Suzanne Marie Day Maria Lion Brown is 34

So yesterday Suzanne turned 34 years old and it was low-key for sure. We got home from work, she opened her presents, and then we went out to Qdoba with the girls for a not-so-healthy helping of queso. (I feel it pulping through my veins even as I type - but it was so very worth it.) We came back home, did homework, and the girls took baths. We watched American Idol and then she went to bed while I went downstairs to finish my final paper (which will be the subject of a whole other post). That was it. Nothing terribly elaborate or fancy. The girls and I did perform an interpretive, "Happy Birthday" dance in the kitchen for her that I think she liked. (I think we almost made her pee her pants she was laughing so hard.)But one thing I didn't do was post about her here.

So here are some tidbits about everyone's favorite Lion:

Suzanne was born in 1974 to Paul and Linda Day and she is number four of six children. She has two older brothers, one older sister, and two younger sisters. Her older sister Shauna is the one who dubbed her "Little sister Suzy." She was a big'un at birth - 10 pounds, four ounces. She was, to use her mother's term, "sturdy." Once Suzanne started to crawl, she was an inordinately fast baby. Her mom jokes about having to set her down at the far end of the house when the doorbell rang and then running to the door so she could answer it or get the mail or whatever before Suzy Speed Racer came trucking around the corner, trying to crawl out of the house.

When Suzanne was barely a teenager, her mom had a heart attack and Suzy had to become the defacto mom for a while, doing the majority (the lion's share - ha ha) of the cooking and cleaning. She grew up fast at a young age and a lot of her strong sense of responsibility as well as her facility in the kitchen comes from this experience, I think.

In high school, she was a big reader and an artist. She sang in the choir (purely for social reasons she now claims) and played viola.

Suzanne's three primary occupations when she was a teenager were working at various dry cleaning places, minding the counter at the Miami Bakery (which is still there and still gross), and working as a counselor at various girls' camps. She loved going to church girls' camp and is still something of a legend among those who know for being, in her own words, "a complete spaz" and for telling the scariest, true-life babysitting story you've ever heard.

Suzanne attended Ricks College back when it was a small school in a windswept Mormon town. (As opposed to what it is now - a reasonably big school in a windswept Mormon town.) She was an art major for a semester but then switched to English. In fact, it was in an English class, the first day of Jim Papworth's Intro to Poetry class, that she sat down, looked over, and locked eyes with the man she knew she would one day marry. It was as though sunlight was coming right through the dingy ceiling of the Smith building and coming to rest on an excruciatingly thin and pale boy in a trench coat who was furiously scribbling poetry into his black and white composition book. Sure, she thought, he may look like an angry campus scarecrow, but there's something to this pimply boy that I'm undeniably attracted to.

Though she did her best to hide her growing attraction for the anemic-looking boy by dating other guys and pretending like she thought he was obnoxious and weird, she ultimately couldn't deny the sheer power of her feelings for him. They had other classes together and spent time with one another, pretending to study, but really just staring deeply into one another's soulful eyes. She would say flirty things like, "Did ya write that paper for class yet, whatsyourface?" And he would smoothly, suavely flirt with her with clever bon mots like, "Who was that jerkface I saw you with at the Galleria last night?" Yes, truly it was a match made in heaven. These young lovers could not be denied -- but then, tragedy! They were parted as Suzanne returned home to Michigan and Pimply McCrabby began preparations for his mission. The pain of separation!

Suzanne headed home and stayed with her sister in Chelsea for a while and prepared to serve a mission. She was originally called to serve in Serbia but due to the unrest there had her call changed while she was in the MTC. She finally (after 3 freaking months in the MTC) went to the Czech Republic and served the people there for 15 months. She became quite fluent and was known by the other missionaries as someone who really had the language down. She had a lot of wonderful (and some frightening experiences) and loved it a lot. When she was flying home, she knew she was in America when the plane passed over a parking lot full of yellow school buses. She knew she was home.

Once home, she returned to finish up at Ricks College. It was there that the smoldering romance of so long ago was almost reignited - but it was not meant to be. Pimply McCrabby had returned from his mission to the Redneck, Hickville Mission an older and slightly less spastic version of himself but tragedy! He was dating another woman! Suzanne tried to heal the throbbing, aching fissure in her heart by dating another man but he just couldn't measure up. He just didn't have that brooding, slightly greasy sheen that McCrabby had.

Suzanne finished at Ricks and headed to Utah State. It was there that she majored in technical writing and took something ridiculous like 22 credits in one of her final semesters. She dated quite a bit and had good roommates and lived just around the corner from her younger sister, Melanie, and her husband, Jeff.

Ah, but then it was time for romance once again. Suzanne got the word that Pimply's relationship with the other woman was off and so she decided it was time to get to business - the business of love! She e-mailed Pimply who had legally changed his name to Mark and asked if he ever had occasion to come to Logan, Utah. Well, as smiling fate would have it, Mark's best friend from high school lived in Logan and he went there all the time.

