Mother's Day

Yesterday morning, on the Today Show - they were discussing Mother's Day. Apparently they hired a compensation analyst to determine how much a mother should make a year for doing her job. The analyst contrasted the duties of motherhood with comparable ones in the workforce, such as: discplinarian, chef, housekeeper, mechanic, repairman, counselor, nurse, chauffer, traffic cop, bookkeeper, day-care specialist, tutor, shopper, coach, teacher, and maintenance personnel. The salary they came up with was $100,000 a year for a full-time mom. A working mother, who is more or less doing it part-time - would be compensated at $68,000 a year. After they explained all of this, one of the women on the Today Show said, "okay, if you haven't gotten Mom a gift yet, folks? Write her a check!" I gave mine a dozen roses, not sure it's the same thing, but she seemed to like it. I also called her.

I'm not entirely sure you can put a price on the job of being a mother. It would be like putting a price on love, which I think is beyond such things as simple numerical value. Nor do I think everyone is a good mother or for that matter should be a mother, there are a couple of people I really wish had never become mothers. This occurred to me when I saw four different women troop into the film Iron Man with their toddlers. Not teens. Toddlers. Kids who could not be much older than six years of age. I adored the film, but found myself cringing on the kids behalf during the graphic torture sequences, and the violence. What type of mother could do that to their child? In contrast, there's my brother and sis-in-law who place the tv on a shelf far above their daughter's eyeline and ability to turn it on. Rarely watch it in front of her, and don't take her to movies, or bring into their home books that are violent. Both are in the advertising/marketing biz, were at one time film majors, had worked on a major film for a studio, and are fully aware of the branding that goes on in cinema, which may explain their attitude. At any rate, I admire them. My own mother was much the same way - I remember her grounding me for sneaking into the film Fun with Dick and Jane when I was 9 years of age with a friend. The old version with Jane Fonda. A film you can see now at 3pm in the afternoon on TNT.

I also admire my friend, taliamamma who rarely writes in lj, she's far too busy. She had her child much latter in life, works a 24/7 job, is the main bread-winner, and uses all her spare time to spend with her daughter and her family. I admire that. I do not know how she does it. Just thinking about it makes me want to go to bed and pull the covers over my head. And then there is my own mother, who made certain she was home for my brother and me each day, who has talked me down from more than one proverbial cliff, and is currently nursing her own mother, who she has had a rocky relationship with. And who gave up her career goals, to make a home for us, to support my father - who was on the road most of the time, working.

I guess we all have our superheroes, those are mine. They are imperfect, which I guess is part of what makes them so admirable.

Not everyone gets to choose what they become in life. Some people desperately want to become mothers and never get the chance, like another friend of mine who adores children and is finally at the age of 41 coming to terms with the fact that she won't be one. I try not to think about it too much, because I honestly don't know if I want to be a mom or not. I just know I can't be - that has not been the path I've for whatever reason have found myself walking down. Others find themselves becoming mothers and never planned it, or wanted it, and they've found a way to make it work, to make the best of it. While still others...either chose it thinking it was one thing...when it turned out to be something else, or got stuck, and these poor souls self-destructed, or worse destroyed the child that was placed under their care. It's easy to judge them, I think, but not necessarily kind or wise to do so. I have no idea what I would do if I were in their shoes. I'm not sure any of us do. I'm not sure it's fair either to compare mothers...even though I clearly have done so. Some things should not be compared or contrasted. Every mother is different and has different challenges, just as every child is unique. None two alike. They say flowers, even daisies are completely different from one another - that you can see the differences if you look closely enough. Same thing with grains of sand. Or drops of water. Or snowflakes. So doesn't it stand to reason that every human being is unique unto itself? With it's own challenges, pains, sorrows, joys, and obstacles?

Over the past five years, I've heard six different pregnancies stories. Would it suprise you if I said that none were the same? They had zip in common. Except maybe that the delivery was in the hospital and the end result was miraculous. Some were violently painful, with morning sickness, lots of bedrest, and the mother almost dying on the table. While other's were little more than taking a small poop, quick easy, the best experience of the individual's life. All tell me the same thing though - they did not know what being a mother was until they brought the child home and took care of him or her.

I'm not a mother, nor do I expect to ever become one, although stranger things have happened and I'm only 41. I do however have a great deal of respect for those who work hard at it. I watch them with the screaming child at the mall or in the subway or at a restaurant, and I think thank heaven's I don't have one. Yet, when I see the child stumble over to them in the park with a painting they did or my own niece comes up to me and hugs me, or snuggles close to listen to a story...I think, oh I wish, I wish, I wish. It's like all things in life, I think, motherhood is both a blessing and a curse, yin and yang entwined, until sometimes you can't always tell which is which.

