Twelve Days of Oscar, Day 5: Screenplays!

**I straight up fell asleep Sunday night instead of keeping up with my awards season tasks and Oscar bloggage, so this discussion will have to wait until Monday.**

Twelve Days of Oscar, Day 4: Supporting Actor and Lead Actress

All right, here are a couple of categories that some of you might actually be into. Yeah? Ye whose eyes glaze over at my Sound Mixing/Original Score/Production Design jabber? Here, we're talking about actors today, OK?  Ahhh, actors - gorgeous, famous, Hollywood-groomed stars. Gotta love 'em. Specifically, let's check out the nominees for Actor in a Supporting Role and Actress in a Leading Role.

Supporting Actor:
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Actress:
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand,  Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

Now, you may be asking yourself, why am I talking about the supporting actor nominees and the lead actress nominees, instead of lead and lead, or supporting and supporting, or supporting actress and lead actor?  Is it some kind of statement? A feminist commentary? An existential note...?
Uh, no. Those happen to be the two categories I can write about tonight because I've seen all of the nominees (which is how I'm trying to do this thing). Just how it all shook out, it seems.

Right so. Supporting Actor: a lot of people have said that Michael Stuhlbarg and Armie Hammer from Call Me By Your Name  were snubbed in this category. Maybe so. You'll hear more from me about that flick in coming days - oh, but yes - but for now let's stick to what we've got. Yes, I agree, it is very likely that Christopher Plummer's last-minute filling in for the disgraced Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World was kind of a "hey, check out what we can do here, Academy! TIMESUP!" nomination. All the Money in the World was, frankly, forgettable - just blah. But that's only one spot. Anyway, I definitely don't think anyone's really thinking Plummer'll win. It was a statement nomination.

We also have, as it turns out, this always interesting phenomenon of two nominees from the same movie, but from a different movie - instead of Call Me By Your Name's actors it's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri's Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson. I could see Sam Rockwell taking this, not Woody. But. There's a total backlash happening against the (racist? racially clueless? not sufficiently woke? cinematically flawed? all charges have been lodged) Three Billboards...  and that might dash Sam Rockwell's dreams. Then again, Sam Rockwell the person is widely well-liked, and may be sufficiently separated in voters' minds from screenwriter/director Martin McDonagh's Irish not-woke-about-U.S.-race-relations-ness. (Which is itself up for debate, but we'll save that for the posts that deal with him in his categories.)  I personally thought Sam Rockwell gave a great performance, as he ever does, and I also think that Woody Harrelson gave a great performance, as he ever does, and they were two very different performances in a very weird movie doing battle with Frances McDormand's indomitable performance at the same time. Either one, in my opinion, was better than Christopher Plummer's, but Plummer did pull it off at the last minute, so, degree of difficulty?

As for the other actors: Richard Jenkins was a little creepy along with his weird in The Shape of Water, which, as I have said and will continue to say is one weird-ass film. I don't know why I can't be bothered to say anything else about it; I'm all kinds of willing to talk about the major philosophical, animal rights, human rights, existential, societal, world peace questions presented in it that are so up my alley, but no one wants to talk about those with me so we just keep thinking about the weird fishman and how weird the movie is. Richard Jenkins managed to make me not hate him even as he delivered bad news about a cat, which is in itself an achievement in my book, so I'll say he has a chance in this category, especially if there's a (weird!) The Shape of Water sweep of everything-but-the-biggies, which I'm kind of half-predicting. Lastly, which is one of the first Oscar contenders I saw this season, we have Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project. He was definitely great, but I also think he was kind of not really a supporting role. That movie did not have one star, so naturally the agents/producers/ Hollywood awards season machine leapt at their chance to position him as a supporting actor for awards season and THIS IS ONE OF MY TOP TWO AWARDS SEASON PET PEEVES as anyone who has known me for even one awards season knows. It usually happens in the Supporting Actress category (Viola Davis, Alicia Vikander, Renee Zellweger, et. al.) but this year we're doing it in the Supporting Actor category instead. Great. Equality in the nonsense.  So anyway, Dafoe's not-supporting performance was quite good but have I mentioned how much I hated watching The Florida Project? I hesitate to say it wasn't good, but it sure was a miserable experience watching it and nothing I would want to repeat any time soon.

