Little Children, the movie

Excellent movie with strong performances. The insights about surburban social dynamics and tension between two people whose lives essentially preclude their relationship from following its course is near-perfect. I kept worrying that the third line--that of the sex offender returned home--was going to go over the top, but it also seemed well-tuned and human; you could see the emotionally hermetic world he too was locked in. Each of the three threads ended in ways that were foreshadowed early-on, but the filmmakers were careful enough not to tip too much of their hand, so that the ending changed very little outwardly for the core protagonists, while changing everything inwardly.

One down-moment hit when Winslet's character who is apparently ABD says, "My professors would kill me for saying this, but in her own strange way, Emma Bovary is a feminist." Of the writing team--Tom Perotta and Todd Field--who have credit for the screenplay, I have to wonder which one crafted this line. Anyone with passing experience in post-modernist, feminist, post-feminist criticism from intensive English degrees knows that this is actually a standard reading of Bovary. Still, it was the right novel for the moment in the plot.

As cliched as it was the closing lines from the omniscient narrator, another nice nod to Bovary--"You couldn't change the past, but the future could be a different story... but it had to start somewhere."--struck the right chord with me. After all, my one worry when I rented the movie was that it might hit uncomfortably close to home. It did at moments, but this sentiment was well-timed as the plotlines resolved themselves.

Spring Beers pt. 4

Tonight's match-up is a throwdown between two Michigan breweries.

1. Whitsun from Arcadia Brewing of Battle Creek--which might explain why their site is sobad
This is their take on the English version of the classic wheat. Apparently, they top the flavor off with "the addition of Michigan honey," which explains the sweet, heavy finish. Basically, it's a nicely rounded beer, with a fair balance of hops to counter some of the wheat and honey sweetness.

2. Oberon from Bell's
Summer has lots of suitors vying for the role of her perfect partner. From Celis White to Brooklyn Weiss to the ubiquitous Magic Hat and beyond, there are plenty of good suitors. True to his name, though, Oberon is king of them all. Okay, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole--but it's going to take a lot to knock him out of the top spot.

More old pictures

I came across this one on Gothamist... Old Pictures is a killer resource if you're an antique picture and/or history geek. I found the site a little hard to navigate at first, but it's forgiveable considering the depth of material you can find on it. It really is a hell of a treasure trove of American history.

Spring Beers pt. 3

Moving to Europe for part of this evening's selections was a mixed decision.

1. Erdinger Pikantus Weizen-Bock from Erdinger [in case you read German]
Figures that a near-perfect beer comes from the Germans... anyway, this was a fine example of a weizen-bock. The taste was nice and malty, with a light balance of hops. the color was bronze, with a nice head on it. In short, it was great.

2. Hofbrau Dunkel from Hofbrauhaus Munchen
The first whiff out of the bottle had a bit of skunk to it, and the first few sips worried me. Given a little air and time in the glass, the taste improved. It turned out to be a good Dunkel--basic, but good.

3. Bell's Lager from Bell's Beer in K-zoo
According to the web site, the batch my bottle came from was bottled on January 11. Being able to track this information is very cool, and very geeky. Anyway, this was a lager that tasted more like a pilsner on the first sips, not surprising given the Pils malt. Anyway, this was a crisp, clean beer that drank easily. It certainly kept up the standards of the other Bell's beers I've enjoyed. (And for the record there will be a couple of Bell's in tomorrow's run.)

More from the annals of consumer safety sold to the highest bidder

So what is it, I mean, what is it really with the Bush&Co selling off every piece of the government to business interests. The examples are too numerous to list, but the latest one is every bit as galling. Daddytypes also links through to The Consumerist on this one. None of this should be surprising, of course, given the idiots running things, but this one galls particularly. They are putting a man in charge of consumer safety who has developed a record of complete disdain and disregard for consumers, parents, children, society. These people are pathetic.

Submersible ships!

Like a child's toy, only a hell of lot bigger. This is just really cool, and you can check out the video here. There are a few more links over at Gothamist.

The good-old days of American cuisine

I have no idea where to begin about this, as well as the rest of the Gallery of Regrettable Food.

