The invisible man?

This actually happened in my house on Thursday this week.

       Important background info.  On this particular day I had been cleaning the house and preparing dinner for neighbors.  It wasn't normal cleaning - it's the type of real work that I only seem to get to if I invite someone over.  My Husband had the day off and has spent it watching the World Soccer Cup.  At 10 a.m. H. answered phone - call from son at school.  I can't remember exactly what was said, but I got the idea that our son said that he really had better talk to me.  So I picked up the phone.
Son:: "Mom, bring me my French horn.  Oh, and on the way, could you stop and get a bag of chips, please?"
OK - I had an errand to do anyway... I had meant to tell son to put the band instrument out the night before. (And clearly, the kid had forgotten to mention a party in some class for which he had promised chips.)  So, I didn't get mad.
            After school that same day:
Son rushes home and heads straight to the computer to write a speech for model UN try-outs.  He hadn't planned to do this activity, but the teacher in charge had encouraged him strongly to go for it (in school that day) and so he decides to audition.
                                       rush      rush,          write     write,       scrub     scrub  scrub
            Two hours later:
Me: On my hands and knees scrubbing floor.  
Hubby: Lying on sofa.
Son: Comes out of room where he has been preparing speech.  He's running late. As he walks down the stairs, he has to look past his father lounging in the living room in order to talk to me in the dining room,  "Mom, start the car."  
Me:  "Your dad drives also." 
Son: "He's not even wearing a shirt." Goes back into the room to print speech.
So, I explained to H. what son needs...  As H. gets up to walk up the stairs (slowly) to get a shirt on, I  restrain myself from running to start the car.
End of story: he got there on time, but doesn't think he got into model UN.

P.S.  It's a good thing I didn't get mad about the French horn phone call.  I had insisted to son that he had his in-school French horn lesson even though the school year is basically over.  But son told me later that when he walked into the music room, teacher looked up and said, "What are you doing here?"

Graphic power point presentation on the Illegal Drug trade

I forgot to warn those who view the powerpoint presentation (the link is below) on illegal drugs.  It is very graphic. 

The illegal drug trade

Wow. I just saw this power point on the illegal drug trade, and I recommend it to you if your kids are at that point where they have to start making these tough decisions.

The presentation was written and put together by a teenager - and it's just a reminder that when anyone buys or uses illegal drugs, the ramifications go far beyond that individual decision.

Not only the user is hurt (to which he or she can say, "It's my body"); people all over who get caught up in the violence.

Click here:

power point on drug trade violence

PS: if that doesn't work, paste in the following link.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B29NZYct1MouM2Y4MDJiYmMtYjZkOC00ZDA2LWIwZjctNjQ1MDM4YTI2YWZh&hl=en

What do you think about this?

I understand free expression, but I'm worried that he won't be able to get a job.  I gave him $500.00 for this, and he wants another $500.00 "to fill it in," he says.  It is his birthday soon - and ... What should I do?

Avatar and los conquistadores...

In The New York Review of Books (March 25, 2010), Daniel Mendelson draws parallels between Avatar and The Wizard of Oz and points out some other, less charitable, comparisons that have been made with Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves. Hmmm... What is it about Avatar that invites us to harp on the derivative side?

I saw Avatar with my neat 3D glasses, and I enjoyed being transported to a different world; that is, the visual impact was fantastic. I was surprised by its openly anti-war/corporate interests in the midst of our war in Iraq... (Halliburton, Exxon, and Shell, Oh my!). Then, as soon as I walked out of the theater, I began to pick holes in the plot or subtext, the same holes that David Brooks made in a New York Times Op-Ed column (cited in the Mendelson piece).

“It rests on the assumption that non-whites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors...”

I probably had my own ideas of parallels with equally patronizing movies about invaders and innocent natives – What about The Road to El Dorado (2000)? (Wait, the natives weren’t quite as one dimensional in that movie). What about the Starwars movie where the humans save the e-woks from the terrible Death Star??? OK, it just so happens that I can’t think of any more examples, but still, when I walked out of the theater I’m pretty sure I remembered a couple more.

