Watch Iron Man

Quick, while it's still in theaters! If you like superhero movies, or if, like me, you like the idea of the superhero movie, but in the past have found actual superhero movies to be at least a little disappointing, and if you have not done so already, GO FORTH AND WATCH IRON MAN!

Iron Man avoids pretty much all of the superhero movie pitfalls I'm aware of. The story is neither overly elaborate nor overly simplistic. It doesn't take itself too seriously (as I suspect is the case with The Incredible Hulk, though I haven't seen it), but neither does it degenerate into tasteless camp (a vice which Transformers narrowly avoided).

The acting is good and the characters are fun--the only exception being the Afghani terrorists, who come off flat and one-dimensional. The special effects are well utilized. The humor is witty. The platonic romance is refreshingly atypical. The hero's character defects and weaknesses make his attempts at "do gooding" both sympathetic and amusing.

Very few of my favorite movies can be found in the "Action/Adventure" section of the video store. In fact, this may be the first one. Iron Man for Best Picture!

The Importance of Being Ruthless/Lewis vs. Pullman

Over the last three days I've spent a lot of time on a work of "young adult fiction" that I started writing about eight years ago. The process has been rather like dumping out a huge pile of pebbles, among which are scattered a few precious stones. Most of what I have written is dross, and needs to be discarded.

My main problem with The Amber Spyglass (the final volume of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which begins with The Golden Compass) and with the third Harry Potter book (which I started but never finished) is that it seems like Pullman and Rowling just dumped and didn't bother with the much more difficult work of sorting, culling and paring down.

Of course it's been said many, many times, but I just want to join my voice to the choir: good writing is not so much good writing as it is good editing! A really good author is willing to drop extraneous details, avoids harping on pet philosophical ideas, and deletes unnecessary scenes or characters in spite of personal emotional attachments to them.

It's been a long time since I read the Chronicles of Narnia, but as I recall, C. S. Lewis did an excellent job in this regard. So while I may admire Philip Pullman's vivid imagination and narrative powers, I do cringe when I hear his trilogy compared with the (well edited!) Chronicles of Narnia.

Shoes-es

I had this idea, and I'm quite certain it's true, even though reality has not yet borne it out. My idea is that, instead of paying out the nose for a good pair of new shoes, one can frequent thrift stores and find a high quality used pair which will last much longer than Target or Payless shoes.
My last pair of Target shoes only lasted about a year, if that. So we went to the Salvation Army last month and I found a pair of shoes I thought fit me. I was wrong!

The soles were all uneven--they sloped down toward the toe, and the right sole was thicker than the left. I figured that if I just wore them long enough, the soles would get smashed down and evened out. And I think that actually has happened.

But the shoes are also easily half a size too big. I kept wondering why my feet and legs were sore and tired all the time. Then I realized: it's the horrible shoes! I thought those shoes were a bargain, but really, they were just a waste of three dollars!

Three dollars! We could have bought a carton of ice cream with that money!

So now I'm just wearing the flip flops I've had since I was eleven. I've had them for half my lifetime! Amazing!

the brain is smarter than the self(?)!

Back when I was applying to colleges, I took the ACT as well as the SAT. The last section is on, like, "Science and Technology" or something, and has you interpret graphs and tables of statistics and things like that. By the time I reached that section, I was so tired, my conscious mind just sort of shut down. I looked at the questions, and without engaging in rational thought, intuitively picked answers. When I got the test results back, I was surprised to find I'd only missed, I think, two of the questions and had scored in, like, the 90th percentile for that section, or something.

M. Scott Peck talked about the mysterious workings of the unconscious mind as divine grace. I think perhaps that's what's been happening over the past few days.

I'm not great at planning ahead, and I forget how quickly deadlines approach. Over the last few days I've had the most wretched time trying to get to sleep. I've been very tired, but still filled with nervous energy. It's as if my brain realized before I did that it would be fatal (from an academic standpoint) if I wasted 8 hrs. sleeping every night. So it brought out the hidden reserves and bade me burn the midnight oil.

If this had not happened, I would be so very, very far behind right now! We're leaving for Brandon's sister's wedding on Thursday and by that time I have to ... well, I have to do a lot. Not as much as my friend Miranda in her final days of seminary, but, a lot.

Anyway, I should go and work on one of those two 10-15 page research papers ...

Damned if you do ...

