Stille Nacht

I have been on a post-Christmas recharge for the last few days - I hope you have, too - and this year, I am doing a two-part retreat.  Boxing Day found me at an actual retreat - a day-long meditation session at the Shambhala Center of Philadelphia.  And I didn't know it until I got there, but it turned out to be a silent retreat.  Yes, *Silent*, as in Night, as in shhh, quiet, no words out loud, me not saying anything for nine hours.  Nine. Hours. I realize I could have sold tickets to my friends if they could have watched me be silent for an entire day - and probably could have funded a trip to Hawaii out of it  - but you know what:  I forgot how much I really love it.  I used to do a lot of study in the Shambhala tradition and lots of workshops like these back in the 90s (not completely silent ones though), so I was so glad to have come across the idea of an "Urban Retreat" when they emailed me recently: I guess it's the old adage "when the student is ready, the teacher will come".  I may go back for another day or two this weekend because I felt so happy after I did it.

Today, I had a stay at home retreat.  The only person I talked to was to my mother when she called because she got excited because she saw my friend Jack French's purses being sold on Shop NBC.  Other than that - well, how about it, silence again.  I sense a theme.

My Jack French purse recently on display at the Llanerch Diner, scene of a pivotal encounter between Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in the film "The Silver Linings Playbook"

My ass was on a cushion today like yesterday, but today it was my couch, where I spent the quiet hours web surfing, reading, Netflix watching, napping.   And I had encounters with three men in my travels on the sofa which left me feeling inspired - inspired, I tell you! - and I thought I would share them with you.  Two of them are Netflix-related suggestions- can there be a major holiday in this world without me making Netflix recommendations? - but all of these meetings left me feeling uplifted and energized, and most relevant to this endeavor, compelled me to put fingers to keyboard and get back to it with this blog.

No one with more than a casual interest in film should miss Mark Cousins' "The Story of Film: An Odyssey", now on Netflix Instant.   I have been tracking this film for months and had even pre-ordered the DVD from Amazon before I found out it's free on Netflix,  but whatevs:  it has been so delicious to take in.  Please don't be deterred, but be excited! when I tell you it is 15 hours long - broken into 15 episodes which more or less present a chronological history of film. C'mon, 15 hours is not so much when you think it is not only film through time, but film around the world - the last scene in the last episode is set in Burkina Faso, and really, do you even know where that is?  Mark Cousins is nothing but inclusive, but it is his inclusivity on view here, and it's not supposed to be completely comprehensive - with any storyteller, we have to respect his version of the tale he is telling, and his is simple in the midst of a lot of words and images:  it is ideas that drive movies.  For me, "The Story of Film" is gripping, it is absorbing, and it gave me so much new information and new ways of seeing film that I am doing the only logical thing having finished it - I am going to start to watch it over again tonight.

When you watch the first episode of "The Story of Film" remember I told you to pay attention to the bubbles scene - that's when I knew I would love this doc.

From 15 hours to 36 minutes: I surfed through the Netflix new release pages as I do on occasion, and my old friend Miss Serendipity led me to Kevin.  Or shall I say "Kevin", the short film by Jay Duplass, the non-acting half of my favorite filmmaking brothers now that Larry became Lana Wachowski (by the way, that reminds me, not on  Netflix but on On-Demand is "Safety Not Guaranteed" starring Jay's bro Mark Duplass - four more days left in 2012, but I think it is safe to say that Safety Not Guaranteed is my favorite film of the year). I knew nothing about "Kevin" when I came across it, but just was just sucked in completely with the story of this singer-songwriter, Kevin Gant, and his journeys on the ground and in his head. I don't want to tell too much about it, so you can be as absorbed in it as I was.  But as I posted to Kevin on his Facebook page this afternoon, this movie compelled me to want to *do* something after I saw it, although as I admitted to him, it was probably going to be the vacuuming (it was).

But given a few hours, the other thing Kevin compelled me to do is to write - which is also what my friend Kendall Whitehouse provoked in me today through his latest blog post called Evolutionary Innovation: Moving Hay, Barn Doors, Heavy Machinery, and Joyous Children.  I have known Kendall for almost 20 years from our days together at Wharton, a place from which he just retired yet still provides him with a home for this wonderful blog of his.  Check out not only today's post but also some of the back essays coming from this wonderful friend of mine.  Kendall's writing is what I aspire to - he is smart and eclectic, he is clear and clever, and he follows an idea through from start to finish while taking you many places in between.  I thank him for understanding and sharing his singular voice with the world, and for inspiring me to find mine on this silent night.
 

In the Queue

The best $7.99 I spend each month is for my Netflix Instant account.  I don't have cable for a variety of reasons, including situational cheapness, and the days of haunting the marvels of a place like Video Library, my former home away from home in West Philly, are pretty much over (although video store shout outs to Cinema 16:9 in Lansdowne and the new Viva Video! in Ardmore, the latter of which I haven't gotten to yet because of another situational issue with which I grapple - laziness).

Those of you following me across the interwebs from Facebook know that from time to time, as a public service,  I share a list of movie and TV titles on Netflix which catch my fancy.  On Facebook, I only list titles because, I don't know, I fence myself in there sometimes because of  my perception of its bandwidth - visual, intellectual or otherwise.  Here in Casa de Blog, I feel like I have land, lots of land under starry skies above, so down goes the fence, and up go some titles of Netflix Instant  programs which have caught my fancy - and some thoughts about why.

Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap - Ice-T is in conversation with the most luminous lights still shining in the rap firmament, starting in the waaaaaaay back with folks like Kool Herc and going up to a super-intense Kanye West.  I don't pretend to know a ton about rap - probably more than most 1979 graduates of Cardinal O'Hara High School in Springfield PA, but still.  What I do know about is passion and intelligence and love of the spoken word, and this movie has it in abundance.  I could have easily watched it for about another five hours (oh that reminds me, my 15-hour DVD of Mark Cousins' "The Story of Film" is coming next week.  Joy!).  Bonus feature:  if anyone would like a copy of my brother Jerry's Top Ten Rap songs of all time, pre-1990, let me know and I will email it to you.  One of my favorite pieces of music writing ever, sibling-produced or otherwise.

Snoop is indeed in the movie, but I just added this picture because I love how his pigtail flies out in it

American Horror Story - I have watched a lot of TV in my day - gigahours.   But I have never ever ever seen anything like the first episode of the first season of "American Horror Story".  Ne-vah.  I watched four episodes in a row on Thanksgiving before I met my peeps for dinner (for which I gave thanks that my Mommie Dearest does not resemble Jessica Lange in this show), and then watched the rest of the first season that weekend.   Pitch black dark and sometimes completely over the top - and I say that as someone whose favorite movie of 2009 featured Willem Dafoe getting his pee pee whacked on camera by a hammer wielded by Charlotte Gainsbourg (Lars von Trier's "Antichrist", BTW, for those who are curious, also on Netflix).  By the end of absorbing that first episode of "American Horror Story", I thought I had gone through a marathon - what I just saw had to be at least four hours long, when of course I knew it must have only been a two hour movie pilot...and then it turns out it was only 51 minutes long.  A crazy long slow-mo skid of a show - and a reliable source tells me Season 2 is even more intense. PS - I regard a man who has a blog called Kindertrauma to be a reliable source on matters like this.

Identity - I remember I had to watch this movie  twice in a row, back to back, when I first saw it on video because I totally didn't get how what happened did happen - but it was completely intriguing enough that I wanted to find out, and tout suite!  And now, 8 years later, I don't remember any of the twists of this film - really, tabula rasa - but I know the visceral feeling of WTF? when I saw this title listed is still strong enough to make me go back for a third viewing (I remember Amanda Peet was really good, and John Cusack is in it, and I swear that's it),   Being 51 is turning out to be a great excuse for going back and seeing movies I have enjoyed and can't remember!

And reverting back to my Facebook habits, here are some titles I do remember and would suggest for your viewing pleasure, all featuring not-so-svelte actors to whom I am attracted:  Sexy Beast.  Take This Waltz.   Bernie.  Continental Divide. Young Adult (particularly for the magic that is Patton Oswalt).  Tell me what you think if you see any of these Netflix standouts in my queue.

Alchemy

I count so many creative types as blossoms in my garden that it is a little staggering.  I mean, these are people who actually have ideas, churn them over again and again, and then use the skills they have developed through head and heart and hard work to Produce Art.  And then in some magical cases, they give it a big final push, and their work actually gets out there in the world - published, or recorded, or produced.  Really!  I find it the true manifestation of alchemy in the world - there is air and synapse and intelligence and hope, and then it swirls together and this art comes forth, golden in its glory.  It is amazing, as well as very inspiring for those of us who are plugging away at things like getting a few paragraphs set down in a blog.

So I continue to shine a light on my friends for your gift giving consideration during this starry, starry season - and no, I am not speaking of the Oscars, although when you talk Academy Awards, you are really talking about the holy time of the year for me (by the way, Matthew McConaughey won the Best Supporting Actor Award today from the New York Film Critics Circle for "Magic Mike".  Discuss).

Congratulations, Matthew, but I am more of a Channing Tatum girl myself.

 
Here are some more shopping suggestions for you so you can share the gifts of these peeps I know with peeps you know. Today I am just going to focus on authors, so this post doesn't go on forever, and I will do music and art and film and other goodies soon.  All three of these folks have links to their awesome websites which are chock full of info, including how to order online... but how about taking a visit to a bookstore, maybe even an independent one at that, to peruse one or all of the following: 

- In the young adult world, Cecilia Galante rules - five published novels, with a sixth on the way next year.  I love "The Patron Saint of Butterflies", the work which introduced me to her writing, based on her own experience growing up in a religious commune.  It was one of those books I had to slow down reading towards the end because I didn't want these people - especially her main characters, Agnes and Honey - to go out of my life.  I needn't have worried, though:  in the years since I first read it, these young women haven't left me.

 
- I used to see a former colleague of mine named Kelly Andrews on Sunday mornings by herself at the Panera Bread I frequent  in Wynnewood.  She would be doggedly plugging away on her computer, and I would notice her two beautiful daughters Oona and Juliette were not with her (I thought it was quite possibly against some township statute for a parent to be by themselves in public during daylight hours on a weekend), so I knew something was up .  Now I know what it was:  "Deadwood", her debut novel for the middle school aged reader in your life (published under her pen name Kell Andrews). To be honest, I haven't read "Deadwood" yet because it just got published, but I have been keeping tabs on it, and from the description - a fantasy about a cursed tree, a community in turmoil, and the new kid in town hero who sets out to set things straight - I am on it!    And anyway, anyone who can go from editing the Wharton Alumni Magazine to writing fiction about magical forests has earned support in my book.

- Speaking of the Mecca of Capitalism, looking for a book to give the businessperson in your life that doesn't involve moving cheese?  Michael Carroll is someone I met through the Shambhala Center of Philadelphia years ago, and whom I hold in the highest regard for the sanity he offers in dealing with bringing your best, true, essential self to the workplace.  This has been - what shall we call it? - an issue in my own life, but I feel at much more at ease when Michael breaks it down for me in his books "Awake at Work" and the new "Fearless at Work".   A calmer, more dignified you in the workplace, in touch with your basic goodness is a holiday gift which will never go out of style, and is always the right size, always the right color.