A few weeks after my Avatar journey, I saw The Mission (1986), directed by Roland Joffé and starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons. Naturally, I was completely primed to begin to make comparisons.

I’m warning you – there are going to be spoilers here. So, stop reading this, imaginary reader, and go watch The Mission. If you shell out for the two disc version, the hour-long documentary on disc 2 isn’t riveting, but it is incredibly relevant to this whole discussion.

Here, just as in Avatar, we have an indigenous tribe which is portrayed as primitive, happy and somehow pure and innocent group. In The Mission, however, there are at least hints that this tribe may not be so easily conquered early in the film when we see a priest tied to a cross (dead or unconscious?) and sent floating on this makeshift raft until he goes tumbling off a spectacular waterfall. Come to think of it... wouldn’t he have rolled over and floated face down?

But I digress; the Spanish and Portuguese slave traders have been capturing the indigenous, but there are good Europeans too. The Jesuit priests and our favorite, the white hero (De Niro), who we see transformed from an evil slave trader, handy with a gun or sword, to a committed defender of the indigenous à la Jake in Avatar. Like Jake, De Niro gets a few minutes of peace in the movie where he is the gentle teacher (and learner) willing to give up all worldly/earthly goods to live with the Jesuits and Guaraní Indians in an isolated mission. In the end, both of these heroes take up arms again – for the sake of the natives.

When the church orders the Jesuits to turn the land over to the Portuguese (Church = evil company)... well, the Indians’ only hope is surely this former warrior who knows the ways of the white men as well as those of the Indians.

In spite of the surface similarities, these are two very different films... The most revealing clue is a look at the soldiers brought by the Europeans to attack the Guaraní on the Jesuit missions. The Europeans bring their own “loyal” natives who are very effective in the battle.

If the American Indians had seen themselves as “Indians” (you know, rather than as Guaraní or Tupi-Guaraní, Incas, Aztecs, Maya or thousands of other tribes or sub-tribes) they wouldn’t have really needed the European savior. And, anyway, in Joffé’s movie, the European savior isn’t. I mean, he doesn’t.

He cannot save them – He dies, and almost all of the Indians are cruelly massacred. Insofar as the movie bows to Hollywood standards, the only “hero” to survive is a young Guarani boy who we see paddle off – deeper into the jungle – after the carnage ends. But, that hardly qualifies as saving anyone or as a happy ending.

By the way, the movie is very loosely based on history. There certainly were very brave Jesuits who were prepared to martyr themselves (and some who did become martyrs) to try to stop incredible cruelty toward the Indians. Of course, they also made beaucoup $$ when they had their missions running and protecting the Indians who then worked the land, some for the Guaraní families, and some for God... It is a bit much to explain in this short space. Were the Guaraní saved? Well, their language survives to this day in Paraguay – something survived. On the other hand, Jaffé said that his encounters with Guaraní tribes were depressing because he met none which had a sense of self worth. Instead he vetted and chose a tribe from Colombia. Here, you have to watch the documentary to see some of the soul searching that went on... "What are we doing to this tribe hired to act in this movie?" Fascinating. Relax, watching the documentary won’t leave you with an excessively bad taste in your mouth. In fact, you’ll probably enjoy The Mission more after watching it. That isn’t to say that the documentary doesn’t raise some troubling questions.

In the end, as much as Jaffé tries to do something different, the film still leaves us with a vision of Guaraní experience that revolves around what the white man can or cannot do – and whose “earnest, ... anticolonial... message” relies on a vision of the Guaraní “sentimentally modeled on popular notions of Native American[s]...” (I'm using Mendelson’s words regarding Avatar). Still, it’s so many light years closer than Cameron’s blockbuster to exploring the real conflict between conquistador and native.

Modern meccas

Yesterday I was walking with my husband, henceforth H., when he made a comment that struck me. He was talking about some acquaintances in Colombia who he described as follows: A couple with three children, they are well off, but not interested in the world. The evidence for their complete lack of interest in the world beyond their provincial borders? Why, they'd never even taken their children to Disney World!

