Today is My Son's Last Recess Because Adults are Dumb

Today is my son's last day of fifth grade. I could turn this into a "Where did the time go?" post very easily. It does seem like I went to Back to School night just a few weeks ago, and even further back I smile when I think of how excited he was to have played with other kids his age when we picked him up at the end of his preschool's parent orientation evening.Time does fly.But instead of looking back, I'm looking ahead. Unfortunately, I'm not looking at what's in store for him, but rather what's not in store for him. Today is a monumental day from which he'll never return.It's his last recess.Next year he goes to middle school, and when it comes to recess, middle school ain't got time for that. And the state of recesslessness is perpetual. No recess in high school. No defined recess in college. And the "real world"? Dream on.While it's easy to think of recess as a childish endeavor, I think it's an example that proves sometimes children are smarter than adults. Kids understand the importance of recess. They might not understand why it's important, but they know it's important. Want to ruin a kid's day? Tell her that she has to stay inside for recess. There are no more disappointing words in the English language than indoor recess. Except for detention.After hours of sitting at their desks and working hard and challenging their brains to do things they've never done before, kids understand they need a break. They need to get outside, breathe some fresh air, and cut loose. And I suspect they understand that it doesn't matter what they do. They can play basketball, or climb on the playground, or just run around with their friends, it doesn't matter. What's important is that they get outside and spend some time working their lungs and their muscles as much as they've worked their brains.Most adults dismiss recess as something suitable for children, but as we "grow up" and mature, we're expected to make good use of our time, and running around aimlessly isn't good use of our time.Ridiculous.I think everyone would benefit from taking fifteen or twenty minutes in the middle of the day, going outside, and forgetting about all of the other bullshit happening in our lives. We could come up with some dumb adult name for it, since God forbid we continue to refer to it as recess.In the hustle-and-bustle of becoming an adult, I think we lost touch with recess. We forget how much better we feel after a short break, and we don't realize that recharging our internal batteries makes the afternoon much better. I've experienced a 3 pm crash for years, and often I handle it by trekking to the vending machine and filling my face with peanut M&M's. But maybe if I'd spend some time outside during lunch I could make it through the afternoon without thinking that candy-coated chocolate is a reasonable solution for anything.Some adults have figured this out. Those tech companies that have a ping pong table in the office are just adults who saw some kids playing at recess and didn't ignore the envy they felt.Years ago I played croquet on my lunch hour every now and then with some co-workers. Breaking away from the office and spending some time outside provided just the sort of break required for a decent afternoon. I don't know for sure, but I bet peanut M&M's didn't find a home in my stomach very often when I spent some time aiming for wickets.All the world's problems seem a bit more surmountable when you think of everyone spending part of their day at recess. Some distance from the adult seriousness that pervades our lives after fifth grade might offer a better perspective.A few times I've arrived at school at the end of the day just in time to see my son outside for a bonus recess. He's usually playing basketball with his friends, and often has a smile on his face. Seeing that carefree exhilaration makes me just as happy as his success in his academic work, and I have no doubt that recess contributes to that success.Even though he became a madman, I think Jack Torrance was on to something from which all adults could learn: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? The only way to make sure you know when I've written something new is to subscribe to my blog. Facebook won't show you all of my posts, but if you subscribe we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I won't send junk, and you can opt-out anytime.

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I'm Surprised at How Not Scary the New It Movie Is

