should love one another the same way. Love trumps all. The hero of the parable of the Good Samaritan doesn’t believe the “right” things, doesn’t worship the “right” way, is racially mixed and religiously and morally compromised, yet acts compassionately and, is therefore, far more like God than those who believe the “right” things and appear to be pious.

It was through Jesus that I first gained enlightenment as a teenage boy, and it is through him I continue to see the way. Many people worship Jesus, but I attempt to follow him. He is not so much the light I gaze upon adoringly, but the light by which I see and perceive the world, the way to live—justly, creatively, compassionately.

There are so many truly brilliant books about Jesus, but I only have room here to tell you about one, published recently, and list a few others. I’ve chosen these because they are easy to read, accessible, and not overly academic.
“Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus” is by Robin R. Meyers, pastor of Mayflower Congregational, a professor, a columnist, and a commentator. Here’s a bit about his book from the dust jacket:

Countless thoughtful people are now so disgusted with the marriage of bad theology and hypocritical behavior by the church that a new Reformation is required in which the purpose of religion itself is reimagined.
Meyers takes the best of biblical scholarship and recasts these core Christian concepts to exhort the church to pursue an alternative vision of the Christian life:

• Jesus as Teacher, not Savior
• Christianity as Compassion, not Condemnation
• Prosperity as Dangerous, not Divine
• Discipleship as Obedience, not Control
• Religion as Relationship, not Righteousness

This is not a call to the church to move to the far left or to try something brand new. Rather, it is the recovery of something very old. “Saving Jesus from the Church” shows us what it means to be a Christian and how to follow Jesus’ teachings today.

If you respond to Meyers book, here are a few others you should read: “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” by Marcus J. Borg, “The Essential Jesus” by John Dominic Crossan, “The Gospel of Jesus” by James M. Robinson, “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Phillip Yancey, “Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography” by John Dominic Crossan.

These books are based on sound scholarship, are thoughtful, and well written. If you come to them with an open heart and mind you will find much to inform and inspire.

This Christmas, give yourself and those on your list some great books about Jesus. I can think of no better gift than the gift of knowledge, enlightenment, light, and love.

Merry Christmas everyone and to all a good night of reading!

Love Actually Is All Around

2009-12-16T12:42:00.000-08:00

Christmas is magic.

So is love.

“Love Actually,” captures both the magic of Christmas and the magic of love in ways that show just how alike they really are.

That Christmas is magic in spite of the fact that most expressions of it are silly, shallow, juvenile, and crassly commercial shows its real and enduring power. That love is magic in spite of how trite and sentimental most expressions of it are, how contaminated it is by selfishness, desire, need, infatuation, reveals its real and abiding power.

The story of Christmas is a story of love. Love being born. Love coming near.

Love is fun and funny—particularly intimate, sexual, romantic love, where two lovers share whispers and laughs kept secret from the rest of the world, which is why, when done well, romantic comedies capture so effectively the experience.

“Love Actually” is a romantic comedy from Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Notting Hill”), about people—from the Prime Minister to a has-been rock star, actor stand-ins to a housemaid—finding love at Christmastime. It follows the lives of eight very different couples in various loosely interrelated tales all set during the frantic month before Christmas in London, England.

The movie begins with these warming words in voice over as actual arrivals at Heathrow Airport are shown on the screen: “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there—fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge—they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion . . . love actually is all around.”

Richard Curtis is the single greatest practitioner of the romantic comedy film on the planet, and I continually go back and forth about which is his masterpiece—“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” or “Love Actually,” the winner, usually the one I’m watching at the time, but in each case they are nearly flawless films, truly magical movies befitting the magic of love that is their subject.

“Love Actually,” is more episodic than most films, and it’s almost like watching a television series on the big screen. Not surprisingly, Curtis began his career writing for television and continues to pen scripts for the small screen. The intertwined and sometimes interconnected episodes work well together, weaving a quilt in which love is the thread—romantic, sexual love, motherly and fatherly love, sibling love, and the love of friendship. Of course, there is only one love (Bob Marley is right), one source, the rest is expression and things added to love like attraction or adoration or ego or libido or any other of a million, billion things.

Richard Curtis has a way of creating the heady, sent feeling of “falling” in love with wit and charm and sweetness while still grounding his work in reality and the humor of human frailty.

The magic of “Love Actually” is in what it makes us feel. This is what falling in love feels like. This is what Christmas feels like. We finish a film like “Love Actually” feeling warmed, hopeful, and leave the theater radiating positive energy and good will.

Mixed in among the wildly romantic relationships and their serendipitous meet-cute situations is the heartbreak and pain of loss, betrayal, unrequited, and impossible love.

Everything in “Love Actually” works—from the music to the settings—it really is a perfect (complete) film, and though all the performances are strong, Emma Thompson and Bill Nighly shine so brightly as to nearly eclipse all the other stars— Bill for sheer comic brilliance and Emma for her dramatic performance as a mother and wife dealing with love’s illusions.

Emma trying to pull herself together following the hurt and heartbreak of deception and disappointment so she can rejoin her family and fulfill her motherly duties as Joni Mitchell sings “Both sides” is excruciating.

“Moons and Junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real; I’ve looked at love that way.
But now it’s just another show, you leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.
I’ve looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love at all.

In the same way the Tao that can be named is not the Tao, love that is illusion is not love.

I understand passion—it’s the most powerful intoxicant I’ve ever taken, and Mitchell’s description of it as “the dizzy dancing way you feel” captures it so well, but love is a lifestyle, a philosophy, a religion, a choice, a verb. I’m all about moons and Junes and fairy tales coming real, and routinely experiences passion and ecstasy, but real love is present when these things are and when they’re not, so we’re well advised not to confuse strong feelings or ecstatic experiences for love.

Though “Love Actually” is a comedy, is both funny and highly entertaining, it’s also profound, showing the genuine but flawed ways love can be born in us, and how that parallels what can happen at Christmas.

The story of Christmas is a story of God being born into the world, of incarnation—God becoming flesh. In this way, every story of love is a story of Christmas, is a story of incarnation. God who is love, is born into the world every time we love, every time love is born in and expressed through us.

Love has come into the world. Unconditional, unreserved, unimaginable love, and whether we feel it in our fingers or feel it in our toes, whether the feeling grows or we have no feeling at all—in our fingers, toes, or anywhere else—love actually is all around.

The Wonder of Boys

2009-12-10T06:10:00.000-08:00

“The artist, perhaps more than any other person, inhabits failure.”

I kept thinking about this hauntingly true statement by Joyce Carol Oates as I read “Wonder Boys” by Michael Chabon again recently.

A modern classic, “Wonder Boys” firmly established Michael Chabon as a force in contemporary American fiction. At once a deft parody of the American fame factory and a piercing portrait of young and old desire, this novel introduces two unforgettable characters: Grady Tripp, a former publishing prodigy now lost in a fog of pot and passion and stalled in the midst of his endless second book, and Grady’s student, James Leer, a budding writer obsessed with Hollywood self-destruction and struggling with his own searching heart. In their odyssey through the streets of Pittsburgh, Grady and James are joined by Grady’s pregnant mistress, his hilariously bizarre editor, and an achingly beautiful student lodger. The result is a wildly comic, poignantly moving, and ultimately profound search for past promise, future fame, and a purpose to Grady’s life.

A rare talent, Chabon is a literary novelist who plots like a genre writer, making his books profound page-turners, exciting character-driven adventures.

I’m sure, as a novelist, I over-identify with Grady Tripp—admittedly, novels featuring novelists are among my favorites (with “The End of the Affair” sitting securely on top)—but you needn’t be a novelist to enjoy this funny, insightful, wild ride.

“Wonder Boys” has my highest recommendation. It’s as funny as it is insightful, a serious novel that’s more entertaining than most of the novels that aim merely to entertain.

Though an absolute train wreck, Grady Tripp is as likable and sympathetic a character as you’re likely to meet. He presents as a big unmade bed, a man-child wreaking havoc in Neverland, but lurking beneath the boy is a shadow self, dark and dangerous.

As John Gardner said, “True artists, whatever smiling face they may show you, are obsessive, driven people.” This is certainly true of Grady.

