High Stakes

I saw "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" with a friend. Oliver Stone sets his story in the teetering economy just before the current 'downturn' and at least one of the characters' objectives is to alert the financial community to imminent catastrophe. Afterwards my friend said, "Didn’t grab me. Stakes weren't high enough."

So, friend, just to clarify, to your inner barometer of what matters and what doesn't, exactly how many thousands of trillions of dollars constitutes high stakes?

My movie friend has a master's degree in architecture, but had to make part of his living last year working in the men's clothing department at Nordstrom's because his architectural practice shrank to almost nothing when real estate values plummeted and credit markets froze. But, Oliver Stone was unsuccessful in making him feel any connection between the avaricious villains in the movie and his own predicament. In spite of repeatedly trying to translate large, important socio-political issues to the feeling/acting/caring organs of his audience, Stone has never made a "Casablanca".

"Casablanca" - the greatest movie Hollywood ever produced (arguable, but don't argue with me about it). What made it great? Deft direction by Michael Curtiz – a screenplay by the Epstein brothers so memorable and witty, only Hamlet is more often quoted - a fantastic cast of supporting character actors, many of whom were refugees from the very countries where fascism ruled – wonderful performances and extraordinary chemistry between Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart. In spite of a light, off-the-cuff tone and no special effects, it successfully tugs at something deep inside that feels and understands tragedy, but wants to keep struggling against it so the bad guys cannot, must not, do not get away with it.

I don't equate the global financial crisis to the Holocaust… even though there are probably people dying in the world because of it. I am mad, though, when people get it wrong. Angry Americans are being told that "carbon credits kill jobs", as if legislation designed to limit environmental damage is to blame. Conservatives demonize illegal immigrants, as if Jose at the car wash was one of the hombres who profited from selling $100 billion of worthless credit swaps. The very political party, the "sheriff" in power at the time, that gave unbridled license to the financial sector under the thin nincompoopeous ideological veil of "markets are self-correcting", is misdirecting anger away from themselves and toward these red herrings.

Let me see if I can succeed where Oliver Stone failed. Here's the story: A few hundred morally reprehensible individuals sat down to a gambling table and recklessly placed bets in your name without your knowledge or permission. When they won, they kept for themselves a quantity of money that any sane person would consider obscene - and when they lost, which was inevitable and predictable (we know they predicted it, because there is evidence that some were privately betting against themselves) - I repeat, when they lost, they didn't lose - they won, and YOU lost BIG.

The amount of wealth that vanished was exponentially bigger than the crash sparking the Great Depression. Hopefully, the herculean spending, propping, and restructuring efforts of the Obama administration and the governments of Europe has averted complete economic collapse which we have historical precedent to believe would be worse. I think we can all agree that bread lines, hobos, starvation, political breeding grounds for fascism, etc. is a greater evil than deficit spending. (a show of hands, please? thank-you.)

But my sunny prediction that our economies won't collapse doesn't mean you didn't lose. You still lost big. You lost directly on the value of your house and 401(k), etc. You lost, and will continue to lose, indirectly. That sibling, parent or child who needs your help from time to time will need more help because they lost big, too. You will be spending years, maybe decades, scrambling to try and replace what you lost, because, through no fault of your own, the 'faith and credit' of the very currencies that denominate Western civilization are not worth nearly as much as they used to be.

You were robbed. The sheriff got a kick-back. And the bastards got away.

Eat Pray Weep Barf Snooze

Not necessarily in that order.

I am a woman who is not ashamed to enjoy, from time to time, those movies sneeringly referred to as "chick flicks". To me, this means the story relies more on character than on firepower, more on emotions than explosives. It is a welcome relief by this time each summer, if a movie has whole bodies on screen, clothed or unclothed, of people who are not bleeding, dismembered or dead.

I also have a respectful awe of meditation and yoga teachings from India, and often suspect the ancient learning of this faraway land would unlock the secret to life on earth, if only I weren't addicted to television.

Besides, I love Italian food, and think Julia Roberts (who plays Elizabeth Gilbert, the main character) is pretty enough to look at in close-up for 2 hours.

-All of which I mention to explain that I expected to like Eat Pray Love. And I did, vaguely, now and then, on and off - but off, more than on, and given that it is 133 minutes long, that's more than an hour of "I wish I were somewhere else, or asleep" (sorry, Julia).

