Not the winner!

I learned this week that I did not win first prize in the big short story contest I entered. Does that make me a loser? I don’t think so since I managed to actually enter and follow the rules by submitting a story that was under 1500 words and has a beginning and a end.  You can judge for yourself and let me know in the comment section.

The Gloved One 

At a time when the size of a woman’s hand still mattered, she stood behind the glove counter sorting kid from cotton.  The soft delicacy and undulating shapes of the long silk evening gloves were enchanting; the scent of leathers and suedes for daytime, intoxicating. Each pair was individually priced with tiny handwritten paper tags hanging by silk threads to hand stitched labels on the inside of the right hand glove. She was well suited to the tasks of quietly stacking and sorting her lovely merchandise behind the polish of the shimmering glass counter. It was as close to beauty as she might touch every day.

Ruth was a tiny woman barely four feet 9 inches tall; her delicate frame overpowered by the too large features on her face. Her thinning head of faded brown hair, which she put into the hands of the beauty salon on the 12th floor every Friday, was always in place, softly permed.  She was proud of her position; of the job she took a bus to everyday from her little apartment on a less than fashionable block in East Orange, New Jersey into the bustling commercial center of Newark.  Her world was encased in a 14-story building that filled an entire city block.  The store had its own telephone exchange, a completely new idea in it’s time, which shoppers could use to order sporting goods, inquire about exotic merchandise imported from all over the world, or request services from the dry cleaner, pharmacist, watch and jewelry repair center, or even the butcher in the fancy meat department. 

Men still wore hats, women as well. Nylon stockings and petticoats, girdles and long line brassieres were sold in the undergarment department discretely tucked in the back of the third floor woman’s department.  Fashion in the late 1940’s was, then as now, heavily influenced by the glamour of Hollywood.  But this was also the ready-to-wear age. There was no time for sewing. Post-war women were leading busy lives, some had jobs and required practical and simpler clothes for daytime.  Women were even wearing trousers. Glamour was reserved for the evening.

Back in the day 

But on the polished marble main floor where chill winds were masked by the double set of doors and there was a smell of damp wool and fur, Ruth would watch the flurry of active lives, once removed. The hustle and bustle of the crowds provided great opportunities for a people watcher. The two banks of manned brass elevators near the glove counter might provide the way to a rendezvous in one of the dimly lit small private dining rooms that surrounded the oak paneled main banquet halls on the 5th floor. Or it might take visitors to the sixth floor where all kinds of beautiful music, that tiny Ruth could barely hear, came from.  For beautiful music filled the air on every floor, piped in from the orchestra, broadcasting live daily from 6th floor center court. It provided a soft popular or classical soundtrack to the shopper’s experience. The original idea was to create an actual broadcast in the store to help sell radios, but the station became so popular that it was eventually sold to a major conglomerate and even continued to operate as an independent AM radio station well after the Korean War had ended.  On a large raised platform there was a magnificent grand piano draped with a brocade cloth for protection, surrounded by seats for an ever changing group of musicians under the direction of that month’s guest conductor or band leader.  Shoppers could relax in chintz-cushioned sofas during the afternoon concerts and sip tea served from silver service on carts that noiselessly rolled down the deep red Aubusson rugs pushed by white-gloved waiters.

It was a comfortable place to be a spinster.  By 32, Ruth was no longer considered marriageable material. Her dreams were dashed when her family rejected Harry, the shy waiter from the popular Tavern restaurant as not good enough for her.  She had liked the way he had kept their baskets filled with fresh rolls and brought the snappy blue and silver seltzer bottles right to the table, as soon as they sat down. When The Tavern had first opened in 1929, you could have a five-course lunch for sixty-five cents or dinner for a dollar. On Thanksgiving in 1944, the restaurant was closed to the public, serving free dinners to all the servicemen and women from the neighborhood.  The press had reported that almost 3000 dinners were served that evening.  Like her beloved store, The Tavern was a neighborhood fixture, a symbol of its time. 

