But every superhero has their kryptonite, and the other day I ran into mine.

But every superhero overcomes their kryptonite – and this is how I overcame mine:

Sometimes it’s best to channel your angry into creativity.

I’d already posted this to twitter – but I thought I’d give the fam a taste of what I sometimes encounter in my daily life.

The skies opened up and sent heaven’s dandruff to the earth today – and Moses enjoyed himself thoroughly. This is just the beginning of what will likely be a long, dark, and cold winter. Michigan is apparently low on salt supply – so it’ll be interesting to see what happens as the days and months go on – and the snow continues to fall. The tires will likely be slipping all over the road at a much greater degree than in years past. Oh well — it’s always fun to enjoy the first snow…

I think that quite possibly this has been the longest hiatus I’ve been on yet when it comes to the feeding of this blog creature. I must tell you — however – that as with any hungry being – this blog was a whiny little bastard.

I couldn’t sit down to the computer to knock off menial school tasks or question little curiousities of the world without hearing the plaintive wail begging me to drop a few morsels. There it was, sitting there, staring up at me with its blank forms — and I could only pull my lips tight and shrug. The pressure was too much. I was stifling my outburst.

But here it is a couple of weeks later — and I suppose I should finally go ahead and try to get it out of my system so that I can move on and get back into some sort of rhythm.

Two weeks ago — grandma, aunt barb, mom and pops and I piled into the Ford Windstar and drove down to Spring Hill, Tennessee to celebrate my cousin Sean’s earning a doctorate. Muchos personas that belong to the extended family were also present…and while there are several things that I COULD write about — I’m lazy — so I’m only going to concentrate on one aspect of the weekend…and besides — For some reason, I don’t remember much else.

What I want to relate are a few observations picked up while on a tour of the Saturn facility in Spring Hill. I won’t rehash the entire tour — nor will I give an extensive review of it — as someone else, interestingly enough – someone involved in the Special Libraries Association – has already done that. So – some highlights:

1. There is a display in the visitor center with a shopping cart and a Saturn car door. If you push a button – the shopping cart rams into the “dent resistant” door. There is a sign nearby asking that the button only be pushed once. Unfortunately – I never saw the button – but I hear from Aunt Barb that the thrills were magnificent.

2. One warning: Do not for a moment joke about your name! At the start of the tour – a big burly man called us over and began asking, “OK, who’s Patrick,” and ripping off a sticker bearing “Patrick,” moved on to, “OK, who’s Michael?” When he made his way through the list, leaving only me to be called out, “OK, where’s Kevin?” I responded: I guess I can be Kevin today…”

He was not amused. “What’s your name?” He grumbled.
“Uhhhh. Kevin.” I said sheepishly, looking for a pebble to kick.
He didn’t belong in the visitors center.

3. It has now been determined that my seestore can indeed name her son-to-be “Aardvark.” The family had been discussing the possibilities – as her husband’s family has a tradition of the first born son being named with the initials A.J.

Seestore has expressed an interest in wanting to name him after something from nature – and since “Apple” is already taken – the most reasonable moniker she could come up with was “Arbor.” We mocked and we mocked and we suggested, jokingly, Aardvark as an alternative.

Imagine the surprise of the ten or so of us when we arrived at the visitor’s center of the Saturn tour and were told that our tour driver was named “Aartvark.” While the speaking half of our tour guides went on about safety precautions, the Yezbicks all exchanged knowing glances — until my mother interrupted with, “That’s what my grandson is going to be named!”

Aartvark looked like he didn’t know what hit him — or was just plain incredulous. No matter. Seestore — your child has been named. Aartvark would go on to explain that it was a nickname — but I could read it plain as day on his ID card. So I says to him,

“I’m surprised they let you put your nicknames on your ID badges.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cause that guy over there got really upset when I made the suggestion that my name wasn’t really Kevin.”

