Hitchhiker's Guide movie review

Well, I saw HHGG last night, with my partner and A. and her husband and brother in law.The movie line was definitely geeky, to the point where A. and I were joking about how we were sure that everyone in it knew BASIC. There was a little group of geeks ahead of us cheerfully singing "Mai ai hee" and the Trogdor song, loudly and off-key. I am not sure whether to be comforted by evidence that there are nerdier people than myself on earth, or horrified that I fall into the same general category of fangeek as they do.

So, the movie. I am, I confess, a book-version purist in almost everything. I bitched when Jackson took out Sam's box of earth. I complained when they created Blakeney as a composite character for Master and Commander. I wailed when the previews for A Series Of Unfortunate Events were narrated in a style I felt was not "Snickety" enough and have refused to see the movie based on that alone, &etc. The following review contains spoilers in white text. Highlight to read them.

That said, I think that the movie was a real success in terms of portraying the Adams humor. I had read the negative spoilery review that came out before the movie, and was dreading the mangling of which he spoke. But it wasn't that bad. While I see many of the reviewer's points, I still managed to enjoy the dialogue and characters, and many of the new elements (the knitted Heart of Gold, the perspective gun, the ideaswatters, the Vogon bureaucracy) were great additions in the classic Adams style.

The Vogons, particularly, were amazing. Wonderfully realized, with the true evil and stupidity of the race pointed up admirably. Their ships, though not yellow, were fabulous. And the knitted set! All of us knitting freaks online are already geeking out talking about how we might get patterns.

I have nitpicks about book-vs.-movie stuff - wording changes that I felt ruined punch lines, the omission of Marvin's "I have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side," the retention of the entire whale bit wholesale while other, better bits got left out, etc. - but really, I think that there is only one problem with this movie that kept me from loving it wholeheartedly.

Arthur and Trillian WTF. W. T. F. Seriously, folks, I can't get past this.

Dent does not get the girl. He is a complete loser, a kneebiter, and while he occasionally manages little triumphs, like a cup of real tea in a tealess universe, he does not get the girl. Zaphod gets the girl, at least temporarily. At no point does Arthur manage to engage Trillian's attention or affection in any way shape or form. *loud buzzer noise* NO. Just, no. Fenchurch, later on, yes. That's Arthur's singular triumph and reward. Also, he gets to fly. But Arthur/Trillian is a bad, bad idea, and I can't believe that they tried to float it by us. I think this may have taken the movie from a classic sideproduct in the Adams canon (not unlike the BBC miniseries, the BBC Hitchhiker's Guide radio drama, or the Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide text adenture [Invisiclues hints here]) to being a regrettable misadaptation. It was ridiculous.

On the whole, the movie is definitely worth seeing, but it won't become part of my Geek Truth the way the LOTR movies did. I may even buy a copy, but it's just not going to be real to me the way I had hoped.

I have always relied upon

I had my last girls' night with A. last night. I've been snappish and out of sorts all week, and I think it's because she's leaving. I haven't made a lot of close friends in the last decade or so; some, but not a lot. And in this town, it seems like every time I find someone I feel really comfortable with, they leave within the year. A. is a "furniture friend" - someone I don't need to treat like a guest, whose refrigerator I can scrounge through without asking first, whose couch I can fall asleep on, someone I don't need to have an event or a meal to plan around when I want to hang out, someone I could call at 3 a.m. if I really needed to and were the sort of person who would do such things. That's rare and precious, and I'm really going to miss her.

On my way to A's house last night there was a mama duck and a bevy of ducklings crossing a big four-way intersection near my house. I spotted them and almost leapt from my car as they headed out into traffic, sure that they would be duck pancake but ultimately helpless to do anything but watch. And you know, every car on the road screeched to a halt. The light turned green and the whole intersection waited with bated breath as the little caravan waddled through and into the relative safety of the gutter on the other side. Even the buses stopped. Sometimes I get tired of my homogenous little town and its solipsistically liberal little ways, but there's a lot to love, too. I got a little sniffly, even.

