The Grande Enchilada

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2012-02-17T11:13:00.001-05:00

A very eerie and elegant The Woman In Black, a not so great Hugo and a freakishly good Meryl Streep in the pedestrian The Iron Lady.

On DVD:
A grossly underrated The Ides Of March and a great Demián Bichir in a not so great A Better Life.

Plus, my customary annual rant about the Oscars.

War On Religion

2012-02-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

I'm starting it. Who's with me?
I'd like to deflect all those accusations by Republicans that Obama is waging a war on religion. I'm the one who's doing that, so send all your queries to me.
Every day I wage my silent, thankless battle about the spreading idiocy of religion of all denominations in public and political life, where it has no place.
For instance, it was rather amazing to see a panel convened by Sean Hannity asking 20 clergymen of different religions how they feel about female contraception. What do you know? They all have extremely strong feelings against it! They get to opine and decide, without consulting women, whether women should have access to contraception. This is the height of reason and fairness. There was not one woman in the panel. An Anita Bryant conservative witch would have come in handy, but not even. This is what religion does: it writes a blank check for self-righteousness, downright imbecility and barbarism and people just go ahead and cash it. Then they pat themselves in the back, to boot.
Let me put it this way: I hate religion. I hate what it does to people.
Faith is another matter. You want to believe in an afterlife, heaven and hell, God, limbo, nirvana, by all means; it's your right, knock yourself out. I read Astrology Zone religiously every month. We all need that old black magic somehow.
But why do we all have to believe in God? And if we don't, why are we perceived as morally deficient? Why do men get to decide that women should sit at the back of a bus, or not play sports or drive, or not have a right to decide what to do with their own reproductive systems? Because this is abuse of power and only something as irrational as religion can warrant such a thing.
I would argue that, more often than not, those of us who hold reason in higher esteem than faith are far more ethical than those who shelter their morally revolting attitudes behind the front of religion. Church going and breast beating and following irrelevant stone age laws, or in the case of fundamentalists, deeply distorted, maniacal interpretations of religion, give people a pass from true piety, true charity, true love and true morality.
It makes no sense to decry the termination of an embryo as against the sanctity of human life, and at the same time cheer every time someone is fried in the electric chair. It makes no sense to believe in a guy who said you should love thy neighbor and then demonize and persecute gays, or people from other religions, subjugate women and keep the poor and the gullible in ignorance and darkness.
When it was invented thousands of years ago, religion was useful as a civilizing tool. In those days it was linked to the seasons and the tides and the movements of the sky. It helped people understand their place on Earth and in the universe. It helped create relatively functional societies. It laid down some necessary laws (like "thou shalt not kill", something it has not heeded itself). It also encouraged artistic expression. Fine. But it becomes dangerous the moment it acquires political or economic power, which is when it starts acting like a bully.
If it is as pure and lofty as it claims to be, why should organized religion concentrate wealth, or dictate policies? It should aid the poor, comfort the needy and be an individual source of solace, not be a stick with which to control and abuse people and cheat them out of their money and their human rights.

Spacey the III

2012-02-12T11:27:00.002-05:00

Don't think I haven't noticed that my posts involving Shakespeare are suspiciously popular.
All ye who intend to "borrow" this for your term papers, use quotation marks or relent!
In any case, this is a review of the production of Richard III currently at BAM, starring Kevin Spacey and directed by Sam Mendes.
Kevin Spacey is a great actor. Richard III is a great villain and William Shakespeare is the greatest writer that ever was. So how's the production? Good, but uneven. Mendes has conceived a very sparse production with contemporary overtones. The costumes are modern Elizabethan (and rather boring), the stage is mostly bare, surrounded by many doors symbolizing the many victims of this proto-mass murderer. For Richard is a political serial killer, reminiscent of a Stalin, or a Mao. Thirsty for power, he kills what he fears, and because he kills so much, he fears everybody, so he has to dispose of everybody. Homicidal tyrants have existed since day one, but it takes Shakespeare to make one into a character that clearly defines a complete psychological space.
Richard is deformed, prematurely born; it is said of him that he had teeth before he had eyes. To hear him tell it at the beginning of the play, everybody's happily carousing in times of peace,

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up...

(Has anybody ever written so beautifully about ugliness?) Since Richard cannot carouse, he has to scheme. He is physically a monster, and perhaps because of the cruelty of nature and society towards him, he is cruel himself. Poor Richard lived long before political correctness and bleeding hearts (a phrase that comes from this play!). One can imagine the bullying he endured. The play hurls spectacular insults at him, but fortunately Shakespeare is not from the age of pitiful self-justification. He is not as cheap as to want us to feel sorry for the guy. He makes him human, and therefore one ends feeling a pathetic sort of pity for him. What a waste of intellect, what deformity of purpose, which is what one always thinks about people who use all their mental energy for destruction. Think Assad Jr. now in Syria, or Ghadaffi, or any totalitarian monster of our age. There is a wonderful soliloquy when Richard is finally visited by conscience, which expresses the psychic isolation and engorged ego of the sociopath:

Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.

I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?

Excuse me while I plotz. This profile could have been written, less adroitly perhaps, by one of those forensic psychologists at Quantico. Its modernity blows me away. Everything is I with this man. He is alone and apart from human society. A classic sociopath.
Well, Spacey goes to town, emphasizing Richard's duplicity and his terrible need for attention. It is a powerful performance, a bit shticky, in my view, very Spacey-like, which is not bad, since he is the master of dripping sarcasm. My biggest problem with this characterization is that he screams like a maniac. Many times, the screaming obscures the words. This is unfortunate, because Richard is one of the most verbally compelling characters in all of Shakespeare. This is one Richard hell-bent on garnering attention, full of mercurial fury, but it would be more interesting if he would connive more quietly and let his fury seethe inside his crooked frame. As you saw above, Shakespeare goes to beautiful lengths to describe his physical weakness, which serves as a stunning contrast to his robust capacity for evil. It should surprise everyone at court that this pathetic cripple harbors such gigantic homicidal tendencies, but Spacey is not a wee man, nor is this a quiet performance. He wears a polio brace and has a crooked leg and a bent foot, the iconic hunchback, relies on a cane and is totally misshapen. As he ambles up and down the stage he looks suitably grotesque, but it would be far more chilling to see his power come, not from throwing tantrums, but from a powerful tsunami of a mind inside a shriveled frame. After more than three hours, the outbursts get annoying and lose effectiveness. I will confess, this reminded me of my Mom and Dad's dueling parenting techniques. Mom was a frequent hell-raiser, while Dad was a quiet seether. Guess which one sent me into paroxisms of fear? One look from my Dad's silent anger was enough to make me wither in my chair, whereas my Mom's operatic outbursts eventually caused my sisters and me to roll our eyes.
Less is always more.
Spacey shows off his verbal dexterity and riffs around with the rhythms interestingly and at breakneck speeds, if not always eloquently. Still, he has some incredible moments, as when, in a mediatic event reminiscent of the putrid piety of today's Republican candidates, he pretends to pray in church (holding a Bible as a prop, of course) as he orchestrates his usurpation of the throne. Here, he reminded me of Newt Gingrich. Richard has members of his clique actually beg him publicly to become king as he feigns modesty and surprise. This is done through a live video feed on a big screen so we can see what Spacey does best, which is to show us what he's thinking through the most minimal gestures. At one point, he coyly averts his eyes, but there is more than false modesty in this tiny act; there is a weariness which encompasses everything that has happened up to that point and everything that will happen next. Mendes equates Richard's appetite for power with the megalomaniac personality of a totalitarian dictator. It makes perfect sense for our day and age.
Spacey is valiantly over the top for the entire play, giving a physically generous, possibly quite painful, exhausting and unsparing performance that has him sweating buckets, and in a clever use of his real sweat, Richard is constantly wiping his brow, which adds a layer of sliminess to the character, sweaty like a Tricky Dick.
Alas, just as Richard's monstrous ego takes up all of the play's space, Spacey takes up all of the stage. Most of the actors are nowhere near his level. The men are mostly inconsequential. The women fare better, but except for Gemma Jones, excellent as Queen Margaret, and the actress who plays his poor mother, the rest of the actors are left in the dust, and this smacks of headliner vanity to me. Why are the two young princes Richard kills portrayed by young women? The horrifying shock of their murder is grossly diminished by this arbitrary piece of casting.
Still, for the most part, the production is visceral and bracing. Mendes has some cool visual ideas, particularly towards the end, when Richard and the good Richmond share a dream, sitting on opposite sides of a long table as all the spirits of the murdered appear to haunt one and inspire the other, and a fantastic coup de theatre when a finally dead Richard is hoisted up from a meat hanger, feet first, to dangle like a piece of butchery, himself reminiscent of all the blood he spilled.
So how is Richard human? We know he has suffered, he is unloved and worse, incapable of love himself. Shakespeare was too cool to change Richard's nature just to appease the audience. He shows how human nature is, not how it should be. There is something heroic in Richard's determination to stay true to himself, in his relentless quest for some sort of social redress. He has never known love, how would he change? I am I. He is pitiful for his ignorance of human restraint, for his incapacity for mercy. He knows what he is, and this must be so painful.

God Damn!

2012-02-01T18:46:00.002-05:00

I am lucky to have such fabulous friends that they give away tickets to the opera.
To 6-hour operas, to be exact. So I dropped everything I was doing to see the new Met's production of Gotterdammerung, by Richard Wagner. This, as far as I could gather from the program, is the last of the operas in the Ring cycle, which lasts about 17 hours total. Apparently the guy had not yet heard of "cut to the chase".
To be honest, I could care less about German mythology*. There is always some magic potion to blame for all the chaos. It's not a character flaw; not someone made a tragic mistake but somebody drank the wrong brew without knowing. Siegfried, who is in love with Brunnhilde, takes a magic potion and falls out of love with her and in love with another woman. Disaster ensues.
I was curious to understand why Wagner is an endurance contest for both audiences and singers alike. I believe I have the answer now.
The new production by Robert Lepage has been very controversial, because it is very modern. It's hard to describe, but the stage is dwarfed by a huge contraption of wooden planks that move as the scenes change. Projections of water, fire, a forest, are screened on the planks. Apparently, at the beginning the machinery was clunky, causing great grief to the humans on stage, but now they seem to have worked out the kinks. I liked it, once I got used to it. But after 6 hours, the novelty wears off. And I'm thinking, if you have people sitting for 6 hours, you may want to change things a bit. Keep 'em entertained.

I think the problem is that the singers have little to do but stand and sing. I was sitting way up there in Valhalla, so it was hard to see the acting. Still, it seems that all the energies were dedicated to figure out the staging of the machine, but not that of the singers, who are extremely static, screaming to the winds. Then again, if you have to sing for 6 hours straight, you may not want to be running around the stage.
I welcome less literal productions of operas, because Opera, a bizarre mix of the sublime and the ridiculous, can always do with less of the ridiculous. To wit, there is a plot point in this story, where Siegfried runs around with a schmatteh over his head. It's supposed to have magic powers, but it still looks like a schmatteh.
So now that technology allows for great magic onstage, instead of cardboard forests and cellophane flames, new productions should be fun. But, at least in this instance, something about the grandeur of the stage machinery stifles the colorful imagination of the story. The German mythology has very powerful images, like dragons, flying horses, water nymphs, women with shields, etc. A lot of that is left to the imagination through the singing, provided that you read the useful but pedestrian sounding supertitles. If instead of being dark and brooding and too intellectual, this whole spectacle would be more dreamlike, as is the quality of myth, I would have been more transfixed. But it felt a bit cumbersome, while this enormous work needs some agility.
The Met orchestra, splendidly conducted by Fabio Luisi, sounded great, the singers as far as I could tell, were pretty awesome, particularly Deborah Voigt as Brunnhilde. That woman can sing. And sing. And sing. And the guy who played the meanie was amazing too. Major bravos for him. Siegfried sang beautifully but the singer needs to get lessons in deportment. He moved like a slob from Jersey.
I won't pretend that I did not doze off a couple of times. I was awake for all the good parts, including an awesome fight between two sisters (Deborah Voigt and Waltraud Meier), the part of the chorus, which is gorgeous, the beautiful music when Siegfried finally bites the dust, among others. At the end, Brunnhilde sings like for 15 minutes with little interruption. It is truly an amazing feat of vocal power.
But there were these incongrous plaster statues (the Gods) that looked totally kitschy, and at the end their heads blow off (or rather pathetically pop out like popcorn) in the most incredible display of self-annihilation by a director I have ever seen. For 6 hours we finally bought the planks and the projections and the drab costumes and the stern minimalism and endured 6 hours of Wagner to reach the apotheosic conclusion and Lepage closes with the cheesiest effect, thereby undermining everything we saw and breaking the spell, in what I can only assume he mistakenly thinks is an ironic comment about the fragility of the gods. It was so ridiculous people were laughing, and not in a good way.
It was slow, exciting, ridiculous, magnificent, crazy and very, very long.
I'm glad I saw it.

*I resent that major Jew hater Wagner and his obsession with Teutonic myth. He can stick the braids and the horns and the breastplates up his ass. The music is great though.

Occupy Cable

2012-02-01T11:35:00.000-05:00

I don't understand how The People don't send all the cable companies to the guillotine.
They are sheer incompetent evil. I got an offer from Time Warner Cable for a pretty good deal including cable, internet and phone for 89.99 a month (for the first year, then it's 3 million dollars a minute). I don't have cable and I'm paying more than that, so I decide to switch.
Any time you have to deal with any of these companies, I assure you, you will rue the day.
As we are getting ready to set up the switch, the other shoe starts dropping: there's a $25 installation fee, (okay), and another $25 FCC fee they never mentioned until after I had agreed to switch. Fine.
We set up an appointment. But I have to reschedule it because of an important conflict. This is when they actually start behaving like assholes. It turns out, that like a bad date, they are so busy, the next appointment is until 2045. But I have already asked my other company to disconnect service, right? So I'm screwed. They finally give me a date 2 days hence and then we are all so happy it worked out only for the guy to inform me that they cannot connect the phone that day, so it's gonna be another $25 for another appointment. I told them to go fuck themselves. They have been calling me about my missed appointment ever since.
So back to my regular company. Since I threatened to leave, they are offering me a sweet deal. Why can't they just offer a fair deal to everybody without all the drama?
I take the deal. The guy comes at the last minute of the three hour appointment window and sets up my new super fast modem -- which doesn't work. Why? Because the order was not set up properly. So he has to come again the next day. To be fair, this guy is pretty reliable. He comes the next day, at the hour he said he would, and sets everything up. Presto. Happiness. Today I try to call Texas and a voice informs me that my long distance service is not set up. AAARRRGGGHHH.
When private companies behave like inefficient public bureaucracies, something is very wrong. They charge an arm and a leg, plus the other arm and leg in absurd fees and taxes. Same happens with airlines and other American corporations that gauge the customers AND treat us like crap. What is up with that?

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2012-01-20T10:08:00.000-05:00

Two very good movies opening today:

Miss Bala, by Gerardo Naranjo
...and Coriolanus, by my BF, Ralph Fiennes, and William Shakespeare.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2012-01-14T20:34:00.000-05:00

Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret.

And on DVD, Miranda July's The Future.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2012-01-08T23:58:00.001-05:00

The Curse of the Blair Witch Project: The Devil Inside.

Bullies in the Name of God

2012-01-03T10:00:00.001-05:00

People think that the Ultraorthodox gangs in Israel have finally gone too far, dressing their children as Holocaust victims, yellow star and everything. Appropriating persecution while being the actual menace. That is rich. It's like Nazis claiming victimhood. Problem is, they have always been too far. This sinister behavior should not surprise anybody. These roving bands of God-empowered hoodlums behave like a cult. Their Judaism is an ugly distorsion, an aberration that has little to do with anything civilizing and wise in our ancient religion. Like the Taliban, they take things literally; like other fanatical fundamentalist cults, they operate by coercion, and bullying. Problem is, in Israel, a state they hate, they are not only tolerated, but kept on welfare. Bullies that they are, they take every opportunity to abuse the system, both practically and psychologically. In any other democracy some of their harassment is considered illegal and punishable by law, but in Israel until now they've always gotten a free pass. And because of that, they keep upping the ante, to levels that no sane place on Earth would tolerate. These are the people who have met with that pustulent vantz, Ahmadinejad, who advocates for the destruction of Israel and denies the Holocaust. Why? Because they believe that Israel cannot exist until the Messiah shows up (don't hold your breath). These are the people who teach children to bully little girls, also ultra religious, because they are not wearing their equivalent of a burka, and who have the nerve to demand that other, not mentally insane women, sit at the back of a bus, among many other offenses to human reason. Now they are "upset" because they feel Israeli society is waging a campaign against them. Really. Israel should cut all welfare to them, as should any other clueless Jews who give them charity. Israel should demand they comply with the laws of the state. At stake is the essence and nature of a modern state, but also the opportunity to expose them for the cult and the fraud they are.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2012-01-01T12:47:00.001-05:00

The Best Movie of 2011: A Separation.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2011-12-28T09:30:00.002-05:00

David Fincher's stylish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
The fog of war: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Jewish Aztec Cuisine

2011-12-28T09:28:00.000-05:00

My friend Cathy alerted me to this story on NPR about Jewish Mexican Cooking. This is what I commented on the NPR page, expanded here for your enjoyment:

When I read the headline of this story, my heart stopped. I thought it was about my grandfather Samuel Gmora, who used to be the caterer at Temple Bet El, and also had a Jewish food restaurant in the Condesa neighborhood, called Taam Tov Kosher, when I was a little girl. Of course, the Shlejters preceded him for many years, because by the time he catered in Bet-El nobody ever went to Justo Sierra anymore. My bobe taught my zeide how to cook Jewish food and many Mexican Jews, including myself, still remember his delicious banquets. In my family, we still have Gefilte Fish Veracruzana, which is the greatest fusion food ever: Gefilte Fish with a sauce of tomatoes, onions, olives, capers and blond chiles.

There is also a Mole-Matzoh Gratin at the Passover Seder. And according to legend, my bobe made the meanest kosher mole in Mexico City.

I remember Sra. Dora Schmidt from when we all used to live in la Condesa. She and my mom, and other Jewish ladies used to have coffee atthe undulating counter at Woolworth's! I'm happy to see she is healthy and well and glad to see these delicious traditions getting the attention they deserve.

Shoshana Parks

2011-12-27T19:39:00.001-05:00

A lot has been made in the US about Tanya Rosenblitt, a young Israeli who refused to sit in the back of a public bus as demanded by some Ultraorthodox men. It is a harpe un a shande, a disgrace, that the bus driver took their side and a police officer tried to placate them by attempting to convince her to comply, instead of reading them the riot act. But she stood her ground.
This is not only about women's rights, this is about the very essence of the State of Israel. Is it going to be a modern democracy with equal rights and civil laws, or a theocracy ruled by maniacs? Rosenblitt has been labeled the Israeli Rosa Parks and her sensible defiance has sparked other secular Israelis to demand a stop to the Orthodox lunacy. I don't know what has taken Israeli secular society (the majority, still) so long to fight the encroachment of insane religious dogma into daily life. The problem with religious fanatics is that they don't listen to reason. So as far as I'm concerned, they need to start listening to the law of the land, and that law has to be secular.
If they want segregated buses, they should own them privately and behave like Stone Age troglodytes all they want on their own buses and their own dime. They cannot expect to behave like that on state buses. They cannot coerce others to behave like them. They cannot continue holding Israeli society hostage with their unreasonable demands. Israel is a modern society which should be governed by secular laws. It's about time that Israel institutes civil marriage and divorce. As long as this doesn't happen, it will be still mired in the Middle Ages, all its modern achievements notwithstanding.
As for those who worry that if Israel secularizes all its laws it will cease being a Jewish state, I guess they prefer Israel to be a Stone Age theocracy rather than a modern democracy with secular laws for all. Let the religious nutcases run rampant and soon there may be no Jewish state either.
Unfortunately, Orthodox Jews do not use family planning, so they may end up calling the shots. But as long as they are not a majority, they need to respect democratic rule. Enough with their special treatment, which is an insult to those Israelis who do pay taxes, serve in the Army and contribute to the progress of the country. Enough with their parasitical abuse of the state and their contempt for their fellow citizens. I'm happy to see Tanya's stance galvanized others into a movement to ensure that Israel is defined as a modern state with equal rights and responsibilities for all its citizens.