4. While touring the factory grounds, being towed around by something akin to an airport luggage hauler — the shuttle winds its way past several workers on the line. Passing them by, they often stop their tasks to raise a hand and smile in greeting. There is such a pattern to it all that one begins to lose sight of where the robotics end, and the workers begin – reminiscent of the animatronics of Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz pizza.

5. In the Q-N-A session afterwards — I was happy to see other Yezbicks peppering the guides with questions. Barb asked perhaps the one question we were all really thinking,

“How do they feel about being forced to wave to all of us?”
“Oh they love the tours!” Cheryl insisted. “There are about 4 tours a day and the workers wave because they want to. No one is forced to wave.”

Which led me to follow up with a question about safety. Having toured the Ford Rouge plant – I knew that Ford explicitly forbid the tourists from drawing attention to themselves by either waving or calling out to the workers. In light of this, I wanted to know,
“How much of a concern is safety?”
“Oh, safety is one of our top concerns at Saturn. Our workers are very important to us…”

To which I followed up with the rather morbid:
“So, when was the last time you guys had an accident on the line?”
“Uhhhh,” Cheryl paused. “I don’t have that information.”

WHAT?!? Hmmm. Oh well.

6. Only later did it occur to me just how much of a threat we truly posed to those workers on that fateful day. While they may be used to 4 tours going through during their shift — they must’ve been thinking during their break:

“Hey, did you notice anything weird about that last group that came through?”
“Yeah. Yeah there was definitely something odd about them.”
“They all looked kinda, uhhh, I don’t know…weird?”
“Yeah…Yeah I did notice that. Weird.”

7. Then – on top of all that…(it has come to my attention, or it has been recalled for me, that not all involved are aware of this occurrence yet, and therefore this piece has been edited) congrats again…

8. There are some movies now sitting in my brother’s yahoo mailbox — waiting to be edited together in some shape or form — that capture some sort of semblance of the weekend…

Peace Out Obligatory Family Post!!! I’m free of your bonds!!!!!!

Second — I’ve been relatively busy of late. Alternating my time between studying and getting the front page in order. I’m pretty sure I can let that sit for a while.

Spent a wonderful 10 hours with family a few days back for my grandmother’s birthday. We went to an all you can eat chinese buffet, topped that off with cake and i scream – and closed out the evening with a couple of rousing games of Scrabble – a much less physical match than Spoons. All the while, in the background, Grandma’s computer was being deloused from the Klez virus and some other variant I can’t remember now. When the machine was finally clean, Grandma bestowed upon me the dignified title of “favorite geek.” Folks, Dreams have now been realized.

Also managed to make it down to Wayne State Wednesday for an interesting seminar on the pointlessness of discriminating between implicit and explicit knowledge. Basically it was an hour long interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Language Games relating to Knowledge Management. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy philosophical discussions.

Other items — watched Four Minutes About Podcasting – then downloaded iPodder, MT-Enclosures, and Blog Torrent. I’ve since watched podcasting get mentioned in just about every form of media — followed closely by the Jeff Gannon story — which hopefully will not be allowed to die. Something fishy ’bout all that.

So now that I have installed all those nifty little techno trinkets above – what does that mean? Well, basically, I’ll be able to post bigger files on the website — or, rather, links to the files — which will still be on my computer. If I’m online – the files will unravel themselves across the internet — and with each successive download — will make themselves more reliable and more efficient. More movies – more music – more big media – less bandwidth usage on the servers. Podcasting? I doubt it. I’m not a big fan of my speaking voice — but there may be a post here or there. (debugging currently going on)

That’s it. Touching base, really. I’m not feeling a great flow in my words — rather choppy moving from head to hands for some reason. I need to work on a coupla mixes for a coupla people that I’ve already written letters to…One’s been sitting on my desk since 1/28. Waiting. Just waiting. I should really get on that.