So, from that point on, the two were inseparable. Every spare moment was spent driving between Logan and Pocatello so the two, reunited, star-crossed lovers could be together.

Mark, in usual suave fashion, proposed in a cemetery sans ring and Suzanne, in typical generous fashion, said yes.

----

Okay, writing in third person is making me tired so now I'll go back to writing like a normal human being.

----

Suzanne and I were married on a bright, beautiful December day that was just ridiculously, obscenely, stupidly cold. You all remember I'm sure. We had one of the most problem-fraught honeymoons known to man and managed to survive it. I was diagnosed with cancer after six months of marriage and we managed to survive it.

Throughout our married life, Suzanne has been an immensely hard worker, beginning at the now-infamous OfficeMax/CopyMax/OfficeCrap. She's worked as an extremely well-paid technical writer for Sakson and Taylor, Lion Bridge, and Compuware. She has served in the Young Women's organization, the Relief Society, and Primary.

Of the utmost importance, of course, are our two kids together - Maryn, who came a month early and was a little five pound chicken, and Avery, who arrived by scary, emergency c-section. Both kids are tall, healthy, articulate, extremely well-dressed young girls and almost all of that is due to Suzanne. (I think I contributed the tall part but that's about it.)

Suzanne now works as an information developer in downtown Detroit. She recently completed her first 10K race (six point two miles in exactly one hour)and is contemplating a half marathon in the fall. Her calves, as I have previously mentioned on this blog, are weapons grade.

I know I've been pretty silly throughout this post but I think it's important to say a couple of things in all sincerity. I think of Suzanne as a miraculous person. She is someone who both makes miracles happen and has had miracles happen within her. She can conjure the best meal out of two slices of bread, a jar of maraschino cherries, and old tap water (Ask for the recipe!). She can make the humblest of homes look attractive, striking, and cozy. She can create order and peace where there is none. More than that though, she has the capacity to love and forgive beyond anything that can reasonably be expected. As many of you know, I have not always been the easiest guy to be married to. Despite my flaws and mistakes over the years, Suzanne has remained committed to doing the right thing, to seeking God's will, and doing her best at all times. Fortunately for me, that has included keeping me around and helping me to be a better husband, father, and human being. Suzanne is honest to goodness only getting better with each birthday. She's an excellent wife, mother, sister, daughter, blogger, runner, and friend. Happy birthday, Suzanne.

Birthdays

I will write about this being Suzanne's big 3-4 in a little while. But for now, here's some info on someone she shares the day with. From today's Writer's Almanac:

"It's the birthday of William Randolph Hearst, born in San Francisco (1863), the only child of Phoebe Apperson Hearst and George Hearst, a millionaire miner. George Hearst won a newspaper, The San Francisco Examiner, as payment for a gambling debt — and his son William, in his early 20s pleaded with his father for control of the newspaper. His father relented, and at age 24 he became the publisher. Over the next few decades, William Randolph Hearst acquired close to 30 newspapers, including ones in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago.

In 1865 his father had purchased a huge ranch for the family near San Simeon, California, halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. When his mother died in 1919, William inherited the ranch, which had grown to 250,000 acres. He began constructing his dream dwelling, collaborating with Bay Area architect Julia Morgan. He wrote, "Miss Morgan, we are tired of camping out in the open at the ranch in San Simeon and I would like to build a little something."

They worked on it together until 1947, at which point the estate he called "La Cuesta Encantada." The Enchanted Hill had 165 rooms, including 56 bedrooms and 61 bathrooms, as well as 41 fireplaces, indoor and outdoor swimming pools decorated with marble and adorned with mythological statues, the largest private zoo in the world, which included grizzly bears, zebras, jaguars, chimpanzees, camels, storks, giraffes and an elephant, 127 acres of gardens, a movie theater, tennis courts, and an airfield.

Notable guests of the estate include Charles Lindbergh, Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Calvin Coolidge, and George Bernard Shaw. It was donated to the People of the State of California in December 1957, and now the public may take guided tours."



It's fitting that Suzanne would share her birthday with someone smart, powerful, and ambitious. The mega-rich thing will have to wait for another life though, I'm afraid.

Wisdom Gleaned From Nacho

Remember kids, no matter how big or strong or imposing or slathered in baby oil your obstacle may be, you too can overcome and pin your problems to the floor.

Lost, Red Hot Pokers, and Fat Mr. Brown

Last night's episode of Lost rocked my casbah (or "tasmah" as Suzanne insists on saying it.) It was dense and there were all sorts of cool, little clues and moments that I found really satisfying: Ben's time-travel/teleporting into the desert, Sayid being manipulated into becoming Ben's avenging angel, Ben disappearing into that secret door in his closet and somehow summoning Smokey the monster, the conversation between Widmore and Ben at the end -- it almost was like God and the Devil discussing the fate of Job or something. (Except, as Suzanne points out, they both appear to be evil through and through.) It wasn't some moony, relationshippy, "Why is Jack so sad" kind of episode. It just moved right along and gave me lots to think about.


