Intolerance: An Example of Astonishing Film Quality from 1916

Embarking on an interesting film journey this summer, our family is watching a film festival of mostly American classics, beginning with early silent films and working our way forward in time though classic directors, actors and productions.

Tonight's entry: "Intolerance," a three hour epic from D.W. Griffith that --I now understand why-- is spoken of as his true masterwork. This viewing has been an eye-opening and fascinating experience.

"Intolerance" is simply stunning in its ability to tell a compelling story. It is still moving, nearly a century after its creation. I am blown away by the production values and spectacle of this 1916 film including its sets, sheer number of performers, and quality of acting, not to mention use of special effects and transitions that had to have been in their infancy at this time. The sets (indoor and out) are well-built and complete and the acting is nuanced and suited to the medium.  It is all shockingly good, even by today's standards.

The fully developed artistic expression is remarkable, given that just a dozen years prior to this film, "The Great Train Robbery" is often credited as being the first film to even tell a narrative story. How quickly film, as a form of expression took root and grew in depth from those first days. Here Griffith weaves together four vignetted stories from four periods of history including the 'present day'. He uses different monochrome tones (sepia, green, red and blue) to distinguish his four stories and weaves them all together through overarching themes of motherhood and, of course, intolerance.

Clearly the greatest hurdle to a modern viewer in tackling a film such as "Intolerance" has to be the oddity that is watching a movie without dialog. And I have never considered myself a fan of silent film. In fact, I'm not sure that prior to this week I've even watched an entire silent picture all the way through. When I was a girl, they played the genre sometimes on TV and I always ran screaming. But with the few showings I've got under my belt now, I've come to realize that I appreciate the calmer pace of the story teling and the more active way you have to watch to make meaning. I am also very impressed with the actors who must convey not just emotion without words, but also action and plot, with very little help -- although the music and snippets of written material are integral in storytelling too. Another thing to appreciate with pre-Code films is how very loose and bawdy the costumes and themes are, relative to anything you might have come to know and enjoy in motion picture classics after the Production Code started to be enforced in the early 1930s. These early pictures are gritty, seductive, and earthy to a degree that was not seen again on the silver screen until at least the late 1950s.

Another eye-opening piece of the experience has been the superb technical quality of the film itself. I mean that the actual ability of this early celluloid to capture images is remarkable. I guess I had pretty low expectations. Sure there are lines and flashes of light and random dots and marks that show up, but the basic resolution and clarity of the filmed scenes is nothing short of spectacular. Watching this on Netflix on my rather large modern TV, I am in awe of the clarity of detail in the background. Some of the closeups show actors in such loving detail and high resolution, that you can picture them sitting in the room with you. It is really quite beautiful.

Not the least of the thrills with a film like this, is the amazing transportation into a different time period. I am a huge fan of period drama for this reason. But period drama, by its nature, necessitates that the given period be faked by a much more modern filmmaker. However, when a film is made in 1916, things that are set in the "present" cannot help but be the most stunningly accurate portrayal possible of the period "1916". Its rather heady stuff, to time travel junkies like me. And it sets up some powerful reflections. For instance, in "Intolerance," when the modern vignette shows labor/management dissent and riot, it is especially poignant to imagine the actual status of the labor movement (including these actors) at the time this picture was filmed. How very different the working world of cinema had to have been then. What working conditions and safety standards did Lilian Gish & Co endure while making Intolerance? Watching a history that the filmmakers themselves were enmeshed in is a fascinating study.

Exploration into the depths of silent film is not for everyone. But if you want to try a new take on an old art form, I would highly recommend it. Give yourself a film or two to reset your ears and your expectations and pick a nice quiet comfortable place to sit and indulge. If you find you enjoy the world of silents, there are countless hours of quality movies just waiting to be watched! (And chances are many of them beat cold anything showing on American TV tonight).

Movies and TV Shows are almost always "good"

My sister and I were talking yesterday; she was anticipating her trip to the theater to see the Hunger Games and wondering if it was going to be good.

For some reason, that struck me as interesting and I got to thinking. Of course it's going to be "good." It is almost certain to be an extraordinary entertainment experience. In fact, this is true about just about any big-budget Hollywood movie. Think alone of the spectacle of costumes, props and locations, the camera work, the sheer number of actors on screen. Even when a movie really misses the mark and fails to tell a great story or provide a moving experience, it is almost always capable of entertaining us if we let it.

Imagine applying Hollywood production standards to your kid's school play. How much entertainment value would you get from Hollywood standard special effects, sound track, or choreography if it were done locally? Even catastrophic "flops" like Cleopatra or The Postman provide stunning levels of production value entertainment if viewed in the right light.

I don't mean to suggest that I myself don't have very high viewing standards. I know I do. I don't like to spend time with movie and TV that doesn't offer something truly meaningful. But, it is important every once in a while to step back and notice that the people who produce shows, fill our lives with incredibly good entertainment all the time, even when they fail to do something profound.  It is very rare to see any movie so bad that watching it truly feels like such a waste of time and money and that I actually want to leave the theater.

And theater-going aside (which must be a special case in favor of putting up with sub-standard work, considering that we've put on clothes, gotten into the car, shelled out money, and restricted ourselves to the option now playing in front of us), we watch a huge variety of shows with spectacular ease in our modern world. Even if you just weigh the quality of work now available around you at all times, through Netflix, TV, Youtbue, you-name-it, there can be no doubt that we have all become super-connoisseurs of entertainment. We can preview and watch snippets and move on oh so easily when they don't strike our fancy. There is no commitment. It is easy to flip through channels and get frustrated thinking "there's nothing good on" -- but the real problem is the reverse! Almost everything on is good to some extent, so it takes something exceptional to even tempt us.

We are clearly the most entertained people to have ever walked the earth. (Even the most pathetic of game apps on my phone is, truly, astonishingly capable entertainment). Please don't misunderstand. It is important to be discerning, exactly because of this glut of entertainment; it is more important than ever to spend our time wisely on things that feel fulfilling and meaningful. But don't lets confuse that idea with the idea that the things we don't like don't have some entertainment value to offer. They as often as not involve the myriad talents of people who are extremely good at what they do and the expenditures of massive amounts of money. They are "good" productions at some basic level. Even if we don't want to watch them.

Here's a piece I came across on a site called the Daily Beast while doing a bit of research on Hollywood's Top Ten Biggest Flops. The article says that "aside from Geena Davis's sassy one-liners, there is nothing enjoyable about 1995's Cutthroat Island." Seriously? Nothing?

This photograph alone looks pretty spectacular to me. Look at that dress she's wearing. Its gorgeous. Imagine that at the local high school theater production. Also notice that there's some sort of explosion going on in the background? Imagine how much entertainment value would be packed into an explosion like that were it part of your local neighborhood's 4th of July fair?  Just because the movie lost money and didn't live up to its potential, doesn't mean it had nothing to offer the consumer. Should we only decide we've been entertained if our excitement is proportional to how much the production company spent?

In any case, I haven't talked to my sister today to find out how Hunger Games went. But I'm pretty sure that, by almost any reasonable standard, it was good.

Jobs, Taylor and Spooks

I had a strong desire to listen to Carolina in My Mind by James Taylor this morning. It must be the time of year. November makes me nostalgically wistful and fills me with a sense of longing. Because I don't actually own the song, I went to Youtube to have a listen and whilst there made another discovery. James Taylor reminds me of Steve Jobs.

Sure there's the superficial similarity of a glossy round head, but its more than that. I see deeper resemblance in the chin, eyebrows, nose and sharp, brilliant eyes. Both were visionaries with soft voices and deeply moving intelligence and they may share a lot more than just physical similarities . . .  if I were to stop and think about it I could let you know.  But this post wasn't really supposed to be about them.

Instead, and in addition to the Jobs/Taylor connection, I was thinking about my connections related to that song. Carolina in My Mind is meaningful--a sad and longing song with a positive message about finding what you need inside of you. Taylor said he wrote it while feeling homesick though he didn't really have a home at the time. That's an unsettling sentiment that I totally understand.