The years passed quickly. Ruth stood behind that counter for over 35 where she continued to daydream about her day off, Sunday, when she could take herself to the movies and see and hear magic. Ruth was profoundly hard of hearing and had been since birth.  She wore a large beige hearing aid in her left ear with a strand of wires connected to a receiving device, which was usually clipped on to her bra strap or the neckline of her dress.  It was rather unsightly and she fiddled with it incessantly. The other adults in her family often joked that she needed to turn it up, since she always seemed to miss when someone asked her a question or her agreement on a particular matter.  But at the movies, she never missed a single word. 

This was her one great joy, the Hollywood that was peddled in fan magazines like “Confidential: It tells the Facts and Names the Names” and “Modern Screen” and “Silver Screen”--  glimpses into the sordid and steamy side of Hollywood that cost twenty-five cents apiece at the local newsstand.  Designed with garish covers of color-tinted black and white photographs of stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, and Rock Hudson and flimsy black and white interior pages printed with ink that came off on your fingers; they represented the beginning of the end of the stranglehold studios had over the press. Ruth’s younger brother Milton teased her about it and nicknamed her Hollywood so her adored young nieces called her Aunt Hollywood. 

Collectibles? 

The headlines on the covers of these magazines screamed things like, Exclusive: Why Liberace’s song should be Mad about the Boy or Liz will adopt a Negro Baby.  No other news outlet carried these stories. There were the original celebrities for celebrities sake -- the glamorous Gabor Sisters; Magda, Zsa Zsa, and Eva who collectively were married at least 19 times.  The charming British actor, George Saunders had even married two of them.  It couldn’t get any better than that! These slick publications were chock full of the scandals and sexploits of Hollywood’s hottest stars.  For a single middle-aged woman, like Aunt Hollywood, living such a cosseted life, what better daydream fodder than the magic that was post-war Hollywood, where courage was always rewarded, criminals were always punished and all the lovers lived happily ever after.

Aunt Hollywood shared her devotion and secretly, her lurid reading material with her oldest niece Joan, taking her several times a year to New York City, to the opulent and most wonderful Radio City Music Hall.  They saw the stage show and then a movie, frequently starring Doris Day.  Even then, a 10-year-old Joan knew these were just awful -- but going into New York City with her aunt and the glamour of seeing something in that magnificent movie palace was seductive. The theatre itself with its resplendent art deco architecture, massive golden chandeliers and aroma of freshly popped popcorn, was the best part.  Ruth always thoroughly briefed Joan on the bus ride into the city, recounting the latest scandal as reported by her tabloids, all written to keep movie fans returning to the plush seats in the “Now Air-Conditioned” theatres for more.  

So from Pillow Talk, and Please don’t Eat the Daisies and Lover Come Back, all starring the perky, annoying, Doris Day -- to adored Hayley Mills as the pixie Pollyanna, Ruth treated her niece to her magical world.  But it wasn’t all silliness.  When Aunt Hollywood took Joan to see A Dog of Flanders, a lovely film about a poor orphaned boy with aspirations to be an artist like his idol Peter Paul Rubens; little Joan wept inconsolably and had to leave the theatre. She sat on the great staircase in the lobby sobbing, while poor Aunt Hollywood, unsettled and unaccustomed to the frailty of little girls and their silent dreams, tried gently to console her. Grasping hands, their eyes locking; they pledged never to speak to anyone else of this moment when the images of the silver screen could provoke such a deeply felt emotional response. In this, they were united, a pair.  The little girl and her tiny maiden aunt had bonded; the gloves passed on to another generation. 

That which is Sublime.

I have great respect for language.  I worship at the altars of great writers who craft each sentence as part of an assemblage --- which when we step back, takes our breath away. How do they know which words belong?  It is my intention when writing my little blog, to respect my readers and give them something worth reading both in thought and deed.  Whatever the subject, I try to provide my readers with honest and comfortably digestible copy.  I’ve written about the power of music, the joys of theatre, the engagement of movies, becoming a Mother, honoring friends, celebrating artists and even the weather. I’ll write about almost anything that strikes my fancy in the moment.  Writing a blog is like exercising. It keeps my skills sharp for the big projects.  But I’m not kidding myself. These little vignettes are not great literature. I’d like to produce great literature someday and I’m working on that, slowly.