(The mystery door in Ben's closet.)

Closer to home, my arms are about to fall off. I've been exercising a little over the last couple of weeks in hopes of keeping my fat-laden heart from exploding while folding the laundry or something else equally strenuous. Night before last, I moved from just walking/jogging on the treadmill to doing some weight training. My body, weak and soggy, is apparently pretty angry about the whole weight thing. Darn angry. So much so that it has gone on strike until I swear never to lift anything heavier than a Hostess cupcake again. Specifically, my deltoids (or as we professional weightlifters like to call them, my "delts") feel as though they've been stabbed straight through with hot pokers warmed in the blazing pits of hell. They hurt and doing anything more than just letting them hang at my sides like two scrawny slabs of meat is more than I can handle right now. Even as I type this, my deltoid muscles are giving me a nasty glare, saying, "You want us to lock up, funny boy? Huh? Is that what you want? First you nearly tear us to pieces thinking you're going to be all 'healthy' and crap and now you want us to lift your gangly monkey arms up to a keyboard and type for you? How would you like it if we just stopped working altogether, huh?" Needless to say, I think my muscular system is union labor. Hopefully, the deep burning sensation I'm experiencing will subside sooner than later and I'll be able to lift a fork tonight at dinnertime.


(One of my buddies from the gym.)
I'm exercising because I've gained a lot of weight over the last year or two. I've slowly been inching up the scale since I got married but only very gradually. Some of the weight I've gained has been a good thing. I spent most of my teenage years and early twenties too skinny for my own good. Somewhere along the line though (right around the time I moved to Michigan), I passed my ideal weight and headed for Chubbsville -- population: me. I think I was about 185 lbs when Suzanne and I got married in late 1998. Now, nearly ten years later, I'm close to 240 lbs. I carry it fairly well. People don't offer to roll me down the sidewalk because they think it would be easier than watching me walk or anything like that. I just have a big moon face and a belly that pokes out further than I'd like it to.

Now, I was thinking about this and working on it before this last Tuesday certainly but the events of April 22 added a little urgency in my mind. I was at our construction job site most of the morning because our organization won an award called Champions in Action. It's sponsored by the local ABC affiliate and a regional bank and it goes to local organizations who try to do good in the community. We got a check for 25K and we’ll be featured in public service announcements on WXYZ over the next three months. (Keep an eye out.) Tuesday was the morning the bank president and some guy from the tv station were coming to give us the giant novelty check and take footage of the students working so they could feature us on the news. So anyway, I’m out there working with the students, doing what little I can and, at one point, several of us were digging out a space for a concrete pad. I looked around after a couple of minutes and saw that I was the only one digging. I have a good relationship with my students and I joked with them: “C’mon guys, you’re getting outworked by a skinny, white English teacher.” They didn’t argue that they were being outworked. One student, Morris, just said, “Skinny? You ain’t skinny, Mr. Brown” and then got back to work. I laughed because it was funny but it became less so as the day went on. Two things occurred to me as I continued to dig out roots, old horse shoes, bits of brick, and rocks from Detroit soil: #1 – I think of myself as a skinny person. That’s how I envision myself. #2 – I’m pretty much the only person who still sees me that way.

Later, I was standing in the big tent we’d set up to house the festivities when the giant check was handed over. Everyone was in there and it was a tight squeeze. One student, Omar, was trying to slide past people to get outside for a smoke. As he tried to get past me, he looked down, patted me three times on the stomach like I was Santa Claus or a rolly-polly baby or something, and then kept moving. What the crap? Right?

Later still, a student who had come late to the whole shindig came around the corner and saw me. Norm was absent the last week his group was at the school and he’d been on the job site for the three weeks since then. So he hadn’t seen me in a month. When he did see me, he said, “Damn, Mark Brown, you gettin’ fat!” I don’t particularly like Norm and I know he likes trying to needle me. His comment didn’t endear him to me any further. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know he bugged me, I just kept on with what I was doing. (I’m not a complete cheek-turner however. Later I saw him rubbing his leg because he had scraped it working and I asked him if he was checking for razor burn.)

So as jolly and good-natured as it all was, I ended Tuesday just wishing that Suzanne would harpoon me and put me out of my misery. She wouldn’t do it even though we have that really nice pneumatic harpoon gun in the garage hanging just next to our hydrofoil. Ah well.

