We went to see Where The Wild Things Are yesterday as part of Jon's epic birthday celebration, me, him and the rock star. This movie, directed by Spike Jonze, is a work of sheer beauty and insight. Don't be mistaken into thinking it's a movie specifically for kids, like the people who sat in front of us with their three little, tiny girls. Anyone under the age of 5 is probably to young for this movie - it's not a cutsie little cartoon romp. And if your kid is a sensitive one under 8, I'd say skip it. This is a live-action film adaptation of the beloved book, where a rather hyper-active and destructive Max with anger issues (which we always knew was the case) runs away from home where his overworked, single mother and sullen teen sister with crappy friends don't give him the attention he, like any eight year old, wants and needs. He sails away to the island of the Wild Things and meets the incredibly realistic, angst ridden monsters, flawlessly crafted by Jim Henson's Creature Workshop to capture Maurice Sendak's creations. The Wild Things have issues too. One is destructive, one is bossy and sarcastic, one is whiny and needy, one is chronically ignored, one is slow, and one is emotionally drifting away, leaving the others hurt and confused.
When they choose to make Max their king, rather than eat him, it is because they believe his claims that he will bring them constant happiness and make loneliness a thing of the past. He does, at first, bring them together, playing with full destructive force, pulling up trees, flinging boulders and themselves onto and into anything, until they fall asleep in a pile, just like Max wants it. He has found a place where he gets all the attention craves.
And it is a beautiful place: forests, ocean, sand dunes, a place where you can howl at the sunrise from a high cliff, waves crashing below. But Max wants more. He gets his Wild Things to cooperate long enough to build a fantastically massive fort, but their jealousies and squabbles finally bubble to the surface and they become divided - against each other and against Max. He is at a loss. They say and do irrational things. He doesn't have the skills to manage such complex social and personal issues. He's just a child. He realizes they need a mother and he has one, luckily, waiting for him at home. He leaves. The famous line: "Please don't go. We'll eat you up. We love you so," uttered as a loving whisper. It's a wrenching, tear-filled moment. If I were a little one, I would have been hysterical, just as I would have been terrified when Max's biggest fan, "Carol", with a voice by the simultaneously child-like and frightening James Gandolfini, decides that Max has broken his promise and now, indeed, deserves to be eaten. We see the difference between wanting to eat up the one we love because they're so deliciously ours and wanting to hurt them. The movie maker got it. Catherine Keener, playing Max's mother, also got it. The look on her face when Max is back home and she's watching him eat, no anger, no judgment, only pure love and joy at the safe return of her son, is a look that only a parent can truly recognize. It got me; I was a weeping mess. Afterwards, we explained to the rock star that he is and always has been Max, as most little boys and even some little girls are. We were amused that he didn't know that.
The movie has all of the magic of the book and more. It is complex, it is art. The soundtrack by Karen O and the Kids is a character in itself. When she screams, you are either filled with the excitement of the "Wild Rumpus" or chilled by its potential danger.
This is a film everyone will want to see, but please, leave the little tiny ones at home. They'll be ready for it on video in a few more years.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
In Search of the Perfect Pool
I know I blog a lot about swimming; I apologize. Until today, I hadn't been swimming since I swam in my favorite pool in the world about a month ago, but I'm not revealing which one that is until the end of the post. Stay tuned. So, here are all the pools I've swum in (yes, swum) this year. Rated in order of worst to best.
8. Astoria Pool - an outdoor pool so you can only swim in if for two months of the year, Olympic sized so it exhausts the best swimmers in just a few laps, not terribly clean, but the only pool within walking distance to me and historical in a beautiful art-deco complex (though run-down).
7. The pool I swam in today - NYC Parks and Recreation, 54th St. An indoor pool, not exceptional, and getting there and back is a schlep, also sometimes there are homeless people in the dressing room, but today it was warm, I had a nice, wide lane to myself and a great swim.
6. The pool at the Flushing Meadows Aquatic Center - a gorgeous 3 pool complex, very new, clean, modern, but too damn crowded and can only be reached by car.