I don't know when I first became aware of this song, but sometime, while I was still very young (far too young to really know what it felt to be lonely, removed, and homesick) I first loved it. The ideas in the song touched me. And then later, as an adult, the larger force of the deep longing settled upon me while spending Christmas alone in California far from home. And still later, a few years ago, a good dear friend (who I now miss) drew the song and its message to my attention yet again.

While listening to it today, tears streamed down my cheeks thinking about that friend and I wondered: why did I feel drawn to listen to something I knew would make me sad?

And that, friends, is how I finally get around to the British tv connection and how this post has anything to do with this blog.

This week I've been getting a number of comments and e-mails from those who have felt disappointed and saddened by the Spooks ending (like so many of us were). Someone wrote to me today about being a glutton for punishment by continuing to listen to music from that series though it brought up the sad ending all over again. We all do things like this. But why?

I have to think that making ourselves sad, reveling in our grief, must somehow be a healing act. By taking the time to really feel a loss, we can start to mend at a cellular level. Dredge up the muck, before just paving over the surface. Maybe for me, the call to hear sad songs at Christmastime and have a good cry over friends and family who are gone and places we aren't able to be is a way to prepare for joy. And maybe for those who confront, head-on, their grief over how Spooks ended, will ultimately enjoy that same healing and state of calm.

Me, on the other hand. Well, I'm still not ready to do that with Spooks. I'd rather pretend that the whole last series/season didn't exist. Denial, you see ;)  Just an earlier stage of grief.

Thanksgiving - Possibly the Only American Cultural Holiday Tradition

Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday, for a variety of reasons I won't get into since this post is actually about why Thanksgiving is a great holiday!  This year I had a revelation that gave me a new appreciation and fondness for this day.

I realized that Thanksgiving is truly the only uniquely American cultural-event routinely celebrated by masses of Americans every year. All other major holidays in this country are religious-based (like Christmas and Easter) or political/military/social policy-based (like Veteran's Day or Washington's Birthday). The latter category is interesting and includes most of our holidays -- those designated in order to support some political or social agenda item. Not that it is always a bad idea to support social agendas with holidays, just that doing so makes them a bit different than say, a group of people choosing on its own, to be thankful.

Just to prove it, I did some research. Here is a list of all federal holidays according to USA.gov:

• MLK Day - political/military/policy
• Groundhog Day - close runner up
• Valentine’s Day – celebrated all around the world
• Washington’s Birthday – political/military/policy
• Easter - Religious
• Earth Day – political/military/policy
• National Arbor Day – political/military/policy
• Mother’s Day – enacted in 1914 to support a particular group : )
• Memorial Day – political/military/policy
• Flag Day – political/military/policy
• Father’s Day – enacted in 1909 to support a particular group : )
• Independence Day – political/military/policy
• Labor Day – political/military/policy
• Columbus Day – political/military/policy
• Halloween – an odd duck
• Veteran’s Day – political/military/policy
• Thanksgiving
• Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day – political/military/policy
• Christmas - Religious

Most of these, even Mother’s and Father’s Days, were put into place in order to support some group or idea that the government felt needed supporting. Only a couple of other holidays are spontaneous celebrations of some cultural phenomenon. Thus, only Groundhog’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Halloween come close to what being what Thanksgiving is. But Groundhog’s is hardly a culturally iconic day. It’s cute. And it has a great movie. But no one celebrates it. And Valentine’s Day is actually celebrated all over the world, making it not-uniquely-American. Then there's Halloween . . . well, that's an odd one. There are roots to Halloween that border on religious, but the holiday in its current iteration is really a recent phenomenon, not a deeply embedded tradition. I don’t know what to do about it, so I’ll just disregard it : )

Next consider the religious holidays. It’s not that they too can’t have an overarching cultural significance that binds people and place together. But we have challenges in America with finding deeper cultural connectivity through religion due to our multi-cultural and -religious history. These holidays aren't what I'm talking about.  They do include cultural traditions, but are loaded with Christian significance and meaning that most people would say is (or at least pay lip service to the idea that it is) the more important focus.

So, its just Thanksgiving that has the true power to bind us in a holistic way as a nation. FN

Fn. . . Lets just get some housekeeping things out of the way. . .  First, yes I know there are many other countries and cultures that also have harvest festivals. I even know that “Thanksgiving” is celebrated in Canada and in a smattering of other countries around the world. But I am talking about “our” Thanksgiving – our pilgrims and Indians meeting in friendship and brotherhood (on that one day anyway). I also don’t want to get into how horrible the colonization of this land was. The fact of being thankful for the bounty of the land is not a by-product of evil colonization. It is just lovely and good idea. I also know that the government, at some point, put its imprimatur on Thanksgiving (just as it did with all the others) but that doesn’t convert a cultural tradition into a socio-political act. Lets not get caught up in these technical details.

I have often felt that there really is no such thing as an “American” culture and that Americans are diminished by that lack. Thanksgiving comes the closest to providing a cultural moment – with a tradition that has been celebrated in this land as long as (and longer than) there has been a “United States of America”. That is a wonderful thing to have when we have so little else culturally binding us.

Anyone in this county – anyone – can celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone else. (You don't have to be Anglo, Christian, or rich to give thanks. You don't have to like football and even vegetarians can participate.) Wow.

The beauty of the thought -- the real need that Thanksgiving fills, is in taking the time to be thankful: feeling deeply and truly our good fortune. Feeling it personally and feeling it as a nation. For no matter how bad things may seem we are most certainly among the wealthiest, most comfortable set of people to ever walk the earth.  Be aware of our great good fortune. And Happy Thanksgiving!

Stables of Talented Actors: Truly the Best Thing About British Television

I've been taken to task for claiming that British television is better than American (I'm not complaining; it was fun). Rather than press the point, I'll exercise a woman's prerogative to modify the subject and say that, whether or not on the whole, British tv is of better quality than ours, what is actually the very best thing about British productions -- is British actors.

Nobody gets to quarrel with me on this. There can simply be no question that British actors are better than American ones. And by "actors" of course I mean actors and actresses. And by "better" I don't just mean better at their craft, (I'm willing to concede that there are some very talented American actors too) but on the whole, all things considered, British actors are just . . . better.  They're more interesting, more pleasant. More worthy of admiration and respect as individuals and humans. I can watch them and not feel shallow and dirty.

I understand that there are plenty of British actors who become famous and enter the stratosphere of celebrity -- the machine that sullies us all with uber-celebrities bumbling around trying to sell us their politics, their beauty products, or their lifestyles, writing their autobiographies when they are in their 30s and talking self importantly while concurrently doing everything they can to mess up their personal lives.

But I'm not talking about them.

I'm thinking of the scores of working actors who turn in excellent performance upon excellent performance, who put in a starring turn and then willingly follow it with supporting roles. Who can be found in many projects over the years producing great trails of great viewing. For instance, by watching North and South, I tapped into Brendan Coyle who I then followed to Lark Rise and Downton Abbey. While there in North and South, I also recognized Anna Maxwell Martin whom I'd enjoyed in Bleak House and who I later followed to South Riding, where she shared space with Peter Firth of Spooks -- in which he appeared with Richard Armitage who starred in North and South with Coyle. And back at Lark Rise, I met Julia Sawalha from Pride and Prejudice and Claudie Blakely from, well, a different adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The possibilities are endless. It sort of makes me want to do a chart. . . uh oh, better watch out for that :)

. . . also reminds me of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which you can link any two Hollywood actors in six steps or less through the tool of Kevin Bacon. You could probably link most of these actors working in British dramas in about 1 step. My mental chart is getting very cluttered. . .

British television drama provides so many opportunities to enjoy performances by people who I can watch in countless different combinations of great dramas and in interviews speaking with humor, class and fun and making me proud rather than ashamed that I enjoyed them; people for whom I can truly wish success, though not too much success (lest they join the machine).

A King is a Queen is a Princess is a Prince

One of the problems (if you can call it that) with being American is that we really just don't "get" Royalty. Oh, I'm not denying that we enjoy what royalty (see, look at that, I don't even properly know whether to give it a capital "R") provides in the way of interesting drama and great castle-touring. Top notch stuff.

