Groundhog Day

Though it's nearing the end of November, I decided to take a trip to Punxsutawney, PA for Groundhog Day. To discuss Groundhog Day I should first discuss Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is an occasion for celebration, for humans to gather together and be merry over a common occurrence, even if it just so happens to be plucking a large rodent from a burrow and asking it whether it saw its shadow. The reason isn't especially compelling to most, but it is a true glimpse of the humanity that Bill Murray's character, Phil Connors, lacks.

The beauty in Phil's voyage from bitter egoist to joyful humanist comes from his discovery of life's little details. One of the most powerful moments for me came from his "I'm a God" speech in the diner, when he reveals the back stories of all of the side characters filling the place. It made me realize that for every person in a crowd, there are stories, desires, and memories. Taking into account these details and taking the time to explore them suddenly makes the world all the richer.

On the topic of time, one of the perks to reliving the same day again and again is being able to take advantage of all the time lost to narrow-minded goals, in Phil's case, his career. When he suddenly finds himself with all the time in the world, he starts to learn the piano, ice sculpture, auto mechanics, and empathy. It made me pause to think of how much time there really is in life and how much could be gained from every initiative. The unlimited potential of any given day is not to be understated or ignored, for to do so would be a great loss.

Notwithstanding the humor, which was light-hearted but hardly laugh-out-loud, I really enjoyed Groundhog Day for the fact that it's inspired me to explore life more, take an interest in the details, and just be appreciative of each day. For this, I give it four stars.

What Every Body Is Saying (Chapter 1)

I borrowed this book from my brother at the end of my final Winter Break. According to him, it would change the entire way I look at people. Having finally sat down and opened the cover, I'm already intrigued. It would be cheap to give away too much of the actual content of this book, so apart from noting the subtitle, "An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People," I'm going to avoid direct quotations for the most part.

Considering Joe Navarro's reference to the observational skills of Sherlock Holmes, the words "Elementary, my dear Watson" came to mind a time or two. People these days, myself included, tend to be terribly lazy with their observations, only noticing the most overt and bombastic expressions when communicating. For example, there are certain people who never fail to overstay their welcome, chatting feverishly when their hosts are literally and exaggeratedly yawning from exhaustion. There are times when I try to signal nonverbally that I need to leave the conversation; it doesn't register. There are times when I catch myself avoiding eye contact with people; Navarro says this is a sign of fear or showing disdain. No wonder people read me in ways that are contrary to what's actually on my mind. A perfect stranger commented that I looked angry while I was having a pleasant dinner with a friend at the adjacent table. I was befuddled.

Navarro sets up ten commandments for observation, which can only be done justice when read in their entirety, but for the sake of summary, when observing, it is important to note an individual's normal behavior, the circumstances surrounding any change in behavior, potentially deceptive or misleading behaviors, and that the individual does not realize that he or she is being observed. As I work to improve my communication skills, a knowledge of nonverbal communication will be essential, not only for getting my point across but also for allaying old fears of another person's disinterest. I look forward to the topics covered in subsequent chapters.

Boundaries (Chapter 2)

I decided to read an extra chapter today, since it's raining out, and the first chapter intrigued me. Chapter 2 outlines the different types of boundaries, from the physical (skin) to the spiritual (truth), and accounts for all the things that set them (e.g. responsibility and desires). What I'm really enjoying about this book so far is the moderate way it approaches the Bible, giving solid distinction between glorifying God (which appeals to me) and worshiping God (which does not). This, however, will be an Ass Burgers topic.

I've included some quotes below that have resonated with me on my journey.


"As it stands now, he is irresponsible and happy, and you are responsible and miserable." (30)
I can see this in myself, in my roommates, and in my parents. It's the idea of being responsible and keeping one's mouth shut about another's irresponsibility in order to keep the peace, mostly out of fear of an unfavorable reaction. What most do not realize is that volcanoes build in silence.


