monkey wrestles ghost

Every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser

Another lull in writing, the second this year.  "You're happy," a friend observed wryly, when I expressed frustration at my inability to break my writer's block.  Yes, I'm happy.  But the A-B test fails  -- I was happy last year too, at least as I remember it.  But memory is a facile liar.  For proof of that, I need only look back to the first sentence of this post.  When I fact-check myself, I realize that there isn't a unusual lull in my writing at all -- over the past few months I've done one post every month or so, pretty regularly with just a touch of arrhythmia.  Not a stroke at all, just the quiescence of complacency.

In a strange counter-coincidence, it's during my own quiet period that my friends and family seem to be experiencing dramatic changes in their lives.  The last few months have seen a rapid-fire succession of birth and death, turmoil and accomplishment, the forming and breaking of life partnerships, relocations and career changes.  The extraordinarily ordinary stuff of life, improbably clustered in time relative to me.  If I were a gambler (which I am), my disbelief in randomness would deepen.  No one gambles if they believe in true mathematical randomness -- whether they admit it or not, they see the face of some god in the tumble of the dice or the shuffle of the card.

I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs.  It's not because I nurse a moral streak (although I do), it's simply that my body doesn't take kindly to interference.  When people learn that gambling is my vice, a common reaction is total shock.  I don't understand why, it comes naturally to me (after all, I am Chinese).  It's not a ruinous vice -- I play just enough for it to hurt when I lose and thrill when I win.  What's the point otherwise?  It's a heady mix of controlled surrender.

In contrast, complacency results from a surrender to control.  When you've eliminated the unexpected from your life, a certain dullness can settle, and complacency arrives when that dullness becomes comfortable.  In looking at the lives around me, I'm finding that our complacency can and will be shattered, whether we're prepared or not.  And like gambling, the outcome can be good or bad, traumatic or exhilarating.  You could argue that this obviates the need to gamble, but I for one would prefer to gamble than to be gambled upon, even if the outcome is the same.

But it's a talking dog!!!

For 14 years, Pixar Studios has excelled at the delicate balancing act between child and adult, simplicity and context.  It's a shame that this balance is necessary at all -- it feels like an arbitrary task imposed by the notion that animation needs to appeal to kids first and foremost.  The Japanese, unhindered by this constraint, have been producing fine animation for all audiences (and I do mean all) for decades.  I can only dream of what Pixar might produce with the artistic freedom enjoyed by their Japanese contemporaries such as Satoshi Kon or Hayao Miyazaki.  But Pixar's constraints have not diminished the end product -- ten visually stunning feature films that delight audiences of all ages while producing nuanced social commentary on issues such as single parenthood and mental illness (Finding Nemo), corporate exploitation (Monsters Inc.), consumerism and the environment (Wall-E), family and fidelity (The Incredibles), and artistry (Ratatouille).  

This string of commercial and artistic success remains unbroken with the release of Up.  The studio has worked before from scripts that include emotionally dark openings (Finding Nemo) or unlikely protagonists (Ratatouille, Wall-E), but with Up they've outdone themselves.  The film starts with a heart wrenching montage of the lifelong relationship of Carl and Elie, beginning from an awkward childhood romance through marriage, the disappointment of infertility, economic troubles, and ultimately Elie's untimely death prior to the fulfillment of the couple's shared dream:  a trip to Paradise Falls. It is Carl the mourning widower joined by Russell, an unhappily neglected young boy (and a hilarious talking dog), who will serve as protagonists as the film morphs into an unlikely South American adventure.  

Incredibly, despite frequent reminders of Elie's death and Russell's broken family life, the film is ultimately uplifting.  The key lies not in what the characters achieve or overcome, but in the choices they make along the way -- to take others' problems as their own, to let go of the past, and to break from the pack.  The belief that good outcomes flow from the right choices is the optimism that lies at the heart of each Pixar film.  And in that world, and hopefully ours as well, heroism is found not in accomplishments, but in the choices we make.

Frontiers are never final

I was once in relationship.  Early on, we got off to an exciting and adorably goofy start, followed by a period of deep appreciation and mutual respect.  But as the relationship matured, my partner became dull and predictable, perhaps out of complacency.  I kept hearing the same old stories, and would just roll my eyes; eventually it felt like my partner was just going through the motions.  I suspect my partner eventually detected my dissatisfaction, but attempts to reignite my passion using the same old positions were futile.  I left the relationship, and can't say that I missed it.  It's a shame, really, because Star Trek was a beloved and important part of my youth.

Now the franchise has come to beg my forgiveness and ask if we can start over, with J.J. Abrams' Star Trek -- a film which seeks to replicate the sucess of Batman Begins and Casino Royale in reinvigorating a worn-out legend through a re-interpretive retrospective.  Like many a partner seeking to salvage a broken relationship, Abrams tries to invoke a sense of fun and a youthful spirit.  His success in doing so can in part be attributed to his own snappy directing, but mostly to fine performances from a standout young cast -- in particular, Chris Pine's revision of William Shatner's over-the-top Jim Kirk and Zachary Quinto's compelling humanization of Leonard Nimoy's revered Spock.  Add in vivid but tasteful special effects, and there's more than enough to overlook the various minor glitches (generally taking the form of cliched dialogue and action sequences).