I first discovered that some people are scared of clowns when I was about five or six years old. It was the mid 1980s, and I was in the basement with my two older sisters, and sitting in the corner, on the basement floor, sat a clown doll. It had very long arms and legs with Velcro on the hands and feet so a kid could wrap it around their body like a koala.My oldest sister threw the thing in the closet, and said, "That thing's creepy." I asked what she meant, and she explained to me that some clown dolls are possessed and might strangle a person. After all, why else would the doll have such long arms and legs?I don't have any memories of that clown doll before or after that moment, which seems weird to me, but the moment itself is very vivid.Stephen King's novel It came out in 1986, and, unlike me, my sister read a lot as a kid, so it's possible that her apprehension toward the clown doll came from reading that book. Whatever the case, clowns have never creeped me out, but when I think about that particular clown doll sitting on the floor of our basement, it does sort of give me the heebie jeebies. I just did a few different searches and looked at several hundred pictures on Google, but couldn't find the clown doll that I remember. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be a damn bit surprised if the thing is still in that closet, even though we moved out of that house more than 30 years ago.Whenever I hear someone mention that they're scared of clowns, I never know if they mean it, or if they're just scared of them because they think they should be scared of them. And the lack of differentiation is odd to me.I just don't see how Bozo T. Clown (the T stands for the!) is as scary as John Wayne Gacy dressed up as a clown. They're not the same. And Ronald McDonald? That dude's not going to kill anyone. At least not quickly, in a bloody massacre. He'll do it over the course of decades by clogging your arteries.So when the most recent film based on King's It came out last year the frenzy over scary clowns didn't surprise me, but I didn't buy into it. I read the book, and honestly, the clown didn't make too much of an impact on me. Although I didn't see the film when it came out, it wasn't that I was so scared I had to avoid it. I just didn't see it.Most of the time when I watch a movie I'm able to suspend my disbelief long enough to become absorbed in what I'm watching. However, I never really forget that I'm watching something pretend. I think this helps insulate me from being too scared.It's sort of odd that it protects me from fear, because it doesn't protect me from other emotions. I get choked up rather easily while watching movies (Toy Story 3, A League of Their Own, for example), but while most horror movies may make me cringe-especially if something's happening to someone's fingers-they don't scare me.The friendship theme in It made more of an impact on me than the clown. It's similar to Stand by Me, in that the kids exist in a world essentially without adults, or at least adults who can or will help them. They realize before we do that they can only rely on each other, and if they don't stick together they're all screwed.I won't recap the plot except to say that kids are going missing in Derry, Maine, and a group of kids, led by Bill, the older brother of one of the missing kids, George, decide to search for George, and, in turn, the killer. Whether you've seen the movie or not, you probably know the killer is a clown called Pennywise. That's not a spoiler.And there are some scenes of graphic violence. Pennywise has a mouth like a snake. It opens much wider than it should, and reveals dozens of sharp teeth that he uses to rip apart his victims. Maybe I'm a barbarian, but seeing him rip people apart and chew them up didn't get to me. It didn't feel like something that would induce nightmares.The most uneasy part of the film, the part that will stay with me longer than anything else, is a scene at the beginning when Georgie is kneeling next to a curb, talking through a storm drain to Pennywise, who's hiding in the sewer. We know what's about to happen. We want to warn Georgie. We want him to stand up and walk away rather than reach into the storm drain to get his boat. And at that moment, it doesn't matter what's in the sewer. It could be Pennywise, or Freddy Krueger, or Barney the purple dinosaur (come on, that guy's killed people before!). It doesn't matter who it is. It's not the entity in the sewer that's making us uneasy, it's our instinct to protect Georgie. There are fewer things scarier than anticipation, as we learned from watching Jaws. And the anticipation and dread of that moment is horrific.No adults help the kids. They can't even see Pennywise or the other entities of evil. In one scene an entire room is covered in blood, and a disgusting creep of a father doesn't see a thing. So they have to help each other. It's this reliance on each other, this friendship, that gives the movie its character. It seemed more reminiscent of Stand by Me than Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street, or any other horror movie.The other important theme of the film is discovery. By focusing on children, the film also lets us experience their discoveries. One kid discovers that his mother has been lying to him and made him into something he's not. Another kid discovers she can fight her way out of a hellish situation. Another kid discovers the sad unfairness sometimes associated with love. And, of course, they all discover more than they ever wanted to know about the evil confronting their town.The true irony of the film is the idea that no one has to be afraid. Most people see the clown, and they see the terror, and they think the film is about being scared. But it's also telling us that we don't need to be afraid. I don't want to spoil anything, so maybe it's best to quote Franklin Roosevelt's proclamation during the Depression: The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.But don't be surprised if your fear has face paint, colored hair, and huge shoes.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? The only way to make sure you know when I've written something new is to subscribe to my blog. Facebook won't show you all of my posts, but if you subscribe we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I won't send junk, and you can opt-out anytime.

