There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
As a quote unquote Theatre Person (Notice how I spell Theatre the “wrong” way? Yeah, that’s the sign I AM a theatre person) who nevertheless has been living so far away from the epicenter of theatrical creativity aka NYC, I always find Tony Awards a bitter sweet event. Wishing does not bring about peace. Let me just put it this way. Still, once in a year, I bask in the glory, vicariously through television broadcast and now more than ever YouTube, of the community of thespians.
I will shut up now so you could watch the opening performance at the Tony Awards last night. NPH. “Broadway: It’s not just for gays anymore!” FUCK YEAH AWESOME!
Tru dat! And while we are at it, shouldn’t somebody go and sign him up to host the next Oscar now too?! Oh, what am I saying? Just sign him up for everything already!
p.s. I have to thank Brahm for posting this video first!
Instead of reading my blog, here are two things I came across today that you should read over the weekend:
From the New York Times, A Gay Former N.B.A. Player Responds to Kobe Bryant, by John Amaechi, who in 2007 was the first NBA player to come out. We have all heard that Kobe called a referee in the heat of an argument the F-word. Many came to his support, claiming that it’s just the way the Sports World, the good ol’ boys club works. Mr. Amaechi begged to differ, in a rational, respectful and persuasive voice.
Here is a quote from the very powerful, and may I say, surprisingly well-written (yes, I have my bias against people in sports. SORRY!) article:
Many people balk when L.G.B.T. people, even black ones, suggest that the power and vitriol behind another awful slur — the N-word — is no different from the word used by Kobe. I make no attempt at an analogy between the historical civil rights struggle for blacks in the United States with the current human rights struggle for L.G.B.T. people, but I can say that I am frequently called both, and the indignation, anger and at times resignation that course through my body are no greater or less for either. I know with both words the intent is to let me know that no matter how big, how accomplished, philanthropic or wise I may become, to them I am not even human.
1. Poor Americans do pay taxes.
2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden.
3. In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.
4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.
5. And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.
6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same—less taxes.
7. Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.
8. Republicans like taxes too.
9. Other countries do it better.
I am being 100% serious here. Have you ever held a brand new bill in your hand? Rubbing it between your thumb and forefinger and feeling the intricate texture on it? Taking in a deep breath of the intoxicating smell that is so much better than the new car smell?
My love for the feel and smell of brand new bills stemmed from all the wonderful memories during Chinese New Year and the money we were given inside those good-luck red envelops. It is important to use only GOOD CLEAN CRISP, preferably brand spanking new, bills in the red envelops. Every year right before Chinese New Year, the government would print out new notes in anticipation of people waiting in line at banks to exchange their old notes for NEW and CRISP bills. As I am typing this, I can remember seeing my dad coming home with a big fat envelop filled with the CRISP NEW bills he just exchanged from the bank, and I can also vividly recall the feeling of rubbing a $NTD 1000 bill between my fingers and my heart starts a-fluttering. The smell of new money wafts in from nowhere. Kinetic memories FTW.
The first time I tried to celebrate Chinese New Year with my children here I walked in and asked to withdraw $100 in $1’s. The bank teller was not amused but she obliged. I stared at the pile of old and dirty dollar bills in dismay.
“Don’t you have NEW dollar bills?”
“Hm. No.”
“But it’s Chinese New Year!”
I was baffled by how she was baffled by all this.
Because of my childhood, I could understand when Mr. Monk first started receiving allowances, he asked for actual, physical money and not some “virtual money” registered in our family Quicken account the way his older brother does. Every Saturday, he goes to the family change jar and takes out 8 quarters ($1 for each grade you are in). He counts them. He rearranges them. He puts them in his wallet, takes them out again and then puts them all back in. He would beg me to walk to Walgreens across the street with him so he could buy something with his own, actual, money in all its physical glory.
The idea that money in the modern world, for the most part, is virtual not only sounds ridiculous to him but seems to insult his intelligence.
“So you mean your money is just numbers inside your bank’s computer?!”
