The Coen Brothers nail it with True Grit

As we left the movie theater the other night after seeing the Coen Brothers' rendition of True Grit (I am not going to call it a remake, so there), I was feeling the happy buzz one gets when one has no particular expectations and they are wildly surpassed. It isn't that I expected the Coen Brothers to do a bad job, they never do, or that I was worried their True Grit would not be as good as the first movie version, the John Wayne vehicle made in 1969. In fact, I never much liked the 1969 movie, perhaps because I never much liked John Wayne. It seemed he was always in the boring movies that played at the Burien Theater, the ones that dominated the Saturday matinée line-up. You know, like The Sands of Iwo Jima. I never liked his voice much or his looks. Somewhere, I once saw a photo of him wearing short shorts. I think it had to do with rumors about his sexual orientation. I have been unable to locate the photo since, but I found a website forum devoted to a discussion of his manhood in which a poster refers to this famous photo. He couldn't relocate it either.
The forum is hilarious, by the way. Lots of trite statements such as "He was a man's man" on one side and "Of course he was gay" on the other.
I didn't hate the first attempt to bring True Grit to the screen, and it was Wayne's best role, in my opinion. He played a bit against type and he was getting old. But Kim Darby as Mattie Ross just did not work. For one thing, she was too old at 21 to play a 14-year old. And Mattie Ross's wisdom beyond her youth is central to the story. She has true grit and she eventually brings it out in the other two.
So back to the present. We were leaving the movie theater and Walt said, with disappointment, "that was good but it wasn't so much about Rooster Cogburn." He said this just as I was thinking, with elation, "that was good because it wasn't about Rooster Cogburn." What makes the Coen Brothers' rendition so winning is that they have stayed truer to the story and made it about Mattie, told from her point of view. And after looking at more than 15,000 aspiring Mattie Rosses, they cast Hailee Steinfeld in the role. She is 14. And she gives a commanding performance. Her partners, Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, are outstanding as well. And to their credit, they treat her as an equal acting partner and not a child. It shows through in the resulting film.
Whenever a Coen Brothers movie comes out, people debate over whether it is a "major" or a "minor" Coen Brothers. I don't get involved too much in these debates. I have liked almost everything they have done, even Intolerable Cruelty. No matter what story they are telling, they know how to write dialogue and shape plot and they film beautifully. Their movies are beautiful to look at. In addition, the casting for the minor roles is always perfect, with some great faces and voices. The opening scene of True Grit is beautiful to look at. Just the camera pointed at a boarding house in the dark, with the voiceover of the mature Mattie Ross. It isn't until the end that the eye is drawn to a dead body lying on the ground below the steps. It's a small thing, but a beautiful thing. And the scene near the end, where Rooster carries the injured Mattie to safety on the back of her horse Blackie, is almost like an animated fairy tale. The night, the prairie, the little house in the woods. Beautiful.
It's major Coen Brothers.

Maureen Dowd meets Patti Smith

I have nothing to add to what she said.
Walt and I saw Patti read from her book in Seattle last year. She is magical; she is mystical; she is ageless and full of grace. She's what I want to be when I get older.

Livraison avant Noël

A Elisabeth, maman de Mathilde, ainsi qu'à toute sa famille, nous vous souhaitons un Joyeux Noël! On vous a envoyé un paquet cadeau ce matin à midi. Le paquet est parti en bon état et nous espérons qu'il vous arrivera en pleine forme! Le voici hier soir avec son nouveau tapis de yoga. Namaste!

Mon jardin d'hiver

C'est pas triste, ça?

Demain, c'est la nuit la plus longue de l'année. Après, les nuits se raccourcissent petit à petit... Décembre, le mois le plus redouté (et redoutable?) de l'année. Il fait froid, le manque de soleil est pesant et cruel. La grisaille quoi. Les grises mines. Les âmes grises aussi. Tout le monde semble avoir le cafard, ce mélange néfaste de tristesse et de déprime. On a envie de ne rien faire, de tout faire mais ailleurs. Bon, c'est mieux que la pluie de novembre. Demain, c'est aussi la pleine lune. C'est rare de voir coïncider la pleine lune et le solstice d'hiver. Soyons joyeux! Plus rarissime encore, l'alignement terre/lune/soleil qui produit les éclipes est également prévu pour demain, le 21 décembre 2010.