There is, however, still the matter of time travel, a plot device so outrageously abused by previous Star Trek films that the first hint of it here made me cringe reflexively.  In previous films, it seemed as if the screenwriters cynically expected audiences to swallow whole anything that emerged from a black hole or gyrating energy field (whether it be whales or William Shatner on a horse).  This film retains a dose of cynicism in the use of time travel, by using it to conveniently reset the entire Trek storyline to enable sequels.  But cynicism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice, especially when tastefully rendered.  And my willingness to overlook it suggests that despite all the baggage that comes from years of hurtful neglect, I want this relationship to work again.  

Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!

In the days before comic books crossed over to mainstream respectability, the works of Alan Moore (and Frank Miller) were talismans that sheltered the ego of a youthful subculture from the derision of the masses.  If those who heaped mockery on superheroes in leotards hadn't read Watchmen, hadn't experienced the way it deconstructed and elevated what they scorned as a childish medium, well then, what did their ignorant opinions matter anyway?  And so, in 1994 when I bought my first bookshelf, I defiantly and reverently shelved Watchmen between the works of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas More, daring the world to question whether it belonged there.  Of course, the world couldn't have cared less where I kept my comic books, at least not until 15 years later when they could cash in on my reverence by producing a Hollywood film based on the now-respectable Watchmen "graphic novel".

It's no surprise then, that along with a generation of fanboys, I waited with trepidation for the release of Zach Snyder's Watchmen, poised to disown the film on any hint of lack of fidelity -- a hair-trigger self-defense mechanism evidencing a vestigal adolescent insecurity.  The most dangerous thing you can do to a fanboy is unfaithfully present the object of his adoration in a poor light before society at large.  It's like pointing out that his acne is fading at a family gathering -- it causes him to clench his jaw at the injustice of it all.

Snyder himself admits to being a Watchmen fanboy, and frequently whined about the pressure he felt to produce a film worthy of the original.  To his credit (and that of screenwriter David Hayter), the movie is visually and thematically faithful to Moore's work -- brooding and violent, with a complex and grandiose plot that strains credulity as it walks the fine line between pop philosophy and serious moral and political commentary.  It also attempts to replicate Moore's focus on characters, albeit with some of the inevitable loss that comes from translating a lengthy series into a film (as well as notably bad acting by Malin Ackerman as Laurie Jupiter).

Of course, like any fanboy, I have my complaints, and one in particular stands out given the very faithfulness of Snyder's rendition.  In the graphic novel, Walter Kovacs tells the story of when he became Rorschach. While investigating a kidnapping, he discovers that the child has been dismembered and fed to dogs.  Horrified, he takes vengeance by handcuffing the kidnapper to a pipe, dousing the room with kerosene, and handing him the hacksaw used on the child.  He then lights the room on fire, giving the kidnapper the "choice" of sawing through his own arm to escape the flames.  As he watches the kidnapper burn to death, Rorschach forms his worldview:  man creates his own morality through force of will, and only mankind can save itself.

The movie opts for a different take.  In place of kerosene and hacksaw, Rorschach simply takes an axe to the kidnapper's head -- a direct act of brutal violence that lacks the horrifying nuance of the original.  I can only explain this baffling departure by assuming that Snyder took creative license to substitute his own notions of horror for Moore's.  If so, it suggests an unthinking fidelity (rather than thoughtful inspiration) that should given any fanboy pause.  Because the truth is, despite how faithful the movie is to the original, I didn't like it.  Whether that's because, as Alan Moore insists, the virtues of Watchmen can't be translated to the screen, or because the film holds a mirror before the fanboy, I can't say.

"We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions.  Yet seen from another vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away." -- Dr. Manhattan

A thousand words can still be worthless

My New Zealand pictures are up, for anyone who's interested.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, I effectively composed my own personal "War and Peace" during the trip.  Photos don't do the country justice though -- I'd enthusiastically recommend a trip to New Zealand to anyone.

One of the albums includes pictures from Aoraki Mt. Cook National Park.  I was extremely lucky to get a full sunny hiking day there, although the pictures don't convey the "drama" of the day.  Here's the stream of consciousness summary I sent A. that evening:

Had the most ridiculous hiking day today in Aoraki Mount Cook NP.  Woke up a half hour before dawn to get some sunrise pictures.  Realized I couldn't get to the viewpoint in time to get the good pics, so tried to go offtrail up a hill.  FYI, what looks like "grassy meadows" in New Zealand is actually waist-high grass that conceals huge rocks, holes, and puddles.  Got trapped at the top of the hill (which didn't have a view anyways), took me about an hour to get down, soaking wet from the hips down.  Then I got lost.

