Casablanca is one of the best movies I have ever seen

Last night I watched Casablanca for the first time. I had always heard that it was good, one of the best movies of all time even. But I assumed it was good in that way that all old movies are: they make women cry; the men are charming and wear fedoras; there is a noble cause to fight for (usually involving the Germans or Communism); and the black and white makes everyone look attractive. When I watch these movies, I feel nostalgia tugging at my heart. But, afterwards I am glad to live in an era where calling women the "the gentler sex" is not acceptable, modern-day bras don't make their breasts look like something off a Madonna album; not all men smoke cigars; and the Nazis aren't occupying France.

Casablanca is a good movie for all the reasons I've mentioned above, but without the afterthoughts. If I had the choice, I would spend the rest of my days with my face tucked beneath Humphrey Bogart's chin, riding in a convertible through Paris. I'd live in the time where "the problems of three people don't amount to a hill of beans." I'd even stand up and sing the French national anthem in Rick's Cafe Americain if I knew the words.

I'm sure that I am not the first person to say this, but it's worth saying again. Casablanca is one of the best movies I have ever seen because it uses love as an allegory for war. Rick's statement that he "sticks his neck out for no one" mirrors American nuetrality. When we learn of his past with Ilsa, we see that Rick's indifference was the result of losing what it was that had to fight for. Ilsa's return restores him and forces him to combat the Germans and save the hero.

I suppose that you could say that Rick is a self-interested isolationist and Ilsa is his Pearl Harbor. But you said that, not me. Is that the difference between a realist and romanticist?

Casablanca need not inspire a false (or true) sense of American pride to be an excellent movie. To me, it only needs to demonstrate that apathy leads one nowhere and that love and war need eachother.

Tom Shane Controls Minds

Tom Shane controls minds in a way that makes Donald Rumsfeld wet himself from jealousy.

Since 1971, Tom Shane has been gaining the trust of loyal, involuntary listeners via radio commercials for the Shane Company. We have grown accustomed to the monotonous voice describing the latest trends in the diamond industry between radio-edited songs. We expect to hear the same narration of the Shane Company's locations and hours at the tail end of each commercial break.

Each of us has unknowingly memorized some detail about the Shane Company. Maybe you know that the Shane Company is "open weekdays 'till eight and weekends 'till five." Perhaps you can recall the location of a local branch that you have never visited. I have never even seen a Shane Company, but know that there is one at the "corner of Market and Willow Pass Road" somewhere near my hometown.

Tom Shane is Pavlov and we are all his dogs. When we hear Tom Shane coming to the end of his soliloquoy, we turn up the volume on our dash because we know that the radio station will return to its normal programming.

How long will Tom Shane continue selling corporate diamonds before he realizes that the real gem is his power to control minds? It's only a matter of time before our friend in the diamond business becomes our foe in the world domination business.

Tom Shane, you can take my mind, but you'll never have my heart.

French Lessons

I am taking a trip to Europe to visit my sister in Paris at the end of March. In order to alleviate some of the humiliation of being American among the French, I have enrolled in a class called "French for Travelers." Prior to this class, my French vocabulary has consisted only of words already adopted into the English language (milieu, tete-a-tete, hors d'oeuvres, repertoire...).

In high school we had weekly vocabulary lists, which occasionally contained a word of French origin. Of these, the one I remember most is "ennui." It is a noun describing a feeling of dissatisfaction, boredom, listlessness, disillusionment. Why this word stuck out to me in high school should require no explanation. Since then, periods of my life have certainly been characterized by pervasive ennui.

Last week I felt a bout of ennui coming on and remedied it by moving around the furniture in my room. Even when the stakes are low, it can be difficult for me to break with a system that I am certain works. It actually took a fair amount of courage to pull the bed away from the wall and switch the dresser with the bookshelf. Now my clothes are all in the same place and I am actually using my record player because it is in a more convenient location. It is remarkable how a simple gesture can reopen old possibilities.

The new arrangement of my room temporarily assuaged my looming fear of complacency. Every now and again, you have to stir the pot. Remind yourself that you are still alive.

