Late Poem to My Father

Suddenly I thought of you
as a child in that house, the unlit rooms
and the hot fireplace with the man in front of it,
silent. You moved through the heavy air
in your physical beauty, a boy of seven,
helpless, smart, there were things the man
did near you, and he was your father,
the mold by which you were made. Down in the
cellar, the barrels of sweet apples,
picked at their peak from the tree, rotted and
rotted, and past the cellar door
the creek ran and ran, and something was
not given to you, or something was
taken from you that you were born with, so that
even at 30 and 40 you set the
oily medicine to your lips
every night, the poison to help you
drop down unconscious. I always thought the
point was what you did to us
as a grown man, but then I remembered that
child being formed in front of the fire, the
tiny bones inside his soul
twisted in greenstick fractures, the small
tendons that hold the heart in place
snapped. And what they did to you
you did not do to me. When I love you now,
I like to think I am giving my love
Directly to that boy in the fiery room,

As if it could reach him in time.

A very Happy Birthday to Judy Garland, who would have turned 91 today.

She left us far too soon, but I like to think that she is singing and dancing and not starving herself up in heaven with the multitude of other brilliant entertainers that I know are up there.

I have always identified with Judy Garland, and it has taken me years to figure out why.  I’m a straight, white, female, librarian. I grew up in a home with eccentric parents and lots of music – reggae, rock and roll, traditional Irish, bluegrass, and zydeco.

But no showtunes.  

The first time I saw The Wizard of Oz as a very young child, I fell in love with it, and since then, Judy Garland has always held a very special and respected place in my heart.  I grew up in a house that was far from repressed.  Creativity and originality was celebrated, and the arts were a paramount force in my upbringing.  For the most part, I am a perfect blend of my parents — all my traits are ones that can be easily attributed to either my father or mother.

Still, there was (and still is) a switch that goes off in me when the lights dim in a crowded theater, or when I hear the first few bars of a Sondheim, Gershwin, or Cole Porter song that didn’t go off in my parents.  For me, as Dorothy Gale opened the door to colorful Oz, so too was my love of musical theater opened to me.  To this day, I credit The Wizard of Oz as my introduction to showtunes.

I know that Garland is seen as an icon for the gay community because of the myriad of personal demons she had to face throughout her life — personal and professional battles with people who wanted to manipulate her for one reason or another — she was starved down to almost nothing, called ugly and unattractive by the big boy film executives, was financially unstable and married five times, and suffered from drug and alcohol abuse.  Despite all this, she is still talented as hell, glamorous and campy.  The gay community sees her as triumphant over these evils that plagued her, as powerful as the recognizable belt that she uses as her tool for resilience.

For me, Judy Garland will always represent Dorothy Gale, the little girl in the blue gingham dress who dreamed of a world outside the monotony of her sepia-toned farm life.  When I listen to her sing, I understand how deeply closeted gay boys living in rural Iowa feel as they read fashion magazines underneath their covers with a flashlight for fear of their father finding them out.  She is the other.  She is youth.  She is more.  Garland’s voice represents my passage to independence — her yellow brick road is the road less travelled, the one where my family and I part ways.  She lets me, just for a minute, sing along with her unmistakable voice and pretend that we are together on stage, dressed to the nines and championing the same cause.

Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, from Easter Parade.  Their timing could not be a better example of perfection.

Dinner with His Flowers

I saw this tulip for the first time
one night after dinner.
At the time I was sinfully bloated to the seams with plump cheese filled dough
covered by a blanket of thick, red tomato filling.

It was then that I laid eyes on the tulip.
By candlelight it looked like a rose, only not as vain.
I reached up and rubbed my fingertip against its petal,
the outer layers were that of a woman’s lure;
the icebreaker, her dreams, her perfume, her mother, her father,
your first walk into her apartment and her whispering voice,
her soft hands.

My index finger and thumb moved in leisurely circles
as I sat mesmerized by the tulip’s beauty.
There was loveliness in imperfection,
a single petal bent backwards by gravity
and singed by the infringing, black solidness of death.