In Systematic Theology 1 class with (the amazing, the incredible, the terrifically old-fashioned) Dr. Shuster, we were discussing the nature of sin. Dr. Shuster was saying that sins of omission are just as bad as sins of commission.

Someone asked: "Does institutionalized evil fall under the category of sins of omission?"

Shuster replied "No." According to her, systemic evil (as it is normally construed) refers to corruption on a scale so wide that the individual is left with no choice but to sin. So, for example, one may go to Trader Joe's and buy the organic bell peppers, but still be participating in a system which expends large amounts of fuel transporting produce from South America.

Since the individual cannot change the system, he or she can only do his or her best to choose the least harmful option, and try to at least remain aware of and grieve over the evil that he or she is compelled to commit.

This concept does not translate directly, but it is similar to some ideas presented in the class I took on family systems. My loose construal of Carl Whitaker and Augustus Napier's insights from The Family Crucible is that sometimes the interactional patterns of families become so rigid, self-defeating and self-perpetuating that the family members feel compelled to break the cycle with an act of psychological violence--such as starting an adulterous affair.

While such an act is clearly destructive, it may seem like the only way out of an increasingly unbearable situation.

I have become more sympathetic toward this idea in the past two days. I have found myself in a situation where it seemed necessary to say something destructive to a person I love, and yet I do not quite regret it. I find myself caught somewhere between knowing it was something that needed to be said, and mourning over the active role I have taken in the sin and perversity of my interactions with this beloved person.

I know I don't usually write such personal stuff on the internet for (literally) all to see, but I thought this was sufficiently vague to be said in public, and something in me wants to announce to the world (who might not otherwise realize that I am aware of it) I am a sinful woman, and part of a sinful people. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Movie Review: The Hours

Brandon and I watched The Hours last month. He liked it better, and I liked it a little less than the first time he and I watched it (which was before we met each other).

The film is still, of course, a visual and musical delight. The soundtrack, scene-work, make-up, costumes and cinematography come together beautifully, and to powerful effect. The performances are still convincing and sympathetic. I still cried when the boy was in the street yelling desperately for his mother to come back. The well-scripted dialogue contributes nicely to characterization--particularly those lines which say more than the character speaking them intends.

But there are a couple things I found dissatisfying. Of the three leads, "Mrs. Dalloway" is the most sane and emotionally healthy--but she is still depressed and frustrated, living in the past, leeching her life's meaning off a dying man, and neglecting her lover. It is unrealistic that she would have a happy, carefree teenage daughter. Generally speaking, unhappy parents have unhappy children, and typically, relations between unhappy parents and their adolescent children are strained.

Also, some of the film's tension stems from miscommunication, or complete lack of communication--as when "Mrs. Dalloway" refuses to open up to her lover about her clearly overwhelming emotions, or when the housewife sits, weeping in the bathroom, straining to carry on a normal conversation with her husband, in the other room. "Mrs. Dalloway" opens up to her daughter and a friend, but the conversations are not transformative, leaving the issues at stake unresolved.

Resolution comes to Woolf through the decision to move back to London (which eventually leads to her suicide), to the housewife in running away, and to "Mrs. Dalloway" in the death of "the poet." In each case, a change in external life-situation brings resolution. I am philosophically biased toward movies which represent inner and inter-personal transformation as the mode of deliverance. I am highly skeptical of the idea that someone who is miserable (for reasons other than not having their basic physical needs met) can find lasting peace solely by means of a change in outward circumstances.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright

I just finished reading Jeremiah Wright's speeches to the NAACP and to the National Press Club. I found nothing at all in either of those statements (nor in any quotation from his sermons) which ought to be a source of controversy.

Rev. Wright is simply preaching the sometimes-harsh truth of the gospel. He made one statement which sounds pretty off the wall--regarding the theory that the AIDS virus was created by the U.S. government to control or exterminate the black population. While I (as a middle-class, white and Chinese American) doubt there is anywhere near sufficient evidence to support this conspiracy theory, one must remember that the black community has been given more than ample reason to completely mistrust the U.S. government.

Anyway, I was surprised to find the Rev. so eminently reasonable and gospel-focused, considering the controversy he's stirred up. I am now interested to read and try to analyze some articles which bash him. What the heck kind of presuppositions and attitudes--apart from simple racism--could have gotten people so riled up about this preacher of Christ? Or is it really just racism?