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I Support Kids Protesting Against Adult Inaction on Gun Violence Laws

Across the country today thousands (millions?) of kids will walk out of school in protest of gun violence in the United States. Despite the narcissistic, delusional exhortations spewed by a certain “leader” of this country, these children are really the people who have a chance to make America great again.A month ago seventeen people were killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida, and it seems that, perhaps, a fury has been unleashed. It’s difficult to say why students are so motivated and organized now, and not after any of the countless other school shootings, but whatever the reason, I couldn’t be more thrilled.How often do we hear about lazy, entitled kids who whine about everything and can’t take their eyes off of their phones long enough to do anything but watch some reality television show? To hear some (probably old) people talk, there hasn’t been a decent kid born in this country since the 1960s.But to describe kids in such a manner is to ignore the fact that they’re doing the exact thing that adults always want them to do. They’re paying attention. They’re using their brains. They’re getting involved with their community. They’re caring about something other than themselves.They’re taking matters into their own hands, and I think that’s what alarms a certain segment of the adult population.It’s commonly expected that adults should take care of and protect kids. So it’s only natural for kids to think that adults will solve a problem as deadly serious as America’s gun problem. They wait for us to act. They wait for us to investigate, debate, and pass legislation that will help protect them.Yet we do nothing.We offer thoughts and prayers, and we tell them that we can’t talk about protecting them too soon after kids their age are cut down by some madman. We hide behind the Second Amendment, and we kowtow to a fringe group who we would label as a terrorist organization if it existed in a Muslim country.So what choice do they have?We won’t protect the kids, so the kids are protecting themselves. They’re demanding that we protect them.Yet some see their protests as useless, as just an excuse to get out of class. Maybe that’s the case for some of the kids, but that’s no reason to stop the protests.The best way to change things in this country is to protest. Nothing ever changes if we just accept the blows to the head. Before something can change, the people who want it changed have to stand up and say, “We’re not happy about this, and we demand that it change.”If one person does that, nothing will happen. Two, three, four, a hundred. Maybe nothing will change. But when hundreds of thousands, or millions of people rise up and demand the same thing, change will come. That’s how African Americans secured civil rights in this country. That’s how the Vietnam War ended. That’s how women secured the right to vote.That’s how the country was founded!So anyone who says that children walking out of school won’t accomplish anything is wrong. Anyone who says it’s not the right way to go about it is wrong. It’s a most American expression of a most American concept.Over the past few days I’ve read a number of suggestions that instead of walking out of class in protest students should befriend a kid at lunch who has no one to eat with, or a kid who gets made fun of, or a kid who doesn’t have a partner in science class. The implication is that befriending fellow students will prevent them from becoming loner outcasts who go on shooting rampages.While I certainly encourage every student to befriend another lonely student at school, and we’ve made certain to instill such ideas in our own kids, countering the idea of this protest with a suggestion that kids should just become friends with outcasts at school seems very close to blaming the victims.“That kid just killed a dozen of your classmates. If only you would have been nice to him the past couple of years your classmates would still be alive.”It’s bad enough that adults in this country have basically told our kids that they’re on their own when it comes to ending gun violence, but insinuating that they’re somehow to blame for this violence is insulting.Young people aren’t hijacked by the same jaded, cynical view of the world that infects so many adults. It’s that cynicism, that resistance to change, that belief that the world and the country will never be as good as it used to be (even though it was never as good as they think it used to be) that prevents adults from seeing the value of protest, or believing that they and few million of their friends can change things for the better.But on this issue, the kids are alright.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? The only way to make sure you know when I've written something new is to subscribe to my blog. Facebook won't show you all of my posts, but if you subscribe we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I won't send junk, and you can opt-out anytime.

