Don’t mean much.

Seriously, I have had this thought rolling around for a couple years now and the more I think about and live with it the more I conclude that intentions mean virtually nothing.

This is a big kind of statement.  I know that.  But I really have been toying with it for quite a while and I’m growing more and more sure that I’m on to something here.

Even in the most extreme cases – people who are later described as sadistic despots for example – often genuinely believe that ridding the world of…

_insert group defined by religion, gender, race, age, sexual orientation etc. here_

… will make the world a better, safer, more beautiful place.

They have, in their minds, the best possible intentions.

It is those who do not share their beliefs who decide that they are cruel/mad/insane/psychotic and dangerous.  And history.  History decides.  A history told by whomever was left standing and has the loudest voice, the longest reach, their own best intentions…

One can argue, in fact, that even the cruelest intentions don’t mean anything if they are not acted upon.  One must act on hate or speak hate or incite hate in others for other people to truly know that you are hateful.  Hate in one’s heart, in one’s mind… It mostly hurts the bearer.

And, it is equally true that the best of intentions are also meaningless if one never lives out their goodness, if one never acts generously or kindly.  No matter how much love one has to give, if one does not give it then it is impossible for anyone else to know that you are loving.  I have also begun to wonder if perhaps keeping love inside oneself might not be far more detrimental to one’s well-being than harbouring hate…

I should make clear, too, that I am not in any way trying to dive into moral relativism here – I do personally believe that there are a set of people who’s inner workings are fundamentally admirable and others whose insides are more rancid than two pounds of ground beef in a hot summer sun.  There is a spectrum of right and wrong in this crazy universe of ours.  It’s just that, trite though this may sound, it’s complicated.

And, really, I’m not even talking about the big intentions of those who would be King.

I’m talking about day to day.  If I’m to be honest, this idea grew mostly out of my pondering on that which we call “romantic love.”  It was only after I’d mulled on it in that context for a while that I started to realize that intentions barely matter in most relationships be they with friends, family – hell even our pets don’t care if we “meant to” feed them before we went on an all-night bender…

They just know they didn’t get fed.

It’s what we do that matters.  It’s what we don’t do.

The rest is just the story we tell ourselves to justify our own cowardice at not being able to admit that someone is failing us, that we are failing someone; that we or the people we love are doing the wrong things or not doing anywhere near enough of the right things.

It’s what we do that matters.

And, please bear in mind that though ’saying things’ is valuable. Sharing one’s thoughts and feelings is, in fact, something one “does” – speech is nowhere near the final word on “action.”

This is hard for a writer to admit… That saying things – the effective, affecting, use of words – is not enough…  It’s meaningful.  It’s important.  It’s one of the most beautiful places to start because words are powerful in their own right.  They can be so motivating, so powerful that they incite the most incredible sorts of action but action exists without and beyond words and it always will.

Love is a word and a powerful one.  It’s an act of faith to let yourself feel it.  It’s an act of faith to offer it to another human being.

But even “I love you” is nothing without follow-through.

It’s what we do that matters.

It’s what we DO.

And if you can’t take my word for it, take Eliza Doolittle’s:

Words were originally magic, and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power.  By words one person can make another blissfully happy or drive him to despair, by words the teacher conveys his knowledge to his pupils, by words the orator carries his audience with him and determines their judgements and decisions.  Words provoke affects and are in general the means of mutual influence among men.

Excerpted from Lapham’s Quarterly “Medicine” Fall 2009, p. 93

A lot of thieves would have been indignant. Outraged. But she’d been stealing since she was a kid. She knew what mattered when it went missing and what wouldn’t matter if you’d never had it in the first place and he hadn’t taken anything she actually cared about. He couldn’t. She didn’t have anything she cared about. Not here, anyway. But he’d done the job badly. He’d done it sloppily and angrily and that pissed her off. That made her care.

There is no art, she said aloud to the heaving, broken mess of her living-room, there is only commerce. And she smiled because it felt good to care. A little awkward and painful like the day after you exercise or have sex for the first time in a long time. But, good.

Could tell he wasn’t high and looking to fix because he’d left the stuff that was really easy to pawn and he’d tossed the place too methodically. Messily and angrily but methodically like it was just a job and he’d gone to work angry. If he’d been riding a desk that day instead of thieving he would have kicked the copier, given the vending machine a good shake.