Writing a novel is such a long, lonely journey, requires so much isolation and concentration, it can drive a man a little mad (as in the case of Grady, who’s been working on his for seven years) or a lot mad (as in the case of Jack Torrance). After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Grady, like most novelists, has a disease. The midnight disease—that cureless condition, with which I am well acquainted, and all novelists suffer from—is poignantly and accurately described by Grady as an affliction “which started as a simple feeling of disconnection from other people, an inability to ‘fit in’ by no means unique to writers, a sense of envy and of unbridgeable distance like that felt by someone tossing on a restless pillow in a world full of sleepers. Very quickly, though, what happens with the midnight disease was that you began actually to crave the feeling of apartness, to cultivate and even flourish within it. You pushed yourself farther and farther and farther apart until one black day you woke to discover that you yourself had become the chief objective of your own hostile gaze.”

This is just one aspect of the midnight disease, but it is scarily dead-on. A novelist, no matter what she is experiencing, is also observing, taking notes—mental or otherwise—raw meat for the monster in the basement.

I go back to Joyce Carol Oates—surely a sufferer of this same affliction—“The novel is the disease for which only the novel is the cure.”

Having a midnight mind or being stricken with the midnight disease is akin to the notion that the writer has his own doppelganger living inside him—and on the page he’s bleeding onto.

In “Wonder Boys” an author delivering a lecture posits that over the course of his writing life, he had become his own doppelganger, “a malignant shadow who lived in the mirrors and under the floorboards and behind the drapes of his own existence, haunting all his personal relationships and all of his commerce with the world; a being unmoved by tragedy, unconcerned with the feelings of others, disinclined to any human business but surveillance and recollection.”

The author goes on to say that it’s this shadow self that gets him into trouble, that keeps things interesting so he has something to write about.

As true as this is, Grady takes it, kneads it a bit, and comes up with this: “This was the writer's true doppelganger, I thought; not some invisible imp of the perverse who watched you from the shadows, periodically appearing, dressed in your clothes and carrying your house keys, to set fire to your life; but rather the typical protagonist of your work—Roderick Usher, Eric Waldensee, Francis Macomber, Dick Diver—whose narratives at first reflected but in time came to determine your life’s very course.”

This is life imitating art at its very purest, and I can tell you firsthand it’s true—perceptively, scarily, devastatingly true.

The world is full of adults—responsible men and women clocking in and out, showing up, shouldering loads, dependable, reliable, mature.
Then there are those of us who play for a living (even when we can’t make a living at it)—artists, actors, musicians, writers, and many others who spend much of our time pretending.

The wonder of boys is that we never grow up—not really, not completely. Sure, we look like all the other grownups, but that’s just a costume.
This spirit of puer aeternus is captured brilliantly in “Wonder Boys,” and is personified in an insight Grady has about the state of modern marriage and the world:

“It struck me that the chief obstacle to marital contentment was this perpetual gulf between the well-founded, commendable pessimism of women and the sheer dumb animal optimism of men, the latter a force more than any other responsible for the lamentable state of the world.”

Eternal boys like Grady never grow up, and I, for one, wouldn’t want them to. Sure, he’s continually setting fire to his life in ways he’s conscious of and not, and those closest to him suffer the most damage, but what’s a little smoke inhalation and third-degree burns when you’re having so much fun?

Coloring Outside the Lines in Pleasantville

2009-12-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

Recently, as someone was criticizing my novels for what they called “inappropriate content,” I suddenly felt like I was living in Pleasantville, and, shortly afterward went back and watched Gary Ross’s profound 1998 film.

Over a decade after I first saw it, “Pleasantville” holds up well, and is just as relevant. If you haven’t seen it, or if it’s been a while, consider taking a trip across the universe to visit Pleasantville.

Pleasantville is a colorless, lifeless, pointless place where repressed people pretend the world is the way they want it to be.

A brother and sister (twins, David and Jennifer) from the 1990s are transported through their television set into the 1950s style black-and-white television show, “Pleasantville.” Here, they have loving, if robotic, parents, values that seem old fashioned, and an overwhelming amount of innocence, even naiveté. Not sure how to get home, they integrate themselves into this bland society as well as they can and slowly begin a revolution.

The revolution they start, like all revolutions, begins with freedom—freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom to be.

Fear imprisons. Love liberates.

We were created to be autonomous, formed to be free (we were created to connect, too, but that’s a different column). We can’t be who we’re really meant to be without being free.

Perhaps the single greatest tragedy of life is how frequently, how readily, how willingly, we give away our freedom.

We do it out of fear. We trade our most precious birthright for a false sense of security and the safety-in-numbers uniformity the prophets of fear peddle.

Of course, like many of us, the people of Pleasantville don’t know they’re not free. So mired in the quicksand of culture are they, they are no longer conscious.

In Pleasantville, everyone is asleep, all dreaming the same boring dream.

But David and Jennifer wake them up.

The awakening of Pleasantville is accomplished by a variety of means—all having to do with freedom.

It begins with questions. Jennifer asks what’s outside of Pleasantville—something no citizen of Pleasantville had ever even thought of. For them, Pleasantville is the world entire, in the same way we often think that our world, our way of seeing the world, is all there is. We can never be completely free until we question everything—every assumption, every belief, everything every authority ever told us. Questioning is key to enlightenment. Questions are far, far more important than answers.

Then, Jennifer introduces Pleasantvillians to sex. You can’t have a revolution without sex. Like questioning, people seem to be particularly fearful of sex—of sex in general of sexual freedom in particular—especially that of young people and women. The residual Puritanism so prevalent in our culture has people afraid of their sexuality. But the awesome power of sex should be respected, revered, not feared. Sex is, or can be, a revelation, a revolution. Rarely does one have a true spiritual or creative awakening that does not include, or was not inspired by, a sexual one.

The revolution in Pleasantville continues when David and Jennifer introduce books and reading. Nothing equals freedom like the writing and publishing and reading of books. The sharing of ideas, the intellectual intercourse that occurs between writer and reader in the bedroom of a book is truly one of the highlights of being human, and this, too, is revolutionary—both personally and politically. No wonder the establishment (those that benefit most from the domination system and the sleeping of the masses) wants to ban and burn books.

Eventually, David introduces art to the pale people of Pleasantville, and the revolution really begins to swell. Vivid colors, unique expressions, the artistic appreciation of the female form, and the powers that be come undone.

Then, there’s choices in music and food and fashion.

Suddenly, people are bursting into full-color, experiencing their lives fully awake for the first time. How does the establishment respond? By closing the library and lovers’ lane, by outlawing all colors but black and white and gray, by having book burnings and destroying any and all acts of art, all expressions of creativity.

Those in power are oppressive—ever trying to cling to the power they have and acquire more. But the real problem in Pleasantville as in Pottersville as in Niceville as in ourville isn’t oppression so much as repression.

Of all the crimes against humanity, repression is one of the most insidious. Unlike oppression, which can be an exclusively external force, repression involves complicity on the part of the repressed.

True repression—like the systemic and institutional sexism, racism, and homophobia that leads to desperation, frustration, and self-loathing—is not only an external condition but must be so internalized that those imprisoned in it become co-conspirators—jailers in their own captivity.

If there’s anything missing from the awakenings in Gary Ross’s “Pleasantville,” it’s religious awakening. Though everything that happened constitutes a spiritual awakening, I wish Ross would have depicted a religious awakening, too—the reformations and counter-reformations that make up the best of religious traditions. Fundamentalists and literalists of every tradition claim theirs is the only way to be right or orthodox, but the very religion they pervert wouldn’t exist had someone not questioned and challenged and reformed the one that came before it.

In the great irony of human history, God created us to be free, insists on our absolute freedom (has God ever made you do anything?), yet it is out of fear of God that so many surrender their freedom. False religion teaches followers to be afraid—afraid to be human, afraid to mess up, afraid to do anything but conform to its fear-based rules.

But God is not to be feared. God is love. Perfect love, in fact—the very antithesis of fear.

The good news is we are loved and accepted unconditionally. We have nothing to fear.
Be free. Be yourself. Relax. Rest. Stop resisting. Love’s not going anywhere. Be creative. It’s okay to use all the crayons in your box, okay to color outside the lines.