On Christmas Day, as we waited to go to a movie in Union Square, everything was closed, but music was coming out of speakers. Turns out young Hassids were celebrating Hannukah. They were dancing to some modern sounding music in Hebrew, in what seemed to me a bit of enforced merriment. Six measly young males pretending to have more fun than what they could possibly be having. I think there was a little cluster of orthodox women standing around watching them. Because God forbid men and women should sing and dance together. This ridiculous, offensive, abusive form of segregation by the Orthodox is called, in a fit of Orwellian euphemism, tzniut; modesty. But this is not about modesty, this is about the control of women. Why do women have to be modest and not men? What does that say about women: that if they don't dress like circus tents they are what? Immodest, whores, the devil? Why do women put up with this contemptuous crap?

DSK: The Potage Thickens

2011-12-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Mr. Ex-Enchilada for sharing a very interesting article in the New York Review of Books about some new discoveries in the DSK rape case in New York. The writer, Edward Jay Epstein, brings to light some interesting facts that may hint to the theory, which many in the French Left had at the time, that DSK had been framed by Sarkozy because he was surging ahead in the polls. It is fun detective reading: DSK's Blackberry (one of many), the reason why he called the Sofitel and let them know where he was, so they would return it to him, appears to have been disabled -- not just turned off -- but its GPS capabilities disabled, at 12:51 pm, about half an hour after the alleged rape occurred. DSK was not just simply concerned about his lost phone. As head of the IMF and very important VIP person, he has lots of phones. He was greatly concerned about this one phone, which he used only for IMF business, because somebody in his staff had alerted him to the possibility that it had been hacked. Hmmm...
His accusers' inconsistencies, which are the reason the prosecution dropped the case, include her lies about having visited the adjoining room after the rape, but not before it. However, the electronic key records show that she was in that room twice but did not confess to the second time, which is why the police did not search that room and treat it as a crime scene. There's more: a room service employee was also in DSK's room at a certain point around the time of the crime but he refuses to talk to anyone. The hotel refused to tell the police who was staying in that room for privacy reasons (couldn't the police get a search warrant or something? Hmmm...). Also, a long time elapsed between Diallo's alleged rape and how long she took to disclose it, but more importantly, Sofitel management placed several suspicious phone calls and took its sweet time to finally call the police (kind of understandable, if not justifiable, since they are a French chain dealing with a very important French VIP). Diallo was allegedly raped between 12:07 and 12:15 pm and ended up at the hospital about 4 pm. There's even more: the head of security operations for the Accor hotel chain, which owns Sofitel, "had worked closely in the police with Ange Mancini, who is now coordinator for intelligence for President Sarkozy", and that very day he happened to be sharing Sarko's box at a soccer match in France. Hmmm...
There is too, a bizarre little dance of celebration between two high ranking employees of the hotel after Diallo speaks to them, and many other loose ends that hint to a web of conspiracy. What is a little befuddling is that Epstein wrote that the dance lasted 3 minutes, when as you can see above, it lasts less than 15 seconds. In any case, the little dance is explainable in a different way from "Yay! Conspiracy successful -- mission accomplished!": if it is true that since his arrival to the hotel, DSK had been hounding every female employee that crossed his path, they may have harbored some antipathy to such a guest and were happy to see him nailed. Still, such victorious joyousness aprés a rape is a bit hard to fathom from usually stone faced security staff, nes't pas?
Harder to understand, in the light of these discoveries, however, is the fact that if indeed DSK committed a violent rape, why would he be calling the scene of his crime and letting Sofitel know exactly where he was so that they could bring him his phone? Even as coddled by power as he is, if he had committed a violent rape, he'd have thunk "screw the phone and the IMF, I'm outta here!" It turns out he was preoccupied by what turned out to be a prostitution ring scandal in which he is also involved as head of the IMF, among other things. This may explain why he was so hysterical about losing that phone. But if the phone was so important to him, how come he lost it? Hmmm....
I feel an irresistible urge to write the following sentence in the voice of Inspecteur Closeau: The pheune was never recovered. Hmmm...
If you think about it, would DSK even have had lunch with his daughter before leaving for the airport? We all knew this is what he did, and many of us still thought he was such an entitled bully, he was just brazen about it. He had acted with impunity before, why not this time? I must admit, knowing this string of strange facts makes him look like indeed he had nothing to hide. There is incontrovertible evidence that sex took place, (his semen mixed with her saliva on the carpet), but as far as he was concerned, it was kosher. We will never know if it was consensual or not. There is no point on taking sides. One thing is clear: he's still disgusting.
After reading Philip Gourevitch's profile of Sarko in the New Yorker, and given the nastiness and corruption of French politics, a conspiracy, although farfetched, bizarre and unseemly, is not inconceivable. Still, this does not disprove that DSK is a gros cochon. If indeed this was a conspiracy, it was brilliant: they used his Achilles heel, his uncontrollable sexual addiction, to nail him. They made him an offer he could not refuse, and he took the bait.

Now Showing at a Theater Near You

2011-12-18T10:49:00.000-05:00

Carnage: a master class in directing by Roman Polanski.
We need to talk about We Need To Talk About Kevin.

Mexican Memes

2011-12-08T09:33:00.001-05:00

Mexicans have always been known for their sense of humor. Mexican culture is awash with jokes, puns, double entendres and what we call ingenio, which is something as funny as wit, but less dry. Yet I don't think anyone foresaw how much mileage Mexican humor was going to get out of new technologies like Photoshop, You Tube and social media, which are starting to make Mexico look like the capital of memes.

About a week after 9/11, if not sooner, I get an urgent email from my friend Pancho, with the following subject: "They found Osama Bin Laden". I open it, my heart racing, and I see a picture of Osama sitting placidly in a gondola in Xochimilco, a place where Mexican families go to have Sunday picnics on the water. To this day, it's the best thing I ever saw.
Apparently, it's the gift that keeps on giving:

Same when they couldn't find Ghadaffi:

Looks like the taquero from hell to me, even though, true to his Middle Eastern roots, he is hiding behind a spit of shwarma.
Any time a Mexican public figure makes a gigantic blunder, Mexicans and their ingenio take over cyberspace. A meme was created when newsanchor Joaquín López Dóriga attempted to interview Sir Anthony Hopkins and asked him "Juay De Rito" (Why The Rite?).
More recently, the PRI's candidate for president, a pompadoured calamity called Enrique Peña Nieto, was taken to task for not being able to answer correctly what three books have most influenced him, as he made an appearance at the International Book Fair in Guadalajara, the most important event of its kind in the Spanish-speaking world. You would think he'd brush up on his reading, given the nature of the event, but true to the caste of patronizing demagogues of his party, who are used to blathering from above and are completely unable to speak off the cuff, he was taken aback by the question and proceeded to pontificate without saying absolutely anything or remembering correctly the title of at least one book (not counting the Bible, which he said he had read parts of).
The barrage of tweets and doctored photos that invaded the net show no sign of abating.
His daughter then posted a tweet saying "a greeting to the bunch of fuckheads that are part of the prole (tariat) and who only criticize who they envy".
Now all of Mexico is claiming prolehood.
Gandhi, a chain of bookstores, famous for their clever ads, did not waste any time coming up with some funny print ads. Because their ads are easy to copy, Mexicans went to work on dozens of alternate versions:

There are pictures of Peña Nieto conferring with the actual Gandhi, with the Pope, and one of him as the swaddled baby of two of the most notoriously corrupt and sinister members of the PRI, ex-president Carlos Salinas and undying PRI fixture Elba Esther Gordillo.
Among the tweets:

"Let's read something by Martin Burger King #PeñaNietoBookstore"

"What is your favorite Benedetti? The pepperoni one, of course". #PeñaNietoBookstore"

"Three books that marked me for life: 1) Los Reebook, 2) La Notebook, y 3) El Facebook. #PeñaNietoBookstore"

There are also many hashtags for the "prole" comment.

Apparently, at the PRI's behest, which is revolting business as usual, Twitter tried to censor the PeñaNietoBookstore# hashtag after it started trending with over 60,000 tweets. There was a huge outcry and they allowed it again. One thing these lamentable politicos do not appreciate is freedom of expression. They are used to despotism, but Mexico is changing. There is no more delicious schadenfreude than to see these corrupt bozos exposed by the citizenry for the frauds they are. It may not be funny to them, but it is seriously funny for us.
Social media can change things. Hopefully this idiot will not become the President of Mexico after this.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2011-12-07T11:53:00.001-05:00

Coriolanus: A great Shakespeare adaptation by my boyfriend.
Shame: One of the best performances of the year by my other boyfriend.

Auxilio! The Mexican Dropout Rate

2011-11-28T09:30:00.000-05:00

The New York Times published an article about the appalling dropout rate of Mexican high school students in New York City, which is the worst among Mexicans in the country. The numbers are horrible:

If the article is sad and shocking, the comments section is terrifying. So many hostile comments comparing the ignorant Mexicans with the progress-driven Asians, classic comments about sending everybody back, and Americans getting "the dregs", instead, I guess, of Nobel Prize winners.
Anybody who thinks that the NYT is only read by bleeding-heart liberals is in for a rude awakening. I was so offended by the hatred and hostility of the majority of the comments, that I chimed in:

If you come from a country where poverty makes work, not education, the most significant social value, and you yourself had nothing but an elementary school education, if at all, it is hard for you to understand why education is so important. You place a much higher value on work, so that the family can survive. Unfortunately, many of the hardworking Mexican parents who come here are victims of these circumstances. If they barely had an education in their native language, how can they be expected to master two? How can they really comprehend what education means?
If Mexico better educated its people and gave them more opportunities, there wouldn't be millions of Mexicans trying to make a better life for their families in this country. But it is in the interest of the ruling Mexican elites to keep Mexicans poor and ignorant. The government has to deal with millions less people, and wages can be kept miserly, all because the majority of Mexicans can't really afford to have an education.
Don't blame the immigrants. And don't blame bilingualism. Bilingualism can be a solution if it helps Mexican parents learn English, so they can participate in the education of their children.
John, 23: these people are not the dregs. Without their hard work and cheap labor, who else would Americans like you exploit?

John is a commenter who thinks that Americans are getting the dregs (that is, Mexicans) of the cream of the crop of immigrants.
Let me add that Mexico has a free education system ranging from elementary school to a postgraduate degree, but even a free education is something that many Mexicans cannot afford.
Twenty years ago, as I started my career in Hispanic advertising in New York, our agency was commissioned to create a public service campaign to address the issue of the Hispanic dropout rate in the city. In those days it wasn't yet about Mexicans, but still more than 50% of Hispanic students did not finish high school. We created a powerful campaign (TV, subway and bus shelter posters, radio) based on the poor prospects that young Hispanics faced if they did not continue their high school studies onto college. It was meant to shock them and their parents into thinking seriously about finishing school. It never saw the light of day because of squabbling between the different well-intentioned but politically correct social agencies that were supporting it, among them the United Federation of Teachers and I don't remember which Hispanic groups. We were heartbroken. We all thought it would have made a big splash.
The numbers among other graduating Hispanics seem to have risen since then, but the Mexican immigrants to the city are relative latecomers and something must be done to shake them out of their belief that work, not studying, is the most important value they can instill in their children.
The reasons for dropping out of high school here are many, but key are: an illegal status and fear by parents of deportation plus lack of serious opportunities for illegals, and lack of education and English skills by parents, who do not participate in the education of their children simply because they can't. I have always maintained that Hispanics who come to this country need to learn English. In fact, the big Spanish TV and radio channels, which have absolutely no educational or cultural programming, could include bilingual or English literacy programs for adults, if, as they claim, they are so invested in the well-being of the community. Hispanics are not going to desert them the minute they learn English. Why wouldn't they keep enjoying their favorite programs in Spanish?
Many of the NYT's commenters have a very negative perception of bilingualism. I don't think that having Spanish media or bilingual communications in Spanish is the only thing that keeps immigrants from learning the language. It helps of course, but bilingualism is something to be desired by everyone. In the anti-immigrant hysteria currently sweeping this country, defending bilingualism has become tantamount to invoking Satan, but speaking more than one language is always an advantage to anyone, including Americans who rely on the fact that their language dominates the world, and thus can't see why it is desirable to speak something other than English.
Bilingualism is a two way street, and just as Spanish speakers are aided by communications in Spanish, by the same token they can learn English through bilingual education and immersion. What keeps Mexican parents, who are key figures in their children's educational attainment, from learning English is their inexperience with learning in general. Learning a new language is already very hard for adults, and many Mexicans are at an even bigger disadvantage because of their extremely deficient educational level, which is a national disgrace. This, unfortunately, is the perfect storm that the article speaks about. Their neglect of education needs to be changed into an appreciation of education as a value of the highest priority.
Education makes you smarter. Let's say things are so bad that you may still only find a job washing dishes: if you speak two languages and you are educated, you will rise faster than someone who doesn't. This is not a hard message to understand. A strong work ethic is a great value to have, but education provides a wider net of opportunities and a true chance at progress. Imagine: with their hardworking ethos, plus a strong value in education, there is no limit to what Mexicans (as well as anybody else) can do.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

2011-11-27T10:03:00.001-05:00

The Artist
My Week With Marilyn
A Dangerous Method

And for the masochist in you:

J. Edgar
The Skin I Live In

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-11-25T12:24:00.001-05:00

I wanna be loved by you: My Week With Marilyn.

Now Showing at a Theater Near You

2011-11-18T10:49:00.001-05:00

Here are some films you could watch this weekend:

Melancholia
Martha Marcy May Marlene
The Descendants
Into The Abyss
Le Havre

You are welcome!

This is The Last Straw

2011-11-18T09:50:00.001-05:00

Arrests, pepper spray, evicting protesters from Zuccotti Park and now they're banning the cheese and crackers from Sardi's (and the mini pretzels too!).
This has gone too far. This is a fascist state.
I've had it with Bloomberg and his obsession with hygiene. If he wants this city to be so squeaky clean, he should get rid of the mountains of rats and garbage on the streets, not the radioactive orange cheese and mini Ritz crackers from Sardi's, which, as the article points out, constitute dinner, with the olive in the martini as an appetizer, for many theatergoers. It is a much more satisfying dinner than if you order from the menu, believe me. Now you have to pay three dollars for hardened, congealed cheese?
The end of civilization.
I say let's firebomb everything!

Today on I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-11-13T19:14:00.001-05:00

It takes Clint Eastwood to make J. Edgar Hoover boring.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-11-12T18:53:00.001-05:00

My review of Into The Abyss, a Tale of Death, A Tale of Life, by Werner Herzog.

Yet one more movie which should encourage the national debate about the death penalty in the US. We are after all, the only civilized, industrialized nation that has it, to our enduring shame. We are in the company of evil, rogue, and backward regimes. Just to be in that list should make us strike it down.
It is a complicated issue. True, there are certain people one wishes they die a painful death. If someone killed someone I loved, I'm sure I would feel a burning desire for revenge, but that doesn't mean that this is what a civilized democracy in the 21st century needs to do for me. To put them away for life should be punishment enough.
It's hard to fathom how all those ghastly Republicans bitch and moan about big government, but they conveniently forget to factor in that the death penalty is the most humongous, egregious intrusion of government into the lives of citizens. All they want is to shirk their responsibilities to their fellow citizens and not pay taxes, but government is suddenly not big enough when it comes to the death penalty or to telling women what to do with their reproductive health, or to terrorize hardworking illegal immigrants, or put mostly people of color in jail and profit from it.
Hardly anything that their beloved Jesus Christ would have ever approved of.
In fact, Jesus was a victim of the death penalty. It is beyond human reason how they can reconcile his suffering and his teachings, to which the notion of revenge is anathema, to their cheering a candidate under whose watch more people get executed by the state than anywhere in the world, except perhaps for Ghadaffi's Libya, or Syria. This brand of American Christianity can only be described at bat-shit lunatic crazy, and evil. And the sane citizens of this country need to fight it with all their might, if they want to live in a free democracy.

Today on I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-11-11T10:47:00.001-05:00

Oscar winners and losers.

The Real Chamoy

2011-11-02T17:54:00.001-04:00

Every time an unsuspecting tourist lands on this fair island, we take them to eat soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai and then walk them around the tea stores, Chinese pharmacies, and weird foodstuffs purveyors of the cabinet of wonders that is Chinatown.
I like to go into candy store Aji Ichiban because they have free samples of candied and preserved fruits, which I gobble right after I've had a sumptuous Chinese meal and my gut is about to explode, like that guy's in The Meaning of Life.
So I'm there, speaking in Spanish, explaining that in Mexico we have something similar called chamoy, and the employees brighten up at the name and point me to two samples of preserved plums: the real Chinese chamoy, one version sweet, and the other sweet and salty.

Original Chinese Chamoy

I was ecstatic to confirm that indeed, there is something in China called chamoy and some enterprising Chinese person must have decided that Mexicans had to have it too. Another theory could be that Mexican tourists came by Aji Ichiban, screamed chamoy, and the employees just decided to go along. I subscribe to the first theory because I was told by the employees at Aji Ichiban that the word chamoy only describes preserved plums and no other fruit. They sounded authoritative.
Now, I love Mexican chamoy faithfully, as any true Mexican should, but I have to say that our version is chazerai* compared to the Chinese one. I'm not talking about powdered Chamoy, which I think would make Chairman Mao spin in his grave, and which Mexicans are starting to put on everything, but about the dried plums. In Mexico, the dried plums are super salty and tart, and they are actually apricots. There are red apricots in red brine that make your soul pucker, and give you instant high blood pressure, they are so salty and acid. Mexicans add chili powder to chamoy, making it sweet, salty, acid and spicy. We all know it's the best kind of junk candy there is.

Mexican powdered Chamoy, now in several artificial flavors.

Mexicans love chamoy, although our chamoy is as authentic as our Philadelphia sushi rolls with lox and cream cheese. In fact, chamoy has kind of had a renaissance, as there are chamoy stores at malls where you can have a chamoyada (shaved fruit flavored ice with chamoy), or chamoy covered popsicles, or bars where martinis, micheladas or margaritas are garnished with chamoy. The original brand was always Miguelito but now everybody and their mother has a version of chamoy. Chamoy has exploded. On Google I found images of something called a Rosca de Chamoy, like a chamoy Bundt cake. I can't even fathom what it's made with.

Google image search of chamoy.

Alas, I could not find a picture of the preserved fruit chamoys. I'm afraid they may have disappeared from the Mexican candy repertoire, which would be tragic.
The Japanese have a version of preserved plum paste called umeboshi, which is supposed to be a digestive. I love it too.
And because it is supposed to be a digestive I just gobbled an entire bag of the two Chinese chamoys as I wrote this post.

*horrible junk.

Petra's Diary

2011-11-01T13:22:00.000-04:00

Petra discovers snow.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-26T12:41:00.000-04:00

A Halloween film guide for your consideration.