"Our fences need gates in them... Confessing pain and sin helps to 'get it out' so that it does not continue to poison me on the inside." (35)
It's far too easy to set up a boundary as a wall. Much of my spiritual panic in the last two years has established a wall that will not allow good in or bad out. In order to correct this, I need to acknowledge more external good and either accept or refute more internal bad.


"Sometimes a person is pressuring you to do something; other times the pressure comes from your own sense of what you 'should' do. If you cannot say no to this external or internal pressure, you have lost control of your property and are not enjoying the fruit of 'self control.'" (36-37)
I relate to this in so many ways, especially on those nights when I get invited to multiple events at the same time. I feel that I should spend time with the person I haven't seen in the longest while, even if their activity is not as interesting to me as the other. Most times, I end up canceling on both for fear of disappointing one over the other, but in the end, both are disappointed. With expanded self-control, one person can be instantly gratified, and the next will have a delay, but still gratification eventually.


"The Bible urges us to separate from those who continue to hurt us and to create a safe place for ourselves. Removing yourself from the situation will also cause the one who is left behind to experience a loss of fellowship that may lead to changed behavior." (38)
This beautifully summarizes my reasoning for logging off of Facebook. The situation of watching interactions between others, while being ignored, of volunteering information without actually receiving interest, and of contorting myself to entertain and receive approval of others, was hurting me and had been hurting me for years. Since leaving it and getting past the withdrawals, the quality of life has taken an immense upward turn.


"Forgive, but guard your heart until you see sustained change." (39)
Wise words to live by. These could have saved me all sorts of trouble, and, in fact, have recently been very useful in the relationship field. Now all that remains to be ingrained in my brain is direct confrontation over the matters of sustained change or lack thereof.


"We have been so trained by others on what we 'should' do that we think we are being loving when we do things out of compulsion." (44)
I've thought of this a lot lately now that the radio is announcing the frenzy of the holiday season and my coworkers are complaining about the forthcoming stress. The funny thing I've noticed about Christmas is how many gifts are given for the sake of propriety, without consideration for need or want but only the fear of someone's reaction to getting nothing. We demand to get, or we are too afraid not to demand. Thus, the magic of the season is lost to anxiety, and a barrier is placed among family members. Some of the best things I have received at Christmas have been words and actions, written, promised, or acted out. They are the most memorable and the most meaningful.

Boundaries (Chapter 1)

I saw this book sitting on my coworker's desk, and when I asked how it was, she let me borrow it on the spot. Whether this is, in itself, an issue of boundaries remains to be determined. In any case, it seems to be just the sort of thing I need to learn.

Chapter 1 sets up the premise of a life without boundaries, taking on everyone else's problems, trying to be nice for the sake of niceness, and as a religious text, taking the Bible's words on self-sacrifice to an extreme. Being historically guilty of many of these characteristics, I'd say this book will be very useful. The issues I hope to overcome, based on what I've gleaned from this first chapter, are:

1. Being nice out of fear of anger.
2. Keeping my mouth shut in order to "keep the peace."
3. Thinking of self care as selfish.
4. Putting the problems and needs of others on a higher scale of importance than my own.

I can see where much of the story presented appears in my own life and the lives of those around me, so as I respond to the coming chapters, I will hopefully be able to express progress and how I apply what I've learned to daily life. Some of this may also reflect in Ass Burgers. Now, onward.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

It had been a while since I last saw this movie. In fact, I couldn't remember a moment out of it. Nonetheless, I decided to add it to my queue after it came up in a class on monsters and detectives several years back. I'm actually quite glad I checked it out again, because now, the richness of the world really registered with me.

The blending of animation and live action is so extraordinarily well done, from the lighting on Roger as he moves from set through the work area and out into the real world, to the real effects that Jessica's two-dimensional fingers have as they pinch Eddie Valiant's cheeks. The gags, such as the "cattle call," where a line of cows practiced their lines, felt much wittier now that a few years have passed since the last time I saw the movie.

