[child|movies] Who watches Watchmen?
Last night ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1)
the_child and I viewed the director’s cut of Watchmen [ imdb ] together. For a bunch of reasons, this is one of my favorite movies of recent years, especially in the extended director’s cut which incorporates the Black Freighter sequences along with other useful material.
(What is it with director’s cuts and theatrical releases, anyway? I’ve rarely seen a director’s cut that wasn’t a significant improvement on the edited-down full release. Immediately leaping to mind are Bladerunner, Dune and Lord of the Rings.)
Every time I watch it, and last night was perhaps my tenth viewing, I see new details in that film. At a minimum, the sheer density and crunchiness of the production design is well worth studying. The way that the background details in almost every shot foreshadow and feed the story can be breathtaking, if one watches with that critical eye.
the_child has a pretty good critical eye. We’ve always watched movies with a fair amount of discussion where warranted, and she is a long-time aficionado of the bonus discs that come in DVD packages. But Watchmen was a funny case because of all the political and cultural loading circa the movie’s alternate 1985 setting.
In 1985 I was in my junior and senior years of college. My direct political and cultural memory stretches roughly back to Watergate and very end of the Vietnam War, while the entire post-WWII/Cold War era counts as recent history to me. This is the dialectic of the movie. Everything from the music of this movie to the Woodward and Bernstein reference midway through pushes my buttons bigtime. But that dialectic is absolutely opaque to a fourteen year old who was born in 1997 and is only now beginning to develop meaningful wider political and cultural awareness. Her buttons don’t exist to be pushed.
So we spent a lot of time pausing or talking over the movie to discuss who the historical figures were. Why was it so unnerving to have a world where Richard Nixon was still in office in 1985. What Woodward and Bernstein had done in real life and what the Comedian meant with his throwaway line about them. Why I love the song “99 Luftballons” so much. Not to mention all the story-specific issues such as tying Rorschach to the little man with the end times sign, discussing why the heroes had gone underground, parsing the rape scene between the Comedian and Sally Jupiter and how that in turn fed the complexity of Laurie Jupiter’s life, what the possible significance is of the Gunga Diner blimp and why a pokey little restaurant could afford such a thing, how Dan Dreiberg managed to both locate and afford to keep such a huge underground complex beneath a normal townhouse. And so on and so on and so on.
It was a weird kind of double vision, walking through the politics and culture of my childhood and the first years of my young adulthood with my daughter while simultaneously breaking down the film’s plot, setting and design elements. She asked a lot of smart questions, and had some good insights.
Times like this, I really love being a parent.
Tags: Child, Culture, Movies, Politics
Posted: 9:38 am Sun November 06 2011 | Comments(4) |
[child] Parenting in a time of plenty
I was reading this article on Play, Supervision, and Pressured Parenting this morning, and reflecting on my experiences of being parent to the_child over the years.
Not to put too fine a point on it, she has always been a challenging kid. Very bright, very spirited, and stubborn as a Borax twenty-mule team all rolled into one. Parenting her has always required considerable mental judo and a good sense of when to let go, because she has never, ever, sat down and done what she was told. All the more so these days when she is a wilful teen exploring her independence while coming to terms with an ethnic identity that diverges from her parents’, as well as living in her own head with my cancer and mortality issues.
Reading that article reminded me of something that happened on the playground years ago, when she was three or four, that I think says it all about both my daughter and my own parenting philosophy. the_child has always been very physically gifted — her balance is so good that she can do handstands on a skateboard, and her speed and coordination are almost frighteningly deft — so her mother and I have always figured that it was up to her to set her activity limits, within the bounds of basics like traffic safety and behavioral appropriateness. As I must have said a hundred times during her early childhood, if she falls hard, I know where the Emergency Room is.
The playground near Viejo Rancho Lake was one much like those described in the article referenced above. Modern, soft-edged play equipment over a deep layer of bark mulch in an ovoid space surrounded by benches on which parents could sit and carefully observe the entire play space and all the activities within it. Working at home, and having slightly odd hours (my normal workday was and is 6 am to 3 pm Pacific, to conform with my employer’s Central time zone office hours), that meant in the afternoons I was often at the playground with the_child, usually with my laptop so I could wrap some Day Jobbery or work on some fiction.
