All roads lead to Shamanic Reiki

Well, not all of them, obviously, but some do...
Indulge me for a second. Recently I was reading a great book on American global empire by sometime whistle-blower John Perkins. Eye opening, illuminating, insightful, outrageous, and yet, common sense, are a few of the reactions I had to his Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and the follow up Secret History of American Empire. (I first heard about Perkins browsing my Netflix recommendations) I was thinking about giving copies to family members as gifts, to, you know, be more conscious, etc. etc. However, in digging a little bit, Perkins, an erudite, soft spoken man, who also claims to be a shamanic shape shifter and to have transformed into blue flame. Now, for me, this is not necessarily a stumbling block. After all, there is more on heaven and earth, good Horatio...and all that. But I thought it might serve to discredit his account in the eyes of slightly more conservative family members. I checked out his web site, enthused and inspired by his book on global economic policy and American corporations (which, he argues, should not be demonised and fought tooth and nail, but rather petitioned, transformed both inside and outside, to reverse their destructive patterns...essentially, shape-shifted) and found books on spirituality and shapeshifting, with one title salaciously entitled "Shamanic Reiki." Which is about as New Age-y a title as I can think of. Now, raised to discard anything giving off even the faintest whiff of New Age as detrimental to my spiritual journey, part of me wants to dismiss shamanism and shape shifting as hokum, hophead talk. Then I am aware of the extent I have been conditioned to consider anything spiritual that is not explicitly Christian as deeply dangerous. Let's call this a Puritan-cum-Pentecostal background. Another part of me, call it intuitive mind, thinks there just might be something there. I'm not versed in Reiki or shamanism, but if they bring about a deep and sorely needed shift in consciousness, then I'm all for it. Ever the dormant mystic, I also recently re-read Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm, positing some kind of elemental sacred energy that Medieval mystics used to call, you guessed it, "Holy the Firm." Shortly thereafter, I finished Breaking the Alabastar Jar by Li-Young Lee, in which he speaks of his poetry as coming from "listening to 'the hum' at the heart of existence," that at bottom, the universe is a kind of vibration, a wave energy (is this string theory?) and we have to deepen our consciousness to transform our way of knowing, to attend to the hum, to listen to it, to be shaped by it. This different way of knowing, of deepened consciousness is also foremost in the writing of Linda Hogan, whose beautiful book Dwellings I picked up again after many years of neglect. All these readings either mention or point toward a shift in consciousness. I have had no Road to Damascus experience, no satori to radically and permanently shift my consciousness, and so, for now, I cling to the deepened consciousness I experience when reading illuminating texts inviting me to such awareness. This is even a deeper transformation than I ever experienced doing Christian "devotionals" or "spending time in Scripture" from which I primarily gain a sense of reinforced moral obligation to worship, to keep my side of hesed, that is, putting a strong relationship with God first, living a morally upright life. But it is so conjoined in my life experience with the ignorance and commonplace mind and ways of knowing of middle class America and its value systems, which do not cultivate compassion and essentially hurtle the world toward extinction, that I do not gain much of a shift in perspective from it. It is, in some sense, the given, the known, not the transformative. I daresay I got more out of reading Linda Hogan's Dwellings than spending mornings last months reading the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But the shift in awareness seems somehow essential, connecting to the deep fibers of life and intensity, a deep memory. I reconnect to this awareness that somehow first blossomed in college, but has become a faint echo. How do you stay rooted in a way of knowing you hold to be of the highest importance if its voices are constantly being drowned out. I am a part of no community that reinforces and holds accountable for this vision, and I don't particularly know how to find one. From home to work, to extended friends and family, there is no one to discuss these shifts with, no mentor to guide the process, just the occasional reading, and, inevitably, the loss of vision when thedaily grind distracts. I happen to have extra time on my hands right now, resting at home from a torn achilles. Most of the time, however, I do not have the luxury of spending six to eight hours a day reading myself into deep consciousness. How to maintain it? Cultivate it? Not lose it? Shamanic Reiki, anyone?

A mystery solved...

So,
Fran Healy, of Travis fame, co-produced the ephemeral stylings of rising indie-folkie Australian brother sister singer songwriters (that's a mouthful) Angus and Julia Stone. I haven't had the chance to buy the album yet myself, although I like what I've heard so far. Sort of a whispery Steve Tannen (of The Weepies) with Joanna Newsom instead of Deb Talan. Anyhoo, fair enough. What I'm interested in here is the revelation of their producer, and that this may explain why the band Travis has put out multiple crappy albums since their glorious "The Man Who" back in 2000, I think. Frontman Fran Healy seems to have been mailing it in ever since. "Why should this be so?" I once thought to myself long ago. The reason? Perhaps Frannie has secretly wanted to be a whispery singer songwriter himself for some time, secretly pining for a single acoustic guitar and a mid week gig at the Hotel Cafe and has been fettered, held down by the bonds of banddom, the shackles of Travis. Solo album anytime soon? I say yes. He can whisper away all he wants without wasting his bandmembers' time. And it might just be a goodie, too.

The honeymoon...

...is over. Please don't say we're headed for Rob Schneider territory.

