Author Photo

Last week, Suzanne and I moved a dresser, shifted a shelf, and emptied some drawers. This led to me finding a trove of stuff. Among the old postcards, student evaluations, and old papers for school were a few photos.

When I graduated from BSU in 2003, our little cadre of would-be writers got together for a class picture and "author photos." Meghan Kenny ('02) kindly obliged us and took a bunch of photos of us as a group being silly, wearing hats, etc. and also one of each graduate to use on the dust jacket of the next Great American Novel or, in my case, the next tiny book of poetry.

One thing that makes me laugh about the group shots is that Maryn is in them. She was the unofficial mascot of our graduating class and my classmates joked before she was born about naming her Emma Faye (get it? MFA?). I can't remember why she was with me that day but with me she was, so she got in on the photographic action.



From left to right: Chris, Emma Faye Brown, me, Callie (Judith), Maura, Matt, girl I had so little to do with I can't remember her name after only five years, Bill, Will. (I feel bad about not remembering that girl's name. I remember that she had a tiny, purse-sized dog named Winnie that she brought to school with her - but I don't remember her name. Isn't that bad?)



And here's me, looking skinny, shorn, and all ready to unleash my poetry on the world like a bad virus.

P.S. Meghan or Maura, if you read this - help me out with the name of Winnie's owner.

A Savant of Beauty

My friend and mentor Scott Samuelson once wrote about going to see a Shakespeare production in England. I think the play was Hamlet and it seems like he saw it in some venerable location - Stratford or the Old Vic or something like that. The lead actor, he wrote, was brilliant, nuanced, and very powerful. Later, the group Scott was with got to have a backstage tour and a Q and A with the lead. Scott said that, as a person, the guy came across as shallow, vapid, and really, really uninteresting. He was extraordinarily gifted but didn't have a clue about it. He wrote about how he couldn't figure out how someone could be so good at something and yet be so unaware of how he's doing it. He was some kind of acting savant apparently.

It's not exactly the same thing, but that story did come to mind as I watched Kim Kardashian perform on DWTS last week. For those of you who don't know, KK is a wealthy socialite ala Paris Hilton. Her dad was O.J. Simpson's lawyer and her step dad is former Wheaties cover boy, Bruce Jenner. She's one of those model/stylist/designer/doesn't-really-do-crap types like Paris Hilton. Lots of people know her name but not many people can name a specific thing that she does. The thing is, unlike Paris who looks like your average high school senior with a lot of money, KK is sort of ridiculously beautiful. She's exotic-looking and isn't shaped like every other stick figure on television. (Please, Susan Lucci, eat something! I'm begging you.)



So okay, she's rich and beautiful and, naive though it may be, I thought she might be an interesting contender on DWTS. Non-entertainment people have come out of nowhere and proven to be strong competitors and interesting personalities. (Hello, Helio Castroneves? The guy sits for a living. Who would have thought that dude stood a chance?) So I was curious to see how KK would do. Unfortunately, as it turns out, what one might assume to be true about a rich, beautiful friend of Paris Hilton's is shaping up to be the case. Not a lot going on there. Here's a bit of last week's write up from Entertainment Weekly:

"I can't tell if the producers chose Kim because she has no detectable personality (beyond being ''shy'' and ''reserved,'' of course) or in spite of it. Anyone with the remotest sense of humor, or even a vague understanding of the term ''sense of humor,'' would have, after agreeing to dance to ''Baby Got Back,'' at least hammed it up for a few seconds. The quasi celebrity seems so afraid of looking stupid or silly that she's forgotten she agreed to be on a show whose primary function is to make quasi-celebrities look stupid and silly. Mark's gross overcompensation for Kim's lifelessness only made the entire spectacle more embarrassing and bizarre."

I know, I know. You're out there saying, "She's boring, untalented, and lacking in personality - and you're surprised, Mr. Brown?" I'm a sucker, I guess. I never thought she would win by any stretch. (That will be either Brooke Burke, Misty May-Treanor, or Lance Bass.) I just didn't think she'd be so lifeless on the stage, you know? The way this links into what I initially wrote about is that I think KK is a savant of beauty. She has the gift of looks but, seemingly, little else. Even Paris showed a little spunk and smarts recently by agreeing to that Paris for President spoof. But alas, KK is all looks and no brains (or dancing ability, I'm afraid.) Watch for her to be eliminated midway, sometime after Cloris Leachman and but before Maurice Green.

