Ending & beginning
Fall semester is done. I turned in my grades five minutes before the deadline on Friday, and suddenly what had obsessed me and defined me for four (only four?) months was over. It's the same every semester. I strive and sweat, succeed and fail in turns, obsess over details, create and procrastinate, drive, chastise, and evaluate. Then it's gone. Obsession cancelled, identity revised.
I turn my back and live another life. I forget that I teach biology at a community college. I don't even like to talk about it. I lose the instructor voice. Maybe I loaf, read, see films, watch TV, do yoga and aerobics, walk the dog. Or maybe I travel. A few weeks later it all starts again. Excited, I come prepared with handouts and a new agenda. This time I won't get behind. This time they'll get it. I face a room of strangers with different faces and minds and attitudes and issues but somehow always the same.
The cycle keeps me going. Without the ending and starting again I could never do this for a living. It's too hard. Too many students who would rather do anything but learn biology. Too many who would if they could but high school has cheated them. A few eager and ready minds. I take it personally, all of it.
When it's over I go down into a deep ritualized funk that feels like a warm fuzzy pit of self indulgent sloth. Horizontal time with wine and eye-candy. Yummmmmmm!
Last night I emerged long enough to go see a film, "The Machinist." I'd heard it called disturbing, and that's what I like. Depressing was more like it. Oh, the story was sort of interesting, but the most disturbing thing was Christian Bale starving himself into a perfect imitation of a holocaust survivor, at who knows what cost to his health, and all this for a film that was only pretty good. He was spooky and pitiful, certifiably psychotic at times, but all the little plot twist at the end accomplished was to make me feel let down. Is that all? Well, sheesh, why didn't he just... Expecting monstrosity, horror, and given a mere coward, a paralyzed weakling, I wondered why everybody went to all that trouble. Ebert liked it better than I did. He focused more on the atmosphere created by the film, which I admit was effective, but I think it could have been put to better use.
A few days ago I saw "Closer." This one is better, even though the topic is so mundane. "Closer" does for romance what "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" did for marriage. Lovers, coming and going, changing their minds and flaying each other mercilessly in pursuit of the romantic myth, are dissected and laid open for inspection. To the film's credit, nobody lives happily ever after, and nobody is much changed bo the experience of disillusion. You don't often see such a realistic view of romance in film. One can see endless cycles of repetition in store as each character seems poised to resume the fruitless search for "the one," the hypothetical ultimate best soulmate always just around the corner. When love's rushing thrill of insanity (sex chemicals) deludes us, we abandon comfort and trust for something new until we either figure it out or are just too tired to do it any more. Yes, yours truly has been there. Who hasn't? Some people try to live there forever. While seeming to tell a different story, "Closer" is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" from the other side of commitment -- just one more way to create endless misery for ourselves by stubbornly repeating our disfunctional behaviors.
"Closer" achieves the semblance of a happy ending by dropping each character at a temporary resting phase of the cycle, a choice made or imposed. But nobody's smiling. Speaking of smiling, Julia Roberts doesn't! I don't know whether she had botox injections or powerful self control, but the famous flashing field of white was disconcertingly absent. It was hard to get used to this; it felt contrived. Ebert & Roeper seemed very impressed with her best acting so far, but I'm confused. Was it just her straight face? Is she such a great actor if not smiling with such effort is so impressive? Me, I've always thought she acted well, despite the manufactured hype that created for her a shallow image. But this frozen face was really strange. I think she needs more practice. I also didn't agree with Ebert & Roeper that the characters in "Closer" were bizarre and horrible. They seemed pretty realistic to me. Lots of people are locked up in this nonsense, at least for some part of their lives. I thought Alice (Natalie Portman) had the most integrity of them all. She, the lowly stripper, was the only one who refused to be bullied.
I turn my back and live another life. I forget that I teach biology at a community college. I don't even like to talk about it. I lose the instructor voice. Maybe I loaf, read, see films, watch TV, do yoga and aerobics, walk the dog. Or maybe I travel. A few weeks later it all starts again. Excited, I come prepared with handouts and a new agenda. This time I won't get behind. This time they'll get it. I face a room of strangers with different faces and minds and attitudes and issues but somehow always the same.
The cycle keeps me going. Without the ending and starting again I could never do this for a living. It's too hard. Too many students who would rather do anything but learn biology. Too many who would if they could but high school has cheated them. A few eager and ready minds. I take it personally, all of it.
When it's over I go down into a deep ritualized funk that feels like a warm fuzzy pit of self indulgent sloth. Horizontal time with wine and eye-candy. Yummmmmmm!
Last night I emerged long enough to go see a film, "The Machinist." I'd heard it called disturbing, and that's what I like. Depressing was more like it. Oh, the story was sort of interesting, but the most disturbing thing was Christian Bale starving himself into a perfect imitation of a holocaust survivor, at who knows what cost to his health, and all this for a film that was only pretty good. He was spooky and pitiful, certifiably psychotic at times, but all the little plot twist at the end accomplished was to make me feel let down. Is that all? Well, sheesh, why didn't he just... Expecting monstrosity, horror, and given a mere coward, a paralyzed weakling, I wondered why everybody went to all that trouble. Ebert liked it better than I did. He focused more on the atmosphere created by the film, which I admit was effective, but I think it could have been put to better use.
A few days ago I saw "Closer." This one is better, even though the topic is so mundane. "Closer" does for romance what "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" did for marriage. Lovers, coming and going, changing their minds and flaying each other mercilessly in pursuit of the romantic myth, are dissected and laid open for inspection. To the film's credit, nobody lives happily ever after, and nobody is much changed bo the experience of disillusion. You don't often see such a realistic view of romance in film. One can see endless cycles of repetition in store as each character seems poised to resume the fruitless search for "the one," the hypothetical ultimate best soulmate always just around the corner. When love's rushing thrill of insanity (sex chemicals) deludes us, we abandon comfort and trust for something new until we either figure it out or are just too tired to do it any more. Yes, yours truly has been there. Who hasn't? Some people try to live there forever. While seeming to tell a different story, "Closer" is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" from the other side of commitment -- just one more way to create endless misery for ourselves by stubbornly repeating our disfunctional behaviors.
"Closer" achieves the semblance of a happy ending by dropping each character at a temporary resting phase of the cycle, a choice made or imposed. But nobody's smiling. Speaking of smiling, Julia Roberts doesn't! I don't know whether she had botox injections or powerful self control, but the famous flashing field of white was disconcertingly absent. It was hard to get used to this; it felt contrived. Ebert & Roeper seemed very impressed with her best acting so far, but I'm confused. Was it just her straight face? Is she such a great actor if not smiling with such effort is so impressive? Me, I've always thought she acted well, despite the manufactured hype that created for her a shallow image. But this frozen face was really strange. I think she needs more practice. I also didn't agree with Ebert & Roeper that the characters in "Closer" were bizarre and horrible. They seemed pretty realistic to me. Lots of people are locked up in this nonsense, at least for some part of their lives. I thought Alice (Natalie Portman) had the most integrity of them all. She, the lowly stripper, was the only one who refused to be bullied.
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