Nonetheless, the movie was a lot darker and less funny than I remember. It felt like a genuine noir film; it was too self-aware for the cartoon bits to be funny. The only time I really laughed aloud was when Eddie encounters Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny in free-fall and Mickey Mouse gives a giggle before saying "You could get killed." It just seemed a strange phrase to come out of the mouse's mouth. I spent the rest of the time marvelous at how Rob Zemeckis was able to get licensing for both Disney and Warner Bros. characters.

To be sure, I love crossovers. Despite the lack of laughs, the film is a feast of cross-references and self-mockery. The Daffy-Donald Duck Duel was just glorious to watch, and well, who can say "No" to Jessica Rabbit? Honestly... As a smart film that is a lot of fun to watch, I'm giving it four stars. It's one of those movies that just has to be seen.

Juan Bautista de Anza Park

I got introduced to Juan Bautista de Anza Park several years ago and was immediately struck by the mystique of the place with its towering oaks and seas of silvery grass rustling in the wind. It's difficult to imagine that a place like this exists in the middle of a Calabasas subdivision. In fact, the pictures I've taken are no more than five hundred feet, at any given point, from a playground.
On this particular afternoon, I felt the call to the park, as I'd long been wanting to capture the sun shining through the branches of those magnificent oak trees. With the days getting shorter, I figured I would be able to catch some great lighting early and be home at a very reasonable hour. The thing about sunset photography, though, is that, from the moment I set foot outside the car, it becomes a race against the clock to get as many possible pictures of the area while the light is still good. This involved me racing past the "BEWARE OF RATTLESNAKES" sign and up a steep hill covered in four-foot high, dry grass with flecks of ash from fires past still encrusted on the stems, and snapping until my fingers ached.
While I love my camera, one of the things I'm finding frustrating is the inability to preview the pictures in bright light to see whether the shutter/F-stop/ISO settings are working or not. This makes experimentation incredibly difficult and has led to many disappointments on returning home. In any case, I didn't quite get the pictures I'd hoped for, but I think I surpassed some of my expectations. For instance, there was the innocent adolescent couple that stumbled into one of my shots, just as the lighting was perfect. At first, I was annoyed with their hormonal gropings, but then I realized that, backlit in the shadow of the oaks, they seemed the perfect examples of Adam and Eve in their garden. I started snapping, and I was pleased with the results. I suppose this should teach me a lesson in making lemonade from life's lemons...
In any case, despite being in the midst of human habitation, there is a mystical sense of isolation in this park. Something in the way the wind whispers through the grass, the way the oaks cast their long shadows across the hillsides, the way the white falcons screech to each other as they battle the black crows for perching space, makes this place magical. To sit in silence on a sun-shadowed swing, to fly out over the land, then back again to the roots... this is a fragment of paradise. Adam and Eve indeed.

Happy Feet

Happy Feet has been sitting in my Netflix queue for several years now, and I could never figure out why. Baby penguin + dancing + adorable = Kyle love? Well, as part of my animation fix these past few weeks, I decided to give it a shot.

It started off cute enough, the mother and father penguin getting together, the father watching their egg through the cold winter, the father dropping it, the baby hatching with a cute lil' voice to match his cute lil' tap steps. The cute lasted approximately fifteen minutes. As soon as little Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) hit puberty, it was as if the cuteness had been attacked and carried off by skuas, then dropped off in the middle of the ice and left to wander, because that's just what happened, journey after journey, from the search for acceptance to the search for friendship to the search for love to the search for the aliens to the search for social reform. In short, the horse on its way to Santa Barbara takes a big ol' detour up to Fillmore.

I suppose the moment I began to get lost was in the dancing. The footsteps just didn't match the feet, and the rhythms didn't really seem to sync with anything else. While this could conceivably parallel the idea of dancing to one's own beat, it just wasn't interesting. It became all the rage among the penguins, then became blasphemous, then became conventional, then became sinful multiple times, which added to the all-around choppiness of the movie.