I drew my forefinger to the tulip’s depths-
Curious,
the center was so black and dark,
I could feel a smooth, ribbed piece somewhere inside
as my nail gently caressed the waxy, coated seeds.
My finger pulled slowly out of the tulip,
its petals shrank back to their original shape
like a doll’s hair.

I smelled my finger and rubbed it to my check,
the velvety redolence teased my senses
all I could think of was that portion inside the tulip
its simple, protected secret,
Its own.
I stared at the candle’s burning flame
and sighed. All I had done
was touch a flower.

We Ain’t Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain

call it the greenhouse effect or whatever
but it just doesn’t rain like it used to.
I particularly remember the rains of the
depression era.
there wasn’t any money but there was
plenty of rain.
it wouldn’t rain for just a night or
a day,
it would RAIN for 7 days and 7
nights
and in Los Angeles the storm drains
weren’t built to carry off taht much
water
and the rain came down THICK and
MEAN and
STEADY
and you HEARD it banging against
the roofs and into the ground
waterfalls of it came down
from roofs
and there was HAIL
big ROCKS OF ICE
bombing
exploding smashing into things
and the rain
just wouldn’t
STOP
and all the roofs leaked-
dishpans,
cooking pots
were placed all about;
they dripped loudly
and had to be emptied
again and
again.
the rain came up over the street curbings,
across the lawns, climbed up the steps and
entered the houses.
there were mops and bathroom towels,
and the rain often came up through the
toilets:bubbling, brown, crazy,whirling,
and all the old cars stood in the streets,
cars that had problems starting on a
sunny day,
and the jobless men stood
looking out the windows
at the old machines dying
like living things out there.
the jobless men,
failures in a failing time
were imprisoned in their houses with their
wives and children
and their
pets.
the pets refused to go out
and left their waste in
strange places.
the jobless men went mad
confined with
their once beautiful wives.
there were terrible arguments
as notices of foreclosure
fell into the mailbox.
rain and hail, cans of beans,
bread without butter;fried
eggs, boiled eggs, poached
eggs; peanut butter
sandwiches, and an invisible
chicken in every pot.
my father, never a good man
at best, beat my mother
when it rained
as I threw myself
between them,
the legs, the knees, the
screams
until they
seperated.
“I’ll kill you,” I screamed
at him. “You hit her again
and I’ll kill you!”
“Get that son-of-a-bitching
kid out of here!”
“no, Henry, you stay with
your mother!”
all the households were under
seige but I believe that ours
held more terror than the
average.
and at night
as we attempted to sleep
the rains still came down
and it was in bed
in the dark
watching the moon against
the scarred window
so bravely
holding out
most of the rain,
I thought of Noah and the
Ark
and I thought, it has come
again.
we all thought
that.
and then, at once, it would
stop.
and it always seemed to
stop
around 5 or 6 a.m.,
peaceful then,
but not an exact silence
because things continued to
drip
drip
drip

