Why they hate our freedom... in this case, 'they' being the right

A good article in the Times on the why of the healthcare reform debate.

The cure for the Sunday night blues

I watched Chungking Express tonight, embarrassing to admit it's the first Wong Kar-Wai film that I sat down and watched all the way through. It is so charming and lovely, featuring among other things a very young and very handsome Tony Leung, (pictured here) in his underwear, giving his stuffed animals and his kitchen dishrag pep talks.

It's only socialism if it happens to someone else

On Political Animal, an irony-laden story about a far-right congressman from Maryland who led the charge against the public option during the lead up to health care reform. On his first day at work, he was shocked, just shocked to find out about a 28-day delay in commencement of his health care coverage. He then wanted to know if he could buy coverage from the government in the interim, pretty much the same idea as the public option.

Cross Body Lead

In August, I signed up for another round of salsa classes. This time, I decided to dispense with the angst of group classes and doubled down on classes with a private instructor that my dear pal Lillian recommended. The first visits to the dance studio were predictably fraught for me. I don't even think than in the first class we *danced* at all, as such. I was so nervous that I could actually barely move. With a little bit of extracurricular coaching from Lillian, my awesome teacher Franklin, and a commitment to attend one of the studio's practice parties each week, I have started to see improvement. I can often stay on the beat, can follow more complicated leads, and can often get my upper body and hips to move all at the same time. The challenge remains to do all of this while I keep my posture straight, breathe, refrain from looking down and sucking in both my lips as I do when I am concentrating (see me pictured here in 2007 for an example of exactly what not to do.)

The more important improvement for me is psychological one, though. I am way less prone to getting defensive when some earnest dance partner tries to give me feedback. My emotional recovery time for mistakes has been cut in half. Having a bad night is not accompanied by a downward spiral of emotional flagellation. It's not to say that there isn't some internal pressure going on. Because when you start to do something from scratch, if you don't employ some sort of self-criticism, then you won't make progress and you won't get better. But I feel like I am balancing the reckless abandon with the objective gaze better. I don't want to jinx it, but it is way more fun than it has ever been, really what the goal is in the end.

A Movie Recommendation

Few movies have stuck with me to the degree that Yi Yi did after seeing it in the theater. I watched it again last night and was reminded again how much I like it. It is the story of a middle-class Taipei family dealing with a variety of mundane challenges (the middle-aged father reconnects with his first love, the youngest son [pictured left] deals with teasing from his teacher and classmates.) There is so much wrapped up in this film about where we find meaning in our day-to-day work and school lives, how we appear to others, and how we can and can't see ourselves. It is slow-paced but totally involving if you give it time to work its way under your skin.

Fresh face for Newyorquina

I took a good look at my blog today and was struck by the fact that it is in need of a new fresh look. Blogger has a nice new tool for updating the template, so expect some trial and error until I get it how I want it. Feedback welcome!

Brevity is the soul of insightful polical analysis

I often find myself peering over the top of my blackberry and announcing to Jane the latest in a string of far-right antics (Cordoba House controvery, the referendum in Arizona, or the latest from Clarence Thomas and his wife.) I am often spoiling for a good long rant or at least and impassioned discussion about how wrong-headed such-and-such thing is or how it reveals the xenophobia and American exceptionalism woven into our political discourse.

It is pretty rare that Jane and I disagree on this type of thing, but the flavor of our response differs. She boils it down to its essentials. "We live in a country of assholes," she says and keeps doing whatever she is doing.

I'd like to think that isn't true. But lately of course, it appears that it might just be this straightforward.

I can't look away

I keep opening the paper and my blackberry and my browser and starting to read election fall-out coverage, and then closing it, just shaking my head, thinking what on earth is my country coming to? It's such a discouraging outlook for even holding the line on reproductive rights, health care access, and improving the economy, let alone doing anything about DADT, immigration reform, or climate change . Inevitably, five minutes later, I am back at it again trying to find some smattering of hope.

Paul Krugman's editorial today is worth looking at, recalling how he said back in the day that the stimulus package simply wasn't big enough, and how Obama blew the political handling of the economic recovery from the get-go. He says:

"I felt a sense of despair during Mr. Obama’s first State of the Union address, in which he declared that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.” Not only was this bad economics — right now the government must spend, because the private sector can’t or won’t — it was almost a verbatim repeat of what John Boehner, the soon-to-be House speaker, said when attacking the original stimulus. If the president won’t speak up for his own economic philosophy, who will?"

Krugman's observation is that it isn't too late for Obama to take an aggressive and principles stand for economic measures that will actually benefit the economy, coupled with a political strategy to highlight Republican obstructionism's role in the stagnant recovery. But who knows if this will happen.

Like I said, I can't look away.

