I think I'm bidding MySpace farewell.  I'm trying to start blogging a little more again, but this time it won't be on here.  I'll still leave this account active for a while because I hate phones and I still have a few friends choosing this over Facebook, but I doubt I'll be on it very often.

I'd love to stay in touch, though, and feel free to tune in at beaudenton.blogspot.com.

Love.

"The Effort" by Billy Collins

Would anyone care to join me
in flicking a few pebbles in the direction
of teachers who are fond of asking the question:
'What is the poet trying to say?'
as if Thomas Hardy and Emily Dickinson
had struggled but ultimately failed in their efforts -
inarticulate wretches that they were,
biting their pens and staring out the window for a clue.
Yes, it seems that Whitman, Amy Lowell
and the rest could only try and fail,
but we in Mrs. Parker's third-period English class
here at Springfield High will succeed
with the help of these study questions
in saying what the poor poet could not,
and we will get all this done before
that orgy of egg salad and tuna fish known as lunch.
Tonight, however, I am the one trying
to say what it is this absence means,
the two of us sleeping and waking under different roofs.
The image of this vase of cut flowers,
not from our garden, is no help.
And the same goes for the single plate,
the solitary lamp, and the weather that presses its face
against these new windows - the drizzle and the morning frost.
So I will leave it up to Mrs. Parker,
who is tapping a piece of chalk against the blackboard,
and her students - a few with their hands up,
others slouching with their caps on backwards -
to figure out what it is I am trying to say
about this place where I find myself
and to do it before the noon bell rings
and that whirlwind of meatloaf is unleashed.

Tonight was the first night of my Religion and Film class, which I'm taking this semester with a few friends.  We watched The Mission (Roland Joffe 1986), with Robert DeNiro, Jeremy Irons, and a surprisingly forgettable Liam Neeson in the background.

I would recommend the movie for the landscape of its setting and the force of its soundtrack alone...but its real power is in the brief character study it provides of two Jesuit priests (DeNiro and Irons).  I don't plan to write a whole lot about the movie here, because I really think you should watch it.  But I am mentioning it now because I think it contributes to discussions I've been having with people about how films portray violence and potential reactions to violence (I wrote about this a few weeks ago concerning A Time to Kill [Schumacher 1996] and Road to Perdition [Mendes 2002]).

The Mission portrays the efforts of a group of Jesuit missionaries in South America (Brazil, I think) in the context of rapidly changing political and colonial relationships.  We follow as one man steps out of a life of violence and into a life of service, offering a moving story of change and redemption.  The final scenes present a choice between violence or peace in the face of oncoming violence and oppression.  And the film remains surprisingly neutral.  I expected it to pick sides - to favor someone who is willing to fight (physically) for what he believes, or someone who refuses to resort to violence, even in the face of certain death.  But it does not seem to pick sides (at least not heavey-handedly); it manages to present both sides with a fascinating mix of heroism and futility, and it does not let us escape without making us realize that both sides ultimately ended the same way.  As someone looking for the possibility of peace in response to violence, I found it easy to look for parts that I agreed with...but I think Joffe did a good job of leaving some interpretive space in the end.

Already I have written too much, but I am trying not to be overly specific.  Please see it if you ever have a chance.  It is a moving film, and there is a surprising amount of hope that can come from parts of it.

And if you are worried about the missionary talk, don't worry: it is not a "Christian" movie...especially in terms of the quality of filmmaking.

Happy New Year, friends.

2009 kind of crept up on me.  I had an afternoon of books and biking with my mom and a friend, followed by one of the most beautiful meals I have ever eaten, and then a strange, semi-enjoyable movie at home.  After the movie I looked at a clock and said "Hey, it's 2009" to my friend...and that was that.

We stayed up for a couple more hours, talking about movies and stories and Los Angeles, then he went home and I went to bed.  Besides the vague sounds of some distant fireworks (and the earlier burning of our Christmas tree at the end of the driveway), the new year came without any kind of fanfare.