and there was no smog then
and by 8 a.m.
there was a
blazing yellow sunlight,
Van Gogh yellow-
crazy, blinding!
and then
the roof drains
relieved of the rush of
water
began to expand in the warmth:
PANG!PANG!PANG!
and everybody got up and looked outside
and there were all the lawns
still soaked
greener than green will ever
be
and there were birds
on the lawn
CHIRPING like mad,
they hadn’t eaten decently
for 7 days and 7 nights
and they were weary of
berries
and
they waited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
the birds plucked them
up
and gobbled them
down;there were
blackbirds and sparrows.
the blackbirds tried to
drive the sparrows off
but the sparrows,
maddened with hunger,
smaller and quicker,
got their
due.
the men stood on their porches
smoking cigarettes,
now knowing
they’d have to go out
there
to look for that job
that probably wasn’t
there, to start that car
that probably wouldn’t
start.
and the once beautiful
wives
stood in their bathrooms
combing their hair,
applying makeup,
trying to put their world back
together again,
trying to forget that
awful sadness that
gripped them,
wondering what they could
fix for
breakfast.
and on the radio
we were told that
school was now
open.
and
soon
there I was
on the way to school,
massive puddles in the
street,
the sun like a new
world,
my parents back in that
house,
I arrived at my classroom
on time.
Mrs. Sorenson greeted us
with, “we won’t have our
usual recess, the grounds
are too wet.”
“AW!” most of the boys
went.
“but we are going to do
something special at
recess,” she went on,
“and it will be
fun!”
well, we all wondered
what that would
be
and the two hour wait
seemed a long time
as Mrs.Sorenson
went about
teaching her
lessons.
I looked at the little
girls, they looked so
pretty and clean and
alert,
they sat still and
straight
and their hair was
beautiful
in the California
sunshine.
the the recess bells rang
and we all waited for the
fun.
then Mrs. Sorenson told us:
“now, what we are going to
do is we are going to tell
each other what we did
during the rainstorm!
we’ll begin in the front row
and go right around!
now, Michael, you’re first!. . .”
well, we all began to tell
our stories, Michael began
and it went on and on,
and soon we realized that
we were all lying, not
exactly lying but mostly
lying and some of the boys
began to snicker and some
of the girls began to give
them dirty looks and
Mrs.Sorenson said,
“all right! I demand a
modicum of silence
here!
I am interested in what
you did
during the rainstorm
even if you
aren’t!”
so we had to tell our
stories and they were
stories.
one girl said that
when the rainbow first
came
she saw God’s face
at the end of it.
only she didn’t say which end.
one boy said he stuck
his fishing pole
out the window
and caught a little
fish
and fed it to his
cat.
almost everybody told
a lie.
the truth was just
too awful and
embarassing to tell.
then the bell rang
and recess was
over.
“thank you,” said Mrs.
Sorenson, “that was very
nice.
and tomorrow the grounds
will be dry
and we will put them
to use
again.”
most of the boys
cheered
and the little girls
sat very straight and
still,
looking so pretty and
clean and
alert,
their hair beautiful in a sunshine that
the world might never see
again.
and

I Thought I Was Not Alone

I thoughtI was not alone, walking here by the shore,
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light–that one has utterly
disappeared,
And those appear that perplex me.

Diaphragm Aria

It’s curious and sweet to slip it out
and look inside, to see what’s there,
like a treasure hunt, small toys
and dolls tucked into the root-floor of the woods,
or tilt up a stone in the yard and find,
in the groove of her path, the flame-brown newt. Now I
read the shallow cup of dregs,
shreds like clothes torn away in
eagerness — cloth of the bodies — which rips
to a cloud of threads. Here our daughter
never picked her finicky way,
here our son never somersaulted,
here only our not-children
advanced, and dropped, and surged forward
and were cut down, there a coil
of tail, here a ladyfinger, a
curl, a bone of the twin. When I have reached
into myself, and glistened out the dome,
I search its planetarium sky
for its weather, ivory nimbus, reach
of summer showers — these are the heavens
under which the grateful bodies
went to earth, dense with contentment,
moving, together, for those hour-long
moments, in a mattery paradise,
I gave into the cumulus
of spermicide, I bless the lollers who
stay in that other sphere as we come
like surf on the shore of it.

Ladies and gentlemen, put our hands together for the astonishing…

What do you get when a director with a penchant for razzle-dazzle theatrics decides to adapt one of the most sparsely worded yet beloved and quintessentially classic American novels of our time?

…Gatsby.

Gatsby is a film that, much like Baz Luhrmann’s other work, you will either love or hate.  And to be honest, I was headed towards the latter during opening weekend as I sat, 3-D glasses set upon my nose, Sour Patch kids perched in my lap, waiting eagerly for the movie to really begin.

If Jack Clayton’s 1974 adaptation attempted to be true to the ennui of the story — the rich lolling about in their mansions in white sipping drinks, having affairs, and gossipping — then Luhrmann bravely decided to put the “roar” in the roaring twenties by bringing 1920s New York City to 2013 New York City.  And not much has changed.