Like the people of Pleasantville, intellectual, sexual, religious, artistic repression is killing us. It’s a slow suicide of the soul, a drifting off into a sleepy stupor that only waking up and being free can cure.
Awakening.

You and I hold the key to our own prison cells.

Like the Buddha beneath the bodhi tree, Moses in the wilderness, Jesus in the desert, we must awaken. With openness and freedom, we must explore, experiment, experience, be—knowing that as we do, life isn’t always pleasant and was never intended to be. Awakening, being free, is a sometimes chaotic, wild, messy process, requiring that we take risks, explore, experiment, color outside the lines, and fail, but there’s no other way to be fully human, no other way to achieve enlightenment.

Giving Thanks for Great Spirits

2009-11-25T10:22:00.000-08:00

In general, our culture has very limited notions of what a hero is. We celebrate those who fight, who put themselves in harm’s way (and rightly so), but we too often stop there.

Even when we do broaden the scope of our appreciation, it rarely involves artists, but living a life of creativity is heroic in many, many ways—including, sometimes, harm’s way. So, in honor of Thanksgiving, let me say, “Thank you” to those among us who valiantly and consistently make the world a place worth fighting by the art they create.

Thank you, artists and entertainers, who tell the truth—the truth of the story, the moment, the experience, who refuse to look away when others cover their eyes, who express honest emotion and human experience, instead of overly contrived, sentimental, cheap escapism.

Thank you, unsung heroes, unknown artists, for laboring away in obscurity, the burden of your vision your only boss, creating because you have to, persevering against all odds in hopes one day you, too, will have an audience.

Thank you, writers and filmmakers, painters and musicians, actors and producers, who fight not to fall into the lazy shortcuts of clichés, who continually try to approach their work with a fresh perspective, with an integrity that insists on a new way of “seeing,” “hearing,” “touching,” “describing,” “expressing,” human experiences.

Thank you for all that you risk—for baring your heart and mind and soul, for disrobing in such a public manner, for making yourself an easy target for potshots from the defensive and the simple. Thank you for enduring the negativity and nay saying from the overly critical, the closed-hearted, the jealous, the haters.

Thank you for your fidelity to your vision, for being true to your art, to your truth, to your muse, to what you’re hearing and seeing and feeling, regardless of the masses who misunderstand, in spite of the criticism, and no matter the mean and hurtful things said and done by the fearful, the narrow-minded, the repressed.

Thank you for not going along with the crowd, for not giving into the beige, for not melting into the masses, for being strong enough to be different. You have been subjected to ridicule and even violence for being true to who you are and to your art. You have suffered for your art in ways no one but you knows, and the pain you’ve been subjected to gives your work the poignancy and power that we who eat your words and drink your paintings so need to truly sustain us.

Thank you for entertaining us, but more for challenging us—for making us think and feel and question. You instruct us in the ways of empathy and humility—the heights of humanity. You chip away at the fissures of the facade of our culture, you kick at the false foundation of our assumptions—all while making us laugh and cry and hurt and feel and think.

Thank you, brave women and men, who explore the dark side of existence, allowing us to vicariously experience the shadows in the safety of our reading chair or theater seat. You are unafraid to take long day’s journeys into nightmarish nights, expertly guiding us through the underworld. Thank you for shining your piercing light onto the things in our minds and on our streets that we try to pretend aren’t there.

I end with the words of Albert Einstein, one of the most talented artists to ever live, with love and gratitude. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” Thank you, artists and outsiders, original thinkers and visionaries, for daily enduring this most of all.

Jason Hedden Brings “Double Exposure” to the Stage

2009-11-16T10:17:00.001-08:00

There comes a time in every parent’s life when he must entrust the care of his child to another. Babysitter, daycare worker, school teacher—eventually, we give up control.

If you’re like me—more maternal than anything else—this is a frightening proposition. No one will care for my baby the way I do.

As with most things, when looking for someone to share my most treasured treasure with, I use intuition. Sure, I observe character revealed in unguarded moments, but how I feel about the person—what I know without knowing anything is how I make my final decision.

Recently, I entrusted my novel, “Double Exposure,” to Jason Hedden, an actor, producer, director, and a professor at Gulf Coast Community College. This fruit of my loins (and other parts of me) that had gestated inside of me for so long, that I had carried and labored over and had given birth to, this truly beloved child of mine, I gave to Jason.

Jason took “Double Exposure,” a novel, and turned it into “Double Exposure,” an extraordinary theatrical experience. I was right to give Jason my book, and I couldn’t be happier with what he’s done with it.

Jason Hedden is a theatrical genius.

With an amazing vision from the very beginning, Jason carefully, thoughtfully, magnificently adapted a book into a play—a play that honors the book as much as another art form can, one that uses the strengths of theater to lift the story off the pages and set the characters and events twirling across the stage.

I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to watch Jason work, to witness firsthand his enormous effort, his respect for the book, his dedication and determination.

Each night I’ve attended rehearsals, I’ve had the experience of encountering people and places and events from my dreams. It’s a singular, surreal phenomenon.

“Double Exposure,” the theatrical experience, presents the book in a way that combines the best of the original text with the best of staged drama. Characters speak narration as well as dialog, bringing a literary quality to the play unlike any I’ve ever seen. The use of minimalist sets encourages, even forces, the audience to use its imagination in a way not unlike the book.

In the book, I mention that a prominent voice inside the main character’s head is that of his dead father’s. Genius Jason took that and used it to dramatize the experience—for the characters and the audience—by having the deceased father on stage talking to his son.

One more example of genius: In the book, the main character, a photographer, thinks about the greatest photographs ever taken, in an attempt to calm himself in a severely stressful situation. It would have been easy to project the iconic images onto a screen on the stage, but Jason staged them with actors—bringing them to life and preserving the poetic descriptions of them from the book.

Jason Hedden’s play, “Double Exposure,” has my highest recommendation. I hope you’ll see it. Of course, I hope you’ll read the book first, but if you decide not to, it wouldn’t bother me nearly as much as usual because of how much like reading a book Jason’s remarkable production really is.

(Play pictures by Jordan Marking)

Paper and Fire

2009-11-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

Charlyne Yi doesn’t believe in love. Or so she says. Though she never says it explicitly, it’s probably more accurate to say that she doesn't believe in fairy-tale, romantic “love.”

“Paper Heart” follows Charlyne as she embarks on a quest across America to make a documentary about this subject she doesn’t understand. As she and her good friend (and director) Nick search for answers and advice about love, Charlyne talks with friends and strangers, scientists, bikers, romance novelists, and children. They each offer diverse views on modern romance, as well as various answers to the age-old question: does true love really exist?

Then, shortly after filming begins, Charlyne meets a boy after her own heart: Michael Cera (the actor from “Juno” and “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist”). Combining elements of documentary and traditional storytelling, reality and fantasy, “Paper Heart” brings a unique perspective to romantic comedies; however, I suspect there’s far more fiction in this film than there appears to be.

“Paper Heart” so combines reality and fantasy, so blurs the lines between the two, it’s best not to take anything in it too seriously. Still, it is, nonetheless, thought-provoking.

I found watching “Paper Heart” odd and interesting because Charlyne Yi doesn’t believe in love, and there’s nothing I believe in more.

Of course, that’s not exactly what I mean. Belief is cheap. Easy. Shallow. Practice is the thing. As a philosophy, a religion, a way of being in the world, I attempt to practice love. I’m committed to it.

There’s nothing more central to my existence than love, and there I was sitting in the old AMC theater in the Panama City Mall, where back in the day, I went on my first movie date, watching a film about a person who claims not to believe in love.

Throughout the film, on a road trip of sorts, Charlyne asks people what love is, and it’s interesting to see people grapple to define love—and to hear how different their definitions are from one another.

I sympathize. Love is difficult to define. But this is how it should be. Defining something limits it (which is why it’s best not to do it, or when we do, leave an opening). Love can’t be limited. It must be free. Love and freedom are inseparable. How can we define something that is bigger than, and, in many ways, beyond us and must be free?

The longer I watched the movie, the more I realized that Charlyne, the girl who doesn’t believe in love, and me, the boy who believes in it more than anything, are actually much more closely aligned than it would first appear.

