Solo cinema paradiso

I love movies, love watching them and also love the big screen cinema experience. A collection of friends and strangers in a room going through the same story (set to a soundtrack, no less) at the same time? Sign me up!  Add the blissful alchemy of popcorn and junior mints and a diet Coke? Even better. What I do sometimes keep a bit more under wraps is my penchant to sneak off every once in a while and indulge in a little mid-day solo cinema therapy. Yes, that's right. I sometimes go to movies by myself.

At first it felt kind of strange to park in the lot and walk up to the box office alone: "One ticket for...." (And, years ago, the first time I went it actually required a pep talk phone call from my cinephile brother.) But after the first solo movie, I was hooked. I loved that I could take a short vacation from my life of multi-tasking; in fact, it's two hours of glorious single-tasking. 

Sometimes when I confess this as one of my favorite indulgences, someone will say "Oh, I could never do that. I'd feel too guilty!" For me it's just the opposite; whether I find time on a day off during the week or on a Saturday, I always come home feeling recharged, marveling at the creativity, mulling over the story, and ready to jump back into my own life with a little more verve. Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist's Way, calls this "the artist date." She says that setting aside time for a solo expedition of "assigned play" enhances your creativity and work.  I don't go every week or even every month but I'm completely on board with having a little away time now and then.

Years ago on a snowy afternoon in Harvard Square, I sat in the semi-darkened theater with six strangers--all of us solo. Something happened to the projector so we sat there for about 15 minutes, chatting and (since most of them were retirees) reminiscing about those classic grand cinema theaters and memories of bygone movie prices. One guy remembered that his mom would get a plate or a dish each time she came to the movies as some kind of promotion. Sometimes if she didn't like the movie, she would send him to pay the 5 cent admission and buy the dish since it was such a good deal.

It's still a good deal for me...much cheaper than therapy, better than other potentially expensive habits. I mean, I don't do drugs or drink or play the lottery. I don't have a thing for collecting fine jewelry or figurines or spending the day at the golf course. Just a little movie outing now and then, that's my luxury. 

Here's what I want to know: is it just me? And what small indulgences are therapeutic for you?  

Channeling Nora

Photo: Hilary McHone in NY Magazine

You know the question about who would be on your ultimate imaginary dinner party guest list if you could invite five people from any era? Nora Ephron always makes my list.  In fact, she has long been a charter member of the group of outstanding women I would like to grow up to be--or at least be like. If this imaginary group had a name it would be something like The Society of Dames of Wit and Panache. Right now I'm in early training, nothing but a pledge, a wannabe, a plebe. Give me another decade or few and with any luck I'll get there.

A few months ago Nora's son, Jacob Bernstein, published a wonderful tribute to his mom. In it, he recounts her final weeks, when even then she maintained her signature humor:

Sunday, June 24, was a pretty good day. The sun was shining, and Mom spent most of the afternoon on a couch in the front of her room, doing the crossword puzzle with Max. Binky was there, as was Richard Cohen and his companion, Mona. Amy stopped by with her husband, Alan. “We’re going to the Guggenheim,” Amy said. “Do you want anything from the outside world?”

“Sure,” my mother said. “A de Kooning.”

Another thing she requested was a pineapple milkshake, so Max brought one from Emack and Bolio’s, made from fresh pineapple. But as far as my mother was concerned, a milkshake is one thing that’s actually better with crushed pineapple. Dole.

“When I get out of the hospital, I’m going to go home and I’m going to make a pineapple milkshake with crushed pineapple, pineapple juice and vanilla ice cream, and I’m going to drink it and I’m going to die

,” she said, savoring the last word. “It’s going to be great.”

 . . .

The weekend I read the article, the boys were out of town on a scout campout so I enlisted Maddy in my quest for an impromptu Nora tribute day, complete with pineapple milkshake. Get ready, the recipe is fancy. (Can this even be called a recipe if there are only two ingredients?) 

1. Throw 4-5 scoops of vanilla ice cream in the blender.
2. Pour in some Dole crushed pineapple, including some of the juice. 
3. Blend and pour into glass(es). Serves two. Or one. No one will know.

So grab your teenagers, put on an Ephron movie, raise a glass of pineapple deliciousness, and deliver your favorite Ephron lines like these (extra points if you can name where these lines originated): 

• "It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supoosed to be together..and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home, only to no home I'd ever known. I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like...magic."
• "I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly."
• "That's your problem! You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie."
• "Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."
• "When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side."
• "When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you."
• "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

And my favorite: "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."

