Jade Bird

The ballad of Suzy Wong – part one

Suzy sits across from me in a  health care seminar. She’s a bright young Asian student  always dressed in business suits. I get up the nerve to talk to her after class one evening …even offer to escort her to her car. On the way I tell her I need to stop by my office to pick up some ‘stuff’, but I’m actually trying to impress her (hey, surfer-dude’s got a job!). We pass by the 49er Tavern and she tells me she’s never been inside  …so I offer to buy her a glass of wine and  score  a date for the weekend.

Since Suzy is so proper-looking (unlike the hippies I’m used to dating) I take some pre-date preparations, which means getting myself off … twice in this case …in order to get that over with. What did I know. On the dance floor she starts grinding me and I’m getting noticeable hard through my light wool pants. On the couch she straddles my lap and starts dry-humping me …then tells me that we should go someplace else before they kick us out. I’m stunned. Never in a million years.

We end up in the master bedroom of a large stately home and have sex until dawn, Then …to her delight, again in the morning. Sometime during the evening I learned she’s an ‘orphan’ who’s in charge of her parent’s estate. She gets up to go to work but tells me I can stay … sleep some more. I get up a little later and I’m downstairs pouring myself a cup of coffee when a 15-year-old boy enters the kitchen and starts pouring himself a bowl of cereal. We make awkward conversation and I learn that Suzy is also in charge of her 15-year-old brother Michael.

My roommate anxiously awaits my arrival. He’s shaking his head in disbelief. He went to high school in the area and tells me that Suzy was, like, on the homecoming court or something. He can’t get over how I could get a date where better men had failed (including himself) … and then make it last until morning. He assures me it won’t happen again.

Alison

Fifteen year old Alison and her boyfriend thought they’d prank a former U.S. Congressman. See if he was up to the same old shit. You see a few years before he’d been forced to resign from office over a sex-texting scandal. Now he was seeking public office again. Alison initiated a flirtatious exchange over the internet that soon turned sexual. Her boyfriend was looking for a tabloid newspaper to sell the story to. However, he was unaware of the progress Alison was making. They’d moved beyond texting to skyping and masturbation. She’d discovered the how liberating online sex could be. No demands …no expectations …no loser boyfriend to deal with. She’d also become aware of her orientation: anonymous. She was visiting several sites a night and getting off on men (and women) who were getting off on her. She also saw the earnings-potential. At 18 she joined an escort service. Figured if the boys in her life treated her like a commodity …so could she.

(Congressman Weiner)

Tamsin

Rising

Lali Shyama

My friend Kali (left) now identifies as Lali Shyama, which is no big change. Lali Shyama simply means ‘Spirit of Kali in the flesh’. Lali is the term used for ‘Form’ in Hawaiian. Shyama is one of the many names given to the consort of Shiva in the Hindu religion. Kali is another. Since she now lives in Hawaii ...you might call it assimilation.

Personal Best

I saw this movie on a date in 1982 when it first came out. It was playing at the Art Theater. I had no idea what it was going to be about but was really impressed afterward ..only not for the same reasons my date thought. I liked it for the competitive track events (I’m a distance runner). She thought I only liked it for the female nudity and lesbian scenes. I filed it under failed date and remembered it as a ‘tepid indie film’ (shows how easily I'm influenced by the opinions of others). I didn’t see it again until 30 years later. I was blown away. 

First, it’s a story about Olympic competition. It addresses the issue: what happens when two athletes competing in the same event are romantically involved? Since men and women don’t compete in the same events ..it focuses on a lesbian couple from the women’s team. Will their feelings interfere with competition ? Will competition betray their trust? It handles these issues skillfully. Secondly, it was set in San Luis Obispo CA. Cal Poly has a reputation for sending women track athletes to the Olympic trials. It was also filmed on the track in Eugene Oregon during the actual 1980 Olympic trials ..and features real Olympians. An incredible feat of realism. Mariel Hemingway’s performance was powerful and convincing. She trained nine moths prior …she even looked like a runner. Olympic athlete Patrice Donnelly was a natural. Their relationship was just a part of the story. Made in the early 80’s ..the film was 20 years ahead of it’s time.

Pet

Pet is a love story between two people who experience love in totally different ways. Holly experiences love as a bolt of lightening …that only strikes the other person. What it brings her is relief from feeling alone and 'unlovable', which is how she has felt most of her life. But the relief is short-term. It only lasts until they breakup or the other person does something to betray her …like cheat. For Holly, love isn’t what she gives …it’s what she gets …like self-worth. Seth experiences love as something he feels and has  available to give to another. It's not a bolt of lightening that happens all at once but something that develops slowly over time. Love is  work and  requires sacrifice.   When you think about it, they're the ideal couple. However, one of them is a homicidal psychopath while the other appears somewhere on the autistic spectrum. One couldn’t hurt a fly while one has the other locked in a cage against their will.

