Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

How did you celebrate your 30th birthday?

I had a wonderful, wonderful birthday that year.

I was living in Berkeley, working for Katie Hall at Laurel Management in San Francisco. Jason and I had been dating for over a year, but he was still living in Sunnyvale. My actual birthday was on Friday, but the celebration was spread over several days.

On Wednesday night Jason and a couple of friends from the Foothill Conservatory theatre program joined me to see Berkeley Rep’s production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. It was marvelous. One of the best Shakespearean productions I’ve ever seen. It was very stylized, but in a way that suggested “stripped down to the text” rather than a superimposed vision. There were only seven people in the cast and they did an amazing job of switching between characters. Both voice and movement were incredibly polished and beautiful and the lighting, in particular, was stunning. More than twenty years later I still remember the bare stage defined by a giant hawser of rope that the cast hauled about the stage to evoke different settings.

On Thursday night Jason and I went to the Oakland Arena for Stars on Ice, the professional skating show featuring Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, Tara Lipinski and Ilia Kulik. It was lots of fun and had a number of very original performances, playing with black light and blade mics, mixing and matching the pairs and singles skaters in interesting ways.

On Friday at work, Katie decided that since it was my birthday that day and Lycia Carmody’s the next, the company should buy lunch for everyone. So we had yummy Chinese food and they brought out a cake for each of us: carrot with cream cheese frosting for me and angel food with whipped cream and berries—both of which I happen to love. Then I went home to clean and cook and Tom Wethern—in town from Boston on a business trip—came over to hang out with me for a few hours.

On Saturday I got a package from Beckie with a videotape of Impromptu, one of my favorite movies, and a letter from my parents that was so sweet and supportive that I called to thank them and chat for a while. Anne and George were travelling in India at the time.

That evening was my birthday party. Jason was the first to arrive, followed by Rob Harris and Susan Lippincott. We played a couple of hands of four-way cribbage and then Bob Kindall &
Jessie Stickgold-Sarah arrived and that was critical mass, so we moved into the living room as people continued to arrive. About thirty more people showed up over the course of the evening. We drank wine and ate cheese and fruit and salami and veggies and artichoke dip and brownies.

I got some wonderful presents:

• Eric Rescorla brought me _A Beautiful Mind_, the biography of John Nash.

• Robert replaced the recording walkman that got stolen last year, so I could go back to recording books onto tape for
him.

• Jason gave me a cordless hand mixer and brought me a lovely little shell-shaped box from his mother.

• Lindasusan Ulrich and Alicia Bell gave me an IOU for the new cook book by the editor of Cooks Illustrated and a beautiful blue bottle of almond oil and Linda’s housemate, Laura, brought me vegetable soap.

• My housemate, Beth Dart, gave me a funky paint-your-own china kit.

• Linda Branagan, John Sweet & WesCarroll gave me a box with a Year of the Rooster pendant, a mango spice candle and stationery. Wes said later he thought of giving me invitations, but decided that would be too blatant. He also gave me possibly the nicest card I have ever received. The front had an Emerson quote: “What is success? To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch Or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!” and inside Wes wrote “Yup, that’d be my friend Elizabeth.”

Steve Gisselbrecht called around nine and let Linda Marie Sauter, Jonathan Root, Jeff Fabijanic, and Tom (now back home in Boston) say Happy Birthday to me. That was really cool. Generally, the whole event made me feel very aware of how many people there really are out here who care enough
to come to a party and to think of me fondly, even from far away.

The last hour of the party involved a huge game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, which was very close, but Jason and I won. Dave La Macchia was peeved that I wouldn’t let them open the ten Episode One cards included with the deck, for fear of spoilers, since the movie wouldn’t open until May. The last guest left

around 3:30am, after which Jason and I lay in bed and laughed at each other for an hour before falling asleep.

We had a quiet Sunday together, making grilled cheese sandwiches with Scottish cheddar and watching Impromptu. And then he headed home and I cleaned up and that was how I celebrated turning 30.

Jason's meetings last night were cancelled due to weather, but the weather and roads were fine by afternoon, so we went ahead and saw A Wrinkle in Time. I was excited and curious about the movie and tried hard to put aside my own images and expectations from the book, which I think is definitely the way to approach this one. It's not nearly as different from its source material as Where the Wild Things Are (a movie I loved) but there are a lot of changes, some of which I have thoughts about. I'll put those under the cut for those who haven't seen it and don't want any spoilers.

( Potential spoilers )

Overall, the movie is beautiful, the diversity is wonderful, and it's lovely to see someone else's imagination engaged in depicting a story I have loved for more than forty years. It's not perfect and it's not my Wrinkle, but I am ok with that.

I should mention the hiccup in actually seeing the movie: after the ads the screen went to a Chevy logo with the words "Enjoy the show!" while music played for about ten minutes after the point when the trailers should have started. Jo went out to see what she could discover and they told her they were having trouble with the trailer "reel" but the movie should start on time (15 minutes past showtime). Then it didn't, so Jo went back out and then the trailers started--a weird mix, but it did include Solo, which we'd hoped to see. And then the final emergency exits clip and "now for our feature presentation" and then Black Panther started. It took just a second, because of the way BP starts ("Tell me a story, Baba.") and then we all said "That's Black Panther," and Jason leapt over the railing (we were in the first row of the back section) and went to tell the staff they'd got it wrong. Then Wrinkle finally started and Jason came back and all was well. Of course we were already pushing Alice's bedtime, so the movie starting 10 minutes later than it should have done didn't help and I was composing my complaint to the staff in my head for the first section of the movie. But then they had a staff member standing at the exit handing out vouchers for a free movie for each of us, so I am mollified. They apparently told Jo that they were dealing with both a new computer system *and* power outages that morning because of the storm, so they were definitely having a worse day than we were. And now Alice wants to see Black Panther (which she had not, before) so we'll call it even.