JMW Turner's Snowstorm at Sea

When I was in college, I took a class entitled “The Philosophy of Painting”.  It was an introduction to the philosophies of Aesthetics. My professor, whose name I cannot recall, was a rather round Danish fellow who obsessively paced the floor and never made eye contact with any of his students.  I have a vivid memory of his pastel scarves, long blonde hair, fierce blue eyes and rather sweaty forehead. He spoke with flourishes and passion while his ten students raised their eyebrows. He was absolutely bonkers and Ludwig Wittgenstein was required reading.  If you are unfamiliar with Ludwig, I would certainly understand. While he is considered one of the great philosophers of this century, most of us don’t have the time or inclination to include Philosophy in our Must Dos.  But I include him in this blog because what he said provides a framework for talking about The Tree of Life, the actual subject of this blog.

Here are three of his gems:

 1. A picture is a fact.

How can we deny that which we see?  Wittgenstein talks about vision as a personal experience. He famously asked, if I see (the color) Red and you see Red, how can we ever be sure we are seeing the same color?  Does my vision of Red look the same as your vision of Red?  Is the actual color relevant?

JMW Turner's Sunset

2. What can be shown cannot be said.

One might consider this a more profound consideration of a picture being worth a 1000 words. Wittgenstein considers that what we see is unconstrained by the limitations of language, that there is a distinct visual vocabulary.

3. The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

This is my personal favorite because it helps me to recognize the limitations of a single culture as constrained by its vocabulary. If a particular phenomenon does not occur within a culture, does it even require a name or if there is something that has a profound impact or presence in a culture, is just one name for it enough? One example, Greenland has 38 words for snow.

Sean says little

So here’s my dilemma – I don’t want to diminish the experience of The Tree of Life by reducing it to words.  I cannot possess the vocabulary to do it justice. As I sat in the theatre I so wanted to capture my experience of seeing with my words, to be in the moment, to be present.  It’s not often that a word like beatitude or transcendent are experiential or even appropriate. Yet there they were on the screen in front of me. There is Commerce and there is Art and the difference was never so apparent to me as it was    witnessing this film, a haunting and melancholy and largely narrative-free depiction of the selective nature of memory, of the profundity of loss, of the complexities of love, of the scars of disappointment, and the miracle that is creation. Yes, I’m talking about a movie.

It’s not a film for everyone. It’s two and a half hours long and will not make for a great social exchange at its conclusion. I would never call it a date movie. It speaks to each viewer intimately. It is more like standing in front of a Van Gogh or JMW Turner or walking into a Cathedral or witnessing the landscape of Yosemite and your breath is taken away and you want to hold on to that feeling in silent solitude.

Brad the Dad  -- unlimited by words 

They are those few moments in life when what we witness fills us with a sense of wonderment, and demonstrates the presence of a higher being or power, an intelligence which surpasses our expectations of understanding. We bask in that profundity and recognize genius.

There are very limited moments when we can take the marvelous word sublime off of its special mantel and apply it. The Tree of Life is one of those moments. It is that which is sublime.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.   – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Iterations of Sondheim

Seeing the movie of Stephen Sondheim’s Company that was made of the four performances at Lincoln Center was a shock to the system. I am an over-the-top Sondheim fanatic and while not every show hits it out of the park, my senses were first jolted by a performance of Company in 1970 at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. I was a young impressionable teen and I had never seen anything like this. 

All my musical fare to date was limited to Rogers and Hart (The Boys from Syracuse and Pal Joey) and later Hammerstein (Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music), Lerner and Loew (Brigadoon, My Fair Lady and Camelot), and Bye Bye Birdie, Hello Dolly ( Carol Channing was amazing but I also saw it with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway!), and the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan.


All were great shows with many memorable tunes and wonderful sequential stories with easy to follow plots - stories that were structured the way you would expect them to unfold. But Company was/is something else entirely – a series of vignettes revolving around one central character, a single man in a sea of married couples. This was, in it’s time, groundbreaking. I remember that didn’t walk out of Company feeling happy and satisfied or humming anything in particular, but I was dumb struck.