But it isn't deeply entrenched in our understanding of politics.

I read today that the succession rules for British monarchs have been modernized to a nice, egalitarian, "girls can play too" approach. That sounds awesome to me. The article I read on NPR online had a nice little piece about this, but once the piece launched into the "what if" section, playfully speculating on how this new rule would have affected world events, I glossed over.

I just can't keep this stuff straight. And I have a fairly decent working knowledge of British royalty and the chains of succession. That is, I brush up on it anyway prior to watching The Madness of King George, Young Victoria or The Tudors. But when I turn off the TV it evaporates, so when people talk about Queen Victoria's daughter and Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, I find that I can't keep it all straight.

Who did she marry again? And why were they German?

Its not that my American private school education was really that bad. I think chances are pretty good I was exposed to all of this both at high school and later at college, its just that these royal change events don't catch fire in my imagination. I don't have an intuitive grasp for when "we" switched from Tudors to Stuarts (or was it the other way 'round) or why.

Royalty to Americans is like the periodic table to non-Chemists. I am absolutely sure that it all makes sense and I'm even sure that it is potentially comprehensible and possibly useful. I'm just not sure it will ever come freely and naturally to me.

But good luck to all those future princesses. I know this will all be second nature to you.

Top Five Reasons Why Brtish TV is Better Than American TV

It is no secret that I enjoy British TV and find it much more satisfying than the fare offered in the U.S.. Which is not to say that I don't like any American programs at all, but my impression of it is the reverse of British TV. In short: with American TV it is the rare program that I like and with British it is the rare program that I don't. Why is it so much better over there? I'll tell you, with my Top Five Reasons Why British TV is Better Than American.

1. Women are Routinely Portrayed as Rich Multi-Dimensional Characters.

  British TV shows portray women in a much fuller deeper light than American shows do. Even in shows like Spooks where the women are all gorgeous . . . they're not objectified the way American women are, focusing heavily on their beauty and sex appeal. They aern't strutting around in flashy clothes and primping as if their "look" is what they are all about. They are real - dressed in reasonable clothes, with flaws showing, with figures that are not perfect, and with no problem in showing that. They get to be fully developed characters who are interesting, inspiring, powerful, and multi-faceted.

And almost cooler still, though flawed and imperfect, these women are treated and viewed by other characters on their shows as if they are beautiful and attractive! So refreshing and so unlike American screen characters where the less-than-perfect women are viewed by the other characters as "plain" or relegated to the role of "fat friend" or "funny sidekick". British women on TV get to be real AND beautiful. They get to be interesting, intelligent AND desired.

2. Grown-ups (and Retirees) are People Too.

Most Amercian shows cant manage to show mature people in a sympathetic interesting light without it feeling condescending. But in British TV, middle-aged+ characters get to have a full array of interests and feelings -- including romantic feelings that are not just based on lusting after their youth and what young people have. They're not just doddering old fools and points of humor - at least no more so than the younger ones are.

Astonishingly, this British approach to maturity holds for women as well as men. And it is amazing to see someone like Auntie Joan running her farm with a full and happy life, having friendships, personal struggles and even romance. And its all just done as a matter of course, not as a "touching story of the week" approach that we get in America so everyone can sigh and feel good about the old people before getting back to business as usual.

3. In Casting, Acting Talent Takes Precedence Over Beauty.

No intent to cast aspersions on the attractiveness of British actors, but rather to praise their talent.
The way the Brits rank talent above beauty when casting parts for TV and film seems more like what we do here with stage productions. On the stage, Americans' accept less than perfect people in title roles, because on stage you have to be able to sing and dance -- so talent wins out over anything else. But on screen, American casting directors seem to be searching for that balance of talent/looks that favors attractiveness and body above all else. In British shows, the balance seems to fall on the talent side.

The British actors are also good looking most of the time -- its just that "good looking" takes in a broader range of physical attributes than it does here and won't be sought above basic acting skill. Recently listening to commentary on a Spooks dvd, I was struck by one of the director's comments about Adam and Fiona: "that they just look so good." What he meant and went on to explain was that they were interesting, engaging to look at. Its a subtle difference from what looking "good" means here, but an important one. It means having something in the character or structure of the face that is interesting to look at. Obviously the two qualities often overlap (as in the case of Adam and Fiona who are both very pretty). But I liked the idea that looks were spoken of in a subtler deeper way than I'm used to hearing.

To look "good" in British TV, a face has to have the capacity to express ideas and emotions, to convey deep meaning and serve the story. ...not just to look pretty while reading ones' lines.

4. The Fact that Often Fewer Than 10 Episodes Comprise a "Series" (What we Call a "Season").

So much less of a committment. One of the reasons I stopped watching American shows was that it was just too much of a committment to find an hour a week for 20 or so weeks. I could just never do it. :)

With a much shorter run of shows in a season, there's so much more flexibility to try out different shows or to catch up with a show you've never seen before its current run starts.

And, I think a byproduct of making fewer episodes is that the episodes that are made can have more resources directed at each so the production dollar per episode is higher overall. ...though maybe not higher than in America where we have the deep pockets of the advertising dollar to throw at our inane TV shows.

5. A Self-Depreciating Self-Awareness and Subtlety.
 
The Brits seem to be so sweetly in tune with what makes them British. Although not an emotional people, they seem to be an introspective people. I like that.

They are not unemotional out of lack of understanding, but more or less by choice. Their shows are touching, if lacking in crying and ranting. There are plenty of moments with an emotional punch, but they are also intellectual moments. Although maybe not effusive, flailing around in anger or in hugs, these shows demonstrate fully human characters attentive to each other and the reality around them. Characters can be hurt but are more likely than not to suck it up and move on.

I am now realizing that this emotional subtlety may be at the core of why the acting coming out of Britain, seems so good. From a restrained people, the power of a lifted eyebrow or a tensing of the mouth can be amazing.

Steve Jobs: A Life Well Lived

As I sit and type this post, I do so on a Mac and with a heavy heart.  On a Mac, but not this one -->

This is my first computer ever. Bought in 1990 at the time I graduated from college. And if I remember right, I paid about $2,300 for it. The dot-matrix printer I got as an accompaniment, was another $700. (Funny that $3,000 is about what I paid for my last Mac + printer combo a couple of years ago.)

My Mac SE was a piece of genius engineering. Back when everyone else was doing things that looked like this:

C:\>

my computer looked and behaved, well . . . pretty much just like the one I am sitting at now.  If you transported 1990-Amy to the present and sat her down in front of this laptop (or pretty much any computer in any home) she might be surprised and impressed by it, but she would definitely be able to work it -- to open up Word and type up this post, to load programs, move or trash files, play games, design some art, set a screen saver and maybe even get on the internet. Because she did all those things in 1990 on her  amazingly innovative Mac. You can't say that for the C-prompt-set.

Oddly enough, I remember that that old SE even came loaded with a program they kept trying to excite everyone on, called "Buttons" or something like it. Made absolutely no sense to me; it had to do with strange mumbo jumbo called hyper-links with these crazy clickable buttons . . .

Anyway, there were a lot of remarkable things about that little rectangle. For starters it came with a 40 megabite hard drive. You heard me right. That's 40 big ones. Twice as big as the MacPlus. (1990-Amy might be surprised to learn that her entire computer could only store about 4 photos today). It also came with a 3.5" disc drive. (We Mac people didn't actually like calling them "floppy" disks, because we had the cool hard plastic little discs, not those clunky old-fashioned flexible ones.)  Other remarkable features about my Mac were its serial ports and its phone jack which could be used to link computers to one another and make a daisy chain network, or even get online and send e-mail, or do things with those silly Buttons, if you could figure them out.

I don't know much about Jobs as a man - what kind of person he was, whether he had children, or a happy childhood; whether he went hiking or went to church. All I really need to know resides in this little box in front of me and the one pictured above. Jobs' vision for how computers interface with humans now completely dominates how we live. I will think of him when I write my blog, when I do my work, when I organize my photos, when I listen to music, when I make a phone call.

He was far too young to die, but in his short time, made a massive impression on me and the world. A far-seeing, far-reaching kind of genius that has left an indelible mark on how we live today.

