CatherineRhodes.com

Raised weird, wanted to be normal

Raised normal, wanted to be weird

Arguably the best album of last year was The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. For those of us born in the 60s and 70s it perfectly captured the details of living on a cul-de-sac and riding your bike to school. The classic American experience from a French-Canadian band. It’s interesting the way our childhood environment shapes us. Just saw the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA where his bio explained that part of his subversive art was in rebellion to his repressive upbringing in surburban Burbank.

On the other hand, J.J. Abrams of Lost and a zillion other projects fame, was recently interviewed on Jon Stewart and he had the opposite experience. He had an artsy bohemian family and envied the kids who lived in those tidy houses in the suburbs because he imagined their lives were orderly as well. We’re all shaped by our family of origin, for better or worse. As a character from the movie Magnolia said, you might be done with the past but the past isn’t done with you.

For a super cool experience, click here and type in the address of your childhood home. It’s a brilliant interactive video from Arcade Fire. A little creepy, but amazing.

You can't imagine a scandal with these two pros

I read in the paper yesterday that the British monarchy is going to do away with male primogeniture for heirs to the throne, meaning Will & Kate’s daughter could be crowned ahead of a younger brother. Now historians are playing games of “what if?” so I thought I’d jump into the fray. If this equal opportunity monarch rule were in effect during the time of Henry III, he would have ceded his position to his sister Margaret, who was born two years earlier. So there would be no infamous divorces and beheadings of six wives, no break with the Vatican, no Elizabeth I.

If the rule had changed for Henry’s children, the outcome would be the same as above. He would have stayed married to Katharine of Aragon and Mary Tudor would have ruled England, at least until she succumbed to her stomach tumor, after which time the crown would have been up for grabs because there were no other surviving children. At least she wouldn’t have burned Protestants at the stake. No reason.

I had the strange fortune to meet Queen Catherine on her Los Angeles visit. It was a Sunday morning and I was on my jogging route along Sixth to La Brea when I noticed the road was barricaded at June Street where news vans were parked along with three black SUVs with dark-tinted windows. There were about 20 people lined up holding bouquets. Helicopters circled overhead. Ever-curious, I ran up to see what was going on, and just at that moment, William and Catherine exited from one of the houses and came our way! I then remembered that they were staying in Hancock Park at the British Embassy, but I didn’t know where it was.

They made their way down the line smiling and shaking hands, ever the professionals and seeming to not resent their command performance. Truthfully, they could have waved at the crowd and that would have been enough. Instead they chose to put in the extra effort and came over to shake hands, including my sweaty, sunscreened one thrust through the well-dressed line of people. “My name is Catherine too!” I blurted like an idiot. She looked and me, and in that plummy accent said, “How lovely” and moved along.

Anyway, I’m glad their daughter will be queen, and I’m counting the striking of the primogeniture rule as a score for feminism. I, for one, think the monarchy is a delightful and useful tradition, because the royal family manages the ceremonial tasks so the real heads of state don’t have to. Poor Barack is expected to be David Cameron and Duchess Catherine rolled into one. Too exhausting, and a poor use of resources.

So brilliant it's scary

Walks the walk

My favorite hour of TV is “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” the best of the 8 am Sunday talk show line-up (now that Tim Russert is gone, R.I.P.).

Christiane and Hillary: Sigh, a moment of pure heaven to see these two accomplished, highly respected women operating at the top of their game discussing foreign policy. This is what Gloria, Betty and Simone were talkin’ about.

Mitt Romney’s illegal comment: As Jake Tapper said, a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth.

John McCain: Still a grumpy old man. He was whining that nobody was with him on the surge. “They were wrong then and they’re wrong now” (to bring the troops home after 10 years of a senseless war). If you’re going to play that game, how about this: They were wrong about the WMDs, wrong about the pre-emptive strike doctrine, so why should we trust anything the Neocon Republicans say on the matter of Iraq?

Arab Spring: rolls along without any American invasions. Elections in Tunisia where even women vote, Ghadaffi is overthrown in Libya.

Politics Makes for Odd Bedfellows: Here are two: Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO and Tom Donahue of the Chamber. They both are on the stump for rebuilding infrastructure, which will create jobs in transportation, construction, manufacturing. The reason the GOP in Congress won’t go for it is because their only goal is to make Obama look bad. If the country goes to hell before the election, that’s just collateral damage.

It’s hard to imagine a person who has had such a direct impact on everyday living. Sure these Nobel Prize winners move the frontiers of knowledge in the field of particle matter, but that doesn’t trickle down to the person on the street, at least not in an obvious way.

As someone who has never worked on a PC, whose first computer was a Mac IICX, which took up the whole desk and cost over $7,000 in 1989 — for me, the impact of Apple is personal. The Mac, the iphone, ipod and now the tablet, represent not gadgets but a seismic cultural shift in the way we both communicate and create. Add in Pixar, and the millions of people who have enjoyed those brilliant movies, and there are probably few people on the planet who have not been touched by Apple.

My reaction to Steve Jobs is also visceral. This is how I remember him: Young, shaggy, wicked smart and smokin’ hot.

Lived with intensity, died young

I spent the day in the “jury holding pen” at the Superior Court in Downtown L.A. today, and must say it was a rather heartening experience. The whole process was extremely efficient, administered by bureaucrats who were remarkably unbureaucratic, even funny. The idea is that a pool of jurors waits in a big room to see if any of the courts in the building needs to form a panel. If so, names are randomly drawn and those jurors set off for voir dire, aka jury selection. The rest of us stay behind to wait some more.

