But Since I’m Already Soupy

I had this feeling even more strongly after watching Born Into Brothels, the documentary about these kids in Calcutta being raised in a, um, brothel. This woman came and got to know them and taught them photography and each one of them took amazing photos; this one twelve year old boy in particular was quite obviously gifted, not to mention being an incredible sage, if you ask me. The conditions in the brothel were needless to say beyond horrible, and some of the parents were verbally and physically abusive and it seemed pretty obvious that the girls were all destined to become prostitutes as well. Nevertheless, they were such unbelievably normal kids, they picked on each other, they felt sad about their lives, they were all pretty wise to what was going on and wished it were different but knew it probably wouldn’t be, and more than anything, they had what I perceived to be these incredibly joyful spirits. Not one of the adults seemed to have what they had, so you can only guess that it was a matter of time before that was gone, but you finish watching this movie just hoping even one of the kids will get a chance to get an education and get out.

In the Realms of the Darger Movie

In the Realms of the Unreal, was pretty good, actually. It was kind of more – er – ethereal than I personally would have liked. A lot of it was sort of animated versions of his work, which was cool, but I kept wondering what he’d think about it. I guess I’ll have to go read a book about him. If anyone isn’t familiar with his art, check him out. He was this prolific, gifted, outsider as they say, an orphan, with very few people in his life, possibly with some sort of mental illness but functioning in the world, albeit in a very limited way – home, work, art. He kept his work completely secret from even the few people he did know. He knew he couldn’t really draw, so he sort of traced images and pieced them together to tell this – beyond elaborate, 15,000 page story of the Vivian girls, and his sense of color, proportion, imagery, story is just so incredible. More than anything though, what I was left with after seeing this movie was that this man who went through life largely unseen, has left something like this behind, and it makes me think about how all of us have something to contribute, a reason for being here, that we all matter, and that in Darger’s case we were just lucky to have access to knowing the reason. I’m pretty sure a lot of lives go by where we don’t. But someone does. Every life touches another life in some way. Okay, I’m getting into Chicken Soup territory. Sorry.

Yesterday

I didn’t know what to say about it, not that I haven’t already said somewhere, anyway. So I’ll add only that I thought about it, the people lost and the people gained, as I do many other days. That’s pretty much all I have.

6:15

This week I have been trying to get up before Ben leaves for work, with moderate success. It’s not quite light at this hour, which is inherently wrong, I say, in terms of waking up. And of course, waking up at such an hour means I am inclined to go to bed at nine, which is embarrassing. Last night at 8:30 Ben said, “Want to watch a movie?” which I suspected was dubious and although it was a promising documentary on the life of Henry Darger, indeed, by nine we were both ready to pack it in. (More about Darger, I’m sure, after I actually watch the film.)

But it’s nice and quiet at this hour, and it’s an extra hour of work, theoretically, since I tend to be more productive in the mornings. I’m still behind on this week’s Times, though – no doubt because I discovered Gawker, one more way to spend time online.

And

Moore also has some great info and links if you're interested and able to donate stuff stuff for Katrina.

Michael Moore Writes to That Dude Holding Office

Who I can't bring myself to refer to as the president.

Check it out.
Right on.

PS I once wrote him an email and he wrote me back. That's the kind of guy he is.

Critters

I also forgot to mention that my brother Mark has a new puppy and they call him Mr. Tibbs. Mr. Tibbs is a “puggle” which is apparently part pug part beagle, but I keep calling him a muggle. Either way? He’s very cute, and he, like all pets that come to Mt. Pleasant, naturally gravitates toward my dad, who is the least overtly pet-friendly person, but who, I think it is plain to see, emits some silent critter love that is only perceptible to the critters.

Willful Creatures

I keep forgetting to mention that I finished Aimee Bender’s new collection of stories last week, Willful Creatures. Bender is one of my favorite writers, but there’s not much I can say except there’s one story called “Motherfucker” (about a guy who only fucks people who are… mothers) which has such a gorgeous ending it’s worth the price of the book for this story alone.

Old Settlers and Threshers

Inbetween watching news reports and still not getting a grasp on the extent of what's going on, Ben and I went to Mt. Pleasant this weekend to hang with the folks and go to the annual Midwest Old Settlers and Threshers Reunion. Huh? You haven't been there? Well, neither had Ben, somehow. Okay, fine, I'll explain. It's a festival of old threshing machines and engines and country music and stuff. We ate elk burgers and elk jerky and funnel cakes.

Dark Days

I just put a link on the side to the Red Cross, and the number to call to donate to relief for Hurricane Katrina is 1-800-HELP-NOW. There’s nothing more to say right now. The scope of what’s happened is profound in it’s thorough devastation. Never have I felt so ridulously aware of what I have, both in terms of family, love, and friendship, but also in terms of just plain stuff, and I hope there will be an opportunity to give some of it away at some point in the future because I have a lot more of that than I do cash even though I know that’s what’s needed right this minute.

Took a break from obsessive news-watching last night to watch a surprisingly uplifting movie about homelessness called Dark Days as well as every last extra on the DVD. The movie itself, about a little shanty town underground Manhattan in the railroad system, is beautifully shot and essentially just a portrait of a group of by and large, delightful, capable, funny and incredibly resourceful people. It has an amazing, right on soundtrack by DJ Shadow, and as you find out by the end of the film, I’m going to give away the (mostly happy) ending here, it works out that homes are provided for these people and that the most recent update is that many of them are working and doing very well. I could go on and on about what I think it all means (but, um, solution?), but in any case, the extras were equally illuminating in terms of how the movie got made; the filmmaker, I guess wasn’t even a filmmaker, he just knew these people from his neighborhood, went down there and spent time with them, they decided they should make a film about it, and that he would give any proceeds from the film to get homes for them. So he does exactly this, with ZERO funds, and furthermore, uses all these homeless guys for his crew. When you hear him talking about how the whole thing came to be, you realize it’s not just an incredible, enlightening, moving portrait of homeless people, it’s also an incredibly inspiring example of how to be an artist, and what an artist is, because this guy put his heart and soul into getting this thing done, he had a total vision of it and just like, assumed that it would happen and had no interest in financial gain. And not in a cocky way – this guy comes across as extremely likable – just in that sort of way where it doesn’t seem to occur to him that he can’t get what he wants. He’s like, I’ll have DJ Shadow or I’ll have no music. We’ll get the film now and worry about developing later. And little by little it all came together because everyone they came across at each stage of production realized what a wonderful project it was. Anyway, one of the things that struck me was that these people, while they lived underground, like you often hear homeless people say, don’t want to go to the shelters because the shelters suck, so they devised this way of living for themselves that they felt was better, and that they didn’t complain about in spite of the obvious: no running water, no light, no a lot of stuff and rats, rats and more rats. But they did have TV, “toilets”, pets, food, some of them even had cabinets and more, and they weren’t in a rush to get out but when they did, I was really struck by the way this awesome guy Ralph lingered by his window as he was interviewed. Debra, was it you that recommended this film? It was sweet.