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Unsubscribing From E-mail Lists is So Much Fun

How long after someone invented e-mail did someone else invent junk e-mail? I bet there was like a five-minute lag time. I would have loved to have used e-mail during those glorious few minutes. It must have been so exciting, and non-frustrating.I’m sure it was like the universe in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. It all seemed so full of promise and possibility, and we hadn’t yet discovered just how badly things can get screwed up. But then black holes developed, and sucked all of the light and matter out of some parts of the universe, and we realized we’d unleashed a monster.Okay, if you want to get technical, “we” didn’t unleash the universe in the Big Bang. “We” are responsible for junk e-mail though, and that’s ruined as much time and space as any black hole ever did.And over the years, as I bought things online, and distributed my e-mail address without giving much thought to it, junkmail had begun to take over my inbox.For years I’ve used my work e-mail as my personal e-mail address, so if I took a couple of days off from work I’d return to find hundreds of e-mail messages. And although I gained some satisfaction in fooling myself into thinking that I’d done some work after clearing two hundred messages from my inbox, in reality only five of those required actual work. The rest were junk.I’m dumb sometimes, so it took me a while to realize that I could reduce my junkmail with little effort. All it takes is persistence, and a click.Behold, the wondrous beauty of the Unsubscribe button!At the bottom of almost every e-mail that comes from someone trying to sell you something or get you to do something, there’s a link to unsubscribe from their mailing list. Click the link, and presto! no more e-mails.I decided to start unsubscribing just after New Year’s. When I opened my inbox that first day I had the usual multitude of messages that I had no desire to read. Instead of just deleting them, I opened them, scrolled to the bottom, and unsubscribed. It took some time, but after weeks of opening junk e-mails, I began to see a difference. I had fewer e-mails in my inbox, and less of a chance of missing something important due to the onslaught of junk.So long Nike, Sherwin Williams, Esquire, Penn Station East Coast Subs, and OnlineLabels.com. If I haven’t bought or read anything from you in the past year, then I suspect I won’t need to hear from you anytime soon.I unsubscribed from some e-mails without knowing how I got on their list, or what the hell the company even was. I’m looking at you Modo Labs.But some e-mails survived my Unsubscribe massacre.Thrillist, you can stay. Much of what you send is nonsensical drivel, but how else will I discover The Best 31 Best Donut Shops in America? And I didn’t even know that I needed to know All 26 Pringles Flavors, Ranked before you told me I did.You can stay, too, Trivia Question of the Day. Although I’m disappointed that your questions have become easier over the past couple of years, I still click and answer every single one. I’m 1790-for-2314 (77%) lifetime, just for the record.Other e-mails made the cut for obvious reasons (Cubs.com, Coldstone Creamery, Domino’s), and some I kept just in case (shopDisney, Eventful, Groupon).The most intensive Unsubscribe effort has been directed at a mystery though. A couple of years ago I started getting IT-related advertising e-mails addressed to someone named Brooks. Some days I got e-mails from ten different companies that started, “Dear Brooks,” and then started talking about networks, and security, and consultants and other crap about which I don’t give a damn.I’ve been unsubscribing from those e-mails for two months, yet a few per week still make it through. Some of them don’t have an Unsubscribe link. Instead they want me to reply to the message and type Unsubscribe. I’ve resisted doing so up to this point though, because I suspect that instead of unsubscribing me, they’ll take my response as an indication of a working e-mail address, and add me back to all of those damn lists I didn’t want to be on in the first place.So if junkmail is dominating your inbox, start unsubscribing. You’ll feel like you accomplished something important, even though it only takes a few seconds.Just don’t Unsubscribe from my mailing list! And if you haven’t yet subscribed to this blog, do so here!Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? The only way to make sure you know when I've written something new is to subscribe to my blog. Facebook won't show you all of my posts, but if you subscribe we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I won't send junk, and you can opt-out anytime.

