(Note: I wrote this post Tuesday night and then forgot to hit publish. Was tired.)

Driving to the movies tonight, I spent a good 20 minutes driving in a sunshower… it was hot, the A/C was cranked, the sun visor was down because I was being blinded, and the windshield wipers were at the medium speed setting because it was a goodly amount of precipitation. I tried to see if I was on the leading edge of a storm cloud because all I could espy ahead of me and around me were fluffy clouds with sunlight streaming through them.

In the end, I thought to myself, “The rain must be coming from the next cloud over. The one I can’t see.”

I realize this is usually the case.

Below are some choice bits from the initial reviews of the Sex and the City movie. I was spitting a little vitriol at work yesterday when asked if I was going to go see it. The answer, in short, was “FECK NO.” Except I wasn’t saying those words like Father Jack on “Father Ted.”

Important to note also is that I did tell my friend Theresa that I would see it with her as a matinee because she is a huge fan of the series and her show/movie-viewing buddies are in New Hampshire and England. Theresa is my dear friend and this would mean a lot to her. I also believe in knowing thine enemy. Therefore, I might end up seeing it. But I’ll have to sneak in a little airline bottle of rum (or 2), pour it into my Coke, and enjoy it that way. Because, DAMN. While I’m not a drinker per se (the last drink I had was at a business dinner a few weeks ago; before that, it was my birthday in April), desperate times call for desperate measures.

For professional reasons, maybe I should’ve been more neutral in my response at work and said that I simply don’t care for the series. But this and the Super Bowl both elicit visceral reactions from me. Visceral, angry, “no wonder the rest of the world thinks we’re stupid” reactions. I’m just not very good at hiding my emotions when they’re strong.

Anyway, despite shitty reviews, many of the theatres in the NYC metro area were sold out and experiencing ridiculous amounts of group ticket sales (no, I am not surprised - just sadly aware). Here are some of the review bits I liked:

This movie provides no good reasons to revisit “Sex and the City,” except to fulfill fans’ desires for one more for the road and add millions to Time Warner’s coffers. Be careful what you wish for.

Yes. Well said. “One more for the road” because people just cannot get over the loss OF A TELEVISION SHOW. The phrase “beating a dead horse” comes to mind.

Montage after montage after montage with each and every problem finding a solution by the fabulously dressed four getting together, squee-ing in a pitch that will deafen dogs and neuter most of the males in the audience, and realizing that friendship will get you through any bout of rampant self-absorption. Oh, so this is what happens when you leave Bratz dolls in the sun too long.

Ha ha! Bratz dolls reference = key. It’s the same market - except 10, 20, 30 and 40 years older. And with more money to waste on cheap plastic shit, like knock-off Coach purses because you KNOW you have to have the insignia print. You just do.

In need of some serious tightening up, the flabby picture does what the old Samantha would have never done: It keeps hanging around, pushing for a long-term relationship.

Again, “beating a dead horse.” When has this series NOT been about hanging around and pushing for a relationship? For all the fans’ pontificating about how empowering it is, how can they not see that it’s always been about a “happily ever after”/”GET THE RING!!!” ending? Who else was around for when The Rules was a runaway self-help bestseller? I was a bookseller in those days and I remember railing against it then. I rail against it just as much when it’s dressed up in Vivienne Westwood and on the TV/silver screen.

It’s as long as five series episodes, a big sweet tasty layer cake stuffed with zingers and soul and dirty-down verve (it’s not above having one of the girls poop her pants). Given the running time, though, not that much happens, and what does has several shades more gravitas

“Stuffed with zingers and soul”? “Dirty-down verve”? Oh, one of the girls poops her pants, huh? I heard a woman on the radio yesterday (NPR was interviewing people who had gone to the premiere) say she loved the series because it made her see that all these incredibly successful, well-dressed NYC women were “just like us”, accessible and also had problems. That they worry about the same things that “we” do.

I pity her. I don’t think she’s ever fully realized that the things she sees on TV and the movies aren’t really real.

Sigh. I’m going to do some of the glamorous things that real women sometimes have to do - take my car for an oil change! Put some laundry in the wash! Change the sheets on my bed! All while wearing these sexy-ass pajama pants I bought at Target. That’s right. I’m living the glamorous life.

My friend Sara was up visiting the NY metro area this weekend, so she came into Manhattan yesterday morning and spent the majority of the day with me. We had tea, walked a bit, did some shopping, walked some more, took the dog I’m sitting for on a super long walk in the park, ate some yummie vegan-friendly foods and had more tea.

