Spring Break: Day 3 - Home

We stayed home all day yesterday. I'm used to it because I've got all the books I could ever want and a whole lot more when I'm done with those.

There wasn't much reason to go out yesterday. No great attraction we could think of us to propel us from Santa Clarita to places we haven't already been. But a day like this, any day like this, is never a waste.

For one, besides the books and DVD that came in the morning yesterday, I came upon something equally beneficial to me. I've waited to see "Somewhere" for a year, starting when I learned Sofia Coppola was making a new film. I loved "Lost in Translation," it's in my DVD collection, and I liked "Marie Antoinette," but not as much as "Lost in Translation." When it was time for the release of "Somewhere", I checked the official website every week to see if it would come to one of the two theaters in the Santa Clarita Valley. Never. Oh sure, "Country Strong" got a screen, but apparently, Focus Features didn't think we deserved having "Somewhere" on one of our screens. What, would some of our residents not have wanted to see part of the world they live in? Santa Clarita is stocked with those who work in Hollywood. Many movies and TV shows film here. The most Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) did that was related to movies was press junkets and going to a special effects studio to have a mold made of his head. The rest was just him living as a nothing man, really having nothing, being nothing, while it looked like he had everything.

I went to Amazon to see when "Somewhere" was coming to DVD, and I knew Netflix had made a deal with Universal to delay new releases for 30 days. "Little Fockers" came out Tuesday, but it won't be available through Netflix until May 3. "Somewhere" comes to DVD on the 19th, but I also found that 'Instant Video Rental' was available for $3.99. Since we were still home by mid-afternoon and obviously weren't going anywhere, I knew how I was going to spend the rest of the afternoon. I love that I can find a lot of titles on Netflix Instant, but I'm not keen on spending hours on a computer watching movies or TV shows, not like I used to with my own TV. I know essentially that the computer screen is just another screen, but it's not for me.

And yet, I wasn't going to wait any longer. So Amazon got my $3.99 for a 24-hour rental, which lasts until 3:19 p.m. today. The only reason I'm going to go back into the movie is to see Eliza Coupe's brief role in it again, as the Chateau Marmont tenant across the hall from Johnny Marco. I knew she looked familiar, having played Denise in the final season of "Scrubs" (what possibly came after does not exist to me), but I never knew she could look like THAT. Wow!

"Somewhere" is an interesting turn for Coppola, having been steeped in Hollywood history for a few decades, first having been the baby at the end of "The Godfather" and then as Michael Corleone's daughter in "The Godfather, Part III." She's lived this Hollywood. She knows it so well, and I was amazed at how accurately she portrayed publicists. That's pretty much what they are in that world. I've wondered how they can do that, shepherding the lives and works of others and never really forming their own identity. Ok, maybe they have an identity outside of work, but I mean really doing things for themselves, maybe making their own work. That's why I'm a former film critic, because I wanted to shepherd my own work.

"Lost in Translation" is still my favorite Sofia Coppola film. This one just takes time to know. It doesn't throw anything at you that you can immediately connect to. It's not that type of film. It's observation of this one actor, it's a meditation on what Hollywood is, the effect that it has on its actors. Not a documentary by a long shot, because surely it isn't this way for all its actors, but incisive enough.

Elle Fanning is an interesting presence, but just one part of Marco's life. Yes, she takes up most of the movie alongside Dorff's Marco, as his daughter Cleo, but Cleo is just there, just like Johnny's car is there, just like Johnny's room at the Chateau Marmont is always there. Everything's just always there, and yet there's nothing at all there for him.

There are times when what Coppola may have connected to is hard for us to connect to, scenes where we wonder when the story is going to move along. This didn't happen in "Lost in Translation" because Coppola not only had Bill Murray, but all of Tokyo. Here, she shows that Hollywood really is that barren. It feels like that. I don't know the Chateau Marmont, and I never will, but I know those roads and those freeways. There's one shot where Johnny drives by the Hollywood Bowl sign en route to the freeway. I know that sign. What Coppola captures there is 100% accurate.