Nowadays, like many people, I do not carry a lot of cash nor do I pay with cash unless absolutely necessary. I use my credit card for everything and for any amount. Yes, I stopped feeling guilty a long time ago for using my VISA to pay for a small soda. Hey, I figure, at least I am not using my AmEx which would cost the retailer at least 2% more in processing fee. So I am actually being nice. But I miss being awed by the sight, smell and feel of crisp new bills which, in my experience, are extremely hard to come by in the U.S.
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Despite my nostalgia for the smell of crisp new bills and my persistent discomfort with the idea of virtual money (Think: Stocks. Think: Bernie Madoff. Think: Facebook valued at $50 Billion), I listened to a story on NPR, twice, of how a “magical” idea of virtual currency by four economists fixed the inflation problem in Brazil and saved the country. I was flabbergasted and can’t stop thinking about it since.
Long story short: Brazil suffered inflation since the 1950s when the government decided to print more money in order to fund the building of a new capital. They had not been able to get out of the vicious cycle and things got so bad in the 1980s that the inflation rate was 80% per month. Can you imagine that? Per month!
In 1992, the new minister of finance as well as the president asked for help from a group of four economists and what’s more, they promised the economists that the government would go along with whatever crazy idea they came up with and the economists would have total reign. The plan was not only to slow down the printing of money but more importantly, to change people’s behaviors and mentality. For the plan to work, the Brazilians needed to have faith in the stable value of the currency, after suffering years of crazy inflation rates. “People have to be tricked into thinking money will hold its value.”
What followed was nothing short of brilliant and fantastical, and the plan, however insane it may sound at first, actually made sense in theory and worked in real life.
The four economists wanted to create a new currency that was stable, dependable and trustworthy. The only catch: This currency would not be real. No coins, no bills. It was fake. [It was] called it a Unit of Real Value — URV… It was virtual; it didn’t exist in fact.
People would still have and use the existing currency, the cruzeiro. But everything would be listed in URVs, the fake currency. Their wages would be listed in URVs. Taxes were in URVs. All prices were listed in URVs. And URVs were kept stable. What changed was how many cruzeiros each URV was worth… after a few months, [people] began to see that prices in URVs were stable. Once that happened, [the four economists] could declare that the virtual currency would become the country’s actual currency. It would be called the real. — NPR Abridged Transcript or Full-length Podcast
Imagine that: economists as national heroes. Virtual money that saved an entire country from inflating itself out of oblivion.
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Speaking of those who are in the business of money printing aka the Federal Reserve in the U.S., of course you know who Alexander Hamilton is. The dude on the $10 dollar bill. Yes! He who had the good fortune of being the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. But I did NOT know that he was born and grew up in the West Indies, an illegitimate child whose father abandoned them early on and whose mother died of a fever when he was 13.
Who’d have thought that Alexander Hamilton would make a great subject for Hip Hop and Rap and jam poetry? The Tony Award winner, Lin-Manuel Miranda did. Watch him do his Alexander Hamilton Mixtape at the White House. Really, history has never been so hip. Andrea, this one is especially for you, you High School teacher and Economics Geek you. 🙂
I learned of Beads of Courage from BugginWord, a charity that I have never heard of until today. The main program is based on a concept so “simple” yet so brilliant (’cause many probably thought to themselves: “Why didn’t anybody think of this sooner?!”) that is making a huge impact on the lives of young cancer patients directly.
The idea is straightforward:
Give beads to children coping with cancer and other serious illness. Allow them to tell their stories through these beads.
I was doubtful at first. “Beads?” I thought to myself, immediately conjuring up the images of teddy bears given to children in the hospitals around the world during Christmas season. Teddy Bears are nice. Yes. But I can only imagine the comfort to be temporary. How is it going to make any ACTUAL difference? And with BEADS?
Watch this video segment from CBS Morning News and you will understand why I was totally blown away by and could not stop telling anybody about what this organization is doing for children around the world and the power of, yes, beads.
(Warning: Elly wrote “Prepare to cry” after the link. I did not heed her warning for I was an idiot this morning. Be warned.)
I came across an interesting article today in which the author questioned the recent brouhaha / vociferous protest against the security measures enforced by TSA while some other, more serious, offense committed by the US government, such as the wrongful execution of its citizens, did not inspire nearly enough the appropriate amount and degree of outrage. The author posited that it is easier to find compassion for and harder to ignore when things affect people who are more like ourselves, in this case, law-abiding, gainfully employed, relevantly affluent people and their families who can afford to fly.
