February Rains
I wake and for the third morning in a row hear Joan Armatrading singing these lyrics in my head:
If you’re gonna do it do it right
Don’t leave it overnight
Also for the third morning in a row–more like the sixth, who am I kidding?–the rain is pounding against my window. I can tolerate this much rain in the spring–there’s a point to it, even a gift–but in February it’s just mean. Cold and wet and mean. Which is how I’ve been experiencing everything, including myself. Take the dream from which I’m waking. It’s as rough as the weather. Continue Reading →
United Corporations of America
Some mornings I wake up and it’s just staring at me in the face. Capitalism is at the core of nearly every problem we’re confronting today—from environmental disaster to our shitty healthcare to the NRA’s grip on Congress to the fact that teachers get paid so much less than those Wall Street assholes who robbed the American public and then got bonuses. The very foundation of our economy was built upon the “free labor” of people of color/women of all races. Yes, you can chalk these problems up to greed, ignorance, xenophobia. But all that gets folded into end-stage capitalism in one way or another.
‘Schindler’s List’ in Trump’s America
The first time I saw Schindler’s List, it enraged me.
Admittedly, this was not a typical response. Upon its release 25 years ago, the film was touted as the crowning glory of director Steven Spielberg’s career and 1993’s greatest cinematic achievement. At the Oscars that year, the adaptation of Thomas Keneally’s historical novel about true-life figure Oskar Schindler won seven Academy Awards, including Spielberg’s first for best director.
It wasn’t just that the 3-hour-and-16-minute film was expertly crafted. Though documentaries like “Night and Fog” (1955) and “Shoah” (1985) had already catalogued the ravages of the Third Reich, Spielberg’s feature about a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand Polish Jews ignited younger generations’ commitment to “never again” just as Holocaust survivors and witnesses were beginning to die out. In a 2013 interview, the director said, “The shelf life of ‘Schindler’s List’ has renewed my faith that films can do good work in the world.”
Really, as an introduction to both the horror and the goodness of which humans are capable, it was the ultimate Spielberg vehicle. And that was my problem in a nutshell. As the film’s credits rolled and people around me sniffed, I stormed out of the theater, saying, “Leave it to Spielberg to find the feel-good story of the Holocaust.” Continue Reading →