Mr. Fox -- Fantastic!

I admit with some sheepishness that I am a Wes Anderson fan. Or rather, I should say, I have a love-frustration relationship with his work. On the one hand, I find the style, taste, subjects, characters and preoccupations of his films to be uncomfortably close to my own. So much so, that (and this is where the frustration comes in), I tend to see right through the artifice of his movies, to detect that lack of real substance behind the artistry. I've seen each one, all with the exception of Bottle Rocket in the order they were made, and almost every time I've walked away almost mad. Mad that there isn't something...more, but more mad at myself because I know deep down inside that if I could have a world view and film it, it would look a helluva lot like a Wes Anderson film.

So enter The Fantastic Mr. Fox. In the jerky, stop-action punctiliousness of this amazing movie, Anderson has finally come home. To me, this is the movie he has been practicing to make since Bottle Rocket. Every film, from Rushmore to Royal Tenenbaums to Darjeeling Limited, has been so perfect yet ultimately so unsatisfying, and now I realize why. In each of these movies, it is the plasticity of Anderson's filmed world, completely hermetic and constructed but with actors, "real" places and situations, it was as though the reality of the living, breathing actors had the effect of limiting the imaginative completeness of the movie taking flight.

Here, in a movie that was not just a constructed set, but literally an entire world that is made, to the smallest detail, in the service of Anderson's vision. And it is utterly delightful. It is as though only with literal puppets is the story that Anderson has always been trying to tell finally able to come fully to life.

Everything, and I mean everything about the movie was just about pitch-perfect. The voices, the characters, the sets, the soundtrack -- a collection of tunes and genres, from Ives to the Rolling Stones (and especially, to Toby's and my delight, the Beach Boys) that seemed to be waiting to be collected and put to this film.

I know I'm gushing, but I simply loved this movie. See it.

9/11/09

New Blog, Sister Visit

My sister's just left us...in town for a few days with her new(ish) boyfriend, Jimmy. I'm happy to say Jimmy's a great guy, and we had a great time hanging out with them while they were here (although the time was far too short).

Beruria and Toby especially seemed taken with Jimmy. I've discovered to my dismay that my little girl is a shameless flirt. Sitting in Pongol (our fave Indian restuarant on 28th and Lex), she actually sat across from him singing a little ditty that went (clearing my throat): "Dimmy dimmy dimmy dimmy [flirtatious smile] dimmy dimmy dimmy!" ("Dimmy" trans: "Jimmy"). Yeah. Huh.

Went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island for the first time. The statue is fascinating, I have to admit. Interesting piece of belle epoch overstatement...I couldn't help but wonder whether it was widely regarded, aside from its monumental size, as a good piece of artwork - which is, in the end, what it is? I actually don't know; perhaps it's worth a few minutes in the library looking up. There must be some contemporary periodical literature on it...

Ellis Island. As a historian, I expected it to be the most interesting site of the day (I was wrong: actually, walking on Pearl from the Battery to John Street, which included passing Fraunces' Tavern, and several other fascinating 18th and 19th century buildings I didn't know existed - as it turns out, Pearl was along the 1609 waterline of Manhattan Island). Sadly, a great amount of the structure at Ellis Island has been restored in your typical modern museum chic. Luckily, they did have the foresight to keep the main reception hall largely intact. That, I admit, was fascinating (see photo). Found an Ole Olson on the placards outside the building -- I've decided to adopt him as my official "Olson" ancestor. To my reckoning, it is probable that my grandfather John Olson and his family were the ancestors most likely to have passed through Ellis Island. Kara's ancestors all came too early, and mine seem to have, for the most part, come either too early or from points not likely to have passed through New York.

A stormy sky moved in around 4 pm. Made for some rather dramatic images of the city skyline -- and, as always, the most striking absence is the Twin Towers. Their absence, I'm rather surprised to say, is still fresh when I see the skyline.

Sue, my mother-in-law, has begun a blog of her and Carl's journey east from Seattle to their new homestead in Vermont. It's worth checking out...very nice posts and images from their trip (my favorite is the Corn Palace).

