Saturday, April 10, 2010

I'm a movie buff, and my writing tends to reflect this. I think in scenes, and I tend to dislike transitions, and certainly try to avoid writing that relates in fairytale style that which has gone by. This cross-media approach has its good and bad sides--in writing you don't get the immediate setting-establishing image that requires no elaboration but only the sometimes unconscious cooperation of the viewer's eyes. You need to take time to weave the image into the events, and I think some of the best writing involves starting with the characters and then slowly filling in the rest of the picture, satisfying the mental eye before it becomes too curious and the scene too detached and ethereal.

The relation--and contrast--between writing and movies means that many stories are devilishly difficult to bring to the screen, so it's always great to watch successful adaptations. A very good one is the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (the original Swedish title, Men who hate women, is far more accurate but far less engaging). The story is a murder mystery--that it's not the murder one thinks it is only adds to its brilliance. It has been hailed for its unique heroine, Lizbeth Salander, think Goth bisexual judoka crossed with Richard Feynman. Lizbeth's backstory and adventures span three books, and already many lament there won't be a fourth--the brilliant journalist who wrote them in his spare time as a work of love died of a heart attack before he published them. I found Lizbeth fascinating if a bit hard to believe--the other important character, Mikael Blomkvist, was in my opinion miscast--the actor depicting him is a bit too placid.

This said, this is the type of movie where intelligent adult viewers clap at the end--you end up caring for the character even though you may also want to slap her silly, and the plot is both seamless, incredibly complex and Important--you don't end up thinking you've just watched the one cat that happened to cross the street in front of you, as is true with many films that are forgotten the moment you exit the theater. I'm looking forward to the sequels, and plan to read the books.

There are other book/movie conversions that have been wildly successful (LOTR and HP are obvious examples). Their success has relied less on the strength of the original, and more on successfully adapting it to a different medium. But that's another blog.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Baby Steps and Easter

Soon after creating this blog, I crashed against the realization that maintaining it current was a lot of work, and sort of gave up on it. Then recently I reflected upon the myriad of things that remain undone because of a near-universal urge for instant gratification, perniciously widespread in these days of sound bytes and information overload when sleep sometimes seems a crime.

So here's a resolution to proceed in this and other endeavors with baby steps. I'll make one blog post per week. This is my commitment. If I get in the mood for more, fine, but this I will do, if only to say what a boring, work-drenched, innovation-sapping, procrastination-inducing week I had.

Which I didn't. Work was interesting, and now my wife and I are preparing for Easter tomorrow. We're both reluctant atheists--convinced on an intellectual level of the vanishingly low probability of an actual deity, but having warm and fuzzy memories of religious and traditional celebrations from our Eastern Orthodox (mine Greek, hers Russian) childhood. Sea of candles, the light spreading from the priest at midnight like an exploding nova. Mageiritsa soup, red eggs battling for supremacy, lamb roasting on the skewer, egg bread and halvah. For her, growing up in communism, it was less the actual experience as the stories, in books and poems, and small little touches like happy faces on eggs and the defiant faithful whispering Christos Voskrece.

So we'll recreate a bit of this tomorrow. We're going to St. Sophia, the beautiful Greek Church in Los Angeles, for the Agape service, then we're filling up the car with food from the Greek restaurant across the street: wine, Agiorgitiko and Xinomavro, then all kinds of pies, tyropites, spanakopites, kreatopites. Lamb of course, and cheeses, myzithra, feta, kefalotyri, kasseri, names that make my mouth water still. And last but not least the desserts: Galaktoboureko, kataifi, loukoumades, melomakarona.

Hungry yet? ;-)

Then at home we'll set up the table, and wait for our friend to arrive, because that's the great fun of Easter, the joy, the sharing, the hope. Does it matter for what? Perhaps if we could generate our own inner fun without always needing a reason, then the light of Easter or what Easter means--hope--would shine more than one day a year.