She found him three days later. Not hard, really. A good thief can find anything because she knows all about where people hide things. So, it was three days later that she found him and slid down right beside him in a booth at Trapper’s Diner. She recognized him, had seen him around.

Did you know it was my place? Do you know who I am?

Do now. No disrespect. Stuff’s gone, though. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?

He looked up at her from the oily creamer sheen on his coffee, from the faded gold lace pattern on the stained yellow lino table-top. Not contrite, really. Not surly either. Could have had a ten-year bath in the swimming helplessness of those eyes. She’d thought maybe love had ended badly for him and he’d gone out thieving to clear his head. Never smart but something guys do. Tedious reason to be crap at your job, but this wasn’t love-loss. It was real heartbreak, soul-break. It was real loss that was hanging over him, over the whole booth, the whole diner. A shroud of depression propped up on impotence and rage.

It made her think about the one thing she did care about. That one thing. So carefully hidden that she might not ever see it again and yet the only thing that could ever take it from her was time.

She’d had fantasies of wising his ass up. Of schooling him until he found his way again.

Of not being alone for a while. Of caring.

About art.

But in stead, she put money down for his coffee and for the crumpled napkin on top of an egg-stained, crumb-scattered oval shaped dish he’d pushed to the side, rose to her feet and told him not to make a mistake like that again.

As in peaceful.

As in some ducks really are finding rows.

As in I am more and more a self I like.  A self I can look at in a mirror and (despite the bad hair day today) believe is going to be just fine.  ’Well’, even – not just fine.

And these moments tend to pass.  (I’m a moody creature after-all) so it seemed only fair to mark a good moment.  A content moment, given I mark so many sad and whiney ones.

Right now I can breathe.

I can actually breathe.

And I am content.

*** WARNING: This is criticism as well as a review and this film is about a well-documented historical event so some of my commentary may appear to be somewhat SPOILER’ISH ***

This film – about the 1981 IRA Hunger Strike – is impressive.  It is divided into three clear acts, it is very visual and cinematic and yet also seems to do a great many things that conventional narrative filmmaking would say not to do.  Mostly, it does what it does in such a way that it has critics almost exclusively singing its praises.

The first act is nearly without dialogue and depicts the justifiably paranoid life of a particular prison guard and for the IRA prisoners seeking to be called political prisoners instead of terrorists whom he guards: brutal and moving.  Hard to watch given the first part of the prisoner’s protest was “dirty” in that they refused to wash or bathe and smeared excrement all over their prison walls.  The disgust one feels about the treatment of the prisoners, about the squalor and filth, is balanced by the smallest moments of stillness, the tiniest intrusions of nature and by unexpected human compassion.

The next act is one conversation between a particular prisoner and a priest: fast dialogue, emotional with a particular monologue that is destined to make its way into acting classrooms across the English speaking world.

The last act is an intimate, fluid, disturbingly gentle and quiet – barring some very effective, even lyrical, use of sound design – portrayal of the eponymous “Hunger” as it takes the life of IRA volunteer/leader Bobby Sands.  This act is so elegant that an entire scene finds its motivation in one, small tattoo.

The cinematography is steeped in classic rules of composition.  Iconic with exquisite use of light, shadow and it is – to an image (even of excrement in a way that boggles) – beautiful.   In strange ways it made me think about Jean-Luc Goddard, somehow, and also of early Hal Hartley.

The second act “conversation,” is punchy, evocative – even funny – and performed in a near-perfect rhythm and dance by actors Michael Fassbender & Rory Mullen.  It veritably savages the stereotypical tradition of going from a wide establishing angle to medium/close-ups and then into shot/reverse-shot that makes up the vast majority of scenes that depict two people talking in contemporary narrative filmmaking and TV.  The scene is no less than 20 minutes long and shot with, if memory serves, only about five or six cuts with the vast majority of it shown from a static wide angle; cigarette smoke becomes the only truly mobile player.

The film is lingering and sad and by keeping us almost exclusively in the claustrophobic, repressive, violent, covert and dangerous world of the prisoners and their custodians, does serve to tell this piece of history with power, dignity and pathos.  It’s worth seeing and I don’t think I have ruined any of the art or historical poignancy by drawing attention to the structure and storytelling choices of its creators, Enda Walsh and Steve McQueen.