Kimchi Taco Vs. Tacos El Idolo

2011-10-26T12:36:00.001-04:00

After my French class (oui, mesdames et messieurs, I continue to grapple with this sadistic language), I could not resist stopping at the Kimchee Taco truck parked on Astor Place. Just so you know, Korean tacos are pretty much the only fusion taco I'm willing to accept, except for tacos árabes, Arab tacos, which are a Mexican invention. Why Korean? Because their barbecued beef and pork work well inside a tortilla, and some of the Korean flavors overlap with the Mexican palate.
The Kimchee Taco truck offers three assorted tacos for $7. I chose BBQ beef and shredded pork. The pork filling was excellent. The beef filling was tasty but ice cold. I told as much to the nice owner guy and he chose not to believe me. The tortillas were tiny, which is okay, but what is not okay is that they were cold and stiff and tasted like corrugated cardboard. Non-Mexicans still do not understand how to serve a tortilla soft and warm. The day they do may be the day the world finally comes to an end.
Kimchi Taco serves the tacos with something they call pico de gallo which is super spicy and tangy and not bad, I surmise made with radishes and scallions. Luckily I ordered the kimchi on the side because both salsas would have completely seared my mouth and overpowered the taco itself. The problem with the Korean pico de gallo is that it also comes straight from the fridge so dudes, (and this goes for Chipotle too) please understand that you can't put frigid stuff on top of a hot taco.
I had an epiphany last night which may help explain why most gringo taco concepts will never work here: hygiene laws. If the city demands that the food be kept in the fridge until the last possible minute, you are never going to get a decent taco experience. That is the only explanation I can find for tacos being cold. This can be easily circumvented by making the fixings less vulnerable to spoiling and appropriate for room temperature. Whatever you put on top of a taco has to be room temperature, otherwise you completely ruin the taco, no matter how tasty.

I felt guilty as I passed by the Tacos El Idolo truck, which is parked right on the corner. So I ordered an agua de horchata because of the Korean lingering spiciness, and then stayed for a taco de carnitas. This taco was $2.50, but it was at least twice as big and plump and had two much better, warm slightly greased tortillas. It was dressed with chopped onions and cilantro as it should be, and was served with a slice of unfortunately dessicated lime and radish (which I find unnecessary). It was pretty tasty. If you do the math, El Idolo is a much better deal because it is much more food and more satisfying. You can't possibly have room for three such tacos, and you will only be paying 50 cents more. The tortillas are warm, so is the filling and all is good with the world.
Now that going to restaurants in New York has become an activity that only the 1% can afford, food trucks provide excellent cheap alternatives. The taco trucks make New York an even better city, if that is even possible.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-23T10:32:00.000-04:00

You are going to think I'm very cranky lately: Margin Call and The Skin I Live In.

Lost in Detention

2011-10-19T19:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was flippantly flipping TV channels when I landed on this devastating Frontline documentary about the horrible policies of the Obama administration re the deportation and incarceration of illegal immigrants in this country. This dismal state of human rights abuses is going on in this country every day, and gets reported regularly by the Spanish broadcast media in the US, but it is as if it did not exist at all on the mainstream media. It is a hidden shameful secret, sort of like the Japanese internment camps in WWII. Particularly shameful, since it is happening on the watch of Barack Obama, who should have the decency to know better.
Because of the unwillingness and the inability of Congress and this hypocritical president to enact immigration law reform, what is happening right now is sheer enforcement without legal reform; that is, a police state nightmare. The amount of human rights abuses committed against illegal immigrants has soared. The Bush administration privatized immigrant detention centers, and currently there are 250 of them, some of which are notorious for having housed hardcore criminals in the past. These centers are not under public scrutiny, nor are immigration detainees guaranteed the right to a lawyer. The documentary focuses on one specific center in Texas (hellhole of the Western world, it seems), where scores of sexual abuses of female inmates as well as beatings and racist taunts have been denounced.
A program called Secure Communities is supposed to deport criminal illegal aliens exclusively, but instead stops people because they had a broken taillight or did not signal a turn, and if they find they are undocumented, it sends them to detention centers that treat them as hard core criminals. The Obama administration has made this program mandatory in every state and it requires the cooperation of local law enforcement, which basically turns the local police force into informers for the immigration authorities. There is something about this entire exercise that seems a violation of human rights. If a cop stops you for a broken taillight, and finds you are undocumented, is that his job, to rat you out to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the cynically named ICE) so that they can detain or deport you? There are many hardworking men and women who get separated from their families in this way. If you see this movie without sound, you'd think it takes place in China or the former Soviet Union or some such totalitarian nightmare.
The Obama administration has not only ignored the promises it made to the Hispanic community about immigration reform, it has hardened its stance on illegal immigrants, surpassing the number of deportees and detainees of the Bush years. ICE needs to fill a quota of 400,000 deportees a year, so innocent people get swept into this nightmare. This may include people who entered the country legally but let their visas expire, or simply good people without papers. 46% of illegal immigrants now have families in the US, many of which are comprised of American born children. Mothers and fathers are being deported and held in detention indefinitely, never told when they are going to be deported or released. Families are destroyed, and all this is because Congress and the White House refuse to deal with this dire national policy crisis.
Now, those on the right say that illegal immigrants are criminals and are breaking the law. But as Anthony Romero of the ACLU points out, immigration enforcement is an administrative matter, not a criminal matter. Coming into a country illegally cannot be treated in the same scale as other more heinous crimes. There are degrees of malfeasance; anti-immigration hysterics have got to stop pretending that coming here illegally is tantamount to murder, rape, or other hard crimes.
And why are only the workers penalized for illegality and not the businesses who hire them and encourage them to stay? The people who give illegals jobs are also breaking the law and should also be punished. But Americans want to have their cake and eat it too. They want cheap, unregulated labor for their businesses but at the same time they want to criminalize the workers who are trying to make a living. The sheer hypocrisy is revolting.
I am disgusted with Obama for many other reasons, but this is more than a disappointment; it feels like a huge betrayal. Democrats think that liberals don't have a choice in this coming election, and are scared of a Republican victory so they are going to vote Obama whether they are disenchanted or not. This should not be the case. Hispanics, as one expert said, are not going to vote Republican, since that would continue the same inhumane policy, but they can certainly threaten to withhold their very significant vote until something gets done to correct this situation.
I will not vote for this president unless I see real change, and from what I've seen so far, this is very unlikely. So what if the Republicans win? A Republican administration could not be much worse than what we already have.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-18T11:59:00.002-04:00

A love letter to the movies, the lovely The Artist.

Vini Vidi Video: OWS @ Times Square

2011-10-18T11:27:00.000-04:00

The fearless Magnificent Arepa brandished her camera to shoot these images of Saturday's OWS protest at Times Square.
You can see how a festive and peaceful demonstration was soured and endangered by the crowd control tactics of the NYPD.

I Ain't No Revolutionary

2011-10-17T00:17:00.002-04:00

...and usually I excuse myself from protests. I have zero patience with flower children, people who do not understand the concept of being on message, and people who take the opportunity to act out their authority issues. However, I gotta say, Saturday night's crowd at Times Square in support of Occupy Wall Street was much better than that. There were people of all ages, neighborhoods, incomes.
It felt like a party until the NYPD arrived to squash the fun out of it.
Their crowd control methods, like barricading people into separate pens, so as to impede the concentration to be unified in one large mass, is really frustrating, and since Americans are the best behaved crowds in the world, and New Yorkers so far the paragon of a smart crowd, the police's shtick is redundant, unnecessary and particularly offensive when the crowd exhibits stellar behavior.
The crowd was demonstrating happily and peacefully until a completely over the top show of macho force arrived in the shape of police in motorcycles, followed by officers brandishing the infamous orange netting, mounted police and even riot police. This was an overreaction, given the fact that the crowd was as chill as it is humanly possible to be as a crowd. I was right at the barricade in front of a line of police officers. Most of them were cool and restrained. One asshole policeman, a senior guy, pushed a protester quite violently for no apparent reason and everybody started screaming at him.

Absolutely everybody had some sort of camera, which made the histrionic and absurd police charade of videotaping the crowd, this pantomime of intimidation, seem even more ridiculous. I thought, if they videotape me, I'll blow them a kiss. The police pantomime is pure pageantry: at one point the officers deployed the white plastic handcuffs, in a sort of silent threat to the crowd. But every time I turned back to look at the crowd behind me, all I saw were the kind of people, like me, who could not get arrested if their life depended on it. Nobody was doing anything to provoke any sort of police response, except for a drunk, lice-infested Belgian hooliganette I kept wishing the police would arrest, beat the crap out of and send to some CIA prison abroad for more of the same.

What's with the police videotaping the protesters and the forbidding of megaphones or amplification? This last one has spawned that chanting method where the crowd repeats what someone says in lieu of amplification, that everyone but me seems to be enamored of. I find it corny and too self-ingratiating, even if it is effective. I guess I just really hate crowds. Luckily, I was standing on the west side of the plaza, where there was more space and we didn't feel so penned in. But the people across us who wanted to join us, had to deal with horses and police pushing the barricades and quite a bit of unpleasantness. If the police would allow the crowd to spill over Times Square instead of forcing it on the sidewalks, there would have been no tension. After about 15 minutes of the mood souring very fast, somehow the tension subsided. I assume the police wisely decided to push back their ball breaking tactics. I tell you, had this happened in a more hot blooded, less orderly country, there would have been severe abuses on both sides. Americans are way too well behaved, and the police, assholes that they are, could actually be much worse. I read that in Rome, where there were violent riots, there were 20 arrests. In NYC yesterday, between Times Square and Washington Square Park, where there was no real violence whatsoever, according to the New York Times, "at least 88 people were arrested". A bit too much, the NYPD, creating drama where there's no need for it.
It was very cool to see how many people showed up to support the OWS movement and the ideas behind it. And it was particularly cool that it happened in Times Square, a much more dramatically symbolic place than puny Zuccotti Park. Even though I understand the symbolism of camping out at Zuccotti Park, that place is too small and too insignificant, even if it is across the street from Wall Street. There is something about the camping that may quickly create public opinion fatigue, but if the movement can somehow continue to bring the support of a lot more people, as it did on Saturday, willing to concentrate in different significant public spaces; for instance, Battery Park, across the river from the Statue of Liberty; Central Park, where it is possible to bring together a lot of people, and in front of the White House in Washington, it may grow and resonate more. I'm not advocating that people go camp on Times Square, but that space was truly powerful, it was spectacular and dramatic, for the visual ironies were rich: below was a sea of flesh and blood protesters, and above them all the blazing neon logos of the American corporations who effectively rule this country.
In the end, protests are for nothing if there is no effective public pressure to really effect concrete change. The grievances of OWS are pretty clear: pursue accountability for those responsible for the financial debacle, bring back the Glass-Steagall Act, tax the rich more fairly, abolish the corporations are people law, reform campaign finance laws. All of these are rational and doable. There should be at least a third party or independent candidate, the American people should fire every sitting member of Congress regardless of party affiliation, and this popular discontent should leave the realm of the quaint sloganeering and somehow coalesce into concrete results in realpolitik. If you know how to do that, you may want to be the leader of this movement.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-16T01:42:00.003-04:00

Martha Marcy May Marlene: creepiest movie of the year.

Today on I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-11T13:58:00.004-04:00

Shame: another great collaboration between Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender.

Today on I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-09T21:15:00.001-04:00

Too much of the quiet Beatle, Mortensen and Fassbender are Freud and Jung, and Lars Von Trier's astonishing Melancholia.

The Apple of my Eye

2011-10-06T00:28:00.001-04:00

I am more sad about Steve Jobs than I expected to be.
Maybe it's because I'm writing this on a Mac; I text, tweet, read email and send photos from an iPhone, I listen to new and old music on an iPod, and I'm pondering whether I should buy an iPad.
I have always been a devoted Apple fan, the kind who doesn't understand why anyone would want to use anything else, even despite the high prices and the planned obsolescence. At one point I had to buy a laptop just so I could upgrade my iPod, but you know what? I was happy to do it. How many companies can boast of having so many people in love with their products? Every Apple device that I own makes my life easier and more creative and is a thing of beauty.
I am sad to learn that Steve Jobs was only 56, so very young, and so ill for a long time. But it feels good to see that the world deeply mourns an innovator.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-05T11:42:00.002-04:00

A great Italian film, Corpo Celeste, and two underwhelming ones.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-03T13:49:00.004-04:00

An absolute must see: A Separation.

Today on I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-10-03T11:01:00.000-04:00

Dear readers, it's that time of year again when yours truly willingly enters a movie marathon (20 movies in 15 days and one talk with Alexander Payne) with the hopes of finding awesome movies worth talking about. You can find the reviews of most of those 20 movies at the New York Film Festival in my film blog I've Had It With Hollywood.

Here's my review of Miss Bala, Mexico's official entry to the Academy Awards.

Happy New Year

2011-09-28T11:18:00.000-04:00

Sunrise

May this New Year 5772 be a year where people become smarter, common sense reigns, people renounce violence, we edge closer to social justice, war ends, evil bankers are prosecuted, the middle class thrives, poverty shrinks, government works, the rich are taxed, our politicians lose the stupid and craven gene, corporations stop being people, all the nasties in the Supreme Court magically retire while all the liberals stay, drugs are legalized, the mayhem in the Middle East is finally put to rest, hatred calls it a day, Republicans implode, Obama grows a pair, reality shows collapse, global warming chills, people find jobs, capital punishment is barred in the US, street fairs are banned, and I get a date with Michael Fassbender.
Not asking for much, are we?

Eat a lot of apples and honey just in case. It can't hurt.

Petra's Diary

2011-09-26T11:56:00.000-04:00

Busy, busy, busy.

Occupy Wall St.

2011-09-26T11:51:00.000-04:00

I am not participating in the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations because I don't like crowds and cheesy slogans. But they have provided me with an opportunity to express my revulsion with the New York Police Department's crowd control tactics, which are excessive and totally unnecessary, as these protesters are generally a model of good behavior. No one is throwing molotov cocktails, rocks or creating mayhem, but for the NYPD, spilling off the sidewalks is the only pretext it needs to overpower the protesters by netting them into pens, which is quite humiliating, confining them to the sidewalks, which is immensely frustrating, arresting people for resisting arrest, and even spraying them with mace, which is ridiculous. It's almost as if the police is egging on the protesters into getting violent.
Last I heard, the nature and purpose of a demonstration is precisely for people to spill out into the streets. What the hell is the purpose of hundreds of people coming together if they are going to be relegated to the sidewalks? It's a protest, not shopping day after Thanksgiving.
Before I knew any better, I participated in a couple of the protests against the Iraq war and in the first one, the NYPD prevented the swelling crowds from reaching the meeting point, did not allow the demonstrators to march and congregate in front of the UN and used mounted police to disperse the crowd, which was mostly comprised of perfectly peaceful students, families with children, old pinko hippies, and the occasional Trotskyite.
Even their crowd control on innocuous parades like the Halloween or the Gay Pride parade is reminiscent of a police state.
These current protests are disheartening because they seem to have no impact. The media barely covers them, people like me and many others can't be bothered to attend, and nobody understands the message they are sending, since it tends to be diluted by cute slogans and obnoxious chants but no discernible focus, like "tax the rich".
In the end it's a lot of progressive young people plus the old pinko hippies and the occassional Trotskyite, taking the mantle for a battered middle class and the jobless who should be out in force, but perhaps are too busy making ends meet and looking for employment. If there was someone charismatic and righteous at the helm, like a Martin Luther King, who could galvanize people to mobilize, it would be a different story.
This video sadly sums up the reality of the situation.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-09-20T14:08:00.004-04:00

Achooo!

My Response To Reed Hastings of Netflix

2011-09-19T12:07:00.003-04:00

He wrote me a letter, so I wrote him back:

Hi Reed!

I was one of those customers who did not care about the increase. I thought it was understandable. Having both streaming and delivery for the same price was too good to be true.

You may have made mistakes in the way you communicated the increase to your consumers, but that is nothing compared to the branding and marketing mistake you are making now.

I'm sure you will find that your letter, far from appeasing your customer base, is going to have the opposite effect.

The name Netflix is such a powerful, unique brand that it has become a verb. But besides misadventures in marketing, which customers care absolutely nothing for, (all we want is quality, convenience and value), why would your customers who would like to enjoy both services want have to deal with two separate sites, under two different names? The refusal to integrate both services under the Netflix brand is incomprehensible to us run of the mill humans; only marketing mutants can understand such absurd decisions. Why would we want to have two separate charges in our monthly credit card bill? As if people don't have enough saturation on the internet already. Why not leave both under the Netflix name and figure out a way to bill customers without inconveniencing us? Nobody needs yet another brand in this world.

I was one of the first users of Netflix and I evangelized about it to anyone who would listen. It pains me to deal with these issues after so many years of being a very happy customer.

Sincerely,

The Grande Enchilada.

Today on I've Had it With Hollywood

2011-09-17T12:31:00.001-04:00

Drive, a flummoxing movie with Ryan Gosling.

Pobre México...

2011-09-15T12:39:00.001-04:00

Poor Mexico: so far from God, so close to the United States.
Porfirio Díaz.

If he only knew how prescient his words would become...
Today is Mexico's birthday and the country is in a drug violence-infested funk. I heard that people were trying to organize a boycott of the traditional festivities at the Zócalo, as if Mexicans are going to obey an injunction not to party. It's a meaningful gesture, but I doubt it's going to work. The people who go to the Zócalo tend to be the ones with less reason to celebrate. It's not Carlos Slim and his family, it's the eternally penurious working-class Mexican who is super proud of his country even if it keeps him forever relegated to the dumps.
Believe me, today I'd like to say Viva Mexico! as much as anybody. But it rings bitter and hollow when my sister tells me that a corpse appeared hanging from a bridge in her neighborhood and two more have been found in the trés chic Santa Fe business district; meaning, nothing is sacred any more.
It really hurts to hear about decapitated heads bobbing about in the sandy beaches of Acapulco. Or of the horrifying arson in a casino in Monterrey. This kind of histrionic, revolting violence is gross and depraved and I wonder about Mexican children and their fragile little psyches. How do parents deal with this, I don't know.
I remember the time when we Mexicans used to look at Colombia and feel superior to it. We were convinced no such thing would ever happen to our country and it was okay with us if our drug dealers just wanted to do business outside our borders. They were not that interested in the local market, or so we thought. Oh, well.
Mexico has much to be proud of, but what it has to be ashamed of ends up strangling all the progress, the achievements, the painfully slow road to prosperity. It makes us look like a backwater, instead of the phenomenal country we are.
We can blame the gringos all we want about their insatiable appetite for drugs, their hypocritical puritanism, and their firearms export business, but it is Mexico who does not have a legal and judicial system that belongs in the modern era. Corruption is the oil that greases the wheels of society, and as long as these two things remain, we cannot expect the war against drugs to be won. I'm sure I am not the only one who thinks this war would be better waged non-violently instead of in a who is más macho contest. The way to cripple the cartels is cybernetic: by freezing assets, hacking internet accounts, disrupting communications, using intelligence and arresting everybody and their mother, including those in the high reaches of power who are abetting the cartels (that will be the day). Because Mexican jails and the legal system are not to be trusted, I propose that every drug dealer arrested, from the biggest capo to the pettiest ones, be extradited to be tried, sentenced and put away in the US. I don't believe in capital punishment, but for these savages I think it is warranted. Send them all to Rick Perry in Texas. And let the U.S. foot the bill.
Mexico should eventually get fed up of fighting this costly proxy war for the United States, and what do we get in return? Ni las gracias. Not even a thank you note. Compared to the billions of dollars other countries get, Pakistan for instance, who seems to spend it all in aiding and abetting Islamic fundamentalists, Mexico, the next door neighbor, gets bubkes from the US. This is a stupid policy, and it's Mexico that is paying for it with flowing rivers of blood.
So this Mexican Independence Day I hope that the violence abates, that laws are reformed, and that the country heals.