By the time I found the trail, I was in a vicious mood, really kicking myself for being: 1) a crappy photographer (for not getting the sunrise shots even though I was up in time), and 2) a crappy outdoorsman (for doing a whole bunch of things you aren't supposed to do when hiking).  Since I was up so early anyways, I just continued on the trail in a black mood.  Ended up on a hilltop, brooding, when the sun suddenly broke the ridge and bathed me in sunlight.  And suddenly everything was rad again.  Wished you were there for that moment.

Decided to try to get as close as I could to the Hooker Glacier.  Spent an hour and a half scrambling over boulders, and crossed a small stream, to get right up to the face of the glacier.  It was amazing and scary.  I couldn't get too close because it was clearly unstable, and rocks and ice were dropping off it all the time, while it made huge cracking and booming noises.  In another example of poor judgment, I decided that I wanted to go up look at the glacier from the side.  Scarmbled up the side of the valley, and started walking on what I thought was the non-glacier part.  Until I tripped on a block of ice hidden beneath some gravel and realized, shit, I am on the glacier.  The whole top of it was covered in rock.  Kept going anyways.  :)

Eventually turned around and scrambled back down.  Sat at the base of the glacier for half an hour, camera ready, waiting for a big piece to fall off.  Decided I couldn't wait (hadn't eaten lunch, and was out of water), so picked my way back down the valley.  The small stream I crossed in the morning is now a raging torrent (yet another failure of outdoors judgment).  Wade across using my tripod as a stablizing pole.  When I reach the far end of the valley, I hear a tremendous boom.  A huge piece has fallen off the glacier.  So big it causes small waves at the our end of the lake.  I guess it's a good thing I wasn't very close -- but still wish I had been there for it.

Start the walk back.  Realize something is making a scraping noise by my feet.  Look down.  The soles of my boots are coming off.  I guess all the bouldering was too much for them (they're ten years old).  Kind of a problem, because day after tomorrow I go on my three day trek.  New boots are not a good idea (blister city), but not much else I can do unless I wear my poorly suited sneakers.  About half way back, I start to get really really hungry.  You know what $4000 worth of camera equipment doesn't do?  Feed you.  You know what it does do?  Weigh a ton around your neck, like the One Ring.  Could have used a Samwise Gamge to urge me on ("C'mon Mr. Frodo!").

Another thing that expensive camera equipment does is expose all the flaws in your photography.  The pictures are very mediocre, and the colors and exposures are off.  I'm tempted to blame the camera, but hard to believe that's really the case.  But you know what, even with a card full of shitty duplicative pictures, a busted pair of boots, sunburn, wet and blistered feet, and plenty of things to kick myself about, it was a good day.

I could go on and on about the rest of the trip, but for brevity's sake will just note that:

• Milford Sound is definitely worth visiting on both a rainy and a sunny day;
• If you're feeling splurgy, the guided walks by Ultimate Hikes are a fantastically pampered way to explore the incredible Great Walks of Fiordland National Park;
• Although bad weather made most of my pics worthless, Doubtful Sound is possibly even more spectacular than Milford Sound.  There's a great day cruise by Real Journeys.
• The Southern Scenic Highway is often overlooked, but makes for an idyllic road trip (or bike trip).  It only takes half a day to drive, but if you're the slow explorer type you could spend days doing side trips and exploring the back roads.  The Yesteryears Museum and Cafe in Tuatapere serves some of the best baked goods (including a scrumptious mince pie) I've ever had.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled life.

The best steak was still Colorado

In a rare occurrence, my mom ordered steak for dinner.  She may have been feeling subconsciously festive – tonight is my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary.  I say subconsciously because if you know our family well, you know that we are not sentimental about markers and milestones.  Last night, over dinner, I learned my parents’ wedding date for the very first time:

Mom:  “Maybe we should have a nicer dinner tomorrow, it’s your dad and my 40^th anniversary.”

Dad:  “Really?”

Mom:  “Yes, same as your birthday.”

Me:  “You got married on dad’s birthday?”

Mom:  “I didn’t know it was his birthday.”

Me:  “Hm!”

And then we moved on to another subject.

The steak was unremarkable.  The only response it elicited from my mom was a muttered “The best steak was still Colorado.”  I would have let this cryptic comment pass, if my dad hadn’t nodded silently in knowing acknowledgment.  See, I have no memory of ever going to Colorado with my parents, let alone having any noteworthy beef there.  I am an only child, and not accustomed to being reminded of family events outside my own experience.

“Colorado?”, I asked.  “Before you were born,” my dad informed me, “Mom and I were driving cross country for my new job.  We stopped at a Holiday Inn in Colorado.”  “We thought we were in ‘the West’ now, we should try steak,” added my mom, before reiterating, “That was the best steak.”  I needed to know, “What year was this?!”  “1970,” they immediately responded in unison.  That must have been some remarkable steak to be so readily invoked 39 years later.

In 1946, the child who will become my father waits on a street in Guangzhou while his uncle bribes a police officer, so that the family’s possessions can be loaded onto a truck as they flee the country before the advancing communists.  Twenty-four years later, in Colorado, he and the woman who will become my mother pull into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in their Pontiac LeMans, where they will soon have the best steak of their lives.  In 2009, that same couple sits at dinner on a New Zealand vacation with their son, remembering that steak, and the family reflects on what could have been. 

