The Dark Night of The Dark Knight

In answering critics who say that dark movies cause dark acts, movie industry apologists sound eerily similar to NRA apologists ....
by Rick Weiss (c) 2012 Trident Productions

As horrific as it is, the “The Dark Knight Rises” premiere massacre in Colorado is already fading from our “news-stream” mentality. Before it completely washes downstream, let’s throw a little keylight on two troubling, if related connections and see what we can learn from them, if anything.

We know from “Inception” that Chris Nolan can bend space and time and keep 4 or 5 different realities going simultaneously, but “The Dark Knight Rises” is even more ponderous, a kinda a big goofy allegorical soufflé. It rises, but falls flat soon after leaving the oven. Good girls and bad girls trade places with reality-defying aplomb. Batman is masked. Unmasked. Masked again. He needs to conquer his fear. He needs to learn to fear again. He's rich. He's poor. He's rich again. He's dead. Alive. Dead again, then alive again. The Scarecrow sits in judgment on the rich. The film’s best line is left to Catwoman:

"There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne," she purrs. "You and your friends better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits, you're all going to wonder how you ever thought you could ever live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

My Father's Clothes

Several times in the year or so after my father passed, my mother would call me over to one or two closets in which she'd neatly hung my father's clothes with a veneration reserved for a priest's vestments. "He hardly wore these," she'd say with a sad, delicate wave of her hand. I’d look in her eyes and what I'd see there was not so much her grief in the lengthening absence of her mate of over 53 years. What I'd see most, was her hope in my acceptance of the utility of the offer. These were reverential, intimate moments between the two of us. The third presence, the obvious one, Dad’s, was hanging on the clothes rack. So, each time, I selected two or three items that I liked more than the others and thanked her. 

It's an odd, sad and complex thing to walk around in your dead father's clothes. There are times I asked myself that if his clothes retain some essence of him, would I absorb it?  I already had 90% of his genetic makeup. Would the clothes make it complete? All his successes, setbacks, beliefs and experiences–would I inherit these by osmosis?

Dad was 5'9" and barrel-chested. I am 6'1" and barrel-chested. At the top, we are alike. Dad's legs were short, thick, muscle-knotted and bandy. I have my mother's longer, more graceful legs. Dad's scent is sweet and masculine. It is cinnamon, musk, Irish Spring soap, Old Spice aftershave, graham crackers and face stubble. I’ve known this scent/signature all my life. My own scent is much harder for me to describe, though I know it is similar to his.

I passed over his sportcoats, which I really did not like and assumed would not fit me properly. The first item I chose smelled the strongest of him, even though freshly washed. It's a navy blue zippered pullover. As I held it to my face, a flash of grief surged through me with the knowledge that once I took it, wore it and washed it, eventually my molecules would displace all his molecules and its scent would change, become entirely mine, not his. Everything fades. Molecular traces are replaced. Though I honor his memory by wearing Dad’s pullovers, I actively erase his imprint by doing so. This is not something one can do casually.

In defense of the (revised) liberal education

"This is a tough time to graduate from college. While unemployment is high across the board, recent grads face a brutal 9.3% unemployment rate -- the highest that statistic has been for them since the Great Recession began. Worse yet, studies have shown that fewer than half of recent college students are finding jobs that relate to their majors, and just more than half felt their jobs made use of what they learned as undergrads."

I came across this article by DailyFinance.com's Bruce Watson, thanks to an FBF and it made me think about how much things have changed since I was a starry-eyed student.

The old saw when we didn't have gray hair was that college was less valuable for what you learned and more valuable that you "learned how to learn." As a grad of communications, back further than I care to say, the attrition rate was appallingly high. Maybe 1 in 10 still working in the field. The one thing I got right back in my youth was that "you really have to want it" and I did. And I do. So here I am, still working in a field that is every bit as tough as it was when I got out of school, if not tougher.