Because Coppola likes long takes, there's one remarkable scene, when Johnny is in the Marmont's elevator with Benicio del Toro.

They wait in the elevator for their separate floors, there's some small talk about Johnny's room (del Toro met Bono in that room), and then they part. But looking at del Toro, it's amazing. He was a young henchman in the Bond film "Licence to Kill", and look at him now, older, weathered, with an intensity that seemed like youthful gleefulness when he was young. It serves him well now.

I might not have connected to "Somewhere" as much as I do to "Lost in Translation" because I know this world. I've not lived it, but I know it through the years I wrote movie reviews, through the Hollywood history I still study, though just as a side interest now. That scene in Las Vegas, which was at the Planet Hollywood Casino, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has a gossip columnist named Norm, who keeps track of the celebrities that have come through Vegas through the section of his column called "Sightings." Vegas partly thrives on the celebrity runoff from Los Angeles. But it's not as obsessed with it as Hollywood is. That's not all of what Las Vegas is, and that's what helps it remain its own unique self.

But as mild as I feel toward "Somewhere," it does make me impatient for Coppola's next film. She's got a fertile, creative mind that has given us so much and still has more to give.

It doesn't feel like we'll go anywhere today. Shopping at Ralphs seems more suited for the weekend, and tomorrow we're supposed to go to Simi Valley. I haven't started reading "Bossypants" by Tina Fey (not ready for it yet because when I read it, I want to read it all the way through), but I did start "The Good Fight: A Life in Liberal Politics" by Walter F. Mondale. It's a side effect of the research for my book, but I'm curious to see the Carter Administration from his perspective, being that he and Carter worked together very closely in those four years. And of course I want to know how he came to choose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in the 1984 election. Reading of his early life in the opening pages, it's apparent that that decision was already there. He's that much of a good and decent man.

So with this Mondale book, I'm good for the rest of the day. It doesn't take much.

Spring Break: Day 2 - Palmdale

We don't go very far for spring break. Nothing as extensive as back to Orlando for Walt Disney World, or to New York City, or any other locales in the east. I only want to visit every presidential library in the nation, and I'll get to that some day. I still have a lot of time and a lot of life left.

I've got no complaints about little travel. Where we go is usually interesting enough. Monday was Ventura, and it was nice to sit on that bench again, but this time not tired out from Galaga, and just with a book in hand, waiting for Mom and Meridith to get what they wanted from that trinket shop, and reading.

The plan for Friday is Simi Valley, because of Famous Dave's BBQ. My dad wants to go there again. Plus, it also benefits me, because I can see "Arthur", most likely at the Regal Simi Valley Civic Center Stadium 16 & IMAX. That's the first of many movies coming up that I want to see. Later this month, because of stupid Netflix's deal with Universal in having "new releases" a month after they've been released, I'm renting "Somewhere" from Amazon. I didn't want to have to watch it on this computer, but I didn't have a choice. I've waited so long to see it already, about a year, and was ticked when it didn't come to either theater in the Santa Clarita Valley. So I've waited. And I'm not waiting anymore.

May brings the fourth "Pirates" movie, and July has "Larry Crowne," starring, directed, and co-written by Tom Hanks (with Nia Vardalos of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), which looks like a genial comedy, with an impressive cast, including Julia Roberts who has easily thrown herself into this one with happy abandon. Who wouldn't with Tom Hanks involved?

Yesterday, we went to Palmdale. It's not quite where shopping centers go to die, since the Wal-Mart is always well-populated, and Buffalo Wild Wings was crowded last night because of 45-cent wings, but it is godforsaken territory. Las Vegas knows how to use the desert to its many advantages. Palmdale has more desert than anything else, because who the hell would want to do anything else here but eat at Sonic and shop at Wal-Mart? Yeah, it's not exactly well-loved, because there's not a whole lot to love. There's no serenity around, no moment of peace to be had in some empty field near the train tracks. It's almost like it's bothered by you being there and how about leaving sooner than later so it can finally have some goddamn peace? My former editor and friend John Boston always took every opportunity to make fun of Palmdale in his columns and he might be right. There is nothing, nothing, nothing. No reason to be there longer than you have to, no one around to defend it because there's nothing to defend, and those who might make Palmdale their home, well, they're hardier than I am. They see something there that I never will.

