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I know, I know. You’re tired of reading about Balloon Boy. I just wanted to take a moment and ask: Remember when you were that trusting? Someone older and supposedly wiser told you to do something and you went along with it because you yet hadn’t accumulated years of experiences, good and bad, to give you insight as to when to follow directions and when to say, “Are you kidding me?”
I remember. It was when a freckle-faced girl named Alice told me that I should eat the “blue Hawaiian ice” from the toilet in our pre-school bathroom. This was back in the days when you had to go to the potty with a buddy. While mine was a year older, she wasn’t much of a buddy– inasmuch as she nearly poisoned me with toilet freshener. Luckily, a teacher was suspicious about how long we were in there and saved me from an early death before I took that first bite.
It’s been a few years since I’ve taught theater to young kids, but I’ll never forget the discussions we had about the difference between make-believe and lying and between a show and real life. Some parents had clearly put deep-seeded fear into their children about the dangers of deception. Other kids found story-making and trickery to be second nature. I wonder what will become of Balloon Boy. Will he decide that he likes the limelight and continue to do things “for the show”? Or will he realize that he was manipulated by his own parents and never be able to trust anyone again? The trust of a child is so freely given and so easily lost.
Talk about 180 degrees from my enraged post on Sunday! These tiny items are more adorable than beautiful, but the human imagination involved in making them is very much so. They’re Tiny Knitted Things, designed and made by Anna Hrachovec, a knitter who lives in New York.
My favorites are the bats; since moving to Austin, I’ve become quite fond of stuffed toy bats.
Ahhh! Kawaii!!!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
9/9/09, huh? It’s an exciting day! It marks the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we’ll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), and the Remastered Beatles catalog, Beatles Rock Band, and the new Apple iPod are all being released today.
But my favorite celebration today is my third wedding anniversary with the extraordinary Christopher Gandin Le. Suicide prevention expert, exquisite photographer (still and motion pictures), beloved friend, and the best damn husband and partner I could ever desire.
For our anniversary, he gave me the gift of music from one of my favorite artists: Erin McKeown. Since I first heard Distillation 9 years ago, I have loved this woman’s music, and have had a total crush on her as well. She’s excruciatingly talented across a wide variety of instruments and musical styles, her lyrics are poetic, her style is fantastic (check those Fluevogs!), and her live show is always fabulous. Oh, and she’s only 31; she’s been making great music since she was in college.
Her newest album, Hundreds of Lions, comes out this October on Righteous Babe records, and to raise funds for this self-financed album, she launched a very cool endeavor this summer.
Photo Credit: Nancy Palmieri
I’ve been thinking about how people actively connect to place. Not everyone is active in this process; many let it happen to them; many do not notice. But my cousin Lauren is always in an active phase. She strolls through cities with her point-n-shoot in her pocket–looking for street art. I even had the privilege of her showing me around NYC, the city I lived in, and indoctrinating me into who painted what, who pasted up what, how, why. It is a knowledge she has cultivated. And done best in her own hometown of Chicago for the past three years. For example, her photo to the right is a “tip toe heart in hands paste-up, chicago.”
“It’s the reason walking these streets I’ve walked for 25 years stays interesting. My eyes are always darting around. Down alleys and around corners.”
She likes observing how a community represents itself in its own space. Now she sees every city she goes to in the context of street art. It’s like being a cyclist who notices the detailed cracks or fissures of any road. It’s a lens–perhaps a way of claiming place. Even Chicago Public Radio has discovered her flickr site and showcased her photos.
WHERE DO YOUR EYES GO IN YOUR LANDSCAPE?
Below is a story straight from Lauren’s email to me: (three of her photos here are #1 choke and goons paste ups, chicago, #2 miss van ice cream girl, toulousse, #3 C215 stencil on the pompidou, paris)
Dear Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber, Marc Webb, Eric Steelberg, the producers, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, and everyone else involved in making the movie (500) Days of Summer,
I’ve been subconsciously writing this letter for four months, since I first saw your movie at SXSW. I wrote on this site about my screening experience, but looking back, my post seems flippant and doesn’t indicate the depth to which your story delighted me. My husband wasn’t with me at the SXSW screening, which was unfortunate, because as soon as the credits rolled, I knew he would see himself on that screen. (As will many, many men my age.) Last night, I took him to see the movie at another screening in town.
I loved the movie again, maybe even more this time. You have created a masterful film that captures countless desperately honest moments. It was a visceral pleasure to watch. And I want to articulate some of the reasons why it has touched me so significantly.
I’ll cut here so I can spill lots of spoilers below. (Crucial Minutiae readers, if you’re going to see this movie, bookmark this post and come back once you’ve seen it. I don’t want to ruin your viewing experience.)
There’s a free party happening on the East River in Manhattan today from 3pm-7pm, and it celebrates the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the U.S.
DJ Dhundee and DJ Tyler Askew will be spinning, there’s free BBQ all day long, and there’s free beer for the 1st hour. It’s at Solar 1, on the East River Waterfront at East 23rd St, NYC.