If I have a complaint of any kind, it’s that I don’t usually notice this much about the structure of a film the first time I see it unless it is not truly holding me; unless it is not making me forget that I am watching a movie, not making me forget that I am in my living-room or a cinema.  I was periodically moved by things in the film.  I was suitably outraged by things in the film.  But all feelings were muted, felt neutralized by something almost clinical in the film’s style.  It’s as though some of the filmmaking choices were not made to serve the storytelling but in a reactionary way to flout the conventions of mainstream narrative cinema.

Reactionary choices in narrative film storytelling, in particular, are always alienating to me as a viewer because they are often made to serve an artist’s ideology more than to serve the needs of the story itself.  Unless it is the artist’s own story or it is a story that is, somehow, about filmmaking itself, these sorts of choices usually mean that the artist’s need to comment – through cinematographic and structural choices – about the act of filmmaking winds up in conflict with the story he or she is trying to tell and something, in my opinion, is always lost this way.

I will also admit that after four years in film school and too much general life exposure to artists so bent on ‘being different’ that their so-called differences all end up falling into the same category, I am extra sensitive and have my own ‘re’action to this particular phenomenon.  I might, in short, be seeing it where it is not in any way intended to be.

Alternatively,  given how much of the world took notice as Bobby Sands starved to death the film is, in fact, about the power of media and battles fought in the media which take real human lives.  In this vein, toying with the medium in deliberate ways while making this film might well be a very strong, well-grounded choice.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter one way or another, though.

Perhaps the only thing that matters is that, as I said, Hunger is a lingering and beautiful film and that it’s been three days since I saw it and I am still thinking about it, still writing about it.  I am also, as it happens, seeing moments from it in my mind and – even if it didn’t happen as I was watching the film – momentarily forgetting where I am.

___________________________

Poster Image Borrowed from HERE

Will try to post a real post later maybe but this song keeps coming up in random and the first time I ever heard it was while working and listening to music on random and I’ve been playing with the lyrics in my head… Trying to figure out if this one has more meaning to me, to a friend?  Why does it keep coming up?  I mean, I genuinely love the song so it’s fine with me but it is sad and I get sad enough all on my own, thank you very much.

Me no need musical encouragement.

Anyhoo.  Gotta’ eat and dash to work.  Just wanted to share.

Kisses,

The Octopus in Residence

So.  In my fishing around for holiday travel possibilities so as to celebrate my new life on my first Christmas holiday without my son and without my own family,  I have added myself to interesting weekly mailing lists and have asked virtual strangers for their advice about where to go.  I’ve gotten advice too.  Good advice.  Interesting travel stories.  It’s fun.  Even if I don’t wind up going anywhere, I’m learning about how to go somewhere.

I like that sentence so much for its myriad possible meanings I’m going to write it again.

I’m learning about how to go somewhere.

Finally.  And, I dunno’ — “Amen.”

And the most appealing (literal as opposed to metaphoric) destination  so far came to me through an article from New York Magazine sent to me by my wonder-cousin whom I adore

This is it: Balamku Resort

Do click the link to their website to see more images to get a better feel for the all-round great feeling nature of this place.  Behind this beachfront with its perfect “round” rooms (I was once asked to draw my fantasy bedroom in high school.  It was round with window seats under endless windows, a bed in a sunken nook, a fireplace – and these places come damn close in their way…) is a huge swath of rich green forest.   It’s stunning.  Magic.

They are booked through the holidays and they are far enough off the beaten track that  even if they had space available I do not think I would have the courage to travel there by myself on my first trip to Mexico.

But this is now my destination location.  No question.  I am going there.

I’ve rarely actively wanted to go to a specific place like this.  There is a hotel on Gabriola Island in B.C. called Surf Lodge that I love love love and went to by myself once after having gone there with the ex a number of times and I would go there again.  It’s just beautiful and unpretentious and relaxed and a little soft and mossy like most of South-Western B.C..  The owners at that time let you walk their dog for them if he liked you and he liked me.  In the right season there were sea lions and dolphins and sea otters and Kingfishers to watch while you sat on a rustic deck drinking the world’s best Ceasar… And you got to take two ferries to get there from Vancouver.  I love ferries an unreasonable amount.

And, obviously, I’ve always wanted to go to Italy – though that is more of a primal yearning than a specific craving…

But this place just grabbed and hooked me.  It sounds silly, I know, but I feel like I am supposed to go there…  Like not only will I go there but it’s going to be a really important trip…  I know… Go get a crystal ball and put on some big hoop earrings already… And maybe it’s just wishful thinking but I’m sticking to it.  I mean, look at that picture again and then try to deny me the fantasy… I dare you.