This Made Me Laugh

Though not as hands-down brilliant as the opening sketch from the season premiere, this is still pretty good.

Tag-Tastic

I am pleasantly rested considering my late night in a smoke-filled club in downtown Detroit.

I miss the unstructured pleasure of summer vacations as a kid.

I think about the Presidential election, its various ups and downs, the strategy involved, the combination of optimism and stone-cold cynicism it represents.

I love bacon on sandwiches, hot pizza, cold lemonade, Indian summer, and going to the movie theater.

I know I'm chubbier and less healthy than I'd like to be. (Probably because of the bacon and pizza.)

I want more time to write fiction.

I have a weekend coming up and I'm so happy about it.

I wish for world peace, puppies, rainbows, and unicorns.

I hate people who neglect their kids.

I am scared of snakes.

I feel fine.

I hear dialogue from Rudolph Maté's D.O.A. It's playing on my DVD player next to my computer. Frank Bigelow is talking to Mr. Halliday, the comptroller. Frank is trying to find out who poisoned him with a luminous toxin.

I smell the nasty, bitter, chemical smell of latex gloves. I had to wear them to hand out cake and ice cream at our groupwide meeting this afternoon and I can't wash it off my skin. Echh.

I don't do windows.

I wonder - I'm a-walking in the rain, Tears are falling and I feel the pain, Wishing you were here by me, To end this misery and I wonder, I wah, wah, wah, wah wonder
Why
Why, why, why, why, why she ran away
And I wonder when she will stay
My little runaway a-run, run, run, run, a-runaway.

I care about good writing.

I am not afraid of my students or being in downtown Detroit after dark.

I believe in a thing called love.

I dance in the seat of my car while driving home and listening to loud music.

I sing like Dean Martin on an off-day.

I write blog entries, papers on film, stories.

I win at the blow-up-the-balloon-on-the-clown's-head-by-squirting-water-in-its-mouth game at the fair.

I lose at almost everything else.

I never watch football, baseball, or basketball on TV.

I listen to my coworkers when they speak. It makes them think I'm a genius.

I can be found at the new HP computer in the lab adjacent to my classroom. Next to the wall, across from the door.

I read dense film texts, blogs, movie news, Poets and Writer's Magazine, the funnies, movie reviews.

I am happy when the sun shines, good music plays, and my family is around.

I tag anyone.

And P.S. I encourage everyone to do Mike's sad song meme too.

Sing a Song of Sad, Sad Sixpence

My friend and fellow grad student Mike M. created a meme on his blog and tagged me with it. Since I love to propagate, I'm passing it along:

"Pick the six saddest songs you can think of, list the titles, and pick what you think is the saddest line from each."

So here are my six with the accompanying sad, sad lyrics -

"Circle" by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians.

When I'm all alone it's
the best way to be.
When I'm by myself
nobody else can say goodbye.

Everything is temporary anyway.

"Turpentine" by Brandi Carlile.

I started losing sleep and gaining weight
And wishing I was was ten again
So I could be your friend again

These days we go to waste like wine
That's turned to turpentine
It's six AM and I'm all messed up
I didn't mean to waste your time
So I'll fall back in line

"Pretty Angry" by Blues Traveler.

I wish i walked on water
Pulling rabbits from my sleeve
Guessing cards and saving everyone
I wish i still believed
Oh i wish that i believed

"Only A Dream" by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The day you left home you got an early start
I watched your car back out in the dark
I opened the door to your room down the hall
I turned on the light
And all that I saw
Was a bed and a desk and couple of tacks
No sign of someone who expects to be back
It must have been one hell of a suitcase you packed

"The Best of You" by Foo Fighters.

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Are you gone and onto someone new?

"Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam" by The Vaselines.

Jeeze, do you need to hear the lyrics? Isn't the title depressing enough?


