Becoming You

By now, even the most casual follower of my blog might have noticed that, aside from indulging my indiscriminate movie lust, I don't spend a lot of time watching TV. But for weeks now I've been talking to everyone I know about Becoming You, an exceptional six-episode series recently streamed on Apple TV. Without question, it's worth your money to pay for a one-month subscription just to watch this series alone. 

Subtitled The First Two Thousand Days, with a captivating narration by Olivia Colman, the premise is brilliantly simple. Traveling around the globe, the filmmakers capture children from over one hundred nations as they approach important and universal developmental milestones. Some of my favorite moments involved learning about the impact of culture on children as they "become themselves" over their critical first five years of life. 

The opening sequence - a Japanese custom called "First Errand" - will hook you, I guarantee it. But there's so much more - getting to a play date in Borneo, transportation in Mongolia, the universality of first words, how gender exerts itself. Over almost 2400 posts across more than thirteen years, this is only my second endorsement of a TV show. I hope that level of discrimination has helped me earn your trust. If you do end up watching Becoming You, I'd enjoy hearing your impressions. I'm confident others would as well.    

Crabby About Grade Inflation

As a way to alert readers whenever one of my blog posts might sound a bit crabby, beginning in 2014, I began using some form of that word - or a synonym - in the title of any such post. Over the ensuing decade I've published about twenty, an average of two per year. I'm not claiming to have been crabby about so few things over the ten years. I am human and 2016-2020, in particular, gave me a lot of material, though I have mostly stayed away from politics primarily because too many people scream too much and too loudly these days. 

But when it comes to grade inflation, this crab has had enough. Specifically, how is it possible that so few books graded by readers on Goodreads have a cumulative rating lower than 3 stars, aka "I liked it"? It mystifies this curmudgeon to know how so few readers find so few books deserving just 2 stars, especially given the descriptor that accompanies that rating, i.e., "It was OK." What are these grade-inflating readers afraid of? Hurting an author's feelings, perhaps? Clearly, there are many books that are - just like many movies, many songs, many paintings, many meals, many anything - in fact, just OK.  

This cranky blogger is using Goodreads only as the latest example of grade inflation, a subject that has made him cantankerous for decades. As an educator, I've had students of all abilities. But I've had few who believed they deserved a "C", i.e., an average grade. Truth be told, the overwhelming majority of students I've had thought they deserved an "A" or, at worst, a "B+". But if no one is average, of what value is a "B" or an "A"?  

Reflections From The Bell Curve: A Crab Out Of Water

Swinging With James McBride

Of course, James McBride is a musician. The prose in Deacon King Kong (2020) swings as effortlessly as Duke Ellington. The sharp dialogue has an unmistakable cadence. The interplay of the characters in this quintessential NYC novel reminded me of the way great jazz musicians listen carefully to one another when trading eight bar phrases and the laughter that frequently follows. Even the passages with an improvised feel in this book were tight.  

The narrative momentum in Deacon King Kong makes it an easy book to race through; avoid doing that. Pay close attention in Chapter One ("Jesus's Cheese") when McBride introduces folks from Five Ends Baptist; their role as a Greek chorus is a crucial element in the satisfying moral symmetry of the novel. The skilled depiction of secondary characters - e.g., the Governor, Soup, Harold - felt musical to me. It was as though each took a superb guest solo and then walked off stage. 

If you end up liking Deacon King Kong, go onto The Color of Water next. Ever since reading it upon its 1995 release, I've recommended that memoir to more people than any other I've subsequently finished. More McBride? The Good Lord Bird (2013) is his wild re-imagining of the life of radical abolitionist John Brown. If Deacon King Kong indeed swings like Duke, the musical analogue for The Good Lord Bird could be the controlled and inventive anarchy of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. And me? I'm onto his most recent novel, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (2023). 

Reflections From The Bell Curve: Geeky Reading Magic 

A Satisfying Substitute

What mental picture do you have when thinking of someone meditating? I'd guess many folks would envision a person alone, eyes closed, sitting still in a quiet place, paying attention to their breathing with or without repeating a mantra, aloud or silently. On many days, that picture would closely match what my meditation practice looks like.

