EPISODE 228: SMILE, ANGELA

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

We're all wondering that, Joe. He doesn't even have to be president any more. If he could just hold us and tell us again the significance of the size of the anime characters' eyes.

How was your week? Been a strange one for me. So much editing to do, but I ended up getting wrapped up instead mostly in an article about how Catholic institutions think about investing in problematic businesses, like fossil fuel. Had into a fascinating conversation with someone at Christian Brothers Investment Services about faith-based reasons for sticking with companies that have made a career of exploiting the planet and local communities for profit. (I may have a point of view on this.)

I don't know that I agree with his position -- I think by his logic no one would have ever walked away from Big Tobacco -- but he's really thought provoking. I'm definitely looking forward to people reading the piece, then getting into fights in the comments section about the Pope and weather patterns and the ACA. #TheInternetisLove

For some reason this week I also started putting together some little pieces inspired by current events. A couple are micro-stories based on news items; one is a recollection of the shortest, worst job I ever had, inspired by our own Anthony Scaramucci.

They’re a little different than the stuff I do here, and knowing me I will soon forget that I ever started doing them in the first place. But if you’re interested, they're here.
My Scaramucci

Covfefe is Twitter for “Help Me”

Why Don’t You Smile, Angela Merkel? ++ Man, it's been a great week for articles by and about women. Buzzfeed has this fantastic essay about how actress Charlize Theron has come to use her beauty to get roles that end up disrupting the very “A Woman is For Pretty” Hollywood expectations that land her the parts. The piece charts the course of her career from “nice girl next door” to today, where she’s headlining action movies like Mad Max: Fury Road or Atomic Blonde and doing an outstanding job.

(If you haven’t seen Atomic Blonde, the first half hour is your standard spy film storyline, just with 80s music and lighting. But once Charlize starts fighting, wow does it take off. Think Bourne Identity with heels and so much rage.)

The article has some great stories in it. Like this one: “According to Theron, when she was filming The Italian Job — with stunts that required precise technical driving — Mark Wahlberg would do a 360 and start puking while Theron yelled ‘What’s up, girl?’ at him.”

Or her analysis of the Oscar choice that messed up her career for years: “Part of the problem, according to Theron, could be traced to an orange gown she wore to the Oscars back in 2000. Formfitting, plunging in the back, and paired with soft finger curls, it prompted comparisons to Jean Harlow, landed her on every best-dressed list, and, for the next three years, became a symbol of what she couldn’t move beyond. As she told the OC Register, ‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve auditioned for a role, only to have my agent come back and say, “Listen, Charlize, they saw you in the orange dress and they don’t think you can do it.”’

“It could be a magazine cover, a movie role or even an orange dress,” Theron continued. ‘People in this town get stuck on an image and don’t realize that it is the job of an actor to transform.’ Put differently: Theron wanted roles that asked her to do more than just be hot, which may have helped her earn her place in Hollywood, but then turned into a cage of her (and her publicists’) own making.”

The article also asks big questions about the significance of how Theron has used her beauty, whether in playing the beauty game she’s not reinforcing the Hollywood paradigm rather than subverting it. “Theron has long manipulated her pretty-girl privilege to get the roles and freedom she wants. But can she use it to get those same roles and freedom for others?” It's great stuff.

Then there’s this interview with Mary Oliver, one of our country’s greatest poets. Do you know her work? It’s all about...well, I’ll let her tell you: Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Another favorite:

The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I love once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

And one for August...

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

All of her work is like this, accessible, grounded in the natural world and aware of the fallen and the holy. In the interview she has this great piece of advice for writers: “Don’t get too social. Write for whatever holy thing you believe in, not for your poetry workshop fellows.” Seems like that could be good advice for anybody. (Do yourself a favor and buy a book of her poems. You will not be disappointed.)

Finally, I came across this astonishing story of a depressed Somali woman living in Australia who tried to kill four of her seven children. We’ve all heard a million stories like this in recent years, but I’ve not seen any reported with the level of careful consideration and that author Helen Garner gives to this piece. It’s an extraordinarily thoughtful examination of this woman’s life, what brought her to this point and also at the same time the near impossibility of ever fully understanding her actions, even for her. ++ It’s August, the month when there seems to be nothing on television other than Game of Thrones (STOP BEING WEIRD BRAN), and people are doing their vacation reading/Binge TV catch up. (I feel like “Binge TV Catch Up” could be the title of a game show right now. Or my autobiography. Too many shows!)

If you're looking for something to try, may i just reiterate my love for The Handmaid’s Tale (on Hulu and also now iTunes) and Feud: Bette and Joan (from FX, and also on iTunes). Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood story about a near future where most people are infertile and the religious zealots who have taken over the country basically force fertile women into slavery. As out there as its concept may sound it comes off disturbingly contemporary. A show about identity and independence.

Feud retells the story of the conflict between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford -- not a topic I was terribly interested in (though it does star the great Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, but the show ends up being this really fascinating examination of what it’s like being a woman in Hollywood. The way men and the business pit women against each other, or toss them away when they reach a certain age. Bette Davis is one of the best actresses we’ve ever known, yet in her 40s she placed a classified ad sarcastically seeking work.

I think the thing I like about both shows is the episodes are really well crafted. Most hours have a theme or idea -- like what does it mean to escape or what constitutes real power -- that is explored in different ways. It’s the kind of writing that makes you feel so satisfied when the hour is done. ++ POP CULTURE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

ThreeEyedRavensplaining is the creepiest splaining of all the splainings, Bran. Stop it.

++ LINKS ++

Did you see this interview with Brad Pitt from a couple months ago? It’s kind of insane – Dear Publicists, Don’t let your talent do interviews when they are in the middle of a serious crisis.

But it also brought back that great insight that actors have that their work is about discovery and vulnerability. They choose roles because they want to explore something, because they want to learn. Being afraid at taking a certain part can often be a good sign that they’re on the right track.

Feels like that, too, is a good insight for life. Follow your...fear?

There’s also this great, funny piece from the Guardian about the Pitt interview and and photos, which is just as great and funny whether you’ve read the interview or not.

If you want to know more about Atomic Blonde’s action sequences (which are again like John Wick, Daredevil Season One or Bourne Identity-level outstanding), here’s a couple great pieces.

This news article about a fourteen year old Australian boy who fell off his family’s sail boat without anyone knowing for hours, then survived for two hours in the water without a life preserver while a shark swam nearby is pretty much every American’s stereotype of what everyday life is like in Australia. (His name, Lochie, is also one of the great Australian names.)

Lastly, press reports of Angela Merkel’s vacation amount to “Smile, Angela”.

Actually, I’ll tell you, I really kind of like this photo of Merkel and her husband. I’ve seen so many couples like them, eating together without looking at each other or saying a word. And whether it’s with a partner or a friend I think we’ve all been that couple, too. A photograph makes it seem awful, and in the movies it’s the definition of lonely, but in real life it’s actually kind of the opposite. Two people, comfortable enough with themselves and one another to be and let each other be.

I’m away next week; hopefully I’ll still post something but it may not be much. Got some great interviews coming down the pipeline though. Cannot wait for you to read them.

In the meantime, look after yourself. Trust your instincts. Follow a fear. But don’t smile unless you feel like it. What do they know?