I’m three fourths of the way through the Labor Day weekend and just taking a few moments to write whatever pops into my head.
My mother’s birthday was Saturday, so half of my day was dedicated to hanging out with the family. We had lunch together at Outback in Waipio, a family favorite mostly because it’s a couple of blocks from my sister’s house and therefore easier for half the family (counting niece, nephew, and sister’s boyfriend) to get to, but also because the food is quite good. I had a lovely ribeye and we all had some pretty good conversation.
My mom was mostly pleased just to spend the time with her family.
Friday I worked a little late but also spent some time preparing for the annual fantasy football draft. My high-school classmates and I have been playing for more than twenty years, and I have a feeling only a couple of us play seriously anymore, which is probably why I won the title two years in a row and then took second last year. Everyone’s gotten married and had kids. The guy who beat me for the title last year, Marshall, was a first-year empty-nester, which might explain that.
Sunday is my usual day to hang out with my folks. I’m usually there from around 2:30 until 8:00, which means I get home kind of late, with just enough time to get things ready for the new work week and get to bed. Because the fantasy draft is Monday afternoon and because I have deadlines for the side gigs Monday as well, I went over early this Sunday and got home early-ish.
Then crashed for nearly four hours. Yikes. I naively thought I might get the work done and have time for a late movie, but I woke up from my nap at 11 in the evening.
Which means I have to wake up early so I can get the work done and still get to the draft, which will be at Don’s condo in Kakaako.
It’s all a lot of socializing for me for a long weekend, which might explain the long nap. I was feeling drained and the nap was a pretty good way to recharge.
I’ve said “explain” a lot in these past fifteen minutes.
I swear this is the last thing I’ll say about fantasy football for the next twenty-four hours at least. I got permission at work to run an out-in-the-open, just-for-fun fantasy football league in the office. Seven sign-ups so far, with at least one more for-sure going to play. This would be best with at least ten participants, but eight will work, so I’m pretty excited. I’m all about team-building at work, and this kind of thing can go a long way toward that! I directly asked some of our C-level leadership to play, and I have at least one already signed up.
I have borrowing privileges at the library on the university campus where I work, and the a/v library had DVDs of all three versions of A Star is Born, none of which I’ve seen. So I borrowed them all in anticipation of this new remake with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. I’m determined to make time for at least the 1937 Janet Gaynor / Fredric March version.
I’m up to chapter 13 in China Rich Girlfriend, which so far has managed to be funnier and more fun than Crazy Rich Asians. I think it’s the familiarity with characters that does it (ha! no “explain” there), especially the characters I like. The setup also feels a bit fresher than in the first novel.
In fact I will wrap this up now so I can spend a little time with the book before bed. It’s nearly two in the morning and I have to get up early!
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.