It reminds me of a Fourth of July dinner years ago with some step-relatives in small-town Virginia. One of the dishes was a casserole of beans (the sweet sort, with lots of pork fat) and slices of corned beef hash with pineapple slices laid on top. There was a maraschino cherry in the center. Apparently, this was a variation on a classic family dish they had all grown up with. For some time, they debated the merits of canned corned beef hash versus Spam. Yes, Spam. Then again, these are the same people who call a Jell-O mold with celery and canned fruit "salad."

It is comic and frightening that we, as a culture, have invested so much in trying to justify our food production industry that we try to invent dishes just to make use of pre-packaged crap. Tuna Casserole, anyone? Ham Salad? American Cheese?

Anyway, there's a brilliant gallery of old food advertising at Plan 59. And just think of it... if we feed our kids dishes like this, they're guaranteed to come out looking like this.

Bon appetit!

Spring Beers pt. 2

Today's selections were to test two different white beers, or wit biers.

1. Southampton Double White Ale from Southampton Publick House [Note: hopefully you'll have better luck getting the site to come up.]
This is a decent beer. That's about the best I can say. The coriander and orange peel are evident, but overall the beer lacks much to distinguish it. If you're in the mood for a white beer, I'd pick up Allagash instead, or one of the several other good ones that appear around this time of year.

2. Victory Whirlwind Witbier from Victory Brewing in Pennsylvania
I really like Victory's beers, in general. Their Prima Pils is killer, as is the Golden Monkey. That said, I wanted to like Whirlwind more than I did. It was a good example of a wit, but it didn't really jump out the way I expected a Victory beer to do. This one has won awards in the past; maybe this was just a down year.

Down night for beer. Maybe I'll open an Erdinger or Bell's to cleanse the meh-ness.

today's news

From the NYT today:

KANSAS CITY, Mo., April 29 (AP) — A shooting at a shopping center here on Sunday afternoon left three people dead, including the gunman, the police said.

An elderly woman found dead earlier in the day may also have been killed by the gunman, the police said.

The authorities said they went to a home early Sunday afternoon to check on the woman, whom relatives had not seen for days. She was found dead and her car was missing, said a police spokesman, Tony Sanders.

The car was spotted later in the day by a police officer, who pulled the driver over and was shot in the arm, the police said. The officer, whose wound was not life-threatening, returned fire and shattered a car window.

The car left the scene and was later spotted at the mall, the Ward Parkway Center in southern Kansas City. The police said the man shot four people in the parking lot, two fatally, then went inside.

The gunman was shot to death by the police inside the mall.

The police did not say how the elderly woman died or whether the gunman was a suspect in her death. But they did say they believed that the events were connected.

That quiet sound you hear is me shaking my head. How many more of these do we need before something changes? How many more?

Spring Beers!

I'm going to start a little feature on my unread (does anyone really visit?) blog... seasonal brews. This is--hopefully--a prelude to my return to brewing. Anyway, 'tis the season for wits, saisons, bocks, and more...

The first three entries are:

1. Red Sky At Night Saison Ale from Heavy Seas
This one is a nice take on the classic Belgian saison style. It has a sweet, rounded flavor with spicy notes and a relatively light body. At 8% ABV, it has a solid kick, but it is good enough to have two before switching to something lighter.

2. Heller Hound Maibock from Flying Dog
This one was my favorite of the bunch. It was clean, crisp, and tasty without being overly sweet. At just over six percent ABV, it also had a good late afternoon kick without leaving you crocked.

3. Merry Monks Belgian Style Golden Ale from Weyerbacher
The Weyerbacher guys like beers that are a little over-the-top, and their take on the Belgian Trippel is no exception. While this one won't quite compete with drinking a Jupiler in Brussels, it's a tasty beer with a potent kick. My preference, given the choice might be Avery's Karma or one of the Ommegang bottles, but this one is certainly close behind.

Green Design

I am working on a major new project at work--the rethinking of a planner we did two years ago, as well as two other publications that will be wrapped into it. Since the green movement finally seems to have gone mainstream, this seems like an opportune moment to take the Cradle to Cradle and sustainability questions to the fore.

The question of paper is an easy one. Finding good recycled papers and synthetic papers takes little effort. If I truly want to think the whole process through, however, I need to look at even the corporations and their facilities--from Mohawk's wind-powered paper mills to Neenah/Fox River's considerable efforts at waste-free manufacturing.

