just enough snow to make the trees so lovely

and here's a bit of Riverside Park, my NYC love

Shots taken with my phone, which I’m still trying to learn how to use. But the pictures capture a kind of empty quiet that represents my weekend very well.

I do remember that I saw two amazing movies this weekend, and that they shared a theme. True Grit (yee-ha!) and Winter’s Bone. In both movies, a very tough young girl is on a quest related to a dead father. I’m sure you’ve heard about True Grit, and what’s not to love? Coen Brothers [love], Jeff Bridges [love], filmed in Austin and Blanco TX [love, for me anyway]. I had to keep wrapping my mind around the fact that the landscape was pure Texas, but they kept saying they were in Arkansas and the Choctaw Territory. If you know all three places, you’d know in an instant that something was wrong, that’s not how Arkansas and Choctaw Territory look, like, at all. But who cares. The only quibble I had about it was that the Texas Ranger (Matt Damon) was written as a silly character, not quite effete but a bit too dandy. Real Texas Rangers are tough, man.

But you may not have heard about Winter’s Bone, and I’m here to tell you that you should definitely see it if you can. I had to keep reminding myself that they were using actors, and not filming life as it was actually happening in Ozark poverty. If you’ve ever known people like this, and I  have known them very well, you’ll be stunned at how right on it is. Crushing poverty and ignorance has a very particular flavor, a particular way of holding a face, holding the shoulders, expressing a thought, wearing the hair, living, and all the actors just hit their marks — even the young children. I know that hair and wardrobe go a long way to helping make a character real, but it’s the smaller things that make these people so real. It’s a hard, hard movie — don’t think for a second that it’s not, you have to be ready for it — but it’s haunting and visceral and very real.

So? How was your weekend?

No matter what movie he made, it’s a cure for what ails you. It’s sure curing me.

In a way, this gets at the essence of social psychology; especially in our western culture, we like to believe that we ourselves, our minds, our choices, are responsible for what we do and believe. Me, I decide. We become uncomfortable when told that the situation is leading us to behave in a particular way; we resist believing that something outside us influences us without our ‘knowledge’.

I think it’s extremely important to recognize that it’s not just those people back then, those people in that country, those people in that culture, those people. Them. We are them. (Of course people are also capable of rising above the situation, of acting from a thoughtful place; I’m not making an “always” claim here.)

Because this is important to me, I have been drawn to thinking about the horrors of the Holocaust. I tend to read about it if I hear of a good analysis, or fictional work. I tend to watch the movies – fiction or nonfiction. I was so moved by Everything Is Illuminated, the book and the movie.

So I watched a movie last night that was recommended by Tammy, a ravelry friend and regular commenter on my blog — Conspiracy, which is about the meeting outside Berlin in which the “final solution” was laid out and set in motion. Tammy mentioned it because Colin Firth is in the movie, and I’d just written about another of his movies, A Single Man. I looked up Conspiracy and saw that Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, and Stanley Tucci were in it – I love all three of them! It wasn’t available for instant streaming, so I moved it to the top of my regular queue, and I watched it last night.

The actors were wonderful, without exception. I wondered how they dealt with the roles they were playing – Tucci especially, who did a truly incredible job playing Eichmann. I felt a cold shiver all through my body and in my stomach when he came on the screen. Eichmann. The cinematography was beautiful, the direction subtle, the performances very strong. I have to see more movies with Colin Firth, and soon!

But I find that as I get older, it’s harder and harder to bear these things. It’s harder and harder for me to listen or watch as a people are described and treated as ‘vermin.’ As inhuman. Not human. Less than human. I never found it easy to bear, but I could bear it because I wanted to think, understand, remember. Now I’m not so sure I can bear it. I cried throughout the movie. I was so nauseous I thought I’d be sick. Often I couldn’t even look at the screen. Almost the entire movie was set around a long table, with the parties to the meeting simply talking – no actions were performed, nothing actually implemented, just talking. And I couldn’t watch.

It’s a very powerful movie, I highly recommend it. I didn’t know anything about that meeting, I didn’t know this part of history at all. When I was a little younger, I could’ve watched it more easily.

Now, I need a lot of knitting and contemplation to get myself back in order. Hello, Peasy.

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#1 – One of my all-time favorite movies, Dead Man, directed by Jim Jarmusch, and starring Johnny Depp. This link will take you to a short video by A.O. Scott of the NYTimes, reviewing the movie and showing some great scenes and surprising cameos (Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Robert Mitchum!). You can’t stream it on Netflix, but you can add it to your queue. There isn’t anything I don’t love about this movie – the actors, the story, the absolutely GORGEOUS black and white cinematography, the striking imagery, the weirdness, Gary Farmer as Nobody, Johnny Depp as William Blake, the references, the landscape, the ending, the feeling, the music, the depiction of the west, the depiction of native american culture, everything. Ostensibly, it’s about the journey of William Blake, out to the west, and then his journey after being shot. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s literary, full of symbolism and metaphor, it’s spiritual, it’s just amazing. I don’t even know how many times I’ve watched it, and I always want to watch it again. It’s meditative and moody, and so am I so I absolutely love this movie.