Weapons Delivery

Unforeseen Consquences

American political leaders call for military action because it seems like a decisive and strong thing to do. But restraint often takes greater resolve. Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu once wrote: “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance by clever means ...before fighting. If you know neither your enemy nor yourself, you will be defeated in every battle." By repeatedly engaging in interventions without a proper understanding of our enemy ...and without a better understanding of the consequences of our own actions (stabilizing the region !?) ...we have weakened our nation security, not bolstered it. Terrorism perpetuates terrorism ...and right now in the eyes of the Middle East we are the terrorists. The law of unforeseen consequences does not reward recklessness.

Graffiti artist

Trump is a tagger. He uses Twitter like graffiti to shout-out opinions, reactions and rants. One hundred and forty characters hardy describe complex events. It does not seem like a feasible way to bypass traditional news media unless you consider slogans, clichés and name-calling news. Twitter is a narrow channel of communication. So I think it’s more like graffiti. Gangs use graffiti to mark territory and insult rival gangs. Perhaps Trump represents a wider cross-section of the population than I give him credit for.

psycho killer

 Evolutionary psychologists say women are mostly attracted to men who are killers. It’s their nature. Brute strength with little conscience is a trait that has survival value in the wild. May explain the emotions expressed by the fans of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Their love is not an anomaly.

Millenial actors

Brie Larson along with actresses like Alicia Vikander and Katherine Waterston are part of a new troupe that is effectively anti-power. They refuse to take themselves too seriously and aren't in it for the fame, They work hard and show gratitude for the opportunities they're given. “I hope I have to audition for every single job I want,” says Andrew Garfield. The have resilience and depth.  They are eclectic, diverse and quirky. “Essentially, it’s their eclecticism that binds this new set. They move from art-house to blockbuster, leading actor to supporting role, classic to contemporary as if it’s effortless. Unlike previous generations they don’t chose roles to satisfy a studio typecast but go with their instincts and in so doing … showcase the dexterity and confidence for which their generation is known”

Juno Temple

Killer Joe

She gets seduced by ...then outsmarts ...a contract killer by playing the "lolita". It ends in a deadly embrace involving her, the killer, her family, a murder, the life insurance and a substantial debt owed to a ruthless drug dealer ...desire betrayal and extortion.

Wild Child

Emma Roberts and Juno Temple

Homeless to Harvard

Liz Murray Story (full movie)

speak

Speak (2004) Kristen Stewart (full)

Kaya

Effy

Pathos: "There was a girl who could only live on lemonade. Or her parents were really old and rubbish and just kept giving it to her to the point where she couldn’t have anything else. Or they were really nice and only gave it to her because they really liked her. I can’t decide that bit but she could only live on lemonade. If she didn’t have lemonade, she’d die. And her parents were going to die soon too because they had something wrong with them that their blood was blue or something like that. And she had a brother but he was really stupid, though, no one really cared about him. They just wanted their little girl to live. The only trouble is, no one thought about her brother. She was in a bottle, he was on his own, no one thought about him. They just left him. So he sat by her, her brother, he sat by her in the bottle and ‘cause lemonade helped her eyesight, she could see him really clearly through the sides, even though the grass was as a thick as his skull. And cause it was the countryside, there was nothing for him to eat, nothing for him to buy and he was starving. And she could see that and there was no one looking after him, cause he was a bit stupid, couldn’t really look after himself, and it kept on raining so he was getting a bit rusty. She was having an amazing time with the lemonade but she knew she had to help him, so she swam to the surface but she couldn’t get out, it was too far away, this bottle was too big. She knew she had to do something, he was getting worse and worse and worse and he was really hungry and thirsty and he started eating glass and puking up all the time. So she tried to think of some plan for him but she couldn’t. All she knew is that he needed her with him. All she could do was watch him puke his guts up on the other side of the glass. But then bingo, she knew. She started to drink and she drank and she drank and she drank. And this was a lot of lemonade, enough to last her till she died, cause her parents wanted her to live for ages but she drank, every last drop, until she was in an empty bottle but that was no good, she still couldn’t get out. But that was okay, because she just waited until she had a big one stored up. Because she drank all the pop, she drank all the lemonade. And then she started to fart. It was slow at first but then it was really loud and hard. She blew her way out of the bottle, straight from the top, like a rocket. Then she stopped her brother eating grass and they went and found a nice little house to live in together, her and her brother. And it turned out drinking all that lemonade had cured her because she never wanted it again. She had orange for the rest of her life."