Then there is the question of printers, namely finding a printer that can print and bind 18,000 160-page books with the least amount of waste and emissions. There is also the question of writing specs for wire bindings and ink that meet the ethical standards.

Finally, there is the question of design, and it is likely that some of these other considerations will influence the design itself.

more thoughts on the gun question (while I hear helicopters overhead)

Adam Gopnik has a great piece leading off The Talk of the Town in this week's New Yorker. He delves into some of the questions we should be asking in the aftermath of the Tech shootings, particularly the insistence by officials and others (I'll leave it to you to sort the others, for now) that questions about gun control would unnecessarily politicize the incident. For instance:

If the facts weren’t so horrible, there might be something touching in the Governor’s deeply American belief that “healing” can take place magically, without the intervening practice called “treating.” The logic is unusual but striking: the aftermath of a terrorist attack is the wrong time to talk about security, the aftermath of a death from lung cancer is the wrong time to talk about smoking and the tobacco industry, and the aftermath of a car crash is the wrong time to talk about seat belts.

The point is dead-on. How often does a tragedy strike, and we're told not to talk about the causes--as though that would somehow dishonor the dead. Or in my case, more than a few people wondered whether I wanted to get a gun for protection. And when I argued that the answer was fewer guns, their answers were often that tighter gun laws wouldn't have kept the kid from getting his hand on that .44.

Then again, wouldn't having fewer handguns anywhere reduce the likelihood of something like this happening? Gopnik goes on to reference the tragedy ten years ago in Dunblane, Scotland, after which the British government tightened their already-restrictive handgun ownership laws. It is now illegal for a private citizen to own the sort of weapons used at Tech, the gun used to shoot John Locke, the gun used to shoot me, and so on and so forth. After all, a handgun exists for no other purpose than to shoot people; such things have no place in a civilized, democratic society. As Gopnik writes:

It’s true that in renewing the expired ban on assault weapons we can’t guarantee that someone won’t shoot people with a semi-automatic pistol, and that by controlling semi-automatic pistols we can’t reduce the chances of someone killing people with a rifle. But the point of lawmaking is not to act as precisely as possible, in order to punish the latest crime; it is to act as comprehensively as possible, in order to prevent the next one. Semi-automatic Glocks and Walthers, Cho’s weapons, are for killing people.

I understand the essentially libertarian arguments against government intervention in our private affairs--and our rights to private ownership and private choice. What I do not understand is the insistence on these "rights" in the face of obvious evidence that such "rights" continue to damage the civility and sanity of our society. It's like the arguments defending smoking in restaurants, bars, and other public places--that it's an individual's "right" to do as he pleases. The problem is these "rights" and behaviors cause harm to people who do not choose to partake in them. After all, shouldn't it be our collective goal to make our society a safer, better place in every way possible? Doesn't the common good outweigh the privileges of the individual?

Gopnik ends with this:

Rural America is hunting country, and hunters need rifles and shotguns—with proper licensing, we’ll live with the risk. There is no reason that any private citizen in a democracy should own a handgun. At some point, that simple truth will register.

He's right.

I've stayed away from commenting directly on these things for too long. Unfortunately, I have now been too close to the harm handguns can do too many times. I have been witness to a man dying. I was lucky enough to be hit and survive. People I know knew victims at Tech. The shooter in Arkansas--just like the shooter at Tech--bought his ammunition at Wal-Mart. Just like that, walked into a store that claims to be family-friendly and purchased hundreds of units of death and destruction.

Tom Wolfe

Watching the Colbert Report, and Wolfe is on. He is, of course, dressed in the famous white suit and a contrasting striped shirt. The strange thing is the man is old--I mean, old--but he looks like a teenager. Either he has genes as immaculate as his suit or he is the living embodiment of Dorian Gray. The only telling sign is that he has a bit of a tremor. And he has the same hairstyle as Graydon Carter.

Stop signs are not suggestions!

I watched a girl in an '07 3-series tear through a stop sign this morning on her way to grabbing a parking spot. What makes it worse is that this particular stop sign is directly in front of the VCU Child Development Center. Being the absurdly self-righteous individual that I am, I followed them down the street to the parking spot, where I said, "Do you realize you just blew through a stop sign in front of a school where there are young children and parents?" My tone wasn't exactly nice, either.

