The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

In Hollywood, especially for women, there aren’t all many roles as actors age.  After being relegated to playing the part of the mother or father, there are few roles for grandmothers and grandfathers, and the role of grandparents is generally relegated to minor characters.  Male actors have more options than their female counterparts, but even so, there aren’t all that many roles available. 

No one seems particularly interested in what older characters can teach us.  It’s emblematic of the way we treat the elderly in our society.  Other cultures revere their elders, but we just shove them into nursing homes, to be forgotten rather than honored.

That’s what makes the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel all that special.  Starring amazing actors like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and their male counterparts, including Tom Wilkinson, the story proves the point that it’s okay to want more out of your life, even if you’re in your golden years.  Rather than expecting less and less, the characters plunge into a foreign culture in Jaipur, India, enlarging their experience of their lives.  They might very well have said, “My life matters, if only to me!”

I’m reminded of a quote by Emile Zola:  “If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you:  I came to live out loud.”  Like other films such as Short Cuts, Valentine’s Day, and New Year’s Eve, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel follows each of its seven main characters in separate vignettes, but shows its protagonists coming together at the airport, intertwining their stories into one cohesive tale.

An interesting subplot follows Maggie Smith’s character Muriel who worked for many years as a housekeeper, but managed to stay isolated in her own, exclusively Caucasian world, and she is more than willing to reveal her extremely prejudiced viewpoints to anyone who will listen.  She has travelled to India for a cheaper hip replacement, and she is forced into interactions with Indians, and this rubs up against her xenophobia.  The story proves that prejudice, even firmly entrenched prejudice, can be overcome.  And life turns out to be about connectedness, not disconnectedness.  Rather than simply passing time until they die, the characters seek to enrich their lives.  It’s a great story, well worth telling, and well worth going to see.  Allow The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to transport you to another culture. 

What a Librarian Can Teach You

It takes a village to form a writer.

Legalize Love

Despite the superfluity of recent conversations, conflicts, and contentions, I had not intended to blog on the topic of gay marriage, but with the president stating his revised opinion, I felt I might as well weigh in with my thoughts.

My father, when I first came out as a gay man, worried about being shamed by my sexual orientation, and told me when I was nineteen, “Just don’t ever embarrass us.”  I think he had seen what he deemed radicals stumping for the cause of gay rights.

Homosexuality itself was included in the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) of abnormalities until 1973.  Being gay used to be considered a mental disorder.  These disorders were traditionally diagnosed when symptoms substantially interfere with daily functioning.  This was eventually shown not to be the case for gay individuals.

After the Stonewall riots in 1969, gay rights activists focused on educating people that being gay is an orientation, not a “alternative lifestyle choice” made by “maladjusted individuals.”  These activists also put civil rights for gay men and women on the fast track to being afforded to all, not just heterosexuals.  I’m reminded of the Virginia Slim’s ad for cigarettes:  “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

My father has come a long way in not only accepting me, but also being proud of who I am.  Still, he supports civil unions, but not gay marriage.   Many heterosexuals balk at allowing the word marriage to refer to a union between a man and a man or a woman and woman.  To me, it is a matter of semantics, and I’m constantly amazed how one little word can inflame the passions of a fair number of heterosexuals.

Several states now allow gay marriage, including,  New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, the District of Columbia, and even Mitt Romney’s home state of Massachusetts.  In May, 2004, Massachusetts became the very first state to issue same-sex marriage licenses.  (Comment on that, Mitt, especially when you are accused of being out-of-touch with the will of the people since you don’t even support the will of your own state’s constituency).

Other states, including Illinois (my home state), now allow civil unions.  (I personally have never really figured out the qualitative difference between civil unions and gay marriage, but that’s only one aspect of the issue).  Romney has commented recently, saying, “My view is that marriage itself is a relationship between a man and a woman, and that’s my own preference.”

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg struck back in saying, “No American president has ever supported a major expansion of civil rights that has not ultimately been adopted by the American people, and I have no doubt that this will be no exception.”

Jesse Jackson also had his say:  “If the states had to vote on slavery, we would have lost the vote.  If we had to vote on the right (for black men and women) to vote, we would have lost that vote.”

Many black people distance themselves from the issue of gay rights and civil legislation to protect the rights of what can sometimes be considered ”an invisible minority.”  They don’t seem to want comparisons between the rights of African-Americans and the rights of gay people, which makes it all that much more meaningful that Jesse Jackson stood up to be counted, making sure his voice was heard as a supporter of the inalienable rights of every individual.

Change comes slowly, incrementally.  If you don’t want gay marriage, don’t marry one of us.