Several years back, my mental picture was broadened when an instructor at a retreat spoke of "a walking meditation". Ever since, there have been infrequent moments when I'm so fully present that my mind feels nearly as empty as it does when I'm sitting still and alone with my breathing. Am I meditating? I'm not sure but I do know the chatter has momentarily stopped, I'm not judging anything or anyone, and even the usual minor annoyances that sometimes trigger me - like a noisy leaf blower - somehow don't intrude on the moment. I'm clear, grateful, and quiet.

A few mornings back, sitting on my deck, one of these infrequent moments arrived unexpectedly. Perhaps it was the beautiful weather. Or maybe it was gazing at my wife's wondrous garden with all the butterflies. It could have been as simple as the cup of coffee on the table, the book in front of me, my guitar one room away. In the end, it doesn't matter because at that moment I was alive with wonder and awash in the feeling of being loved. I knew there was no need later in the day to rely on my normal meditation practice to center myself. Somehow, I'd gotten "there" without it.        

I've Got Your Number (#5 - The NYC Street Version)

a.) Pursuit on 52nd St.

b.) The 53rd St. Bridge Song

c.) 57th St. 

d.) Across 59th St.

e.) 110th St. 

Before anyone chastises me for leaving 42nd St. from this list of scrambled titles, please recall I've used only numbers above fifty since kicking off this series early this year. Anyway, that iconic song/musical would have been too easy for this latest - perhaps final - iteration. Ready to try solving another puzzle in pop ephemera without using Google? Here we go.

Four of the five NYC street names above have been featured in pop songs beginning with a 1967 hit by Harper's Bizarre, probably the easiest of the bunch. However, none of the four "correct" street names are in the titles from the a-e list as noted. Those four street names are scrambled throughout, meaning you have to take one of the four correct street numbers and transplant it to a different title until you have four correct song titles. Hint: One of these four - when you get the right street number in its appropriate place - was also the title of a feature length film around the same time as the song. 

The remaining item has a NYC street name that I can't recall ever crossing my always-on musical radar. However, the number in that item was featured in a song title from the early 1990s, bemoaning the wasteland. Final challenge? Identify that song. As with iterations #1-4, additional hints will be provided after a suitable length of time but only if necessary. Warning: There's one nerd out there who is pretty quick responding to these silly challenges but even he needed a little help at least once. So, if you're out of the box quickly, you have a shot at besting him. I'm waiting.                

Recommended (Despite Slipping Film Bona Fides)

Back when there were just five, it was a point of pride for this movie buff to say he'd seen all the films nominated for an Academy Award before the February ceremonies. But beginning in 2010 - when the number of nominees increased to nine or ten films - I started falling behind regularly. How can I claim to be an aficionado in mid-July if there's still a 2023 nominee (Zone of Interest) I haven't seen? Worse, there are a few still-unseen nominees from 2010-2022 continually reminding me of my slipping film bona fides. The horror. (Get it?)

Despite my fall from grace, I remain confident recommending Anatomy of a Fall as a movie you don't want to miss. Although it earned a well-deserved Oscar for best original screenplay, I'll stake my claim as a cinephile - albeit a recently truant one - and say that end to end it is a better film end than 2023's winner (Oppenheimer). Every pause in Anatomy ... is beautifully modulated, every moment of silence fully earned, every screenplay cliche - including a final twist - averted. It is a 10. (There I go again.)    

About the other 2023 nominees. I'll pass commenting on Barbie. American Fiction is as ambitious as The Holdovers is modest. Both films succeed, though - good as they are - I suspect neither would have gotten a nomination when only five movies got that nod. Poor Things is so over-the-top it defies description. For my money, among the nine nominees I've seen, only Past Lives approaches the subtle mastery of Anatomy of a Fall, both in sharp contrast to the bloated bombast of the two over-hyped marquee messes I wrote about in late January. 

Don't want to disappoint anyone waiting for a film reference at the end of this post. How's this? The geek abides.               

Reflections From The Bell Curve: A Decade of Crabbing

Two Pieces of Mind

Grateful and weary; energized and tortured; inspired and demoralized. 

My fluctuating posture toward the everyday; my ever-toggling thoughts about my creative output; my varying reaction to artistic brilliance, moment dependent.   

Necessary and self-indulgent.

Today's reflection from the bell curve. Anyone?  

