The Writer's Life: Film & Book Reviews, Observations, and Stories

As a successful project manager, I had to quickly learn the talents and limitations of those who worked on my projects. Not to do so almost guaranteed failure. I spent much of my time cultivating and getting to know them. Mostly, though, their reputations proceeded them. The grapevine almost always provided a remarkably accurate picture of a person’s abilities, especially those with technical or engineering jobs. It was a kind of informal grading system by one’s peers.

We had a beast of a product (a proprietary network interface) that required drivers be written for various hosts. The two guys who were doing the drivers for the DEC hosts had a reputation for incompetence. Whenever I visited them, the lights in their office were dimmed, almost like twilight. They were friendly, but pretended to be working slavishly on their code. They always projected hallow confidence. They had put up motivational postures along some of the walls, perhaps to convince themselves that they really could do the job. The one I remember the most showed a natural scene on a vast plane with the inscription, “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” Every time I saw these two guys, I took time to ponder this saying and the irony of having them put it up in their office. Their problem was not losing sight of the goal. It was their basic competence.

They were not alone in this. We think application of effort will solve most problems. Throw enough money or resources at something and it can be solved. But the fact is, no matter how hard you try, it is impossible to turn a sow’s ear into a purse. The irony was that no one, including me, bothered to tell these two guys what the real problem was. Too often, no one does.

I love that life is empty
That nothing comes my way this time around
Or any time
That I am bereft of friends
And even my parents hate me
That some dark night has gathered me inside its folds
And without inspiration or any kind of hope,
I am forced to live here in the midst of it
With kindness, strength, and love,
Shouting for joy in every moment
At my fate.

A dystopia is an imaginary place where the inhabitants lead depressingly fearful and wretched existences. Kafka describes such places. So does the Italian author Dino Buzzati. In 2006, the Norwegian director Jens Lien took up the cause with his film, Den brysomme mannen (The Bothersome Man). It’s about a man who refuses to accept the fact that his life is devoid of meaning. He cuts off his finger so that he can feel something. He tries to escape by following the bus that brought him in the first place, but his car stops and the road ends. Regardless of what he does, everyone is unfailingly nice. He meets a woman and has mechanical sex. He falls for someone else and goes to the theater. He is the only one who cries. He announces he’s leaving the first woman and she is concerned only about decorating her house and a party she has arranged. The party is as mechanical as the sex. And so it goes. Which is the problem with Kafka, Buzzati, and describing dystopia in general. After a certain point, the parody gets old and the insights into our own existences become predictably boring. Still, The Bothersome Man is well worth seeing.

“Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

Is this statement any less true today than it was on July 4, 1852 when Frederick Douglass spoke these words? If it is true—and I suspect that it is—what uniquely American characteristic prevents us from seeing it?

By the way, I don’t have the answer. It is simply a question no one has successfully gotten to the bottom of.

I am happy to report that my gloomy prediction for Landon Donovan’s future in English football has proven false, mostly due to Donovan himself, who came off the bench against Hull City to score an impressive goal and set up another one. It’s what a champion does after a miserable display. He picks himself up and proves his detractors wrong. Well done, Landon!

It must be said Holland looked terrible in overcoming the United States in their friendly at Amsterdam Arena this week. They seemed lethargic, devoid of ideas, and mentally drained. Perhaps the United States is playing better defense than in the past, but this was far from the Dutch team that excited fans in Euro 2008 under van Basten. When you stop to consider that the United States would have trouble beating any first division team in Holland, this does not bode well for the Dutch in the World Cup. It was even more disappointing that John Harkes is still doing color commentary for ESPN. He seems to have toned down the worst of his negativity, however. You know the saying about people who live in glass houses. Perhaps he’s finally come to realize he’s as mortal as Eric Wynalda, and by extension, the rest of us.

It is a truism that we tend to become more conservative as we age. Just look at Gary Cooper, Salvador Dali, Arlo Guthrie, Walker Percy, and Oscar Wilde, who all converted to Catholicism, Wilde on his death bed. Of course, there are exceptions (Ezra Pound and Walt Whitman, for example, who were both too crazy to convert to anything), but it is generally common practice to want some sort of clarity before we die. We consciously shrink our worlds into tighter and tighter circles until we achieve the illusion that everything is under our control. It’s as if we try keep old age and death at bay by drawing increasingly inward. Of course, one doesn’t need to grow old to do this. There are plenty of persons of all ages who create virtual worlds and live in them as if they were real. Television and computers are perfect mediums for doing this.

This need to control our environments is fascinating when it becomes dysfunctional. Witness how the war machine in the United States will accept no limits on its power. Or how Wall Street is fighting to keep the derivatives markets intact, even though they almost destroyed the world economy. Or how Big Pharma and the insurance companies are working to deny adequate health care to Americans. These strategies will succeed only in destroying the geese that lay the golden eggs. Unrestrained aggression and greed always end badly for all concerned. The strategy leading to the best outcomes is always the middle path, but it requires restraint.

This dysfunction operates at a personal level, too, especially in families. Personalities are constellations of qualities and characteristics that don’t always work together, and family members and spouses know better than anyone which buttons to press. I think the only way to deal with our craziness as individuals is to observe ourselves, evaluate what we have done that was positive and negative each day, and gradually change ourselves through this process. For example, I know I need to stop throwing hissy fits, so the question becomes what is at the root of it and how much of it is controllable. The difference between me and Big Pharma is that I want to change. I see the consequences of my actions. Big Pharma does not.

Tokyo Decadence is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. I hope this was the director’s intention. Nominally, it’s about the Japanese BDSM scene as seen through the eyes of a naive, and sometimes abused, call girl, but I don’t know. It seems more like anime to me. Parody. Ridiculous people doing ridiculous things. Like an out-of-control Toyota. But maybe that’s the point. No one takes any satisfaction from their acts. Love is all around them, as close as their very own skins, but they can never find it. Only the young woman whose heart is true as gold discovers it, but only after all of her illusions are destroyed.

Moon riding the sky
Spreading the scent of lilacs:
Still she does not come.

This weekend it was sad to see the American Landon Donovan, who had been Everton’s player of the month, botch a tap-in for a goal and, a few moments later, fluff a ball for a teammate who had a chance to score. His botched scoring attempt would have tied the match against Tottenham. It was a school boy mistake. In that one moment he destroyed all the goodwill he had created in his months at the club and trashed his reputation in English football forever. It’s how fans are. They pay hundreds of pounds to watch the matches and have no tolerance for those who don’t make the grade.

Consider Wayne Bridge, the former Chelsea player, who was booed by the home fans after snubbing John Terry’s outstretched hand before the Manchester City match. His major offense? Being unwilling to join the national team after Terry, his one-time best friend, got the mother of his child pregnant. He was supposed to take it like a man in the interests of English football. I guess there was some justice. In the game, his new team thrashed Chelsea.

What does it mean? Not much really. Hardly Shakepearean. A sordid English soap opera of national proportions signifying nothing.