Calendrier de l'Avent

Le nôtre est rempli de petites friandises.
Maintenant, il ne nous reste plus que 23 jours d'attente!
Avec une chanson pour chaque jour (il faut cliquer sur le titre).

Noir Désir n'est plus

After Téléphone, Noir Désir was France's most popular rock group. Its musical career was abruptly cut short when lead singer Bertrand Cantat "accidentally" killed his then companion, actrice Marie Trintingant, in Vilnius (Lithuania), where she was shooting a made-for-television film. He only wanted to shake her up a bit, according to Cantat, but unfortunately her head came into contact with the heavy metal radiator in their hotel room and she died, presumably while Cantat slept.




This happened in July 2003 and Cantat was tried, found guilty and sentenced in Lithuania to eight years of prison, from which he was conditionally released in late 2007. Marie Tritingant's parents, devastated by her death and what they considered to be overly lenient punishment for Cantat, were not happy when Cantat was let out early for good behavior. Since then, he has quietly pursued his interrupted musical career. But the band's recent "retour sur scène" did not sit well with some observers (myself included). I was not really surprised to hear that the guitarist Serge Teyssot-Gay had decided to leave the group, citing "la situation d'indécence qui caractérise la situation du groupe depuis plusieurs années" in addition to musical, emotional and human discord with Cantat. Ouf! I'm glad someone said it! This statement was followed a day or two later by one from the drummer, who said he was speaking for two other members of the group, announcing the end of Noir Désir.

Did I mention that Bernard Cantat was actually married to or living long term with another woman when he met Marie Tritingnant? Her name was Kristina Rady. In January of this year, she hung herself while Bertrand Cantat slept upstairs in the house they were apparently sharing. She was found by one of the couple's children. If I remember correctly, she stood by her man throughout the aftermath of Marie Tritingnant's death, and even went so far as to state that he had never, ever been phsycially violent with her, though others contested this, insisting that she had complained of physical violence in the past.




The whole thing is incredibly sordid and sad. I don't feel pity for Bertrand Cantat, but I do wonder where one goes from here. How does a person continue on from such a dark place? Is there any possibility of redemption? What kind of Act Three would not be indécent?

Où sont les neiges d'antan?

Ici, apparemment.
This is the world we woke up to today. White rooftops, tiny flakes, cold temperatures. Can chestnuts roasting on an open fire be far behind?

An office that is messier than mine

This is the office of novelist and Bainbridge Island resident Jonathan Evison. Jonathan (we are on a first name basis now) was kind enough to come and talk to a group of about 20 people in West Seattle, most of whom had read his first published novel All About Lulu. Jonathan would probably not be happy to know that I found touches of John Irving in All About Lulu. I say this because he made an offhand comment about Irving getting into trouble sometimes, because he has too many people and too many coincidences cluttering his stories. I think this is a bit harsh; Irving is a great storyteller and, like Evison, focuses on the traditional stuff of fiction: a good story, interesting people, unfortunate events, tragedy even, told with a touch of humor.
Jonathan Evison has a new novel coming out in February 2011 called West of Here. Consider this a plug. It sounds promising: sweeping, tons of complex characters, set on the Olympic Peninsula, 41 different narrative voices, the story weaves in and out of the 19th century and our own time.
I recommend this author, so shut up and read.

Le bruit qui court...

In France, the firing of three employees for writing derogatory comments about their bosses and the HR manager on Facebook has just been upheld in a labor court (industrial tribunal) decision.