Go soak up some of the beautiful day in the company of beautiful, happy people and families!
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s Ellen DeGeneres’s commencement speech at Tulane. It’s about 10 minutes long, but worth watching every second, especially when you get to the end. I don’t watch her TV show, and it’s been ages since I read her writing, so I had almost forgotten how sharp and hilarious she is.
Enjoy, and happy Friday!
On Monday, President Obama officially proclaimed June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. This made my jaw drop and my heart soar. Yes, there is much more work to be done to truly “turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists,” as Obama asks Americans to do. But formal acknowledgments are a big deal in our country, and this is definitely an important first.
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On a fluffier note, check out this re-recording of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” with the vocalist singing/narrating what’s actually happening in the video (which is, by the way, completely creepy). Clever and hilarious!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
via Marissa
Another hilarious one from Shoot the Messenger, the group who brought you the Brownbow Coalition Storm is Gathering video.
Susan Boyle is this year’s Paul Potts.
Potts, a Carphone Warehouse salesman and 2007 Britain’s Got Talent contestant, rocked audiences with his rendition of “Nessun Dorma.” He went on to win the competition and was subsequently signed to Sony Records, where his debut album sold over 2 million copies.
Boyle seems poised to do the same.
Buy the book and ask Jodyne for advice! She’ll coach you through any situation. Shoot!
In February, as news about the Chris Brown and Rihanna Fenty situation spread through the internet, Jay Smooth over at Ill Doctrine consulted with Elizabeth Mendez Berry, who wrote an article in 2005 called Love Hurts in Vibe Magazine, about domestic violence within (and without) hip-hop. (Here’s a link to the video of that interview, originally published on February 14th.)
Last week, Elizabeth Mendez Berry published a powerful follow-up commentary about the issue over at Ill Doctrine. Her piece begins in a “gang awareness” meeting with fifteen Bronx teenagers, discussing domestic violence. The conversation lands on this “bottom line: sometimes you’ve got to teach a woman a lesson if she gets out of line.” Until this moment:
In the midst of the rationalizing, one usually talkative young man stood up and walked out. When he returned twenty minutes later, he quietly told the group that his aunt had recently been murdered by her abusive boyfriend. It was no longer a hypothetical conversation. The jokes stopped. Young men who were significantly invested in their inner gangsters gave them time off, and started talking about how domestic violence had affected their lives–and it had affected most of them. The young woman, who minutes before had been arguing in favor of beating females who didn’t know their place, talked about how despite the rules, male gang members beat up on female gang members. Behind her swagger, she seemed anxious.
The rest of the article is as beautiful and honest as this excerpt — I highly recommend reading the whole thing. She’s a sharp reporter and writer, and this issue is a matter of life or death for too many women.
I can’t believe it. The 2009 SXSW Film Festival is finished. 25 movies in 9 days. Consider my brain and eyes officially and absolutely full.
I saw three final movies today, all of which involved some elements of fantasy and magic: The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, Monsters From the Id, and 500 Days of Summer.
Though I enjoyed all of them, my favorite was 500 Days of Summer, a surprising and funny not-love story, directed by Marc Webb, written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, and featuring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
I won’t lie; much of my enjoyment of the movie came from the pleasure of his (completely surprising to me) charm and sexy handsomeness. Also, his karaoke version of “Here Comes Your Man” was super-hot. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for the Pixies.) Also, we share the same initials, which I only realized this because the young women behind me in line kept startling me by talking about “JGL” this and “JGL” that, and I kept thinking they were reading my mind somehow. It finally dawned on me that they were talking about the actor in kind-of code.
But I also enjoyed the movie because it was well-told, beautifully shot, honest romantic comedy that tells you right from the start that it isn’t a love story. The filmmakers and lead actors were on hand to answer questions after the screening, and, it being a SXSW audience of filmmakers (aspiring and current), most of the questions were for the director and writers.
The writers both expressed how lucky they felt to have found a director who was on the same wavelength as they were, who took their unusually structured and wacky script and ran with it in the direction they’d wanted. I want exactly that for my movie — I want to stand on a stage in front of an enamored audience, expressing gratitude for my film’s director and standing in awe of how well the movie turned out, even better than my wildest dreams. And I want my movie to star two really hot guys.
A great way to end a film festival, I’d say.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays, with a special daily edition during the SXSW Film Festival.
There was a moment in the middle of Sissyboy, a short and sweet documentary about a raucous, grotesque, gender-bending performance troupe in Portland, OR, when my heart suddenly felt warm.
As I listened to these men’s stories of love, loss, family, art, and how much the troupe had changed their lives for the better, I felt proud to live in a country where places exist for these men to feel at home, welcomed. Even though there are still many battles to be fought and won, I felt amazed and grateful as I watched them go on tour, getting hugs from passers-by, performing in clubs and cities to full audiences, and moving through city crowds — all without harassment. I’m sure some of that was due to the film’s editing, but even if that’s the case, I appreciated it. To me, the main focus of the film wasn’t the trouble that these men face in the world; it was about how they transform their monsters into art, and find community with each other.
