2008 movie round-up

i think the oscars are tonight so here is my two cents.

best movies i saw
1. milk
2. rachel getting married
3. vicky cristina barcelona
4. iron man
5. frost/nixon

worst movies i saw
1. revolutionary road
2. indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull
3. speed racer
4. burn after reading
5. sex and the city

movies i still would like to see
1. man on wire
2. the class
3. harold and kumar escape from guantanamo
4. che
5. happy go lucky


movies i will definitely not be seeing
1. the curious case of benjamin button
2. australia
3. valkyrie
4. the reader
5. the gran torino

importing

there are certain items that i always purchase in the u.s. not that they aren't for sale in spain, or that the spanish versions don't suit my needs. but i have my routines and tendencies and these dictate shopping.

bras, underwear and socks. only purchased in america.

the funny thing is that a girlfriend of mine revealed that she also buys these three things only at home. which made me wonder, are we all doing this? what do you buy only in the states?

walking home

A rare mild night in February; leaving my friend’s house in Chueca I decided to walk the 30 minutes home. Cold weather sends me running for taxis and subways – especially after 2 a.m. But tonight there was a full moon and it felt good to stretch my legs.

It has been a while since I’ve walked through the heart of this city; normally I avoid these crowded streets. Usually I walk with my head down, dodging people and lost in the music playing through my headphones. But late at night I stick to the main drags and stay alert. No music, head up, listening.

And tonight the streets were empty, eerily calm and shiny. Heels echoing through a vacant Sol and cavernous Plaza Mayor. The minstrel song of a stumbling drunk brushing across the cobblestones, angry garbage trucks devouring bins, the sporadic questions from strangers – directions or spare change – only briefly interrupting the silence.

Do you ever walk through your city and feel like you’re dreaming? Like if you closed your eyes you could lift up and float away?

calling the kettle racist

second column is up at crucial minutae, check out calling the kettle racist. and leave comments!

a couple minutes late?

though i'm sure in internet time a couple minutes midas well be a couple years. surely you have all seen, or heard about this already. but it was just last night that i saw this for the first time:
i'll admit that i spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of my laptop, most of it taming the beast of google reader and thus somewhere on the scale between forboding and downright depressing. and while i like babies or whatever in the backseat or rolling around on the floor, this clip is the most balls-out feel good three minutes i have spent on the net in a while.

what i love about this is the same thing i love about burning man. here's someone working their ass off for no reason other than to create something cool and share it with people. granted there is a built-in audience but what we see before us is nothing beyond raw talent and dedication. i find that to be inspiring.

honestly, who's cooler here: beyonce with her amazing hair, clothes, styling, backup dancers, beats and choreography or this dude in his tiny room with a webcam? i kind of love him more, for the lack of commercialism, for the rawness of it.

and i know he's been on oprah and probably has a book and a reality series and a line of strappy gymwear coming out -- i am a bit late on this, i admitted that from the beginning. and of course he's piggybacking on the awesomeness of the original video. my point is that i love people creating art out of the dusty corners of their shitty apartment for no reason other than that it is bursting out of their skin.

ps. time to be youtube sensations friends; how fun does this look? let's remake this one: "forever more" by moloko. check it out here. i dig those drunken style dance moves. call me when you're ready to start rehearsing.

jacki's viewless reviews - australia

she is a headstrong and proper british woman, daughter of a brilliant but ruthless land developer who has gone missing in the australian outback, thought to be captured by aboriginal savages. he is a convicted criminal who was banished to australia to serve his sentence in the wild. he has scrapped by on raffishness and chivalry alone, and is now attempting to make a name for himself as an outback tourguide/bodyguard.

despite their natural dislike for each other, these two end up on an adventurous mission to find the missing father. their cause is helped tremendously by jackman's aboriginal friend and guru whose loincloth and spear belie his wisdom and authenticity. though kidman is reluctant to take advice from this "savage," she is forced to reckon with the question of who are the real savages in this colonial world? are they the criminals and natives, as she has always believed, or the businessmen like her father who would destroy their fragile culture in the name of the (australian) dollar.

