Yes, I'm still on here
I've had to cut the b-ball down to once a week or less; somewhere along the line, someone replaced my knees with those of a 40-year-old, and I don't care for it. Writing this right now, it's been over a week since my last game, and my knees hurt like it was yesterday. And it's not like I'm executing crazy, overambitious Lebron James moves -- most of the time I don't even run after the ball but rather stroll -- yet here I am. This getting old nonsense is for the birds.
I'll admit, not competing for court space is infinitely less stressful. The last time I played, I had not one but two (thankfully not simultaneously) clowns say, "Hey, I'm just going to ignore that whole, totally vacant other half of the court and play here right up your ass, okay?" Honestly, am I the last person on earth who values personal space?
Then for one whole week I was enraged because someone -- and no offense, guys, but I'm willing to bet someone with a penis -- left the net on one hoop such a tangled, torn mess that my ball got stuck in it and wouldn't come down. Well, congrats, Kobe, you've ruined it for the rest of us. But I'm sure the size of your junk is no longer in question.
So, biking. Today I was lured out by the sun into a 40 mph wind that somehow didn't quite penetrate back to the suburban haven of our balcony, where we stand while deciding whether to go to the park. I should have turned back when I could barely stand upright while waiting to cross the street as I was buffeted mercilessly, but I hoped it would be better in the park, where most of it is down inside a big basin. Not so much, and what followed was a punishing 13.7 miles during which I screamed "FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU, STUPID WIND" in my head repeatedly. It was so bad even flat terrain felt like going uphill, and you'd think I'd welcome the extra resistance, but not my first day back. I know March comes in like a lion, but I'm ready for the lamb already.
~*~
How about some movie reviews? Two short, nonspoilery ones, and one long one because I loved it so much.
Zero Dark Thirty: Meh. We enjoyed The Hurt Locker and were rooting for Kathryn again, but the Academy was right to pass this one up. Mildly interesting, but not terribly gripping, unless controversial torture techniques are your thing (they really were more mild than I feared, nothing too graphic, if you're squeamish).
A much, much better movie was Argo. I remember the Iran hostage crisis well growing up, though of course I was much too young to understand the politics -- and since the Ayatollah was on our TV every night, I thought he and the Shah were the same person. This movie offers a brief prologue that cleared up my confusion for the first time. Other than that, the rest of it is a taut, fast-paced and pretty thrilling movie. Affleck gave his usual bland performance (although he was supposed to be hardened, stoic CIA, so perhaps it was the best performance of his life), but let's not fault the rest of the film for that. I think the Academy should have given it more love.
Last, but certainly not least, Beasts of the Southern Wild: I loved this movie so much more than I could have ever predicted. I knew nothing about it. I certainly didn't know it was Oprah-endorsed, which might have unfairly prejudiced me against it (got nothing against Oprah -- just don't think she should have so much influence on people's tastes, like a cult leader). But love it I did.
Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis, who totally should have won, sorry Jennifer Lawrence) is a 6-year-old living in abject poverty with her dad in "The Bathtub," a Louisiana district south of the levees. Try telling them their life is horrible, though -- to them, it's the prettiest place on earth, and they pity the people above the levees who fear the water. Their home is scraps of corrugated tin, their fishing boat the bed of a pickup truck balanced on oil drums, but they have no interest in leaving.
Within the first five minutes of the movie, I first recoiled in horror, and then wanted to live there with them. Tyler Durden says, "the things we own, eventually own us" -- if this is true, these people are the most free on earth.
The whole movie is narrated by Hushpuppy and seen through her eyes, and colored by her simple child wisdom. My favorite nugget: "The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece…the entire universe will get busted."
And friends, our universe is busted. There are shots of polar ice caps melting, which frees the "aurochs,"; a mythical species of prehistoric boars that Hushpuppy's teacher tells them "used to eat up the cave babies, and all the cave baby parents couldn't do nothing about it." They begin their slow but relentless march to The Bathtub, like an ill omen. The aurochs represent climate change, a big, insurmountable, immediate threat to this region, destroying it in real time even while our politicians deny the existence of it.
