OSCARS Amber Alert! Hooray for MovieWood

Film as dream, film as music.

No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.”
― Ingmar Bergman

They’re BACK!

Tinsel-town is a’glitter again… the OSCARS are back and with a real live, in-person, COVID-vaccinated audience.

Impossibly beautiful people seductively strutting up red carpets, pressed tuxedos, spike heels, grand flowing dresses, glitter-sparkled white teeth.

Buff bodies and billboard breasts on display like shiny gems encased in Tiffany showcases. Feels like old times, nostalgic.

And I used to care about OSCAR.

But like many others, I care less than I once did.

Oscar night was an annual highlight like the lighting of the Rockefeller Plaza tree, like the Grey Cup (Super Bowl or World Cup for non-Canucks!), like firecrackers on Queen Victoria’s birthday (for an Ontario-raised lad).

Movies hold a magic key… a mystical wonder that feels like a Christmas present wrapped in a heavy red velour curtain rising with a grand flourish.

But the magic flame is melting away as the world travels through cataclysmic changes in all areas.

Movies were a mainstay in entertainment of the masses for near-on 100 years.

Entertainment means a hundred things now.

People still watch movies but in different ways and from a plethora of platforms. Theatre watching is just one small part of cinema today.

In days past, movies were glamour, movies were spectacle, movies were escapism… movies created their own world of laughter and horror, wonder and fascination.

Importantly, there was a scarcity to movies that made them all the more appealing.

There is no longer a need to wait weeks for a movie to come to your local theatre or make it to the TV screen in 4 or 5 years.

Hell, Gone With The Wind used to be recycled back to the movie theatres every 5 to 10 years bringing in crowds of viewers with each reappearance. Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia deHavilland were forever Civil War gorgeous.

Today, most people see GWTW as an anachronistic, melodramatic celebration of ugly institutional racism. So much for holding up well over decades and centuries like a classic novel.

Movie watching in 2022 is available 24/7 everywhere you are. Bedrooms, subways, airports, doctor’s offices… we all dream of movie screams on our tiny screens.

Any resource that becomes abundantly available loses some of its magical lustre.

Don’t we all love a shiny bauble for the first 10 minutes we possess it before the shine begins to tarnish. It’s common psychological warfare that our brains play on us. Ubiquity scrubs away the lustre of specialness.

On another front, I can only imagine what movie viewing looked like for people of colour, varied ethnicities, or non-traditional male/female genders in decades past. They didn’t exist in the cinema world. Option #1 (of 1 option): White, WASP, patriarchal, and heterosexual. Your choice.

Despite the dwindling of allure of an awards ceremony (this is far more widespread than just the Oscars), many – but of course not all – movies today are as good or better as anything ever produced.

The overall quantity of films produced has exploded (like so many car chase scenes). It becomes ever more challenging for us to sift out the gold in the manure pile, but the Mother Lode still exists, and better still, it exists for more people than ever.

In today’s best works, the writing quality, the cinematography, the depth of emotion portrayed, the creativity and range of story lines, the acting skills – all are sensational.

I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.”
― Federico Fellini

The scope of stories covering many different cultures and races, the equality of women, and gender differences has come a huge way.

Representations of peoples from around the world are gaining exposure, an exposure that educates and enriches us all, just as the recent availability of international ingredients and spices give us a huge palate of foods to enjoy.

I’ll likely dip my toes into the Oscars this Sunday because of my historic connection and fond reminiscence of films and filmmaking, but it will be a decidedly lacklustre, less engrossing viewing… one that will definitely be lacking, *hallelujah*, songs about “Movie Boobs”.

Or… maybe I’ll just watch a good movie instead… rumour has it there are some good ones out there, with or without an Oscar nomination!

Welcome back OSCAR… Hooray for MOVIEWOOD!

You Can Become A Minor Hero…

Every week we are bombarded with yet another new superhero, caped or masked, leotarded or graphite-enshrouded.

Movie and TV screens are filled to the brim with “superheroes”… imaginary beings that save the world… save civilization, save the universe.

