Breakfast with Pandora

TiMER: When Netflix comes through

 During the school year, the regular evening routine for me has been come home, make dinner, collapse. In summer, I get to do other things, such as watch movies. I use the Netflix "Play Instantly" option and don't fuss with DVDs, mostly. It means I don't get to see some of the most popular movies. But I also find hidden little gems like "TiMER."

"TiMER" is a independent romantic comedy starring no one you ever heard of. On IMDb.com, the rating of 6.5 was determined by less than 200 votes. 4 people have reviewed it. But if someone like Cameron Diaz had played the lead, I think it would've gone through the roof.

Very quick synopsis: in an alternative near-future, a company discovers a scientific way of guaranteeing the time you will find your soulmate. The company, TiMER, installs a device like a bracelet onto your wrist. If your soulmate also has a device installed, the "timer" then immediately computes the day you will meet your soulmate, and begins counting down on the device's readout.

I love alternative worlds. I began creating them when I was 9 or 10. You have to think of every detail to make your world believable. If, in your world, you have flying horses, how does that affect that world? Does everyone have a flying horse? Are they in zoos? Do countries use a flying horse as the symbol of their nation?

That same spirit is in "TiMER." The device, which really does work, goes viral in its world, and everyone's outlook on life is completely changed. New ethical questions come up, new ways of defining one's personhood, one's stance towards love and romance. Would you get one? is probably the most basic.

The actors, director and script all do a really fine job creating this world. It feels genuine, even if the Southern California setting encourages you to think everyone and everything is fake. You find yourself wondering what you would do in their place. And you do a lot of laughing at some pretty clever lines.

The blonde, brown-eyed Emma Caulfield ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") as Oona does a great Cameron Diaz  imitation. She looks like a cross between the late Natasha Richardson, the wife of the president of the local university, and my haircutter, all of whom have a beauty that goes much more than skin-deep. This is good, because Emma has a thousand close-ups, making the movie quite a pleasure to watch.

Michelle Borth plays Oona's stepsister, Steph. She is a completely different type, a tall model-like brunette, with a sharp mouth and hidden tenderness. Well done, both.

The men? I guess if you like really young, long-haired, smart-mouthed musicians, you will like John Patrick Amedori's Mikey. And there is also the warm and handsome Desmond Harrington as Dan, who says the right things in polished rom-com manner. Good job, guys.

The director is Jac Schaeffer, who according to IMDb.com is a woman. I guess I should've known based on the lack of the "k." It is Jac's first feature film as director. Keep an eye on this one.

One thing: be forewarned that the language and situations are for grown-ups. It's certainly an R for language and adult situations, but its heart is absolutely true blue.

PS: two blog posts (here and here) on the movie from real movie bloggers. Always nice to find actual bloggers who are pumpin' out the content.

The World Cup and the American ethos - II

I guess I should've seen it coming.

For about 90 minutes during the USA's last World Cup soccer game, I kept waiting for the Americans to score a goal. They had many chances. Algeria, their opponent, was very obliging. Time after time, our guys would kick, or head, or nudge the ball somehow at the goal, sometimes from ridiculously short distances. And after about 90 minutes these professionals, who do nothing but practice putting the ball in the net, couldn't do so.

For sure earlier in the game they had scored a goal that the referee waved off questionably. So it wasn't as if they hadn't scored at all. But the point was, they could've scored multiple goals, if only they'd actually put their mind to it.

Then, in "injury" or "stoppage" time (after the first 90 minutes-- "overtime," as a student of mine aptly put it), Algeria finally committed some people forward and almost scored themselves. Tim Howard, the American goalkeeper, threw the ball out to Landon Donovan, the American star soccer player. He passed ahead to striker Jozy Altidore, who gave it to the much-talked about Clint Dempsey right in front of the goalmouth. Dempsey didn't have much time and he kicked it right at the goalkeeper. It rebounded out and Donovan was there to bash it over the prone goalie and into the net.

The announcers went wild, calling it a "fairy-tale ending, a Hollywood ending."

It was as if the American team had conspired to write a myth that would be sure to thrill their American audience. How many movies end this way, with the amazing finish that lifts an underdog to the status of a champion?