To revise my initial statement, I am taking a trip to Europe to exersize the notion of change--to prove to myself that life can change if I make it. I am quitting my job and leaving the country for a month and I have no idea what I'll be doing when I get back. In recent months, the most valuable and fulfilling moments have been the ones involving risk and change. These moments have not always been the happiest, but have taught me loads about cause and effect. Sometimes I forget that I am a cause and not simply a recipient of effects.

Today in French class we learned about taking Taxis. Because I have difficulty limiting my thoughts to one subject and often extrapolate meaning into an unrelated sitaution, I'll leave you with an expression which I think has more than one application.

"Gardez la monnaie" or "keep the change."

Thank Goodness its MY Friday

Portland Barista Tina Faucet reported yesterday that the majority of her regular customers opt to celebrate Friday on one of the other six days of the week. "Sometimes on a Tuesday I'll ask someone how they're doing and they'll respond, 'Great! Today's my Friday so I just have to get through one more day,'" disclosed Faucet.

The customers in question come from neighboring restaurants and typically begin their five-day work binges on the traditional Friday. "I guess they think that because they have two days off in a row they get to rearrange the days of the week," Faucet surmised. "Sometimes I want to tell them, 'No you idiot, it's still Tuesday.'"

Faucet is not the only one perterbed by the trend of calendar deviation. Banks, post offices and corporate restaurant chains are also feeling threatened by the movement those of the non-traditional work week are calling "Thank Goodness its MY Friday" (T.G.I.M.F.).

"Here at US Bank we reward our employees with casual Friday," explained Southeast branch manager, Tod Emblem. "If everyone gets their own Friday, how am I supposed to know who's out of dress code and who's having their Friday?"

Faucet disagrees that the T.G.I.M.F. movement is a reason for great concern, confiding that mostly the deviants "just sound like tools."

Belated Valentine's Sentiments

Every once and a while a peer or older person gives you a piece of advice that sticks with you for several years afterwards. Sometimes they don't know that they are saying something profound at all.

One of my favorite English professors once said, "never use the preposition 'through' in your writing unless you are talking about walking through a door." It was the kind of advice that I could apply instantly to improve my writing. It also taught me that there are things in this world that are concrete--that words mean certain things. Often in my mind words and ideas give way to one another and come out meaning the same nothing. This advice saved me from the throes of linguistic despair.

A religion teacher at my high school gave me a different kind of advice as he addressed my senior class on a retreat. The speech itself escapes me, but I retained the most valuable part, I think. "Whatever you do," he said, "always, always, be in love." He verbalized something that I had always noticed in myself, but thought nobody else knew about. It struck me most of all because the previous evening we were asked to make resolutions and I made the very resolution he was calling us to make. I think that I have been true to this vow, though the portrait of love in my life is blemished and weathered.

So two days late (even though Valentine's Day is pretty meaningless, right?) I'm making a beverageless and partnerless toast to that which makes my heart tingle and skin go warm.

Late night drives home through silent nights with infinite intentions.
Deep red wine rolling around in my mouth beside romance languages.
Floral metaphors tucked into lines of Shakespeare.
Croissants at sunrise and falling back in bed.
Garlic crackling in a pool of olive oil on my stove.
Flying down Everett on the Peugot in the summer.
Friends' laughter after finding the right word.
Black coffee in a mug held in both hands as the rain starts to fall on my scarf.
The brown hills of California underneath the sunset after soccer practice.
American poets and the smell of their old pages.
The swirl of chocolate in the morning before anyone's said a word.
Running over dirt through trees to catch my imagination.
The people I have loved and have loved me back.

Thanks.

Chili?!

