Bad Education by Almodóvar

my rating:

Bad Education (La Mala Educación) is pretty much everything one might expect from a film by Pedro Almodóvar. There's attractive men, drug use, transsexuality, mistaken identity, some nudity, unlikely coincidences, Castellano dialog, and sex. Not necessarily in that order. But most importantly, there's an interesting human story.

The story can be a little hard to follow at first. Not because the film is in Spanish (thanks to my high school Spanish classes, I could sometimes understand what they were saying without the subtitles), but because the film includes a movie within the movie, and flashbacks to the main characters' boyhood. There's no less than three actors playing "Enrique" and actor Gael García Bernal goes by no less than four names, in character and not. I spent a fair amount of time early on trying to sort out who was who-else.

(I was also haunted a bit trying to figure out who else García had been, in which previous movie I'd seen. It finally clicked that he was one of the stars of Y Tu Mamá También, a Mexican - not Spanish - film. I guess his Castellano accent in this film threw me off. {smile} He was also Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries, which I haven't seen yet.)

I couldn't help noticing (so sue me) that Almodóvar adheres to the MPAA standard that at no time should a penis be clearly visible... but still manages to imply, suggest, and just-barely obscure them repeatedly. (You can see that part of García in Y Tu Mamá También.) I can't help wondering if there was a more explicit version for less prudish markets. In any case, there's plenty of eye candy for guy-watchers here.

Almodóvar's recent films have been more somber than his more playful (but dark) earlier films such as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. This one was good, but I really recommend Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) or Hable con Ella (Talk to Her) if you only have time to see one of his recent films.

In the Realms of the Unreal

my rating:

I pity Henry Darger.

I can identify with him a bit as well.

And I even envy him.

Henry Darger is the subject of In the Realms of the Unreal, a documentary whose name is taken from The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, Darger's magnum opus. It's a 15,000-page story with countless painted illustrations about an imaginary war revolving around seven pre-adolescent blonde princesses. No one knew it existed until just before Darger, a reclusive janitor, died.

The film was made by Jessica Yu, who manages to make do with rather limited material. For one thing, there are only three (black and white) photographs of Darger in existence, one of which barely shows his face and another of which is probably 50 years old. Not a lot of footage to get out of that. The novel is a rambling, incoherent story that apparently doesn't make for very good reading aloud. And still illustrations don't work well in a movie. Her main tool for getting around this is to animate the drawings, which she manages to do without losing their character and turning it into a Disney film. She also interviews the few people who sort of new Darger: his landlords, neighbors, the former altar boy at his parish, etc.

How little-known the man was is emphasized early in the movie by the fact that his closest acquaintances can't even agree on how to pronounce his last name, or where he "always" sat in his multiple-times-per-day attendance at Catholic mass: in the front, the back, or the middle.

But you can learn a lot about him from the work he left behind. He had an obvious fascination with pre-adolescent girls. He collected photographs and illustrations of them, which he used for teaching himself to draw. His art was never very sophisticated, and depended heavily on copying and tracing from photos and other illustrations, then painting with watercolor.

On one hand, the girl heroes of his story were naively innocent, resembling standard cutie-pie figures of the early 20th century. On the other hand, these girls were the leaders of a bloody rebellion of Christian slave children against a ruthless, godless enemy power. And on the third hand, they were frequently drawn nude. And usually with penises.

It's unclear what exactly the penises were about. One theory is that Darger - having grown up in an all-male environment, and probably a virgin - didn't really understand male/female anatomy. But he didn't always give the girls dicks, so he may have understood that not every child was equipped like he had been. Another theory is that he saw them as innocent saviors of a sort, so he drew them like baby Jesus was usually painted: with a little sac and dingus.

There's a definite religious theme to it, which is at times typically naive stuff about the virtuous Christians vs. the evil and enslaving godless foreigners. Darger was a compulsive mass-attender. But there's an undercurrent that seems to challenge God, with Darger producing this horribly violent disaster in his fantasy world, as if to demand that God do something about it. The ending of his epic is conflicted, with two versions: one in which the slave child rebellion succeeds with the defeat of the evil general (named after a bully from Darger's youth), and another in which the Vivian girls lose.

Yu provides a fair amount of biographical information about Darger, which is where most of my pity for him comes. He lost a sister and his mother during childbirth, and his father not long after. He grew up institutionalised as "feeble-minded", which certainly didn't help him become a well-adjusted member of society.