Shame and Regret, Satisfaction and Relief

The post is about blogging. The title doesn't really have to make sense.

These are simply two phrases which popped into my mind simultaneously last week. They are nice word pairings, and somehow, by the end of this post, they will have something to do with the topic. I'll figure it out. You go ahead and read.

"Satisfaction and relief" comes from a scene in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth Bennett is chatting with her then-boyfriend, Mr. Wickham, and explaining that Mr. Collins is now going to marry Charlotte Lucas. Wickham says he thought that Collins' affections were inclined elsewhere (i.e. toward Lizzy herself). She tells him that "they took a turn, to everyone's satisfaction." ... "And relief" he adds with a fair amount of self-awareness. Trigger momentary stomach flips; the other suitor is seeking romance elsewhere. Woo hoo! . . .  The "shame/regret" pair comes from a similar stomach-flips moment. In Spooks our resident almost-couple Harry and Ruth have a lovely moment on a bus. Harry has been (temporarily, it turns out) removed from his job as head of the spies. Ruth is riding home from work. He sits down and she wonders how he knew she'd be there. He explains that one night while being driven home he passed her waiting for the bus in the rain. He says that "to his shame. . . and now regret . . . he drove past." Its a sexy moment. His eyes are opening to Ruth and he can imagine that night ending much differently. . .

Meanwhile back at the blog, last week I hit a milestone I'm excited about: 2000 pageviews. And since I don't track my own activity and I don't have a grandma in Iowa happily clicking away, I know that's a fairly real stat that feels great. In fact I had a great month in many bloggy ways -- a lot more consistently good traffic with fair numbers of people finding me by searching on topics I write about. Which means I have already realized the main goal I set for myself when I began writing this a couple of months ago: to be searchable enough that interested readers might conceivably find me.

Yes its a modest goal, and I'm aware that there's probably a much greater likelihood that a person seeking a discussion of "He Knew He Was Right" won't come across my post than that they will. But they might. And that's cool. I guess thats the satisfaction part of this post. And maybe the relief too. Like Wickham, its nice to know that this little experiment hasn't been a waste of time.

Yes it feels odd to put thoughts out there and ask people to read them, which they obligingly have :) and simultaneously wondering "what is my job here?"...like Harry, adrift on a bus. What do I have to add to the world's knowledge that makes me arrogant enough to blab about it?

I've been thinking about that question a lot, given that others have far more in-depth and intricate knowledge, and it makes me feel weak and ineffective chatting about my TV preferences when I'm a self-described dilettante with no particular knowledge of directors, behind the scenes, locations, or the recent gossip, or any other thing that can electrify my topics with heretofore untold meaning. I think this is the shame part of the post.

I realize my strength though, is in finding relationships, connections and viewpoints -- sometimes out of nothing, like I'm doing with this post here (lol). Connecting life to TV, thoughts to one another, finding shows that are similar or performances that are not -- is something I can do and add to the blogosphere. And, along these lines, can conclude that while blogging has brought satisfaction, relief and shame, I have no place for regret either in this post or in life. As long as I can live each day in an exploration of ideas that are stimulating and in pursuing actions I am proud to own, then there is no place for that.

Sorry Harry you're on your own there. (If I had been in the driver's seat that rainy night you would have definitely stopped for the girl, and probably gotten invited in for a nightcap.)

Overlaps, Eyelines: Thoughts on the Behind the Scenes Production Teams

Watching the episode commentary from a Spooks dvd makes me feel guilty. Maybe I should first explain that having gone to Catholic school as a youth, it doesn't take much to push me into that realm. But, truly, I am just so impressed with what goes on in the background when you hear the commentators -- in this case, the directors, producers, writers -- speaking about their part in making an amazing television series.

What they do is incredibly technical, detailed and valuable and yet here's what I, as a typical viewer, notice first and most about any of the programs that I watch:

1. The actors and acting
2. The writing -- in terms of basic plot and storyline
3. The locations, costumes and cinematography
4. Everything else.

When you listen to people who are at the top of their game and clearly know all the ins and outs of their trade talking about the production of the show, it is staggering how much work goes into basically allowing random people like me to give all credit to the actors and stoylines. Thankless job.

The various production people who I can't take the time to know by either position or name, are talking of the camera set up, tracks, and dolly, of the extras in the foreground or background, where the focus is, the nature of the sound (meaning the sound quality of the actors and the background sounds), not to even to mention the actual musical score that I often fail to notice at all. Its the kind of work (sort of like parenting) that when you do it right, no one is likely to notice it all. Only when things seem catastrophically off, do you get attention.

So there are people fundamentally focused on whether, for instance, in a scene where the team is interrogating someone and a train is going by outside, you should hear the sounds of the train. Or whether, when two actors are speaking, there should be two cameras shooting them separately or whether their voices should be "overlapping". Or whether extras should be visible as distinct shapes or as blurs in the background. Or whether, when the spies sit around the meeting table they have or should have something called "eyelines". (or was it "sightlines"?) And all of these, and thousands of other, very real decisions designed to merely blur into the background unnoticed while the actors get praised.

So here I am gushing about the spy teams and the actors and plots, and throughout, I have no real idea what goes on behind the scenes. But the good part is that I don't really need to know.

If my child grows up a good strong caring man who helps his family and works in his community, no one needs to know whether I properly curtailed too much screen time, encouraged him to take chances on his bike, or made him healthy snacks when he was 4.  I guess the reward is intrinsic on that one too.

I'm Feeling Very American This Week

I realize that the notion of American-identity may be as varied as Americans are, but my idea of what it means to be "American" is:

Being just a bit childlike. Blundering out in the world with confidence and certainty, though beneath it all just wanting to weakly hand over the gun when the guy in charge walks in.

It means feeling still a bit like an outsider who doesn't quite know how larger world traditions really feel deep inside a culture's soul.

It means feeling incredibly talented and powerful -- able to do great and amazing things if people would please just stop questioning my motives.

It means crying when I hear the national anthem.
   . . .  and being embarrassed that my education glossed over the War of 1812 to the point that I had no idea what this song was about until I was a grown woman.

It means owning what I do. Even if everyone is staring at me.

I means knowing with gratitude that, though I may not like everything about my country (including its television, pop culture and fast food), my powerful sense of self and my endless personal freedoms are a gift.

It means I listen to Lyle Lovett and Michelle Shocked and through their music realize that I really can abide Texas quite well.

It means I can reach out my hands and spin and spin as far as my arms will reach and I will touch nothing under the great blazing sky. And if the great blazing sky above me ever starts to feel like it's not quite enough, I can move to Montana.

Or Alaska.

It means I recall how 20 years ago I moved to the desert and heard Nirvana for the first time. And though others revolutionized music before them and others will do so again, at that time and in that moment we were all American youth.

And it means I now recall a date ten years ago when I was woken up in a terror that has truly not since vanished.

Country is like your family. You may seek out lovers or friends who will like you for who you are, but your family is yours regardless of who you are. And they don't have to like you. (Though mine do thank God). I may go knocking at other doors and ask for admittance or indulgence or even acceptance, but I never have to ask America for that.

Conflict Conflict Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

"Always Remember to be Dexterous and Deft and Never Mix Up Your Right Foot With Your Left."

As the brilliant one reminds us (and, yes, I do mean Dr. Seuss) life is a great balancing act. And it is also a great learning curve -- no prize for getting to the end of that curve the soonest.

A week of conflict -- most of which I can trace to interacting with other humans [insert a dry pause] -- has left me exhausted.  I've been thinking that, as difficult as interaction with other humans can sometimes be, it is made so much more so by living in the year 2011 -- using a computer, your fingers, and sometimes your voice to communicate, but rarely all at once, it is easy to have misunderstandings.

This week, my fingers alone got me into conflict with several unrelated groups of people. And my fingers, face and voice (in different proportions) got me into stress with a job"audition."