5. Long Island City YMCA - Would be the perfect pool - good size, clean, not crowded, nice dressing room, SAUNA, but I can only go with one particular friend who has passes and she's kind-of a time-suck. (but she'll never read this 'cause she doesn't speak English - oh, that's mean!)
4. Peconic Bay - oh, sorry, not a pool.
3. Ralph's pool - gorgeous, outdoor, beautifully maintained pool, warm, lovely setting, always accompanied by good BBQ, but a little small and sometimes a lot of kids. (but I still love it, Ralph, please keep inviting us!)
2. The Pool at the Pridwin Hotel, Shelter Island - Sparkling clean, reflects the turquoise sky, warm, salt water recycled from the bay, beautiful trees overhead, view of the bay, can order food and drinks poolside, good size, but sometimes too many kids.
1. The perfect pool! At my parents' house in Tucson. Rectangular, so good for laps, clean because we and the poolsweep clean it, spectacular desert setting, dad's jazz playing on the stereo, you get to swim with the people you love most in the world and warm IF the weather is hot.
Yes, this is what I spend my time thinking about.
8. Astoria Pool - an outdoor pool so you can only swim in if for two months of the year, Olympic sized so it exhausts the best swimmers in just a few laps, not terribly clean, but the only pool within walking distance to me and historical in a beautiful art-deco complex (though run-down).
7. The pool I swam in today - NYC Parks and Recreation, 54th St. An indoor pool, not exceptional, and getting there and back is a schlep, also sometimes there are homeless people in the dressing room, but today it was warm, I had a nice, wide lane to myself and a great swim.
6. The pool at the Flushing Meadows Aquatic Center - a gorgeous 3 pool complex, very new, clean, modern, but too damn crowded and can only be reached by car.
5. Long Island City YMCA - Would be the perfect pool - good size, clean, not crowded, nice dressing room, SAUNA, but I can only go with one particular friend who has passes and she's kind-of a time-suck. (but she'll never read this 'cause she doesn't speak English - oh, that's mean!)
4. Peconic Bay - oh, sorry, not a pool.
3. Ralph's pool - gorgeous, outdoor, beautifully maintained pool, warm, lovely setting, always accompanied by good BBQ, but a little small and sometimes a lot of kids. (but I still love it, Ralph, please keep inviting us!)
2. The Pool at the Pridwin Hotel, Shelter Island - Sparkling clean, reflects the turquoise sky, warm, salt water recycled from the bay, beautiful trees overhead, view of the bay, can order food and drinks poolside, good size, but sometimes too many kids.
1. The perfect pool! At my parents' house in Tucson. Rectangular, so good for laps, clean because we and the poolsweep clean it, spectacular desert setting, dad's jazz playing on the stereo, you get to swim with the people you love most in the world and warm IF the weather is hot.
Yes, this is what I spend my time thinking about.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
A Committment to Peace
It's Sunday, and I've just come back from church. That's a very non-hip confession. I think people are surprised when I say I go to church. I don't blame them because organized religion doesn't offer much anymore to most people, and there are plenty of other beautiful and relevant spiritual practices that feed and nurture that mystical core within us. I go to St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery because there I renew my commitment to peace in the world. It is a place dedicated to some of the things I value most highly in the world: peace, social justice, the arts, and helping the poor and disenfranchised. Today, I felt a strong connection to that element of peace-seeking. From the words in the music, ("gonna lay down that sword and shield, down by the riverside...ain't gonna study war no more.")to the presence of our gentle, East Indian/American gay, female priest, whose words always bring me to a place of inner peace. She also represents that other element so key to St. Marks: diversity. We are from every background, race, orientation, and even different religions. All of these things make me feel like I've found a place where the struggle for peace in the world is still alive; if peace lives in my heart and the hearts of the others who gather there, maybe there's hope.
I'm grateful that I'm a part of other communities that are dedicated to the cause of peace - the Green Party campaigns that I've been working for, for instance, though I'm not an official member of the Green Party (what makes one official, I don't know.) I noticed that the rock star posted on facebook that his political affiliation is the Green Party, and that's gratifying to me, since I do think it is the political party most committed to peace in this country, as well as to the environment, which to me is a part of creating peace.