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I realize you might not be as *cough* obsessive *cough* as I am, but just in case you are, here are a few good things for a Nora Ephron tribute day of your own:

• Nora Ephron's blog posts for the Huffington Post
• Hallie Ephron's article about the four Ephron sisters and their mother
• Nora's last work, the play Lucky Guy, just closed its run in NYC this month
• A Nora Ephron documentary is in the works
• Frank Rich's fantastic tribute to Nora in NY Magazine
  
• Her "What I Wish I'd Known" excerpt from I Feel Bad About My Neck 
• Design Sponge's series of posts about decorating inspiration from Ephron movie sets: You've Got Mail,  Sleepless in Seattle, Julie & Julia, and When Harry Met Sally
• Her entry for Six Word Memoirs: "Secret to life, marry an Italian." 
• A Channeling Nora playlist.  Okay, I'd better stop. Now my crazy is really showing and I can sense you are getting worried.

In the kitchen

via ApartmentTherapy

Guys, I'm trying my hardest not to let my academic work infiltrate the blog because I don't want to bore anyone to death. NOT that my academic work is boring. In the least. But I do have to sift through a bunch of boring stuff to get to the exciting bits. When I'm done with this you can just call me Dr. Sifter.

At any rate, my current chapter has much to do with the kitchen, how the kitchen is represented in contemporary culture, and how such representations affect cultural codes, roles, and perceptions. A very good professor once told me that all research is personal -- meaning that you will gravitate towards research interests that touch your own life. And thus it is for me. I have long wondered at and struggled with women and domesticity -- how to balance family life and work life, why domestic spaces are so aggressively assigned to women, why I'm the only person in the family who notices THERE ARE 73 WATER GLASSES ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER. You know, important stuff like that -- that's what I'm thinking about.

But more on point for this blog is how I talk about, teach, and pass on culturally specific gender roles to my own kiddos. How can I teach my son that the domestic is his responsibility just as much as it is my daughters'? How can I help my daughters navigate the tricky path between work and family? And whose job is it exactly to mow the lawn and empty the dishwasher?  How can I raise enlightened individuals who want to work together within their families to build the best life possible?

Huh? 

Unfortunately I don't have any get rich quick domestic-equality schemes. But I do think it's interesting and important to examine and discuss (with the kiddos) the way kitchens as geographic spaces function in literature and popular art. 

I recently came across this article, "Coming Out of the Kitchen: Texts, Contexts, and Debates," that positions the kitchen as "an improvisatory and rebellious zone." The author, Janet Floyd, isn't so much decrying the kitchen as some radical space to launch a feminist rebellion (cuz that's hard to do when the chicken needs to be done by 5), as she is utilizing the kitchen in popular culture to "generate arguments about gender, class and nation." There you go. That's what I'm talking about. Arguing. I do love to argue. And if I can do that while mixing up some chocolate chip cookies -- ALL THE BETTER.

Floyd talks about a number of specific kitchens. Surprisingly, she's interested in the kitchen Monica and Rachel share in Friends. Monica as the obsessive, detail-driven homemaker wanna-be is consistently contrasted with the frazzled and hopelessly sloppy Rachel. And audiences like both of them. Monica's over-achiever neurosis makes her less-than-ideal, and Rachel, quintessentially beautiful and hip, is beautiful and hip even amidst her failures in the domestic. So what's the message there? The beauty is that there is no one unified message. No, "GIRLS! Get yourselves into the kitchen." 

The point Floyd is making is that texts (including television texts) about or including the kitchen can both "insist on the richness of the domestic experience" while also transgressing social norms. And really, in the end, that's a good portion of what I want my kids to take with them into adulthood -- that the domestic can be a warm, creative, nurturing, and even transgressive space, but such an environment will almost certainly mean looking at the family dynamic in new and respectful ways. It will mean everyone working together to see that the dog gets fed, and the sheets changed, and the meals cooked, and books read, and art created.

Forget about Monica and Rachel. I'm all about Claire and Cliff. Remember Cliff's apron? He was a whiz at sandwich-making for Rudy.

And what about Elyse and Steven? A fair amount of sitcom action occurred in the family kitchen. Good stuff there.

What about you? Any fictional family kitchens you find fascinating?