It was much more engaging than I was expecting. As someone going in knowing very little about the ways and mores of copyright law — the book reeled me in. Lessig leads you slowly into the water — allows you to splash around a bit in the history of copyright — wades with you up to the modern era while always referring back to the history so that you always have it in your swimming trunks — and presents several sound arguments along the way — all building up to the Supreme Court case Eldred v. Ashcroft. At that point — you’re swimming in some pretty deep waters.

What one would expect to be a droll lesson in legality is tinctured with the bright, impassioned tales of an attempt to guide a corralled spirit into greener pastures. To open the doors of creativity. To free culture. Lessig’s writing guides you along so subtly through the case history that in reading you don’t realize the sympathies you’ve developed until the verdict is read and you realize what we’ve lost. You empathize when he speaks of his realization, devastation and circles of recalculation following the defeat.

When I reached the halfway point earlier this week I realized I would need to reorganize my aggregator feeds. I’ve been stifling Lessig’s blog by keeping him contained in my political folder — which has seen its popularity plummet since the election. The movement towards an improvement in copyright law is ongoing — and after this reading — has a reinvested follower.

The book, in its presentation of reforming current legislation, touches several times on instances that in one way or another seep into the bigger picture. Everything, to risk melodramatics, is in some manner or another attached to everything else.

(I’ve lost my initial point here — as I just returned from the dentist’s office with a mouthful of novocaine.)

Of particular interest to me was the point that in securing copyrights, publishers of trade journals or specialized writings are able to suspend the distribution of periodicals to libraries in favor of establishing databases that require a subscription to view. Much too expensive for the everyday joe to afford — the wealth of knowledge that used to be available to all is now relegated to those fortunate enough to be able to afford it, or belong to an institution that can proxy it. A more dramatic picture was painted of those movies that have been under copyright since the late 1920′s — but have no commercial worth – so instead of being digitally preserved by archivists — the film is slowly disintegrating into dust.

The reading touched upon several matters that I am sure I’ll be delving into in the next two years as I attempt to become a custodian of culture. It opened my eyes just a little wider to the importance of the position and the merits of librarianship. Libraries are a foundation of true democracy. They are supposed to level the playing field with open and free access to information for all. (and cue a deep swelling of patriotic music, slowly fading out the lights)

Recommended: Free Culture.

I went back to the library the other day and returned all the programming books I had checked out. I needed to get all distractions out of the way. I then promptly checked out a DVD on Wassily Kandinsky, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, a book entitled Nonverbal behavior : perspectives, applications, intercultural insights from CJ Hogrefe – and Donald Asher’s Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way Into the Graduate School of Your Choice, which is what I had set out for in the first place.

These are all in addition to the first edition of George M. Eberhart’s fine series: The Whole Libary Handbook. I’ve made it up to the chapter on the ISBN coding – and I must say it has opened up quite a few hidden treasures. Add to that Herbert S. White’s collection of papers Librarians and the Awakening from Innocence and Redesigning Library Services, A Manifesto from Michael Buckland and you can imagine how much dustier that old copy of Proust is getting by the bedside.

Then there’s the two classes I’m taking at the community college. But I don’t want to get into those here. I think they may be on to me. Shhh.

So this whole Personal Statement thing I’ve been struggling with. Well. For some reason or another, I’ve been finding it rather difficult to just sit down and write something out. The whole process is reminiscent of my knack for sweatin’ deadlines. Philosophy papers used to love to milk my brain. Those topics would mull around in my head, points of an outline would gather themselves around the bedroom on sticky notes for days on end, all of a sudden – WHAM – paper’s due tomorrow. The papers all worked out — it was just my method then — but this is a little different. This is about me. This is difficult.

