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Saturday, July 12th, 2008
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12:21 pm - Dysneytopia
Wall-E, the character, is what you get when you combine R2D2 with Short Circuit’s Number Five with a great silent comedian (e.g. Chaplin, Keaton). The combo works. Wall-E, the movie, is what you get when you combine A Boy and His Dog (or some similar last-man-on-ruined-earth tale) with a sort of Battlestar Galactica-Star Treky centuries-distant spaceship society with, well, of all things, a kiddie movie. This outrageous combo, when it works, seems revelatory – but when it doesn’t, it feels dreadfully misconceived.
( Spoilers and adroit snark follows; plot summary doesn’t. )
(2 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Sunday, December 31st, 2006
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3:56 pm - Happy New Year!
Just wanted to wish a big mwaaaaaah to everyone and anyone who still happens to tune in to this tiny dot on the information superhighway. There have been many events, some of which will even appear on this space at some point. But for now Merry Festivus and all the best wishes for 2007. Are we done with this decade yet?
Daniel
(4 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Wednesday, February 1st, 2006
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9:13 pm - Mom by Mary
This last Christmas, I received seven different cards (in some cases, with gifts) for Mom. In each case, I personally wrote back to the person. I felt like it was the right thing to do. This was one area where I would have really loved to have a sibling or for Mom to have had a husband -- this was one load that was not fun to have to myself. I also followed my beloved cousin Colleen's advice, and included copies of the articles on Mom that were written by the Berkeley Daily Planet upon her death.
I told everyone to email me if they wanted. I just received the following email from Mom's friend Mary. It's so beautiful, God, it truly summarizes the wonder that was my mother, in a way that no one at the service quite did. Tears are welling up in my eyes just putting this on this space. Screw the hyperlink, I'm putting this all here on the main page:
Hi, Daniel,
Thank you so much for writing the letter to me and sending the news articles about Norine. I can't tell you how deeply I feel the loss of your mother. As you well know, she was one of a kind, made from a unique pattern.
During the time we worked together at Alameda County, she was my best friend and a source of huge inspiration as to what a female friend could be. I had recently moved to the Bay Area from the deep South and, during most of my life, had found women boring. I mean by that, unintellectual, down-trodden, humorless, and narrow in their interests.
The opposite of Norine! With her strong opinions, perenially high spirits, knowledge of politics and current events, passion for literature, and passion for all the finest things in life, she was, for me, the quintessential feminist, activist, and California woman.
I'll always asociate her with Georgia O'Keefe, since she loved her so much, started painting herself and displayed her excellent paintings in your home, and was such a powerful presence, while also maintaining a powerful female essence.
A striking memory from that timeframe is going with her to downtown Berkeley to set up an ironing board, using it as a platform to pass out political tracts to passersby. Something I'd never dreamed of doing!
The ironing board detail is telling. Norine was also in love with her home and spending time there reading, enjoying her wonderful view of Berkeley, even cooking. I know she was a fabulous mother. She always spoke of you with such unconditional love and approval. You never gave her a moment's disappointment. I know that having you in her life was her greatest joy.
She was a great support to me during my divorce and when I bought real estate. She always had such fabulous advice. And always so joyous, so full of hijinks and passion. Deeply tuned in to her own unique way of being. So many times we went out to, as she put it, high-quality meals. She was a connoisseur of fine food, a major fan of Chez Panisse and the Cheeseboard. Over the years, we saw many movies together. I walked with her a number of times from your home down to the theaters of Berkeley and Solano Ave.
She was an inspiration in the area of enjoying money, letting it add fun and value to life. Her style was so unlike the Protestant way of saving and scrimping that I'd been brought up with. She was a role model for self-_expression, saying what's on your mind straight-out, no censorship, no second-guessing. Again, something I'd never experienced in many other people.
I rented the studio apt. during 1996 and feel very grateful I had the chance to sit with her regularly on the patio, reading and talking together in the sunshine. I had the pleasure of attending the screening of your first movie at Pacific Film Archive. Norine was so glowing and happy that day.
She's my oldest friend in the Bay Area. It says a a lot that we maintained our friendship for more than 20 years through highs and lows. We saw each other less in the late 90's and 2000's after I sold my house in Berkeley and started traveling for long periods of time. I was really surprised in 2004 to learn about her bout with cancer. Also gratified to see how she'd used it as an opportunity to grow and learn and be of service.