I've now said the work peace far too many times in this blog post, and I think that the word has lost much of its power. It's over-used, making people wonder things like why was Obama given the Nobel Peace Prize. My thought is that perhaps it will inspire him to become the peace president many of us hoped he would be. He's got a ways to go to fulfill that hope. But I continue to maintain that if I believe that peace in our world is truly possible, if I participate in communities that are committed to that belief as well, that maybe the word will spread. Peace.
I'm grateful that I'm a part of other communities that are dedicated to the cause of peace - the Green Party campaigns that I've been working for, for instance, though I'm not an official member of the Green Party (what makes one official, I don't know.) I noticed that the rock star posted on facebook that his political affiliation is the Green Party, and that's gratifying to me, since I do think it is the political party most committed to peace in this country, as well as to the environment, which to me is a part of creating peace.
I've now said the work peace far too many times in this blog post, and I think that the word has lost much of its power. It's over-used, making people wonder things like why was Obama given the Nobel Peace Prize. My thought is that perhaps it will inspire him to become the peace president many of us hoped he would be. He's got a ways to go to fulfill that hope. But I continue to maintain that if I believe that peace in our world is truly possible, if I participate in communities that are committed to that belief as well, that maybe the word will spread. Peace.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A Squash Story
It started as a sprout in the back yard. I soon recognized it as some kind of squash. I didn't plant it; it must have come from a seed in the compost that I faithfully spread over the flower beds and tomato patch last fall. I decided it could not continue to grow where it was - it didn't belong among the petunias. So come mid-June, I carefully uprooted it and transplanted it to my plot in the community garden around the corner. It was a risk because things weren't growing well there; I hadn't properly cultivated the soil. But what did I have to lose?
It took root, it grew, it bore flowers, but no fruit. Then, mid-July, a small, green protuberance began to emerge. I took heart! Maybe it was zucchini and I'd have a whole mess of them. I started planning breads and stir frys. But no others came forth. As the one squash grew and rounded in shape, I realized it wasn't a zucchini (or the singular, zucchino). Perhaps it was just a gourd. I have no particular use for gourds. Then I noticed ridges forming and I decided it was an acorn squash. How wonderful! A delicious, home grown acorn squash, and I prodded the other flowers for more - I imagined six of them at my Thanksgiving table. But all the other flowers withered without bearing fruit. Still, the one squash persisted. Mid-August, my mother and sister confirmed it - yes, an acorn squash.
But then the ridges smoothed and it started to color. Could it be? No. It was too soon to tell. But by mid-September, I knew it. It was a pumpkin. A pumpkin! I was growing a pumpkin! It was the only one, but I was so proud of it. I wondered how big it would grow - would this be a prize specimen? The leaves of the plant began to wither but the one vine that gave sustenance to the vegetable held fast. From that garden plot I had gotten a few handfuls of lettuce, maybe ten tomatoes, possibly twenty stunted ears of corn, lots of sunflowers and marigolds and one pumpkin. I mulled over when to pick it. I decided to wait 'til mid-October, a couple of weeks before Halloween - give it as much time to grow as possible. By the first week of October I knew it had reached its maximum girth. It was small, maybe eight inches in diameter, but lovely, a beautiful orange, perfect, unmarred.
The weather was about to take a bad turn. It would get really cold on the 15th, and rainy. It was time to pick the pumpkin so it wouldn't sit there and wallow in the mud. It would have a place of honor on the mantlepiece - I started to plan an arrangement around it. Should I carve it for Halloween after that, or save it and make a delicious, fresh, organic pumpkin soup or pie? With great excitement, I went late in the afternoon on the 14th, just before the cold snap settled in. I went to my plot, gathered up the last few green tomatoes, turned to the pumpkin...and it was gone. Gone. I couldn't believe my eyes. Gone. I wandered around the garden in denial. Had someone borrowed it for a harvest decoration perhaps? But it was against the sacred rule of the garden to take anything out of someone else's plot. There was only one possibility. Someone from the neighborhood had wandered into the garden and taken it when no-one was paying attention. Someone stole my pumpkin. My husband tried to comfort me. Maybe someone took it who couldn't afford a pumpkin for Halloween, he said. I'd like to think so, but I think he's being kind. I think someone took if for a lark. Maybe, though it absolutely breaks my heart to think it, someone just took it and smashed it in the street. No, I can't think that - that my innocent little pumpkin was someone's mean prank. I hope it's sitting somewhere with a happy face drawn on it, or treasured by some little girl who's planning her special Jack-o-lantern.