I promise to make my next post much more cheerful. For now though, pass the Kleenex and Lexapro.

Busy Bee

You know, I'm digging this whole teaching-college thing again but it's really time consuming. I don't have near the free time I did before. It's a fair trade, I guess. But between teaching there, teaching at YDB, still trying to prep for my QE, and being a husband and father, I'm finding I have less and less time for you, my dear,sweet blog. Sigh.

I want to write a post about letting go. My dad finally hauled away the crappy, red car that's been sitting on his driveway for three or four years waiting to be fixed. He could have fixed it, I have no doubt. But he's realized that he's rather not, that there are other things to do with his time and money. So he's let it go. Sold it to the scrap yard for a hundred bucks. Good for him. I think we all have a crappy, red car sitting in the driveways of our lives that we should haul to the scrap yard.

I want to write a post about the original trilogy of gangster films - Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface. I want to write all about the echoes and resonances I see in crime films in the 75 years since these films were made. I want to point out how many silly cliches came from these three movies.

I want to do the various memes and tags from other people's blogs - Mike's saddest song meme, Jennifer V.'s tag, Tracy's "take a picture of yourself right now" meme.

I want to write an in-depth analysis of Dancing With the Stars. (My early prediction: Brooke Burke and Misty May-Treanor will be two of the three contenstants in the final.) Did you find Chloris L. funny or disturbing? Did you want to force feed Susan Lucci a sandwich and some creotine? Did you snort when Kim Kardashian was identified as being famous for being a "reality star?" Did you cringe every time Samantha Harris opened her stupid, stupid mouth? Oh, I've missed it all so much.

But I don't have time to do any of those right at this moment. I have to get home, pick up the girls, do laundry, have dinner with the fam, and then watch Murder, My Sweet. (After DWTS, of course.) Busy, busy, busy.

But fear not, gentle readers. Where there is a will, there is a way. And I will continue to post as long as you continue to read - all six of you.

Daughters

Red River

In poetry, it's called a "tonal fault." That's when a line, image, word, or idea suddenly violates the feeling or atmosphere the rest of the poem has already established. Usually it happens when a poet makes a sudden shift from being very serious to being very casual or light. What a reader expects from the feel and sound of a poem is thwarted and it leaves him shaking his head, saying "What's that all about?" It throws the reader out of the poem as they say, and it generally looked down upon.

Red River by Howard Hawkes and starring John Wayne is an example of a big-time cinematic tonal fault. As you know, the power went out at my house while I was watching it and so for three or four days, I was suspended, not knowing what was going to happen. When the power cut out, the angry, vindictive, murderous Tom Dunston had just vowed to kill his protege, Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift), for taking over his cattle drive.

Garth and the other cowboys leave Dunston behind with no ammunition or help. They figure it will take him a few days to ride to civilization, load up, get men, and come back for them. The sequence in which Dunston is absent is the most effective of the whole film. Everyone acts as though Dunston was an avenging angel who is about to appear, both guns blazing, at any moment. It's when he's not on screen that Dunston most becomes "larger than life."

Anyway, once the power came back on, I watched the final 35 minutes or so and was wildly disappointed. The ending is stupid and disappointing and suffers from a terrible tonal fault. In the end, Dunston turns (on a dime) from a cold-blooded killer to an "aw-shucks" father-figure. The film, which had been lean and largely devoid of sentimentality, suddenly has a wacky "Well Matt, I reckon you oughta marry that girl." "Well shoot, Tom, I reckon I will" ending.

It has the same effect a tonal fault in a poem had on me - I feel like everything that was good before it is kind of spoiled because it was leading up to something lame.

Be the first kid on your block

"Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how people sometimes say 'Peace out?'"

"Yeah."

"Here's something new I'm going to say." (Hands me a drawing.)



That's right, folks. You heard it here first. The next big thing in cool sayings will be: "Platypus out!" (Or "Platopoos Out" followed by a high-pitched sound like a dolphin squeal.)

Electric Fan

It's about frickin' time.

Yes, yesterday when we drove through our neighborhood on the way home, there was silence. The near-deafening roar of generators had been stilled. We pulled up to the driveway, pushed the garage door opener button, and lo and behold it opened. The girls literally cheered for joy.