And while the stressors keep coming, the relief does not. My favorite "get out of your head" solution (watching my reruns of Spooks) is failing me tonight because I recently passed that pivotal moment - Season 5, Episode 5. For some, "nuff said." For others, mild Spooks (MI-5) spoilers follow. The most sadly- and longingly-anticipated of episodes -- the one where Ruth tells me goodbye for a while but gives me the present of kissing Harry first, is past and now I don't have Ruth to take my mind off things.  So many episodes yawning before me before I can get to the consolation prize of Lucas North in Season 7. Kidding. He's a pretty great prize. But dealing with conflict is stressful when you don't have good tv to look forward to at night.

Add 110 degree heat, and its a formula for a headache.

It was literally hot enough to melt a candle on my front porch table this week. This sight of liquefied wax splayed over that surface was more than a little shocking to my sense of propriety. Did the sun not get the memo that it is in fact September now(?!) -- the month of school supply shopping, leaves turning color, and crisp fall weather that requires the wearing of sweaters?

No. The heat is insane and if I could I would even get in the little pop-up pool for a swim, but it, too, is having problems and has purged itself of water for unknown reasons. It is suffering from holes I can't see.

Those same kinds of holes, the ones you can't see, are at the root of many issues. I'm learning that plunging ahead as if the pool is intact, you can waste a lot of water.

But things may be looking up.  The interview that I screwed up has given me a call back and others are trying to make nice. Meanwhile its cooler tonight. Just 92 right now. Maybe "cool" is the wrong word, but at least candles wont melt in it.  And I'm mending the holes in the pool. I find I have to get down on my hands and knees and feel around for them. But most are getting patched.

. . . . hmmm. . .  Maybe a nice little metaphoric reminder that it is OK to be humbled in order to come back stronger and reach higher highs?

Or maybe its just because I am left-handed that I'm having a hard time following Dr. Seuss' advice to be dexterous. ;)

What Do Clean Floors, Spooks and Life Have in Common

I had two big accomplishments today. The first being the semi-annual cleaning of my adobe floors. Why so often?, you might be thinking... But it's very important to clean one's floors. Because mine are made of baked mud, which cannot help but dissolve a bit on scrubbing and because cleaning anything with a solution of muddy water does not generally get it clean looking, I guess my idea of often might vary from yours.  But today I did clean them which led to lots of wonderful things.

First of all, vacuuming is a really good thing to do. You get a chance to find all the spiders and you get the benefits of a totally encompassing job. It uses both arms, legs, your back and even demands your ears and eyes. You can really do nothing else but think while you're vacuuming. I have noticed that the best thinking comes when the ability to multitask is taken away and you are stuck with a fairly mindless but body-consuming task. And I had a lot to think about, owing to my second big accomplishment of the day.

I finally finished watching all 80 episodes of Spooks!

Maybe that sounds like a silly achievement. But for someone who writes about this series a lot, it is a very nice advantage to have actually watched all of it.  In addition to not having seen all the episodes before today, part of my problem has been seeing the ones I have seen out of proper order. [I started with seasons 7 & 8, and then, because 9 was not out yet, started over with 1 through 5. However, before I got to season 6,  9 came out on dvd and I watched it. What a mess.] So I am just now ironing out the flow of how this series has actually unfolded all along. And for some reason this all reminds me of life ... and floors. Just wait, it will all come together.

One of the best parts of season 6 was to see the introduction of Ben as a spooks team member.  I already knew Ben. He was one of my favorites from the first season I ever watched. And I know what happens to him. It is funny now, watching his scenes with Connie, I think: "did either of these actors have any idea what was coming up for their characters?" I doubt it. That's part of the "real" appeal of the show -- they keep the actors on a need to know basis.

Just like vacuuming. and life.

Now that I know what has happened before and what comes after, I can watch an earlier show with all the context and retrospect that add poignancy, but without the stress of uncertainty. Now I know where all the bad things are. Examining the past, while knowing what's coming and with some emotional distance, a viewer can focus on lots of little details missed the first time being too nervous.

Like when I look at old pictures or memorabilia. The smiling people in those photos have no idea what is coming. But I do. You may not get a chance to re-live your life a second time, but you do get to review it any time you want, usually with clarity and less emotion once you've identified where all the major things happen. It's like pausing time, getting off the racetrack of stressful events playing out on a daily basis, and seeing the whole course and details that emerge in those snippets, receipts, photos, trip diaries and letters, more clearly.

With life, you can use your review of the past to think about what is important and help inform where you want to go. With TV shows, you obviously don't get any say on what happens in future episodes based on your review of the past or there are certainly things I would insist happen in season 10! But you do get a benefit of a clearer and more complete view, when your eyes aren't clouded with stress.

And today I cleaned my floors with introspection. Eliminating debris that muddied my vision. I flooded the floor with soapy water and then took the time to really remove that slurry. Pausing from all the things that keep us mired and taking that second look allows you to see the beauty of the substrate and feel fresh and renewed.

Stock Market Crash, Nostalgia, Death. Who Knows Who is Right?

The Key to Finding Solace is to Get Perspective.

Heartbroken over the death of a dear cousin who has been battling cancer, there is no antidote in TV to death in its ravages. Today there is bad news everywhere, with the stock market crashing around us making it harder to imagine how ends can keep meeting -- how the status quo can keep static. As if that weren't enough, summer seems to be ending at once -- final games having happened for the two excellent sports teams my kids were on, the coach of one of which will be dearly missed.

With a mind in a state of unrest, I lie in bed with no interest in spies tonight.  Browsing through Netflix, "He Knew He Was Right" pops out at me. I have no idea about this one, having not read the book nor heard anything about the production, but I surely like the idea of someone who has certainty about something. I wonder what "he" knew? And whether he was, in fact, right? Or if this is going to be some sort of irony....

The British actor Grranimals starts to pop. [Thanks to Anneagain for my favorite analogy ever]. Frank Churchill from one "Emma" adaptation alongside Mrs. Elton from another, Bill Nighy from "I Capture the Castle" and Aunt Norris from "Mansfield Park"... all mixed together in a new arrangement and ready to play for my entertainment with great talent and acumen.

Simultaneously watching the show and looking at Facebook, I notice a couple of massive phenomena -- as people from my hometown have gone absolutely ravenous over the new "You Might Just be From La Crosse if" page. There are hundreds of posts and thousands of comments over the last couple of days. Everyone getting collectively nostalgic. Another friend has been posting pictures of our region, and high school friends are coming out of the woodwork to comment on them. We all seem to be looking for something stable and memorable in the mess that surrounds us.

And there is no greater mess than the stock market. Still distracted and with great trepidation, I pull away from the show and from Facebook and take a look at the stock graphs. The most horrible one is the 3 month graph... it looks stable(ish) for most of the graph, then plummets dramatically. But, if you change your perspective to the 2-year graph, it is not nearly so scary. We are so far beyond where we were two years ago. Why does the press never want to report statistics of moderation? Optimistic signs are always there as well as those of doom. There is no "reality"; its just how you look at things.

Meanwhile back on He Knew He Was Right, the problems with the economy are (in a way) mirrored on the screen. They are problems of perspective. In this story, our main couple, the Trevelyans, are clashing. Louis is mortified, embarrassed and angry that his wife keeps hanging around with Bill Nighy (Colonel Osborne) who is a much older man with a very bad reputation. Loius is convinced of Osborne's bad intentions or at least the appearance of impropriety. But Emily simply sees Osborne as her father's friend. She is righteous and sees no reason why she should pay attention to busybodies when she knows she is doing nothing wrong. Both are certain they are right. But both are trapped in their own point of view.

I'll have to keep watching to find out if either can transcend this issue. Or if this issue even stays important; maybe it will take a backseat to other plot points yet to unfold. I know that we'll all figure it out by the end of the movie, but right now we're suspended in time. We all, whether actor on the screen or Actor in our Life, operate inside the tiny slice of time we have in front of us.

Neither those enmeshed in a big argument nor those distressed by the economy during a time uncertainty can climb on top of the situation and view it with distance and clarity. There is often no solace when you are deep in the middle of something powerful. To get solace you have to get perspective. An elusive thing.