This whole Facebook thing has me troubled. I de-activated my account some time ago, after a cyber-friend got upset (freaked out) when I friended one of her cyber-enemies. Having written horrible things about this cyber-enemy, the cyber-friend was afraid that the cyber-enemy would see photos of her grandchild and come after her in the dead of night. I'm not kidding. I was in trouble for friending someone without consulting every other existing friend to see if anyone had a problem with me friending the cyber-enemy. I decided the whole thing was too ridiculous to spend time on and shut down my account altogether.

And you know what? Betty White was right: What a time suck facebook is! Goodbye Facebook, hello 90-minute flow yoga class at 8 Limbs. Goodbye Facebook, hello longer walk with Neko at Lincoln Park. Goodbye Facebook, hello an extra chapter of A la recherche du temps perdu... tiens, tiens. A post-modern meaning of the title of Proust's book has just hit me in the Face! Goodbye Facebook, hello real books!

And tonight, at the Columbia Tower Club, I'll be tasting the 2010 Beaujolais nouveau at a fancy party put on by the French American Chamber of Commerce in Seattle. I know it is all just a marketing ploy and blah blah blah, but you can't beat the top of the tower and a delicious buffet! Who needs Facebook friends?

Magical Thinking

One of the smartest people ever. And certainly one of America's best writers ever. Slouching Toward Bethlehem. Miami. Play it as it Lays. The Year of Magical Thinking, of course. A Book of Common Prayer.

She once described herself as the perpetual outsider. A shy, bookish child. Devoted to her craft.

Mourning in America?

In the silver lining department, here are a couple of things to be thankful for:

1. Tea Party darling Christine O'Donnell was defeated.

Give me some time, folks. I'll find some more...

Okay, here's another one:

2. Jerry Brown is back. Does anyone remember him? He was governor of California from 1975 to 1983 (something like that). He was then the youngest elected governor of California and dated cool people like Linda Ronstadt. Now he is the oldest ever and, in the meantime, has gotten married. California always has cool governors. At least some things never change.

What else?

3. The Democrats have shown themselves to be more cooperative than the Republicans, so perhaps politics will become a shade less divisive. Actually, while I believe the first part of the equation, I know the second part is just wishful thinking.

The fact is, the vast majority of Americans do not take the time to consider the issues and weigh the consequences of their voting decisions. We get the governance we deserve. People are upset about the economy but not interested in getting mired down in thinking about the causes. They just want it to be fixed. Those who have been relatively spared are more desperate than ever to hang onto what they have. Incidentally, it was not a good time to ask voters in the State of Washington to think rationally and responsibly about taxation. The results -- disastrous for our state -- are fairly predictable. I live in a state where, apparently, it is okay with the majority to have everyone either home-schooled or wealthy enough to go to private schools. No one seems to think that the public schools deserve any funding at all. And, apparently, we have no qualms about taking an important source of funding away from our state government because it is more important to be able to buy booze at 3 pm and at 3 am from all-night convenience stores. I can't wait to share the road with these people. And forget about replacing that source of revenue with another; the voters have decided to make it even more difficult to raise taxes. What a fun state we live in! I love potholes, by the way, which is a really good thing because there are bound to be more and more of them.

The irony of the image at the top is that without public funding, effective law enforcement becomes impossible. I guess we are headed towards privatizing that too.

Fall hues

It was a perfect day to visit Seattle's Sculpture Park. The autumn chill was unmistakeable in spite of the sun. We also managed to get the yard and deck ready to hunker down for fall/winter. And our candy bowl is filled with treats for the costumed; we may have to take it to the streets again this year. Nobody comes our way because we live on a steep hill. Walt's grandson stopped by for a treat yesterday, but he wasn't wearing his lumberjack costume. However, I think what he was wearing is indistinghuishable from it.

A little bit of Picasso visits Seattle

The Musée Picasso in Paris is closed for renovation and expansion. Il était temps! That splendid museum, which is actually a converted 17th century townhouse in the Marais, could only display 300 of Picasso's works at a time (out of the 5,000 in its possession!), faute de place.

