pedestrian saga

Ammazza, Signora Roma, che voce che ci avete!
—Market vendor to his vociferous neighbor

Ammazza che stupenda é la Magnani! She’s fascinating to watch, and Mamma Roma, Pasolini’s iconic film about a desperate, overbearing mother, is built for her. The rest of the cast is great too—her sulky teenage son Ettore, sleazy pimp Carmine, young neighborhood tramp Bruna, Ettore’s gang—but in that awkward, neorealist, “I can’t act but I’m trying” way. La Magnani is an operatic diva, stealing every scene she’s in. Tear your eyes away from all the beautiful faces a mo’ to behold the Roman landscape, ancient aqueduct competing with modern high-rise apartments, all seemingly in the middle of nowhere. But beware Pasolini’s heavy-handed, eye-roll inducing religious imagery that puts the ending over the top.

La ricotta is a tasty little bite of Pasolini, the thick religious imagery now tempered with irreverent and self-deprecating humor. It’s a thirty-minute film, originally released as a segment of RoGoPaG (1963), that earned him a date in court on charges of blasphemy. The Catholic ruling class of the day was not impressed, apparently, but I loved it! Orson Welles plays a radical Catholic Communist director (ehm) filming the Passion of Christ on the outskirts of Rome. A poor local man, who has landed work on the production as an extra, goes to great lengths to feed himself after sacrificing his catered lunch for his family, and ends up making the ultimate sacrifice. Marvel at the dandies doin’ the twist in between takes (a goofy six-tays kind of wonderful), and the slapstick fast-motion bum-scratching! And Ettore, the striking son of Mamma Roma, makes an appearance—I think he’s the one who drops Christ during the pietà. Hilarity ensues! Who knew?

****

• More Pasolini: Accattone
• More Magnani: her Tennessee Williams films, Nella città l’inferno (stint in jail opposite Giulietta Masina—!!), Rossellini’s L’amore, and Visconti’s Bellissima. And I would watch both Roma and Roma, città aperta again anytime!

This flick is the fast food version of the book—fast, cheap, out of control. Tummy-ache inducing, and not the righteous kind. Not even Ethan Hawke’s Good (Yet Slightly Creepy) Uncle could save it. Maybe if he’d been animated? God, I’m depressed. Just go read the 2001 book, folks, which has nothing to do with Avril Lavigne and everything to do with the implications of your local burger franchise.

**

Coming down the assembly line: Maybe I’ll get around to sinking my teeth into The Jungle. (That’s a book.) No more crappy film adaptations for a while.

Gordon’s review of Back to Bologna:

Lust, Caution managed to be intense and boring simultaneously, like a loathsome Spielberg drama. Too pedestrian for Pedestrian Saga. The student resistance troupe wasn’t compelling enough. The ending was disappointing. And all that wasted Tony Leung sexual tension (and, ehm, release) simply left me in the mood for In the Mood for Love again.

***

Coming soon: any and all Tony Leung gigs not directed by Ang Lee

While I harbor no particularly negative feelings toward Wings, Jefferson Airplane, or Jerry Garcia, I so agree with the thesis of this polemic against the month of August: It consistently sucks. Decimate it! Diminish it! Down with August!*

It sure is swell to collect some external validation for my intense, long-standing, and mostly irrational personal prejudice against the month.

August is for me the anxiety and indigestion that ushered in a new school year and its attendant social insecurities. Later I graduated to paralyzing fears of academic and professional failure.

August is about Type A dysfunction, exacerbated by oppressively hot, restless nights.

I’ll never be ready for August. August means premature endings. People leave in August and never return. Marriages dissolve beyond repair in August. August is when my little sister drove that damn hand-me-down car all the way up to the Great Library in the Sky.

And there in the middle of this miserable month is the most uncomfortable day of the year. For as many birthdays as I can remember, I’ve choked on feelings of inadequacy and despair, or mild embarrassment in the best of times. Martha Stewart’s calendar indeed offers little consolation to someone prone to bathetic metaphorical thinking:

“If it rains, organize basement.”

*Hat tip to the Librarians’ Internet Index for unearthing the 2001 Slate column.

Despite a few pesky butterflies beforehand and continuous incline with punishing evening sunshine in the face during the first half of the course, I finished the Midsummer Night’s Run Saturday with my C25K team. Whoo-hoo, team!

We were slow but steady right through to the finish (and on to the sacred temple of shaved ice). One of our ranks transcended expectations and scored a ribbon!