In the meantime, let’s legalize love.

The Bluebird of Happiness

Spring has sprung in the midwest.  Early March we had summer-like weather.  Tonight we are having one of those “thunder-booming” rain storms, and it strikes me that even violent weather and rainstorms can be a harbinger of what’s to come, hoping of course for a resurgence of all that is new and beautiful, all there is to look forward to as the weather turns golden and warm.

As part of this, there is the return of the bluebird.

Bluebirds in the midwest are not seen as often as they used to be.  They are much more rare than they used to be, but we nevertheless keep an eye out for them.  As follows in much of nature, the males are the brightly colored, beautiful blue we associate with the bird whereas the females are more brown with blue wing tips.  Many of nature’s creatures follow this pattern with the male being the show-off to capture the attention of the ladies, and those cagey coy females hang back and get to make the decision as to which of those male birds they are most attracted to.

This doesn’t seem to be particularly true for humans.  Women paint their faces, pay attention to how they look, how they dress.  These women might even spend a lot of time exercising and obsessing over how to capture the attention of their male counterparts, quite the opposite of many of nature’s other creatures.

The bluebird symbolizes the setting of the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, but even though they are winter birds in this respect, they nevertheless signal the coming spring as well, a transition from the old into the new.  In this way, the bluebird signals the end of the cold season, the transformation into spring, the passage into happinesss and fertility.  The fertility represented is not only the recognition of the birth of the new, the heralding of infants into the world, it also speaks to the birth of new creative endeavors.  Thus, the bluebird is dually a winter bird as well as a spring bird, foreshadowing an awakening of a new consciousness.  They not only represent the transition and passage of winter to spring, they also speak to a passage from child to adult, night to day, and barreness into that aforementioned fertility.  The bluebird acts as a guardian of all transitions.

If a bluebird finds its way into your life, look for the possibility of the new and renewed in all your endeavors.  Symbolically, a person could herald the birth of the new and unexpected in your life, and I myself try to surround myself with those “human bluebirds” who encourage me to embrace all my potential.  If you find a sort of bluebird in your life, expect opportunities to reach new levels of joy and happiness.

Genuine Genius Schlockmeister

On June 19, 999 Stephen King took a walk and nearly never came home to his wife and kids.  As King might have put it himself, he almost “bit the big one.”  His leg was broken in at least nine places, his lung collapsed, and his glasses ended up on the front seat of the driver of the car who hit him because Stephen King’s head went through the windshield.

King seems to have had a strong will to live, but what interests me most is how he went on to resurrect his life and go on creating compelling new tales.  Surely, wanting to see his wife and kids proved a major motivator, but Stephen King also desperately wanted to write again.  The first day, after many months, he sat down in his wheelchair and managed to sit still and write for an hour and forty minutes, despite excruciating, nearly crippling pain.  His need to write propelled him forward, giving him that extra motivation to live and make whatever words he had left in him matter.

I’m not sure I would have had his resolve.

The lesson learned from Stephen King’s determination:  write through your pain; write in spite of your pain; write to heal whatever ails you.  He started out writing on a desk with a portable typewriter in the laundry room of his cramped quarters–no glitz, no glamor–but despite long odds made an entire, best selling career out of putting words on paper.

In 2003 he won the National Book Award for distinguished contribution to American Letters over the strong protest of more “literary” writers like Marilynne Robinson.  She has won the Putlizer Prize and allegedly claimed when King won the National Book Award that he was merely a hack writer, undeserving of attention from the legit press.  At the most recent Association of Writing Programs (AWP) conference held in Chicago, Robinson was asked what she liked to read, and she rather haughtily replied that she doesn’t read contemporary fiction.  Exactly how does that make her competent to critique Stephen King, especially if she has never read one of his novels?  I shudder at how she responds to the creative writing students she purports to teach.

Anyone who has read his novels or short stories like “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” cannot doubt that Stephen King definitely has a lot to say.  There’s an adage:  fiction is a lie that tells the truth.  In all the mystical sorcery involved in creating not one, but many, many fictional universes, King is an honest writer.  At times in his novels he hints at what might happen, then he shows you how it happens, and then recaps, in case you missed his point, but he nevertheless creates stories readers care about.  We follow his characters and care what happens to them, genuinely mourning when we come to the end of his tales.  Isn’t that what fiction writing is all about?  Isn’t that the mark of a great novelist?

I recently finished reading his newest novel, 11/22/63, and was dazzled by his sheer storytelling ability.  This particular story tells of the possibility of going back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy and how changing that moment would alter the world as we know it.  King branches out and constantly challenges himself to reach for greater peaks and mountaintops, and doesn’t seem afraid of any subject matter.  He puts aside the horror genre to tell a different tale, but his eager readers gleefully devour every word of his prose.