So, who do I want to win? I'll get to that. Let's talk about the Lead Actress noms first.

In short, I think this is a contest between Frances McDormand in Three Billboards... and Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird, with Sally Hawkins as the possible but probably not upset for the (weird!) The Shape of Water. I think Margot Robbie was great in I, Tonya but definitely being honored just to be nominated, and Meryl Streep who is in fact great in The Post is probably not going to win because the movie was formulaic - I don't even think it was bad, just that Steven Spielberg directed it in tried-and-true Hollywood formula with a few cliches style - and with her billions of nominations, voters are more likely to give Meryl another Oscar when she's in something unique, or when it's been a few more years since her most recent formulaic (The Iron Lady) win.

Do I think Meryl or Margot should have more of a chance than they do? Perhaps. I think Meryl Streep's performance had fantastic subtle moments where we watched changes taking place in Katharine Graham's mind and behavior. And Margot Robbie really inhabited her character, too. I was particularly struck by how she flinched when being abused, both by her mother and her husband/ex-husband. But I don't think she'll win. Also worth considering: she did some ice skating (not all of it - of course there were stunt doubles), and the Academy LOVES to reward actors who learn to skate/run/box/dance/play baseball/do karate/whatever for a film, even when the actor still has a stunt double. See, e. fucking g., Natalie Portman's travesty of a win for Black Swan over the incredibly deserving Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right, which was perhaps the greatest Oscars injustice in my lifetime this side of the not-Supporting Actress category, and which was propelled through the awards season juggernaut with a LOT of talk about how much Natalie Portman danced when she in fact ALSO HAD A BALLET DANCER DOUBLE who was apparently strong-armed into hushing up while the Academy was voting and that all just pisses me right off. But. I digress. Margot and Meryl are likely not going to win.

Sally Hawkins is great, and she was quite good in the (sooo weird!) The Shape of Water, and I would be fascinated if she swept in here somehow to steal this from Frances/Saoirse. But let's talk about Frances vs. Saoirse. Frances is beloved because she's fucking awesome and hard core, and that's what her Three Billboards... character is, in a film by an Irish guy examining small town USA, while Saoirse, who was born in the U.S. but is kind of Irish is in a film by a quirky (by reputation if not in reality) U.S. gal about growing up in a small U.S. city. Everyone loves Saoirse and the Academy does LOVE to give Oscars for Actress in a Leading Role to twentysomethings. I mean, they really dig that. But Frances is also uniquely awesome in their eyes. In my opinion, Frances McDormand had a harder job. I loved Saoirse Ronan's performance and think it was superb and I could watch it again. But I am going to have to say I think Frances McDormand had more to do, and did it.

I really have no idea what's going to happen on the big night, though. Really. But what the hell....

My picks: Supporting Actor: I really don't know who I want. Harrelson or Jenkins.  Lead Actress: Frances McDormand
Who I think will win: Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell, Lead Actress: um...ugh...argh...Frances McDormand

Previous Days of Oscar:
Day 3: Production Design and Costume Design
Day 2: Editing and Original Score
Day 1: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing 

Twelve Days of Oscars, Day 3: Production Design and Costume

The Oscars are getting closer, I've seen all of the Best Picture nominees and the majority of the multiple nominees, and you all know what that means: I start checking off the boxes in those "other" categories - the one-off, the randoms, the make-up nominations, things like that.  Tonight, I watched Beauty and the Beast (2017, Emma Watson, you know...), which means I have now completed the Production Design and Costume categories. Time to unleash judgment!

Production Design: Beauty and the Beast, Blade Runner 2049, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water

Costume Design: Beauty and the Beast, Darkest Hour, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, Victoria and Abdul

Once again, as with yesterday's look at Editing and Score, I have chosen to look at  overlapping categories: three Production Design and Costume nominees are the same, two in each are different. I suppose this isn't altogether surprising, what with sumptuous visuals being a common feature in both, right?