To first approximation, everyone can empathize with their neighbors or co-workers and people who they see every day. It’s a bit more of a stretch to take the point of view of people in the next town, or those from a different ethnic group or class, or the gay, or the homeless, or those who dwell in radically different social worlds (Afghan tribesmen, say). The liberal humanist imagination at least strives to see the world through the eyes of others; whereas the conservative mind seems to thrive on shutting out foreignness, or reducing it to something known.
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Being cosmopolitan is hard, it takes work. Empathizing with others is also hard — and it’s not even clear what it should mean. Nobody has the time and resources to empathize with everyone, but the modern world puts us in contact with essentially everyone.
What the author wrote about the modern world and the access to “essentially everyone” really struck a cord: I pride myself on being an informed global citizen. Compared to the average Americans, I (believe I) know more about histories, geographies, cultures, customs, and happenings in other countries. I listen to NPR religiously and I read Business Week(used to) read The Economist after all!…
Expanding my alter-ego through the Interwebs, I feel connected to parts of the world that I would not have had any connection to otherwise. I am the product of globalization. A citizen of the world. A resident of the World Wide Web. My peeps are all over the world.
This was made evident when someone in Haiti visited and commented on my blog. At the same time I started noticing the crack in my self-congratulatory complacency.
Kathryn at Reinventing the Event Horizon wrote about the recent presidential election in Haiti and the alleged corruption that’s gotten people agitated to say the least. Did I know about Haiti’s presidential election? Yes, kind of. I heard about Wyclef Jean’s failed attempt to register as a candidate there, and I am aware of the potential for election frauds. Reading Kathryn’s posts was my first exposure to what is currently going on in Haiti. My knowledge of Haiti’s present until then was to the extent of what NPR aired and Twitter tweeted that I happened to catch. The same goes for everything that is happening around the world.
Another fissure showed up in my facade of a well-informed global citizen when a blogger in Indonesia that I got to know online (through Twitter and blogging) tweeted me to say Hi.
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Hundreds of people have died since the first volcano eruption at Merapi on October 25. I did not know anything about it until today. But even my self-chastisement sounds hollow and self-indulgent at this moment. In the scheme of things. Nina sent me a link to see for myself how huge a deal this was in her part of the world. The images speak volumes to the massive force of nature. (For the faint of heart, please do NOT go on to Page 2 where horrific images of the victims are included…)
At times the world seems smaller and the people in it closer because we are all connected, for the fortunate amongst us anyway (Think of Kathryn whose connection to those of us outside of Haiti depends on her WiFi connectivity). At times, of course, we seem yet so far away because I was celebrating Thanksgiving and complaining about cooking while Nina and her people were holding their breath, tweeting the latest updates on the volcano eruptions and relief efforts.
Once again, this is one of those posts where I stated a problem without providing any answers and in the process of writing, only got myself even more confused. I lost my point if there was even a point when I first started.
Reaching out.
We reached out to each other. That should count for something, right?
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Reach out.
Would you reach out and touch a young boy’s heart? Trevor is 12 and he will be undergoing a risky heart surgery today. Pray for him please.
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Elly is having her appointment with Dr. Aloysius today. Let your positive thoughts reach her. She is in the general direction of the original Lady Gaga aka Statue of Liberty. Think good thoughts for Elly today. If you play any instrument, play a song for her to keep her company while she waits.
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It is cheesy. Yeah it is true. It is cliche. See if I care. Let there be love, baby. Let there be love.
Do you suffer anxiety attack when you attempt to write about something that is dear to your heart? An important childhood memory? An experience in a lifetime? Your favorite book? The most significant events that happened that may have shaped who you are?
Maybe it’s just me. This is why so far I have not been able to write about what happened at BlogHer this summer. Why I did not even mention my going alone to a dive bar in downtown Chicago to watch my favorite band The Boxer Rebellion. It meant too much for me to run the risk of potentially screwing the memory up by attempting to write it down.
Does this even make sense?!