The best best granter of perspective is, of course, time. How appropriate, then, that my high school friend posting the pictures that are catalyzing my former classmates, speaks of geology -- focusing our attention on Ordovician and Cambrian outcroppings of sandstone. The symbolism is easy to miss, but when you think of time on that scale it is harder to worry about your son finding another coach of the caliber of the one you are losing.

For the bigger issues -- like the stability of a marriage (The Trevelyans') or the death of a young man -- more than one glimpse at the geologic time scale might be needed to cure the pain. But, lucky for the Trevelyans, they are in a play and I'll be able to let you know soon how things turn out for them. However for the larger play we are all living in, it may take longer to approach the death of my cousin with clarity and distance; but we'll work toward that as well.


... Still. I understand there have been lion cubs born at the zoo. Certainly that can offset a bit of the market crash?

The Birth of a Blogger: Why Do 12 Million American Adults Write Them? For that Matter, Why Do I?

In order to begin this post I was interested in finding out how many people in America have blogs. I wanted to "find myself" in this class of people and try to discover more about us. So I started, as most of us would, with a Google search. When I typed in the query, how many people in America have blogs, I got nothing relevant. What came up was blogs... about how many people in America have:... diabetes, passports, or dental care. Obviously I had cast too disjointed a net. But when I typed the query with quotes around it, I got literally nothing. Even removing the "America" qualifier or typing it more vaguely as Americans with blogs, didn't help

I was expecting this to be a hot topic given the explosion of this form of writing. I expected commentary on who these people are, and what they want! While it is parroted again and again that there are an enormous amount of web diaries -- apparently there are so many that nobody wants to try to count them. Maybe 10 million? Maybe 100 million? Who knows? We all agree there are a lot and its an interesting thing to think about, but that's not exactly the same thing as examining how many people are writing them and what is motivating them to do it. And whether they are finding it satisfactory.

According to fairly recent census data, there are well over 300 million Americans and at least 200 million between the ages of 15 and 74. How many of those folks sit down and write web log entries on some sort of regular basis? Surely someone has done a survey, I thought. ... And then I thought of the Pew Research Center. Thank heavens for Pew! According to a research report written by by Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox (dated July 19, 2006),  8% of internet users maintained a blog. This study found that about 68% of adults were internet users. It can be found here: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/Bloggers/01-Summary-of-Findings.aspx.

This boils down to about 12 million American adults (in 2006) who kept a blog. And about 57 million American adults, of which you are one ;) who read them.

Most of these 12 million people (37%) wrote primarily about their "life and experiences." The next most common reason was "politics and government" -- a distant second at 11%. What I write about, entertainment, was the third most common topic, with only 7%. [Still, if I have done the math right, I count 840,000 American adults writing web journals about entertainment.] The other topics mentioned were sports, general news/current events, business, technology, religion/spirituality, their hobbies, a health issue or illness, and a few other things.

Pew, ever thorough, also asked why people were writing. To express themselves creatively and share personal experiences were the highest rated purposes, with about 50% of bloggers indicating these were major reasons. Staying in touch with family was also a big one, with about 37% of people citing it as a major reason. Sharing knowledge, motivating, entertaining, or influencing people were other major factors, cited by about 30% of these folks.

OK, so this is all wonderful research, but it is still not getting at exactly what I want to know, which is the deeper, underlying, perhaps more philosophical question: why, do people feel the need to express themselves creatively on the internet? And what did these people do before this mode of expression existed?

For that great majority of bloggers who write to share their own life & experiences, I wonder if it is helping people re-connect or just plain connect, given our disjointed modern life. Is this similar to our use of Facebook -- seeking a community somewhere in the midst of our separate little life-bubbles?

And for those who blog about politics, what for them? Is there just more need to express political opinion than can possibly be contained in any one relationship or on any one Facebook page? In this way, maybe political web logs are doing us all a great favor by giving outlet to that need, so that it doesn't have to boil over at the dinner table?

For me, doing this fills a need that simply went unmet before I began blogging. I love to write; I have a lot of thoughts and opinions but, now that I'm not in college anymore, very little opportunity to share them. Most of the writing I've done in the last 10 to 15 years has been legal writing. I enjoy that as well, but not in the same way as writing this.

I suppose the counterpart to what I do and what someone with similar interests might have done in the pre-blog era, would be to write a newspaper opinion column or be a movie critic. But the thing is, I'm more of  dilettante, so having to actually fact-check, do "real" research, keep from breaking any laws and adhere to professional standards seems far too troublesome. I feel the need to express! because I think rather deeply about things, but not so deep as actual writers and movie critics. So, my need went unmet -- as I suppose many people's needs for expression do.

If you think about blogs in terms of what they are doing for the blogger, not what they are doing to society (you often hear about clutter and overload), I think this use of the internet is a beautiful one.

Oh What A Tangled World Wide Web We Weave

Now that I've been doing this for a couple of months, and am starting to get more comfortable with the front end of blogging -- how to write down my thoughts, add photos and videos to make it pretty, link to some interesting sites to make it informative, and then put it all out there into the world -- I am beginning to explore the backside of the internet as well.

I use that term quite intentionally because if there ever was an entity that felt like a great big enormous, stinky, . . .  well, backside,  it is the world wide web.

Before you get the wrong idea, I am impressed with what the web can do and the way it links people. It means I can write my thoughts and someone in, say, Croatia, might conceivably read them. I can post something on some obscure version of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (which I plan to do later this week (stay tuned)), and anyone else who is interested in it can conceivably find my review, read it and tell me I'm an idiot. Others who didn't know that version existed might see my webpage and then go watch that program. It is a beautiful thing!

The down side to all this is that because the internet has become so insanely user friendly, it is being taken over by . . . users. Some of whom are simultaneously proficient in HTML programming, world business dynamics, social and behavioral science and media law. The other 99% of us are not. Yet we are out there everyday stumbling through this by the seat of our pants and hoping we're getting it right.

After writing about the latest Harry Potter movie, I saw my number of hits explode and that has caused me to think more about my traffic. I wonder how, exactly, out there in the crazy milieu that is webcrawling, folks get led to my blog.

One way is I think they are seeing the pretty pictures I am using to illustrate my entries, and somehow through a combination of search terms and kismet are coming here. I have posted pictures that I've found online through Google, easily accessible and easily linked to. The same user-friendly tool that allows me to link to other websites and Youtube videos also makes it easy for me to link to a photo someone else has posted.

Here's the backside quagmire. At what point am I taking someone else's picture? I have literally no idea. Now if I were to copy and paste an image, represent an image as my own and attempt to make money off of it, I can see someone making a good case that I'd taken it. And if it was copyrighted that would be a no no. But, if I said: "oh, I found a great picture you should look at," and then inserted a link that would take you to the picture, I can't see that ever being a problem. Even if the photo was copyrighted. No more than if I told someone to go to the museum and see the great Calder exhibit, then gave them a map.

So, with the these extremes out of the way, the hard question, as always, lies in the middle. What happens when you open a public non proprietary link, find a photo and use Blogger templates to help you link it into your online journal. Is that "taking" it?

The answer (which is "I don't know but I don't think so??") is embedded in the kind of technology that most of us have no conceptualization for. Does it matter if I disclaim ownership? Does it matter whether the picture or just the link shows up on my site? Does it matter how search engines view that picture? Or if someone can find the rightful "owner" by clicking on it? Does it matter that "everybody does it?" Does anyone who attempts to provide guidance on this issue speak any words I can recognize as English? haha.

I noticed this morning when I got online that Firefox was inviting me to dress up my browser with an image from Harry Potter. If my browser is inviting me to display proprietary images, it is no wonder indeed that lines are blurred.

It reminds me of murky issues I have with music -- for instance, if I own a CD, I think I own the rights to listen to the music in any way I want, including making an electronic copy of it to put on my iPod. But if I check out the CD from the library, I'm not so sure I legally can. What if I, and 5 of my friends, chipped in to buy the CD; can we put it on all 6 of our iPods? If the answer is "yes," does the fact that my tax dollars went in (along with a few hundred thousand friends') to buying the library's copy?

You don't need to answer that. 