Happy Feet may have set out to be more epic than it should have been. Creators attempted to chop up so many quest story lines and cram them into an hour and forty minutes that what I thought was intended to be a story about acceptance and self-expression turned into a do-your-part-to-save-the-world PSA with as much subtlety as a mother penguin regurgitating fish into its youngster's mouth. While it did make me feel a little sentimental when Steve Irwin had his cameo, the jumping around from Antarctica to {Florida?} and back to Antarctica completely removed me from the story and made me feel that I'd been watching a rambling ad for WWF for the past hour and a half.

Admittedly, there were some fun parts to watch, and I quite enjoyed Mumble's childhood and everything from the elephant seals to Mumble's captivity. Because of the haphazardly thrown together material surrounding those sections, interspersed with a schizophrenic soundtrack of mish-mashed pop and R&B clips, I can only give this movie three stars. Meh to the max.

How to Train Your Dragon

One comes to expect a lot of things from animated films these days: likable characters, imaginative worlds, the occasional twist, and a whole lotta heart… or at least an attempt.  Often, in an attempt to pander to adult audiences as well, animators have to add in a heaping pile of sarcasm, which just doesn’t work.  Once in a while, however, one has one’s expectations rewritten.  Such was the case with How to Train Your Dragon.

This beautiful movie takes place on a bleak island in the distant north among the Scottish Vikings (which confused me in the beginning but wasn’t a problem after I went with it), who are at war with dragons.  It’s a simple enough premise, and the viewer can tell from the poster alone that young Hiccup (voiced brilliantly by Jay Baruchel) will more than likely take a different perspective.  However, while there were potentially preachy, can’t-we-all-just-get-along moments, they never stepped over the line into cheesiness.  The contrast between Hiccup’s parallel stories of training to be a dragon killer while training an actual dragon sold the message with ease.

I most enjoyed the ingenuity behind the Viking-dragon interactions, especially between Hiccup and Toothless.  The ingenuity that goes into restoring Toothless’ ability to fly and the slow, difficult process of getting Toothless airborne again are both fun to watch and fun to puzzle over.  The imaginative set-up of the dragon bestiary opens up all sorts of potential for a sequel, which I believe is currently in the (Dream)works, and I would probably go see it if it can match the imagination of its predecessor.

To take a moment on imagination, dragons and flight have always held a particular fancy for me, and I mean always, from the first memory.  Though I didn’t have the opportunity to see How to Train Your Dragon in 3D, the thrill of diving toward the sea on Toothless’ back and weaving through the rocky crags was never lost.  There is a feeling of freedom brought about by this movie, guided by a brilliant soundtrack, supported by a fantastic cast of gruffly lovable characters, and filled to the brim with all manners of dragon.  Five stars for imagination, adventure, and non-stop enjoyment.

The Cat Returns

It was a long day, so I decided to unwind with a little trip to Studio Ghibli.  Not really having heard anything about The Cat Returns, but having enjoyed the Studio's many other works, I decided to give it a shot.

The film tells the story of Haru, a teenage girl who saves a cat from being run over by a truck, and in exchange, the Kingdom of the Cats decides to reward her by making her the prince's bride.  Trouble ensues.

To be honest, I was left wanting so much more from this movie.  I wanted to know more about the Cat Bureau, more about how the Cat Kingdom fits in with the regular world.  I wanted to see more creative cats, cat inventions, cat tricks, and cat obstacles.  It felt underwhelming after Miyazaki, a sketch of what could have been much grander.  I did enjoy the character of the Baron, but I felt he was constrained too much to the role of guide/narrator.  I wanted to know his history, and I believe it could have played into the story just fine.  It felt as though it had been strained for content or even "dumbed down," and I wasn't that interested after a while.  The challenges just weren't that great.

I'll recommend this just to say you've seen it.  Nothing really life-altering or ground-breaking.  Though I'm taking the message of believing in myself to heart, it was presented in a rather raw, unfinished way.  Whether this is the fault of the original writer or the translator remains to be known.  Three stars.