no good epic about a british colony would be complete without a certain dose of "fuck you england" and in this aspect "australia" does not disappoint. though our heroine may find her father, can she ever find her way back to the comfortable superiority and advantage of her former life? armed with a newfound respect for the land she hated and accompanied by the man she grew to love, kidman's eventual "fuck you" to england reminds of us of that other great ozzie-starring epic "braveheart," which i have also not seen but am sure i know everything about.

two leaves

i've done two things in the past few days that qualify as leaves on my tree

first off, i pitched my first article to a magazine! this is something that i have been thinking about doing for a while and am finally pulling the trigger. i have another two ideas that i'm going to pitch this weekend. attempting to break into this field is like resetting the dial on my job-hunting mechanism. no more resume/cover letter combo; no more trolling through job postings (actually, those are their pitches to us, aren't they?). now i have an idea and sell just this piece of myself. it's refreshing, actually.

and today, inspired by the website get rich slowly, i spent ten minutes creating a personal budget. i've never been one to overspend, and i have a fairly good idea of where my money goes, but as an exercise in financial responsibility i'm going to put a spreadsheet to the task of proving me wrong.

(confession: i secretly kinda like spreadsheets and i don't get to use them much these days. yes i'm a nerd, but spreadsheets -- all those orderly boxes, beckoning to me with their subtle rigidity and infinite possibilities -- are relaxing to me. the quiet despair i often feel when staring at a blank document; the steady calm of looking at a blank spreadsheet.)

i digress. suffice it to say i've got a spreadsheet that i can play with every day and be a responsible ox while i'm at it. two leaves on the tree, and counting!

goals: method two

my friend suggested drawing a tree, and labeling each branch with an area of your life you would like to improve. these are not actions, but personal qualities that you would like to develop. then, when you do something in your life that reflects one of these areas, you draw a leaf on that branch. little by little, you notice which goals are easier, which are getting the most attention, and which need more work.

i love this approach because rather than focusing on actions, it reaches deeper to highlight the parts of yourself that prevent you from doing these things to begin with. i believe that if you look at the underlying situation, the actions will fall out naturally, and you will know yourself better in the process. i also like that it is visual, providing a tangible, colorful reminder of personal ambitions.

so, looking back on my stated goals of yesterday, i propose my tree to have the followings branches:

- creativity
- productivity
- care for others
- emotional honesty

i think that all of my goals could be accomplished by working on these four areas. so there's my tree. what are your branches?

goals: one month late

well, it's time for the third annual listing of new year's resolutions, cleverly called goals to make them seem more inspiring and fluid. let's look back at last year's, shall we?

• continue with: yoga, guitar, feeling wonderful about birthdays
• get nothing to declare to a solid 5 posts per week. bring readership up over 150 individual hits per day
• get going on writing that monthly column
• finish writing my novel in february. edit the two parts together and decide what to do with it
• stay at present weight

ok. number one: check. yoga and birthdays continue to be positive enjoyable forces in my life; guitar takes a backseat but only because i'm busy with other stuff.

number two: not so much. nothing to declare hasn't been given enough attention, or the attention i give it doesn't amount to much, or it's hard to get people to write without paying them. i don't check page hit stats anymore, and five posts a month would be awesome. i'm still really proud and motivated by this project though, just not sure where it is going, if anywhere. advice? suggestions?

meanwhile, writing-wise, i did start a column, though not monthly. and the novel hasn't been touched in a year. i picked it up a few weeks ago and immediately put it down again.

number five, check.

so, not i haven't been as goal-fulfilling as last year. perhaps i need to lower the bar? or check in with them more often? but it's not as if i didn't have a productive year; i did accomplish a lot of things that i'm proud of. i suppose this exercise is just a guideline -- the idea is to be flexible and encourage yourself, not get yourself down, right?

the other day my friend suggested a completely new way to set personal goals and work toward fulfilling them. i'm going to do my goals both ways this year and see what works better. method one: the old fashioned way. here we go:

• be a hard-working ox. earn more money, save more money.
  
• try to turn writing from a hobby into some form of career.
  