Back to the backside. Legislating the proper use of images on the internet seems to me like outlawing the ingredients for making nuclear bombs but then living in a world where it is difficult to walk down the street without encountering all of the ingredients for nuclear bombs and where most people's homes are filled with at least some of those ingredients.

With this in mind, I've developed a new standard for my behavior. I want to be at least as scrupulous as most other reasonable bloggers in how I treat possibly copyrighted photos. How's that for a good legal measuring stick? I am going to try to do what I think is right and hope in the end it is. And I promise not to make any nuclear bombs.

Traveling Through the Midwest on a Laura Ingalls Wilder Journey! Something Distinctly Non-British

I've been doing something distinctly non-British in the last couple of weeks: a road trip through America's heartland. Taking in 14 states and tourist destinations that primarily involved pioneering Americans, especially Laura Ingalls Wilder, another idol of mine, we drove over 4500 miles.

Just as Harry Potter books aren't only for kids, Laura's books are more fascinating to me now as an adult, then they were when I was young. And I loved them then. Her books explore American history from the point of view of someone who experienced firsthand many of phases of westward expansion (pioneering, homesteading, relocation of Indian tribes, the building of the railroad) and lived it in a number of different landscapes throughout the Midwest.

Her writing has helped me understand history better and brought it vividly to life. Her story is peopled with incredible events and individuals like Pa, who enlivened their simple poor existence with drive, intelligence, music, and a wandering foot. He is utterly devoted to his wife and girls and carves out for them one of the coolest forms of existence I can imagine. He can single-handedly build a log cabin and also plays the fiddle. Ma has little choice but to follow him, though she would clearly rather have lived a civilized life. She loves him and respects him. She lives her life with great dignity and insists that the girls are brought up with refinements and decorum she sees as necessary. Thus, they are shockingly literate for a set of pioneering children, reciting lengthy passages from literature, performing mental arithmetic, spending long nights memorizing history. I also happen to think she’s beautiful and looks a bit like Vivian Leigh. But that’s neither here nor there. I find her fascinating.

Our first Laura site on the road trip was De Smet, where she and her family were the first white settlers to stay. Some of her most interesting stories take place as she watches the town of De Smet spring into being around her, beginning with her family witnessing the construction of the railroad while living amid the workers in the railroad camp. She paints vivid pictures of life in that town that bear little resemblance to the TV show loosely based on her books.

She describes how Pa had to literally fistfight his way into getting a claim on the 160 acre parcel he wanted, how during the town’s first winter -- the harshest, longest winter imaginable, when the train line was still just a year old -- De Smet sat without provisions and nearly starved, how she later went to work as a seamstress and then a teacher in the area, and how she met and married a young farmer named Almanzo Wilder.

As it happens, the places that Laura lived are sprinkled around the Midwest in a way that makes it fairly easy to get to most of them while taking in our own relatives, so we threw caution to the winds and took in them all.

Next on the itinerary was Walnut Grove, MN, where we stopped On the Banks of Plum Creek. The chief attraction of this place was her home site where at one time she and her family lived in an earthen dugout. The dugout had long ago collapsed, but the site where it had sat was marked and the creek, in which Laura had learned for the first time about leeches, still flows muddily through the farmland.

Plum Creek is where her family was living when a massive grasshopper plague descended over much of Minnesota. I learned recently, that the state had instituted an early form of welfare assistance -- exchanging foodstuffs for bags of grasshoppers to help the farmers who were devastated by that event.  Pa himself may have taken advantage of that assistance, but also walked hundreds of miles east to labor on farms in Wisconsin in order to send money home and support the family.

Pepin Wisconsin, across the state of Minnesota, just on the east bank of the Mississippi, is a small town and the site of Little House in the Big Woods.  A reconstructed cabin sits on a pretty little wayside spot from which it is nearly impossible to imagine the deep big woods that would have existed when Laura was very little. Here is the spot where her engaging series of stories begins and I am surprised to see that we are by no means the only ones coming by on a random Sunday evening to check out the spot where Laura was born. 

All of the Little sites are heavily visited by tourists and it astonishes me to think of it. While at Plum Creek I wondered what Laura herself would have thought of this crazy spectacle of people (there were tons of folks at both Plum Creek and De Smet) making pilgrimages to the sites she had lived. I think of it as a testament to the everyday life of the little people, for Laura is famous, and near the hearts of so many, for having done nothing more than live her life . . . then write about it.

It is amazing when you stop to think of it. Her books are special for such things as the stories Pa told and the fiddle music he played, for describing how Ma made butter and how Laura and her sister walked to town and bought a slate. Its not that her family was extraordinary (though in key ways I think they were a cut above the rest), but that they were simply living their life. She is special and amazing because she was able to effectively record and share a life that was typical.

We proceeded onward, with a stop in Burr Oak, Iowa, pronounced “baroque” by those in the know. Though it is considered a ‘second tier’ site, not being written about in the books at all, we stopped because it was easy to take in on our way to visit relatives. Burr Oak is interesting in that it represents a chapter in her life that Laura did not write about. Her family lived there for a short time under unpleasant circumstances when life on the farm in Plum Creek became untenable due to grasshoppers and also a sad time due to the death of their baby boy (Laura’s little brother) who is never mentioned in the books.  The town was really sweet and our tour guide very accommodating of our desire to have just a quick tour of the hotel where Laura and her family lived and worked.  But then, I have observed that people in Iowa do tend to be excessively kind and accommodating. Once again, it was crazy crowded there and a nice place to stop.

Just a bit further up the road is Vinton Iowa where Mary went to a college for the blind. I think Mary is an incredible character in this series. She starts off as a pretty, slightly vain, prissy girl who is very smart and accomplished and has the world in front of her. Laura is clearly jealous and almost defined by that jealousy at times. Laura is spunky, sometimes devious, very strong, and usually loving, but her relationship with Mary seems to bring out the worst in her.   After a bout of illness, Mary becomes blind at the age of 14. This is a defining moment and it changes Laura’s life as well as Mary's. I would argue that it is Mary’s blindness that has given the gift of Laura’s writing to the world, because it is Mary’s blindness that caused Laura to “see out loud” for her. I think the observational skills Laura developed and honed for Mary’s sake are what caused her to later recall and tell details with such sweetness and precision things that might have otherwise been lost forever. In a way Mary gave her vision so that Laura could see for the world.

Although Mary’s options were severely hampered by the times in which she lived, Ma and Pa weren’t willing to just let her sit at home and live a limited life. They wanted the most that was possible for her. When you think of a poor family barely eking out subsistence, but still saving and striving for Mary to get an education . . . sending her off to Iowa in order to improve her life, it is staggering. The school there is impressive, it must have been comforting to Ma and Pa to drive there with Mary and see the quality of the school they were placing their beloved daughter in.

The next spot was Rocky Ridge farm in Mansfield MO. Its chief attractions are the homes, where Laura lived most of her adult life with Almanzo and wrote all of her books, and the museum, which houses the very fiddle that Pa played and that figures so prominently in the books and the few artifacts that remain from Laura’s childhood.

Almanzo built their house slowly over time, adding on additions to meet Laura's height (small) and to accommodate her designing skills (in part). They loved it there. 

I enjoyed the story of how Rose Wilder Lane, Laura and Almanzo's grown daughter who had become a successful author and wanted to make her parents more comfortable, had an "English cottage" style house built for them at the farm. She ordered this house from a catalog and then helped them move in to comparative luxury while she stayed at the farm house.  Several years later, Rose moved away from the farm to live on the east coast and immediately Laura and Almanzo moved back into their house.

An easy 4-hour drive later, we pulled into the site of the Little House on the Prairie. A recreation of the tiny log cabin Pa built in what was actually Indian country at that time sits on this site. Out of all the sites we visited, it is this one where you can most readily picture yourself in the past. The country is still wide open prairie farm land. There is a beautiful peace to the air that makes it easy to see why Pa had finally thought he’d found heaven on earth where he could stay forever. You can see the well that Pa had dug by hand.

But the Ingalls family did not get to stay there; they were kicked off of it by the U.S. government in one of few acts that seemed to have been done in protection of Indian rights, although of short duration, as the Ingallses probably could have settled it if they'd waited another year.