Tonight we went to see Real Steel, because I couldn't talk Jason into Footloose and he couldn't talk me into Moneyball. The reviews I'd read said that the father-son reconciliation plot elevated this movie beyond its premise. Not so much. The actors were good--Hugh Jackman makes battered & broken look beautiful and he and Evangeline Lily had a couple of good moments--and the kid is cute and the robots are kind of nifty when they're not beating the crap out of each other. If you don't think you'd like a boxing movie, then this is not the movie for you. It's a pretty straight cross between The Karate Kid and The Full Monty. If you're now picturing Mr Miyagi leaving his hat on, you're welcome. The odd thing was that there were a number of mentions and moments that suggested places they could have gone with this movie, but didn't.

( Plot Points Not Taken, Behind the Cut )

It was worth the popcorn, but maybe not the price of an IMAX ticket.

We saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World last night. Overall, I enjoyed it--it's fun and does a better job than many other attempts to bring a comic book sensibility to the screen. The video game tropes were consistently amusing and the characters remarkably true to life for such a stylized endeavor. I was at a party with a lot of those people on Friday night.

( Thoughts about comic books and the movies based on them )


( Thoughts about violence and women )

( Thoughts about Michael Cera )

Jason and I recently saw The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko's film about the children of a lesbian couple finding the sperm donor who is their natural father. We really enjoyed it--it's one of the best depictions of marriage that I've ever seen on screen and the acting is fantastically unstudied.

As it happens, we had just watched one of Cholodenko's previous films, Laurel Canyon a week earlier. One of the things I noticed in both movies is that while the flirtations have a lot of chemistry, the actual sex scenes are frenetic and pretty joyless.

I think the problem with them is that they are very realistic. There's no soft lighting, the camera doesn't avoid the physical truth of aging bodies or the awkwardness of fitting all those arms and legs in one bed. There's not a lot of gasping and moaning--except for breath. The oral sex scenes are hidden by blankets, but they don't shy away from the potential for tedium. This is what sex really looks like.

And isn't that a good thing? Maybe the expectations that the media create are so unrealistic that it's good to have scenes that show how un-sexy sex can be. I haven't spent much time watching other people have sex--with rare exceptions I've followed Zero Mostel's timeless advice "Say 'oops!' and get out!" I've never been interested in filming myself in action, but I'm sure I don't look any better than Julianne Moore.

So why do these scenes feel so strange and wrong? Have I just swallowed the kool-aid and come to believe that sex is--or at least can be--a heart-stoppingly sexy thing? I think the problem is that what these scenes are showing us is only what it looks like. No, there aren't fireworks going off overhead, nor shooting stars (with one memorable exception) but when I have sex, my mind envelops the act in sexiness. It's magical because I believe in the magic. It doesn't matter what it looks like; in order for it to be believable, it needs to convey something of what it feels like. Otherwise the sex scenes end up ruining the mood.

Finally saw Where the Wild Things Are tonight. I only cried twice:

( Cut, Cut, Cut )

As I said to muffyjo, whose superpowers of babysitting allowed us to go to the movies for the first time in forever, it was like a kick in the head, but in a good way.

Thanks to muffyjo, Jason and I got to see Sunshine Cleaning tonight.

( No spoilers in this section )

^*( But some fairly major ones in this one )

Last night Jason and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire. A couple of people asked me to tell them whether or not they can see it. I think the short answer is "no"--if violence and torture, of children no less, and grinding, filthy poverty and endemic treachery aren't things you can watch. They're all framed by a lovely fairy tale, with music by A.R. Rahman (the guy who did the music for Bombay Dreams) and for me that made it bearable and even wonderful. But it's not a movie for the faint of heart.

Tonight is our last date night for a while, since we're heading into rehearsals and that eats up both our babysitting resources and time we're willing to spend away from Alice.

First we went to see Bottle Rocket, a movie about the blind tasting between French and Napa wines in 1976 that put California on the international wine map. It was a fine, fun little movie and we really enjoyed recognizing locations where they shot and the reminders of some excellent wines we loved from that region. But I was distracted by what I can only characterize as bad directing. The script was somewhat preachy and stilted, but really undermined by poorly framed scenes that left the generally excellent actors really hanging out to dry. It's not bad, overall, but I think it could easily have been a lot better.

After that movie, I was really craving good wine and I got it at Oleana: a glass of the exceptional 2005 Bobal Blend, Mustiguillo ‘Mestizaje,’ Utiel-Requena, from Valencia, Spain. It was accompanied by a lovely meal of fried haloumi and squash blossom dolmas, followed by their excellent chicken for Jason and the rabbit shawarma and crispy duck for me.

And we got back in the car just in time to hear the last ten minutes of Obama's speech.

Also from smackaski
Below is the Entertainment Weekly's list of 100 Classic Movies of the past 25 years.
Bold the ones you've seen, underline the ones you plan to.

( Listy, list, list )