Calgon, Take Me Away...

Many people do not care for the movies of David Lynch. What makes a movie "good," after all? Consider all the elements: the cast, the story, the cinematography, the sound track, the art direction, the costuming... What kind of movies do you enjoy?

I myself am partial to costume dramas - Sense and Sensibility, Indocine, Dr. Zhivago...take me away to a different time period, preferably the 19th century. For me then, art direction and costuming are rather important.

David Lynch's movies are often obtuse. One wonders what the bloody hell is going on anyway? I would argue that it is because he is most concerned with creating a mileau--setting and emotional response is primary. His art direction borrows heavily from noir. His stories, however, are surreal and nightmarish when they make sense at all.

I appreciate his movies because it is how I tend to create my living space. I have a very cinematic approach to my environmental aesthetics--when I can control my environment.

For example, I recently visited my good friend, Lisa, in Minnesota. When it came time to leave, I decided I wanted to have an adventure on my way home and take a completely different route back to the Upper Peninsula. I drove most of the way home on two lane highway through rural Minnesota, Wisconsin & Michigan. The day was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful. I found this awesome radio station in northern Wisconsin playing big band/swing. I stopped at a diner for brunch and visited with some locals just chewing the fat. I could almost imagine that I had gone back in time about 50-60 years.

My favorite moments at home are when the combination of weather and music, in combination with my log home, artwork, books, and animals creates a particular mood and ambiance. More often than not those are the moments when I truly miss not having someone there to share the scene and experience the full effect.

It may be a snowy winter day with Shostakovitch's string quartets playing and a fire in the wood stove and flannel pj's and mom's knitted throws wrapped around my shoulders. Perhaps it's a rainy day in October with that intense autumnal greyness contrasted by the bright orange and yellow maples; I have Dexter Gordan on the stereo blowing mellow sax-Darn That Dream or some such jazz standard.

These times when they happen are dream like - they speak to my inner Blanche DuBois - who tries to create magic with a paper oriental lamp shade amidst the squalor. Yet they are also very much a part of my reality.

Marilyn Monroe had a mentally unstable mother who died in an institution. She was often very worried about her own mental health. She often questioned her perceptions of her reality. In one of the many fictionalized versions of her life, the writer had her talking about remembering her dreams and sometimes not being able to differentiate between when she dreamt something and when she actually experienced it. The confusion frightened her as apparent evidence of her own mental instability.

I often remember my dreams vividly, often experiencing the emotional state of the dream well into the morning after. I also have very strong memories of situations across the many years of my life. We joke about my intense memory in my family. In my mind I can often see and replay moments from 20-30 years ago. It is as if a have a photographic memory for place and scene.

Perhaps it is because I remember my life as a collection of tableaux that I am so captivated by creating emotional space to spend a few hours within. Of course, it is particularly because I live alone that I am able to do this. My animals are most cooperative and happy to play along with my moments of fantasy. Children and spouses I imagine are much more reluctant to play the game. I'm thinking of Diane Weist in Bullets Over Broadway - "Don't speak!"

You'll have to excuse me now. I feel the need to pull out a movie or turn on the stereo and drift pleasantly away from July 2010 for awhile. Peace.

My Favorite Anthem...

For Erika...

"You know, as a 21 year old gay person that's very active in the church, watching this video, all I can say is that from my perspective, its just... ick... gross and disturbing, I guess would be the most accurate words to describe it. I mean, It makes it seem as though the only way I'd like something, being gay, is if a gross stereotype of myself were to tell me it likes me. In my opinion, you might as well have had the episcopal church go to a black rights parade with a black man dressed up in overalls, a straw hat, bare feet, and carrying a bucket of chicken and a slice of watermelon saying, "Thems Episcopals church shaw dooos luvs us!!" Would that make the average black person want to go? Perhaps it's a generational thing. When I came out, I had the support of my family, my friends, and my church, which is of course, this one, and I'm very thankful for that. Yet, because I was never really berated once in my life for being gay, I never got into the whole, "Gay Pride" movement. Honestly, i've never been to one, yet from what I've seen, they serve no purpose to further gay rights. If anything they hinder them. Coming from a small conservative southern town, and going to a rather conservative college, I can tell you that I've changed more hearts and minds on the subject of homosexuality and Christianity just by being myself, and not changing who I am once I came out. That in itself was a great witness it turned out, as everyones opinions of gay people here, even the ones who were questioning there own sexuality, were that gay people had to have a lisp, love gucci, and wear neon green short-shorts and hot pink tank tops with glitter. I can tell you that at the church I go to now, which is part of the episcopal church yet divided on the issue of homosexuality, that is exactly the type of picture the people who are against homosexuality think of when they think of it. They know no other than what they've been shown, and that's what they've been shown. Those are the people we need to change. I can tell you right now, from great experience and knowing the culture quite well, there is an old conservative southern episcopalian women in her house right now. Shes probably gone to the same church for 70 something years. She's vaguely confused at all the changes in her church thats sort of just swept around her without her really understanding them, but she goes anyways. Shes heard about the some people leaving the church about the gays, and about how some bishop in new hampshire is one, but it doesn't really effect her, so its just rumors she hears at ECW meetings. Somehow, just the way life works, she will see this video. Every single opinion shes ever had of the gays, will be confirmed. All the rumors shes heard about the church, however untrue they might be, must be true. From being slightly opposed simply because her friends are, she is now vehemently against the gays, seeing what they are really like, and in the church, no less! Disgusted at how her church has somehow turned into the video she saw, she'll stop going to that church. (Trust me, people I know have stopped going for less.) She'll move down the street to First Baptist, or perhaps Mt. Carmel Tabernacle. Later, lets say 2-3 years down the road, her grandson tells her that hes gay, but it's ok, because he still the same person he was, and hes still a Christian. She'll remember the video, look at her grandson, and then think of the man in a dress and wig swinging a thurible. How do you think she'll respond?"

COMMENT: The above comment appeared at a post on Episcopal Cafe in response to a video showing Diocese of New York participation in the 40th Annual Pride Parade. Although I read this comment after my post below - it certainly helps expand what I was trying to say.