Hazy movie memory syndrome

I have pretty crummy fine memory skills when it comes to movies of my youth. I think I must remember every back-in-the-day movie through a gauzy, golden filter; I tend to consider each a must-see masterpiece to share with my kids. Through sad experience I've come to accept that I suffer from hazy movie memory sydrome (HMMS). (Believe me, it's a thing. Don't fall victim to its clutches, too.)

I think I first was alerted to this particular ailment when the kids were pretty young, maybe 6, 8, and 11. We were at the video store (awww, video stores. Remember those?) and I saw the movie Big on the movie shelf. 

I gushed. "Oh, kids, you are going to love this movie. It's so funny and it's about this little kid who wishes he were big and he gets his wish. There's...um...a giant piano and...something funny to do with baby corn. I think." I raved. I whipped them up into a Big-fan-club frenzy.

Then when we came home and put on the movie, I got a little jolt of an uncomfortable memory refresher. I mean, it is definitely a fun movie but it turns out it's not exactly a young kids movie. There were adult themes. Double entendres. More like a middle-schooler-on-up movie.

Spells of HMMS don't just bring age-appropriateness into question, though, especially now that my kids are older. Sometimes even the quality of the movie itself is at issue. Are these even the same films? Somewhere along the line some cranky film editor must sneak in and replace the movies I saw and loved, trading them for cheesy, sad-effects dross. Curse you, hazy movie memory syndrome!
 
Here's an incomplete list of movies that have fallen victim to my HMMS in the last decade or so and left my family either semi-scarred or scratching their heads. Mind you, many of these are fantastic when viewed at the right age and stage but not so much at the wrong one:

Big (premature sharing)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (premature sharing. What I remembered: funny men clopping like horses. What my kids saw: blood spurting, amorous nymphs, etc.)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (premature sharing)
The Never Ending Story (huh?)
 Rear Window (premature sharing)
 Labyrinth (huh?)
Crocodile Dundee (oh, the 80s. Hello casual cocaine use.)
 A Little Romance (premature sharing but a sweet movie at the right stage)
 War Games (so outdated it's funny)
 Pretty in Pink (sadly outdated; cool/quirky has become outdated/quirky)
 Better Off Dead (attempted suicides and homicidal paper boys in a PG? Still, it's pretty funny...)
 

Even Star Wars, friends. This is probably sacrilege to some of you but my kids--having seen all of the more modern movies inspired by Star Wars--were fairly unimpressed with the special effects and too familiar with the plot. We probably waited too long on this one. Sad.
 
You would think I would learn but, hey, I've had some good sharing successes as well as the flops so I just keep trying. It's a Never Ending Story all of my own making.

Is it just me? What other movies haven't translated well from your youth to your kids'?

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This doesn't help so much with the decades-old movies but one resource I use a lot to determine movie appropriateness for my kids is Kids In Mind. In addition to ratings, the reviewers go through specifically what a movie includes in three areas: sexual content, violence, and profanity. (Sometimes the descriptions are laughably specific and clinical, actually.)

Where am I?

The postcards tacked above my desk have been taunting me a little. They're kind of a strange little audience, this eclectic collection of images I've gathered over the years from museum visits here and there. I tend to look at them when I can't think of what to write (which is sadly and alarmingly often). Lately I've been seeing them with new eyes.

Realization #1: Apparently I really love depictions of motherhood in art. Go figure. I've unintentionally gathered a gang of mothers who look down and supervise my daily typing. Most of them are fairly idealized (which, on the wrong day can be admittedly a bit deflating...I mean, where's my halo and rosy-cheeked cherubs?) but there's something comforting about looking at paintings that give a nod to motherhood. I can see myself there.

Or I used to, anyway. Realization #2: I'm actually not up there at all, at least not anymore!  Last week I realized these art mamas are all mothers of infants and very young children--preoccupied with nursing, swaddling, cuddling littles on laps.  So I started searching for more seasoned motherhood in art and...it turns out there really aren't many pieces of art showing motherhood past young childhood. Come on, artists of the ages, where's the art showing mothers with adolescents or older children? (Yep, adolescence is a relatively newfangled invention historically so it does make sense. But still. Scroll through the images in this book. See? Mostly babies.)

I was intrigued.  After scrolling through several more on-line collections of "mothers in art" to no avail, I decided to consult with my cousin-in-law, who's a professor of art history. I asked Monica if she could think of any good examples of art depicting scenes of mothering with older children (excluding portraits and besides the Pietas, which are in a category of their own). She suggested I start with these  (thanks, Monica!):

• Alexander Roslin's "Before the Debutante Ball" seems relevant (assuming that it is, in fact, the debutante's mother and not a maid or sister): 

Before the Debutante Ball by Alexander Roslin

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Simone Martini's "Christ Discovered by his Parents" was new to me but I really like the depiction of Christ and his parents. And his intransigent adolescent expression is a little familiar to me, how about you?