No other pumpkin will take its place in my heart this year. There's always next year, but will I have the heart to try again? I think that I will have to. It's the only redemption left for me. Oh, and by the way, Happy Halloween.
It took root, it grew, it bore flowers, but no fruit. Then, mid-July, a small, green protuberance began to emerge. I took heart! Maybe it was zucchini and I'd have a whole mess of them. I started planning breads and stir frys. But no others came forth. As the one squash grew and rounded in shape, I realized it wasn't a zucchini (or the singular, zucchino). Perhaps it was just a gourd. I have no particular use for gourds. Then I noticed ridges forming and I decided it was an acorn squash. How wonderful! A delicious, home grown acorn squash, and I prodded the other flowers for more - I imagined six of them at my Thanksgiving table. But all the other flowers withered without bearing fruit. Still, the one squash persisted. Mid-August, my mother and sister confirmed it - yes, an acorn squash.
But then the ridges smoothed and it started to color. Could it be? No. It was too soon to tell. But by mid-September, I knew it. It was a pumpkin. A pumpkin! I was growing a pumpkin! It was the only one, but I was so proud of it. I wondered how big it would grow - would this be a prize specimen? The leaves of the plant began to wither but the one vine that gave sustenance to the vegetable held fast. From that garden plot I had gotten a few handfuls of lettuce, maybe ten tomatoes, possibly twenty stunted ears of corn, lots of sunflowers and marigolds and one pumpkin. I mulled over when to pick it. I decided to wait 'til mid-October, a couple of weeks before Halloween - give it as much time to grow as possible. By the first week of October I knew it had reached its maximum girth. It was small, maybe eight inches in diameter, but lovely, a beautiful orange, perfect, unmarred.
The weather was about to take a bad turn. It would get really cold on the 15th, and rainy. It was time to pick the pumpkin so it wouldn't sit there and wallow in the mud. It would have a place of honor on the mantlepiece - I started to plan an arrangement around it. Should I carve it for Halloween after that, or save it and make a delicious, fresh, organic pumpkin soup or pie? With great excitement, I went late in the afternoon on the 14th, just before the cold snap settled in. I went to my plot, gathered up the last few green tomatoes, turned to the pumpkin...and it was gone. Gone. I couldn't believe my eyes. Gone. I wandered around the garden in denial. Had someone borrowed it for a harvest decoration perhaps? But it was against the sacred rule of the garden to take anything out of someone else's plot. There was only one possibility. Someone from the neighborhood had wandered into the garden and taken it when no-one was paying attention. Someone stole my pumpkin. My husband tried to comfort me. Maybe someone took it who couldn't afford a pumpkin for Halloween, he said. I'd like to think so, but I think he's being kind. I think someone took if for a lark. Maybe, though it absolutely breaks my heart to think it, someone just took it and smashed it in the street. No, I can't think that - that my innocent little pumpkin was someone's mean prank. I hope it's sitting somewhere with a happy face drawn on it, or treasured by some little girl who's planning her special Jack-o-lantern.
No other pumpkin will take its place in my heart this year. There's always next year, but will I have the heart to try again? I think that I will have to. It's the only redemption left for me. Oh, and by the way, Happy Halloween.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Friday at the Met
It always rains when I'm in the Met. I say to myself, "see something different today," but I can't stay away from VGV. His very brush strokes hypnotize me. Today I noticed the peach sky and the dotted sky and the red anger in the sunflower until it made me dizzy. And does the Potato Peeler seem to be getting darker?
Then I skitted around a little, trying not to get involved. In the modern wing I was alone. I love being alone in a museum room like I love being alone in a pool. It feels secret and luxurious.
I strolled past the Renoirs and got lost in the red hair.