Room

Inside the window of plasticity: They say language development in humans began with women. They were responsible for transmitting the narrative of culture to their offspring, both its’ wonders and its’ dangers, so they could navigate safely. This dynamic was clearly evident between Ma (Brie) and Jack (Jacob). First there was the story of ‘room’ – its’ blessings and dangers (sink, rats, and ol’ Nick). At five Ma considered Jack old enough to learn the real narrative of the world outside – replacing the fairy tale version she told him before – and hoping he could navigate his way to safety (wiggle, roll, jump, run and call for help). He succeeded even though he was dazed by space, distance and people he’d never seen in 3D before. This was the beginning of transition from a life of confinement in a 10X10 room (since birth) – to the strange expanse of the world at large for Jack. At first he had no depth perception. Distance and peripheral vision faded to blur way too quickly. Voices other than his mothers’ sounded off-beat and arhythmical. The rules of social interaction were foreign. He could only communicate through his mother. But he was well inside the window of plasticity. His mother didn’t immediately rush out to embrace the world. After seven years of stoic existence – the trauma of captivity finally caught up with her. She didn’t get a makeover and party with her girlfriends like she was 17. And Jacob didn’t immediately embrace his grandparents or join a t-ball team. He did make friends one at a time and came to recognize his grandmother as another ‘ma’. I think these are the realities of re-entry that the movie captures so well.

Ex Machina

 

Ex Machina (2015): Watching Ex Machina, I noticed how much Ava felt like a real person to me –sexy, sad and lonely –even though I knew she was a robot. Caleb felt this way too. He was seduced and conned by Ava into believing they were in a ‘relationship’. He devised a plan that would allow them to escape together –even though he knew just as well as I did that ‘she’ was not human. (I was even kinda’ hoping for a romantic ending (!?)) I believe the film shows how willing we are to enter into a para-social relationship with entities we know are simulations. Something like this has been shown to occur with characters in a book or a movie (Barnes 2015). Makes me wonder how we’ll treat characters we encounter in a virtual reality.

Blue is the warmest color

Blue is the warmest color (2013): A revealing look at sexual identity in a coming-of-age story that follows the arc of two young lovers. Adèle is a 17-year-old high-school student whose classmates gossip constantly about boys. She dates a boy for a while but is ultimately dissatisfied and breaks it off ..thinking there’s something wrong with her. She begins feeling attracted to other girls, which puts her at odds with her classmates. She approaches a girl at school, which doesn’t go anywhere, then a woman at a lesbian bar .. which does. The woman is Emma, a graduating art student. In the years that follow, the two women live with each other as lovers. Adèle finishes school and joins the teaching staff at a local elementary school, while Emma tries to move forward with her painting career. Adèle feels ill at ease among Emma’s intellectual friends; and Emma belittles her teaching career, encouraging her to find fulfillment in writing, Adèle enjoys playing the stereo-typically feminine role in their relationship but Emma becomes physically and emotionally distant. They gradually begin to realize how little they have in common.

Break up   Cafe

teenagers

Para Social Therapy

Whether I’m watching Jessica Jones or reading a Cass Neary novel I feel like I’ve taken something to temporarily ease my social anxiety. I can identify with the characters without interference from my own history of social failings. They’re not going to pass judgment on me so I end up liking them about as much as I would someone I just met. Perhaps because it’s a clean slate. I become interested in following their progress ...I feel sad when they’re hurt ...happy for their accomplishments…even shed a tear when they’re gone. Jennifer says I’ve entered a 'para-social relationship' with them. Kinda' sounds like the twilight zone. She compares it to a simulator. Even though you know they’re not real …they trigger the same feelings as someone who is. She says it’s another way the mind learns to navigate the social world without harm or fear of failure. Makes me think of the placebo effect. I know that placebos work by activating a healing narrative in the mind even when the patient knows they’re not real. And they're relatively harmless. So, perhaps there’s medicinal value in literary fiction, film and popular television shows. A way to mentally travel to distant places …populated by different people …and arrive home safely.

Genevieve

"One of my favorite things is experiencing the origins of my friends through their eyes. Another is sharing my own with my dearest and deepest too. This sharing is a favorite memory. Paul Ricoeur writes that, “Memory is no longer the narrative of external adventures stretching along episodic time. It is itself the spiral movement that, through anecdotes and episodes, brings us back to the almost motionless constellation of potentialities that the narrative retrieves. The end of the story is what equates the present with the past, the actual with the potential.”  - Genevieve

Jessica Jones

You see, the trouble starts here

Cap'm America

Monica Rambeau was a police lieutenant from New Orleans where her cool demeanor and swift reflexes earned her the role of ‘chief hostage negotiator’. One day a negotiation turned into a bloody firefight at a munitions warehouse. The incident changed her trajectory. She's no longer seen in New Orleans. Some sightings place her in the mixed martial arts ring where they call her El Tiger. She can transform into a feral beast and attack her opponents with the stealth and power of a puma. Others say she has become one of the deadliest forces on the planet …a solitary predator with supernatural powers. There have been sightings across a wide range of the Americas covering more ground than any other mammal we know. Legend has it she can stalk her prey from miles away …then strike suddenly, without a sound …ripping their heart out and gnawing on it while it’s still beating …sending them into a world of torment that lasts an eternity in one of the outlier regions of the nether worlds where she has dual-parallel residency. It’s a unique status that allows her to coexist in several dimensions at once. Go figure. Sounds like the firefight in New Orleans spawned multiple versions of the original Monica …each traveling a different trajectory across the universe ..or multiverse as some like to call it.