Christ Discovered in the Temple by Simone Martini

There's also this mother reading to a slightly older girl  in George Dunlop Leslie's "Alice in Wonderland." (And, Monica pointed out, George Dunlop Leslie does have some other domestic scenes that could qualify, too.) 

It's a good start. But I'm still curious: where am I, art-wise? 

As you can tell, I'm on a bit of a treasure hunt. Can you think of any other depictions of mid-stage motherhood in art? What do you think about being (mostly) left out of the whole shebang?

Bring it on, Mother's Day

Gird yourself, ladies, Mother's Day is upon us! Do you love the hullaballoo? Does it cause some pangs? I know for many it's a day fraught with an undercurrent of emotions: guilt about not quite measuring up to the grand pedestal of it all, disappointment in the sometimes meager gestures, sadness about mothers who are no longer here to celebrate (or never were), awkwardness about the fuss. It's taken me time but over the years I've tinkered with my approach to the day enough to know what works for me: (a) keep my expectations low enough so that any gesture will happily surpass them and (b) concentrate on celebrating the mothers and mother figures in my own life.

When it comes down to it, though, how can any celebration or token adequately repay the fact of the creation and delivery and nurture of a new human being, let alone whatever the next decades brought? One of my favorite poems about motherhood, The Lanyard by Billy Collins, perfectly captures the sentiment. I can't resist sharing it every year.

Here's to you, each and all, and the many lanyard-like offerings the weekend may bring:

Mother daughter vintage photobooth photo via​

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

- Billy Collins, from his collection The Trouble with Poetry
​Or, here, treat yourself to listening to him read this himself.

Alternative cinema for big kids, part two

Jordan came home on Saturday! We were on our way to the airport (in a veritable monsoon) when we got a call from her that Hobby Airport in Houston had closed due to weather, and she had been diverted to Midland. Midland is a good 450 miles from us, so she was left to the mercy of the airlines. She eventually made it to Houston around one in the morning. We scooped her up, threw her in the truck, and brought her home. I breathed a sigh of relief to have all of my kids under my roof and I'm considering holding her hostage in the attic.

Along with Jordan came a whole load of stuff that had previously been stuffed into her tiny dorm room -- including a pretty decent movie collection. Two of our family's favorite movies went away to college with Jordan, and we're happy to have them back as well.  

The first is Lagaan (2001) - an Indian musical depicting a farming village's conflict with British rule (meaning a group of rag-tag farmers challenge the Brits to a cricket match to settle a tax dispute). There is a handsome hero, a beautiful maiden, and the emotional charge of a community banding together for a common cause. Plus, there's the cricket -- think A League of Own meets Bollywood -- except better. Also, the underdog vs. superpower motif in this movie tugs firmly on your heartstrings. It's so much fun to root for the underdog! Your kids will be on the edge of their seats in the final cricket match. I promise.

Sterling was introduced to this movie in business school, and when he brought home a copy for our then fourth and fifth graders to watch, I was skeptical. The movie is four hours long and subtitled. Really? But the girls loved it and have continued to watch it over the years. As Rebecca and Parker became proficient readers they joined in as well. And get this, Jordan claims to understand the rules of cricket because of this movie. What American girl understands cricket? We've shared it with multiple friends over the years -- everyone has been a fan. 

Buy the DVD here.​

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And second, Les Choristes (The Chorus, 2004), tells the story of a teacher at a troubled boys school in 1949 in France (this is subtitled as well). Initially the boys are undisciplined and the headmaster is cruel and villainous, but Monsieur Mathieu starts a boys choir as a way of connecting with the students. It's sort of a sophisticated mix of Mr. Holland's Opus and Lean on Me. The music is other-worldly and the young Jean-Baptiste Maunier is superb. My girls saw this movie in their high school (or maybe junior high) French class, and couldn't stop talking about the storyline (and the cute Pierre). Watching this makes me want to hop on the next plane to France. As does eating croissants. Or macarons.  [Note: There are a few isolated incidents of of objectionable language in the movie, which are made more apparent by subtitles, so you may want to preview the film first for younger kids.]​

Available on Amazon Instant Video here.​
Buy the DVD here.