Here’s a summary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel for the two people who haven’t read it from The Daily Beast:

Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is a struggling bond trader who rents a summer cottage next to the mysterious mega-rich Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the Long Island coast. The enigmatic Gatsby throws over-the-top weekly parties, which we later learn are to attract the attention of Carraway’s cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan)—a socialite Gatsby is hopelessly in love with. Unfortunately for him, Daisy is married to the brutish Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), a classist, racist old-money scoundrel who cheats on her with the working class Myrtle Wilson (Isla Fisher). Gatsby, with the help of Carraway, attempts to rekindle his romance with Daisy.

Luhrmann pulls out all the stops with this movie: there’s barely a scene that doesn’t contain an over-abundance of perfectly coiffed almost other-worldly looking men and women, blazingly fast cars, and pumping music.

Everything is fast – the way the characters move, the scene changes — even the colors seem brighter than the human eye can take, especially in 3-D!  We are in a frenzied environment from the get-go, and Tobey Maguire, although much more mature and a bit more masculine, is like a tiny lost mouse in this sea of endless movement and inertia.   He is, after all, the outsider to this insipid cooperative — the scribe, the compulsory witness for this charade of poor behavior.  After two hours and forty-minutes, I understood Luhrmann’s tactic for telling Gatsby’s story, and it is not an unusual technique: the pomp and circumstance distracts from the fact that, at it’s core, Gatsby seems a story of emptiness rather than satiation — for all the lavish parties, sparkling dresses, bottles of champagne, beautiful suits, and attractive people cannot quench the characters’ thirst for something.  Something else.

The Good:

Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bromance:  The affection that these two real-life BFFs have for each other comes across on-screen.  It’s nice to see that they have both steered fairly straight courses despite being part of the dreadfully coined Pussy Posse back in the 90s.  God, I don’t even like typing that phrase.  Both actors shine in their roles and in some ways, it seems that Maguire and DiCaprio are Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby – Nick being a sensible and grounding force for Gatsby, his inconceivably handsome and polished counterpart whose facade just barely hides a constant undercurrent of apprehension.

Something that Maguire brings to the role of Nick is his characters genuine fondness for Gatsby — not merely an interest or a curiosity, but a true attachment.  Two Gatsby/Nick moments stood out most to me — the first when Gatsby asks Nick the favor of a lifetime and the event on which the entire novel pivots — to invite Daisy to his cottage the two can reunite after all these years.  Gatsby insists on basically renovating Nick’s humble cottage by enlisting landscapers, cleaners, caterers, and florists.  Have I mentioned the flowers?

Luhrmann completely nailed this scene.

Nick of course obliges and allows Gatsby to tear up his property in preparation for this simple “tea” that he has arranged so that Gatsby can see Daisy.  When the day arrives and the two wait in silence for Daisy to arrive, you could literally cut the tension in the room with a knife — Gatsby in his perfectly tailored and fitted white suit, hair parted and glossed with just the right amount of product to make it gleam (and let’s not forget the little curl in the front — it’s enough to make a girl cry).  He is so nervous, I started to develop an ulcer in my stomach just by watching him (not to mention the acidity already there from my box of Sour Patch Kids).  As the two wait in complete silence, the clock on the mantle ticking the seconds away like a heartbeat, Gatsby asks Nick almost frantically, “Have you got everything you need?”  Nick doesn’t miss a beat before he replies in what seems to be a way to lighten the mood,

 ”Perhaps more flowers?”

You actually feel sorry for Gatsby in this scene, as he sits among his pastries, cakes, and flowers — he is like a little boy waiting for his birthday party to start — one who is afraid no one will come.  Throughout this entire sequence, where Gatsby is completely wound up in knots, you get the sense the Nick has his back — encouraging him when Gatsby insists that Daisy isn’t coming when she arrives one minute after their set time; making himself scarce as he sees Gatsby and Daisy becoming more comfortable with each other.  There’s a sweetness to Nick as he plays the part of Gatsby’s wingman — we get the sense that he really is in his corner and wants the best for him.  You could almost see this scenario being played out outside the film — with the two actors arranging this type of charade (on a much smaller scale) in real life.  I think the reason why the scene worked so well is that DiCaprio and Maguire feel so comfortable with each other, and it comes across on screen.