My empathy with him comes from the fact that I'm a less-extreme version of him. He spent all of his spare time alone in his apartment; I get out a bit more than that - such as going to see art films like this (by myself) - but there are times I'd be just as happy to stay in. And obviously no one has every really understood his psychology, which I'm sure is true of me as well.

As for my envy.... how could I not envy him? He produced what has to be the longest novel in history, and unquestionably the longest illustrated novel (which is what I consider "my medium"). His apartment was filled with painting after painting, some of them huge. I have a hard time getting anything onto paper. He had levels of discipline that I can only dream of. Granted, it came out of an obessive/compulsive neurological disorder (an after-the fact diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome has been tossed around the art world since his work was discovered), but he definitely produced more in his lifetime than I ever will.

There's also the issue of fame. I like to think it doesn't matter to me... but it does. I'd really like my work to be seen by more than dozens of people. And the fact that his paintings are now - after his death and discovery of course - selling for tens of thousands of dollars makes me a little jealous. Even when I'm dead, I can't see anything I've created commanding... well, any money. I guess I'm just not freakish enough.

The thing is, I think I am. I've got ideas for stories that - in my own mind, at least - would blow the roof off. God knows I'm iconoclastic enough that my views are often so far "outside the box" as to question whether or not there's even a box anywhere around to put them in.

But unlike Henry Darger, I don't spend my every waking hour putting my thoughts onto paper (or any other medium). I dabble. When I'm in the mood I might put several hours into something, but I often waste a lot of time doing other things. Like this blog. Or watching TV. Or drinking and not getting much of anything done.

40

Enough being coy about it. Today I turned 40.

I don't generally bother celebrating (or mourning) my birthdays, since - once past 21- they really don't matter for anything. But there are some that force you to pay attention to them. They usually end with a "0".

Ten years ago, I played around with that milestone, telling people that I was celebrating my "second annual twenty-ninth birthday". Recently I've kidded around that today I'd be turning thirty-ten (to be followed by thirty-eleven, and so on), or explaining that I'm 28... in hexadecimal.

But in fact I'm hitting "The Big Four-Oh". Thirty is somewhat traumatic, because it means you're no longer "young" (the hippie-era slogan was "don't trust anyone over 30"), but forty is officially "over the hill". Statistically speaking, it means your life is half over, perhaps more.

I don't see myself having any kind of "mid-life crisis" in conjunction with it, though. I think I did that several years ago, when - at the age of 33 - I went back to college, taking classes with people 15 years my junior and getting a degree in a completely different field from the one I studied as a youngster (Illustration, rather than Comp Sci).

I'm (more or less) comfortably back in the working world, content with my job. I have some projects in the works that could conceivably involve a career change (professional writer), but that's been true my whole adult life, flirting at various times with being a record producer, a professional gay rights activist, a multimedia web developer, etc. None of them have ever panned out, and I don't really expect them to. I'm open to something happening, but I'm pretty much OK with my lifestyle if it doesn't. Likewise, although I'm certainly open to a carnal relationship with some pretty thing half my age, I don't see it happening. Forget buying a sports car; if anything I'd be shopping for a fuel-efficient motor scooter. And you'll never catch me anywhere near a hair-transplant clinic or rug shop.

Maybe that's because this is actually a lifestyle I sort-of envisioned for myself as a kid. I didn't foresee the technology (but then, what futurist of the 1970s actually anticipated the Internet or had any clue of what computers would really be like?) but I distinctly remember one vision I had of my future. It was perhaps 30 years ago. I really liked to draw, and imagined that one day I would be a professional artist. Since I didn't drive yet, had never gotten into cars as a fetish, and the Arab oil embargo and environmental movements of the day had made me conscious of the pitfalls of automobiles, I saw myself delivering my artwork to my customers on my bicycle.

Well, here I am, with my BFA in Illustration, and riding my bike to work and elsewhere in town (weather permitting). I figured I'd have baskets on the back of my bike instead of a little rack and a messenger bag, but it's a wee bit spooky how close I was.

Later, as I became aware that I wasn't attracted to girls, and before I could consider the notion of having a relationship with a guy, I figured that I would be alone for the rest of my life. That was certainly the expectation that brought hopeless depression to my high school and college years. I did have a wonderfully enriching relationship in my 20s and early 30s, but it's behind me now, and I'm back to being a bachelor. A bit of a disappointment, but also not unpredicted.

