From here.
- If you were to play hooky on your next regular work day with no negative consequences, and if you could only spend the day by yourself, what out-of-the-house fun activities would you pursue?
Well it happens that I took a vacation day today. My brain’s been a little fried at work lately, and I had a big deadline to take care of recently so I couldn’t take a day off when I really needed it. Then I got these wheels, but the weather’s been terrible. Even when the weather cleared up a bit, it was too soon after some serious rain, which means the near-shore waters were teeming with nasty little things that get washed out of the watersheds and down the streams into the Pacific. It’s part of living on a small island. Thursday was the day. Long enough from the big rain that the water was probably okay, and forecasted to be clear and sunny. So first I slept in (that’s not an out-of-the-house activity, but I needed it!) then went to Ala Moana for a swim. It was wonderful and exhausting. Then I drove counter-clockwise around the island to try out the new wheels. Stopped at Waimanalo, my favorite beach, and sat in the sand for a little while, playing with the camera on my phone. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get to go in, and I was right. Portuguese man o’ war flags were up. Then I stopped for brunch in Kailua at Boots & Kimo’s. Their famous macadamia nut pancakes never really did it for me, but this time I had the blueberry macadamia nut pancakes and *ding* we had a winner. Delicious. I was in need of a nap, so I found a shady spot in a park and slept about twenty minutes in my car. It was warm. The nap was partly to help me decide whether I wanted to continue around the island or call it a nice, fun day already. I would have been fine going home, but I really wanted to get to the north shore and didn’t see myself taking another day off in the near future. The car handled wonderfully on the twisty road to the north shore. It’s pretty fun to drive. Dinner at Romy’s (I was the last customer before closing) was wonderful as always. I continued through Kahuku and Waimea, then stopped at the beach in Haleiwa just to watch the ocean. There were three young European women mimicking model poses in bikinis near a sand castle. That was amusing for a while. I stopped at a boba cafe (after filling the tank and getting a car wash) to get some work done and do this meme. I’m really tired, in one of those good ways. I keep looking at the time because I’m used to having to get the bus home. It’s preventing me from fully relaxing, but I imagine it won’t be long before I get over that. - In the same situation, what stay-home fun activities would you pursue?
Definitely reading and watching some of the movies that have been piling up. I’m midway through Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop, on which a recent film is based. The movie is rather wonderful (with one of my favorites, Bill Nighy the Acting Guy) and the book may be slightly better. I still haven’t watched any of those earlier A Star Is Born films, so I would work at least one of those in as well. And napping! Napping is fun when it’s not escapist behavior, which for me it often is but wouldn’t be this week. I mean not totally. - If you played hooky specifically because someone else needed the time off, who in your life would be your accomplice and what would be first on the agenda?
I’m going to say Grace needs it the most, even though she’s been only working part time. She’s working a new(ish) IT help desk job and she’s been too tired to do anything fun. Too tired to sit in a dark, air-conditioned movie theater, even. Now that she has a co-worker I think she’s not quite as tired, but she’s still a good candidate. So we’d see a movie and drive to a library and get lunch somewhere. Grace collects visits to public libraries, and I know there are a few remote libraries she hasn’t seen yet. Waimanalo, maybe. My friend Julie has a baby less than a year old. If Grace begged out, Julie would probably be game. I don’t think I’ve ever been out with just Julie, though, so I might have to steal Suzanne or Cindy to come along. - When did you last visit a museum, and what item on exhibit impressed you?
I took the day off from work on my birthday in January and spent some time at the Hawaii State Art museum. There was an interesting piece by a guy who graduated from my high school about ten years before me. - What’s something you’ve recently gotten away with?
This is kind of a small thing, but between the evening when I purchased the new car and the time I registered it the next afternoon, I was driving an unregistered vehicle. It would have been an uninsured vehicle too, but the guy I bought it from offered to keep it on his policy until mine kicked in at midnight the next day.
It would take longer to describe the plot of Blindspotting than I want to take, and anything I’d write might fail to convince you to see this movie, which is what I really want. The writers (who also star) try to do a lot with this story, most of it successfully, but the accomplishment isn’t in the story; it’s in the development of these characters toward a face-off over issues so layered that it takes all these plot elements to get us ready for it.
Daveed Diggs plays Collin, a late-20s black man living in a halfway house. He has three days left on his probation after a prison sentence. For three days, he must stay completely out of trouble, but there are pitfalls all over the place in his hometown of Oakland. It’s tempting to think forces are amping up their game against him in these three days, but one gets the feeling after getting to know this man that it’s not these three days: it’s every day that a black man trying to stay clear must dodge problems.
