Lysistrata and Spike Lee

This fall, I have a friend who is taking a humanities class. Her assignments, readings and reports have led to all kinds of discussions about classic literature. I have had the chance to talk about Shakespeare and the Latin classics again. Shockingly concepts and ideas I haven't used in my daily life in years. One of the works we talked about was Lysistrata. In case you're not familiar with Aristophanes work:

Lysistrata (/laɪˈsɪstrətə/ or /ˌlɪsəˈstrɑːtə/; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, "Army Disbander") is a comedy by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BCE, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society. Wikipedia

It's a comedy in the bawdy nature. Many stagings have the male cast members with giant plastic phallic members in the latter parts of the play. Imagine a sex comedy with visuals by 14 year olds. But in it's bawdy nature, which as a rule plays to our lowest common denominator - it questions our wants and desires. Aristophanes makes fun of one desire, sex, and man's determination for it by highlighting another desire in a comedic way. It was satire. I'm sure that not everyone in the audience appreciated it. But it was clever in its way.

But it is a classic and historic example of the constant and continuing conflict between men and women and sex. What is it, what should it be, why do we do what we do in relation to it? In one way it shows the power of the gender conflict, in another it shows the mental and social limitations of the time: the idea that the only way to stop men from fighting is to take away their sex, or that women can only influence situation/life through their sexual control. Lysistrata has in it elements of both feminism and sexism. One aspect unexpected from a play written in 411 BCE and one expected.

Yet. It is easy to debate how far we have come as a species in roughly 2,425 years. Even as I read Lysistrata again this fall. (I'll admit that I didn't see the bigger picture or the grander issues of sexism, feminism and just plain humanity when I read it as a younger man). I found myself wondering if in our time with different horrible challenges of war and hate, some group might not pick up Lysistrata's banner of chastity. What would happen? How would society react?

As ever, mine was not an original thought. I was to delighted and intrigued to find that Spike Lee was developing an update of Lysistrata himself, titled Chi-Raq. The story, as explained by fourth wall breaking narrator, Dolmedes (Samuel L. Jackson):

The Aristophanes comedy "Lysistrata," about a sex strike waged by Athenian women designed to frustrate their lunkhead warriors into halting the Peloponnesian War, dates to 411 B.C. and was written in rhymed verse. "Chi-Raq" will do likewise, he says. (At times the movie feels like a nervy grad-school collaboration between theater and film departments, with access to really good actors.) The South Side women are fed up with the carnage caused by the war between rival gangs, the Trojans (Wesley Snipes is their one-eyed leader, Cyclops) and the Spartans (Cannon's character, a rising rapper with a gangbanger's resume, goes by the name Chi-Raq). Lysistrata gets wind of a sex strike, a nonfictional example from recent history, led by Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee. Why not try it here, in the bloody city by the lake? - Chicago Tribune

I appreciate the change of Lysistrata from wife to warrior. The setting of Chicago certainly makes the modern audience take more notice than ancient Greece.  In keeping the comedic tone, Lee attempts to sneak past the defenses of the audience and make an impact. Humor is the gateway to all emotions. If I can make you laugh, I can make you cry, I can make you feel. It is the great irony of both linguistics and Shakespeare that his comedies end in tears and his tragedies end in hope.

I look forward to seeing Lee's interpretation of Aristophanes work. No doubt there will be those who call out it as another sequel or icon for the lack of originality in modern media. But this is not another white guy with a gun saving a building full of people. It is not Channing Tatum lampooning Johnny Depp in high school. It's not a comic or a space opera or another dramatic retelling of war.

Chi-Raq like Lysistrata asks a question. Hopefully it reminds us to ask it as well:

Is humanity's primal need to create able overcome it's primal need to destroy?



 

The Song Doesn't Remain the Same

One thing that I love to do is share music with my children. With activities all over the metro and transporting between houses, we have ample listening opportunities.

I still have a CD player and my kids love to pick out old CDs and listen to them. My 9 year old is probably the worlds youngest Eve 6 fanatic. We all love The Refreshments and Frank Turner. It takes the right day for Meatloaf. From the time they were each babies, I always made mix tapes and compilations for them. 

I love mix tapes. Yes they are still CDs and I still have a CD player in my car. Perhaps it is my affinity for High Fidelity but music and mix tapes are important to me. I make them for people important to me. Each year I try to make a road trip cd for my kids yearly family trips.  I make them to deal with my regular emotional roller coasters too. 