The fearsome threesome approaches the finish line: C’est moi, Renee, and Red Ribbon Rachel

Barry and Scott-o’-the-blue-ribbon ran incredibly well for not being on the C25K plan, but I won’t hold it against ‘em. Thanks for joining in the fun run, boys! And a shout out to awesome Eric for the escort and sag wagon!

I was disappointed they didn’t close the road and let us take over the centerline, but what can ya do? It was a small event. Today Corvallis, I say, tomorrow the world!

Victory portrait courtesy of Scott. No, I’m not going to Disney World, but perhaps…golf? I won a free round in the raffle! Unfortunately, there’s only so many hobbies the champ can master at once.

More zany farce than hard-boiled crime fiction, this Aurelio Zen mystery features an ensemble of wacky characters running amok in beautiful Bologna―la dotta, la grassa, la rossa. A Berlusconi-esque tycoon and controversial owner of the local football team is found shot dead and stabbed with a parmesan knife. Meanwhile, an arrogant semiotics professor (a thinly veiled parody of Umberto Eco) dukes it out with a contentious student and a maniacal and fraudulent celebrity chef. A slapstick gumshoe muddles various links between characters, while our detective hero, Inspector Zen of the national police, turns out to be brooding and lethargic, a borderline hypochondriac who, in this case, doesn’t investigate much beyond his navel. (more…)

JO’GGER n. s. [from jog.] One who moves heavily and dully.
They, with their fellow joggers of the plough. Dryden.
—Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755

Tomorrow is the last practice run before the 5K this Saturday evening. So it’s a still sort of moment, the quiet before a big event. Reflective, as in, “Holy crap, I can’t believe how far we’ve come and how much we rule!”

Last week began with me ably demonstrating Dr. Johnson’s definition of a jogger, except I would add to it “gasping and wheezing.” The camaraderie of my fellow joggers has made all the difference on those rough mornings. I’ve found that intensive pre-jog stretching focused on the neck and shoulders (lifelong repository of angst—and there’s been plenty) has made the difference between a rough morning and a slightly improved passage of oxygen to the lungs.

Or maybe it’s all in my head? How much of it is mental? External distractions and successful mind tricks certainly mark the better days.

Last Saturday was one. To prepare for the elevation change in the 5K course, R and I left the track behind and instead ran all the way up the hill to the hospital—without feeling compelled to check ourselves in.

And yesterday was another:

0630-0702
32 minutes
“Me and Mia”–”Shake the Sheets”
11 laps
~2.75 miles
~4.4 kilometers

…jogged without stopping, and finished hard! Shake the Sheets is a crazy wonderful high.

Sylvia is traveling the French-speaking world this summer and logging an impressive journal of her adventures in pictures and words. Having led a group of her young students on a two-week tour de France, she’s now assumed the student role herself for three weeks to explore Switzerland and Belgium under the auspices of the American Association of Teachers of French. Then, toward midsummer, she joins the Waza Alliance in DR Congo to participate in their Sister School Partnership project.

Mum visiting Geneva

Despite this vigorous itinerary she’s managed to write in her journal and post to her photo gallery with characteristic eloquence and frightening regularity. It’s been a real privilege to follow her journey closely and in such detail. Favorite stories so far include the fencing and calligraphy lessons at Nimes/Arles, the climbs at Rocomadour and Montségur (in between visits to the hair salon), guest speaking at a French collège on the last day of school, and beginning Swiss political and literary history (in the land of Frankenstein!)

For quality armchair travel this summer, I highly recommend A Walk with the Wood Elf.

Jogged another two miles in 25 minutes this morning. I was tired and not breathing well. R was on fuego. She called fartlek twice, which just kills me—the sprinting itself but also the fact that she can’t resist saying fartlek with such glee. (”Fartlek to the blue arrows!”) And while I was merely thinking ahead to breakfast, she was already imagining post-5K possibilities and wondering aloud if there may well be a very special 10K in our future. Adrenaline does this to a person.

Since I first laid eyes on it, driving the coast north with Scott around Christmas 2005, I’ve been dying to cross the Astoria-Megler Bridge by unmechanized means. Scott remains unconvinced that traversing the mouth of the mighty Columbia on our tandem would be the ultimate rush. When I first mentioned the annual 10K crossing to R, on the other hand, her eyes widened, and she began quoting the Lewis and Clark journals and talking about spiritual quests. That’s more like it!

Ah, but midsummer first, before the fall.