The room was a comfortable temp, had cushy seats, computers for public use and free WI-FI. There were vending machines and clean bathrooms. I spent the day reading and checking email on my iPhone. Not altogether unpleasant. I didn’t ever get called, but left with a positive impression of the criminal justice system.

I'm sure the black actresses hate playing those roles

William Clark, of the Lewis & Clark duo, kept a daily journal of their extraordinary trek across the continent in 1803, except that at one point he abrupty stopped. Eight months later he started up again with nary an explanation. The journals were a very important chronicle of the landforms, the plantlife, the natives they encountered, and the best bits were in the second half. The takeaway lesson is that we shouldn’t be stopped by the re-start.

I’ve had an insanely kerrazed summer and have lapsed with my blog, but now intend to start up again. I’d like to be one of those people who posts daily like clockwork. I’ll try.

So here goes.

I saw “The Help” last night with my daughters which was a mild disappointment. Every stereotype was not only deployed but exagerrated to the point of being a cartoon. No nuanced characters in this cast, no way. Everyone was either white hat or black hat (although in this case, the white hats are the bad guys, which louses up the metaphor. Oh well.) The mean-spirited, shallow white bigots, the noble, generous and long-suffering black folk. Even the free-wheelin’ Manhattan book editor was a knockoff of Samantha Jones, albeit PG-rated. People, we’ve seen it all before.

Oddly, I feel zero white guilt. I live in a multi-cultural world where everyone’s got a shot at the ring. My kids are virtually color-blind. I watch a movie like “The Help” which is designed to manipulate emotions but I’m not buying it.

As for my review: Yes, for the acting and production values, but be prepared for the treacly syrup to be poured on thick.

Not just "the gay dad movie"

Like Ravel's "Bolero" of movies

They were hungry

Beginners is a small triumph. About the imprinting that’s done by nature and by childhood, and our ability to override that imprint as an adult. Funny, sweet, but smart. Reminds me of the concept that when you meet your soulmate you don’t love them, you recognize them.  YES.

“Falling Skies” turned out to be a dud. The pilot was promising but the next two episodes devolved into idiocy.  NO NO NO, unless you’re in prison and there’s only one show on TV.

Super 8. A Spielberg movie is always the triumph of hope over experience.  I see his name as a writer or director and think, maybe it will be different this time. But alas, it’s not. Impossibly wise and adorable children, overarching treacly soundtrack, bumbling adults, poor mistreated aliens. Oh vey. Between this and “Falling Skies,” I promise that the next time f I see the Speilberg brand I’m gonna run.  NO!

“Superior Donuts” at the Geffen was pure pleasure. A bit like Beginners in theme, about trying to change one’s life as an adult to redo decisions from the past. YES

The Exorcist. Wow, what a brilliant film. I’ve wanted to see the new director’s cut for some time but was worried I’d be too frightened to sleep. Terrific character development, grand baroque Catholic theme, and lots of ordinary smart people trying to solve an unknown problem. They could not make this movie today with the clean restraint that kept it so taut and involving. No slashers, no torture, no violence really. I was afraid that the Linda Blair Satan would look campy due to overexposure as a cultural icon, but it doesn’t.  God bless the 70s for movie making. GIANT YES

Just Kids. I enjoyed the book immensely, though must admit its flaws. The first third was terrific, the middle third sagged, as if Patti was trying to define the historical record rather than tell a story, ie: it became a travel log of where they went, who was there. The last third devolved into “Saint Robert” which got pretty tiresome given that we’re talking about a man with thin talent who is only notable for the controversy of his subject matter. Qualified Yes.

masculine

feminine

Reading Just Kids with my book club, and it brings back memories. These two albums above, Horses and Easter, were important to me when I arrived in Los Angeles for a weekend and never left. I was lost with nowhere to go so L.A. was as good a place as another. Got a job at Brentano’s and listened to a lot of Miss Smith. Found out from the book that upon arriving lost in New York, she too worked at Brentano’s for a bridge job.

A vignette from the book. She went back to a former apartment to claim her things but decided to leave it all there. “I was too curious about the future to look back,” she wrote.

Laughing all the way to the bank

The Founders are rolling over in their graves

The Republican party has been described as a “big tent,” but I always thought the campers within the GOP made some pretty strange bunkmates. For example, the country club William F. Buckley conservatives and the Palin-O’Donnell-Bachman creationists from the “real America.” But now a fire has started in the form of the debt ceiling vote, forcing a showdown between two inhabitants of the big tent — the Wall Streeters and the Tea Party. Timber! Stay clear of falling tent-poles!

Over at ABC News, Jim DeMint, a Republican senator from South Carolina, who is described as a “firebrand” and “kingmaker,” has strong words for the class of 2010: vote for the increase and you will be “gone.”

Meanwhile, the fatcats on Wall Street are skittish about their precious credit markets. So, the real kingmaker, Tom Donahue at the U.S. Chamber, had his own message for newly-elected representatives who say they aren’t going to raise the debt ceiling and will shut down government: “We’ll get rid of you.”

Looks like a good old-fashioned showdown: See you in the bleachers. I’ll bring popcorn.