Superheroes aren’t really my jam, aside from the quirky Deadpool, who is the weirdest, anti-hero hero. Anyone who makes me belly laugh is inducted into my hero club.

But I prefer to spend my mindspace real estate on real-life, often “minor” heroes.

Since Ukraine has been under attack, I find myself wholly intrigued and mesmerized by Volodymyr Zelensky, a totally unexpected, shockingly surprising hero. A real-life capeless hero.

I know from reading countless Facebook posts over the years that most of us are inspired and lifted by the day-to-day real-life heroes out there. We revere heroes.

The Huffington Posts posits that there are 6 kinds of real-life heroes…. maybe there are more, I don’t know.

• The Warrior Hero.
• The Protector Hero.
• The Healer Hero.
• The Master Hero.
• The Leader Hero.
• The Teacher Hero.

There’s a pretty good chance that you’re one of these. I hope so. You may not even realize it.

There’s a common thread running through these real-life heroes, it’s called…

INSPIRATION

They show us what we can attempt to be as humans and inspire us to become better versions of ourselves. Minor heroes.

My Walter Mitty inner-persona sees myself aspiring to become a saviour of the downtrodden, a visionary to those who need inspiration and hope.

It’s largely a mirage, but an aspiration nonetheless. It takes aspiration to make inspiration to take action.

Real heroes are the people who do little or large things, unexpected things, everyday things, that leave the world around them better or preserve lives.

The best heroes to me are often normal people who scarcely notice how extraordinary they are, often overlooking their contributions because they were never presented with an official cape by the mayor of Gotham City. Humility and heroism are twin virtues.

Becoming a hero is often not a choice, it’s thrust upon us and we must decide if we can or will surmount our personal worries and fears.

Volodymyr Zelensky is the latest, greatest example. There are countless others, in Ukraine and all around the globe, that we never hear about who are saving lives, or making lives better with what they do for little or no recognition.

Take that Vladimir!

Big wars make minor heroes into major heroes (and minor villains into major villains)… small people of all genders and ethnicities and belief systems that rise to the occasion.

Zelensky may – I hope – triumph in his unasked-for quest, or, he may perish and become a martyr, a chapter in a history book like Martin Luther King or Ghandi.

There are Ukrainian heroes, Afghan heroes, Syrian heroes, Jewish, Atheist, Baha’i, Muslim, and Christian heroes… even Russian heroes. Far off and right next-door heroes.

I chop vegetables and make sandwiches a few days a month alongside a longtime friend, a lady at the soup kitchen who birthed 5 kids, two with Cystic Fibrosis. Tough stuff, yes?

Today, retired and all her kids grown: one child has died, one has had a double-lung transplant, another has lupus and heart problems, her husband had a heart attack last year.

Can life get any more difficult for one person? Of course it can, but it’s the fact that she courageously shoulders this life without public complaint, with a cheery smile, and a desire to help others that makes her a hero in my view. A minor hero but a hero still.

Not everyone has to become a big hero. The world needs a major hero from time to time… a Churchill, a Mother Teresa, a Zelensky.

But even more, the world needs an army of minor heroes, or people making daily attempts to make the world a better place with unselfish acts.

And if you look inside yourself, there’s probably a hero buried there too.

I’ll never be a big hero, never a Zelensky, never a Churchill, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Ghandi, or Dalai Lama… the kind of hero who forgoes all rational grasp-holds of safety. I’m merely “Yoda-trying” to find my inner minor hero.

I’ll leave you today with just a few ideas about how you can sew your own cape (maybe don’t squeeze into the leotard, OK?) and become a minor hero in your world…

• Perform random acts of kindness. 

• Shovelling your neighbour’s snowy driveway for them.
• Helping to pay a student’s tuition.
• Buying lunch for a depressed friend.
• Buying groceries for someone in need.
• Taking an elderly neighbour to an appointment.

• Volunteer your time. 

• Help build houses with Habitat for Humanity for low-income families.
• Join a gleaner’s group.
• Get involved with your neighbourhood clean-up committee or watch group.
• You don’t always have to volunteer in an official way. You can offer to help a friend move or give up some time to listen when a family member is in need of emotional support.