We might as well get my freshly watched Beauty and the Beast out of the way here: I don't want it to win in either category. Not because this movie is, with all due respect to Emma Watson (seriously, I like her), a snooze-fest that really has no need to exist. Although it definitely is that. But because:
Production Design? Really? More like CGI design. Half of this "live action" remake was STILL dancing, prattling on clocks and teacups and whatnot, so obviously digitally rendered. Who even knew how much castle/village backdrop was a set? And Costume? Weeellll... I get it, why it was nominated and all, but I am so NOT a fan of the color yellow that the iconic Belle dress turns me right off these costumes. Sorry, B and the B!

Moving on, then. Also nominated in both categories, we have Darkest Hour and The Shape of Water. To be honest, I'm a little surprised at Darkest Hour being nominated here. I guess there were a LOT of costumes, but were they really THAT hard? And the production design... well, the maze of undergroundy offices and things was cool, I guess. I doubt it'll win, though. The Shape of Water, on the other hand, is definitely a contender to just kind of sweep a bunch of awards. It's nominated all over the place and people really dig it. Will these be two of them? I think it would be a waste to give The Shape of Water a Costume prize, but Production Design is definitely something it might get, especially if it's on its way to winning the "big" prizes when the big night comes.

But I personally think I'm leaning toward Blade Runner 2049 for Production Design (sorry, Dunkirk - nice ocean, though). It was such a cool, realized world with many, many, many different settings and moving parts, and so imagined and non-traditional.

And for Costumes? Really, it could be Victoria and Abdul, and I'd be totally OK with that. What about Phantom Thread?  Such a strange nominee here. I mean, there are some cool clothes in that movie, mostly appearing as plot points of the movie, and it's kind of weird to think of an Academy Award for something that's part of the spoken plot. Then again, they did have to be designed - even if we were to believe Daniel Day Lewis' character did all that work.

We'll get to acting categories soon, in the next couple days. For now, I've completed only about a half dozen categories, and have now shared with you my inability to decide them. What do you think?

Previous Days of Oscar:
Day 2: Editing and Original Score
Day 1: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing 

Twelve Days of Oscars, Day 2: Editing and Original Score

Welcome back to my Twelve Days of Oscars! For Day 2, let's examine two categories that are very much post-production, and very much what give us the movies we actually watch, as opposed to the footage that was filmed for weeks/months.

Unlike yesterday's analysis, which featured two categories with the same five nominees, today we explore categories with overlapping but not identical nominees.

Editing: Baby Driver, Dunkirk, I, Tonya, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Original Score: Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

We'll talk about the overlappers first. The Shape of Water, you may know, received the most nominations  this year; during the announcement that early morning, it was a while before we got to a category in which it wasn't announced! As I've said elsewhere, that movie is not really for me. While I get the successful realization of artistry that it was, and can't point out any flaw or failure -- that is to say, if I were a teacher (unarmed, naturally) assigning "Make a movie realizing your individual vision" as homework and my student handed in that trippy thing, I'd have to give an A -- it's just weird and not-for-me weird, as opposed to so-up-my-alley weird. Now, what bearing does that have on whether I think it should win for Original Score? Well, mainly that I can't really remember the score. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I don't know. Editing, though, you could make a strong case for. Lots of water, weird fish-man stuff, back and forth between the home and workplace scenes, a climactic chase sequence, all that good stuff. A solid job, editing wise.

The other overlappers are Dunkirk and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (I predict getting real tired of typing that last title soon). I don't particularly remember the score of Dunkirk moving me, but I remember it kind of doing its job well. As for Three Billboards.... (yup, definitely abbreviation time), as I recall it was good as background and not bad when it came to the foreground at certain dramatic times. But did I love it? Was it the best? I don't know.