This is the only of the sites that we saw without other visitors around . . . and that might have been due to a fierce storm brewing outside.  We were glad to see it quickly and then head on our way home.

A Laura pilgrimage is an excellent way to get glimpses into American history and it gives you extended driving periods in the car in which to listen to all of Laura's books on CD. The audio series is read extremely well by Cherry Jones. She reads them so beautifully, I'd be surprised if even the hardest heart wouldn't relax and start to listen. 

"Traveling Through the Midwest on a Laura Ingalls Wilder Journey!  Something Distinctly Non-British" LostinBritishTV

The World Does Care, Really Care, About Kate Middleton. I'm Not Sure it Matters Why.

My awesome friend and fellow British drama affectionado Dahlia sent me this link today, about the discovery that Kate Middleton is distantly related to Jane Austen.


 The People magazine online article reads:

"The famed romance author (1775-1817) and the newly-minted royal, 29, have family ties, according to findings from Ancestry.com. The ladies are eleventh cousins, six times removed, according to the site, and they are linked through Henry Percy, the second Earl of Northumberland, who was born in 1392.

"'Finding this connection between the Duchess of Cambridge and Jane Austen is very exciting since, in many ways, Catherine is the modern Jane Austen heroine: a middle-class girl marrying the future King of England,'" says lead historian Anastasia Harman.

"'Jane Austen may have written about happily-ever-after, but it seems Catherine has found a nonfiction hero to spend her life with – far past the epilogue.'" http://www.people.com/ 


To underscore the royal buzz, later, while sitting in the barber shop waiting for my son to get his haircut I perused a magazine feature about the royal wedding. It stated that about 2 billion people - 1/3 of the world's population - watched the wedding.  I don't know if that figure counts people like me who shortly after the wedding, checked out some press highlights of it... But still, two billion people?! Apparently I need to stop justifying why the heck I find the Brits so interesting. Clearly an insane number of people on this planet do.

The interesting thing about the article in the barbershop was that it was in a Christian magazine and it was explaining why the Royal wedding mattered so much with a Biblical analysis. The Biblical analysis quickly became far too esoteric for me, but the thing I took away from this is that the British people and their institutions command tremendous interest and respect worldwide.

Whether we justify if with Jane Austen and happy ever afters or with the Bible itself, people do care about what Kate is up to.

The World Does Care, Really Care, About Kate Middleton. I'm Not Sure it Matters Why. LostinBritishTV

The English Way

I am clearly not English and try not to pretend to be. However, as I think I am making fairly clear, I love the English approach to drama - and maybe the English approach to life. In typical fashion, I like to think about why.

Brace yourself, what is coming next is going to sound a little bit more like scholarship and less like TV, but its still kinda cool. (It was either this or "Rate the Emmas." But look for that topic coming soon.)

Recently reading the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, I was struck by his chapter on "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes." In it, Gladwell draws upon the work of a Dutch psychologist, Geert Hofstede, to support the idea that culture may play a role in plane crashes. Specifically, Gladwell asserts that how certain cultures tolerate ambiguity or deal with hierarchy can explain how pilots from that culture behave in the cockpit, which can in turn explain the frequency of crashes. Its interesting stuff and can be found in his book on pages 202-08.

What does that have to do with British drama? Absolutely nothing. I mention it only because it's the inspiration for what I've been thinking about. Though sparked by Gladwell, my interest in the Hofstede dimensions is a bit broader than plane crashes and involves the idea that maybe combinations of Hofstede traits could almost spell out a kind of cultural personality trait -- a way of understanding both what culture I am from and what cultures I am drawn to. If you want to look at his work in depth, check out his website here:  Geert Hofstede Dimensions

Hofstede's extensive work on this topic, involves assessing various countries on four main dimensions that he calls "power distance," "individualism," "masculinity,"  and "uncertainty avoidance." He has added a couple other factors to his work, that I plan to ignore. For about 70 different countries, he assigns numeric values for these factors that basically represent whether a country/culture is high in that trait or not. I hope that makes sense because I really do not want to get in to exactly what these scale values mean. Suffice it to say a high number for a given factor means that that culture has a lot of the factor he is measuring. (Come on, this is a blog about tv, you're expecting hard scientific analysis?)

In brief, "power distance" (PDI) refers to the way in which members of a culture accept a hierarchical power structure. A high number on this factor means there is a large difference between those with power and those without and that those without power accept that division fairly well. A low number means that power is more spread out and that the society is more egalitarian. The U.S. has a fairly low power distance score of 40.

"Individualism" (IDV) refers to  the extent to which people from a given county view themselves as individuals and are expected to look out for themselves. It is not surprising that the U.S. has a very high score on individualism, 91; actually the highest of all the countries Hofstede studied.

The "masculinity" dimension is a very obscure one, referring not just to whether the culture is dominated by a more traditionally male approach to life, but also to how the women in that culture assume more traditionally male ways. This factor is a little too unwieldy for me to deal with in this blog. Just to throw it out there, the U.S.' masculinity score is 62.

The last major Hofstede dimension is "uncertainty avoidance" and is an interesting one. It deals with whether a culture likes to have a lot of structure and strict rules. Such a culture, with a high score on this factor, does not tolerate ambiguity well and tends to insist that its members follow strict rules and safety measures, and even tow a particular religious or philosophical line. A low score characterizes countries that accept a variety of viewpoints, are more relativistic and less emotional. The U.S. has a score of 46.

OK. To recap, the U.S. has scores of 40, 91, 62 and 46 on PDI, IDV, MAS, and UAI. Scanning the list for other countries that have a similar pattern of scores, I quickly found that the U.K., Canada, and Australia were all fairly similar to the U.S.. Makes total sense. But, beyond that, other cultures were all very different from the U.S.. Take a look at this chart I just made with just a few of the countries Hofstede studied.

	PDI	IDV	MAS	UAI
U.S.	40	91	62	46
U.K.	35	89	66	35
Austrailia	36	90	61	51
Canada	39	80	52	48
France	68	71	43	86
Germany	35	67	66	65
Spain	57	51	42	86
Mexico	81	30	69	82
China	80	20	66	30
Arab World*	80	38	52	68
*this is Hofstede's amalgam of Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates

So many things to notice! Like, Mexico is far more similar to the Arab World and even China than it is to Spain. France and Spain are fairly similar. Germany is similar to the U.K. on the first three factors, but dramatically different in uncertainty avoidance (i.e. Germany has more rules and structure). I didn't include more countries on my little chart because its all available on Hofstede's website for those who want more, and the main thing I wanted to do was look at my own culture and compare it to that of the U.K.

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed at first to see how similar we are. I was looking for some big discrepancy that would explain everything. (Aha! I would say. That is the reason). But the differences are subtle. And maybe the closeness between our two cultures is part of what makes the British feel so accesable to me. (Duh).  But, although they are very like us, the British are different in a few key ways on Hofstede's dimensions. The biggest difference is in our uncertainty avoidance factor. Great Britain's uncertainty avoidance score is a quite low 35 (compared to the U.S.' 46). This is by no means the lowest of all the countries he looked at (Denmark, China and Jamaica are a few of those that are lower), however it is quite a bit lower than the U.S.. Thus, the U.K. is a bit more relativistic or accepting culture than the U.S., according to that factor -- but not so much so that there are no rules and order. A low score here is a marker of a non-emotional culture. It surprises no one that the English are cool and un-emotional.

The other factor that shows an interesting difference between our two countries is the power distance marker. Recall that this refers to how strict and hierarchical the distribution of power is. In the U.K., this score is 35 (compared to 40 for the U.S). Again, that is a pretty low number. There are other countries (like Austria, Denmark, Israel and New Zealand) that score lower, but by a worldwide standard, the U.K. is a country that seeks and demands equality at all levels of society.

The U.K. is like the U.S., but a bit more egalitarian, a bit more accepting, a bit less emotional, a bit less structured and controlled, and maybe a tiny bit more concerned with the collective culture than the individual. It is no wonder I love that place.

Wouldn't it be fun to think about the traits that you really value and then look for countries that match it?


The English Way I. LostinBritishTV