The Bathtub feels so much like its own cosy world that when rescue workers do arrive after a massive storm, it feels as intrusive and unwelcome to us as to the stubborn residents -- they're not only not looking for a handout, they're actively resisting assistance. They're forced to an emergency hospital, where Hushpuppy says "When an animal gets sick here, they plug it into the wall." She and the other Bathtub girls are forced into proper dresses, and she looks as miserable and incongruous in it as I did at her age (her usual garb is a grubby tanktop and saggy britches).
Her father is plugged into the wall -- early in the movie he vanishes for a spell (long enough that Hushpuppy contemplates eating her pets: chickens, a hog, and a perpetually waterlogged chihuahua), and returns after what appears to be pacemaker surgery. He takes a turn for the worse in the hospital, mostly because he refuses to take his medicine, and then they all make a break for it back to home.
The kids get sidetracked and end up at a brothel or something, where Hushpuppy may or may not find her mother who abandoned them years ago (the movie leaves it open to interpretation), and she makes fried alligator, which Hushpuppy takes back to her dying father.
The most iconic image of the movie is her meeting the aurochs at last (who may also represent her father's approaching death): Despite them towering over her, she stands before them so defiantly and fearlessly, they kneel before her (well, the CGI pigs with fake tusks do), and it just moves me to tears. "I got to take care of mine now," she says solemnly. Some reviewer called her a "small force of nature"; this is the scene.
The film ends on a hopeful, inspiring note: "When I die, the scientists of the future will know...once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub."
I must be getting even softer with age, because I think the movie, despite its grim setting, was so full of hope and a love of life, and Hushpuppy the fiercest, most beautiful girl child we've seen this century. My love was aided in no small way by the amazing soundtrack, sort of Amelie in the bayou. I wonder in some scenes if Quvenzhane's performance would be so moving without the powerful music, but I still think better than Silver Linings Playbook, in which almost nothing happened that I didn't predict.
For those questioning the authenticity of the lifestyle, a reviewer on Amazon calling themselves "an original coonass" from the area praised the movie for capturing the beauty and spirit of community and independence so well. It makes me happy that there are still places like this in America -- but for how much longer?
I'll admit, not competing for court space is infinitely less stressful. The last time I played, I had not one but two (thankfully not simultaneously) clowns say, "Hey, I'm just going to ignore that whole, totally vacant other half of the court and play here right up your ass, okay?" Honestly, am I the last person on earth who values personal space?
Then for one whole week I was enraged because someone -- and no offense, guys, but I'm willing to bet someone with a penis -- left the net on one hoop such a tangled, torn mess that my ball got stuck in it and wouldn't come down. Well, congrats, Kobe, you've ruined it for the rest of us. But I'm sure the size of your junk is no longer in question.
So, biking. Today I was lured out by the sun into a 40 mph wind that somehow didn't quite penetrate back to the suburban haven of our balcony, where we stand while deciding whether to go to the park. I should have turned back when I could barely stand upright while waiting to cross the street as I was buffeted mercilessly, but I hoped it would be better in the park, where most of it is down inside a big basin. Not so much, and what followed was a punishing 13.7 miles during which I screamed "FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU, STUPID WIND" in my head repeatedly. It was so bad even flat terrain felt like going uphill, and you'd think I'd welcome the extra resistance, but not my first day back. I know March comes in like a lion, but I'm ready for the lamb already.
~*~
How about some movie reviews? Two short, nonspoilery ones, and one long one because I loved it so much.
Zero Dark Thirty: Meh. We enjoyed The Hurt Locker and were rooting for Kathryn again, but the Academy was right to pass this one up. Mildly interesting, but not terribly gripping, unless controversial torture techniques are your thing (they really were more mild than I feared, nothing too graphic, if you're squeamish).