Toby's B-day party

Today we had Toby's birthday party -- abeit six weeks late (the yearly problem of Toby being born near the beginning of the Three Weeks...I am worried about the therapy bills down the road).

It being the last week in August, just about every kid in Toby's class was on vacation. So, it was a small party. Kara did a brilliant job organizing -- the theme was "Jedi Training," and thus we played "Jedi baseball," "Jedi waterballoon toss" and "Jedi watching of Star Wars Episode I." (I should say that Kara's wording was much cooler than I'm letting on.)

I admit I was stressed. We live in a community where most of Toby's friends are pretty comfortably well-off. While I tend to err on the side of being proud of our more laid-back, rough-and-tumble ways, I can't help but worry sometimes that our kids are going to take flack for being, inevitably, more or less the "poor kids." Don't get me wrong, I feel that we are immensely privileged; Kara and I both have great jobs, are able to give our kids everything we need, really know no wants, at the same time, it's hard sometimes to look around Westchester and not be a bit self-conscious. And like most anxious parents, it is often with our children that our insecurities are given free rein.

So, when only four of Toby's friends could actually make it, and the baseball didn't go so great, and I didn't really manage the balloon toss so well, and one of Toby's friends got hurt feelings and I had to try to fix things, I was pretty worried that Toby would not be having the best time. To eat, we had pizza bagels (Toby's request) and ice cream cake. And, of course, we watched (most of) Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. While the boys (and Beruria, who has discovered her inner five-year-old boy as a 2 1/2 year old girl) seemed to have a good time, I was not convinced that the party wasn't a complete dud.

I don't know exactly why Kara and I are so lucky, but when I was tucking Toby in to bed tonight, I asked him, casually, hopefully covering up my insecurities, whether he had a good time.

"Abba," he says, "you already know that this was the best birthday party EVER. Why are you asking me that?"

What a great kid.

Super-sized Musings

Kara and I watched the documentary Supersize Me last night. For those who don't know, the director of the film decides to take the assertion made by McDonald's -- that their food is not harmful and perhaps even has health benefits -- seriously, and eat a diet composed only of McDonald's food for a full month.

To be honest, his experiment is a bit broader: in fact what he's doing is constructing a sort of "typical" American lifestyle in toto -- reducing excersize, eating fast food for most of his nurtition, etc.

The results are shocking: his health almost collapses before your eyes; he goes from an extremely healthy 6'2" 185 lbs to I think somewhere around 210 lbs, all his physical stats in full-bore disintegration. Although the experiment is contrived and extreme, the point is clear.

All this is interesting in and of itself, but what was most interesting to me was a conversation with his girlfriend, an expert in organic foods and a vegan, who upbraids him at one point not for his radical diet experimentation (although she does do this at other points), but for the fact that he consumes meat at all. "You eat it because you like how it tastes," she asserts, "I'll bet heroin is really, really great. But that doesn't mean I put it in my body," is her overwrought analogy.

Which led me to muse: aside from the generally shrill obnoxiousness that I've found to be somewhat symptomatic among vegitarians (especially vegans), is she right? Is eating meat just a choice made for the pleasure of it, damn the ethical and moral consequences?

Accepting this opinion would make my life a lot easier. Here I am, literally learning how to kill a chicken myself so that I can continue to consume meat produced in a way I believe is ethical; Kara and I have just arranged for milk delivery from a local family farm in order to get milk products produced by cows that are treated well; we're looking at dropping our consumption of red meat to a very low level so that we can afford to subscribe to an organic, grass-fed operation, Mitzvah Meat, that just about doubles the cost of (already very expensive) kosher red meat.

With the exception of the last point -- I'm still not convinced that we need beef or lamb that much -- I don't really hesistate to make the sacrifices in convenience entailed by this stuff. Should I? Is meat -- even meat that is acquired outside the industrial food system -- just a frivolous and murderous luxury?