Throughout the day, we were both finding it difficult to think of the words we wanted to use - this resulted in made-up words (I’d call them neologisms - but I’m pretty sure they’re not real), saying the wrong words (but knowing what we meant) and just lots of “I know this!” moments/”tip of the tongue” syndrome (lethologica if you can’t remember the right word; anomia is a more severe version of this that comes with aphasia - impairment of speech due to brain damage). In both our cases, this was due to lack of quality restful sleep - and I find that’s the first manifestation of sleep deficit in my world. All this week I’ve been struggling to think of words - words like “attrition” and “tomb”, for example.

Today, I’ve been feeling gross and headachey, so aside from walking the dog, my activities have included watching movies, reading and doing NYT crossword puzzles. Between last night and now, I’ve watched “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (impressed), “Juno” (underwhelmed), “Hairspray” (surprised), “Bride and Prejudice” (Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice - Naveen Andrews line-dancing = strangely hot), and, randomly, the E! True Hollywood Story of the Kardashian family (because I thought to myself, “What the hell are they actually famous for? I’m still asking the same question…).

Aside from seeing Sara, these are all just empty diversions and I am aware of it. I spoke with my mother in Poland today; amidst everything else, she had forgotten it was Mother’s Day. The service for my grandfather is tomorrow, and I lost it a little when she told me about picking out the urn (he wanted to be cremated, so that was done on Friday) and going over home renovation plans with my grandmother to make sure that she’s safe now that she’s going to be alone (another hard realization).

She mentioned to me that she’s reminded of my grandfather everywhere she looks… when coming back from a cousin’s house last night, she looked up at the balcony of my grandparents’ home where my grandmother and grandfather would always stand and wait for us when we were arriving from the airport or from being out somewhere anytime we came to visit. We would pull up and they would be standing up there together, waving down at us and smiling. I can see them; it’s an extremely vivid memory. Now, she said, it was just my grandmother standing there waving to them - and I can’t write about that anymore.

And this is probably too personal for the direction I want to be heading here, too much information, and I think I shall end this post now.

Dude. That’s totally a bad and sort of weird pun/play on words for a post title. Oh, well. The snow outside is all sparkly and inspiring introspection, my work-week is done, and while I’m feeling a little drained, it’s OK. There’s knitting and reading to do, Netflix en route, and a few possible weekend plans. It’s not bad.

The post title just popped into my head because I was listening to this song in the car, and remembered that the last time something reduced me to tears (other than my own internal crap) it was this song. I watched “Dancer in the Dark” over the weekend - somewhat universally acknowledged to be a horribly depressing movie, and a decent one - and that got me a little choked up, but not teary. There was no lingering sadness.

There might be something wrong with me.

So here’s the song - “Cycling Trivialities” by José González, complete with lyrics, though you have to hear it to get the full effect:

Too blind to know your best
Hurrying through the forks without regrets
Different now, every step feels like a mile
All the lights seem to flash and pass you by

So how’s it gonna be
When it all comes down you’re cycling trivialities

Don’t know which way to turn
Every trifle becoming big concerns
All this time you were chasing dreams,
without knowing what you wanted them to mean

So how’s it gonna be
When it all comes down you’re cycling trivialities
So how’s it gonna be
When it all comes down you’re cycling trivialities

Who cares in a hundred years from now
All the small steps, all your shitty clouds
Who cares in a hundred years from now
Who’ll remember all the players
Who’ll remember all the clowns

So how’s it gonna be
When it all comes down you’re cycling trivialities

So what does this really mean
When it all comes down you’re cycling trivialities
Cycling trivialities
Cycling trivialities

I want this. I also want to buy it for two people I know. I like giving people books.

Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch

In this “unexpected delight,” filmmaker David Lynch describes his personal methods of capturing and working with ideas, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation.

Now in a beautiful paperback edition, David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish provides a rare window into the internationally acclaimed filmmaker’s methods as an artist, his personal working style, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation.

Catching the Big Fish comes as a revelation to the legion of fans who have longed to better understand Lynch’s personal vision. And it is equally compelling to those who wonder how they can nurture their own creativity.

I also like the cover. That font is gorgeous.

(No, this is not a post about yogurt. Though I am having some right now, after midnight, since I didn’t eat much today. I failed to notice, however, that the yogurt I selected was not only “probiotic” but also “light”, so it’s quite nasty as it contains aspartame. I cannot abide artificial sweeteners. Truly. The taste, the aftertaste. Gah.)