It is an act of bravery to be a mother. You have a human being that has been placed into your care. A fragile thing, made up of breakable bones, perishable tissue, and is completely and utterly dependent on you. How easy, you must think, it would be for this tiny person, with these tiny hands, and tiny feet, and small skull, to break. And unlike father's, this tiny thing has come from you, it has come from your body, you literally pushed it into this world, your body sheltered it, gave it food, and took care of it for nine months. This child that came from you, is not a part of you, not really, but feels like it is. And you see in its eyes your hopes, dreams, and nightmares.

My mother tells me that she struggles watching me go through her pains, pains she wishes she could have protected me from. Her act of bravery is letting me go through them, realizing that I had to do it myself, that she could not walk, talk, jump, run, or fight for me. I think that must be the hardest thing to do in this world, to watch a child go out into the world and know, with absolute certainity, that it will be hurt by the world, yet still have the courage to let it fight its way through on its own. One does not have that experience owning a cat or a dog or a horse or a plant. Perpetual children, who never have to go and deal with the world on their own. But you do with a child.

I'm not a huge fan of holiday greetings, as you know. But...a Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there, whomever and wherever you may be, who has found the courage to bring a child into this difficult world and raise them.

Iron Man

A fairly productive weekend, after an extreemly tiring work week. I'm hoping after 6 more months, things will get easier, and I'll be able to focus on stuff un-work-related. At the moment however, am finding it increasingly difficult to focus on books, movies, tv shows or anything that requires concentration after my work day. I'm also discovering that I no longer appear to have the patience/tolerance/interest for heated debates regarding subjective interpretations of fictional storylines, characters, or metaphors. I don't quite know why this is so. Just that lately these discussions annoy the heck out of me.

That said, I have entertained myself this weekend, sporadically.

Saw the flick Iron Man finally. This may be the best superhero action flick that I have seen in a long time. The only other one that comes close is possibly the first Superman.

One caveat - this is not a movie for children. It is not Fantastic Four, although I wouldn't take children to that one either - but this one is more like Batman Begins, it contains adult themes and situations that are inappropriate for anyone below the age of 16. There is one scene in which the lead character is being tortured, while another depicts the potential torture of a co-prisoner. The comic itself is not for children - the story is after-all about an industrialist and weapons manufacturer, who gets injured by one of his own weapons while visiting a war zone, is subsequently captured, tortured, and escapes by building an iron man suit. I don't see anything in that storyline that should be shown to a child. I only state this because I saw toddlers in the movie theater.

The film appears to be very close to the Marvel comic book, they just update it, much like they did with Spiderman, except I think this is actually closer to the original story than both the film versions of X-Men, Dare Devil, Fantastic Four and Spiderman were.

What I liked about it -was the script, direction, and action - which were impressive. I've gotten used to busy superhero flicks like Spiderman and X-men. This movie wasn't busy. It focused on Stark, played perfectly by Robert Downey Jr. - who is amongst the few actors out there that I'd pay to watch reading the phone book. I think I've seen most of his films, including the horrible ones such as Air America. It was a stroke of genius to cast Downey Jr in this role. Paltrow, Bridges, and Terrence Howard are also superb choices. But, if the script had not been up to snuff - the movie would not have worked. The dialogue is funny. Pepper Potts, Stark's trusted personal assistant, unlike most female heroines in these films -actually is given something to do and does not play the damsel in distress. She saves her boss more than once, with ingenuity. Stark himself gets out of trouble with his brain. And Jeff Bridges manages to not ham it up as Obidah, Stark's business partner, he restrains himself and delivers a layered and somewhat interesting performance.

It is an action movie though. If you don't like superhero action flicks, you won't like this film. If you don't like stories about womanizing playboys who have epiphanies and want to help mankind? You won't like this movie.

I happen to love these things, so I adored it. Found the whole experience sort of cathartic. It had a very anti-war vibe, which I appreciated. And it was about solving a problem. Also, and most importantly, it had Robert Downey Jr as the lead...and that's never a bad thing. ;-)

If you do decide to see the flick - stay through the credits. There's a little treat after they are over that you'll kick yourself for missing.