Anyway, in a sea of places that are more like this (click the link – seriously – it’s almost hard to believe someone is using the Seven Deadly Sins as a marketing tool, didn’t they see the movie “Seven”????!!!), Balamku has wooed me from a far and will be mine.

One day…

________

Balamku Image Borrowed from HERE

1)

In my opinion, Apple and the iphone got their ass handed to them by a very clever ad for the Verizon Droid.  I am not endorsing one product over the other by saying this.  I’m just saying it’s a damn clever ad.  Lean and vicious.  Infinitely more punchy and provocative then the counter-ads “PC” computers have been running against the Apple computer ads.

Important to note that when I saw it on TV there was no “title” to contextualize.  ”iJust”  got it… I do find it very interesting, though, that no matter how good ads that go up against Apple ads can be – they are always “RE”actionary… They can’t just be who they are.  They have to tip their hat to Apple brand-speak and tend to try to use Apple’s own marketing tools against them.  Apple seems to always be the advertising incumbent whether their products are better or not.  Will be interesting to see what the Droid release does to iphone sales and use.

2)

There is a third tiger at the zoo.  The two girls are now in the main enclosure together.  The younger of the two is very very annoying and always steals the older one’s toys.  They are over a year-old now, I think, and big.  Paws like dinner plates.  Claws you can feel through the plexiglass if you let your imagination tend that way.  So damn beautiful, too.  But there was a third tiger pacing the edges of things in the back kennel and I have not found out if she or he is staying or visiting.  I have not even found out whether it is a she or a he.  I just know there were three tigers the other day and that I never have a problem with more tigers.  I’ll keep you posted and next time I’ll bring the camera.

3)

A blogging network called tumblr.com showed up in my blog stats this weekend.  Frankly, it seems cool and while I am happy and comfy here at wordpress for writing and do not mean to be disloyal to what is a very good and user-friendly  service.  I am intrigued – for the purposes of the photoblog I have been neglecting – by the fact that everything is customizable over at tumblr.  In other words, when I post a photograph full of burnt oranges and reds, it won’t be given a background matte that is the same damn colour unless I WANT to camouflage my work that way….  Anyway… When I have more time I might play around over there and thought I might as well share as not.

4)

Not for the first time, I’m sure, but for the first time that really struck me – a show I was watching on TV was being sponsored by a website.  TV only exists because it was a new opportunity to advertise products like this:

TV shows are made or broken by what sponsors are willing to pay for ad slots during broadcast.  TV shows have their own websites, too, with some of the same sponsors they might have for their on-air broadcasts and other sponsors entirely.  And now.  Someone creates a website for an event that has not yet taken place, a website with advertisers of its own, and it is taking airtime during a prime-time TV show.  Advertisers using ad-space on a website that, itself, buys ad-space on TV.  More too, cuz the company that owns the website in question – which is for the Winter Olympics – is the same television company that will be broadcasting the olympics in Canada… The Olympics.  An event that itself has all manner of sponsors both for the show and worn by each an every one of the competitors…  Seriously… My head hurts.

My friend’s son has been playing hard with my son for hours.  They have come downstairs for a break in front of the TV and not long after my friend’s husband comes in from work, her son looks at me and says – rather casually though with an air of seriousness:

“Sooyah, you need a man to marry you so you can have a husband.”

I’m not sure I’ve heard him correctly so I say, “I’m sorry, kiddo, what did you say?  Did you say I need a husband?”

He nods.  He says, “Yeah, get married so you can have a husband.”

I don’t quite know what I said after the three adults stopped laughing about this but it might have been along the lines of, “Interesting idea” or “I’ll work on that.”

And then he nodded again;  a brisk acknowledgment of my seeming acceptance that his plan is both wise and prudent.

He made it sound so easy, didn’t he?  So simple?  I mean, I didn’t get too serious about it in my head.  Mostly I lapsed into my imitation of a nice old Yenta – with accent and all – telling my fine self that I’m still young and that I shouldn’t give up hope…  It was likely only truly funny to me because of the Yenta/Matchmaker in “Crossing Delancey” who sets the heroine up with a pickle salesman but there you go…

I’ve been told.

By a four year-old.