Watched Amelie last night. I found it an awfully pretty but ultimately unsatisfying movie. Yes, the movie works had at being charming and delightful and whimsical–and succeeds but only because it tries so hard to be these things. By the end I felt like someone had stuffed me full of sticky, sweet cotton candy and I was gagging on it.
My essential problem with the film is clearly one of personal taste. I found the main character irritating. She was a bit TOO sympathetic and way too cute, pouty and impish for my taste. I tend to like my characters (and my real live people) a bit more real and rough around the edges, a bit more angry and willing to be ugly. So while this film is not for me, I can see why someone else might enjoy it.
If this is the eve of your new year, may it be a happy one.
May it be filled with health and appreciation.
May you find peace.
Happy New Year!
New in the latest Ink Pot:
Fantastic interview of one of my favorite writers (and people), Ellen Meister.
Mesmerizing flash fiction by the talented, Mary McCluskey: Stormy Weather.
I grew up in a town of 2,000. My town would have to die 58 times to reach 116,000. This number, this horror.
This horror. How to make sense of that? There is no way.
The earth will have her way with us. And in saying that, I do not mean to give up and let what will be, be. But we cannot stop an earthquake. They are necessary for a healthy planet. A release of the earth’s toxins. And when there is release, there is often destruction but to hold it in would be worse maybe?
So it is time, once again, to count each day as precious. Did you forget that each day could be the last day? I sometimes did. And I will again. But for now, each day is the first and I live it for 116,000 mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, sons and daughters.
by Myfanwy Collins
Life between the arrival of Bonhomme de neige and the rebirth of Jesus was nothing short of a quiet death. No candy and no loud voices. Instead, ashy crosses on foreheads and mass after mass after mass.
Champlain, Branbury, The Lakes At Night
by Lyn Lifshin
(note: I found a snippet from this poem on newpages.)
This page made me laugh and laugh because whenever we go to either Allen’s dad’s or mom’s house he is inevitably fixing a computer (as he did on Christmas day when his dad couldn’t get his computer out of safe mode). Here’s just a snippet from the page:
True story: my mother-in-law heard a Barenaked Ladies song on the radio that she liked, so she Googled “bare naked ladies.” There was more porn than music in the search results. She clicked around.
“Suddenly this weird web search bar showed up in my browser,” she told me. “And after that, I couldn’t use the computer at all. Any time I went to it, the disk drive made lots of noise and the whole computer was so slow, I couldn’t get it to do anything.”
by Myfanwy Collins
My toothbrush smelled like sweat or a stain (the scent lingered on my upper lip like a scratch ‘n sniff). Then the sun was so bright, the light clutching at the hair on my arms and tugging it, that it made me think death might be near.
In the library my stomach churned in that way that made me think I might shit myself. Must find a toilet. Must find a book. Must find a toilet and a book or a book and a toilet. It’s that clenching gut “grab hold of your bowels boys!” feeling.
At the core of the problem, at its very center, I think, are the books; in that there are so many of them, the books are making me sick.
The librarians have very carefully placed certain ones on display at the end of each aisle–-three per each on bite-sized shelves. “These are the ones,” they say (the ones that you should read) desperately.
But I must start in Aa. And now I fear that I may never even make it to Da because whenever I get into Ba and sometimes Ca I start to feel the ring-ting-tingling, stomach-juicy-juicing down into your deep heart feeling.
By the time I make it down the stairs to the desk, the feeling is nearly gone and one of the library ladies is laughing and shooing the idiot through the door who just set off the alarm. She looks at me, shakes her head, rolls her eyes. We’re sharing our annoyance at the dumb ass who did/didn’t set off the alarm. “Just go,” her headshake says. “Dumb ass,” her eye roll.
By the time I’m at my car again, it’s the sun lighting up the street like a cat on fire, a funeral pyre, a rolling tire or whatever, then. It’s the sun pinching my nose and dragging me along to the final time when the grass is in shadows. And it is the sun alone bringing me back to the books every time.
Start at Aa. I dare you.
read this piece in its entirety at FRiGG
Watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind yesterday. Even though people have been raving, I wasn’t expecting much from this film. I thought it was going to be Jim Carrey yet again making goofy faces (and I have to say the trailers certainly play to this notion) but it is not. What this film is, is mind-blowing. I’m in love with it and by the end I was crying and overjoyed. My reaction could be because I had only slept two hours the night before and was out of my mind, but I don’t think so. I think this movie really is special.
The premise is that this “doctor” has created a method of erasing memories from one’s mind–a technique sought after by many jilted lovers. The problem is that it doesn’t really stick–once all of the crappy memories are gone, the love remains or comes back. It never really dies.
When Joel (Jim Carrey) tries to wipe Clementine (Kate Winslet) from his mind, he decides mid-stream that he doesn’t want to and tries to hide from the erasing. That in watching his memories fade one by one, he realizes he still loves her. And when they come to the final memory–when they met and broke into a house on the beach together–he changes the course of their memories and instead of walking away, Joel (at Clementine’s urging) goes back and kisses her. The initial passion is recaptured. It is what remains. Afterward, when they meet again, fall for each other and then learn that they have wiped each other out (and listen to their tapes)–they remain together, at least for now and despite their foibles.
Okay, so superficially this is about the memory erasing but this erasing is a metaphor for what happens as love grows old and presumably “dies.” We forget all of those wonderful, magical moments with our beloved and turn him into the person we ultimately despise and end up in counseling or whatever saying mean shit about him and picking apart his every action from how she dyes her hair crazy colors to how he smiles lamely at everything we say. And if we could just remember what it was about him we loved, maybe love would not die, maybe love would be reborn. I’m making it sound crap but it really is a wonderful movie. I will watch it again–likely more than once.
The acting is superb–not one crappy performance in the bunch. Jim Carrey was outstanding and generous in working with the other actors–I never once got the feeling he was trying to steal the show or be JIM CARREY. Kate Winslet as Clementine, was perfection. Oh, I love this movie.
Can we rewrite our history? So that separated lovers end up together? So that we are forgiven our sins? So that we are understood our motivations? Is atonement even possible? These questions are at the core of Ian McEwan’s brilliant book Atonement. I am probably the last person on the globe to read this book but I would like to add myself to its list of fans anyway.
Presented in three acts with an afterward, the plot is played out before us—delivered to us by the hands of Briony Tallis. In the beginning, she sets the stage, changes the course of fate and in the end she remains the puppet master. Of course, it is also the story of Robbie and Cee but they are more her characters through which we see the failings (and as she rewrites them, successes) of her life. In the end, it is not so much the tale of star-crossed lovers as it is story of the artist as a young woman.
Beautifully, richly told this book never stops surprising. Just when you think you have it all figured out, everything changes. Just as you believe that everything is going to be all right, that fulfillment is near—something else happens. In the end, atonement for Briony is as much a dream, a fable as the Trials of Arabella–possible but not real:
How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.
myfanwy collins 