But now, our reasons for being there. Sonic was the main objective, since Meridith loves it and would easily order everything off the menu. I stood by a chicken wrap, a small order of chili cheese fries, and a bottled water, and later, a banana malt. They finally had bananas this time. They didn't the last time, and Meridith said that all they had to do was go across the street to Wal-Mart and get a few dozen, since Wal-Mart is right there.

We didn't go to Wal-Mart this time. No reason to go, and I thought about seeing what books they had there, but lately, Wal-Mart stocks crap. Not that I'd want to buy any there, since I already buy enough books elsewhere, but I live for those moments when a book sparks something in me. I didn't get that feeling later in the day at Tuesday Morning, where the only book that looked marginally interesting was a thick companion book to the PBS documentary, "Make 'Em Laugh." I didn't buy it. No spark.

We also went to Petco and PetSmart. Mom's still curious, still wondering if there's another bird for us. We looked at the birds at both places and at PetSmart, there was one finch that looks just like our Mr. Chips that took the end of a huge stick of millet and tried to drag it to its nest at the top of the cage. It was fun to watch, but our Mr. Chips is the equivalent of three finches. He hops around, he tweets, he gets pissed at his rings whenever he doesn't easily hop through them, and he snaps at them. He always watches TV. What other bird could we want when we already have Mr. Chips?

Still, Mom keeps looking, keeps considering. Three again, or is two good enough? I'm not concerned by the outcome. My stock in trade is in books and what comes out of those through my own writings. The birds are just one part of my life, and cleaning two cages, three, vacuuming, I've done it before. No problem there.

I'm not sure what today will bring, if we're going back to Palmdale so Mom can see that bird again, or if we're just going to bum around Santa Clarita on various errands. I don't mind. The mail came very early today (10:14 a.m. is incredibly early when it usually comes around late 2 to early 3 p.m.), and a slew of books arrived.

From Amazon: "Please Look After Mom" by Kyung-Sook Shin, and "Bossypants" by Tina Fey.

From Daedalus Books, one of my favorite discount book websites: "At Fault" by Kate Chopin, "The Invention of Everything Else" by Samantha Hunt, "Windy City" by Scott Simon, and "Schulz and Peanuts" by David Michaelis, in thick paperback.

Also from Amazon is "With Honors", which I like. I've always liked Joe Pesci, and someone living in a library has always appealed to me. Plus the dialogue is a lot of fun to listen to. You can see Patrick Dempsey be brilliant, before he became so self-conscious.

I'm still reading "Ask the Pilot" by Patrick Smith, and I pulled "The Poorhouse Fair" by John Updike out of my library bag. I bought Updike's "Memories of the Ford Administration" a few weeks ago and it fascinated me how it was published in 1992, and everyone was thinking about the election, and Bill Clinton, and here was Updike, thinking about the Ford Administration. That's my kind of author, but I want to see if that extends through his work. His powers of description are remarkable.

But even so, here's "Bossypants." I read excerpts in The New Yorker and I loved it. It's probably time to love it even more.

Even if we don't do anything really fun until Friday, well, that's fun of a different sort. I'm good until Friday with all these books, and then I'm itching to see "Arthur." I can't wait for that.

The Perfect Description of Los Angeles

While reading "City of Angles" by Al Martinez, his take on the Los Angeles that has changed so much and yet so little in his eyes in the 30 years he has lived here, I began to think about what I've actually been seeking in wanting to take some piece of Los Angeles with me when I move, something to make sense of the entire experience.

Not that it's been totally surreal and I've wandered streets and communities for days on end trying to make sense of it, but there must be some somewhat easy definition of the entire experience. Now I realize, by Martinez's words, that there is no easy definition. Hell, there may not even be a definition. Los Angeles just is. And whatever you take away from it, well, it's what you have in that moment you decided to grab it, because what you left behind may have very well changed in that second moment since you took that piece. There are themes to Los Angeles, easily identifiable, such as celebrity, murder, gangs, shady politics, everything that indeed makes Los Angeles a "city of angles." But the personal feeling about the city? It depends on what you've gone through and where you are by the time you try to make some meaning out of all of it. And I've determined that if I don't find some meaning out of all my experiences, well, maybe there was no meaning to be found. It just is.