I guess I should confess that this isn't a really new or strange feeling. There are lots of years when I'm not wowed by any particular score -- unlike the There Will Be Blood sorts of absolutely stunning scores which make me sad when they are ineligible to be nominated -- and that lack of being wowed might surprise some people who know that I like music and even have known a couple of peeps who do scoring work, but there you have it. I will say that I don't see it as a crucial part of the success nor of the what-the-hell-ness of Phantom Thread.

That's right; you heard it here first. Not a big fan of the Phantom Thread, despite it being the aforementioned There...Blood scorer Jonny Greenwood reteaming with those peeps. We'll talk more about my lack of Phantom Thread love in coming days. Today, I guess I'll say I'm not going to be surprised if it wins this category, although I'm thinking it's more likely The Shape of Water will sweep a bunch of categories, including this one. Star Wars: The Last Jedi might not really have a chance just because John Williams might get the been-there-done-that eye roll of voters.  I think of all the categories I've thought about or seen at least three of the contenders in, Original Score this year inspires the least passion in me. I can't pick.

How about Film Editing, then? Now, I think the degree of difficulty in editing I, Tonya should not be understated. It might seem simple, cutting back and forth between faux-interviews and action, but it was pieced together really well to move us through the story, hold our interest, present questions about contradictions at the right pace, and so forth. Three Billboards...  was actually much more linear of a story (the occasional crucial flashback notwithstanding). I already mentioned that the weird-ass The Shape of Water's editing was good work, and Dunkirk  was well put together, too - multiple settings/characters to manage converging to one storied meeting point. But we also have to think about our good friend Baby Driver, which I did give Sound Mixing props to yesterday. This was a matter of a lot of fast and furious editing in the action sequences, but also it was such a weird and moody film that it's pretty well crafted when it pulls itself off.

In short, there's no bad apple in this bunch, but I think I'm pulling for either I, Tonya  or Baby Driver to win Film Editing.

It's been a rough 24 hours, and I'm tired. Day 2 of the Twelve Days of Oscar is hard. What do you all think? The Shape of Water?  A different overlapper? Or one of my outlier picks? Who should win? Which of those films did you enjoy as a finished, scored, well put together final product?

Previous Days of Oscar:
Day 1: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing

Twelve Days of Oscars, Day 1: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing

Welcome to the Twelve Days of Oscars! That's right, we're just twelve days away from my favorite special occasion of the year, the Academy Awards. Let's spend these last twelve days of Awards Season having a look each day at some of the nominees! This is not even close to a judgment-free space. Laissez les opinions rouler!

First, a brief check-in: how am I doing this year with my progression through the checklist of nominees? Well, as of the day the nominations were announced (another special occasion - I always take that morning off work) I had seen 9 of the feature-length films with 33 still to go, plus I had seen none of the shorts (five each for Animated, Documentary, and Live Action shorts). As of this writing today, I have now seen 25 of the feature-length films with 17 more to go. Progress! I also still have to see all the shorts, but the Live Action and Animated have only just arrived at Landmark Century Centre this week, while the Documentary Shorts come to Music Box starting this weekend, so those will be attended to over the next week or so. (Those are Chicago-specific references, and obviously peeps elsewhere will find them unhelpful. But you know. Check your local listings, eh.)

Right then. Let's begin with two categories that are related to the point of being indistinguishable for many an Oscar pool ballot-filler-outer, and which this year are EXTREMELY closely related in that they have the exact same five nominees. I refer, of course to Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.

Sound Mixing: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Sound Editing: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Most years, those categories have three or four of the same nominees and we can try to use the one or two different noms to help our friends understand the difference between the two categories. Not this time! But this does make it exciting to maybe place a side bet on whether the same one will win both awards with the exact same competition... 

To review, sound mixing is basically the soundscape of the film - the final mix that you hear, the levels of everything, a kind of overall masterpiece of finessing the sounds. Sound editing can be thought of kind of as sound effects - what sounds did they make and create to put into this movie? Yes, both categories do post-production work, but they're different jobs. Even though this year they are the exact same nominees.