And everyone bit on the storyline. In a baseball chatroom I sometimes frequent, the normally jaded and cynical participants were saying, "I thought soccer was supposed to be boring" or "I'm committed to the World Cup now" or "That was the best game I've ever seen."

Later, American goalkeeper Tim Howard summed up the mythological impact on the nation: "That's probably going to capture more people's attention than if we won the game 3-0 and it was easy. That emotion, that passion is what American sports fans thrive on."

Perception is everything. This was a pretty simple game against an opponent the USA should beat. And it had the chance of being an easy 3-0 game. The fact that eventually the Americans got the job done, to me, is more like the propensity in American business of procrastinating until the last minute and then finally delivering the service that could've been done and finished hours or days before.

I am a fan of USA soccer and I would've loved to see another "Miracle on Ice" type of game. This wasn't the moment or the opponent. But the team kind of conspired with the broadcasters to manufacture some myth. Nice for them, nice for the status of soccer in the United States.

PS: for a real "Miracle on Ice" story from the World Cup, try Italy versus Slovakia. The Italians were the reigning world champions, and tiny Slovakia (independence 1992, population 5 million, area the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined) beat the pants off of them, 3-2.

On jumping the shark: Vaynerchuk and Berry

Content is fascinating to me as a mythologist. What captures our attention and keeps it? What are the components of a good story or a charismatic storyteller? Conversely, what makes us turn away from content or personalities? When has a show or a person "jumped the shark" or lost its edge?

I don't spend a whole lot of time on conventional TV anymore except for sports, but I do still access entertainment-- especially online. Two of my favorites in the past few years have been Gary Vaynerchuk's Wine Library TV, and the ESPN Fantasy Focus Baseball podcast of Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz.

"Past few years" indicates these guys have kept my attention. Vaynerchuk is an ultra-charismatic host, someone who built a huge audience just by tasting wine and telling us his impressions. Along the way, he became a consultant, speaker, and author, and he continues his rise.

Berry is also charismatic, a very funny, charming, witty guy, who makes for great diversion while gathering information for your fantasy baseball league team. With his partner, the straight man Ravitz, he tells listeners who's doing well in baseball and who's not, who he thinks will do well, and who you should have on your team. He's a pundit and a prognosticator and is substantially responsible for the rise of fantasy sports in the past couple of decades.

I like both these guys a lot. They are not for everyone: they are in, frankly, niche markets. But for those who are in the markets, they provide high quality entertainment for free. You just have to be, well, a geek.

Recently, however, I have found myself turning away a bit from both Berry and Vaynerchuk, and for similar reasons, hopefully beneficial for them.

Both of these guys have become more famous than they were when they started their shows. They travel a lot and put their energies into many things. They appealed to me at the beginning because they were focused more wholly and closely on their shows. Nowadays-- at least to me-- they don't as much.

It's possible I never would have had this impression with Berry unless I had listened to him guest on the ESPN Bill Simmons podcast (April 29 of this year), which is apparently very popular. Berry worships Simmons, and he was very candid in telling Simmons that he wanted to be more like Simmons-- more of a general sports personality, not just known for fantasy sports. He made it clear that he had a very good job making money for playing and talking about a leisure activity. But he yearned for more.

Ever since then, I have listened to Berry's part of the podcast a little differently. Is his advice a little more slapdash than it would've been? Does he joke more about not giving good advice? And when he is not on the podcast, do the other guests with Ravitz stick more on topic? Just me, but yes on all counts.

Vaynerchuk, similarly, seems to have lost a little energy, a little passion, and perhaps he's noticed this.  I was really astonished to receive a group email from him (one day before the Simmons podcast, April 28) letting me and others know who had not been commenting lately that he missed us.

There must have been something in the stars those two days.

Part of my turning away from Wine Library TV is just that I can't afford wine. But part of it is that after almost 900 fun and entertaining episodes, Gary Vaynerchuk, like Matthew Berry, is bound for better, or at least bigger, things, and for me that makes each episode have a farewell type of character. And I hate goodbyes.

Vaynerchuk talks a lot about passion-- doing what you love as much as you can do, and he is living it in moving beyond wine alone and into things like motivational speaking, brand consulting, and prophecy about the future of the Internet and social media. I'll continue to follow him, but probably drink just a little less wine along the way.

