Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of a Tree

The Feynman Series, Part 1: Beauty

Women & Film 2011: Sexual Violence

I love movies. Viewing, talking, researching, reading about movies. I like precode movies, screwball comedies, film noir, thrillers, westerns, sparklingly written film, studio, independent, animated, documentary, short, long, black & white, color. I have only walked out of one movie, and I have hit eject on two at home. That's it out of thousands of movies. I have enjoyed and rewatched movies that my feminist friends pan. There are cinematographers, production designers, directors, and acting talent I will watch repeatedly, and immediately see when a new movie is released. But there are fewer new movies I can choose to see. There are more schlocky films, juvenile films, weak franchise films, male buddy films featuring moronic losers and no soul. There are fewer strong male roles, and even fewer strong female roles. The newest feature plastic boobs and plastic brains, or depict women in violent and hysterical situations. Two new movies are particularly vile. The Twilight series is a cesspool of wrong-headed women characterization. Bella doesn't want to be herself. It's The Little Mermaid on steroids. The new installment, reviewed here by Linda Holmes, dehumanizes - literally and figuratively - the female lead, and adds sexual violence. Not surprising in the 2011 world of women as automatic commodities, Breaking Dawn made a pantload of money opening weekend. Dangerous Method is reviewed here. Freud as sexual predator, his victim a client diagnosed with hysteria. Hysteria. Trotting out all those 18th century ways of dismissing and abusing women because we don't have enough of that shit today, is that it? I am interested in Martin Scorsese's Hugo, although I'm not a Scorsese fan. Homage to film is enticing. I'll pay homage to Alice Guy Blache instead of Meiles in my head, and hope that some day really soon we stop plasticizing, ignoring, dismissing and torturing women in movies. I've had enough of this weak yang domination stuff, and it's about damn time we all abandon it forever.

My Shadow Soul and I

Squirrels are preparing for winter in Michigan. I can hear a squirrel shelling a black walnut and spot the diner on the ground, in a tree. I am preparing for winter in Michigan. I am beginning to be able to spot me. Clearing piles of paper and books in my office; discarding, filing, I found an old piece of art. We've come a long way together, my shadow soul and I. Sorting this year, and reveling in the clarity gifted, I think that all my writing and art for 50 years has been about duality. How many versions of me are there? Depends on who I read and what I think about that. Archetypes. Sorcerer, prostitute, rescuer, dilettante, inner child, judge. I brought past lives, sacred contracts, genetic predisposition, collective consciousness into a world of external. We all do. Wham. Here I am. I decided early I didn't like most of my selves, with help from the voices in my head, and the realm around me. I adapted best way, and as my abilities grew, so did the way improve. Fast forward 60 years. Like the Matryoshka nesting dolls, I am many layers. I am Legion. I am all, I am nothing. Nestled within the universe, I am infinite, I am infinitesimal. Today who I am, all of those beings, is just fine with me. I know my shadow soul, or at least where it hangs out in the dungeon and belfries of vision glimpses, and perhaps we're reaching singularity. I like me, nasty bits as well as sublime. We're all one, me and my otherness. There is no distance between who I am and the light that guides us all. I am preparing for winter like my fellow travelers, the squirrels of Michigan.

Grace in a Bottle

How do we keep grace? Do we hang out at the table in Whole Foods where we first experienced the feeling, hoping for its return? Whose grace was granted? Why did Carol and I share that moment? May we experience grace with others? Can we ever explain what happened? I don't know. Perhaps what is new for me is I am okay with never knowing. We have wonderful friends. We share. When I am with graceful women, I feel graced, too. We are compassionate and gentle with each other. This is grace. My sisters replenish my supply of philosophy's amazing grace bath gel each year. I love it (and them) for the fragrance, but mostly for the copy on the bottle. I borrowed a piece of the wisdom for my profile. On the bath gel, philosophy defines grace as compassion, gratitude, surrender, faith, forgiveness, good manners, reverence, and the list goes on. My therapist, the gifted and graced Rosemary Jozwiak, said years ago that all I was missing is faith in a good outcome. And thanks to friendship and belief, I now have the missing piece of the philosophy puzzle. I intend to keep grace alive and to grow the love.

State of Grace

Carol and I met on a Tuesday at Whole Foods in Ann Arbor. We had a croissant, a beverage and were sharing how we feel, what we understand is happening to us and the universe, and what, if anything, we can do to dissipate the year of spirit cloudiness we both are experiencing. I said something about locking ego in the closet in the basement. Carol softly spoke of the bittersweetness of aging. Then everything changed. One moment we were swathed in mist, and then we were alight in clarity. The experience was profound, dimensions beyond anything we knew before. What just happened? we asked each other. Lights had auras. The chatter in my head disappeared. We were bathed in an aurora borealis of calm warmed golden light. Carol pinched herself. Had we just ascended? I held Carol's hand. If she ascended, I was not going to be left behind. She handed me the dried seed pod from the vase on the table. This is a lotus, she said. We took off our glasses and stared at the ceiling. We laughed. We rejoiced, awed with serenity. What just happened? Carol said this is grace. We are in a state of grace. Amazing grace.

The Pez Bunny Murder

From Pez police crime scene photo files, we note that the moo cow passed out from excitement. The picture of Marian's cat cat picture frame got its whiskers under the police line, thus violating the do not cross rule. It was arrested and both cats were released on their own recognizance, recovering from the shock on the monitor housing the bunny rabbit with carrot twins. Suspiciously the alligator is nowhere to be found, and the Siberian tiger has taken it on the lamb. Um. The lam.