The central character is oddly underdeveloped, in spite of being, let's see, in every scene in the whole movie. Who is she, and what is it about her life that prompts her to make a desperate and distance-extravagant escape to Italy, India and Bali? Hey, I'm not hard to convince on this, just give me something.

Food, Italy, L'arte di non fare niente (translated as "the pleasure of doing nothing") – sounds promising. But, there wasn't much hint beforehand that she had spent her life working so very tirelessly, eating so very little, doing much of anything, or depriving herself in any way. Wasn't her problem that she found trying to be a good wife by buying more appliances unfulfilling? So, daily indulgence in cappuccinos, pastries, ice cream, pasta, and red wine is fulfilling. I see.

Filling, anyway.

I believe the men. The Texan at the ashram (played by Richard Jenkins) who almost ran over his eight year-old son in an alcoholic blur – that's a character with a believable crisis and catalyst for change. The Brazilian Dad (played by Javier Bardem) who weeps at parting with his 19 year-old son after being the stay-at-home parent his first ten years - that's a feeling man with endearing emotions. Even the husband who contests the divorce (played by Billy Crudup) seems more genuine - a person who keeps asking why she didn't argue or explain or give him a chance to fix it.

The women have a female bonding experience of buying jeans they have trouble zipping up. (As Liz Lemon on 30 Rock would say, "commence eye-roll sequence.")

What nags me about Eat Pray Love is, even though this is a non-fiction person who apparently traveled to these places and wrote this memoir, I don't believe the Elizabeth Gilbert main character, or that her quest was real.

It is, instead, a little insulting. When the rest of us face a tough year, we are not offered a generous book advance to taste the delights of gelato, God and Javier Bardem.

Let me recommend a better film - Sunshine Cleaning. This little gem came out in 2009 with less marketing and much less box office, in spite of having the first-rate cast of Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as grown sisters and Alan Arkin as their dad. The story and performances are spirited, quirky, funny, sometimes poignant, but full of surprises that still have an ordinary dimension. It pleases the viewer most as a reminder of the unsung and almost unbelievable resilience real women need in order to sort out their difficult lives as sisters, daughters, lovers, mothers and money-makers. It is fiction, but it's got a nice ring of truth. And for me to sit through any movie, I want to believe... at least as long as I'm in the theater.

Lighting Up - Garbo to Grinch

I was loitering in the lobby of a theatre one night, when I noticed that my friends' faces, which had been so healthy, vibrant and rose-lipped that afternoon, seemed sallow, blotchy and morose. Warning: If people who are normally attractive all look ugly – Run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. You are in a place where no amount of charm, verbal wit or intellectual prowess can save you. You and your friends are the victims of BAD LIGHTING.

Don't delude yourself that because you just checked the Restroom mirror, you're presentable. Restrooms (for Women, anyway) have the most becoming light in any bar, restaurant or theatre. This isn't a sinister conspiracy to make you look bad to your date. It's just good business. Flattering light effects are easier to achieve in small spaces and usually more expensive.

But, maybe they're clueless. I went to a bar in Dallas called the Green Room with an intentional, match-the-name lighting design of green spotlights and green luminescent table tops. This would be great if you're adding a sexy glow to Mr. Grinch. Those of us with human skin tones, though, should try to avoid the swampy, slime-green, sickly look when trolling for dates.

Once voted by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most beautiful woman who ever lived, Greta Garbo was initially rejected by film directors. Henrik Sartov, who filmed a second screen test, said the first test had lacked proper lighting to capture Garbo's unique and eventually world-famous eyes, skin and bone structure.

Few of us aspire to Garbo's beauty, but most of us believe we look more or less like the face scowling back at us in the mirror at home, just before going out into the world. I recently had a rude awakening to the fallacy of this assumption. My hair stylist of many years changed salons. She moved from a room of diffused and omnipresent light, that bathed my visage in generous, but muted tones. To my horror, the new locale has a plate-glass window where blazing afternoon sun rakes across the room from one side, highlighting in dramatic chiaroscuro every wrinkle, bag and bulge - showing, plain as day, my multitudinous blemishes, stray hairs, freckles and flaws. It got worse when I realized this sun-from-side-window lighting effect is everywhere - from business offices to lunch restaurants. Ergo, this is the face others most often see!