When Charlyne claims not to believe in love, she actually means romantic, lightning-bolt, head-over-heels infatuation where the object of our desire and affection becomes the god of our idolatry and that this is true love. But this isn’t love at all. Sure, it’s been known to lead to love, but more often than not it leads to disillusionment. Why? Because it’s an illusion—a projection onto a person of what we want and need. It’s a fantasy. Love is a reality.

Don’t get me wrong, I fall in infatuation all the time. It’s a heady and happy experience, and I even refer to it in the popular parlance as “falling in love,” but I know enough to know it ain’t love. It’s like. It’s desire. It’s attraction. It’s fire. It’s not love.

What is love then? I’ll happily give you one of my definitions if you promise to leave it open so it can be free.

Love is the uncoerced and unconditional commitment to continually accept and extend as a response to Love itself.

God is love. Love is God. Love flows to us, then through us. We are responding to love by loving God back, genuinely and without ego loving ourselves, and loving all others as ourselves.

Is my definition wanting? Of course. Any and all definitions of love are. It’s the same with God (a coincidence? I think not).

Love is universal. It can’t be limited to one person, one family, one tribe, one race, one nationality, or only to those who love us. Sure, people do it, and even call it love, but it’s not. If I “love” only “my” children, it’s not love. If I “love” only “my” parents, it’s not love. Who are my children, my parents, my brothers, my sisters, my wives, my husbands, my neighbors? Everyone. Or no one.

Does Charlyne find love? Does she discover what it really is? You’ll have to pay your dollar to see “Paper Heart” at the mall or wait until it comes out on DVD December 1st to find out. But you don’t have to wait any time at all to be loved and to love. You, like Charlyne and me, are loved. We just are—nothing we can do about it—and what we do with that unconditional acceptance determines the quality of our lives and the good we do in the world more than anything else. By far.

Whether we have a paper heart or an organ of fire, we are loved and meant to love—not in word only, but in deed. After all, love is not a condition, but an action—a verb, not a noun.

If you, like Charlyne, are not sure you believe in love—or even know what it is, just try this. Open yourself up to it, to how accepted, valued, cherished you are, and then commit to love as a way of life, begin to accept others (no longer judging or condemning), extend yourself for them, do, to the best of your ability, what is best for them, and see what happens.

You Make My Heart Sing

2009-10-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

I’ve never cared much for kid movies. The ones I’ve endured, I’ve done so for my children, and even at a young age, they picked up on the fact that Dad spent a good deal of time in the lobby during the feature presentation.

Over the years, I’ve been subjected to Power Rangers, Pokemon, a pig named Babe, and dozens of Disney animated fairytales because they’re what my children wanted to watch, but this past weekend, with a little time on my hands following a book signing, I went to the theater right by myself and watched “Where the Wild Things Are.”

I didn’t do it for my children, but the child in me.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is an adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children's story, where Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world—a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.

I’ve done a bit of adaptation—both of my own work and that of others—and know just how difficult it is to translate a work of art into another medium. There’s a real art to it—an art on brilliant and beautiful display in Spike Jonze’s and Dave Eggars’ work here. They have taken the ten sentences of Sendak’s beloved book and created a psychologically sophisticated and emotionally resonate film.

With an economy of words and some wonderful images, the book allows us to project our own particular wildness into the story (like all good stories do), to use our imaginations to fill in the spaces, to cast ourselves in the role of Max or one of the monsters, but the film largely does this for us, fleshing out characters and relationships and events, leaving few narrative gaps.

Some say music sooths the savage beast, and it’s true, but Max shows that story is far more effective. With child-like abandon, he spins tales that mesmerize the monsters. In fact, the power of story is one of the most significant and profound themes of the film. The entire work is a story, of course, but then there’s the story Max overhears his mom telling on the telephone, the story he tells her later as he’s settling in for bed, and the story he tells himself—the one that is his entire adventure. Story allows us to safely explore our wild sides, it comforts and heals and helps us make sense of the world. Our imaginations really are the most wondrous and wild things of all.

Max discovers much during his wild adventure—experiencing the pain of separation, the grief of loss, the solitude of leadership—but nothing he learns is more important or profound than the fact that even (or especially) Wild Things need mothers. As king, Max realizes just how difficult it is to be a parent—and how lucky he is to have one. In fact, the only thing keeping Max from complete anarchy, from being as lost and as damaged as the Wild Things is his mom. With a loving mother, a little Wild Thing can be a caring leader. Without a positive maternal influence, Wild Things too quickly become monsters that smash and destroy. We, like Max, need a mom—and not just in personal, but in public life. Our country and the world would be better if our sexist, male-dominated culture would make room for Mother (Mother God, Mother Earth, Yin, a celebrated and appreciated public feminine presence) and wouldn’t attempt to force a type of masculinity on women in positions of authority and leadership.

The Wild Things in Max’s mind (actual facets of Max’s personality) continually do damage. There’s a good deal of destruction in the film—particularly by Max and Carol—and it comes from their inability to deal with the strong emotions they experience. In Max and his Wild Things, we finally have a kid in film who is fully formed—wild and unpredictable, resilient and vulnerable, wild, yet ultimately domesticated.

Where are the Wild Things? Inside us as much as Max, and, like Max, we need to let them out occasionally so they can run and roar. Sure, this can be done literally—plenty of people out there howling at the moon every night—but there are endless ways to take a walk on the wild side including and especially art, and you could do far worse than reading or seeing “Where The Wild Things Are.” Figurative destruction is almost always better than actual, but a little wildness and even demolition all along is better than the catastrophic kind that inevitably explodes out of repression. What I’m saying is there’s a beast beneath our breast, and we need to let it out to breathe occasionally. So now, let the wild rumpus start.

My Long Happy Love Affair

2009-10-19T07:28:00.000-07:00

I fell in love in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1994.

It started out as a one night stand, but blossomed into a passionate love affair that has been happily going on for fifteen years now.

In honor of National Coming Out Day (and with love and support for all my GLBT brothers and sisters), I’m going to use this column to confess my love for a man.

I first fell in love with Richard Curtis while experiencing his delightful film, “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

I was alone in Tulsa with a free evening, and had been hearing good things about this indie British film sweeping the states. The theater was packed, and though I’ve never liked group dates, the presence of the crowd was powerless to prevent me from finding a soulmate.

Though his films are often laugh-out-loud hilarious, he has a smart, witty way of capturing moments that are both realistic and wildly romantic. His characters are multi-faceted and complex, and easy to identify with, but mostly they are charming. He writes about good, guileless everymen and women trying to connect, trying to matter, wanting to be everything to someone. As one of his characters offers in his toast, “True love. In whatever shape or form it may come. May we all in our dotage be proud to say, ‘I was adored once, too.’”

“Four Weddings and a Funeral” follows the fortunes of Charles (Hugh Grant) and his friends as they wonder if they will ever find true love. Charles thinks he's found his best chance with Carrie, an American he meets at the wedding of a mutual friend, but, as Shakespeare said, “the course of true love never did run straight.”

Romantic comedies, like most genre works, often fail to get the critical recognition they deserve (though “Four Weddings and Funeral” did receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture), and are instead, dismissed out of hand for being unrealistic. And, of course, there’s no dearth of crass, clichéd examples of so-called genre works, but like James Lee Burke or P.D. James in the crime fiction field or Cormac McCarthy in the western field, Curtis represents the very best of the genre—he’s so good, in fact, he transcends genre categorizations.

Speaking about this unfortunate reality, Curtis said, “If you write a story about a soldier going AWOL and kidnapping a pregnant woman and finally shooting her in the head, it's called searingly realistic, even though it's never happened in the history of mankind. Whereas if you write about two people falling in love, which happens about a million times a day all over the world, for some reason or another, you're accused of writing something unrealistic and sentimental.”

Weddings and funerals are seminal moments in life—a time to live and a time to die, a time to rejoice and a time to mourn, and Curtis uses them masterfully for both laughs and tears.

Perhaps the most piercing moment of the film is at its only funeral when the deceased man’s lover quotes a W. H. Auden poem.