I yield the floor to Martinez, in the third-to-last paragraph of "City of Angles." This was circa 1996, post-O.J. Simpson:

"This isn't the L.A. I came to twenty years ago, all puppy-comfortable and kitty-sweet. It isn't even the L.A. that existed when I began this book. We've become like a David Hockney painting done in hell, a series of angles and facades that conceal chaos. There is no way to describe the city anymore. Anytime I figure I know the place, it changes, like restaurants that vanish overnight, like the mini-malls that spring up where gas stations used to be, like parking structures that swallow whole neighborhoods. We are too complicated to dismiss, too violent not to notice, too powerful to overlook."

Martinez is correct on all counts. I've never gotten as far as believing I know the place, but the changes are always there. I could tell you about the L.A. skyline, about driving past those buildings, about the parking garages and the small restaurants nearby. Then I could move out finally to Las Vegas, and you could come to L.A., and what I described to you may not be valid anymore. Because it has changed in its own dramatic way.

I still intend to read that anthology "Writing Los Angeles." But I don't feel that driving need to take some piece for myself. There is no piece that belongs to me. It's like a slingshot. Try to pull any piece of Los Angeles toward yourself, and it'll snap right back into place. Yeah, I have memories, but I'm still not sure: Was I looking for something so clear-cut as to make me feel good that I understood at least one aspect of Los Angeles? Did I want something that had a few shades of gray so I could chew it over for years to come, even after I've left? I truly don't know what I wanted now, but maybe that's as it should be. That's Los Angeles.

Gesundheit

Last night, I saw the word "gerund" for the first time in many years.

I know what it means, but it also sounds like a sneeze with a growl in it.

One More Book That Makes Me Deliriously Happy to be Alive

In my enthusiasm about "The Garner Files" (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/03/garner-files-cue-mike-post-theme-music.html), I forgot about one more book that makes me happy to be but one citizen on a planet that releases such books.

Stephen Sondheim, one of my heroes, is putting out the second volume of his life's work. The first was called "Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes."

The second, to finish out the song, "Finishing the Hat", is called "Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Wafflings, Diversions and Anecdotes." Sondheim is one of the few great minds that can make a word like "attendant" work. It doesn't sound so formal, so stiff coming from him. It's just part of who he is as a master Broadway powerhouse.

I also pre-ordered this one. It comes out on October 25.

A Shorter Ventura

Dad and Meridith have the week off from La Mesa Junior High. Spring break. So today, for the first day of this week, we went to Santa Paula, to a bird store there to see about two birds that were possible for a new bird. Our gray finch, Pretzyl, died on Friday, but unlike when Jules, our blue finch, died, I didn't feel much emotion. Pretzyl was good company, a good soul, but I didn't feel really close to her.

One possibility at this bird store was a blue parakeet, and a white finch I had seen last Sunday when we had gone to Ventura Harbor Village and stopped here on the way back to Santa Clarita. I went to see it again and played with it for a while, calling it from the back perch to the perch closest to the front of the cage and it responded most times. The owner of the store told us that this finch was female, because of the darker red beak, and also that it didn't look like it was doing too well, so if we wanted to adopt it, we could, which meant that we could have it without having to pay anything.

I didn't like this. We've gone through many birds that have been expensive that have died not long after. And there's nothing veterinarians can do, because they can't get that inside a bird as they can a dog or a cat. And even the simple act of clipping the ring off one of our birds' legs cost us $67. No, we can't take in every single bird in the world. We're not Doctor Doolittle.