I find this slightly ironic, considering that in the course of this next year I will be facing transitions that are more drastic than just about anything I've experienced so far.  I'm graduating from college in April, and then I'll most likely be moving out to the West Coast (California?) to look for a job or opportunity that will set the tone for the next phase of my life.  This next semester will also be quite different than the ones leading up to it.  Work and classes will keep me busy day and night Monday through Thursday, meaning my involvement in my community here will look different than it has before.  My Fridays are free, though, and I have already been talking with some out-of-state friends about weekend roadtrips to go visit them.

All of this is exciting to me.  I am a big fan of change, and I love not knowing what is coming up next.  So happy new year to all of you...may it bring excitement and change and growth and challenge and all that is good.

A couple of weeks ago I watched A Time to Kill with a friend, and the next night we watched Road to Perdition. 
They were both randomly picked because she had not seen either one, so
I did not expect them to speak to each other in any kind of profound
way.  And I definitely did not expect that watching these two
movies would turn out to be a miniature study in revenge and reciprocal
violence.

I have always enjoyed A Time to Kill,
mostly for the rich cast and the shameless emotional jabs.  But it
is hard to avoid the fact that Carl Lee's murder of the two rednecks is
celebrated.  The movie recognizes the strength of the emotional
reaction to the rape, and then it exploits that reaction.  We are
supposed to be happy that Carl Lee kills them, and we are supposed to
be happy that he is freed in the end, with no consequences whatsoever
for an intentional, lucid double murder.  Regional politics are
exploited to suggest that it would be a racial injustice if he went to
prison.  The book recognizes the tension and complexity that
should exist here, but the film mostly ignores it.  (The way it
approaches adultery is much more interesting and worth discussing, but
not here.)

Road to Perdition,
though, does not celebrate violence.  With the exception of a
climactic scene on a rainy street, there is nothing heroic or
redemptive about murder...instead it is chilling and difficult to
watch.  And the only true sense of hope comes at the end, when it
is suggested that Sullivan's son will escape the cycle of reciprocal
violence.  In that moment, this actually becomes quite an
inspirational film; there is a sense of redemption that comes after
young Sullivan puts down the gun, having never fired it.

These
two films handle revenge and violence in fundamentally different ways,
and this is a theme I am starting to see in many of the movies I
watch.  It is interesting to see how violence is portrayed, and it
is perhaps even more interesting to see how people react to that
portrayal.  What do those reactions say about the viewers?

This
kind of thing makes me appreciate movies and the commentary they might
offer - even movies that display things I am opposed to.  And this
is something that I imagine many of my friends will never even attempt
to understand.  But if you're interested, try to look at the
themes being presented in the movies that you watch.  Then pay
attention to the ways that you react, and that people around you
react.  Then maybe think about those themes and reactions in the
context of your worldview.  And you might be surprised by what you
can learn.

And if you have never seen either of those movies, I
am terribly sorry about ruining the endings.  They are both still
worth watching.

Two Fridays ago  was the closest full moon to the earth in a long time; supposedly it appeared bigger and brighter than it has in fifteen years.

I was driving home on 301, getting ready for a short weekend with my family, and it was perfect: cool air and rich, clear skies.  Every time I glanced up I caught my breath, and it took active effort to look back toward the road.  About half an hour north of Ocala I decided to pull over.  I turned onto a dirt road and followed its curves away from the highway, trying to reach a place where I could look up past the trees.  But those trees were surprisingly thick and dominant; I could catch glimpses of moonlight through the branches and moss, but nothing more.

Just as I was about to turn around, the dirt road curved beside a small clearing.  I steered into the overgrown field, noticing that the heavy darkness had become considerably lighter.  I turned the car off and stepped out, not caring about the dirt that chilled my bare feet.  I stretched out on top of my car and stared up, not daring to blink for at least a minute.  Never before had I seen the moon so distinctly, so powerfully, as I did in those moments.  There were no other lights, yet it was bright enough to read a book - which I did.  Everything was cloaked in this light that is so unique in the way that it appears both silver and blue, both soft and dominant...this light that remains so difficult to describe.

The moon illuminated the willow trees that framed the clearing, highlighting the wispy branches that draped the trunks and caressed the ground.  These are the trees that whisper stories and secrets of the deep South, offering an air of classic mystery to the whole moment.  That night was also one of the best nights for watching the Geminid meteor shower.  I had almost forgotten about this, because the moon was overpowering the majority of the stars.  But before I left that field, I counted seven streaks of light in the southern part of the sky.