At the post office yesterday, I picked up a registered mail package. I didn't know what it would be, so when the clerk handed me a brown envelope with a return address and stamps from China, my heart leapt in my throat. I lost my best friend from my time in China more than a decade ago, when he emigrated to Canada and then moved without leaving a forwarding address. I've thought so many times about finding him again, and have never known how to go about it. And then this package, from Shanghai, and I thought, "How did he find me? How did he know?" I teared up, and my heart got these crazy excited pangs. Unfortunately, the package was only some things I'd ordered off the internets and forgotten about. Still, that moment of hope was painfully exquisite. I need to hang on to the important people in my life harder.

Which is to say: Has anyone reading this ever used a private investigator to find someone? Across national borders? With very little evidence to go on? (I don't even think I have the address at which I last saw him, eight or nine years ago.) Because I think I want to do this, but I haven't the faintest idea about where to start.

Solitaire and Structure

I cheat at solitaire. Compulsively, consistently, without guilt. I know it's wrong. I know it ruins the point of the game (sort of - the way I do it I can still lose, and frequently do) and deteriorates my moral fiber and whatever else. But I've always done it. I always will.

I just don't keep promises or resolutions I make for myself. I don't keep my own secrets. Sometimes I wonder if I lack self-respect, but that seems trite and unlike me. It's just, the bargaining and controls most people put on their lives in order to function don't work for me. "I'll work, and then I'll play." "I'll have a salad for lunch because I had dessert last night." "I will pay all my bills, balance my checkbook, and then see if I have enough left to go out to dinner." All normal, adult "bargains" - and all predicated on an ability to keep compacts with oneself.

Other people's deadlines and requirements, promises I make to other people, other people's secrets, etc., I do okay with. The occasional fuckup, in the general humanity way, but mostly fairly trustworthy and ... hmmm, not "reliable", too flaky for that, but honest, committed, certainly. But my own stuff? No. I need external structure.

This failure to structure my own things is one of the grand themes of my fairly un-grand life, so I think about it a lot. But today, specifically, it was brought to mind when I got a phone call from my director, who will be leaving our project soon, leaving me in charge. I've been more or less in charge for quite some time, but I still find this terrifying. In any case, she spent several minutes (she has been a mentor as well as a boss to me for many years) telling me how well I've been doing my job and how thrilled she is about my performance and how proud of me she is.

Lord, do I ever feel like a fraud.

But, you know, as lazy as I am, and as much as I put things off, everything gets done. Pretty much on time. To the satisfaction of most. But the way it all plays out leaves me really unhappy with myself. I need to work with a local team of other people I respect to really do my best,* not be isolated (geographically and project-wise) like I am now. One more year, and I can move on. I need to start re-polishing my other job skills.

In the interim, it's just me. And this job. And a long, agonizing crawl through self-imposed deadlines and attempts to structure my own time and a constant feeling of unworthiness and failure.

Whee.

* I respect all the people I work with now and don't mean to imply otherwise, but they're all located several hours away from me.

Enough of my whinging. Life could be so much worse. At least I'm not Catholic.

On Andrea Dworkin

This is the best meditation I've seen yet on Andrea Dworkin's passing. My doctrinaire feminist period was so brief you would have missed it had you blinked, and I never read Dworkin, but she and her work shaped the world I live in in a lot of ways, some I appreciate more than others.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to say BOO-yah, I won't be complicit in sexism, I'll never take comfort in the parting gifts that girls receive for being good at being female, and then after a while I remember, oh yeah... it would be a lot like being Andrea Dworkin. Which I guess is why most women don't do it.

Read it. Even if you don't know who Dworkin was, read it.

Kristian Williams, Our Enemies In Blue: author tour.