So, I’m gonna go ahead and get a jump start on what I plan to begin using a portion of this site for in the future. I’m gonna turn my blog into my personal notebook. Eventually — when I get that letter of acceptance in the mail and my stress level momentarily dips – I’ll build a blog around the entire school experience. I haven’t quite figured out how to implement all the tools around this notion yet – but it’s pretty clear that a printable format is around the bend and that the categories on the new section likely will not be closely related to Beers in Me. Those have pretty much died off anyways. Don’t worry. You won’t have to see any of it. It’ll have it’s own folder and cozy little hideaway. Of course, you never have to see any of this. You can just walk away.

If, however, this kinda thing gets you going — or you yourself are wondering how in the heck other people have gone about this process, then might I suggest you

Okay — the question the:

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Please indicate your reasons for requesting admission to the Library and Information Science Program. Describe your plans for graduate study and a professional career as they relate to your personal and educational background. If there are special circumstances or factors that you wish considered with your application, please indicate. Attach a current resume or curriculum vitae and any additional materials. Please limit your statement to 250 words.

Just so you know – the above paragraph is 67 words long.

Okay. Moving on to the first part of Asher’s projects – wherein he asks you to consider personal questions and respond with either lists or one or two sentence answers. So that’s what we’ll get done tonight.

1.a What makes you different, unique, unusual? I spent my junior year in High School living in Monterrey, Mexico. I spent my junior summer in college living in a tent in Skagway, Alaska.

1.b What writers and which particular articles in your field of study have had the greatest influence on the development of your thought?

and

1.c Who were your favorite professors in college and why? How has each influenced you?

1.d What was the best paper or exam you wrote in your major? What makes it good? Unbridling Billy Budd, because I wrote it for me. I developed a sincere love for the text and the sub-text and everything that text would make you feel. I took a reader’s-response and flipped it around so many times the thought of the book still makes my head spin. What began as a fascination with Melville’s continual references to Billy as a horse turned into a ferocious appetite for the “truth” of the book. It is a hunger that is still waiting to be filled – as I am pretty sure that if the book teaches you anything – it is that there is no absolute truth. (Which, of course, would be an absolute truth and thereby negates itself.)

1.e What is the single most important concept you have learned in college?
Learning is fun. The quest and the acquisition of knowledge is a wonderful task that is unending and rarely unsatisfying. Often times in the search for one nugget, one comes across an entire mine filled with treasures. While there are times that the task can become extremely difficult – there is always someone or something who has been down a similar path and knows the easiest steps to get to the destination. (I’m thinking of good professors here.)

2.a Where were you and what were you doing when you first thought of pursuing this? I was sitting in Alaska in my brother’s condominium, which he lovingly refers to as his fishbowl, working on my weblog — and coming across other people who shared similar tastes and thought processes who also shared a career in LIS.

2.b How has your interest evolved, and what specific turning points can you identify? my interest has evolved in that I believe I have now narrowed down my desired field to the realm of Metadata. This turning point came about recently when I saw a presentation online from Clay Redding entitled “What is Metadata (and what does the Metadata Librararian do)?” He was discussing XML and standards and validation and all this wonderful language that I have grown to love over the past two years that I’m not going to get into here in detail because I need to finish these questions and I’ve been over this enough on this website as it is.

2.c What work experiences have led you to believe you would like to pursue graduate education? Oooo…Is this a trick question?

2.d What experiences as a volunteer or as a traveler have influenced your career direction? While living in the tent in Alaska — there was a library just down the street that had access to all the modern technologies — and books to check out. (Had I needed them. I’d brought my own library up and wasn’t worried about the internet so much in 1998. Which reminds me — which one of you Hanousek residents stole my copy ofHeart of Darkness, and did you see Ken Jennings nail that question on Final Jeopardy?)

2.e What experiences from your family life have contributed to this choice? Both my see-store and my cousin Sean have stated their beliefs that I belong in graduate school. Both have pursued higher education for themselves…annnnnnddd….I’m gonna need to think about this one a lil more…Better highlight it.