So there you have it, dear readers, a momentous occasion and not in a good way: the first time in my 34 years of life I’ve ever actually felt bad about myself because of my weight. I realize that to only experience this after three and a half decades of life is really good and quite a blessing. Some people, after all, are saddled with nicknames and mockery and diets from their earliest years. Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that no matter what age it occurs, it totally sucks canal water.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have several chicken legs and a bag of microwave burritos I need to eat before it’s time for lunch.

By The Way

Brooke White is really starting to get on my nerves. At first, she seemed pleasant and pretty and sane which, after the carny parade that American Idol auditions are, seemed really nice. I rooted for her because she's Mormon and I'm just like that. I want people like me to succeed in spheres other than business and Amway.

But now I can barely stand to watch her. As of last night, I figured out why. She reminds me of every bossy, uppity, no-fun, I'm-so-super-spiritual, "I honestly love everyone in this ward. Even though I don't know you and this is just my first Sunday here, I really love you" FHE sister from hell from every singles ward I ever attended. Her obnoxious habit of talking back to the judges and nodding at every comment as though she already knew everything they were saying and she just appreciated their friendly reminders has gotta go. Her stricken, fake, "I'm more worried about you than I am about me" look when she's in the bottom two also must stop.

She's more talented than Carmen Rasmussen was but she still doesn't have what it takes to make it to the top. Honestly, we should just cut the season short, have the two Davids perform a sing-off and get it over with. There's no need to drag it out any further. I mean, that Castro she-man? Syesha? C'mon.

I'm Back

Gentle Readers,

Sorry for the week of sparse posting. My work computer was once again out of commission and I've been too busy at home to slip downstairs and post.

But now my computer here is back online and I'm able to write again. At the moment, I have a group of students who are reading and answering questions about Bruce Brooks' novel The Moves Make The Man. My windows are open and the tulip tree in front of the building is in full bloom. We've had a stretch of ridiculously generous, bright, warm weather and it's been spectacular. Every night the weatherman forecasts thunderstorms in the afternoon and every day it doesn't happen. It was 77 degrees yesterday and it's supposed to be about the same today. We haven't cracked the 80 degree mark yet but we're close. I hear it's still cold and frosty in Idaho. This must be the five day stretch of time when it's actually nicer to live in Detroit than in Idaho. It's a brief but glorious time.

A bit of randomness: for all my family members who have read the Twilight books, here is a link to a story about the filming of the movie adaptation. There's even a photo of the cast so you'll be able to see if the film version of Edward, Bella, whoever, matches up to the picture in your head. Apparently the kid who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire plays Edward.

It's going to be a busy few days for me. Both of my final papers (for the same professor no less) are due on Monday. Plus, I'm in charge of all the intake testing tomorrow and I'm expected to attend a recruiting event for three hours on Saturday. As usual though, once it's over, it's over. The storm of activity comes, knocks everything over and then blows back out to sea. Come this time next week, I'll be sitting around picking my toes and rearranging my sock drawer (figuratively speaking). Here's looking forward to that.

I Prefer (Part 2)

King to Koonz.
Hamburgers to hot dogs.
Driving to flying.
Pancakes to waffles.
Hot to cold.
Shorts to pants.
DWTS to any other reality show.
Lost to any other TV show.
My Antonia to almost any other American novel.
Shakespeare to Austen.
Of Mice and Men to The Old Man and the Sea.
Blaine and Lisa with Allison to Jim Harper in the Morning.
Napoleon Dynamite to Nacho Libre.
Jack Black to Will Ferrell. (Sorry, Linda.)
Original trilogy to the crappy prequels.
Star Wars to Star Trek. (Duh.)
The Wrath of Khan to all other Trek movies.
The Empire Strikes Back to all other Star Wars movies.
Saturday to Sunday. (Yep, going to hell for that one.)
Showers to baths.
Rear Window to Vertigo.
Paperback to hardbound.
CNN to Fox News. (Sorry, but Fox is about as fair and balanced as Charles Manson.)
Glasses to contacts.
Jet packs to ray guns.
Rachel and Monica to Phoebe.
Whoppers to Big Macs.
Juliet to Kate.
Three Musketeers to Snickers.
Time to Newsweek.
The Beatles to the Stones.
Live albums to studio recordings.

To Not

We eat a lot of soup and Spaghettios and Raviolios at our house. Mostly it's me. I eat like a five year old and always have. Of course, I love Suzanne's cooking and I'm lucky to have someone who doesn't think mixing spaghetti noodles with pork and beans is a good idea. But when left to my own devices, I eat Campbell's chicken noodle soup with saltines and tons of pepper, vegetable beef soup, Raviolios, and Spaghettios. This of course means, as those of you with grade-school age children know, tons of Labels for Education. On the back of every Campbell's product is a little label next to the UPC code and it's worth a certain number of points. Grade schools collect them and once they have enough (Hundreds of thousands? Millions? A kajillion? Who knows?), the schools can trade them in for playground equipment and other supplies paid for by Campbell's. It's a nice thing and a clever move on the part of the company.