It was very, very nice to be able to wash clothes, watch tv, and just have lights on after eight p.m. I am a huge fan of electricity. I am an electric fan. Hee hee.


For whatever reason, I felt like a zombie while the power was out, like real life couldn't begin until there was electricity. Now that we're charged up again, I can fill you in on a few things that have been going on over the last couple of days.

Thing #1 - I thought I was up for a one-year appointment at BYUI but it turned out, I was not. I had my hopes up, I confess. They were squished, I confess. I'm more or less over it, I confess.

Thing #2 - I was offered and accepted a couple of classes as an adjunct at Henry Ford Community College. It's a last-minute thing covering for someone who left unexpectedly. I taught my first classes yesterday and it was thrilling and exhilarating to teach at that level again. I've missed it.

Thing #3 - Avery Jane Brown turned six on Monday. She remains the sweet, powerful, sly, sensitive, hopeful joy that she has ever been. She's awesome and I love her. She had a friend lose a tooth while over at our house for a birthday playdate. Not only did we not have power, we had kids pulling pieces of their heads out right in front of us.

Thing #4 - YDB's annual fundraiser "The Showdown in Motown" is coming up a week from tomorrow. It's sort of an American Idol/Showtime at the Apollo sort of thing where a variety of different musical acts (rock, jazz, rap) will perform and the audience and a panel of celebrity judges will decide the winner. First prize is a thousand bucks. Almost all the fundraising is done at the corporate level and all we really want is for an audience to show up. So, if you're in the Detroit area and want to come to a fun, D-town experience, just say the word and I will get you in for free. Thursday the 25th, around 7:30 I think, at the Magic Stick in downtown Detroit. It's family friendly and the more people you can bring, the more welcome you are. (Vos family - I'm lookin' at you!)

Thing #5 - Howard Hawks' Red River cut out on Saturday night with 45 minutes left to go. I'm finishing that bad boy up tonight, come heck or high water. Tomorrow, if I can get it, The Maltese Falcon.

That is all.

No Power - Day 3

Still no power.

But on the bright side, today is the birthday of the creator of Curious George.

"It's the birthday of the children's author and illustrator H.A. Rey, born Hans Augusto Reyersbach in Hamburg, Germany, in 1898. When Hans was a boy in Hamburg, he lived near a zoo, and he loved visiting the animals there -- he would imitate their noises and paint them. And in Hamburg he met a young girl named Margret Elisabeth Waldstein, but then she left to go study art. Hans served in the army, he went to school for a while, and he supported himself by designing posters for the circus. But the economy in Germany was bad, so he went to Rio de Janeiro to help his brother-in-law sell bathtubs. Hans changed his name from Reyersbach to Rey because it was hard for Brazilians to pronounce. In Brazil, he met up with Margret, who was all grown up, and they fell in love and got married.

"Hans and Margret Rey returned to Europe in 1935, but they were Jewish and they couldn't go back to Nazi Germany, so they settled in Paris. Hans drew some cartoons of a giraffe for a newspaper, and a French publisher liked them and he asked Hans to do some more work like that. So the Reys started writing a book called Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys (1942), one of its characters was a monkey named Curious George, and the Reys thought he was the best character and that he should have a book of his own. They were happy to be living in Paris, happy to be working on more children's books and translations of nursery rhymes, but in June of 1940, they discovered that Hitler was about to take control of Paris and that they were in huge danger. As fast as he could, Hans constructed two bicycles from spare parts he found, and on the morning of June 14, the Reys biked out of the city with some food, warm coats, and five manuscripts. One of those manuscripts was Curious George. The Nazis took control of Paris that afternoon, but the Reys were safely out of the city. They biked for four days until they reached the Spanish border, and then they sold their bikes for enough money to buy train tickets to Lisbon. Over the next few months, they made it from Lisbon to Brazil, and then eventually to New York City. Curious George was published in 1941, and the Reys wrote and illustrated six more stories about him -- stories like Curious George Rides a Bike (1952) and Curious George Goes to the Hospital (1966)."