As to Berry, I'll continue to listen to the podcast and take whatever advice he has to give until he moves on. Unlike wine, fantasy baseball costs nothing but the time it takes to do it. Wait a minute... I knew there was a novel I was supposed to be working on...

At World Cup, signs of the American ethos

If you didn't see it or you don't follow soccer, then the Blunder means nothing to you.

If, however, you were even a casual soccer fan yesterday, you witnessed something that never or almost never happens: a soccer ball kicked straight at a tall, muscular, trained, professional goalkeeper that somehow managed to bounce by him, over the goal line, and into the net.

It was something my brother, a lifelong soccer player, coach, and fan, said he'd never seen "in professional soccer in my life."

I have seen it many times, of course, while hacking around on a soccer field with, say, seventh-graders. A ball gets kicked at a goal, and it hits a guy and trickles by into the net.

But this goal was at the World Cup Finals, the event in soccer that happens only every four years and means about 10 Super Bowls to everyone in the world but us.

And this goal was scored by the USA. We have a team, and they're pretty good by world standards, though yesterday against their opponents, England, they looked like eighth-graders playing against actual men, so tall and broad was England, and so tiny and wiry were we.

England was already ahead 1 goal to none, and by all rights with their tradition and physicality and all-starness they should've blown us away. But then this (little) guy by the name of Clint Dempsey, who comes from Texas, a hotbed of soccer, kicked a ball towards the goal, and it went in.

After that, England still should've blown us away, but they didn't. They kept on kicking balls straight at our goalie, Tim Howard, who didn't let the ball by. The game ended up 1 to 1.

After, Clint Dempsey explained, "It was one of those things where other people score goals like that and you say, 'why doesn't that ever happen to me?'"

I don't know if a non-American would've put it exactly that way.

The American ethos is defined by hope. Other countries say, "At least that didn't happen to me" of unfortunate outcomes. We always say, "Why doesn't that ever happen to me" when it comes to positive outcomes.

Alexei Lalas, a TV commentator, alluded to this national quality after the game: "The Clint Dempsey goal, that's luck, but it also comes from a belief and a confidence that this team has, and that Clint Dempsey has individually."

Dempsey himself is an American success story. He comes from "humble beginnings" as the video below explains, and he credits his parents and his hard work for getting him where he is.

America doesn't have a corner on the market of the "glass half-full" and "land of opportunity" way of thinking, but heck, we sure tell the story well. Congratulations, Clint, for believing that if you kick the ball on goal, it will go in.

Teenage heroes on the waves

When the story of Abby Sunderland broke, I pricked up my ears.

The teenage hero who was trying to circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat by herself had been lost at sea in the Indian Ocean, "somewhere between Africa and Australia."

Yikes! That's quite a big neighborhood, though as a parent I would not be worried about my daughter dating the wrong boy way out there.

A worthy news story, for sure, and one that has a happy, if hair-raising ending. But I pricked up my ears not only because of the youth of the sailor and her predicament, but because of the name.

In my learn-on-your-own course, Growing Up Heroic: Adventures in Greek Mythology, I have an exercise about Zac Sunderland, Abby's brother. The whole course is about Greek heroes who are also teenagers, and I was keen on finding some modern-day teenage heroes as well.

Zac did successfully sail around the world by himself and was helping Abby do the same thing. But wait, there's more. An Australian, Jessica Watson, has also done the same feat as Zac. It's almost as if the seas are littered with teenage heroes.

The Disney Channel used to have little mini-documentaries about teens who had found something they loved to do. I am all for that. It is great practice for adult life, and it helps with navigating away from things that aren't so helpful to teens.

Adolescence is a major area of chaos, as I have written before. Cheers to Zac, Abby, and Jessica who show the way-- in a big way-- through that ocean.

A German version of Odysseus and Circe

I love finding different, modern, modified versions of Greek myths, and recently I came across one in a Latin textbook for German middle schoolers.

This text has an adapted story of Odysseus and Circe, from Homer's Odyssey (Book 10), rendered in Latin for translation into German.

The Circe story is a popular one, because she's a sorceress, and she magically turns Odysseus' men into pigs. The god Hermes gives Odysseus magical immunity to Circe's power (through a plant called moly), and she is fascinated by him and turns the pigs back into men.