Upon leaving the theater, so moved, so in love, so heady with the world-fading-oneness that love (and infatuation) brings, I drove straight to the first bookstore I could find and bought Vintage International’s edition of the Collected Poems of W. H. Auden, and when I pulled that book off my shelf while writing this, I discovered a bookmark from Novel Idea Bookstore, 7104 S. Sheridan, Tulsa OK, fifteen years later still marking the page with this poem:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

My love affair with Richard Curtis has only intensified over the years—through “Notting Hill,” “Love Actually,” and “The Girl in the Café,” but it all began fifteen years ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

Richard Curtis has my highest recommendation, and in future columns I will share with you what is just so singular about each work, but for now I’d like to invite you to a wedding—a few weddings, in fact (and a non-weddings and a funeral). If you missed the film or just haven’t seen it in a while, do yourself a favor and find it. I’m about to watch it again for what must be nearly the fifteenth time, and can think of no better way to celebrate my fifteenth “Four Weddings and a Funeral” anniversary.

The Lie that Tells the Truth

2009-10-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

House says “Everybody lies.” It’s the central tenant of his medical practice as it relates to patients and staff, and over six seasons and hundreds of patients, the truth of his most fundamentally held conviction has been proven time and again.

But what if “Nobody lies?” That’s the premise behind Ricky Gervais,’ “The Invention of Lying.”

What would the world be like if no one in the history of humanity had ever told a lie?

Well, according to the film, it’d be a dreadfully dull, downright depressing place. Movies would merely be non-dramatic retellings of historical events and an advertisement for Pepsi would go something like: “Pepsi—When Coke’s not available.”

And then what would happen if one person developed the ability to lie?

Gervais, the award-winning creator and star of the original BBC series “The Office” and HBO’s “Extras,” co-writes and directs this romantic comedy, which takes place in an alternate reality where lying—even the concept of a lie—does not exist. Everyone—from politicians to advertisers to the man and woman on the street—speaks the truth and nothing but the truth with no thought of the consequences.

But when a down-on-his-luck loser named Mark suddenly develops the ability to lie, he finds that dishonesty has its rewards. In a world where every word is assumed to be the absolute truth, Mark easily lies his way to fame and fortune. But lies have a way of spreading, and Mark begins to realize that things are getting a little out of control when some of his tallest tales are being taken as, well, gospel. With the entire world now hanging on his every word, there is only one thing Mark has not been able to lie his way into: the heart of the woman he loves.

“The Invention of Lying” is far less funny and far more thought-provoking than I expected.

Gervais is charming and likable, Jennifer Garner is understated, and, as always, vulnerably beautiful, and there’s an essential goodness and sweetness to the film.

But don’t let the mild comedy and sweet nature of the film fool you. It’s asking some very challenging questions about truth and lies and story and meaning.
“The Invention of Lying” seems to say that lies—at least the imaginative, non-malicious kind—are absolutely essential for humor, story, creativity, and civil social interaction.

It’s true, you can’t have most forms of humor and jokes without lies, and you certainly couldn’t have stories.

The best of our stories—whether in religion, philosophy, history, and most especially literature—are lies (made-up stories) that tell the truth. In fact, nothing gets at truth quite the way lies (or stories) do. The power of story to speak to us on our most human level, to convey truth to us about ourselves and others and the universe is transformative. We are our stories.

We are the stories we believe—about ourselves and the world.

There’s a seminal moment in the film when Mark delivers a message from God. Like Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai, except with pizza boxes instead of stone tablets, Mark tells the naïve, highly gullible, but essentially guileless people what the “Man in the Sky” who controls everything expects of them and what they can expect from him after they die, if they live the right way. It pokes fun at a kind of simple, superstitious, thoughtless religion that far too many people follow.

Many people wrongly make distinctions between what is true and what is fiction, but fiction is true—or can be very, very true. True, not in a shallow, literal sense, but in a deeper more profound way.

We have elevated reason and logic and the scientific method of what is observable actual/factual above all else, and in doing so have forgotten how unreliable observation and “facts” are, how inadequate they are at speaking to the human heart and experience, and how much we miss out on. The truth, as the film demonstrates, is not just surface and literal, but subtle, nuanced, complex, often sublime.

Based on this hyper materialist view, metaphors and fictitious stories are untrue. This means everything we can’t observe, touch, test, prove is untrue, that every made up story is false.

This is at the core of the fallacy of Fundamentalism. Shallow adherence to beliefs that can only be taken one way—literally—miss what is far, far more important than if the stories actually happened. And, of course, this makes their religion true and everyone else’s false. Instead of myth being true, non-literal stories, myth begins to mean false and is how other people’s religion is referred to.

Are the parables of Jesus false because they are made-up stories? I don’t think so. In fact, if lifted out of the ways they have been forced to fit certain theological constructs and instead, heard and understood in as close to their original context and meaning as possible, I don’t think we can find anything more profoundly true.

It’s why I write fiction. To tell the truth—or at least to explore it, search for it.

If fiction is the lie that tells the truth, I’m a professional liar.

The truth is, I try not to lie in my personal life or in my imaginative one. Just don’t ask me if those jeans make you look fat or if the gift you gave me was really what I wanted.

The lies I tell on the page are actually an attempt at getting at the truth—to explore, expound on, experience—a non-literal, truer than true truth. In other words, I try to tell stories that are, like “The Invention of Lying,” true though they never happened.

Ultimately, most all Mark’s lies are of the non-malicious variety. He tells tall tales meant mostly to comfort and entertain. In the end, he can’t bring himself to lie about what’s most important to him—even to get his way, even when to do so would get him what he most wants in all the wide world. May we all be as honorable with the lies we will and won’t tell.

I think if you go see “The Invention of Lying,” you’ll be mildly amused, but made to think, and I think that’s a good thing. Would I lie to you?

Of Conversation and Culture

2009-09-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I sat at a bar next to a lovely lady from Pittsburgh. I know she was from Pittsburgh because when I ordered my steak Pittsburgh style she said, “What’s that? I ask because I’m from Pittsburgh.”

We talked for a while about the differences between the North and the South in general and Pittsburgh and Panama City in particular, which was nice—spontaneous conversation is one of the reasons I sit at the bar when I eat alone.

We talked about how nice and friendly most folk around here are, and, given that, how shocking the racism is, and then she said, “We don’t have culture here, but we have the beaches.”

And I was like whoa, now. Wait just a minute, Pittsburgh. We have culture.

I had just returned from a book signing at Seaside. My new novel, “Double Exposure,” like all my books, is about this area. That’s culture. Jason Heddon and the college’s wonderful theater department are performing a play of it in November. That’s culture. Seaside has the REP and Sundog Books and art galleries. That’s culture.

Wewahitchka has The Tupelo; Apalach, The Dixie. That’s culture.

Last weekend, we had the 10th Annual Gulf Coast Writers Conference with #1 New York Times Bestselling author, Michael Connelly—and many other talented authors, agents, and editors besides. That’s culture.

Panama City has the VAC—the wonderful and only-getting-better VAC thanks to Linda MacBeth and the invested staff and volunteers who are working so hard. That’s culture.

We have Heather Parker’s Art Coop and Bay Arts Aliance and the Marina Civic Center (and the highly diverse and entertaining shows of this summer’s Backstage Pass series) and The Martin and Shakes By the Bay. And that’s culture.

We have local writers and photographers and painters and filmmakers and poets and musicians. And all of that is culture.

We have “The News Herald” and “The Entertainer” to cover all this culture, writers and editors like Jan Waddy and Tony Simmons, who work hard to keep the community informed about all the cultural haps and local artists’ works. Speaking of which, have you noticed how amazing “The Entertainer” looks? And how it keeps getting better and better. Well done, Jan!

We have a lot of good radio stations, but my favorite, WKGC, 90.7, is a great place for culture—music, arts, literature, news, and jazz and blues as good as any being broadcast anywhere.

This past weekend, I was out and about for Thunder Beach, and saw many displays of culture—including very cool performances by Twice Daily at Pineapple Willy’s and Steve Wiggins and friends at Edge Water.

Beauty and art and culture, like love, are actually all around. Easy to miss, but there nonetheless.