A much, much better movie was Argo. I remember the Iran hostage crisis well growing up, though of course I was much too young to understand the politics -- and since the Ayatollah was on our TV every night, I thought he and the Shah were the same person. This movie offers a brief prologue that cleared up my confusion for the first time. Other than that, the rest of it is a taut, fast-paced and pretty thrilling movie. Affleck gave his usual bland performance (although he was supposed to be hardened, stoic CIA, so perhaps it was the best performance of his life), but let's not fault the rest of the film for that. I think the Academy should have given it more love.
Last, but certainly not least, Beasts of the Southern Wild: I loved this movie so much more than I could have ever predicted. I knew nothing about it. I certainly didn't know it was Oprah-endorsed, which might have unfairly prejudiced me against it (got nothing against Oprah -- just don't think she should have so much influence on people's tastes, like a cult leader). But love it I did.
Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis, who totally should have won, sorry Jennifer Lawrence) is a 6-year-old living in abject poverty with her dad in "The Bathtub," a Louisiana district south of the levees. Try telling them their life is horrible, though -- to them, it's the prettiest place on earth, and they pity the people above the levees who fear the water. Their home is scraps of corrugated tin, their fishing boat the bed of a pickup truck balanced on oil drums, but they have no interest in leaving.
Within the first five minutes of the movie, I first recoiled in horror, and then wanted to live there with them. Tyler Durden says, "the things we own, eventually own us" -- if this is true, these people are the most free on earth.
The whole movie is narrated by Hushpuppy and seen through her eyes, and colored by her simple child wisdom. My favorite nugget: "The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece…the entire universe will get busted."
And friends, our universe is busted. There are shots of polar ice caps melting, which frees the "aurochs,"; a mythical species of prehistoric boars that Hushpuppy's teacher tells them "used to eat up the cave babies, and all the cave baby parents couldn't do nothing about it." They begin their slow but relentless march to The Bathtub, like an ill omen. The aurochs represent climate change, a big, insurmountable, immediate threat to this region, destroying it in real time even while our politicians deny the existence of it.
The Bathtub feels so much like its own cosy world that when rescue workers do arrive after a massive storm, it feels as intrusive and unwelcome to us as to the stubborn residents -- they're not only not looking for a handout, they're actively resisting assistance. They're forced to an emergency hospital, where Hushpuppy says "When an animal gets sick here, they plug it into the wall." She and the other Bathtub girls are forced into proper dresses, and she looks as miserable and incongruous in it as I did at her age (her usual garb is a grubby tanktop and saggy britches).
Her father is plugged into the wall -- early in the movie he vanishes for a spell (long enough that Hushpuppy contemplates eating her pets: chickens, a hog, and a perpetually waterlogged chihuahua), and returns after what appears to be pacemaker surgery. He takes a turn for the worse in the hospital, mostly because he refuses to take his medicine, and then they all make a break for it back to home.
The kids get sidetracked and end up at a brothel or something, where Hushpuppy may or may not find her mother who abandoned them years ago (the movie leaves it open to interpretation), and she makes fried alligator, which Hushpuppy takes back to her dying father.
The most iconic image of the movie is her meeting the aurochs at last (who may also represent her father's approaching death): Despite them towering over her, she stands before them so defiantly and fearlessly, they kneel before her (well, the CGI pigs with fake tusks do), and it just moves me to tears. "I got to take care of mine now," she says solemnly. Some reviewer called her a "small force of nature"; this is the scene.
The film ends on a hopeful, inspiring note: "When I die, the scientists of the future will know...once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub."
I must be getting even softer with age, because I think the movie, despite its grim setting, was so full of hope and a love of life, and Hushpuppy the fiercest, most beautiful girl child we've seen this century. My love was aided in no small way by the amazing soundtrack, sort of Amelie in the bayou. I wonder in some scenes if Quvenzhane's performance would be so moving without the powerful music, but I still think better than Silver Linings Playbook, in which almost nothing happened that I didn't predict.
For those questioning the authenticity of the lifestyle, a reviewer on Amazon calling themselves "an original coonass" from the area praised the movie for capturing the beauty and spirit of community and independence so well. It makes me happy that there are still places like this in America -- but for how much longer?