I don't feel particularly passionate about these categories in general, even though I have done my share of audio work in the past, both in live theater and in radio jobs, but I appreciate them, plus I've seen all of the (same!) movies nominated in them, which is why I began with them today, this first of the Twelve Days of Oscars. So, let's consider.

I'm immediately eliminating Dunkirk from contention for Sound Mixing because I spent a great deal of my time watching that flick asking, "What did he say? What? Huh? I couldn't hear. I couldn't understand."  (Note: duh, I was watching it at home on DVD and would never dare to utter those or any other words out loud in a theater and neither should you, obviously.) On the other hand, Dunkirk had a lot of Sound Editing and effects that might deserve an award.

The Shape of Water has a really good chance of winning these, especially if it's going to win a bunch of other stuff, too, like Directing and Screenplay and - who knows? - maybe Best Picture. I personally find the film to be visionary and well done but so not my thang at all, but that's nothing against the Sound Mixing chances of it. Sound Editing, though? I don't think it was that special.

Blade Runner 2049 and Star Wars: The Last Jedi are interesting to consider here. They're such big, bold action flicks that are very much made of their cool effects, not just in sound and visuals but in building alternative worlds to immerse us in for two hours. Are viewers jaded because however many Star Wars films later we just expect it to be well done at this point, dismissing the Sound Editing skill in making sounds for all those spaceships, fake planets, lightsaber fights, and the like? What about the many different life forms/A.I./technology bits of Blade Runner 2049 that were rendered so realistically as they spoke to us?

Baby Driver, which is a bit of a different ride, does what I thought were stellar, emotionally magical things with the music and remixes woven throughout it both as sound effects and plot points. It definitely has an intriguing and I thought fantastically successful soundscape, and that is why I'm hoping it wins here.

So, I think  Baby Driver is my pick for Sound Mixing, and what the heck, Blade Runner 2049 for Sound Editing. If nothing else, I will defiantly keep reminding everyone these are two different awards and do my part by picking two different movies!  No, seriously though - I'm not saying it's wrong to want the same movie to win both of these. But I do have two different picks.

What do you think? What struck your ear when you watched the five films nominated in these two categories?

I Need to Read More Black Authors

It's MLK Day, a holiday to honor the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It just so happens that on this particular MLK Day, the first since drumpty-the-vile-twit's inauguration, I mean usurpation of the White House, one might feel a little depressed, either when one contemplates the racism emanating from the mouth and thumbs of said vile twit or when one just looks around one's society at all the work still left to do in the attempt to secure freedom and justice for all.

But. As they say, start where you are.

Where am I? As usual, reading, thinking, and thinking about what to read.

This morning I posed the question of what would be a good Martin Luther King Day read -- something by the man himself, perhaps, or some books that increase understanding of what black people have suffered in U.S. society, what injustices have gone into creating and perpetuating the racism we still practice, what power structures are in place, and so on. A couple of days ago, I posted about the writers from "shithole countries" whose books I've read over the past year and asked my Fbriends what authors not from Norway they have been reading since the occupation began. Last night, as I thought about what book to read next, I decided to make a conscious effort this year to make sure less than half of the books I read are by white male authors.

Today, these thoughts led to curiosity about the exact numbers, of how many authors I've read are white males and how many are not. Luckily, we have Goodreads! Which means I was able to sign in to my account, where I've tracked the books I've read since joining the site in 2008, and go ahead and count 'em up. First, I did a quick tally for the 46 books I read last year, calendar year 2017, and it was: White Guys: 16, Not White Guys: 30. That's not so terrible, I thought (other than the fact that I read only 46 books last year, but that has already been addressed and my New Year's resolution to get back to higher number-of-books-read-per-year levels has already been enacted, fear not), and I was a little proud of myself that I had read more authors who were Not White Guys than I had read White Guys.

Pride, ya know, goeth before the fall.