PREVIOUS POST: Watching Kids Learn to Play Music Humbles and Impresses MeIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: A Letter of Gratitude to the Person Who Invented Ice Cream

Watching Kids Learn to Play Music Humbles and Impresses Me

Around this time two years ago, my then-fifth grade son told us that he wanted to play an instrument in sixth grade. Few things he could have said at that moment would have surprised me more since he’d never expressed an interest in playing an instrument, nor did he seem to have much interest in music. But he didn’t change his mind, and settled on the viola.He started playing when sixth grade began in the fall of 2016, and has stuck with it. I saw him play at a local sandwich shop a few weeks back and marveled at his ability, as well as his complete lack of nerves. I think most people would be a bit nervous before playing in front of a restaurant full of strangers, but my son never mentioned nerves, and simply stood up and performed.As I stood there and listened to him play, I thought about just how far he’d come from that kid a couple of years ago who seemed to decide he wanted to be a musician at the spur-of-the-moment.His orchestra teacher invited him to play in an ensemble outside of school, and my son joined them for the first practice of a new session just a couple of days ago. They were supposed to practice for ninety minutes, and since they were meeting about half an hour from our house, I figured I’d drop off my son, find something to do for a while, and then return to pick him up.However, I noticed that other parents didn’t leave, so I decided to stick around, too. It didn’t take long until I realized I’d made the right decision.My son and the other kids formed a semi-circle around their teacher, who passed out the musical selections he’d chosen.Those kids impressed me from that moment on.I don’t know anything about music. I don’t know how to play it, or read it. My son plays the viola—a fact of which I’m well aware—but I still mess up and say violin at least half the time. It amazes me that anyone can look at a piece of sheet music and make sense of it. And not only do they understand what’s on the sheet, but they then translate that into sounds from their chosen instrument.I can barely read words aloud, and these kids are reading and playing music!Maybe I’m just fascinated because none of it makes sense, but I watched in humbled awe as the kids played their instruments, took critiques and advice from the teacher, and then played again. I’d always wondered how a musician learned to play a song, and watching those kids and their teacher helped provide some insight.They talked about things that sounded like jibberish, and used jargon that sounded familiar from my own middle school music class, but which I hadn’t thought about for almost thirty years. Measures, flats, sharps, quarter notes, rests, crescendo—it’s a foreign language. And two years ago it was foreign to my son, but thanks to this music teacher, and my son’s own hard work, he can now translate these markings on a page into sounds from his instrument without giving it much thought.I can’t believe it!For ninety minutes the teacher and the kids dissected those pieces of music. Despite the good-natured back and forth between the teacher and students, they clearly were working toward a common goal. At one point the teacher said he’d post a clip of the song on their website because, “This is not normal sounding.” A few minutes later a girl interrupted to share a story. The teacher asked, “Is this a quick story?” to which the girl responded affirmatively, before telling the story without pausing for a breath.Later, the kids started to play a song, and only got through a note or two before the teacher stopped them. They all groaned, and started again, each of them recognizing that it didn’t sound right. It sounded good to me though, another reminder that I don’t know a damn thing about music.By the end of the class they’d worked their way through three or four songs. The teacher advised them to listen to the songs during the week so they’d know how the songs should sound for next week. He encouraged them to chomp like Cookie Monster during one part of the song where they were supposed to stop playing and use their mouths to make noise.I can’t wait to see how the songs develop over the next couple of months. Everyone (except me) seemed in agreement that the songs sounded rough, but it was the first day, they’d never played the songs before, and there were peculiarities within the songs that they have to iron out.But watching the way worked together and practiced during the first class, I have no doubt they’ll sound great for the concert in May.And I can’t wait to watch them put it all together.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? The only way to make sure you know when I've written something new is to subscribe to my blog. Facebook won't show you all of my posts, but if you subscribe we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I won't send junk, and you can opt-out anytime.

