Last Thoughts!!!

Just a couple of last thoughts before the decade is out:

Some movies that I forgot from this post (more honorable mentions):

Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (2001) - The best one, no matter what everybody else says!!

The Ring (2002) - The last horror movie I saw!!

Ocean's 11 (2001) - Great Hollywood entertainment!

Finding Nemo (2003) - My favorite of many great Pixars (the studio of the decade).

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) - Not as wild about it as some other folks, but definitely deserves a mention.


Also so much love and thanks to my family, my friends, and my band for making this my favorite decade ever!!!!!!

That's it folks - have a great New Years!!!!

Kipling!!!

Happy 144th birthday to Rudyard Kipling!! Of course, not as many people "Kiple" as they did 100 years ago, and imperialism, white man's burden, etc. etc. But he did write some amazing things that are still well worth checking out! Kim is a great book that, as well as being beautifully written, can still give insight into today's situation in the Middle and Near East. As Kipling said, "When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before." Read it slowly, like the English Patient for the full effect.


Kipling also wrote some really great poetry, although much of it is now prettty dated. But I've always liked this from "M'andrew's Hymn" that Frank Lloyd Wright had carved above his studio in Oak Park:




"Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man—the Artifex! That holds, in spite o’ knock and scale, o’ friction, waste and slip,
And by that light—now, mark my word — we'll build the Perfect Ship.”



Very inspiring!! Also check out "Mandalay Bay" and "If".




And of course The Jungle Book - must read!!!!

Happiness pt. 3!!!

Congratulations to Gretchen Rubin whose book The Happiness Project just hit the stores!!! If you were unaware, Gretchen does a blog called (surprisingly) "The Happiness Project", and the blog and the book were created as concurrent projects.

If you haven't checked it out yet, "The Happiness Project" blog is one of the most well written and interesting blogs out there! I am constantly amazed by how she manages to keep coming up with interesting angles on her subject - I guess one of the secrets is to pick a really big subject!! But she has done so many great posts and is really a blogging star!! In fact one of my greatest blog moments is when I mentioned her before (here), and received a really nice email from her!!

I'm wishing her the best of luck on her book (you can order it here), and hoping that she keeps up the great work on the blog!!

Clothes!!!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!!! We’ve got lots and lots of pictures to put up at some point, but I was thinking lately about clothes. Christmas may seem like a weird – and somewhat inappropriate – time to think about fashion, but I always do around this time because it’s one of the only times that I ever buy new clothes. I’m sure that Em would like it if I thought about it a little bit more often, but there are very few times that I can bring myself to enter clothing stores and (groan) try things on.

This is probably a common and tiresome male quality, but that's just the way that it is. 95% of the year, the thought of extended periods of time inside of any clothing store makes me want to curl up into a ball! However, right around now is one of the few times when I can face the possibility of clothes shopping, and actually start to think a little bit about what to wear for the next 12 months.

The funny thing is that I really am impressed by people who have a good fashion sense! When someone has that right combination of originality and taste (and looks like they might actually iron their clothes) I do appreciate it, and feel some strange desire to update the wardrobe. However, like all good things, I know that the talented people make it look easy, but that it probably involves spending way more time thinking about clothes and, Heaven forbid, actually searching for clothes than I am presently ready to spend!

Anyway, here’s a site that made me start thinking about clothes a little more. It’s called Backyard Bill and I love the idea of this site!! It’s just a really good photographer who takes pictures of stylish people wearing their own clothes. It’s nice to see people who are not too “modely” showing off their sense of style. Such a simple idea, but really good! Check it out here:

http://backyardbill.blogspot.com/

Anyone have any good style pictures or sites?
(Pictures from Backyard Bill)

: (

R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt 1964-2009.

Listen here:

http://popup.lala.com/popup/504684650831342718

Silent Night!!!