My advice:  go out an buy a Stephen King book.  Don’t be ashamed or afraid to like John Grisham or mystery authors like Agatha Christie or Chicago native Sara Paretsky who write compelling tales, even if you’re coached to claim to prefer Charles Dickens or Herman Melville or even contemporary writer Marilynne Robinson.

The Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou has written a novel called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, but she doesn’t explain the title.  It actually originates from a Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem titled “Sympathy.”  He lived from 1872 until 1906, and lived in a period where Blacks couldn’t expect to be treated equally or fairly.  Their best possible option was to be ignored, yet their poets cried out, singing songs of hope and lament.

Dunbar intones, “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me/When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore–/When he beats his bars and he would be free/It is not a carol of joy or glee/But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deepest core/But a plea, that upward to Heaven flings/I know why the caged bird sings.”

Not so very long ago, slaves sang spirituals to a God above, a God who would make everything right in heaven.  In the Color Purple, Celie claims, “This life soon be over.  Heaven lasts all ways.”  Indeed, all ways, not always.

Maya Angelou takes these sentiments, and turns them on their head, saying that even in sadness there is freedom, even in loss and inequity there is beauty to be found in a life well-lived.  At the very beginning of chapter fourteen, she talks about the residents of a small, rural town in Alabama called Stamps:  “They showed me a contentment based on the belief that nothing more was coming to them, although a great deal more was due.  Their decision to be satisfied with life’s inequities was a lesson for me.”

She wrote her own poem of hope:  I Rise.

“Out of the huts of history’s shame/I Rise/Up from a past that’s rooted in pain/I Rise…/I am the dream and the hope of the slave/I Rise/I Rise/I Rise.”

Despite the limitations of the time period where open prejudice, hostility, and mistrust flourished, Blacks have found a way to make their life on earth matter, a great difference from their past where hope was an afterthought.

No matter how big or small our life is, there must still be gratitude that we are afforded a life at all.  That seems to be Maya Angelou’s belief.  She names and renames Black people as Negroes, Coloreds, Blacks, and the slur word White people use.  I asked a friend Rosie what term she prefers, and she said that Black seems perfectly acceptable to her, although other Black men and women use the term African-American.  The difficulty, she claims, is that most names assigned to Blacks are terms Whites have created to differentiate themselves from a sense of “otherness.”  Blacks therefore have to find a way to reclaim their heritage through whatever appellation they use.

What do you call me? I have already used all those words and they are useless to me now, Maya Angelous seems to challenge.  She insists on being accorded a life of dignity, a sense of a life well-lived.

Many Black people that I have run into answer the question, How are you, by saying simply, “I’m Blessed.”  White people that I encounter very rarely respond that way, and I’m not sure why.  Maybe Whites are afraid of seeming too overtly spiritual, almost as if religion and religious sentiments are something to be embarrassed about. I personally think we should learn better what makes us alike rather than what makes us different.  I think it’s perfectly alright to be blessed.  As children of God we do not need to grovel.

How Do You Define Valor?

Just yesterday I saw the movie Act of Valor.  It’s my belief that as a society we have become so innundated with war movies and action-thriller films like the Mission Impossible series that real sacrifice is treated superficially and no longer affects us the way it did other generations.

Act of Valor, however, turns that notion on its head, and made me fully aware just how much is at stake for our troops at home and abroad.  In creative writing courses I have been taught that a good story should seem both inevitable, yet retain the capacity to surprise us.  This film succeeds brilliantly on both counts.  We know we are going to face the loss of at least one character we feel strongly about, but we nevertheless hope beyond hope that we will be wrong.

Act of Valor transverses from one country to another, from the Phillipines to Chechnya to the United States and Mexico, showing how the ruthless nature of the illegal drug trade supports something much more sinister:  global terrorism.  Without giving too much away, the story tells about the invention of plastic flak jackets which could be worn under a tuxedo to fool airport security.  These jackets have miniature be bes which explode, descimating an entire area such as the always busy Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles.  I don’t know if such technology exists, but it is nevertheless a scary thought.

Interwoven with this story is the relationship these special op soldiers have with each other as well as their families at home.  Nearly every week at our Catholic church, we are invited to pray for our soldiers and their families.  The real peril which faces these brave men and women is rarely discussed and it can be hard at times to feel there is very much at stake, especially as we as American citizens are so well insulated from the atrocities of war that it can sometimes be hard to feel much beyond the idea that it is a shame we even need a military.  Act of Valor proves to me that war is awful and ugly, but necessary to support freedom throughout the world.  At my local library, each September 11th, the librarians and citizens of my small town gather together to mourn our collective losses as a country.  In our own way, we honor those who make the ultimate sacrifice.