PREVIOUS POST: PB&J and Other Things I'd Rather Not Do WithoutIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: My Son's Orchestra Performance Near-Disaster

PB&J and Other Things I'd Rather Not Do Without

Long-time readers of this blog will remember that a few years ago I decided that 2015 would be my Year of Doing Without. I planned to give up one thing per month, and then write about my experience of giving up that thing at the end of the month.One month I became a vegan. Another month I did without sweets. The month before I had tried to do without sweets, but failed.Extenuating circumstances led me to abandon that particular writing (living?) exercise, but you can still read my initial post here.For this month’s Blogapalooz-hour, during which we’re given a topic and instructed to write and publish a post within one hour, we were challenged to write about things we can’t go without.And although it seems like it’s a question of obsession, or discipline, it occurred to me that it’s really a question of time. What can’t I go without?Well, for how long?For example, I can go without oxygen for thirty-five seconds with no difficulty. (I just timed myself.) But if I tried to go without oxygen for seventeen minutes…bad news.I could go seventeen minutes without water, but nine days…probably not.So it’s impossible to go without something and ignore the time aspect.But there’s also the question of desire. It’s much harder to go without something you desire than something you don’t.Peanut M&M’s. I haven’t had a peanut M&M in about five days and I feel like I deserve a damn reward (like a bag of peanut M&M's). They’re so good, and I eat them so mindlessly and voraciously that I’m not even sure I have gone five days without eating them. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that I’d purchased a bag and shoved the whole thing in my face without even realizing it. A sort of Ambien-induced, half-conscious failure of will power.I don’t take Ambien though, so I’ve probably maintained my peanut M&M sobriety. So I guess I can go without peanut M&M’s, but I’m not happy about it, and my grasp on the willpower that keeps me peanut M&M-free is tenuous at best. I guess we can conclude that peanut M&M’s don’t fall into the “can’t go without” category, but rather the “prefer-not-to-go-without,-but-will-go-without-anyway-just-because-I’ll-eat-myself-beyond-the-capacity-of-a-bathroom-scale-if-I-ate-what-I-actually-wanted-to-eat” listBut the point of the exercise isn’t to list what we can go without. Nor is it to list what we can go without, but need to bitch about the entire time we're going without it. We're supposed to list what we can’t go without.First, let’s assume we’re not considering all of the obvious, lovey-dovey, life-is-beautiful, the Earth-is-magical mumbo jumbo. That’s a given, and I think just listing all of those things is against the spirit of the question. I mean, really, I’m just being asked to do a modified version of Oprah’s Favorite Things show.But don’t expect me to jump up and down, cover my oh-so-surprised mouth with my hand, or shed a tear because I’m so damn excited like the people in Oprah’s audience.Instead, here’s some stuff that I like.Baseball. Is anything better than the beginning of baseball season? Well, except for the middle, and end of the season when your team is playing well.Traveling. I haven’t done as much of this as I want, but a recent trip to New York City with my son reminded me how much fun it is to escape.The WTF podcast. I started listening to this back in 2010 or 2011. I enjoyed the personal, in-depth conversations with creative people from day one, and listened often, but didn’t seek it out. However, over the past couple of years, it has become the cornerstone of my entertainment. I haven’t missed any of the previous 250 episodes, and recently went back to start listening from the very first episode in 2009.Diet Coke. In particular fountain Diet Coke from McDonald’s. I suspect they lace this drink with some sort of illicit drug. How else do I explain my obsession with it? I’m so ridiculous about this that most of the employees at the restaurant near my house know what I’m going to order as soon as I walk in. I also know which locations near my house to avoid because the Diet Coke doesn’t taste as good there as it does elsewhere. And I’ve driven ten minutes out of my way on more than one occasion to buy a Diet Coke at a particular location because I swear it tastes better and they have nugget ice. I’m an idiot.Peanut butter and jelly. Whether I’m trying to eat healthy, or I’m eating everything in sight, I always have room for peanut butter and jelly. We all need foods for which we ignore all dietary guidelines and focus on the pure enjoyment of it, and PB&J is mine. And, lucky for you, I’ve even written a post about the right way to make it.Cheesecake. Why should anyone go without cheesecake?Ice cream. See cheesecake.Pizza. See ice cream. I’ve been thinking of conducting a survey of all the pizza places in my town to see which one is the best. There are a few good ones to choose from, a couple that I always go to, and one from which I’m banned. I could eat copious amounts of pizza and claim to be doing it for research.I could go on. Movies. Reading. Writing. Running. Bicycling. Hiking. However, I do without some of those for long periods of time.But I can’t remember the last time I went a week without PB&J or Diet Coke.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