Mandy  -- Born to sing Sondheim 

I’m sure part of my shock was that it talked about marriage as adults might talk about it.  This was clearly a show with music written for adults. In my own childhood home, marriage was combative and ugly, ending in divorce. For a very long time, I didn't know it could be otherwise.  Company incisively captures the highs and lows of these relationships and is both uncomfortable and brilliant.    

The other thing that made me catch my breath was it’s ending.  I had never seen a show that ended without a resolution; that was left open to interpretation, to the viewer’s projections.  It was not the what (Bobby seeks out his own life, leaving his married friends behind.) but the why. Why did he need leave them behind? I was too young to understand. No show with music had ever left me so bereft.

In the years since then I’ve seen Company twice more, not including this latest iteration. I must confess to you dear readers, that there are a few shows that I have seen a few times. At the top of this list is Sweeney Todd, another Sondheim production and IMHO, his masterpiece.  I've seen at least five versions of the show.
The first was the original with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou (1979) when the theatre was transformed into the bowels of London. Then there was a filmed version of the Broadway show. The third was an incredible revival with a ten-person cast (2005) who each played an instrument. There was no orchestra but the music was played in new Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht-like orchestrations (They of Three Penny Opera fame.) This rather stripped down bare Marxist twist on the production starred Patti LuPone (Mrs. Lovett - Tuba & percussion) and Michael Cerveris* (Sweeney - Guitar).  I just loved learning that Ms. LuPone had played the Tuba in her high school marching band!  Some years ago we took our son to a local theatre camp production starring a seventeen-year-old Sweeney with an unfortunate lisp. The family then watched in wonder at Tim Burton's interpretation starring Johnny Depp.  I call these: Sweeney Todd, Teeny Todd, Der Schweeney Todd, Ss-weeny Todd, and Burton Todd ( the opposite of Liz's encounters)  -- just to keep them straight in my head.

Patti pulls it off and then some! 

But this film version of Company was unlike any other musical I’d ever seen on film or stage. Part of it was that the performance was taking place at Lincoln Center for the audience at large, not the screen viewers. As such, each gesture and expression was done for those “out there” while the camera captured each performer up close and personal, so close in fact that you could see the amount of pancake make-up in their pores. This put each actor under unusual and untypical scrutiny. It also created a special intimacy with the performers that I really liked.  The joy of performance was etched in their high definition faces.

Look at the joy in these faces! 

I was very anxious about Patti LuPone being able to pull off The Ladies who Lunch. Elaine Stritch has owned it forever but she blew the roof off! No one does pain like Patti. Neil Patrick Harris is adorable and has a nice voice but he’s no Dean Jones or Larry Kert.  It was a treat to discover that Christina Hendricks has great comedy chops. Some of the other minor players like Martha Plimpton and Jon Cryer, to name two of the celebs in this production, are just a delight. Stephen Colbert is so happy to be part of it all but his vibrato is frequently in search of the right note.  

That said, the very best thing about this production was the sound! Wow. You’ve got the New York Philharmonic and the latest in audio film technology combining together in a small dark room with great speakers and Sondheim. His music has never sounded so majestic and rich!  That made it all worth it.

For a $15 ticket, this was a new and exciting way to experience Broadway and to reach an audience that can’t make it to New York City or can’t just drop $150 plus parking for a ticket to see a show. (Tickets for The Book of Mormon start there.) Yes, I do love going to the theatre in New York City. There is nothing like live theatre, I know I know, but this is great show, an amazing bargain and there are no bad seats. The run was limited but paved the way for more. I know I’ll be back for the next one.

*Fringe alert! Michael Cerveris is the main observer on Fringe.  He also played the pinball wizard, Tommy in the original Broadway production of The Who’s Tommy and was deliriously powerful. 

Oscarama!

I just spent the last hour soaking in the tub while reading the latest edition of Entertainment Weekly from cover to cover.  It is the issue devoted to all things Oscar, that most coveted piece of American produced hardware; the ultimate trophy.  Every year at this time, my attention is riveted to Hollywood and all that glamour. Academy Award night is the one night a year where I watch television for six hours straight.  Don’t even try to call me; I won’t answer the phone.  I may tweet a bit or stop by Facebook to see what kind of snarky remarks my clever friends may make, but that’s it. Oscar and the fashion cavalcade command all my attention.