3. Oh man. This calls for a table. I never learned how to do tables. Ummmm… I’ll get back to this one too.

4. List of profs at the targeted university that interest me: Well, so far I’ve only come across Dr. Mika at the orientation, but based on the descriptions in this prospective student packet — it looks like Dr. Ankem, Dr. Anghelescu, Dr. Day, Dr. Du, Dr. Neavill, and Dr. Walster are all interested in like topics.

5. Can you describe an experience that demonstrates remarkable drive or perseverance? Ummmm….There was that time I was gripped by the fear…But I don’t think that’s a good story to share — although getting off that mountain in the morning when the snow obscured every direction was a rather wonderful tale that if I haven’t told here already I should probably get around to it. Which reminds me — I really need to fix that search function.

5.b What do you do with your leisure time? I read. I write. I shoot basketballs in the twilight. I study. I dream. I see movies on the big screen. I laugh. I cry. I think back and wonder why. I ponder. I break. But never do I make the mistake of <chorus>Poesy! Whoa – o….Whoa -o… Can’t you see? It’s poesy and it’s all about meeeeeeeeeee! I am awesome I am grand! Please don’t misunderstand, don’t deconstruct what I have worked so hard to builllllllllld! <chorus>Poesy! Whoa-o….Whoa-o…

5.c What can you tell someone that would lead them to believe they’d enjoy your company? I’ve never seen Gigli. Orrrrr….maybe…Hanson is the most misunderstood band in the history of the world? I can’t believe they have a wikipedia entry.

okie-dokie — I’m tired…And I need to think about a couple of these questions a little more. Tomorrow is the database class – so I need to get some shut eye. And then its on to the next part of the exercise. Perhaps I’ll upload those pictures of the tail end of Hurricane Frances over Michigan as well.

First – I am definitely suffering from a hipness defiency. Tonight was the first that I had heard about this new flick from David O. Russel, I ♥ Huckabees, an existential comedy. I know I’m a lil late on the scene because there’s nearly 2000 pages that have referenced the film already. This, of course, shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing. Indeed, just the opposite, as there is now a relatively small pile of sites to sort through in the context of the Internet. In relativity terms — this is a good handful of sites, the majority of which, if not for curiousity — I would never have happened upon. Two in particular are more likely to draw me back – 3 legged armadillo and justinsomnia (justin is a student in the Library Information Science program at UNC Chapel Hill).

It’s a path I have taken several times to weed through the undergrowth that lines this digital forest. It’s tough to find the healthy trees and sometimes it can be easy to mistake a weed for a flower. I like this organic internet. You see a pretty stone on the forest floor, pry it from it’s bed and watch as hundreds of tiny creatures flee into the soggy earth below. Then you shrink yourself down and follow after them – at each turn finding a new jigsaw of caverns to travel along. Sometimes it’s tough to find a way out.

Second — it has not helped with the creative process at all. I’m not quite sure what that movie did to me today. The storyline certainly did not proceed as I had expected. It did leave me with a comfortable dryness as I left the theater. I felt unstitched. Removed from everything around me and void of any internal conversation. Apparently it was too much for some of the older patrons, who after having talked loud enough for me to hear them six rows back, were shocked to find a sex scene in an R-rated film. They just up and left, and had no qualms about other people noticing.

I’m gonna wanna see this one again. Not because I was so overwhelmed at its yummy goodness, but rather because I am a little dismayed at how smooth I coasted through it. I’m also surprised that I didn’t walk outta that theater today with a mini-crush on Natalie Portman. Usually with movies of this type I wind up falling for the female lead just a tad. Perhaps I’m still harboring bitterness over Queen Amidala, or perhaps it’s just the fact that her character played a role that had that one character trait capable of disgusting me. That move where someone says something and almost immediately apologizes with, “I’m sorry, I’m so stupid. Why’d I say that? I can’t believe I said that. You must think I’m so weird. I’m sorry.” They then sheepishly hang their head or look into the other direction until they have managed to coax an unwitting compliment out of you when you respond with, “Oh, don’t say that. You’re not stupid. I don’t think you’re stupid,” etc. Then again, it may be that I was so turned off by the preview of Natalie’s next movie, Closer (trailer), which seemed to me to come awfully close to tearing her character straight from Kate Winslett’s in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. (script)(Looking back I see that I’ve said similar things about these two movies. Similar – not same. I’ll have to try to think more precisely about my description because these were two similar films that left me with two distinct feelings on leaving them.) Ultimately, I’d like to go back when the theater’s a lil less crowded, and I can merge into the screen.