And by the way, while we are at it, let's scuttle stupid Cinco de Mayo in the US, an American marketing ploy, which to add insult to injury is not even the right Mexican holiday, and from now on celebrate September 15 as the real Mexican fiesta.

(¡Viva México!)

Today in I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-09-13T12:36:00.002-04:00

Theater of the absurd: The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaucescu.

Más Respeto, Por Favor.

2011-09-12T11:31:00.003-04:00

The new, astonishing figures for the Hispanic population in the US:

I find this very interesting. There are almost 32 million Mexicans in the US. The next large group is Puerto Ricans, with almost 5 million people, and the next, Cubans, with almost 2 million. Although Mexicans are six times as many as the next big group, for some reason they seem to be under served and under represented. Other groups, like the Cubans in Miami, make much more noise and seem to have far more political clout, even though they are actually less relevant. Here in the East Coast, Mexicans are almost invisible. We see them cooking and delivering our food, but otherwise, they don't make a political racket. They barely have political representation. My guess is that recent arrivals come from poverty and are severely undereducated. They are concerned about surviving, sending money to their families, and they are not used to having a political voice. They have been abandoned by their own government at home and they are not about to trust the one here. I hope that with new generations of Mexican kids born in America this will change. I'm hoping that they will integrate better and get to be Supreme Court judges, mayors, presidents of this country. They need to get out of the ghetto. And for this, they all need to learn English.
When I arrived in New York in 1992, the Hispanic advertising business in the East Coast was run by people from Cuban or Puerto Rican origin. There were a only a handful of Mexicans working in this industry and being Mexican turned out to be a huge asset for my career. I always resented, and still do, that every time I wrote copy, someone would ask if a person who wasn't Mexican would understand it. Not that I was writing Mexican slang, but once in a while, a legitimate Spanish word that was perfectly commonplace in Mexico would jump out at people. Some thought that Mexicans were too uneducated to understand perfectly commonplace words (there was a lot of ignorant prejudice from some quarters and there still is. Some people like to feel superior to Mexicans, because of race, economic status and education levels). In my mind, I was writing for the majority even then, and the majority rules. I still feel the same way. If the communication is national, it should speak to the majority. If it is regional; that is, if it's only going to air in Miami, then do it in Cuban and let the minority get used to it. Native speakers, whatever their country of origin, are deeply sensitive to regional accents. So in Miami they are used to Cuban, as in the Southwest and California they are used to Mexican, and here in the East Coast, to the Spanish spoken in the Caribbean islands. I believe that there is a neutral Spanish accent that is perfectly fine, and this is the neutral Mexican accent, which pronounces all the consonants, and which, without the melody, is as neutral as the Colombian accent from Bogotá, without the singsong. And whoever doesn't like this, should take a look at the numbers above and zip it.
One of the problems I have with the "Hispanic" market, is that because we strive to include everybody, the Spanish language that we use in mass communications has become impoverished. It is hard to write ads with humor, not because it is impossible, but because someone will always question whether the others will understand it. Advertising and marketing categorize people into targets until it dehumanizes them, as if people from different national origins are inscrutable aliens from a different galaxy that have no connection either to one another or to the rest of humanity. This results in people looking at every word in a sentence as if it was devoid of context. As if the way we speak is by understanding every single word in a sentence separately, without connection to what precedes it or what follows. In short, common sense leaves the building.
Let me give an example: popular idioms and expressions enrich communication. They are part of our culture. So if I want to use an expression like "sale más caro el caldo que las albóndigas", "the broth ends up costing more than the meatballs", which means something similar to "pound wise and penny foolish", everybody understands the gist of it, but it will have to go through a gauntlet of people who will admit they understand it, and even like it, but they are afraid that someone from the Dominican Republic might not. You can rest assured that it will never go on air. This is, among other reasons, why you can barely find good commercials in Spanish in the US.
The Spanish now used in mass communications in the US is for the most part an insipid, generic language that has no personality, no bite, no irony. Often times, it is sloppy and grammatically incorrect, or it is a lazy, literal translation of English idioms. As I was trapped in Cancún by hurricane Irene, I was watching the coverage on CNN en Español. I was appalled at the poverty of the Spanish of the newscasters and reporters. They sounded like nothing recognizable because for the most part they were speaking in some sort of awkward, literal Spanish translation of English; whenever they didn't know a word in Spanish, which was very often, they just said it in English. I cannot understand how a network with the resources of CNN can't hire good journalists, reporters and anchors who are native speakers of Spanish, and are fully bilingual and know the structural differences between the two languages. They can't be that hard to find.
The problem is bigger than advertising. Since this is not a Hispanic country, we don't have a solid literary and verbal culture. Our Spanish is poor. Children at school do not learn poems, songs, expressions, games, and literature in Spanish. We don't have good Hispanic-American literary writers who write in Spanish. We barely have a handful of good Hispanic-American writers who write in English. Our TV channels are a disgrace in terms of content. There is no cultural content. Newspapers and magazines leave much to be desired. And advertising, which in its best form should contribute to pop culture, is for the most part lame, artificial, generic and it belongs to no one. By trying to include everyone, it really speaks to no one.
So I have two points to make:
1. Our Spanish sucks, and we should do something to improve it. Making it generic makes it poorer.
2. Because there are almost six times as many Mexicans as any other Latins in this country, Mexican-influenced Spanish should be the language used to speak to the majority of Hispanics in the US.*

*By the way, if there was a Spanish-speaking majority from another country, I would stand by this, as much as it may pain me. It's only fair.

The Aftermath of Disaster

2011-09-11T07:55:00.006-04:00

This was published in Spanish by Reforma exactly one year after the attacks.

After the initial shock, apparently I went back to my normal, ornery self:

Tuesday,September 11. Night.

South of 14^th Street, theisland is cordoned off. Nobody can go below 14^th Street unless they showproof of residence in the area or are joining the rescue mission. Phones don’t workvery well. I have less trouble calling my family in Mexico than making a local call.I feel relatively quiet, but I know my emotional distance comes from someautomatic defense mechanism and not from my own volition.

The silence on the street is total,except for the sound of police sirens, helicopters and fire trucks, which is rather sparse given the magnitude of the disaster. I get international callsfrom some concerned friends. They know I live nearby. I watch TV and haveinternet on at the same time. On TV they regurgitate the horrible images of theexplosions and collapses over and over, ad nauseam.

I have never heard such silence in myblock, a spot full of usually crowded bars. A city in which people go out to eat, todrink, to dance seven days a week, has been completely silenced. A permanent humscares sleep away. I don’t understand where it comes from. I open the windowsto better listen to it. The smell of burnt rubber invades my apartment. I realizethat what I’m hearing is the labored breathing of the buildings.

Wednesday,September 12.

Today it smells worse. Giuliani has saidthat we should stay at home and we obey him. Giuliani, resented by many in thisliberal city because of his abrasive personality and his puritanical andpaternalist tendencies, behaves compassionately, intelligently and prudently, andhe inspires trust. I have been cooped up at home all day. Thephone rings every 15 minutes. Friends from all over the world call to comfortthemselves that we are fine. Their calls make more bearable the loneliness andterror that have settled in the pit of my stomach. My intuition is that theyare just as scared of the new world disorder that threatens to engulf us all. Thecalls are of mutual support. My friend Delia writes that her youngdaughter dreams at night of people jumping out of windows.

Between the acrid ashes and the mediacoverage, I’m disgusted. I decide to go outside and sniff around. Kids playunder the cloud of dust and ash, followed closely by their parents. Some bars,restaurants and cafes are open. I see clusters of people standing on thecorners that look south. I don’t understand what they are looking at. Peoplewander around aimlessly from one corner to the next, shooting pictures andvideos.

In this town of screamers, few peopletalk. At the corner of Houston and Sixth Ave, next to the fire station, a crowdgathers. People cheer every time rescuers or ash-covered firefighters go by. A young woman scrutinizesa lamppost and I decide she is crazy until I focus my eyes on the post and seethe flyers with the pictures and names of the missing and the desperatemessages imploring for news of their whereabouts.

I cry because these bastards have paralyzedmy unstoppable city. But not completely. On the opposite corner, two Italianrestaurants have opened their doors and the beautiful people eat pasta anddrink wine au plein air, air rife with traces of asbestos, pulverized concrete and what in my view havegot to be the human ashes of at least five thousand souls. However, I’m notsurprised. I always knew that New Yorkers would never relinquish theirinalienable right to go out for dinner, regardless of whatever catastrophe thefuture may bring. With this logic, I tell my husband, who is safe and sound inPanama, that this is the best week to make reservations at the hottest New Yorkrestaurants. But who has the appetite?
Since there is no traffic south of 14^thSt., some people make their dreams come true and glide through the empty streets on theirrollerblades and bicycles.

Something never before seen: people lookyou in the eye as they pass you by. Men see me walking alone and look like theyare ready to comfort me (and look like they are ready to be comforted back). The way things are, itseems that this week all the single girls may find a beau.

A guy gives me a small comic book. Thedoodles are very modern, but the content turns out to be an exhortation toreturn to the lap of our lord Jesus Christ, sponsored by one of those sectsthere’s no shortage of in this country, of loony evangelicals who are way too eager for the end of the world.Of course, they could not take long to materialize. How did they get to New York isbeyond me, Greenwich Village even more so. Or were they already here?

At night there is thunder and lightningand military planes zoom by. I’m not scared. I have the air conditioner on toavoid hearing the silence.

Thursday,September 13.

North of 14^th Street,Manhattan seems perfectly normal, except taxis refrain from honking theirinsane horns. In the advertising agency I work at, I learn that one of ourcolleagues has lost his niece. My eyes tear up with indignation constantly.

Some of our clients have asked us to takea look at our commercials currently on air to make sure they don’t say thingslike “ A delicious explosion of flavor” or “A bomb of refreshment”. We make jokesin bad taste: “The Osama of sodas”, “A Jihad of nutrition for your family”.

Bush has declared that we all should goout at noon and pray at the worship place of our choice, which seems to me thestupidest idea that can occur to the president of a country in crisis, in acity which may still harbor extremists strapped with explosives. Besides, asan agnostic, I feel frankly discriminated against. In fact, I feel very alone inmy distaste for these government-sponsored paroxisms of spirituality.

To judge from the tone that the mediahere have adopted, from now on we will be exposed to an indiscriminate barrageof sentimentalism and cheap patriotism. I have already started getting despicable chain letters with feelings of unity, prayer and revenge. The news areno longer news. They are lachrymose testimonies of the poor people who are desperately looking fortheir dead ones. I wonder what they are saying in the Middle East. What doesSaddam think, for instance, what has Muammar declared, what’s the story inKabul. If I watch the local news, I’m never going to find out. Here they areshowing a paramedic that found a doll amid the rubble (there’s always one) andhe intends to erect a monument with it if no one claims it.

The cloud of acrid dust has spread beyond14^th street. I search for mouth masks at the drugstores. They areall out.

Bush, who since the incident, has the mien of a kid lost in the supermarket, uses an inflammatory and reductive rhetoric that seems taken straight out of aHollywood action flick. We’re gonna smokethem, he says, Wanted, dead or alive. I haven’t the slightest doubt thatthis helps incite the incidents of harassment against members of the Arab-American community, and what is worse, against anybody who wears a beard and/ora turban. An idiot screams at the owner of a falafel joint nearby, “you makemoney here, but this is my country”, followed by a string of invective. Eventhough there are four Arabs and one aggressor, they remain silent. Standing halfa block away, I can feel their fear. I don’t dare intervene.

Between testimonies, I read in the CNNnews ticker the following item: an Islamic extremist in a German jail calledthe American authorities and warned them that there would be an attack on theWTC. Nobody talks about that. Nobody talks about the fact that Osama wastrained by the CIA and that the Taliban is the result of Americanintervention in Afghan affairs. Nobody mentions these details, except someliberal friends that send me emails with such information. But, like SeamusMilne of The Guardian said, Americans react as if this instance of terror is asheer impulse of evil that came out of nowhere, random andincomprehensible. They can't conceive that they may have done something toprovoke it. They don’t know how much and why they are hated. It’s true.Information exists in this country and it is available to anybody, but few areinterested. In general, the lack of American curiosity about the world isalarming.

Union Square has become a spontaneous meeting ground to writethoughts, leave votive candles, hang pictures, play the congas. A group of youngpeople sing and dance GivePeace A Chance, a song I’ve always found intolerably kitschy. A vigil has been organized at 7 pm. People are asked to light acandle in memory of the victims. A big crowd has gathered.A couple appears dressed as the Twin Towers. They are on stilts, dressed inblack velvet leggings covered with shards of mirrors. They dance among thepeople, who are taking pictures. Why do these expressions of solidarity disgustme so much? Because they are vulgar, childish and innocent. Everything becomesa circus. I go to a movie and spend the entire screening thinking that an extremistis going to blow us all to pieces.

Friday,September 14.

A regular day. North of 14th St. it lookslike nothing ever happened. Taxis blare and create jams, people eat inrestaurants. New York, as usual.

Saturday,September 15.

A friend who was upstate atthe time of the catastrophe wants me to go with him to Canal St., which is now theborder of the city. He wants to see something concrete. The only concretething to see are hordes of people with little American flags and tourists. People aresnapping up postcards with pictures of the towers. The only concrete thing thereis to see is a smoking crater at the end of the city’s canyons.

We have lunch at a restaurant where weare treated as if we had descended straight from heaven. Every two minutes theyask us if the food is to our liking. In fact, it is excellent. It is the firstdecent meal I’ve had since Tuesday. I feel it has been prepared with an intensedesire to forget everything and come back to our banal normalcy. It tastes like glory.

A group of friends and I go to themovies. We need to get out of this funk. We pick Barbet Schroeder's Our Lady of The Assassins, based on the book by Fernando Vallejo. The film is in Spanish,which is delicious. And it turns out to have plenty of resonance. It’s about adifferent kind of terror (drug violence in Colombia), but it is hilarious, blasphemous, violent, and we enjoyit. A lot of its dark humor escapes the small audience. One ofus says that when you live with the social injustice that causes this kindof savagery, you have a much more refined sense of irony. A phrase in the filmis burnished in my mind. I paraphrase:

“But child, don't you know that thedifference between thought and action is civilization?"

My friends go home but I don't want to goto sleep. I go back to Union Square. The candles and the congas are stillthere. There’s a group of pale bearded guys and skeletal women with long skirtsthat sing songs only they know. Another sect. There are hundreds, maybethousands of lit votive candles, bouquets of flowers, poems, exhortationsfor moderation, prudence and sanity. The catch phrase of the day is "An eye for an eye and weall go blind". People, respectful, are silent.

I find a Mexican flag. Someone haswritten on it 500 mexican ilegals (sic)unnamed. I find it an exaggerated number, but I don't doubt it. They arethe kitchen helpers, the pizza delivery guys, the bathroom cleaners. I have notseen photocopies of their portraits, nor their names, or faces or tearyrelatives on TV.

I can’t say I’m praying for them and their families, but mymind finally becomes silent.

In the Apocalyptic City

2011-09-11T07:49:00.004-04:00

I wrote this text in Spanish on September 11, 2001. It was published in Reforma on September of that year.

I have lived, for almost 10 years, about 20 blocks north of the Twin Towers. If you take my street and walk south, you arrive directly at their doors. Today, Tuesday, September 11, a splendid day, I left my house at 8:35 am, earlier than usual. I walked, as I do every day, on the east side of Washington Square Park. Suddenly, something made me look up. I saw the belly of a plane flying among the buildings, right above me. I was alarmed at how low it was flying. It was a commercial passenger airplane. I could clearly see the details on the fuselage. I feared it was going to crash against the thirty-story building I live in. It seemed to be heading straight towards it. I saw it tilt and correct course and I thought it probably had a mechanical failure and it would never make it to La Guardia or Newark, the nearest airports.

I had a feeling something was very wrong.

I felt like making sure nothing had happened to my building, so I turned around and started walking towards it. To judge from the oblivious people on the street, I decided I was paranoid. No more than two minutes later, I heard a loud metallic noise. My heart skipped a beat when I saw people looking up and south. I approached the growing crowd and saw that the plane had caved a giant hole in the upper floors of one of the towers. People on the street were talking frantically on cell phones and on public phones and we were all asking each other what had happened, who had seen it happen. I decided to go home, because the Polish lady who cleans my house speaks almost no English, and I wanted to make sure she was fine. She hadn’t even noticed.

I decided to walk back to work. As all of us on the street gaped in amazement at the burning tower, an enormous ball of fire bloomed and exploded on the side of the second tower. At first we thought it had been caused by the fire on the first tower. Someone, with a cell phone on one hand and a Walkman radio on the other, said it was a second plane that crashed against the second tower. Up until then I assumed it had all been an accident, but now the possibility that it had been a terrorist act made me nauseous. I felt terror.

I don’t know why I went to my office. Perhaps to get as far as I could from there. People were clustering on the streets that had a view towards the World Trade Center. There were no screams nor panic, just incredulity, anxiety and a certain citizen solidarity. Some people turned on their car radios at full volume so we could all hear the news. People who probably don’t look at each other at the subway: office workers, homeless people, Blacks, whites, were sharing rumors and impressions. It was like being in a Godzilla or Hollywood disaster movie, with particularly spectacular special effects.

I stopped to greet my friendly Bangladeshi fruit vendor. He reminds me of the market vendors in Mexico because he always gives me a piece of fruit to taste. He told me he had seen the plane crash against the tower with his own eyes. He was devastated next to his fruit cart.

At the office, many of my colleagues were at the cubicle next to mine, which had a view of the conflagration. Everyone was somber and scared, although someone joked that “they” had made a mistake, the attack should have been meant for our building. Rumors were flying: a fire in the Pentagon, other hijacked planes, people are jumping out the windows of the towers. Then I heard my colleagues scream, and in a matter of seconds, only one tower was standing. Thick clouds of gray ash rose with a magnitude similar only to scenes of bombardments at war. To see only one Twin Tower in the New York skyline is almost like seeing someone lose a limb in front of you. An amputated city. More radio reports: closed airports, closed subways, closed bridges; the island, incommunicado. My stomach ached. From the bathroom I heard people running. When I came out, there were no more Twin Towers. Only a giant crater, from which rose monstrous clouds of ash and thick black smoke.

The accuracy of the destruction and its sadistic progression were unreal. Like people don’t tire of repeating, it was a situation comparable, at least visually, to the moronic, improbable things that happen in action movies. My friends conjectured even worse scenarios: panic on the streets, bombs in the tunnels that connect the island, biological warfare. But the great majority tried to articulate their shock and find a coherent motivation to explain an evil of such magnitude.

We were sent home. Most people who work in Manhattan, come from outside the island: Brooklyn, or Queens, or New Jersey. Many were stranded in their offices or on the streets. Others crossed some of the bridges that were open only for pedestrians. From Brooklyn, my boss told me that his neighborhood was covered in ash and scraps of printing paper.

Walking back home, I had never seen so many people on the streets of New York. From the tip of the island masses of people advanced north. I was struck by the silence. By the absence of cars. The absence of horns, engines, the daily insults that make this one of the world’s noisiest cities. I went by an ATM and I was the only one there. The machines worked and they were loaded with money. I was comforted by the citizens’ absolute lack of hysteria. Supermarkets and delis were full of people, but they were calmly buying their lunch or groceries. I stopped by my Bangladeshi pal. People were buying fruit from him. I bought figs, strawberries and bananas. He gave me a discount and a free plum. The only thing he said to me was: “War”.

