Thought Chasm

Update: The post here was written the day after viewing the movie. I’ve come through with edits and notes. I hope the edits aren’t too confusing. Because it’s been a week, I’ll even break my own rule and go crazy with spoilers.

I won’t ruin the ending of this film. Granted, I’ll try my ass off, but I’ll fail. That’s how good this is. It’s so good the end is meaningless. [That the top falls or not doesn't matter. His indifference to whether it falls is (hopefully) the whole damn point.]

Let me fail to explain.

First, I’ll put it simply. Christopher Nolan (ignoring temporarily his Batman movies) is our Stanley Kubrick [M. Night Shyamalan]… but better. (I said it. [Comparing him to Kubrick? Really? How drunk was I?]) How, you ask? By writing this crazy his own damn self. [It's the first notable crazy he's written.]

The mind bending awesome of Memento and Prestige are his [nope, both were adaptations]. His. He wrote [adapted] them, directed them and blew your damn mind. Kubrick is legend and may have come close with 2001: A Space Odyssey but he didn’t create insane from nothing. [Except for Kubrick being a legend, this statement is pure nonsense.]

What was I talking about? Oh, right; the movie (and the broader explanation).

This guy Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) jumps into [shares] dreams, stealing information for crazy cash. Then he’s hired to give someone an idea. This is impossible for loads of reasons but he’s desperate for reasons I won’t go into [because he wants to get back to the projection of his children].

He’s a former Architect who can’t build because his lady friend is nuts (and so French Hot). To seed this idea, he assembles his crack team of dream ghosts action-movie style: the Forger (Handsome Rob)*, the Chemist (Rham Jas), the Tourist (Iowa Jim)**, the New Architect (Hayley Stark) and (though the title isn’t precisely this in the movie) the Shit (Brendan).

To give the Subject (Jim) the idea, layers of dreams need to be created and time in each is exponentially slower than in the last and… you know what? Let’s just say Nolan is the sort you never want to drink within ten miles of for fear your neurons will faint.

The story is [not very] intense. At a glance it’s a thoughtful action film and with further investigation it’s a statement on our, relationships, inner workings and infinite possibilities. [Let's stick with thoughtful action movie.]

Without doubt, [most of] the special effects are outstanding. Not necessarily the Roland Emmerich ones, but the action sequences and synchronization and the editing are incredible [smart and adequate]. It’s visually stunning.

The actors are strong to great [mouth-continually-agape to strong]; Leo puts on a (it’s boring to keep saying this) stellar show. They carry the depth of the subject matter [there isn't that much depth, actually] with ease and keep you enthralled [entertained].

I doubt you’ll fault me in naming this Nolan’s masterpiece to date. [Because it's the only one you've heard of that isn't an adaptation or Batman movie.]

[So yes, I got caught up in the hype. I liked the movie and still do but that post-coitus glow has faded and I'm man enough to admit when I'm spouting idiot. My favorite review is David Faraci's at Chud. It may give Nolan more credit than he's due but takes interpretation in a more enjoyable direction.]

* Herein named by way of their sweetest roles; do your homework, kids. (Note: By homework I mean watch the movies referenced because they’re good. Don’t count this first one as homework.)

** What, you don’t love inside jokes? (Fine, consider him Ra’s Al Ghul.)

Minneapolis: are you kidding?

It’s the best recreational bicycle city but it’s mediocre for commuters. The mass transit needs vast improvement and outside of the dense center (downtown, uptown), biking with drivers is dangerous.

The light rail should be an icon of a shift to shared transit and green commutes.  It’s a symbol of shared mobility and clean travel.

Obviously, budgets are tight and priorities must be made. I’d rather you put the money toward education and community improvement (which you’re not).

Still, Minneapolis screams from pulpits as often as allowed. “Our policies strive to be green, fiscally responsible and progressive!” (Local politicians whimper, “we’re Portland!”)

These cries are starting to fall on deaf ears. The ride from the empty downtown to the shrine to thoughtless consumerism is the fruit of their lack of labor.

After Target Field, the ride slinks away from aesthetically attractive. Bright points like the Central Library, Minnehaha Park and the Martin Olav Sabo Bridge are diluted with concrete facades, parking lots and freeways.

