Clint Eastwood's bittersweet masterpiece - Gran Torino

this isn't really edited, i just threw it up here...

After seeing this movie, I left the theater feeling many things - a deep and overwhelming sadness, hope for a world that seems lost, a nagging wish to return to the days when I would follow my grandfather on his errands, spouting off wisdom in the same tough guy manners Clint Eastwood used.

But the alarming emotion - the one I never expected, and at first didn't really understand, that took the longest to diagnose - was shame.

I'm ashamed of how close the movie has hewn to modern family dynamics, including my own. I'm ashamed for the times I insisted on wearing inappropriate clothes to church, and the times I begged to leave family events early, basically for the entirety of my youth in regard to my familial obligations and general treatment of my elders.

But even more surprising, I became aware of a numb but certain shame for being part of a world that lets this kind of thing play out, for being part of a masculinity that tolerates and even idolizes this dangerous and violent culture, and consequently ruins young lives by the thousands.

I feel guilty for the hours spent on Grand Theft Auto, for the 2Pac and Biggie CDs, (shame for Eminem is a long-established thing), my copy of Scarface. Because the truth is, for kids from strong families and supportive communities, music, video games and movies don't really make a big difference. Its the kids without steady guidance that pay the price of our drugs-and-violence culture- entertainment for us, reality for them. As much as my late twenties have made clear the importance of being a good man, this movie showed me I hadn't even scratched the surface. Because this movie was unapologetically about manhood; about the things it drives us to and from, the ways it is broken and the ways it can be the solution. I want to say it's bigger than manhood, but it's not bigger than that, it's just additional; it applies to things beyond it. This movie may encompass the entirety of what it means to be a man in this world, in simplified, abstracted terms.

But the shame i felt is not the kind you wish you didn't feel - it's the kind you wish you had felt a long, long time ago, and that you are grateful to feel now.

I hope everyone, everywhere sees this movie- its a movie that reminds me of the power of films, and how important they are for our wide-flung world.

not everything is awful!

I heard this on the radio late last night, and could only find it on ABC Australia's website, referring to the BBC news release I had heard on the radio... very mysterious and awesome (not awful). Apparently researchers in Maryland and I forget where else have passed information across an empty one-meter space between two atoms- I suspect it was some kind of basic binary code because they suggest that it's the basis of quantum computing, and in quantum mechanics, particles affect each other instantly across immense distances... which I had heard but never thought of it as something we could apply so directly. It's all the more intriguing because of it's lack of back-up...

the oneironaut

Wikipedia told me that an oneironaut is one who travels through dream worlds and/or explores alternate realities. Another common definition dictates that an oneironaut is one that travels without moving. Moving in this case refers to physical or bodily movement for example daydreaming.