So anyway, this means that every time I crack open a can of rubbery ravioli or of condensed noodles and broth, I slip a thin paring knife between the label and the can and twist it slightly out so the paper splits open. I carefully cut the UPC and the little point designation out and put it in the envelope that's magneted to the fridge. Then I rinse the can out and walk to the garage where I throw it in our big, orange recycling bin near the door. It's part of my ritual.(Yes, it can be said that I have a soup eating ritual. Sad, I know.)

But the other day, I didn't do any of that. I think it was a can of ravioli or something and some of that thick, red dye #5 sauce got on the label. I looked at it for second and knew I could salvage it if I wanted to -- but then I determined that I didn't want to. I simply walked to the garbage can and tossed the whole thing in, unwashed, unstripped, 5 valuable Campbell's points going to waste.

Know what? It felt really good.

I won't make a habit of it or anything but for that moment, it felt really nice to not have to split the label off, to not gingerly cut the upc out, to not rinse, to not recycle. Felt good, I say.

It occurred to me that sometimes it's immensely liberating simply to not do something that you always do or something that you're supposed to do. Now, I'm not talking about foregoing important things that you're supposed to do. I'm not in favor of disregarding things like you're not supposed to kill, steal, lie, etc. I'm not even talking about playing hooky from work, although that's a pretty great feeling too. I'm talking about the feeling you get when you know you should go home and make that inexpensive, nutritious meal but decide instead to just pack up and head for Wendy's. I'm talking about laying around in bed for that extra hour instead of getting up and vacuuming the house. I'm talking about not answering the phone simply because you don't feel like it. (This only applies to people who feel like they should answer the phone. I'm closely connected to at least one person who feels no pressure to answer the phone whatsoever. The White House could be ringing her phone and Suzanne would look at it and say, "Meh, I'll call 'em back later.")

Sometimes to not can be one of the best things you can do. It can be taken too far, of course. My Grandpa Brown took this to a bit of an extreme in some cases. When we'd get food from the drive-in, we'd eat in his truck on the way back to Pleasantview and once we were done, he'd take all the trash -- cups, burger wrappers, styrofoam fry containers, etc. and just toss it out of the window as we sped along. Jason and I would squeal with delight and beg him to throw more stuff out. It was a different age and I certainly don't fault Grandpa (although he probably would have gotten in trouble if Grandma knew how often he did it) but that's one example of taking to not to extremity.

When I first thought about this post, I really was just thinking about the tiny, quotidian things that we lock ourselves into always doing - like cutting labels off soup cans. But today (Saturday) I starting thinking more about to not in a larger sense. This is one of the first Saturdays in a while that hasn't featured some kind of bustling activity. The girls and I went to clean the church this morning but that was pretty much it. No swimming lessons, no ill-fated trip to the roller rink, no massive set of errands or shopping, no nothing. The girls played outside, I repaired the rain gutter that had separated from the house, we rode bikes, we watched a movie. That was pretty much it and it was sort of spectacular. I think about the advice I've heard recently about over scheduling kids and it seems like there's a lot of wisdom to it.

I watched Maryn and Avery wander around outside and pick up sticks and dig little holes with them for over an hour. They played on the swing set. They picked up rocks and made up games about how one of them is a princess but she's really, really small and the other one is a giant but he's a prince and he's looking for his love, etc. I think unstructured time is wildly valuable for little kids but I also think it's highly underestimated for adults. As grown-ups, life is busy. Job, school, calling, caring for the little monkeys in your house, pets for some, time consuming hobbies for others, lessons/practice/rehearsal,ailing relatives, property to care for, etc. There's a lot to life and there often isn't a lot of time for just sitting around or going for an aimless walk.

I think my life would be better if I made more time for silence and stillness. I think most people would benefit from a little less structure and a little less running from one thing to another.

I Prefer. . .

PC to Mac.
Mozilla to Explorer (or Safari or Netscape).
Rollerball to ballpoint.
Sleeping in to early rising.
Blue jeans to khakis.
Regular lemonade to pink lemonade.
Pepsi to Coke.
Acoustic to electric.
Elevators to stairs.
U2 to REM (although both are good).
Theaters to DVDs.
Chocolate cream pie to all other kinds of pie.
Oreos to Chips Ahoy.
McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Sandwiches.
Ben and Jerry's Phish Food Ice Cream.
Letterman to Leno.
NPR to PRI.
Libraries.
Barnes and Noble to Borders.
Aunties and Powell's to Barnes and Noble.
Italian to Mexican.
Mountains.
Flowers.
Sandals to flip flops.
Tony Stark to Jim Rhodes.
Roger Moore to Sean Connery (I'm totally uncool, I know.)
WordPerfect to Word.
Idaho to Utah.
Vegetables to fruit.
Wheat to white.
Windows down.
People who don't know better to people who should know better.
Robert Seigel to Bob Edwards.
Paz Vega to Penelope Cruz.
Salma Hayek to Paz Vega.
Wheat Thins to Triscuts.
Wendy's to McDonalds.
Subway to Wendy's.
Wal-Mart to K-Mart (though they are both Satan.)
Office Max to Staples.
Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale to almost anyone else.
Batman to Superman.
Bowling to ice skating.
Walking to running.
Homemade to storebought.