And if all this weren’t enough, we have the enduring excellence of the Kaleidoscope Theatre. On Sunday afternoon, I sat in a nearly full house, and saw a powerful performance of “To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,” directed by Jason Blanks and featuring a talented cast of local actors, including Martin Hendrickson, Frankie Hudson, Tanya Ericson, and the warm, charming, funny Ray H. Stanley.

We have all this culture—and a whole lot more (I’m just recounting what I’ve seen recently, not attempting to be exhaustive).

We have all this, plus we have the world’s friendliest people and most beautiful beaches, the majestic Apalachicola River, the acres and acres of pine and oak and cypress of Florida’s Great Green Northwest and the splendid species—endangered and not—who call it home.

We have all, ALL this, AND we don’t ever have to shovel snow!

You might say we have it all.

But you’d be wrong. We could use more culture—more art, more literature, more concerts and plays and exhibits. And we could stand less thoughtless, tacky, greedy development, less racism (and sexism and homophobia and all other forms of xenophobia and ignorance so often on display), less pollution and more protection of the very land and animals and people that make this a place, for me, worth writing about and fighting for.

We may not have it all. But we do have a terrible, awful lot to be grateful for—culture and natural beauty.

Take a moment and thank those you see making art, beauty, and love. Thank them for the sacrifices, for their steadfastness to their vision, for working day jobs so they can, for creating and producing when they’re exhausted, for enriching our community, for doing all this—and constantly hearing there’s no culture in our area. And for this last, you may want to give them a big ol’ bear hug, too.

Lost and Found Light: An Appreciation of Michael Connelly

2009-09-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

Michael Connelly writes about things lost—lost innocence, lost life, lost love, lost and missing persons, lost souls, Lost Angeles, and, most of all, lost light.

He can do this because nothing is lost on him.

He is a quiet, deliberate man—as much Pinkerton as reporter—continually taking everything in.

Harry Bosch, Connelly’s cop is a man intimately acquainted with loss. He lost his mother when he was only eleven years old. He’s lost partners and fellow foot soldiers, lost victims and predators, and, little by little, he’s losing his city and maybe even his own soul.

Harry Bosch inhabits a world so dark even the light is lost.

It’s a world he’s familiar with and at home in. In Vietnam, he was a tunnel rat with the 25th Infantry Division who specialized in making his way through the Vietcong’s underground maze of absolute blackness.

In honor of my friend and in homage to his complex character and concepts, I wrote the following passage in my new novel, “Double Exposure:”

“Glancing down at his camera, he pulls up the information for the last image. According to the time and date stamp encoded in the picture, it was taken less than two hours ago.

“The murderer had been finishing up about the time Remington was unloading the ATV and talking to Heather. And hearing what he thought were screams. He wonders if, like lost light, the horrific screams had been trapped in the swamp until someone had arrived to hear them.”

I have not mentioned this to anyone—including Michael—until this moment, and didn’t know that I ever would, but I felt it an apt example of the ubiquitous influence and impact of Michael Connelly and Harry Bosch on contemporary crime fiction.

It may well be that Harry Bosch is in the dark searching for light—the light at the end of the tunnel or some lost light trapped in the claustrophobic tube with him—but I think it more likely that Harry Bosch is that lost light. As if some of the lost light from his time in the tunnels in Vietnam clung to him, Harry is a faint, lost light in a city of oppressive, overwhelming darkness—a darkness more than night.

Down the dark, mean streets of LA, people grope around, night-blind, bumping into one another, doing damage, and the best that they can hope for is help from a tunnel rat from Vietnam, a lost light bearer.

Interviewing Michael this past weekend as part of the 10th Annual Gulf Coast Writers Conference, I was reminded just how gifted he really is.

Back when I was in college, we’d sit around in my lit class and discuss what we thought poems and stories meant. More often than not, when we’d concluded our analysis, I’d think there’s no way the author ever intended half of what we got out of his or her work, but occasionally, you could tell no matter what you took from a work, the author had intended it—and much beside that you didn’t get.

Years later, listening to filmmaker commentaries on DVD, I was struck by writer/directors who fully intended everything I got out of their films and far more that I completely missed.

The thing is, regardless of the art form—book or film or whatever—the author or artist who consistently produces emotionally resonant and thought-provoking work, isn’t doing so by accident.

Michael Connelly’s books are meaningful—mean so much to so many—because he takes every opportunity, uses every name or location or event or description to communicate something. Harry Bosch’s name is significant (he’s named after the 15th Century Dutch artist, Hierynomus Bosch)—more so as the series continues. His house, propped precariously on the side of a mountain, is a metaphor—as is the jazz he listens to, the relationships he’s involved in, the lone, lost coyote way he operates as an outsider within his own department, and every single space of what used to be Raymond Chandler’s, but is now Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles.

The Bosch books are about being in a dark tunnel journeying into light—an arduous, treacherous journey that is slow and painful and costly. Connelly knows what Milton knew, and what Harry and his many fans are learning—that “Long is the way, And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.” And this deep, this dark, lost light is all there is—all we can hope for—as we stumble around with Harry during his long day’s journey through the night.

A Very Fine Feast

2009-09-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

One of the first and most important decisions a writer makes is point of view. We ask ourselves—Whose story is it? Who will make the best narrator? Does this story work best in the first person or third? Or as something else entirely? Determining who narrates a story determines the outcome of the story.

The choice Charles Baxter made for his novel, “The Feast of Love” is an ingenious one. There are nearly as many narrators as there are characters in the book—each one given the opportunity to tell his or her story like only he or she can. Instead of scenes utilizing multiple third person points of view, each character recounts his or her feasts and famines.

Late one night, a man wakes from a bad dream and decides to take a walk through his neighborhood. After catching sight of two lovers entangled on the football field, he comes upon Bradley Smith, friend and fellow insomniac, and Bradley begins to tell a series of tales--a luminous narrative of love in all its complexity.

We meet Kathryn, Bradleys’ first wife, who leaves him for another woman, and Diana, Bradley’s second wife, more suitable as a mistress than a spouse. We meet Chloe and Oscar, who dream of a life together far different from the sadness they have known. We meet Esther and Harry, whose love for their lost son persists despite his contempt for them. And we follow Bradley on his nearly magical journey to conjugal happiness.

Charles Baxter is both the author of the novel and a character in it. Once Bradley suggest that Baxter write a book titled, “The Feast of Love,” he begins to interview the various people Bradley suggests, allowing them each to tell him (and us) their stories—stories that intersect and intertwine and reveal the complexities of life and relationships. Baxter being the author of the book and a character in it is only one of many doublets. “The Fest of Love” is not only the title of the book Baxter is working on, but a painting Bradley created. Bradley is not only a man and a main character, but a dog—his dog, named after him by his wife. Sound complicated? It is a bit, but only a bit.

Charles Baxter is a wonderful writer. “The Feast of Love” is a well written, insightful, generous book. The characters who people it are interesting and real and engaging and complex. I highly recommend this book. Get it. Read it. Enjoy. But . . .

“The Feast of Love” should be called “The Feast of Relationships.” Sure, I know why it wasn’t. It doesn’t have the same ring. I get it.

If you’re a regular reader of this column, then you know how much I believe in love, how there is nothing higher humanity can aspire to, how it is what God is. Love is absolute and unconditional. It’s a choice, a lifestyle, a philosophy, a way of being in the world.

“The Feast of Love” is a feast of passion, of romance, of sex, of entanglement, of friendship, of need, of divorce and remarriage, of like (and of falling in and out of it)—something not possible with love. Sure, love can be present in passion, with feelings, with like, with infatuation, with sex, but we shouldn’t confuse these things for love. Often the most loving, most altruistic acts we take involve the least in the way of warm fuzzy feelings. Love is action, not feeling.

Is love present in “The Feast of Love?” Sure. But as is always the case, it is contaminated by desire and passion and selfishness and like and sex and infatuation and the rest. Nothing for it. It’s the human condition—which is what this book is about, the fascinating, fragile, phenomenal feast of the human condition, and our absolute need for connection.

Baxter’s book has also been adapted into a warm, charming film by director Robert Benton (“Kramer vs. Kramer” and “The Human Stain”) starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear.