The last time she and I saw each other was in 2004 when she was running for city council. She and I and one of the foreign students marched in the How Berkeley Was That? parade and passed out her campaign literature. It was such a major blast. Afterwards we had lunch an Asian cafe on University Ave., joining a woman who was fighting breast cancer and her husband. That lady was a sweet soul but very negative in her attitude about her illness. Norine had accepted a mission to raise her vibration and help her toward a healthier mental attitude. I so so thrilled that Norine, in her eclectic way, had taken advantage of meditation and other mind/body connection classes to benefit her own health. I'm sure this is a major factor in how she got to experience a second surge of life after her initial diagnosis.
That was the day I realized Norine was older (in years) than I thought. We'd never talked about age very much, a very healthy way of being. Norine was a wonderful model in not dwelling on something so nonessential. I was very surprised that she was already in her 60's. With that flaming red hair, radiant skin, never-abating laughter, high energy, ever rebellious and insouciant spirit, she still had the youthfulness of a college girl. God, I love her.
Shortly after that, I moved to L. A. to do the professional, as they call it (not academic) screenwriting program at UCLA, and have hardly been back to the Bay Area since. I wish so much that I'd gotten to see her again. I'm also very grateful that I have that memory of her still in her prime, even after the illness.
Well, Daniel, I had to get all of this out. There's really a void where she was. She and I loved each other. As you know, when Norine loved she loved full-tilt, the way she did everything in life. Unconditionally, freely, fiercely. She was inately maternal in that way, a quality that was such an appealing and beguiling offset to that political activism and tough intellectual stands. Part of the amazing elixir that was Norine Smith.
I'm so sorry for the loss that you, the person she was closest to, have gone through. I do know that her energy is still vibrant and alive in another dimension where she knows that all is well, and knows that for the rest of us. At that level, our spirits are all intertwined. And, speaking for myself, I still miss her energy field on planet earth. I know that's even more true for you.
Daniel, I'd love to stay in touch and to meet up with you in L. A. or the Bay Area whenever it's possible. I'm so glad that you're in England studying film, doing what you're passionate about. I know that you are a complete success, that you'll share your love of the cinema with numerous people around the globe.
Thanks again for contacting me. And I send you-
Love, Peace, and Blessings,
Mary
(1 barbaric yawp | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Thursday, September 8th, 2005
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2:21 pm - Mom's death, Part 2 of 2
I held Mom for a while even after her life functions had stopped. It was like I was trying to squeeze the last juice out of an orange. Finally Aran just sorta took my shoulder and was like, “dude, come here,” and we both hugged and cried for a while.
( Mom )
(6 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
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11:12 pm - Mom's death, Part 1 of 2
It still seems strange to me to think that Mom and I were planning a Memorial Day together in Los Angeles, as though nothing was unusual. Had I known that less than a month after that visit, she’d be dead, I would have done something differently, though I’m not sure exactly what.
( MOM )
(10 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Tuesday, September 7th, 2004
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4:38 pm - Ken and the Art of Game-Show-Streak Maintenance
http://www.eonline.com/Features/Features/Jeopardy/index.html
(2 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Friday, August 6th, 2004
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10:55 pm
See Saturday entry for the long one that might be here. Peace out and happy birthday Danny and Josh!
(sound your barbaric yawp)
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Friday, July 30th, 2004
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8:27 am - War's End
Recapper's note -- much of this is the usual puerile prose -- but the last bit, the March 1 entry, has some trenchant, foretelling observations about Iraq and world affairs. Back to new stuff next week.
Thursday, February 14, 1991
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Four weeks ’til my day – I always notice.
( Feb-u-ary made me shiver )
current music: Rock and Roll Heart - Lou Reed (3 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Thursday, July 29th, 2004
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6:48 am - the year is a week
( my only defense is that Sting seemed better after those first two solo albums )
current mood:  tired (sound your barbaric yawp)
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Tuesday, July 27th, 2004
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8:44 pm - Life During Gulf Wartime
Recapper's note: wow, this devolves into stuff that a 12-year-old would consider immature. Maybe I'll put the blame on Hussein. Everyone else does. Ha ha.