Sondre Lerche

Here's a live version of my favorite song from the Dan In Real Life soundtrack, "My Hands Are Shaking."



You can guess what my next iTunes purchase is going to be.

Movies

Some quick thoughts on last week's movies:

The Last Temptation of Christ - I can see why people found it so offensive. Paul Schrader, the screenwriter, ignored the Biblical account of Jesus being aware of his divine calling at an early age ("Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?") and instead portrays him as a regular guy who doesn't understand why he hears voices and sees visions. He wishes he didn't have that particular burden. That, I think, more than anything else is what disturbed me. In the end though, I chose not to view the film as overly literal. (It states clearly at the beginning of the film that we're not meant to anyway.) Rather than thinking of it as "This is how it really happened," I chose to read it as allegorical and this particular version of Jesus as standing in as a kind of Everyman, representing the struggles people have in coming to terms with their own personal divine nature and the difficulties of mortal experience.

People talked a lot about the titular "last temptation" which, in this film, was when Jesus was on the cross and he wishes he didn't have to go through with actually dying. He envisions coming down off the cross, getting married, having children, and growing old. It's a very literal, earthy way of portraying Christ's desire to "let this cup pass from me" but I didn't find it that unsettling. (Especially since we Mormons believe Christ was married and had kids anyway. My reaction to all the hoo-ha over The DaVinci Code -- "Meh, so what?") Anyway, the thing the film was really effective in was portraying how crazy and revolutionary Jesus must have seemed at the time. To the religious and political hierarchy, he must have seemed like a really dangerous nut. With most versions, it's hard to feel the immediacy and danger of what Jesus represented to that world.

For the record, the sequence of Christ being tempted in wilderness before beginning his ministry is hypnotic and beautiful and really powerful.


No Country For Old Men - This movie gave me that sense of good, knot-in-your-stomach, what's-going-to-happen-next dread that only really well-made, well-written, well-acted movies can produce. There's not an inch of fat on the entire movie and it moves along with a tremendous sense of confidence and economy. In addition to being a really kick-butt cat and mouse game movie, it's also a meditation on the passing of an older, gentler way of life and the encroachment of a newer, greedier, much more violent world. In other words, it's not just a cool shoot 'em up. What's more, the film looks beautiful. Every shot was thought out, purposeful, gorgeous. There's one shot as Josh Brolin's character is initially fleeing from the Mexican drug dealers when he dives down the side of an enbankment and heads for the river to swim away, the camera looks up at the edge of the enbankment and we hear the sound of tires screeching to a halt and all the camera shows is the dust from the tires backlit against the dark blue sky. You could frame it.


Dan In Real Life - I really loved this movie. It was excruciating to watch good-guy Dan try to keep it together while his decent but superficial brother has a relationship with a woman that Dan is madly in love with. Steve Carrel's performance as a still-grieving widower is convincing and funny. It's never maudlin nor is it overly sweet. The music by Sondre Lerche alone is worth the price of admission. It's the kind of jangly, acoustic, sentimental but self-aware stuff I like.

Overall, the movie made me want to go in to my sleeping daughters, wake them up, and tell them that I love them and that I appreciate them in my life, and that I'm sorry I'm such a poor parent sometimes. It's a movie that makes you want to love people more.


As much as I love it, I do have a couple of quibbles:

1. Does anyone really have family reunions like that? I come from a long line of professional family reunion organizers and I've yet to see one quite that idyllic. The family talent show everyone dresses up for? Family aerobics on the front lawn? It was a little Kennedys-at-the-compound for me.

2. The movie cops out on the ending. After it's revealed that Dan and Marie have a thing for each other, Dane Cook's character (the superficial brother who was dating Marie) is heartbroken for about four minutes and then he's shown speeding off with a seductive, equally shallow woman who was introduced earlier in the film. It's too easy. It uncomplicates things way too quickly for me to buy it. What's more, the movie never develops Dane Cook's character as anything more than a type and so it's completely (unrealistically) easy to disregard him and worry more about Dan.

Nevertheless, I loved it a lot and am willing to overlook those minor things.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Work continues to be work. The dust settles following last week's tumultuous retreat and things go back to normal bit by bit. I have two weeks left of school and then my two big papers are due. Maybe I ought to work on them now.

