…the almost right word

Hulu.com
Free streaming video of all kinds of shows: St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, Buffy, WKRP in Cincinnati, Picket Fences. The video looks pretty good, and, like we said, for now, it’s free.

i have yet to find another site that offers as much as this one. then again, i should probably just stay away from television altogether. if you are interested, however, hulu offers an array of classics (i.e. party of five, as well as battlestar galactica!) — go on and check it out, you know you want to.

It may have taken me two years to finally watch The Lives of Others, but it certainly won’t take me another two to watch it a second time — This was the first thing I thought of while finishing the film — I must see it again.

Leben der Anderen, Das chronicles East Germany in 1984, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this period, many German citizens were called upon to watch their comrades and report supsicious activity. It was typical of dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, etc. In a sense, more recent acts of national security against terrorists are not very different — Arrest anyone whose loyalty is uncertain. In the film, one man strays from his path to professional success by withholding information from the “Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, better known as the Stasi—the state security service, which, by the mid-nineteen-eighties, employed more than ninety thousand personnel.”*

I don’t want to give away too much of the story — One of my personal pet peeves is spoiling a film with the review. The movie is quiet, yet haunting. It captures a piece of history that is easily forgotten, yet just as easily repeated.

[Editorial Note: ...the almost right word is experimenting with capitalization. Please be patient and, if you have any opinions on the matter, let me know!]

* Anthony Lane of The New Yorker: “Guilty Parties“

dorothea lange has always been one of my favorite photographers. she won me over with the classic “migrant mother” (shown here), which is “one of the most reproduced photographs in history.” an m.i.t. professor has chronicled lange’s work in a new book titled Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange’s Photographs and Reports from the Field. in addition to the photographs, the book includes notes and descriptions written by lange herself.

originally a portrait photographer in san francisco, she left behind her wealthy clients to delve into the depression era. in fact, she was part of the legendary group of photographers who documented the conditions of the american people during the new deal. the work of these photographers was supposed to “help build public support for government improvement programs.” the book concentrates on lange’s most prolific year — 1939. during that year, lange took thousands of photographs in addition to documenting field reports. she was hoping to re-characterize her professional identity:

She decided then to “concentrate upon people, only people. All kinds of people, people who paid me and people who didn’t.” Whether or not the conversion was really so melodramatic, Lange’s transformation from portrait photographer of the urbane wealthy to “field investigator, photographer” (the title of her first job with the federal government in 1935), was life-changing.

i am enamored with revolutionaries, artists who challenge the mainstream. dorothea lange was, indeed, one of these revolutionary artists — “We unearthed and discovered what had been… neglected, or not known.” in 1965, lange died of cancer. late in her career, she commented on her work and her process: “No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually. … I know what we could make of it if people only thought we could dare look at ourselves.”

quotes and facts from dorothea lange: daring to look, at npr.org.

And it’s hard to want to stay awake
When everyone you need, they all seem to be asleep.
And you wonder if you missed your dream.

– death cab for cutie

it may be the only spontaneous thing in mine.

a friend sent me an article, published by new york magazine, titled “au revoir, new york ‘literary’ scene.” the article is about a blog post that caught the mag’s eye — the revolution will be tumblrized, written by a 20 year old nyu student, jessica roy (of this blog). she’s a typical indie kid — dark eyeliner, a headband on her head, blogging about “stuff.” this girl, however, “had just recently suffered her first really demoralizing new york media experience.” she wound up at a new york-writers party in “multi-million-dollar brownstone in brooklyn:”

A part of me longed to be absorbed into that elite circle of Ivy-educated literature nuts who have co-opted what it means to be a writer in New York. Because these days, if you’re not with them, you’re being mocked by them. I have thin skin, so I figured the former would be my best bet.

Until the other night, when the people whose Internet personas I had admired appeared to me in the flesh…

It just was all so fucking fake. These people that I had admired my entire New York existence — they all disappointed me. I don’t understand how people can exist in such a dishonest way and still call themselves writers. Isn’t it the responsibility of a writer to be honest? And why would you uphold a conversation with someone whom you’re going to talk shit on while walking back to the G train? They’re living in a box, where they only talk to others who have read Gessen’s book and think it sucks but will tell him it’s brilliant because they need his approval.

I did not move to New York to return to high school, but that’s exactly what it felt like.

in a sense, she appears to be emily gould reincarnated. in case you’re just tuning in, gould is a blogger who published an article (months ago) in the new york times magazine entitled, “exposed,” in which she publicly reevaluated her career and her participation in the controversial manhattan gossip site known as gawker. although i notice similarities between jessica roy’s article and gould’s, roy actually notes that gould was at this disappointing new york writer’s party — she is mentioned in the article as someone who was part of the “demoralizing new york media experience.” roy’s article isn’t nearly as long as gould’s nytimes piece, so…read it.

i recommend it because i get it (despite the naiveté and questionable sentence structure) — i have always believed that i would have to move to new york if i wanted to become a “writer.” i believed i could never “make it” anywhere else. i’m only recently abandoning this concept, and i admit that it’s an ongoing struggle. obviously this girl, jessica, feels similarly: new york = success. unfortunately disappointment can be a big part of this so-called “success.” i know it, even though i haven’t quite experienced it. ::side note…i guess i should give myself some credit for actually having published my writing (thanks to the sfreporter and the santa fean, both of which deemed my stuff publishable). sometimes i forget that i can call myself a writer, but i guess that’s a different story, for a different time::

of course, jessica roy is heading to paris in an effort to escape new york before it poisons her. me? yeah, i’m jealous.