The lovely and always-wonderful Rebecca S------, whom many of you know from high school/college/being the daughter of our Social Living teacher, is the Rebecca/Becca written about (and writing) here. Rebecca Romijn is not in this entry, though we were together in Tom Lehrer's class at this time. And Becko is an utterly different person, she's neither of them.
( the iraqi horror picture show (original broadway cast recording) )
(3 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Monday, July 26th, 2004
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9:37 pm - Gulf War Eve
And now, 1991. Hey, this is when shit gets good. Current events are off the hook this year. I get into Newsweek, get a regular girlfriend. This particular unexpurgated entry has a cringe factor of 12 out of 10, especially when we get to the, ugh, poem. I had a real habit of universalizing my experiences then. Also, how was I to know that the Gulf War would come and go like a once-volatile, fizzling hurricane?
( knock knock knockin on Saddam's door )
current mood:  listless (4 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Sunday, July 25th, 2004
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4:26 pm
Not a good day here. Lost all my pick-up hoops games, and didn't play in half of them as a result of missing free throws. Brown water is leaking into my bathroom and it's disgusting. A woman that I had briefly dated just broke it off. We had had a great time making out on Manhattan Beach on Friday. I don't like these post-major-make-out session break-ups this year -- I'm starting to get a complex. I've been known as an outstanding kisser by many. And if it ain't the kissing, is it the lack of gobs of cash? Is it sensing all this rage under my surface? These aren't good questions for an 85-degree day in which my main man Lance whomped a record Tour de France, while my other main man Matt reported $53 million on box office opening weekend. I will try to go back to distracting myself with nuttiness. But to paraphrase my other other main man Ice Cube, I gotta say it was a bad day.
(2 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Friday, July 23rd, 2004
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11:34 am - sop.1
Well, today I thought about delving even deeper into my childhood...instead I'm trying to get some work done. A while back, I showed you this year's "Statement of Purpose," the thing I'm sending to admissions committees this year to try to get into a PhD program. Some of you helped me with it. Well, I still need your help. Here is the newest iteration, be as harsh as you can. Thanks. - Daniel
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” - John Adams, 1780 (at the nadir of the American Revolution)
Adams’ dream is still a good one. It needs people to champion it in a coarser, film-saturated era. That’s why you’re reading this. I want to be the one that examines and brings forth the history and the meanings. More than anything else in the world, I want to be a professor of film. It’s something I’ve been working toward all of my life.
( you know you love the Adams quote )
(13 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Thursday, July 22nd, 2004
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5:04 pm - Around the World in 30 Days
I have a confession to make. It may sound easy, on its surface. Actually, it’s a secret I carry around with me all the time. Okay, here it is: I haven’t been to east Asia in 25 years.
Ah, that feels better.
( life is beautiful around the world )
current mood:  indescribable
current music: work mix (4 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Wednesday, July 21st, 2004
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10:24 am - Fifth grade -- starring Ekim, Bocaj, Haon, Nodrog, Sirhc, and Leinad
Fifth grade was a year of comeuppance for me. I had skipped third, and was nine years old when I entered Ms. McCarthy’s class at Columbus Middle School. That was the school year of Reagan’s ascension to the Presidency. I was starting to learn about the world. It was also the school year that John Lennon, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II were all shot by assassins. Only Lennon died. Later in 1981, Anwar Sadat was killed. What was up with shooting at leaders then? That must have been the last year you could drive around without bars on everyone’s windows.
( once had love, and it was a gas, soon found out, had a heart of glass )
(sound your barbaric yawp)
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Tuesday, July 20th, 2004
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11:13 am - Visiting Dad
At some point during my adulthood, I asked my Mom when I started to visit Dad. She said it began when I was around three. I said, well, if you left Dad when I was six months old, how much had I seen him in the intervening years? Not at all, she replied. I asked, so, did you two reunite on the phone? She said, no, we met in a park in El Cerrito. I asked, why did you think such visits were a good idea? She said that she thought I should know my father.
( had a dad )
(2 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Monday, July 19th, 2004
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4:54 pm - The Role-Playing Club
There are no photos of the Club. Up until now, as far as I know, there’s no written history of it either. People don’t remember many of the details. That’s a damn shame. This little story is an attempt to correct a bit of that.
( here's a little story I'd like to tell about six hunched-over geeks that you know so well )
current mood: clubby (1 barbaric yawp | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Friday, July 16th, 2004
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12:42 pm - end of 1990
Editor's note: some of this is downright mean, some just silly, and other parts are eerily prescient.