Home Again, Home Again

I'm back. I had pretty modest expectations of this retreat -- some time at the beach, long breaks, short meetings, pretty good food. As to whether or not these expectations were met, let me put it this way: the food was indeed pretty good.

Yep.

It was an excruciating experience this time around and I hated (yes, hated) almost every second of it. Some personal divisions and difficulties between the staff and administration came to the fore and it was like a carnival of exploding repressed feelings, finger-pointing, and defensiveness.

Hated it.

What's worse, Monday morning is still there. This wasn't like some bad blind date that one never has to relive. I've got to go back and be with these people (and have a staff meeting with them!) on Monday. Sigh.

On the bright side, I've seen some really interesting movies over the last couple of days. For my directed reading, I watched the infamous The Last Temptation of Christ by Scorcese. For fun, I watched No Country For Old Men by the Cohen brothers. For curiosity (and in honor of my sister-in-law Shauna), Suzanne and I watched Dan in Real Life. Quite a variety, eh? They were all really worthwhile in their individual ways and worth writing about.

But it's Sunday morning and I need to head upstairs and help get the girls ready for church so my comments will have to wait.

They may wait longer than I'd like as my work computer shut down on me last Tuesday and refused to let me log back on. It's done this before and requires a trip to the computer repair guy -- so I may not have my prime writing time available to me for the next couple of days. I'll still check in and post - it just may not be as frequent or at the same times as usual.

And I'm Off (and I'm leaving too!)

It's almost 10:30 p.m. as I write this and I'm in the process of packing. Tomorrow I jet off to exotic Port Huron for YDB's semi-annual staff retreat. (When I say jet, I mean, of course, drive my eleven year old Ford Escort. It's like a jet in that I get in it and it takes me places faster than I could get by walking.)

So all day Wednesday and Thursday will be spent in long meetings with (hopefully) lots of long breaks. I'll do my usual solitary wandering on the beach looking for fossils (cuz I'm a geek like that) along with the traditional staring out at the water after dark (it's scary), watching the sun rise at least once (it's pretty), and eating a ton of food prepared by nice Methodist ladies (it's tasty -- the food, not the Methodist ladies).

Friday, thankfully, I'm coming back early. Instead of staying for a third full day of meetings that produce very little, I'll depart around ten-ish in order to get back for a workshop at Wayne State for Film Studies grad students on how to prep for the Qualifying Exam. (That's right - the test that's so important you have to capitalize the name!)

So I'll be out for a couple of days but I'll try to take a couple of decent pictures or scribble out a couple of halfway interesting thoughts to post when I get back.

Books and Letters

These following two bits are specifically for my mother and anyone else who (like she and I) have an inexplicable love of books, paper, design, etc.

First is a short film from Youtube showcasing a pop-up book called ABC3D. Watch it and you will immediately want to buy one of your own:



The other bit of cool is this font I found on the Book Design Review blog. It was designed by Oliver Munday and is called "Fire in the hole." I think it's brilliant.

Tuesday Morning

Yesterday was busy. It was my night to make a presentation in my feminist film theory class but the professor hadn't posted the reading assignment until Sunday morning. Consequently, I only got to the essays yesterday morning and had to read and distill them for my six o'clock class. Fortunately, the students are out of the building this week and so I had plenty of time to read, take notes, and prepare. The presentation went well and I think Dr. Shaviro was pleased.

We watched Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story last night and it was pretty interesting. It came out in 1987 and has been famous for one reason or another since then. The trick is that Todd Haynes (he directed Far From Heaven and the recent I'm Not There) told the story of Karen Carpenter's rise to fame and her struggles with and ultimate death by anorexia -- and he did it all using Barbie dolls instead of live actors. As Karen wastes away, he uses thinner and thinner doll bodies to represent her. It's campy and funny in parts but surprisingly affecting in others. The movie plays with different film genres -- the after-school special, the educational film, the star biopic, etc. It poses questions about what we expect from our celebrities in terms of how they look and how, in turn, we change ourselves according to what the stars do.


It was a sensation when it was released but Richard Carpenter sued and won the right to have all copies removed from any kind of commercial display. (The movie makes him look like a career obsessed jerk who was unkind to his suffering sister and also hints that he's a closeted homosexual. He claimed he was suing solely on the grounds that the movie uses Carpenters songs without permission.) So there were to be no video rentals, no showings at film festivals. The movie took on underground bootleg status and people began copying and circulating tapes. Dr. Shaviro bought a VHS copy back when it was still legal and made dozens of copies for friends and students during the 90s after the ban. Now he has a VHS transfer on CD which is what we watched last night. One of the essays I read was about how the bootleg copies of the movie deteriorated over time (a copy of a copy of a copy, etc.) just as Karen Carpenter herself wasted away. It was interesting.

Anyway, the whole movie is now available online here. To my knowledge, it's still "illegal" to watch it so I imagine it's just the fact that Richard Carpenter and his lawyers don't know it's out there. It's only 44 minutes long so you feel like being a rebel and watching an interesting, little-seen movie, now is your chance.