Tales from the Phone Bank

I did some volunteering for Organizing for America this weekend for the November 2 election. While it lacks the feeling of breathless momentum that volunteering in the 2008 carried with it, I find it moderately comforting to know that even if the Republicans take the House or Senate, I won't suffer the anguish of having done nothing for the next four years. I earned a grudging acknowledgement from Jane the other night, who said I "put my money where my mouth is" after volunteer shift # 4. Jane wants no part of any sort of phone banking or canvassing effort, so every Sunday evening for the last three weeks or so, I have tottled off to a MoveOn or OFA on my home.

And I get why she is totally uninterested. Calling people is a bummer, because you are intruding on their space. People feel extraordinary license to be rude over the phone. They hang up, they tell you how little use they have for your candidate, they point out how many times they have been called. Often not nicely.

I got a kick out of how a conversation I had with someone like this ended yesterday. OFA's lists are usually really well organized, with all the people in one household in one place, but yesterday they had dispersed names of family members across different lists given to several different people, so if you had several children and a husband who were all registered voters, it would be possible to receive several calls from different volunteers in less than an hour. I reached a woman who said she had received "3 calls in fifteen minutes from us and what did I really want to ask her son anyway?"

ME: "I just wanted to ask if he is planning to vote," says I.

ANGRY MOTHER: "Devon, (names have been changed to protect the guilty) this woman wants to know if you are planning to vote!"

DEVON: uninteligible speech

ANGRY MOTHER: (To Devon) "What's in for you? I'll tell you what's in it for you. Healthcare for starters." (To Me) "You can put down that he is going to vote, because I am his mother and if he doesn't I am going to kick his ass."

I told her it sounded like she had the situation under control and got off the phone as quickly as possible. I was also supposed to ask about the daughter in the house, but I figured the best thing for the Get Out the Vote Effort was to leave her alone and let her work her magic.

The thing I wish most in the world today would be to be able to call my Mom and tell her that story.

Georgia on My Mind

I am in Atlanta with my friend Jessica, visiting our friends Thurka and James and their eighteen month old son Gyan. Before that we were in Millidgeville, GA, visiting our friends Claire and Sebastian and their nine month old son Bram. In Millidgeville, we ate barbecue with fried eggplant and okra, and these little french bread, mozzarella, basil, and tomato hors d'oevres that Claire made. Last night we talked about feminism, gender constructions, and female modes of accessing power in the Middle Ages in Poland. (Sebastian is a historian, with a specialization in Poland.) In Atlanta, we ate lamb burgers with sriracha sauce, grilled chicken, potato salad with bacon, and grilled corn. With Thurka and James, Jessica and I talked about our respectively boyfriend/girlfriend, the Atlanta social scene for professional couples and Hindu and Catholic birth ceremonies.

Before we took off for Atlanta, we visited Flannery O'Connor's home in Millidgeville where she wrote most of her famous work. My parents read Flannery O'Conner's stories aloud to each other when I was eight or nine. Overhearing these stories as a child made me uneasy about human nature and what happens to small children who go to spend the day with middle-aged babysitters. Being in her home, and seeing the room where she wrote these twisted, hilarious stories obsessed with sin, retribution, and redemption, I felt connected to all the other beings who had passed through the house in a pilgrimage to her particular capacity to depict evil and good. We chatted for awhile with the executive director of the Flannery O'Conner Foundation. He mentioned that she has a particular following in Japan.

Disturbing attack on a Muslim cabdriver

Given the environment in New York these days, sadly, this should come as no surprise, but there it is.

On a related note, Bloomberg made another good speech on religious freedom and the Cordoba House development.

Liz in China

My godsister, childhood friend Liz is heading out for a semester in Beijing. Jane and I are so in awe of her. She has started a blog and which I have added to the blogroll (which, I note, is sorely in need of some refreshing.)

The Moviegoer

Last night I was speaking with Jane and made a reference to Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet.

Jane: (long silence) Is that the horse movie?

Me: The horse movie? No, I don't remember a horse in it.

Jane: Oh no wait, that is National Velvet.

Me: Right, not the Liz Taylor movie. Blue Velvet was David Lynch's creepy masterpiece showing the dark side of small town America. With Dennis Hopper and Isabelle Rossellini. David Lynch made all these groundbreaking movies in the eighties like Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. Do you remember the TV show Twin Peaks?

Jane: Yes

Me: Well, that guy.

(Full disclosure: I might not have been quite that cogent last night. I did some homework on IMDB for this post.)

I am still geting used to being with someone with minimal interest in film. In fact, I am still assimilating the idea that there are intelligent, sophisticated people with interest in cultural and world affairs who simply have little to no use for movies. Jane reads Shakespeare and Salman Rushdie and the Economist on the subway. She is no intellectual lightweight, but this curiosity does not extend to film. She sees blockbusters every couple months and on occasion will see an arty film or classic that she really enjoys (O Brother Where Art Thou is on this list, and I think Chinatown, although she might have just been humoring me.) She has movies that she watches periodically and counts among her favorites (I will let her share that list with you herself.) But spending a free evening in the cinema, talking about movies, referring to movies as points of reference for something going on in her life (things I do ad nauseum), not so much.