Reality lighting is completely different from the mild, friendly light in the rooms where I ready myself each day. In a martial attempt to face my reality face, I recreated this lighting at home so that I could adjust my hair and makeup appropriately (as if a few minor tweaks here and there would do the trick). The results were disastrous. I couldn't make myself leave the house at all, put on a large floppy hat and contemplated the virtues of agoraphobia. Only after the sun had set and I had avoided mirrors long enough for that reality-based reflection to fade in my memory, could I force my way back into the outside world.

For those who wonder why Garbo retired from films so young and ceased being a public figure, it should now be clear. She was obviously subjected to a traumatic, career-deadly dose of seeing herself in Bad Lighting.

Lovers In Nature

My first month away at college, a boy asked me to go duck hunting. Since I was a city girl who'd never even been camping, I expected the fox hunt scene from "Auntie Mame". Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be an excuse for two people to be really alone - far, far away from parents, chaperones and campus police. Luckily, he wasn't much of a wolf and I didn't have a strong attraction to him (or any guy, but that took a few years to sort out). No guns were loaded. No shots fired, metaphorically or otherwise. In the end, it was a lot of trouble for what could've much more easily been enjoyed in a parked car.

Must of us are nature lovers. Trees, birds, oceans, rivers – breathtaking, inspiring and precious. But, lovers in nature – not for everyone.

My cousin's husband proposed to her halfway through a week-long river rafting trip through the Grand Canyon because of a spectacular waterfall visible after a seven mile climb. They told the dramatic story of unseasonably dangerous rapids, a near-death spider bite, sudden thunderstorm warnings – all saved by a clear night when a beautiful full moon was visible over the crest of the falls as he dropped to one knee.

I joined them on a river rafting trip two years later. After 4 days of summer sun, setting up camp, breaking down camp, no toilets and no showers, they pointed out the trail to the falls and lamented that this trip they wouldn't have time to make that hike and relive their special moment.

Ok, I do have enough romantic empathy to appreciate the beauty of it. Truly. I'm not too cynical for that.

Only, wouldn't it have been almost as nice to get a hotel room with a spectacular ocean view - and a shower and toilet. I'm not saying toilets are romantic. I'm just suggesting that a week with no toilets – maybe not so romantic. (By the way, that cousin isn't married to him anymore. Nothing to do with toilets. Just the usual stuff.)

On a more positive note -

I once knew a brilliant young woman studying marine biology who was dating an ornithologist. This fellow was fascinated with birds in the same way she was fascinated with sea creatures. She told me how tiresome bird-watching expeditions were for her until one day, she started thinking of birds as slightly different, quirky, interesting and colorful Sky-Fishes. Once she thought of them as fish and not birds, she fell in love with them and with the ornithologist. They married and had three children whom they both love, in spite of their appalling lack of fins or feathers.

I like that story. That is finding the path to loving the lover's beloved. In nature.

Now, that's romantic.

Now and at the Hour of Our Debt

As every Catholic child preparing for First Communion knows, a Hail Mary is something other than a desperate, final-minutes-of-a-losing-game 90 yard pass. It is a prayer which ends with an entreaty to the Virgin Mary to "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." A friend told me once that for years she had misunderstood the last word of the prayer, thinking it was "debt" and that the Virgin Mary had a special mission to help poor mortals suffering from overwhelming debt.

The populations of Greece, Spain and Portugal might have been praying under a similar phraseology recently because the more stable EU countries came to their rescue with a $1 trillion plan to prop up their economies – thanks, perhaps, to Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but more probably the God of Self-interest. To frightened and grateful believers, however, the Virgin Mary is looking a lot like Angela Merkel.

Prayers of the faithful never go unanswered, it seems, but I worry that we may be leaning too heavily these days on Our Lady of Debt Crisis Resolution. She seems overstretched. Meanwhile, prosecutions of those who profited from shenanigans at the root of our catastrophe, move forward in a manner all too tepid. For punishment to fit the crime, rare but sometimes administered fines and jail time aren't enough. I'm working to compose an addendum to the Hail Mary, begging her to book accommodations for the truly guilty in a volcano-infested, perpetually-erupting corner of the Brimstone Resort.

Don't mistake me, however, for someone who thinks we should let bad businesses fail and live with fewer but better companies and countries. This would only work if we could agree which ones to let collapse. I, personally, would miss Spain. Italy's definitely a keeper. France… not so much.

Reading (my blog) is Fundamental

You may have heard the saying – Never worry about what people are thinking of you – most of the time, no one is. Despite having a startling ring of truth, it's not helpful. I'd rather be infamous than invisible.

Lit lesson - In fiction, we learn about a character in three ways – 1) by what the narrator tells us about her, 2) by what other characters say about her, and 3) by what she says about herself. Life lesson - to get this kind of coverage in the real world requires a publicist, an agent and an entourage of spin doctors who keep the public talking and thinking and googling the latest on the farces, foibles and general freak show that is Jane Q. Celeb's life. Without the Mega-Marketing Machine, no one rises above the din.

But that doesn't keep us from trying. Us poor slobs-with-no-peeps are all busy shamelessly self-promoting, since we have only option 3 at our disposal, i.e. what Me says about Moi-Meme, via things like Facebook Status up-to-the minute updates to a ridiculously voluminous FriendsList, 80-deep in names of people who could not be called 'friends' in any other context. Some go further, giving daily birth to a litter of Twitter, others slog out a blog (Guilty as charged).

Meanwhile, is anybody reading?

I have written a novel, and because this is still a rare accomplishment, I mention it in conversation as frequently as possible. The first response is not surprising, given what a busy life we all have. It goes something like this - "I love novels, but never find time to read them anymore" (the 'anymore' part added to make it seem as though, at some time in the past, they did read a novel). Then, about half these people go on to say, "Someday, I'd really like to write a novel," which always leaves me speechless. Having actually completed this project, I marvel at the audacity. They do know, don't they, that writing a novel almost always takes more time than reading one?!!

We are a nation of literate adults who yearn, not for Knowledge, but for Notice.

Ok, so at least we know ourselves, right? Tooting our own horn makes us experts, doesn't it? But, do we get at the truth, our life purpose, our raison d'etre by always scrambling to seem funny, or sexy or smart or hip or memorable? That would only work if we were all of those things and if we were, would it be such hard work to make it seem like we are?

The next time someone says they want to write a novel, I'm going to tell them to read one first - a great one by Dickens or Austen or Proust that lingers appreciatively on the full panoply of human character, triumph, cruelty and honor….

That is, after I tell them to check out my blog. (And while they're at it, confirm my friend request.)

My People Don't Network

At my last job, a manager with an Armenian last name had occasion to hire three employees. All three of the people she hired also had Armenian last names. No one complained. I wonder if anyone would have noticed if, during the same period, instead of hiring a pasty-white geek from Michigan who liked slasher movies, a swarthy young American with an Arab surname, and a recent Chinese immigrant, I had only hired women whose names were, like mine, derivatives of the Greek name Alexander? As long as Sandra, Sasha and Lexie were more or less qualified for their jobs, I probably would have gotten away with it.

It just never occurred to me to do this - because – MY PEOPLE DON'T NETWORK. We've swallowed whole the liberal assumption that the individual who best meets our unbiased assessment of the job's requirements is the person who should be hired.

News flash: We're pretty much alone in this ideal of a meritocracy.

I'm starting to realize that I've never worked for a company that wasn't rife with cronyism and outright prejudice. Once, I wanted to offer a phone receptionist job to a gay man, but my boss protested for fear it would make people calling the office think he was gay. He did allow me to hire an African-American woman for the same position, because, in his words, she didn't "sound black".

A while ago, I interviewed for a job with the LA Gay and Lesbian Center. I mentioned that I had been to a number of functions at the Center, since I'm a lesbian, and appreciated the work they did in our community. The person interviewing me became visibly uncomfortable and said that my being a lesbian would, of course, have no bearing on whether or not I was hired. I took this as a given at the time, but now I'm thinking, why the hell not?

A supervisor at one company I worked for only hired and promoted Filipinos, like herself. A VP at another place showed a marked preference for USC grads, like himself.

Up to now, I've been pleased with the thought that the people I've hired over the years reflect so many colors, nations, ethnic groups and religious backgrounds. The United Colors of Benetton ad campaigns would give a fairly accurate picture – as long as you altered it to include a few overweight models and one or two in middle age. I'm starting to rethink this philosophy. For one thing, people "not like you" show no particular loyalty in a shoot-out or a showdown - and it may surprise you to learn that corporate politics in the modern world often bears a marked resemblance to the Old West.

No more foolish idealism. My new plan, the next time I'm in a position to hand out jobs, is to only give them to My People. Are you hearing me? Sandra, Sasha, Lexie – time to update your resumes!