#2- A Single Man, directed by Tom Ford and starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.  Again, not available for streaming but you can queue it on Netflix. I’ve never seen any Colin Firth movies, but I want to, after seeing his performance in this movie. Of course it’s a very stylish movie – veering occasionally into a little too much focus on the style of it, leaving me to wonder if I was just watching an extended ad for some vague product, but it has enough substance, finally, to overwhelm that feeling. Colin Firth gives such a subtle performance; he conveys every kind of feeling you might imagine, even though he’s playing a man who is relatively buttoned up….but not really. You just have to look closely, as he says once. Julianne Moore is gorgeous, enhanced by the wonderful style of the 1960s. It’s a haunting movie, and I was completely taken aback by the ending. I wanted to watch it again from the beginning, as soon as the last credit rolled. If you like a lot of action and excitement you won’t find it here; but if you enjoy lingering, and thinking, and being absorbed by a mood, you’ll find that here.

I got a few rows of knitting done last night, on my little socky-poo:

heading down the foot toward the toe

I’ll say one thing: these are going to be warm socks! I tried this one on, oh so carefully, and the fit is wonderful, and the squishiness guarantees warmth. Now if I can just imagine the day when I’ll long for warmth.

If you have Netflix streaming, you can watch it immediately, or at least add it to your queue. It’s Unmistaken Child, and it’s about a Tibetan monk’s search for the child who is the reincarnation of his master. It’s enormously touching, and when he finds the child, it’s hard to argue that he isn’t truly unmistaken. It’s fascinating to watch the Dalai Lama rename the child. It sounds silly to say this, but I forget that among all the rest, he is a Buddhist, enmeshed in the practices of his culture. When he does the variety of things required with the child, it kind of startled me. He seems so western to us – he speaks everywhere, he participates in western research, he exhorts us to peace, like so many other people do – but he is entirely Buddhist. It’s easy to see him grinning, in his big old glasses, and think he’s just a kindly older guy with incredible compassion and wisdom. And he is….but he’s ohsomuch more.

The movie has kind of haunted me since I finished watching it. Tenzin Zopa, the monk who searches for his reincarnated master, touched me and it’s hard to think about him without crying, for some reason.

you’re welcome.

knitting in croatia

If you met me, you’d see a tall 53-year old woman with a big smile and bad posture. You’d hear my deep Texas accent, which people up here in NYC describe as a “cute southern accent.” (oh.no.it’s.not!) You’d also hear about the people I love, my husband and kids: my husband goes unnamed here to respect his privacy, but he’s there in everything I do; my oldest daughter Katie and her husband Trey, who live in Austin; my 2nd daughter Marnie and her husband Tom, who live in Chicago; my son Will, who lives here in Manhattan and who is a dashing man about town; and my stepdaughter Anna, who is a college junior at a fancy school far away. You’d hear about social psychology, since I have a PhD in the subject and until very recently, acquired books in social psychology for a famous university press, the one that published the very first book. Now, I am a writer and editorial consultant.

Obviously, you’d have to listen to me prattle on and on about knitting, and other handwork. My Aunt Meecie taught me to crochet when I was 5 or so, and I specialized in skein-long chains of acrylic yarn. I took up embroidering pillowcases in kindergarten, and generally made shit throughout my growing-up years. I took up knitting when I was 23, followed by spinning and weaving, quilting, bobbin-lace making, sewing and smocking. And woodworking. I’ve never met a type of handwork I didn’t love. Yet.

And now, me by the bullets:

• I’ve been to 612 cities in 20 countries (that number is constantly getting bigger).
• I’m 5’10″ (that number is consistently getting smaller).
• I have 2 graduate degrees (that number won’t be changing, though I do periodically toy with the idea of going back for a 2nd PhD [philosophy] or taking creative writing classes).
• I’ve moved 80 times. I’m done now.
• I have more than 15 tattoos (changing? perhaps).
• (I love parenthetical comments; also, semi-colons.)
• I love Cap’n Crunch and Pop-Tarts.
• I am a social psychologist. Before I started college, I thought it was just like 13th grade or something. My family did not have any education.
• Inside, I’m poor white trash. Outside, I’m fancy. Kinda.
• I am a photographer.
• I love odd-ball instruments like the accordion, banjo, and bagpipes.
• I’m pretty cool if you get to know me.
• I’ve suffered. A lot.
• Places I’ve lived: [texas] Graham, Tyler, Kilgore, Abilene, Austin (back and forth lotsa times), San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Richardson, Irving, Wichita Falls; [connecticut] New Britain; [virginia] Fredericksburg; [alabama] Huntsville; [arkansas] Fayetteville; [new jersey] Ramsey; [new york] Rochester, Manhattan.
• Cinnamon toast makes me happy.
• I started college at age 36, and grad school at age 40. NOT EASY, when you have 3 little kids.
• I didn’t get out of Texas until I was 29 years old. (Mexico doesn’t count, when you’re a Texan.)
• I am a baker.
• Learning new things makes me happy.
• I have an intriguing relationship with light.
• I used to think of book ideas and find people to write them.
• I am a jealous person, and it makes me suffer terribly. I wish I could not be jealous. Ideas?
• I love clouds and big skies, they make me feel like I can breathe.
• My favorite places in the world are Manhattan, Santa Fe, New Orleans, Paris, Hanoi, Cusco, Arequipa, Vancouver, Luang Prabang, Phnom Penh, and San Francisco. That list is not in order of favoriteness.
• Annie Lennox is my favorite singer and songwriter, and so is Lyle Lovett.
• I love live theater and modern art.
• Singing and dancing make me so happy I cry.
• I love to sing, but only do it privately these days. I used to be that girl with a guitar in a bar.
• I’m an 8th generation Texan. You read that right. My kids are 9th. My grandkids (some of them, anyway) will be 10th.
• I have a sweet tooth. Duh, given the food faves above. I love Easter because of Peeps. (PEEPS!)
• I am writing a memoir of my father.