Here’s how the movie is billed by the studio:

Bradley (Greg Kinnear) believes in the power and beauty of true love. He’s good at falling in love—just with the wrong women. He’s hoping that his relationship with sophisticated Diana (Radha Mitchell) will have a happier ending than his first marriage to Kathryn (Selma Blair). Bradley’s friend Harry (Morgan Freeman) is happily married to Esther (Jane Alexander), but they are dealing with the loss of a different kind of love. At the same time, Oscar (Toby Hemingway) and Chloe (Alexa Davalos) are busy falling in love at first sight and starting their life together even though the odds are against them.

Good stuff. Enjoyable. Fairly faithful adaptation. But again, love isn’t something you fall into or out of. It’s not something you lose. And though it may seem so, it’s not a simple matter of semantics.
Feast on this fine book. It makes for a truly great meal. Then, if you still want more, have the film for dessert.

A Maddening Silence

2009-09-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

Increasingly, we’re living in a world where nobody listens.

There’s so much noise, such a continuous assault on our senses, that we have to create filters just to survive, but sometimes we filter out too much. Sometimes, we’re not really listening to the important things being said and not being said to us.

It’s as if we have an inverse form of ADHD—instead of letting everything in equally, we’ve stopped letting in much of anything at all. Of course, this is due in part to the rampant narcissism and self-involvement of our time, but I really do believe the deafening levels of noise, the sheer volume of stimuli have overwhelmed us to the point of living defensively—like little monkeys with our hands over our eyes and ears and minds.

Not so in the era of AMC’s “Mad Men,” when television was still novel (on only for a few hours a day), people read, and the assault known as advertising and entertainment wasn’t nearly so ubiquitous.

There is much to recommend about “Mad Men”—the characters, the sets, the sleek sexiness, but perhaps what is best about it is not what’s in it, but what’s left out.

The makers of “Mad Men” have mastered the art of silences.

Like the white space on a page of text, and the way it shapes the reading experience, the well-placed silences in “Mad Men” are exquisite and excruciating.

And it’s not just the silences, but the overall quietness of the sophisticated drama. There’s very little music, very little noise, just people talking—and not—so much so that commercial breaks are even more jarring in their intrusion than usual.

Set in 1960s New York, the sexy, stylized drama follows the lives of the men and women of Madison Avenue advertising. The series revolves around the conflicted Don Draper, the biggest ad man (and ladies’ man) in the business, and his colleagues at the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency. As Don makes the plays in the boardroom and the bedroom, he struggles to stay a step ahead of the rapidly changing times and the young executives nipping at his heels. The series also depicts authentically the roles of men and women in this era while exploring the true human nature beneath the guise of 1960s traditional family values.

“Mad Men” is one of the most existential dramas to ever air on TV. All the characters are vaguely aware something is missing, something isn’t right, but for Don the feeling is anxiety-causing acute. We are given a front row seat to the lives of men and women trudging around the abyss, the quietness of their lives, the many silences around them, an outward manifestation of the noiseless void inside of them.

Relish the quiet and silence of “Mad Men,” get caught up in the spectacular set pieces and the turbulent times, and, most of all, the complex characters. As you do, remember, if it appears nothing is happening, look again. It’s all there—only it’s in the subtext. If you only hear the text you’ll miss it. If you only see what’s on the surface, you won’t perceive most of what’s happening—the bulk of the berg moving these people is below the surface. Way below—where the current actually runs in a different direction.

If you haven’t tried “Mad Men” or tried it and weren’t immediately smitten, try it again. Still yourself from the frenzy of Twenty-first Century America’s frantic pace, shut out the din and noise and sound and fury that is modern, manic, shallow culture, and embrace the essential silence at the heart of “Mad Men.” Listen. It is the center of Job’s whirlwind, and out of its utter emptiness, truly transformational truths can be heard—but only if we are still and quiet and linger to listen.

A “Summer” Kind of Love

2009-08-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.

Happens all the time—to me more times than I care to recall.

Nothing to be done for it. Nearly all of us have fancied someone who doesn’t fancy us.

But . . .

What if . . .

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl acts like she’s fallen in love, too.

Aye, there’s the rub.

Rejection I can take, but deception? Games?

In words best heard in the quavering voice of Aaron Neville—

If you want something to play with
Go and find yourself a toy
Baby my time is too expensive
And I'm not a little boy

Tell it like it is.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel star in director Mark Weber's wry, non-linear romantic comedy about a man who falls hard for a woman who doesn't believe in love and says she doesn’t want a boyfriend.

Tom Hansen (Gordon-Levitt) is an aspiring architect who currently earns his living as a greeting card writer (“You make me proud every day. Today, you get a card.”). Upon encountering his boss' fetching new secretary, Summer Finn (Deschanel), Tom discovers that the pair have much in common, (and not just that they both love The Smiths and the surrealist artist Magritte). From the very first moment, Tom is smitten. All he can think about is Summer.

Tom believes in the concepts of soul mates and one true love, and he thinks he’s finally found his.

Unfortunately, Summer doesn’t feel the same way—or so she says. Her actions seem to indicate she’s changing her tune. She says she sees true love as the stuff of fairy tales, and isn't looking for romance, that she wants to keep things casual. Undeterred, Tom pursues Summer, and for a while she seems to respond in kind, but ultimately, it is short lived.

The smart, interesting, funny film is told out of sequence in scenes that serve as kind of forensic flashbacks in Tom and Summer’s love autopsy.

It brings to mind the lyrics Drew Barrymore’s character batted around in “Music and Lyrics.” “Figuring out you and me is like a love autopsy. They can search all day long and never find out what went wrong.”

After it looks as if she's left his life for good, Tom reflects back on his yearlong relationship with Summer—and the audience gets to comb through the wreckage along with him.

It’s clear that although Summer said she didn’t believe in relationships or boyfriends or true love or anything serious, it’s obvious to everyone except Summer, she and Tom became far more than just friends.

Through his heartbroken investigation of his relationship catastrophe, Tom gets advice from his two best friends, McKenzie and Paul. However, the best, wisest counsel comes from Tom's adolescent sister, Rachel.

“(500) Days of Summer” is a well made film, worthy of your movie going time. The script is clever, the directing good, and the performances of Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are outstanding. Still, it’s hard not to leave the theater frustrated. The writers and director so perfectly capture the pain and emotional devastation that occurs when someone in a relationship is dishonest or whose actions don’t match his or her words, that it’s difficult not to be angry at Summer (even as charming as Zooey Deschanel is).

Mixed signals.

Poor communication.

How much heartache could be spared if we would all just tell the truth—and make sure our actions match the truth we’re telling.

Actions. Not words.

No matter how much someone says she doesn’t believe in love or doesn’t want a boyfriend, if she acts like she does, if she exhibits all the signs of being “in love,” guess what the guy in love with her is going to believe?

And who can blame him?

Sure, there were little signs, clues to indicate her ambivalence that can be seen when looking back, but they were mostly hidden by the many other actions that contradicted them. And that they could have been spotted by a trained detective or relationship guru doesn’t mean an infatuated young man had even the remotest chance of perceiving them.

The entire film, I sat there thinking, Summer’s character is not so much aloof or ambivalent or free-spirited as wounded. Like so many walking wounded among us, her actions are defensive. She’s in self-preservation mode, guarding her heart from additional hurt, which only insures that’s what she’ll both inflict and receive.
Tom is open and kind and gentle and loving and honest. Summer is closed and defensive and dishonest.

Summer lied to Tom—with her actions if not with her words. Of course, Tom lied to himself, too—but I don’t think he could or would have if not for Summer’s deception.

In addition to a fresh, unique way of telling an age-old story, the writers do a sexual role reversal with the characters. Unlike, “He’s Just Not that Into You” and what is far more common in life, it’s not the guy saying one thing with his mouth and something different with his actions. It’s the girl. And who knows? Maybe male audience members will identify with Tom and not treat the women in their lives so casually and inconsiderately in future seasons of their lives.

With all that “(500) Days of Summer” has going for it, I can forgive its unearned ending and appreciate the writers and director’s mercy in giving both Tom and the audience a glimmer of hope as summer turns to autumn, and we prepare for the cold, cruel days of winter ahead.

If You Have a Good Appetite for Great Food and Film . . .

