*…and you can't keep dragging that dead weight around

To all the lovers out there…

#95…

This was the wrong week for me to watch this movie. But still. I ordered on PPV, and am happily conflicted that I did. Here’s what The Hurt Locker represents–the tip of an iceberg that will be realized perhaps ten or so years down the road. I’ve seen this waiting to happen in the classes I teach. There’s a trickling of students who are returning from Iraq/Afghanistan, and like the Vietnam war, you are going to start seeing more films/books about their experiences. Last semester, I had a student write one of the most poignant essays I’ve read to date about the minutiae of life at a camp in Iraq, which ended with the only explosion coming in the last line of the essay. It was brilliant. It was everything I’ve never read in Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, or whatever about being a soldier, and it came only a week before I showed the f-ing Kid Rock video about citizen soldiers at the beginning of our unit on rhetoric. So but anyway. The Hurt Locker might, might, might win Best Picture, though Jeremy Renner won’t likely win Best Actor (either may happen on the “sentimentality vote,” I suppose). The reason is that the characters in The Hurt Locker are more or less incidental to the action, which is a shame, but, again, we’re in for much more as shit unfolds. The subject matter alone is fairly strong–and brutally tense, heart-wrenching. I’ll be honest–in the hands of another director, you may have had a “best picture.” But to be even more honest, I don’t think this movie called for that. This is not a Spielbergian realism look at Iraq–he doesn’t have that in him for this war anyway. It was a fairly narrowly focused look at Iraq, and in the canon of what will become the “Iraq/Afghanistan War” movies, it will have its place near the top… Thoughts?

With today’s tragedy on the luge track, which I was subjected to in many slow-mo iterations while on the treadmill at the Y tonight, I submit this observation: We’re odd creatures in that we revel in sports for which Danger and Ultimate Peril is the driving force behind our spectatorship. Why watch luge, if not for the potential for ’spectacular’ crashes? Kind of like NASCAR. But no one is supposed to die. Just slide awkwardly in their little rubber body suits while the sled launches ahead, sans rider. However, this was f-ing creepy in the same way that as a child, I used to shudder every time I saw ‘the agony of defeat‘ on ABC’s Wide World of Sports and instantly appeal to my father, “Did that man die?” Every time. (And, no, he didn’t die–just a concussion, though reports seem to reflect that he was never quite ‘the same’ after.). I guess you really can’t ask lugers to slow down or take it easy, but great creeping jebus, did you see that?

Anyway, I’ll temper my general criticism of the Olympics (one word summary: irrelevant) in the spirit of the Olympics. Every couple of years, I get curmudgeony about these games. So instead of getting curmudgeony about the games, I’ll get curmudgeony over NPR Sports Commentator Frank Deford’s always overly curmudgeony commentary…

Finally, I am hungry. It’s time to eat…

I saw this when I was in Indy last weekend. Truly, truly awful:

So I was going to write about the fact that I’m considering tackling The Broom of the System next (having failed at Infinite Jest on 3 separate occasions). Then I found this dude’s web site(s), and couldn’t stop reading. Anyone know who this might be?? Kudos to this dude, anyway…

#92

The college didn’t cancel classes tonight, so I taught half of the time w/half of the class in attendance–felt that was only fitting. As such, I am tired. It is bed time…

Here, good stuff:

I was horrified to hear Z tell me that she has not one, but two loose teeth–her first loose baby teeth. It made me realize exactly how not a baby she is now. Then I got sad. Then I smiled thinking of how cute she’ll look w/a few missing teeth. Then I wondered what the going rate for the first missing tooth is these days? Like is there some kind of 1979-to-2010 conversion table, adjusted of course for inflation and market fluctuation? If we go based on what college costs now vs. just 15 years ago, she’s looking at about a 80-lb brick of solid gold bouillon valued at a few grand under her pillow. Wouldn’t that be nice? I did find this from PBS Parents, but didn’t think it was that helpful. Anyway, what if she swallows her first tooth, should she get more? Or maybe less because it’s considered a “tooth foul”? Either way, I’m sure the TF will be kind…

I lost my first tooth in first grade some time, and still remember the squeaking/sucking sound it made when I wiggled it back and forth with my tongue before I took a wadded up piece of tissue and yanked it out…

Other related links: Missing Toof–an electro-/urban music blog…
Dentistry.com–find a dentist in your area…
The Tooth Fairy movie reviews & show times…
The clip from The Hangover where Stu realizes he’s missing a tooth…
A picture of Mike Tyson, smiling…

#90 (!!!!)…

My mom’s web site is pretty much done, with the exception of adding some links and stuff. Please check out her work here. What’s posted in the galleries represents just a fraction of her work, so if you’re interested in seeing more, feel free to email her. She’s currently at work on some pieces commissioned by a woman who saw my mom’s work in a gallery, and instead of buying some of her pieces, she asked my mom to trick out her home with murals and whatnot. Pretty cool. Anyway, you should check out the stuff!

The lead singer of O.A.R. is pulling for the Colts. The beauty of being down here this weekend, is that I’m getting all of the latest Indy headlines on my computer, including this one. My pick for tomorrow: The Saints. And this has nothing at all to do with exacting some kind of vicarious revenge on the Colts for what happened in 07. ESPN played one of those slo-mo retrospectives on Super Bowl XLI this afternoon, so I got to relive that in all of its super-slow horror. Every single Grossman fumble, every single Grossman floater for an interception. So Geaux Saints…

If ever there were a weekend to be snowbound in Indy, this would be the one. Among the dozens of cars spun out in ditches or in the medians on the way here, almost all sported those window flags with the Colts horseshoe. Z and I are here to celebrate the cousin’s b-day…

I loved last night’s Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger. In case you missed it: