Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Imitation Game

The film The Imitation Game flashes back to Alan Turing’s childhood prep school.

2014, THE IMITATION GAMEIf it weren’t for Alan Turing, you might not be reading this or much else on the Internet. He “was an English mathematician, wartime code-breaker and pioneer of computer science.”

But he was pretty much just a name to me until my friend Mary and I went to see The Imitation Game last week, as usual at The Spectrum in Albany. It was a story about how Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) and fellow mathematicians (including Matthew Goode, from the TV show The Good Wife, as Hugh Alexander) try to crack the enigma code that the Germans were using to transmit their movements.

The code was thought to be unbreakable because the number of calculations needed to suss it out was far greater than the human mind could tally in hundreds of years. But, Turing wondered, what would happen if one could devise a MACHINE to figure out what another machine was doing?

This was a difficult sell, in part because Turing was awkward, and, understandably, arrogantly confident in his talents. He was not a “people person.” When he finagles some control of the project, he uses a crossword puzzle to recruit a couple more people, including a young woman (Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke).

The film flashes back to Turing’s childhood prep school, where he was bullied and had but one very good friend. It also jumps forward, where the police, investigating a break-in at Turing’s house, discover secrets about his past and present life, including his homosexuality, which was a crime in 1950s Britain.

Despite his current popularity – type in BEN in IMBD, and Benedict Cumberbatch is the first name to pop up – I had only seen the lead actor in one other role, a small but important part in August: Osage County; he was quite good.

Here he carries the film, though Knightly and the other actors are also very good. The film uses some stock war footage, and, interestingly to me, it doesn’t look as obviously different as in some films I’ve seen.

The negative reviews – they were 90% positive on Rotten Tomatoes – chide the movie for taking Turing and making him less interesting, less nuanced than he should have been portrayed. Moreover, the screen overlay coda of his ultimate fate was considered a bit of a cheat. Since I knew only the name, I can’t speak to the former. The latter argument has some validity, I suppose, but a late scene in the movie does explain the situation to my satisfaction.

Bottom line: I watched what was on the screen, without the background on Turing, and found myself quite entertained and informed.

Introspective or Narcissistic?

When I write something two or three days, or weeks, or months later, its lack of immediacy is actually valuable to me.

introspectionA few months back, David Brooks, a columnist with the New York Times, who I disagree with more than agree, asked the question How do you succeed in being introspective without being self-absorbed? He concludes: “The self is something that can be seen more accurately from a distance than from close up. The more you can yank yourself away from your own intimacy with yourself, the more reliable your self-awareness is likely to be.”

As someone who has had to periodically defend the fact that I engage in the (perceived) navel-gazing that is the personal blog, I do believe there is something to be said for this methodology: “We are better self-perceivers if we can create distance and see the general contours of our emergent system selves — rather than trying to unpack constituent parts.”

He suggests three ways of doing this.

“First, you can distance yourself by time.” Somewhere in my life, I have learned to do this. My first instinct in a situation is not always the best. Facebook debates are not only non-productive, generally speaking, they make me uneasy. So when I write something two or three days, or weeks, or months after an event, its lack of immediacy is actually valuable to me. It is less fraught with emotion.

“Second, we can achieve distance from self through language.” Sometimes, I am watching my own movie, and it’s not me commenting, but some iteration of me. This may not make sense to you, and I wish I could explain it better. But I have hit on a self-duality that’s useful.

“Finally, there is narrative… We should see ourselves as literary critics, putting each incident in the perspective of a longer life story.” Isn’t almost everything we experience in a broader context?

So, unintentionally, I’m taking life lessons from David Brooks. I can deal with that.

Book review: The Gospel According to the Beatles

The Beatles hadn’t set out to be gurus, but in their very public quest for a spiritual…something, they became just that.

gospel according to beatlesIn March 2015, the youth director of our church is putting on a musical review based on The Gospel According to the Beatles, which will feature The Daughter. This compelled me to buy and read the book. Author Steve Turner, as the book sleeve, informs me, has been writing about pop music for over three decades. This is, and I don’t want it to come off as a pejorative, a scholarly book, well-researched; I’ve read enough Beatles-related tomes to have read more than a few useless ramblings.

The general premise that they all grew up in the church, particularly John. Indeed, his description of the “flaming pie” man that gave the group its name – “From this day on, you are Beatles with an A” – was a mock Biblical story, possibly borrowing from Acts 10 or another story.

The group moved away from the “rather stuffy Christianity of their childhoods.” Initially, it was the attraction to nihilism, where the goal was not to have a job like their fathers had and to attract female attention, that motivated them.

When they first made it big, they did not hide their agnostic sentiments. Soon, though, it was as though they asked themselves, with all the “wealth, fame, sex, and acclaim,” is that it? “George and John were the most disappointed by fame.” One can see this in the title, and on the dour cover picture of the Beatles for Sale album.

From Rubber Soul, a pot-driven album, I thought nearly 50 years ago that The Word [LISTEN] was at least reminiscent of New Testament scripture. Nowhere Man [LISTEN] had clear elements of philosophy. But I hadn’t realized that Girl [LISTEN], at least the section about pain and pleasure, came from a book John read about Christianity, a notion he thought was rubbish.

Revolver was full of LSD references. I find it interesting that’s long been my favorite album, and Tomorrow Never Knows my favorite song. It was acid, and its ultimate lack of fulfillment, that led George to look to the East for enlightenment. The Catholicism he grew up with seemed too compartmentalized in most people’s lives.

It is unsurprising that John is in the foreground on the cover. The book goes into great detail about the 1966 Lennon quote about the popularity of the Beatles vis a vis Jesus, which was almost certainly true in Britain at that time, and even more so now, with the steep decline of the church in England.

(Yes, Paul and Ringo get plenty of coverage too.)

My takeaway is that the Beatles hadn’t set out to be gurus, but in their very public quest for a spiritual…something, they became just that, in a way that Elvis, for instance, was not. This is a function of being better educated, writing their own songs, and that protection that being one of four provides. While there were stories I knew, there was a lot more I did not.
***
Yes, I DID know which Beatle visited the United States first, but did you? Here’s a nice story about that first trip.

Confidence, gifts, words

WordsMelanie says: “Here’s my Christmas gift to you a tad late. Hope you like :)”

Who is someone in your life who helped to give you confidence? How did they do it?

The first to come to mind was my second, primary high school girlfriend. Not only was she fearless, but her boldness was also infectious. I was a really “good” kid, and she was a lot more challenging of authority. I’ve been a troublemaker ever since.

Then three years after I broke up with the Okie, she called me pretty much out of the blue, and she needed her detective skills to find me. She helped me put my head back together, because my self-confidence was pretty shot.

If you were only allowed to give one gift in your life, who would you give it to and what would it be?

Abstractly, I always wished I had had the means to pay off my parents’ house.

Perhaps, what I most want for The Daughter is for her to feel love and self-confidence. Is that two things? Oh well.

What is your favorite (or top three if that works better for you) word to say aloud? (I think mine would be disputatious- there is something substantial, unusual, and intensely satisfying in enunciating it for me, but winnowing is also a fun word to say because it uses muscles that don’t tend to get as much of a workout in daily speech.)

I had a friend named Vito Mastrogiovanni, who died from AIDS in 1991; I LOVED saying Mastrogiovanni. Another high school friend: her first name was Lonna, and she had a last name I can’t spell, but it was pronounced soo-hoe-vee-ET-ski.

Dien Bien Phu.

In the non-proper noun category: Onamonapia – gotta say it fast! Sesquicentennial. And many words in French (Rapprochement) or Italian (Tortellini) or German (Wiener Schnitzel) or other languages.

In the fictitious word category: Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic.

In general, I like repeated fricatives, such as vivacious.

Made me think of one of my favorite songs by the Monkees: Words.

Love ya!

And you.

Obama’s last two years as President

This Democratic President has fulfilled the GOP campaign promises.

obama.gUndoubtedly I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating:
1. I don’t support all of Barack Obama’s actions as President. But:
2. When they just make up stuff, it’s counterproductive. Reportedly, Obama is going to dismantle the Marine Corps, which is so obviously false that it is amazing it gets any traction.

What I like about President Obama is that he recognizes income inequality is a problem, even though it’s often hard to do anything about it in this political environment. This belief is behind his support for the very modest increase in the minimum wage to $10.10, and his support for free community college for qualified students, which will – down the road – also help minimize student debt.

When he was down in the polls in the fall of 2014, there were great exaggerations about how bad his approval ratings were historically. Now that he’s beginning to get credit for the nation’s economic turnaround, FOX News and others are bashing the mainstream media with “getting ahead of themselves”. This satire piece is not far off.

But the evidence is clear that the country is already better off economically than the Republicans running in 2012 had promised to achieve by 2016. In other words, this Democratic President has fulfilled the GOP campaign promises.

Interestingly, the loss of the US Senate to the Republicans seems to have energized the President. For instance, he was very funny on the Colbert Report.

More substantively, he desires to open relations with Cuba. He still wants immigration reform, taking action just like his recent predecessors.

Uh, oh: Obama pardons turkey in stunning abuse of executive power.

I’m fascinated by his optimism that the nation is less racially divided today than when he took office six years ago. And he may be right. Perhaps his ascending to the highest office has merely picked at that scab of racism in America that has always been there. This would explain, for instance, Rudy Giuliani’s claim that Obama launched anti-police ‘propaganda’ over the last few months, which rates Four Pinocchios.

A religious writer and former Republican wrote last month about slow motion lynching of President Obama, which I recommend you read BEFORE dismissing it.

I do think this is true: “The president came to Washington thinking he could change Washington, make it better, unite it and the nation. He was wrong. As he ascended, the tone of political discourse descended, as much because of who he was as what he did.”

When the Secret Service arrested a man who threatened to behead President Obama, he was using the racist Tea Party rhetoric still all too common in this country. The President can’t even quote the Bible without criticism from FOX News.

Sometimes it takes Canadians. From 2013: America – He’s Your President for Goodness Sake! Much more recently: You have NO idea just how good you have it.

So I support President Obama, at least in relation to the Republicans, while still criticizing when appropriate. I do believe his heart is in the right place on some basic issues. In addition to what’s been mentioned, I think he is trying to break down gender stereotypes. Surely, he has refused to support DOMA and repealed DADT, two federal laws that discriminated against gay marriage.

It’ll be an interesting two years, and I would not be too quick to assume he’s going to be in “lame duck” mode any time soon.

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