The Bedlam sits at an unpopular stop. It’s local and vocal. It shows signs of life in a corridor that’s largely a roofless tunnel from an empty downtown to a sad shrine of consumerism.

LRT’s route is fixed, set for political ease. Now the city has to grow around it, making it a true icon of a growing metropolis.

Instead, the Bedlam will be a parking lot.

Note: There’s inappropriate language within. I’m sort of annoyed. This never happens.

The fuck? (A video of Chicago police holding down [assaulting?] a man after he photographed another incident of excessive force.)

Dear cops: We’ve had encounters in varying forms and I know most of you are just “doing your jobs” but this sort of thing is abhorrent (sorry… it means, basically, “shitty”).

Yes, there’s probably a context to this explaining the four of you (two of you are noticeably overweight, by the way; don’t you have fitness tests?) taking this guy down and repeatedly spraying him while his cheeks are against the asphalt.

Like… he was taking pictures of you boys being assholes and you’re assholes, or something. Maybe he called you assholes? You’ll get back to me on details.

You perpetuate your own sophomoric, militaristic stereotypes with your actions and need to ease up on the idiot.

Wait… sorry again. Remember what Peter Parker’s uncle said? “With great power comes great responsibility.” So I guess what I’m saying is, mace responsibly and maybe hop on a bike every once in awhile so you can fit in smaller kevlar.

Rapid update: this is awesome. (Sarcasm, cops. Sarcasm.)

Second Note: The photo, I gather, is from the incident (or a similar one) that was photographed by the man in the video. The image is used without consent from BNF on Tumblr.

There are a few things we’ll need. Enough food for two meals and a few snacks (nothing crazy but enough to counter roughly seven thousand calories burned). Some pedal shoes, lights and an iPhone or Android with bike maps are helpful. (With 120-some turns, I don’t want you getting us lost.)

We’ll want to get racks and panniers for the supplies. No one wants to be hauling weight over our shoulders for almost ninety miles. Well, maybe you do, but I’m not an idiot. Where are we going, you ask?

The Small City, that’s where. If you’re a huge wuss, maybe we’ll stop at a friend’s place (that’s only eighty miles, weakling) for a break, some water and to slap the crying girl out of you. (His young son would be happy to oblige.)

It’ll take about eight hours and that’s at a pathetic eleven-mile-per-hour pace. We should leave at seven or eight in the morning, maximizing daylight (and getting there and showered in time for some beer).

This goes without saying, but I’ll say it: you’ll need a few gears at least. That fixie you haul to the library with that ultra-tiny U-lock hanging out of your skinny jeans won’t cut it. (You won’t need this but get it.)

We’ll ride when the weather is favorable, probably late summer or early fall. Pack and dress for the weather; we won’t be able to reschedule, waiting on sun-shiny-awesome for your lame to saddle up.

We should get tickets on a bus or train for the return trip. You won’t be able to bike back a day or so later. (You just won’t.)

Over the summer, I’ll be on the bike often and I recommend you do the same. You’ll never make it the first twenty miles without some training. (Like that sex-ed teacher–after explicitly telling you how to have sex, as is the secular-hell-den high school curriculum–said, practice makes perfect.)

Yes, it’s a busy summer. Yes, Life Changing Greatness is happening this fall. No, I will not let you sit in the kiddy trailer. Yes, we’ll be wearing helmets. (You and the rest of the race may not care about your spilt gray matter but I may be held responsible for cleaning it up and that is not okay!)

All that aside, there are toddlers doing more and it’s not even a hundred miles. So are you in?

Picture from Google

You may or may not know of the move in our very near future. The T.C. staff is off to the northern end of the Windy City. It’s a big change. (Mainly because CHI is considered a city even outside of the regional area.)

The relocation is only part of it.

Girlfriend and I are reducing our television consumption to three hours per week for the summer. What better time to start than after a one-way trip with a sixteen-foot truck?

I’ve gotten into bicycling-as-transportation. (Stifle your applause, hippies; I still shower often.) CHI has more on-street lanes and paths. We’ll also have nearly all of our staples (including ice cream) within two miles.