I refused to participate in the massive consumption of groceries, until a friend insisted I should at least buy bottled water, cans of food and candles. At the supermarket there was no bottled water or powdered milk left, but there was plenty of everything else. People whispered, as if we were ashamed of being alive and shopping. A guy used the opportunity to buy four tubs of ice cream. I also thought that the apocalypse is a good pretext to stuff yourself on potato chips, which is what I felt like doing, although I restrained myself and only bought water, basic staples and a ridiculous packet of instant ramen.

It’s now 6 pm, and the streets belong to the pedestrians and to the trucks and cranes at the ready to clean up the extensive wreckage. Some people use the unheard of circumstances to live their fantasy: they glide on their rollerblades or bicycles on the empty streets. Others take pictures and videos for posterity. Below my apartment, kids play ball just like in any other Summer afternoon, and the coffee shop in the corner is open. Some minutes ago, people on the corner watched one more building of the WTC complex collapse.

Like Mayor Giuliani’s, the common sense of New Yorkers greatly moved me. This is the capital of the world. Not because it hosts Wall Street or because it concentrates some of the most important multinational corporations, but because of the people who live and work here. We come from every corner of the globe, we speak every language, we come in every color and have every religious belief. This magnificent city has adopted us all. To attack New York is not to attack the United States, it is to attack the entire world.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-09-07T11:09:00.000-04:00

It's not the Zohan; it's The Debt.

Mexican Shakedown

2011-09-02T14:36:00.000-04:00

I've been living for almost 20 years in the US, so my innate skills at detecting corrupt Mexican bullshit tend to lie dormant way under the surface, because I don't need them here. However, when the occasion arises, I have no choice but to retrieve them from a remote and cobwebbed recess of my brain and dust them off as best I can. I am sad to report that said skills are currently rather rusty, which is why I had to part with $50 USD as we alit in Cancún's airport for a week of fun in the sun with my dog Petra. We had all her papers, but there was a little glitch and it is in those little glitches, where the seasoned bureaucrats can rear their ugly, yet unfailingly polite heads. The politeness is a major improvement. At least nowadays you get shaken down with graciousness. In the olden days, the humiliation was double. You were ripped off and treated like shit. Now you are ripped off and treated like a dignitary. I guess these are the great results the government boasts about in their fight against bureaucratic corruption. They call it, in a brilliantly cynical euphemism, "administrative transparency". But more about the opacity of the Mexican way with words, let alone the law, later.
In this case, we were partially to blame. Had our papers been 100% pristine, the custom agents would not have seized the opportunity. We had one document that was not signed and sealed by the veterinarian that is authorized by the USDA, because she was on vacation. But the other vet provided a second certificate, just in case. I could have understood if they demanded the seal by the USDA-approved doctor or else. But that was not the reason why Petra was detained at the airport. The other document was to blame, because of how it was written. I had taken it upon myself to faithfully translate it into Spanish (knowing a translation would be requested). But according to our gracious hostess, the language was "vague". Although the document stated that the dog was currently free of infections, fleas etc, it did not unequivocally state that she had been treated for such. I found it so rich that a Mexican complained of ambiguity in the language, I thought I was going to get a crise de foie.
What followed was the richly absurd, Twilight Zone-grade pantomime that always happens in Mexican bureaucratic shakedowns. We parsed the text like Talmudic scholars, to no avail. In Mexico, the law, as august as it is invoked when it is convenient for those on the other side of the desk, is amazingly limber and can be stretched in the interest of a happy ending for everyone involved. It only needs a little grease, which nowadays, thanks to "administrative transparency", needs to be coaxed with utmost delicacy, like a gourmand gingerly prying the tasty meat of an escargot from its conch. This is the law: A vet needs to come to the airport, examine the dog and certify she is healthy. This of course, could take six hours. But the always helpful Mexican bureaucrat intimates discreetly, through verbal pyrotechnics so Churrigueresque, it makes you think you lost your head at the luggage carrousel, that there is a vet that charges about $80 USD and can be there in 15 minutes and one that charges $50 and can be there within an hour. They insist that they are NOT ALLOWED BY LAW to recommend us to use this guy, and they provide us with the yellow pages in case we want to search for our own. We say that we are not paying $80 even if Dr. Doolittle himself shows up. So we settle for the $50 vet. Sure enough, the doctor arrives within the hour, a flaming queen with a bad rug (is there any other kind in Mexico?) carrying a little kit that makes him look official. He has already filled out the health certificate, sight unseen. He does not even look at the dog (mind you, Petra, who has the entire bureaucratic corps at the airport at her feet, is a looker). He gives us the paper and we give him the cash. It takes less than a minute. He never opens the kit.
The Magnificent Arepa, no stranger to Latin American carnivals of corruption, looks like she's tripping in Wonderland. Apparently, Venezuelan officials tend to be much more direct. She wonders what happened to my famed (and absent) temper, to my fabled righteous indignation. It's a split-second decision, I think. I realize how rusty I am and how not au courant with the current ways of the mordida. My instinct is to play innocent and be polite, because if you get uppity they can really fuck you over, and Petra spends a week in the airport or we spend far more than $50.
I don't want to downright offer money because I refuse to participate in corruption (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, the sheer naiveté). On the other hand, I'm not going to spend all day searching for a Cancún vet. Luckily for us, the Mexican bureaucrat is always there to help.
After the vet takes his hard earned cash, he says "Welcome", I kid you not, "to Mexico."

Petra's Diary

2011-08-21T10:07:00.000-04:00

What would Emily Post do?

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-08-19T13:04:00.000-04:00

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-08-18T09:24:00.002-04:00

God help us: The Help.

Dear Barack, It's Me Enchilada

2011-08-15T19:10:00.000-04:00

When I have nothing better to do, I like to check in on the souls that read this little blog. There's my loyal reader in Finland, sundry readers who want to know about churros and/or Nazis, or who like me, hate bed & breakfasts, or somebody in Riga, Latvia, in need of info about micheladas.
So imagine my surprise when I saw this in my stats page:

Is David Plouffe coming to get me? Am I a target for a CIA covert assassination plot a la Abbottabad? Or could this be the very Barack H. Obama I've been giving grief to for the last couple of weeks? If this is the case, let me put on my make up.

Hey, Barack, (you dreamboat, you) if you can hear me: HI!!!!

How's it going? Not too good this Summer, huh? Well, at least you are not David Cameron. The rioting hasn't started stateside yet.

I'm sure you understand why I'm upset with you. You, of all people, are very hard to accept as a disappointment. I never believed you were a die-hard liberal, but when people start missing the liberal policies of Richard Nixon while a Democratic president is in office (and not any Democrat; you, sir: hope personified), it means we're in deep doodoo. What pains me and many fellow Obamaniacs, is that you seem to have landed to the right of moderate Republicans. We don't understand where you are coming from. You got a raw deal coming after the Worst President Ever, but there is no reason why you should make it rawer. I hate it when I read that your administration is still practicing many of your predecessor's odious policies. I do not agree with your policy of non-confrontation and conflict avoidance. It probably sounds good and lofty enough on paper but in reality it makes you weaker. You cannot be above the fray. You ARE the fray. You won the mandate from the American people and now you have to lead and impose the values that got you to this office in the first place. Screw compromise. Compromise works when the two sides are rational, but this is not the case with your Republican foes.
So please stop being nice to Republicans, listen to Warren Buffett, raise taxes on the rich and the corporations, make sure the horribly watered down health bill goes into effect and don't forget to run the country, instead of a campaign.
If you do this, and raise stimulus spending, stop dicking around with immigration, and please your die-hard constituents like moi, I will vote for you come 2012.
Don't think for a second, and this goes for your campaign advisers too, that I will vote for you no matter how much you screw up because there are no better alternatives. I don't care if this country goes to hell in a hand basket. I will castigate the democratic party if you guys don't get your act together. This may be the first time in my life that I sit out an election. Or I may vote for Rand Paul, just for spite.

xoxo
Enchilada

ps: my best to Michelle (luv her) and the girls.

Wake Up and Smell The Coffee

2011-08-15T09:32:00.000-04:00

Here's a little news digest brought to you by the delicious wave of public discontent that is sweeping the country right now:

• Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks has an idea: let's all (individuals and corporations, no matter their political leanings) stop giving campaign donations. Let's strangle the vermin from both sides who have taken this country hostage so that they don't have access to billions of dollars. Since actual campaign financing reform ain't gonna happen any time soon (it is not in the interest of the lawmakers to do so), Mr. Schultz is asking his fellow CEOs to withhold campaign money to both parties. I think it is a lovely idea, but I think it is naive. Are corporations really ready to follow suit and be "team players" (God, how they love to deploy the term but how little they use it), or are they just gonna pat Schultz on the back and continue buying our politicos? I can't imagine the Brothers Koch pledging to stop giving money to their favorite tea party causes. Or any other big business risking the opportunity to buy an election.
Billions of dollars are raised, mostly by corporations, for political campaigns. If this was a true democracy and not the increasingly revolting sham it is, elections would not be bought by corporations. In a fair and level playing field, there should be an equal limit of a very modest federal budget for campaign financing. There could be a cap on fundraising and a cap on how much any given corporation or individual can give, let's say $5000 tops (this is the only country on Earth where, as Mitt Romney pointed out, corporations are people) up to a given amount. Airtime and media space should be donated by the major networks and or media, as public service announcements, and all parties should have the exact same amount of exposure, or use the same amount of campaign money as they see fit. Even though the contributions of individuals like you and me may amount to, as they say in Yiddish, a spit in the ocean, I for one will not give one red cent to the Democratic party or to the Obama campaign moving forward.

• I read that some states want to bring casinos so they can add revenue, since they are falling apart and nobody is raising taxes. This is brilliant, and makes total sense. Instead of raising taxes for corporations and the rich, let desperate people gamble their money away so that the states can have revenue.
Why are the poor always footing the bill in this place?

• The rich are begging to be taxed and no one is listening to them! Everybody should listen to Mr. Warren Buffett.

• After reading about Michelle Bachmann's krazy Christian leanings in The New Yorker, something that should make people truly tremble with fear, it occurred to me that this is one instance in which I would gladly take up arms and violent insurrection, if it came to pass that we elect a president that believes this should be a Christian nation. This is one cause, total separation of church and state, where I can already see myself mixing the Molotov cocktails.

Power Isn't What It Used To Be

2011-08-10T18:03:00.001-04:00

Things have changed. People have stopped believing in the lies of those in power.
Obama, after behaving utterly nonsensically with the Debt Ceiling Circus, thinks that he can appear on TV and spin some mellifluous bullshit and people are going to buy it. Wrong. After he spoke, the markets collapsed further. He does not seem to understand that his deportment over, not only this financial crisis, but throughout his ridiculously "conciliatory" administration, has led to an actual lack of confidence in his abilities as a leader. Unless his words are followed by some righteous actions, why should anyone believe anything he has to say?
In London, after learning of the scandalous corruption of the Metropolitan police and the head of government cavorting in bed with Rupert Murdoch, after a royal wedding that cost millions of pounds, while many young people are unemployed, uneducated and ignored by those who are better off, a Black guy gets shot by the police and this is the pretext that ignites fearsome and barbaric riots. There is no excuse for the riots. But David Cameron takes two days to come back from his bloody holiday in Tuscany. The Mayor of London and the vice-prime minister think they can show up and do a little spiel of solidarity and do not expect, nor can they address in the moment, the outraged heckling of the people. Those in power are too used to the sound bite, to the choreographed routine; when something demands spontaneity and honesty, they are unable to provide it. Demagogy does not work anymore. Nobody believes these bozos.
People understand that power doesn't care for anything except to entrench itself, but they are also starting to understand that this makes power weak. It makes it look fake, it robs it of authority and legitimacy. By this I mean, not that the people have the power -- they don't -- but that they are not as gullible as they used to and that the abyss between those in power and those without is getting smaller. The fundamental change is of perception: there is nothing to respect anymore about those in power. Besides, there are new powerful digital tools that allow people to organize in a flash; whether it's legitimate protests and movements for social change, or massive acts of vandalism.
Politicians should be trembling, or at least adapting, but they continue to be completely oblivious of reality*. I found it rather funny and alarming that every single English figure of authority I saw in the news (Cameron, Clegg, Boris, the chief of police) was admonishing the rioters and looters like a parent chides an unruly kid after the fact: a lot of useless, patronizing, rather cowardly bluster. The fact is, they were not paying attention and now they are afraid.

*As for me, I would like nothing more than an enmasse public firing of absolutely every single member of the American congress, except perhaps for Bernie Sanders. All of them, out of a job at once. Is there any way to organize this?

Petra's Diary

2011-08-07T13:33:00.002-04:00

A regular Mata Hari.

Petra's Diary

2011-08-05T18:05:00.000-04:00

Too cool for school.

I'm Floored with the Debt Ceiling

2011-08-03T13:31:00.001-04:00

I don't pretend I understand everything about this topic but I know one thing: I am extremely disappointed with President Obama. With the Democratic Party I am just further infuriated. I never thought this would be possible, but they are the gift that keeps on giving.
Even though Obama never promised to be a diehard liberal, he spun enough liberal platitudes in his campaign to lead people to believe that we would be at least a moderate liberal. Being who he is, one would have thunk he'd have the interests of the majority of Americans at heart. He does not.
The day the debt ceiling debacle is averted, Wall Street still plummets. Why? Investors don't have confidence in the economy. Why? Not because now everybody's celebrating that the ultra rich and the corporations will not pay higher taxes, but because, from what I've read, it is a really bad idea to make huge spending cuts in a depressed, recessionary economy without raising revenue. Of course cuts are necessary. Cuts to our obscene military spending, for instance, would make sense. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't get the feeling that the idiotic wars we are mired in are boosting our economy, like in WWII.
What happened to the stimulus package? What happened to raising infrastructure? Now services to the people are cut and not one cent is raised on corporate taxes. Where are all the brilliant economic minds that are supposed to be advising this president? Oh, sorry, they are cashing their checks on Wall Street.
Some ardent admirers of Obama think he won the political strategy battle with this pathetic debt ceiling circus. They may be right. He may win another election. But will he be able to reverse the descending course he has set for this country? The banks (who are still not lending, still reaping huge profits) were treated to the most lavish free meal in history, while at the same time the victims of the criminal excesses of American capitalism, that is, the American people, were punished. This instead of fighting for a more just society. Is this going to be Obama's legacy?
Does the economic and political health of the country have to be sacrificed for an election strategy? This is what convinces me, to my deepest regret at having been so gullible, that Obama is a politico like the rest of them snakes. He is not a leader.
Making the Republicans look bad should not be considered such a momentous achievement. They are extraordinarily adept at doing this on their own. Presiding over the country as the gap between the rich and the poor widens abysmally, and not only not doing anything to stop it but encouraging it to happen, this is not what makes a good president. I am also deeply unhappy with his hypocrisy about immigration law, Guantanamo detainees, and gay marriage. Commit to something, man. Have the balls.
That he comes on the heels of the Worst President Ever should be no consolation. With Obama, people were expecting something in terms of domestic policy along the level of an FDR or an LBJ (hey, maybe we're idiots). All his achievements, as important as they may be, fall short. The health care bill is a case in point. What the fuck is it? Because universal health care it is not. His achievements are deeply compromised by his insistence on talking down to the Republicans, instead of fighting them. He's like a schoolteacher who chides a bully but lets him get away with murder. His sanctimonious self-righteousness prevents him from rolling up his sleeves and doing what we put him there to do, what he promised he would do. He was always going to be unpopular with the other side. What good is it for him to be unpopular with his own supporters?
I am deeply unhappy with a president who, 4 years into his tenure, is still acting like a candidate.
On the killing of Bin Laden, I give him some brownie points. However, the other day I was remembering the capture of Adolf Eichmann. The Israelis nabbed him all the way in Argentina, where he hid for years, and gave him a trial and ample opportunity to defend himself. Then they hanged his ass (the only time they ever used the death penalty). This is what democratic countries with solid institutions do. I understand that the cost (legal, political, human, economic) of putting Bin Laden on trial could be prohibitive. But we are becoming less civilized than we think we are.
I know there are movements out there that are trying to change the political dynamics in this country because our Congress is a stupid whore who sucks corporate dick, on both sides. We need a strong third way. We need more political pluralism, a reformed campaign system and less institutionalized corruption. Otherwise, we're going to the dogs.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-08-01T17:54:00.000-04:00

Boo! The Exorcist, and Requiem, a truly scary movie about demonic possession.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-07-31T13:52:00.001-04:00

You'll laugh: Crazy, Stupid, Love. You'll cry: Sarah's Key.

Jury Duty: The Verdict

2011-07-27T21:20:00.000-04:00

Did you know that you can access trial information for free on the internet?
Is this a great country or what?
The verdict: Guilty.

The jurors deliberated part of Friday and on Monday. The verdict was announced yesterday. But, the plot thickens. All of the charges were dismissed except one:

I think the judge dismissed the attempted murder charge before the start of the jury trial. I remember hearing attempted murder mentioned when we were being chosen and I thought I was going crazy when I never heard it again. They never explained.
So the big attempted assault charge was dismissed and so were the reckless endangerment, and the other possession charge, which is just possession of a loaded weapon (paging Franz Kafka here -- confusing).
The verdict makes sense. The prosecution did not prove he fired the gun, but it showed he possessed one.
Here's the deal with this verdict. The definition of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the 2nd Degree:

As a lawyer's blog explains:

If one possesses a loaded firearm outside their home or business, the charge is Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the 2nd Degree a “C” felony which carries a mandatory minimum 3 ½ year to a maximum 15 years in state prison.

I think the judge was a very fair, avuncular guy. I'm curious to know for how long is he going to stick this guy in the slammer.
I would think that the count of reckless endangerment could still hold, no?

I think it shows depraved indifference to human life to turn your busy city block into the OK Corral for the purposes of securing your drug turf. Anyone who is not the police or the army has no business carrying a weapon, as far as I'm concerned.
I hope I run into one of my fellow jurors on the street one day so I can get the juicy details, since I did not exchange information with anybody. And I will be checking the trial page for the sentencing terms. I believe sentencing is set for August 12.

In case you haven't noticed, I love this shit.

Diallo-Rama

2011-07-27T14:34:00.002-04:00

So we finally get to see and hear the woman who accused DSK of attempted rape. She had the risky idea to tell her story to Good Morning America. Now everybody is saying she sounds fake. I saw the interview. Looks like it was edited by Young Frankenstein. Robin Roberts solemnly asks a question -- cut to Miss Diallo answering -- cut to images of them walking down the street -- cut to another question. Clumsy, stilted and the rhythm is off. Why couldn't it be a natural conversation where we could get a more spontaneous appearance from Diallo? I saw the TV interview with the father of that crazy Norwegian creep and the camera was set behind him, so as not to show his face, and was fixed on the reporter as she spoke with him. There were no cuts or camera moves. The compassion in her face was palpable, and his declarations, uncut and unrehearsed, felt genuine, poor man.
What I'm saying is that I would not blame Nafi Diallo exclusively for seeming histrionic and fake. This piece of garbage journalism is rehearsed and overbaked.
Still, she doesn't come across like the shy, mousy thing people expect of a rape victim. She is attractive and exuberant. She is histrionic. She cries, or pretends to, on command. Her accent is funny. She has personality. She went over the top with the bit about finding out DSK was going to be the next president of France and fearing for her life because in her country if you mess with power, you can end up dead. But I kinda like her spunk. I like that maybe DSK finally met his match. Instead of one shitty human being maybe now we have two. Bring it!
At this point she may be eyeing the book contract and the paid appearances, but she has to know that if she goes to court, as she so fervently wishes, the defense is going to destroy her. She knows what they are saying about her lies to immigration, contacts with undesirables, numerous bank accounts and all that, so if she insists on a day in court, either she is too brave, or she's nuts.
Maybe she went on TV to perversely encourage Cyrus Vance not to pursue the criminal case, so she can try to get the money from the civil case? Otherwise, I think it was a pretty bad move, unless she is one of those people whose goal in life is to be on TV. Still, as I have said before, she may be a conniving diva, but if she was attacked, a crime was committed and needs to be brought to justice. I still believe she was attacked.