I got this one from Mouse. I'll give you what she wrote about it since it's pretty good:

"Here's an amazing live rendition of one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time, "Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis," by Tom Waits. I listen to it to remember that this is also the season when people feel their poverty, feel the cold, feel the weight of past mistakes and relationships gone awry. I try to remember about this, to send out good energy from my loving and warm holidays, to make donations to the food bank, to the shelters, to the people who are trying to get it together. I hope you will, too."

Amen.

The Happiest (& most crowded) Place on Earth

We went to Disneyland day before yesterday. And as you can see...despite the chaos and crowds, a good time was had by all.

"Hey! Let go of my booty!" Tom Sawyer's Island has turned into Pirate's Cove with many new, great things including a pirate skeleton who yells silly things like that when you grab his treasure. This was by far the best attraction at the park. It wasn't too crowded and the kids loved running wild and free.

Merry almost Christmas to all and to all a good night!

All You Need is Love!

(AKA Em's long-awaited post on The Shack). I finally finished The Shack and I have to say...although the writing was quite painful at times, the content was not as distasteful as I'd feared. I'm actually impressed that anyone bothered to take the time to try to address the complexities of the holy trinity and what that might mean to people on a more personal level. And, I even quite liked the scene where Jesus takes Mac walking over the river with him. I'd never really thought about what it would actually feel like to do that, but after reading that part, I really wished that I could walk on water.

I have been talking to God in my head since I was a little kid, "Are you there God? It's me, Em." Having a personal relationship with God probably comes a little too easily to me, I'm sure there are times that he/she/it wishes I would just pipe down, already. I have to admit that Jesus and the holy spirit are a little harder for me. I'm not against them, obviously, it's just for some reason, my logical mind has a harder time accepting them and welcoming them in. So I could understand someone wanting to make them more accessible. Father Gaestel would probably pass out if he heard me say that, but there it is. The bigger issue to me about this book, though is that I think it misses the point about the nature of faith. Faith is a strange and wonderful thing to me, partly because it's so illogical and inexplicable. The author of The Shack almost got it right. He used the analogy of a flying dream for something else, entirely. But it occurred to me that that is exactly how I've always thought of faith. It's something that's there for you...it surrounds you at all times, but the more you try to grasp it or force it and make it into something concrete, the more it escapes you. That was my big problem with the book...it just felt like it was trying too hard to force something into lasting solidity that is only ever meant to be ephemeral.

Also, although the book wasn't nearly as preachy as I had feared, I don't think I could really recommend it to anyone. There's still a whiff of Christian pushiness to it, especially at the end when there are about 20 entries asking you to forward the book to other friends. I also, in general, am not a big fan of material about kids coming to harm. That's not really a complaint about the book, just a personal preference, but the central conceit of the book makes it hard for me to recommend it.

So...there you go, love. Those are my 2 cents on this subject. Again, Father Gaestel would probably pass out, but all in all, I think I like John Lennon's sentiment the best. Cheers!

Postcards!!!

Great postcards I think! Made by this guy:

http://wilhelmstaehle.com/wilhelm/

Birthday!!!

Happy 234th Birthday Jane!!!

"You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing." - Mr. Collins

Ode to Finn

Ever since I wrote the post about Jack a little while back, I've been meaning to write one about Finn. I know he's mine, so I'm partial and all that, but Finn is just a cool kid. Every time we have a parent-teacher conference, we hear how bright Finn is, but I think the thing that we love the most about him is how curious he is about the world. I remember when we used to put Finn in his bouncer when he was a baby he would jump up and down a couple of times, but then he'd tilt his head back and look at the spring-mechanism and I swear it looked like he was trying to figure out how that gizmo worked.

Finn is also naturally very gentle and kind. We can see it now in the way he interacts with other kids, especially younger ones, but even when Finn was little, he was an unusually thoughtful kid. They had a guniea pig at his daycare that none of the other kids were allowed to handle, because they were too rough, but even at just a year-and-a-half, Finn would sit there very quietly with it in his lap and pet it gently. When Jack recently lost his birthday ballon and started crying, Finn immediately offered him his balloon, without any hesitation or provocation from us. I thought that was pretty impressive for a little guy, but when Jack sniffed and shook his head and said, "that's okay," Finn looked up at Jack's balloon and then let go of his and said, "Well...then my balloon will keep your balloon company."