Earlier today, my dad learned by email that his last remaining uncle, the younger brother of the man who bribed the policeman, passed away in China.  As the Yang family fled China, this uncle chose to remain behind to support the communists.  For his patriotism and idealism, he was rewarded with years of forced labor during the Cultural Revolution, and died virtually penniless, evicted by his post-revolutionary firstborn son from the only house he had ever owned – a house my father bought for him in the 1990s out of a sense of familial duty.  The sweep of history and the intervention of personal choice make comparisons false but inevitable.  Many things could have been.

Unbeknownst to my parents, masked by casual dinner chatter and quickly wiped away, a tear rolled down my cheek as I contemplated the course of their lives.  These are the tears of guilt and gratitude shed by a generation of immigrant children whose American lives were born from upheaval and sacrifice.  Guilt because what has been given is too enormous to ever be repaid, and gratitude because a gift given of love does not ask to be repaid.  It can only be honored.

New Zealand Trip, Day 1: Wherein I am tempted to emulate Fabio

Sometimes the picture you wish you had taken is more memorable than the pictures you actually take.  Much as your imagination can construct a portrait of exquisite character for someone you admire from afar, a picture that should have been taken isn’t constrained by the reality of an actual photo that exposes your technical or artistic limitations.

Here I am in New Zealand, sporting my fancy new camera equipment, and I can’t shake the frustration of the pictures I could have taken – no, should have taken! -- if only I had been more aware of my surroundings and their photographic potential.  After a surprisingly tolerable 13-hour flight from San Francisco to Auckland

(movies watched:  Lost in Translation, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and, uh, Enchanted), I boarded my short connecting flight to Christchurch.  At 6:30am, the sun hadn’t yet risen on a chilly and misty morning, but as we taxied to the runway, dawn broke, and the sky and clouds were suffused with a sublime golden pink light that reflected off the shimmering dew-soaked fields. 

OK, I know it sounds like trashy prose from a romance novel.  I probably would have stripped off my shirt and tried to rip the nearest bodice if I hadn’t been sitting next to gruff Canadian woman wearing a Fall Out Boy t-shirt (also, once I had gone topless, even the mostly elderly passengers wouldn’t have been afraid to engage in post-9/11 passenger vigilantism).

In any case, I’ve never seen light like this – not in the American Southwest, not in Patagonia, nor in the fall colors of America’s eastern seaboard.  I would call the scene bucolic, but I’ve always felt that word, which invokes a combination of “bubonic” and “choleric” to be terribly mismatched to its meaning.  I’ll opt instead for Arcadian (which, for a gamer, also has certain inapposite but positive connotations).

My camera, of course, was stowed beneath the seat in front of me.  Which would be entirely appropriate and forgivable if I had not gone through the trouble, just ten minutes earlier, of removing it from my bag to take a completely mediocre picture of the pre-dawn light.  Here is the quiz that I failed:  what time of day immediately follows pre-dawn?  If you need that question answered for you, maybe we can get a group discount to some Kumon tutoring.

You’ve probably gathered by now that New Zealand is beautiful, even though it’s rainy and I haven’t left Christchurch yet.  The Kiwis have the most soothing accent, which reflects their genuine friendliness and hospitality.  They remind me of Californians, without the disguised hardness that the state of American savagery breeds.  My parents arrive tomorrow, and the next day we’re headed to Aoraki Mt. Cook.

Here's the mediocre picture:

It's not just Rome that's burning

Friends with first-hand knowledge tell me that Tom Daschle is a public servant of impeccable ethics.  Even more, they tell me that he is (to their occasional frustration) a gentle man who abhors conflict and treasures relationships of trust.  So much so that he couldn’t believe that his Republican “friends” would allow some of the vicious tactics used to defeat him in his 2004 re-election bid.

No matter -- Daschle will not be serving in the Obama Administration.  In the aftermath of corporatism run amok, this is probably a deserved, or at least justifiable, outcome.  Paying taxes is a basic duty, and one should expect that (the appearance of) profiteering from the industries that you once held sway over will call into question your fitness to regulate them once again.  To our great misfortune, this standard was never applied to the legions of Bush appointees who boarded our government from the ships of industry with clear intent to pillage or neuter our public institutions.  But it is a standard nonetheless.

In any event, dwelling on hypocrisy serves little purpose.  For me, the failure of the Daschle nomination was a sad reminder of one of Washington’s greatest failings: its inability or unwillingness to focus on things that matter.  Those of you unfamiliar with the Washington behind the headlines may not be aware how much time and energy can be expended on a situation like this.  At the White House, Daschle’s nomination probably required weeks of full-time work from a team of lawyers, press aides, and legislative aides, as well as hours of attention from the most senior White House officials once the nomination came under attack.  Senate Democrats likely assigned several staffers full-time to support the nomination, while the Republicans probably assigned as many staffers as they could to bring the nomination down.  (And this doesn’t even account for the time and money spent on media coverage of the skirmish, or the damage control/gleeful spinning done by the political arms of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.)