Now, all those indignant people who are livid about the fact that immigrants from fucked up countries lie in order to gain political asylum in this country, do me a favor, get a life.
People want to lynch this woman because omg! she lied in her immigration application. Americans behave sometimes as if they cannot fathom that someone would lie for whatever reason. This George Washington syndrome is very annoying. People tell lies all the time. Pious lies, little white lies, necessary lies, malignant lies. Don't act as if this sullies your entire concept of humanity beyond repair.
Guess what, if you come from a hellish place and this is the way you can gain entry into the land of opportunity, you are going to lie to get in. People lie to the asylum system all the time because they are desperate to come here. It's not good that they lie, but as Suketu Mehta writes in this week's New Yorker, it's what gets them in and it's what is expected. Officials expect to hear the most truculent stories and so applicants make them up, or embellish on already horrible circumstances. Everybody knows applicants lie. Everybody knows business owners look at social security numbers that might be fake and look the other way. So stop the freaking self-righteous hypocrisy already. It's revolting.
Many immigrants abuse the asylum system. I heard of a Venezuelan gay man who claimed political persecution, even though there is no official policy of harassment against gays in that country (simply put, everyone is homophobic). As I was reading Mehta's account of the immigrants' lies about atrocities and torture, I remembered reading about the Iraqi translators who have helped American troops in that war and now that they ask for asylum for totally legitimate reasons, they are completely ignored and abandoned by the US government. These people risked their lives to collaborate with an occupying force and this is the thanks they get.
Americans will never understand what it means for someone to seek a better life in a foreign country. (Well, let me qualify that. They may start knowing what it means after August 2, when we default on our debt. But that's another story, also involving a very particular form of local stupidity).
Many Americans don't understand the risks people are willing to take, or the things they are willing to do to be able to have a decent life. They get all bent out of shape because people fake their names, their social security cards, their stories. I'm not saying it's okay, but I can understand why they do it. As long as they work hard, pay taxes and do not harm anybody, what the hell do you care?
You don't know how good you have it here. You don't know that people from other less coddled countries navigate much more treacherous realities, full of impunity, corruption, chaos, poverty, and hardship. Get a passport and travel around (all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean don't count) so you can get a sense of the real world out there, you morally superior fucks.

Jury Duty: Comments

2011-07-25T13:29:00.001-04:00

I am answering the very welcome comment by Mr. Ex-Enchilada here rather than in the comments section, because some people never read the comments:

I did listen to the judge's instructions. He defined each word of each charge according to the law as he gives it, (what is Attempted, what is Assault, etc) but some of the definitions were in cumbersome legal language, and I can see how confusing it can be for jurors. It was attempted assault in the first degree, not murder, by the way.
We were told to consider the case only taking into account the facts of the case as they are presented in the courtroom (holes everywhere). We were told to consider the quality of the evidence vs. the quantity of the evidence. But we were also asked to use our common sense. Well, common sense tells me that even though the phone calls do not prove that he was shooting that gun on that night, he was concealing a gun in his house and took pains to remove it before the police could get it. It's possible that is the gun he carried in the melee, if he indeed was packing heat.
This guy was hiding drugs inside THE HOLLOW of his bathroom door and despite the fact that they ransacked his place, they couldn't find the piece that his buddy retrieved without a problem. No wonder they couldn't get him on drug charges.
So yes, as an obedient juror I would probably have argued that the evidence was not sufficiently clear that he was shooting from a gun that night. A fellow alternate juror with whom I chatted after dismissal felt the same way. Circuitous evidence sloppily presented probably means, if the jurors follow the letter of the law and not their common sense, that this creep will walk. Maybe the cops can nail him next time.
The waste of resources, as you point out, is appalling. Perhaps that's what prevents the city from having more modern facilities. The Criminal Courts Building is almost in a state of disrepair.
I agree that in the Casey Anthony case the wrong charges were brought. In this case, I wonder why they didn't just go for the counts of criminal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment. Too little jail time? Meanwhile, this happened in 2009. Has he been in Rikers for two years? I doubt that he's been out on bail. We weren't told.
My point is that justice is muddled, elusive, and very complicated.
I'm dying to find out the verdict.

Jury Duty: Part 3

2011-07-25T09:34:00.000-04:00

During the entire trial, I was fairly convinced that the prosecution did not have a compelling case. The prosecutor's summation was a disaster. Why bother presenting so much technical evidence, police officers, ballistics, endless photographs of doorways, videos and recorded phone calls if you then undermine it by saying that the most credible and important part of the evidence is the testimony by two eyewitnesses? I would think that eyewitnesses can be unreliable and that hard evidence trumps recollection, but the problem, and I think they knew it, is that they didn't have much to go with. The prosecutor was not a compelling speaker and a rather disorganized presenter. He needs an acting coach.
The defense lawyer, court appointed, I believe, did a much better job in trying to raise our doubts, which is all he needs to do to be effective. He was far more eloquent and had a better sense of narrative. He was a big man, like a more handsome, younger version of Charles Durning. I thought he was pretty good.
At first I was convinced the prosecution did not have a case. But the more I think about it, and I guess this is the intention and wisdom of deliberation, the more I can, in retrospect, see culpability, even though the connections are not 100% solid.
But here's the thing. The guy deserves to be off the streets even though the evidence against him may be shaky. Do you ignore this fact and, using your common sense, do a favor to the city and lock him up? Or do you really follow the instructions to the letter and acquit him, letting him out on the streets again?
I think something similar may have happened in the Casey Anthony trial, which I didn't follow, but I did follow the uproar after the verdict. Shoddy police work makes convictions difficult. Jurors feel a huge sense of responsibility and if they follow the judge's instructions to the letter of the law, they may vote to acquit, even if this runs contrary to the hunches in their hearts.
I did not get a full sense of who the jurors were and what they think, because we were a very obedient group and did not discuss the case among ourselves (that I know of). It was a mixed group of Manhattanites, racially, economically and professionally diverse, from people who seem pretty streetwise, to coddled liberal intellectuals and everything in between. I have a feeling there are several very smart and common-sensical New Yorkers in this dozen. I hope that the jury, as the judge instructed, uses their common sense and not their sympathy, prejudice, ideology or fears.
As I write this right now, having deliberated only with myself, I'm thinking: lock him up and throw away the key.

Jury Duty: Part 2

2011-07-24T10:18:00.000-04:00

The first eyewitness lives in the same building as the defendant and claims he sells drugs from the corner every night. He said he saw him from his fifth floor window shooting with a gun in his hand. And when the police secured the block, he went down to accuse him. He was a very colorful witness, an older man from Liberia, who is in the community board and is the president of the association of Liberian immigrants. He was not letting the defense confuse him. It is entirely possible that he is telling the truth. But he also has a vested interest in removing this punk from his block because he is a menace to the neighborhood. However, selling drugs is not what the defendant was charged with. I wonder how it is possible that a known drug dealer commandeers an entire city block and everybody knows it, but nobody can stop him. Perhaps this shootout was the police's opportunity to put him away.
The second eyewitness was a 30 year old female drug abuser out of central casting, a white woman hardened by drugs. Defiant and bad mannered, she didn't even try to appear reformed although she protested that she has been clean for 18 months. The defense argued, although I think it was stricken from the record, that she did it because she made a deal with the DA to get into a drug treatment program instead of more jail time for selling. The most unbelievable part of her testimony was that she knew the defendant and went to his apartment thousands of times, where she allegedly saw lots of guns, but could not remember what floor it was on (2nd). And even more unbelievably, that they gave drugs to one another, like boy scouts sharing s'mores on a camping trip. Really? Out of the goodness of their hearts? I assume sharing drugs in exchange for blow jobs is more like it.
So two eyewitnesses, one with a vested interest in removing this pest from his building, and the other one perhaps doing it to save her own skin.
We are told we are going to watch surveillance videos. I think, cool, we will see the guy with the gun in his hand shooting: hard, incontrovertible evidence. But the quality of the videos is abysmal, and there is no way that you can determine with any accuracy that what he is holding in his hand is a gun. What else could he be holding, I don't know. A bag of drugs? A granola bar? When you freeze frame a movie in your DVD you see everything in perfect detail. Surveillance companies need better video cameras. So the video is for shit, and in my view, actually hinders the prosecution's efforts. If I were to deliberate I would ask to see those tapes in detail again.
The most damning evidence, in my view, were some recorded phone calls the defendant made from jail. Fully aware that he is being recorded, he asks his mother to go get a woman on the block who knows a guy who can get in through the window of his apartment and retrieve an "x-box" (the police had secured it and changed the locks). An undercover police officer later testified that this is a code name for firearm. Then he calls another apparent drug dealer to ask him to do the same.
When his buddy finally tells him he retrieved the "x-box", this guy gets so victoriously happy you can almost picture him jumping for joy.
The calls were appalling. I could see why there was no way this guy could open his mouth on his own defense. He speaks with the foul language and grandstanding of a street thug ("nigger this", "nigger that", "my fucking lawyer," etc) but with his mother he adopts a whiny, wholly unconvincing voice when she asks him what kind of shit he has done now. He promises the buddy to go out on a night on the town for him and is convinced not only that he is home safe but that he has a lawsuit against the police. Apparently, they turned the place upside down. On the phone, he gloats that they could not find anything, not one drug, not one weapon. He has a hiding place for drugs inside the bathroom door. The guy is a pro.
But do these calls prove that he had a gun in his hand and was shooting it the night of the incident? Or do they prove that he possesses a gun unlawfully? They may prove the two charges of criminal possession, if anything. And they may point to consciousness of guilt, but is this the same as actual criminal action?
The most bizarre incident occurred the day of the eyewitnesses testimony, when the Liberian man suddenly interrupted his testimony saying that he was being signaled. They let us out of the courtroom for a good while and when we came back he claimed that the defendant had mouthed threatening words to him as he was on the stand. I wonder if any of the jurors, particularly those who had a clear view of the defense table, saw what happened. As we were instructed not to talk about this between ourselves, nobody said anything. Then the woman who was assisting the DA as an intern also testified that she saw the defendant make a sign of cutting the throat of the drug addict witness, but the witness never came back so we don't know if she saw him threaten her or not. The defense lawyer raised a stink about that one.
It is rather risky if not downright stupid, for this punk to do something like that right in front of the judge, the jury, the bailiffs, the prosecution and the court reporter and I'm dying to know if any juror actually saw this happen, because if they did, the guy is gonna fry. One of the jurors was called out of the jury room and she may have had something to report to the judge, but I don't know what.
The day of jury selection, the defendant looked straight at me. He looked sheepish with a shirt and a tie and glasses. I could not interpret whether the glare he sent my way was "mami, I dig your curls" or "you better vote in my favor", but either way it was not endearing.
A couple of days later, we saw the pictures of him under arrest and his attire was textbook ghetto punk. Another thing: why was he wearing the same clothes he wore during the shootout when he was arrested hours later? Now that I think of it, the guy is 40 years old but he looks like an overgrown child. So he is not really a young man, he just acts like one. It was mentioned he has an 8 year old son. The day of the closing statements, I arrived early and saw the defense attorney speak with a woman and a kid around that age. They sat in the courtroom the entire day. The kid slept the whole time. The lawyer did not mention them or point them out to us, but they were the only spectators. I saw the woman react to the replay of the phone conversation with the mother. She was shaking her head.

To be continued...

Jury Duty

2011-07-23T18:26:00.000-04:00

I do not watch Law & Order or CSI: San Bernardino, or any of those shows. Everything seems formulaic and too easy. They bore me. A real trial, however, is both tedious and endlessly fascinating. Most of all, it is extremely complicated.
I have been pining to be chosen as a juror since I became an American citizen. People think I've lost my last marble, but I wanted the opportunity to see how this system works in reality. I am a frustrated criminal lawyer, detective and/or Supreme Court judge.
I come from Mexico, a country that has an utterly depraved legal system, medieval and corrupt to the core. We don't have juries, we have miserably paid and not always thoroughly trained judges who usually take bribes to supplement their incomes. There is no presumption of innocence. Nothing prevents a corrupt police officer or anyone with power to accuse innocent people of crimes and lock them away forever. The presumption of innocence, which supposedly is coming to the Mexican legal system soon, is not only an important defense against state tyranny, but also a pillar of civilization. You people do not realize what you have here.

I got my wish last week, but with a slightly perverse twist. I was chosen as Alternate Juror No. 2. This meant that I had to sit through the trial but was dismissed before deliberations. I missed the most stressful and perhaps most interesting part, but I am immensely relieved. It is a huge responsibility to decide the fate of a person. And unlike on TV, in this case, the DA did not present a clean, open and shut case. It was full of holes, despite the fact that the defendant does seem to be a blight upon this city, probably did it and should probably not be allowed to walk our streets. I'm dying to know what verdict the jurors reached, but, I'd be surprised if they vote to convict.
The defendant, a young Latino man, was accused of participating in a shootout in the middle of 109th St between Amsterdam and Columbus Ave at 9:25 pm on a Summer night in 2009. He was accused of carrying and firing a gun with intent to kill. The motive: another drug dealer encroaching on his turf. The four charges against the defendant were Attempted Assault on the First Degree, two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon, one with intent to cause serious bodily harm and one as unlawful possession outside the home or place of business, and Reckless Endangerment.
Five bullet casings were recovered from a .25 caliber revolver, and a spent bullet from a .40 caliber automatic, I believe.
People who testified said they heard a lot of shots, so more shots were fired than evidence found. A 13 year old boy was slightly injured when a bullet grazed his leg. Shots were fired from a red pick up truck. When you think that this could happen on your street, you just want to lock everybody away.
About 10 police officers testified about the crime scene, evidence collection, ballistics. A small handgun was recovered on top of some garbage bags. It was not tied in any compelling way to the defendant. Not by DNA or fingerprinting. I don't remember if they clarified who this gun belonged to. The person the defendant allegedly shot at was also arrested but did not testify.
None of the police officers were able to remember the time of the arrest. The arresting officer, I believe, lost his note book, where such information is supposed to appear. He spoke to a witness that identified the defendant as the shooter and who knew where he lived, yet he did not arrest him or even go look for him until the next day. None of them saw the suspect with a gun in his hand at any time.
Since the burden of proof falls on the prosecution, they showed their evidence first. The prosecutor, a slight, young Chinese American man, did not give the jury a compelling causal and chronological narrative and the evidence was presented piecemeal. Now I don't know if this is because he was just not an organized presenter or because he is not allowed to thread a narrative that would make us see the crime as it happened. But the police evidence was confusing, and he never arrived at a story that could help the jury understand clearly how the incident happened.
According to the defendant's statement to the police, he saw a guy dealing drugs on his street and went down to tell him he should not do it. As if! Can you imagine yourself seeing guys dealing drugs on your block and telling them in their face to scram? I didn't think so. In the statement the police took, apparently he confessed to having a gun. This statement was presented as evidence, but not read in its entirety. Why? And how come that the police detective who took the statement was not called to testify?
There were dozens of photographs of the buildings on the block and endlessly boring testimony about where people were. I don't yet understand what purpose this served except to confuse the jury.
Of the dozens of people who ran for their safety that night, only 2 people agreed to testify.

To be continued...

Pie A La Mode

2011-07-21T12:36:00.000-04:00

The highlight of my year, I'm almost tempted to say my life so far, has been to see in an endless instant replay loop the moment Wendi Murdoch stands by her man and tries to counter attack the pie thrower, as if she was in an episode of Jerry Springer.
I will love this moment forever and I don't even know why, but I suspect it has to do with the refreshing unraveling of the ruthless vulgarity of this family. Contrary to the opinion of a lot of people, I do not feel sorry for Rupert Murdoch, with or without a pie in the face. He deserves worse. As Stephen Colbert suggested, maybe a kidney pie would be more fitting.
However, the pie throwing incident made me ponder an important issue:
Why shaving cream instead of whipped cream?
Shaving cream leaves the victim smelling like three hundred cologne wearers crammed into a subway car, which is not necessarily a good thing. It probably stings the eyes and tastes horrible. Whereas good old fashioned whipped cream is sticky, so that finally flies can overcome their queasiness and hang on to the victim, but the upside is that it's yummy and you can lick it off yourself (unless it's curdled, which could be an interestingly cruel version).
Such are the things that preoccupy me this ridiculously hot and humid morning.

News of News of The World

2011-07-15T12:07:00.000-04:00

So Rebekah Brooks, she of News Of The World infamy, finally resigned. This after an entire newspaper was shut down and hundreds of jobs were lost in order to protect her cushy job. Her resignation letter is repulsive. Her former employers are even more repulsive and they have handled this crisis terribly.
And guess what I learned today in the NYT: Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia is News Corporation’s second biggest shareholder, after the Murdochs.
I find it rich that a royal from that atrocious country where there is no freedom of anything, not even of women driving, and whose royal family has ties to the attacks on 9/11, has shares in this media company.
As we say in Mexico, guácala (Eew).

On The Subject of Tacos

2011-07-15T11:43:00.001-04:00

I hear raves about this Rockaway Taco place. We pass by and the line of hipsters threatens to engulf all of Brooklyn. This immediately makes me suspicious, plus there is no way I'm standing in line for this, even though a taco right now would really come in handy. However, it's not only the hipsters that scare me off.
When you go to a really crowded taco place in Mexico, you NEVER have to wait more than a couple of minutes for your taco. The reason is that Mexican taqueros are like the Samurais of food. Their speed and agility are legend. It doesn't take them forever to assemble a taco. They do it so fast, their hands are a blur. This is important because the whole point of the taco is to satisfy your hunger fast and to be hot and right off the grill and not sitting there waiting for someone to add unnecessary radishes and shreds of insipid iceberg lettuce that have no point being anywhere near a taco. No gringo place that I know has been able to master the Mexican taco system. None. So as we say in Spanish, tache for slowness.
Then, the mother of all horrors: they sell Tofu tacos.
American people, lines must be drawn. I appreciate your obsession with melting pots and hybrids but tofu tacos is a resounding NO. WAY. IN. HELL.
There is absolutely no need for a tofu taco. You can have the tastiest vegetarian tacos, you can have bean tacos, if you need the protein. A tofu taco is a huge red flag and I'm not buying it.
Interestingly, we were there with my friend Maribel, the proud owner of the delicious Caracas Arepa Bar chain of Venezuelan restaurants.
"Why not a tofu taco?", she said.
"Imagine for a moment, Maribel, a tofu arepa", said none other than The Magnificent Arepa herself. Maribel's face contorted into a minute grimace.
I bet she would not serve that even at gunpoint. Not even to Chavez on his deathbed (whether to save him or to finish him off).
Love our food, respect our food, play around, if you must, with our food, but it better make sense.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-07-14T15:21:00.000-04:00

Errol Morris' fun new film: Tabloid.

News Digest

2011-07-11T12:06:00.001-04:00

The Casey Anthony Trial
I must be the only person in this country who did not follow the Casey Anthony trial. Not once. I vaguely remember hearing about it and nothing else until the non-guilty verdict. This is what happens when you don't have cable. However, I have been glued to anything with the initials DSK on it. Perhaps I find it hard to muster curiosity about a crime in Florida committed by trashy people. Call me a snob. I much prefer the sleaze of the former president of the IMF and the now possible sleaze of an immigrant chambermaid.
I'm writing this as I sit and wait in Jury Duty.