Collin’s best friend since childhood is Miles, a white man who seems to think it necessary to prove in every waking moment that he’s as street as any of the black men and women he’s friends with. Miles doesn’t just walk the line; he takes daily steps over it, I guess because he can.
Blindspotting has a lot to say, and it brilliantly says most of it through the lives of these characters. This is when it works. Sometimes it says it through the mouths of the characters, almost in Greek chorus-like fashion, and here is where it doesn’t quite work. I suspect there’s a cultural barrier here for me, as the characters repeatedly break out into spoken-word, freestyle verse of the sort that some call slam poetry. When it’s playful it’s cute and clever. When it’s dramatic, I have difficulty taking it seriously. And while I admire the device for its vision, creativity, and daring, it doesn’t quite click things into place the way it wants.
Mr. Rogers shows a short film on his in-studio framed painting, whose name is Picture Picture. Mr. Rogers challenges us to guess what’s being produced in this film. We see machines leading yarn around and around through a maze of mechanical arms, spools, and belts. Something’s taking shape but it’s impossible to tell what it is. Suddenly the process is complete, and we’ve witnessed the automated production of socks.
Mr. Rogers has a leaky wooden bucket. He takes us to the house of a neighbor who’s a woodworker. She repairs the bucket. I’m not sure, but I think she does it without glue or any kind of adhesive. Before Mr. Rogers leaves, he thanks his friend and says, “This is water-tight, right?” And the neighor says, “This should be water-tight.” Mr. Rogers takes the bucket back to his place and puts water in the bucket. It’s water-tight, and I’ve learned a new phrase at five years old.
I have some kind of boo-boo, something bad enough to make me cry. My family is living on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. My dad is at work; I don’t know where my sister is. My mom puts a Band-Aid on it, or kisses it, or does some kind of mom magic that makes me feel better. Then she gives me a Granny Goose Goos-Bar (it was our family’s preferred brand; I don’t remember having Otter Pops until I was almost out of elementary school, at some kind of school function) and puts me in front of the TV to watch Mr. Rogers.
The kids in first and second grade liked Sesame Street. I liked Mr. Rogers. Still. None of the guys liked Mr. Rogers at all. Some of them said Mr. Rogers was gay. None of this was enough to make me change my mind. All of this is part of my first memory of being alienated from the other guys by liking something different, a state that never really went away.
It’s a bit more trendy now to remember Mr. Rogers with fondness, and I want to feel good about it, but mostly I feel slightly resentful. I knew Mr. Rogers was awesome when I was three. Where were all these fans at seven and eight? I don’t need them now; I needed them then.
Although I am a deep admirer of Pixar Studios and its amazing work, I didn’t love The Incredibles in 2004, even acknowledging that the characters were well imagined and the story pretty creative. Breakneck action just doesn’t do much for me most of the time, and even at its most creative, my brain can only handle so much before it starts counting down the minutes until the end credits, which was my experience with the new sequel, Incredibles 2.
I’m not complaining about too much action in an action movie any more than I’d complain about too much chocolate in a chocolate cake. I’m just noting that however good the action is, it turns me off after a point. Just like a too-chocolately chocolate cake.
It’s been thirty years since Christopher Robin last visited the Hundred Acre Wood, and he is sorely missed by its denizens. He’s a man now, with a career as an efficiency manager for a luggage company in post-WWII London. He has a wife and a daughter, and if he ever thinks of his friends Pooh and Piglet, you wouldn’t be able to tell.
Since Christopher Robin will not visit the Hundred Acre Wood, which has always been there for him, Winnie-the-Pooh comes looking for Christopher Robin, stumbling into London through the door where they used to meet.
Ewan McGregor is perfectly cast as middle-aged Christopher Robin, reminding me at times of his wonderful Alfred Jones character in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, only not as funny. Brad Garrett seems like a no-brainer to voice Eeyore (my favorite), but he’s kind of distractingly recognizable as Brad Garrett most of the time. Young people will probably not have this issue, as Everybody Loves Raymond has been off the air for thirteen years.
Another excellent decision was to represent the animal characters based on the original drawings by E. H. Shepard in the books, rather than on the Disney cartoons that have replaced them in many of our minds. However the animators managed to put these characters on the screen, the animals seem pretty real to me throughout the film, in both their and Christopher Robin’s realities. Which is rather perfect.
Although I admit I found most of the third act disappointing, I cannot deny the emotional effect the very existence of this film had on me, an enormous fan of the books by A. A. Milne. I did not have these books read to me as a child, and I came to them rather late, beginning in sixth grade and finishing in seventh. I don’t know what drew me to them then, but I hold tightly to them today for their utter lack of cynicism, for their pureness of spirit, and for their steadfast belief in the virtues of kindness, curiosity, imagination, and the specialness of certain relationships.