Dozens of presumably smart and talented public servants, on both sides, dedicating weeks of their lives to nullify one another, not even over policy or legislation, but over a single presidential appointment.  And if the Republicans “win”, the whole process starts over again.  This is not how governance should be carried out in ordinary times, let alone times of crisis.  Yes, I think this process produced the right result.  But it feels too much like sending a fire truck to put out a kitchen fire – while the whole country burns.

(Graphic:  "Sisyphus at Work", found here.)

Cornered

I have been suffering from a lack of words lately.  It’s a bit puzzling, as there is much to be outraged, puzzled, amused, amused, amused, or excited about.  I am extremely grateful to those of you who have complimented this blog.  Too grateful, in fact.  In treasuring your positive opinion I have come to crave it, and have been afflicted by the literary constipation that comes from overwrought vanity.

It’s time to just write again.

This is the first picture I took in New York that was memorable to me.  I had just arrived in the city, and was wandering through Williamsburg, a bit emotionally dazed, and more than a bit overwhelmed by the speed and suddenness with which I had executed my move.  And this thing on the corner was so foreign to me, and so New York -- battered and seemingly random, set in a cityscape that pricked and promised to satisfy my manic curiosity.  Today, I don’t remember anything else about the world on that day, except how I felt when I took this picture.  I felt alone and free.

Four years and counting

Last week, I marked my four year anniversary at Google.  It’s not easy to talk about money without seeming crass, insensitive, oblivious, or all of the above and more.  But if I’m to publicly mark my four year anniversary at the company, it would be dishonest not to speak of it, and lacking a better way to talk about money I’ll settle for honesty.

The four-year anniversary is a significant (if diminishing) milestone at Google.  “Significant” because it marks the conclusion of your options vesting period, and therefore the consummation of whatever financial windfall you received from being an early employee of the company.  Not surprisingly, it used to be that four years marked the point at which many people left the company to pursue other dreams.  “Diminishing” because these departures have been less frequent as the bulge of pre-IPO employees hitting the mark has passed.

I remember my first Christmas working at the company, when holiday bonuses consisted of envelopes with $1,000 in cash being handed out after an all-hands company meeting.  Does that sound crass?  Perhaps, though at the time it didn’t feel that way – it was more a moment of collective happiness that the jobs we loved at a company we were proud of also happened to bring us a measure of worldly comfort.  You’d know many of the people there, and you’d linger to chat, share in the holiday cheer, and appreciate the people you worked with.  It was a naïve state, destined to end quickly.  And it did.  The convivial spirit of unexpected success is fled. 

The money remains.  What am I to make of my windfall?  It helps me feel free, and is an important though unnecessary contributor to my happiness.  But as the term “windfall” implies, I do not feel that I earned it.  A friend (and former Googler) observes that engineers and businesspeople at Google are far less squeamish about their wealth than I am, because as entrepreneurs they are far more likely to feel that they earned their money than I am as a lawyer.  For my part, although I have done very good work, my financial standing flows much more from my luck at joining a company on the rise than the economic value I contributed to our society.  I am left nursing a sense of uncomfortable gratitude.

There probably isn’t a less sympathetic notion, in times like these, than angst at financial success.  But especially in times like these, whether you feel your wealth is deserved or not, if you’re not asking yourself how and why you’re successful, and what you plan to do with the fruits of that success, then maybe your success isn’t all that meaningful.

(Lest I leave the wrong impression, I am not a pre-IPO Googler, and my notions of wealth are shaped by my prior expectations as a public sector employee.)

The grinch who stole Diwali

As we approach the holiday season, my attitude towards “Slumdog Millionaire” can best be described as Grinch-like.  A Dickensian love story set in the slums of Mumbai, it has already been named one of the best movies of the year by Roger Ebert and deemed the best film of 2008 by the National Board of Review.  It warms the heart, jerks the tears, dazzles the eye, and has a Bollywood musical ending to boot!  A slew of Oscar nominations seem inevitable. 

So what’s my issue?  Even a romance that seeks to venerate the constant and redemptive power of love should at least prick the conscience when set amid a world of brutal poverty, exploitation, and violence.  But director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”, “28 Days Later”) and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (“The Full Monty”) seem determined to give the audience full license to take nothing but pleasure from the film.  Scenes of squalor and desperation are mostly sentimental, and any emotional impact is generously offset by situational gags, including a child diving into a pit toilet to get an autograph and chili peppers being sprinkled on genitalia (“he’s got chili on his willy!”).  In the end, the film seemed little more than animated Disney fare with a thin shiny veneer of verite.  As a matter of fact, I can safely say that the imprisonment of Dumbo’s mom has far more emotional weight than the death of the protagonist’s mother in “Slumdog”.