Because of this there are plenty of homemade CDs in the car cd visor holder (95 represent!) and some of them are favorites of my children. The other day, my son grabbed a cd and passed it up to me in the front. I always have veto power and usually I would have veto'd this cd. Yet for some reason, this time I decided to put it in. 

The spring and summer of 2010 was not a good time for me. The roller coaster went off the rails. I lost my job. I lost my significant other. I had to move back to my parents house. My entire house of cards life came tumbling down. At some point that summer either while wallowing or trying to recover, I created a mix tape and simply titled it "broken"

As the first track began, I started to regret putting it in. Some sensations, smells, songs hold too much memory for me and I can't handle them. I haven't been able to listen to a certain song by the Wallflowers since 2000. I have literally walked out of stores once I heard those familiar first cords. So I worried that maybe this cd would bring too much of that summer, of that period of broken back. And for a second it did. 

I skipped the first song at my son's request, and I was just about to push the eject button when something unexpected happened. As Dee Clark began to lament the Raindrops falling from his eyes. I heard my son softly singing along. 

It's weird that I know every word to a song from 1961 and there is no reason my son should know it. But then it hit me, all those car rides that summer. All those trips to the children's museum. The songs played and I sang along. Suddenly I remembered the joy of those moments. The pieces of that time that weren't broken. 

Together we sang through the sappy silly song. We sang together a snippet from Dr Horrible. We laughed. Something that had seemed broken wasn't. 

We picked up my daughter and all three of us sang through Dr Horrible again. Instead of the pain and memories that these songs used to hold, it was fun. 

We even made it through the song of that summer that I used to sing scream as I drove around my broken world: "Nothing Ever hurt like You" All three of us singing loudly and smiling and jiving along. A song that I didn't think I could ever sing with a smile. I was beaming. 

Something happened to those songs over the past 5 years. They didn't stay the static cauldrons of pain. It didn't hurt like it used to. Time, patience and growth  combined with knowledge to change them and me. It was an excellent reminder. 

The song doesn't remain the same. 

And that's ok. 

Movie Review: Pixels. (SPOILERS)

Adam Sandler has made a ton of money as an actor. Jimmy Fallon and Andy Samberg owe the start of their careers on SNL partly to following in Sandler's footsteps. For years Sandler has been blasted for making silly, crass and over the top movies. Critics love to hate on his movies. They are childish and silly. 

I love them. 

Movies to me sometimes need to be over the top and silly. Yes, most of his movies plots sound like something my friends and I would come up with at 3 am when drinking Surge during a sleep over. Jacked up on caffeine and over tired = Isreali James Bond becomes hair dresser or what if aliens saw 80s video games and made replicas to attack the earth. 

I would have loved that idea as a 12 year old kid. It still tickles me as an adult today. 

Pixels has been called a flop this summer. Expensive and silly. Ridiculous and poor special effects. It's still a lot of fun. 

Sandler and Kevin James play buddies who grew up in the early video game era. The classics, Galaga, Space Invaders, Centipede etc. Probably the biggest leap of logic in the whole movie is that Kevin James is President. Kanye seems more likely than that. His role as President is simply to facilitate the nerd crew from the early 80s joining forces to stop the invasion. Ironically they are more qualified to deal with this invasion than the drillers in Armageddon were.   

Josh Gad makes an appearance as another member of the nerd team. (Gad and Jonah Hill are the the Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton of their generation. Often confuse me which one it is and it feels like they could basically be interchangeable in any role.) Michelle Monaghan was the clincher for me. Had a crush on her since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and she saves Eagle Eye by herself. Plus it's classic Hollywood to make old frumpy Sandler her love interest. It plays to us old frumpy guys. 

Peter Dinkledge looks like he is having a lot of fun in a role that is both very far from Tyrion Lanisster yet oddly familiar. Sean Bean makes a cameo and (SPOILER) doesn't die, which was a bit of a surprise.  All in the all the cast is secondary to the games, which were a bit before my time but still hold some nostalgia. 

The best decision I made was going to Pixels with my son. He loved it. He plays Mappy and PacMan at our favorite restaurant. He loved the action. He loved learning that the old games had patterns you could master. After the movie during dinner he watched Mappy and tried to master the patterns himself. 

We laughed. There was some fun action sequences, especially the Mini Cooper Ghosts and the Centipede battle. I enjoyed it. My 9 yr old son loved it. 