One of the benefits of living so close to Manhattan is that there are so many cool cultural things going on relatively close by. Sadly, I haven’t really been taking advantage of too many of these cultural events and things since they’re usually more enjoyable with company (you know, so you can be all pompous, superior and smarmy in a nice exclusive group of 2 or 3 people) and not everyone is up for a spur-of-the-moment jaunt into NYC to look at paintings or whatever.

But I got to enjoy some culture today, yes indeed. My company provides all employees with a “culture card” at the beginning of every calendar year which entitles us to free admission and discounts at several great museums in the major metro areas where we have offices - New York and San Francisco, for starters. My friend from work told me about the movie screenings at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) for which we also get free admission. So this afternoon, after a series of text messages, I met up with her and her boyfriend and we went off to MoMA to check out the new exhibits and catch this evening’s screening.

Currently, the special exhibit in the main atrium is sculpture by Martin Puryear. It’s pretty amazing stuff. I’ll post some pictures (thumbnails) below since a link to the exhibition page will probably go dead once the exhibit is over (on January 14). From left to right, you see “Ad Astra”, “Greed’s Trophy” and “Desire.”

I especially enjoyed his artist’s statement. I wrote down a portion in my Moleskine reporter’s notebook (small, purse size) but just found the whole thing on the site:

“But coherence is not the same as resolution.” I love that.

In another gallery, there were etchings by Lucian Freud, a section on contemporary Latin American art, and then their regular photography collection which is always nice to see - some Diane Arbus, etc. We also checked out “Multiplex: Directions in Art, 1970 to Now” - some more modern modern art. I think MoMA has been getting some flack over the last few years for not showcasing much contemporary or postmodern art and clinging to “modern art”: art produced between 1870 and 1970. I was born in 1978; 1970 is still modern in my book. However, anything that requires us to talk about the 19th century is not as modern as we’d like to see, I think. The Multiplex exhibit had some truly interesting pieces, but also some that make it far too easy to make fun of PoMo/contemporary art, e.g. a TV running a video that was quite honestly what you’d see if you played a damaged blank VHS tape. A black screen with occasional bursts of “static.” And that was it.

Perhaps if I’d stood there long enough, something would’ve appeared to me from within the white noise of it, or I would’ve ended up meditating on how the black yet staticky screen represents the emptiness and downfall of the modern visual media (TV, film) — or at least invented something to say so I wouldn’t have to admit that I really thought it was “meh.” I guess I’m not as cultured as I thought.

Then it was time for the screening. There are three theatres in MoMa. They don’t allow food or drink, and they don’t sell any either (n.b.) The movie they were screening tonight was “Fahrenheit 451″ directed by Francois Truffaut, based on the book by Ray Bradbury. I’d seen it before, but it was a long time ago, so I just remembered the plot and that there was a scene on a bridge of some sort and some running.

While there were some moments that elicited laughter simply because of their dated technology (SFX-wise), it was still relevant to the audience. There were murmurs during parts that were overt commentaries on Communism/Socialism, and bitter laughter when the critical eye of the camera was focused on the culture’s obsession with television and media… which seems all the more creepy given the popularity of reality TV and people buying larger and larger television sets (the wall screens in the movie are quite similar).

There’s a great scene where Montag’s wife is watching the government programming and is excited because she’s been selected to be an “actress” on a popular program. She sits down in front of the TV screen and the actors on her TV speak to one another, then turn pointedly to the camera and ask her (by name) what she thinks of a question they’re debating (about a guest list for a dinner party). She can’t muster a response (overwhelmed at her “fame”); they pause their conversation long enough for a response and then tell her she’s absolutely right (despite her sputtering silence/lack of response).

Has you ever run into anyone in real life who is a total champion of a “character” on a reality TV show and will get into arguments with other people about whose contestant is more worthy of winning (particularly in reality TV that does not involve audience voting via 800-number or SMS)? It’s not exactly the same thing, but in terms of pointless emotional investment in completely banal matters, and false interaction with the media, it’s pretty damn close.

Last night, I caught a few minutes of Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone on ABC Family (background noise while I was eating dinner - my other options were Sex and the City or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days). During the transition to commercial, Mr. Announcer pronounced that Harry Potter was part of their special “25 Days of Christmas” programming, brought to us by New Line Cinema’s The Golden Compass.