ARE WE NOT MEN -- Mainly on Masculinity, Learning and "Anti-Social" Media

Last month I spent a marvelous weekend in the company of two of my best friends and their sons. It was a multigenerational, manly weekend, full of beef, beer, boasting, boating and blasting the open road in my friend's Porsche 914.

Manly stuff, including long reminiscent and forward-looking conversations wherein we expressed fears, concerns, hopes for our boys. On the whole, they are like the children of Lake Woebegone, above average lads, and nearly all labor with some degree of academic challenge.


Two speakers at Ted Talks intelligently and eloquently spoke to "boy issues" in academia.



Psychologist Philip Zimbardo asks, "Why are boys struggling?" He shares some stats (lower graduation rates, greater worries about intimacy and relationships) and suggests a few reasons. He stops short of solutions. He tells the audience that it's their job. And no doubt it is – their job and ours.


So what the heck do we do?

7 reasons why being middle class ain't what it used to be

My dad worked a middle class job for almost 30 years. He never cracked more than a 5-figure income. Yet we had a house, plenty of food and oh, yeah, he put six of us through top state and private schools using a combination of (then) plentiful state grants, scholarships, work study and low interest loans. I only have two kids to put through college. My income is more or less on par with Dad's, but do I get the sam deal as him? "Every picture tells a story, don't it." Pertinent images from documentary, "Inside Job":
(rights retained by author)

Going to college is about 10x more expensive than when I was going.
Is my income 10x what Dad made? No.
American universities have abrogated
their compact with the middle class of this country.

Glad somebody made out. My family didn't.

I don't carry anywhere near this kind of debt,
but my savings certainly don't show
the same robust upward swing.
Talk to me after the boys graduate.
I may well be at the top of this cuve.

When I saw this, I knew things would be no different.
Change = "same as it ever was"
I am so disappointed in him.

Tim Geitner -- go directly from Wall St. to PA Avenue,
no need to stop at Main St.

Father and Son Talk 1

The first of an occasional series where I post recent Dad/lad talks for fun, posterity or just so I don't forget them when I go senile.

Here's a little story about #2 Son in honor of his day. A few months ago, he had to recite this cute Shel Silverstein poem for class. It's called "Smart."

SMART

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!

And then i took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes-i guess he don't know
that three is more than two!

Just them, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And i took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
and the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And then i went and showed my dad,
and he go red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head-
Too proud of me to speak!

The night before, he had it down cold, but the recitation had the sort of emotionless, flat quality of rote memorization. So I put on my speech coach hat and showed him which words and phrases to punch to derive the humor and meter from the poem.

The next day we were walking home from school and he said he'd done his presentation. I asked him how he did and an odd hangdog expression came over his face. (All my doggy owner friends know that expression.) I held my breath, thinking oh no, he messed it up. He mumbled a response to my question and I asked him to repeat himself.
 

He said, "Everybody clapped."

I said, "But son, that's great."

He said, "I guess, but they clapped really loud!" 

Me: "What's wrong with that?"

Him: "Nobody got as much applause as I did."

Me (heart swelling, but sensing the teachable moment): "Son, its great that you have empathy for your classmates. You're all part of a community and it's nice that you want to share things like praise with them. There will be times when they do things better than you and there will be just as many times (or more) when you do better than them. But you have to promise me something."

Little man: "What's that Dad?"

Me: "That you will never, ever again be embarrassed about excelling. Even if you're the only one who does. Instead of feeling embarrassed, ask yourself why they clapped so loud. Ask yourself what you did right to earn those claps and what you might have done better. Instead of feeling embarrassed turn it into a learning experience. Do you see what I'm saying?

Silent head nod.

Me: "Good! Now give me a hug."

Sometimes a kid who senses he is different and excels wants nothing more than to fit in. Nothing wrong with that, but when there's a strong, unique light under that bushel, a parent's job is to help lift that bushel and let it shine. It's moments like this that bring a sort of transcendental joy to being a parent. I've been graced with many such moments.