We’re moving to a residential neighborhood. There won’t be any drunks yelling after midnight. There won’t be the seventeen roaring past every fifteen minutes (or planes every hour, for that matter). I won’t sleep well for a bit.

Tired of all the gradients on this site? Want a splash of one other color? (Do you even read it here?) You’re in luck, because T.C. is getting an overhaul in the near future. (S’bout time, right? ‘Get in your car’ was the 800th post!)

Most importantly, Girlfriend and I will live in a place people actually want to visit. My sunny disposition is adequate but that’s with friends only threatening visits every two years or so.

It’s been awhile since there has been so much flux. I’m excited.

Photo courtesy Mikeyexists on Flickr

George W. Bush has a book coming out. I’ll let that sink in.

Now, with his decision-making and demeanor, I bet you’re surprised he could legibly write his name. I am too. But computers are glorious machines and maybe he learned how to pay someone to type.

I suggest you read the excerpt highlighted by The Awl. (I’ve been working through my noted items in my reader and finally got to it.)

First, I have to make note of his being baldist. I get that he should fear or loathe Dick Cheney (everyone should) but even for him this sounds hurtful to the hairless:

But he and the bald man had kept in touch. I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being bald bothered me. My idea of baldness came from the movies. In the movies, the bald were always trying too hard, like they wanted to make up for their lack of hair. My friend Karl was that way. At any rate, a bald man in my house was not something I looked forward to.

That’s cold, Georgie. Cold. (Granted, I have friends who probably meet my presence with trepidation.)

Second, you’ll note from that little bit and the passage (if you read it), he writes like a prepubescent. Cool narrative style, right?

Unfortunately, (if you read the passage; seriously, did you read it?) this story can’t take place more than seventeen years ago, so he’d be forty-six, at the youngest. That cool narrative turns into a depressing look at his capacities.

(Sigh.)

Generally, it’s a poorly written, glossy portrayal you’d hear in an octogenarian blogger’s memoir about his first Christmas memory. If that story included homoerotic architectural sketching with a weak-hearted, grunting uncle full of booze. (Which, I think you’ll agree, would be awesome.)

This is how he decided to run for the Presidency? Is it that easy? Along those lines, this is a story about his decisions and there aren’t any. What’s the point? (That’s rhetorical.)

If this is any indication of the rest of the book (I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be), it saddens me it was even put to print. That Palin, Beck and Bush can sell so many versions of their ignorance is telling of where our nation is heading.

I’m looking forward to November.

Photo courtesy New York Times

I watch the local news. I don’t watch the local news closely. The former is because I don’t have cable, the latter because it’s universally terrible.

Exhibit #328: Piles of dead people on the roads.

There’s an epidemic of drivers and their passengers ending up dead around here. (If fourteen people out of millions is an “epidemic.”) The local news is on the case.

Of course, it’s not that drivers would have been better off not being idiots. Instead, the state needs to interfere to make the roads safe (for idiots to risk their lives on).

Monday’s newscast used a lead-in that amounted to: “What are officials doing to keep you safe?” Here’s the write-up about Sunday’s fatal fender-bender out in nowheresville (which they were alluding to).

Briefly, one sixteen-year-old driver was out two and a half hours past curfew with two more people than permitted. The other was driving with a revoked license. And the roads were wet.

Those jerk officials better get on it. It’s entirely their fault.

Local “journalists” could blame the number of cars on the road or how many trucks, fueling our consumptive needs, share it. Hell, we could blame drivers for being idiots.

Instead, carmakers make cars easier for idiots to drive. They give the illusion of safety and fill their cabins with audio and visual distraction.

Brilliant.

We don’t hold idiots accountable; we provide them tools to increase their idiocy. Local officials did all they could to keep these idiots alive.

Thanks, local news, for really hitting the issue where it counts.

One caveat. This is only one example. I’m sure the other accidents were caused by state-employed men in reflector vests directing teens into oncoming traffic while they sexted.

Note: I realize I’m getting heavy on posts about stupid drivers. If you’re tired of reading such things, get me cable. (Seriously, buy me cable.) Also, I am not counting myself outside of the idiots. In fact, as an idiot driver, I feel it’s my duty to call out my co-idiots on a regular basis.

Photo courtesy Car Insurance Tips Blog