I must admit that the prognostication of winners by the entertainment writers and editors who probably have not seen all of the films seems a bit presumptuous to me. It clearly doesn’t stop any of the news outlets in fact, from having an opinion about the films and who deserves and will win. I can do just as good a job of judging that which I have not seen and so I will. 

For the purposes of brevity, I will only comment on the films nominated for best picture.  I will divulge to my readers which films I have seen or not and suggest that none of my commentary or evaluations be used for determining how to vote in your local Oscar pool if you are actually interested in winning.  My projections are for entertainment purposes only. 

127 HOURS

To be clear, I don’t want to see this movie.  To see where someone has put their arms where it doesn’t belong will remind me too much of the times I put my mouth in places it doesn’t belong, as in – Oops! That just fell out of my mouth -- I shouldn’t have said that.  I also just don’t think this is going to win because Danny Boyle won last year for the fabulous Slumdog Millionaire and he’s not going to win with this one. It wasn’t even shot overseas.

BLACK SWAN 

A film about a bunch of crazy ladies makes me crazy and feels eerily familiar to me.  I like the idea of another ballerina based movie being recognized since The Turning Point with looney Shirley Maclaine and feisty Anne Bancroft was just annoying. Billy Elliot was about a young man so it doesn’t really count, but I don’t think it has the gravitas to win. 

INCEPTION

For the spinning hallways and dizzying plot, this kaleidoscope of a film kept me guessing, mostly about how this movie could possibly end. The notion of invading dreams was a swell one. Avatar, or as we call it in our house, Dances with Wolves meets Pocahontas in Fern Gully, won three (Art Direction, Cinematography and Visual Effects), and I think this film should do at least as well. The director, grumpy Christopher Nolan, isn’t nominated so I don’t think it can take Best Picture. 

THE FIGHTER

When Marky Mark became Mark Wahlberg and ditched his Calvin’s, he was making a very smart move. As a young man, Mr. Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty to assault, and was sentenced to two years in jail, of which he served 45 days. He’s obviously figured out how to channel all that aggression. I personally find Mark to be a very reliable actor. I even saw M.Night’s awful The Happening and while it was a really bad movie, Mark tried his best to make it work. Christian Bale is no softy either. It’s hard to believe he’s Australian after you see him in this movie. Melissa Leo has been a personal favorite of mine since her Homicide days. The big surprise in this cast is Amy Adams. But it’s another Boston Movie and the win for Scorcese’s The Departed was too recent for this to take Oscar home.  

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

There are lots of complaints this year about how there are no Academy Award nominees of color but what about Lesbians?  How long have they been neglected in Hollywood? 

Alternative families are all around me in my neighborhood so I think it’s great that Hollywood finally caught on. I loved this movie and wrote about it in a earlier blog entitled: Gene pool, Cesspool—The Kids are All Right.  I think Annette Bening should win for her performance but I don’t think the film has the technical or historical drama to carry the day. 

If you would like to read more about this film and then some, please go to:

http://suburbanfamiliar.blogspot.com/2010/08/gene-pool-cesspool-kids-are-all-right.html

THE KINGS SPEECH

Colin Firth is completely adorable and is the closest to being named my make believe boyfriend of all the film nominees (Sorry George, but you’re not in a nominated film this year.) and so it would be really terrific if this movie wins. Geoffrey Rush is always brilliant and Helena Bonham Carter is absolutely my favorite. She’s beautiful and wacky. If she knew me, we would be great friends. It has the-real-story historical-person-faced-with-personal-adversity going for it. Also, a British accent gives this movie points because it makes everyone sound so such much more intelligent than most Americans even when they stammer. 

THE SOCIAL NETWORK 

I like playing on Facebook so I’m not all that surprised that someone decided it would make great fodder for a film.  Since this is the only movie nominated this year with a cast that includes minorities (How could you shoot at Harvard without Asians?) it gives this film, in an all white year, additional points.  Aaron Sorkin is as smart as David Mamet and then some so while I haven’t seen the movie yet, I think it’s a real contender. By the way, if you haven’t seen the South Park episode about Facebook, you should.  