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Film Review: The Post

There's a scene early on in The Post where Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post, is hosting a dinner at her home with three or four other couples. One of the men at the table mentions hearing that Nixon might try to open a dialogue with China, and questions what that means for the geopolitical landscape. One of the wives at the table says something like, "Well, ladies, there's our cue."All the women then stand up and leave the room, as if a geopolitical discussion is not something a woman should witness. As they left the room I wondered whether Katharine Graham would follow them.Yes, she was a woman, so by the accepted norms of the situation she should have left the room with the women. However, she also led one of the most important newspapers in the country, and had the ear of some of the most important men in government. If her husband, Phil, were still alive, then, no doubt, she'd leave the room with the wives. But the pending discussion among the men touched on an issue that was likely to be important to her newspaper.But when the women moved to the sitting area and began talking about a social event, Katharine joined them, leaving the men to talk about their manly stuff.Throughout the film, there's a subtle subtext where Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) struggles to be taken seriously. The potential investors in the Post question whether she's too weak to lead. Some of the staff at the newspaper seem like they need assurance from Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), the executive editor, that Graham's decisions are sound. Even Graham herself has a scene in which it's evident she has had to convince herself that she belongs.This struggle is one of many complex battles that takes place beneath the main conflict of the film: whether The Washington Post can, should, and will publish stories about the Pentagon Papers, a series of top secret documents that provide inside information about the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.Every article about the film will say it's about whether the Post should release the Pentagon Papers, but the film also handles a number of other storylines while not taking its eye off the main event.Hand-in-hand with the question of whether to release the papers is the role of a free press in protecting democracy. Then there's the question of whether the President has a right to restrict what the press can publish for national security reasons.The film Bradlee is portrayed as the patriotic, well-meaning newspaperman who values truth and honesty above all. But it's also clear that he's not at all happy that a competitor, the New York Times is ahead of them on the Pentagon Papers. After a Post reporter, Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk), obtains a large portion of the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), Bradlee is champing at the bit to publish the papers in the Post. Yes, he understands the importance of informing the public about what the papers contain, but the notoriety that would fall upon the Post for doing so is a consideration as well.Of all the people involved, Ellsberg is the only person who is acting out of completely selflessness. He's putting himself on the line with little to gain, and for all of the moral righteousness and homage to truth that runs throughout the film, we shouldn't lose sight of what all parties had to gain by publishing the stories.However, they all had much to lose, as well. And that shouldn't be forgotten either. Today we can see Katharine Graham for the fierce, capable, intelligent leadership she provided for so many years, but she made a difficult decision when no one had any reason to believe she knew what she was doing. She took a risk and it paid off, and it continued to pay off for many years.Although work on this film began well before the 2016 election, it's easy to see parallels between events portrayed here, and the phenomenon of a president decrying "fake news" and embracing "alternative facts." Had many of these questions regarding the freedom of the press not already been settled by the Supreme Court, I have no doubt the current administration would spend a fair amount of time challenging that freedom just like Richard Nixon, William Rehnquist, and the rest of those shysters from 40 years ago.Perhaps because I already knew the outcome, but for some reason the film couldn't achieve the sort of suspense that I experienced while watching Spotlight, another newspaper film written by the co-screenwriter (with Liz Hannah) of this film, Josh Singer.Although they're long gone, I hope the spirit of Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham lives on in newsrooms around the country today. Governments will always restrict information for reasons they claim are related to safety, but are actually related to their apprehension at the revelation of their incompetence. We need people who will fight for the truth to be revealed, consequences be damned.The scenes between Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep will go down as classics. Two of the best actors alive today just played off each other and helped us forget that we weren't watching the real characters they were portraying.One peculiar listing in the credits though: Sarah Paulson has third billing for the film, but has less than two minutes of screen time.3.5 starsWasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

