Black Gate

What’s curious about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is that this meditative (literally, in terms of length — it’s nearly three hours long — and evocative imagery) movie is publicized as based on (though “inspired” might be the better term in that it uses the conceit of a man who ages backwards, from 80 years to newborn and not much else; this is a arguably a case where the movie improves upon the source material) an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story.  Now, pardon my elitist attitude, but I’d be willing to bet that most of the audience not only has not read the story, but may only have heard of Fitzgerald by way of Robert Redford, if that. But it lends the movie a certain legitimacy.  See, the marketing people are saying, this isn’t some light fantasy, it is a legitimate drama based on a legitimate American writer, even if not that many people read him anymore (which is maybe what makes him “legitimate” from some people’s perspective).

No need to apologize.

This is one of those relatively rare cases in which the acting and the special effects are equally engaging and complementary.  While it’s interesting to watch Brad Pitt age backwards (though I could have done without lingering shots of Pitt at his presumable actual age looking cool, perhaps that pandering to a targeted demographic in which my adolescent daughter belongs), Cate Blanchett as Daisy (bonus points if you’ve figured the significance of that name) is a marvel to behold as Benjamin’s bohemian love interest. With the aid of considerable make-up and perhaps some digital tinkering, Pitt plays his role with amused ironic attachment that may be appropriate for a man whose psychological and emotional state is in opposition to his physical being.  However, it is Blanchett’s character that anchors the tale, both through a neat metaphorical framing device involving Hurricane Katrina, and the power of Blanchett’s performance.   (By the way, if you haven’t seen Blanchett portray a young Bob Dylan, run, don’t walk, to your favored video outlet and rent I’m Not There.)

Yeah, it’s a bittersweet love story that will rake in the Brad Pitt fans. More significantly, it’s about the finite grandeur of the human condition.

Well worth seeing in the theater.  Don’t wait for the DVD. Just make sure you hit the rest rooms before the movie starts.

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It’s Christmas morning.  A mantle of crisp white snow blankets hill and dale.  You rise from your bed and patter down the stairs to find . . . what?  What is your fondest Christmas morning memory?

Mine goes back to when I was fourteen years old.  That summer, I’d boldly announced to my parents that I wanted to be a writer.  This pronouncement was met with stony silence.  “But Scott,” my mother said at length, “how will you be able to live on what writers make?  You need a trade to fall back on.”  My dad never said a word.  A member of the Greatest Generation, a veteran of WWII, he simply shook his head and went on about his business.  My oldest brother, a newspaperman, had taken a year off to write the Great American Novel; I heard my father tell one of his brothers that the only thing that boy of his sold that year was a washer and dryer, and that to get money for his rent.  I was adamant about it, though.

I wrote a few horrible stories that fall, typing each one out on an old Smith-Corona, making copies, and sending them out to Weird Tales (George Scithers was at the helm).  I got the stories back, of course, and though I was discouraged I never gave in.  I also never sold a story.  But, my folks must have seen something they approved of in the way I kept at it.  That Christmas, instead of toys or clothes, they gave me a better typewriter and a large box of supplies: paper, ribbons, pens, notebooks, envelopes, notecards . . . everything I would need to keep submitting stories.  I was shocked, frankly.  Though they never spoke a word of encouragement, their actions let me know they were rooting for me.  Even now, with three books under my belt, my mom will still occasionally scold me for not having a trade to fall back on even as she tries to sneak money for postage into my pocket . . .

So, that’s my fondest Christmas morning memory.  What’s yours?

Virginia: Please snap out of it. The world is drenched in things that don’t exist. I could mention the evergreen genre of “what I shoulda told him was…” conversations, or all those stories about “the fish (or the mastodon or the mating prospect) that got away.” But just because it’s fresh in my mind–and seasonal, too–I’d rather discuss the Attack of the Glittering Trees.

A few nights ago an ice storm swept over the Great Black Swamp (where I live). It was kind of a weird storm: there was warmish rain right before the temperature dropped steeply, so the ice was dripping, heavy, weighing down everything with a thick bright glaze. The ice started to rip branches off trees. A heavy one smashed through a skylight in our basement. (I know that sounds weird, but we really do have skylights in our basement.) Another one hammered on the roof of my daughter’s room. One gave a glancing blow to the living room window.

Clearly the shiny trees were angry and were trying to kill us. When my son tells people about it he always starts by saying, “There were three direct assaults on the house itself…”
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Yesterday we tried to stream the webcast of the winter solstice sunrise at Newgrange, Ireland, but were hampered by severed cables that rendered the Middle East virtually without internet. (Apparently it was also so cloudy in Ireland that the sun wasn’t visible at dawn, so we didn’t miss much.)

Newgrange is a 5000-year-old neolithic passage tomb built before Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid at Giza. Newgrange features in several stories from (the much later) Irish mythology, including that describing the conception of the great Irish hero Cúchulainn, son of the god Lugh. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the spiral designs carved into its stones and those of the neighboring Knowth tomb have inspired New Age labyrinths to help create “peace and tranquility” and paintings celebrating “sacred space” and “Ireland’s holy places.”

Another British Isles passage grave with a winter-solstice webcam, albeit decidedly less hyped, is Maeshowe in the Orkney Islands. Somewhat more is known about the relatively recent history of Maeshowe because of the Orkneyinga Saga, which describes how Earl Harald and his Vikings looted it in the 12th century, and because of the runic graffiti with which the Vikings subsequently defaced it. Inscriptions such as “Thorni f****d; Helgi carved” support the theory that the Vikings subsequently used it as a trysting spot. It perhaps says something about human nature that this is one of the largest single collections of runic inscriptions to survive.

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Christmas was the most fun when I was a little kid, and when I had a little kid. Since neither applies these days, the lights don’t burn as brightly anymore. I’m not entirely a bah-humbugger, it’s just that, well, the magical feeling the holiday used to instill just isn’t there anymore. As a non-believer, the magic I’m referring to is rooted in that of the imagination of fairy tales and Old St. Nick, not the sacred version; although I recently attended a Messiah sing along and have been to the occasional Christmas service, I participate as an anthropological, not a religious, observer.

Now, maybe I’m just not paying attention, but I don’t seem to hear the outcry of putting “Christ” back into Christmas that was prevalent a few years ago. Possibly it has something to do with the economic crash that has lessened the crass commercialism the holiday is famous for (or, again, maybe I’m not paying much attention). In any event, I always thought the whole outrage about saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” was silly, as the holiday’s origins arguably have less to do with the birth of Jesus than paganism and general debauchery. All of this is nicely summarized in A Narnia Christmas by Laura Miller, a staff writer at Salon, author of The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia.
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A common refrain about the publishing industry – heard clearest of all in those places where writers gather online – is that editors and agents are more interested in making a fast buck than in finding a solid author, that they’d rather have cookie-cutter fiction instead of something that breaks new ground, that they just don’t get it.  While I naturally cannot speak for every writer, my own experiences have led me to believe that the opposite is true.

To be sure, publishing changed when the conglomerates took over.  What was once a gentleman’s enterprise became instead a ruthless business, one replete with attorneys and accountants for whom books are merely a curiosity, a commodity.  There is an apocryphal tale from the late 80’s about a financial analyst who crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that, since only a small fraction of books were destined for bestsellerdom, the editor-in-chief would do well to focus the company’s resources just on those few books.  Wearily, the editor explained that no one could predict which books might outperform the others until after they were released.  It’s frightening to think that the people who are ultimately in charge of our creative destines might not have the first clue what they’re doing.

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