So here I am, detached. I woke up this morning with the aim of hammering out a personal statement. I managed to churn out a few sentences before I panicked and tried to find a way out. I guess it’s alright. I need something to do tomorrow anyways. I’m just gonna pound these keys with reckless abandon — go at it the old stream of consciousness way and see what comes out pre-edit.

The other big upload of the day is this 2mb movie that features a short snippet of Elise’s quartet from the graduation party. Those in the know will be able to scan the crowd and recognize many faces. Those of you outta the loop will have to settle for the limited notations on the photos in the Flickr. I tried my darndest to get that movie file size down to a reasonable amount. I’m astounded that Myerk was able to shrink wrap his drummer movie into a mere 500 kb. Wish I had that kind of power.

I should be a little more attentive to content around here in the coming days. I was distracted a little by the struggles for a more cohesive form and perhaps the hours of rearranging divs and ids was what set off the headache in the first place. Rather disheartening that I took all the time to set up that photo page and upload the scripts to create automatic galleries before I decided to give Flickr a try. There is so much cruft, so many broken links on this site that have been indexed since I made the switch over to .php from html. A simple htaccess redirect would change all that — but I haven’t a clue how to manage that yet.

Went to the library and picked up XML in a Nutshell, The Essential Guide to RF and Wireless and The Cybrarian’s Manual in an effort to become the consummate geek in the shortest amount of time. I figure that while I’ve got the behavioral aspects down, I’ve still got quite a bit of the technical side to catch up to. It’s amazing how much easier it is to read these books with their larger font as opposed to the 8pt font in my Proust book which has sat mostly undisturbed the past few weeks at my bedside…

Well — I best be on to the geekdom building…TO THE WINDOWWWWW TO THE WALL!!!!

I woke up this morning with the hopes of packing some of the smaller items of my room into my Ford Focus and heading out to Alpharetta, Georgia to unload my possessions, temporarily, on my godmother. She wasn’t home.

No, wait. That’s not right.

I woke up this morning to the sound of a lawnmower engine making very quick passes by my window. It was 8:15. Star’s boyfriend was really making tracks on the lawn. Alas, this time he decided to keep his shirt on, and I was denied watching his sweaty, glistening, well-toned bod mulch that lawn into tiny tiny remnants. I pulled myself out of bed, began fixing up the coffee – got as far as the last step – turning on the machine – and went back to bed.

Two hours later I was up again. My alarm was going off. I decided to make something of the day – calling my godmother. No answer.

I logged on and read some feeds, checked the news, did my normal schtick. Then glanced at the time. 11:10. Farenheit’s first showing was on in 20 minutes.

Shower.
Glance in mirror. (Damn I’m hot.)
Theater.

First thing I notice when pulling in is the local NBC affiliate truck sitting right there smack dab in front of the doors. Damn, I forgot to shave! I’ve been featured in some local news clips before — I know all about the soundbytes — but this morning I was really thinking I didn’t have the star power the public demands. (No matter, they were waiting for the second showing anyhoo.)

Next thing I noticed was the diversity of the crowd at the ticket window. Well. Not really. It was mostly Black and White — but once in the movie theater — there were a lot of Grays and Baldies as well. I was happy to see those. Lately I’ve been thinking that perhaps my parental units’ friend Jim was on to something that was yet to be revealed to me when he said:

If you’re twenty and you’re a Republican – you have no heart – If you’re 40, and you’re a Democrat – you have no brain.