I discovered my second issue with the film while researching the name “Frederick Stevens”, which is given seemingly random yet prominent placement near the end of the film, etched into a column that Jamal (the film’s hero, earnestly played by newcomer Dev Patel) leans against as he waits for Latika (his lady love, played by model Freida Pinto).  As it turns out, Frederick William Stevens was a British architect who moved to India, where he designed some of the country's most famous buildings, including Mumbai’s historic railway station (where the scene is set).  This reminder of India's colonial history surfaced my discomfort with two Britons (Boyle and Beaufoy) producing an Indian re-enactment of what is essentially a Dickens story.  The film is fundamentally exploitative -- visually, historically, and culturally (even exploiting Bollywood traditions in its closing credits), but most of all it exploits stereotypes of Indian poverty.  Maybe these are stereotypes rooted in reality, but I’m skeptical that any stereotype can convey depth, meaning, and above all, authenticity.  And it’s precisely those characteristics that Slumdog Millionaire lacks.

"Slumdog Millionaire" is playing nationwide, and runs an entertaining 120 minutes.  You might as well go see it anyways, everyone I know who has seen the movie loves it.

Elective affinities?

I’ve been curious about marriage lately.  Not in the sense that one is “curious about e” or “bi-curious”, but in the intellectual sense. 

At this point in life, I’ve observed a fair number of marriages.  I’ve seen marriages based on respect and shared values, marriages of convenience, arranged marriages, marriages of inertia and fear, best friend marriages, marriages based on a mutual desire for the joys of family life, marriages of blind optimism, and shotgun marriages.  Most seem to be some mixture, and all are complex – unique, and yet not in the patterns and commonalities that emerge in the aggregate.  Any value judgments I had about the relative value of different types have crumbled along with the marriages I’ve seen unhappily dissolve, dramatically rupture, quietly evaporate, or simply end with the emotional equivalent of a firm handshake.

I’m frustrated by how (understandably) hard it is to have a conversation with married people about what makes their relationship work, other than to receive some rumination on “hard work” or “compromise” or “understanding”.  “The kids” often make a guest appearance, but “love” is cited surprisingly rarely.  Whether this is because it is an assumed prerequisite or because it leads to an uncomfortably intimate reflection on the changing nature of love, I do not know.  But even if you need love to get married, no one needs to be married to be in love, an algebraic disparity which probably accounts for the general absence of love in my conversations about marriage.

The question I wish I could ask is, “Would you have gotten married if someone had guaranteed that, if you hadn’t, the remainder of your life would be a series of happy single periods and great relationships, that the first spark of love and mutual attraction as well as the sharing that comes from meaningful relationships would be repeated until your dying days?”  Well, that’s not reality, many of you would correctly respond.  Of course it isn’t, but does that make marriage at its core a moment of mature concession, and not, as I believed once, an opportunity to experience the Truly Great Thing?

Or are you really all so lucky?

"Marriage is both the base and the pinnacle of culture.  It makes barbarians tame, and it gives the most cultivated of people an opportunity to demonstrate their gentleness.  It must be indissoluble; it brings so much luck that individual misfortunes cannot be weighed against it.  And why speak of misfortune?  Misfortune is really impatience that comes over people from time to time, and then they like to see themselves as unlucky.  If you let the moment pass, you will think yourself fortunate that something that has stood the test of time still exists.  There is no sufficient reason for separation.  The human condition is so highly charged with joy and sorrow that we cannot calculate what two spouses owe each other.  It is an infinite debt that can only be paid in eternity." --William Goethe

Finally!

Eighteen years ago, a callow teenager strode in to his first day as an intern in Congressman Henry Waxman’s office.  He had been chosen as an intern largely for novelty value, or perhaps for amusement – a Chinese kid from conservative Orange County (“behind the Orange curtain”, as they used to say) willing to commute an hour each day to work for free for a liberal Jewish Congressman.

One of the first questions this brash youngster asked his newfound mentors was, “So, when is Henry going to challenge Dingell?”  At the time, the question already had tremendous significance for the environment, even when the issue of global warming was still a glimmer in Al Gore’s eye.  But the truth was, the question was not asked with the health of the planet in mind, but out of pure ambition, the fuel that powers Washington.  Luckily, there are still people who channel their ambition through their idealism, and bend the beast of government on behalf of corporate accountability, children with asthma, AIDS victims, those who need prescription medication to continue to live, and families that can’t afford health care for their children. 

Henry Waxman is one of those people, and this past week, eighteen years after the fact, he finally took my “advice” and ascended to the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Congratulations to Henry and to all the amazing professionals on his staff who work behind the scenes to make his work possible.  I have high hopes that our country and our planet will be the better for it.

Tonight, tonight

I haven’t felt this way since Christmas Eve as a child.  But layered on top of my anxious exuberance, a deep sadness that it had to come to this point for our renewal to begin.  I think I’ll be shedding tears tonight, and I don’t know whether they’ll be in joy, sadness, or both.

“Everything’s going to get lighter, even if it never gets better.” – “Get Better” by Mates of State

Hoisted on his own Cotard

“Everyone’s disappointing, the more you know someone”, observes Caden Cotard’s wife as she leaves him in the opening scenes of the latest Charlie Kaufman film, “Synecdoche,New York.”  The same could be said for my (limited) relationship with Kaufman films.  “Eternal Sunshine” was an experience of love at first sight, which faded to a more removed appreciation of “Being John Malkovich”.  But stay in the wrong relationship long enough and your partner’s perceived flaws start to overwhelm their actual virtues, and “Synecdoche” has many perceptible flaws.

