Archive for Deborah Lipp

Flooding

April 16, 2007 / / Comments Off on Flooding

So here’s how my day went.

There are floods in New Jersey. (Normally I link to news stories and such, but what? You aren’t going to believe me?) I woke up to a radio report saying the (acting) governor had declared a state of emergency.

Now, I live in New York and work in New Jersey, just over the state line. Literally. Just. You see the “Welcome to New Jersey” sign and take the next right. Eight miles of my 9.5 mile commute is in New York. And most of the flooding was further south, so I didn’t know what the story was.

Called the corporate hotline for office closures. We’re open. Then I go onto the web and see traffic reports and status for the major roads I take. All clear. So then I phone the office, calling the person I know normally gets in very early, and ask her specifically how the back roads immediately surrounding the office are. She says they’re fine.

So I drive to work. Highway is clear. Get 9 of my 9.5 miles under my belt. Go to make the left that will take me to just a smidge north of the office. Road closed. So I go to make the left that will get me a smidge south of the office. Closed. Next road south, open but floody and then I can’t make the turn. Two or three more turns like that. I call the office. They say to get back on the highway, go another exit south, and come back up again.

I say “You know what? Governor declared a state of emergency. By law you should close. Call corporate and tell them. I’m working from home. Buh-bye.”

Drive back home. Arthur is just getting up and says “Mom, it’s 9:30, what are you still doing here?” I explain. He says “There’s something mythic about flooding.”

Yup. Mythic. Whatever.

Monday Movie Review: Bubble

April 16, 2007 / / One comment

Bubble (2005) 10/10
Martha (Debbie Doebereiner), fortyish, works in a doll factory and cares for her dad. Kyle (Dustin Ashley), twentyish, her co-worker and best friend, lives with his mom, works two jobs, and is saving for a car. Their routine is shaken when Rose (Misty Wilkins) is hired at the factory. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

You’ve probably never seen a movie like Bubble. It is not “naturalistic,” the way, say, Dogme 95 is naturalistic. It is, instead, actually natural. While the film style is in some ways conventional (none of the “shakey-cam” that characterizes most attempts at realism), the “actors” and “script” are not. Soderbergh and screenwriter Coleman Hough went to Parkersburg, West Virginia with a script that was basically a plot outline, cast the movie entirely with locals, and let the actors’ conversations about their own lives work their way into both the written script and improvisation.

I don’t know why it works. It is slow, sometimes dull, and virtually actionless. There are resentments, meaningful looks, thefts, even a murder, yet the overwhelming feeling is of nothing happening. At the same time, there is a compelling sense that life is happening, that this is real in a way that “reality television” is not. Every moment, every silence, every awkward, empty conversation, feels like life happening. I was riveted.

In his wonderful review of Bubble, Roger Ebert says

The movie feels so real a hush falls upon the audience, and we are made aware of how much artifice there is conventional acting.

Indeed. Watching at home alone, I felt that hush. When Arthur came in and asked what I was watching, I told him it was fascinating and tried to explain. He said “Why is that fascinating?” But ten minutes later, he said “This is fascinating.”

Bubble shows us lives lived in the empty spaces between what it provides and fails to provide. Martha is sweet to a fault, Kyle is shy to a fault, Rose is self-centered. These are small flaws, not dramatic undoings. But watch how these simple flaws ravel and unravel in the space between these people.

Three actors who have never acted before (or since, so far). (The secondary players are also locals with no acting experience to speak of.) They are amazing, perhaps both despite and because of their inexperience. They move through narrow lives. Martha is skilled at making dolls (and doll factories, let me tell you, are creepy places. Who knew?). Her work is not quite mindless, but it is repetitive. She has a nice car, suggesting that she is okay financially, but her life is lived mostly in front of the TV and the sewing machine, watching her father, feeding him, caring for him. Church exalts her, and then it’s back to work.

Again, this doesn’t sound like compelling film. My suggestion is simply to take my word for it and rent the movie.

Gonzo Doth Protest Too Much

April 15, 2007 / / One comment

I logged on this morning to find Mustang Bobby’s pithy condensation of Alberto Gonzales’s Washington Post op-ed. Mustang Bobby’s analysis:

“I did nothing wrong, and if I did, it was someone else’s fault. Oh, look at the kitty!”

If Bobby will forgive me, I have some additional thoughts.

First, I’ll echo Bobby in noting that the title of the piece, “Nothing Improper,” just reeks of protesting too much. It’s a real OMFG moment when you realize that’s the best he can come up with. A latter-day “I am not a crook.” Hey, Gonzo? “Yes you are.”

I am very struck by this phrase:

I know that I did not — and would not — ask for the resignation of any U.S. attorney for an improper reason.

He “knows” that he didn’t and wouldn’t. Why the extra layer? Why not just “I didn’t”? It’s like the evidence is so flimsy (non-existent would be more accurate), that he has to instead talk about his gut instinct. “Okay, it looks like I did it. But I didn’t! I know I didn’t!” It’s like a film noir; “Don’t you know me? Can’t you tell I’m innocent? I am, I tell you, I am!” Maybe the pod people are to blame.

While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people, I also know that I created confusion with some of my recent statements about my role in this matter.

By lying.

Now here’s a fun one:

I directed my then-deputy chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to initiate this process; fully knew that it was occurring; and approved the final recommendations. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number and focused primarily on the review process.

During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.

“To my knowledge.” Holy shit, that’s just wrong. You either did or you didn’t. Or you can slither and slime your way through not recalling. But it is not possible to order resignations (or “make decisions about” ordering resignations) without knowing. Not. Possible.