Or something to that effect. I guess I really shouldn’t put that in quotes – but – well – Buttwell — tee hee hee.

I’m in the theater and I notice the trailers haven’t started – so I head back out to get my breakfast. Popcorn and soda. Mmmmm… Unfortunately, some kids group is there, 20 or so, most likely to see Harry Potter – and the lines are exceptionally long. Understandable. I mean – it’s 11:30 on a Friday — who wants to see a movie? Well — a lotta people showed up.

I tend to judge a movie by how many times I get up to pee. (I have a really small bladder, and it’s a rarity that I make it through a movie these days without unleashing the beast.) I peed once during Farenheit.

Unfortunately, about 30 minutes into the movie I got fed up with seeing the bottom half of the screen getting cutoff because the frame was awry and rose to have a word with customer service. So I managed to leave my seat during this movie twice.

No matter. And I’ll tell you why.

If you don’t like Dubya, I mean really really don’t like Dubya — much like myself — then you won’t learn a lot from this movie. Most of it has been circled around the blogosphere for quite some time — and most of it still is. The information Moore puts into his film has a timeline that makes you wonder how recently the final cut was made – and how much of a rush there was to put it out there. And therein lies the problem.

This movie felt choppy (as does this review). Kottke wondered aloud what the movie would have been filmed like under different direction — and having read his comments earlier — I have to say the same thoughts were nagging on my mind. Moore still seems caught in the viewfinder for a television program. It’s good to let a little nervous laughter out — but the sequence of scenes and the gravity of the material really didn’t synch, or synch-out, as well as I would have liked it to. Perhaps that is why while I was at first laughing at Kottke’s pondering of how the movie would have been better had it been done in the style of Capturing the Friedman’s, I can now see his point (having seen the movie, duh.) Ebert has nuanced that there are pretty much two movies here. You could cut it with a butter knife the split is so evident. The problem is – in those two halves you have one half where Michael Moore finds it necessary to pull out his usual stunts of dropping in on the big guy…ambushing…bringing it on. The other half is a silent observation of the horror of war. I’ll address the second half first.

Many people, left and right alike are coming out to criticize one portion of the film in particular. Moore is making the bridge between 9/11 and the Bush’s alleged agenda for war with Iraq. In those scenes Moore displays snippets of Iraqi life one could easily associate with a Utopian society — a boy flying a kite, fine dining, women smiling as they walk through the streets. He then switches over to Bush declaring war (well, not really…military exercises) and a screen full of fiery bombings. The criticism has been that Moore shows a pre-war Iraq that pretty much all the experts have acknowledged is somewhat eschew from reality. I won’t argue with that. The mass graves are testimony enough.

Another criticism people are leveling is that the bombing footage he shows is footage of government buildings or the ministry of defense being shocked and awed into obliteration. Why? Well. What other footage is there? Precision bombing is precise on impact. A lens’ focus is on its operator’s focus. Who was behind those cameras? Think about it when you’re watching it. If you’re a cameraman – covering a war – expecting a bombing – where do you want to train your eye? Targets? Maybe? I would. From the safety of my hotel. Miles away. Would I hang with that kite flying kid in the slums that could, just maybe, be right next to these buildings? Time to call the cartographer.

Moore can easily repel this criticism. For in the following scenes there are pictures aplenty of dead babies. Yes. Dead babies. Men. Women. Loaded up into a truck to be taken…somewhere. Then there are the U.S. soldiers’ accounts of missles gone astray – and more pictures — and more Iraqi mourning. Not to mention the background of ruined buildings that are definitely not palaces or government offices.