There’s something quite hilarious and more than a little contradictory about that. ABC Family is touting the fact that Harry Potter (a movie and book series quite heavily criticized by religious groups) is part of their Christmas programming. That heathen, Harry, is sponsored by The Golden Compass, which right now is garnering all kinds of attention because The Catholic League and Focus on the Family (among others) are calling for a boycott of the movie for its anti-religious basis.

For those who aren’t familiar with the books or the movie, here’s some basic info. Philip Pullman wrote a trilogy of childrens’ books (not young children - young adult/intermediate fiction is more appropriate) collectively entitled, His Dark Materials. That title comes from Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, about the Fall (of Adam and Eve, and the rebellion of the angels led by Satan). The specific quote is:

Into this wilde Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt
Confus’dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds,
Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look’d a while,
Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross.

The books in the trilogy are The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, and they center around a pre-teen orphan girl named Lyra who is living and attending a boarding school in a sort of alternate universe Oxford. The college is run by a religious order known as the Magisterium - they’re quickly revealed to be corrupt and working on an evil project based in some crazy fundamentalist-like beliefs. I don’t want to belabor with details but, essentially, it turns out that our heroine is a child born out of wedlock (gasp!) and the evil agenda involves separating children from their souls (which are corporeal in this universe and take on animal forms) before they reach puberty.

Hanna Rosin, in The Atlantic Monthly, wrote a great piece about the movie called, “How Hollywood Saved God.” The full article is available only to subscribers (hi!) but here are some of the more interesting segments. Rosin interviewed Philip Pullman and spoke to him about how the studio has sterilized the movie and removed basically all the edgy religious elements:

In discussing the film, he chose his words carefully, acknowledging that his role now is to be “sensible” so that the next two films get made. Nonetheless, he was honest about what was missing: “They do know where to put the theology,” he said, “and that’s off the film.”

Long silence. Then, “I think if everything that is made explicit in the book or everything that is implied clearly in the book or everything that can be understood by a close reading of the book were present in the film, they’d have the biggest hit they’ve ever had in their lives. If they allowed the religious meaning of the book to be fully explicit, it would be a huge hit. Suddenly, they’d have letters of appreciation from people who felt this but never dared say it. They would be the heroes of liberal thought, of freedom of thought … And it would be the greatest pity if that didn’t happen.

I didn’t put that very well. What I mean is that I want this film to succeed in every possible way. And what I don’t want to do, you see, is talk the other two films out of existence. So I’ll stop there.”

Then later:

When pressed, Pullman grants that he’s not really trying to kill God, but rather the outdated idea of God as an old guy with a beard in the sky… The Narnia series, in his view, embraces a worldview that comes close to “life-hating ideology”—punishing, misogynistic, racist, and death-obsessed. By contrast, his own books are filled with a kind of warmth, an exuberance for finding utopia in this life. When he loses patience with his Christian critics, he lists the values he promotes in his own stories: tolerance, love, kindness, courage, duty, individual freedom over blind obedience.

He also talks about how his books celebrate sexual awakening - and not preteens having sex, but teenagers awakening to the knowledge of their bodies and sexuality… much like Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a piece on Friday, by Mark Morford, about the religious groups’ boycotts of the movie -”Jesus loves ‘His Dark Materials’: Shrill Bible-thumpers boycott ‘The Golden Compass’; world’s children grin devilishly.”

Pullman’s luminous novels have nothing to do with rejecting faith or destroying the spirit or inhibiting the exploration of what it means to be divine. They are, in fact, the exact opposite. They relish spirit and the magic of belief and love, are soaked through with divine inspiration of a kind any intelligent Christian (or honest spiritual seeker of any stripe, for that matter) should crave the way Lindsay Lohan craves cocaine. This is what makes them so incredible.

No, the nefarious thing the books aim to kill is, well, religious authority. It’s about the destruction of dogma. It’s about power, about who wants to control and manipulate life on Earth; it is about blind, ignorant, even violent adherence to insidiously narrow codes of thought and belief and behavior, sex and desire and love.

This, of course, is the God of organized religion. This is the false deity that promotes numb groupthink and inhibits growth and abhors the feminine divine (perhaps the books’ most beautiful, inspiring theme), the same paranoid, dreadful God that votes for George W. Bush because, well, he will smite the icky gays and protect us from vile pagans and Buddhists and Muslims and feminists and frumpy genius atheist British writers.

He goes on in much of the same vein. I’ll be seeing the movie; the books are good. The previews look good. Daniel Craig looks good. There are murder plots, trepanned heads in jars, a battle royale, armor-wearing polar bears, and there will have to be lots of wicked cool special effects. So we’ll see.