It took a great deal of willpower to climb off the roof, but the dropping temperatures and some creepy noises in the trees finally pushed me back into my car.  The rest of the drive home was frequented by glances at the moon, which followed me all the way to Bradenton and into the hammock in my mom's back yard.

The night before that was another noteworthy moon event.  A group of us went to St. Augustine for Flagler's graphic design portfolio something or other, then walked toward the river and the fort.  We stopped at one point by the river and rested on the sea wall, finding it difficult to move on.

The moon was almost full, and its light reached us in fluctuating degrees of brightness and obscurity through the passing clouds.  Gusts of wind raced toward the water, offering to carry us with them.  The water produced a smell that may have been a foreshadow of red tide - not entirely pleasant, but distinctly aquatic and somehow fitting for that moment.  In addition to the moonlight, the dark water was dotted with the lights of sailboats and a buoy that rolled and clanged with the waves.  A distant lighthouse provided a steady pulse for the evening with every sweep of its beam.

While the moon may not have been as powerful as it was from the field on 301, the night in St. Augustine was equally memorable (perhaps more so) in the way that it united sights and sounds and smells and feelings and conversations with friends.  "Beautiful" seems entirely too common to describe such unique moments.

Another thing those two nights shared was the way that they  thoroughly humbled me when I thought about writing of them.  At on point in St. Augustine Brittany told me that I should be writing about it...and I realized that I would have no idea where to start.  There is no way that I can use words to describe for you every detail of what I saw and smelled and felt and heard those two nights.  When it comes to describing events like this and trying to express specific feelings, my writing is severely limited.

Even now, sitting in my living room, I feel humbled by all of this.  I can make minor changes to all that I just wrote, debating about whether or not "rich" is the right word in the second paragraph, or "obscurity" the right word for moonlight.  But if I truly wanted to let you share in those moments through the medium of language, I would need to actually spend time with this and wrestle with it and soak in it.  That's kind of an overwhelming thought...and I have so much to learn.

There is a really heavy fog outside right now.  I was walking around Barnes and Noble and the Town Center with some friends earlier, and I couldn't focus on our conversation or anything because I kept getting distracted by it.  Fog always feels mysterious to me.  Maybe it's because it surprises me when it shows up, or because it distances and obscures whatever I am looking at...whatever the reason, it almost always puts me in a detached, contemplative mood (more so than usual) and makes everything feel significant.

Tonight that significance felt cinematic, like what was going on - an ordinary night of walking and talking in capitalism's haven - should have been filmed and put in a movie.  But I couldn't decide what kind of movie.  One moment I could picture a group of people in the parking lot with kilts and bagpipes, the fog swirling around and between them in rhythm with their slow, steady cadence.  The next moment I could picture the same group of people in the parking lot, but this time with hockey masks and chainsaws, the lights behind them amplifying the image through the fog.

I felt torn: the obscurity and mystery of fog can either be inspiring or terrifying - often at the same time, and I could not decide which one was more fitting tonight.  Maybe it all depends on the lighting.

All of this came after a day of resting and reading, which was quite perfect.  I also washed a pile of laundry, which now smells fresh and feels soft.  It was a good day.

In 1948 Samuel Beckett wrote his most famous play, Waiting for Godot.  Its American premier, in 1956 Miami, was not exactly an instant classic.  Beckett's avant-garde style de-emphasizes structure and tradition for a new kind of literacy that is marked by silence and awkwardness; and this sort of experimentation did not fit in well with the popular theater at that time.  Of course, Waiting for Godot soon received more attention, eventually becoming recognized as possibly the greatest English language play from the twentieth century.  But somewhere between boos in Miami and the Nobel Prize, Beckett's play found its way to San Quentin Prison in San Francisco.

Last week I attended a lecture by Herbert Blau, during which he read from his soon-to-be-published autobiography.  Blau recognized the genius in Beckett's work before it became renowned, and he is one of the people responsible for bringing Waiting for Godot to San Quentin fifty years ago.