The boyfriend in the passenger seat laughed incredulously, and the girl dripped poor-little-rich-girl smugness when she said, "Excuse me? Would you mind your own business?"

"I'm minding the business of the kids and parents who go there, like my daughter used to." The girl closed the window and flipped me off. Bitch.

Granted I could have used a less confrontational approach, but what I really don't get is the sense of entitlement so many people carry. The very attitude that breaking the law is somehow not my or anyone else's business. The very idea that she (or all the people she represents in this argument) can't be held accountable. And shouldn't be. Aargh! Too bad it's pollyanna-ish to wish for a more civil society...

Old photos are always good stuff

Just found this stuff while cruising the interwebs...

This site just blew me away for the run of images, from New York to the Ozarks. Images like this one are just priceless for the history and humanity:

in Dayton

in Dayton
Originally uploaded by pkarns1970.

New pics at gallery.

The other shooting I witnessed

Brian wrote about it here. He really gets it here:

Mine involved only one professor and a seriously disturbed student, but I can't stop thinking about it right now. So maybe writing this post is therapy for me or something--I can't be certain--but it's something I feel I need to write today.

It was the first day of the fall term, 2000. I was in my second year as an MFA student at the University of Arkansas, and I was about to teach my first class of the semester. I was in my office on the 2nd floor of Kimpel Hall, with my friend Paul, shooting the breeze, when we heard two loud slaps, like a metal shelf hitting a tile floor. A voice called "help" twice, then another slap. A voice down the hall yelled something about a gun.

I recall that moment. It was Pat Slattery, our mentor in teaching composition, who was in the hallway, yelling at students to get out, amidst the stench of burnt gunpowder. We waited at different ends of the hallway until the campus bicycle police showed up.

The sense memories of that morning--it was early--were fresh after I was shot four weeks ago. The gunpowder smelled the same. The shots sounded the same, though the ones aimed at me were a bigger caliber. I do remember every moment of that morning, though I cannot recall the second shot that went into the kitchen wall rather than me.

I have cried a lot in the last month. Many things brought the tears the night I was in the hospital, just as every memory of that warm morning in September 2000 crowded back during the growing news of the Tech shootings last week. And I slumped into my chair and cried again.

Gratuitous Baseball Moment

It's good to see Pettite back.

Turn Your Screw 3

Here's the set list for my recent mix CD for our little circle of music afficionados:

"I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" Wilco
"Elegant Transaction" Loose Fur
"Taillights Fade" Buffalo Tom
"Landed" Ben Folds
"Stockholm Syndrome" Yo La Tengo
"Salvador Sanchez" Sun Kil Moon
"Hold On" Tom Waits
"Goodbye Rye" Richard Buckner
"Transcendental Blues" Steve Earle
"Bandages and Scars" Son Volt
"Before I Go" John Hiatt
"Phantom Limb" The Shins
"Losing Streak" Eels
"Secret to a Long Life" Michelle Shocked
"Sons & Daughters" The Decemberists
"A Shot in the Arm" Wilco

Travel

So, we cruised back from Dayton today after my mother's grande fete. Anna was grumpy, but her mood cleared by the time we landed in Philly.

We landed in Philly with some time to spare on our connection. I thought we should stop for some food, but the lines were long--and my gut said we should move on quickly to the gate before taking any extra time. When we got there, the Richmond tag was on the wrong gate--18 when our tickets said 22. Pretty soon, it was clear that US Airways was battling some kind of massive SNAFU.

Apparently the plane that was supposed to go to Richmond had also been booked for BWI, and we were now pawns in a stand-off between two CSR managers for the airline. One wanted to move us to a 4:00 flight, on which there might not be enough seats. The other wanted to follow the original schedule, in which case the BWI passengers would actually be put on a bus headed for Baltimore.

Both groups of passengers milled around the gate areas, and I decided lunch would be the fruit and nuts we had with us. There was too much chance of losing the flight all together if we walked away. The two groups alternately commiserated--of course I understand or yeah, you could rent a car faster--and faced off--that's supposed to be our plane.

In the end, roughly a half hour after we were supposed to have left, the CSR who had advocated for Richmond threw open the doors and called out that all Richmond-bound passengers should board now, parents traveling with small children first.

It was a rickety, old propeller plane, but we didn't care. We made it home.