Because Finn is so thoughtful and meticulous when it comes to his work, it sometimes surprises us what a little social butterfly he is. Finn can make friends anywhere, with anyone. I think it helps that he's not really a natural-born-leader, but he's just friendly and good-natured and able to get along with all kinds of different personalities. I took him to a party recently with a bunch of his old school friends and I was amazed at how often some kid or other would go running by me yelling, "Finn! Come here Finn! Finn, where are you!?"

The video is above is from a performance Finn's after-school enrichment program put together. I spoke to the teacher afterwards and when I told her I was Finn's Mom, her eyes got that familiar sparkle in them and she said, "Finn...man I love that kid."

Me too.

(This is Em, btw, but it could just as easily be Patrick.)

P.S.

The little sweet pea in the tu-tu next to him is Finn's best friend Hana, who is a great gymnast. Also...if you can't hear Finn, he says he likes to "explore" and he's free to be "happy and have fun."

Maestro

Look at my beautiful boys! Patrick busted out the violin the other night just as the boys were going to bed. Mwa-ha-ha! My evil plot to turn the boys into fiddlers has been set in motion.

Finn's friend Hoyon plays violin down the hall, and we were hoping he would be a good inspiration, but we just learned recently that he is moving - boo! We will miss him a lot. He's a sweet kid and he and Finn really enjoy hanging out together. Ah well...I guess that's the downside of all this communal living. People come and go.

Christmas 1!!!

T’is the Season!

We have a Christmas tree this year, yay!!! A real tree. It’s a little on the small side, still, but not so small you have to put it on a table and it’s just right for us.

A gaggle of kids came over this past Saturday night and helped us make salt dough Christmas ornaments for the tree. It was so nice to have our new neighbors, Julie, Thor and Scarlett drop by, along with Amy and Jamie and Mr. Felix. Finn’s friend Hana also came and, then later Sebastian, Aidan and Hoyon crashed the party. I had told them they couldn’t come because our place was too small, but they came, all the same…just like Christmas in the Grinch (which is exactly who I felt like telling them they couldn’t come). Luckily, I realized that at Christmastime the more really is the merrier. It was a little chaotic, but the kids had a great time making the ornaments and I think the adults had fun, too. We missed Josh and Adrienne and Lorelei – originally, we had planned to do this with them, but Finn and Jack were understandably too anxious to put up the tree. (Okay, maybe I was a little bit, too.)

Anyway, the tree looks very nice. It is a funny little boy tree, to be sure – not a sugar plum fairy in sight. Instead there are pirate ships and treasure chests and deep sea creatures galore, in honor of our own little Jacque Finn-steau. (Finn’s been certain he wants to be a marine biologist since he was about three.)

We hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. It’s been quite crisp here in Los Angeles, although I’m sure it’s nothing compared to where many of you live. I know I’m a total sucker, but I really do think Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween is my favorite holiday, but there’s no denying there’s something magical about December – even the air smells good at Christmas time.

Love to everyone. May joy come to you, and a merry Christmas too!

Movies!!!

Oh how I love lists! If some anonymous person felt like telling me what many of their favorite books or movies were, chances are that I would be pretty uninterested. But put 10 of them in numbered order of ascending greatness and I can't resist!!

The end of the year is a great time for lists, and the end of a decade is even better! Of course we will never again see the amazing list opportunity that was the end of the millennium, but we'll just have to make do. The song one from a couple months back was really fun, and it was so great to hear other peoples' ideas on that subject. I (and hopefully other people) ended up hearing a lot of great songs that might otherwise have been missed : )

I assume this movie one will probably be less like that since movies are much more universal and less particular to individuals, but Em & I still missed a lot of movies this decade due to other responsibilities (two cute ones in particular), so it will be interesting to hear what other people think as we move to the end of the 00's. By the way, here's a good list that I found from the AV club:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-films-of-the-00s%2C35931/1/


And I'm sure that there will be many others. So without further ado, the ten best movies of the 3rd millennium so far:

10. Juno (2007) - It was a good decade for funny movies, and this one was one of the funniest, without also being completely stupid (Knocked Up) and still having a great heart. Also, along with Superbad, a pretty accurate, if slightly depressing, picture of the younger generation. Michael Cera = Best new actor.