Sunday Meditation: Meditation Room

April 15, 2007 / / 3 comments

This is a meditation that will appear in a series, and can be used by you for future meditations. In fact, once you create the meditation room, you can come to it whenever you meditate.

Ground and center.

Find yourself out of doors, in a place that feels peaceful and relaxing. You are alone, and the location is private and secluded. It might be a field in the woods, or a beach, or a mountaintop. It is someplace that you feel safe and at peace.

Stay in that place and breathe in the peace. Breathe in the safety. Know that you are in your ideal place. This is a great spot for meditation. This is a great spot for being at peace.

Turn around and notice that there is a cottage behind you. It looks exactly the way a cottage should look. Notice how lovely it is as you go up to it.

At the door of the cottage, you find a key with your name on it. The key easily opens the door, and you step in and put the key into your pocket. This is your cottage, and your special place.

Look around the room, what do you see? Now is the time to freely explore your meditation room. Are there chairs? Cushions? A bed? Hardwood floors? Thick carpet? Be sure to have at least one table or shelf in the room, so that you have a spot to put things. Also add a closet, so that you can find additional things for the room in the future. Perhaps your special room is full of bookshelves, or perhaps it has big, open windows. Take the time now to explore your cottage room, noticing the size, shape, temperature, and how it feels to be there. You feel great as you are doing this, as though you are accomplishing a precious and wonderful task.

We will return to this room again, so when it’s time to end your meditation, notice that you have the key with you, and that you can return here any time.

I’m mad at Gov. Corzine

April 14, 2007 / / 5 comments

I’m still a fan and all, and still wish him a speedy and total recovery, but I am pissed that he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

Look, wearing a seat belt is an easy law to follow, and a law that saves lives. For the governor of a state to be a scofflaw in that regard is just…it’s childish.

There’s no good reason not to wear one except being whiny. Corzine is a tall guy, so he doesn’t experience the discomfort with seat belts that short folks have (they cut us across the neck). And, it’s the law. He’s the governor. Criminey, it’s just stupid and irritating and maybe if he’d been wearing it, he’d be much less injured. Hell of a dumbass way to learn your lesson.

Good thoughts for Gov. Corzine

April 13, 2007 / / 10 comments

New Jersey Governor (and former Senator) John Corzine is in critical condition following a car accident.

Gov. Jon Corzine remains in intensive care this morning with a breathing tube in his throat and a doctor declaring him lucky to be alive.

The 60-year-old governor underwent about two hours of surgery last night to repair multiple broken bones, including 12 ribs and a femur that protruded through the skin of his thigh, following a car accident on the Garden State Parkway in Galloway Township.

Corzine is a staunch liberal, was an excellent Senator (I know less about how he’s doing as Governor) and is, by most accounts, a good and likeable guy. I think my sister and my mother both have crushes on him.

So here’s my candle for his full and speedy recovery.

flicker

Friday Catblogging: Hind legs

April 13, 2007 / / 8 comments

Mingo believes he can walk on two legs.

Okay, so Arthur helps a little.

Next he will grow an opposable thumb.

So it goes

April 12, 2007 / / 3 comments

Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84, and I suspect there will be many obituaries with the same title as mine. (There’s a wonderful and thorough biography in The Guardian.)

I also considered the titles “Hi Ho” and “Kurt Vonnegut has come unstuck in time.”

As a teenager I read every novel and short story Vonnegut had written up to that time (and have continued to read his work, albeit less voraciously). I had an amusing exchange with a high school English teacher in a class on the American novel. He handed me Slaughterhouse Five, and when I said I’d already read it, he handed me Cat’s Cradle, and when he went back to the cabinet for a third time, I said “I’ve read that one too” without even looking, so he went back the fourth time and came out with Ethan Frome. Which I hadn’t read.

As a writer, what I’ve learned from Vonnegut is that it’s okay to be simple, and in fact, simplicity is a virtue. And that rhythm matters. Vonnegut wrote in beats. He was a bit of a Luddite, and probably knew nothing of the Internets, but I think he’d have liked the way that blogs play with language. The. Punctuation. Experiments. Changes to rhythm and form. Grammatical anarchy in the cause of a conversational tone of voice. Vonnegut cared about ideas, thoughts, tones, beats, and letting the audience listen. He didn’t tell you what to think; but in a gentle voice, he showed you what he saw, inviting you to see it his way. I don’t recall words like “evil” or “angry” in his work. You just read the events, and met the people, and saw the irony, and made your own decision. Yet for all that, his work was full of morality and caring:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

(From God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.)

Mr. Vonnegut, you were kind.

Answers for Trivia of April 10

April 12, 2007 / / Comments Off on Answers for Trivia of April 10

All solved, and only one hint needed. Cool!

» Read more..

Johnny Hart

April 12, 2007 / / 2 comments

Over the weekend, cartoonist Johnny Hart died. He was the creator of both B.C. and the Wizard of Id, and continued with B.C. until his death.

In later life, Hart published cartoons that were anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic, and racist. Making him a funny subject for me to eulogize. But here I go.

My father buys lots and lots of cartoon collections. Peanuts, Tumbleweeds, Pogo, Krazy Kat, Doonesbury, Zits, you name it. And we kids would read them all. You have a dull afternoon, a pile of cartoon books, you’re set. I think I absorbed those cartoons through my skin.

And one of the bits I remember best, one of the truly funniest things that stands out among all the funny things, was from B.C. I mean, I don’t think I could quote from many of the hundreds and hundreds of cartoons I read, but I can tell you all about one thing:

Clams got legs.

I can only find one real example online (below the fold).
» Read more..

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