News of The News Of The World
Again, had heard about Sienna Miller and Hugh Grant having their phones hacked, but what transpired with that poor murdered girl, the families of fallen soldiers, Murdoch's cozy relationship with David Cameron, who once employed the very same guy who is now arrested for hacking phones, and the fact that Murdoch would rather close a newspaper and leave people jobless, than sacrifice his deputy in evil, make this quite irresistible. That the British police, which in my fantasy were supposed to be a model of probity, were colluding with this trashy paper which, like the New York Post, is not fit for people to scoop up dog poop, this is actually shocking to me.
I'm exuberantly delighted that the untouchable Rupert Murdoch finally got his brass balls dipped in acid. Let it rip.

Facundo Cabral Gets Murdered in Guatemala
Poor guy. He happens to ride with a Guatemalan impresario and gets sprayed with bullets in that hellhole of a country. I am not a fan of his mawkish protest folk music, but geez, what's with the endless, stupid violence?

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-07-11T12:01:00.000-04:00

Rapt, a fabulous French thriller that may remind you of DSK.

We The People

2011-07-07T13:43:00.002-04:00

As seen in the West Village on July 4:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
Better than the ubiquitous flags.

Take This Job And Shove It

2011-07-06T10:15:00.000-04:00

Funny: the less Mexican illegal immigrants there actually are (numbers are falling precipitously), the more draconian the measures being passed in certain xenophobic states. Some people will argue that the main reason Mexicans have virtually stopped crossing the border illegally is because they don't want to deal with those terrible anti-immigration laws. I'm sure they have given people pause. But it is important to point out that they are not the sole reason why Mexicans are choosing to stay home. According to this article in the New York Times, there are many more substantial reasons why Mexicans are not crossing over, namely, that life has gotten better in Mexico.
This is hard to believe when all we hear is about thousands of deaths due to the "war on drugs" and the anti-immigrant hysteria here in the States. It's hard to believe even for Mexicans, who, used to ages of corruption and inefficiency, are constitutionally incapable of believing that things are going well in their own country, or that their government is doing something right. But birthrates have fallen from seven children per woman in the 1970's to two today (thanks to an enduring family planning campaign by the government. I still remember the slogan "la familia pequeña vive mejor" -- "a small family lives better"), and despite the best destructive efforts by the Catholic Church.

As families' economic pressures are eased, more children are studying, more are going to college. Many former migrants are coming back. Certainly, life must also have gotten better because they were, if I am not mistaken, the second source of income for Mexico after oil. They sent a lot of money back to their hometowns, and they are coming back with money to spend. And many Mexicans are applying for legal work visas, because they are doing the math. Why pay $3000 to risk death at the hands of the merciless desert heat, murderous gangs or rapacious smugglers? Get in line and ask for a Visa. The United States cannot live without this labor force.
Even with the solidity of the numbers quoted in the article, I'm a little skeptical. The article focuses on the state of Jalisco, which is a pretty prosperous state. It says that a lot of the work there comes from the boom of fancy tequila marketing (as I've always maintained, tequila is not only the Nectar of the Gods, but good for all that ails you, including apparently curbing illegal immigration). Yet I wonder if really poor states like Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guerrero are seeing the benefits of this economic upswing.
Still, I'm so happy that circumstances prove that Mexico is not only not a failed state, nor should it be annexed by the US, nor is a dark hole of underdevelopment, but a great, dynamic country which has always teetered between extraordinary progress and stagnation.
I hope that economic, social and political progress will continue. I love the college kid in the article who says that he wants to come to the US but as a tourist. Now that is change.

Petra Rules

2011-07-05T14:54:00.000-04:00

Dear readers: for those of you who wish to read Petra's Diary, please be advised that on her request, it is being published on her new very own blog. She didn't want to mix with riffraff like me, so now she has her own page. It was the least I could do since I decided to publish her private diary without her permission.
For your convenience, there is a link to her blog on the blogroll below. Be sure to check her page out. She's a fun lady.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-07-04T09:53:00.002-04:00

Instead of Transformers, Eric Rohmer's Le Rayon Vert, about a real transformation.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-07-03T18:52:00.002-04:00

The Tree of Life: A Primer.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-07-03T17:38:00.000-04:00

The new, needless iteration of Transformers: Review of A Movie That I Ain't Gonna See.

The People v. DSK

2011-07-01T13:57:00.000-04:00

It just started getting interesting! Who knew!

The narrative of a sex-addicted, entitled, powerful white male vs. a hard-working innocent African widow is interesting enough. But the narrative of a sex-addicted, entitled, powerful white male vs. a seemingly hard-working and perhaps not so innocent African widow that seemed to ask advice about profiting from her accusation is far more interesting. It messes with our heads big time.
This is not only a case in which we allowed ourselves to be swayed by our romantic notions of pure evil vs. pure good, strong vs. weak, white vs. black, powerful vs. powerless, man vs. woman, etc. By now we should all know that human nature is a magnificent cornucopia of complexity and base motives and we should not fall so easily for such tidy narratives. Which is to say, in so many words, "my bad".
I feel a little bad about coming down so hard on DSK, but not too much. The copiously documented fact remains that he is a serial harasser of women (not a confirmed rapist yet). Now his accuser needs to prove that he tried to rape her. The fact that she lied about her asylum application, consorts with drug dealers, and has been lying to prosecutors certainly weakens her case but does not necessarily mean that he is automatically absolved from the accusation. I assume that is why he has been released from house arrest but they have not given him his passport back.
The New York Times says that "forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn and the woman" so the question is whether she was attacked or it was consensual. I find it hard to believe that it was consensual. This woman may be a pest, and not the angelical Pollyanna she was portrayed as by the media, her lawyer and the D.A's office. The fact that she may be a liar and perhaps even a criminal does not erase an attempted rape if indeed there was one. But how are we ever going to know? She has no credibility now. Unless the forensic evidence is incontrovertible (signs of struggle, etc), he may always claim it was consensual.
There are so many questions:
Why did the D.A.'s office write to the defense with their findings of this woman's credibility issues? To beat them to the curb? Is this normal procedure?
Is it legal for them to record a conversation between her and her incarcerated friend (who happens to be a drug dealer who apparently uses her to launder money?). Can this evidence be used in court?
If they were too eager to accuse DSK, are they now not too eager to let him off?
Was there attempted rape or not? This is the question.
Everything I've read seems to point out to the fact that the woman did not know who DSK was when she accused him. Let's suppose she was attacked and then continued cleaning* and then decided to seek advice from her friend in jail and only then did she come out with the allegations. This still does not mean that there was not an attack on her, just that she was figuring out if it was profitable to her or not. This is horrible, but such is human nature.
And who knows? After his ordeal, he may be rewarded with the Presidency of France, if he decides to seek office. And she may be deported for lying on her asylum application and other documents. Tides turn, or what?

*On 9/11, after witnessing the two planes hit the towers, I went to my office and told my colleague at the time that we should get back to work. He looked at me as if I was insane. I didn't even know what I was saying, but it was like an instinct to will everything to return to normalcy. So I could believe that this may have been the case with her, or most likely she had things to weigh in her mind before crying out immediately with an accusation. Will they believe me? Should I say anything? This happens all the time... To me this is not evidence of cold calculation. The phone call to the friend may be.

Petra's Diary

2011-06-28T09:25:00.002-04:00

June 27, 2011
Why do humans assume that I want to be petted and stroked and caressed and played with at all times of the day and night? If you see me taking a nap after strenuous playing with toys and other people's toes, please refrain from slobbering all over me. I'm taking A NAP. I do not wish to be disturbed. Like Greta Garbo said: "I vant to be alone". Being a well-mannered lady, I demurely move to another corner when this happens, but keep pestering me with your uncontrollable love and I don't promise you won't get a good bite one of these days.

June 28, 2011
Let's make something clear: just because I am a dog, doesn't mean I don't have standards. Just because I'm a dog, it doesn't mean that I'll eat that bone dry Puppy Chow and pretend it's the same as that dreamy paté and jambon du pays leftovers they brought the other day from Cafe Boulud. They cannot seriously think that I can't tell the difference. So if you are going to give me boiled ground beef (and I do appreciate that you got the natural Angus, and not the one with the antibiotics and shit), please be so kind as to sprinkle it with a little salt. I'm not saying use curry or fenugreek, I'm not asking for beef bourgignon but a little salt in the gray ground meat can do wonders for one's appetite. What makes them think that I'm going to stomach eating tasteless ground beef with melon?!!! The doctor said fruit? Ask him to eat that shit! Prosciutto with melon, by all means. But please, do not insult my intelligence with these disgusting foods. By the way, they don't give it to me, but the other day in the park someone spilled something divine called ice cream and I licked that asphalt until it was shiny. Also a baby spilled some apple juice, the slob, and it's not bad! They are never going to give me stuff like that, I can tell. But I'll get it where I can find it.

Petra's Diary

2011-06-27T14:24:00.000-04:00

I found my dog Petra's diary behind the couch and I am reading it. Pipe down, people. She's a dog, okay? She's not gonna find out. Here is what she has to say so far:

June 21, 2011
They put me inside the belly of a plane in a cage for three hours. Did they tell me where the hell we were going? No. Did they ask me if I wanted to go anywhere, let alone emigrate? I know they mean well, but you don't put a two month old baby in a cage. They got me out in Miami, and from there I travelled coach. Not bad, but if you ask me, it's not that different from cargo. There is actually more leg room in cargo.

June 22, 2011
Apparently I am in a place called New York City now. It's freaking noisy, I can tell you that. What's with the sirens? And the human hollering? Is this a zoo? Anyway, what I like about it is there are a lot of other people like me, with four legs and wet noses. I want to meet everybody! I like em all. Dogs, kids, adults, feet, leaves that blow in the wind. I like anything that moves. I kinda like this New York City. I have a nice yard downstairs, and boy, are the sidewalks a smorgasbord of chewing goodness! Cigarette butts, weeds, chicken bones, all kinds of poop (including human, I'm afraid). The asphalt jungle, indeedy!

June 23, 2011
The very official looking customs agent at the big airport was so thrilled with me, he took his glove off to pet me. I have that effect on people. They all go "OMG! SOOOO CUUUUUTE!" every time they see me. My owners say they can't walk two steps without someone stopping by and asking about my age, gender, breed. "Is it a puppy?", they ask. No, it's a dinosaur, what do you think?
Enchilada confessed that she was happier when she didn't have all the neighbors cooing and making small talk at all times. Imagine, she hasn't even brushed her teeth or combed her hair (as if) and she needs to get into some inane dog chitchat first thing in the morning; when B.P (Before Petra), she could be a verbissener New Yorker who barely said "good morning" in the elevator. She claims she liked her anonymity then. She thinks that this is how supermodels or movie stars must feel at all times and claims she was invisible until I came along. Hey, it's not my fault that I'm a charmer. If you don't like this, you should have gotten a tarantula.

June 26, 2011
Okay. Someone please explain to me the big deal with the peeing and the pooing. 'Cause it just don't make any sense to me. Every twenty minutes they scoop me up and take me down as if the house was on fire and then they put me on the street as if they are waiting for the Second Coming of Christ. I pee, and they almost throw a parade in my honor. Such celebration! But I do the same at home (which as far as I can tell is much less inconvenient for everyone) and they get all bent out of shape about it! They pretend to be really angry and get all serious and yell NO, PETRA! (but I can tell it breaks their hearts to read me the riot act. I just look at them with my big round eyes and I cock my head to the side and they virtually dissolve).
So make up your minds! When I do it at home I'm saving you the trouble of taking me out. And what's three little drops of pee to you anyway? You got the Windex thing going on and it seems to be working. Stop the drama.
The poop, I understand, is another matter. That's kinda gross even to me. But the other night they had the audacity to go to the movies and they left me all alone in this huge apartment, so I'm like, you cannot expect me to hold it in (or perhaps you can, but I'm not gonna). You cannot leave me here all by myself and go to the movies. You don't do that to a two month old baby. So I did it on the carpet. Maybe they'll think twice about not taking me to the movies ever again.

Crowd Control is Getting Out of Line

2011-06-27T11:28:00.001-04:00

I was very happy when I heard the news that the Marriage Equality law passed in New York. No less is expected from New York. For this is New York, and it is how it should be.

So now everybody is going to have equal access to the Wedding Industrial Complex Ripoff Machine (flowers: $20; same flowers for a wedding: $200). Mazel Tov!

I wrote to Republican senators Saland and Grisanti on Friday morning to remind them that this is not a religious issue but an issue of legal discrimination and civil rights.
I'd like to believe that they read my letter and said, what the hell, why not?

On Friday night there were lots of people celebrating in front of the Stonewall Inn, and I wondered just how many of them actually feel the immediate hankering to get married. But even though the legalization of gay marriage in NYS is an enormously important issue with real-life consequences for many couples and families, it is also a highly symbolic issue that positively affects those who have no intention of marrying. It means that the barriers are coming down. It means that we are becoming a more evolved and fair society.

The barriers that seem to keep multiplying, however, are those horrid methods of crowd control used by the NYPD since 9/11. The first gay pride parade I ever witnessed in NYC was about 14 years ago. People would line up in the streets and the parade would go by. I barely remember a barricade. But now, NYC crowd control has has an almost fascistic, authoritarian feel. We got out of the subway on Sheridan Square and because parade watchers were squeezed inside the barricades like human Spam, we decided that we didn't want to be penned in like cattle so we wanted to go back into the subway from which we had just emerged less than one foot away, yet the police made us get on a tortuous line and snake around the block in order to do so. I respect that there is order. In fact, one of the reasons I enjoy living here is that people respect order, but this is ridiculous.

Americans are oblivious to the fact that they are the best behaved crowds in the world. Americans see a random person standing in front of them and they instinctively form a line. Where I come from, and in most countries, rich and poor, people either do not fathom the concept of an orderly crowd or they do anything in their power to fight it.
Just see what happens every time you try to board a plane going somewhere other than the US. It doesn't matter how many times before people have been in the same situation, they crowd around the gate as if they were in a mosh pit. So since Americans are so good at policing themselves at crowds, why does the police feel the need to treat American crowds like POWs? Americans are so good, that even when they are treated like cattle, they quietly obey (for the most part) and they continue having a good time. In other places, these kinds of constraints would spark stampedes or rioting.
I see this as the next great civil rights issue: the right to enjoy a parade without feeling punished by the police.

Newsflash: Hell Froze Over

2011-06-22T22:13:00.002-04:00

If you must know, pigs flew, too. My friends, I, an avowed disliker of pets, am now the proud if farblondget mother of one. For those who know me, the word pet and I don't go together like love and marriage or horse and carriage. I have never had a pet in my life (except for some chicks who died and some fishies that went down the kitchen sink drain in that surreal era called childhood). To this day, I was happy as a clam without one. My ideology about animals is: let's leave them alone. But if there is a case of "never say never" this must be one. For my arm was duly twisted, my defenses breached, my will vanquished, my resistance quashed. You can see why:

This is Petra. Full name: Petronila Vilma Etele Lucille Shpilke Cosa Loca.
Petra is both a Hispanic name and in honor or the Nabatean ruins we visited last summer. Vilma is in honor or Vilma Picapiedra, aka Wilma Flintstone, one of my favorite classy dames, Etele is the diminutive of Ethel in Yiddish, but no relation to Ethel Merman. Lucille was given to her in honor of Lucille Ball. Shpilke is because she is like a little flea with hair. and she is a Cosa Loca.
Petra looks like a mop and she behaves like one. So far, she seems smart, demure, and obedient. Very friendly and playful. I do not quite understand nor quite appreciate yet her penchant for licking my armpit, but I guess I'll come around.

Diminished Capacity

2011-06-21T12:30:00.003-04:00

Mon amours:
I'm very concerned I'm losing the capacity for ranting. I don't care about anything any more. I cannot expend the energy required to be worked up into a frenzy simply because there are way too many instances that beg it of me. It's exhausting.
For instance, what the hell is going on with the vote on gay marriage in this state? What are we waiting for? Just man up and vote already. And if they vote no (very likely) I think Mayor Bloomberg should imperially declare that same sex marriage is legal in NYC, like Mayor Ebrard did in Mexico City. Let's get all those millions of dollars from marriageable gays into our economy.

Or, who does Cardinal Dolan think he is? His opinion about this issue, as the opinion of all clergy of any faith, for or against, is immaterial. There is separation of church and state, and this is a civil rights and civil law issue, not a religious issue. It's a free country and he can express his opinion, but its worth bubkes. In fact, it is worth less than that, because anything coming from the pedophile-abetting criminal institution he represents is rather rich.
By the same token, as I'm watching him deliver his tirade on TV, they cut to some protesters for and against in Albany. One of the protesters (for, I assume) is a woman rabbi who is wearing a yarmulke, peyes (the side curls) and a talit (prayer shawl). What fresh hell is this? If she could, she would have been wearing a beard too? You want to be a woman rabbi, fine. Judaism, for all its wonders, is a highly patriarchal, male-oriented religion. It is 5000 years old and not with the times in terms of women's equality, as all religions are, curiously enough. Judaism has been tweaked by liberal Americans so it can be more inclusive and so that women can be rabbis and cantors and mohels (circumcisers). But what's with the accoutrements? You just reinterpret stuff as you see fit? This is my paradox. I hate religion, but the old fashioned one seems to me more authentic than the newfangled one.

Or the article about micheladas in NY Magazine. With a recipe including a cashew salsa. Next we're going to hear about truffled michelada with a parmesan croute. Please stop getting on my nerve. Here's the simply marvelous original, for those of you who do not need useless adornments.

I wiped out on my bike on Friday. I have noticed that there have been a couple of times in my life where I have put myself in danger precisely by trying to be cautious. Case in point: years ago, Mr. Ex-Enchilada and I (me?) were out and about on a Saturday night in Mexico City. We had a drink at a bar and then about 11 pm we wanted tacos, naturally. Mr. Ex Enchilada suggested we walk to the taquería, about 12 blocks. I, fearing for our safety, insisted upon taking a cab. That's when we were abducted.
(By the way, I finally ate at famous Taquería El Paso on E 97 st. Not as good as the hype claims).

Same with the bike. The roads were slick so I decided to get on a stretch of desolate curb for safety. That's when I wiped out. I was wearing a helmet. In fact, the only part of my body that did not scrape the asphalt was my head (though my cheek did swipe the nasty pavement). So does it pay to be reckless? Or am I just a klutz?

The Importance of Being Earnest

2011-06-17T17:49:00.001-04:00

Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell is very funny and perfect in this production of the comedy by Oscar Wilde. Lady Bracknell is blessed with some of the funniest lines ever written and Bedford delivers them with haughty, deadpan panache. Oscar Wilde's writing is awesome. The rest is uneven: the set design and the costumes are atrocious; the ugliest I have ever seen. Some members of the cast are more fortunate than others at impersonating the British upper crust. Most of them, with the exception of David Purr and Jessie Austrian, do not have quite have what it takes to land Wilde's exquisite one liners with the precision they deserve. Curiously, the one British actress in the cast I found the least intelligible and the most grating, so this is not about my usual snobbish Anglophilia. But as long as the words are understandable (and they are, for the most part), one just sits there and listens, trying not to lose even a comma. Bedford himself directed, and he seems to have directed himself to perfection, yet the rest was a bit too farcical and sometimes wobbly. I guess it is very hard to strike the right balance with this play, yet it is equally hard to be too hard on it. It is quite delightful.
Oscar Wilde sounds like a man of today, but with superior wit, charm and elegance. He is the granddaddy of some of our current wits, like David Sedaris, Simon Doonan and Paul Rudnick (they are not in the same league as Wilde, but they are funny and gay.) Poor dear, he was born in the wrong century, way ahead of his time.