How can you not love a story that involves biking away from Paris with a bag full of manuscripts in order to escape the Nazis? Especially if one of those manuscripts is about a trouble-making monkey?

Post Tornado

The footage you see in the first part of this story was shot about a hundred yards from our house. I was blissfully watching Red River with John Wayne when the power went out on Saturday night at about 9:30 and the girls were already in bed. They came out of their room scared so we lit some candles and I got a blanket and pillows so I could sleep on their floor. Suzanne was visiting her sister's house and had no idea anything was going on.

No power that night. No power yesterday. No power this morning. Reading by candlelight, showering in the dark, eating sandwiches, moving all our food to a neighbor's fridge, no tv, no dvd, no Internet. It's been an interesting couple of days.

Good ol' DTE had better start earning their keep right quick and get our power back on by the end of the day or there will be some very irate phone calls made. Oh yes, I said irate.

3:10 to Awesometown

I hit a personal pothole in the road of life this week and it sorta stopped me cold in my blogging tracks. But I'm back now and more bloggy than ever.

I want to point out that I know there are people in my personal circle who have been aware of and appreciated classic films long before me. Tawnya Mosier was telling me to see Danny Kaye films when we were in high school and I was like, "But there's no color! Where's Bruce Willis?" So, I recognize that my current glee at discovering the performance of a classic actor or coming across a little-known (to me) gem of a movie just makes me seem like a bit of a dilatentte. I'm not denying it at all. I'm just giving credit where credit is due - to Paul and Linda, my in-laws who often recommend good classic films, to Tawnya and Tracy, of course, who had crushes on random people from old movies long before I thought it was cool to do so, and to everyone else who reads this blog and thinks, "He's only seeing that movie now? Way to come late to the classical Hollywood party, loser."



Having said that, allow me to move on to 3:10 to Yuma with Glen Ford and Van Heflin. Some critics have said that Ford's performance as the outlaw Ben Wade is a little too light and not dangerous enough but I disagree. I think his sly, slightly Mephistophelean performance is just right and easily the best thing about the whole show. Heflin is a lumbering cipher but Ford's Wade is engaging, fun, and menacing.

Admittedly, the climax is unrealistic and far too tidy and happy to be believed. But everything leading up to it is enjoyable

In the comments to my last post, my mother-in-law pointed out that All The King's Men had been remade, poorly, with Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins and others. The reviews of the remake almost universally panned it as a plodding attempt at Oscar bait so I never saw it.

The remake of 3:10 to Yuma with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale (who is a genre machine lately - western, superhero, sci-fi) got much better reviews and is really interesting to me because I like both the leads a lot. I've read that it's definitely a contemporary take on the western (more gunplay, explosions, overall grittiness)- but I love remakes so I'm tempted. Even if I don't like the movie itself, I like the mental friction caused by thinking about the old version versus the new.



Jennifer V. also mentioned the 1990 remake of Stella Dallas with Bette Midler. The 1937 version I wrote about was actually a remake of a 1925 film based on a novel. We're a remake hungry culture. Did I mention there's talk of a Magnum P.I. movie remake?



(My mom had a big crush on Tom Selleck from these days. Can you blame her? I wish I had that kind of mustache power.)

King Me!

All The King's Men was on the classical Hollywood menu last night. In light of recent political events here in our fair city, it was fascinating to watch a character devolve from being good and upright to greedy and crooked as a dog's leg. The torchlight rally scenes were vaguely reminiscent of scenes from Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will so that was an interesting connection.

I'm thinking more and more about David Bordwell's assertion that classical Hollywood cinema is the "cinema of the doorway." American films from this period (1930 - 1960) are all about problem solving and the forward movement of a narrative. This may seem like "Duh, what else would a movie be about?" but there are film movements and whole national cinemas that have little to do with the resolution of a narrow, focused narrative. Just because our way is what we're used to doesn't mean it's the only way it's done. Anyway, in American cinema, it's all about people coming in the door, doing or saying something meaningful or dramatic that pushes the story along, and then exiting through the door. A scene can be peaceful and idyllic, but as soon as the door opens, the drama begins and the narrative moves forward. It's interesting to watch movies in that light, I think.