If you have a child that likes video games, if you ever wasted a pocket full of quarters trying to make it to the next level or if you simply want a silly escape from reality with a willful suspension of disbelief - you will enjoy Pixels. 

Cartoon Review: Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.

One of the best things about laundry evenings with my children is Netflix. We pick a series on Netflix and plow through folding 3-5 baskets of laundry. The laundry gets done. The house feels clean. And sometimes we pick a pretty awesome show. The other night we tried Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H for the first time.

At first I was a bit skeptical. It's a cartoon, rated Y7. So would I as an adult be bored, annoyed? Would my kids who are above that age range feel the same? Doesn't Agents of Smash just sound like a bit of a childish reach? 

However, within the first few seconds of the opening episode, my fears began to wane as I hear the voice talents of Seth Green. From his first appearance in my view in Can't Hardly Wait to Buffy to The Italian Job, all the way through to his appearances on TableTop, I have always enjoyed his work. I relaxed and decided to just let the smash happen. 

It's a cartoon and they certainly do love to smash. Cartoonish violence on a level of Looney Tones at times. It was a classic cartoon. The first episode sets the stage for the series, a group of Gamma ray enhanced "hulks" including the original Hulk (no reference to Bruce Banner), Red Hulk, She-Hulk, a Conan style Hulk and the Seth Green voiced A-Bomb, previously known as Rick Jones. 

The team is placed on par with the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D. and they deal with all types of villains from The Leader to the living planet Ego. What surprised me most is that the staging, that of a we series designed to show the softer side of the Hulk, actually works quite well. Cutting to confession booth style interviews with each of the Hulks helps to balance out the constant smashing, growling and grunting. Hulk even seems to have a moral or lesson to impart each episode. I honestly didn't see Hulk as the logical, wise leader of a team with Mr Rogers-like themes coming through.

The series makes good use of the Marvel Universe both in villains and guest star heroes. Spider-Man, Iron Man and many other heroes team up with the Hulks from time to time. It created an interesting and fun sideline for me to see how they worked these heroes and their position in this version of the Marvel Universe. 

The series also makes excellent use of a myriad of voice talents. Besides Green, the vocal stylings of Clancy Brown, Eliza Dushku, Drake Bell, Chi McBride, Adrian Pasdar, Terry Crews and even Oscar winner JK Simmons all add to the fun of Agents of SMASH. 

The talent is vast and latey vocal actors have been a fascination to me. Several actors from Geek and Sundry's Critical Role appear as well and that is one of my current binge watching choices. Another series I need to review... 

Nonetheless. The evening was a success. Laundry was folded. We laughed at the smashing. We talked about the morals and themes that Mr Rogers' Hulk imparted. All it all it was an excellent Netflix choice for our evening. 

If you like cartoonish violence. If you enjoy good clean fun about smashing and destruction. If you are a stereotypical 8 year old boy. You will enjoy Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. 

Movie Review MINOR SPOILERS: Mission Impossible Rogue Nation

After a misstep in the middle of the series by going to hardcore and trying to make Ethan Hunt more like Jack Bauer; dark and gritty, the Mission Impossible series found it's feet again with the fourth installment. It was fun, over the top stunts and action. They found the right tone and pacing. The fun continues in Rogue Nation. 

I was able to see it in IMAX and I highly recommend and prefer that format over 3D. The clarity, crispness over all field of vision dominance are vastly superior to look how cool this effect of a thing in your face is?!" 3D style. The visuals in Rogue Nation were outstanding, especially during the motorcycle chase scene. 

With so many movies, you wonder if you saw the best stunts, effects or jokes in the trailer. Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt hanging of the side of the plane has been in all the trailers and promotional material. I was surprised of the timing of it in the film. The whole film had me engaged and not sure where it was going next. 

Cruise is Cruise and I still believe that Hunt is his most comfortable role. Simon Pegg is perfect as the nerdy foil and the movie gives the two a lot more to do in terms of creating and dealing with their interpersonal dynamic. 

Likewise setting up Jeremy Renner as the behind the scenes administrator and giving him a foil in Alec Baldwin justifies his part much better than as the presumed heir apparent to Hunt as he was last time. Ving Rhames fills out the team another technology link but isn't given that much to do. 

The main villain is ok. And the film makes the governments/structures of modern spy work more the villain than one man. But as someone who had an early crush on GI Joe's female antagonist, The Baroness, it's no surprise that Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust would be my favorite. 

Faust and Hunt's give and take, mystery and intrigue give the movie it's soul as much as Pegg and Cruise give it a heart. Ferguson pulls of so much with her eyes alone. Especially in the scene with her MI6 handler. I am smitten. 

