The Fabulous Baker Boys

I'm in. I get it. Basically, piano players are sexy. We all know that. So, Jeff Bridges is already half-way there in The Fabulous Baker Boys just because he can play. Or, his stunt double can. Whatever. He's got me. Of course, there's more to his role. He is so sexy and tortured to me that I don't want to be WITH him; I actually want to BE him. I've been thinking that lately; for the first time in my life, I actually think that certain boys are so sexy that I want to inhabit their skin.

That's never happened to me before. Normally, I would be attempting to connect with Michelle Pfeiffer--who, by the way, is really sexy and beautiful in this movie, even with her tacky clothes and jewelry. Pfeiffer plays the lounge singer that the Baker brothers hire. (Jeff and Beau Bridges are real brothers who play piano-playing brothers in the movie.) Even with the big, gaudy earrings and tight, little dresses, she is still hot. But, she's kind of butch--not like a butch dyke, exactly. She's just butch in general. It's like these characters are gender-neutral in that they are not exactly playing into typical woman/man gender norms. This, of course, is juxtaposed with the aesthetic of both of the actors. Michelle Pfeiffer has delicate features that are traditionally feminine-attractive--porcelain skin, tight body, long, blonde hair, full lips, and a perfect (surgically-altered) nose. Jeff Bridges has the masculine attributes--tall, chiseled jaw, stringy hair, and lanky in that he doesn't exercise but drinks and smokes his calories sort of way.

This time around, I'm not putting myself in the woman's shoes so that I can somehow connect with the man. It's strange because there's really nothing about this movie that outwardly hints at gender-bending. Bridges and Pfeiffer both play their roles as people. She's not a woman in her thirties desperate to marry. He's not a man getting over his wild days of dating cocktail waitresses. They're just people. They're trying to make a living making music. They're trying to embrace love with another person. They're just trying to somehow stay true to themselves. So, with all of this human emotion out there, I'm not surprised I want to crawl into Jeff Bridges' skin. But, if it makes you feel better for me to say it, I will: I would also crawl into his bed. I have to add, though, that I may want to wear a strap-on just for effect.

The Tree of Life

The first time I was exposed to the idea of "grace" was when I briefly lived in Northeast Iowa. There were a lot of Lutherans, and the subject of grace was so prevalent in the area over there that it was even discussed on snowy nights in a corner booth of a low-lit bar. Grace. A Preacher's Kid (PK)--meaning that a PK held a special social status, another idea I had never before contemplated--suggested that grace meant a sort of life trajectory inspired by the divine or, at the very least, a nod to the importance of a spiritual path or presence. Maybe, that's not even right; I was, after all, drunk most of the time I was living in Iowa. You would be, too--especially in the winter.

The movie, The Tree of Life, opens with a voiceover discussing the differences between a natural life and a spiritual one. The directions are separate and parallel. They cannot interject or overlap. This co-existence in different spheres makes it even more difficult to receive a satisfying answer about the state of the universe. And, the state of the universe encompasses all living beings, all facets of the planet earth, all stages of life. Included, and not less or more significant, are human emotions. I suspect that the writer/director was attempting to tie the states together because life trajectories do not run parallel to one another; they inherently intersect.

The Tree of Life is beautifully shot. The images are both out of National Geographic Magazine and each human's recollection of his or her respective childhood. The story of the family is set in the 1950s. But, the emotions evoked from the boys or the mother or the father could be taken out of anyone's own memory. The story is not sequential, but that's okay because we don't remember events in their correct order. We remember events in the order of their significance to the individual remembering. We only need to make sense of the emotional impact of events and feelings. The sequence is really secondary.

The movie is peppered with narrative musings and (maybe forever) unanswered questions. When it was all over, I felt both reserved and connected. We are all alone, after all. But, the loneliness is maybe bearable if we realize that our feelings are not only universal, but influenced by the universe.

every night

I think about you all the time. I think about what to write to you. I think about interesting things I've seen and done that I can report and recount. And yet it's been months since I've written and I can't even write an entry, just a bulleted list. Maybe that's good enough, for now.

Moved

1. This Radiolab episode about Lucy, the chimp effectively raised as a human. I listened to it last month and couldn't fall asleep. I just sat in bed and thought about Lucy...about human folly. About consciousness.

2. Gillian Welch -- Revelator. There's no one better and I don't care if she sings about Georgia and was raised in Santa Cruz. I listen to this song on repeat.

3. Summer Heights High . There is whimsy and sadness that exists in Jonah Takalua that is so so perfectly rendered.