I pushed into the throng to see Vermeer's Milkmaid and such, then wandered through room after room of sofas, tables, chairs, beds and crockery, preserved from someone's distant past.
Alone again, in the 18th century, I fell into a novel.
Then I skitted around a little, trying not to get involved. In the modern wing I was alone. I love being alone in a museum room like I love being alone in a pool. It feels secret and luxurious.
I strolled past the Renoirs and got lost in the red hair.
I pushed into the throng to see Vermeer's Milkmaid and such, then wandered through room after room of sofas, tables, chairs, beds and crockery, preserved from someone's distant past.
Alone again, in the 18th century, I fell into a novel.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Snaphots of Dad's 80th
- The look of total shock on my parent's face as I waltzed in and took them completely by surprise.
- My brother, Joshua, lifting me up and twirling me around when I surprised him at the airport.
- The disbelief on dad's face at the arrival of my two sisters and my niece, my brother, and my dad's best friend, one after another.
- A family-room full of sweet chatter and joy.
- A toast with margaritas and one iced tea at the Mexican restaurant.
- Jan and the ham.
- The cheesecake.
- Al and Patsy dressed like their birthday cards.
- Bill Zongker, the king of cool.
- The Fabers, so happy to be included in the subterfuge.
- Mom, so grateful that Susan arranged for us all to be together.
- Chandra and Matt representin'.
- John, the bartender extraordinaire.
- The group photo.
- Swimming in the pool with my brother for the first time since we were kids.
- Juliana and the stars
- Dad's face, quietly content with his kids around him.
- Getting to hug my mom as much as I wanted.
- Hoping, so much, that we'll all be together again soon.
- My brother, Joshua, lifting me up and twirling me around when I surprised him at the airport.
- The disbelief on dad's face at the arrival of my two sisters and my niece, my brother, and my dad's best friend, one after another.
- A family-room full of sweet chatter and joy.
- A toast with margaritas and one iced tea at the Mexican restaurant.
- Jan and the ham.
- The cheesecake.
- Al and Patsy dressed like their birthday cards.
- Bill Zongker, the king of cool.
- The Fabers, so happy to be included in the subterfuge.
- Mom, so grateful that Susan arranged for us all to be together.
- Chandra and Matt representin'.
- John, the bartender extraordinaire.
- The group photo.
- Swimming in the pool with my brother for the first time since we were kids.
- Juliana and the stars
- Dad's face, quietly content with his kids around him.
- Getting to hug my mom as much as I wanted.
- Hoping, so much, that we'll all be together again soon.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Back to Reality
For three days after the rock star returned home from visiting his grandparents in Arizona, he was monstrous. His dad and I were like, aren't you the least bit glad to see us? It must have been the return to reality after 8 days of swimming pool, vintage shopping and chimichangas. Things turned around, though, the night that we went to see he and his girlfriend perform an acoustic set in a variety-type of show that they were participating in. After the show, we were prepared to go out with all his friends and their parents for the traditional "feeding of the children," but he announced that he wanted to go with us alone. So off we went, back to Queens, to this great little organic burger joint. We ordered milk shakes and french fries, and laughed and laughed, and talked and laughed and we were suddenly our old selves again.
Since then, he's started school, a senior at last. He's busy lording it over the lesser classmen, and enjoying the brand new state-of-the-art building that Tony Bennett built for his protégés. It has struck me that this is the last of 12 quite challenging years of getting him through school. After this, it's college, and he's on his own. It gets to me, as well it would, but I think it also represents a new era of freedom for all of us, in addition to perhaps a new phase in our relationship. But let me not get ahead of my self. Not 'til I see him in his cap and gown, diploma in hand, will I really and truly be able to take a breath.
Since then, he's started school, a senior at last. He's busy lording it over the lesser classmen, and enjoying the brand new state-of-the-art building that Tony Bennett built for his protégés. It has struck me that this is the last of 12 quite challenging years of getting him through school. After this, it's college, and he's on his own. It gets to me, as well it would, but I think it also represents a new era of freedom for all of us, in addition to perhaps a new phase in our relationship. But let me not get ahead of my self. Not 'til I see him in his cap and gown, diploma in hand, will I really and truly be able to take a breath.
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