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Film Review: I, Tonya

One of the reasons that I love watching movies is because there are no rules. I mean, I guess there probably are some rules, but since I don't make movies I don't know the rules. But I've watched enough movies to know that there's not just one "right" way to make a good movie. And just in case you forgot this little tidbit, or if you'd never thought about it before, I, Tonya makes that clear.The film tells the story of Tonya Harding's childhood, skating career, and chaotic interpersonal relationships. And anyone alive in 1994 will never separate Tonya Harding's name from Nancy Kerrigan's name. The attack on Kerrigan is sort of the main event, The Incident as it's referred to in the film.Breathing fresh life into a story that's almost a quarter of a century old seems like a difficult thing to do, but by telling the story from the points-of-view of the "bad guys" in the situation-Tonya Harding, her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, and the bumbling idiot "bodyguard" Shawn Eckardt-and telling it using a non-traditional narrative, the filmmakers have done just that. The film itself is as captivating as the subject. It's told in a sort of docudrama style. All of the characters are "interviewed" in snippets throughout the film that surround the traditional dramatic portrayal. But there are also moments in the dramatic portrayal where the characters break the fourth wall, and reveal that they know they're telling a story. Harding's character in particular looks toward the camera in the middle of a scene, often at a sort of, "I told you so" moment. Not until the final credits does the film rely on actual footage of the events that occurred. Everything is reenacted, which helps maintain the illusion that we're watching real people recount real events.The performances are fantastic. Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding looks like she just walked out of a rural Wal-Mart in 1993. She has a sort of vulnerable strength that makes it easy to believe that she can be both the victim and the ruffian in her life. She made it seem as though she'd been skating her whole life, although credit for that feat might belong more to choreographers or special effects artists than to the actress. During her interviews she strikes a perfect tone of adamant denial when she's explaining why she's not to blame for anything that's happened to her.And thanks to Allison Janney's performance as her mother, we can believe that Tonya isn't to blame for anything that happened to her. Tonya's mother, LaVona, is an instant classic villain. She seems to have no redeemable qualities, and one of the only flaws of the film is that we never got to see Tonya lash out at her mother. During a pivotal scene near the end I held my breath in anticipation of Tonya hurling her down some steps, but instead she just pushed her out the door. LaVona is the type of person who brings down every room she enters, and shortens someone's life just by being around them. She's dreadful. There's a scene where young Tonya is crying to her father as he's leaving her mother, and saying, "Don't make me stay here. Let me come with you." It's heartbreaking because we know she didn't get to go with him, and she had many more years with her.Although I hadn't heard anything about him beforehand, the guy who plays the "bodyguard" Shawn Eckardt, Paul Walter Hauser, is brilliant as well. He's the sort of slimy, showoffy, putz who's not aware of how foolish he seems, and possesses an intense, consistent distortion of reality. In one scene near the end of the film the woman interviewing him challenges his assertion that he works with spy agencies in counterintelligence and terrorism operations. He responds with "But I do," as if simply stating something made it true. During the credits we see an actual interview with the real Shawn, which only serves to confirm the truthfulness of Hauser's portrayal.This isn't a sort of traditional dramatic retelling of a story. It's much funnier than I expected, and even though I remembered how the story unfolded-I was rather obsessed with the whole affair as a fifteen year old-it all seemed new and fresh as it unfolded. It's profane, and frustrating. How many times does Tonya have to go back to that guy? Why can't her mother just show her some damn affection? How come the judges won't give her a fair shake, and why won't she make it easier for them?Near the end of the film Tonya discusses truth, and concludes that it's bullshit. There is no truth she says. Such a claim calls into question the veracity of the entire film, but as I think about it, it almost doesn't matter. The fact that this is the way the "bad guys" remember the story tells us as much about them as the actual facts of the story would. So whether their story is fake news based on alternative facts or not, it doesn't matter. It's how they remember it. More than anything else, films exist to tell stories. And this is a great one.4 starsWasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

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