TOY STORY 3

I love Woody.  He’s the best male role model for young men out of Hollywood this year. He has heart, smarts and wears blue jeans without the sag. His buddy Buzz Lightyear shows how men can be friends without getting all soupy about it. It is a great celebration of Man-love of the highest order and the story and animation and performances are first rate. I’ve seen all three of these films and they just kept getting better and better, the opposite of most sequels (remember Godfather III?) and for that alone it should win something but since a friendship like this could only exist in cartoonland and Hollywood has never awarded an animated film the best picture award, the film makers will have to be content with best song -- because I love Randy Newman. 

TRUE GRIT

The Coen brothers don’t want to win for this one so they won’t.  They don’t want to become part of the Hollywood mainstream and even though this film has made more money than any other of their films, it was also rated PG-13.  They seem to be more suited to R rated genre. I think they want to remain outside and edgy and we like them there. 

WINTERS  BONE

Since I live in the Northeast and have been snowed in and going stir crazy so there is no way I would vote for a film with Winter in the title.  Ask me about this in the Spring, maybe after I’ve actually seen the movie and we don't have all this snow.

So that’s my rundown for this year’s Oscar Best Picture nominations. Please feel free to submit your own projections. Everyone can and does do it. 

Giving Credit to "The Other Guys"

Giving Credit to "The Other Guys"

You know how when you go to the movies, there are always a few people who insist on staying in their seats and sitting through all of the credits?  Well, count me as one of those people.

Part of the reason I stay is because I find it fascinating that so many people have so many different talents to provide and tasks to perform --to make it all happen -- and the other reason is, I'm paying my respects to all of those people and their willingness to collaborate. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to this because I spent years producing material for television both as an advertiser and as a producer myself, and remember how little it takes to makes things go all-wrong.

How could I forget producing the cooking show segment where the lovely Home Economist had gone out drinking with the Celebrity Chef the night before the taping, and was so hung over that she prepared a dozen turkeys for a shoot that I had cut the turkey segment from: two weeks earlier?  She was so exhausted (and hung over) from prepping and dressing all of the turkeys, that she was in the bathroom throwing up, and unable to get the pies made we were supposed to shoot that day, on a very expensive sound stage.

Or the time I was producing an On-Air Promotional spot, that the chimp took a particular liking to me and could only be mollified and cooperative if I held him while he gave me a hickey on my belly, between takes?

Or the time I was on a beach in Malibu with a film crew, a Santa Claus in his Summer Jammies and Surfboard, and one of two trained reindeers,(this one was Princess) available for commercials, that had been flown in the night before from Vancouver; and calling my office in Florida only to be told that the whole promotion had been killed by the President of the company and it was up to me to tell the 80 people working for me, cleaning up Reindeer poop as it dropped along the shoreline, that this spot would never see the light of day?

So, I do understand the miracle when it works, all too well, and stay in my seat to honor that miracle.

Today was no exception.  I went to see The Other Guys, basically a string of gags strung together by a feeble spoof of cop movies, providing an opportunity for Will Ferrell to be very funny.  In this, the film does not disappoint.  Will is very funny.  Mark Wahlberg has his moments of very funny.  The film however is not very funny.

The premise is that Will uncovers a scheme by a British financial-advisor type who is bilking people out of their money, very large sums of money; much like a Bernie Madoff.  By the end of the movie, we are supposed to believe his victims include a large generic American Corporation under the leadership of a manic Anne Heche, some badass Nigerians, and a group of style-challenged Chechnyian Rebels.  They are all in line to be paid off by his duping the fool in charge of the $34 billion New York Police pension fund.  This does not make for very funny.

If the movie had ended there with credits, I would not have felt compelled to write this blog.  But what happens next is the weirdest thing I have ever experienced as a moviegoer, at the end of a comedy.