We are getting better at dealing with it. (Read: I am getting better at dealing with it.) If I go to a movie by myself and call her afterwards, launching into a long-winded discursive commentary on it, I have gotten used to stopping in the middle to see if she is still interested. It's a learning experience.

Like that Date Skit on Saturday Night Live from the 80's.

It is quite disagreeable to hear your dentist say, "You have to have a root canal."

It turns out to be even more disagreeable to hear him say, “I am not able complete this root canal and am putting in a temporary filling in order to send you to a specialist.”

Two interesting things that make NY living a lot easier

1. Trader Joe's is not that crowded at 9 pm.
2. You can buy one=week old New Yorkers at the kiosk in the 14th Street A, C, E station for $2.

Ghosts

Last night I arrived home to find a letter in my mailbox from my mother, mailed on February 9. This was strange since she passed away last summer. The strangeness increased when I opened the letter find a Valentine signed by her and my father. "You are our Valentine" was written in her inimitable handwriting.

At the same time, it seemed like the most normal thing in the world to receive a letter from her, like something I had been waiting for but never doubted would come. My Mom passed away while I was out of the country scrambling to get home. The fact that I missed her death left me for months with the feeling that it hadn't really happened, and that somehow, if I could just get back into the other place, the place where I didn't go on vacation knowing she was sick, that she would be alive, and everything would be as it was. Realizing "yes this actually has happened" and adjusting to all the changes that emerged from it was something of a process. Getting a card that, if everything hadn't changed and if she were alive, plausibly could have been sent by my parents six weeks ago, probably didn't help with this.

Close examination of the envelope revealed that it had been mailed on February 9, 2009 or six months before her death, and had spent over thirteen months in delivery between North Carolina and New York. (The only apparent reason for the delay was the fact that she addressed it to apartment H3 instead of 3H.)

There is a scene in Almodovar's movie, Volver where one of the character opens the trunk of her car to find her deceased mother stowed away there and prepared to come home and live with her. I saw that scene on cable shortly after my mother passed and liked the idea of a ghost who shows up because she needs a place to live. For this reason, the movie's end, in which all supernatural elements are rationally explained, disappointed me.

The idea that a loved one is communicating with you from wherever they are now is comforting and seductive. Of course there is a rational explanation for the card and its delay. (It was most likely forgotten in a mail bin that was recently found.) I can't help but indulge in the wistful idea that I am accessible to my mom and that she was trying to remind me of her. As Meghan O'Rourke said in a recent article on grieving that ran in the New Yorker, grief has been explained less as bereavement and more as searching:

"In the nineteen-seventies, Colin Murray Parkes, a British psychiatrist and a pioneer in bereavement research, argued that the dominant element of grief was a restless “searching.” The heightened physical arousal, anger, and sadness of grief resemble the anxiety that children suffer when they’re separated from their mothers. Parkes, drawing on work by John Bowlby, an early theorist of how human beings form attachments, noted that in both cases—acute grief and children’s separation anxiety—we feel alarm because we no longer have a support system we relied on. Parkes speculated that we continue to “search” illogically (and in great distress) for a loved one after a death. After failing again and again to find the lost person, we slowly create a new “assumptive world,” in the therapist’s jargon, the old one having been invalidated by death. Searching, or yearning, crops up in nearly all the contemporary investigations of grief."

This idea of yearning, was one of the most comforting things I read during my mourning process.

Most. Resourceful. Girfriend. Ever.

Jane and I are going to Mexico this summer. I was saying how cool it would be to see Julieta Venegas if she were playing while we were there. And that it would be even cooler if she ever played in a show in New York to see it. And she got all ambitious and figure out that Julieta Venegas is playing at Latin Quarter in New York on April 22. And so we are going.

Mad props.

A book for grieving

"Then the shadow was upon us and within us and was as bad as he said it would be. I don't know how many eternities we suffered there, my father and I, but they were motionless with despair. Yet the shadow lightened a little at last; the windows went quiet with the predawn light. We knew the final thing my grandmother said or thought was, Farewell, daughter it is Jesus at last and that final thing my mother said or thought was, Don't leave me alone in this world without you. And then there was enough light in out front room to read the clocks. My grandfather's watch in his case read 12:12 and the other three said 5:11. Time had started up again but I could tell my father was right: It would be a different kind of time we had to live in now; it would not be steady in the least and the winds would be cold in our faces against us all the way."

Fred Chappell
Farewell I'm Bound to Leave You

The Sopranos was one thing, but this is ridiculous.

I will not get addicted to Big Love again.
I will not get addicted to Big Love again.
I will not get addicted to Big Love again.
I will not get addicted to Big Love again.
I will not get addicted to Big Love again.
I will not get addicted to Big Love again.