I then checked out my 2016 numbers. First of all, I read only 42 books that calendar year, which is even lamer than 2017 but we all know how distracted I was by teaching...or drinking...or being driven to drink by teaching during 2016. Or by Quincy coming from China...or by the Cubs' World Series...or something. Anyway, that year it was White Guys: 15 and Not White Guys: 27. Still a similar ratio. Let's have a look at 2015, with 54 books read. White Guys: 32, Not White Guys: 22. Yikes! Now, to be fair (although why should you be?) you could recall that that was the year I read about ten books of Edwin Arlington Robinson poetry -- basically all of his poetry I could. *What do you mean WHY he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times people THREE and I had to read his collected poems for hundreds and hundreds of pages and ... yes, I said "had to"*  But even though that's just one White Guy taking up ten slots, it's also ten slots that didn't go to books by Not White Guys. So anyway....

Clockwise fr top left: Danticat, Colbert, Achebe, Adichie, Coates

I know -- we probably all know -- that in general I read a fair amount of books by women. But guess what -- the majority of them are white. Damn it.

After checking out these initial numbers, I decided on this particular Martin Luther King Jr. Day to continue perusing my Goodreads "Read" shelf to see how many black authors I read last year, in 2017. The answer is: five.

In case you're interested, they were Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Brandy Colbert, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Edwidge Danticat. One of them I had read before last year as well. Two I had been meaning to read for quite some time. But, well, that's not very many. Five black authors out of 46 books read.

Um...it gets worse. In 2016, I read one. (Assata Shakur)  In 2015? One. (Maya Angelou)

Yes, I've read authors from a variety of countries and of a variety of ethnicities and races, this year and last year and every year. And yes, I've read as many writers who are Not White Guys as are White Guys. But I need to do a whole lot better.

I mean, it's one thing when you sit in your canon-driven literature classes and read a lot of old/dead white guys (although to be fair -- and this time, I will be, to my teachers -- I was actually exposed to quite a lot of Not White Guys over the years, in my English major classes, I daresay at a better rate than in some of the rest of academia....) but now in my "real" life I am not beholden to a syllabus. I can read whatever I want by anyone. So. Why don't I read/haven't I read more black authors?

Now, I do love me a reading project. A lot of my reading projects are list driven, and a lot of those lists tend to get populated by some of the same Old/Dead White Guys over and over again. Just to name three of my life-reading-projects-in-progress, the Pulitzer-winning fiction, the Modern Library Top 100 Novels, and the 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die feature no shortage of White Guys. Still, there ARE other races and genders on those lists. And I don't JUST read books from those lists (obviously, or my projects wouldn't take me so long), so I do read other novels. But I pretty clearly need to start some kind of African-American novels project. Who's got a list for me?

And this is not to mention my oh-my-god-it's-been-going-on-so-long-but-is-almost-finished Prez Bios project, launched during the Dubya administration, in which I've been reading a biography of every U.S. president in order to see where we went wrong. I've made it through all the men (White Guys a-plenty!) up to Dubya himself now, and the vast majority of the biographies have been written by, you guessed it, White Guys. White Guys write a whole lot of our history. It's just, like, totally in their hands.

What are we all going to do about that?

All of your suggestions are welcome - suggestions of novels written by black authors, suggestions of non-fiction written by black authors, and suggestions for how we can all do more to speak truth to power, fight entrenched injustice, and keep working toward freedom and making Dr. King's dream a reality.

Oprah and the 2020 Vision

Well, I wasn't exactly plotting this as my Happy New Year! post, but since there are about fourteen different arguments I'm involved in on various Facebook threads regarding this topic, thought I might as well weigh in here for all and sundry...

We're here to talk about the Golden Globes, Oprah, and the trending idea of "Oprah for President."