Mom

So this is the first time that I've seen my mom completely bald. I saw the pictures of her getting her head shaved but never got a clear shot of the finished product. Even then, she only had it buzzed. She still had stubble but since then the chemo has made even the fuzz fall out.

So here she is in all her Telly Sevalas glory, loaded up on steroids, cancer-killing chemicals coursing through her veins, the one, the only, Laurie "I'm laying the smack down on cancer" Brown:



(Pictured with her are the lovely and giggly Brianna, Kyle "Vitamin K" Brown, and Kameron, the world's longest baby.)

Hawking My Friends' Stuff

Several friends and acquaintances of mine were involved in the production of The Mother In Me, an anthology of essays and poetry about being an LDS mother. Since the majority of my readers are female and most are mothers, I thought I'd put in a plug here for their book - partly because these people are my friends and I'm a believer in supporting their efforts and partly because they're really talented writers and I think a lot of my readers would like the book if they bought it. The authors are all (I think) from the Segullah writer's group which you can learn about here. They're LDS artists who are trying to do something good, useful, and beautiful. So there it is: buy this book.

Stella Dallas

Until last week, I knew Barbara Stanwyck from two places: the film Double Indemnity and the tv show The Big Valley. I never actually watched the tv show but I remember the commercials for it when I was a kid. Double Indemnity, I love, of course. This week, I was introduced to a new side of Ms. Stanwyck and I have to say, I'm even more in love with her than I was before.

Stella Dallas is the tale of a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who calculatedly marries into money and high society but whose inherent tackiness and low-class ways hold her back. Eventually, when she sees that she is the stumbling block for her beautiful, refined daughter, Laurel, she chooses to remove herself from the picture so her daughter can have the success and prosperity she deserves. She gives custody of Laurel to her ex-husband who remarried a high society woman. The final scene is of Stella standing in the rain, watching through a window as Laurel marries the scion of some blue blood family. She's rain-soaked and alone but she walks away from the window with a triumphant smile on her face because her daughter has found happiness in the world she always belonged in.

It's classic Hollywood melodrama but, for all its obvious conventions, it's very good and very affecting. The scene toward the end where Stella is explaining to her ex-husband's new wife why she wants to give Laurel away is touching and sad. I don't get choked up for much in movies but it gave me a little lump in my throat as Stella explained in her low-class slang her hopes for her daughter.

Anyway, I highly recommend it. In fact, watch it and Double Indemnity in the same weekend to see the acting range Barbara Stanwyck had. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Don't You Hang Up On Me

Ever notice how unrealistic phone conversations are in the movies? Specifically, have you ever noticed how rarely characters say "goodbye?" Seriously, whether it's a spy thriller or a chick flick, people will just make their last statement ("Tell Colonel Brasstacks I need to speak with him." or "Yes, Brick, I love you with all my heart too!") and then they just hang up. No goodbye, no "see ya later," nothing. This has always bothered me because - who does that?

In the world I live in, ending phone conversations usually involves really highly developed rituals -- me giving reasons why I "have to let you go," repeating the same "I'm done with this conversation" signal phrases, remembering one last thing, starting to end the call but then talking about something else for another ten minutes, etc. And, if nothing else, my conversations always, always end with "Goodbye," "Bye," "talk to you later," "See ya," or some variation thereof. Why don't movie characters believe in this? Don't any of the other characters feel weird or offended by being hung up on at the end of every conversation?



I know, I know. I'm being nitpicky. People don't say goodbye in movies for the same reasons every man is handsome, every woman is stacked, and problems are always resolved in roughly two hours. It's the movies! I wouldn't want that to change. I'm all for escapism and fantasy. Movies are a transportive experience and if the price I have to pay for that escape is people not saying goodbye, I can handle that.

Still, there are certain things that happen in movies I think need to be retired simply because I think they've either become useless cliches or because they just. don't. happen.