• Use small gestures. 

• Even offering someone kind words can help you grow as a hero. Smile and say thank you to service workers.
• Bring a friend a fresh flower.
• Write your mail person a thank you note.
• Offer your seat on the bus or subway to a pregnant woman, an elderly person, or someone with a cane or crutches.
• Send a family member a surprise email or text telling them something they did in the past that made you feel good.

• Promote the Good rather than Oppose the Bad 

• Attend a “pro” rally instead of an anti-demonstration. Pro-peace, pro-immigrant, pro-BLM or pro-LGBTQ.
• The most successful, heroic people focus on the positive. 

• Volunteer Your Treasure

• Donate a portion of your income (or blood) to help others – people, animals, projects in need.

Twitter Nation Twitterpation

Are you ready? Good… then let shagging season begin.

Yup, it’s springtime.

Last weekend I began pruning my Ambrosia apple and Italian prune plum trees, sure signs of spring that, in these global warming times, mean more than the return of robins – in this area of British Columbia many robins stopped migrating south in the winter about 10 years ago.

More spring inspiration? This week I was reading the book Bambi to my grandson and was refreshed on the perennial spring ritual of Twitterpation… sweet… but today, seismic global changes have ritualized us into a perpetual Twitter Nation.

Horniness replaced by irritation and rage.

I long for the return of that lovely twitterpation every spring… can’t help myself. There’s a building pressure and excitement inside… long daylight days, greenery pushing through the earth, birds darting everywhere.

I don’t know about you, but this spring feels differently different… yup, different yet familiar, because 2 spring seasons back we all began the crazy journey of pandemic “social isolation”.

That spring of 2020 was VERY different… remember?

• We formed quiet lineups outside grocery stores… toilet paper shortages… futile searches for yeast or bottled water.
• We disinfected canned goods and vegetables when they arrived in our homes.
• We hesitantly began donning face masks and adopted strange interactional rituals such as elbow bumps.
• We avoided restaurants and movie theatres like… well, like the plague.
• We took in newscasts overfilled with stories of ICU units jammed with the dead and dying, tractor trailer morgues outside hospitals, impassioned daily updates by the likes of Anthony Fauci, Andrew Cuomo and our local health bosses.
• We anxiously anticipated the invention of a miracle-vaccine pulled from a science magician’s hat.

Yes, spring 2020 was much more Twitter Nation than Spring Twitterpation.

Twitterpation is filled with enthusiasm and ebullient zest… Twitter Nation often unwinds with bitter vitriol.

There was no zest in March 2020…. twitterpation just melted away with the dirty winter snows… leaving behind a trail of…

… worry, fear, and uncertainty that filled our hearts and minds. Here’s a song (The Blessing and the Curse) I wrote and recorded in those dusky times reflecting that virus-laden uncertainty…

Then one day the miracle vaccine arrived. Hallelujah, we’re saved. We stood in vaccine lines breathing a collective sigh of relief. Sort of…

And yet – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

Here we are in the twitterpation time of year once again… but…

… the worry, the fear, the uncertainty is still with us.

But, not so much arising today from a nasty biological virus, but from a surging maniacal pathogen called Putin.

This virulent bug has infected the human body, and humanity’s immunity systems are struggling just as they did with the COVID contagion.

The world is getting screwed and it doesn’t feel like the giddy sensation of twitterpation at all. Not a bit.

Ukraine is a rape victim that resists and struggles, but, weaker than the wretched perpetrator who insists upon having his way, will likely… sadly… succumb.

Through the unexpected and unwanted destruction and sadness, and with no easy answers in sight, I have to find solace and hopeful signs even when the forward view is bleak.

In spring, hope springs eternal, so…

I’ll leave you with an Emily Dickinson poem that highlights both the beauty of spring light and also the perishability, the impermanence, of spring… the blessing and the curse of our times you might say…

Emily Dickinson

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

Blooms in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains

Get Running… Get Better… Live Longer… Live Better…

Photo: Maureen Green

RAH rah rah!

See that guy in the picture above?