Can't resist quoting him:

Lady Bracknell:
I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Jack: I must admit I smoke.
Lady Bracknell: I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind.

Algernon Moncrieff:
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.

You crack me up, Oscar Wilde.

The Normal Heart

2011-06-17T17:12:00.000-04:00

When is the last time you went to the theater and had a cathartic experience? I can't think of any drama I've seen in years that provoked real emotional catharsis.
Well, this excellent revival of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart is one intensely cathartic experience (it just won a Tony Award for best revival of a play, and deservedly so). Directed by George C. Wolfe and Joel Grey, with an excellent cast, The Normal Heart is a theatrical rant but it is a good, necessary, emotional, funny, poignant and enraging rant. Joe Mantello plays Ned Weeks, a Larry Kramer-like activist, who at the beginning of the eighties realizes that young gay men are dying in droves, but because the epidemic seems confined to them, nobody seems to care. Worse, there is deliberate neglect on the part of the health authorities and the government to help because it is an illness that attacks gay men only (which turned out to be untrue).
To see a play about the beginning of the AIDS pandemic now is just as shocking as it must have been when it was first staged, off-Broadway in the mid-80s, but perhaps for different reasons. Now there are drugs that seem to help patients live long lives, and it was reported recently that there is one patient who seems to have been cured. We don't see the devastation any more on the streets of New York, with its hosts of ravaged young men looking like living ghosts, but the devastation lives in the hearts of millions of people who lost loved ones to AIDS, including myself. And it has not gone away. People like Larry Kramer remind us that AIDS is still killing men and women all over the world. The shock today comes from realizing how indifferent we were, how deliberately we tried to look away.
What I loved about this play is that it does not let anybody off easy. Kramer was the original founder of GMHC (Gay Men's Health Crisis). He was so antagonistic and abrasive (although in the play and through Joe Mantello's deeply empathetic perfromance he is lovably so) that he was thrown off the board and then founded Act Up, which was a much more radical organization.
For people outside the gay community it's very hard to understand anything concerning gayness, let alone the fraught politics behind AIDS activism. At the time, Kramer was critical of gay promiscuity because it seemed suicidal. He got a lot of flak from the gay community who were trying to empower themselves after being in the closet for centuries. When one sees the play today, one can understand that side of the argument, but one instinctively sides with Kramer/Weeks and wants everybody to stop sleeping around and forget about the politics.
But The Normal Heart is a good play, which is the opposite of a pamphlet. Kramer understands that human complexity, as in motives not being entirely pristine, good intentions sometimes being misguided, deeply flawed characters, and clear eyed realism makes for great drama and great truth and that individual human stories will move us to outrage and compassion. You'd have to be made of stone not to be moved by this ferocious play. The compassion in this play is fierce and relentless, it has nothing to do with the shy benevolence of a pietá. It is a fighting, screaming compassion and I had never seen anything like it on a stage. Nor had I been to a play where half the time you could hear many audience members openly sobbing or clapping wildly at the best lines, cheering at the poignant jokes.
A seat away from me was an elderly lady who left at intermission because she didn't know what the play was about when she bought the ticket (didn't she read the poster? She has been living under what rock?). Having sat through half the play, she still refused to open her heart and her mind. Unfortunately, even with all the "progress" being made, this is the actual world we live in.
At the end of The Normal Heart you are moved and outraged and appalled and consoled by the sheer force of Kramer's voice and the stark nakedness of the production, which takes place within four white walls with words protruding from them like a news ticker frozen in time, and a list of names of victims of AIDS that keeps growing until it threatens to engulf the entire theater.
The actors are all magnificent, in particular a ferocious Ellen Barkin as Emma Brookner, a doctor who first battled against the horrible disease when no one understood what it was. Joe Mantello is also excellent. A bit over the top, but funny and furious. I really liked Jim Parsons (who apparently is on a hit TV show I know nothing about). The play is mercifully smart, funny and very touching and it is not meant as a punishing sermon for the audience, but as a window into the tragic emotional, social, cultural and political bewilderment that is AIDS.
In a leaflet you get when you exit the play, and in a paragraph written in the playbill, Kramer writes that pharmaceutical companies are the greatest evil unleashed by man on man. He is still fighting that they don't spend as much as they should on AIDS research and he claims they create medicines that palliate but do not cure. I'm glad he was moved to action and made this his cause. And I'm glad he was a talented writer before he dedicated his life to fighting AIDS.
The title of the play comes from a line in September 1, 1939, a very fitting poem by W.H. Auden.

Equal Opportunity Cheating

2011-06-11T23:14:00.001-04:00

This is what I think. Women should give as good as they get. I think it's highly unfair for men to hog most of the cheating. I've always entertained the notion that if someone cheated on me, I would probably feel compelled to do the same. Tit for tat.
Women: let's stop being a bunch of cry babies and go for it.
I am not advocating for infidelity. I just think that the playing field should be level. It should not be a cultural thing that men can do whatever they please and this is shrugged off with the ridiculous idea that "boys will be boys", and women either stand stoically by their men or look the other way (Silda, Anne Sinclair, Hillary, Maria Shriver) or they suffer in silence, or they max out the credit card or exact revenge in God knows what way. Women give birth to men who then treat women like shit. Why is this? Because we let them set up all the rules and the rules are designed to give them all the power. If you give birth to a boy, the least you could do is to teach him to respect women. And if you give birth to a girl, you better tell her she is a human being of equal value and should demand respect. Otherwise you are in collusion with those who abuse you.
But to go back to my first point, if your man is a cheat, go have some fun yourself, if you so desire. You can have an affair, you can watch porn (good luck finding something where women are not portrayed like an inhuman hole with tits): you have the right to get off too!
I resent the notion that men are some sort of hormonally possessed neanderthals who can't control their jones, but women are too pure to be horny and are expected to behave. Some extreme societies have the burka and clitoral mutilation and stoning and burning and honor killings, which all aim to deprive women of their sexual independence. We are more civilized, but in our society there are many ways, deeply ingrained in our culture, with which men try to control our sexual freedom. They need to be in control of our sexuality, either by oversexualizing and objectifying women, like in porn, or by creating concepts like monogamy, which sound good on paper but only seem to apply to females. This is male-centric rubbish designed by them, with our acquiescence and complicity, to give them power and control over us. They can kiss my ass.
Why is most heterosexual prostitution female? Why can't there be male prostitutes for women too? This is cultural. You will argue that it is biological, and you may have had a point before the 20th century, but I have two words for you: Viagra and contraception. So fuck biology. It is doable. Let's level the playing field.
Women are not less sexual than men, nor they should be sexual only at their leisure.

Born Yesterday

2011-06-11T12:03:00.000-04:00

I only went to check out Nina Arianda, a new young actress who is very hot right now.
Stepping into Judy Holliday's shoes is no small feat and Arianda is very good. She does not have that adorable wide eyed innocence that Holliday used to kill with, but her timing is excellent and so is her physicality. At times I wished she was not so cartoony, but she makes Billie Dawn her own.
The play by Garson Kanin is both a little rusty around the edges but surprisingly timely, as it deals with the quintessential American problem of having cheaply bought political representatives and more importantly, an American people who chooses to be ignorant and uninformed and blinded by bling (or scandal or American Idol). This play has the right idea and the right feelings, but the production needs to be zipped along. It is not a farce, but a bit of fire in the pacing would help a lot.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by Jim Belushi (stepping into Broderick Crawford's shoes), perhaps because I expected the worst. Belushi is a bit of a screamer, but his Brock is truly a boor, a very dark character. I liked that in this production they emphasize the ugliness and don't try to make it cute.
However, what really pisses me off is people wooting and giving standing ovations to Robert Sean Leonard, a piece of wood whose only reason for the completely unjustified shower of adoration is that he happens to be in a popular TV show (which by the way, I don't get House, and I love Hugh Laurie). Meanwhile, Frank Wood, an excellent character actor, who nails it suavely and right on the nose without breaking a sweat, doesn't get enough love, 'cause people don't know him (he was in the excellent Flight of the Conchords, on HBO).
Stepping into William Holden's shoes is as impossible or more than Judy Holliday's and Robert Sean Leonard, probably the actor with less sexual charisma in the history of acting, is painful to watch. He is like watching dough rise. Actually, watching dough rise is more exciting. It is already a bit of a stretch that such a cultured radical as his character, Paul Verrell, would immediately fall for a ditz like Billie, but it can all happen through the magic of mutual attraction, which in this case seems to barely flow. The play doesn't make much sense in the romance department, but the direction and the actors could fill in the blanks. There were stretches when it seemed like Arianda and Leonard forgot they are supposed to be in love. When he first sees her, the moment doesn't register so when he later flirts with her it's like wha? Since when?
I kept thinking of William Holden. But him we can't bring back from the dead. So I was thinking, who could play this part with zing? Who could make Billie Dawn smolder? Liev Schreiber would be great. Even super ham Billy Crudup would be better.
I also thought that if for two hours we could all collectively forget about Tony Soprano (impossible, but we could try) James Gandolfini could be fun as Brock, as long as he used a different Jersey accent.
But if you sit in a Broadway show dreaming of an alternate cast, something is not quite right.

A New Literary Trend

2011-06-09T00:38:00.001-04:00

Given the enormous success of the book Go the Fuck to Sleep, I think we've inadvertently discovered how we can get people to read more:

War and Fucking Peace
To Kill a Fucking Mockingbird
Brave New World, Fuckers
Fuck Lolita
Paradise Lost, Fuck!
The Age of Fucking Innocence
In Search of Lost Time, WTF?
Great Fucking Expectations
Romeo and Juliet Fuck
Fuck The Comfort of Strangers
Portnoy's Fucking Complaint
I Am Charlotte Fucking Simmons
Fucking Flowers of Evil
Mother Fucking Courage
A Hundred Years of Fucking Solitude.
Where The Fuck is Waldo?

Anything to cultivate and enlighten people.

Dick in a Box

2011-06-07T09:08:00.000-04:00

What is it with men in positions of power and sexual compulsion? DSK and Anthony Weiner, for instance? Is it insecurity?
I'm not comparing the two. DSK is a sexual addict and sexual harasser, an alleged rapist, an abuser of women, and Weiner is just an idiot and a blossoming cheat.
But what makes them both seem pathetic is the enormous disparity between the importance of their roles and responsibilities as public figures, and the kinds of inappropriate things they do privately. It doesn't compute. Why risk their position of power for something as pedestrian as getting a hard-on?
Regular people who cheat know the risks. They are aware of the potential destruction of their relationships and of the world of pain that cheating can cause. In the case of men with huge public responsibilities, this may also entail the destruction of their careers. Are they not aware of that? Unlike the Governator, most randy public figures cannot fall back on a Hollywood career.
I think that the disparity between their public personae and who they really believe they are is enormous, which must be the reason why they seem almost naive about the risks they take. Either they can't believe they are where they are, or they think they are untouchable and can get away with murder.
Why is it so difficult for certain men to keep it in their pants? DSK and Schwarzenegger are notorious gropers and that puts them in a category of particularly vile lowlife that is disrespectful to and contemptuous of women. This is the kind of Berlusconian machismo that claims to love women but in essence is predicated on their domination and debasement.
(By the way, click the link I provided above to Ariel Levy's The New Yorker's article about Berlusconi. Your jaw will drop. I came to the conclusion that Berlusconi could not exist in any other country but Italy. He is as much a product of that crazy tit-obsessed culture as pizza or pasta).
DSK is a case of sustained abuse of power; he harassed women in a society that allowed him to do so without consequences for years. He did it here, and he got punished (he must be glued to the TV watching the Salem Witch Trials of Weinergate and thinking if this is what happens to an amateur loser, imagine what's gonna happen to me!). He must rue the day he decided to let his dick loose in the USA, but he's so arrogant, he just pleaded not guilty.
But what the fuck was Weiner thinking, using twitter and facebook to conduct affairs? What rock has he been living under that he doesn't know to be careful? Everybody knows how volatile these things are! You send them out and have no further control over them! Their entire nature is about spreading information. Hell-o?
Weiner seems to have been getting his kicks, like an excited schoolboy, out of nothing but virtual innuendo, and although he was incredibly stupid, it is painful to see the press conference. It's not like he lied and declared war on a foreign country. I never really followed him, so I don't have a political axe to grind here. I've always found him unlikable. Do I think he should resign? No. This is what he was doing with his private life, which is not a crime and has nothing to do with his job. It just is very pathetic and rather unsavory, sending out pictures of his boners and his pecs.
But Nancy Pelosi needs to start the witch hunt before the other party does and I bet Weiner will end up resigning. I hope he doesn't, just to tip the puritanical end of the scale a bit to the other side. We don't want to be a place like France, where abusers are coddled, but we also don't want to be a convent. Until DSK came along, I always thought that the French were far more mature than us when it came to sex and romance. How sophisticated it was that both Mme. Mitterrand and the lover were at the funeral, Pepe Le Pew, etc, etc. It has been disappointing to learn that French culture is nothing but yet another boys' club, with the acquiescence of les femmes, as always. But here, the sexual hysteria is even more disturbing.
Americans are a bunch of horny puritans and this is rather confusing, not to say very hard to pull off, so to speak.

A Pain in the Neck

2011-06-06T18:34:00.000-04:00

Note the pendant hanging from her neck.

It is not sufficient for this human vomit, this putrid excrescence of evil, to come to New York, eat the wrong pizza, say stupid things about Paul Revere and be so stupefyingly insane as to stand by her historical errors concerning him, who she insists on turning into an NRA icon.
She also gets to wear a Star of David? This is the last straw.
Apparently, she wore the star in New York on celebration of Jerusalem Day, which commemorates Israel's conquest of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six Day War. On other days, with other audiences, she conveniently wears other religious symbols, the harlot:

Is this her own personal mishegoss? She thinks that Jews (in New York, of all places) are suddenly going to like her if she wears a Mogen Dovid? Does she think we already forgot that in 2008 she attended a service in her church where the director of Jews for Jesus (another plague from hell) said that the Jews who were victims of terrorist attacks in Israel died as punishment for not accepting Christianity?
People accuse Jews of having too long a memory. Well, we better not lose it now.
Or did some enterprising, benighted, wrongheaded Jew dream up this public relations coup?
How many times do I have to scream it to the winds?
Jews, hear me out:
This offensive simulacrum of a person 1) is not a Jew 2) is not a friend of the Jews.
As I have said a zillion times before, evangelicals that support Israel do so not because they love Bibi and they love Jews. They do it for one reason only. Israel is where Jesus is supposed to show up when he finally deigns to come back. Only the saved will be allowed into the Rapture and Whatever Happens Next will not happen until EVERYBODY is a Christian because only the Christians can be saved. Hence, the Jews, who have paid dearly through the centuries for refusing to believe in Jesus, are first on the list of conversion.
So listen, idiot Jews: no matter how you slice it, it's not gonna be good. If it doesn't happen, we may be accused of scaring him away. If it happens, we are going to be standing in the way unless we decide to convert. To judge from past history, this is not going to happen voluntarily, and we all know how carried away the faithful can get when it comes to the conversion of the infidels (the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, anyone?).
Do not come crying to me wondering what happened to all that evangelical love.
This woman is a dangerous idiot and so are you if you think she's good for the Jews, or for anybody else, for that matter.
As for you, pestilent, opportunistic cockroach, take that thing off your neck.
How dare you?

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-06-05T11:52:00.000-04:00

Manohla Dargis liked it but I didn't: Beginners.

Department of Culinary Suspicion

2011-06-01T10:32:00.001-04:00

The New York Times reports there is an authentic taquería in Paris. The only one. It's called Candelaria and serves spicy tacos, whether the French like it hot or not. However, the lines at the door are of many Americans who miss their tacos. This makes me highly suspicious, because most Americans have a distorted idea of tacos.
A woman quoted in the article says that Candelaria's tacos are not as good as Mission (San Francisco's) tacos. And I say that Mission tacos are not as good as real Mexican tacos. I know all of you Californians (and some Texans) want to challenge me to a duel right now. What can I say? Bring it.
Your tacos may be very tasty but I always find something off with them. Too big and fat, not the right tortilla, bad accoutrements (cabbage, too much lettuce, sour cream, radishes), etc.
To their credit, at Candelaria they make the tortillas in-house. The reporter says that they were too spicy, which is also a no-no. The optional salsas can be as spicy as hell, (although they should not all set your tongue on fire) but the taco fillings shouldn't be.
I once ate at a Mexican restaurant in Paris that was owned by a guy from Oaxaca. In order to get the French to come in, he had to take any evidence of spice out of the food. The food was like a consumptive cousin of the real thing. It reminded me of Proust, swaddled in bed, afraid to go outside and breathe. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good. It was bland and it tasted off-Mexican. It was a bit sad.
In countries where corn is not a staple, it's hard to make Mexican food work. The tortilla is key, and outside of Mexico tortillas usually suck. Then there are the misreadings: too much spice or not enough and lack of balance and subtlety. In New York, things have improved greatly since the arrival of many Mexican workers to the city's restaurant kitchens. Now taquerías are ubiquitous. Frankly, I am afraid to try them, as I find that restaurant owners still don't quite understand the taco concept.
A short taco primer: everything needs to be served hot temperature-wise. The tortilla and the filling need to be hot. Not the filling hot and the tortilla frigid, like in Chipotle, or viceversa. In Mexico, most taco fillings are cooked fresh on the spot. So if you get a taco de bistec, or any other taco a la parrilla, the meat hasn't been sitting in a container since the morning. It gets put on the grill and cooked right then and there. If they are tacos de guisado, the stews are made beforehand but somehow they do not taste like they have been congealing there all day. Most taquerías served grilled meats and pastor (pork on a spit), but here the fillings tend to be stews, even when it's meat. It's always disappointing. So concentrate on the contents and stop the obsession with the shit that goes on top, which in Mexico is chopped onions and cilantro. Provide some juicy limes instead. Also, be generous! Don't make me look for the optional sauces with a microscope. Don't give me a tiny plastic thimble of sauce and an eighth of a dessicated lime. This is where you really don't get it.
I always get asked where do I go for Mexican food in NY. My answer is usually "to Mexico City". But there are a couple of places that I like. Hecho en Dumbo, in the Bowery is top of my list. Great appetizers, very good carnitas, quite authentic. And they make an addictive tamarind margarita. The tacos de cochinita and the sopa de tortilla at La Esquina are also good. La Superior in Williamsburg is fine. In the case of taquerías, I resent to have to pay so much. The prices of tacos have not translated very well to the NY economy, I'm afraid. I have not tried some newer places, for fear of bitter disappointment. But I might.
Which brings me to tell you, however, that I found the best enchiladas verdes I've eaten outside of Mexico right in my neighborhood. They are so good that if I ate them in Mexico, I'd be very impressed. The green tomatillo sauce is fresh and perfectly balanced with a spicy kick, and the chicken is not dried out left overs but is stewed as they do in Mexico, so there is a delicious reddish ooze coming out of the green. As the tortillas are smothered in the excellent sauce, they don't call too much attention to themselves and they taste fine. And although the cabbage garnish is not quite right, the dish is absolutely delicious. According to a waitress, the cooks made the enchiladas for themselves and the chef wisely decided to put them on the menu. Now I can't live without them. They are served at Burger and Barrel in West Houston St.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-05-30T17:34:00.000-04:00

Transcendent or trite? The new Terrence Malick film, The Tree Of Life.

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

2011-05-29T12:17:00.000-04:00

Woody Allen's latest: Midnight in Paris.