Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

On Sunday afternoon we went to see The Brothers Grimm with gilana. It was fine. "Better than Van Helsing" seems to be the general consensus and that it is, easily. I enjoyed the way that Gilliam pulled in motifs from many different fairy tales and some of the effects were very cool. Perhaps it's just my mood, but it didn't really engage me. But Heath Ledger was very cute and earnest.

But what I really want to talk about now is The Transporter, which we finished watching tonight. It's a reasonable mid-grade action movie--just enough plot to hold together the action sequences, a star (Jason Statham) who can do most of his own fighting and stunts, a nice supporting actor turn by François Berléand as the world-weary Marseilles cop.

( Cut to preserve the innocence of those who might someday want to see this movie. )

But do answer this, please...when's the last time you saw an actual sex scene in a movie? (No, porn doesn't count.)

EDIT: I'm specifically interested in contemporary American movies, from a sociological perspective, although tips on good foreign films are always welcome.

I've been enjoying the meme about what you would tell your younger self, if you could, and struggling to think of anything I could say that might have helped, that I wasn't already hearing.

I am a very lucky person. I have had unhappiness in my life and disappointment and I have not found fame or developed a satisfying career or made stacks of money. I have made dubious choices and downright mistakes. But I've been extraordinarily lucky in terms of the people who have been closest to me throughout my life and helped me through the pain mostly generated by other people to a point where I'm pretty happy with who I am and where I am. And I know that this is not an end-point. My life will be different in five years from what it is now. I have my hopes on the direction of those changes, but I'm also excited to know that there will be surprises and the path is never certain.

The greatest gift, I think, is that every age, there have been people older than I am--my parents and my sisters--to tell me that it was going to be okay and that who I am is a special and wonderful person and to encourage me to examine my self, smooth my rough bits, get over it and get on with it. I think especially being the youngest, watching each of my sisters in turn go off to college and get away from the small-mindedness of our home town, helped a lot. Travelling with my parents was also a huge help, knowing that there were many, many places in the world and I could manage in any of them. Things that seemed terribly, awfully important at home in Ravena suddenly fell away in New York, or London. Even when they didn't understand what was happening to me, or know how to help, even when they made mistakes, or said the wrong things, or hurt me themselves, I never in my entire life failed to know that I was loved and that this would not be all there was to my life.

Everything else I needed to know, I learned for myself and they are things that telling cannot teach.

I'm reading K.J. Bishop's The Etched City and found this passage, which seemed relevant to several recent posts on my friends' page:

"I have come to believe that we steer our individual spheres of being through the spectra of possible worlds via the choices we make, the acts we perform. Most people stick to known routes, and therefore cannot travel far. They live too modestly, and perhaps too privately. Only by being strange can we move, for strange acts cause us to be rejected by whatever normality we have offended, and to be propelled towards a normality that can better accommodate us. There is always risk in eccentricity..."

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.
- Victor Hugo, author (1802-1885)

I'm usually very good at reading comprehension and I tend to like the quotes that Anu picks for A Word A Day, but this one is mysterious (dare I say veiled?) to me. Unsatisfying? Indirect? What's indirect about a compliment?

Much of this comes out of a conversation I had earlier with dpolicar.

( Rambling about how someone could actually be against gay marriage. )

Lately I've been getting frustrated with an attitude that annoys me. For the record: what you like is not good because you enjoy it; what you do not like is not crap because you do not enjoy it. People who don't share your tastes are not morons. There are plenty of categories of things that I believe are objectively good, but do not care for myself--and things that I enjoy immensely, but believe to actually be fairly awful. Finally, is extremely impolite to point at another person's food (or music, or literature, or anything else) and say "Ewww! How can you eat that?!" If you feel that you must make a comment, something along the lines of "I'm surprised you like that--I've never managed to develop a taste for it" is acceptable. So is silence on the subject. Frankly, I don't care if anyone I know likes mushrooms or Jane Austen--all the more for me!

Over in his journal, infinitehotel asked his readers to tell him about love, in honor of Valentine's Day. This has been kicking around in my head for a while, so I typed it out and liked the result enough to post it behind the cut. I'd also be interested in reading your thoughts on love, if you'd care to comment.

( Swimming Lessons )