Year's Best Film

Why do I keep blogging about films? A better question might be, why do I consume so many films in a given week? Can't face the silence, perhaps? Hm. Bears consideration. At any rate. I thought I'd bestow the title of year's best film for masses of adoring readers. The year's best film, for my money, was Rachel Getting Married. Had no expectations, didn't much care for Anne Hathaway's previous work, but was absolutely swept up in this family drama. Jonathan Demme goes cinema verite here, and enough has been written about the home video, fly-on-the-wall camera work, so I wil spare you. What makes the film is that the cast absolutely nails each part. Even the minor guests at the wedding, everyone manages to be pitch perfect in their character. No other film had my attention like this one completely from start to finish. The character development and relational dynamics, the subtlety of performances is the true verite, a style of filmmaking that doesn't work if the performances are stilted. Here, each gesture rings true. I might need to see if this holds up on a second viewing, but this was definitely my best cinematic experience of the year.

Clint Eastwood - Emo kid, who knew?

So, I just had a pile of bricks dropped on my head. Not all at once, mind you, brick by skull crushing brick. By the end of the film, The Changeling, I felt not so much catharsis, not so much some hard won wisdom, as much as complete numbness, and then I saw why, as the writer and director’s name flashed on the screen. Life sucks. It really really sucks. Apparently that hadn’t registered well enough with me and Clint Eastwood thought he’d correct that problem. While critics and Hollywood insiders praise his brave, incisive films and his tireless work ethic, I find his movies…well, what? Indulgent? Annoying? His reputation seems almost unassailable in Hollywood circles, talk shows, and trade rags. He treats important themes, fair enough. One might even say he treats difficult themes, war, child abduction, euthanasia, homicide, corruption, cover ups, injustice writ large. His films are roundly lauded: Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Changeling, each of them making noise in their respective Oscar seasons. But after all these well packaged let-downs, each and every one overhyped and underwhelming, I will not likely pay to see his late-life crisis-inspired Gran Torino. I myself have a fondness for tragic drama, but I prefer mine to move toward or through some kind of catharsis or at least some kind of wisdom, some kind of subtle insight into the human soul, not just a monochromatic fecal shade of brown. The message, repeatedly, seems to be, “life really sucks, and oh, I don’t really care for satisfying character arcs.” An apologist might call his films “an unflinching look at the underbelly of the human experience.” (That’s about as Leonard Maltin as I can get for now). In a satisfying drama, however, moments of despair are counterbalanced by moments of some lightness, of buoyancy, not merely lesser or greater moments of despair. We must see and feel, not only have it implied, in the story that existence is worthwhile. Futility seems to be at the heart of Clint’s films. One is left with a sense not so much of the triumph of hope or humanity in the face of overwhelming despair, one only feels the despair. It’s like the screamo teenager who wants us to wake up and realize, life just plain sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it. It is the equivalent of watching a dog get run over by a car, repeatedly, for two hours, in a monochromatic close-up. And when a character shows up who might suggest that, this time, the dog might not get run over, they keep getting interrupted, until, at long last…the dog gets run over again, and then, just when we might find out why the dog got run over, there’s a slow motion tracking shot of the precise moment when the tires crush Fluffy’s furry throat. And yet, by this time, we know it’s coming, we’ve seen it 73 times already, and we’re numb to it. And precisely then, Eastwood lingers. In an Eastwood film, every bit of characterization serves not to actually flesh out a believable, relatable character, not to counterbalance the soul crushing weight of the dead dog, but only to drive home how crappy it is that dogs get run over, just how disgusting it really is, and that probably, it happens all the time and that’s just the way it is. In, say, a Spielberg film that also treats tragic themes, Saving Private Ryan, or The Color Purple, it is the warmth of human relationship that underscores and counterbalances the tragedy. For Eastwood, human relationships are perpetually distant, strained, even the oldest of friends, and things seem truly pointless, futile, as saith Ecclesiastes. But even the writer of Ecclesiastes knew there is a time to laugh and a time to cry. That’s also what makes for enduring cinema, say, Shawshank Redemption (ok, maybe a bit too hopeful at the end), or even this year’s Slumdog (ok, so it’s supposed to be a fairy tale) and Milk (ok, so that’s another movie Eastwood couldn’t have ever possibly pulled off...you gotta give 'em hope Mr. Eastwood). His movies may be unswerving, unflinching, but they lack something essential: a heart. And maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t have it. Eastwood has been noted for his swiftness, cranking out films in a relatively short amount of time. One element that certainly receives short shrift from Eastwood are moments of connection between characters, moments that allow the viewer to feel connected to the characters. This must be revealed, must be part of the performance, yet his characters lack specificity. In "A Mighty Heart" Jolie’s character and her husband are both fleshed out, one sees them at home together, their ease, their love, it is not merely a wife and her husband, who ends up being beheaded (this is a film which Eastwood would have absolutely butchered). In The Changeling, in which Jolie’s character is in a similar situation, she comes across as a type; she is simply “a mother.” It is axiomatic in writing that we experience the general through the specific. For Eastwood, we experience the general through the generic, as long as we take it and beat the living crap out of it. There is no real tenderness, just numbness, bleakness. For each Eastwood film, there is at least one inexplicable moment of absolutely crappy acting. In Mystic River it is the voice acting of the anonymous callers that could have used several more takes, if not altogether different casting. The police chief in The Changeling might have also warranted a few more readings before the camera started rolling. I did not see Million Dollar Baby and am unqualified to comment, but Sands of Iwo Jima took what could have been a solid film in safer hands and made it overwrought, oversaturated, and, again, numbing. He is like a music producer who overcompresses all their tracks out of habit. The music sounds lifeless, because it can’t breathe. There is no sense of scope, breadth, depth, dimension, just violence, such that Flannery O’Connor’s age old phrase “regeneration through violence” might be turned on its head. In Eastwood, we have only degeneration through violence. Please become a producer.