Some 150 of these works have made their way to Seattle, and other works have been packaged and shipped elsewhere, for public viewing while the work is carried out on the museum.

We got to go last night as part of a special evening sponsored by Alliance française. Our visit included wine, cheese and a brief but very informative pre-tour talk by SAM's Chiyo Ichikawa. Is it worth seeing Picasso in Seattle? Yes, I think so. The selection made available to SAM gives viewers a sense of the breadth and diversity of Picasso's long and protean career as an artist. And it is always exciting to see actual paintings and sculptures as opposed to photos of them in books. Like the work of any great artist, Picasso's needs to be viewed the flesh to be fully appreciated, I think.

Everyone will find something to like. Personally, I enjoyed watching a couple of Robert Picault's black and white videos of Picasso at work in the studio circa 1950. I also liked some of the photos, including a couple of self-portraits.



It was strange to see Picasso exhibited in Seattle, out of his element somehow. Maybe this is because I associate Picasso with the Musée Picasso in Paris, which I lived very close to for a couple of years during my Marais period. My apartment was on Rue Saint Antoine, which is near St Paul, La Bastille and La Place des Vosges. I used to walk by the Picasso museum on my way to visit a friend who -- get this -- was living in the magnificent Paris townhouse owned by the Farah Diba, wife of the deposed Shah of Iran. I won't get into why or how my friend ended up there, or even where it was located exactly. But it was an incredible place by anyone's standards. My friend was the daughter of an ex "political analyst for the State Department" (wink, wink). National security prevents me from saying another word about her or the Farah's townhouse. I value my ongoing existence.

Dysfunctional family

Yesterday I dropped a teeny tiny little thing behind the sofa (I was trying to move a huge and heavy painting 2 millimeters to the right), which meant pulling out the sofa to find it. Yikes! If anyone out there is missing anything, chances are Pushy has hidden it under our sofa. I could not believe the stash. Too bad I have forgotten to recharge my camera batteries for a week now, or I would have photographic evidence that my non-disabled cat, in addition to being evil, is a hoarder.
Nothing is too small or insignificant for her. She apparently loves wine corks and beer bottle caps. There were dozens of them. Straws too (we had a six-year old living in our basement for three months recently), not to mention paper clips, pens and pencils (many chewed on by Neko), dog toys, cat toys, chunks of dog and cat food, half eaten dog treats, balls of dust and hair (I'm not sure Pushy is to blame for this stash), several of Neko's cherished bones, money (spare change mostly), Jimmy Hoffa's dead body.... You name it, it was under the sofa.
But that's not the worst of it. In addition to living with a hoarder, we live with a bulimic. Neko, who has been particularly cunning of late in her never-ending quest to sneak a bite of cat poop as soon as our backs are turned, immediately began trying to eat the huge pile of gross, greasy, dusty stash that was under the sofa. She's bulimic! Except that she only binges, never purges. At least she doesn't eat her own poop. That would be really gross.
On that cheery note, I'm outta here for some yoga. Namaste y'all!

The face of evil

You can see it in her eyes: she loves nothing better than thwarting our desire for a quiet cup of coffee in the morning before facing the day. Before reading and reponding to emails. Before anything. Just a quiet cup of joe and, in my case, a tiny square of dark chocolate.

Pushkin Nosy Parker has other plans, however, and if she can include us in them in some way, then she is happy. You can tell by the way she spends the rest of the morning (after coming out of hiding, post-prank) sleeping on her favorite perch.

This morning, I heard what sounded like a thousand tiny beads being poured on the floor upstairs, followed by the sound of little cat feet, scampering for cover, followed by a very specific Neko bark, which I think translates as "You are going to be in so much trouble."