Overall I found the twists and turns intriguing. The filmography and sound excellent. And the pacing and tone spot on. 

There should never be any doubt that Hunt and his compatriots will succeed for they always do. What I enjoyed most about Rogue Nation was I often couldn't figure out how they would. And when they did I enjoyed every single second of it. 

If you enjoyed the other Mission Imposisble movies and have a night to suspend disbelief and marvel at stunts, explosions, car chases and some interesting interpersonal dynamics, I highly recommend Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. 

Self Reflection.

I never hurt for thinking. I do it a lot. Repetitively. Constantly. Today I took an assessment for a potential opportunity and I had to write about myself. Since I will not have future access to this assessment, I wanted to make sure I had a copy. Might be good to have in the future.

I am diligent in learning. I seek out knowledge and strive to understand. At times the unknown can frighten me. I can be dropped into a room of strangers and make the entire room feel more comfortable. I'm a great date for that wedding where you don't know anyone. I like to have a plan but forced structure can at times frustrate me. I am a father. I am passionate about the things and people important to me. I need artistic and creative outlets as part of my life. I need new challenges. I expect great things out of myself and place a lot of pressure and self analysis because of it. I believe that humor is the gateway emotion, if I can get you smile or laugh, then anything is possible. My personal philosophy is to be a Life Concierge. If you need it or want it, I can provide a way to it. I often help friends job search, deal with relationship issues, career choices. I don't believe that any trivia is useless. I love providing knowledge. I love to educate/expand our shared knowledge. I love being useful to people who are questioning or going through life choices. Technology and modern media fascinates me. Intellectual property rights laws and issues captivate me. Beauty distracts and inspires me. My children embolden and encourage me. I am a work in progress. But the progress is good. 

Ch-ch-changes

There's a hint of irony that Changes is one of my favorite David Bowie songs. But like all sound, I have to be in the right mood for it. Anxiety and stress is not the right mood. 

Actual changes bring a lot of anxiety and stress for me. So I haven't been listening to much David Bowie lately. 

Accepting change, even good change is always a challenge. This week has had a lot of potentially really good change and working to manage my stress and anxiety. Like any week it's been a roller coaster. 

Something that I have tried is to read quotes or other people's thoughts on change and use those to inform my own opinion of how I am dealing with change. 

"Change always comes bearing gifts" - Price Pritchett 

I do not know who Price Pritchett is but he/she is full of crap. I can't remember the last time I received a gift from change. It brings good or bad stuff. But I've yet to get a "gift". That one must be too clever for me. 

"You can avoid having ulcers by adapting the to the situation: If you fall in a puddle check your pockets for fish" - Author Unknown

That sounds ridiculous. I can't believe no one has claimed it yet. Fall in a puddle, check your pockets for fish should really be a meme. I checked. No fish. 

"If you want to make enemies, change something." Woodrow Wilson

Pretty depressing there Woody. But I guess the whole World War thing would put you in a down mood. Also his first name is actually Thomas. Yet he chose to be called Woodrow. I can't take advice from someone who does that. 

"We all have big changes in our life that are basically a second chance" Harrison Ford

Well that's an unexpected addition to the quote list. But I guess if your second chance is getting to become Indiana Jones after being Han Solo, change isn't such a bad thing. 

I could never be Indy. Can't pull off the hat. 

"Feelings sometimes sway side to side as the heart and mind fight for control" - Unknown

True. Deep. Honest. Conflicted. But I was searching for change quotes....how is this in here....

"Always! That is the dreadful word...it is a meaningless word too" - Oscar Wilde 

Damnit Oscar. You're my go to quote machine. This didn't help. 

"Every saint has a past and every sinner a future." - Oscar Wilde 

Now we are talking. That one had a bit of a lift to it. The bittersweet ring of truth. The clever turn of phrase. Progress. 

"All things must change, to something new, to something strange" Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There we go. Strange. My God is change strange. What I know isn't known. What I saw now can't be seen. What I desired then is not what I need now. 

Change freaks me the fuck out. Good change, bad change - doesn't matter. The anxiety boils in my stomach. The heart races. The mind becomes a hot mess. But the only thing I can really control about change....is how I react to it. 

My body will betray me. My heart will race. My brain chemistry set will boil over. My mind will let all of the worry horses out of the barn. 

"The only way to deal with how I deal with change is to change." - me

I better get better at that.