A Causality of the Information Revolution

Last night ran into my favorite professional movie reviewer, Glenn Kenny, at our local bar, Abilene. Asked him how the movie critic biz was going, and he told me, not so great - turns out he was laid-off this week. Yet another casuality of the massive critic lay-offs happening at area newspapers and magazines over the last few weeks. Not sure you heard about it? Probably not. Which is really sad, because unlike amateur film reviewers, these guys actually have time to see a wide variety of films and have the training to critique them. They've honed this skill. Without them, we wouldn't know about those tiny foreign and indie gems such as Little Miss Sunshine, or Babett's Feast or even Remains of the Day. Whose to blame? Ah, we are. Or to be fair, the amateur writers who review films, music, television, and books on the internet. The internet, Glenn tells me has changed professional writing. His friends, freelancers, have to work twice as hard to get the same amount of money they did for their work several years ago. To make a living on the net, he advised, you have to work overtime, constantly, just to get nickels and dimes from advertisers. Yes, those advertisements you despise are paying the rent of many professional magazine and newspaper writers who can now only get work writing for online zines.

None of this surprises me, I sort of predicted it way back in the late 90's while I was on two different copyright listserves. One was for professional writers, copyright managers, and attorneys - the other for libraians and copyright specialists. The library listserve was scared that the copyright act under negotation at the time - DCMA or something or other - would kill fair use and make it difficult for people to access content without paying lots of money. The writer/attorny copyright listserve - was scared that their content would be up for grabs and people would be able to steal it without them knowing. Of the two, I found myself agreeing with the writer/attorney listserve. They were right. The internet or what I like to call the information revolution would change intellectual property law not to mention professional writing, and not necessarily for the better.

Premiere Magazine was amongst the first of the casualities. My favorite entertainment mag, which had great articles on the process of filmmaking, has now been regulated to a website. And not a great one. It's articles more or less free, with the writers making very little. The same thing is slowly happening to Entertainment Weekly. The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly may be safe for a while. But I've watched Newsweek and Time dwindle.
Part of the problem is so much of the content of these mags is readily available online. People don't have to buy the mag to read it any more, so subscriptions have gone down, so has revenue.

Movies, tv shows, comic books - easily downloaded from the net, often before they end up in theaters or on sale. People trade them much the same way they do music. Turns out Napster was just the beginning.

I look at what fans do with other's intellectual property and often cringe. I often wonder how these people would feel if someone took their work and did to it, what they do to someone else's?

There are times, much like this week, that I find myself hating the net, missing the 90s or early 2000, when we didn't have YouTube or LiveJournal or the ability to create icons, when magazines were still readily available, and vids were impossible to download. And during those times, it occurs to me that this must have been what my parents and grandparents and great great grandparents thought during the industrial revolution. Change is often violent, always painful, and not always good.

Buffy and Angel comic reviews

More or less productive weekend, besides going to a movie, I also made my bi-annual trip to L&T for work clothes. Was in a fairly good humor, having actually gotten eight as opposed to five hours of sleep the night before. Insomina has plagued me this month and it has not been pretty. If you've ever suffered from it, you know whereof I speak. One thing I noticed while shopping - which bugged me - when did they start doing xxs sizes? (As in extra small?) I actually went up to the service rep and asked if I was in the petite department? Irritating. Also I had to hunt for Kate Hill (apparently Ralph Lauren, Context, Tommy Bahama (gross clothes), and Jones New York (which is quite nice) took over the floor). Downstairs, I had to deal with Michael Kors (who thinks all women look like clothes hangers) and Ann Taylor who designs for people who are 5'2 and 10 pounds. What happened to Liz Claiborn? Gianni? This in a nutshell is why I don't go shopping very often. Miraculously, I did find several cool items. Enough to get me by for a while. I'm thinking of trying somewhere else next time.

Also picked up two comics - Buffy and Angel. Made certain that I would get my Dresden comic (it had sold out but he promised that he could get me one), and Spike:After the Fall, which I actually care more about.

The Buffy comic - Season 8, issue...13? I don't know, I've lost count and it's in my binder, so can't look at it at the moment. It's probably 15?
( Buffy: Wolves at the Gate - review, and a warning, a little albeit unnecessary but oddly cathartic negative bashing on Robin Wood/DB Woodside, don't read if you love the character and actor and please don't post that you love him and why, I so don't care. thank you. Oh and spoilers, major ones... )

The other comic, I picked up was Angel After the Fall - issue 7. Which was also quite good.

I'm on the fence about the new artist, Frank Runge? His art's not as fluid as Urru's. It has more lines, more cross stitching or hedging as we used to call it in art class, and the characters feel sort of stiff to me. But the style is interesting and somewhat haunting. So we'll see. I do like him more than Tim Kane who is bit too abstract for my taste. I tend to prefer semi-realism, with color, and cinemagraphic style in comics, abstract not so much.
( cut for spoilers )