• write letters. specifically to grandma (monthly) but also to other people. use ink and paper to convey my love for my friends and family, whether over a short or long distance. keep a stock of notecards and stamps around and use them often.
• cry more
• revisit these goals more often
  

ok. how's that? i know my dad's reaction, which will be: these are not quantified goals. he'll say: number 1, save how much? number 2, what constitutes career? etc. but i'm not going to quantify, as i'm not sure how i want to do that yet. perhaps i can refine them more as the year goes on.

tomorrow, i'll frame these same ideas using method number two!

guest bloggership

i am the guest blogger at crucial minutae, a very thought-provoking and lovely blog that is the side project of my friend joie's writing group in new york city. its creators are mostly all published authors, and i am constantly impressed by the variety and quality of their site.

i'm writing over there about the post-bush world outside of u.s. borders, focusing on my personal experience in spain, obviously, but also touching on other corners of the globe. so go check out my first piece, peruse the rest of the site if you haven't already, go buy the books of my hard-working hosts, oh and don't forget to leave lots of comments so they think i'm cool.

crossed lines

this past fall i've been a part one of the coolest, most inspiring projects i've ever done. led by my roommate sky, a group of us envisioned and wrote an original play composed of 9 short, individually written plays. we set the guidelines as follows: each short play would be between 5-10 minutes long, would contain between three and four characters, and would share one character with the previous play and another character with the following play.

over the course of a month we wrote, critiqued and re-wrote the pieces, resulting in a truly original and moving piece of theater. the characters and situations varied greatly, but together they formed a cohesive thematic work. collaborating with eight other writers was an experience i am so grateful for and from which i learned so much. we named our play "crossed lines."

next sky held a casting, and cast a group of 20 amazing actors to interpret our work. a month full of rehearsals followed and in december i was able to watch our production in a madrid theater. it amazed me that in two months this had sprung out of people's minds and onto the stage. i'm so proud of everyone involved, especially sky for having the spark and motivation to envision and execute such a rewarding experience, not to mention write, direct and act brilliantly!

i'm supposed to be at the theater tonight, at the last performance of "crossed lines." unfortunately i mixed up the times and missed it. oops. still a little slow after the incredible cast party last night, hosted by fellow writer and gifted actress marta rubio. luckily, i'll get to see the dvd!

obama + year of the ox = get off your ass!

i've resolved to be a hard-working ox this year and stimulate my personal economy, which has fallen into recession. this plan involves trying to get paid for things i now do for free, such as writing.

to get the juices flowing, i declare february "jacki blog posting month." i'm going to try to post something here every day -- writing every day is a critical part of my newfound determination.

in other writing-related news, i've resolved to write my grandma a letter every month. on my list of things to do is: new years resolutions. one month late on that front, but what a charming idea for a feb. 1 blog post!

44

now the question on everybody's mind is: what's in the folder?

maybe some take-out menus and the manual for the tivo? the number for bush's weed dealer?

what do you think?

thoughts on obama's speech

i started crying, unexpectedly, during rick warren. when he asked god to protect the obamas -- barack, michelle, malia and sasha -- i was choked with emotion. looking at this young beautiful family, i hoped with all my heart that they would be protected, that we would all save each other. the tears continued right through aretha, though now they were mixed with a smile: at her bringing down the mall, at that fierce bow on her hat.

and on to obama's speech. it was honest, inspiring. he at once told it like it is, while managing to create a vision of what is possible, and describing a path of how to get there. i think he is going to have to keep giving speeches like this, keep reminding us.

it's funny to think of americans as somehow lacking in confidence. here is the country that claims to have god on our side at every chance we get, that has changed the world order without allies or a thought to our reputation, that names itself number one without a blush of embarrassment. but according to our new president, this is like the "confidence" of a school bully who picks on others because he has no faith in his own talents. very interesting.

like most sweeping political speeches, this one read out the grand dichotomies of our nation: blacks and whites, muslims and christians, jews, hindus, even nonbelievers. (shout-out!) but somehow he failed to mention that one quite large sector of our society that, here in 2009, must be included. where was the "gays and straights" or even "people of all sexual orientation"? bit of a letdown there.