There are other things in the world worth mentioning:

This last Saturday Suzanne ran her first official 10k and finished it in exactly one hour and 33 seconds. It's a really impressive accomplishment. The girls and I loved sitting on the sidelines in the sun and watching her barrel in at full speed. I'm really proud of and impressed by her.


Also, my older brother Jason was just accepted to the University of Idaho's law program for this fall. He and his family are going to sell their house in Pocatello and move to Moscow where he'll pursue a JD. He's been doing the work of an immigration lawyer for several years now only without the pay or prestige. I think he's brave and crazy and I'm proud of him too.

Batman Began

I post this because #1 - it's cool and I like comics and #2 - I think it's an interesting example of how something huge can have tiny, humble beginnings. These three panels led to 5 movies, a tv show, numerous cartoons, movie serials, countless toys and product tie-ins, untold imitators, and hundreds of different interpretations. Dick Sprang and Bob Kane made this silly little cartoon about a rich guy who dresses up as a bat to fight crime and now, across the world, everyone recognizes this:






Anyway, I'm sure I could draw more meaningful parallels -- how my children began as tiny masses of cells, how the church began with only six members in a log cabin, how Suzanne was "the girl with the pretty eyes" in poetry class, etc. But the message remains the same: important, influential stuff usually starts small.

Kind of Brilliant

Someone sent me a link yesterday to Garfield Minus Garfield, a website that reprints Garfield comics only without the famous, titular tabby. Eric Samuelson, a BYU theater professor and AML president, sent this accompanying description:

"You all know the comic strip Garfield. About this guy, Jon, and his cat—the cat eats lasagna and delivers snarky asides about Jon’s various romantic and professional shortcomings. There aren’t many other characters—Jon also owns a dog named Odie, and he used to have a roommate, and we sometimes see the women he’s dating. It’s been around forever, and isn’t great—a pleasant enough strip, but hardly groundbreaking or even all that funny consistently.

Anyway, some genius looked at Garfield, and had the brilliant idea of removing the cat. And it turns out, when you take Garfield the cat out of Garfield the comic strip, the result is nothing short of amazing. It becomes this strip about this desperate, pathetic, miserable, border-line crazy lonely guy. It becomes a comic strip about isolation, alienation, existential angst. It’s astonishingly sad, profound, and because it’s so painful, it’s also way way way funnier than the original."



I clicked on the link and was laughing out loud within the first ten seconds. Maryn was there and couldn't understand what was so funny. I'm not sure I understand what's so funny. I just know that there's something bizarrely hilarious about Jon Arbuckle talking to himself with no wisecracking cat there to try to make funny.

Tell me what you think.

Spring

Today was the first real day of spring as far as I'm concerned. I hear you say, "How do you figure, Mark?"

Well, I passed one of the first great milestones of spring today: I drove home with my window down. It was warm enough that, even at 75 mph, it was nice to have the window down and hang my arm out. It was pretty fabulous.

Other major markers are:

the girls playing outside without jackets
the first bike ride
opening the windows and sliding door of the house while cleaning on Saturday morning
eating food outside (a picnic or just getting ice cream from the local Dairy Dream and eating it at the roadside tables)
driving right into the sun at 7:30 in the morning
70 degrees
robins in the yard
going for a walk after dinner
taking the storm panes off my office windows

I realize this is Michigan and it may snow tomorrow but hey, one of these times, it will have to be the last snow of the season. One of these days, spring will really, really be here and we can all rejoice by eating Handi-Dip ice cream outside at 9 p.m. when it's just barely starting to get dark. Here's hoping.

66 And A Little Math

This is my 66th post in 2008. I wrote 66 posts in 2007 but I only started the blog on August 6th. (Hmmm - that's a lot of sixes. Is my blog of the devil?)

Anyway, I averaged 16.5 posts per month in 2007 but am now averaging 22 posts per month in 2008. That's a 33 percent increase in blog productivity or, as we around the lab like to call it, bloggy goodness.

To celebrate, here's a Toothpaste for Dinner that made me laugh:


toothpastefordinner.com

Stephen R. Covey's New Career

After many years of teaching people across the world how to more effectively lead their lives and their families, speaker and author Stephen R. Covey is entering the world of music. Unbeknownst to many of even his closest friends and family members, Mr. Covey is an excellent singer with a unique lyrical interpretation all his own. He is following up the success of his many books with his first album entitled, Effectivized! On the album, Mr. Covey covers musical hits from a variety of sources -- from a rollicking version of The Captain and Tenille's "Muskrat Love" to a scorching cover of Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer." Here now is the first single from Effectivized! Backed up by longtime rock veterans Peter Buck and Mike Mills, Mr. Covey truly rocks the house. Enjoy!