Did I mention that Pushy likes to get into the wicker trash can upstairs? We usually put it out of reach, which means putting it on top of the dresser. I have tried to see this as an innovation in home décor, but frankly I don't think this new placement idea will be taking the world by storm any time soon. Sometimes the trash can ends up on ground level, where it belongs. Usually, it is empty when this happens. This morning, there must have been a packet of that silicon stuff that gets packed with stuff you order that comes in boxes. You know, like lamps and stuff. Pushy found one and through a deft combination of pushing, clawing and chewing, somehow got it open. I am pretty sure Neko got involved at some point. I have no idea how the opening of this teeny packet produced a noise that sounded more like a thousand beads or marbles being dropped to the floor from a great height. Perhaps I'll have a better idea after we install the video surveillance camera that will be on 24/7.

Anyway, this is why at 7 am we were vacuuming upstairs, moving furniture to get every little bead of poisonous silicon, instead of enjoying the freshly brewed coffee that awaited us below. Of course, the vacuum cleaner bag was full and had to be changed. That's how these narratives work.

Remember the song by the Seeds?

All I want is to just have fun,
Live my life like it's just begun,
But you're pushin' too hard on me (too hard).

This little boy

One of the unexpected highlights of my stay in Paris last summer was the famous défilé du 14 juillet. July 14th is what we Americans call Bastille Day, and what is officially La Fête Nationale in France. Some Americans call it the French Fourth of July, which it kind of is, though I don't like to hear it referred to in this patrio-centric way.

Anyway, I used to watch the military parade on television when I lived in Paris, even when I lived on rue de Courcelles, which is right next to the Champs Elysées (the focal point for the parade). Since everything was closed on the morning of the parade and since all of my friends were out of town for the holiday, I decided to actually go to the parade. Without my umbrella, although I knew the forecast called for rain. And it poured. I ducked into a café at one point, just before it began to really come down. I drank an espresso and watched the parade on television for awhile. This little boy was in the café and kept running out every time the television indicated that the planes were flying overhead. He was so excited. Jumping up and down. Unable to contain himself. I had to take a picture of him. But I didn't want to be obvious about it. I always feel like I am invading someone's privacy when I take a picture of a stranger (as opposed to a group of strangers, which seems okay). I tried to be discreet. I had forgotten about this photo until I came across it this morning as part of a work avoidance exercise. I hadn't noticed that the photo also contains an arm and a hand of an unseen passerby, who is smoking a cigarette. Mais oui, bien sûr. This is France, after all.

Les bons tons

Quel week-end magnifique!

Manu

Well, that was interesting. Mathilde and I got free tickets to see Manu Chao last night at the Paramount. And we had great seats. First balcony, third row. Had it not been for the writhing woman in row one of the balcony, who for some reason felt she needed to stand up and dance, though she looked more like she was writhing in agony or had to pee, I would have had an unobstructed view all night. Luckily, she could not keep up with Manu and sat down every so often and then permanently. She was a really bad dancer, with no sense of rhythm at all. It was actually kind of hilarious.

But the real thrills were down below, in the mosh pit. Call me old, old-fashioned, no fun, whatever. But a mosh pit--what a stupendously horrible idea. Lip-service crowd control for a bunch of stoners pushing and shoving one another in random fashion, interspersed with random people being lifted off the ground and used as human projectiles. It doesn't look like fun at all. (Je sais que la maman de Mathilde lit ce blog, donc: Pas de panique! Mathilde et moi étions très sages, assises et loin de la mêlée.) It just looks like a bunch of vaguely unhappy, usually overweight, slightly awkward, mostly male humans with free-floating anger issues that they need to work out. Ick. Just ick.

Manu was pretty amazing. Quite energetic, especially considering he was born in 1961 and thus is a mere five years younger than me. In fact, he has more energy than a five year-old on speed. There are lots of influences in his music, from years of wandering around the world, from being born in Paris to Spanish parents and having a musical father with (I think) some Cuban roots. Manu is also un chanteur engagé, which is always a nice plus. Anyway, you can read all about him on the Internet if you are interested in knowing more about Manu Chao (and his original band, long since disbanded, Mano Negra). I am sure one of the influences on Manu Chao is the French rock group Les Negresses Vertes. Check them out. And Manu has produced for Amadou and Mariam, a truly amazing duo. Check them out too. Yeah, world music.