The scene that really got me, though, was towards the end of the film, when Maguire delivers one of Nick’s most well-known lines. After sitting through over two hours of melodrama — Tom cheating on Daisy and having an abusive affair with Myrtle, Daisy cheating on Tom with Gatsby yet not leaving Tom for Gatsby, Jordan being a cold fish to Nick — I, for one, was sick of all of them.  I wanted to tell them to go and get jobs and stop messing everything up.  Nick essentially does feel this way when he says to Gatsby, “They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”  It’s not clear whether Nick speaks of his immediate company (Daisy, Tom, Jordan) or if he’s speaking on a larger societal scale.  It’s left up to us to guess, like most of the novel, but the line is delivered so well that you are, at that moment, Nick himself, experiencing this vapid thrill ride and wanting to disembark.  Gatsby, of course, replies with silence, as is described in the novel:

 I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we’d been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time.

This is where Leo shines, as only he can deliver a smile like this — one that is as much about giving as it is receiving.  It might be the only moment in the film when he looks completely relaxed and at ease.  It’s also heartbreaking, as I would think most of us watching know that Gatsby will soon meet his tragic end.

Speaking of which, the scene that this film really brought to life for me — more than when I read it in paper –was Gatsby’s funeral scene.  I never understood how sad this was, that this man who opened his home to the entire city every night laid in his casket for days, looking as handsome as he did while he was living, without a single person to pay their respects.  It’s enough to make you squirm and think of how much, as a society, we have become merely users — we take without any reciprocity.

Leonardo DiCaprio the Unsexy: I’m sure everyone who knows me and who follows this blog will cry out in uproar at this statement, but I mean this as an enormous compliment to Leo’s acting ability.  As I sat in the theater watching this film unfold, I kept thinking to myself, “why isn’t he hot?”  I mean, of course he’s hot, he’s a beautiful man, but his usual Leo charisma wasn’t spread on so thick, at least in my opinion.  Even during his more intimate scenes with Daisy, as he lures her away from his party to the beautifully lit garden when they finally kiss, or when they end up in bed together — it’s like it’s all there, but at the same time, it’s not.  Normally, watching those scenes, I would revert back to being thirteen years old with my face red, looking around self consciously to see if I was the only one who was completely flustered.  But this time, I wasn’t.

It took me awhile to figure out why.  I finally realized, more than ten years after reading the novel for the first time, that Gatsby is a chaste character.  Yes, he’s got this overwhelmingly unhealthy yet romantic desire to reunite with Daisy — he’s manufactured his entire life and existance just to be near her.  That’s overwhelmingly erotic on paper, but it comes across as being off-putting on screen.  I honestly couldn’t believe that Leo, in his prime, was able to tone it down enough to portray this, instead of going all out as the sex bomb that he really is.  I’m sure that others will argue that he overacts and that his introduction — “I’m Gatsby!” is a bit over-the-top (and looks surprisingly like his character’s intro in Django Unchained!), but I have to disagree.  Watching him, you understand a little bit why Daisy isn’t necessarily ready to drop everything and run away with him.  There is something about Leo’s interpretation of this character that’s a little bit, cold, even in his hottest moments, and it’s because he is distracted and always wants more.

Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan: Talk about spot-on casting.  I’ve always had trouble picturing Tom Buchanan in my mind.  I knew he was strong, strict, and hard-tempered, but I never had a clear picture of what his physical manifestation would be.  Joel Edgerton was pure perfection.  Having seen him recently in Zero Dark Thirty, I had in my mind the large and imposing physical presence that he could conjure.  In this role, however, he also displays Tom’s handsomeness, something that’s hard to imagine as you’re reading the text and struck by his vile actions.  Edgerton’s Tom isn’t a fat, hairy, mutant beast a la Paul Giamatti in The Nanny Diaries.  He is a bit like Billy Zane in Titanic — an asshole, sure, but you could also see why he would fall into the “he’s not that bad” category if you were choosing between a rich husband and a lifetime of spinsterhood and disdain from your entire family.