I am resistant to this conclusion. I think that eating meat, in a fundamental way, is a part of who we are as people. We are ominvorous, we derive important nutrients from other animals. More than that, though (and this may sound a bit...I dunno, strange) -- the idea that when we eat by taking the life of another sentient creature we are engaged in an act that is of deep meaning culturally, historically, and emotionally, has profound existential importance. It is a stark symbol of the unanswerable questions of life, death and meaning. In fact, just writing this makes me even more uncomfortable with my conclusions...

But in the end , it is this significance of meat consumption that makes me even more appalled at the way most meat is brought to the table these days...ESPECIALLY in my community. In observing the laws of kashrut, we are literally endowing the taking of animal life a sanctity that underscores the gravity of the act. Or at least we are supposed to be -- in fact, the kosher meat processing, coupled with the growing affluence of Orthodox Jews in general (enabling us to buy and eat more meat than ever), has made kosher meat consumption as banal and profane as anything else.

Anyway, now I'm getting preachy.

Till later.

Souter's New Digs

I have to say it: I'm disappointed to read in today's Times that former SCJ David Souter is ditching the ol' farmstead for what seems to be a McMansion in the next town.

Here I thought Souter was an old school New Englanda curmudgeon. Turns out he wants the ancient dream of all retired government employees: a Martha Stewart-approved paint scheme.

Reminds me of an old poem by a certain late Northeastern bard:

Stopping by the Road on my Way Home from Yoga

Whose house this is, I think I know

It should be in Chappaqua village though;

Where Martha and Hillary summer every year

'Cause, what else do you do with all that dough?

My Lexus stopped, it seems so queer

To pause without a Starbucks near;

By beauty bark and gardener's jeep

(Did they fire Jose this year?)

The Beamer behind gives his horn a beep,

(What is this guy, some finance creep?)

Middle finger aloft, the gas is pressed

And away he drives, his ire deep.

The driveway is long; the leafblowers gassed

A Range Rover with nanny and children just passed

But on to Balducci's -- the arugula won't last.

But on to Balducci's -- the arugula won't last.

Starbucks, we hardly knew ye

My intrepid sister-in-law Stefanie recently posted on an issue that is truly close to my heart: the long and tragic decline of what has been, for most of my adult life, perhaps my dearest refuge: Starbucks.

Apparently, she notes, the brand is now attempting to cash in on those people who drink coffee but assiduously avoid the ubiquitous green mermaid by opening unbranded stores presumably designed to look like independent cafes.

Time was, I would defend Starbucks. After all, I probably owe to the friendly staff at the University Village Starbucks in Seattle thanks for, among other things, the completion of my doctoral dissertation (yes, I did literally write about 75% of it there).

But my experiences of late have led me to the inevitable conclusion that Starbucks as the company I once knew is no more. Gone is the friendly service (I remember a time when a mistake in your drink order was always, without question, remedied with a heartfelt apology and a free drink coupon), the clean and pleasant atmosphere (now more likely to be dirty and disgusting, the tables unwiped, the condiment bar empty of milk and covered in garbage) and the nod, even if ever-so-slight, towards corporate responsibility.

On that last point, a vignette: when I first started frequenting Starbucks, it was de rigour that not only was it company policy to encourage sustainable behavior by its customers by offering a $0.10 discount if you brought your own mug, but to supply THEIR mugs and still give the discount. Well, these days, you can forget about them having a mug, and the other day, when I dropped in to my local store and handed my own mug to the clerk (I won't diminish the term "barista" by calling her one), she stared at the mug with distaste and sneered as loudly as she could, "Oh, look who's saving the planet!" I managed, somehow, to suppress the profanity that would have been my preferred response.

Now it could be that this is just New York, and the default of most in customer service here is that the customer is always there to make your life unpleasant, but I think her attitude was telling of so many things about where the brand has gone.

So Starbucks is now adding cynicism to cynicism, attempting to cash in on those poor dupes who want to support local business.

I can't say I'm surprised. But, if one customer still counts, it has been a while since I've bought coffee beans that carry the Starbucks label, and I can see a day coming soon when I'll forgo the place altogether.