This weekend, April and I packed her car full of chocolate and drove down to the outskirts of Salem for a Pinot Noir and chocolate tasting at a local vineyard. I was excited to get out of the cafe and away from the onslought of morons that has recently plagued my life there. It's not that I thought that there wouldn't be morons in Salem, but at least they wouldn't be asking me to make them peanut butter milkshakes.
The main building at the vineyard resembled a Catholic church rectory office. Other than that, the property was quite unoffensive, beautiful even. "I love grapevines. They are so organic looking," April said as we pulled up to the property. There once was a time when organic existed as a concept by itself. It meant something living and natural--a preservation of the original form as it emerged from the earth. Today organic exists in opposition to the adulterated and generic products we find in the grocery store. It means something other than the norm. Pretentious and expensive.
After unloading the chocolate, we entered the building and descended the stairs to the wine cellar. The musty smell of oak and wine invaded the dank space. I was instantly cold, a sensation that accompanied me for the rest of the day.
People slowly began to creep up to our table before we were finished setting up the display. Most of them had heard of our chocolate and were eager to take small, sophisticated bites of it between swishes of wine. They swirled the deep red liquid around in their complementary glasses between index finger and thumb, systematically drawing the glass towards their nose every couple of rotations.
There is something about seeing an action repeated that I find unsettling to the point of despair. As I watched hand after hand reach for the samples laid out on the table before me, I felt my own stomach swell. April had packed a cooler of healthy food for us, but I found that my attempts to eat throughout the day were confused by the overstimulation of the aromas and voices, the mass consumption taking place all around me.
What I witnessed I did not perceive as gluttony, rather it was the vanity of the affair that had my stomach churning. There is a fine line betweening tasting fine wine and chocolate for their own sake and tasting them for the sake of one's own image. Maybe I am jaded from my life in Portland--which has introduced me to some self-proclaimed connoiseurs of everything--but, sometimes I wonder whether the majority of people want to truly know something or just be perceived as knowing it.
The guests at the tasting were not the only ones comitting the same act repeatedly. According to my calculations, I said, "This is a sample of our solid dark chocolate with a chile blend" up to 1,200 times in the two-day event. I would not have dreaded the line so much had I not possessed the dreadful anticipation of the the alarmed expression that lurked behind the face of each suppliant. "Chile?!" they would exclaim in disbelief.
I forced out a desperate "uh huh" while feigning patience.
"Who on earth thought of that?"
Somewhere around 2,000 years ago, the ancient Mayan civilizations began mixing cacao beans with their blend of chili spices and consuming it in liquid form. True, a significant portion of my young life has passed without knowledge of this piece of trivia. This fact lends me a certain obligation to be sympathetic towards others as they face the harsh, bright light of chocolate's true history. Unfortunately, that sympathy wears off around person number five hundred.
"The Mayans," April would curtly reply to those affronted by our inappropriate ingredients. I thought that maybe we might sway people if we mentioned that this particular aspect of chocolate's biography traced back to circa the birth of Christ. Maybe it was not so much the combination of chocolate and spice, but the idea that it was consumed by a savage race in South America that people found so disturbing.
In truth, not everyone twisted their faces at the notion of spicy chocolate. Many were quite amused and open to trying new things, as that was the name of the game that day. Still, there is something about two days of dodging strange looks that eventually leads you to question yourself and what it is that you stand for. I started to understand the plight of Renaissance philosophers. Perhaps I should have amended my spiel. "Here is a sample of our dark chocolate with chili. And did you know that the Earth is round?"

How can we be wrong?; A Bias-cycling Argument

I've just returned from an evening of biking and discussion. The event was the first Master Plan Ride, led by the commissioner of biking for the Portland Department of Transportation. After riding around Southeast to evaluate the existing conditions of bike boulevards, lanes and other traffic controllers, we met at the Lucky Lab to discuss possible improvements. People were cordial and listened to one another. When disagreements arose, people handled them politely and acknowledged one another's point before stating their own opinion. There is something reassuring and hopeful about sitting in a room watching civil discourse take place. On my bike ride home, although I was tired from the 20 miles I had logged that day, I was driven by the empowering scene I had just witnessed. "How can we be wrong?" I thought to myself. By "we" I meant environmentally conscious, progressive, cooperative and liberally-minded people.

There are some debates which indeed have two sides. For example, I recently had argument over which was the better Indiana Jones movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade (Temple of Doom obviously not deserving consideration in this competetion). The issue of the Indiana Jones trilogy hierarchy allows for, I feel, more subjectivity than the red and blue schism that divides our nation. I just don't think I'll ever be convinced that protecting the environment and seeking methods of transportation beyond the automobile are inferior causes. Who are these people who think that we should fight to protect our oil interests in the Middle East and why are they controlling the world? Worse, why do so many people agree with them and why don't they know that WE are right? They probably like the Temple of Doom even.