(A side effect of these afternoon hours was that I was the only male playground mom. The neighborhood moms knew me and knew which kid I was connected to, but the park got a lot of drop-in play, as it is a pleasant space near three bus lines and two major through streets. Drop-in moms were often very suspicious of the bearded guy with the long hair sitting on the bench watching the children play. As the_child and I are not of the same ethnic group, it was not automatically obvious that I was connected with a particular kid. I’m frankly surprised no one ever called the cops on me.)
The playground has these tall swings, the kind where the top crossbar is about nine or ten feet up to provide a long chain drop and therefore a higher peak for the swinging experience. The frame of the swings is 2″ pipe, bent and fitted to make the structure. One of the_child‘s favorite activities was to shimmy up one of the legs of the frame, then make her way across the fifteen or twenty feet of crossbar, then down another leg. Using it, in effect, as a jungle gym.
One day one of the drop-in moms approached me as the_child was clinging ten feet in the air and hectored me about letting her do something so dangerous. I replied that she was over a soft surface and I knew where the ER was, and what was so bad about letting a kid push their physical limits. This answer croggled her briefly, before she retorted that it set a bad example for the other children. “Is it a bad example,” I asked, “to be fit and active and pushing yourself?”
Apparently it was. This woman was so protective of her offspring that she didn’t want them seeing someone else’s child doing something interesting, fun and challenging.
We have so much to give our kids. Maybe we should put away some of the protective instincts and let them be children. Loud, dirty, rambunctious little creatures who jump off the garage roof and run around with sticks. And climb tall things. That her mother and I let the_child do these things almost certainly will help her be a stronger, more confident adult. I’m glad I wasn’t so afraid of the world that I stopped her from exploring its limits.
Tags: Cancer, Child, Culture, family, health, Personal, Portland
Posted: 7:35 am Sat November 05 2011 | Comments(8) |
[personal|child] Deaths and births
Yesterday I attended the funeral of kenscholes‘s father-in-law. The event wasn’t about me in any way, I was there to support Ken and his wife Jen and their family with my presence, but as one might imagine, it instilled considerable reflection in me at a time when I’m very conscious of my own mortality. The service was very appropriate and I’m glad I went. For my own part, I did confirm two conclusions I’d previously reached. One, funerals are bad for me personally and emotionally in my current frame of mind. Two, if this cancer goes terminal, I’m having my funeral before I die so I can damned well enjoy it.
Another event yesterday that was only tangentially more about me was the_child‘s thirteenth birthday party. Today is her actual birthday, but one of the kids in her class is having a blowout Halloween party tonight, so we scheduled her kid-friends party for last night. Her extended family birthday dinner is tomorrow. I had six teenagers in my house eating pizza, cake and candy for an hour and a half, then Mother of the Child and lillypond (a/k/a my sister and therefore Aunt of the Child) hauled them off to Fright Town, where a spookily wonderful time was had by all. Best as I can determine, she had a terrific birthday blast of her own: we had a brief conversation last night after the final guests had departed in which the_child quite elated and pleased with herself.
All that made a nice end cap on the day for me, even if my enjoyment of the birthday celebration was almost entirely by osmosis. Today I am mostly sitting still, though a friend will be coming by this afternoon for some visiting. Me, a book and a glass of water. The brain isn’t up to writing, and I don’t have much if any householding to do. Just waiting to see when the Neulasta pain comes back, and how dreadful it will be when it does.
Tags: Cancer, Child, family, friends, health, Personal
Posted: 9:07 am Sat October 22 2011 | Comments(4) |
[child] Holiday wreath sale
It’s that time of the year again. the_child‘s school is offering a holiday fund raiser of fresh-cut wreaths from the Cascade Mountains here in the Pacific Northwest. These can be delivered locally on 12/1, or be shipped nationwide (lower 48 only) by UPS, with delivery in early December. The options include:
Shipped via UPS:
- 18″ wreath — $35 each (shipped)
- 22″ wreath — $40 each (shipped)
- 24″ swag — $40 each (shipped)
Local pickup for Portland area:
- 18″ wreath — $20 each
- 22″ wreath — $25 each
- 24″ swag — $25 each
- 30″ wreath — $35 each
- Garland — $2.50 per foot
If you’re interested in wreaths for yourself or a friend or relative, please let me know in comments or via direct email by Wednesday, November 9th.
Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there.
Tags: Child, Northwest, Personal, Portland
Posted: 5:57 am Mon October 17 2011 | Comments(0) |
[child] The Child plays lacrosse
the_child in motion, which appears to be her natural state.
They won 8-4. She scored five of those goals, including two on run-ins from an interception. She is nothing like I was in my childhood. For which I say, good for her!
Photo © 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Child, Photos
Posted: 7:17 am Sun April 17 2011 | Comments(0) |
[child] A night at the opera
Last night, Mother of the Child, Mom, Dad, tillyjane, the Niece, H— and I went to see the_child sing the part of Papagena in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. That would be her seventh grade play.
The public performance was their third, having done two for the school community. The accompaniment was piano and flute, with both the score and the libretto cut down to about ninety minutes. They were magnificent. I think back on my own seventh grade year and cannot imagine us having done something as epic as mounting an opera production.
The kids had a hell of a lot of heart, and sang well. Some of them very well, indeed. Everybody knew their lines and their numbers. Afterward, the post-performance energy was crackling. They all had their theater high on. It was so much fun to see the performance, and to see their excitement at knowing how well they’d done.
Today after her lacrosse game, the family is taking our opera star out to a celebratory lunch. We’e very proud of her.
She goes to Portland Waldorf School in Milwaukie, which does not permit photography or recording of live performances. Those events are intended to be experienced and remembered subjectively, not captured. I did manage to grab a few iPhone cam shots after the performance.
the_child (center-left) and her mother (center-right) after the show. Mother of Child and the woman to her right did all the costuming.
Papagena and Papageno. There were also six little Papaganettes.
The dragon from the first scene.
As usual, more at the Flickr set.
Photos © 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Child, family, Personal, Photos
Posted: 7:25 am Sat April 16 2011 | Comments(1) |
[child] She just keeps growing up
the_child sings Papagena in her 7th grade class production of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute tonight. When I was in seventh grade, we were doing skits about a farmer and his horse. I cannot help but be impressed.
Recently, a high school friend who’d moved to Portland contacted me. We had lunch, and as a result, he, his wife and his daughter are planning to attend tonight. I had mentioned this to the_child, so yesterday she asked me his name, looked him up on Facebook, and sent him a note introducing herself and telling him how pleased she was he would be coming to the opera, and that she was looking forward to meeting him and his family. This piece of social grace was utterly on her own initiative.
In another frame, the mother of one of her school friends is having a very difficult struggle with metastatic cancer. Though she has not shared her prognosis, hope is growing thin on the ground right now. Yesterday the_child asked me, as she has once before, what her school friend would do without his mother. We had a long, thoughtful talk about cancer, death, parenting, love and community, but especially about the hopes of a parent for their child, and the needs of a child for their parent at the different stages of life. I didn’t have any good answers to give her, because there aren’t any in a time like this.
We also talked about what it meant to “fight” a disease. the_child pointed out that both calendula_witch and shelly_rae had been instrumental in keeping me fighting when I was at my worst. We agreed that love and family were very important.
Who is this mature, reflective, loving human being, and what has she done with my daughter?
Tags: Calendula, Cancer, Child, family, health, Personal, Portland, shellyrae
Posted: 5:45 am Fri April 15 2011 | Comments(2) |
[child] The Child plays with an ice ball
Last night while I was watching Ashes and Snow on DVD [ imdb ], the_child came running into the house filled with glee because she had made this:
A water balloon, filled with water, then frozen. We spent about ten minutes playing with it. She handled it, we spun it in the bowl, we salted it and watch fractures form and chips fly off, we watched the melting take place. We discussed energy transfer, and crystalline structures, and the three phase states of matter (eliding the subject of plasma), and the relationship between heat and energy. All in all, an interesting set of teachable moments on a Friday evening.
Bracketed by the visceral, intense and contemplative beauty of Ashes and Snow.
Sometimes life really is for the win.
Photograph © 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Child, Movies, Photos, Science
Posted: 7:24 am Sat April 02 2011 | Comments(0) |
[child] A hilarious and decidedly NSFW parent-child conversation
Saturday The Child and I had a hilarious and decidedly NSFW conversation, which she has given me permission to blog.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Child, Funny, sex, Videos
Posted: 8:34 pm Sun January 23 2011 | Comments(9) |
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