As the credits appear so do a series of very bold and clean graphics that detail how a Ponzi scheme works, as well as statistics "ripped from the headlines" charting our recent financial meltdowns. Whether citing the figures from the AIG bailout or TARP payments made or the growing disparity between Goldman Sachs employees to regular working schmoes (now topping off at over 300%!) and then letting you know that the average Wall Street executive earned $4 million last year and that 92 executives from AIG were given bonuses with the bail-out money paid with our tax dollars, I was less than amused.  In fact, I was mighty pissed off.

I just sat through over two hours of cars blowing up, exploding store fronts, mayhem of the highest order and this movie maker has the audacity to think his millions thrown up on the screen provide him with a platform for reminding us how we have been bilked?  How we have been made fools of?  Save the Morgan Spurlock act for the investigative journalists.  I feel like a jerk for paying the admission fee, hoping to be entertained and forget about the stupid state of the world for a couple of hours.

Gene Pool, Cesspool -- The Kids are All Right

What I understand about Genetics

There is a wonderful scene in The Kids are All Right in which Jules ( Julianne Moore) is taken aback by sperm donor Paul (Mark Ruffalo), because she can't help but see her children in his mannerisms.  It provides these characters with a moment of intimacy, an understanding of how momentous, whether as sperm donor or full-fledged parent, the decision to pass your genes on to another generation can be.  Whoever you are shows up somehow, someway, in the lovely sprouts you plant.

In our home, my husband and I call it Gene Pool, Cesspool.  The Gene Pool consists of those characteristics we are each proud to claim as passing on to our son.  For example, I am thrilled that he has my sense of humor.  My husband is thrilled our son has his (!) sense of humor.  My mother is thrilled that her grandson has her blue eyes and my father-in-law is thrilled that he has his blue eyes.  I have decided that he got one eye from each of them and this just proves how very clever he is, a trait I justifiably take credit for now and again. 

The Cesspool stuff, on the other hand, not so much -- These are the characteristics that show up in your children that you hoped might not appear.  They might be a superficial as Uncle Jerome's gargantuan ears or as unpleasant as your Grandmother's short temper or even afflictions that are private and should not be posted on Facebook or for that matter, anywhere else. 

These thoughts are left unsaid when partners are contemplating the notion of family, when elated that they will actually be starting a clan, or admiring a beautiful growing belly, and when you act encouragingly amused because your partner picks up a long abandoned guitar and serenades her expanding waistline with an old Joni Mitchell song -- another reason why I loved The Kids are All Right, by the way.

Groucho: Is it me or is it getting crowded in here?         

My mother was actually a voice major in college at NYU and continued to sing and practice her scales when I was growing up.  A major source of embarrassment I can assure you when I was a kid, too dumb to appreciate her gift.  She studied the classics (See Kitty Carlisle in A Night at the Opera for reference and don't miss the stateroom scene while you're there.) and for a nice Jewish girl from Newark, New Jersey, this was unusual in it's time. (Google Beverly "Bubbles" Sills for more information about that journey. ) Unfortunately, she did not pass on her beautiful Mezzo Soprano to me, only her abundant and magnificent Divaness.

The other thing about the making of children is that it is not a 50/50 proposition.  Children are just not that simple.  They are also not an instant cake mix and what and who they are may in fact require a long time festering before it ferments.

Sometimes one of those nasty Cesspool traits shows up and my husband and I face off in an "I Blame You!" competition, citing the shortcoming in each other's family trees as evidence.  We also play a game called "Whose Family is Crazier?"  Like Freud's Last Session, (see an earlier posting entitled, Kandinsky and the Evil Laugh, in which the existence of God is debated on stage...) this dialogue always ends in a draw, a fact which we find both comforting and discomforting. 

My child has the good fortune, this moment, of having all four grandparents.  All are in their 80's and my father-in-law is turning 90 this Fall.  No one is in a nursing home and no one has dementia, which is pretty terrific.  I hope this longevity factor falls in the dominant gene pool along with attendant good health.  

But no matter what the role of the dice has given us in our offspring, no matter how frail and tenuous the bond of family may be at times,  it was delightful to see it so artfully portrayed on the screen and hopefully, it is as thoughtfully tended to in my own life.