2009-08-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

On the drive to the theater to see “Julie and Julia,” I was thinking about a report I’d read earlier in the day about the rise of obesity in America—how two-thirds of us are either overweight or obese, and how on average we’re 23 pounds overweight.

That was on the drive over. During and following the film, all I wanted to do was eat.

Of course, what I longed for was not what is making us fat—not poorly produced, corn-fed, high fructose corn syrup calorie and fat-injected food, but a fine meal—the kind that feeds the soul while nourishing the body.

What I settled on was three-quarters of an exquisite piece of key lime pie at Gracie Rae’s, which did feed my soul, but not as much as the late evening ambience, the sun-streaked bay, and the gentle kiss of evening on the soft, brine-tinged breeze.

The article I had read about how we’re eating ourselves to death, argued that obesity, like tobacco and alcohol abuse, isn’t just dangerous, but expensive. New research shows medical spending averages $1,400 more a year for an obese person and the overall obesity-related health spending is around $147 billion, double what it was nearly a decade ago (according to the journal Health Affairs).

We’ve got a problem. Our approach to food. Our approach to life. The hole in the secret depths of who we are can’t be filled with food alone.

Our great national sins, the ones so deeply a part of who we are they don’t get very many sermons, don’t get marches or signs or bumper stickers, and don’t decide elections, are greed and gluttony. But the film is the antithesis of our self-destructive behavior—a celebration of good food and of women and marriage and life.

The film is about the appreciation, not the aberration and exploitation of food. The way alcohol is not an issue for people who drink moderately, food is not an issue for non gluttons.

Food, like sex or work or religion or family or alcohol, can be both cause for an used in celebration—something that leads us into transcendence—or it can be merely something we do, mundane, thoughtless, animalistic.

For both Julia and Julie, food is far, far more than just fuel.

Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) are featured in writer-director Nora Ephron’s adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's “Julie & Julia” and “My Life in France,” by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Based on two true stories, “Julie & Julia” intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends . . . until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

We live in a time and a place of plenty, which won’t last—it can’t—but what do we do while it does? Can we have the discipline to deny ourselves, the compassion to share our undeserved abundance, the wisdom and humility to be grateful, the spiritual insight to perceive what is beyond nutritional necessity? The answers are all too obvious, but we’re a young species. Maybe we’ll survive our adolescence to become who we’re meant to be.

We all have a relationship with food, and we all have to figure it out.
But food isn’t the only relationship that is explored in the film. There’s also Julie and Julia’s relationships with friends and family and society, and especially, their relationships with their husbands.

Both Julie and Julia became who they did thanks in part to the encouraging, supportive spouses in their lives. Rarely has marriage been so positively portrayed on screen. Not only does Ms. Ephron love good food, but, after a very public unhappy marriage and acrimonious divorce, she now loves being married. Both her relationship to food and her husband shine through her script and her camera and onto the screen.

“Julie and Julia” teaches ever so gently that the keys to a good life and relationship are genuine love, respect, and support given to and received from our significant others, authenticity, real purpose, fidelity to self and calling, hard work, good food, good sex—and a good appetite for all of these.

Like a consummate chef preparing a special meal for treasured friends and family, Ms. Ephron has taken the recipes found in both Julie and Julia’s books, added her own ingredients, and cooked up a near flawless film. All that’s left to say is bon appétit. Come with a good appetite to this good film about good people and good times and the good food that makes everything even better.

The Truth is Uglier than You Think

2009-08-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

“Treat a hot girl like dirt and she’ll stick to you like mud.”

This bit of misogynistic venom spit out by Sam from “Slackers” seems less an explanation for his doin’ dirt to girls than the philosophy of a generation.

Recent romantic comedies—even those that purport to reveal how guys really think—too often justify, even romanticize sexism and misogyny.

It’s alarming how prevalent—check that—how celebrated bad behavior is (and not just in rap songs and man-child movies). It’s even more alarming how many women allow, even expect it.

Listen to how the studio is promoting the romantic comedy “The Ugly Truth.”

The battle of the sexes heats up in Columbia Pictures comedy “The Ugly Truth.” Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a romantically challenged morning show producer whose search for Mr. Perfect has left her hopelessly single. She's in for a rude awakening when her bosses team her with Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), a hardcore TV personality who promises to spill the ugly truth on what makes men and women tick.

The female character is “romantically challenged” and “hopelessly single,” the male character is “hardcore” and “truth-telling.” Relationships are framed as a battle—or at best a game. The problem with this paradigm is someone has to win and someone has to lose, someone has to dominate and someone has to submit. With the poster picturing the two would-be lovers as the kind of blocky black figures you find on restroom doors with red hearts—the woman’s on her head, the man’s on his crotch, the battle is framed in the ancient way of men only wanting sex and women having to withhold it until the man surrenders to her terms of marriage—or at least until it’s certain he wants more than just her body. In this oppressive and flat out wrong paradigm, men give “love” to get sex and women give sex to get “love”—men are only hounds and women are only virgins or sluts.

Chadway’s ugly truth is that men only want sex—lots and lots of sex. And while I only speak for one man, the problem with the caricatured formulation is that it’s only partially true. Truth is usually far more nuanced, subtle, complex. Many men, maybe most (even us good guy feminist types) want as much sex as we can get, but that’s not the only thing we want. And yet, that is the only thing some guys want from some girls, and the only thing other guys want from all girls.

The real ugly truth is that our culture is so sexist Sam’s and Mike Chadway’s mentalities (and that of the girls they’re involved with) shouldn’t surprise us. And it’s not just them. We have systemic sexism—justified by the powerful, sanctified by the religious, tolerated by all who thoughtlessly accept culture as not only the way things are, but the way things are supposed to be.

The uglier truth is the reason misogynists like Mike Chadway and Sam get so much play is far more a failure of parenting than culture. Succumbing to culture, they’re parents failed them as did the parents of all the girls allowing them to treat them badly. By what they said or didn’t say, by what they did or didn’t do, by what they modeled or by their absence, parents are raising entitled boys to use and abuse, to manipulate and take, and move on, and girls who keep kissing frogs and believing fairytales because they aren’t given the tools to imagine anything else.

Obviously, I found “The Ugly Truth” thought-provoking—but more because of its assumptions than what was on the screen. And though it provided a few laughs and a couple of “moments,” it’s dangerous propaganda.

“Yo, Lister, lighten up. It’s a comedy,” I can hear some readers saying.

And they’d have a point, but sexism, like racism or classism or homophobia or xenophobia, is only funny when being laughed at, not with.

Here are a few of my truths:

—He’s not strong and silent, he’s barbaric and emotionally stunted.

—Drama and sick dynamics don’t equal desire or passion, just dysfunction.

—It’s not just that he’s not that into you, he’s not into anyone but himself.

—There are far far far worse things than being single.

—If a person’s not growing and evolving on his or her own, he or she is not going to do it for you (for very long).

—Character is reality, charm is an illusion.

—If you find self-centeredness sexy, you need counseling.

—There’s a reason it takes several drinks to do what you’re about to do.

—It’s not that women don’t like sex as much as men, it’s that far too many sexual encounters are mostly (if not exclusively) about male satisfaction. (Just because those three minutes were heaven for you doesn’t mean it did anything for her.)

—If being treated badly feels good and being treated good feels bad, your operating system has a virus and needs deprogramming and reprogramming.

Like, “He’s Just Not that Into You,” “The Ugly Truth” claims to be telling truths about men, about how we are really sex-obsessed users (I for one am no user), but then end by reaffirming the sexists suppositions they claim to be exposing. Both films undermine everything they were saying with unearned, incredible happy Hollywood endings.

The guy who’s just not that into you, who keeps giving you all the signs that he only wants sex and not a relationship, realizes by the end of the movie that you’re his soul mate and Mike Chadway is only misogynistic because he has a woman-wounded heart. See, men really do have hearts hidden somewhere behind their enormous erections—all you have to do is persist, keep kissing frogs, keep hoping for the best, keep ignoring the signs and the guy who says he doesn’t want to marry you, eventually will, the guy who says he doesn’t want a relationship will realize he really does. All you have to do is keep playing his game—or the next guy’s game, or the next, or the next and eventually you’ll win. Am I the only one who thinks these are tragedies not comedies?