One thing I had no clue about as a kid with the actual issue of aging. I saw it, but I didn't understand it. The notion that my body would develop a preference to turning food into fat instead of energy went over my head. The fact that my joints and teeth and so on would start to wear out and break down was unimaginable. I knew (from looking at the men in my family) that I'd eventually lose my hair, but that seemed so incredibly far removed from the thick-haired lifestyle I lived even just 15 years ago. Which makes it a little scary to contemplate how little I understand what's in store for me as I prepare to leave "middle age" for "old age".

But really all I can do is to... make do. My body is still in pretty good shape, and I'm doing what I can to keep it that way. Even though I'm "overweight", I'm still in better condition than most people my age. Some of that's due to vanity, and the lingering delusion that I need to keep myself physically attractive. Gay male culture is even more youth-obsessed than mainstream culture, after all.

But a lot of it just comes down to the fact that I like my independence. Back when I used to travel, a decade or more ago, I'd spend a lot of my time just walking the streets of London or Chicago or Vienna or Puerto Vallarta. A few years ago when I finally managed a vacation out of town again, I went backpacking on Isle Royale. Granted, I did some serious damage to my knee on that trip, but that's because I wasn't content to just hike the trails; I was balancing on a log pumping water from a lake for drinking, and made a wild leap for the shore when it shifted and I lost my balance. My gymnastics tore some cartilege. But I got it fixed and now I'm planning another backpacking trip for this summer, probably going to the mildly challenging wilds of North Manitou Island, but maybe returning to Isle Royale. The prospect of not being able to just go wherever I please is enough to keep me walking and biking, hopefully for the next couple decades or more.

Lately I have had a bit of a preview of Things To Come as I age. My grandmother recently died after a lingering decline in her physical and neurological health, at the age of 92. Her half-sister - who has lived her whole life with physical disabilities - is now going through a similar process, giving up her independence for "assisted living" care. My own parents are still in pretty good health, but I'm starting to see them as "old". Even my workaholic father is retired now. Another 25 years, and that'll be me, and another 25 after that I may be in Grandma's slippers.

But it took me a long time to get where I am, and that'll still be a long time to get to those places. In the meantime, I've got things to do and places to go.

Debt Free

It hasn't happened quite yet, but I'm about to become debt-free again.

I've lived most of my life without carrying any signficant debt. I borrowed money the first time I bought a car, and I've had a credit card since my last semester in college, but I paid the car loan off as soon as I could, and except for several "damn, I forgot to mail the check" incidents, I've always paid off the full balance on the credit card every month. I never charge anything that I don't already have the money to pay for, or at least I know I'll have it next month when the balance on the card comes due.

That all went to hell last year. I'd been working less than full-time and had gone back to college, so every dollar coming in was being spent, and my savings balance had been shrinking steadily. Then I got laid off (again), and living on unemployment benefits for nearly a year completely emptied the savings account. I had to get a student loan and borrow money from my parents to finish that last year of school. I also did something kinda foolish. When I finally got a job offer, I bought a new computer (my first in several years) on credit, figuring I'd be able to pay it off before long. Except that job sucked, the boss was incompetent and a homophobe as well, and for my own sanity I had to take a lesser-paying job to get out of there. I like the new job, but it doesn't pay enough to easily pay off all that debt. I've been struggling a bit just to keep making the minimum payments on it.

The "good news" - really more of a silver lining - is that when my grandmother died, she left me with some money. Not a lot, but enough to pay off those debts, with a little bit left over. It'll be a few weeks for all the paperwork to happen, but then I'll be free and clear.

The leftover cash will be nice, because it means I'll be able to put enough in my bank account so that I won't have to worry about cashflow on a week-to-week basis. I know a lot of people have to live this way all the time, but I'm not used to having to juggle expenses and time purchases based on which week I get paid and what bills are due at that time of the month. Living paycheck-to-paycheck sucks.

I used to look at people who lived that way with a bit of scorn. Now having been in their shoes I'm a bit more sympathetic. But not 100%. For a lot of people it's no one's fault but their own. If they get a little extra cash, they spend it on whatever catches their eye. This time of year people across the country are getting tax refunds, and often blowing it all at once as if it were some kind of free birthday gift from the government. But it's really their own money, which the IRS has been holding for them, as if their kindly Uncle Sam were trying to get them to save. They've been too well-trained as good little consumers.

My situation has made me more sympathetic to people who get stuck in that situation because of things they had no control over. Getting laid off is just one way. Any kind of unexpected expense can do it. I've read that most people in the U.S. are just one major illness away from bankruptcy. Even if they have insurance, it probably won't cover enough of their expenses to keep them financially solvent. Of course the Republicans are currently trying to make it impossible for economic victims to declare bankruptcy, as if - like abortion as birth control - it was just being willfully abused as a way to pay off their extravagant credit card debts. More likely it's people who either got into trouble because of some personal financial disaster, or got suckered into debt by credit cards egging them on to spend beyond their means.