( end of days )
current mood:  amused (sound your barbaric yawp)
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Thursday, July 15th, 2004
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10:44 am - that's me in the spotlight, losing my religion
This is it: the story of me losing my virginity. Takes a lot of courage for me just to make this entry public. Maybe I should say "recklessness." What was I thinking about Saddam Hussein, anyway?
I should describe Rebecca to you. She looked a lot like Andie MacDowell. Same classical face, same luscious dark hair, but more tan, more Jewish (more buxom). Not fat at all, but not movie-star-thin. And very intelligent. Hey, she chose me.
Monday, December 3, 1990
Tonight is the Great Match-up: 49ers vs. Giants.
( on the perfect score )
(5 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Wednesday, July 14th, 2004
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12:37 pm - second half of November 1990
Editor's note: This entry is a lot better than the last one. I'm gettin' real here. But what's with the film history?
Tuesday, November 20, 1990
I still dream of finishing this chapter by December 31st.
Speaking of dreams, something weird is going on lately. I’ve been hearing songs in my head – for no reason – and then actually hearing them being played by someone. More, I’m guessing people’s thoughts – on weird shit – and being right. Things are happening that I subtly knew would happen, whether from a dream or from a stray thought. As Yogi Berra said, “it’s déjà vu all over again.”
It’s strange. I talked to Caron, of all Psych majors, about it, and she really believed in this sort of thing. She told me she goes to horse races and always wins when she just bets by instinct without thinking too much about it. She told me this wild story. What can I say? It really makes you wonder if there really is some sort of legitimacy to all that astrology and ESP stuff.
( giving thanks for Thanksgiving )
(sound your barbaric yawp)
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Tuesday, July 13th, 2004
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8:48 am - first half of November 1990
Read last entry for context…this is quite the multi-hued entry, but otherwise not that interesting...
( autumnal )
(sound your barbaric yawp)
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Monday, July 12th, 2004
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5:53 pm - all of October 1990
wherein your humble unexpurgated author settles in back at school, takes drugs, discovers MTV, kisses a girl, gets overconfident about the A's who wind up losing the World Series, annotates the then-aborning Bush-Hussein rivalry, notes other world events like the rejoining of Germany, sits in class jotting notes with hot babes, dreams about Rebecca Romijn before she was famous, discusses Scorsese and Saturday Night Live and Rocky Horror, and allows three guest writers
( octoldber )
(sound your barbaric yawp)
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Friday, July 9th, 2004
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4:34 pm - You say you want a rant-on-the-election...
I have a friend who reads this thing who recently said to me, why is there nothing here about politics? Why indeed? This is probably a case of my face being too close the map too closely to see the whole picture. I spend all day reading news websites and barely know what to say when I come up for air.
Well…I think George W. Bush will win election. I don’t say “re”election for what I assume are obvious reasons. His team has been working on winning in November 2004 since approximately January 2001. You’d hate to think that all those efforts won’t pay off, wouldn’t you?
( Well, you know, we all want to change the world )
(3 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Thursday, July 8th, 2004
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6:10 pm - Spider-Man 2: comics vs. movie
Back here at geek corner, it’s taking a little time to process the spin of Spider-Man 2. Roger Ebert says it’s the best superhero movie ever. Entertainment Weekly, not known for generous grading, handed it an “A.” This Spider-Man has the country crawling the walls with excitement.
Director Sam Raimi took considerable liberty with the source material, again. It’s starting to seem like a superhero director has to tweak the “real” story to make the best possible story. If Spider-Man 2 becomes the movie by which all other men-in-tights films are judged, someone has to explain how it differs from the comic book sources, if only as a caution to all the other wannabe Raimis. Someone who did it before. So face front, true believer, because that someone is me!
( sling that web right here )
(3 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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Wednesday, July 7th, 2004
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5:13 pm - a third of july to remember part 3 of 3
The next day, the clean-up is surprisingly easy. Plenty of leftovers, to no one’s surprise. I’m hopeful that everyone had a good time. I think they did. We're all sitting here creating good memories, and that's what it's all about, not me playing others as pawns, right? Right.
( aftermash )
(2 barbaric yawps | sound your barbaric yawp)
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