Soundtrack: From hip-hop to haunting melodies, the soundtrack to this film is awesome.  I don’t like it nearly as much as I do the soundtrack and score to Romeo and Juliet, but I’m not sure anything can surpass that in my book.  To me, the standouts are Jay Z’s “$100 Bill”, Lana Del Ray’s “Young and Beautiful,” Fergie’s “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody,” and Jack White’s “Love is Blindness.” I know that a lot of critics hated the anachronistic technique of choosing contemporary music for a period piece, but I think this works for a number of reasons.  Mostly because it makes the story instantly accessible to a younger audience.  If we watched Leo and Daisy sit around listening to Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do,” the film would lose its edginess.  Each song represents the overarching themes of excess, the Prohibition, unrequited love, and pain that run throughout the film.  The money scene is of course, Gatsby’s Roman orgy/speakeasy party scene set to “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody” (also an amazing spin song!) which is, of course, the most significantly false statement of the film, followed by Jay Z’s “100 Bill” being played in the speakeasy.  And how much did I love hearing Jay Z’s “Izzo” blasting out of a 1920s convertible as Gatsby zoomed by in his Rolls Royce?  Classic.

Costumes: I was so thankful that every single female character wasn’t dressed in a flapper dress with a headband.  I’m not sure why, but when people overdo the 1920s by creating caricatures out of every single cast member’s costume, it drives me nuts.  Daisy’s dresses were light and airy and ethereal, much like her character.  Jordan (who reminded me a bit of Emily Blunt) looked masculine in a Katharine Hepburn sort of way — attractive enough so that you could understand Nick’s attraction to her, but still cold enough to see why they weren’t a great match.   Gatsby’s suits, though, took the cake.  His white suit was pure perfection – not a crooked seam, an un-ironed collar, or an ill-fitting hem about it.  Leo should have himself cryogenically frozen in that suit.  And ship himself to me.  Oh, wait…

The Bad:

The Sanitarium Frame Story: I’m not a purist with The Great Gatsby as many viewers and critics of this film are, so the manipulation of certain aspects didn’t bother me at all, ie: the music, the showmanship, etc.  However, to me, having Nick narrate his account of the Gatsby story from a sanitarium cheapened the story and actually took away most of his credibility.  The clincher?  We learn that Nick’s diagnosis is that he is “morbidly alcoholic.”  Okay, I’m no time traveler, but have you read any other books from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s era?  If they weren’t smoking or drinking, they weren’t breathing!  And actually, throughout the book and film, Nick doesn’t come across as a heavy drinker to me (didn’t he say he’d only been drunkn twice in his life?), so this pseudo-psychoanalysis seemed a little tacked on.

Nick’s doctor suggests that he documents the events of the summer leading up to his being institutionalized (if that’s even the word for what has happened to him – ‘taking a long rest?’) as a therapeutic measure.  We actually see Nick, dissheleved, pen in hand, feverishly completing his book, titling it at first “Gatsby” before adding (after a quick dramatic pause) “The Great” to it.

I questioned how they were going to handle the end of the film, who would speak those beautiful last lines that have been quoted and re-quoted so many hundreds of times.  I think that Luhrmann’s decision to have Nick literally write the story before our eyes allows us to see those last lines as Nick writes and speaks them — they appear before us and pass across the screen just as he utters them.  I found that this gave me a bit of nostalgia, as the audience feels like we are reading and hearing these lines for the very first time.  Having both read the book and listened to the audio version, I have to say that seeing those lines on paper is much more gratifying than hearing them, and I’m not exactly sure why.

The Toss-Up:

Carey Mulligan as Daisy:  I know that she beat out half of Hollywood’s actresses to play this role, but I just wasn’t really feeling her.  To be fair, though, I’m not sure how much my dissatisfaction was attributed to her interpretation of Daisy, or the character of Daisy herself.  Daisy has always seemed like such an ethereal being to me — almost as if she doesn’t exist.  Or, if she does, she morphs and becomes whatever she needs to be depending on her surroundings — like  a chameleon… or a borderline.  Carey Mulligan acts the part well, but I almost wish she’d given Daisy something, a bit of personality — anything so that we can feel for this character and understand why Gatsby is so infatuated by her.

But the lack thereof is exactly the point. 