I've managed to avoid building up any debt on my one credit card. One month recently I did use a check which charged to my credit account, so I could pay my health insurance premium on time, and the fees and interest just for that were ridiculous. If I hadn't had the cash a few weeks later to pay it off, it just would've compounded, and I'd be stuck. They keep sending me these checks, enticing me to spend more at their obscene interest rates. My credit limit has been raised over and over, to a level that's about equal to my current after-tax income for an entire year. If I used that much credit, I would literally never be able to pay it off.

There's only one reason that I can see that I'd be willing to go back into debt for: buying a house. If not for losing my job and going back to school 8 years ago, I probably would have done that by now. But even though they're usually good, safe investments, buying a house costs an obscene amount of money, and I'm a bit debt-shy right now.

Instead I'm going to use my new-found financial freedom to relax a very little bit on buying stuff that I want, like maybe a wireless network adapter for my iBook, or a backpacking vacation up north. But I won't be making any ongoing lifestyle changes, because this isn't an ongoing income. It's a one-time thing, so I'll keep saving my pennies for a rainy day. Because if I've learned anything in life, it's that there will be rainy days.

Naked Warnings, Naked Violence

I just watched two programs my machine recorded last night. They give a excellent examples of what's screwed up with our society, and broadcast television in particular.

The first was "House, M.D." (about a brilliant but misanthropic doctor and his protegés). This week's episode had an advisory before the show started, warning viewers that the opening scene depicted sexual activity. Not really. Just two attractive and seemingly-healthy 20-year-olds rolling around in bed, and one of them pants a bit right before he passes out. He turns out to be the patient with this week's zebra.* It was hardly eye-opening; I've seen far more nudity at a public swimming pool. We do also get teased with seeing him totally nude in a later scene, but with artfully obscuring translucent glass doors and camera angles that leave plenty to the imagination.

The second show was the first episode of "Blind Justice" (about a police officer who can't see, of course). This show has an advisory similar to the one that its time-slot predecessor "NYPD Blue" had, warning us that it contains partial nudity. Again, not really. What it contains is a few shots of a dead prostitute, wearing the sort of clothing that street hookers wear. I thought the fact that she was dead was more disturbing than the fact that she was showing so much leg.

See, my point isn't to rant about how squeamish the networks are about nudity and my disappointment at not really getting any. My point is to contrast it with what we weren't warned about.

As it routinely does, "House" this week treated the viewers to some nifty CGI shots inside the patient's body, watching his heart beat, a kidney shutting down, his cells dividing, etc. To say nothing of the more traditional avert-your-eyes surgical scene (as also seen on certain other hospital dramas), the kind that tends to make me lightheaded and sometimes nauseous.

And what really takes the cake is "Blind Justice", which in the minute or two following the warning about partial nudity, showed an armored gunman dramtically shooting down several police officers, then the hero fires off a few more rounds and finally misses the guy's kevlar and hits him in the head, only to catch a bullet in the face, which will of course blind him.

Not a single damn warning about that.

Not that this is anything new. "NYPD Blue" always had similar warnings about "adult language" and "partial nudity". They had their permitted quota of naughty words and their carefully edited shots of nearly every character except Gay John in the buff. But they never warned anyone that we were probably about to see a corpse on the street, and maybe an exchange of gunfire before the closing sex scene.

Now, I have mixed feelings about these warnings and ratings in general. The MPAA rating system has certainly screwed up the way Hollywood makes movies, to be sure. But if the warnings are going to exist, shouldn't they make a little more sense? I don't need or care about warnings about nudity, even if it actually involves real nudity. But if they're going to hold my hand, why not tell me that "the following drama contains some graphic biological situations and explicit medical language" or (more plausibly) "the following drama contains graphic gun-fights and realistic depictions of violence". Because - call me nuts, call me a liberal, or even a European - I think violence is just a little more dangerous, traumatic, and offensive than nudity or sex.

*I don't watch "House" faithfully, so maybe they've already address this with the necessary irony, but the whole theme of the show - in which the doc leads his students in diagnosing improbable but deadly illnesses - violates a principle of diagnostic medicine: When you hear hoofbeats, think "horse", not "zebra". The point being that the cause is usually something mundane, not something exotic and exciting.