In the Odyssey, there is never any question but that it is better to be a man than a pig. But in this textbook, both Circe and Odysseus' men argue that it is better to be an animal than a man. The main reason: animals don't destroy beautiful cities such as Troy, and leave whole populations desolate.

The student who read this selection accurately pointed out that by extending the story of Odysseus and Circe this way, it gave the educators a chance to use some grammar with which the student needed practice.

But there is always a choice when you write a story. They could have used the grammar telling the story straight. There are many ways to write Latin how you want it to come out.

No, this was a story with a clear pacifist agenda-- and a poignant one. I don't know how much World War II still affects the German psyche, but if it does, it could've motivated a curriculum writer to go in this direction.

At the same time, the statements of Odysseus' men do not go one hundred percent against the Greek ethos. They emphasize that it was "by a trick" that Troy fell: the trick, that is, of the Trojan Horse.

Later on in Greek literature, Odysseus acquired a bad reputation as a trickster, someone who wouldn't honestly fight, but was always using words of persuasion or underhanded dealings to win. I think especially of Sophocles' play Ajax, which has Odysseus as a definite villain.

Homer, of course, would never put the words "an animal's life is lucky, not wretched" in the mouths of Odysseus' men. in Greece, the point of existence is not to live without tricks or without violence, but to live in community with other human beings, where you are known, know other people, and have a definite, settled place. That is really the point of Homer's Odyssey: yes, the glory of adventuring and sacking cities is important, but there is, simply, no place like home.

The humanities and the Fish

Stanley Fish used to be a big cheese in my intellectual life. He was a pyromaniac in American letters, a flashpoint, someone to get mad over or support, but someone certainly to discuss. Fish was a postmodernist, a guy who, in the nineties, was writing intricately scripted articles explaining in great detail how Everyone Had Got It All Wrong For Several Centuries And What You Thought Was Important Was Really Not So Nannie Nannie Boo Boo.

Now he seems to have changed gears. In a recent New York Times blog post, Fish hearkens back to his secondary education in Providence, RI, where he attended "the best and most demanding educational institution I have ever been associated with... When I attended, offerings and requirements included four years of Latin, three years of French, two years of German, physics, chemistry, biology, algebra, geomerty, calculus, trigonometry, English, history, civics, in addition to extra-currical activities..."

Latin? My heavens. That's the original thing, it seems to me, he set out to prove wrong, once upon a time.

Fish then goes on to review three books that decry the current high-stakes testing model of public education, and make the case for traditional, canon-based education. The books include one from former No Child Left Behind supporter Diane Ravitch; one from Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher and classicist whom some might call a celebrity; and one from Leigh A. Bortins, "an engineer, home schooling advocate and the C.E.O. of Classical Conversations, Inc."

That last might make you pause for a moment. Stanley Fish is reviewing a book by a home schooling advocate? Clearly this Fish has changed his scales.

"In short," the traditionalist Fish writes, "get knowledgeable and well-trained teachers, equip them with a carefully calibrated curriculum and a syllabus filled with challenging texts and materials, and put them in a room with students who are told where they are going and how they are going to get there.

"Worked for me."

Now I am not claiming to have followed Fish's intellectual development since his explosive stint at Duke University, now almost 20 years ago. So for those Fishheads who see this article as a continuation of a trend, I apologize.

I tell you what: it shocked me.

Yet the article is important as a summary and restatement of the importance of a traditional education that teaches through rich content exploration, how to think, express oneself, and find a place as a citizen of the world.

I absolutely agree with Leigh Bortins' claim, for example, that "students would be better educated if they weren't allowed to use computers... until they were proficient readers and writers."

This flies in the face of our current The Matrix-inspired model of education where, if only you could design the right technology, you could download education to our brains and dispense with the process.

Because people are flawed, every educational system, method, or model is destined to be flawed as well. Traditional education doesn't close the technology gap, for example. And since we are in such a desperate time economically, doesn't it make sense to teach students to needs, to make them proficient in technology and other career-oriented skills, leaving the humanities and liberal studies to those who can afford it?

 Yet it seems to me, in this hyper-technological time of ours, that if we make a commitment to our students in a foundational way, then technology, jobs, careers, will take care of themselves. Besides, if you restrict computers early, won't students run screaming to them later on in life?

It would work for me.