I watched “Mary and Max” tonight. I cried so much over it that by the end there was a pile of Kleenex on the sofa next to me. In my usual fashion, I agonized over talking about it at all: What if you watch it and are disappointed because all my gushing is going to make you go into it with high expectations? But I HAVE TO talk about it. I am still awake because I cannot get Mary and Max out of my head. So welcome to my therapy session, Spill and Be Done with It.
Oh, and if you are going to watch the movie, remember you MAY hate it. There. Now we are safe from disappointment caused by high expectations…
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Mary and Max is a feature-length claymation created by Adam Elliot and team (who had won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 2003) and premiered on the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. The plot is deceptively simple: Mary Daisy Dinkle (Toni Collette) is an 8-year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne. Max Jerry Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a 44-year-old obese Jewish atheist living in New York who also is later diagnosed to have Aspergers syndrome. Mary is awkward, neglected by her parents, unloved, and friendless. Max is, well, in a similar boat. Their lives intersected when Mary randomly picked Max’s name out of an American phone book to write a letter to. You see, Mary wanted to find out whether in America babies come from the bottom of a beer mug like they do in Australia. For 20 years they wrote and sent each other chocolate, with some interruptions, encouraging and supporting each other oftentimes without consciously doing so.
The movie is consisted to a large extent of the reading of the letters they write each other and of the narrator. Dialogues are kept to a minimum. Some of you will no doubt be delighted to know that the omniscient narrator was voiced by Barry Humphries (whose alter ego is none other than Dame Edna).
There are plenty professional reviews to be found via google search which saves me from total panic attack since I suck at writing reviews which require logics and persuasion. I am better at gushing. It is rather my feeble attempt at keeping what moved me in this movie alive via my remembering the bits and pieces. From the opening lines:
Mary Dinkle’s eyes are the color of muddy puddles. Her birth mark, the color of poop.
To the innocent, “nonsensical” questions Mary asked Max (“Do sheeps shrink when it rains?” “Do gooese get goose bumps?”). To Max’s literal answers to Mary’s questions and his straightforward sharing of his life view (“I like being an Aspie! It would be like trying to change the color of my eyes.”) To the parallel between Mary’s innocent questions and Max’s puzzlement over human behaviors (“He couldn’t understand why he was seen as the odd one while everyone else was considered normal. Humans were endlessly illogically. Why did they throw out food when there’re children starving in India?”)
I want to write down every single piece of these gems.
As in all other stop-motion feature films, Mary and Max is a labor of love. An incredible achievement of art, design, crafts, architecture, photography. More than the visual feast, it is an incredible feat that the story never turned saccharin; I half “expected” the movie to be a formulaic tale of triumph of two outsiders over their difficulties through finding each other in this lonely world. It is not warm and fuzzy.
I am in love with the writing by Adam Elliot. I drank in every word. In my usual crazed obsessive fashion, I envisioned myself swallowing the words whole so as to absorb them directly into my being.
Max: I asked my mother when I was four, and she said they [babies] came from eggs laid by rabbis. If you aren’t Jewish, they’re laid by Catholic nuns. If you’re an atheist, they’re laid by dirty, lonely prostitutes.
Mary: I am sorry to hear that you are fat. Mum says I am fat too and I am growing up to be a heifer… which I think is a type of cow. Maybe you should only eat things which begin with the letter of each day!
Narrator: He agrees with his favorite physicist [Guess who?] that there are only two things infinite: The universe. And men’s stupidity.
Like I said, I had this urge to take out a pen and paper fire up my laptop and jot down the letters word by word. I wanted to remember them. I wished, while I was watching the movie, that Adam Elliot had turned the letters into a book. Because he did not, I kind of panicked as the movie progressed as I could not memorize all the things that touched something deep inside my heart. (I am AWARE of how insane in the membrane this was…)
I still wish he would. Many reviews and blog posts mentioned the epitaph used for the movie:
God gave us our relatives; thank God we can choose our friends. —– Ethel Mumford
I don’t disagree that this is a major theme threaded throughout the film. However, ultimately the lesson, at least the one that I walked away with, that Max in his unconventional way has taught Mary is this…