Whaddya mean which guy? The 7-footer dressed in orange and black.

This was at the starting line of a running race I was in 10 years ago.

Once the starter’s pistol began the event, I never saw him again. He was a jaguar on two legs.

And oh yeah, he won the race… SHOCKER!

I’ve been in a couple hundred running races in my “short” life.

And in a mere, lonely ONE (one is the loneliest number) of all those races I won a medal… 2nd place in a 10k run on a steamy June Okanagan evening. WAHOO!!

Second place is pretty good, right?

Full Disclosure: Did I mention there were only 3 runners in my age group?

Let’s face it, clearly I don’t run for the glory of prizes or medals.

I’ve been very fortunate… my joints have help up to the gravity-assisted pounding of my non-lightweight body (so far).

Running for me is about hard work, consistency, training, sweat, fresh air and blue skies, enduring a little pain, and … getting better… living longer…

Guess what? Today’s blog post is about getting better and living longer.

You may run. You may not.

Don’t matter to me.

Not many of you are likely interested in running as a pastime or vocation, which tells me that I should be searching for universal truths, common bonds we share…

What matters to me, and very directly to you, is that we do something that makes us breathe hard, maybe feel a twinge of muscle soreness, and yes, bring on a bead of sweat.

Planning ahead 20 years, we need to think about what we can do TODAY to keep ourselves intact physically and mentally (healthspan) so we can: canoodle on the floor with our grandkids, or play our bridge games, or unmaze our WORDLES, or maintain our ability to carry groceries up the stairs into our house/condo.

Do just that and you’re getting better. Can be running, swimming, golfing, cycling, pickle-ball, soccer, tennis, pilates, or even just walking briskly. Yes, practical, work-based exercise (mucking out stalls, tossing hay bales) will do the trick too!

I’ve written here before on a couple of occasions about longevity and healthspan. Take that little paragraph above and wear it like a mantra. Repeat your activity(ies) daily, and you’ll be a huge part of the way along to increasing both your lifespan and healthspan… your worldly enjoyment.

Need proof? Here are a few scientific papers and links backing up the connection between fitness and your longer-term ability to keep breathing:

1. RUNNING: https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/4877a5be-9ac4-4822-9623-e00098fd79c5/content
2. SWIMMING: https://www.medicaldaily.com/swimming-benefits-8-reasons-why-sport-good-you-247152
3. GOLFING and WALKING: https://phlabs.com/whats-the-secret-to-longevity-it-may-be-golf
4. TENNIS: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2018/09/17/want-to-live-longer-take-up-tennis/?sh=5f1da61f301b
5. WALKING: https://neurosciencenews.com/walking-longevity-20133/

Your heart gets better, your leg strength gets better, your lungs get better, your blood sugar regulation gets better, your brain function gets better. It’s a Vegas jackpot winner. BETTER BETTER BETTER… WIN WIN WIN

I know that you know all of this but we can never be reminded enough, so here’s your little push.

Listen, I wish I could tell you it gets better, but it doesn’t get better. YOU get better.”

— Joan Rivers

I’m feeling excited right now because I’m training for the Vancouver Half Marathon on the first of May.

Super excited because the race has been COVID-cancelled the last 2 years, so the build up for a return to “public” running is big. The spectacular ocean and mountain scenery will help diminish the fatigue and outpouring of sweat. Maybe even lessen the pain in the last few kilometres.

And even more is that I turn 65 this year which seems like a good time to celebrate reaching middle age!!

In the end, we all start our day with different reasons to get up and move. Some of us search for purpose and meaning, some for the best coffee beans or tea leaves, while others just seek the little moments of joy that happenstance brings their way.

You have to find your own way, but getting better each day will be a fabulous investment in yourself and your family and friends.

Medals may come our direction, but every time we choose to exercise our bodies, we end up learning a tiny bit more about what we’re truly capable of, and what our future can look like.

And sometimes, that alone is worth some small discomfort.

We’re reminded during this week of terrible global turmoil of the tremendous freedoms we enjoy. Let’s try to channel our inner unrest, and exercise our freedoms to getting better…