As Shakespeare put it many years ago, much better than I can express, “Cowards die many times before their deaths.  The valiant never taste of death but once.”

Crazy Is As Crazy Does

In Steel Magnolia’s the main character Shelby, played by Julia Roberts, says, “I’d rather have ten minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” 

Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of famous writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, embraced this attitude.  She typifies the hedonism,  headiness of the Roaring 1920′s, self-exile, and spiritual alienation of the Jazz Age.  She is considered the High Priestess of the Jazz Age, but her life proves the tendency of those artists to self-destruct.

Surrounded by famous writers, artists, and painters like Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway,  as well as Pablo Picasso, famous expatriates in exile in decadent, vibrant Paris, plus jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Ma Rainey, Zelda Fitzgerald lived her life on her own terms until alcoholism and mentally illness beat her down.  Gertrude Stein coined the phrase the “lost generation,” but she probably didn’t realize how prescient she would turn out to be.  Hemingway committed suicide and Zelda Fitzgerald ended up dying in a fire at the Highland Mental Hospital in North Carolina when she was only 48.  She didn’t know how little time she would have to make her mark on the world, and she has since quietly slipped away into relative obscurity.  She never achieved the success she courted, and was eclipsed by her more famous husband.

At one point she pronounced, “I don’t want to live.  I want to love first, and live incidentally.”

Most of her life, she was a type of shadow artist, following in the wake of writers and artists who actively pursued their craft.  She may not have been content, but she settled for less, only writing her novel, Save Me the Waltz, while she was hospitalized.  It is considered to be a confusing novel, not a particularly great work of art.  She also obsessively tried to find her way as a ballet dancer, but again was thought not to be good enough.  She was in a race against time.  There is a lesson there for artists of all types.  Don’t wait to create!  You might not have tomorrow. 

Zelda even said, “By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future.”  Her novel chronicled her marriage to F. Scott, and he resented the barely fictionalized account of their marriage, even though he wrote Tender Is the Night, his version of their tumultous marriage of seething resentment and bitter acrimony, barely two years later, in 1934. 

In the sanatorium she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Nowdays she would be treated and released to live her life as best she could.  Doctors still rely on Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) in recalcitrant cases, but it is a last resort because of the numbing effect on memory.  She wanted to live a bohemian lifestyle but in the end was stymied.

She was a beautiful, ill-fated debutante flapper, born too soon.

The Race Is On

In the wake of the Republican primary season, I’d like to talk about something really important:  the Academy Awards!  The Oscars are a self-declared holiday everywhere in Hollywood.  It is the biggest event of the year in southern California.

Billy Crystal has been host numerous times before, and has agreed to host again.  He had seemingly pushed the boundaries of being a memorable, even legendary host and noted that it was time to let someone else dazzle the audience with witty repartee.  In September of this year Eddie Murphy had been tapped to host this year for the 84th awards ceremony and was reputedly looking forward to it, but he backed out when his good friend Brett Ratner resigned (the polite Hollywood way of declaring “You’re Fired”).  Brett Ratner was under fire for a gay slur as well as inappropriate comments about actresses Olivia Munn and Lindsey Lohan.  What he said while promoting his film Tower Heist was that ”rehearsing is for fags.”  Certainly an ill conceived response to questions about his film.  I think he failed to realize that for the most part Jews and homosexuals (and sometimes Jewish homosexuals)practically run Hollywood, even if only behind the scenes, out of the public eye, usually not as actors.  

I’m not sure how many in the audience will remember the nominees or winners for Best Original Screenplay writer or the Best Adapted Screenplay Writer, except for the year that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won for “Good Will Hunting.”  In my midnight musings I myself wonder whether I might ever be nominated as a writer for a film (I’ve given several practice speeches in the shower).  Trust me,  though, I’m working on a novel, not a screenplay, so that leaves me out of the running, at least for now.  What can I say?  You gotta dream big because you just never know where life will take you.  I couldn’t have predicted five years ago that I would be going to Northwestern University for a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing, but here I am, pursuing my childhood dreams.

But enough about that and on to the drama of the awards ceremony.  To me, the most hotly contested race this year is in the Lead Actress in a Film category.  Meryl Streep and Viola Davis are duking it out, and Glenn Close is the dark horse for Albert Nobbs where she played a woman masquerading as a manservant in late 19th Century Ireland.  Streep is widely acknowledged as the premiere actress of our generation with 16 nominations and 2 wins for Supporting Actress in Kramer vs. Kramer and Lead Actress in Sophie’s Choice way back in 1982.  She is due another win for her turn in The Iron Lady where she plays British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher because she hasn’t won since Sophie’s Choice, yet I favor Viola Davis in the role of a lifetime for The Help.