A message from my friend, Kristian Williams:

I'm about to go on tour to promote my book, Our Enemies in Blue. The book is a history of the police in the U.S., paying particular attention to their role in preserving race and class inequalities. So if you live near one of the cities listed below, and you'd like to hear me talk about that, please come to the reading. It's always nice to see some friendly faces in among all the strangers. April 18 -- Los Angeles -- 7pm at Flor Y Canto, 3706 N Figueroa Ave April 19 -- Santa Rosa, California -- 7:30pm at Free Mind Media, 546 Pacific Ave (just off Mendicino) April 20 -- Oakland, California -- 7pm at AK Press, 674-A 23rd Street (Between MLK and San Pablo, near the 19th St. BART) May 2 -- Washington DC -- 7pm at the Brian Mackenzie Center, 1426 9th St. NW May 3 -- Baltimore -- 7pm at Red Emmas, 800 St. Paul Street May 5 -- Philadelphia --- 7pm at Robins Bookstore, 108 South 13th St. May 8 -- New York -- 7pm at Blue Stockings, 172 Allen Street May 9 -- Amherst -- 6pm at Food For Thought, 106 N Pleasant St May 10 -- Montpelier, Vermont -- 7:30pm at Black Sheep, 4 Langdon St May 12 -- Boston -- 7pm at Lucy Parsons, 549 Columbus Ave May 14 -- Philadelphia -- 7:30pm at the A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave May 26 -- Richmond, Virginia -- 7pm at Chop Suey, 1317 W. Cary St.

As you can tell from the title, the book has a certain far-left perspective. However, Kristian uses excellent research and statistics to back up his points; I am not as far left as he is politically, and every time my more moderate self started to say, "But what about..." he addressed my objection satisfactorily. He makes some good points in the book - uncomfortable to hear, but good points nonetheless - and has some illuminating insights on policing and race.

Kristian is a brilliant man. I have known him since we had a Milton study group together in college, and his research and rhetorical skills are formidable. His interest in and dedication to social justice is a defining focus of his life, and he lives much closer to his ideals than almost anyone else I know. I have insane amounts of respect and affection for him.

In sum, if this sounds like something that might interest you, buy the book! (Amazon and Powells have it too, but supporting small presses directly is good for you.) And go see Kristian read.

Monthly installment of pointless whinging! And dogspam!

Sadie on the beach. She only has one eye now, as of a few months back, but she is still as adorable as cute can be, in a slightly more piratical fashion. Best dog at the wedding.

Oh, my God. If I were any more distractable today I would be like, two. Except for the hormonal part, which is not compatible with toddlerhood. I cannot focus on anything for more than a few minutes to save my life, and I veer dangerously between maudlin sentimentality and uncontrollable ire. If I don't bleed soon I am going to fall apart into little bitty pieces. I am so PMS-ed out that watching the most recent episode of The West Wing Monday night made me cry, and not because the camerawork was so crap, either. I wish the Democratic party still had ideals and excitement. That would be so cool. But, you know, I haven't cried over politics since last November, when I spent like a week bursting randomly into tears after the election. So I figure it's mostly the hormones. I keep catching glimpses of myself in reflective surfaces and thinking, "Hey, that person would be kinda purty if she just put in a little effort on her appearance." Sadly, the time and motivation to do anything of the sort are completely nonexistent, so I will likely stay in the "wallflower who cleans up alright" category. I think the last time I got my hair cut was for my wedding, almost a year ago. And last week I decided that not one, but two sweaters that I had previously shunned as "frumpy" and "too old for my look" were actually sporty and comfortable, in a slouchy way. I have inner beauty, anyway. No, shut up. I do. If I were more energetic, I'd build myself a blanket fort when I got home, and hide out under it with my laptop, eating toast and drinking juice. But you kind of have to disassemble the whole living room and bits of the upstairs for a proper blanket fort, and they're not as roomy as they were when I was smaller, and now that I am an adult I have to clean up my own messes. Maybe a nap with my nice clean spaniel (I love it when she's just been to the groomers) instead. A spaniel is a wonderful comforting thing. On that note, I am including several pictures of my spaniel, because I love her and want to show off her fabulousness to the world. I will probably be the sort of parent who blogs constantly about her children, too. Deal.

Left to Right: Sadie, our other sweet pup Lakshmi, and my former spaniel Clare, who now lives with another family and has her own cat and two little girls to play with.

Mary Oliver, "The Poet With His Face In His Hands"

This poem made me feel guilty for the sort of blogging I do most often, which I think of as "confessional blogging". And actually, this is thematically related to that Seshadri poem as well, because it's about mistakes and how public we make our shame. I disagree with the take of both poets; and yet, perhaps I don't entirely. Because while Oliver and Seshadri are saying, "show no-one, tell no-one" they are also writing poetry that cries aloud to the world "I am ashamed. I make mistakes." It's an interesting paradox. Much as I like the last line of this poem, I don't like the implication that expressions of remorse damage the world somehow. On the contrary, I think the world could probably use a little more fucking remorse. From the April 4, 2005 New Yorker.