p.s. yesterday’s post at jessica’s blog is titled about that elephant in the room. (a la emily gould herself who, after her nytimes article, acknowledged the “elephant in the room” in a blog post. isn’t there a contradiction here? isn’t jessica claiming that gould is part of the poison?) jessica’s post is a retort to all the petty assumptions one can make after reading the nymag piece — mighty bold of her, if i do say so myself.

i have great respect for websites that highlight quality writing on the internet. indie bloggers (r.i.p.) was about just that. it appears fray does the same. the site has recently morphed into a quarterly series of independently published books. the website states: Fray is the web’s original storytelling magazine, telling true stories online and off since 1996. the first quarterly was titled busted! true stories of getting caught in the act. the website offers a few of the published stories for your sampling pleasure. i particularly enjoyed how i blew it in the 80s and ropeswing season. it appears that their second issue is titled geek: stories of people taking things too seriously which sounds rather intriguing. plus, the artwork on the site is really unusual.

this is the second in a series of posts i am writing about my relationship experiences…more to come.

there is a quote from carrie on sex and the city (that i somehow cannot find) concerning relationship red flags and the ease at which we, as women, ignore them (perhaps men do too?). i have identified with this quote all too well. it often appears that i am capable of ignoring so much in a relationship, i.e. my own happiness.

we met in college. i stayed with him way too long. when i finally gathered the courage to end it, i went back for more.

i knew before we even got involved that it would be a bad idea. i had seen a good friend experience horrible things with him — endless arguing and emotional abuse. somehow, i convinced myself that things would be different between he and i, things would be better, we would make more sense. it took me a long time to admit that the relationship was unhealthy. it first had to cost me a few friendships. then, it had to cost me any sense of financial stability (he had no job and i was almost entirely supporting him). we were codependent, to say the least.

he screamed at me almost every night — i would wake up, at some point, and realize that he had all of the blankets. when i attempted to pull some away from him, and cover myself, he would yell at me, call me names. every time, i swore to myself that i’d end it in the morning. it continued like that for almost a year. once, he gave me an unexpected gift — a beautiful orchid. hours later, when the arguing began, he used the gift as ammunition. he was an addict, and i fell, effortlessly, into his addictions.

i saw all the red flags, i just chose to ignore them. the emotional abuse worsened over time. it was as if he had no concept of me as a human being. he never knew how to respect me.

what am i trying to do with this post? i want to write honestly. i want to be true to myself and my past. i don’t want to gloss over my errors in judgment or the way these experiences affected me. i want to delve into the world of emotional abuse without naming people, without painting a picture of myself as some helpless, love-struck fool. emotional abuse is hard to recognize — people yell and argue, people slam doors out of anger, but there is a line whereupon it becomes abuse and, for the abused individual, it becomes self-destructive. i want to address this line, this vague notion of abuse that is not manifested physically. emotional abuse can be even more dangerous, more consuming. it can be easy to ignore. it can become so familiar that you seek it out. perhaps, on some level, you believe you deserve it.

i must have believed this. why else would i have subjected myself to such treatment for so long?

one night, after we had broken up (we were still seeing one another for an ongoing bout of the unhealthiest break-up sex known to humankind), he called to come over. i finally stood up for myself — i told him no. later that night, while changing in my room, i was startled when i noticed someone at my window. he was watching me, waiting for me to notice him and let him in. i did. that was the last time we saw one another.

one might expect an act of “closure.” we never had one and i’m okay with that. i have vague memories of missed calls and unanswered text messages — i was finally able to ignore his attempts to reach me. i don’t mean to imply that i “learned my lesson.” sometimes you have to repeat bad habits before you realize that they’re just that.

thanks to the random reader viewer in crete, nebraska
you were number 2,000
sorry, i have no prizes to offer

death cab for cutie’s most recent album is a wonderful surprise. personally, i have only connected with a few of their past tracks. narrow stairs, however, is full of artistic talent and “lot’s of blood,” as ben gibbard (vocalist, guitarist and mastermind of our friends, the postal service) stated. in fact, this album (their sixth) is their first to reach the number one spot on the billboard charts. rolling stone:

Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard is the poet of a particular purgatory — the holding cell in your head that’s filled with failed relationships and wrong roads taken. Death Cab’s most memorable songs contain snapshots from its walls: Gibbard has sung about an incriminating kiss in a photo booth, discovering forgotten pictures of an ex in his glove compartment, and an especially bleak Kodak moment from a doomed marriage. On “Cath . . . ,” from the band’s new Narrow Stairs, he finds a girl “in a hand-me-down wedding dress,” and the details feel like knife twists: “As the flashbulbs burst, she holds a smile/Like someone would hold a crying child.” That sort of heartbreak defines Narrow Stairs. But where Death Cab’s past records made it easy to empathize with Gibbard’s narrators, the group’s second major-label release zeros in on characters who are often more creepy than cuddly. The result is a dark, strangely compelling record that trades the group’s bright melancholy for something nearer to despair.

thus far, “cath…” is my favorite track and “grapevine fires” is a close second. but hey, i also swooned over the song about “an incriminating kiss in a photo booth” as well as the one about “discovering forgotten pictures of an ex in his glove compartment.” while postal service may be gone for good, it looks like death cab will keep me satiated.