He made a similar comment at some point in the past and it is jarring because this is a man who had plenty of exposure to the anti-Americanism of the 1960s. In terms of what he personally would like to do on vacation, Disney would be close to the bottom of the list. He watches art-house movies (OK, he watches just about anything, but rarely Disney movies) and, though he reads constantly, he has no time to read anyone who isn't ... what? A writer of substance, perhaps. I'll write down the first five titles I see from his book pile -- Seriously, I just stood up and grabbed five books from the floor next to his bed - where he piles them up when he has spent time recently reading them.

(1) The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barett Browning, 1845-1846, V. 1

(2) Flannery O'Conner, Collected Works.

(3) The Diary of John Evelyn ESQ. F.R.S. from 1641 to 1705 with Memoir, edited by William Bray Esp. (Suspect that this book is in the pile because he picked it up at a used bookstore not too long ago, it's a beautiful edition from 1890. So, sometimes it's the "substance" of the material book that attracts him).

(4) Reynaldo Arenas, El color del verano.

(5) The Complete Works or Oscar Wilde.

My point? Disney did some job of marketing to Colombians of a certain generation... I mean, WE took our kids to Disney World also - Does it feel like some sort of mecca for children? If you don't take your children there, are they scarred?

I bet a poll would reveal that this attitude has pretty much disappeared by now - It was a simpler time when Disney could convince people that there was nothing to compare with their "world."

When I was young, McDonalds managed to have the same effect on me. Ronald, The Hamburgler... who else was there? I don't remember any more. I saw these commercials on summer vacations, but I had never eaten at a McDonalds. So, without it being any sort of obsession for me, I must have had some very high expectations about the McDonalds experience. Those are lost in the fog, but I do remember the first time I ever ate in a McDonalds; or more precisely, I remember the epiphany. McDonalds is nothing but ... this?

The Lost City of Z

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.* What can I say? I loved it and, of course, I recommend it. It's really two stories, or even three: 1) David Grann's personal account of his motivation, research and travels in pursuit of the story surrounding a legendary explorer who went missing in the 1920s. 2) The legendary explorer himself, Percy Harrison Fawcett, an oh so British gent--chin up, carry on, and what not-- who was gist for many a heroic tale during an era of the hero-explorer. 3) The city of Z itself, along with some consideration of the Amazon. Story line number 3 is what most interested me, and even though it receives the least attention, the treatment is still very satisfying.

David Grann's own story was least appealing to me - but it serves a purpose. Grann perhaps thought he was using it to tie together different elements of the book. For me, it works well to introduce the modern Amazon, but I could have lived with a little less of his own narrative.

The heart of the book is Fawcett's own life. Wow. I finished the book two days ago and I still have to pause to let it all sink in. This was a remarkable man, no doubt; just read the chapter on his work marking the border between Bolivia and Brazil (chapter 8, if you really want to read it). There's also an admirable open-mindedness regarding the indigenous he came to know, given the fact that he lived in a time in which English expansion was justified by ideas of racial superiority that must have been held very dear by British gentlemen like Fawcett. So, I read about him with keen interest. Yet, in the end, I'm left admiring his wife even more - what gave her the fortitude to live with this man who, in the final analysis, offered her so little and took so much? Fawcett traveled with his oldest son on his final voyage into the Amazon, and neither was ever seen again.

That the book leaves me asking about Nina Paterson, Fawcett's wife, is a credit to the author. It's impossible to think only of Fawcett the explorer, I'll always have Fawcett the business enterprise in my mind. His was a mythical one-man enterprise that depended, to a suprising degree, on the home he constantly abandoned.

Finally, at the risk of adding that one last idea that takes this review from boring to tedious, it seems to call for a reflection also of a certain type of blindness. Neither Nina nor Fawcett seemed to recognize that the era they grew up in had ended. Maybe that's what they offered each other, a willingness to suspend the present. Since this book was a Mother's Day present to me, there's even more pathetic irony in Nina's proud words about how her eldest son had the makers of an explorer just like his father.

* My edition of this book is First Vintage Departures Edition, January 2010, but the book's first copyright is 2005.