First of all, who reads in the tub? Often in movies, we see characters (usually female, always nubile) lounging around in the tub, reading, contemplating their romantic future, swathed in bubbles. Who even regularly takes baths besides five year olds? I was thinking about this last night because I took a bath. I was a little under the weather yesterday and I felt achy so I drew a tub full of blazing hot water and got in. I am six foot one. The tub in our house is approximately three foot eight. I might as well have boiled some water on the stove and wedged myself into the pot on the range. (There's an image, eh?) I mean, it was alright. I soaked my head and relaxed for a while but eventually I had to unfold myself from the yoga/contortionist pose I'd gotten myself into and let blood flow back into my legs again. My point is, this was not a place I'd relax and certainly not a place I would read. Your hands would be wet and, therefore, the pages would be wet. Not to mention what the humidity in the room would do to the pages of your book. (I sound really anal. I know. Sorry.) Admittedly, I'm neither female nor nubile but still, I don't think it's something most people do on any kind of a regular basis.



Other things that just don't really happen and ought to be retired are:

Love/lust at first sight that actually develops into a meaningful, long-term relationship. (The awful, meet-cute barf-fest that comes to mind is the Ashton Kutcher/Amanda Peet vehicle A Lot Like Love. You know it had to be bad. It takes a lot to make me dislike anything involving Amanda Peet.)



Family reunions that are either edenically blissful (Dan In Real Life) or hellishly awful (Home for the Holidays). C'mon, let's be real. I've been to some spectacular family reunions and at least one that was a suckfest on ice (even though it was very hot there) but none of them ever lived up to what the movies regularly present as real.




The Wacky Roommate. I've only had traditional college roommates during one period in my life, the first couple of years in Pocatello at ISU but I did serve a mission and, therefore, had a constant roommate (or four) for two years straight. Some were cool, some were annoying, none were "wacky." For better or worse, none were Spike from Notting Hill.



The Magical Negro.



The Crotchety Old Person With A Heart Of Gold.



Mike Meyers.

Detroit Slang

It's a historic day here in the "D." After nine long months of denials, legal manuevering, and stonewalling, Kwame Malik Kilpatrick agreed to resign as mayor of Detroit this morning. His resignation will become effective in about two weeks and, following that, he'll spend 4 months in jail, will pay a million dollars in restitution to the city of Detroit, will forfeit his pension to the city, will relinquish his law license, will agree to not run for or hold elected office for five years, and will be on probation for five years. In honor of this utterly ghetto man, I thought I'd share some of the slang I've learned here in Detroit. The slang is broke-down and po', just like our former mayor. Enjoy:

Whip - a nice car.

Trap - a drug house.

Stacks - lots of money.

Makin' it rain - partying all night long at a club.

Poppin' bottles - getting drunk.

Square - a cigarette.

Loosie - a cigarette bought individually from a store.

Poot - fart.

That's bo - (pronounced like "bow and arrow") Something that is no good or messed up.

Bossy - Something that's good and admirable and classy.

Underbossy - Something trashy and low class.

Detour

Filmed in six days on a budget of about 20,000 dollars and only 68 minutes long, Detour is hardly what one would think of as "important" Hollywood cinema. Nevertheless, it's great. Its simplicity (which is undoubtedly the result of the shooting schedule and budget) is wonderful and Ann Savage as the sneering Vera makes the whole film worth watching. She's angry, suspicious, needy, and flinty from the first second she's on screen. Her clipped, short-tempered delivery of "sap," "stupid," "sucker," and "shut up" is nothing short of perfect. It's kind of funny but also kind of chilling. If you're in the mood for a seedy, moody noir, you can't spend a better 68 minutes than Detour.

Roger Ebert sums it up nicely: ""This movie from Hollywood's poverty row, shot in six days, filled with technical errors and ham-handed narrative, starring a man who can only pout and a woman who can only sneer, should have faded from sight soon after it was released in 1945. And yet it lives on, haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it."

Update on Mom

The following is my mom's latest Care Pages update. I thought I'd post it for those of you who are interested in her progress as she continues to lay the smackdown on cancer.

September Already?

A lady in the chair next to me was having a conversation I couldn't help overhear. Two of her children are losing their homes to foreclosure and a grandson just moved in with her due to divorce. She is still upbeat and positive because today is her last chemo and she is headed to California by the end of the week to visit family. I admire her attitude and am happy that her chemo is complete. She was still there when I left so I don't know if they hummed the "graduation" song to her or not. There was also another gal there for her last chemo, probably in her mid 20's, I think from Russia(may have mentioned her in an earlier post). She comes in from West Yellowstone for treatment.

