Proof

We just watched Proof with Gwyneth Paltrow, Sir. Anthony Hopkins, and Jake Gyllenhaal, and it is now officially my favorite movie - well, at least for now. (Elizabeth still ranks right up there though) It is based on the stage play by David Auburn and directed by John Madden, which explains why the dialogue and action are so tight. Madden also directed Academy Award winning Shakespeare in Love also with Paltrow. Here is the summary from IMBD.com:

"The daughter of a brilliant but mentally disturbed mathematician, recently deceased, tries to come to grips with her possible inheritance: his insanity. Complicating matters are one of her father's ex-students who wants to search through his papers and her estranged sister who shows up to help settle his affairs. "

The summary doesn't really do it justice though. Paltrow's stuggle with her genius, her father's genius, and her posible insanity is amazing. She also does an extraordinary job with sounding Midwestern - I can't believe we sound like that - yuk! You should rent it or even buy it - it's amazing.

Other movies I now want to see:

Doogal
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Memoirs of a Geisha
Nanny McPhee (maybe)
Exorcism of Emily Rose - watched it on Sunday night. Good suspense with surprisingly faith affriming message - it made me think about the presence of good and evil at least
Casanova
Freedomland
Munich
A Good Woman - watched it Monday night. Amazingly cute remake of Oscar Wilde's play Lady Windermere's Fan. It had Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansen, and Tom Wilkenson in it. Witty because it's based on Wilde. Hunt's performance was very sound - wish I could say the same for Johansen.
A History of Violence
Richard III (with Ian McKellen)

and Gene wants to see A Scanner Darkly

My Poetry

So after seeing the irony in my previous post, I am going to do what I abhor. Shamelessly publish my writing. So if you want a good laugh at how the English teacher cannot write poetry worth crap...read on.


(Okay, so that was a small beg for approval - okay not so small - be nice?)

The Impossible

Eyes like rain
Fall from the face
I drift in the rift

Fuzz-Butt

Mavrick
Silky fluff-ball
Yowling, Dancing, Lazing
Cutest kitty in existence
Furball

Animal Haikus

cry comes from bathtub
drip drip drip goes the faucet
the cat drinks water

steam rises from rice
forks clink against the plates
the dog begs for food

The Detention Hour

Between the bell and the practice,
When the halls are pushing to leave,
Comes an arrest in the afternoon’s flirtations,
That is known as the Detention Hour.

I hear from the stairwells around me
The groans of tired brains,
The sound of a locker that is slamming,
And footsteps slow and grave.

From my classroom I see in the fluorescent light,
Ascending the well worn stairs,
Tardy Alex, and swearing Jonathan,
And Teddy with plagiarized fare.

An excuse, and then an apology:
Yet I know by their slumped backs
They are waiting and watching together
Of the time they keep track.

A sudden bang from the hallway,
A sudden thump from the wall!
By four sides they are encloséd
Into slumber they do fall.

They snore away into the afternoon
Slumped o’er the desk top plain
If I try to wake them, they growl at me,
They seem to be a damn pain.

They almost take out their homework,
Their books out of bags do come,
Till I think of the sloth of yesteryear
In its tree branch in the wood!

Do you think, o sleepy-eyed “scholar.”
Because you have broken the rules,
Such an old book-worm as I am
Cannot take out you fools!

I have you safe in my classroom,
And will not let you sleep,
But force you to do Algebra
In the figures your brains will steep.

And there I will keep you endlessly,
Yes, till three forty-five,
Till detention bells will ring unending,
And out of my room you’ll dive!

Poetry

or why I loathe (see I spelled it right that time) it...


So, my Teaching Creative Writing class has moved on passed creative non-fiction (stuff I liked and was good at), fiction (stuff I still like and was okay at), to poetry (stuff I loathe and suck at). According to my professor and the "ahhhtists" in the English department, no poetry except free-verse "slam" poetry is worthwhile. This leave out anything not written since, oh 1930ish?

I detest free verse and slam poetry.

Okay that's a bit harsh. I can't lump all free verse and slam poetry into the same category. Okay, so I don't hate all free verse and slam poetry, but I don't see the point of the vast majority of it. Now, I apologize now to all poets of free verse and slam reading this - there's like what two of you? But the thing I can't stand about free verse and slam poetry is the self-righteous/self-important banality of the majority of it. I really don't give a damn what you thought about your peanut butter and jelly sandwich or how you felt in third grade when your "girlfriend" of 10 minutes broke up with you!