There was one moment in the film that left an impact on me more than the others, just for bringing to the surface a level of ignorance so apparent in this country that perhaps just a teensy-weensie little more attention should be paid to. The mother of a soldier killed in combat sets off on a journey to the White House where she comes across a protestor (not sure on her story). They share a few words, the protestor stating that Dubya is the real terrorist. They are interrupted . I feel for that soccer mom who interrupted them. She has to feel stupid. She better feel stupid. She told that mother who had lost her child in Iraq to “blame Al Qaeda.” Now her ignorance is documented.

As for the first half…

I think Moore went into this project looking to make the connection between the Bush’s and the United State’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and then got slapped upside the head with a war that nobody could stop. Perhaps it began even earlier than that – with the robbing of the Presidency. It seems Moore was collecting an arsenal of material and just didn’t know what to do with it. But lo and behold, whilst one was stockpiling and another wasn’t, the muse was born.

I found the 9/11 scene to be amazing. We all remember the visions of that day. We recognize the sounds — we know what happened. The future generations will know what happened. And yet – it’s still just as frightening.

I’m losing my groove. I should say this before I pull my sheets up. I am curious to watch the other criticisms of the movie come out. I don’t think it really matters. This country is so partisan now that one person will see it and another will not. That’s what a uniter not a divider does for you. There is a lotta hype. Don’t believe it and you might actually enjoy the experience.

Maybe I’ll come back later with some more — but I’ve really got to get to bed now…

Well, following that display I was all gung-ho about seeing the movie as well. In the coming days I would read up on it and find out that it was from the same hands that molded Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, which only served to reinforce my inclinations. I’m an admirer of both of these films, and wouldn’t mind popping a squat in front of a friend’s big screen for encore performances. That said, there is something intrinsic to these works that comes out once again in Spotless.

G and Kristen both found the movie “sad.” I agreed, but the sadness I felt managed to consume itself, disappearing underneath the protective petals of some other sort of feeling. It was akin to moments in Lost in Translation, where the beauty of having any emotion is magnified in the emptiness that emanates from the screen. Or perhaps the screen is simply sucking me dry in these instances – reaching inside to pull out what I was certain was singular to me. Slate’s David Edelstein puts it succintly when he says:

Ah yes. The absurdist galaxy. Of course when I look at the word “absurd” I immediately think of Camus. Confronted by one’s own mortality, having no notion of the end’s meaning — all that jazz. So Edelstein’s comment – about emotional truth – actually annihilates itself in my interpretation. Emotional truth? What can that possibly mean? Just ponder that question for a bit and enjoy the existential moment.

That’s what you need to do with Sunshine as well. Perhaps, at least in my secondary interpretation, Edelstein simply means that the raw emotional power of the movie breaks the boundaries of its form – especially during the first sitting.

At the very start of the movie I was a little worried that the hand-held camera work was gonna be an extremely disturbing aspect of the film. I had to let myself go – cozy back into the theater seat and release all criticism from my mind. I was out. I was going to enjoy a movie. I didn’t have to wait long before the hand-held seemed to phase out and I was in the midst of a tightly woven tale. Letting myself go – as the scenes began following one another – I actually found myself relating to Jim Carrey’s character. That was probably the biggest surprise of the night – as normally I can’t stand Carrey (except when he starred next to Matthew Broderick in the extremely underrated dark comedy Cable Guy). I suggest you turn to a great review by Ryan Ellis, who writes:

He goes on to mention how Kaufman must be a hopeless romantic. Unfortunately, so am I. Thankfully that is what allowed me to love the raw emotional truths that shot forth from the silver screen.

I told Moms I would write this because she said she didn’t understand the movie – but I don’t think I want to give away how the film works within its frame. I think that the ultimate beauty of it is that it escapes the frame – or at least it does so in your heart – and not your mind.

I won’t pretend to have written a solid “review” here. I’d call it more of an impact analysis. It’s been a week since I saw the movie, so some of that impact may have slid off the teflon — but if you’ve read this far, you already know of two reviews that take the cake. I can only urge you to see it for yourself – with an open heart – ready for the piercing.