After all, the failure of the American Dream isn’t exactly a subtle theme in Fitzgerald’s novel.  Maybe Gatsby’s unhealthy obsessed with Daisy – his desire to stop the progression of time in order to relive a moment in his past — and the fact that she is merely a vacant shell, reiterates this.  Daisy’s… emptiness and quite frankly, her flat affect show that Gatsby isn’t infatuated with her — it’s the wanting of her that’s more important to him than actually being with her.  This is what I meant earlier when I mentioned Gatbsy’s coldness — even when he is with Daisy, when they are in bed together, it’s still not enough for him — he wants all of her, all the time.  I think Carey Mulligan delivered the line that was the straw that broke the camel at Gatsby’s party’s back — “You want too much!”  We can’t cling forever to something that is no longer a truth.  We can’t pretend to be someone we are not, no matter how much confetti and champagne we toss around.

Verdict?  I would say a solid 8/10.  The film definitely made me re-examine the book (and if you haven’t already, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook version!)  I think that Luhrmann has succeeded in making a classic work more accessible to a contemporary audience, and he has gathered a lot of talent in order to do so.  Go see this movie!

For Warmup:

David Guetta – Where Them Girls At
Kriss Kross vs. Offspring – One More Jump
Rolling Stones – Dance (Part 1)

For Sprints:

Bloc Party – Helicopter
Dandy Warhols – Bohemian Like You
Fergie, Q-Tip, Goon Rock - A Little Party Never Killed Nobody
Fitz and the Tantrums – The Walker
Foo Fighters – Good Grief
Lady Gaga – Highway Unicorn
Pink Floyd – Another Brick in The Wall (Remix)
U2 -Elevation
Weezer – You Gave Your Love to Me Softly

For Hills/Intervals:

Fitz and the Tantrus – Dear Mr. President
Jay Z – IZZO
Metallica – Enter Sandman
No Doubt – Rich Girl
Notorious B.I.G. – Notorious B.I.G.
White Stripes vs. Jay Z – Mi Amour 

For Rhythm/Cadence Rides:

Jennifer Lopez – Feeling So Good
Rolling Stones – Doo Doo Doo Doo
Xilent – Touch Sound

For Cooldown:

Aaliyah – Are You That Somebody
Aerosmith – Jaded
Foo Fighters – Big Me
Notorious B.I.G. – Juicy
Seal – Kiss From a Rose
Ozzy Osbourne – Mama I’m Coming Home
Van Morrison – Days Like This

Disclaimer: I am not a spin instructor, and these are all song suggestions, not actual playlists.

Children Selecting Books In A Library

With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright.
The child’s head, bent to the book-colored shelves,
Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering,
Moving in blind grace … yet from the mural, Care
The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist,
Seizes the baby hero by the hair
And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children,
Words of a doom as ecumenical as dawn
But blanched like dawn, with dew.
The children’s cries
Are to men the cries of crickets, dense with warmth
– But dip a finger into Fafnir, taste it,
And all their words are plain as chance and pain.
Their tales are full of sorcerers and ogres
Because their lives are: the capricious infinite
That, like parents, no one has yet escaped
Except by luck or magic; and since strength
And wit are useless, be kind or stupid, wait
Some power’s gratitude, the tide of things.
Read meanwhile … hunt among the shelves, as dogs do, grasses,
And find one cure for Everychild’s diseases
Beginning: Once upon a time there was
A wolf that fed, a mouse that warned, a bear that rode
A boy. Us men, alas! wolves, mice, bears bore.
And yet wolves, mice, bears, children, gods and men
In slow preambulation up and down the shelves
Of the universe are seeking … who knows except themselves?
What some escape to, some escape: if we find Swann’s
Way better than our own, an trudge on at the back
Of the north wind to — to — somewhere east
Of the sun, west of the moon, it is because we live
By trading another’s sorrow for our own; another’s
Impossibilities, still unbelieved in, for our own …
“I am myself still?” For a little while, forget:
The world’s selves cure that short disease, myself,
And we see bending to us, dewy-eyed, the great
CHANGE, dear to all things not to themselves endeared.

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.