It was in San Quentin that the work of Samuel Beckett, through the production of Herbert Blau and others, was introduced to Rick Cluchey.  Cluchey was serving a life sentence - without the possibility of parole - for armed robbery.  Because of his status, Cluchey was not actually allowed to attend the play, but he was able to listen to parts of its broadcast over the prison radio.  Through that performance, Cluchey and others immediately connected with Beckett's characters...every single one of them was, after all, waiting for something.

So Cluchey and some of his fellow inmates decided to form a theater group.  They performed plays by Beckett and others, staging them in the room that was at one time used for hangings.  Through his involvement in this group, Cluchey was eventually released from prison (despite his sentence).  He continued to be involved with the theater group, eventually touring Europe performing one of Beckett's other plays with a group of ex-convicts.

It was on this trip to Europe that Cluchey met Beckett, and the two formed a relationship that would last up to the playwright's death.  Cluchey eventually took on the role of the one character in Krapp's Last Tape, another of Beckett's most famous plays.  Beckett himself directed Cluchey's first performances as Krapp, and was so impressed by the former convict that he selected Cluchey to play that role repeatedly, even directing him in a filming of the play for PBS (soon after which Beckett died in 1989).

Tonight, one week after listening to Herbert Blau talk about the early recognition of Beckett's work and what it was like to present those plays, I got to watch Rick Cluchey perform Krapp's Last Tape.  After the play Cluchey talked briefly about what it has been like to play this role as one who was famously chosen by Beckett himself...as one who used to be facing the rest of his life in prison.  This is an absolutely brilliant man, whose life was essentially rescued by the creative, literary expression of another person.  As someone who is trying to look for the redemptive, transformative power of God in new places, I cannot help but be amazed by this story.

The more that I read of Beckett, the more I would encourage you to do the same (and, ideally, watch some of his plays).  He often expressed an absurd sort of meaning - and humor - in the silence and awkwardness of his characters.  Last week Blau talked about how Beckett's work challenges the predictability of other plays.  While others sought to incorporate proven formulas ("1, 2, 3...laugh"), Beckett managed to make people laugh without them knowing exactly why.  This brings a very profound humanity to his works...a humanity that often erases the boundaries between humorous and tragic, mundane and profound, silent and spoken.

Cluchey has this to say:

"I found meaning in my life through art...I enjoy the literature of the world and of theater.  And when you can put it on stage, and share it with people who are looking for meaning in their lives, there's nothing like that.  You don't have to go any farther than Sam Beckett.  It's about the human condition: the prose, the music, the rhythms, and the humor, of course...If you study his work, it is bottomless...I still can't find the end of it."

"It is [fear] that makes people so willing to follow brash, strong-looking demagogues with tight jaws and loud voices: those who focus their measured words and their sharpened eyes in the intensity of hate, and so seem most capable of cleansing the world of the vague, the weak, the uncertain, the evil.  Ah, to give oneself over to their direction - what calm, what relief."
-Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning

"...it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dicatorship...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  That is easy.  All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.  It works the same way in any country."
-Hermann Goering, adviser to Adolf Hitler

"Crises there will continue to be.  In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties...But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs - balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage...Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time.  As we peer into society's future, we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.  We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.  We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.  Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.  Such a confederation must be one of equals.  The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength.  That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield."
-Dwight Eisenhower

When Francois Truffaut was filming Tirez sur le Pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) in 1960, he reached a scene in the script for which they needed to film a cocktail party.  The problem, though, was that Truffaut was out of money and could not afford staging a party.  So he brought a couple of cameras and his actors to a party that was already scheduled to promote the release of this same movie...he filmed the interactions of his protagonist with other people, trying not to let any of the guests know that they were being filmed.

Reading about that made me really excited.

A couple Thursdays ago, I was riding my bike around campus to kill some time before I had to be somewhere.  There had been some thunderstorms that afternoon, so there were these towering clouds that were huge and intimidating, and they were being absolutely set on fire by the setting sun.  It was incredible - something that only a Florida thunderstorm can create.  So I was riding in circles on the Green for about half an hour, trying to look at all the clouds in every direction.  Then I started watching people who were coming out of class or Outtakes...they would walk toward the Green, look up at the sky, and stop.  Seriously just about every person that actually took the time to look up literally stopped for at least a few seconds.  It made me happy to see other people appreciating it too.

I think that was one of those moments that I was writing about on here before.