First and foremost, it has come to my attention that a significant portion of y'all, whoever y'all may be (feel free to mis/interpret that to include yourself or not - I don't really care), missed the set-up in Golden Globes show host Seth Meyers' opening monologue. Just last night I had to explain this to someone in a bar who had no idea it had happened. I'll explain it again here, because if you're coming late to the party and claiming that the #Oprah2020 response to her lifetime achievement award acceptance speech is half-baked, you should probably know that you are the half-baked one, in that you have only been served half of this entree. To wit:

-In 2011, Seth Meyers and Barack Obama famously roasted and jabbed and mocked TheDonaldTrump at the White House Correspondents Dinner, where rich and powerful people do that to each other annually (usually including the current president, except not this past year because we don't currently have a president, just a usurping twit), and since then there has been a kind of ongoing half-joke rumor that Seth Meyers pitilessly mocking Trump to his face about wanting to be president is what cemented the decision in TrumptyDumpty's mind that he'd run. Is it true that Seth Meyers' words had that effect on Trump? Don't know/don't care. But it has been a recurring theme since then to ask Meyers about it in interviews (see, e.g., him on Fresh Air) and for him to half-jokingly/half-wistfully say maybe he accidentally is responsible for the disaster through which we're all now living. Ha.
-At the Golden Globes this past Sunday, January 7, 2018, Seth Meyers referenced his "responsibility" for #TrumptyDumpty and said that he doesn't know if it works, but just in case... and then he riffed along these lines: "Oprah, you can NEVER be president! You should not run in 2020! Tom Hanks, you can never ever be vice-president! You're too nice!"  Reaction shots of Oprah and Hanks in the crowd. Laughter all around. Then, Seth Meyers staring into the camera: "And now, we just wait and see."

Get it? It was funny, and brilliant, and spot fucking on, as comedy should be.

So if you missed that, you missed the entire planting of the night's seed, as it were.

Anyway, then later in the evening Oprah got the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. Remember when Meryl Streep got that award last year? I sure do. See, e.g., this most wonderful of Tweets. In keeping with the evening's/Hollywood's/the world's life moment theme of #TIMESUP and declaring a new day in terms of the shite women must endlessly face, especially when they dare to have power or have their voices heard (see, e.g., Hillary Rodham Clinton, you goddamn vast right-wing conspiracy that has absolutely ruined for the rest of us what could have been a perfectly nice life), Oprah gave a rousing speech that many, many, many of us found moving and inspiring. Because she is, among other things, moving, inspiring, smart, experienced, a leader, a visionary, talented, philanthropic, gutsy, bold, powerful, eloquent, life-affirming, and - not to be missed - a black woman. You're goddamn right I'd be happy to hand her whatever job she wanted.

I highly doubt she wants to be president. Neither does the unstable, decidedly non-genius, usurping twit currently pretending to do that job.

I am not starting or joining any #Oprah2020 campaign.

No, I don't think we should be plucking our presidential candidates out of the "world of entertainment" - see, e.g., Ronald Reagan and Pat Robertson, two such pluckees who should never have been presidential candidates.

But y'all (again, if you're not part of that y'all, don't take it personally, but if you are, please take it VERY personally indeed) made Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of the smartest and most qualified presidential candidates of all time, run against just such a pluckee and you acted like he had any business being there. Any of you who did that -- any of you who ever for so much as one second pretended he had a legitimate claim to being a qualified presidential candidate - goddamn you to hell.

All of the racism and misogyny that has built this nation has led us to this moment: we have an actual usurping twit unstable "button"-wielding cretin in charge of actual things, and instead of being outraged about that this week (and every week), you want to point out to me that it is ridiculous that people are hashtagging #Oprah2020.

Yes, it is ridiculous.

Your bed is made. Lie down.

Half Birthday Checkup

November 13th is my half birthday -- six months since my actual birthday, the halfway point of this particular year of life -- so I decided it is a good time to check in with my goals and the things I was thinking about last May that I wanted to accomplish during this year.

I'm super into both New Year's Day resolutions AND new birthday year resolutions. I love the symbolic calendar-induced fresh start and I love making plans and lists and figuring out all the things I want to do. Careful readers of this blog/people who know me well understand that I tend to enjoy and excel at planning FAR more than executing, which is admittedly problematic...and which is part of what necessitates this half-year, half birthday check-in. 