The Poet With His Face In His Hands

You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn't need any more of that sound.

So if you're going to do it and can't
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't
hold it in, at least go by yourself across

the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets

like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you

want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched

by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.

          — Mary Oliver

OMGWTF***?!!!!

The Powers That Be have decided that is is necessary to write out things that had heretofore only been summarized. In a 200-plus page document that has already been reviewed and vetted by a massive number of individuals, groups, and organizations. This will take days, add ~50 pages to the thing, f*ck up the numbering in the whole document, and piss off people all over the state. So excited about my job today, can you tell?

Also, outlines apparently no longer work the way they used to. No longer is 1.0 the broader standard that encompasses 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3! No, 1.0 is now just an "introductory statement," - unless it is not followed by any details, in which case it is a standard. This is the logical wonder that caused me to say to someone in the conference call I just got off, "That is the most counterintuitive thing I have heard all day." Luckily, the other people on the conference call thought it was funny - I don't really have social filters; they're more like social colanders, and stuff slips through.

As my old boss used to say, "The fun is relentless."

In better news, what is not to love about Hamlet, the text adventure?

Vijay Seshadri, "Memoir"

If you've ever spent a restless night cringing at mistakes long past, if you know the sudden twist in your gut as you remember that thing you said that one time that came out totally wrong...this poem is for you. Seshadri had me at the second line, because in some ways I really do believe that "the real story of a life is the story of its humiliations." And unlike his own reaction, it makes me want to tell that story constantly, as if by acknowledging shame I can lessen it, as though saying, "see how I was a fool, a buffoon, an idiot" diffuses the thoughtlessness of the past somehow, assures people that I am older, wiser, smarter, more self-assured.

Which is, of course, only partly true. From the Feb, 28, 2005 New Yorker.

Memoir

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.
The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.
If I wrote that story now —
radioactive to the end of time —
people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn't peel
the gloves fast enough
from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.
Your poor hands. Your poor eyes
to see me weeping in my room
or boring the tall blonde to death.
Once I accused the innocent.
Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.
I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.
And one October afternoon, under a locust tree
whose blackened pods were falling and making
illuminating patterns on the pathway,
I was seized by joy,
and someone saw me there,
and that was the worst of all,
lacerating and unforgettable.

       &mdash Vijay Seshadri

More evidence that I am not yet the person I would like to be

I'm at home, after working, listening to the crunch of the dogs eating kibble and poking aimlessly at a few errandprojects I've got on my to-do list. I'm contemplating pasta, feeling guilty that I didn't exercise today, and looking forward to watching some episodes of Firefly on DVD that the Netflix fairy just brought.

Among the myriad other things that I am not doing is volunteering. A few weeks ago I told the Western Service Worker's Association that I would do some office work for them this evening. Luckily, they seem to have forgotten (they're not a very efficiently organized bunch), but I didn't forget. I'm playing hooky.

I don't like volunteering. I've done it, desultorily and guiltily, on and off all my life, like a good liberal child. But I don't like it. It's boring and involves interaction with a lot of strangers. I resent the chunks of my time, however small, that it takes away from my dogfeeding/tvwatching/pastaeating time.

I would like to like volunteering. I would like to like working, too, and exercising. They are all good things, good for me, opportunities to better myself and the world. They matter to me. But I feel about them as I feel about most obligations; in the immortal words of Ogden Nash:

O Duty!
Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie?
Why displayest thou the countenance of the kind of conscientious organizing spinster
That the minute you see her you are aginster?
Why glitter thy spectacles so ominously?
Why art thou clad so abominously?
Why art thou so different from Venus?
And why do thou and I have so few interests mutually in common between us?

So, here I am, in the armchair instead. Perhaps I'll make some pasta. Perhaps I'll call the Western Service Worker's Association and set up a time...for next week. Perhaps I won't.