As Jeffrey (stage name Fannie Mae) says in the movie, “I never thought in a million years — I don’t think anyone of us did — that we would ever find a group of people that would make you not feel like you are weird and wrong, and actually makes you feel like you are fine.”
That reminds me of one of my favorite poems, by Raymond Carver:
Late Fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
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May each of us feel ourselves beloved on the earth.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays, with a special daily edition during the SXSW Film Festival.
I’m just home from seeing my 19th movie in seven days. I saw my first real stinker tonight. I won’t name names, but I will explain why it was so bad: the filmmakers’ attempt at humor was based solely in basic physical comedy (not in itself a problem), poop and fart and balls references, misogynist jokes, and racist caricatures. It was really really lame. And the worst part is that there were people laughing in the theater.
The crappiness of that 90 minute experience was countered by the simple pleasure of riding my bike to and from the theater at dusk. The day was warm but the evening was cool, and it felt satisfying to move my body outdoors after days and days of sitting in dark theaters engaging my brain.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays, with a special daily edition during the SXSW Film Festival.
Hands down, the coolest moment of my day? Watching the new Spike Lee Joint, Passing Strange, on the big screen — while sitting right behind Spike Lee himself. It was wild to get to watch a director watching his own film. I don’t get star-struck easily, but that was really freaking cool.
The movie is a dynamically filmed and edited recording of the Broadway play of the same name, created by the musician Stew and his musical partner Heidi Rodewald. As I got the chance to tell him after the screening, I have never seen the raw energy of a live theater performance captured so well on film.
This one will be coming to you via IFC and PBS eventually, so keep an eye out for it, and see it on the big screen if you can. It destroys the old assumption that you can’t film theatre effectively. Spike Lee and his team just did.
Photo by Flickr user s.maentz
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays, with a special daily edition during the SXSW Film Festival.
After my six-film mania yesterday, it was inevitable that I’d need to take it easy today. I attended only two movies today, including the “Super Special Screening” this morning at the Paramount. I got in line with no idea what it was, until Janet Pierson, producer of the SXSW film festival, announced that we were about to watch Richard Linklater’s latest film, called “Me and Orson Welles.” It’ll be released in October, so I won’t say much about it, but I will say that one of my favorite moments of the day was watching Claire Danes’ performance in the movie. I know her mostly from her early and mid-1990s movies like R+J or Little Women, in which she played a tremulous ingenue, which was appropriate for her age at the time. In this movie, though, we get to see the actress playing a grown-ass woman, complete with gravitas, wit, and resonant lower-pitched voice. Something shifted between then and now, and she has come into her own presence as a strong actor. It was a pleasure to watch.
My real-life favorite moment of the day was sitting down to a Tex-Mex dinner and margaritas with four friends from out of town, two local pals, and Vu. One of my favorite things to do is gather together people that I adore and find fascinating and introduce them to each other. Good things always follow. My relationships with these folks span from being college roommates to meeting through a mutual friend and hitting it off from there. They’re all cool, talented people who are bringing new creative endeavors into the world, like a cooking site rich with recipes from the world’s best chefs, an online platform where artists connect with audiences, an interactive storytelling and publishing project for girls, innovative video games, creative commercials and short films, and a gal without a website who’s kicking ass as a fiction writer in the prestigious Michener Center at UT.
Yeah, I’m bragging on their behalf. I can’t help it; I’m thrilled and humbled by my friends’ talents.
The two hour dinner break turned into six hours of conversation and laughter, and I was glad I didn’t rush off to cram in another movie. It is a beautiful thing to know your limits, and to follow what feels warm and good. Sometimes that’s six movies, and sometimes that’s a relaxed dinner in the warm light at sunset. Today, it was the latter, and I will go to bed happy and satisfied.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays, with a special daily edition during the SXSW Film Festival.
That’s right, folks, I watched six movies in twelve hours today. I think it’s my personal record. Even more surprising than the sheer amount of movies is the fact that they were all good — in fact, four were excellent, moving films.
In the interest of my bedtime and ability to do this again tomorrow, here are my top four, in the order I saw them, and with high recommendations that you see all of them if you get the chance:
1) Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
This movie follows Youssou Ndour, Grammy Award-winning Senegalese singer and hero, over two years as he releases “Egypt,” an ambitious and controversial album on which he sings about his beloved Islam. (Western listeners not familiar with his name will certainly recognize his voice — he sang backing vocals on Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”)
Ndour’s story and the movie’s telling of it brought me to tears several times; from the sheer power of his voice in performance, to the scenes with his grandmother, the film was beautiful and I want to see it again.
Trailer, and three more stellar films after the jump.
“She has to be at least 30.”
Check.
“She has to live in New York”
Check.
“She has to love Hip-Hop.”
Check.
“She can’t only speak English.”
We were on a first date. I was crushing hard. He was describing his qualifications for a relationship. For a second there, it was ON. Until, the “She can’t only speak English.” part.
Read more…