Yes, I liked the bird, but this bird also pecked at the bottom of the cage, pecking off the bird shit and eating some of it. Yes, eating. This did not seem like the actions of a healthy bird. I couldn't chance that and I wouldn't, even as Mom said it would be fine if we had three birds again since we have the cage, Pretzyl's old cage, which she washed last night just in case we came home with a bird today. But no. Even the blue parakeet that Mom liked had the quirk of destroying the newspaper below the grate in his cage, and, as I heard it, shitting all over everything.

Two dogs (Tigger and Kitty) and two finches (Mr. Chips and Ducky). That's enough now. It's even, there's less to clean, and it'll be easier to move when it comes time.

After we left, Mom asked Meridith if she wanted that frog chef figurine we saw in one of the trinket shops at Ventura Harbor Village. Meridith was concerned because in black letters, on the cookbook that the frog holds, is "Frog Legs." She worried that Kitty will be able to read that and not be happy about it because we consider her our froggy, being that when she lays on the floor flat, her legs stick out like a frog's, whereas Tigger looks like he has chicken legs. Since Meridith reads to Tigger and Kitty every morning, we figure that Kitty can read some things pretty well. But Mom told her not to worry about it. If she liked the chef frog, then she should get it. And off we went, back to Ventura Harbor Village.

But this wasn't one of those instances of going to Andria's again, or to Coastal Cone, or back to the arcade for more games of Galaga. This wasn't a birthday. Just a short stopover to that trinket shop. I forgot the name, but it's across from Surf 'N Taco.

Mom and Meridith went in, and I sat down on the bench to the left of the store, opening up to where I left off in "Small Wonder" by Barbara Kingsolver. I had no reason to go in and I didn't feel like heading to the arcade for a few minutes. This was the kind of day not to do anything too exertive. And I play Galaga hard.

No, this was a few moments just to sit in the sun, just to read, just to listen to the clinking of dishes behind me in Surf 'N Taco, the muted conversations, the TV on KCAL9, the afternoon news blaring, which made me check my watch and see that it was just a little after 2.

It felt right, because this wasn't a birthday celebration as it had been last Sunday. No reason to cover the same ground as before. I knew the harbor was there, I knew what I liked about it, and that was enough. The craving for the harbor hasn't fully regenerated itself yet.

Next was to the Pacific View Mall, but only for a few minutes to decide where we wanted to eat and that was Super Panda Buffet, on the outskirts of the mall property, and in front of the parking garage. They call it Super Panda Buffet because by the time you're done, you feel like you're the size of a panda. I did. And I know I don't want to do it again. I don't know how I did it when I was a lot heavier, but I think back then, I wasn't even paying attention to it like I did now. I loved the stuffed shells, the dumplings, the finely chopped peanuts that go on top of the soft-serve ice cream from the machine, but once it was all over, I felt too stuffed. If you don't burp enough in due time, it feels a little painful, and it did. I don't know how some people can eat like that, but I know for sure that I can't anymore.

On the way home, I couldn't even pick up Kingsolver's book. No energy. Lethargy. I just let an index finger linger between pages 78 and 79, while listening to the old Walt Disney World Tomorrowland Transit Authority soundtrack on my mp3 player, remembering those times, because that's all I had the energy to do.

Never again. Never like that.

John Le Carre: My New Hero

John Le Carre withdrew from consideration for the Man Booker International Prize, which is worth $96,070, or 60,000 pounds, to the winner.

In the AFP article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110330/en_afp/artsliteratureaustraliachinabritainbooksbooker), Rick Gekoski, the chair of the judging panel, read a statement from Le Carre, which was received 45 minutes before the announcement of the finalists in Sydney, Australia.

It said: "I am enormously flattered to be named as a finalist. However I do not compete for literary prizes and have therefore asked for my name to be withdrawn."

Gekoski says that Le Carre's name will remain on the list, which I think is wrong. If the Man Booker panel truly respected Le Carre, as they claim to, they would accede to his wish.

I agree with Le Carre. I believe reading is, at times, a solo journey, one in which you find the authors you love and hold fast to them, no matter what the "authoritative" voices say.

What affects you, what inspires you, what makes you want to do more in your own life (Barbara Kingsolver did that for me yesterday when I read part of her essay collection, "Small Wonder"), that's what you go with.