Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Last two nights we watched movies borrowed from the library. The Jane Austen Book Club  (2007), directed by Robin Swicord, could have been wittier and more literary, but it was watchable. Kevin Zegers plays a student who hits on his uptight French teacher, Prudie (Emily Blunt). Hugh Dancy is so immensely likable as Grigg, a computer geek. The women, drawn in very broad strokes, learn about courtship, heartbreak and second chances from Austen. No discussion about class, please. We are Americans. At the age of 11, Li Cunxin was taken from his parents and poor village by Madam Mao's cultural delegates to Beijing to train as a ballet dancer. On a cultural exchange with Houston Ballet, he falls in love with an American woman and defects. Mao's Last Dancer, directed by Bruce Beresford, and based on Li's autobiography, is tightly plotted and beautifully shot. Unsurprisingly, it hews to the story of individual freedom so beloved by the West, and the story of poor boy made good s...

printed in the tarmac a branch with five points alternative hollywood

Fabulous exhibition at the Met. Beautiful Indian artefacts from pre-contact to present time. Headdresses made from crow and eagle feathers, one feather for every notable victory in battle. Saddle bags, called parfleche envelopes, ornamented with porcupine quills and glass beads. Buffalo skins drawn with stories of war and hunting or with abstract patterns involving the Thunderbird, a guardian spirit. Pipes carved in the form of human effigies. A long courting whistle in the shape of a snipe. Graceful and concise wooden sculptures of buffalos small enough to be held in the hand. Horse masks. A long cherry wood branch transformed miraculously into a snorting galloping horse. A drawing with the silhouettes of more than 80 species of animals, birds and fish that made up the living environment of a people. A winter count chart, on which the the tribal historian drew a picture representing each year, and so provided the storyteller with a mnemonic: the 80th winter shows the lynching of three...

Watched Boyhood , directed by Richard Linklater, last night. I admire it for its technical mastery (filmed over 12 years) and for the performance of the main cast. Ellar Coltane, as Mason Junior, grows up before our eyes, with the kind of acting that never seems like acting. Ethan Hawke as dad and Patricia Arquette as mum turn in utterly convincing performances. And here's the but - the story is conventional and some of the minor characters are stereotypical. The Texan grandparents give Ellar a Bible and a gun for his birthday. The veteran husband turns to drinking. The Mexican worker goes to school, on Ellar's mum's advice, and makes good as a restaurant manager. The token Asian appears in the form of Ellar's sister's college dorm-mate. The children--both Ellar and his older sister--are remarkably unscarred by the abusive husbands their mother married. Throughout it all, Ellar retains a heart of gold and an air of innocence. He is dreamy, introspective and wee bit ...

mist over hudson most itself when least

spring rash-- grass livid green and growing from a withered field

Wowee! My first-ever advance for a book of poetry! Thank you, Carcanet Press! Photo and tea by Guy.