Okay, that was a but harsh too. I do realize the need for some to express themselves and difficult situations through poetry. Fine. Great. Express all your feelings and needs out, just don't make me read them, please?

I realize the irony in what I have just written, given that I have just made you read all my angst ridden tripe. But at least I'm not pretentious and calling it a poem. Oh no, this is just an old fashioned bitch-fest. :)

Sigh. I love blog therapy.

Camping

or why I loath it...

So this past weekend I went camping with Gene's family. We were supposed to meet them at a camp site in GullPoint State Park at Lake Okoboji in northwest Iowa. To start out MapQuest took us through every small town between Mason City and there, mostly ones I had never head of. We arrived aroun 7:30 Friday night in almost 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity - I was ready to turn back there. However, being the dutiful daughter-in-law I put on my happy face and went out to greet the bugs, heat, and in-laws. They had the camp entirely set up and dinner was ready to go on the fire. We got somewhat settled and had brats and beers. This was the high point of the weekend. The mosquitos then formed a layer thick enough to see, hear, smell, and taste -literally. We had them in your eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. So we moved to the main tent which had a "screened porch" to play cards. It was about ten o'clock at night by now and everyone except the boys had been up since 6 a.m., so we decided to go to bed. Foolish, foolish us. The temperature was still about 85 degrees withe the humidity about the same, oh and did I meantion that there never was and never would be any breeze because my in-laws had picked a campsite in a hollow encased with trees and overgrown grasses? Yah. So around 11 o'clock we settle in to bed - all of us, in one tent - yah 6 people, 1 tent. Joy. Our neighbors on both sides had gotten in late - like oh, at 10:30 - so they were still setting up camp, with four car's headlights, two ultrabright flashlight careening in the window, 15 screaming children, and 8 drunken adults helping. One came got settled down by midnight - ish. The other camp, oh the other camp. At 12:30 the children, who looked to be between 6 and 10, were still dumping lighter fluild on the fire to make "bonfire balls." they also were screaming constantly. The adults therefore had to raise their voices to make oridinary conversation. Ths continued until 2:00 when Gene finally asked them to shut up or he'd get the park ranger. Okay that's a slight exaggeration - he only told them to shut up. Which, with in a half hour or so they did. However, that was when all the drunks came back from the bars and proceeded to howl, yes howl, at the moon. This continued until around 3:30-4 am when Gene and I got up to go the bathroom, which was a quarter of a mile away, and get a drink, which wasn't cold. We glared at a camp of middle-aged, drunken roustabouts who bellowed for people to join them and went back to the tent. I think we had a combined half hour of sleep before we were awoken by car alarms at 5:30 a.m. We got up around 8 a.m and for some unknown reason waited an hour and a half to start breakfast, like sitting around staring at each other was going to make us feel better. After breakfast and clean-up we discovered that low and behold the camp's water main had broken and they were "looking into it." In northern Iowa this could be taken literally. This meant we had to drive a mile and a half to the nearest state park with running water to go to the bathroom. At this point Candy finally admited that something "just wasn't right" about this trip. No!! really? So, we waited for some of Jesse's friends to join us from Sioux Falls and we went to the closest lake access point, since who wants to camp in a campground that has its own beach and lake access point?!? There we spent the next two hours baking in the sun that had already reached the same 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity of yesterday. When asked to play cards, I simply said, "My head can't function on 30 minutes sleep and with an overall body teperature of a nuclear blast." I think they got the point. Okay, that's an exaggeration too - I just said, "Too hot, too tired." They still got the point. At that point, I think they realised just how miserable I, and they as well, were. We made a deal that if we didn't have water when we got back to camp, we'd leave. Well, we had water, but in the mean time theyhad figured out that we'd probably be in for another sleepless night since the campground was jsut as rowdy and just as sweltering as it had been the night before, and only due to get louder and hotter with the drinking and partying coming that night. At this poitn we packed up camp and returned to Sioux Falls and air condtioning. When we got to the in-laws we discovered that since they hadn't given me time to put sunscreen on by back was a lovely shade of lobster. At this point Candy very innocently says, "Oh, now wouldn't you have been miserable tonight if we had stayed!"