i love everything he said about the constitution, about the bravery and restraint of that document and the conditions in which it was written, about what it was designed to protect and what protecting it means. i loved the washington quote and the evocation of harder times, of the miraculous sequence of events that led to the founding of our country (ok, i'm a huge david mccullough fan, obviously). yes let's have a president who is rooted in history, and in science. what a refreshing way to look towards the future.

finally, my favorite line of the speech: "the world has changed and we must change with it." obama was criticized a lot during the campaign for the vagueness of his slogan of "change." but here he flips the coin on its head. change is a verb, a command. and he is inclusive; we are together -- the nation and its president -- and we together must change starting now. the change is not over, it has just begun.

they can't see... me

wow. this might be the most captivating thing i have ever seen. i can't stop rewinding this over and over. watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfHXm8F13f8&feature=related

ok, in high school this song defined me, and us. but in no way did everybody get together and sing it. we did this in groups of two, in the car, at the spot, alone. we were rebellious, special, insular.

but witness these kids, feelin it, reclaiming this song. absolutely this is one of the most inspiring things i have ever seen.

"hey kid, got a rhyme for you.
they say your brain is a comic book tattoo
and you'll never be anything.
what will you do with your life?
oh that's all you'll hear from noon to night"

poignant, then and now. yet never so joyful as interpreted by these kids. feeling it. absolutely. inspiring.

beasts

in september i went to the siegfried and roy animal park in las vegas to see the baby white tigers. here is some of my best nature photography:

yessss

yes yes yes yes yes

wow

for an athiest, i have thanked god a surprising number of times tonight. it is 6am and we have a new president. thank god, even though i have no idea what that means.

and how amazing: surrounded by friends, americans and spanish, willing it to be possible, holding each other while jumping and shouting. i'm not saying that i have total faith in the change that may come, but i do have faith in this moment...in what we did together, in what we proved, in what we are tonight.

the world changed today, because of me and you. thank god. thank you america. i was always optimistic, thank you for proving me right...

and good luck obama. my heart is with you. you have a tough job but you are the right man for it. i can't wait for you to be our president!

buenos dias amigos

friday morning, it's pouring rain. my house is freezing, i'm wearing four layers and huddled in my sleeping bag under the covers. the friday crossword is harder than usual and making my brain hurt. it's halloween, and i have a costume but it is currently spread out on the shelves of untold stores across the city. i have a day of errands and running around, but staring out at the rain i just want to go back to sleep.

what is one to do in this situation? well, it's simple. crank some live ween! it's hallo-ween after all! i think i'm going to have an all ween day. and i can't wait...

nerdplay

along with listening to npr on saturday afternoon, one of my favorite new york pastimes is the times crossword. wednesday through friday provide welcome entertainment during my lunch hour -- and sneakily at my desk, on quiet days -- and sunday mornings blues are postponed only by the delight of the big puzzle waiting for me in the fat stack of newsprint. (and of course by nfl, in-season)

recently i have found a way to import this hobby into my life in madrid, by subscribing to the premium crosswords page at the new york times. now i have a new obsession to fill the cold wintery mornings. although it's not quite the same as erasing smudgy newsprint, i am now getting more than my fill of word puzzlry.

last night, impatiently waiting for the thursday crossword to be posted, i watched wordplay, a documentary about the people who make and solve the times puzzles. not surprisingly, a four letter word meaning "intellectual geek" ran rampant through this movie. yes, not for the first time friends, i find myself in the company of nerds. i mean, one guy even went so far as to point out that math nerds greatly outnumber regular garden variety copy editor nerds when it comes to crossword pros.

but, hey, we've got john stewart! when he shouts "bring it shortz!" at his completed puzzle, i felt a tingle of nerdly glee.

the etiquette of dream sharing

today i've been wondering: when you have a really bizarre freaked-out dream about a friend, is it polite to share the details with them?

for example, if you've dreamed that a close friend was leaving her husband to join a band of cultish nudists led by an annoyingly charismatic hippie who spent their time on an old beat-up yacht, being somewhat free-spirited and preachy, is this information that she needs to know?

or is that just a hopelessly discourteous, and also somewhat offensive, thing to tell your friend?

this is what i've been wondering today.