9. Lost in Translation (2003) - Bill Murray continued his great comeback from Rushmore (see also Dead Flowers - very funny), but also one of the only recent movies to make modern big city life seem at all appealing.




8. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) - So great to see a really good one from Woody after many eh's. Penelope Cruz was great & Javier Bardim may be the actor of the 00's for this one & No Country for Old Men (which was otherwise super over-rated IMHO)

7. Before Sunset (2004) - The Godfather II of Gen X slacker movies. Richard Linklater realized better than Quentin Tarantino that the good thing about Pulp Fiction wasn't the violence, but the great conversations.




6. Amelie (2001) - Overall, from what I saw, the 00's weren't as good for French movies as the 90's (see Un Cour en Hiver & Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud), but this was a great movie that revelled in its Frenchness & was definitely one of the most visually creative movies of the decade. Also so sweet & funny! ("The name you're looking for is Bredotteau, but it won't count if I say it because I'm senile.")



5. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)- Of course it wasn't the first movie to feature extreme martial arts choreography made possible with modern effects, but it was the first one that I saw, and on top of that, it was a pretty great story (none of the later Asian movies that raised the bar in effects were nearly as good). I remember seeing it with my family and everyone trying to run up the walls afterward!

4. Almost Famous (2000) - In some ways not a great movie (the story is a little absurd and, let's face it, Billy Cruddup is just wrong), but a film with some perfect moments - "Tiny Dancer" on the bus, Frances McDormand on the phone, every scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs. Also a great love letter to 60's and 70's rock. One of the sad things about this decade has been watching Kate Hudson trash her career after this perfect debut.



3. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) - The good news about the 00's was that there were some really great movies. The bad news is that, on my list at least, seven of them were in the first four years of the decade! This one just made it in from 2000, but it is sooooo great!! Not only was it visually amazing and hysterically funny ("We...thought...you...was...a...toad"), but it did so much to popularize folk music and had Gillian Welch in a tiny speaking role! The last of the Coen Bros. really great movies (sorry No Country for Old Men), it probably goes to show how great the 90's were over the 00's, but at least it started the decade off really well!

2. Mullholand Drive (2001) - Em & I went to see this without having too much hope. David Lynch seemed kind of played out and anachronistic by 2001, but Mullholand Drive blew us away! Even though the story made no sense the first time through (I have since developed my own, probably completely wrong, theory about it), there were so many amazing set pieces - Club Silencio, the "man" behind Rock & Roll Denny's. We went to see it again soon after, and loved it even more! It showed us to not count David Lynch out just yet, and was really one of the great movies ever made about Los Angeles.




1. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) - What can I say? Not only the best film made about the shortcomings of both the Baby Boomers and their children, but also just about the funniest movie of the decade ("Is that a Tic-Tac?"), heartbreaking ("Needle in the Hay" during Richie's attempted suicide - especially after Elliot Smith's real life one), and beautifully shot. Wes Aderson owes JD Salinger some royalties from it, but of all of the movies of the decade, this is the one that I could watch almost every night. The Darjeeling Limited was pretty good, but if Anderson ever makes a movie as good as The Royal Tennenbaums again, it will be a beautiful miracle. Best line of the 00's: when Richie confesses that he's in love with his (1/2) sister Margot, Gene Hackman remarks, "Well, it's frowned upon...but what isn't these days?" One of my top 5 all-time movies.

Honorable Mentions:

Napoleon Dynamite, You Can Count on Me, The Station Agent, Synecdoche New York, Adaptation, Superbad, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Burn After Reading, Primer, The Darjeeling Limited, Dead Flowers

Hope you enjoyed it & that you have a great week!!