Abalone Cove

I discovered Abalone Cove in my early days of working when I really didn't have much to do but research adventures on the internet.  Located in the midst of the fabulous Rancho Palos Verdes, this ecological preserve is a marvel: clear, blue waters, no stray litter, clean air, kelp fronds, and tide pools brimming with life.  Who would have imagined such a place would exist a mere few miles west of Long Beach?


Firstly, a word about the area.  Rancho Palos Verdes is a place of extraordinary opulence, but it is so tastefully designed (or tastefully hidden behind landscaping) that it feels like an entirely different world from Los Angeles.  To observe the enormous mound of earth from the southbound 110, one cannot help but wonder where it could have originated.  Kentucky, perhaps, if Kentucky and its horse ranches look the way I imagine them.  In any case, once on its slopes, one is exposed to breathtaking views of silver seas stretching out to Catalina Island and beyond.  The view from Palos Verdes Drive while the sky is still deciding whether to rain or not is spiritual in its beauty.


A network of trails stretches over the park itself, all leading down to several sections of beach, separated by twenty-foot channels of sea.  Two sections host sea caves, where one can watch the blue-green sea swell and spray with all its might.  In the early morning, amid the perfect temperatures, one shouldn't be surprised to find a welcome committee of ground squirrels in one element and dolphins in another.  The tide pools are teeming with crabs, urchins, anemones, and even the occasional sea slug.  I hear rumors that seals inhabit the kelp fronds, but alas, this time, I didn't see any.  Nonetheless, as far as tide pools are concerned, these surely do not disappoint.


As far as places go, in the early hours of a Sunday morning, when the only other humans are the occasional fishermen, Abalone Cove is as serene as any chapel.  The beautiful coastlines and the regular rushing of the waves create an atmosphere that is a welcome escape from the litter and pollution further north.  It is well worth the drive.

Up in the Air

I finally got around to watching Up in the Air, one of last year's Oscar nominees.  Coming into it, I'd heard mixed reviews, chiefly disagreements with the message and criticism of Anna Kendrick's acting, so it was difficult not to look for those exact things as I watched.  Nonetheless, the movie moved me as a movie should.

I'll dispense at the onset with my impressions of the actors' performances.  Clooney and Farmiga were great, with great chemistry and, save Clooney's star recognizability, believability.  Kendrick's performance was at times overdone and forced, but considering her character was supposed to be overdone and forced, I'd say she did her job well.

As for the message, by the time Ryan (Clooney) is telling his cold-footed brother-in-law-to-be about how every pilot needs a co-pilot to get through a flight, I'd started feeling very sentimental.  It had been just over a week since I broke off my last attempt at dating and deleted my Facebook account, so in many ways, I was making the same choices that Ryan made throughout.  By the time he decided he wanted to have emotional attachments to people, he had been detached so long that there was no one to go back to.  It forced me to consider the human need for companionship to the point that even the hermits of old had God as a companion.  Yet, invisible friends and fantasy only go so far.  I will be reconsidering much because of this film.

In summation, this is officially a comedy, and it does bring some excellent laughs.  The pace is quick, the dialogue excellent, and the acting largely terrific.  It deserved its Oscar nomination and, to a degree, some of its criticism.  Nonetheless, check it out.

Kindle

I decided to buy a Kindle off Amazon.com.  I'd been resisting it for a good long while, because honestly, I love my pages, but a few things changed my mind:

1. Personal files can be transferred directly from a laptop to a Kindle.  In other words, I no longer have to stay by my computer to read scripts and articles.
2. Since it isn't backlit, the Kindle will be easier on my eyes than my computer screen.
3. All texts in the public domain, even obscure and out-of-print ones are available for free on Kindle.  Greek classics, here we come!
4. I will be able to switch between books with ease anywhere I go; I just hope I will be able to take it on an airplane.

It arrives in the mail tomorrow.  I'm anxious to try it out; I've already stocked my Amazon library with Greek tragedies and books of mythology.  To be sure, I am stoked.