I am well aware that there are many of you out there who scoff at New Year's resolutions and the like, with retorts such as "It's just a day on the calendar. You can set goals any day of the year. You can make changes any time."  Well, that's exactly right. So, do you? When you show me your awesome list of "March 8th resolutions" or "random Friday in September resolutions" and all you've done to achieve them, then you can feel accomplished. In the meantime, why make fun of my new calendar year and new birthday year dates? 

Anyway, today we are going to check in by opening up the journal and seeing what sorts of things I wrote last May 12th, 13th, and 14th, i.e., the day before, day of, and day after my birthday. Scary stuff, opening past journals, especially when they contain stream-of-consciousness morning pages, as these do. But, let's see what we find!

On May 12th I said that I wanted to:
- Heal our dying houseplant.  NOPE. FAIL. I re-potted it and everything and it just ended up dying and I felt sad because Brian and I got it a long time ago together and it has moved with us a bunch and now it's dead. 

-Go to five High Points this summer.  NOPE. FAIL. Totally took about sixty-five other road trips though (I'm exaggerating, but not by much) that are the main reason this goal got pushed aside. 

-Do 5Ks in June, July or August, and September, and then a November Turkey Trot. PARTLY ACCOMPLISHED, PARTLY FAILED. Could still do a Turkey Trot 5K and am eyeing the Santa Hustle.
-Go see more live music and shows. HEY! I FOUND ONE! ACCOMPLISHED! That's all I'did all summer, it felt like. And has somewhat continued through the fall. 

Then, on my actual birthday, the 13th, I was apparently way more into musing about the past than looking ahead, with paragraphs about the last birthday I went out to dinner with both of my parents, a digression into if/when/how my journey out of being a churchgoer would have been different if I had gone to Amherst, Oberlin, or Yale, as I wanted to do, and then this gem: "So many regrets. But how can we know what to regret?"  So that was my birthday head space, yikes! 

As for what I thought about doing in the year to come, I wanted to:
-"Read and read and read"  NOPE. I have not been reading much this year AT ALL and it sucks and that's how we all know something is wrong.
-Succeed at my Habitat fundraising. YES! ACCOMPLISHMENT!  Except then I didn't get to go on the October build and will be doing a Habitat trip next spring-ish instead, but I did raise the money for Habitat. Yay, Habitat. 

-Stay on track paying off credit cards. UM. NO. Unless paying health insurance premiums on one's credit cards counts as sound financial strategy? No? Huh. Shame, that. 

I did enjoy my birthday this year, though. We had a private yoga practice in the park, led by one of my favorite Chicago yoga teachers, with me and a couple friends, and then a group joined for dinner at our beloved neighborhood bar and grill spot for a birthday book swap. Maybe that cheered me up a bit for the next day's journaling? Let's see what I had to say on the 14th....

Regarding birthday yoga: "I am so grateful to the ladies who came and I feel so much gratitude to the universe, the sunshine, and the beautiful expanse of blue sky that was over my head - incredible."  Wow! That's a better mood. A little hippie-dippy, even. And, any goals, there, older and wiser Linda? 

-Be a better friend and do better at maintaining friendships.
-Plan a summer barbecue.
-Hang out with people enjoying life and just being. 

-"Every day I want to read read read" cropped up again.
-And then this articulate sentence with my plan for the year: "Write read yoga guitar baseball music." Which may make you think, "Wasn't she doing that anyway? Aren't those things always what she's doing?" Well, yes. Which tells me that over my introspective birthday weekend I didn't think I was living enough of my life. 

Looking at this last list, I'd give myself a solid two and a half accomplished. Actually probably three, but that's one plus one plus half plus half, not one plus one plus one...  (My real friends got that allusion to Clue, right??!?!)  

It would seem that in the next six months of this particular year of my life, in order to meet all my goals, I need to read (read read read read), pay off credit cards, visit more state high points, finish my "Five More 5Ks" plan, and be a better friend. Well. Let me get right to it. 

But I can't resurrect the dead houseplant. I'm sorry. Bringing things back from the dead is decidedly not in my job description.