Early in the film, Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is left by his wife Adele (Catherine Keener), a departure executed with such obliviously self-centered cruelty that it sends the already fragile Cotard into a lifelong spiral of dysfunction as he struggles to cope with his own mortality and inadequacy.  This downward spiral is explored at length – and I do mean at length.  The film runs a not unreasonable two full hours, but it feels more like the punishing lifelong journey it presents.  And while there’s no shortage of the clever Kaufmanesque touches that delight his admirers, by the film’s late stages I became frustrated with its overindulged cleverness which verged on the bizarre, and its self-seriousness (this is Kaufman’s first time directing his own work).

Which is not to say there aren’t actual virtues to balance out these perceived flaws.  The acting is superb across the board, and in its finer moments “Synecdoche” is profoundly observant, exceedingly thoughtful, and despairingly funny.  Above all, I’m astounded by the ambitiousness of Kaufman’s work, and his ability to wring real emotional truth from such fantastical stories.  But perhaps he could have spent some time in contemplation of one of Cotard's lamentations:  "I don't know why I make it so complicated."

As the film’s closing credits rolled, a group of friends screamingly acknowledged their friend, who worked in the film’s art department.  “What did you do?” another audience member asked.  “I made all the fake poo in the movie,” she replied.  Ah, to live in service of art.

Capitulation is only the beginning

I’m back.  No need to be lyrical about it, although there is a slightly disjointed quality to my return.  New York has been psychologically transformed by the financial crisis.  A subdued feeling pervades, as if the city is unsure whether to capitulate along with its stock market.  As I walk the streets and avenues of Manhattan, the overheard snippets of conversation speak to anxiety leavened with disbelief:

 “…he’s down 40%....”

“…her husband just renovated their entire kitchen and now…”

“…it was just too risky…”

If this crisis has any redeeming qualities at all, it may be that it sows the seeds of the city’s redemption.  Those who defined themselves by money transformed New York into a city that expressed itself through money.  Finance defined the city’s ego, and threatened to dominate its id.   Newcomers came seeking the high life, without high aspirations of their own, and the days of intellectual, artistic, and cultural ferment slowly passed away.

But clinging to a bygone New York seems to me a failure of appreciation.  The city’s enduring and fundamental quality has been its capacity for transformation and reinvention.  So perhaps our only necessary hope should be that in the wake of this crisis, New York can aspire to be something new again.

 

When every man becomes everyman

When I first commented on the collapse of Bear Stearns six months ago, I had no idea the road would lead to the mess we find ourselves in today.  Apparently, neither did anyone else – certainly not anyone with any expertise or authority on Wall Street or in government.  If our current national circumstances allowed for any levity other than that supplied by the McCain/Palin campaign, I might take a certain delight in the discovery of this commonality between myself and the greatest minds of Wall Street and Washington.  If the titans of finance and their putative governmental overseers can’t anticipate a financial crisis any better than I can, maybe Sarah Palin *is* qualified to be Vice President.

And here I am, mindlessly tossing around the word “crisis” without any understanding of what that actually means.  Is it a crisis because we are on the brink of a collapse so dramatic that I should buy a gun, or merely because we will be stripped of the free-wheeling and consequence-free way of macroeconomic life to which we have become accustomed?  I begrudge no one the right to call the latter a crisis, I’d just like to know which it is so that I can withdraw money for the gun before my bank collapses.  But after months, weeks, and hours of reading breathless press coverage, I still have no idea what this crisis means for the future.  I suspect no one does – all we have is our fear that our fears may be realized.

What I do know is that I am resentful.  I discovered the depth of my resentment when I read the latest column by that font of platitudes, Thomas Friedman:

We’re all connected. As others have pointed out, you can’t save Main Street and punish Wall Street anymore than you can be in a rowboat with someone you hate and think that the leak in the bottom of the boat at his end is not going to sink you, too. The world really is flat. We’re all connected.

If we really were bound by the bonds of interconnectedness, why did this become a national crisis only when investment banks and insurance companies started to topple, and not when we first learned that tens of millions of families were facing economic ruin and the loss of their homes?  If we were truly wrapped in the warm fuzzy embrace of Friedman’s flatness, why do bankers profit when a family gets saddled with an onerous loan while the lifelong dreams of retirees and pensioners evaporate when bankers gamble and lose?

We’re interconnected alright -- through a web of wildly asynchronous, disproportionate, and unjust cause-and-effect relationships.  And our system is unwilling or incapable of addressing a crisis until it touches the powerful who occupy the nodes of that web.  If that continues to be the case, at least we’ll all share one thing in common, rich and poor alike:  we’re all fucked.