As a general rule, comedies are not considered for Acadmeny Awards, yet Bridesmaid’s supporting actress Melissa McCarthy may surprise everyone.  However, my heart belongs this year to Octavia Spencer who plays fiesty black maid Minny, once again in The Help.

I’m not certain why I am drawn to the Best and Supporting Actress categories, but the gals nominated tend to really steal the show with amazing, and actually memorable speeches.  Who can forget Halle Berry thanking all the black women in film and music history on whose shoulders she stands?  Or Sally Field, where she said, “You like me, you really like me!” 

One of the worst thing you can do with your allotted 45 seconds is thank industry insiders just because it might benefit your career.  Stretch your acting muscles, folks, and put on a moving, memorable performance.

At its best, the Oscar speech is its own art form.  Louise Fletcher, who won for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest said, “I’ve loved being hated by you.”  Then she continued by thanking Jack Nicholson, for making “being in a mental institution like being in a mental institution.”

Shirley MacLaine, for Terms of Endearment (one of my favorite films),  waxed philosophical:  “God bless that potential that we all have for making anything possible if we think we deserve it.”  Then said, “I deserve this.”

None of the other categories impact me in quite the same way, except perhaps the winner of Best Director and Best Picture.  My favorite films this year were The Help and Hugo, Hugo for sheer scope and panoramic cinematic profoundity.  I tend to lean toward Hugo, certianly for Best Director, but also for Best Picture (it’s such a quietly beautiful film), but the frontrunner for Best Picture is actually the silent film The Artist.  A silent film hasn’t won since the first Academy Awards show 83 years ago (the film was Wings).

Regardless of who wins and who are the “also-rans,” I love the pomp and circumstance of the Academy Awards.  Books and films nourish my soul and what can I say: you just have to love a good show.

To Everything There Is a Season

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose,” Ecclesiastes 3:1

For some reason, throughout the history of time, people have been fascinated as to what happens after we die as well as what happens at the end of time, the end of the world.  This preys upon the latent fears of those who seek heaven, but are terrified by hell.  In the Old Testament, the rules are pretty clear:  follow the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:1-17.  I don’t know about you, but I actually had to look up the commandments.  In case you’re like me, here they are:

1. You shall have no other gods before me
2. You shall not worship idols
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord
4. Keep the Sabbath holy
5. Honor your mother and father
6. You shall not murder
7. You shall not commit adultery
8. You shall not steal
9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor (you shall not lie)
10. You shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife or belongings

One of my close friends insists that the fear of God is preached to us in order to help us know how to behave.  A kind of fear tactic.  There is also a sense throughout the Bible that we may be running out of time.  Repent, and repent now, seems to be the general idea.  Ever since Christ first appeared, Christians have been prophesying the imminent end of the world along with many other religions.

Recent examples about the end of the world and the end of time include the radio preacher Harold Camping who marked October 21st, 2012 as the end of everything we hold dear, Nostradamus’ predictions about the end of 2012 marking Armaggedon, the inscription of the Mayan calendar, Jerry Jenkins book series “Left Behind,” the movie “Contagion” predicting a virulent pestilence sweeping away most of mankind, the book “The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood, and of course, last but not least, the views of Jehovah’s Witnesses who go door to door with a gleam in their eyes and a sense of righteousness that the time to repent is at hand.  This brings me to another issue:  what’s the best way to circumnavigate those who preach zealously the end of time?  Personally, if you had asked me, I would preach to live not in fear and mortal dread, but make each day count.  Despite all the predictions, we don’t know what happens in the afterlife so we better make our borrowed time on earth matter.

As I mentioned, Jerry Jenkins wrote a whole series of books about Armageddon called the “Left Behind” series.  Despite my reluctance to sign on board any preaching about the end of days, I do feel Jerry Jenkin’s books and personal philosophy share one simple idea that makes sense.  A Jewish friend once told me, “Hell is eternal separation from God.”  Not a pretty thought, and it conveys a sense of desperation and loneliness.  This idea reminds me of the myth of Sisyphus where he is condemned to roll a boulder up an enormous mountain, and each time he reaches the top, the stone falls down and he must start again.  Personally, the God I worship is not so unkind or wrathful.  I’m more of a  Matthew 22:37-39 kind of guy:  ”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

As the hippies once preached, It’s all about love man!