Unrelated: I found this on the Internet. It is by my dear friend Pierre Vella. You can see his name (and that of the late Cathleen Vella, his lovely wife and my dear friend) and address on the postcard he illustrated and sent to a friend.

Touche pas à mon cirque!

When I lived in the 18th (Rue Camille Tahan, near Place de Clichy), there was a vacant lot on Avenue de Clichy (on the right side facing north, which is important because the left side of Avenue de Clichy is in the 17th and the right side is in the 18th, two arrondissements that are totally different, one populaire, the other not) that one day spawned a circus. It was winter; it was a cirque d'hiver. Just a small affair -- a tent, a caravan and a bunch of tziganes (gypsies). When I was a kid, I wanted to run away and join a circus. Maybe most kids entertain this fantasy; I'm not sure many almost do it, as I did. I made a plan with my friend from across the street, which included throwing a pebble against her window in the middle of the night. I got as far as the front door of my house before I really saw clearly that this plan of ours would end badly. I touched the door knob but couldn't turn it; I went back to bed and gave up my circus fantasy.

I used to walk by the little circus on Avenue de Clichy every day. Sometimes I would see the tziganes sitting around and smoking or practicing their routines. I wanted to join them; I wanted to run away and join the circus.

The French government has recently decided to get tough on its tzigane population. The pretext is that with Roumania and other Eastern European countries joining the European Union, France is being overrun by these "gens du voyage". A little legislative history is in order: until 2000, the Loi Besson dated May 31, 1990 required cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants to set aside a patch of land for nomads. In 2000, another law was passed (Loi n°2000-614 du 5 juillet 2000) to deal with complex cases (cities with just under 5,000 inhabitants, for example). In 2003, another law (la loi sur la sécurité intérieure) placed further restrictions on the rights of these gens du voyage to occupy these encampments. In 2005, France's legislators decided to make them pay residency taxes (property taxes).

So what's happening now and getting everybody up in arms is really just part of a process that was set in motion years ago. The problematizing of itinerant people did not begin yesterday; in fact, it goes back way further than the law passed in 1991.

Back to the Cirque parisien Romanès: it winters in Paris and performs across Europe the rest of the year. It even represented France at the Shanghai World's Fair. Now Eric Besson, France's Ministre du Travail, has caused a stir for revoking the work permits of a couple of its musicians. Alexandre Romanès, the colorful and eloquent head of the Cirque, claims there is a link between the way his musicians are being treated and the government's larger crusade against gypsies and their encampments. The current winter home of the Cirque Romanès is on another street I used to live on, Rue de Courcelles (actually, the address is 42-44 Boulevard de Reims in the 17th; I was further down on Rue de Courcelles and my apartment was in the 8th arrondissement). I was listening to one of my daily podcasts (Pascale Clark's Comme on nous parle) when suddenly I heard the familiar voice of Alexandre Romanès. The France Inter program was initially aired on September 27. Romanès announced that a soirée de soutien au cirque would be held on October 4 and that he hoped his troupe would be able to perform as planned starting on November 6. Vive le cirque! Vive le Cirque Romanès! If you live in Paris, please go and see these talented people perform. Think of it as a nice way to flip the bird at Nico and all the pretty people who apparently want to rid the landscape of gypsies. Where is first lady Carla Bruni, l'artiste, when we most need her to go to bat for her fellow artistes?

Good news, horrible news

I was driving up to Hiawatha for a walk with Neko before dark, feeling happy and cheery because damn it the sun was out! I turned on the radio just in time to hear a weather forecast for the month of October that was awesome. It called for fog overnight and in the early morning, burning off around 11 am and giving way to sunshine and temperatures in the mid-60's. That's what I call an Indian Summer, folks! I couldn't believe it and even now wonder if I really heard this at all. My euphoria was short-lived, though, because the next item up on the radio was the event now referred to as the Rutgers Suicide. One of the saddest stories I have ever heard.

RIP Tyler Clementi.