What an amazing time we live in. In two days a mixed race man, bearing a middle name that echoes the the title of a former Iraqi dictator, whose father abandoned he and his mother as a baby, so that they could rely on her mother and foodstamps, only to grow up to make it to Columbia University and then Harvard…will become president of the United States in America. This is arguably the most powerful position in the world. This is also, as a woman of about ninety years of age told me, the most exciting election she’s lived to see.
The man tries not to let himself be ruled by his black past, at least not in the same sense that Rev. Jesse Jackson would be. It’s part of his identity, but only one part of many — that hasn’t stopped him from being compared to Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday is in three weeks. And especially he’s currently being discussed in reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but that’s to be expected: the inauguration is, after all, a day after the holiday honoring the fallen civil rights leader.
However, it’s not his African-ness that excites me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad to think that anyone can reach the highest position in the land with no family background in politics and against a million odds. But that’s because I’ve never known wealth and generally felt that I was being told as I grew up that my lack of heritage equated to near worthlessness. I grew up in a small town where only the children of town leaders were expected to make something of themselves. Pretty sad, of course, but even more sad that many of those kids were so coddled to ensure good grades and therefore easy access to the colleges of their choice that as soon as they entered the real world, many dropped liked flies and were forced to return home. It happens to all schools, I’m sure. But I’m proud to be a college graduate with any number of amazing futures before me. Last I heard, the prom queen from my high school class lived in a trailer park. Not that I’d wish failure upon anyone, but I proved the fools and their popularity contests to be wrong. I’m halfway to my ten-year class reunion. We’ll see by then if I have anything to gloat about. If nothing else, I can say after tomorrow that I’ve seen two presidents of the United States speak live in front of me. Of course, it was while Obama rallied for himself whilst Clinton tried to gain support for his wife, but both were powerful orators that left us in awe. So worth skipping studying to see. And the night that Obama won the election? There was screaming, partying, fireworks in the streets. I’ll definitely miss my college campus for that.
Onto my future- I’m working at the local Safeway grocery at the moment because I was guaranteed a job back after graduating. I don’t want to get myself into a long-term career here when I plan to move down to Atlanta some time mid-to-late this year. I can only hope that I stand a chance in the big city.
Fish is excited both for the inauguration and also for the day after- his 21st birthday. The kid’ll finally be able to (legally) drink, so kudos to him. He’ll have to tell the bloggy world all about his adventures with that when they happen, and also perhaps this weekend with the fraternity. He has a new ‘little brother’ to teach the ropes of PKT life and he already seems excited by how much they potentially have in common.
My own birthday is on the 25th, and I’m ambivalent. I’m not even sure I have the day off from work — I’ve been getting weekends off regularly the last couple weeks, but I switched my schedule for this Sunday with another girl so that I could work and she could take my Tuesday shift, fortuitous for both of us (she wanted a weekend day to herself, whilst I was concerned about working a closing shift and then a 4:30am shift close together). My boss seems the type to generally copy down the last week’s schedule for the next in almost carbon-copy, but not as bad as some in the past. I put my b-day on the calendar but didn’t request it off, so hopefully this next Sunday I’ll catch a break. For that reason alone I’ve not made any plans with friends, but I’d be quite satisfied with just a quiet day of rest and maybe going out to eat with my dear grandmother. If I get to do more, that’s all the better. I’ll haveta mention if I get anything exciting for gifties, although I’ll admit I’m getting too old to let such things rule my life. I love to give more than to receive at this point, but only to those who show appreciation. Nothing sucks more than putting together a set of gifts over a couple months, giving them to their intended recipient, and getting not even an honest smile or thank you.
Maybe I just suck at picking out gifts. ;)
Just got to finally see the movie Children of Men. Just as good as I expected it to be, but with some added fun. By that I mean cinematographically: there are a few great scenes in which long takes are employed, and the director, who is famous for employing such film devices, was nominated for an academy award for Best Film Editing. Not giving away too much of the plot, except that as is shown in the trailer, the world has fallen to pieces and all of humanity has been infertile for over 18 years. England is a dystopian and xenophobic nation, attempting to keep out the rest of the world in their hopes of surviving the collapse of every other nation. Most scenes/shots focus on Clive Owen (I think the director meant for those excluding him to pop out as important for us to pay attention to), and there are a couple that involve British soldiers or anarchist militants attacking the main characters or one another in explosive (literally) power bids. They were filmed virtually without cutting the film even once. At one point there’s gunfire and the camera is splattered with blood (breaking the fourth wall but in a chilling way), and the camera continues to move on for several minutes without breaking the shot, still carrying the red droplets along on the adventure. In a way this made the adventure better, more real– like an actual human being, you can only see so much at any time, and are forced to exist only with what your vision allows. The camera jerks around when there’s gunfire, screaming, or anything else exceptional that the characters might see, showing it to you as though you’re part of the action, rather than trying to make us feel more comfortable with clipping back and forth to allow us the seat of gods watching from behind the protective wall of our television screens. As another individual’s review of the film describes, “Sometimes the setting is the story; the streets live and breathe as characters; the city is alive in these films, pulsing with an artificial intelligence that, in this case, is fetid, rotting at the core.” Turns out, some of these scenes were made possible by digitally created alterations and seamless transitions. You’ll find the camera angle positioned where someone was just sitting, and see a technoscape that was pasted over an actual city no more evasively or unnaturally than adding sprinkles to a cupcake. I can’t say that the story necessarily moved me as a masterpiece which makes me think about the world in a whole new light — I’ve at least seen/read too many dystopian pieces to come to such quick conclusions. However, if you want a refreshing movie experience that leaves you both sad and also genuinely hopeful for our future, give it a watch. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of 92%. Disclaimer: Very, very rated R for graphic scenes, but only as far as you could expect to see in an actual war. I’d not call it gratuitous violence at all.
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