  

The Gloves Are Off

Over thirteen years and almost 2400 blog posts, I've exercised superhuman restraint with respect to how often I've bragged here about my daughter's professional accomplishments. Today the gloves are off. Feel free to tune out right now if two short paragraphs of effusive gushing about her strikes you as unseemly. But before doing so, ask yourself these questions: Have you ever met a parent who wasn't proud of their kids? Would you want anything to do with such a parent?

As much as her move to Los Angeles last July pained me, it appears that my daughter's professional instinct about the need to be closer to the epicenter of show business - her chosen field since the 5th grade - was wise. Damn it, anyway. In less than a year, her career as a writer and director has rocketed to a new level. Aside from two feature-length films in development, including one she created and co-wrote with her writing/directing partner, her current contracted gig represents the culmination of more than ten years of hard work trying to break through in the wacky industry she chose. 

My daughter and her partner - collectively called BONABART- are presently part of a team of seven in what's called a writer's room, all of them at work on a TV series that features two marquee actors. I'd name the actors but my daughter wouldn't be happy with me publicly crossing that line until after the series has its debut. All the better: You'll have to check back in for my next round of gushing. 

ALISON BARTON (hialisonbarton.com)

Science and Faith

How do science and faith overlap in your life? 

If you're interested in exploring that question via a novel, I suggest you pick up Transcendent Kingdom (2020). Using the intersection of neuroscience, addiction, and depression, Yaa Gyasi tells a memoir-like family tale which gently prodded me to consider how faith and science are not as mutually exclusive as I've often made them. 

I don't know about you, but this long-lapsed Catholic, sometimes Unitarian, aspiring Buddhist struggles to square a strong belief in science with the many unexplainable miracles of the natural world and the unending mystery of bad choices we all make on occasion. Gyasi's protagonist faces those challenges and others, pushing her to question her rejection of her mother's unswerving faith. As the reader tags along with this talented young author, it's clear the novel's central dilemma has no solution. And that tantalizing ambiguity - carried through to the final sentences - prompted me to re-examine my scientific lens even more intensely. I need more than science to help me deal with the randomness of life. How about you?  

Any book that guides me away from being reflexively skeptical is a book I can endorse. Transcendent Kingdom is that kind of book.  

Declarations on Independence Day

As someone prone to criticize but slow to praise the United States, today seems an ideal day to reverse that paradigm. Taking anything for granted, even a country, is short sighted. Join me. What are your declarations on Independence Day?

* I'm proud of the bill of rights and especially partial to the first amendment declaring freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly. For all our arguments, where would we be without those freedoms?

* While on the Constitution, I'm real fond of the checks and balances established there. Anytime one of the three branches lets me down or oversteps its bounds, it's nice to know the other two are there to provide ballast. It's a pretty cool set-up, don't you think?

* Though I know it's hokey and, I'm also aware lots of people were dragged here against their will, I'm proud of how the U.S. continues to (mostly) welcome people from all over the world. Lots of challenges go with that "give us your tired..." motto, but July 4th reminds me how this country has made that work as well as most.

A Wonderful & Surprising Re-Entry

There's no question that growing up with the Temptations music helped to make Ain't Too Proud To Beg a peak Broadway experience. If Covid hadn't shut down the world soon after I saw it in February 2020, it's possible I would have made my first-ever return visit to a show. 

Because my exposure to Alicia Keys's music has been quite limited, my enthusiasm about seeing Hell's Kitchen was muted. But I'm always up for hearing new music and I'd been blown away recently when a friend introduced me to an all-vocal version of Empire State of Mind featuring just Keys. Still, my last Broadway show had been over four years ago and that one had me reliving my early musical life with the Temps.  

My ambivalence dissipated the moment Hell's Kitchen began. If jukebox musicals are your jam, this is a show to see. Anchored by Keys's infectious music, the dynamic singing and electrifying choreography brought new life to an oft-told story of a young person finding herself. I was never out of the spell and moved several times, first by the Act One closer - Perfect Way to Die. The penultimate song - No One - re-purposed as a mother/daughter duet, and the rousing finale, Empire State of Mind, were unimprovable.  My new experiences with the latter have catapulted it into the musical stratosphere alongside some of my all-time favorites. 

I'd enjoy hearing your reaction if/when you see Hell's Kitchen. What a wonderful and surprising re-entry to the Great White Way this was for me.