Unknown to me until yesterday I guess I provided a week's worth of entertainment for the staff at the oncology center. Here's what happened and it may be one of those "you had to be there" moments. I had a new nurse last week. We got started, everything routine, went through a couple of bags of solution and then she came to hang a new bag. I don't usually pay much attention as I'm visiting with someone or writing on the computer. The nurse said, as she was hanging the bag, "I wonder why that's a different color ... did they add something in it?" (And I'm thinking, well they mix the bags according to what the blood test says so that's entirely possible) and then she goes on ... "it's usually clear, why would it be blue green all of a sudden?" (I don't work here, so I don't know ... I'm sure it must be okay or the doctor wouldn't have you give to me but you might want to check, I'm thinking) and then she said "it must have a chemical in it for algae" before she walked away. I looked up at the bag and it was an entirely clear solution. Well, I've lost a lot of things and of them I miss my mind the most...I thought I was going crazy ... I knew the bags were sterile solutions...why would they give it an algae treatment and why would they have it plugged in to ME? I'm telling you, chemo does strange things to the brain but I finally had enough sense to say when she came back "it looks clear to me, I don't see any difference in the color." She burst out laughing... "I was talking about the waterfall pool out back ...did you think they put algae treatment in your chemo bag?" We laughed for quite a while and I must say, the pool was quite a vibrant blue green when I finally looked out the windows behind me into the courtyard. I guess after I left I became the "incident of the week" and they were still chuckling when I went in yesterday. Add that one to the personal history I guess.

My visitor de jour was Kayla Larsen whom I've known since was in her Mommie's tummy! It has been fun to watch her turn into a beautiful young woman. She is a joy and fun to have around and she doesn't even get mad at me when I still boss her around. It was a blessing for me to have her as one of "my young women" in Rexburg and we even got to go on the Martin's Cove Trek together. She was always checking on me to see if I was okay even though we weren't on the same handcart. She visits in Rigby and sends emails and is one of those who provide hope in the future for the Gospel and the world. I know she is one of the daughters my Patriarchal Blessing said I'd have. What a blessing!

You may remember me mentioning in an earlier post the woman who practically had to stand on her head for them to get her port to work. She is one of the ones today who will have her last treatment and they had no problems accessing her port at all. They explained that some ports have positional problems (big term, huh?) because they are not implanted correctly by the surgeon. I thought "another tender mercy"...not one minute's trouble with my port. I am grateful.

I mentioned to the doctor on the last visit how strange it was that so many of the effects experienced in chemo are similar to those experienced in pregnancy -- nausea, bothersome food aromas, fatigue -- but when a neighbor came yesterday and brought "Preggie Pops" I had to laugh out loud.I think I'll try them, though, to see if they help with nausea and dry mouth from steroids.

My day ended with another humorous experience ... we went in to get our recommends renewed with the counselor in the Bishopric. He's such a good guy and really in tune. He has a great sense of humor. He's in his 30's and their family lends so much to the ward. They are natural at serving others. Anyway, as I went in to the room and laid my recommend on the table, he said "so you expire this month, huh?" Well, my brain had recovered a little from the chemo so I replied "well, my recommend does...I'm more on a long term basis!" He looked at the scarf on my head and we both had a good laugh -- he hadn't even thought about it before the words came out but it provided a light moment.
Enough for today !! Talk to you next week. Thanks for your interest.

First Day

Kwai Not?

Alec Guiness seeing a blockbuster science fiction movie in his future.

The Bridge on the River Kwai: lots to recommend it. It's long (2 hours and 41 minutes) and certainly of the "epic" style that the director David Lean is known for but still compelling and fun to watch. Alec Guiness is great as the uber-Brit, Major Nichols, and William Holden is sufficiently manly and rakish as a "second-class swab jockey" posing as an officer. Ultimately, it's an anti-war film, I think, and is meant to demonstrate senselessness of war and the ways in which people allow themselves to forget their basic humanity.