Making Jack

It’s been nearly a month since my last post, and I’m very disappointed in myself.  I’ve certainly had time to write – since August 24, I’ve visited my parents twice, taken a long Labor Day weekend to explore the Bay Area and its visual and culinary delights, and returned to New York for a brief visit.  And this past weekend I went camping in the Santa Cruz mountains, a blessed respite from what I realized is the primary cause of my writer’s block:  my work.

My job isn’t taxing the way law firm or investment bank jobs are.  I don’t log 15 hour days and 80 hour weeks.  But the sheer diversity and volume of issues (and lack of process to resolve them) that makes the job intellectually rewarding also makes it enormously taxing.  And over the past few months this tax rate on my intellect has been extremely progressive, to the point that I have little energy left to fuel my initiative and creativity.  At the same time, I can’t honestly claim to be uniquely irreplaceable or valuable. Perpetually overworked yet entirely replaceable -- isn’t that the very definition of a cog?

But while work may be the cause of my disappointment, it is not the source.  I know from prior experience that I am prone to let life act upon me, with cascading consequences that become apparent only in retrospect.  If I can’t take responsibility for what my job does to me, I should change it, not complain about it.  Because the only feeling worse than dissatisfaction with your life is dissatisfaction with yourself. 

Some things are best forgotten?

Twenty-three years ago, Robert Downey Jr. and Mike Tyson met on a New York movie set.  Downey Jr., 20 years old at the time, had yet to appear in his first lead role, and Tyson, at age 19, was a year away from winning his first boxing championship.  Downey Jr. would go on to be acclaimed as one the finest actors of his generation, while Tyson would become the most feared boxer in history and declare himself the “baddest man on the planet”.  And, as is well-chronicled, both would plummet from the heights of their achievements, laid low by self-destructive behavior.

Coincidentally, each man was recently profiled in the New York Times.  Downey Jr., accomplished and successful once again, told the Times:

“If I see somebody who is throwing their life away with both hands and is raging around and destroying their family, I can’t understand that person.  I’m not in that sphere of activity anymore, and I don’t understand it any more than I understood 10 or 20 years ago that somehow everything was going to turn out O.K. from this lousy, exotic and dark triple chapter of my life. I swear to God I don’t even really understand that planet anymore.”

Tyson is still in the early stages of reasserting control over his life.  “I don’t know who I am,” he confesses, and contemplating his boxing career, asserted “I don’t need to remember that.”  He added: “I love addicts.  I love these guys. That’s the people I want to be around. You know, former users. And I think that’s really crazy.” 

After reading the profiles, I was struck by the contrast between the two men. Downey Jr. claims to have left his past behind him, not just in time but in mind, and implies that his total lack of empathy for his former self is integral to his renaissance.  Tyson, on the other hand, still has enormous empathy for his troubled past, and seems to believe that his inability to discard it is preventing him from moving forward. 

After all, if you can’t leave the past behind, how do you change?  Perhaps our growth is impeded by the need to cling to or rationalize the acts and preferences of our past.  It’s said that maturity lies in knowing who you are, but isn’t it also acknowledging how much you have and will change? 

Or perhaps such fidelity is evidence of our true nature, and a possible moral anchor.  Is it even possible to have no empathy for your former self, as Downey Jr. claims?  Might we question the character of someone who leaves their past selves behind too easily? 

Although, I must admit, I have some past selves that I might be better off leaving behind (or at least not blasting over the internet).

Hey NYC, I’m still keeping it real, yo.

This week marks the one year anniversary of my move to New York.  I thought I’d commemorate it by publishing a post I drafted the week before my departure for San Francisco.  Some of my sentiments may have been overblown, but as I reflect upon the past year, I know the conclusion is true.  And perhaps it will shut up those of you in New York who thought my July 15 post showed I had gone soft:

Sometimes San Francisco haunts my past, but I wasn’t prepared for it to haunt my future.  A single city night last week made me dread the next three months – invitations to two art exhibits, a last minute decision to catch a show at the Mercury Lounge, getting acquainted with Paul the homeless man under the Brooklyn Bridge, the liberated vibes of a fantastic gay black dance party at the South Street Seaport, a quiet visit with the Wall Street bull, solitary contemplation of the Statue of Liberty at Robert Wagner Park, exuberantly traffic surfing up 6^th Ave. (with a pit stop for waffle and eggs at my neighborhood diner), and finally home.  The life pursuit, perfect from now on, available simply because I stepped out my front door for a few hours with my bike.

I dread the impending quiet of a city that sleeps.  The choice of suburbia or a two hour commute each day encased in a hurtling black prison – two options, but still a Hobson’s choice.  Corporate housing, corporate shuttle, corporate egos.  Freeway noise.  The consciousness of the fool that I was and always will be.

Tell me Manhattan is an amusement park.  That I’ve become a sensation junkie, an ADD-addled adrenaline addict.  That I’ve lost myself in New York, and am spoiled and unappreciative.  All true!  What can I say in response?

Screw you.  I quit.  I don’t mean that, of course.  Do I mean anything that I’m saying?  Yes, just as every word spoken in a panic attack is sincere but not always true, and likely regrettable when the panic subsides.  So if this post seems overmuch, please forgive me:  as it turns out, I am a New Yorker.