Loved the music. I had no idea that all these songs came from the same band. Crazy how some things outlive its time. Great anything transcends. The show was great, there was great energy in the theater.
I loved the dancing, especially the four of them just bobbing in place. I try and do it myself, but can’t get it right. And I think my favorite part was when it looked like we were backstage and you see the 4 guys’ backs and all these flashing light bulbs. It was a really great night out and I’m glad we did it for Dad’s Christmas gift this year.
George Clooney is 2009’s Jude Law. He’s currently in 3 movies that are in theaters now. I feel like this movie is a tiny little bell. It starts lightly ringing, builds up resonance and then begins to vibrate.
I wonder if he’ll go back to living a disconnected life. If the burn of Alex will send him back in the air for good, or if he’s learned a lesson that will keep him searching for a connection. I’m not really sure if the tag line for the movie is right, I don’t think he was ready to make a connection. I think he stumbled into it and chose to continue it.
And I wonder, how many of us are living secret lives? Maybe they aren’t as huge and disarming as affairs in the air. But it could be anything from a private blog to a separate personality at work. Alex never showed any cracks that peered into her ‘real’ life. I wonder if she hid her ‘escape’ life just as well.
TPL DVD: So, I thought this was going to be a comedy. But what you find is something pretty deep and unfunny. How many people waste their second chances? And what was this guy living for? Does such a life deserve to be saved? I mean, he has the money and the resources, but does he really contribute much to the lives of others? And it wasn’t till the end that George Simmons started caring about others, truly caring about them, not just what they contributed to him. And in my book, started living.
by Lynne Cox
When I read the final pages of this book, when Grayson finds his mother, I felt such strong emotions that my eyes teared up, right on the subway! I was pretty amazed, that something that had been written so simply and in such a spiritual, hippy fashion, had culminated to such an emotional ending. I think that was the power of her book. To make a reader feel small in the midst of the grand energy of life.
I also loved the graphics for this book. Such care and thought was put into the cover, printed on lovely textured paper and embossed title. Also, the inside pages were so cleanly and beautifully laid out, I just again felt small in the midst of something extraordinary.
by Dave Eggers & Vendela Vida
First off, what an intriguing name! Vendela Vida. I wonder what kind of name it is. I found the screenplay much easier to follow than the movie, although the movie captures the tone and atmosphere much more so than the screenplay. I can see how things can be easily misinterpreted or catered to someone’s imagination.
They say biology and nature has this ability to adapt to its surrounding, to evolve. But meanwhile, our society evolves and morphs into these lifestyles that are so far beyond or outside of biology. We think that we can change everything based on our whims and when we learn that some things are outside of our scheduling, outside of our control, we try and go against biology. Like, how crazy and egotistical are we? Does everything revolve around what we want? When is what is, the line that doesn’t get crossed?
It kind of made me think of this conversation that I had last night with Gord and some of his other former students. And this one guy Jason, was talking about how he’s going to wait out his fiance’s biological clock. How they’re going to wait so long for the perfect conditions, that the only thing that won’t work is her biology.
“I wonder if we’ve been selfish, people like us. We wait until our thirties and then we’re surprised that the babies aren’t so easy to make anymore… And every day another million fourteen-year-olds get pregnant without trying… I just wish I could make it work for her. If I could fix it all and just make a baby for her. It’s terrible feeling this helpless, man. You just watch these babies grow and then fade and you don’t know if you’re supposed to name them or bury them or… I’m sorry.”
by Ned Vizzini
Pretty heartbreaking. It made me think a lot about Dave Egger’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Maybe the best and most honest friends you make are when you’re down. And they’re down or have been down there before. I think the most lasting friendships I’ve had revolved around a hurt or a great joy. Without emotion, life doesn’t add up to much. And sometimes you have to be brave, you have to have the courage to feel anything. We go about keeping ourselves busy or zoned out and we don’t bother to ask ourselves what we feel or why we feel them. We just keep going on and doing more of it hoping that we’ll figure it all out.
“Time is a person-made concept.”
“If Bobby can get a place to live, I think, then I can get a life worth living.”
“Take these verbs and enjoy them.”
TPL DVD: There are needs and niche markets everywhere. You just have to look and see the small details of people’s lives. And often times these lives are on the fringes of society, because, a lot of the common needs have been met already. And at some point, too, you have to be honest about who you are and what you want.
I love this movie poster. It captures the mystery and imagination of childhood. But buried in a wine bottle somewhere in Czechoslovakia, is a bottle full of frustration and sadness due to hate.
I can’t imagine having the ability of living with not knowing. I don’t think I would have been able to endure such anxiety. Sometimes imagining all the horrible things that could have happened is more painful than knowing. There’s a powerful kind of mystery from not being able to make things tangible, of not knowing someone or what happened to them.
It makes me think of Dave Eggers and his claim in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, “because your life is worth documenting; because if you do not believe your life is worth documenting, or knowing about, then why are you wasting your time/our time? Our air?” When you think of all the ways that a human life has been wasted… And is still being wasted.
What I liked the most out of this movie though was its hope. Hope that by learning from the past worsts, we can prevent a future worst. Much like the efforts of Erin Gruwell and her efforts of using the Holocaust as a platform for her students to be able to relate to each others’ humanity.
